Chile during and after Salvador Allende (2023)

From the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

September 11 marks 50 years since the violent death of the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, in 1973, and the overthrowing of his government by a military coup backed by the CIA, establishing a brutal dictatorship presided over by General Augusto Pinochet. This caused the death of thousands of Chilean workers, students, union leaders, political activists, and many were incarcerated, ‘disappeared’, and tortured via electric shock, sexual abuse, beating and waterboarding.

The election and death of President Allende took place in the middle of the Cold War and the struggles for world hegemony between the USA and the Soviet Union and the influence of Cuba in Latin America. Chile was hemmed in by several conservative and military dictatorships in the region backed by the USA government who also protected the economic interest of the US capitalist class, along with the internal ruling class. There was also a huge economic crisis facing Chilean capitalism.

The objective of the US government was to avoid another enclave like Cuba on its own backyard since Cuba had a heavy political influence in Latin America, and the Cuban government had diplomatic, commercial, and military relations with the Soviet Union, and was backing guerrillas in several Latin American countries.

The government of Chile called itself socialist in the same way that the Cuban government called itself socialist or Marxist-Leninist, and Fidel Castro was a close ally of the Chilean government. Moreover, Castro himself visited Chile in 1970 in the middle of the social upheaval caused by miners’ strikes.

The government of Chile proclaimed the so-called ‘Chilean path to socialism’, as Cuba also had proclaimed the Cuban road to socialism. The reality is that neither one of them were establishing a socialist society, but state capitalism as in the Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. The basic principles of a capitalist society were retained, including wage slavery, production for profits and the domination of a state apparatus over the working class.

Allende was elected in 1970 with the support of a coalition of leftist political parties known as the Popular Unity, obtaining one third of the votes with a narrow margin of 36.2 percent over Jorge Alessandri, the former president of Chile who obtained 34.9 percent, and the Christian Social Democrats who got 27.8 percent. As such, Allende was not elected by a majority of votes but, according to the Chilean constitution of the time, if no presidential candidate obtained a majority of the popular vote, Congress would choose one of the two candidates with the highest number of votes as the winner, and the decision was effectively made by the Christian Social Democrats which approved his nomination as president of Chile.

Social reforms

The government of Allende, immediately after his nomination as President, initiated various social-democratic reforms for the Chilean working class, and the nationalization of large industries such as copper, iron, coal, cement and large extensions of land, the creation of a health and medical program, a food program, and education for the poor. All those reforms were described as the Chilean path to socialism, but in reality, they were reforms made for and within the context of a capitalist society, and they would not have turned Chile into a socialist society run in the name of the workers. Instead, the economic reforms would have established a state-capitalist system of production administered by the state, the same process that took place in Cuba in 1960.

They established diplomatic and commercial relations with countries on which the US had placed embargos and commercial blockades, such as Cuba, Vietnam and North Korea, and several African and Asian countries, and they also became a member of the Non-Aligned countries movement (Third World). They developed a relationship with the Soviet Union but their relations with the US were not of the same order as the previous conservative government who had openly aligned with the US capitalist class. The nationalization of several US corporations created further friction with them.

Strikes

From the very beginning of the Allende government, thousands of mine workers in different parts of the country went on strike for high wages and better working conditions, as their real wages had gone down due to high levels of inflation. The response of the Allende government was to send in the military and police to reprimand them and tell them to make sacrifices to produce for the so-called homeland. Fidel Castro regarded the workers as reactionaries and counter revolutionaries, demagogues, agitators and agents of US imperialism. The Left, instead of supporting the workers, supported the so-called socialist government; the Communist Party which was part of the Popular Unity also supported the actions taken by the military and the police against the workers, and the strikes continued spreading to others sectors of the working class including the transport workers.

The Popular Unity government was obliged to incorporate the military as part of the state administrative apparatus, under the name Popular Army. But the Popular Unity government was no longer able to run an economy based on state control of the means of production, and had weak support. The military duly took the opportunity to execute a bloody coup d’état, and Allende either shot himself or was assassinated.

The Pinochet dictatorship

The subsequent conservative government of Augusto Pinochet (which the leftists often call fascist) lasted for a period of 16 years, and all reforms implemented during the government of Allende were reversed and most sectors of the economy were privatized including workers’ pensions. This is what the leftists wrongly call neo-liberalism, though the reality is probably in some ways more in line with monetarism. The reversal of all those Allende reforms is a clear indication that reforms implemented by leaders can also be reversed, they are not permanent, and sometimes those reforms are implemented in order to try to pacify the working class. There is certainly no guarantee they will succeed, as Allende’s didn’t.

