Situational trigger: the fires of 1957.
The families that gave rise to the La Victoria Population came from Callampa camps that were located on the edges of the Zanjón de la Aguada since the year 45'. By 1957 there were around 35,000 people living in overcrowded conditions, divided into approximately 10 towns.
There were various disadvantages of the area in which the camp was located, and if the families were maintained it was due to their efforts rather than help from the Government, which although it had given permission for them to stay there, had not helped with the situation. Furthermore, during the years in which the residents remained in Zanjón, they witnessed different promises from various governments that were never fulfilled.
A determining factor of the place was the predisposition to fires, the risk increased due to the extreme pollution of the waters of the Zanjón, which flowed through open pits. Many accidents were even caused by the ignition of the chemical materials it contained; in ten years there had been nine fires that had affected approximately 600 houses.
In mid-October 1957, an accident occurred that, due to overcrowded conditions, destroyed 16 homes, leaving 32 families affected. Different collections and charities were carried out, plus the critical state in which they lived led to the convening of an Open Town Hall by the residents of the municipality, asking for a comprehensive solution to their conditions. The day before this, the explosion of a tannery caused a second fire that harmed 200 families, leaving the camp in an even more precarious situation.
The council had around a thousand people, including authorities such as the mayor, deputies, etc. The residents used the event to demonstrate their demand and the constant ridicule of the Government by promising them a solution and then denying it. The victims reached 1,100 families and although various activities were carried out to collect basic necessities, the main concern was the concern for their homes, since many of them were sleeping outdoors.
Various factors came together to make the residents decide that they did not want to rebuild their homes in the same place. And that was how the idea of building a new town on one of the lands that the Government had expropriated with the promise that it would be for them was conceived. The land was located in Lo Valledor and La Feria, and the municipality gave them a sum of money for reconstruction, requesting the corresponding permits for the families to move. Independent of such permission, a new form of housing demand had arisen: the organized seizure of land.
October 30: the Taking of the La Feria Farm.
Prior to October 30 and after the first fire, the residents had been meeting with the CORVI to be able to occupy the land corresponding to Lo Valledor and La Feria, but this had the problem that they were without drinking water. The residents did not see it as an impediment since other towns had been handed over without access to it, and it could also be handed over by the Municipality. With these meetings, the lands were left settled and waiting to be occupied, but the second incident was the trigger that activated the emergency and the need for access to them.
Thus, at half past one in the morning of October 30, the residents began to move from Zanjón de la Aguada to the lands promised in La Feria. In carts with wheels lined with rags to avoid noise, or simply carrying belongings, they moved towards their objective. At first there were approximately 1,200 families, although the press constantly tried to lower the magnitude, the truth is that during the first days it was already recognized that the number had increased to two thousand families during the takeover.
What came next was isolation by the Carabineros towards the takeover, which led to miserable conditions for its occupants. There were major health problems and lack of medical care, as well as access to wood, beds, blankets, and other essential items. The deaths of an infant and a seventy-year-old woman showed the harsh conditions in which the participating families found themselves.
The legal response to the takeover was imminent eviction, and this was President Ibáñez's intention at the beginning. However, Cardinal Caro on the same day the 30th went to a personal interview with Ibáñez making him desist from such a measure, interceding for the residents, and even obtained authorization for the Hogar de Cristo to build emergency housing, with the condition that the number of families did not increase: "On instructions from His Excellency the President of the Republic (...) suspends the eviction of the people who occupied land in the La Feria Town. To formulate this request, he visited this afternoon to the first president, the Cardinal Primate (...) who asked the Head of State to intercede on behalf of these people. The President of the Republic expressed that he had ordered to authorize the Hogar de Cristo to build temporary rooms for the 140 families that remain on those lands.
