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allende's chile
This article was written by Jeff Mackler and first appeared in the September 1986 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.
The history of the world has been a history of social revolution. The outcome of revolutionary struggles, however, is not predetermined.
The central question in the revolutionary process lies not in the willingness of the working class and the oppressed in general to fight – this has been demonstrated time after time – but rather in the quality of leadership available to it.
Given a leadership that matches the capacity of the masses to defend their class interests, the workers and the oppressed classes cannot be defeated. They are the vast majority, the 99 percent. Their power is virtually unlimited.
But if the force of their power is diverted by parties and misleaders influenced by Stalinism and Social Democracy, it can be weakened, if not destroyed. This is what we have learned from all the revolutionary struggles of our times. This was the central lesson of the Chilean experience of 1970-73.
Today, 13 years after the defeat of the Chilean revolution, there is much to gain from a clear understanding of what happened. The questions that were debated in the period of 1970 to 1973 – the question of class struggle versus class collaboration, of the workers’ united front versus the bosses’ popular front – are again before the Chilean masses, who are recovering from their setback and preparing to renew their struggle.
Tragedy’s two central features
The right-wing military coup led by Augusto Pinochet, which smashed the government of Salvador Allende Gossens on Sept. 11, 1973, ushered in a wide-ranging repression of the Chilean working class that has lasted to this day. The coup represented a tragic setback for the Chilean revolution, for the people of Latin America, and for the working class internationally.
The tragedy of Chile had two central features. First, there was the brutal slaughter of the vanguard of the Chilean revolution. 10,000 were murdered within weeks of the coup. This included many of the best revolutionary fighters and working-class militants, the leadership of the growing mass organizations, the revolutionary students, and many more. Many were shot in spectacular fashion, gunned down 50 at a time by firing squads in the Santiago sports stadium, in full view of witnesses from other countries.
The message was clear. The Chilean ruling class, after a three-year period of careful preparation to undermine the rising mass movement, decided to act. They took off the mask of democratic rule and blandished the iron fist of dictatorship. This was their ultimate answer to the workers’ movement, which constantly posed the threat to rule society in the interests of the majority.
The second element of the Chilean tragedy was the fact that, with the exception of often heroic but nevertheless sporadic and disorganized resistance of the vanguard in a few urban centers, the Chilean masses were defeated without a fight. Their misleaders led them to the showdown politically and militarily unarmed and unprepared.
Why did this happen? Who was responsible? What was wrong with the strategy of Allende and the coalition capitalist government which he headed? These questions are not academic. They remain as real today in Chile as they were in the past. Equally important, they are at the center of the debates over revolutionary strategy in every nation where the oppressed begin to organize themselves to fight.
Simply put, the question is this: Can the working class, with the support of the oppressed masses in the countryside, rule society in its own name for the benefit of the majority? Or do the conditions of capitalist underdevelopment require it to subordinate its own class interests to an alliance with a section of the capitalist rulers.
The former is the path of socialist revolution. The latter course, the so-called popular front (an electoral coalition of workers’ parties and capitalist parties), is, in our view, the formula for defeat.
Classic popular front
Perhaps the greatest strength of the Marxist method is its ability to learn from history. Judged from this standpoint alone, the record of the Trotskyists in the United States, at that time organized in the Socialist Workers Party, stands up remarkably well. Every other tendency on the left, either by conscious design or blind innocence, misread or otherwise failed to understand the direction of the Allende government.
Chief among these was the Communist Party USA, which stated in an editorial in the December 1970 issue of its theoretical magazine, Political Affairs, that Chile under Allende had undergone a revolutionary transformation. The CP wrote:
“This was no ordinary electoral victory, no mere victory of a s Socialist over the other candidates. Rather in the words of the Basic Program of the six-party coalition which backed Allende, it represents a ‘transfer of power from the old ruling groups to the workers, to the peasantry and to the progressive sections of the middle class of the city and country.”
