Chile: Lessons of the Coup: Which Way to Workers Power?

[page 1]

CHILE LESSONS OF THE COUP WHICH WAY TO WORKERS POWER ?

[page 2]

CHILE | LESSONS OF THE COUP | Which way to workers power

CONTENTS:

LESSONS OF THE COUP Tariq Ali Pi.

CHILE SINCE THE COUP Gerry Hedley P27.

INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP

PAMPHLET

[page 3]

Lessons of the coup

On September 11th, 1973 the Chilean army carried out the coup d’etat which it had been planning for the preceeding two and a half years. The Popular Unity government was overthown and its President, Salvador Allende, was shot dead in his room at the Moneda Palace, a large section of which was destroyed by artillery and aerial bombardment. The ‘“‘Chilean road” had come to an end. New names had been added to the scroll of working class martyrs in Latin America. In attempting to assess the situation in Chile from 1970-3 and the course of the events leading up to September 11, it is necessary to discuss the background in which the Popular Unity government was _ elected, what this victory represented and how the bourgeoisie in Chile together with the United States capitalists prepared to overthrow Allende. THE FREI ‘EXPERIMENT’: the bourgeoisie plays the reformist card. Ever since the victory of the Cuban Revolution, the more sophisticated sections of the American and Latin American ruling classes understood the importance of projecting an alternative model of development to that of Cuba and creating an alternative pole of attraction in the Latin American continent. The influence and prestige of the Cuban Revolution and its leaders (Castro and Guevara) was such that the United States was extremely concerned at the possibility of Cuban-type social revolutions sweeping the continent. Hence the importance of Chile in their global strategy should not be underestimated. Accordingly important sections of the ruling class backed the Christian Democratic Party in the 1964 elections and ensured the victory of Eduardo Frei as President, a victory which was loudly hailed in the American «press as a “revolution in freedom”. It was stated on numerous occasions that Frei was going to “profoundly transform” Chile’s social and economic structure. Certainly it would be futile to deny that certain reforms were undertaken by the Christian Democratic government; the Agrarian Reform Law of 1967 made a start in expropriating land and distributing it among peasants, a rural unionisation law permitted the establishment of peasant unions, it increased Chilean participation in the US-controlled copper industry and finally bought a controlling share in both the Annaconda and Kennecott Copper Companies; it even attempted to devote more resources to social expenditure. 1

[page 4]

Frei’s reformism was supported by the United States. To understand this it is useful to grasp the changes which have taken place in the area of investment by imperialist capital in Latin America which have led away from a concentration on primary materials towards the manufacturing sector. By 1966 investment in manufacturing industries had become the dominant area of investment. This meant that the United States could afford to abandon the old oligarchies and be prepared to deal with the new oligarchs in the shape of bourgeois or military ‘reformism’. In a penetrating study of this situation Ernest Mandel wrote (/mperialism and National Bourgeoisie in Latin America, in /nternational vol. 1, no. 5):

With the economic transformation effected during the last fifteen years, these traditional political structures (ie the old oligarchy—TA) have also been transformed. The objective basis for alliance of ‘oligarchy and imperialism’ has been reduced. The autonomy of the ‘national’ industrial bourgeoisie disappears in the face of the imperialist manufacturing trusts ...

So there gradually emerges a new alliance, an association of ‘imperialist capital-national industrial capital’ with an interest in weakening the oligarchic sectors, not only the big landowners and exporters, but even traditional mining capital ...

Thus Frei’s policies in no way clashed with the interests of US imperialism. Moreover, Frei was quite capable of carrying out a policy of repression against the workers’ movement. Working class demonstrations were regularly attacked and tear-gassed by the police. Eight workers were shot dead at the El Salvador mine in 1966 and ten squatters who had occupied unoccupied land in Puerto Montt in 1969 were ruthlessly massacred. The reforms certainly stimulated working class consciousness in the sense that many workers and peasants were not satisfied and wanted more. It was in this contect that the question of armed struggle began to be posed by sections of the revolutionary left. Carlos Altamirano, a prominent leader of the Chilean Socialist Party, told the Cuban newspaper Granma (October 30, 1968) that there was a ‘progressive feeling of betrayal; ...people, workers and youth seek true revolutionary methods of struggle, of action. In the country, as well as in the university, highly explosive forces are being formed.”

Within the Christian Democratic Party itself groupings emerged which were extremely critical of Frei for pandering to the Right. In May 1969 a leftist movement split off and formed the Movimiento de Accion Popular Unitaria (MAPU). By 1970 it was clear that the Christian Democrats would not win the forthcoming election; their candidate Tomic was to use a rhetoric virtually indistinguishable from that of Allende, but the experience of the Christian Democracy in power had disillusioned broad sections of the masses. Even the bourgeoisie was split and it was the participation of two bourgeois candidates (Tomic and the extreme right-wing Allesandri representing the National Party and the Radical Democratic Party), which paved the way for Allende’s electoral victory. 2

[page 5]

REFORMISM OF A NEW TYPE: Allende’s exptriment with the peaceful road to socialism The election of the Popular Unity (UP) was seen as an important step forward by large sections of the working class. The programme of the UP was without doubt confused (particularly on the co-existence of the public and private sector), but nonetheless it transcended the reformism of Frei and pledged to create a new Chile, to nationalise all foreign capital and foreign trade, to extend the Agrarian Reform of Frei, and to lay the basis for the creation of a new apparatus under the control of the working class. In brief, the UP saw the electoral victory as the beginning of the process of the transition to socialism. What then was the character of the UP? Was it a classical Popular Front as existed in Chile, France and Spain in the 1930’s, or was it something different? A Popular Front embodies the collaboration between a working class party (or parties) and a party or parties of the bourgeoisie, and is a tactic utilised by sections of the bourgeoisie to contain the rise of the mass movement and keep a grip on working class parties. This was how the bourgeoisie conceived of the Chilean Popular Front in the Thirties. Allende himself told Debray (Conversations p118) in that connection: “‘,..s.We consicously entered into a colati tion in order to be the left wing of the system—the capitalist system, that is. By contrast, today, as our programme shows, we are struggling to change the system....... Our objective is total, scientific, Marxist socialism’”’. The point made by Allende is essentially correct. The bourgeois parties in the UP were insignificant and some later withdrew from the coalition. In any case, the two parties which dominated the UP were the Chilean CP and the Socialist Party (SP), representing a large section of the working class and pledged to socialism. Thus the stated aim of the UP-type coalitions is socialism, whereas the Popular Fronts of the Thirties were pledged essentially to combat fascism together with important sections of the_bourgeoisie, and completely within the ideological and political framework of bourgeois democracy. This cannot be said about the UP. In fact, as we shall discuss later, one of the parties, MAPU, of bourgeois origins, later developed a revolutionary programme and theses which were close to the positions of revolutionary Marxism. The UP in Chile was thus, if anything, a reformist united front dominated by two large working class parties. Even if there had not been a single grouping of bourgeois or pettybourgeois origin in the UP there is nothing to indicate that its policies would have been different in any way. Therefore in our view there is no comparison bet ween the coalition government in Ceylon (where the reformist left is in coalition with a major bourgeois party) and the UP in Chile.

The second important point to grasp about the UP is that the Chilean CP was a right-wing force within it and that the SP was well to the left of the CP on virtually every political question. This fact becomes rather decisive in understanding why the UP was not in a position to contain the mass movement by selective repression (as the bourgeoisie would have liked), or even to outlaw the MIR (Movement of the Revolutionary Left). It was the existence of the SP in the Popular Unity which made the UP unsalvageable for the left section 3

[page 6]

of the bourgeoisie (represented by the Christian Democracy). In the absence of a strong left-wing pole inside the SP it is quite clear that the CP would have irredeemably dragged the UP to the right and ultimately brought the Christian Democrats into the coalition, which would have made it a classical popular front of the type in which the Stalinist movement specialised in the Thirties.

What then is the Chilean Socialist Party, and what are its origins? The Chilean Socialist Party was founded in 1933 by Salvador Allende, amongst others. It was from the beginning a party which stated in its programme its commitment to Marxism: ‘‘The Party adheres to Marxism as the method for interpreting reality and recognises the class struggle as the motive force of history.”

The SP was founded because its founders felt that the Chilean CP was incapable of responding to the needs of the Chilean proletariat (the CP was then going through an ultraleft phase in accordance with the turn initiated by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow). The SP represented an attempt to build a working-class party based on Marxism, but not under the domination of the Stalinised Third International. A party, that is, which was able to devise tactics in relation to the needs of the Chilean class struggle and not in accordance with the twists and turns in Moscow. The SP, as a result, was different from traditional social-democratic parties, and Allende specifically stated in 1970 that the SP had nothing to do with “certain self-styled socialist parties in Europe”. Thus the SP never aligned itself with the Second International (it was the Radical Party which was the Chilean section of the Second International) and, in fact, occupied a terrain to the left of the Chilean CP. Its internal life was much more open and many SP militants in the Thirties used to study Trotsky as well as Lenin (including Allende himself).

Despite the fact that the SP was programmatically committed to Marxism, nonetheless it had no real strategy for the seizure of power and it was involved in a whole number of class-collaborationist electoral alliances, including the Popular Front of 1938, which was dominated by the Radical Party and its leader Cerda. It was, and remained, a centrist political formation constantly vacillating under the pressure of different class forces in Chile.

It was the peculiar nature of the Socialist Party together with the conditions which had brought the UP to power and the continuing mass mobilisations which made the position of the Chilean CP somewhat awkward. The CP had been since the late Thirties a party of class collaboration. After its ignominious role in the Cerda Popular Front of 1938, a Front which did not carry out one significant reform in favour of the urban or rural proletariat, the Chilean CP continued its electoralist orientation. In 1964 it participated in the government of right-wing Radical Party leader, Gonzales Videla. The CP excused this participation by quoting the pre-election rhetoric of Videla, which promised the working masses everything that they wanted in addition to the moon. But the Radical Party as a major bourgeois party could not in any way serve the interests of the working class. Videla used the CP support to contain the rising working-class upsurge (there were three CP leaders in Videla’s cabinet) and when this task had been accomplished he banned the CP, unleashed a ferocious repression against the workers, arrested 1000 CP militants, and sent 500 of them to a desert concentration camp in the North.

It was not until 1958 thet the ban on the CP was lifted. Then it embarked again on its old policies. No lessons were learnt. No questions were asked. 4

———— =

[page 7]

The Cuban revolution left no mark on it, and the parliamentary, non-violent road to socialism was pursued with a vengeance once again. Compare this with the soul-searching that was to take place inside the SP. At its 21st Congress in 1966, the SP drew the following conclusion from its tactics up to that date:

The popular movement which we structured in accordance with our line on the basis of the parties of the working class, with a class programme, with the aim of establishing a truly people’s government, /ias been oriented towards an electoral contest within the framework of bourgeois democracy. As a result, the working class has lost the possibility of coming to power for a period. It was not just one more loss of presidential candidacy, but the catastrophic culmination of a heap of weaknesses and mistakes which have led us from a correct perspective to the blind alley of bourgeois democracy. We were dragged through a false doorway with respect to bourgedis Constitutionalism and the policy of the ‘peaceful road’. It is obvious that this anti-parliamentarist current in the SP did not disappear with the election of Popular Unity in 1970. On the contrary, it was precisely this current, represented by the General Secretary of the organisation, Aliimirano, which fought bitterly against the CP’s attempts to drag the UP into the arms of Christian Democracy. THE FIRST YEAR OF POPULAR UNITY: exercising power inside a Capitalist state As mentioned above, Salvador Allende was elected President on the basis of a minority vote. The Chilean bourgeoisie could not agree on one candidate and instead put two in the field. This ensured the victory of Allende but put him a difficult position vis a vis parliament, where the UP was in a minority and dependent on Christian Democratic support. In order for Allende to be confirmed in office, he had to give certain guarantees to Parliament, which were embedded in the Constitution and which gave an undertaking that the UP would not destroy the system of liberal democracy and the state apparatus. This concession was strongly attacked by the MIR and the Socialist Party youth. Both groups contended that to achieve office in these conditions would be to put one’s head on the chopping block. The overwhelming majority of the UP, however, supported the concessions as ‘tactical’ and Allende assumed power in November 1970. In the period leading to his assumption of power the Army C-in-C Rene Schneider, supposedly a ‘neutral’ officer, was assassinated by right-wing squads who hoped thereby to unleash a military coup and prevent Allende holding office. The attempt failed (largely owing to the vigilance of the MIR) as the assassins were uncovered and right-wing members of parliament were said to be involved. The assassination therefore proved to be counter-productive, and Allende was in a relatively strong position during the first several months in office.

