The avant-garde socialism nobody remembers

You are standing in the Ciudad Vieja of Montevideo. This peninsula of low buildings, cobblestones, and art deco facades was the center of Uruguayan political life when the twentieth century was just beginning. In 1903, a man named José Batlle y Ordóñez became president for the first time. He was a journalist, founder of the newspaper El Día, and he had ideas his own party colleagues called "socialist." One of his rivals, on hearing his plans, exclaimed: "Why, you're a socialist!" It was not an insult. It was a fairly accurate description. Batlle was going to transform Uruguay into the most…

Look at this iron and glass structure. The Mercado del Puerto was inaugurated in 1868. The engineers were British, and the iron came by ship from Liverpool. That was Uruguay in the nineteenth century: an economy open to the world, dependent on foreign capital. That was exactly what Batlle wanted to change. When he took office in 1903, Uruguay controlled almost nothing of its own economy: the railways were English, the insurance companies were foreign, even the trams were British-owned. Batlle nationalized everything he could. The Banco de la República passed into state hands. Then the insu…

You are standing in front of the historic building of the Banco de la República Oriental del Uruguay. It was founded in 1896, but Batlle turned it into the central instrument of the country's economic policy. The idea was simple and radical at the same time: if the state controls the bank, it controls credit. And if it controls credit, it can decide who gets loans, at what rate, and for what purpose. Batlle used the Banco República to finance national industries, lend to small rural producers, and resist the pressure of foreign private banks. In 1907, the bank gained a monopoly on issuing …

Teatro Solís opened in 1856. Its neoclassical facade mimics the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. The interior has the acoustics of La Scala in Milan. It was designed by an Italian architect. That was Uruguay: a small country at the edge of the world that looked to Europe and built itself in its image. Batlle understood that this cultural ambition needed state backing. He created secondary schools across the country, opened the university to women, hired European professors, and created public libraries in working-class neighborhoods. Free secular education was not an accident. It was a deliber…

This is Plaza Independencia. At the center, the statue of José Artigas, Uruguay's founding father, rides his horse facing the Ciudad Vieja. Below the statue, in the underground mausoleum, lie the remains of Artigas. He died in 1850 in Paraguay, where he spent his last 30 years in exile, forgotten by the country that venerates him today. Batlle politically reclaimed Artigas. But he also used this plaza for something more concrete: in 1907 Uruguay passed its first divorce law, and the debate happened in the parliament that faced this square. Batlle's argument was direct: if the state no longe…

Stop here for a moment. In 1907, Uruguay approved divorce. That was already unusual for Latin America at the time. But in 1913 it went even further: it approved divorce at the sole request of the wife. That was unprecedented in the world. The husband's agreement was not required. There was no need to prove adultery, cruelty, or abandonment. A woman could simply request a divorce, and it would be granted. France did not have that until decades later. In Italy, divorce only arrived in 1970. In Spain, in 1981. In Argentina, not until 1987. Batlle argued that marriage was a civil contract, li…

This is the Legislative Palace. Construction began in 1904, in the middle of Batlle's presidency. It was completed in 1925, ten years after he left power for the last time. Look at the materials: the columns, the walls, the floor. All Uruguayan marble. Batlle insisted on it. The parliament building had to demonstrate that Uruguay produced its own resources. The architects were Italian: Vittorio Meano and Gaetano Moretti. Meano died before seeing the building he had won the competition for. Inside there is a library with 250,000 volumes. There is a Hall of the Lost Steps inspired by Renaissa…

Stop here and think about time. In 1913, Batlle introduced the eight-hour workday bill. At that time, Uruguayan workers worked twelve, fourteen, sometimes sixteen hours a day, six days a week. The law was resisted within the Colorado Party itself. Industrialists said it would ruin the economy. Large rural landowners said it was an import of dangerous European ideas. Batlle waited. Negotiated. Maneuvered. And in 1915, during his second presidency, the law finally passed. Eight hours of work. Eight hours of rest. Eight hours for whatever each person chooses. Australia had approved something…

There is a fact most people do not know. Uruguay was the first country in Latin America where women voted. Not in 1932, when women's suffrage was implemented in national elections. Earlier: on July 3, 1927, in a municipal plebiscite in the town of Cerro Chato. The 1917 Constitution, approved during Batlle's government, already established the principle of women's suffrage. Compare with the world: France did not give women the vote until 1944. Italy until 1945. Belgium until 1948. Portugal until 1976. Switzerland — that country we always hold up as a model of democracy — until 1971. Uruguay…

You have reached La Rambla. Twenty-two kilometers of continuous coastline along the Río de la Plata. One of the longest coastal avenues in the world. The southern section was built in the early twentieth century, in Batlle's time. It was a declaration of principles: public space belongs to everyone. In 1973, the military dissolved parliament, banned political parties, imprisoned thousands of citizens, and forced tens of thousands more into exile. Uruguay, the country that had legalized divorce in 1907 and women's suffrage in 1932, spent twelve years under a dictatorship. But the Rambla sta…