Partido Obrero Socialista

The Partido Obrero Socialista (POS, Socialist Workers' Party ) was a political party in Chile at the beginning of the 20th century. She was the forerunner of the Communist Party of Chile .

The most important figure in the party was Luis Emilio Recabarren , who was active in the Partido Demócrata in the first decade of the 20th century . When the Partido Demócrata, previously founded as a progressive movement, formed an electoral alliance with the conservatives in 1912 , Recabarren founded the Partido Obrero Socialista as a socialist-Marxist workers' party in Iquique in June with 20 like-minded people (together with Antofagasta, focus on saltpeter mining). Since then he has been considered the father of the Chilean labor movement .

The founding members were Luis Emilio Recabarren, Enrique Salas , Néstor Recabarren, Ruperto Gil, David Barnes, Nicolás Bretón, Teresa Flores, Vicente Olivos, José Francisco García, Luis Figueroa, Ladislao Córdova, Juan Alvarez, Elías Lafertte , José del Carmen Aliaga, Carlos A. Martínez, Salvador Barra Woll, Miguel Carrasco, L. Zabala, J., Faúndez, E. Jorquera, L. Vargas, E. Díaz, DM Agüero, R. Olivares, E. Corbetto, Véliz y A. López.

When Recabarren returned to Chile in 1918 from another exile in Argentina (where he participated in the founding of the Communist Party of Argentina), he began to bind Chile's most important union , the Federación de Obreros de Chile (FOCH), to his party. In 1919 he became chairman of the union and the two organizations de facto merged.

In 1920, a party congress decided to rename the Communist Party of Chile, but this only took place after participating in the 3rd International in 1922. It was only under the impression of repression by the dictator Carlos Ibáñez del Campo that he was accepted into the Comintern in 1927 . At that time, FOCH and POS together had around 200,000 members (and Chile 4.3 million inhabitants) and the POS two of 118 seats in the House of Representatives.

Shortly after a trip to the Soviet Union , Recabarren killed himself in 1924. Manuel Hidalgo succeeded him as chairman of the Communist Party.