Marcos Chamúdez

Marcos Chamúdez Reitich, also known as Marcos Chamudes (16 January 1907 – 25 June 1989) was a Chilean politician, photographer and journalist. Marcos Chamúdez Reitich was born in Santiago on January 16, 1907, into a family of Sephardic Jews, son of Oscar Chamúdez and María Reitich, who arrived in Moisesville (the first Argentine colony of Russian Jewish immigrants) before settling in Chile. He studied at the National Institute and at the Barros Arana National Board (INBA). Chamúdez excelled as a youth leader and in 1929 joined the Communist Party of Chile (CPC). Subsequently, he devoted himself to journalism and founded the newspaper Frente Popular and the magazine Qué Hayo. He participated in the beginnings of the Communist Party of Peru and played a part in the Communist Party of Chile, being elected Member of Parliament for the Sixth Provincial Grouping of Valparaiso and Quillota for the period 1937–1941 in the 1937 parliamentary elections. He was a delegate in the Permanent Commission of Interior Government, in Constitution, Legislation and Justice, and in Labour and Social Legislation and a member of the Permanent Commission of Public Education. In the Chamber of Deputies he participated in passing laws authorising a loan of up to $25,000,000 in bonds to the national airline, LAN, a fiscal guarantee for purchase of equipment and radio-communications stations. In August 1937 with deputy Ricardo Latcham (socialist) and in June 1938 in the Senate he denounced illegal payments in exchange for immigration authorizations, which nevertheless continued with the discovery in 1939, that officials of the chancellery had sold Jews entry visas to Chile, in direct contravention of the law and consular rules. For the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda, the Popular Front candidate for a coalition of Radicals, Socialists and Communists, the year 1938 brought fundamental change in the political history of Chile with the conservative government structure being replaced by one more progressive, though major cultural conflicts crossed economic, anthropological and sociological spheres.