Elías Lafertte Gaviño (December 19, 1886 –

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

, February 17 , 1961)Biografía de Elías Lafertte Gaviño
/ref> was a Chilean worker in

saltpeter Potassium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . This alkali metal nitrate salt is also known as Indian saltpetre (large deposits of which were historically mined in India). It is an ionic salt of potassium ions K+ and nitrat ...

mining and a

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

politician. Lafertte ran in the

1931 Events January * January 2 – South Dakota native Ernest Lawrence invents the cyclotron, used to accelerate particles to study nuclear physics. * January 4 – German pilot Elly Beinhorn begins her flight to Africa. * January 22 – Sir I ...

and

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident (1932), Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort ...

presidential elections ending in third and fifth place. He was senator from 1937 to 1953.

Biography

Lafertte was born in to a working-class family. He started working in a nitrate mine at the age of eleven. In 1911 he met

Luis Emilio Recabarren Luis Emilio Recabarren Serrano (; July 6, 1876 – December 19, 1924) was a Chilean political figure. He was elected several times as deputy, and was the driving force behind the worker's movement in Chile. Early life Recabarren was born in ...

. With him and other members of the Democrat Party, Lafertte founded the Socialist Workers' Party in June 1912, which was renamed the

Communist Party of Chile The Communist Party of Chile ( es, Partido Comunista de Chile, ) is a communist party in Chile. It was founded in 1912 as the Socialist Workers' Party () and adopted its current name in 1922. The party established a youth wing, the Communist Youth ...

in 1922. After a strike in Antofagasta in 1914 he was imprisoned for the first time. In 1917 he worked for ''La Vanguardia'' (The Vanguard) in Valparaíso. A member of the board since 1923, Lafertte Gaviño was treasurer of the ''Federación Obrera de Chile'' (FOCh) trade union from 1924 to 1926, and from 1926 its general secretary (confirmed in 1931 and 1933). In 1929 he was elected to the Central Committee and in 1936 to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Chile. 250px, Elías Lafertte walking through a poor neighborhood. During the dictatorship of

Carlos Ibáñez del Campo General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (; 3 November 1877 – 28 April 1960) was a Chilean Army officer and political figure. He served as President twice, first between 1927 and 1931, and then from 1952 to 1958, serving for 10 years in office. T ...

, Lafertte was arrested and banished several times (1927 to the Isla Más Afuera , 1930 to Easter Island and to the south of the country to Calbuco ,Chiloé). In 1927, 1931 and 1932 he was a candidate for the presidency of the Communist Party. From 1939 to 1961 he was chairman of the Central Committee of the Chilean Communist Party. From 1937 to 1953 he was a member of the Senate for Tarapacá and Antofagasta.

References

1886 births 1961 deaths Communist Party of Chile politicians Chilean miners Members of the Senate of Chile Chilean people of French descent People from Choapa Province {{Chile-bio-stub Anti-revisionists