Part II of "Back to Seventeen: Diary of Miguel Enríquez – Biographical & Historical Commentary".
Surreal story of Miguel Enríquez’s Life Diary – MSI, MSR and the dawn of the MIR – Did he trick us to leave the PS? – Divergence with Miguel on assessment of the Armed Forces capability
[TABLE OF CONTENTS of the whole book (parts I – V) listed at the bottom of this chapter] [The whole book “Back to Seventeen: Diary of Miguel Enríquez – Biographical & Historical Commentary” is available to free download at Libertarian Books Europe, in this link, from Sept 5, 2025]
4. From the “Lost Trunk” to the “Forgotten Trunk”
The surreal story of Miguel Enríquez’s Life Diary, and how it finally came into my hands
Half a century has passed since several of Miguel’s manuscripts — including notebooks from his Life Diary — were hidden away in a house in Santiago. There they remained, layer upon layer, gathering dust and absorbing the moisture scattered by the brutality of time. Time marked by dictatorship, by clandestinity — and then, by oblivion. I would say: an unforgettable oblivion.
On that point, Carmen herself writes, referring to the barretines[1] and transports of 1974:
“Comrades risked their lives. There was iron will to preserve, to transmit history.” “You must hide books and documents; they will return to the light of day. Bury everything, don’t burn anything, Miguel used to say.”[2]
And so, the manuscripts ended up hidden in the house of Carmen Castillo’s parents. The Castillos — Carmen included — then went into exile in Europe, and Miguel’s Diary, along with other documents and books, was left behind in its forced hiding place in the darkness of a backyard on Avenida Ossa. Four years later, in 1978, Carmen Castillo’s parents returned to Chile. Then, “the library with literary books, Mónica[3] gave to Jaime Castillo”.[4]
As The Clinic reports:
“All the rest of the material related to Miguel and the MIR, including a handwritten personal diary from when he was 17 years old’, was taken to their new home in Quinta Michita, in La Reina. There they were hidden under a cement couch.”[5]
The dictatorship formally ended in 1990. Yet thirteen years after the return of civil liberties, Miguel Enríquez’s Diary — and other MIR-related manuscripts — continued to pile up in forgetfulness under that cement couch in the Castillo household.
In other words, seventeen years passed since comrades “risked their lives” to rescue and store Miguel’s manuscripts in the generous hiding place of the Castillos — and still, these were not shared with the public, or with the MIR community. This includes former members frequently mentioned in the Diary itself, such as this author.
It was not until 2003 — thirty years later — that Carmen Castillo, as she recounts in Jacobin and Le Monde Diplomatique, would be reunited with Miguel’s materials. And this happened only because of a house cleaning, or a change of residence — one of those incidental family matters. As Carmen Castillo recounts:
“They stayed there until September 2003, submerged for thirty years. The story didn’t end there, at least not for me — I continued not paying attention, I kept from looking, and that lightness weighs on me.” [Italics mine]
The fact is that, sometime after this 2003 “rediscovery,” the manuscripts containing Miguel’s Diary were handed over to the “Miguel Enríquez Foundation”, as reported by The Clinic in its October 5, 2014, article titled “The Lost Trunk of Miguel Enríquez.”[6]
In truth, The Clinic could just as well have titled it: The Forgotten Trunk of Miguel Enríquez.
There, at the Foundation, Miguel’s manuscripts remained sealed, unreleased to the public. Then, years later, in 2018, they were returned to Carmen Castillo.
When I learned this final detail from Andrés Pascal, I contacted Carmen Castillo directly (on September 15, 2023). She told me she would send them to me from France and asked me to wait. Later, after renewed insistence on my part, she replied (on October 30, 2023) that she was waiting on the canned copies of the manuscripts. During these exchanges, I offered to personally finance and carry out the complete digitization and publication of the manuscripts through my own publishing house.
I received no reply from her on this proposal.
Even before contacting Carmen, I had already prepared an edition with commentary based on a few transcribed pages of Miguel’s Diary — material I had received by courtesy of Marco Álvarez Vergara (who, as said, was for several years custodian or curator of the materials at the Miguel Enríquez Foundation).
Once Carmen promised to send me the full digitised content, I chose to wait with my publication to complete the full compilation for the benefit of the reader.
Above, book cover of that would-to-be publication
Thus, we arrive at October 2024, when I learned that “all” the manuscripts of Miguel’s Diary had been delivered by Carmen Castillo to the National Archives.
But: is it truly all of them?
What is missing from Miguel’s Diary and was not delivered to the National Archives?
1. In a message from Marco Álvarez (then the custodian of the Diary on behalf of the ME Foundation), dated May 19, 2016, he wrote: “After indexing the 1,427 pages written in Miguel’s own handwriting corresponding to his Life Diary…”
I reproduce here the full text of that message, sent by Marco Álvarez with a copy to Andrés Pascal. In it, Marco offers reasonable explanations for why he had to seal the manuscripts of Miguel’s Diary:
“Dear Marcello,
First, I send you warm greetings and say how happy I am that you are supporting the work of the FME. I must tell you that, after indexing the 1,427 pages written in Miguel’s own handwriting, I sealed the ‘Life Diaries of Miguel’ collection. This decision stems from the fact that conditions are still lacking to carry out proper ‘digitization’ and ‘transcription’ of these materials.
True, I had started the process, but I realized the scale of the project requires systematic work beyond my individual capacity. My intention is to resume the task once those conditions are in place. I believe that any reopening should be guided by the logic of a structured project (with deadlines, techniques, and funding), to ensure both viability and preservation of the material. (The idea is not to keep opening and closing the collection to locate specific things — that damages the materials considerably).
It’s also true that I fully identified what you were requesting. You should have no problem receiving a copy, with prior authorization from the president of the FME — a procedure we’ve agreed on for any movement of the Diary collection.
I think it’s great that you’re preparing a rebuttal to the MSR — I’ll even reference it in my next book post, The Constituent Assembly…, where I believe I didn’t mention it due to lack of sources. If I can unblock the request, I’ll need a couple of days to carry out the process, as I’m currently very busy.
As for the material I requested from you a few weeks ago — “1963 vacations” — I’d be grateful if you could send it. Sending a big hug,
Marco.
CC: Andrés Pascal.”
In 2018, the Diary materials were returned to Carmen Castillo.
In October 2024, it was publicly announced that Carmen Castillo would deliver the Diary to the National Archives. But what was delivered does not match the material indexed in 2016 at the ME Foundation.
In early October 2024, after receiving the digitized Diary files courtesy of the National Archives, I identified a discrepancy between the materials originally compiled by Álvarez and those delivered by Carmen Castillo.
Of the 1,427 pages handwritten by Miguel corresponding to his Life Diary, only 940 pages were delivered to the National Archives. 487 pages are missing — that is, over one-third of Miguel Enríquez’s Diary was not turned over to the National Archive.
