[The following article, the second in a series of four, appeared in the May 16 issue of the French Trotskyist weekly, Rouge. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Readjustment and realignment of the relationship of political forces-such formulas might appear somewhat exaggerated in face of the realities of daily life in Santiago, in face of the insolent cynicism that characterizes the military's implementation of its policy of terror.
In fact, both these sides of the Chilean reality, seemingly contradictory, are directly linked. In continuing to carry out largescale repression, the junta has two goals:
• To prevent a realignment of forces in the workers movement-both on the tradeunion and political level-through possible mobilizations or actions, however modest they might be.
• To prove to the bourgeoisie-both those sectors already in opposition and those who will be in opposition in the future-as well as to the imperialist powers, that since such a policy is necessary, there can be no serious bourgeois alternative to the military regime and its leadership, the junta; that it alone is capable of implementing this course of action. The aim is to destroy the credibility of these bourgeois opposition sectors, and of their political and economic proposals.
This is Pinochet's crucial problem. Apart from the fact that the dictatorship still exists, it shows how much the political climate in Santiago has changed since September 11, 1973.
At the time of the coup the entire bour geoisie was grateful to the junta for having eliminated the revolutionary peril. The reactionary petty bourgeoisie also gave the junta its full backing. But now this support has given way to division, for the most part disaffection, and in certain cases even opposition.
The political isolation of the regime is above all the result of its economic policy. In the context of both the Chilean and the international economy, this policy has produced an unprecedented economic crisis throughout the country. The only sector that has benefited from it is the big bourgeoisie most closely tied to traditional export activities and to international capital.
Taking this fact as a starting point, we can analyze the evolution of the whole 1022
Christian Democracy and no longer just some sectors of it, as was the case a few months ago.
Apart from the purely formal references the Christian Democracy makes to the need for "democracy," its main criticism of the junta is over economic policy.
For the Christian Democrats, the real balance sheet of the regime is the drop in demand in the internal market, which they calculate at about 40 percent. How predictable they are!
As one of the traditional mouthpieces of owners of small and medium-sized industries, including those making durable consumer goods, the Christian Democracy represents the capitalist sectors most directly affected by the crisis in the internal market.
For the first year of the military regime, the Christian Democrats accepted the consequences of the junta's economic policy without much grumbling. In the end, however, they came to see the economic results as too high a price to pay for pushing back the specter of revolution!
But the hopes and calculations that entered into the military's economic planslargely shared, in the beginning, by those bourgeois sectors not directly favored by this economic policy-were shown to have been in vain.
Under these circumstances, the only perspective for the Christian Democrats, and for those whose interests they represent, is a radical change in economic planning and policy.
*The internal market must again be the motor of economic activity. It must be reactivated and even enlarged," the Christian Democratic economists explain.
But in a country like Chile in 1975, such an economic decision has considerable political implications. It runs in opposition to the immediate interests of the big bourgeoisie on which the military regime bases itself and whose profits it defends. It implies a different distribution of government aid and subsidies; a more "flexible" wage policy toward the workers; less competitive and less profitable export activities; and above all, a total revision of the junta's agrarian policy, which is aimed at restoring the system of great landed estates.
Clearly established in the opposition camp and limited in their activity by the censorship and repression, the Christian Democrats have come to realize that to offer a credible alternative to the junta it is not sufficient merely to represent or speak for an important sector of the bourgeoisie.
Their influence in the military apparatus is much reduced today, although it was
The repression, as once quite significant.
far as one can tell, is heavy inside the military hierarchy itself, and the officers too closely linked to the Christian Democrats have been systematically weeded out. Thus it is not there that the Christian Democratic leaders hope to win real influence, in the short term at least.
The Christian Democrats' credibility as a bourgeois opposition actually comes from the workers, a situation they consciously cultivated. This is a shrewd tactic. Its chances of success with the workers movement, and its political consequences, should not be underestimated.
In spite of all the difficulties that the junta has created for it, the Christian Democracy still has some trump cards, the first and most powerful of which is the Catholic hierarchy. Above and beyond its traditional tactical shrewdness, the great majority of the church hierarchy has come out in opposition to the dictatorship, after much beating around the bush. Consequently, its role and its weight have grown to the point where its leader, Cardinal Henríquez, has without doubt become the leading political figure in the country after Pinochet.
But the Catholic hierarchy is also an army of priests who have seen their influence and prestige grow in the countryside and in the workers' quarters because of the social and humanitarian role they play there. Soup kitchens, committees to help the unemployed, child-care centers, clinics, and homes for children and old people have for the most part been organized on their initiative.
Linking up again with their populist tradition, the militants and sympathizers of the Christian Democracy have taken part in these activities and won prestige and influence.
Before the coup the Christian Democracy was also a force in the unions. In elections to the CUT [Central Unica de Trabajadores-United Federation of Workers] it received about 30 percent of the vote, the same as the Communist party and the Socialist party. Its cadres and militants are still on the job, having suffered little from the repression in comparison with the Communists or Socialists. Some of them play an important role in the structures set up by the dictatorship, but they are a minority. The others, working under difficult conditions but taking advantage of the vacuum created by the repression against the leftwing parties, are working to rebuild an opposition union movement.
The Christian Democracy is thus taking advantage of the ambiguity in the situa tion, mixing the demands of the bourgeois sector that it represents-the expansion of the internal market-with populist and humanist demagogy. Having played a decisive role in the preparation and success of the coup, in this initial stage it is a pole of major importance for the reorganization of the union movement and for rebuilding political structures among the workers and popular masses.
That is not one of the smallest paradoxes of the Chilean situation.
The fact is that the working class of the industrial belts and the neighborhood councils, the working class that such a short time ago was mobilized for the socialist revolution, is to a large extent beginning to reorganize itself behind the bourgeois leadership of the Christian Democracy.
That, also, is the consequence of the defeat and therefore of a political strategy.
Who could deny it, when one of the powerful trumps this bourgeois leadership has in its hand is none other than the Communist party, which by its general orientation and concrete work openly supports this readjustment by the Christian Democracy?
[Next: The Parties of the "Popular Unity" Continue to Flounder]