Chile since Pinochet

In 1988 a plebiscite was held and the majority of the Chileans workers voted for the removal of the presidency and dictatorship of Pinochet, and a new election subsequently took place. A Christian Democrat president was elected, and several legal actions brought against Pinochet and the military. He was indicted and placed under house arrest where he died, but the military kept the power of the state and its agencies, despite the fact that various presidents, governments and Congresses from different political tendencies were elected including social democrats and leftists. None of them were able to resolve the underlying problems of the people.

The present government of Boric was elected with a coalition of ‘Communists’ and ‘Socialists’ offering many promises for workers and for women. A new constitution was put to the vote and rejected by the electorate, including the indigenous Mapuches. The government of Boric knew in advance that the new proposal was most likely going to be rejected and they arguably wanted it to be rejected because they knew that most of the constitutional clauses were not going to be implemented due to the fact that the right-wing faction controls the Congress and was not going to allow any drastic economic and political changes.

The case of Chile is a clear indication that the problems facing the working class cannot be resolved by left-wing or right-wing governments and that the problems are not the leaders, political parties, fascism, neoliberalism, or other political tendencies, or the exact implementation of reforms – the real underlying problem, whatever the regime, is capitalism.

MF.

The singularity of a socialist revolution (2023)

From the September 2023 issue of the Socialist Standard

According to the Left there have been multiple socialist revolutions. Or, more precisely, there have been many political dramas that are claimed by both the Left and by the protagonists involved to have been socialist in nature. A great pantheon of heroes has been created to satisfy the Left’s desperate need for messianic figures which include such individuals as Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky, Castro, Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chavez and even the likes of Mao Zedong and Joseph Stalin! One thing most of these have in common is failure but can we consider all or any of them to be socialists? We can say that the socialism of Marx and Luxemburg was profoundly different in nature from the political structures favoured, and in some cases created, by the others in the list. Fifty years ago this month is the anniversary of the ‘martyrdom’ of another great hero of the Left – Salvador Allende. Perhaps by considering his ideology and activity we can further explore the profound political divide between his (and the Left’s) notion of a socialist revolution and that of Marx before the subsequent evolution of the theories of ‘state socialism’, Bolshevism and reformism.

The ‘Socialist Party of Chile’ was formed in 1933 as an attempt to unite the various groups that identified as ‘socialist’. Like so many Leftist ‘broad churches’ it was plagued by division and disagreement but by 1967 it had embraced the oxymoron of Marxism/Leninism with its de-rigueur ‘central committee’. Allende managed to get himself elected as president in 1970 through his popularity with wider leftist movements and the formation of a ‘Popular Unity’ coalition. In this way he believed he could create socialism by nationalising the major industries of Chile. Why he believed this, as the Left still do, is primarily down to the influence of the Bolshevik coup of 1917 in Russia. Lenin had transformed Marx’s view, that nationalisation was a good way to accelerate the productive forces and so make socialism possible, into a perverse form of socialism itself. Capitalism was in its infancy in Russia and Lenin knew that there was no chance of creating the mass consciousness and productive forces needed for a socialist revolution so he created the concept of a vanguard who could lead the masses to ‘communism’ via an intermediate stage he called socialism. In the absence of a full understanding of Marxian politics this became the ideological orthodoxy of the Left, showing a callous disregard for the misery and suffering it had caused in Russia and emphasising an unprincipled greed for power that Bolshevism represented. Thus the scene was set for yet another ill-fated episode in the long political tragedy that was state capitalism.

Although we cannot see into the mind of anyone it is quite possible that Salvador Allende was primarily motivated by a real concern for the poor and oppressed among his people, but what we can identify with certainty are the reasons for his failure: calling an economy and society socialist when it is based on wage labour and capital, even when the means of production are owned by the state, is politically incoherent at best and downright duplicitous at worst; socialism can never be created in one country alone since it inherits the global structure that capitalism has instigated and which makes socialism possible; without majority mass consciousness socialism cannot be imposed by any elite, however well intentioned they may be. There can only be one global socialist revolution (in contrast to the Socialist Party of Chile’s Bolshevik-inspired piecemeal concept of a Confederacy of Socialist Republics) and any claim that there have been and will be many socialist revolutions is born of political naivety, egotistical hubris or an opportunist lust for power.