Later, Marco Álvarez explained that the missing material could correspond to the book donated by Andrés Pascal to Marco Enríquez Ominami — which was not among the items Carmen Castillo handed over to the Archives.
I contacted Marco Enríquez Ominami from Italy. He immediately replied and invited me to a meeting at his home in Santiago. He had no hesitation in handing over to me (the physical book ) of Miguel’s Diary covering parts of 1961–1962, a volume which had been donated to him by Andrés Pascal.
Even with that book accounted for, I discovered that around 150 pages of Miguel’s Diary are still unaccounted for.
Where are those pages? What do they contain? Who are they about?
As I’ve noted before, it’s curious — to say the least — that, in the accessible pages of the Diary, there is practically nothing about the MIR: nothing about the Central Committee, the Political Commission, his love life in later years, not even about Carmen Castillo.
A relevant itinerary
The book in Marco Enríquez Ominami’s possession was donated by Andrés Pascal on June 12, 2009, as shown in Facsimile A.
Five years later, on October 5, 2014, The Clinic published a photo of two pages from that very book in a report and interview with members of the ME Foundation (Facsimile B), whose original had been given to Marco years earlier.
Conclusions
The conclusions about these inconsistencies — regarding what truly constitutes the complete content of Miguel Enríquez’s Life Diary — I leave to the reader, or to future researchers.
The problem is not only the quantitative discrepancy, that the pages that represent eleven percent of Miguel's manuscripts originally in his diary do not yet appear. What would be worrying is the qualitative problem represented by the content of the information that is missing in that material.
Above, the facsimile of two pages of Miguel´s Diary, as appeared in the publication by The Clinic of October 5, 2014.
5. Diary notes referring our political groups that converged in the founding of the MIR. Context
I witness that Miguel wrote his diary intermittently from at least 1960–61, and even in the years 1965 and 1966. The last publicly known entry is from 1969, presumably done after a very long pause. But I can attest that Miguel continued to write his Diary during 1968. I saw him doing it.
And although many of his notes in the diary were present or retrospective accounts of his personal life, how do we explain that in what is finally known today about the Diary there is a notable absence of episodes about politics and actions of the groups and parties that we formed and grew under his leadership between 1962 and 1965?
There are few mentions of the MSI as well as the MSR in the Diary; about the VRM one or another, and of the MIR almost nothing. And just a few reflections on his decision to join the Socialist Party in 1962. In addition, in this context, there is some criticism of the (Trotskyist) P.O.R.
Miguel's last entries in the Diary material delivered to the National Archive are from 1967. It is striking that there is no entry in the "Diary of Miguel Enríquez" corresponding to the times of and around the foundation of the MIR, a fact so important for him and of which he was a main architect.
On the other hand, it is notorious that in the diary there is a note by Miguel in 1966 where he says is "preparing the thesis for the congress." But with the particularity that what is known as "the thesis for the congress" is the insurrectionary thesis that we wrote for the founding congress of 1965 a year ago!
My conclusion is that Miguel would be referring to the 1967 congress, where he also read a political-military thesis (not the same one presented by us at the founding congress of 1965), in a different version prepared by him.
In the following section, the annotations by Miguel on our first political organisation schemes.
Nota bene: Many of Miguel's notes refer to events that occurred years earlier. Therefore, the dates in the annotation do not correspond to the dates of the events to which he refers.
The MSI
The MSI was as an organized discussion group focused on international politics, analysis of political literature, and historical facts. It began as social gatherings of friends with similar political interests since the high school times.
In early biographical works it is reported that Miguel's group of friends from the high school days was made up of, in alphabetical order:
Miguel Enríquez Espinosa (No. 1 in the photo of the 4th grade-A, 1958), Marcello Ferrada de Noli (No. 2), Rodrigo Rojas Mackenzie (No. 5), Eduardo Trucco Burrows (No. 3), Darío Ulloa Cárdenas (No. 4).
In the photo is not Bautista van Schouwen because he arrived at the Liceo de Hombres of Concepción only in 1959. By that period, the courses had been separated for majors in "letters, biology, and mathematics." Bauchi and Miguel met in March 1959 in the Biology course (5th year of high school).
However, by the end of 1960 only three of those named shared an ideological and political affinity: Miguel, Bautista and me.
At that time, Eduardo Trucco was a sympathizer of the Radical Party (like his father), Darío Ulloa sympathized with the ideas of the Communist Party (like his father), and Rodrigo Rojas was a "leftist independent" (like his father).
Both Dario Ulloa and Eduardo Trucco were sons of respected physicians. Dario’s father was a surgeon and Eduardo’s was then the vice rector of the University of Concepción. Rodrigo Rojas, now also a physician, is the son of a celebre Chilean poet.[7]
That is how, at the beginning of the summer of 1961, Miguel, Bauchi and I decided to structure the MSI. The name “MSI”, meaning "Socialist Left Movement" already denoted our inclination to a revolutionary line in opposition to the prevailing reformism, which was represented in the traditional left by the Communist Party and the Socialist Party.
In November 1960 I had joined the Socialist Youth of Concepción (the young section of the Chilean Socialist Party), hereafter referred to as “JS”.
As I will explain here, Miguel, Bauchi and Marco Antonio Enríquez later joined the nucleus (cell) of the JS that I directed there in 1961. That party cell was named “Espartaco", but it was later referred to as the "Sierra Maestra" cell after our marginalization from the PS.
Bautista van Schouwen, Marcello Ferrada de Noli, Miguel Enríquez Espinosa. Santiago, 1961.
A great inspiration to our political aspirations at the time was the Cuban Revolution, and particularly the 26th of July Movement therein.
A symbolic illustration: at the founding congress of the MIR that we held in Santiago four years later, I proposed – on behalf of my colleagues in Concepción – that the colours and design of the MIR flag be the same as the flag of the Movimiento 26 de Julio (26th of July Movement).[8]
In 1964, three days after his 20th birthday, Miguel refers to the MSI (the Socialist Left Movement) in his diary:
March 30, 1964: "I am only twenty years old, and I have had all kinds of experiences. I've slept with women. I'm in the IV [year] of medicine. I have organized and directed the JS in Concepción, the MSI, VRM and MSR; I am already a man; poloeo enamorado;[9] I am a student; what I lack is study."
First MSI Meetings
The original MSI group, 1961
We commonly met in Miguel's small apartment, which his father had built at the back of the courtyard of the residence at 1674 Roosevelt Avenue (Concepción). Around April 1962, Jorge Gutiérrez Correa, who had met Miguel in the first year of medical studies that began in March 1961, joined the MSI. It was around then when Marco Antonio Enríquez (Miguel's older brother) also began to join some meetings.