There was not a grain of truth in this assertion. The six-party coalition which constituted Allende’s Popular Unity government was committed to the maintenance of capitalist rule from the beginning. This was a classic popular-front government in the tradition of the Stalinist and Socialist Party-led coalition-capitalist governments of the 1930s in Spain and France.
The Popular Unity coalition, which included the bourgeois Radical Party, had won only a plurality (34 percent) of the votes in the September 1970 elections. It therefore needed the support of the major capitalist parties (the Christian Democrats and Nationalists) in the following month’s runoff elections in the Chilean Congress to convert the plurality into a majority.
But the capitalist parties demanded that Allende sign the “Statute of Constitutional Guarantees” as a condition for their support. These guarantees, which Allende signed, included leaving the military and police intact, maintaining the size of the army and the basic composition of the officer corps, and banning the formation of independent workers’ militias.
Allende and his cohorts in the SP and CP thus pledged to maintain the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state and to ensure that there would be no “transfer of power” to the working class.
While this seems obvious today, in retrospect, it was not so at the time. Those Marxists in the United States who criticized the course of the Allende government were often subjected to severe ridicule and political abuse.
“Satisfies neither class”
The Trotskyists of the U.S. SWP nevertheless held firm to their positions. The Aug. 6, 1971, Militant had this to say about the Chilean events:
“The politics of the Allende regime are by nature forced into a balancing act between the oppressed and oppressor classes. While his regime began with the enthusiastic support of the masses, and the grudging support of the ruling class, it is bound to end, after a period of vacillation, by satisfying neither the rulers nor the ruled . . .
“Undoubtedly the masses will press for more meaningful social reforms; the bourgeoisie will await the moment to stifle and then, through murders and imprisonment, behead the workers’ movement.
“While the bourgeois armed forces remain intact, organized, disciplined and centralized, the workers and peasants have no organization, no arms and no leadership. They have only numbers and a willingness to sacrifice.
“For the present experience to end in a better way than the previous one (the popular-front governments in Chile from 1938 to 1952), a leadership willing to struggle against the opportunist and corrupt Communist and Socialist parties is necessary. If such a leadership does not develop, the results might even be worse than in the 1940s.”
These paragraphs captured precisely the dilemma of the Chilean revolution. They predicted the inevitable result of Allende’s policies in the absence of a revolutionary leadership capable of charting an independent political course for the working class and the oppressed.
The reforms of the Allende regime were significant. They reflected the deep radicalization of the Chilean working class. They included the diplomatic recognition of Cuba in the face of U.S. hostility, the nationalization of a major portion of imperialist investment, a sweeping land reform, substantial wage increases averaging 35 percent and the granting of political asylum to left-wing exiles from all over the Latin American continent.
The Allende government initiated a program to distribute free milk to the children of the poor. It freed political prisoners from past regimes on condition that they cease their practice of robbing the imperialist banks to support the revolutionary cause.
Limited intentions
While these reforms had the wholehearted support of the masses, Allende’s central aim was to win support of the national capitalist class against imperialism. He banked on the view that a series of anti-imperialist nationalizations would strengthen the economic position of Chile’s capitalist class against its imperialist rivals, thereby impelling the capitalists to support his government against imperialism.
In fact, there is no such thing as a truly national capitalist class in the colonial world. This has been demonstrated time and again. The local capitalists among Allendes’ Christian Democratic friends were well aware that whatever benefits they might derive from Chilean takeovers of U.S. industries would be canceled with the consequent loss of protection from U.S. imperialism at a time of rising working-class radicalization.
The bourgeoisie are not easily fooled when their fundamental class interests, their prerogatives to rule, are at stake. They fear the masses more than they do the economic insults of their capitalist superiors in the imperialist nations. The national capitalists prefer to bow down before the imperialists, rather than lose all to the oppressed.
