![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
This article explores how and why the anti-fascist politics of the Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico (Puerto Rican Nationalist Party, PNPR), the Partido Popular Demócrata (Popular Democratic Party, PPD) and the Partido Comunista de Puerto Rico (Communist Party of Puerto Rican, PCPR) coincided with and differed from each other. It argues that each party’s understanding of anti-fascism corresponded to its political vision, goals, and program and its relation to other domestic and transnational forces. The colonial context and the disproportionate power the United States exercised over the archipelago greatly influenced how these parties understood and expressed anti-fascism, just as their formulation of anti-fascism reflected their positions on and relationships to the US government.
RESUMEN
el artículo explora las formas y motivos de las coincidencias y diferencias entre la política antifascista del Partido Nacionalista de Puerto Rico (PNPR), el Partido Popular Demócrata (PPD) y el Partido Comunista de Puerto Rico (PCPR). El texto sostiene que la comprensión que cada partido tenía del antifascismo se correspondía con su visión política, objetivos y programa y su relación con otras fuerzas domésticas y transnacionales. El contexto colonial y el poder desproporcionado que los Estados Unidos ejercían sobre el archipiélago influyeron en gran medida en la forma en que estos partidos interpretaron y expresaron su antifascismo, de la misma manera en que su antifascismo reflejó sus posiciones sobre y relaciones con el gobierno estadounidense.
PALABRAS CLAVES:
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. In Pedro Albizu Campos y el nacionalismo puertorriqueño, Luis Ferrao (Citation1990) claimed that the PNPR was inspired by and had links to European fascism. The Taller de Formación Política (Citation1991) roundly refuted those charges in Pedro Albizu Campos: ¿Conservador, facista o revolucionario?, as does Margaret Power in Solidarity Across the Americas: The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and Antiimperialism (Citation2023a).
2. FBI, Reel 9, Nationalist activities, Roosevelt Files, Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, Illinois; General Intelligence Survey, “Communist Party of Puerto Rico”, May 1943, 56.
3. The Indian National Congress adopted a similar policy regarding British colonialism in India. It, too, refused to end its struggle for Indian independence, stating: “India cannot offer voluntary or willing help to an arrogant imperialism which is indistinguishable from fascist authoritarianism” (quoted in Gluckstein Citation2012, 167).
4. “Albizu Campos contra el fascismo y el comunismo”, La Democracia, 3 May 1938; El Mundo, 4 May 1938.
5. Rafael Angel Simón Arce conducted an exhaustive study of the Falange in Puerto Rico. He found that, of the 517 members, 376 were Spaniards and fifty-three were from the United States. Only nineteen Puerto Ricans were falangistas. He did not identify the origins of the remaining sixty-nine fascists. Of this number, 66% owned businesses or property, 14% were in religious orders, roughly 7% were either employees or students. Neither workers nor peasants appear to have affiliated with the Falange (Simón Arce 2019, 597–9).
6. Ferrao (Citation2009, 75–6). Juarbe served as the PNPR’s Secretary of Foreign Relations from the late 1930s until 1959, when he moved to Cuba and worked in the Cuban diplomatic corps.
7. “Rebels Kill Puerto Rican”, New York Times, 26 July 1937; José Enrique Ayoroa Santalíz, “Carmelo Delgado”, Claridad, 16–22 July 1993; Ortiz-Carrión and Torres-Rivera (2015, 79–88).
8. In 1937, Jane Speed, along with Julia Church Kolar, protested “Mussolini’s robber war in Ethiopia” at the Italian consulate in New York City. Arrested and convicted, they were given suspended sentences. “Two Anti-Fascist Women Convicted in Anti-War Act”, New York Times, 28 September 1935. For a history of Jane Speed, see Fosl (1997).
9. Arroyo-Ríos (Citation2020a); “Jane Speed de Andreu”, Interviews, Robert J. Alexander papers (MC 975), Special Collections, Rutgers University.
10. FBI, Reel 11, Nationalist activities, Roosevelt Files, Center for Research Libraries FBI, General Intelligence Survey, “Communist Party of Puerto Rico”, 75.
11. “Communist Party of Puerto Rico”, 75. Sánchez later quit the PCPR and joined the PPD in 1950 and was elected as one of its representatives to the Puerto Rican House of Representatives for the next two decades (Arroyo-Ríos Citation2019, ch. 3; Jeifets and Jeifets Citation2019, 560).
12. Luis Muñoz Marín, “Discurso sobre Peral [sic] Harbor y el significado de la guerra para el pueblo de Puerto Rico”, Luis Muñoz Marín Foundation (LMMF), 21 December 1941, 1. This is the only reference to race or racism that has been found in any of the three parties’ declarations on fascism.
13. Ibid.
14. Luis Muñoz Marín, “Mensaje de Luis Muñoz Marín a los soldados puertorriqueños en Panamá”, LMMF, 6 February 1945.
15. Luis Muñoz Marín, “Mensaje de Luis Muñoz Marín en homenaje al soldado típico (Pedro Ocasio)”, LMMF, 7 February 1945.
16. Luis Muñoz Marín, “Discurso de Luis Muñoz Marín en el Día del Armisticio”, LMMF, 12 November 1945.
17. Luis Muñoz Marín, “Mensaje de Luis Muñoz Marín sobre la labor de Puerto Rico en la democracia de América”, LMMF, 18 December 1942.
18. Luis Muñoz Marín, “Discurso de Luis Muñoz Marín en el Día del Armisticio”, LMMF, 12 November 1945.
19. On the history of the “New Left” in Puerto Rico, see Paralitici (2004, 184–91, 222–7); Velázquez, Rivera, and Torres (2021, 22–33).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Margaret Power
Margaret Power is a professor of history who focuses on Latin America, women and gender. Her early work explores why a large number of Chilean women opposed the socialist government of Salvador Allende (1970–1973) and supported the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990). She also explored various expressions of the global and transnational Right. She recently coauthored a book on Norvelt, a New Deal community in southwest Pennsylvania named for Eleanor Roosevelt. Most recently she has published Solidarity across the Americas: The Puerto Rican Nationalist Party vs. U.S. Colonialism with University of North Carolina Press, and co-edited Transnational Communism across the Americas with University of Illinois Press.