Truth is that Marco Antonio was a member of another group, the GRM (Trotskyist), led by an economist named Gamaliel Carrasco, and who met in Hualqui – then more than an hour and a half by minibus from Concepción. This, plus the fact that Marco Antonio was very dedicated to his studies in history (after having had to leave law studies), left him little time for meetings with "his younger brother" and his apprentice friends of that age. However, one or another author insists that Miguel was introduced to Marxism-Leninism by his brother Marco Antonio, and that, therefore, he would have had “a Trotskyist inspiration”.
Marco Antonio Enríquez E. Photo taken by the author in Oxford, U.K. 1979
Indeed, some biographical accounts of Miguel repeat this information, without basis or source, inferred from the fabrications of the Trotskyist author Luis Vitale. These are analysed in detail, and refuted, in my book “Con Bautista van Schouwen” (With Bautista van Schouwen).[10]
On the other hand, in a first biographical writing about Miguel ("The life of Miguel Enríquez and the MIR" by Pedro Naranjo Sandoval), we find Marco Antonio's own statements that "the Leninist training Miguel gave it to him alone", himself. That is, without the influence of his older brother. This is what Marco Antonio Enríquez Espinosa declares:
"... Very early on, the group of friends became interested in the study of Marxism, which was broad, very intense and without ideological rigidity.... Moreover, the Leninist formation Miguel gave it to him alone, ... One day and without knowing where he got them, Miguel appeared at the house with some boxes where he brought the complete works of "the bald one" Lenin; later, he systematically studied them alone and was more interested in the pragmatic and authoritarian nature of the discourse...". [11]
At that time there was not really a "leader" in the MSI, but it was a group harbouring a spontaneous stream of ideas and discussions about politics – more international than national ones. It was the time of the Cuban Revolution, of the incipient independence movements in Africa, the Algerian Resistance to French colonial power, then Viet-Nam, etc.
By mid-1961, the members of the MSI were, in alphabetical order: the two Enríquez brothers (Miguel and his older brother, the most senior, Marco Antonio), Marcello Ferrada de Noli, Jorge Gutiérrez Correa (Miguel's classmate in the first year of medicine) and Bautista van Schouwen – also a classmate.
There are several notes by Miguel about the existence of this first group of references that we call MSI. For example, this one from May 19, 1964:
“And we organised ourselves as MSI. From September 1963 we began as MSR…”
As for the organisation of the MSI meetings, it is simple: there was no organisation at all. Generally, about when we would have the next meeting, we agreed on it when only we finished a meeting.
Or we simply changed the program on some occasion when we were in between those dates. Those "some occasion" were practically every day.
Miguel at the Concepción University Student Union, FEC.[12]
What facilitates that free schedule was that we were all accessible to each other at the same university campus and related environment. And we also met for all kinds of social or family activities, in addition to the political.
Regarding the modus operandi, each of us was responsible for delivering a report on a specific topic, at the beginning of the meeting.
Another peculiarity of these MSI meetings are the “paseos”, or "paseíllos" as Miguel called them, and which we organised on some weekends, quite frequently. In that praxis, “paseos” did not mean “stroll”, or “having a walk”. It rather meant excursions or daytrips outside the town of Concepción.
During those occasions we also analysed the political situation. Even if we got together only for "the social" endeavour, the content of our conversations infallibly ended in the political situation, or our ideological considerations based on the readings of the moment. And no, we were never talking about the weather, or fashion, or popular music, or radio programs that we consequently ignored.
The destinations varied. but a constant was in general the beaches of Lirquén, Playa Blanca, and Laraquete. Perhaps it was what was known in those days as "picnics," that is, we brought provisions and drinks. We travelled by train or bus, and occasionally by cars borrowed to our parents.
On other occasions, during the summer season we went to Llacolén, a club on the slope of a lagoon near Concepción and surrounded by forests, and of which all our parents were members.
The attendance at these meetings centred around the MSI was also varied. But in general, the presence of Miguel, who was the main promoter and organizer, was indispensable. And then the members of the MSI his sister Inés, who would eventually become Bauchi's girlfriend. And of course, our “pololas” (girlfriends).
On several occasions, the then medical student Héctor Trautmann Hornickel ("Gringo" Trautmann, the author of the Foreword in this book) also attended the excursions. This is what he recalls:
"I remember the trips to Playa Blanca and that they shared long conversations about the university and other topics.” [13]
It is there, both in the "formal" meetings and when we went on those excursions, where we also discussed the readings of Gramsci, Sartre, Isaac Deutscher, Irwing Horowitz, etc., as well as the "classics" (Engels, Marx, Tolstoy). We also began to analyse in more detail national politics and the availability of political organisations that might be of interest to us.
On the other hand, who I don't remember having attended those country or beach excursions, is Jorge Gutiérrez Correa (“Guti”). Although he was always at the MSI meetings usually held in Miguel's small apartment (at the back of the house on Roosevelt Avenue), Guti left our political group around 1964. He then wrote a political farewell letter to Miguel, which he received on good terms.
Jorge Gutiérrez Correa (Guti), in 1962 and 2005
Guti was very intelligent and dedicated to his medical studies and was awarded the University Award (best student in his class). If I remember correctly, all his high school education was done at the Alliance Française in Concepción. In addition, he was very Christian. Professionally, he ended up serving as head of the oncology department of the renowned Las Condes Clinic, and he was also president of the Chilean oncology society. I always had the impression that Miguel relied a lot on him for the study and preparation of the exams of the medical courses.
Albeit the time necessarily devoted to our professional studies, and to our ideological and cultural formation, we were much active in the struggle for the university reform – a mass movement that occupied students all across Chile at those times. Eventually, we won, and the Reforma Universitaria was approved in Concepción in 1968. Ensuing, I was elected by popular vote by the students of the university as member of the first Consejo Superior (the executive board) of the University of Concepción. But, it was a long struggle who lasted six years (1962–1968), and in which in more that one opportunity the authorities called the intervention of the Carabineers to siege and eventually invaded the campus.
In the photo below, medical student Héctor Trautmann Hornickel (MUI, Movimiento Universitario de Izquierda) in a defiant action trying to contain the intervention of the police forces intending to occupy the university compound (April 1963).
Entering the Socialist Party Youth organisation
At one point we began to be interested in elucidating the intricate spectrum of Chilean politics of those times, and for a fundamental reason: at the centre of our interests and discussions on "international politics" was the Cuban Revolution. What can be done to contribute concretely to that “antiimperialist” cause?
For my part, I had concluded that the Socialist Party could be an appropriate vehicle to channel our activity of solidarity with the Cuban and Algerian revolutions. And therefore, by personal decision, I had enrolled in the Socialist Youth of Concepción in October 1961. At that time, the Regional of the JS in Concepción was quite depopulated by student cadres, since a significant part of these cadres were university students and at that time they were away on forced “vacation” due to a student union strike.
That is why, I think, was one of the reasons why Luis Enríquez (a law student at the U of C., son of a doctor from the city and therefore a permanent resident in Concepción), asked me to join the Espartaco nucleus, of the JS in Concepción, to "reinforce it with student cadres." This cell was composed entirely of workers' cadres.
