Ideology and Politics, Puerto Rican Labor in the Early Twentieth Century

• In Event: Configuración de clase y identidads obreras y profesionales: perspectivas históricas

Abstract

Ideology and Politics, Puerto Rican Labor
in the Early Twentieth Century
Carlos Sanabria

Ideology and Politics, Puerto Rican Labor
in the Early Twentieth Century
Carlos Sanabria

The purpose of this presentation is to examine the influence that ideological theorizing had on the organizational efforts and politics of the labor movement in Puerto Rico in the early twentieth century. After the United States annexation of the island in 1898, the structure of the economy underwent dramatic changes. A fundamentally pre-capitalist subsistence system of production gave way to a fully capitalist agrarian economy. The production of sugar cane and tobacco products for export to the U.S. market led to the widespread proletarianization of the labor force and increasingly miserable working and living conditions for the majority of the population. In response, leaders of the emerging working class movement published numerous ideological essays, pamphlets, and books in which they presented a critique of the existing class society, called for a socialist economic and political order, and advocated radical change via the organization of the working class, a General Strike of all workers, and participation in electoral politics. This paper will examine these ideas as articulated by Ramón Romero Rosa, Luisa Capetillo, Juan Vilar, Manuel Francisco Rojas, Angel María Dieppa, and Juan S. Marcano. It will then consider the extent to which the ideas expressed by these writers influenced the aims and political objectives of the organized labor movement as reflected in the conventions, the constitutions, and political programs of its two major organizations, the Federación Libre de los Trabajadores de Puerto Rico and the Partido Socialista.

Author

• Carlos S Sanabria, Hostos Community College, CUNY