The first year of the UP saw the Allende administration carrying out a number of important reforms as had been promised in the UP programme. Certainly there can be no doubt that many of these measures were immensely popular

[page 8]

with the oppressed strata of Chilean society and had a big impact. Beginning with the free distribution of haif a litre of milk for all children, a number of new laws were passed to increase and develop the existir g social services, a ceiling was placed on all governmental salaries, 45 political prisoners were released, the special mobile group of riot police (trained in the arts of repression by the US AID police training programme immortalised in the film “State of Siege”) was disbanded. There was a 60% increase in wages and most prices were fixed. The first six months of 1971 saw inflation reduced to 7.5% compared to the first half of 1970 when it had risen to 22%. Major nationalisations were also begun, and within the first nine months a large proportion of the textile, iron, automobile and copper industries had been nationalised. In addition, 60% of the country’s banks were also taken into public ownership. The nationalisation of the three largest copper mines (all owned by American capital) - Cerro, Annaconda and Kennecott - was a measure of some importance, particularly since no compensation was paid. The UP argued that the profits which the companies had extracted over the years was ample compensation. But what was lacking in most cases was workers control after the nationalisations, a factor which could have been of the utmost importance in transforming a legal decree into something concrete which could have changed the overall relation of class forces and acted as a big impetus to workers exploited in privately-owned factories. Nonetheless there were cases of factories being nationalised after being occupied by workers protesting against redundancies. This happened in May 1971 in the case of the Ford Motor Co Plant, and in November 1970 with the Northern Indiana Brass Co’s local subsidiary. More significant was the seizure by the workers of 14 textile mills in May 1971, which compelled the UP to take them under state control immediately to maintain production. In addition five other textile plants were also taken over to provide a base for the new state-owned industry. By the end of the year 263 factories had been occupied and taken under state control. It was these measures in particular which convinced the bourgeoisie that the UP was not going to restrict its take-overs to obvious anachronisms such as the copper mines, but was challenging the manufacturing sector of the bourgeoisie as well. Imperialism is always prepared to tolerate a certain measure of nationalisation provided that compensation is guaranteed (eg Peru), but in return it wants the prestige gained by the government carrying out the nationalisations to be used to contain. or if necessary repress, the mass movement. Furthermore, it does not readily brook any interference with the valued investments it has in the manufacturing sectors of industry. in Chile the UP was unable to oblige imperialism in this fashion. The class base of the SP and CP would have revolted and sections would have moved to the MIR and the revolutionary left in general. Also it would have involved the UP reaching some programmatic agreement with the Christian Democracy. Clearly that would have split the UP, and a CP-Christian Democratic alliance without the SP would have been disastrous from the point of view of the bourgeoisie. Thus the UP government was unable to satisfy imperialism by containing the mass movement. Its dilemma lay in the fact that by its very nature it was also unable to satisfy the hopes and aspirations which its victory had aroused in the broad working class and peasant masses. Its vacillations were utilised by the bourgeoisie, as the latter together with the multinational corporations of

[page 9]

Wall Street (of which the intrigues of ITT are only the most recent example), prepared to bring about its downfall. The UP programme stressed that the first stage was the anti-imperialist, anti-oligarchic stage of the process. The key lay precisely in the fact that there was no Chinese wall dividing imperialist economic interests from those of the local bourgeoisie. Over the last two decades the interpenetration of foreign and indigenous capital had increased by leaps and bounds, so that the possibility of sections of the local bourgeoisie balancing between the UP and US imperialism to strengthen themselves was virtually nil. If anything, the stages theory of progress was more out of date today than it had been in the early years of the 20th century. What then were the real problems confronted by the UP government? Fidel Castro expressed them rather succinctly in his important speech on Chile in Havana on September 28, 1973:

In the first place there was an intact bourgeois state apparatus. There were armed forces that called themselves apolitical, institutional, that is apparently neutral in the revolutionary process. There was the bourgeois parliament where a majority of members jumped to the tune of the ruling classes. There was a judicial system which was completely subservient to the reactionaries ..."”

The key problem therefore was how to smash the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie. This problem was at best understood by the major components oi the UP in a gradualist, parliamentarist and constitutionalist way. There was a complete failure to understand the nature of the Chilean army and its functions. There was a failure to see that the creation of an alternative apparatus based on the workers and peasants was of vital importance if the bourgeoisie was going to be defeated. There were indications that sections of the SP understood these problems, but this understanding was at best partial and the socialist left did not wage a crucial struggle on the issues at stake inside the UP until it was too late. Thus at the congress of the SP after the victory of the UP, a resolution was adopted which while backing Allende’s policies to the hilt also stressed the following points:

We recognise as a form of self-criticism that some of the actions of the workers have gone beyond the political direction of Popular Unity and are in fact putting into the forefront the question of power ...

The presence of workers in the government cannot signify dependence of the mass movement on the governmental apparatus... The Socialist Party will fight to revitalise the committees of Popular Unity and to conves¢ them into instruments of political power for the working masses in the new popular state ...

The Socialist Party gives special priority to those programmatic measures that undermine capitalist power and connect the bourgeoisdemocratic tasks with socialist tasks in the same uninterrupted process ... (Punto final, no 124, February 16, 1971). But again there was no clear guide as to what constituted the next vital steps for the masses in which bourgeois power could be undermined and destroyed.

[page 10]

IMPERIALISM AND THE BOURGEOISIE PREPARE THEIR OFFENSIVE As briefly discussed above, the first reaction of US imperialism was to adopt a “wait and see” attitude to the UP government. This period lasted roughly for between 9 and 11 months after Allende was elected. The reason for this forebearance was because imperialism hoped that the UP government could possibly turn out to be an ‘experiment’ of the Peruvian type: antiimperialist rhetoric, a few nationalisations, but at the same time a strict containment of the working masses. The UP was for a whole variety of reasons unable to play this role, the Chilean CP notwithstanding. In the last months of 1971 the imperialists began to turn the screws, clearly beginning to regret that they had not heeded the advice of ITT to organise an active CIA intervention against Allende; although it must be pointed out that there was a split in the American ruling class on this question and all the available evidence indicates that the State Department and the CIA were involved in discussions with the Chilean rightists before Allende was declared President. However, once the nationalisations began in earnest the United States declared economic war on Chile. All economic aid and credits were suspended and a de facto boycott of Chile by American capital began to be carried out. Internally a more vigorous application of Frei’s Agrarian Reform saw the agrarian bourgeoisie embarking on a course of sabotaging agricultural production. The urban bourgeoisie, in total control of distribution, began to hoard and create a black market on a vast scale in Chile.

An interesting sidelight in this whole affair is the extremely significant fact that throughout the period of the UP government the United States did not for a single moment cut off military aid to the Chilean armed forces. Having put the economic screws on Allende, they continued to strengthen the military apparatus of the Chilean bourgeoisie, which they knew full well would at a later date be required to apply the military screws and throttle the UP. In October 1971, a well-known expert in repression, Nathaniel Davis, was appointed US ambassador to Santiago. His previous posting had been to Guatamala, where his ‘advice’ to the army had resulted in severe repression of the popular movement. In December 1971 two Nixon aides, Finch and Klein returned from a‘fact finding mission’ to Chile and proclaimed that “Allende won't last long’”’. This was meant to reassure the giant multinationals of the United States, who had begun to be affected by the nationalisations and who ITT, Dow (remember the napalm!), Du Pont and several others. American policy was aptly described by James Petras and Robert La Porte:

The overall purpose of US policy is to create economic disorder and ‘provide a domestic social crisis that could lead to ... the overthrow of Allende’s government by a civilian-military coalition made up of the army, the Christian Democrats and the extreme right-wing National Party. (US responses to economic nationalism in Chile, unpublished, Penn State University, 1972).

In February 1972 Nixon gave the official seal of justification to what was already de facto US policy when he said: 8

[page 11]

Henceforth, should an American firm be expropriated without reasonable steps to provide prompt, adequate and effective compensation, there is a presumption that the expropriating country would receive no new bilateral benefits ... Similarly we would withhold our support for loans to that country in multinational development organisations ... and, because expropriation is a concern of many countries, we are placing greater emphasis on the use of multilateral mechanisms for dealing with this problem. Presumably this last comment was a polite hint to West German imperialism, which also has an important level of capital investment in Chile, to participate in the economic blockade which had been mounted. But the message was clear: the American monster was preparing to move into action. Once the master had pronounced, the capitalist press in the United States stepped up its pressure and the attacks on the UP government increased both in size and virulence. A revealing study of the US press and Chile has been made by John Pollock and David Eisenhower (“The New Cold War in Latin America: the US press and Chile; in The Chilean Road to Socialism, Doubleday, New York) and indicates, for those still suffering from doubts, the close interrelationship between the US press, the multinational giants and the US State Department. Given the preparations which the Americans and their friends in Chile were making, the UP leaders showed little understanding of what was involved. The Communist Party did have a line: they would have made virtually every concession possible to the bourgeois parties; but this was impossible as it would have resulted in the disintegration of the UP because of the opposition it would have encountered from within the SP and the MAPU. The only other alternative was for the UP to go on the offensive, mobilise the workers, expropriate large chunks of the private sector, and take distribution into its own hands. If this had been done in the early part of 1972 it would have disrupted the plans of the bourgeoisie, put the latter on the defensive, and improved the relationship of class forces in Chile in favour of the working masses. But to do that would have required a break with the reformist constitutionalism which characterised the road to the future mapped out by the Popular Unity, and this addiction to bourgeois legality and its rigid constitutionalism would prove to be the rock on which the UP foundered and was crushed. By the autumn of 1972 the bourgeoisie had mounted its offensive. It went on strike against the Popular Unity government. Within a week roads were blocked, production centres abandoned, transport withdrawn. Faced with the life and death question of the organisation of production and distribution, the working class developed those organs by which it could organise those activities itself - the cordones indusriales, the JAPs, and the co-ordianting committees. These institutions of the workers had existed prior to October, grouping together factories in the same geographical area so as to give unified leadership in economic demands. The owners strike saw their development as an apparatus existing alongside the state, and capable of taking on more and more of the functions of the state and the ruling class. Factories abandoned by their owners were requisitioned, production was organised by the workers, commercial secrecy abolished by taking over

[page 12]

books. The executive of each cordon was elected by mass assemblies and delegated to perform specific tasks. Co-ordinating committees provided the central nerve of the workers organisation, linking the cordones to one another and to the ‘communal commands’ - elected bodies organising distribution. These had previously been created by the state as watchdogs of prices - now linked to workers organisation of production, they distributed directly. Goods travelled straight from factory to consumer.

Shops joining the bosses strike were forcibly re-opened. Lorries standing idle were requisitioned. Local militias watched and guarded these activities.

E. Montes, general secretary of the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the Chilean section of the Fourth International described developments during that period to a reporter from Jntercontinental Press:

There had been an inflation of 180% preceding the ‘strike of the bourgeoisie’. There was a shortage of many kinds of consumer goods. As a result there was discontent among petty bourgeois strata which moved to the right. The October ’72 capitalist stoppage was an offensive by the right which stopped business nationally for 25 days in an attempt to bring about the fall of the government.

While it took root in the petty bourgeois strata of the population, this stoppage or lockout failed. It not only failed: its effect was the opposite of what its sponsors intended: the workers’ movement sought to defend the government and the economy against the lockout. The workers kept production going without the bosses. In a number of industries the workers took over, kept production going, set up a management. This, of course, posed very basic questions. Also the government had set up a requisition system to distribute the products and keep production supplied with raw materials. Thus by the time the bosses called off their ‘strike’, the ‘social sector’ of the economy (ie nationalised industry) had expanded ...

From October 1972 till now (April °73) the economic deterioration caused by the imperialist boycott and sabotages by local capitalists has continued—inflation, shortages, black market Operations and so on.

In November and December 1972 the situation got worse, affecting even layers of the working class. In this situation the government took a turn to the left. /t was of short duration but it had profound effects. It Was expressed in a speech by the Minister of Housing, Fernando Flores, who called on the workers and peasants to strengthen and enlarge the functions of the JAPs (Juntas de A bastecimiento y Control de Precious— Supply and Price Control Boards), mass organisations for policing prices and distributing consumer goods. Until that time the JAPs had been watchdog bodies, but Flores now told the workers: ‘You distribute!’, From that time the JAPs undertook the storage and distribution of goods, more extensively in some places than in others. The JAPs developed characteristics of embryonic dual power of the rank and file. To some extent the black market and other forms of capitalist sabotage were overcome by these activities. And while shortages continued in places where the petty bourgeoisie was strong, in a working class area where the JAP was strong at least the basic necessities were available. This stopped the swing to the right amongst sections of the workers. 10

[page 13]

Indeed it swung them even further left, for now the workers were beginning to feel their own power in the field of distribution, as well as the field of production.

