Conflict and Decline

Following the demise of the Popular Front in 1941, the rivalries between the parties of the left became intense. The Socialists and Communists, who were electorally weak on their own, continually competed to fashion alliances with the Radicals. During the 1940s, however, the Communists achieved some major electoral gains, and by 1947 they had increased their share of the national vote to 17 percent. In 1946 Gabriel González Videla, a right-wing Radical, was elected president with Communist support. He reciprocated by rewarding the Communists with cabinet posts, but the alliance did not last long. In August 1947 growing apprehensions among the Radicals at the recent electoral successes of the Communists, alongside new Cold War pressures from the United States, led to the expulsion of the Communists from the cabinet. Several Communist leaders were arrested, and the party newspaper, El Siglo , closed down.^[59] These events coincided with the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Continental Peace and Security in Rio de Janeiro. Chile was a signatory to this hemispheric defense pact and thereby became eligible for future military assistance from the United States.

As Francesca Miller has recently put it, following the Rio conference "the attention of the Inter-American diplomatic community shifted from social and economic reform to a focus on opposition to communism, a position embraced by governments throughout the hemisphere."^[60] A year later, in September 1948, González Videla promulgated the "Law for the Defense of Democracy" known more popularly as the ley maldita (the law of damnation). It not only banned the Communist party and deleted its members from the electoral rolls but also led to increased levels of repression in general.^[61]

The sharp turn to the right, and the heightened tensions among the political parties, had a decisive impact on the women's movement. Suddenly MEMCH and even many women activists in the Radical party found themselves on the far left of the political spectrum. In the climate that prevailed after late 1947 their slogans of "true democracy" and "social justice," although often merely echoes of the Perón regime in Argentina, appeared dangerously close to being denounced as subversive by the government.

MEMCH nevertheless maintained its leftist profile. In a treatise it submitted to the First Inter-American Congress of Women held in Guatemala City in August 1947, MEMCH criticized the plans for continental rearmament proposed in Rio and argued that the money would be better spent on the "rehabilitation of the people" in the form of schools, public works, and research centers for peace. The participants of the congress in Guatemala should "firmly repudiate the plans for the military collaboration of American countries. They [were] contrary to peace and to the sovereignty of the American peoples, and totally ignore[d] the economic, social, and cultural reality that these countries now confront."^[62] Now that the war was over, anti-imperialism reemerged on the agenda as MEMCH deliberately distanced itself from the position of the Chilean government.

The resolutions of the women's congress followed closely the line of argument put forward by MEMCH. The first press release declared: "[the congress] has resolved in plenary session to denounce the hemispheric armament plan...and to insist that the costs of the arms program be used to support industry, agriculture, health, and education for our people."^[63] In the Chilean press, however, the congress in Guatemala was largely ignored. El Mercurio, for instance, commented only on the declared opposition of the congress to atomic weapons. It then published a "letter of resignation" from the Costa Rican delegate, who complained the congress was "pro-Soviet" and ignored the threat that communism posed to the world.^[64]

In contrast with MEMCH, FECHIF tried to adapt to the new environment

in Chile by moving to the right. Conservative groups grew prominent in the organization, and the leftists were pushed into the background. Social reform and progressive politics were no longer on FECHIF's agenda. Hilda Mueller, a liberal who some years before had published traditionalist articles on women in El Mercurio , became editor of La Orientación, the magazine published by FECHIF.^[65]

The tensions provoked by this shift to the right by FECHIF became visible in the Second National Congress of Women held in September 1947. At this point "true" democracy—the code expression for the alignment of the women's movement with social and educational reform—remained a prominent topic of discussion. But conflict arose concerning an invitation by a faction of FECHIF to González Videla to speak at the congress. According to Caffarena the invitation was issued without consultation with any of the member organizations.^[66] During his speech the president caused more discontent when he accused the Communist press of seeking advantages for the Communist party by criticizing the extraordinary powers that González Videla had recently given himself.^[67]

