Gremialismo, or guildism, is a social, political, and economic ideology, inspired in the

Catholic social teachings Catholic social teaching, commonly abbreviated CST, is an area of Catholic doctrine concerning matters of human dignity and the common good in society. The ideas address oppression, the role of the state, subsidiarity, social organization, con ...

that claims that every correct social order should base itself in intermediary societies between persons and the state, which are created and managed in freedom, and that the order should serve only the purposes for which they were created.

History

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

, gremialismo was the main doctrine of the

liberal-conservative Liberal conservatism is a political ideology combining conservative policies with liberal stances, especially on economic issues but also on social and ethical matters, representing a brand of political conservatism strongly influenced by libe ...

movement that emerged in the second half of the 1960s and led the opposition to the

University Reform University reform is a type of education reform applied to higher education. Examples include: * Argentine university reform of 1918 * Chilean university reform * Reform of French universities ** Law on Higher Education and Research (2007) **Libert ...

of the

Catholic University of Chile The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

. Thus, it opposed the left and the center. The principal thinker of gremialism was a lawyer and professor who was later a Pinochet advisor,

Jaime Guzmán Jaime Jorge Guzmán Errázuriz (June 28, 1946 – April 1, 1991) was a Chilean constitutional law professor, speechwriter and member and doctrinal founder of the conservative Independent Democrat Union party. In the 1960s he opposed the Universit ...

. There has been a dispute on whether or not gremialismo thought has been influenced by

Juan Vázquez de Mella Juan Vázquez de Mella y Fanjul (1861–1928) was a Spanish politician and a political theorist. He is counted among the greatest Traditionalist thinkers, at times considered the finest author of Spanish Traditionalism of all time. A politician ac ...

. The gremialist Javier Leturia wrote about the origins of the movement: :We he gremialistaswere orderly, we were those that were not

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

, those that were not left-wing, those that were not potheads. I would say that the people were participative. That is why former school union leaders and people from school unions, the

scouts Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement employing the Scout method, a program of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activities, including camping, woodcraft, aquatics, hiking, backpacking ...

, and religious movements were picked up. We openly supported the coup. We published a manifesto in the newspaper that read: "Towards a new institutionality through the renounce of Allende." ..What we said was that the crisis was insurmountable and that the only solution was to have the armed forces take charge. We drafted that manifesto as university students, and it was signed by student unions from the

Catholic universities Catholic higher education includes universities, colleges, and other institutions of higher education privately run by the Catholic Church, typically by religious institutes. Those tied to the Holy See are specifically called pontifical uni ...

of Santiago and Valparaíso, which were headed by gremialists. I would say that from the moment Allende was elected, many began to support a coup. I mean that we were not going to accept for this country to fall into communism.

Role in military dictatorship youth policy

One of the first measures of the

military dictatorship A military dictatorship is a dictatorship in which the military exerts complete or substantial control over political authority, and the dictator is often a high-ranked military officer. The reverse situation is to have civilian control of the m ...

that came to power though the 1973 coup d'etat was to set up the Secretaría Nacional de la Juventud (SNJ, National Youth Office), which was done on October 28, 1973, even before the Declaration of Principles of the junta made in March 1974. It was a way of mobilizing sympathetic elements of the civil society in support for the dictatorship. The SNJ was created by the advice of

and was an example of the dictatorship adopting gremialism. Some right-wing student union leaders like

Andrés Allamand Andrés Allamand Zavala (born February 7, 1956), a Chilean politician, is the founder and one of the past leaders of Renovación Nacional. He is of French, and Basque descent. On January 14, 2011 he was named Minister of Defense by president Se ...

were skeptical to the attempts as they were moulded from above and gathered disparate figures such as Miguel Kast,

Antonio Vodanovic Antonio Vodanovic (born March 2, 1949, Santiago, Chile) is a Chilean television presenter known for being the presenter of Viña del Mar International Song Festival from 1976 to 2004. From the late 1970s to 1982 he was programming director of Tel ...

and Jaime Guzmán. Allamand and other young right-wingers also resented the dominance of gremialism in the SNJ since they considered it to be a closed gremialist club. From 1975 to 1980, the SNJ arranged a series of ritualized acts in reminiscent of

Francoist Spain Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...

. The policy towards the sympathetic youth contrasted with the murder, surveillance, and

forced disappearances An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiza ...

that dissident youth faced from the regime. Most of the SJN's documents were reportedly destroyed by the dictatorship in 1988.

References

{{Conservatism Anti-communism in Chile Catholicism and politics Christian democracy Conservatism in Chile Neoliberalism Political ideologies Right-wing politics in Chile