Shortly after, a former high school student (also the son of a worker of the State Railways) named Martín Hernández entered, supposedly sent by Luis Enríquez for the same purposes of "support". A vote was held to elect the head of the said nucleus, and I was elected. Martín Hernández losing the vote.
Hernández, being the son of a worker like most of the members of that cell, naturally considered himself more legitimate in opposition to my nomination. He never forgave me.
(Martín Hernández's animosity dated back years, and as a result of a dramatic episode that occurred in a high school of Concepción (the Liceo de Hombres N° 1). I tell details of that episode in my book "Walter's Wife and Other Stories")[14]
The first recruitment I made as head of the nucleus Epartaco was that of Marco Antonio Enríquez, whom I convinced to leave the dilettante Trotskyist group of Gamaliel Carrasco – a group that had no pragmatic political activity, not even strategic plans for the future.
Marco Antonio then helped me convince his brother Miguel Enríquez that the PS was then the most open to implement our support for the Cuban Revolution. This is how Miguel also joined the JS of Concepción in the first months of the academic year of 1962.
Van Schouwen and Gutiérrez followed Miguel (as in everything) and joined the Spartacus cell that I led in the Socialist Youth of Concepción.
The MSR
Once in the Youth of the Socialist Party (JS), while we were all at the University, Miguel had the initiative in 1963 to form a fraction within the Socialist University Brigade led by Ariel Ulloa (later mayor of Concepción in two terms).
The reason for this factional work was to promote a revolutionary line to the activities of the Socialist Brigade of the university, especially the support for Cuba and Vietnam and in general for the anti-colonial movements of the time. This was not initially conceived as a factional work aimed at the Socialist Party of Concepción.
Judging by events, however, Miguel's plan was to change the reformist political line of the Socialist Party at the regional and national levels, towards revolutionary positions exemplified by the Cuban Revolution.
When Miguel made this strategic approach known in the faction, some cadres left our organisation MSR.
This is the case of Claudio Sepúlveda, who had recently been elected secretary general of the FEC. He has been launched during the election’s campaign of that year (1963) as our candidate (I mean our fraction’s candidate, an organisation which had a strong electoral base in the School of Medicine). Thus, Claudio Sepúlveda won.
Young Claudio Sepúlveda
The organic dynamics of the fraction allowed it to be "clandestinely" known in the university as a political entity with no organic link to the Socialist Party.
In this way, at the end of 1963, independent students of the left and even of the Radical Party joined it, as is the case of Juan Saavedra Gorriateguy (lawyer, later mayor of San Miguel) and two of his companions of the Radical Youth, Nelson Muñoz and "Chico" Sarmiento – law students. Other members of the fraction were Edgardo Condeza, another with the surname Sandoval, Faúndez and Jara, all of them from medicine; Luis Díaz, of education). The new elected member of the executive committee at the University student union’s, Claudio Sepulveda, withdrew then from the MSR group and remained in the JS.
Miguel's "FUI" initiative and the beginning of the MUI
FUI, the University Front of the Left, arose at Miguel's initiative around the elections of Student Centers and the executive committee of the Federation of Students of the University of Concepción (FEC) in 1964. FUI was a precursor model of the University Movement of the Left (MUI). Miguel writes on November 23, 1964, after reporting that "the CP and the PS refuse to enter" into his formula of "left unity":
Above, Facsimile A
Facsimile B
Miguel:
"[The FUI] was my idea; I drafted the declaration of principles [...]. The left-wing Engineering movement refuses. Then he left the FRAP [Popular Action Front] and [I] founded [the] MUI [University Left Movement] [...] gathering 90–100 people. The CP [Communist Party], by order of the Santiago CP [Central Committee] [did not] enter. In the end, the PS joins and enters [the MUI]. At the elections of the Medicine student’s union, I was the candidate to the presidency, [resulting] with the 2nd majority [...]. In Medicine, FUI beats FRAP by 4 votes [in election for FEC Executive Committee]. This demolished the FRAP; we got the 1st left-wing majority in Education.
During the IC I become the speaker of the [...], I defeat the D.C. I get a vote [..] from the D.C. in favour of [..]. Another against D.C. [Christian Democracy] and Freemasonry; another against the UFUCH etc.
[...] I obtain one [resolution, in the name of] the revolutionary opposing the Frei government.
3) FEC Assembly, I destroy the D.C."
Miguel, leader of the Socialist Youth in Concepción
In addition to having been the promoter and leader of the MSI group and the MSR faction, Miguel Enríquez organized and was a leader of the Socialist Youth in Concepción. This he wrote in his diary on March 30, 1964:
"I have organized and directed the JS in Concepción, the MSI, VRM and MSR."
This Miguel confirms in another note, dated February 19 of that year, in which he relates that he is "a member of Regional Committee of the Socialist Youth":
There in the Regional Committee of the Socialist Youth Miguel and I we kept each other company. This, because I was already a member of the Regional Committee of the JS even before we started the MSR fraction. That was at the time when I was still head of the Spartacus nucleus of the JS. [El Sur, December 4, 1962]:
"... Ferrada Noli is secretary of Art and Culture of the Regional Youth Committee of this [Socialist Party] group"
When Miguel leaves his leadership positions in the Regional Committee of the Socialist Youth
Thursday, March 10, 1962:
"I have left the leadership positions of the P.S.; I am preparing to start working at the grassroots level; to the recruitment of people; the left-wing of the base.
But; Despite being aware that it is my duty, I feel disillusioned with the past and the future; I don't feel like working; for I know that what I do will not be in favour of the Revolution; it does go in favour of the PS; and the decadence and corruption that is seen in this party; it is clear and discouraging.
How eager I would be to work directly on the revolution; but I can't."
Definitive departure from the Socialist Party and entry into the VRM
The definitive departure of Miguel and the rest of the MSR members from the Socialist Party occurred during the XX Congress of the PS held in Concepción on February 14 and 16, 1964.
As it is publicly known, this happens after a presentation of a document with contents of revolutionary (anti-reformist) strategy presented by Miguel, and which was ultimately rejected by the secretary general of the PS, Raúl Ampuero, supported by the majority of the delegates in that congress.
However, an important fact – and I believe until now publicly unknown – emerges from a retrospective entry in Miguel's Diary. There he says that in January 1964, that is, before the marginalization of the PS, he already agreed with the political secretariat of the VRM (Marxist Revolutionary Vanguard) to integrate the MSR cadres (those of us who had not yet left the PS) into that organisation.
“(9) from January 23 to 28, 1964 – in Santiago, and cooperated in dividing the PS. I meet with [...] (of the) JS (Socialist Youth) Santiago. I maintain unity of VRM in Santiago with the Political Secretariat and the Consultative Secretariat of the [...]"