The failure of the Allende regime was inevitable since any kind of capitalism is subject to the same global economic pressures that ensure that the exploitation of labour for profit is foremost. Those who claim that it would have survived without the interference and ideological hostility of the USA are missing the point that state capitalism is just as bad, if not worse in many respects, as is ‘free-market’ capitalism from the perspective of the exploited masses. The moral outrage that masquerades as ‘realpolitik’ among the Left is in reality a mixture of contempt for the intelligence and potential of the working class combined with an elitist idealism which can only be described as bourgeois. They cannot conceive of a moneyless, stateless democratic global society and so they believe no one else can – certainly not the uneducated masses. The Marxian understanding of social revolution is not concerned with the changing identities of governments who attempt to facilitate or control capitalism but with the emergence of a mass consciousness that will replace production for profit with production for need.

It cannot be doubted that the subsequent dictatorship regime led by General Augusto Pinochet and supported by the CIA was a nightmare for the Chilean people. While capitalism lasts there will always be malicious empires like that of the USA whose job it is to destabilise and destroy any regimes that are considered to be against their imperialist interests. While visiting the UK in 1998 Pinochet was arrested on charges of genocide and the British people had to witness his stomach-churning and grotesque defence by Thatcher and his subsequent release from house arrest by Labour’s Jack Straw. Allende was a courageous individual but, in the end, like his fellow Leftists who have achieved power, he changed nothing.

Wez.

Letters:What about education? (1) (1999)

Letters to the Editors from the March 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

What about education? (1)

Dear Editors,

“Where my offspring spent every day of the week being trained to serve capitalism.” So Heather Ball describes her daughter’s school in the December Socialist Standard. This recalls the words of Pik Smeet in the August issue in his article on Labour’s education policy, “a vast factory for turning out workers tuned to our masters’ requirements”.

I don’t deny that our education system has many faults, most notably the existence of private schools, but the case for socialism is strong enough to make exaggerated attacks on the system both unnecessary and off-putting for many potential socialists. Any society needs its members to have a thorough grasp of “the three R’s” plus an appreciation of history, geography, science, the arts, and so on. At present these are taught by the majority of teachers in a politically biased way. But these subjects would be required in a socialist society, or is it to consist of ignoramuses?

It would be useful to have a major article setting out positively what education would be like in a socialist society. Which subjects would be taught and how would teaching differ from that which operates now?

Bryan J. Fair, 

Dorchester, Dorset

Reply: 

We will try to publish an article on what education might be like in a socialist society. In the meantime see the letter which follows – Editors.

What about education? (2)

Dear Editors,

If Bryan Fair does not think children are being “trained for capitalism” in our schools, then what does he think they are being trained for? What about the stock market, banks, building societies, retailing—the endless sales of endless crap because the system cannot survive without it; a system which insists on showing us inane little stories (called advertisements) over and over again and again on television so as to persuade us to spend our earnings on stuff that most of us have no use for and could do without. Undeniably we need builders, doctors, scientists, teachers, and it says something about humanity that, despite the ethos of capitalism, it yet still has within it, compassion, albeit a sentiment constantly eroded by manipulation for profit.

From the moment a baby emerges from the womb (and even before that) it begins the process of learning. “Playing” is a part of that process. I cannot myself visualise a socialist society where children are regimented into education, conveyor-belt style. It is my belief that the competitive atmosphere of the classroom can make kids resentful and anxious, and those who do not, for various reasons, come up to scratch, are sometimes made to feel worthless and insignificant, whereas if their latent talents were to be encouraged to burgeon without coercion, then I can only think that this would make for a better world. What do we say to the thousands who the education system fails? I don’t imagine young people selling the Big Issue on every corner of every street in towns and cities in a socialist society, anymore than I would expect there to be homeless people. I am not blaming teachers for this. We each of us are forced to make a living whilst at the same time deal with our own sorrows and problems, but if I was a teacher I would feel it incumbent upon me to explain to my pupils how the system works, and that one day some of them may be jobless, surplus to requirement, or press-ganged into a sort of slavery in order to have food and a roof over their heads. And, is history really taught in a politically unbiased way? Think about it.

The radical educationalist, A.S. Neill, proved that most children desire to learn. His school, Summerhill, made lessons available, but voluntary. Children who wished to become engineers, doctors, teachers, etc, used their self-discipline to attend appropriate classes and many of them achieved their goals. So to me a socialist society would include places of learning without compulsion.