This was the solution of the working class to the bosses’ strike—to set up the embryo of an apparatus capable of organising the essential functions of society— an embryonic apparatus of dual power. The reaction of Popular Unity is sharply counterposed to this. At first they appealed to the patriotic spirit of the owners; where cordones arose they made every effort to check them, calling them illegal. Then a state of emergency was declared, and the military called in to break the strike. The October strike shows clearly the character of the Allende government—its reliance on the very forces that were later to depose it, and its rejection of those forces that were the key to the Chilean revolution. From October to March Popular Unity successfully subordinated the struggle of the working class organised in the cordones to the electoral effort for the March elections. As a result, the UP won 43% of the votes. But the ‘parliamentary road’ had already closed - General Gustavo Leigh later revealed that the military high command had already begun to plan the coup in March. An increasing polarisation was taking place, and more and more workers were beginning to understand the need to fight the bourgeoisie. It was increased radicalisation that was posing problems for the right wing inside the UP (ie the CP and the SP right), who wanted to return to the bourgeoisie the factories taken over by the workers during the ‘strike of the bourgeoisie’ in October ‘72. Carlos Altamirano, the SP’s General Secretary and leader of its left wing, was strongly opposed to this plan, as was the dominant section of the party itself. The tussle between the right and the left of the SP was reflected inside the MAPU. Once again comrade Montes provides us with a lucid account:

The struggie (between the CP and the SP left—-TA) has now taken the peculiar form of a struggle within one of the small parties of the UP— MAPU, which originated from the left wing of the Christian Democrats.

The left wing of MAPU won the leadership at the last party congress (Nov. ’72) and passed a resolution opposing the theory of revolution by stages and advocating instead permanent revolution, continuing the uninterrupted collectivisation and socialisation of the country. The congress removed Jaime Gazmuri, a representative of the right-wing, as General Secretary, and replaced him with Oscar Garreton.

Three days after the 4th March election (in which MAPU got 100,000 votes), the right-wing minority carried out a coup against the party leadership, forciby occupying the three main offices, including the MAPU radio station in Santiago. There is no doubt that the coup had not only the support but the active participation of the CP.

The right-wing declared Gazmuri General Secretary and expelled the leftwing (ie the majority), including Garreton; the left-wing replied by expelling Gazmuri and those who had participated in the coup...

However, the JAPs were not effectively generalised. They functioned most effectively in the shanty towns where the MIR was dominant and where democratically elected and representative delegates gave them real weight. However, the 11

[page 14]

right-wing inside the UP realised the dangers involved in this and they acted to restrict their activities. The Peruvian revolutionary leader in exile, Hugo Blanco, described this process brilliantly in ntercontinental Press:

Once the JAPs were permitted wide power. But following this, their role was restricted, with many of their functions being handed over to the police at the same time that military officers were being brought into the top posts in the distribution system. At their height, besides receiving goods and taking them to the merchants, the JAPs maintained supervision over the prices and weighing of goods over the counter ... Once things reached this level, the consumers saw that they were ‘unpaid employees of the storekeepers’, realising that merchants were unnecessary.

The emasculation of the JAPs by the introduction of police and military personnel was part of the whole strategic and tactical thrust embodied in the “Chilean road”—a failure to break with the institutions of the bourgeois state and a refusal to ‘offend’ vital sectors of the state apparatus. It was this fact as much as a conjunctural misanalysis which led to the clash with the copper miners and workers of the public sector in June ’73. Faced with a growing inflation the public sector workers staged a strike for higher wages. The government branded them as “agents of the right” like those who took part in the illegal occupations of the factories and of land. The workers leading the strike responded by telling the UP that they were prepared to take over L/ Mercurio, the organ of the Chilean counter-revolution, but the eH

2 4 PEASANTS’ SELF-DEFENCE: Before the coup many groups of workers and peasants spontanecusly organised to defend themselves. Others did so under the influence of the MIR. The Popular Unity not only failed to support such moves but took action to suppress them.

12

[page 15]

continued attacks by the UP made many workers responsive to the initiatives of the right. Hugo Blanco described the situation of the El Teniente miners thus:

These workers struggled for the nationalisation of the mines together with their brothers at the Chuquicamata mine. They have pretty much always been the vanguard of the Chilean workers movement; thanks to them it won gains like the sliding scale of wages. It should also be pointed out that they voted 70/% for the UP during the last elections...

The present strike which began on the 15th April (1973) holds serious implications for the working class. The miners are defending their standards of living and they are showing that they are not rightists but that they support the general process of change that is occurring.

The government and the UP have furiously torn into the strikers, branding them as agents of fascism. In this, as in everything, it is the CP that stands out; it is organising parades in Santiago against the miners, calling on the government to use a “firm hand”, since in their opinion there is no difference between this and the bosses’ strike which occurred last October... Chile is a capitalist country. The nationalisation of “basic industry” leaving derivative industry in the hands of private capital, involves nothing more than a kind of state-capitalism. The number of factories that have been “taken-over” by the workers and that the government has found itself force to ‘intervene’ in is relatively small.

Distribution remains 70% in private hands, and most of the remainder is carried out with the aid of private concerns. In this situation all efforts of the workers in the Social Sector of the economy end up in the hands of the capitalists ...

The dollars earned by the efforts of the copper workers are sold at low price to importers of essential consumer goods, machines and raw materials. The consumer goods go to the black market. The machines and raw materials go at bargain rates to private factories, which nevertheless sell their products ut a high price. Thus, the sacrifices of the miners are swelling the profits of capitalism. Precisely! It is absurd to ask the miners to tighten their belts in a society where the bourgeoisie not only still exists, but has its entire state apparatus intact and controls a significant section of the economy and a majority of the distribution. It was the attacks made by the UP and the CP in particular that drove sections, and important sections, of the working class into the arms of the Right. Only by relying more and more on the independent mobilisations of the working class and telling them the truth (ie the real difficulties confronting the UP) could the bourgeoisie have been successfully fought. And if it is thought that only the “ultraleft and sinister” Trotskyists held this view, we can do no better than turn to the plaintive voice of the left SP paper Aurora de Chile, which spoke for hundreds of thousands of UP supporters when it wrote in an editorial in November ’72 (one montii after the “‘strike of the bourgeoisie’’):

Because we are sure that there is going to be another bosses’ strike. The strike was called off but not ended, the rich said, on Sunday night (Nov.

Sth ’72). We heard them clearly over the radio. Either the drones are 13

[page 16]

going to leave the honeycomb or they will come back to rule the country with blood and fire. It is us or the rich ... There is going to be another bosses’ strike, and the government is handing back the plants to the fascists so they can make another try ...

The big problem is that we are in the plants and we are not going to give them back. The government said for us to make those plants produce, and we did, and now we are not going to give them back. What is the government going to do? Shoot us?

They didn’t drive the rich out of the enclaves where they were holding the trucks. Are they going to drive us government supporters out of the plants?

What a dilemma, Coimpanero Presidente! The dilemma was answered by the UP in a way which was somewhat unique in the history of the international workers’ movement (though it must be said not at all unique in the Stalinist segment of it). The leading naval and military chiefs were brought into the cabinet in an attempt to create stability and no doubt “unify the nation’’. The military chiefs accepted posts in the cabinet (General Prats became Minister of the Interior) and thus staved off an immediate crisis, but soon after the March, 1973 elections they left the cabinet. The official excuse was that the March ’73 elections had confirmed that the UP base was intact and thus there was no néed for the military to remain in the cabinet. The real reason was somewhat different. It was clear that plans for a coup were already imminent and the military leaders wanted no army chiefs in the government they were going to bring down. So they prepared a series of demands that they knew Allende could not accept. The Christian Democratic daily La Prensa made the following observation:

In a prolonged meeting in the middle of the week the Council of Generals decided to call on President Allende to meet four demands. Failure to do so would mean that the men in uniform would leave the offices they held.

The demands included the right to maintain effective surveillance of the armed groups; the end of the executive use of legal loopholes to institute social reforms; and taking a technical and non-political approach to the questions relating to food supply. The withdrawal by the “uniforms” from the cabinet was merely the beginning of the process which culminated in the September 11th coup; in the time which elapsed many important events were to take place. On 29th June, the Second Armoured Regiment made an attempt at a coup and led an assault on the Moneda Palace. Whether its Commander, Lt. Colonel Souper, acted alone or whether it was a deliberate ploy by the Council of Generals to test the reaction— in other words a dress rehearsal—we do not know. Certainly it is clear that in the officers’ messes talk of a coup had been going on for the last two years, so that even if Souper took an independent initiative, it was done in full awareness of the mood of the upper ranks in the Chilean army. The most important feature of this abortive coup was the reaction it aroused in the working class. Factory occupations and a strengthening of the Cordones Jndustriales (local workers’ action committees) greeted the abortive uprising. Defence committees were strengthened and partially armed. However, it is important to note that the CUT (Chilean Workers’ Union), dominated by the SP and CP, did not call a general strike and prepare the workers for struggle. 14

[page 17]

They were keen on keeping workers inside the factories and restricted themselves to calling for factory occupations. While some independent initiatives outflanked the trade union and CP leaders, they were few and far between. Nonetheless, the anger of the workers at this abortive coup was clear to observers. Nearly a million workers marched on the evening of 29th June and demanded that Allende dissolve parliament and execute the plotters. Allende called attention to the “loyalty” of the majority of the military. The scene had all the ingredients of a Greek tragedy; the main characters were conscious of the fact that they were confronted with disaster, but they adopted a fatalistic attitude coupled with a naive belief in the armed forces. One of the independent initiatives from the base which did indicate that the vanguard workers were becoming conscious of the necessity of arming the masses was the action of the delegates of the Vicuna Mackenna Cordon (the industrial cordons grouped together assemblies of workers and cut across industrial lines). A joint statement issued by the elected council of the Vicuna Mackenna Cordon was drawn up and signed in the Elecmetal factory on 29th June. We reproduce it in full below:

We, representatives of the undersigned left-wing parties, express our total support to the measures taken by the Command of the Vicuna Mackenna Industrial Cordon in its Instructions Numbers 1, 2 and 3 (a reference to factory takeovers and preparations to defend the cordons with all means available at a time when the coup had not yet been put down).

The workers will not allow the government, installed by us, to be overthrown by the bourgeoisie. We will not allow the gains we have achieved over long years of struggle to be swept aside by a fascist mob. The workers will crush sedition; we will make no truce with the bourgeoisie, but will crush it once and for all.

1. All plants will become part of the Social Sector of the economy; not one plant important for the workers will remain in the hands of the bourgeoisie. 2. Workers Leadership. Production and distribution will remain in the hands of the workers, and the people will exercise complete control over community territory. 3. Popular Militia. The organised people must protect their gains. Create a defence committee and arm it in every industry and neighbourhood. 4. The leadership of the defence, and the advance of the people, will be assured only if they remain in the hands of the organised working class.

Eloy Bustamente, Socialist Party Jose Urrutia, Communist Party Augusto Alcayaga A., Radical Party Sergion Sotomayor, Christian Left Enrique Fernandez, Revolutionary Socialist Party, Chilean section of the Fourth International. The abortive coup on 29th June was an important test for the UP. If the statement signed by the leadership of the Vicuna Mackenna Cordon had been generalised, and the entire working class movement, its trade unions and its 15

[page 18]

political parties (both those inside and outside the UP) had united to defend the UP against the threat of military dictatorship, the picture could have been significantly different. After 29th June the workers were prepared to make all kinds of sacrifices. They had experienced for themselves a move by the army to topple the UP and they had responded in their own way, thus defeating the tanks outside the Moneda Palace. This was the opportunity, late though it was, for the UP to call for the creation of a nation-wide workers’ and peasants’ militia. It was their last-chance and they failed to take advantage of it. If a revolutionary party had existed in Chile at the time, its intervention could have been decisive, but the revolutionary groups did not constitute such a party and the UP was totally engrossed in the logic of its own “‘experiment”’. In the History of the Russian Revolution, Trotsky wrote:

A revolutionary uprising that spreads over a number of days can develop victoriously only in the case that it ascends step by step and scores one success after another. A pause in its growth is dangerous, a prolonged marking of time, fatal. But even such successes by themselves are not enough; the masses must know about them in time to understand their value. It is possible to let slip a victory at the very moment that it is in arms’ reach. That has happened in history.