The problem that remained to be solved was a definitive solution for the residents. The government stated that they did not have the resources to provide a total solution. The Government constantly tried to “relocate” the families, alleging the lack of basic services in the area and that the land was not developed. Hogar de Cristo committed to building emergency housing along with the self-construction proposal of the residents themselves. Finally, the government relented in the occupation and it became a "population project", where its occupants that same day of triumph against the Government baptized it as "La Victoria", (Whose name comes from when the residents, upon receiving the news that the Government gave them the land, began to shout "this is the victory") marking a new phase in which access to housing begins with access to land. Likewise, the degree of organization demonstrated by the residents in the occupation of the land, as well as in its maintenance, stands out, creating General Committees - similar to the organizations of the Communist Party, at that time, illegal due to the Cursed Law -, surveillance committees to control the access and consumption of alcohol, and their constant negotiations that allowed the takeover to be made official in a peaceful manner.
With this, the Taking of La Victoria would become the first land takeover in the country to be successful and ensure that the residents obtained access to land to be able to self-build their homes, after more than 10 years of unfulfilled promises and constant disappointments.
Role of the PC.
A predominant factor within the Takeover is understanding the role that the Communist Party and its militants played in the actions of the residents. Although at the time the events took place the Law for the Permanent Defense of Democracy was in force, through clandestinity the PC was able to become present in the movement of settlers and specifically in Victoria. It was expressed through the Popular Action Front (FRAP), and also more indirectly in the organizational and identity dimension in the formation of the population.
The FRAP coalition represented socialist and communist ideologies in the period of dispersion due to the Cursed Law, in this way, the most direct action that we can find from the militants at the time is observed through it. For the Front, the problem of the Toma was a purely political one in which Ibáñez's repressive government was to blame. In this way, the FRAP, in addition to criticizing the institutional management of the housing issue, also made clear a possible solution through a change of government. Thus, the coalition provided its support to the cause and helped the situation in which the residents found themselves to emerge, and also promoted its candidate, Salvador Allende, who even went to interview the residents.
On the other hand, the PC from its clandestinity tried to find its place in this new political scenario that was developing in Chile. Well, historically, his doctrine was identified with the working class and working masses, which did not originally include other social movements such as that of the settlers. Already in the year 57', the Party saw an imminent change of scenario and prepared to arrange its forces according to the political moment that was being experienced, giving rise to marginal sectors, such as the residents.
The diagnosis was discouraging, since the new marginal masses had, in their eyes, little political level and immature behavior, prone to populist leadership and uncontrollable explosions such as those that occurred in the Battle of Santiago on April 2. In his words, they were: "Backward masses of peasant workers or workers from the countryside, of the tens of thousands of women incorporated into the industry, of the tens of thousands of young workers who were children ten or fifteen years ago [...] and who do not have sufficient clarity about the problems, nor tradition of struggle, nor greater experience. These new workers form an immense popular mass, a large part of which voted for Ibáñez."
The objective, therefore, was to elevate politics within the residents and guide them towards the FRAP or PC, given that it was the ideology in line with their struggle, without recognizing an autonomous one emanating from within the movement itself. The influence of the communists was felt indirectly within the population, where two main forms stand out: organizational and identity dimensions.
The first can be seen clearly expressed through the hierarchical structures within La Victoria, transferring its organizational capital from the union to the population. In this way we can speak of an organizational culture with communist patterns, as can be seen, for example, in that the highest authority within the General Committees of the residents was a General Secretary, or the Victorian press, which was one of the first tasks carried out and which expressed: "to give life to a newspaper that would be the authentic spokesperson of the working classes that live and suffer heroically, without fainting in our Population." Although it is a clearly new culture created by the inhabitants themselves, the important communist influence evidenced above cannot be denied.
On the other hand, the identity dimension allows us to see the creation of a “Victorian ethos” intrinsically related to communist ideology whose main emphasis was on the action of popular power. The Victorian identity cannot be understood without the Taking, where the population is no longer just a backdrop, but is the object of appropriation of the people themselves that represents a radical form of localization of their space, where the land stops being a mere commodity and acquires a significance in the identity. This break with the institutionality through the Takeover requires self-government and self-representation, being able to speak of a “Little Republic.” In other words, only through the organization and social cohesion of the people is the maintenance of the Take possible, which leads to the application and creation of creative and innovative dynamics, such as those mentioned in the organizational dimension in which the influence of the PC is undeniable.