There were contrasting reports as to what exactly happened at this point. In one account these comments provoked "a temporary interruption" to the president's speech led by Communist sympathizers in the audience.^[68] According to Olga Poblete, a member of MEMCH, González Videla was responding to a speech that expressed disillusionment with his government and hinted at the potential danger of popular discontent, with the remark that he would not hesitate to use the army to reestablish order should this become necessary. At this point, recalled Poblete, Elena Caffarena issued a loud vocal protest and then walked out of the hall with some forty other women in the midst of a general tumult.^[69]

According to Caffarena and Poblete the resolutions adopted during the congress at first went unpublished and were then falsified to omit a resolution expressing opposition to Chile joining the Pact of Rio.^[70] Shortly after the congress FECHIF expelled all the Communists from its ranks. MEMCH replied by withdrawing from FECHIF, thus leaving the umbrella organization without its mass base.^[71] The expulsion of the Communists left the Radicals in control but deprived the FECHIF of experienced and prominent organizers such as Caffarena, Marchant, and Campusano. Subsequently, FECHIF dropped all its earlier demands with the exception of female national suffrage.

In late August 1947 Rosa Markmann, the wife of President González Videla, announced the creation of the National Association of Housewives (Asociación de las Dueñas de Casa), whose chief purpose was to prevent speculation in basic subsistence goods among producers, distributors, and retailers.^[72] In addition, the government organized so-called Mothers' Centers (Centros de Madres) in different parts of the country that offered assistance and various services to working-class women.^[73] Markmann then began to patronize a number of women's organizations and to express her support for female suffrage. In September 1948 she appeared at one of the events of FECHIF's "Pro-Women's Suffrage Week," assuring its participants that the president too favored women's suffrage.^[74]

The activities of FECHIF during this "Pro-Women's Suffrage Week" illustrated the changing concerns and leadership of the organization. The women who were now prominent were far more conservative than the activists of earlier years. Among them were the new president of FECHIF, Ana Figueroa, a Radical who was closely connected to Gonzáez Videla; María de la Cruz and Mimi Brieba de A. from the Feminine party; and Clara Williams de Yunge, who was secretary of Markmann's Association of Housewives. According to Caffarena there was a contest for the presidency of FECHIF between Labarca and Figueroa, but Figueroa had the decisive support of González Videla.^[75] Instead of holding mass street rallies, FECHIF now invited participants to tour the graves of prominent Chilean women, visit maternity wards with gifts for newborn babies, and attend tea parties in big Santiago hotels.^[76]

In a festive public event in January 1949 González Videla signed the law that gave Chilean women the right to vote in national elections. But for some the celebration left a bitter taste: Caffarena, who had actually written the legislation, along with other leftist leaders, were conspicuously absent from the banquets and receptions.^[77] A few days after signing the law González Videla attempted to ensure that this "extension of democracy" would remain politically safe by purging Communists and other "subversive" women from the electoral registers. The authorities then began making life difficult for MEMCH by issuing a last minute ban on the workshops organized for the International Women's Day in 1949.^[78] FECHIF was now plagued by new internal conflicts, and within less than a year of the enfranchisement of women both organizations had disappeared from the public arena.

The eventual collapse of this formerly strong women's movement was due

to several factors. From 1947 on the women of leftist inclination, who had pushed for social reform and continuing militant action, found themselves increasingly marginalized. Women from the center and the right, who led the women's movement from late 1947, by this point had only one objective: the vote. When this objective was achieved, the movement quickly faded.

By the early 1950s the only sizable women's organization that remained was de la Cruz's Women's party with twenty-thousand members, and in 1952 María de la Cruz became the first female senator in Chile.^[79] But this attempt to create an independent women's movement also failed eventually. Under fire for her sympathies toward Peronism, and tainted by accusations of smuggling watches into Chile, de la Cruz was expelled from the Senate in 1953 even though an investigating commission found her innocent of the charges. De la Cruz retired disillusioned, and her party immediately disintegrated.^[80] The long silence that would last until the late 1960s had begun.