Sacrifice, purity and betrayal in the Revolutionary Left Movement

Abstract

The article analyzes the militant moral of Chile’s Revolutionary Left Movement, a political organization that adopted the armed struggle as main political strategy in the period 1965-1986. Those who were members of the organization had to follow various norms of behavior and a universe of values whose central axis was based on the mandate of sacrifice and total surrender to the revolutionary cause, subordinating private and intimate life to political urgencies established by the organization. This caused diverse tensions and conflicts between the public-militant and the private-affective and familiar life of its members.