Paraguayan Sorrow: Writings of Rafael Barrett, A Radical Voice in a Dispossessed Land
Edited and translated by William Costa, Monthly Review Press, £21.99

PARAGUAY, probably the least-known of South America’s republics, is a landlocked country squeezed between its two powerful neighbours, Argentina and Brazil. It has a population of around 6.1 million, nearly 2.3 million of whom live in the capital and largest city of Asuncion, and its surrounding metro area. 

Paraguay threw off the yoke of Spanish colonial rule in 1811 and Jose Rodriguez de Francia was installed as the first Paraguayan-born leader. He ruled until his death in 1840 as an authoritarian but visionary leader. He reduced the power of the Catholic church and attempted to create a utopian society based on Rousseau’s ideas. 

Only two decades after his death, the so-called war of the triple alliance (1864-70) broke out between Paraguay and an alliance of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. In the preceding years, Paraguay had been involved in boundary and tariff disputes with its more powerful neighbours.

The Uruguayans had also struggled to achieve and maintain their independence from those same big powers. The underlying cause was the greed for territorial expansion by the powerful oligarchs of its big neighbours and it would be the bloodiest conflict in Latin American history. 

Paraguay lost 25-33 per cent of its territory to these two countries and paid an enormous war debt, selling off huge tracts of land to private interests. At least 50 per cent of Paraguayans died during the conflict and it took many decades for the country to restore its population. It is estimated that of a population somewhere between 450,000 and 900,000, only 220,000 survived the war, of whom only 28,000 were adult males. 

Paraguay underwent a period of instability and between 1904 and 1954 had 31 presidents, most of whom were removed from office by force. Conflicts between the factions of the ruling Liberal party led to the Paraguayan civil war of 1922.

Then in the early 1930s it was involved in another catastrophic war with Bolivia over the Chaco region. After both sides suffered great losses, Paraguay defeated Bolivia and established its sovereignty over most of the disputed Chaco region.

In 1954, in a coup d’etat, General Alfredo Stroessner ushered in Latin America’s longest dictatorship (1954-89), and in the aftermath of the second world war, Paraguay became a hideout for Nazi fugitives. Since the Spanish conquest, the oppressive dominance of the Catholic church, devastating wars and imperialist interference, Paraguay has undergone a long-drawn-out crucifixion that still endures today. As a result of all this continued bloodshed and oppression, it was the peasantry and the working classes who bore the brunt of it all.

Rafael Barrett was born in Spain, the son of an Englishman, George Barrett, and a Spanish noblewoman. Aged 26 and moving to Argentina, where he worked as a journalist for El Diario Espanol, he wrote of the extreme class stratification he witnessed in the Argentinian capital, declaring: “At that moment I understood the greatness of the anarchist’s cause, and came to admire the magnificent joy with which dynamite thunders and cracks the vile human anthill.”

His writings were quickly circulated by the Argentine Regional Workers Federation (FORA).  

The following year, in 1904 he moved to Paraguay which became his adopted homeland and where he continued working as a correspondent for El Tiempo. He arrived as a republican liberal but transformed into a militant anarchist after being confronted with the painful reality that surrounded him in his new home. 

He died in 1910 at the age of only 34 but during that short time wrote a whole series of articles, essays and commentaries on an enormous array of topics, from philosophy, music, art and mathematics to the conditions of life and work of ordinary people. He became a key ally of the labour movement, and during his sojourn in Paraguay he developed his anarchist ideas. 

Once of his best-known essays: The Truth About The Yerba Mate Forests reveals the horrendous exploitation of the Yerba Mate workers by big corporations who treated their workers as slaves. He wrote: “I accuse the administrators of the Industrial Paraguaya (one of the biggest of the firms that owned the Yerba Mate forests) and the other Yerba Mate companies of being pillagers, torturers of slaves, murderers. I curse their bloodstained money.”

Barrett’s language is often flowery and effusive but his passion and commitment on behalf of the exploited Paraguayan workers is forceful and persuasive. To give a flavour: “The hidden rustic deities accept your numb sorrow. The hope in your hearts has been extinguished, as has the curiosity in your minds, and you adjust to the wasteland, to the desperate barrenness of your shacks and your instincts.” 

And: “I have never understood such a term as “unjust strike.” All strikes are just, because all men and all collectives of men have the right to declare themselves on strike. The opposite of this would be slavery.”

This small selection of his writings is probably more of historical interest than urgent contemporary relevance or as the (re)discovery of a profound thinker, but it is nevertheless important that such figures are celebrated in this way and not forgotten.

In this excellent translation by William Costa, we have been given a unique insight into numerous aspects of Barrett’s political and social thought, and the development of his world view in the many texts written over the short years of his intense literary output.