You say that “our education system has many faults most notably the existence of private schools”. To me that is rather like saying that the coal mines, water, and the railways should not be privatised. I don’t think it makes much difference whether they’re privatised or state-owned. As a radical socialist I no longer support reforms.

You say “it would be useful to have a major article setting out positively what education would be like in a socialist society”. We cannot predict, but this socialist, for one, has her dreams.

Heather Ball, 

Norwich

Inconsistent?

Dear Editors,

I feel the article “Pinochet and Socialism”, (Socialist Standard, December 1998) contains a familiar inconsistency as regards your view of the role of political democracy in abolishing capitalism.

The fact that the working class on the eve of socialism will be a world-wide self-conscious organised socialist majority will itself constitute a powerful material force and it is this force which is the basis of the principle that the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the working class.

How does it then follow that this movement needs to use, or should use, capitalist political democracy to abolish capitalism? Capitalist democracy is a capitalist institution created in the interests of the capitalist class to ensure a smoother running of the capitalist system. What is so special about sending a group of Socialist MPs into a parliament to declare the abolition of capitalism when the material force for actually delivering this abolition is the Mass Socialist Movement outside?

Why cannot this declaration be made by the Movement itself through its own representative democratic structures, which will have been created by the working class itself, specifically for the purpose of developing and furthering the mass movement for socialism?

I know you say using capitalist political democracy is essential in order to gain control the state. But in response to “Leninist” claims this would invite a “Pinochet style” response, you argue that the state apparatus is staffed by workers who will inevitably be won to the Mass Socialist Movement. The armed forces would in effect be a broken reed in the face of the MSM, literally generals without troops. Again, you confirm the key to effect change, to gain control of the state apparatus, is the Mass Socialist Movement, not the comparative handful of Socialist MPs sent into a Parliament.

So why the continued emphasis on the importance and need for (capitalist) political democracy to secure the transition to socialism?

The importance of a representative institution to demonstrate a majority for socialism and to ensure the abolition of capitalism is done in as peaceable and co-ordinated manner as possible is not denied. But isn’t it far preferable to use structures and tools created by the working class itself, and for itself, to achieve this more effectively?

We cannot guarantee capitalist democracy will always be available to use for the purpose yet by definition we know for sure a Mass Socialist Movement will be based on organs of working class democracy which are certain to be available to us and better fashioned for the purpose.

Andrew Northall, 

Kettering, Northants

Reply: 

You are right. Once what you call “the Mass Socialist Movement” has come into existence capitalism’s days are numbered and there is nothing supporters of capitalism can then do to stop socialism coming. Even if they were to try armed resistance they would lose and, after a period of chaos and bloodshed, socialism would still end up being established.

You are also right that, if the Mass Socialist Movement so chose, it could simply go ahead and seize power. This too would result in a period of chaos and perhaps bloodshed (it would give the opponents of socialism a perfect excuse to resist) but the end result would still be the establishment of socialism.

But what’s the inconsistency in conceding that this is theoretically possible but not advocating that it should be tried? Using existing representative and elective institutions would be the best way to proceed for the reasons you yourself mention: “to demonstrate a majority for socialism and to ensure the abolition of capitalism is done in as peaceable and co-ordinated manner as possible”.

We don’t agree either that it makes sense for the socialist movement to duplicate existing representative and elective structures. Obviously, the socialist movement will have to have its own democratic structures, but what would be the point of drawing up registers of electors, rules for nominating candidates, counting procedures, etc when these already exist for political elections? Why not use those that exist? Admittedly, new democratic structures will have to be developed at the workplace, where none exist at present, and we have always envisaged this happening through workers’ unions of one sort or another, but this does not have to be done as far as geographically-based local and national elections are concerned.

So, all in all, using existing institutions is the best option which is why we have always advocated it.—Editors.

Millennium Bug

Dear Editors,

It is no coincidence that every year many thousands are struck down with influenza in the wake of the so-called “Christmas festivities”. Having indulged in just about everything that we know is not good for us our resistance to disease is at its usual annual all-time low. Little wonder that the old ‘flu bug jumps down so many throats and hey ho! A few thousand more get their come-uppance before they have had time to put their baubles away.

The ‘flu epidemic post-Christmas 1999 promises to be the biggest ever. The Christmas binge will of course be dragged on into the 21st Century as countless millions make themselves ill while celebrating and having a “good time”, little doubt the millennium bug will strike . . . but it won’t be computers catching cold.