The failure of the UP to develop, extend and generalise the mobilisations which greeted the military coup of 29th June was, as later events were to demonstrate conclusively, fatal in every sense of the word. Even though the UP had been indulging in a prolonged marking of time from the middle of 1972 onwards, concerted and resolute action after 29th June could have altered this situation. This did not take place, and, although Col. Souper was not successful, the failure of the UP to mobilise and arm the masses led to a renewed offensive by the bourgeoisie which started with the strike by the truck owners on 25th July and ended with the coup d’etat of 11th September, 1973. Firstly the army and navy were purged. An attempted revolt in the navy against the reactionaries was ruthlessly suppressed. Popular Unity remained silent, refusing to defend their supporters in the rank and file, and instead flirting with the generals. Secondly the campaign of economic sabotage was slowly escalated to a new owners’ strike. Instead of calling for the reactivation of the cordones, Allende told the workers to stand by and allow the military to break the strike. In fact the army, using the excuse of arms searches, actively collaborated with the bourgeoisie to spread the strike and break the workers’ militias. The rapidity with which the bourgeoisie had resumed its struggle alarmed Fidel Castro and the Cuban leadership. During his state visit to Chile, Fidel had noticed the alarming growth of fascist groups and had in a number of speeches warned the UP about this threat. Now he felt it necessary to send a special letter to Allende via two members of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. It is not necessary to reproduce the whole letter published in Granma (English edition, 7th October, 1973) but merely to give readers its essence. After explaining that Carlos and Pineiro were using the pretext of the Conference of Non- Aligned Nations to visit Chile and discuss with Allende, Castro wrote: 16

[page 19]

- and I can imagine that tensions must be high, and that you want to gain time to improve the balance of power in case fighting breaks out and, if possible, find a way to continue the revolutionary process without civil strife, avoiding any historic responsibility for what may happen. Those are praise-worthy objectives. But if the other side, whose objectives we are not able to judge from here, continues to carry out a perfidious and irresponsible policy, demanding a price which is impossible for Popular Unity, and the Revolution, to pay, which is quite likely, don’t forget the extraordinary strength of the Chilean working class and the firm support is has always given you in difficult moments. In response to your call when the revolution is in danger, it can block those who are organising a coup, maintain the suppor of the fence- sitters, impose its conditions and decide the fate of Chile once and for all, if the need arises, The enemy must realise that the Chilean working class is on the alert and ready to go into action. Its power and fighting spirit can tilt the scales in the capital in your favour, even though other circumstances may be unfavourable ...

Let Carlos and Munuel know how your loyal Cuban friends can be of service. Fraternally, Fidel Castro. But while Fidel’s words came late, they were nevertheless an important indication of the views of the Cuban leadership and the internationalist aid they offered could have been of some importance on 11th September. But the UP government seemed mesmerised by the situation in which it now found itself. In early July the bourgeoisie’s favourite newspaper, /) Mercurio, carried an article entitled ‘“‘Anti-Communist Satisfactions’’.

Travelling through anti-communist countries like Brazil offers profound satisfactions for those who have had to put up with the Communists for almost three years. In the first place, you'll find the Communists in their proper place, in hiding. Almost as if trying to reassure and coax the military leadership, Luis Corvalan, the leader of the Chilean CP, made a speech which was reported in the 3st July issue of Chile Hoy:

They (the reactionaries) are claiming that we have an orientation of replacing the professional army. No sir, we continue and will continue to support keeping our armed institutions strictly professional. The attitude of the leaders of the UP convinced the armed forces that there would be no serious organised and generalised resistance to a coup d’etat. They began to plan the last stages of the coup in collaboration with representatives of US imperialism and the Brazilian military junta. On 4th September between 700,000 and 800,000 supporters of the UP marched past the Moneda Palace to commemorate the third anniversary of the Chile experiment. Little did their leaders know it, but in exactly a week the UP would cease to exist. The workers chanted: “Allende, the people are defending you; hit the reattionaries hard”. The mood of the masses was militant. They were waiting for a lead which never came. However, one week before the coup the UP executive committee did issue a statement expressing solidarity “with the sailors and NCO’s who have been charged’’, and denounced “‘the unprecedented tor- 17

[page 20]

CHILEAN TRADE UNIONISTS: The Popular Unity failed to prepare them for the inevitable confrontation with the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Their jubilation was the first victim of the coup. t i-K

tures to which they have been subjected’’. This statement (which was published in Le Monde on 6th September) went on to further express support for Altamirano, Oscar Garreton of the MAPU, and Miguel Enriquez (the MIR leader) who were under attack from the military. The smell of a coup had reached the UP executive committee, but they did not call for a general strike and prepare the masses. On September 11th, the Chilean military, with the backing of all the ruling class parties and the fascists, launched a coup d’etat. At the Moneda Palace, Salvador Allende refused to surrender or resign and chose to fight. Together with Augusto Olivares (a famous Chilean journalist) and his small bodyguard, the Chilean president fought back, knowing perfectly well that it was a moral gesture. He had realised—alas, too late—that there was no such thing as the Chilean road to socialism. His*last message dictated as he was firing at the attackers was:

That is how we write the first page of this history. My people and (Latin)

America will write the rest. A few minutes later he was machine-gunned to death. He could have resigned and left the country in comparative safety, but he chose to go down with a gun in his hand. Could it be that in his last hours Salvador Allende decided to symbolically demonstrate the futility of the ‘‘peaceful road” and point the way to the future?

18

[page 21]

IN CONCLUSION: FOUR QUESTIONS AND FOUR ANSWERS WHICH EXPLAIN THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE COMMUNIST PARTY AND OURSELVES Question 1: Was the Chilean coup inevitable? As we have attempted to show above, the answer to this is a clearcut “ves”’. It was a key decision taken by the Chilean generals in obvious collusion with the United States. To destroy bourgeois democracy was too important a decision to be taken by the Chilean gorillas on their own, since its repercussions were not confined to Chile or even Latin America, but as we are seeing today are having an impact on Western Europe. Many statements by the CP seem to imply that the coup could have been avoided if more concessions had been made to the Right. This view has been expressed in Pravda, which attempted to pin the blame on the moves towards a coup on the revolutionary left. Soviet News of 21st August, 1973 carried excerpts from Vitaly Borovsky’s article in Pravda. In this Borovsky wrote:

Reaction has tried to provoke a conflict between the army and the people. Ultra-left elements, who by their provocative actions have helped to set the military against the people are, as always, playing a disgraceful role in this sinister affair.

The plotters have tried to set the armed forces against the government and to transform the military men from being defenders of their country’s interests into tools upholding the narrow and selfish interests of a handful of exploiters. This bizarre attempt to present the army as a neutral force being egged on by the reactionaries on the one hand and the ultra-lefts on the other is a novel innovation for anyone claiming to be a Leninist. Borovsky, without doubt a welltrained Stalinist, not only manages to misunderstand the role of the state and its apparatus (on which more below), but actually slanders the only groups in Chile, such as the MIR, who actually attempted to distribute propaganda to rank-and-file soldiers and sailors. Borovsky’s disgusting innuendoes are refuted even by the last statement issued by the UP executive committee which we referred to above. Jack Woddis attempts to outdo even Borovsky. In an article published in the Morning Star and reproduced as a leaflet, he states that if the UP had been given more time it would have won a “decisive majority”’, which would have made “its impact on the armed forces too’’. This touching faith in.the bourgeois state and its institutions is related to a new allegation that the CP comes up with. The problem, we are now told, was not just the ultra-lefts outside the UP, but the ultra-lefts inside it:

Whatever their intentions, the ultra-left groups outside the Popular Unity, such as the MIR, and those sections supporting them in the Socialist Party and MAPU, acted in such a way which played into the hands of reaction.

Dear Comrades of the Communist Parties, we have another suggestion for you to add to your list of ultra-lefts: Fidel Castro. His speech on Chile to which we referred above would surely place him the same category, and perhaps you 19

[page 22]

uld study the speech made by Salvador Allende’s daughter in Havana on the e day. She, too, is possibly an ultra-left. And then when you really begin to ik carefully, could it possibly be that the late Allende himself was under the uence of the ultra-lefts? ry, Jack Woddis, but this gibberish will not do. If you and your party do not e the political tools which could help you to analyse the reasons for the coup, best you can do is to remain silent. It would be better than peddling slanders, ay of which have their origin in the bourgeois press of Latin America.

JESTION 2: Was the success of the coup inevitable, and, if not, w could it have been avoided? is brings us to the heart of the debate between the revolutionaries and the ormists and we will, therefore, reply to this question in some detail. s often assumed by reformists that revolutionaries are opposed to participan in elections or interventions in the domain of bourgeois politics on nciple. This is totally false..On the contrary, revolutionaries must participate i whole number of bourgeois institutions in order to be better able to luence and win over the masses. It is therefore always a question of tactics. e way in which we see it is in the classical tradition of Leninism: participation dourgeois elections is justified provided they help to increase and multiply extra-parliamentary mobilisation of the masses in the course of which the rking class can begin to construct its own alternative institutions of power. e importance which the Bolsheviks attached to the Soviets was qualitatively ferent from their intervention in the Constituent Assembly. In fact they were ‘n able to dissolve the latter even though they were a minority in it—because ‘y were basing themselves on more representative organs, ie the soviets. is elementary lesson of how Communists intervene in bourgeois parliaments ; been inverted by the Stalinist movement throughout the world. In Japan, ince, Italy, and in Chile, the CP’s used extra-parliamentary mobilisations to engthen their electoral representation. This is precisely because their strategy socialism is exclusively confined to parliamentarism and their members are 1cated and trained in this understanding. have spent some time explaining this point because only then can we undernd the inability of the UP to resist the coup and prepare the masses was not accident, but due to a fundamental flaw in the politics of the CP and the SP ht. The basic mistake which the UP made was its estimation of the army. is error reverberates throughout the years that the UP was in government and vas tg prove fatal on Sept. 11th. his 28th September speech Fidel Castro, after pointing out the enormous »blems which confronted the UP, said:

There were armed forces that called themselves apolitical, institutional, that is apparently neutral in the revolutionary process.

The problem for the Chilean working class, however, lay in the fact that it was not only the army which ascribed this role to itself, but it was also the President of Chile and the Popular Unity. Allende himself referred constantly to his faith in the armed forces:

[page 23]

I have repeatedly pointed out the pure patriotic tradition, democratic and professional, of our armed forces, and have stated my purpose of fulfilling the national obligation by facilitating their technical im provement and respecting their specific function, so that their mission of guarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country should be more effective.

This was stated soon after his election in 1970 and it was only in the week before the coup that the UP wavered in its loyalty to the armed forces. Luis Corvalan, the leader of the CP, was even more effusive in his remarks about.the army. In his book Chile: the People Take Over, he wrote:

The Popular Unity parties came to power not as a result of grappling with the armed forces or any part of them ... When the people triumphed, with the National Congress confirming their victory, the armed forces publicly recognised the government. They retained their spirit of professionalism, their respect for the constitution and the law ...

In July 1973 Corvalan claimed that the 29th June coup attempt had been defeated because of the “loyalty of the armed forces and the police” and spoke of the “march forward to socialism without civil war”. The speech was printed by the theoretical journal of the British CP in September 1973, a few days before the coup. Hardly had the ink on it dried when history gave its verdict on the political analysis contained in the speech. The entire strategy of the UP was based on the possibility of a peaceful transition to socialism through the existence of a so-called “neutral” army. Salvador Allende expressed this most clearly in a speech to the peasants in Linares on 28th May, 1971:

I have pointed out this process of change is possible, because the armed forces and the Carabineers have a professional conscience. They respect the law and the constitution, which is not the case in the majority of Latin American countries and this constitutes an exception in this and even other continents.

Given this wrong assessment, the UP tackled the problem of the bourgeois army in the wrong way. Instead of attempting to appeal to the conscript base of the army and the navy, the UP concentrated on the military and naval leadership. Thus they fell into the trap of substituting psychology for class analysis, and instead of seeing the function of the army in class terms, saw it in terms of good and bad generals. This sealed their fate. If from 1971 onwards the UP and its constituent parties had directed their attention to the base of the armed forces, they could have created a different ‘situation. Democratic rights enjoyed by other citizens should have been extended (by Presidential decree if necessary) to soldiers and sailors. In other words, they should have been given the right to form their own trade unions, to join political parties, to produce newspapers, etc. Thus even if the army top brass had attempted to prevent this physically, it would have provided an extremely useful basis on which to appeal to the base of the army and navy to defend the UP. The integration of elected soldiers into the JAPs and the industrial cordons would have laid the basis for splitting the army. 21

[page 24]

While propaganda directed at the army, coupled with the granting of democratic rights, would have been an important step forward, of course on its own it would have been insufficient. It was the creation of workers’ militias from the defence committees which were springing up which would have been decisive in concretely providing soldiers and sailors with the embryo of an alternative workers’ and peasants’ army. In the absence of all these factors, a successful resistance was virtually impossible. It was in this sense that the lack of a revolutionary party was felt most severely. The CP and the SP had no armed detachments of their own; the MIR was too small although it did have some armed units of its own, many of whose members were to fight and die heroically when the military struck. Even if the UP had only changed course after the June 29th coup, certain important preparations could have been made, as Fidel Castro’s letter clearly and correctly indicates. So the success of the coup was not inevitable but was brought about by the failure of the UP to prepare the masses for armed struggle.

QUESTION 3: What are the real lessons of Chile for the international working class movement and socialists everywhere?

In our view the main lessons of the Chilean events are not very original or breathtaking: They require a restatement of the essential Marxist-Leninist view of the state and its apparatus. The lessons of Chile can therefore easily be studied in Lenin’s polemic against the pre-1914 Kautsky as expressed in State and Revolution, where he stresses the absolute need to destroy and smash the apparatus of the bourgeois state in order to pave the way for the establishment of working class power. The reason why the bourgeois state and its apparatus must be destroyed is because within their framework it is impossible for the masses to exercise real power. From this we must conclude that winning electoral majorities in bourgeois parliamentary elections cannot be a qualitative step forward on its own. It is only if the workers are prepared, if their party or parties have their own armed detachments to defend themselves against reaction, and both politically and technically arm the masses that electoral victories can be utilised to create a new state with representative institutions in which the working masses exercise real control and power.

