By Angel Guerra Cabrera
Photo: Guerrillero
Fifty years after the historic electoral victory of Salvador Allende, the standard-bearer of the Unidad Popular (UP) for the presidency of Chile, it is necessary to reflect on that first attempt, on a universal scale, to advance towards socialism through elections. The UP government lasted barely four years but was able to accumulate during that time valuable experiences in the construction of socialism. Although its teachings are also valid for governments that do not pursue socialism, such as the current governments of Argentina and Mexico, they nevertheless share a common goal of affecting powerful oligarchic and imperialist interests, not resigning themselves to losing their privileges and therefore offering the fiercest resistance to popular governments, even at the cost of attacking the rule of law, in an increasingly coup-like attitude.
After the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Latin America and the Caribbean became a political and, in some cases, military battleground between U.S. imperialism, allied with the local oligarchies, and popular forces. Chile was an emblematic case. There, as in no other country in our region, an experienced left movement of Marxist orientation and a combative, organized and politicized working class had conquered a considerable political and institutional space and had possibilities of reaching government by electoral means with a socialist program of profound anti-imperialist content. There was, moreover, a prestigious leader, Allende, who, although he did not have the support of sectors of his own Socialist Party (PS), had great electoral influence, above all in the working class, and enjoyed the support of the Communist Party of Chile and the close friendship and solidarity of Fidel Castro. A radicalization to the left of sectors of the middle classes led many young militants to abandon Christian Democracy (DC) to support Allende. Many in the PS did not believe in the audacious proposal of their candidate, who, based on an analysis of the unique conditions of Chile, postulated the thesis that in their country it was possible to move towards socialism by means of elections. In effect, the great popular leader was the winner of the presidency in the 1970 elections.
The United States had already decided to give the Andean country a decisive push in the class confrontation that was unfolding on the scale of our America. Together with the Christian Democrat (CD) candidate Eduardo Frei, he coined the demagogic slogan of “revolution in freedom” to counteract the Cuban Revolution, which had unleashed a long and vigorous cycle of popular struggle south of the Rio Bravo. As declassified documents show, the CIA, since the 1964 presidential elections, when Allende was running against Frei, injected $2.6 million into his campaign, invested $3 million in anti-Allende propaganda and later boasted that this and other maneuvers were indispensable to Frei’s success. In the elections of September 4, 1970, the agency channeled $350,000 to the campaign of right-winger Jorge Alessandri through the transnational company ITT and invested between $800,000 and $1 million to manipulate the election results, the report of the Church Committee of the US Senate later stated.
The results of the elections: Allende, 36.6 percent; Alessandri, 34.9 and DC candidate Radomiro Tomic, 27.8. On October 24, the full Congress, according to the Constitution, was supposed to choose between the two highest majorities. From Washington, President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to prevent Allende from assuming the presidency. But his plan did not work because Allende and Tomic (though Christian Democrat, constitutionalist and progressive in orientation) had agreed that one would recognize the other’s victory if the difference exceeded 5,000 votes. To top it off, a CIA plan B, which culminated in the assassination of Rene Schneider, commander in chief of the Army, favored the DC vote in favor of Allende.
The nationalization of copper, the deepening of agrarian reform, the establishment of a broad social sector of the economy with workers’ participation, including the banks, wage increases, the strengthening of the domestic market, Latin Americanist, non-aligned and peaceful policies, and the re-establishment of relations with sister Cuba are, among other things, great achievements of the UP government.
The Allendist management inherited the public coffers broken by all the sumptuary imports made to improve Frei’s image. On top of that, the United States asphyxiated him economically and unleashed a terrible wave of fascism that culminated in the bloody coup d’état of September 11, 1973, which, tragically, found the Chilean revolutionaries disunited. The fascist soldier threatened Allende to surrender, but he resisted for hours in the Palacio de la Moneda, where he died embracing the Kalachnikov rifle given to him by Fidel. Allende lives today in the Chilean anti-neoliberal rebellion!
Source: Cubadebate
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