Chile Under Allende

[Dzerzhinsky's Ghost]

What are the opinions of those here on both Salvador Allende and Chile under his leadership? What can be learned?

In-depth articles and other such resources are greatly appreciated as well as personal summations.

[S.Artesian]

What are the opinions of those here on both Salvador Allende and Chile under his leadership? What can be learned?

In-depth articles and other such resources are greatly appreciated as well as personal summations.

De Vylder, Allende's Chile, Cambridge University Press.

Unidad Popular was literally a popular front government, which attempted to control the workers in what was an irrepressible class struggle between revolution and counterrevolution. Counterrevolution won because of the UP's success in immobilizing the workers.

[syndicat]

Gabriel Smirnow, The Revolution Disarmed, Chile 1970-73

good discussion of the cordones industriales (chilean equivalent of soviets).

[Rafiq]

He was extremely popular, and to this day is still remembered positively.

[RadioRaheem84]

I would be skeptical about some of the books out there. I've read plenty of right wing sources that seem to cite left-liberal books and articles about how Allende did himself in or was the only one to blame for his downfall.

The right wing cites these sources in order to claim that both the right and left are in aggreement that despite the US meddling in Chile's affairs, the fault all lies with Allende.

[syndicat]

what "fault"? the coup was a response to the movement of the Chilean working class towards revolution. this is clear in the mass occupation of workplaces and the building of worker cross-workplace committees, the cordones industriales.

as Gabriel Smirnov points out, the problem lies in the failure to organize within the army, to appeal to rank and file soldiers and noncoms. because Chile had a long history as a constitutional republic, Allende and the Communist Party had a rather naive view that the military would respect that history. at the end Allende caved in to military pressure by appointing more and more generals to his cabinet.

[S.Artesian]

I would be skeptical about some of the books out there. I've read plenty of right wing sources that seem to cite left-liberal books and articles about how Allende did himself in or was the only one to blame for his downfall.

The right wing cites these sources in order to claim that both the right and left are in aggreement that despite the US meddling in Chile's affairs, the fault all lies with Allende.


What are you talking about? First, if Allende did himself in, I wouldn't give a rat's ass. What he did in were the prospects for a revolution; he did in the working class.

The US, and the bourgeoisie of Chile acted according to their class interests. The UP govt. pretended to represent the interests of the workers, but its actions and strategy were centered around placating and satisfying a mythic "national" "patriotic" bourgeoisie that would somehow recognize that their national interests were with socialism. That was the policy Allende followed, and when workers moved against "national" bourgeois enterprises, the UP govt opposed those works, dispersed those workers.

Tell me what "left-wing" sources have denied the US role in engineering the coup? The fact is the coup was organized because the UP had sufficiently disorganized the proletariat but was itself incapable of the task of crushing the proletariat.

Perhaps you aren't aware of it, but on the actual day of the coup, in the midst of the assault on the UP govt. Allende went on the radio to urge workers to "stay home," stay in their neighborhoods, and not confront the military, but rather "trust in the democratic constitution." That worked out real well, didn't it?

What books are you skeptical of? Have you read De Vylder's? Smirnov's?