Tejedores de la revolución: Los trabajadores de Yarur y la vía chilena al socialismo / Weavers of Revolution: The Yarur Workers and Chile's Road to Socialism

Weavers of Revolution vividly captures the spirit of Allende’s government through the experiences and voices of the workers at the Yarur textile factory, whose actions helped set Chile on its road to socialism. Yarur was the first factory occupied by its workers after Allende’s election and Chile’s first modern cotton textile mill. These circumstances prompted Peter Winn to investigate history from below. As the author himself explains: “After all, if this is a proletarian revolution, as the Chilean left claims, then these workers are its principal protagonists.” Winn also argues that “through the local history of the Yarur factory, much of Chile’s modern history could be elucidated.”

The book examines the origins of the industry and the relationship between capital, labor, and the state, as well as workers’ forms of organization and the tensions that arose between them and the new political authorities. It does so through the accounts of the protagonists, who revisit and analyze both their actions and the circumstances surrounding the establishment and growth of an important part of Chilean industry.

Weavers of Revolution is the story of a group of workers who dreamed of a different Chile—democratic, egalitarian, and participatory. Those dreams ended abruptly on September 11, 1973, an event that changed not only the course of their own lives but that of an entire country.