ON THE morning of 11 September 1973, almost exactly three years after the Popular Unity (UP) coalition had come to power, the Moneda palace in Santiago, residence of social democratic president Salvador Allende, came under attack from tanks and aircraft. The left's nightmare — a military coup - was coming true.
Allende and his bodyguard came out of the palace with machine guns, scanning the sky for the attacking planes. Within hours Allende was dead. The 'peaceful road' to socialism in Chile had come to an end.
On the seventh anniversary of the coup, PHIL HEARSE looks at the reasons for the failure of Chilean reformism and its lessons for us.
*THEN...
IN THE days that followed the coup, the right wing against the left. In the socialists, communists and trade unionists were killed by the Thousands of workers who had been told by the Communist and Socialist parties to assemble in their factories were cut down unarmed when the army attacked.
A reign of terror followed which has not been ended to this day. The shadow of the torturer hung over Chile as the experiment with a peaceful road to socialism' dismantled. To understand why, we have to look at what the Popular Unity coalition was trying to do, and how it went wrong.
In September 1970, Popular Unity's candidate, elections. The right wing made the mistake of standing two candidates; Allende received the highest number of votes (36 per cent) but not an overall majority.
Right from the start Allende tried to make concessions to the right wing; cabinet contained as many members of the declining and right-wing Radical Party as of the much bigger Communist Party. strategy of the Popular Unity government was gradually to carry out reforms in the interests of the working class, but not to go too quickly, for fear of alienating the middle class.
Instead of the nationalisation of all the basic means of nationalisation took place. Instead of mass workers' mobilisations, year of Allende's rule the hundreds of local Popular Unity committees which had been set up during the election campaign were disbanded.
Nonetheless the Popular Unity government did take many steps in the interests of the working class. tionalisations was much greater than the top 25 companies envisaged for Britain by Tony Benn. substantially increased.
Free milk was distributed to the poor, and money for public housing was greatly it came. You could see the activity. It was like the 29 June attempt had been a little joke. Here 'You saw the Hawker Hunter jets circling and bomworking class neighbourhoods... "I watched the army deploying itself in total military fashion, then a curtain of machine-gun fire opened up - for about ten minutes, a sheer curtain of sound and smoke arising from the intense fire into this one 'It finally ended by someone throwing a grenade in There was a huge explosion and then silence. This was happening building by building all over the city.' and the army took revenge : days 30,000 military forces. was increased. economy grew.
Allende, won the presidential of the votes.
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Bankruptcy production only partial by the Economically, during the first strike by the foreign The number of naWages and salaries were forces.
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that much of what we did was Where did it lead us?' Unemployment fell as the me Popular support for the sid government also grew - in the 1971 local elections Popular Unity got a clear majority But the successes of Popular Unity were Because the big financial institutions and banks were not taken over, the government had to borrow huge amounts: Inflation began to increase the whole strategy of Popular Unity was to go slowly in order to win over the middle class. But because the gradual approach allowed economic chaos to develop, the middle class went over to the The destabilisation of the government right wing took many forms there was an investment Chilean bosses. Wealthy farmers took their cattle over the Andes into Argentina, rather than sell them in Chile. The press carried out a slander campaign against the government and the left.
As the economy got in worse trouble, companies refused to invest in Chile. The United States organised an international campaign against Chile - all credit to Chile was ended. The US stepped up its contacts with the Chilean military In 1972 the political strategy of Popular Unity went into bankruptcy. The determination of imperialism and local reaction to wreck the economy made it impossible ta The whole process of destabilisation reached a head in the autumn of 1972 when a bosses' strike was organised. Factories closed down; the middle class truck owners went on strike, leaving transport paralysed The country ground to a halt.
Popular Unity was itself divided. The right wing, led by Allende and the Com munist Party, advocated a continued gs slow' policy — what they called 'consolid The left wing - the left of the Social Party and their allies - put forward policy of 'advance without compromise push forward to socialism by mobilisingt workers. They were supported by the Mov
volution was lost he Revolutionary Left (MIR) outorkers had something to say about vernment. on. Against the hoarding of vital they organised local committees and distribution to try to break chold of the black market. The immittees organised by Popular revitalised. ts started to fight for control of ough a series of land seizures. *tant of all, when the bosses' ared, workers in the industrial se cordones industriales - set up area committees. tory and neighbourhood comstituted embryonic organisaakers' power; the workers were eo take their affairs into their s Popular power was emerging in Popular Unity government opalf organisation of the masses.
a strike developed, the governniced the cordones industriales as if the working class was getting out of control, they moyed in for the kill.
At the beginning of 1973 pressure from the right wing built up. Middle class students from the Catholic University demonstrated against the government.
The whole of the bourgeoisie clamoured for the army to intervene and overthrow the 'Marxist' government. The military carried out hundreds of raids against left-wing strongholds - factories, where the poor and unemployed lived, leftwing political offices. The whole situation was one of crisis.
On 29 June 1973 a section of the army led by Colonel Roberto Souper attempted a coup. Tanks from the Second Armoured Regiment attacked the presidential palace and the Ministry of Defence. But only a small part of the armed forces joined the coup - it was easily put down-by forces who remained 'loyal' to Allende. It seemed that Souper had jumped the gun.
The reaction of the workers to the attempted coup was speedy. During the day, as the fighting went on in Santiago's streets, the parties of Popular Unity met and decided to distribute arms to the workers. On the evening of 29 June more than a million workers demonstrated in the streets of Santiago against the reactionaries.
When Allende addressed demanded that he 'hit the reactionaries hard' and execute the plotters. demanded that the decision to distribute guns to the workers that had been taken earlier should be carried out. shanty towns ALLENDE (left) attack begins radical than those pursued by Allende. we can draw out certain lessons.
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The left economic be foolish to pretend that we are likely to face exactly the same position if a left-wing government is elected. For one thing the policies associated with Tony Benn and the thcoming. mainstream of the so-called Alternative economic strategy' are a good deal less But The initial steps of Popular Unity - the reflation of the economy and the increase in wages and living conditions, the nationa- tion. lisation of some large firms, including the copper companies were all in the interests of the working But because of the limitations on the power of the government above all the fact that they didn't complete. ly take over all the major firms and the financial institutions — it was possible for They relied on the 'good will' of the reactionary parliament and the 'neutrality of the army — neither of which was forIn their overwhelming majority, despite the comparative strength of the revolutionary left, the workers stayed loyal to their traditional reformist parties, which told them repeatedly to rely on constitutional manoeuvres and not on mass acReformists of every type like to parade their 'realism'. This consists, apparently, in eschewing such fantasies as 'mass mobilisation', "revolution', and 'workers' power'.
According to them, such things are Trotskyist day dreams. They argue instead that it is possible to create socialism by fundamentally peaceful, constitutional means.
Chile shows, however, who are the
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bing the presidential palace. You saw them streaking out to the working class areas to bomb factories and
building 'Well, we Chileans had a preview in the attempted coup
nowhere, that we were part of tl wasted jumble.... The peaceful
ce to get a sort of 29 June.... We knew vain, that it took us ttern of this horrible d, our famous road.