Solidaridad: The Churches, the Left, and Grassroots Opposition in Pinochet's Chile

In Chile during the 1970s, the concept and practice of “solidarity” offered an alternative type of "citizenship" in poor and working-class urban communities torn asunder by repression, fear, and economic misery.  It offered a sense of dignity and belonging in the context of a dictatorial regime that was actively marginalizing and/or trying to eliminate large sectors of the population. The propagation of the concept of “solidarity” was especially prominent in the underground organizing networks that crisscrossed Santiago’s poor and working-class neighborhoods (poblaciones), which bore the brunt of the repression and economic crisis during the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990).  “Solidarity” was at first advanced most forcefully by the Catholic and Lutheran churches and the Left, all of which straddled the international/domestic divide and whose transnational contacts were key to their ability to continue operating in Chile after the 1973 military coup. In the poblaciones, “solidarity” became a rallying call and central principle for the underground organizing work that was instrumental in creating a new political culture that could survive unprecedented levels of repression and social atomization.  During the darkest years of underground organizing and rampant human rights violations, the concept and practice of “solidarity” helped to bring together disparate social and political sectors and establish a foundation for mass grassroots opposition to the regime.