Commemorating a coup can be difficult, especially in Latin America, where coups, and the military caudillos that often follow, have been commonplace. The Sept. 11, 1973 putsch that overthrew the democratically elected Chilean president Salvador Allende could be considered one of many. Yet this tragedy has some unique characteristics, captured in the stream of books, documentaries and commentaries — some with new revelations — marking the coup’s 50th anniversary and assessing Allende’s presidency, which ended in his untimely death.
Allende promised democratic socialism: a peaceful revolution flavored “with empanadas and red wine,” as he put it, underscoring his political project’s unique national character. A socialist system achieved through free elections, rather than martially imposed on society, represented a historical novelty, and people as far away as Italy and France watched with great interest. To this day, many Chileans remember Allende’s government for its sincere efforts to empower the disenfranchised.
General Augusto Pinochet’s brutal evisceration of this experiment is also singular. Despite previous coups in Latin America, never before had a presidential palace been bombed, nor a president’s body pulled from the wreckage. It was an institutional and untypical military putsch motivated more by personal ambition than ideology. The armed forces and police backed Pinochet.
That reflected many factors. Even before taking office, US president Richard Nixon’s administration virulently attacked Allende, as engineered by then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger and implemented by the CIA. Both the Church Committee report, prepared by the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in 1975-76 and the meticulous research by Peter Kornbluh, a senior analyst at the National Security Archive, have documented these interventions in detail.
An explicitly socialist political project was going to encounter fierce resistance and needed strong leadership to halt conservative attacks, yet Allende’s Popular Unity alliance failed to back up his intentions with consistency.
For example, the government’s policy of pump-priming the economy via increased consumption was unsustainable. Without greater investment, his approach inevitably created a passing boom that ended in shortages, a widespread black market and hyperinflation.
Allende’s coalition also largely disengaged from international affairs, defined by the Cold War. Beyond espousing anticolonial rhetoric, his government pursued close ties with Cuba, illustrated by Fidel Castro’s 23-day visit in 1971; the coalition failed attempted to establish a privileged relationship with the Soviet Union; it clashed with the US, which adamantly over expropriation of US corporations.
Allende’s major failure was an inability to shore up enough social and political support against intense foreign and domestic pressure. He had the chance to build a broad coalition: In the 1970 Chilean presidential election, Allende and Radomiro Tomic, the Christian Democratic candidate, ran on similar platforms; both proposed deep structural reforms. Allende spoke of the “Chilean road to socialism,” Tomic of the “non-capitalist road to development.” Together they obtained 64.7 percent of the vote.
Despite seemingly similar ideas for ensuring the “social and political unity of the people,” as Tomic put it, the Christian Democrats aligned with the right-wing National Party, forming a potent opposition bloc. Allende was never able to carry out a democratic and peaceful revolution with only 37 percent of the vote.
Absent a strong alliance of the center and the left, democratic efforts to reshape the structures of power are doomed to fail. Enrico Berlinguer, the former secretary-general of the Italian Communist Party (the largest in the West), recognized this fact and, in the same year as Allende’s ouster, proposed a “historic compromise” with the Christian Democrats and other Italian political parties.
The main lesson from Chile’s failed road to socialism is more relevant than ever, as President Gabriel Boric appears to be assuming Allende’s mantle. Before entering the presidential palace in March 2022, Boric broke protocol to bow before a statue of Allende. He has also promised to reopen “the great avenues” to “a better society,” as Allende predicted others would do in his famous final broadcast. A “new Chilean way” might emerge, capable of resolving social tensions under democratic rule and satisfying the widespread desire for institutional change.
Yet Boric’s 18 months in office have been hard. Shortly after his inauguration, voters resoundingly rejected the first draft of a new constitution, mainly independent and left-leaning convention. The draft’s excessive focus on progressive priorities such as environmental protection and indigenous rights proved too radical for most Chileans. A second constitutional referendum to be held in December, is a new text drafted by a large far-right majority, yet the outcome remains uncertain; an increasingly hostile Congress has failed to pass Boric’s tax, social-security and health-care reforms.
Despite winning 55.9 percent of the vote, Boric has struggled to translate his electoral majority into a legislative majority. He now faces the same challenge as Allende: transforming society through democracy without a broad political coalition. Boric must learn from Allende and forge strong alliances, and quickly, as polls show growing nostalgia for Pinochet’s dictatorship, reflected in the far right’s popularity, led by Jose Antonio Kast. Without that, a government that was seeking everything could again be left with nothing.
Jorge G. Castaneda, a former foreign minister of Mexico, is a professor at New York University and the author of America Through Foreign Eyes. Carlos Ominami was minister of economy in Chile’s first post-dictatorship democratic government.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
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