Allende expressed unlimited faith that his local capitalists would respect the principles of bourgeois democracy, including the Chilean constitution and the electoral process. He agreed to abide by the rulers of capitalist society, in particular to the rule of private profit, in return for which he expected the local ruling rich to accept and respect his regime.
The Popular Unity government nationalized the U.S. owned copper mines of Anaconda and Kennicott. By the time Allende took office, the previous Christian Democratic regime of Eduardo Frei had nationalized 51 percent of Chile’s copper mines. The Frei government had agreed to pay full compensation on the takeovers.
Allende’s plan was to nationalize the remaining 49 percent, and like Frei, pay the capitalists for their property.
Under mass pressure, Allende retreated from his initial offer to pay. Allende effectively demonstrated that U.S. corporations had made $770 million in “superprofits” since 1954. These were defined as profits in excess of the 10 percent considered reasonable by Chilean standards. These and other arguments were presented to justify the change in position regarding compensation.
Nevertheless, Allende remained committed to pay the full amount on the original 51 percent as well as the considerable interest on the loans taken out to repay the U.S. capitalists. At the same time, the $377 million in U.S. interests in the non-mining sector remain untouched.
Of the 30,500 businesses in Chile in 1970, less than one percent (or 150) fell into Allende’s category of government purchase or “nationalization.”
As a further guarantee of his limited intentions, Allende promised the imperialists full payment on Chile’s $2-billion debt and full compensation for any state intervention into the banks.
In a Sept. 26, 1970, Washington Post interview, Allende made his views on Chile’s future course clear. “The future government of Chile will not be a Socialist government. It is unscientific to maintain the contrary . . . The area of private property will be numerically the biggest.”
Nothin new afoot
The top leaders of the Chilean Communist Party wasted no time in giving the imperialists the same assurances. Pablo Neruda, the poet and best-known Chilean Stalinist stated: “There’s no reason at all to be uneasy. We have never claimed that we would form a socialist government on November 4 [election day]. Allende himself has said: Popular Unity is composed of six different groups including the Radicals who have largely dominated Chilean political life for the last 30 years.” (Oct. 23, 1970, Le Monde.)
These were not exceptional statements. At every opportunity, by word and by deed, the Allende government, especially its Communist Party component, sought to assure the world that nothing new was afoot.
In a meeting with peasant federations in May 1972, Allende stated, “Occupying the land is a violation of the law. Workers and peasants must understand that they are part of a revolutionary process that must move forward responsibly, without chaos.”
The almost absolute faith which the Allende government placed in the army was the clearest evidence of its intention to abide by the rulers of capitalist society – no matter what the cost.
“I have absolute confidence in the loyalty of the armed forces,” Allende told The New York Times on March 28, 1971. “With each day my conviction becomes deeper that the armed forces of Chile are an expression of the people, and therefore are irrevocably and essentially professional and democratic.” (published in the Feb. 14, 1971, Buenos Aires daily Clarin).
In fact, even after the attempted military coup in June 1973, Allende continued to support the progressive, “constitutional” wing of the army. Twenty-four hours before the Sept. 11 coup, Communist Party General Secretary Luis Corvalan, in an article in El Siglo, the CP’s newspaper, went so far as to defend Pinochet for his “loyalty” to the constitution.
The June coup failed, not because of the good will of any sector of the army, but because of the immense outpouring of opposition to the military occupation of the presidential palace. On the evening of the aborted coup, 700,000 workers and peasants took to the streets to denounce the military and to demand that Allende break with the capitalists and their armed forces.
But instead of basing himself on the mobilized masses, Allende reshuffled his cabinet and, for the first time, appointed top generals to the government. These “progressive” generals immediately began to court martial all soldiers who had opposed the June coup and had defended the Allende government!
Formation of “cordones”
Despite the misleadership of Allende and the Communist Party, the Chilean workers and peasants began the process of constructing their own mass organizations, more often than not, in direct opposition to the unions and other organizations dominated by there reformists.
