Alfredo Errandonea and Ruben Prieto, eds.

[Uruguayan anarchism and student activism] Tarea, Nos. 1-4 [with] CAP Boletín Informativo, No. 7 [complete run]

Montevideo: Centro de Acción Popular, 1965. 58, 58, 58, 50 pp. 7 ½ x 7 ½ in. Minor rubbing, soiling, and yapping to wrappers, holograph to verso dating no. 1, bulletin with crease line from folding; very good. Item #10511

omplete run of the publication Tarea, produced by key figures of the Uruguayan New Left, student, and anarchist movements of the 1960s - together with an internal organizational bulletin explaining the production process and distribution of the magazine and other organizational goings-ons.

With a modern design and illustrations, Tarea published on the national political situation in Uruguay, the student movement, international political events, and translations of leading New Left intellectuals, including C. Wright Mills and Erich Fromm. A significant theme of the writings the magazine published was on the role of intellectuals in political struggle, and denunciations of the totalitarian turn in Uruguayan politics, which would culminate in the instantiation of a military dictatorship in 1973. Contributors include major figures of the Uruguayan left, such as Ángel Rama, Lucilda Marroche, Daniel Costábile, Edda Ferreira, Osvaldo Escribano, Alfonso Santamarta, and many others. 

The publisher of Tarea, the Centro de Acción Popular [CAP, Center for Popular Action], was founded in 1963 by militants of the Federación Anarquista del Uruguay [Anarchist Federation of Uruguay] who had split from the federation, along with independent left-libertarians, students from the Escuela Nacional de Belles Artes, Christian leftists, and leftwing university professors. 

CAP presented themselves as an anti-authoritarian alternative to the “old left” unions and parties and the Marxist-Leninist organizations formed in the wake of the Cuban Revolution. CAP also had a significant link to Uruguayan intellectuals, most notably the anarchist Alfredo Errandonea, a co-editor of Tarea. During CAP’s two years of existence, they worked as a coalitional umbrella organization to coordinate different leftwing organizations in Uruguay. 

CAP also overlapped significantly with the venerable Montevideo anarchist housing collective and organization, Comunidad del Sur. Tarea was printed at the Comunidad’s workshop and was co-edited by Ruben Prieto, an art professor at the Escuela Nacional de Belles Artes, who founded Comunidad del Sur in 1955. The Comunidad del Sur was forced into exile after the 1973 military coup, but returned after the reestablishment of liberal democracy, and still exists to this day. They are considered an important influence on the Uruguayan left over the decades, particularly for their emphasis on feminism, gay rights, and ecology.  

The complete run of a magazine forged in the crucible of mass mobilization and leftwing organizing in the Southern cone, which today is an important reference of left antiauthoritarian politics in Uruguay and Latin America more generally. 

OCLC locates three holdings of any issues worldwide, and none in the United States, as of March 2026.

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