Beyond the Ties of Blood by Florencia Mallon Page A

big in the Temuco branch is meeting us at the tea house across the street in an hour. You interested?”
    The socialist from the Temuco branch, a university student dressed in blue jeans, hiking boots, and an olive-green shirt that looked like he’d gotten it off a barbudo marching into Havana, had treated them all to mugs of tea and black tobacco cigarettes. Though Manuel had coughed a bit at first, he’d actually taken a liking to the sweet, acrid taste of the cigarette and how it mixed with the black, unsweetened tea. For hours the university student had talked about changes in the world, students marching, oppressed people rising up to throw off their chains. It was their moral obligation, he said, to join the others fighting for world justice. Then, as the late-afternoon sun angled through the dusty windows, scattering luminescent patterns along the black tile floor, he pushed his guerrilla cap off his forehead and reached into his olive-colored pack.
    â€œHere, little compañeros , I have one last present for you.” He took out a bundle of small mimeographed booklets and passed them around. “There’s enough for everyone. Just one apiece, though; I need to save the extras for other interested people.”
    Manuel picked up his and examined the cover page. An amateurish drawing of a pair of hands breaking the chain between the manacles attached to the wrists covered the majority of the space. Below the drawing were stenciled the words “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains!” Above the picture, in larger block letters, was the title: The Communist Manifesto . He looked up as the organizer began talking again.
    â€œThis is where it all started, little compañeros . Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote this more than a hundred years ago. It has inspired the poor and dispossessed across the world. We are all part of this world-historical movement for socialism, justice, and equality. We must all contribute our little grain of sand.
    â€œEven though we support the principles of the Manifesto , we have big differences with the Communist Party. You’ll soon learn why, but for now, just read this pamphlet over. It will help to read it several times, maybe discuss it in your group. Its principles of equality and solidarity are the principles we socialists live by. They’re your principles now, too.”
    Why do the Socialists and Communists have differences? Manuel suddenly wanted to ask. Had this world-historical movement been going on the whole time since this document was written over a century before? How come there still wasn’t more equality and solidarity? But as he got ready to open his mouth, the college student got up from his chair and, after straightening his cap and picking up his pack, began shaking everyone’s hands on his way out the door.
    â€œAll right, little compañeros . Welcome to the Young Socialists. I’m late for my next meeting, so I gotta run. I’ll be in touch with Ricardo in a couple of weeks to see how you’re doing.”
    The door closed softly behind him. A long silence settled into the glittering dusk of the room. Then the new socialists filed quietly out into the cold of the rising moon.
    Manuel was always in a rush after that, and enfolded in a cloud of black tobacco smoke. His mama complained about the smell, and she still nagged him about how he was never home for dinner. But he was too busy to be Manolito the bullfighter anymore. There were leaflets to write and hand out, statements to mimeograph, meetings to attend. They argued late into the night. What position should the Young Socialists take on the Vietnam War? The kidnaping of the American ambassador by urban guerrillas in Brazil? The Mexican student movement? The massacre at Tlatelolco? What about the limitations of the Chilean Agrarian Reform law? And should the police evict the homeless families that were taking over