The struggle for a workers’ state requires the formation of independent organs of working class power capable of centralising and channelling all the struggles of the oppressed masses, and taking over one by one all the essential functions of the state and the organisation of society. As the revolutionary process matures a state of dual power is reached—defined by Lenin as the interlocking of two opposing class dictatorships. In Russian the organs of the working class dictatorship which first organised the mass struggle, then took on the character a of a parallel state apparatus, and finally became the foundation of the workers’ state, were the soviets. In Chile, the workers independently of the Allende government created the cordones and the JAPs, along with the beginnings of a workers’ militia which flowered during the owners’ strike to an embryo ~~ apparatus of dual power with the potential of solving the problems of the revolution. It is the tragedy of Chile that this key to the revolution was sacrificed to a parliamentary blind alley.

Fidel Castro drew certain conclusions as well:

Chilean revolutionaries know now that there is no other alternative than revolutionary armed struggle. (Applause) 22

[page 25]

They tried the electoral way, the peaceful way, and the imperialists and reactionaries changed the rules of the game. The reactionaries trampled on the Constitution, the laws, Parliament, everything, and there is no way out of that situation. Castro is wrong on one point: Chilean revolutionaries always knew that there was no peaceful road. It is the base of the CP and the SP who have now learnt through bitter experience that basic Leninist lesson. The second point we stress is that the struggle which develops in Chile in the coming months and years cannot be fought in terms of being a struggle for the return of bourgeois democracy. The call of the CP, therefore, which demands “Support Chilean Democracy” is seriously misleading and dangerous. It was the bourgeoisie which decided to change the form of its rule from bourgeois democracy to semi-fascist military dictatorship. There is no democracy without a class content. Is the CP serious when it poses as the main aim of the coming struggle, the re-establishment of bourgeois democracy? Is that the basis on which it is going to try to mobilise the masses? If that is what is intended, then we will see more defeats. One of the lessons of Chile is precisely the lessons which we learn from Trotsky’s theses on the permanent revolution. This does not mean that we do not fight for the restoration of democratic rights, release of political prisoners, etc. But the overall context in which we struggle, even for democratic rights, is the struggle for socialism:

QUESTION 4: What should be the aims of the solidarity movement? In our view solidarity means support for the struggles of the Chilean workers and peasants. This means aiding all forces (and this includes former components of the UP) which are engaged in organising resistance to the military dictatorship. This means that for an effective united action on this question, the CP should drop its sectarian attitude towards the MIR and the other revolutionary organisations in Chile. If it sees the solidarity movement as the exclusive domain of those who are in agreement with the Chilean CP or the non “‘ultra-left”’ sections of the SP, then it will not be easy to build a united solidarity movement. Second, solidarity means taking the campaign into the working class, not only to get some resolutions passed but to agitate on the relevance of Chile for the Struggle of the working class in this country as well as in Western Europe as a whole. Chile may be a faraway Latin American country, but what has happened there has had a deep impact on the advanced sections of the working class movement throughout Europe. A solidarity movement should see as one of its main tasks, therefore, the linking up of Chile with the real problems which confront workers and other oppressed layers in Britain. This is something which was very difficult to do at the time of the Vietnam mobilisations. Today it is not ‘only possible, but vital, as the class struggle enters a new phase. The British army, like its Chilean counterpart, also claims to be neutral, apolitical and professional. A close study of its actions in the Six Counties of Ireland, and a reading of the works of its ideologues like Kitson provides a very different picture. In brief, a solidarity movement on Chile has enormous potential. Furthermore, if developed internationally, it could play an important role in the future victory of the Chilean Revolution. Tariq Ali

[page 26]

CHILEAN FASCISTS: Weli betore the coup that toppled Allende’s Popular the organisations and strength of the Chilean workers and peasants.

[page 27]

ernment, they were prepared and armed to seize any Opportunity to defeat and crush

[page 28]

[page 29]

Chile since the coup

REPRESSION AND THE COUP

When the Chilean generals struck at long last on September 11th 1973, they did so with stunning brutality and force. The news of the devastating toll exacted from the Chilean workers and peasants—of the mass murders, of the 20,000 deaths, of the 30,000 arrested and detained in concentration camps—flashed across the world provoking in its wake both profound shock and concrete acts of solidarity. But it would be fundamentally wrong to attribute this massive repression to ‘excesses’ by the military. On the contrary, such measures were absolutely essential for the Generals to ensure that they gained control of the country. Faced, as they were, with the growing mobilisations of the masses, with the beginnings of the developments of the highest form of working class organisation in the cordones industriales, they had to strike hard and ensure their victory in the shortest possible time. It was not even possible for the military to rely on the impotent class collaborationism of the Popular Unity to disarm the workers both politically and militarily in the face of the coming coup. Certainly the UP had consistently done this for three years, and the actions of its component parties during the coup served only to further deepen the defeat. But even so many workers were beginning to understand the need to prepare for the possibility of a coup, and there was an increasing demand for combatitive measures to be taken against the bourgeoisie. Thus nothing could be left to chance. The repression had to be total, indiscriminate, terrifying and barbarous. Once again capitalism had to demonstrate that it will always choose to trample in the blood of the masses rather than jeopardise its privileges. The tragedy of Chile is, as we have said, not that a coup was attempted, for at some stage an attempted counter-revolution is inevitable if capitalism is to be overthrown, but that the Popular Unity had succeeded in creating the most favourable conditions for the success of the counter-revolution. Within the space of two or three days the military coup achieved its victory. It encountered virtually no organised resistance. The Popular Unity was simply swept aside by an armed force with less than half the personnel of the Chilean Communist Party. 27 |

[page 30]

The military had begun to prepare for the coup many months earlier—since at least April 1972; but in the immediate period between the June 29th attempted coup and the 11th September coup they had stepped up their preparations in an extremely overt manner. To virtually everyone in Chile it was obvious that a coup was coming. The military sought to test out the possible strength of the workers by a series of raids on factories. All these searches were carried out under the so-called Arms Control Law which was passed by the right-wing bloc in Parliament, and on which the UP abstained and Allende did not use his veto. In the South, for example, the military raided the Lanera Austral Factory where they killed some workers. In the same area they launched a repression against peasants who demonstrated their opposition to the June 29th attempted coup. Some were dragged across the ground by helicopters or tortured in front of their families. Sailors who showed opposition to the coup in Valparaiso were also tortured and imprisoned. All this was part of the softening-up process that preceded the takeover. As a final test, in Santiago they raided the Cobre Cerillos factory and the ex-Sumar factory. Three days after these raids the coup took place. On the day of the coup the military launched a massive attack against the factories and shantytowns, hoping in this way to massacre the vanguard. Simultaneously they tried to round up all the leaders of the left parties as well as the UP ministers and deputies. An all-embracing campaign of terror and intimidation was launched, the facts of which have received wide publicity; we need quote only the Peruvian revolutionary, Hugo Blanco, who was in Chile at the time:

While the military held the population pinned down and atomised ... ... they carried out almost indiscriminate mass raids. They broke into the houses of everyone who had been denounced by some rightist or other, beat up whatever persons they found, tortured the inhabitants in front of their families, shot some on the spot and dragged others away to prison where, needless to say, they continued torturing them. The troops destroyed everything they could not carry away. They were given free rein to take all valuables. This is the way the putschists egged on the soldiers to carry out the repression. They offered them booty. (Quoted in /ntercontinental Press)

WHAT DO THE GENERALS REPRESENT?

The junta thus came to power through the blood of the workers and peasants and by the use of its indispensable tool—brutal repression. But what is the character of the junta, what is its social base, how is it tied to imperialism and big capital, how deep is the defeat it has inflicted on the Chilean workers? These issues are all of the utmost importance and must receive careful analysis, for it is only by such an examination that we will be able to assess the exact role of the junta and determine the tasks, slogans and alliances of revolutionaries in Chile today. The first of these questions, the one that sets the framework for most other debates, in particular that on the political tasks of the left, concerns the nature of the military regime. It would be a mistake to look on the new Chilean regime as just another military dictatorship of the kind we have seen throughout Latin American history. The 28

[page 31]

Chilean regime differs from those military governments that have come to power in a context of general apathy or resistance in that at time of the coup it had without any exaggeration a genuine mass support, of perhaps 30-40% of the Chilean population. Capitalists and petty-bourgeoisie supported the military junta blindly and without reservations. Hasbun, the prominent right-wing Catholic priest who was director of Santiago’s Channel 13 TV, echoed the thoughts of these layers when he said of the coup:

For me the cock crowed and a new dawn swept away the nightmares. Artisans, small and large traders, landowners threatened by the eventual extension of the agrarian reform, administrative staff in commerce and industry, and members of the liberal professions, all competed with one another to exhibit their slavish gratitude to the new masters of the country. There were many examples of this. The most sickening and widespread were the denunciations. The newspapers and radio broadcast every day in every Chilean city the telephone numbers to ring, in order to denounce someone or report anyone behaving suspiciously. Day and night, 24 hours a day, these numbers were busy. The women from the middle and upper classes queued up for hour after hour to donate a portion of their jewellery or savings to the fund for national reconstruction. An unending file of thousands upon thousands of men and women, fathers leading their offspring by the hand, came to exhibit openly their joy in front of the Moneda presidential palace. Because of the special features of Chile’s social and economic structure, these artisans, tradesmen and small landowners represent about 30-40% of the total Chilean population. The fact of their support for the coup is an important element in understanding certain of the policies of the junta. As far as the repression goes, for example, only the total, at times even enthusiastic, support of these groups allows us to explain the massive vindictive character of the repression since the first day of the coup.

SUPERFICIAL MASS SUPPORT At first sight it would have seemed logical for the junta to canalise this active } support into some form of mass organisation of a fascist or semi-fascist type. But outside of finding employment for the fascists of Patria y Libertad | Fatherland and Freedom] in the prison camps and the death squads, the junta has made no such attempt. The perspectives of the junta do not include the formation of a mass fascist party for one very simple reason. No matter how massive the support for the military was at the time of the coup,amongst certain sectors, it remained very superficial. It was not support for a worked-out political plan or a long-term or even medium-term set of economic and political policies. It was instead nothing more than gratitude to those who had eliminated what these layers conceived of as a serious threat. The generals clearly understand the limitations on the support of such sectors, and in particular that the reality of their own policies which ; they intended to implement would not serve the interests of the middle and petty bourgeoisie but would coincide with the needs of the big Chilean capitalists, of a few great families of the Chilean bourgeoisie who in conjunction with 29

[page 32]

foreign (especially North American) capital, control and own in a remarkably concentrated fashion, the decisive sectors of the economy. The junta was aware that policies in the service of this big Chilean bourgeoisie linked to international capital would very soon come into conflict with the interests of small and middle capitalists. The measures necessary, for example, to rationalise the economy and to suppress the black market would be clearly against the interests of the excessive number of small artisans, traders and intermediaries of all sorts that characterise the Chilean economy. It was for exactly these reasons that the junta did not attempt to structure the support it had. To have done so would have been extremely dangerous for its political perspectives. For a mass party with interests opposed to the immediate needs of the big bourgeoisie would undoubtedly have posed serious problems. The junta therefore made no attempt to form such parties and there remains in Chile no perspective for the classical mass fascist movement. As we shall see, events in Chile very quickly demonstrated the fragility of the support of these petty bourgeois sectors when the junta’s economic policy began to affect these layers.

REPRESSION AS A POLITICAL AXIS A second element which must feature in an analysis of the nature of the regime has undoubtedly to be the repression which it has constantly carried out and which has become the very axis of its politics. It would be a mistake to think that the repression consisted only of a period of a few months after the coup. It is true that the mass murders and detentions of that period have ceased, but they have been replaced by a much more systematic and no less brutal wave of repression which is essential to the survival of the regime. What are the objects of the repression and who is it primarily directed against? In the short term the massive repression that the generals carried out had an obvious purpose, to nip in the bud all attempts at, all possibility of, resistance to the coup. As we have noted, given the level of mobilisation of the masses and the importance of the organisations of the “left” and far left it was necessary to strike hard and quickly to dismantle the organisations of the working class and to liquidate physically their cadres and most active militants. This was an essential aspect of the repression, which aimed at the physical liquidation of the organised workers’ movement and was of course why the kev factories and shanty-towns received the most concerted attacks. But the repression goes beyond simply this. The policy of repression is not only aimed at the destruction of the organised workers’ movement but is directed against the entire working.class. For example how was the repression carriéd out in the factories? After having crushed the various centres of resistance in the factories, the military arrested—and often executed on the spot—the officials and local leaders of the left-wing parties along with the factory administrators appointed by the Popular Unity. They appointed the former owners and manager managers as administrators. Then they called together the workers, organising virtual general assemblies—but with the participation of armed troops. In many cases either following denunciations extracted under threats of violence, or after turbulent mass meetings, an execution squad went to work under the eyes of the general assemly, shooting known or identified “‘ring- 30

[page 33]

leaders” who were present. Afterwards, the terrorised workers were told that only the docile and non-political would be re-employed. In the most important firms all sympathisers, supporters or militants of the Popular Unity parties were dismissed. [t is likely that these “‘political sackings’’ have extended to 10% of the working class. These workers—deprived of any possibility of employment—quite literally face starvation. These examples serve to illustrate the depth and penetration of the repression which hits not only at the organised working-class movement but at the working class, as a class, at each and every worker whom the junta wishes to terrorise demoralise and atomise. One sector alone has been almost totally spared the repression: the copper mines, which account for 80% of exports. There even the trade union officials adhering to the UP (who are in a minority) have been left untouched. The big bourgeoisie know how to be merciful when their fundamental interests are at stake.