Another proof of that is this other retrospective entry that Miguel leaves in his diary on February 19, 1964. Here he states that a month earlier, on January 20, he travelled to Santiago to meet with the MSR of that city, and "we integrate with VRM, etc."
In that period (December 1963 – April 1964) I was in Cuba, in military training. Shortly after arriving in Concepción, I was called to a meeting of the MSR that was held in the lawyer's office that the father of the young Dr. Edgardo Condeza Vaccaro maintained in his residence (photo bellow).
Dr. Edgardo Condeza Vaccaro
Waiting for those who had not yet arrived at the meeting, during these informal conversations, Edgardo Condeza informed me of the following:
The MSR of Concepción and its counterpart in Santiago (made up of some university cadres led by Andrés Pascal and Edgardo Enríquez) had withdrawn from the PS. Or as I learned in more detail, provoked by Miguel's presentation of an anti-reformist document, we had been expelled by vote of the majority of the members of the Congress held in Concepción (February 1964), led by Senator Raúl Ampuero.
At Miguel's initiative, the young socialists of Concepción and Santiago then decided to publish a document called "Socialist Insurrection", distributed in March 1964. There they called for joining the VRM.[15]
The document was signed by 12 comrades from Santiago and 11 from Concepción. I appear to sign as "director of the Chilean-Cuban Institute of Culture", even though I never really signed the document, because, both when it was written and when it was published, I was in Cuba. Miguel simply put my name there.
In other words, my departure from the Socialist Youth was the product of faits accomplis. But, although I complained about this to Miguel, I did not seek a discussion about this in the group, because, as I said, it was too late to be possibly amended.
Going back to the MSR meeting in April, Miguel makes it known that, since we are no longer in the PS, he proposes to “initiate” talks with the VRM, and therefore that initiative is called to a vote. But, in the light of what appears in the Diario (see above), those conversations or agreements would have already been made in Santiago by Miguel, in meetings with the political secretariat of the VRM.
At that time, I was ignorant of it (I came to know it only now), and I would have protested at that meeting if I had known. But even so, based on ideological arguments, I opposed our entry into the VRM,[16] an organisation that I considered – in today's language – a sectarian container of old and embittered Stalinists mixed with ditto Trotskyists – mainly "old" – and who seemed occupying their time recriminating each other. I was the only one there who objected Miguel’s proposition, as Juan Saavedra Gorriateguy recalls being a witness.[17]
Miguel was furious. I, again pressured by loyalty to our old friendship, decided to continue to protect his project. Then he immediately gave me the task of initiating military training for the VRM cadres (as I said, I had recently returned from my military training in Cuba). The VRM group in Concepción led by Miguel had grown somewhat in number, including a couple of workers' cadres with a Trotskyist past, as well as two law students previously incorporated by Juan Saavedra.[18]
Juan Saavedra Gorriáteguy (at right) with Miguel Enríquez. A meeting with Alfonso Urrejola, mayor of Concepción
The failed night outing for the "military training"
After some time, and for the purpose of "military instruction" at the elementary level, I had devised a series of outings inspired by the "Ready to Win" program and combined with other basic elements, which I learned in Cuba (the "Ready to Win" was an extremely primary plan, almost at the gymnastic level, and which was aimed at young civilians. It was not the three-month military training program I had there on the outskirts of Havana).
I explained to Miguel what the most essential thing consisted of, and that it would start with a march in which we could provisionally evaluate the physical capacity and aptitudes of the members of the "squad". And if the possibility would arise, to practise elementary pistol-shooting training at night.
Also, the march would be at night to avoid being seen from the vicinity of the university, since the terrain chosen was a hill that separates the university from the Nonguén Valley, and the path to the height of the hill (known as Camino Einstein) started from the vicinity of the Laguna de Los Patos, in the University campus.
I knew this sector quite well for the reason that my parents had an agricultural property in what used to be the Nonguén Valley, on the other side of the hill, and where also was a country house.[19] ), and in which the house where I went to live with my partner was later built (a house that was subsequently besieged by elements of Patria y Libertad, on the morning of September 11, 1973).
Everything was agreed, and at the meeting point late at night, out of the sixteen, only seven comrades came – most of them with great delay. So, we wasted a lot of time waiting. Among the punctual were Juan Saavedra Gorriateguy and Marco Antonio Enríquez. Miguel, for his part, never arrived. Well, we started the march. We carried three handguns, including a Mauser pistol owned by my father, and the Astra pistol carried by Marco Antonio –owned by the father of the Enríquez brothers.
The Drunken March
According to the usual protocol, a complete squad of the Cuban infantry is composed of approximately 10 combatants, which can be divided into two sections. In this case I led the vanguard squad with three comrades, and in the rear squad I placed Mark Antony in command. Juan Saavedra (our beloved 'Patula') was also there. We were about thirty yards apart, but it was wood, and it was dark night. The problem was that one of the members of the rearguard squad – Chico Walter (a young worker from neighbouring Huachipato) – had taken a bottle of brandy (“aguardiente”) with him...
Completely undisciplined, Chico Walter began to drink on the road, inviting his companions; those who, fortunately, except for another march-participant, had refused. This, of course, unknown to me, substantially delayed the pace of the second squadron's march, and at one point I lost contact with it. Suddenly, Marco Antonio comes running and tells me that Chico Walter is drunk and refuses to walk with the rest.
I go indignantly to where the section of the delayed squad, now stopped, is located. And there I find the show: Chico Walter drunk as a fish. In addition, Juan (”Patula “) Saavedra and Marco Antonio Enríquez begin to laugh when Chico Walter insists, accompanied by gesturing, that he refuses to walk.
About that scene, Juan Saavedra Gorriateguy recalls that, in my indignation, I demanded of him and Marco Antonio, who, because of laughing, should carry Chico Walter on our return to the starting point. According to what ‘Patula' remembers, that was done by Marco Antonio – who was very solid and physically strong.[20]
And so, I was forced to suspend the training march, without even completing the first phase of the program.
I rebuke Miguel
The Enriquez residence at 1674 Roosevelt Avenue, was only a few blocks from the university campus, viewed from the side of the campus that leads to the Laguna de Los Patos. And as soon we arrived back to the campus I went with quick and furious steps to Miguel’s house. It was already past dawn and early breakfast time.
I was furious with Miguel, partly because he had not attended the "instruction" that he himself had proposed, but above all because of the "selection" of the militants that he had made.
To make matters worse, when I got to Miguel, I found him sitting, zipping a coffee and reading, and he had put on a soft sweater of mine that I had left at his place to not spoil it in the march. It was given to me as a present by my girlfriend, the beautiful María Eugenia Santander (sister of a girlfriend that Miguel also had, Charito).
All the above, together and multiplied, compelled me to say –which I remember very well– the following:
1. With the spirit of this "troop" of "combatants" we will never, ever succeed in tickling the Chilean armed forces. I told him that he was not only completely ignorant of the army's degree of readiness, but that he showed no interest in studying and deepening his tactics, doctrines, and ways of thinking.
