Allende’s victory reflected a broad radicalization of the Chilean masses. Popular Unity committees sprang up throughout the country to work for Allende’s election, and when it became clear that Allende was going to get the largest vote of the three candidates running, masses of people poured into the streets to celebrate.

During the first year of the UP government, a number of far-reaching reforms were carried out. Foreign holdings in copper, nitrate, iron, and coal were nationalized, as well as many banks and textile mills. Steps were taken to implement a land reform law passed under the previous Christian Democratic government but never carried out. Along with this, peasants began seizing land. The government opposed such seizures, but in most cases went along with them, offering to pay the owners.

Workers received a significant increase in wages. A half quart of milk a day was supplied to children. Thousands of political prisoners were released. And Allende opened up diplomatic relations and trade with Cuba and took other foreign policy stands, such as opposing U.S. intervention in Vietnam, that earned the wrath of the U.S. government.

These challenges to imperialism helped to deepen support for Popular Unity among the masses, so that by the time of the legislative elections the next year, the UP vote went up from 36 percent to 49.75 percent. Within the UP, the number of votes for the workers’ parties increased, with 22.89 percent for the Socialist Party and 17.36 percent for the Communist Party, while the Radicals—a bourgeois party—declined to 8.15 percent.

The UP government did not claim to be establishing socialism in Chile. But Allende insisted that his was a “revolutionary” government that was “laying the basis for socialism.” In an interview with Régis Debray, Allende described himself as follows: “The president of the Republic is a socialist…I have reached this office in order to bring about the economic and social transformation of Chile, to open up the road to socialism. Our objective is total, scientific Marxist socialism.”

Despite Allende’s radical rhetoric, and despite some significant anti-imperialist actions, Popular Unity was a class-collaborationist coalition, a popular front. It subordinated the struggles of the masses to an orientation of collaborating with bourgeois parties and forces. The top UP leadership opposed a perspective of mobilizing the working class and its allies to take power, dismantle the old army and state apparatus, and build a new one based on the toilers. They looked to the army brass and to agreements with the Christian Democratic Party to protect them from the imperialists and the right wing.

At critical points in the Chilean struggle, the UP brought members of the top Chilean officer corps into the government as a guarantee to Chilean capitalists. Even when attacks from the right wing became severe, the main forces in the UP were afraid to organize the masses for an effective fight because this would frighten the Christian Democrats and cause them to turn against the government.

The UP government was also scrupulous in making sure that everything was done without infringing on bourgeois legality. It proclaimed that the “revolution” was being made in the context of bourgeois institutions.  
 
Imperialist destabilization
Unlike the UP leaders, the imperialists and the Chilean ruling class had no allegiance whatsoever to bourgeois legality. From the beginning, imperialism began to plot to get rid of Allende. In fact, the U.S. corporation International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT) connived with Richard Nixon’s administration to try to prevent Allende from even being elected. And after the election, there were further plots to try to keep Allende from taking office.

Economic sabotage was one of the most effective weapons used against the UP government by the U.S. and Chilean capitalists. By undermining the economy and driving down the standard of living of the masses, they sought to demoralize the workers and to turn the middle class against the government.

The U.S. opened up a virtual economic war against Chile. It used its influence to block the refinancing of Chile’s foreign debt. World Bank credits for Chile dropped from an annual average of $230 million to $27 million. There was a flight of capital from Chile, and private companies ended new investments. U.S. trade with Chile was slashed. The U.S. cut off all shipments of spare parts and wheat. Foreign aid was cut. U.S. copper companies claimed that they were not getting paid fairly for the nationalized copper and tried to block Chile from marketing the copper. American technicians were pulled out of the mines to sabotage their functioning. The U.S. also sold off some of its copper reserves, driving down the price of copper on the world market. Within Chile, the bourgeoisie decapitalized industries, sabotaged production, hoarded goods, and withdrew money from the banks.

All of this had the desired effect of creating economic chaos and of putting the economic squeeze on the masses. Given his framework of not challenging bourgeois legality and the norms of capitalism, Allende found himself more and more in the position of calling upon the workers to sacrifice to meet the payments demanded by the imperialists.