THE JUNTA’S ECONOMIC STRATEGY If the two striking features of the junta when it came to power were its mass petty bourgeois support and its bloody repression, both these features have been modified and affected by the economic strategy of the military. After the coup various different junta spokesmen made 1t clear that the objective for the Chilean junta was to develop on the Brazilian model. This meant that first an initial stabilisation of the economy must be achieved, that inflation for example must be brought under control. Once this initial base had been laid, then the economy could develop along two axes. Firstly the crushing defeat of the workers and the continuing repression would establish the possibility for super-exploitation of the Chilean working class, offering the tempting bait of super-profits to the international and national capitalists. Secondly the stabilisation and super-exploitation would draw in international capital from Europe, Japan and North America, which would in its turn contribute to the stabilisation and development of the economy. That was the essence of the project which the junta attempted to implement immediately after the coup. One thing becomes immediately clear from such a policy—that it must depend on permanent and total repression. It is only possible to maintain the superexploitation of the working class provided that the capacity of the workers to resist can be immediately crushed. This is why the repression which characterised the birth of the junta has become a permanent aspect of its policy. There are many examples of the attempts to increase the rate of exploitation of «the workers, but only a few need be selected in order to give one very clearly the | facts of the situation. The value of real wages for example has declined by more | than 65% between Sept. ’73 and June ’74. The level of unemployment, although difficult to assess accurately, is between 15 and 20%. The workers are compelled to devote part of their wages each day to the ‘Fund for National Reconstruc- tion’’. All the social gains that were won under the UP are rapidly being reclaimed, the factories are being denationalised, the health and social services abolished or truncated beyond recognition. These few stark facts bring home sharply that in Chile there has been an absolute pauperisation of the workers 31

[page 34]

and peasants since the junta came to power. Poverty, starvation and the struggle for existence from day to day, these are the hallmarks of life in Chile. And over all this hangs the ever-menacing threat of sudden death, torture or imprisonment. This is the price which the bourgeoisie has imposed upon the Chilean workers. DRAWING IN FOREIGN CAPITAL When it comes to the need to draw in imperialist capital, this has dictated that the junta must tailor all its economic measures to the specific interests of imperialism, and that sector of the Chilean bourgeoisie which has close links with imperialism via the import and export trade. This has meant naturally that the national bourgeoisie who are based on the internal market and do not have these links have not been well suited by the junta’s policies. The junta has removed many of the state controls from the internal and external market. Hence there are virtually no restraints on prices, import duties have been lowered; and the indispensable complement, the escudo has been devalued in order to stimulate exports. All these measures move in the same direction: they favour the traditional bourgeoisie tied to businesses centred around importexport trade and tied also to the big multinational corporations and more generally to imperialist penetration. These are the sectors represented by Leniz, presently Minister of Economics, formerly editor of £1 Mercurio, the newspaper which expressed the politics of the National Party. But this policy is running into growing opposition from other bourgeois sectors that are more concerned with the internal market (consumer industries, middlesized agriculture)—the sectors generally represented by the Christian Democracy, whose programme when it was in power under Frei from 1964 to 1970 (industrialisation and development of the internal market) perfectly expressed the interests of this sector. The proposed total lack of restraints on foreign trade in fact threatens to ruin a section of these industrial sectors, which rest on fragile financial bases and small productive units which are not competitive with imperialist production in spite of the low wages. But more than that, as far as these sectors are concerned, the junta has already gone too far in reducing the buying power of the Chilean workers. For without adequate wages there is no demand for the small luxury goods and services in the internal market. That is why during November and December, many enterprises—hotels, restaurants, workshops, small factories— had to close down. That was why early in 1974 the paper of the Christian Democracy, La Prensa, took up a daily campaign for substantial wage increases. The campaign, of course, was conducted supposedly in the name of social justice, elementary defence of workers’ rights and so on, but it came through quite clearly that the section of the bourgeoisie that this party represents is worried about the immediate defence of its interests. For example, one editorial in La Prensa argued for a wage increase because “‘it is a prescription that in our view would effectively stimulate production”’. It could hardly be clearer whose interests the Christian Democracy was defending in its campaign for wage increases and for more ‘social justice’!

But the opposition of the sectors represented by the Christian Democracy to the junta’s economic policy expresses itself on other no less important points, 32

[page 35]

DISMANTLING THE STATE SECTOR

One of the most important aspects of Leniz’s policy is the massive restitution to the private sector of enterprises under state control along with the whole banking apparatus. It hopes that through the expenditure saved and the unemployment created, inflation will be reduced. The Christian Democracy is in favour of restoring to their former owners or stockholders the majority of factories that were taken over by the state during the reign of the UP, but it is vehemently opposed to the complete dismantling of the state sector, which it greatly contributed to setting up in the first place when it was in power. One of the main reasons for this is that as well as being in the economic interests of this section of bourgeoisie, the apparatus of the state sector provides the CD with a significant social base. The junta’s policy of dismantling this sector and handing it over to private firms has resulted in drastic unemployment in the state sector. The Minister of Public Works for example has already fired on a day’s notice hundreds of functionaries, employees and technicians. The entire banking sector is being returned to private hands—more than 1,000 functionaries were laid off in the last week of December. 15,000 workers have been laid off in the Health Service. It is in just these areas of public administration that the highest unemployment has been created. These inter-bourgeois disputes between the junta and the CD have been the main open political issue in 1974; they featured in debates in the various newspapers and were reflected in discussions in the Church and Army. In fact the unity realised immediately after September 11th by all the counterrevolutionaries, the unity of all the various bourgeois sectors (the CD included, who issued a statement supporting the coup on September 12th) and the reactionary petty bourgeoisie, the unity that gave the dictatorship an important and active social base in the midst of the flush of victory has vanished s The Christian Democrat bourgeoisie oppose the junta’s economic strategy, the petty bourgeois layers have found that they are in fact worse off under the junta than under the UP. Not even the old black market survives to protect them. The promise of salvation has not materialised and for many of these petty bourgeois the prospect of unemployment, ruin or even of being touched by the repression has become a reality. The junta has without doubt now lost the mass social base that existed at the time of the coup. But to say this does not mean that any concrete alternative to the junta is developing. The social layers that are breaking from the military are not actively transferring their allegiance to any new force. Indeed the main protagonists on both sides understand the dangers of the inter-bourgeois rift and have made efforts to keep the contradictions within the framework of ~ the present regime. For example the armed forces have been carefully cultivated as a privileged caste by the adoption of measures like the tripling of officers’ pay in terms of buying power (ie increases of 1500-2000%) in order to keep them aloof from the melee. However despite such measures the army cannot remain completely insulated from these debates. This loss of the junta’s social base undoubtedly poses some problems for Pinochet, but they are problems of a longterm nature and it would be quite wrong to conclude that there is any serious short-term threat to their position arising out of the conflicting interests of 33

[page 36]

various sectors of the bourgeoisie and the rapid disenchantment of the petty bourgeois layers. THE WORKERS’ RESISTANCE But it is not only at the level of which policy is best for which section of the Chilean ruling class that the junta is beset with problems. In its one central aim— to totally crush the working class, to destroy its ability to function as a class it has not succeeded. The Chilean workers, despite the repression and deprivation they have suffered, still retain the ability to engage in struggle, albeit at the level of simple economic demands. But even such limited actions are enough to show that the junta has not totally atomised and fragmented the Chilean workers. At the same time it is necessary to guard against any false optimism. The actions that have been taken are isolated and molecular, they give only an indication that complete demoralisation has not been achieved, that there is still a spark of combativity which can be rekindled over a period of years rather than decades. For example strikes have taken place in a number of factories and on construction sites. Clearly in the situation existing in Chile such actions indicate great courage and determination on the part of the workers. During January and December the junta was cautious as to how to deal with these, even on occasions granting some of the demands. Since then, however, they have taken the line of repressing very strongly any such activity. There have also been open demonstrations against the junta—notably on the occasions of the funerals of the poet Neruda and ex-UP minister Toha. At the latter 3,000 people chanted slogans popular during the UP period until they were dispersed by the military. Another indication of the ability of the working class to resist has been the failure of the junta to significantly increase production. During the first three months of junta rule, production increased only marginally (if we exclude copper) above the level of the last three months of Popular Unity. When one remembers that that was the period during which the sabotage by the bourgeoisie of production was at its height (and production was running at only about 50% of capacity), it is clear that even with the massive repressive apparatus at its disposal the junta had not achieved a significant improvement. Part of the reason for this has undoubtedly been that the working class has responded to the junta with its own sabotage of production—it has resisted the attempts to increase output by an instinctive class response. This “passive resistance” of the Chilean workers is a sure sign that their spirit has not been broken. But it is necessary to be extremely cautious when assessing these events. They do not in any sense mean that the Chilean workers are about to launch a big offensive against the junta. All they tell us is that the junta has not succeeded in its aim of imposing a total crushing defeat on the working class. IS THE JUNTA’S ECONOMIC STRATEGY SUCCEEDING? Now, one year after the coup, it is possible to tell that the economic project of the junta is not succeeding and indeed has very little perspective of success. Firstly, they have not been able to achieve the vital initial stabilisation of the economy. The period oi April to June ’74 saw 90% inflation, and even on the 34

[page 37]

most favourable estimates it will run at an incredible 400% for 1974. In addition, in the first three months of 1974, there was no rise in production, and agricultural production actually declined by 15%. This means that Chile must now import more as well as face the massive increase in petroleum costs for the 50% of its petroleum which it imports. The only exceptions to this lack of stabilisation have been the copper industry and the nitrate industry. The copper industry, which provides 80% of Chile’s exports, has been given especially careful attention by the junta to ensure that it continues to function. As a result some improvement in production has been achieved. The nitrate industry may also be expanded and provide an increased export potential for the product which once formed the basis of the Chilean economy. When one looks at how successful the junta has been at drawing in foreign capital, the extent of its contradictions become even more apparent. In contrast to the period of Popular Unity, imperialism was quick to grant an extension of the various foreign debts which the economy has acquired, as well as a number of loans. For example the Inter American Development Bank approved a new 22 million dollar, 30-year, loan at an interest rate of 2%, which was negotiated in record time and strongly supported by the US administration. The IDB had refused loans to Chile from 1972-3. The World Bank has also approved loans to the junta in a complete switch-round from its attitude to the UP. American imperialism naturally was a keen advocate of the new loans to the military. The most important achievement of the junta in the financial field has been to negotiate the extension of Chile’s external debt with the major capitalist powers who form the Club of Paris. The negotiation covered $760m, of which the junta can now postpone the repayment of 80% until 1977. The British Labour Government, despite its pledges before gaining office, raised no objection to these negotiations, even though most of the loan was for the frigates and submarines being built in Britain! A number of private corporations have begun to invest in Chile since about March 1974, among them General Motors, Marbeni (Japan) and several European firms. But having noted all these gains for the junta it has to be said immediately that they are completely insufficient to meet the junta’s need. It has so far decisively failed to attract anything like sufficient foreign capital to jnvest in Chile. The principal reason for this is not so much that Imperialism does not have confidence in the junta’s ability to guarantee suitable profits and a docile labour force, but stems primarily from the overall economic crisis of world capitalism. Any investment in Chile, given the internal situation, would only make sense if «it were based on re-exportation of commodities. And with every good capitalist trembling about the possibility of recessions and slumps all over the world, very few are prepared to engage in expanding output onto the world market. It is in the light of these problems that we can understand the statement in the right-wing £7 Mercurio newspaper in May that “there will not be economic takeoff in Chile for at least five years. In the meantime, every citizen and every public agency will have to bear the severest economic measures”. Even the i junta’s most ardent supporters do not have much confidence in the success of its strategy! 35m

[page 38]

This is why the junta has been so keen to break out of the limitations on foreign investment imposed by the Andean Pact. It has also been making every effort to present a face of economic respectability to Imperialism which explains why in July three well-know civilian economists were brought into the government.