2. I summarized my conclusions of everything I have witnessed in terms of preparation and instruction in the military bases in which I have had to live, the last one being in Tejas Verdes during the 1960 school year, at the house of my uncle Patricio Zúñiga F. – who was a colonel of the engineer regiment there. That year I lived there because my school in Concepción partially collapsed with the earthquake.
In other words, I confronted him with the tremendous undervaluation that, in my opinion, he had of the Chilean armed forces – which he jokingly equated with Batista's inoperative troops in Cuba.
3. And I told him that my participation in his VRM project had reached there, which he had already begun in the summer of 1964[21] and without my knowing it (–as I have already said, since I was in Cuba). That I did not believe in that organisation, neither ideologically (all of them either Stalinists or Trotskyists), nor organically; and that I did not agree with the 'revolutionary' quality of its members – as demonstrated in that night out of "military training".
And there, for the second time, I refused to continue in the VRM.
On April 10, 1964, Miguel writes cryptically, in one of the most difficult paragraphs that I tried to decipher:
"1) We are being defeated and the elders [..] they are against us.
2) [...] Address
3) The [..] does not make geniuses, but groups of geniuses."
"Claudio and Marcello betrayed"
A few weeks passed. Miguel calls me then on the phone because he learned from Bauchi that I went to Santiago to attend with my family, on May 9, 1964, the ceremony at the Military School in which my brother graduated as a second lieutenant of artillery.
Miguel reproaches me for all this, he tells me that I should not have any contact with officers of the armed forces, that "they are the enemies", etc. and that I should instead return to the VRM, or else... We couldn't continue to be friends.
Miguel's reasoning, and one that many may consider acceptable, is that in a revolutionary organisation there can be no ties of friendship with people outside the organisation. Ties of friendship – or in the strict sense, of party camaraderie – are only admitted with those who participate in the daily organic work of the insurgent party, and to whom one hundred percent of time and dedication are due. That was basically Miguel's message. A message stripped of courtesies and ambiguities.
We were only twenty years old. But no matter how fanatical we were, more by youth than by understanding, or more by dogma than by conviction, the more lost or divorced from reality, the further we will be from changing it.
Family is a Number One reality. And the Homeland is a reality Number Two. That we do not love the revolution tautologically, that is, it is not that we want the Revolution because we are revolutionaries, but because we love the Homeland, we want to make it better, that is, more just.
So, as I told him verbatim, I considered that his social compass was "walking in a band"; that it was impossible for me not to attend my brother's graduation ceremony. Not because I was "forced" as Miguel believed, and therefore I should "rebel", but simply because he was my brother. A brother with whom, in addition, we had been classmates from first high school to sixth humanities. And Miguel knew it, because we were in the same course with him during the time in high school.
I could never have snubbed my brother, or any of my family, no matter how much Miguel despised (and undervalued) the Chilean military. Mauricio, which is the name of my older brother, was always fraternal and good to me. What Miguel knew, because we were in the same course with him and he belonged to the second circle[22] of his friends.
But, again out of loyalty to our friendship, I accepted Miguel's invitation to help him again in the VRM, but without giving up my "private life" and family. "Help" that did not last long, because a week later I was leaving the VRM for good, and along with Miguel's entire group. I was right, the intransigent sectarians of the VRM did not finally give room to Miguel's project. Just as I predicted in April of that year at the meeting at Condeza Vaccaro's house. This is a note made by Miguel in his diary on the occasion of a VRM congress on May 15. Miguel confesses:
"15-V-64. The VRM Congress took place, apparently [...]; We are all broken, angry; Claudio left, Marcello left, the rest broken. I lack faith; I'm weak."
Days after acknowledging that "we are all broken" (see his text above), in an annotation of May 19, 1964, Miguel refers synoptically to the history of the MSI/MSR and the passage through the VRM. Here Miguel, at the end and in a brief comment without giving any explanation, refers to both Claudio Sepúlveda (then a medical student and PS militant) and me, as having "betrayed" the MSR. Claudio because he did not want to remain in the MSR by remaining loyal to the PS, and I because he refused to be in the VRM.
"... out of 4 people, we are defeated; by their hesitations. The C.R. JS Concepción retires, and we are formed as MSI. Since September 1963 we have existed as MSR. And there they were, 1st, Condeza, Díaz, Guti, Bauchi, Miguel, Marcos, Marcello and Claudio. The last two betrayed." (Annotation of 19 05 1964).
But in the end, all MSR members also refused to remain in the VRM. The following year we began to participate in the founding of the MIR, in an assembly in which there was also room for libertarian and anarchist positions. There we (Miguel, Marco Antonio and I) wrote[23] together the political-military thesis of the MIR, the first document approved at that founding congress. And I stayed in the MIR until after Miguel's death. Until June 1977 to be more precise. At that time, I was working in the external direction of the MIR. [24]
NOTA BENE
I would like to add the following, in the context of the aforementioned discussion with Miguel (and because he too, as we have seen, refers to the consequences of that dispute in his Diary).
Although I am proud to have been a friend of Miguel Enríquez, I have also always been proud of my brother, particularly for the attitude he maintained with me and my friends during the military government. Although faithful to his comrades-in-arms, he did his best and succeeded – along with other officers in my family, [25] my father, etc. – to secure my liberation from Quiriquina Island.
And later, it was my brother who obtained the commutation of the process against me in the military court for instead of my expulsion from Chile.[26] This while I had appeared with a photo on the front page of La Tercera (October 5, 1973) among "the extremists who shot at the armed forces with firearms."
In fact, on one occasion, in January 1974, when I was a prisoner in the Concepción Stadium, ready to be transferred by plane to the north, to the Chacabuco prison camp. My brother at that time was an officer of the "Silva Renard" Artillery Regiment that was in Concepción.
On that occasion, my brother came to my rescue to comply with the expulsion order from the country signed by General Agustín Toro Dávila. He, who came directly from his regiment and who had nothing to do with the prison camp, on that same occasion forced the soldiers to open the bars of the Regional Stadium so that Mrs. Raquel Espinosa, the mother of Marco Antonio Enríquez (and Miguel), and other mothers of prisoners, could enter to say goodbye to their children who would be transported to Chacabuco in hours.
With my brother Mauricio in 1969
The pursuing of Anthropology studies and Miguel's opposition
It has already been commented by other authors in biographies of Miguel Enríquez or Bautista van Schowen (Bauchi), that the cultural and/or scientific interest of our group went beyond the frameworks of the compartmentalized study of either medicine (Miguel and Bauchi), history (Marco Antonio), or philosophy (my case).
In 1965, the University of Concepción opened a new academic department, then called the Center for Anthropology and Archaeology. The central branches of that program were physical anthropology and paleontology, cultural anthropology, and archaeology.