So why are so many people hell-bent on making themselves ill in order to “celebrate”? And what is there to celebrate? What difference will there be in the world a minute before midnight and a minute after midnight? Disregarding the millions who will have made themselves ill in the attempt to bring some joy into their hapless lives there will be no difference whatsoever. There will still be people living in cardboard boxes while others have several homes to live in. There will still be millions dying for the want of a bowl of rice while others die of obesity. There will still be one million children in this country alone being supported by others than the people who brought them into the world.

The bugs of deceit, corruption, greed, sleaze and dishonesty will continue to flourish and permeate every strand of our society and will continue to do so till the demeaning values upon which world society is based are replaced by values of a higher intrinsic worth . . . when that happens we will truly have something to celebrate.

John Phazey,

Sutton Coldfield

Pinochet and socialism (1998)

From the December 1998 issue of the Socialist Standard

The arrest of the Chilean ex-dictator Pinochet in London in October reopened the debate about the overthrow by the armed forces of the Allende government in 1973. At the time Leninists and anarchists trumpeted this as confirmation of their argument that it is not possible to use existing limited, political democracy to abolish capitalism. So it is worth restating why what happened in Chile in 1973 is not relevant to our case that capitalism can be abolished by a democratically-organised socialist majority using already-established elective and representative institutions.

The Chilean experience is not relevant for three basic reasons. First, Allende and the People’s Unity (Unidad Popular) alliance which supported him did not enjoy majority support. Second, Allende and People’s Unity did not stand for socialism but for state capitalism. Third, it was an attempt to improve things within the context of a single country on its own.

In the presidential elections held in September 1970 Allende polled 36 percent of the votes cast, just beating his conservative opponent who got 35 percent while the Christian Democrat candidate got 28 percent. In other words, in a three-way contest Allende won by not much more than the minimum possible—one-third of the votes plus one. Under the constitution then in force in Chile, if no candidate won over 50 percent it was left to Congress to decide. Allende was elected president with the help of the Christian Democrat members of Congress, perfectly constitutionally but without majority support for his programme. So he was in a much weaker position vis-à-vis his opponents than a socialist majority would be.

But the support Allende enjoyed was not for socialism anyway. People’s Unity which he headed was an alliance of the Chilean Socialist Party, the Chilean Communist Party and various smaller leftwing groups. Its short-term aim was to carry out various reforms in favour of workers and peasants within the context of capitalism. Its long-term aim, strongly influenced by the Communist Party and people who thought like them within the Socialist Party (of course the one was no more communist in the proper sense than the other was socialist), was something along the lines of what existed in Russia, i.e. state capitalism. Maybe Russian-style total state capitalism can’t be established by peaceful means, but what relevance has this to establishing socialism?

Finally, socialism cannot be established in just one country. The Allende government could not have established socialism even if it wanted to and had, therefore, no alternative but to run capitalism. However capitalism, as we have always insisted, cannot by its nature be run in the interests of the working class majority. So, like other reformists, Allende was unable to deliver on his promises. Even though elections held in March 1973 showed that the support of a third or so of the population for People’s Unity still held up, discontent grew amongst the two-thirds majority which didn’t support it, the discontent exploited by the government’s opponents, encouraged and helped by the CIA (in pursuit of the US strategic interest not to allow Russian state capitalism to establish another bridgehead besides Cuba in their backyard) and multinationals like ITT (who feared nationalisation without adequate compensation).

By September 1973 the conservative (not to say fascist) minded leaders of the armed forces, led by General Pinochet, decided the time was ripe to stage a coup. The presidential palace was bombarded and Allende killed and a brutal regime the like of which the world had not seen since Franco won the Spanish Civil War was installed. A veritable reign of terror, designed to cow the third of the population who still supported Allende, was unleashed. Thousands of opponents were rounded up, tortured and killed; elective institutions were dissolved and working class organisations banned.

No wonder most people were content to see Pinochet arrested and suffer a few uncomfortable moments, if not end his days in a Spanish jail (Thatcher, who saw a kindred spirit, being a notable exception). But this does not alter the fact that the government Pinochet overthrew had nothing to do with socialism but was a government without majority backing aiming to move towards state capitalism in the context of a world in which two super-powers were struggling for domination. The quite different conditions that will obtain on the eve of socialism—mass support for socialism throughout the world—will be sufficient to deter any suicidal attempt by a latter-day Pinochet to halt the progress of history.

Adam Buick