The junta is therefore in a position where it has very little room to manoeuvre. Only copper exports have given it some breathing space. But it is precisely the economic crisis of the junta that has reinforced still further the need for repression. It is this which explains the new wave of repression that has been launched since April. It has been made necessary not because of a new wave of struggle by the Chilean workers, but because the junta can afford no cuncessions, it must ensure that its iron rule is maintained. The latest repression has been much more co-ordinated and systematic in its targets, and the various techniques of torture and interrogation have now become much more sophisticated with the expert aid of the CIA and Brazilian secret police. That then is the situation of the junta one year after the coup. It faces a political and economic crisis to which its only response must be repression, yet at the same time it has not succeeded in totally crushing the working class. But all this does not mean that the junta is about to collapse. There is no credible bourgeois alternative for Chilean capitalism and the working class is nowhere near the level of organisation to be able to launch even a united struggle on wages, let alone a struggle for power. We have now discussed the nature of the junta in Chile and characterised it as a military dictatorship based upon the section of the bourgeoisie tied most closely to imperialism. But what about the parties of the ex-Popular Unity and the far left? How have they responded to the coup? Is resistance to the junta being organised and if so, on what basis? It is to these questions that we must now turn if we are to get a clearer idea of the way the struggle is likely to develop in Chile. FE ‘a

ee a oe hes ae # *.. AFTER THE COUP: This scene outside a press conference is typical of the intrusion of the military into everyday life in post-coup Chile. 36

[page 39]

THE RESISTANCE TAKES FORM

If the coup d’etat did not surprise us, it is clear on the other hand that the form it took, the character and degree of repression which followed did take us by surprise. This comment by a comrade of the MIR reflects without any doubt a position common to all the Chilean left. The organisation which was most affected politically and organisationally by the repression was without any doubi the Socialist Party. With the loose organisational structures inherited from social democratic traditions, the SP had managed in the previous three years of intense class struggle to maintain within its fold an authentically reformist wing and a real revolutionary current (although it must be noted that this latter was only minimally structured). Today under the blows of the repression, this confused cadre of the Chilean SP has literally burst into a thousand pieces. The basis of its delicate balance has been put into question again. The two sections which composed the SP have in effect resisted the repression unequally. The revolutionary left wing composed of a multitude of local groups, tendencies, regroupments, etc., each having their own structure, resisted the repression relatively well. As for the other section, the more traditional wing of the SP, it has literally taken a sound beating by the repression. Its members, often functionaries, either small, intermediary, or important, of the UP administration, have been the first victims of the repression, victims without defence and without a position of retreat. Poorly organised to begin with, this section today has been totally decimated. The leadership of the party has suffered a similar fate. The large majority of the Socialist ministers and party leaders have been arrested. The indisputable indicator of the party’s destruction lies in the fact that it was by the grace of the militants of the MIR that the secretary general Carlos Altamirano organised his clandestine existence in the days which followed the coup. The most recent attempt by the SP to restructure itself in Chile has met with disastrous results. A network was established, composed mainly of intermediate cadre, but political problems rapidly developed and a three-way split occurred. Worse still from the point of view of the SP, the junta quickly identified many of the militants involved in the attempted restructuring and arrested them. These events represent a big blow to the SP and it remains true that the SP does not exist in any real sense as a political organisation in Chile. Of course this does not mean that there are not thousands of people in Chile who would consider themselves as members of the Socialist Party, but that is quite another thing from the existence of the party as a political and organisational reality. With respect to the organisations composing the Unidad Popular other than the CP and the SP, there is little to say for the moment. In general, it is apparent that these very small organisations were simply not militarily structured. One exception, nevertheless, is the MAPU Garreton (named after its general secretary), an organisation which is essentially a regroupment of very radical 37.

[page 40]

militants of Christian origin. This organisation, it must be noted, defined itself at its last congress as a truly Marxist-Leninist organisation. On the whole the base of the organisation resisted the coup well and its militants were ready to act, waiting for the orientation of the leadetship. Unfortunately, the leadership—almost totally—took refuge in two Latin American embassies after the coup. As soon as this was known, a real demoralisation occurred in the base of the party and a systematic search was begun on the part of a number of militants for contacts with the MIR “‘to do something”’. The MAPU for these reasons also does not function as an organisation inside Chile today—although it is possible that the right-wing split from MAPU, the MAPU-OC, has retained a functioning nucleus. THE COMMUNIST PARTY RETAINS SOME ORGANISATION While saying as we did above that the CP has, on the whole, resisted the shock of the repression, it is necessary to clarify certain details and explain certain nuances.

First of all, it is necessary to recognise that it was the Communist Youth who organised the first demonstration of resistance of a mass character against the junta and after the military seizure of the industrial zones. That manifestation was organised around the funeral of Pablo Neruda. In several hours, despite the repression, the censorship, and all sorts of difficulties in travelling and communication, there were nearly two thousand people who found their way to the Santiago cemetery. All the parties of the left were represented but it was essentially the militants belonging to the Communist Youth that predominated. As for the Communist Party itself, the situation is far more complex. Since the first day of the coup, the leadership has been, in organisational terms, cut off from the base of the party. This phenomenon is also accentuated by the following: the numerous Communist militants killed were often the intermediate cadres, the local cadres of the party who in the absence of all contact with their leadership, maintained a courageous attitude, often heroic in the face of the military. Thus there was a real disorganisation of the intermediate leadership of the party.

The result is that a number of structures of the base (cells, for example) which have succeeded in reconstituting themselves are again today functioning without the least contact with the rest of the party: Thus, not only is there disorganisation, but serious demoralisation in the midst of the party.

However, even this limited level of organisation is important and the signs are that the CP is becoming increasingly structured as time goes on. It has been able to produce leaflets and distribute documents inside Chile. In its attempts to re-establish itself it has some decisive advantages. Most importantly, it has a clear conception of the way forward in Chile, one which is politically incorrect but nevertheless when examined in the light of the way forward offered by the MIR, has the advantage of being coherent as opposed to the highly ambiguous formulations of the MIR. 38

[page 41]

THE FAR LEFT The position of the MIR as an organisation is that it continues to exist in Chile, and has gained a considerable amount of credibility from its actions during the coup. As an organisation it was the most prepared for the coup in a military and political sense and was able to engage in a number of defensive military actions against the junta. Also it took the decision that its leadership should remain in Chile after the coup. Both these factors have greatly increased the standing of the MIR amongst the working class. Despite the fact that the MIR has had to take the brunt of the junta’s repression, it has still been able to issue leaflets, statements and engage in a number of small actions, and remains a functioning organisation which will have a big influence on the future struggle. There also exists in Chile an important nucleus of Trotskyists in the Liga Comunista de Chile. These comrades, although small in number, have succeeded in producing leaflets and taking part in military actions. In March 1974 they held a clandestine congress inside Chile to discuss perspectives.* These are all important signs of a healthy working class organisation in the Chilean context. Furthermore, as a sympathising section of the Fourth International, the Liga Comunista is part of an international revolutionary organisation in a way that none of the other far left forces in Chile are. There is every possibility that the Liga Comunista can form one of the poles around which revolutionary communists can begin to group in Chile. THE DEBATE ON THE WAY FORWARD It is against this background of the state of the various organisations in Chile that we must now turn our attention to the political strategy being projected by these parties for the future. And it is in this area that unfortunately the most serious political mistakes are being made. It is obvious to all concerned that what is required in Chile is unity against the junta. This is what the masses themselves understand as being vitally necessary. But once that has been said, then immediately many important questions are opened up. What sort of unity? With whom should unity be made? What is the political aim of such a united front? To all these questions the Chilean CP has a perfectly clear answer. For them what is required is a front that should be as broad as possible and include, if not the whole of the bourgeois Christian Democratic party, then at least important sectors of it. In other words the front should include important sectors of the Chilean bourgeoisie in a class-collaborationist political framework. Such a policy is no new development. It has been the standard answer of Stalinist parties to the ‘fascist’ threat ever since the ’30s. The essence of the strategy is very simple. The CP maintains that in the struggle against the ‘fascist’ section of the bdurgeoisie, the so-called liberal bourgeoisie has a progressive role to play. The Chilean CP has advanced this classic Popular Front policy consistently since the junta came to power. What is more, they appear to have had some success in gaining the support of the other UP parties and even, though in a highly

*The complete text of the documents of the LCC’s first congress are available in Spanish from Red Books, 97 Caledonian Road, London N1. 39 i

[page 42]

ambiguous way, of the MIR. A clear example of this is the February declaration of the united Chilean left, signed by all the parties of the UP and the MIR, which says on this question:

This broad anti-fascist front is made possible by the alliance of the proletariat with the rest of the people. Its ranks are being swollen, and will continue to be swollen by those men and groups whose democratic humanitarian conscience leads them to oppose the dictatorship. It will continue to grow until it comes to form the most broadly based social movement ever known in the history of Chile’s social struggle. The document explicitly refers to the possibility of Christian Democrats (or at least sectors of them) taking part in such a front and makes several allusions to the fact that all ‘democratic traditions’ have not been eliminated from within the army. On the aims of such a front, the document says ‘its foremost task is the defeat of fascism’ which it describes as a ‘national patriotic task’. As to what should replace the junta, the declaration talks both of ‘building the real democracy the country needs’ and of destroying the interests of monopoly capital and imperialism. The outlines of the strategy could not be clearer. What is needed, according to the CP, is a broad front of the working class and sections of the national 4

= AFTER THE COUP: Hundreds of thousands of Popular Unity supporters and other opponents of the Junta were herded into cells in the Santiago stadium immediately after the coup. They suffered systematic torture - hundreds died and others are still incarcerated in the Junta‘s prison camps.

40

[page 43]

bourgeoisie to overthrow fascism and establish a ‘real democracy’. A DISASTROUS POLICY We have to say at once that such a project would be disastrous for the Chilean workers and peasants. Let us look at some of the reasons why. First as Miguel Enriquez of the MIR has noted:

The defeat of September is not so much the defeat of the working class as of a reformist strategy, of reformism. That’s true, but that said, it must be realised that although politically and organisationally defeated since the coup d’etat, Stalinism and social democratic reformism have deep roots in the history of the Chilean workers’ movement. These forces have shaped the consciousness of a great majority of Chilean workers. While the radicalisation of the working class during the three years of the UP dealt it a serious blow, the current situation paradoxically furnishes it with the objective basis for renewal and development. The immediate and pressing demands of the struggle for democratic liberties, of the struggle for the defence of the living standards of the workers, demands which are imposed on all including militant revolutionaries, are a favourable terrain for this resurgence and development of a new reformism. All the more so since the attitude of Christian Democracy with its populist demagogy—even in spite of the ban forbidding it to reconstitute—make it appear as a serious political force which can actually defend the working class. The strategy of the CP in this sense simply plays into the hands of sections of the Christian Democracy, for it is these people who actually stand to gain most from the CP’s line. Immediately after the coup, the slavish support given by the Christian Democrats to the junta resulted in its leadership being compromised before the working class as a whole. Since then, however, mainly because it has been the only political force which was sufficiently organised to project a different line to the junta, it has gone some way to re-establish itself. It does not take much to see how much greater the possibilities are for this when the Communist Party is continually trumpeting that the Christian Democrats are a progressive force with whom the working class should unite. This strategy will therefore serve not only to strengthen reformism amongst the working class, but even worse to give a section of the bourgeoisie itself a base amongst the working class. One of the fundamental conclusions that must be drawn from the experience of Popular Unity is that there is no ‘middle road’ that can be followed to socialism. At some stage the struggie must, and will, reach the situation where either the working class imposes its solution and overthrows the capitalist system, or the bourgeoisie will impose its solution and crush the workers with the utmost barbarity. To say, therefore, of the Chilean situation that there must be a first stage of overthrowing the junta, during which unity with the bourgeoisie in the Christian Democratic party is possible, and a later-stage, some time in the future, when capitalism will be overthrown, is to breed serious illusions. We have to be clear that what takes the place of the junta will be a direct function of what overthrows. it. Just as the class collaborationism of the Popular Unity created the 4)

[page 44]

Bits BB nd

most favourable conditions for counter-revolution, so the line of the Communist Party today creates the most favourable conditions for the Christian Democrat bourgeoisie, and for future defeats for the working class.

Let us be quite clear. The Christian Democrats are not opposed to the junta because of their love of democracy, freedom and the desire to see workers well fed. No—they oppose the junta for their own, class, economic reasons. If we suppose for a moment that such a broad front actually succeeded in bringing down the junta, then the first aim of the Christian Democracy would be to control and contain the working class. It would use every means at its disposal to do this up to and including bloody repression. The line of the CP that the Christian Democrats are a progressive force would leave workers and peasants not only defenceless against such measures, but also politically completely unprepared to deal with such attacks.

It is fundamentally wrong to conceive of history proceeding by stages, each one . of which is clearly separated from the next to it. The Chilean CP have restated time and again that the aim of the UP was to achieve a first stage in Chile, ie the removal of power from the hands of monopoly capitalism and imperialism as a prelude to the second stage when the struggle for socialism would take place.