As the crisis deepened, the right-wing actions against the government began to grow and involve larger layers of the middle class. In October 1972 small shopkeepers went on strike against government searches for hoarded goods. Upper class and middle-class women began to demonstrate against the shortages. Fascist movements began to grow and to carry out violent attacks. Right-wing forces carried out bombings, assassinations, and provocations. The bourgeois press produced an unending stream of lies against the UP and the workers’ movement. Finally, right-wing bosses’ “strikes,” spearheaded by the truck owners, paralyzed the economy.

U.S. imperialism played a direct role in this destabilization campaign. The U.S. embassy, the CIA, U.S. corporations, U.S.-trained Cuban counterrevolutionaries, and the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD)—the AFL-CIO bureaucracy’s government-funded counterrevolutionary operation in Latin America—all had a hand in the action.

When U.S. aid to Chile was cut, there were two notable exceptions: 1) U.S. military aid and training continued for the Chilean armed forces; and 2) a million dollars were made available through AID to finance counterrevolution. Most of the latter was channeled through AIFLD and used to help organize and finance the truck owners’ strike, as well as other activities of the right wing.

Working people in Chile responded to these attacks by defending the Allende government and by taking steps to keep the economy running. When the capitalists began to sabotage production, the workers occupied the plants and continued to produce without the bosses. In the summer of 1973, the army responded with searches of the plants, harassing and arresting workers under the pretext of searching for weapons. The Christian Democrats backed up the army in their growing attacks on the workers and the UP.  
 
1973 coup
The process culminated, three years after Allende’s election, in a bloody military coup. Thousands of workers, political activists, and people from the poor neighborhoods were massacred, along with many foreign revolutionaries who had obtained political asylum under the UP government. Allende himself was killed as he fought to defend the national palace against attacking troops. It was a terrible setback not only for Chile, but for the oppressed and exploited masses throughout all of Latin America.

These tragic events provided important lessons for the workers movement. They showed what imperialism was ready to do to defend its interests. They also showed the bankruptcy of a perspective of relying on the bourgeoisie in the struggle against imperialism.

The UP was in a contradiction from the beginning. Under the pressure of the masses, it took certain deepgoing anti-imperialist actions, and then expected the bourgeoisie of Chile to help defend these actions. But it has been shown time and time again that the national bourgeoisie in semicolonial countries will not wage a consistent struggle against imperialism; instead, it lines up with imperialism against the workers and peasants of its own country.

These events also showed how, under the blows of capitalist attacks, the workers found it necessary to take more and more radical steps, occupying plants, taking over distribution, and other steps that led in the direction of challenging the capitalist system itself. Two alternatives were posed: either the masses would be mobilized in a struggle that would culminate in a workers and farmers government, or the workers would be crushed.

There was no question that the workers of Chile were ready to fight. Every time there was an opportunity, the workers came out en masse to demonstrate against the right wing. In the industrial areas, organizations known as cordones industriales began to coordinate the struggle. But, the UP government—with the CP in the lead—put a brake on these activities.

By restricting the organization of the masses, the UP leaders blocked the workers from taking the lead in providing real solutions to the problems faced by the masses, including the peasantry, the unemployed, and the poorer layers of the urban middle class. Efforts by the MIR (Revolutionary Movement of the Left) and the left wing of the SP to organize such layers and to build an effective resistance to the right wing were attacked by the CP as ultraleft. Even when it was obvious that a coup was coming—and there was plenty of warning—the UP leadership refused to take the necessary steps to mobilize and arm the workers.  
 
Cuba’s role
Cuba responded to the events in Chile in the following ways:

1) by solidarizing with Chile as a country that was charting a foreign policy independent of Yankee imperialism and taking its natural resources out of the hands of the imperialists;

2) by defending the Popular Unity government in the face of a concerted drive by imperialism and Chilean reaction to overthrow it; and

3) by attempting to bolster the positions of those in Chile who were trying to mobilize the masses to defeat the right-wing forces and to make a revolution, and to influence the broadest possible layers in the UP and Chilean labor movement along these lines.

The Cubans jumped to the defense of Chile as soon as the U.S. attacks began, even before Allende became president. They sought to expose what the U.S. was doing and viewed the election itself as a victory against this. Granma carried a banner headline, “Anti-imperialist Victory in Chile.”

(Second of three parts)

(Last of three parts)  
 
 
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