Chile: how the revolution was lost
Socialist Outlook newspaper1990sPhil HearseTranscribed or corrected by hand from the printed page.
Twenty years after General Pinochet's brutal Chilean coup exposed the bankruptcy of the cross-class politics of 'Popular Unity', PHIL HEARSE draws the political lessons for the left today.
ON THE MORNING of 11 September 1973, twenty years ago, tanks and aircraft attacked the Santiago Moneda palace, residence of Chilean President Salvador Allende. The nightmare of the left in Chile and internationally, a military coup against the left-wing Popular Unity government, was coming true.
Allende and his bodyguards came out of the palace with machine guns, scanning the sky for attacking planes. Within hours both Allende and the 'peaceful road to socialism' in Chile were dead.
The right wing and the army took their revenge against the left. In three days 30,000 trade unionists, socialists and communists were slaughtered.
A reign of terror which lasted more than 15 years under the Pinochet military government ensued; thousands were tortured or 'disappeared'. Chilean workers were subjected to the most radical monetarist economic policy in Latin America, one which created a wealthy middle class but drove millions of workers into dire poverty.
Popular Unity, including the Communist, Socialist and Radical parties, had come to power in September 1970. Right from the start Allende tried to make concessions to the right wing; his cabinet included more members of the declining Radical Party than the much bigger Communist Party. Popular Unity committees organised for the election were disbanded.
Gradual reforms
The policy of Popular Unity was one of gradual reforms in the interests of the working class. Many industries were nationalised and salaries substantially increased. Free milk was distributed to the poor, and public housing greatly increased. There was a surge of support for Popular Unity in the 1971 local elections.
But these successes for Popular Unity were purchased at a high price. Because the banks and big financial institutions were not nationalised, the government had to borrow huge sums to finance its projects and inflation rocketed. Ironically the subsequent economic chaos antagonised the middle class, which Popular Unity had tried to woo by not going 'too fast'.
The government faced a huge campaign of destabilisation by the bosses. There was an investment strike. Wealthy farmers took their cattle over the Andes into neighbouring Argentina, rather than sell them in Chile. The press carried out a huge campaign against the government.
As the economy got into worse trouble, foreign companies refused to invest in Chile – all financial credit to Chile was ended.
In 1972 the gradualist strategy of Popular Unity went into bankruptcy. The determination of local reaction and imperialism to wreck the economy made it impossible to win over the middle class.
The destabilisation process reached a head in the autumn of 1972 when a bosses' strike was organised. Factories closed down; 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 Communist Party advocated a continued 'go slow' policy – what they called 'consolidation'.
The left wing, the left of the Socialist party and its allies, put forward a policy of 'advance without compromise'; to push forward to socialism by mobilising the workers. They were supported by the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR) outside the government.
The workers had something to say about the situation. Against the hoarding of vital necessities, they organised local committees of supply and distribution to break the stranglehold of the black market. Popular Unity base committees were revitalised.
Peasants started to fight for control of the land by seizures of parts of big estates. Most important of all, when the bosses' strike started, workers in the industrial zones –the cordones industriales– set up factory and area committees of resistance.
The factory and neighbourhood committees constituted embryonic organisations of workers power; the workers were beginning to take power into their own hands. Popular power was emerging in Chile.
Opposed to mass action
But the Popular Unity government opposed the self-organisation of the masses. As the bosses' strike developed, the government denounced the cordones industriales as illegal.
Instead of mobilising the masses, intervening to support the actions of the workers themselves, Popular Unity called in the army to break the strike. Trade union leaders toured the factories telling the workers to rely on 'legality'; to leave things to the government.
Throughout the period of Popular Unity government the armed forces and the capitalist state remained intact. No attempt was made win rank-and-file soldiers to the side of the government.
This revealed the whole paradox of Popular Unity; in the name of the working class and socialism it had captured the government. But the bourgeois state and its apparatus of repression stayed intact.
The army remained the final guarantor of the position of the right wing and the bourgeoisie.
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 on factories, left wing offices, shanty towns, union offices and workers homes 'looking for guns'.
On 29 June 1973 the Second Armoured Division led by Colonel Robert Souper attempted a coup. But only a small part of the armed forces joined him. Troops loyal to Allende easily defeated the coup, as thousands of workers mobilised on the streets. Popular Unity committees decided to distribute arms to the workers.
That evening over a million workers marched to the Moneda Palace. As Allende urged caution on the crowd they shouted 'execute the plotter, hit the reactionaries hard, arm the workers'.
Last chance
For Allende and his government this was the last chance. The defeated coup put the right wing on the defensive. The workers were infuriated. They wanted guns. During the day they had occupied their factories and wanted to keep them. It was a decisive moment.
But Allende and Popular Unity, instead of mobilising the workers and crushing the right wing, decided that further concessions were the only way out.
Allende invited a wide range of right-wing figures to join his cabinet, in particular Christian democrats. On August 10 he agreed that the military also join the government.
By these hasty and desperate concessions, Allende only signalled his weakness to the right. The military became convinced that they could easily overthrow him. On September 11 the blow was struck. Chile went into more than 15 years of the darkness of military dictatorship and brutal repression.