The role played by the communists is transcendental to understand the organization and consolidation of the Victorian identity, but it is necessary to emphasize that the true protagonists of the population were and continue to be its residents. The role played by the PC was a welfare one, since they always saw the social movement of residents as one that should be subjugated to the protest struggle of the popular mass in pursuit of the interests of the working class.
Role of the Church.
The social mission of Catholic institutions was expressed in the help they provided for the development and improvement of the precarious conditions of existence in La Toma, through the provision of construction materials, work personnel, technical knowledge and the impression of a community ethos understood from the "social doctrine of the church" (La Victoria will be a "symbol of human improvement and solidarity").
In this mission Father Del Corro, representing the figure of the Hogar de Cristo, plays a fundamental role. This, because it will be through it that the Catholic Church will act within the territory itself, carrying out a construction plan for emergency houses, mediaguas and solid houses, with personnel from the foundation and with materials for the lifting that came, mainly, from the "Panel Factory" of the same.
The value vision of Catholic Christianity can be observed on the process of construction of the settlement: The work of the missionary is presented as an exemplary work for the settler: "Encouragement, teaching and example, enliven the interest of the settlers. [...] Now that man who appeared crushed in the middle of a disorganized and unhealthy Callampa population launches with enthusiasm to build his new home on a land that he knows is his own and with the help of those who ask nothing of him, but his own improvement."
Outside solidarity regarding the Takeover.
The solidarity expressed by different organizations set a precedent in social dynamics since the welfare logic for the poor was abandoned, giving way to active support for a solution. This support managed to give first-class relevance to the problem of the residents, but even more importantly, it legitimized the occupation of land.
Some institutions or social sectors that gave their support and solidarity to the cause of land occupation were:
Settlers: Victorian identity.
A fundamental aspect to understand the population of La Victoria to date is to understand its identity project that was born at the time of the Land Seizure. The fires that occurred in the Zanjón de la Aguada created a feeling of solidarity and also identification among the residents of the sector, self-construction was no longer just of a few houses, but of an entire population, since they spoke of "us, the residents of Zanjón", therefore an identity was created born from sharing the same habitat and the characteristics that it entailed, and the same objective, which was obtaining decent housing.
Thus, the identification was with the poor residents of Santiago, delimited by their place and housing. But that was not the only element that served to delimit this sense of identity, a transcendental factor in this Victorian feeling was precisely the antagonist of the residents, which would be the institutionality that so many times promised solutions and did not deliver, public organizations - such as the Housing Fund - were the enemy that represented the null state solution to the housing problem.
The feeling of identity could also be seen expressed in the constant statements, where the community always took precedence over individualism: "The only thing we ask is that they leave us alone. We have waited a long time and no one has remembered us. We want to demonstrate that we are capable of building with our efforts the homes that have always been promised to us."
Thus, the predominance of the plural is observed, they themselves were in charge of solving their own problems, hence the saying "Nothing for charity, everything through our own efforts." In this way, they move away from receiving help through alms, and emphasis is given to the self-construction of their own population, where their actors, identified with it, would carry it out.
Once the Taking occurred, it would occupy a privileged place in the consolidation of the “Victorian ethos”, because its character leaves aside the physical space as a mere background, and transfers it to an object of appropriation by the settler that gives it a unique authenticity. The break with the institutions carried out by the residents of La Victoria precisely gave them their place in society as independent actors, who were forced to self-govern and whose strength resided in their organization and social cohesion.
To this day, the inhabitants of La Victoria have different mechanisms to keep alive the feeling of identity of the population, among which are, of course, the naming of the streets whose names represent different characters or ideologies related to the Toma, showing the attempt to link the biography of the population with the history of its occupants. Also every year on the anniversary of the Takeover, the reconstitution of the Land Takeover is carried out in the Municipal Stadium, screening documentaries and stories from the direct actors of the Takeover, in charge of transmitting the Victorian epic so that its identity remains alive with the same spirit as in those days of the takeover.