But the history of the UP has shown clearly that that strategy was never a possible perspective. It was clear that in September 1973 either the UP had to consummate the socialist revolution and overthrow capitalism or else it would itself be overthrown. The bourgeoisie was united completely in its desire to bring down the UP and this included both those sectors linked to imperialism as well as the ‘democracy-loving’ sectors in the Christian Democracy. The reason is fundamentally obvious—whilst there are contradictions amongst the bourgeoisie in all countries, they are arguments only about how much of the cake each should get. On the question of whether the workers should be given the cake, they are absolutely united in the most brutal and bloody opposition. Those who forget this, who hide the true nature of the bourgeoisie by talk of ‘democracy’ and ‘national patriotic tasks’ lay the basis for future vicious attacks on the working class.

WHAT WOULD THE CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY GAIN?

We have to say that the Christian Democracy will only partake in such a front in order for it to be able to limit and defuse the struggle against the junta, in order to keep that struggle within the framework of a fight not to establish socialism but instead to ensure that the struggle does not transcend the limits of capitalism. In that aim its best ally is tne Communist Party. We need only look at a statement issued in Chile on the 1st May and signed apparently by the .CP, SP, and MAPU-OC. but behind which the main force was undoubtedly the CP.

This document constii.)!cs an appeal by these parties for the Christian Democrats and the MIR and other far lefts to join in the formation of a broad antifascist front. What are to be the aims of this front?

The document says:

There exists a broad basis of common short-term objectives around which all democrats must join hands to build the anti-fascist front.

It then lists five basic aims: the restoration of human rights, the recovery of 42

[page 45]

democratic rights, the fight for a basie wage, the fight against the squeeze on the petty bourgeois shop keepers and small business men, and finally the defence of national independence. As to what will replace the junta, we are told:

The anti-fascist struggle must give birth to a new state. But before the reader becomes too optimistic, they hasten to es the character of such a state:

A new democratic national pluralistic and popular state that will advance the nation and the people's gains, destroy the power of imperialism, the bourgeois monopolies and the rural oligarchy and safeguard the interests of the vast majority of the population. In other words it will not be a socialist state but a bourgeois state favouring the interests of the Christian Democrat national bourgeoisie. That is the only interpretation that can be put on such rhetoric. The aim of the struggle against the junta, the CP is clearly saying, is not to establish workers’ power but to build a ‘new democracy’. The Christian Democrats who oppose the junta could hardly hope for better allies than the Chilean CP! THE MEANS OF STRUGGLE There are of course subsidiary features of any such Popular Front to restore democracy. The first is that in order to secure the participation of the bourgeoisie, not only must the front undertake not to go beyond the limits of bourgeois democracy in its aims, but it must also remain within those limits in the means of its struggle. The CP has already admitted as much when they said after the coup that the means of the struggle against the junta must be dictated by the aims of the struggle. In case that did not make the point clearly enough, they say in the lst May Declaration

all forms of struggle ... must be determined bearing in mind the need to unite all democratic forces. Now we ask the CP, would the taking over of factories on a mass scale by workers, would the establishment of organs of workers’ power such as cordones industriales, or the formation of workers’ militias, unite all ‘democratic forces’? Of course not. The bourgeoisie is not stupid. Such measures, although essential for a successful working class offensive against the junta, threaten the power of the ‘democratic progressive’ national bourgeoisie . and are therefore ruled out. We can be quite sure that the Chilean CP would willingly act as the policeman of the bourgeoisie to make sure that the actual struggle did not go beyond the bounds of ‘democracy’ and would act to limit such initiatives just as it did during Popular Unity. The second subsidiary feature is, what does such a strategy offer to the Chilean peasants? After all, the prime concern of the peasant is the land question. 'l’o the peasant it makes little difference if he lives under a junta which oppresses him and gives him no vote or if he lives under a ‘new democracy’ which oppresses 43

[page 46]

AFTER THE COUP: The Junta went to weit telagetes to stamp out every aspect of the Popular Unity interlude; ‘undesireable’ publications were carried off by the military and burned in huge bonfires in the streets 44

[page 47]

him and gives him a vote every few years. The peasantry is unlikely to engage in a life-or-death struggle against the junta to fight for the abstraction of a ‘new democracy’. It is necessary to concretise the aims of the struggle very clearly and concisely in order for the masses to be inspired to take up the fight. All that is needed is not banalities and empty phrases such as ‘democracy’ but one simple slogan, ‘Land!’ It is on this basis, and this basis alone, that the peasantry will take up a serious fight against the junta. But how could such a broad antifascist front have such a slogan; after all, a major component of the front would be landowners! Such is the logic of class collaborationism. In short the Chilean CP is reaffirming the correctness of the strategy of the Popular Unity. They call once again for revolution by stages, just as the UP did. But they refuse to admit that the same contradictions would rapidly break out in the ‘broad anti-fascist front’ as developed under Allende. They refuse to admit that without developing an understanding within the working class of the need to overthrow the capitalist state, the bourgeoisie would have—just as it did after three years of the UP—the most favourable conditions for counterrevolution. For the Chilean CP there are no ‘lessons of Chile’—it is the recipe as before.

THE ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY Of course it is one thing to have a developed line for Chile today as the Communist Party has, but it is quite another to put'that line into practice. The two declarations of the United Left and the 1st of May statement have remained until now simply statements of intent. They do not as yet correspond to the reality of the situation in Chile today. Indeed the MIR has claimed that the fact that it signed the United Left declarations has been primarily determined by an orientation towards international solidarity and finance rather than bya political assessment of the way forward in Chile. But that said, it must be pointed out that there is a strong objective base for the CP’s strategy. It is to be found in the strength of the CP in Chile, in the opposition of sections of the Christian Democrats to the junta and in the fact that it is the line of the popular front which has been projected most consistently and received most publicity both in Chile and internationally. It is therefore imperative for revolutionaries to put forward very clearly an alternative strategy. The essence of this must be to counterpose to the popular front the formation of a working class united front—to counterpose to the CP’s aim of the front, which is the overthrow of the junta in the context of a fight for a ‘new democracy’, the aim of overthrowing the junta in the context of the struggle for the working class revolution. Once that has been done, once the need for the struggle against the junta to have a clear working-class and socialist character has been made clear, then and only then can the possibility of other alliances be discussed.

Revolutionaries are of course not opposed to sections of the bourgeoisie taking up arms against the junta. We are not opposed to fighting alongside bourgeois forces against the military. The dividing line is that whilst we can fight together, we do not fight under the same banner. The working class must fight clearly f under the banner of socialism; the bourgeoisie can choose whatéver rhetoric suits its purpose, be it ‘freedom’, ‘peace’ or some other such formula as its 45 |

[page 48]

rallying call. What we are opposed to is the working class compromising itself, as the CP urges, by taking up the slogans of the bourgeoisie in order to establish an alliance. Revolutionaries must reiterate that only a struggle under the leadership of the urban and rural proletariat, the only class capable of assuming leadership, a struggle including different forms of combat and including the armed struggle of the masses. will permit the successful overthrow of the dictatorship. THE ROLE OF THE MIR How has the MIR, the largest force on the far left in Chile, responded to these pressing tasks for revolutionaries? The most obvious thing is that they have adopted an extremely ambiguous position. Up to the present time they have not made any clear statements which define the direction in which they are moving. On the one hand, in a leaflet signed by its national secretariat and widely distributed in Santiago at the end of December and the beginning of January, it called for the creation of a ‘Popular Anti-Gorilla Resistance Movement’.

This popular resistance movement, with a programme of struggles for the restoration of democratic freedoms and for the defence of the standard of living of the masses, will regroup all those who are prepared to struggle against the junta, militants of any political party or none, explained MIR leader Miguel Enriquez (declaration of 20 January). The movement, described in the same declaration as a large bloc of social forces opposed to the dictatorship must be based on committees in each factory, estate, ghetto, school, university. On the other hand, the MIR also calls for the formation of a Political Front of the Resistance—an ‘urgent task’ according to Miguel Enriquez. This would be made up of all the political forces prepared to fight the gorilla dictatorship— and specifically, ‘Popular Unity, the progressive sector of Christian Democracy, and the MIR’. In outlining these two ways of approaching the problem, however, there is much ambiguity and above all confusion as to the exact class nature of these alliances. This could very quickly lead to serious mistakes and changes in direction not intended or even foreseen by the comrades of the MIR. We say ‘not intended or even foreseen’ because they imply a conflict with the fundamental positions of the MIR as to the tasks of revolutionaries and the nature of the revolution to be made—positions which have been made clear many times both before and after the coup, and inasmuch as they have identified the key need for a struggle led by the working class in the context of a fight for socialism, they have been broadly correct. How can one explain the ambiguity and confusion on the question of moves towards unity? We have to restate that any attempt to establish a common front with the other workers’ organisations must be preceded by an insistence on the working class 46

[page 49]

character of such a front. This in turn requires an open political struggle against the Communist Party, whose strategy of making political concessions to sections of the capitalists temporarily opposed to the junta would put the whole operation at the mercy of the latter. Only once the clear class character of such a front is established, in its programme and in its organisation, can one begin to talk about the possibility of tactical alliances with the capitalist sectors opposed to the dictatorship—or as comrade Enriquez puts it, ‘the progressive sectors of the Christian Democracy’. However, the evidence available suggests that this is not the approach adopted by the comrades of the MIR. The MIR’s proposals do have a certain logic, insofar as it is their intention that the militant unity brought about at the base in the ‘Popular Anti-Gorilla Resistance Movement’ will determine the real political relationship of forces between the revolutionaries and the reformists. This will be sealed in the nature and direction of the Political Front of the Resistance. These proposals therefore make sense for the comrades of the MIR. They believe that after the crushing defeat suffered by reformism, and with the strength of their own organisation (its prestige, its character, and its ability to act in the present situation) they will be able—together with the most radicalised sections of the parties of Popular Unity (in particular the left wing of the Socialist Party and MAPU)—to impose in practice, in the struggle itself, a relationship of forces favourable to the revolutionaries. It is this perspective which enables comrade Enriquez to state in relation to the ‘Popular Anti-Gorilla Resistance Movement’ that it will be on the basis of this and of armed detachments of the parties, whose actions will be directed towards the defence of the immediate interests of the masses, taking tactical actions of armed propaganda in the countryside and the towns, that it will be possible to build the revolutionary army of the people, the only force capable of taking on the officer corps and the reactionary army, of destroying the dictatorship and opening the way to the proletarian revolution. (Miguel Enriquez—To the workers and revolutionaries of Germany, 20 January 1974).

The achievement of such a plan requires one thing, however: the political dominance of the revolutionaries in the ranks of the resistance movement and therefore in the Front.

And it is there the problem lies. In the present situation in Chile, where there is an objective basis for the rebirth and development of reformism, militant struggle cand the ability of the revolutionaries to take action are not on their own enough to ensure this political dominance.

A political struggle against the strategy of the reformists—which does not exclude the tactic of a common front—is just as necessary. The present attitude of the MIR, expressed by Miguel Enriquez in a way which is both ambiguous and contradictory, is therefore both dangerous and mistaken. 47

[page 50]

A LONG ROAD AHEAD Strangely enough, there is a strong echo in the situation in Chile now with that during Popular Unity. For just as two strategies confronted each other starkly during that period, the peaceful road or the revolutionary road, so today the strategy of the popular front and the working class front are the real questions which must be decided. To date the developments in this debate are not encouraging. Stalinism has taken a clear and predictable position and met with little resistance from the MIR and the left of the UP. The Trotskyist forces are as yet too small to be able to have a decisive influence on the situation. These factors make it even more important for revolutionaries all over the world to denounce clearly and explicitly the class collaboration of the Chilean Communist Party and at the same time to build solidarity for, ard offer concrete advice to, the revolutionaries in Chile and the Chilean revolution. The Chilean socialist revolution remains on the agenda. It is the task of revolutionaries everywhere to aid that development.

SOLIDARITY WITH THE CHILEAN WORKERS AND PEASANTS!

LONG LIVE THE CHILEAN SOCIALIST REVOLUTION!

Gerry Hedley

48

[page 51]

Get your Red Books on Chile from RED BOOKS 97 Caledonian Road, London NI 10 - 8 ( Mon - Fri) ; 10.30 - 5.30 ( Sat ) 8la Renshaw Street, Liverpool 1230 - 3 ( Tues - Fri }'; 1+ 3:( Sat)

Up to the minute reports on developments inside Chile and in the international solidarity movement can be found in RED WEEKLY 222°"

Ske cound onachic prey is = fresutied | published in Available from RED BOOKS ‘ (Price 20p - [bi-weekly] ). |INPRECOR, 97 Caledo 1 Ro the Re ercticcl vlabseite secie tad off by the Chilean experience can be followed in Available from _ BOOKS (Price 30p - [quarterly] ).

Annuai Subscription: £1.50 (Britain) from INTERNA on N1

[page 52]

RED PAMPHLET No 7

ISBN: 0—85 612 107—X

Published & printed by:

IMG Publications, 182, Pentonville Road, LONDON N 1.

Distributed by:

Red Buoks, 97, Caledonian Road, LONDON N 1.