There was a great deal of discussion within the MSR about this new study center. But not, as one might suppose, a debate on political aspects of the event (for example, its relationship with the problem of the propaedeutic or the university reform)[27] or its impact on our struggle on the university student front. The discussion revolved instead around the intellectual "to be or not to be" of ourselves in terms of integral pictures. Miguel's position was ironclad: we should only concentrate on advancing our already determined academic careers, and with the time we could steal from them, we should dedicate ourselves to activism in the FEC.
Miguel's position was supported only by Guti (Jorge Gutiérrez C.), who had a great discipline – or academic ethics, I would add – and was the one who took medical studies more seriously and dedicated. (Guti deservedly received the university prize at the end of his medical studies).
On the other hand, Bauchi, Marco Antonio and I maintained that a greater breadth in the cultural and scientific horizon would perhaps help us more fully to understand the problems of today's society from the point of view of its historical, even paleontological, evolution.
Result: Bauchi, Marco Antonio and I enrolled in the Anthropology and Archaeology career.[28]
1= Bautista van Schouwen, 2= Marcello Ferrada, 3= Claudio García (joined our group later that year), 4= M. Antonio Enríquez. All members of the MSR.
At the foundation of the MIR
Two days before the founding of the MIR, on a Tuesday night, we had a "definitive" meeting with Luciano Cruz Aguayo in Miguel's apartment. We were, apart from Luciano, Bauchi, Miguel and me. There Luciano would deliver his final answer about his position with respect to us, that is, Miguel's project of a new revolutionary organisation, which resulted in the founding of the MIR.
(Miguel's project did not refer only to the constitution of a new "pan-revolutionary" organisation of groups in opposition to reformism, but to a very specific political strategy, designed to converge in armed struggle. And this was and always was a major difference between Miguel's group and the other small groups that attended the MIR constituent assembly. Here I must remember that contrary to what most "historians" and students of history affirm – by following, without investigating, the versions of Luis Vitale. These, instead, were the facts:
With the sole exception of the delegation of Concepción, the rest of the groups that attended the founding congress of the MIR had no more than three or four "delegates" each. And what would be proven there is that these "delegates" in fact constituted all the militancy that these groups had. The delegation of Concepción, almost all students and all members of the MUI (University Movement of the Left), constituted the majority group at the Founding Congress of the MIR).[29]
During the weekend, Miguel had met in Concepción, on three occasions, with Luciano, at the time a militant of the Communist Youth.[30] In that last meeting on Tuesday 3, Luciano finally responded that he agreed to attend as part of our delegation to the founding of the MIR. And at that same meeting we decided who, for our part, would be proposed to be members of the central committee of the new organisation, respectively of the military commission.
Miguel Enríquez (at left in the photo), Mario Díaz (Punto Final chief-editor),[31] and Luciano Cruz (at right). Santiago, June 1969.
From the tenor of that meeting it was clear that a condition set by Luciano to Miguel in his previous meetings was that of being proposed to the central committee. Luciano was already a recognised student leader (not only at the university, but also since high school), and therefore "weighed" as a representative political figure. I must add, another fact not known, or not so well known, and that is that Miguel never got along with Luciano. And one reason for the friction revolves around the beautiful maiden Monica San Martin, who flirted with Luciano and then with Miguel.
Therefore, what was decided at the last meeting in Concepción on August 3 was: Luciano, Bauchi and Miguel to be nominated as members of the central committee, and Marco Antonio and I to the military commission. The next day at night we boarded a ramshackle bus heading to Santiago. The foundation congress of the MIR began on August 5.
As an illustration, I must add that, according to my personal testimony, the relations between Miguel and Luciano were never good, and even at some periods, frankly hostile. Some have hypothesized that it was due to rivalries in the leadership of the MIR. But that is out of reality.
Luciano, despite being a magnificent orator, was not an ideologue or creator of strategies. Suffice it to point out just one fact: Luciano seldom wrote a document.[32]
Other writings whose authorship have been ascribed to him –such as a letter from the FEC that appears in the newspaper El Sur de Concepción, in his name and of the Executive Committee of the FEC– I was in fact I was its solely author. That letter is an in-extensive reproduction of the document "Universidad de Concepción – Estudiantes en Alerta", which I had published in Revista Polémica Universitaria, in 1965. The same document was latter approved as an official document of the Reform of the U of C. [33]
Another possible source of an animosity between Miguel Enríquez and Luciano Cruz was that Luciano had been the boyfriend of Mónica San Martín,[34] who left him to become Miguel Enríquez's girlfriend.
Moreover, the difficulty between the two leaders was exacerbated by these two facts:
a) Shortly after being elected president of the FEC by the MUI list (a front of the MIR), Luciano travelled to Cuba where he stayed for many months, began a love affair there, from which a son would later be born. Meanwhile, the work of the FEC and the student front was left to Nelson Gutiérrez, Pedro Naranjo, Juan 'Patula' Saavedra, and me (as head of the university brigade of the MIR).
Going back to the 1965 congress. The meetings of the founding congress of the MIR began rather informally, already in the morning, on issues of delegates and the organisation of the agenda. Not all the provincial delegates had yet come there. We were in the premises of the Anarchist Leather and Footwear Workers' Union. In those hours of the morning several entered to look around and then left.[35] Clotario Blest invited us (the group from Concepción mentioned above) to lunch in his house of aristocratic vestige, with a combination of humble furniture and centennial furniture. He also invited Dr. Enrique Sepúlveda and his son-in-law 'Chepo' Sepúlveda. At fourteen o'clock the official session was inaugurated with the presentation of our political-military thesis.
The next day, August 6, and as agreed in Concepción, Miguel, Bauchi and Luciano were elected members of the Central Committee of the MIR. Marco Antonio and I, together with 'Pelao' Zapata (from Santiago), were elected members of the first military commission of the MIR. Of these, I was the only one who had military training in Cuba. And, according to Marco Antonio, Zapata had received military training in China. For his part, Mark Antony, about to graduate as a professor of history (and distinguished with the University Prize of his generation), was a living encyclopedia on the classical theme of wars and battles. This 'military commission' lasted in its functions for just under two years.[36]
As I have shown in "Rebels With a Cause",[37] in that founding congress, the delegation of Concepción – and specifically the group of students from the University of Concepción – had, as a group, a majority in that Congress, and therefore could have proposed and elected the majority of that central committee. We abstained from that. Miguel was about to make room for the Trotskyists even though they were a minority.
For my part, I note that in addition to having been co-author of the political-military thesis that was approved at the Congress, my proposal on the name of the organisation and design of the flag (with the red and black colours of anarchism, and of July 26) of the new organisation, obtained majority of votes among the delegates.
Flag of the MIR, design by Marcello Ferrada de Noli ("Atacama"), 5 Oct 1965
Divergence with Miguel on Assessment of the Armed Forces Capability
That distribution of tasks that I describe above could also help to explain why the military was not then in Miguel's priority sight, in his central concern – and this since our discussions in years before. He, particularly after being elected secretary general of the MIR in 1967, had as his primary occupation the political and organisation issue, despite a new political-military thesis of which he was the author and was approved on that occasion.