In the industrial centers, “cordones industriales,” or regional worker-dominated committees, began to take shape and challenge the reformists. These were the most important organizations of the masses. They were open to everyone and became centers of discussion and action which threatened to shatter the reformist boundaries established by the Allende government.
In February 1973, the “cordon industrial” of the capital city of Santiago put forward a program of action which included the call for the immediate expropriation of the distribution and primary goods industries, workers’ control over production in the state sector, control by the “cordones” of all commercialization channels, and an end to all concessions to the capitalists.
The “cordones” represented the most conscious sectors of the Chilean workers’ movement. But they were no substitute for a revolutionary party. In the absence of a leadership which clearly challenged the Allende regime and its dependence on capitalism, these organizations were incapable of acting as alternate centers of power at the command of the people.
At every state in the evolution of the struggle, the Chilean masses demonstrated their will to master their own fate. The peasants sought to exceed the limits of the land reform originally initiated by the Christian Democrats and implemented, with full compensation to the landlords, by Allende.
The workers occupied their factories against the wishes of the CP and SP to prevent the bosses from closing them. But at every turn they were confronted by a misleadership that counseled restraint and preached confidence in capitalist solutions, even when it was clear to everyone that a military coup was in preparation and imminent.
Role of the MIR
The Castro-influenced, Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR), which had only in 1970 broken from its rural-guerrilla orientation, was not an exception.
The MIR had attracted the best and most committed working-class militants because it was seen as the only political organization on the left that did not sign the political program of the Popular Unity and did not participate directly in the government.
But the leadership of the MIR did not place itself at the leadership of the workers’ struggles with the purpose of advancing decisively toward the seizure of political power. The entire political orientation of the MIR can be summarized in the slogan raised repeatedly by its newspaper: “The government should open a dialogue with the workers.”
Throughout the entire revolutionary situation opened up in 1970, the MIR refused to fight for the working class parties and organizations to break with the capitalists. The MIR therefore became the “left-wing” of the Popular Unity.
After the first attempted coup in June 1973, the MIR refused to call on the masses to mobilize independently against the military. The MIR failed to use its great influence in the “cordones” to take the political offensive against the capitalist state.
The MIR’s political line flowed from its 1971 political resolution, which stated:
“Our policy must be to regroup all the progressive forces in the country to fight the main enemy – U.S. imperialism.
“For this reason, the unity of all these forces against the main enemy is our central task. This means that the political differences among the political forces on the left are secondary and must not obstruct our fight for unity.”
The orientation of “unity of the left” impeded the MIR from understanding the class-collaborationist character of the Popular Unity. Hoping to regroup the “revolutionary left” vanguard, it ultimately capitulated to the Stalinists and other reformists in the government.
Lessons must be learned
Given all the time needed to regain their strength, the imperialists and their local agents patiently proceeded to bleed the Allende regime and to discredit it in the eyes of the masses. They cut their investments in the Chilean economy, slowed production, increased unemployment, and even organized a “bosses’ strike” of the trucking industry to paralyze the government.
When they were ready, and when the masses were confused with the constant vacillations of the government, the army struck with a vengeance and ended the “experiment” of the so-called Marxist government of Salvador Allende. The revolution was drowned in what on-the-spot observers called “pools of blood.”
This was the blood of the people who, in the absence of an alternative, placed their confidence in the “socialist” rhetoric of the CP and SP betrayers who had delivered them unarmed to the butcher Pinochet.
The task of the Chilean masses today differ little from the period of 1970-73. The same reformists in the workers’ movement are again moving to pose a liberal capitalist solution to the current regime in Chile. They present the same arguments to the effect that a socialist solution to the problems of poverty and oppression is “unscientific.”
Lacking confidence that the masses can and will organize to truly defend and advance their cause, these reformists are again preparing the ground for another defeat.
But there is a new generation of fighters who have learned from the Chilean revolution. They have learned that the working class has no allies outside its own ranks and the ranks of the poor and that it lacks only a program and leadership willing to match its commitment to transform society.