That is how on several occasions, from 1961 to 1968, I continued to have divergences with Miguel about the importance of knowing meticulously, of trying to make him understand more deeply, the mechanics and spirit of the Chilean armed forces, beyond the caricature that he always made of them. An example of such discussions was the one we had after the failed "night out of military training", which I have already described above.
When I spoke to him about the discipline of the troops, classes and soldiers, and the hierarchy of commanders in the armed forces – an issue that I had experienced since I was a child, practically raised in barracks and regiments – Miguel returned to his paradigm of "soldiers of the people, revolutionaries for the people". That is, he was of the notion that the troops would rebel against the commanders and officers.
He thought, and so he used it as an argument, of the uprising of the soldiers and sailors during the Bolshevik Revolution against the Tsarist regime; or in the creation of the Red Army of China with its peasant hosts; etc. He did not think that, in the history of Chile, although the army has revolted against any government, no vast contingent of soldiers or officers has revolted against the army.
Or perhaps he thought, with his inherited bourgeois spirit educated in classical literature, that the courtesy of the officers would be equivalent to that of the revolutionaries. He did not think that both the officers and the troops were educated in a doctrine that did not consider the revolutionaries as heirs of Robin Hood or Manuel Rodríguez. Rather, for them, thus educated at Fort Gulick or at the War Academy, every modern society faces the danger of terrorism, and the terrorists in Chile, Pinochet called them (and to whom Kissinger said it) were the Miristas. And he was her boss.
And when Miguel on October 5, 1974, stopped his shooting and asked, "don't shoot, there is a pregnant woman here, wounded!" The assassins in charge of the execution respond with bursts of shrapnel.
In them there was not the chivalrous courtesy with which Miguel was educated and believed in. And it could not exist because the inexorable discipline of killing went from general in chief to lieutenants of any rank. The discipline that I had a hard time convincing him about. As my father convinced me from a young age: "The enemy must always be considered superior."
And with this I return to the question asked by the person very close to Miguel: did he seek death that day in the house in Santa Fe?
My answer is no; I don't think so. Considering his central reflection in his commentary on "The Bridge", Miguel did not want to die in a battle that was not central to the decision of the war.
But the war was already decided. And let's add honestly: it was very much a war decided by a misunderstanding of the enemy's lethal capacity, and partly by a disdain for him.
Conversely, a defeat also helped by our sense of invincibility that we had stolen from the dialectic of history. Without considering that dialectics has two poles and does not predict or name which is the thesis, and which is its antithesis. Ergo, it does not predict whose synthesis it will be.
Everything that does not make Miguel's death any less heroic. But the epic thing was his life, his struggle for what he believed to be noble.
[13] Email sent by Héctor Trautmann Hornickel, 18 May 2016.
[14] M Ferrada de Noli, "Walter's Wife and Other Stories", Libertarian Books Europe, Bergamo, 2021. ISBN 978-91-88747-02-0. Chap. El Rencor, on pp. 50-56.
[15] Miguel Enríquez et.al., "Insurrección Socialista", Santiago, Concepción, March 1964. elsudamericano.wordpress.com. Sept 2017.
[16] M Ferrada de Noli, "Rebels With a Cause", op. cit. pp. 50–52.
[17] Conversation with Juan Saavedra at the Hotel San Francisco, Santiago de Chile, in presence of Prof. Ivonne Fontaine. 27 December 2023.
[18] Until then there were only 16 members in Miguel's VRM: He and his brother Marco Antonio, Bautista van Schouwen, Jorge Gutiérrez Correa, Edgardo Condeza Vaccaro, Hugo Díaz, Sandoval, Faúndez, Carlos Jara, Juan Saavedra Gorriateguy, Sarmiento, Chico Walter, Miranda, Sergio Pérez Molina, Nelson Muñoz, and me.
[19] That house was subsequently besieged by elements of Patria y Libertad, on the morning of September 11, 1973.
[20] Juan Saavedra Gorriateguy, telephone conversation from Chile, April 24, 2025.
[21] In fact, in the light of what is found in the Diary, Miguel's commitments to the VRM dated from January 1964, before the break with the PS that occurred in February of that year.
[22] See chapter 14." Other classmates of the high school", on p. 230 et seq.
[25] My father, and most of my uncles, and several nephews, were officers of the Armed Forces and Carabineros of Chile. Among them was an army general (Patricio Zúñiga F.), a friend and colleague of Augusto Pinochet since the time they were both professors at the Army War Academy.
[26] This was signed by the then General Agustín Toro Dávila (who arrived from Mexico where he was military attaché of the Chilean embassy, to replace General Washington Carrasco in Concepción). Years before, my brother had been an assistant captain to the then Colonel Toro when he was commander of the artillery regiment 'Rancagua' in Arica.
[27] One of the main demands in our approach to university reform was the abolition of the propaedeutic system, which consisted of a first year of university in which students did not enter a career, but first had to pass (and/or prove) courses and credits in courses administered by the Central Institutes of the university. Then came a new selection to enter professional careers. We eventually won that fight in 1968.
[28] There I was later a student-assistant of physical anthropology, and a laborer of archaeology. Positions that I lost after a public debate with the director of the new department (Professor Zulema Zeguel) in the newspaper La Patria de Concepción, and which lasted several weeks. The debate originated after the publication of my essay "On the Origins of Religion. An anthropological theory", and which was based on materialist theses.
[29] M Ferrada de Noli. The Origins of the Revolutionary Left Movement, with a commentary on the theses of Prof. Eugenia Palieraki and Luis Vitale. Op.cit.
[31]Punto Final (1956–2018) was a biweekly, left-leaning Chilean magazine, that published documents and interviews, including articles authored by us.
[32] There is only one opinion article of his, published in Punto Final, which existence is confirmed. Two others (a letter and another op-ed) only announced: https://archivochile.com/Homenajes/html/luciano_cruz.html
[34] Miguel writes: MSM [Mónica San Martín] is in a relationship with Luciano July 1961-end 1962 (p. 202).
[35] The reason was that a small sign had been put on the wall next to the outside door, indicating that this was the place of the meeting convened – to guide the provincial delegates.
[36] One reason was that for the meetings Marco Antonio and I had to travel to Santiago to meet with Zapata – who had a very difficult agenda to coincide with and also worked full time in a laboratory at the University of Chile, in the school of engineering if I remember correctly. Another reason was that Zapata was super 'clandestine', which made it difficult to make contact. But in the main, Zapata did not agree with our proposals that we had written in the "Insurrectionary Thesis of 1965" and instead he was elaborating his own military thesis. He was very capable and dedicated; a militant with a Trotskyist past and very upright.
[37] M Ferrada de Noli, "Rebels With a Cause...", op. cit.
