[We have translated the following article from the April 19 issue of Rouge, the weekly newspaper of the
Communiste (Communist Ligue League, the French section of the Fourth International). The footnotes and emphasis appear in the original.]
The recent Chilean municipal elections represented an unquestionable victory for the Unidad Popular (People's Unity! government. Receiving 49.75 percent of the votes cast, the coalition headed by Salvador Allende won almost an absolute majority, while in the last presidential election it garnered no more than 36 percent of the vote.
Within the Unidad Popular, these elections marked an important gain in influence for the Socialist party 1 and a small but real gain for the Communist party, while the Radical party, the third influential component of the coalition, representing the liberal sections of the small and middle bourgeoisie that support the Allende experiment, saw its vote cut in half.
The victory did not surprise anyone in Chile, least of all the Christian Democratic and Nationalist opposition. In the space of six months, the Nationalist party has lost more than one-fourth of its vote to the Christian Democracy. The Christian Democrats have become the main opposition party and the principal political instrument of the Chilean bourgeoisie, although they in turn have lost a large part of their popular electoral base to the Unidad Popular.
The increased popularity of the Allende government is the direct result of a series of measures benefiting the most disadvantaged sectors of the petty bourgeoisie and the working class. In January, for example, while the prices of consumer goods were frozen, the lowest category of wages was raised by 50%, and the rest by 25% to 30%. At the same time, family allowances were increased 100%, while school supplies were provided free at the end of the vacation period.
These measures came at a time when alarmist rumors about plots and a military coup, circulating more or less everywhere in the country, impelled the broad layers of the population benefiting from the reforms to rally behind the government.
The fact remains, nevertheless, that this victory, however important, in no way changes the basic factors of the Chilean situation.
"Going beyond bourgeois reformism" is a phrase often encountered in the Chilean press and frequently uttered by the main protagonists of the Unidad Popular. It reveals a fact often forgotten, especially in Chile. The reformist measures approved by Allende were already included in the Christian Democratic program in the main, when Frei won the 1964 presi dential elections. In this sense the Unidad Popular's slogan, "We Have Done in Four Months What the Christian Democrats Couldn't Do in Six Years," is literally true.
Thus, the agrarian reform projected by the
Christian Democrats, which limits landholdings to eighty hectares [one hectare equals 2.47 acres], has begun to be applied "in reality."2 In the same way, the main copper mines are in process of being nationalized,
"they carry out the agrarian most often, reform themselves," dividing their land into eighty-hectare plots and distributing them among the members of their families. This permits them to keep their estates intact!
and several banks have been nationalized, as well as a number of other enterprises serving the public.
However spectacular some of these measures may be, the fact remains that they were advocated long agoif not put into practice-by a bourgeois party. In no case do they represent a change, not even an incipient one, in the class nature of the Chilean one in the pass nature of the Chilean state. In no case do they strike at the essential economic base of the Chilean bourgeoisie. As for the imperialist interests in Chile, they have so far been affected only in a marginal way. While the nationalization of the copper mines has a symbolic value in the eyes of the Chilean people, it must not give rise to any illusions. It has involved the payment of large compensation. Furthermore, the mining sector accounts for only a small part of the imperialist investments in the Chilean economy. The essential part of foreign capital is found in the light-industry sector and in the service sectors, which are relatively important in the economy of Chile in comparison with other Latin American countries. And in these sectors, for the moment at least, there is no question of nationalization.
In this framework, the current waitand-see attitude of the Chilean bourgeoisie and the imperialists - after the initial panic over the outcome of the elections- can be easily understood.
As long as their fundamental interests, their economic base, and their main instruments of action - the Christian Democratic party in the framework of formal bourgeois democracy, and large sections of the army and police — are not touched, why should they take the risk of a confrontation whose dynamic and consequences are unpredictable?
Several factors are important in this connection, above all the immense popular support enjoyed by the Allende government. So far, this support has been expressed in the electoral arena and on rare occasions by limited mobilizations, as on the day Allende was inaugurated, when nearly a million persons came out into the streets of Santiago to celebrate "their" victory.
This support is Allende's only strong card against the maneuvers of the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Yet he refuses to organize this potential power because of his respect for bourgeois democratic traditions —
"social forces must express themselves through elections and the parliament" - and because of his fear of a reaction by the bourgeoisie, which would then feel threatened.
This aspect of the Chilean situation today is both ironic and tragic. The ministers and leaders of the Unidad Popular, especially the Socialists, are expounding through all the communications media the idea that anything is possible in Chile, every hope is justified for "the people," since "the people" are in power. But necessarily and in the near future they must expect a reaction by the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Therefore, they must prepare themselves, these leaders repeat insistently, sometimes citing the exampies of Spain, Brazil, or Indonesia, to back up their arguments. But prepare how?
For the Chilean Communist party, the answer is clear. They have already begun to put it into practice. Their solution is not to organize, not to develop a framework for leading the masses, still less arming them, since this would frighten the bourgeoisie and "open the door to adventures" (sic). To the contrary, in the framework of the present bourgeois democracy, their answer is to beef up their apparatus to the maximum (four months ago they had 2,500 paid functionaries; today they have 5,000 - for 40,000 members!) and place as many men as possible in key positions in the bourgeois state, especially in the Ministry of the Interior. In a way, this is bringing an old tradition up to date.
For the Socialist party, the response is less clear. The Chilean SP today has no equivalent anywhere in the world. By its very loose structures and weak apparatus, it is related to classic Social Democratic parties, but the Social Democratic current in its ranks seems to be greatly outnumbered, even almost nonexistent.
For a long time the party was really dominated by a centrist-type tendency that held to a reformist perspective in Chilean domestic politics but was linked internationally to revolutionary currents in the rest of Latin America (it participated in the OLAS conference for example). Allende was one of the most typical representatives of this tendency, and it has furnished the bulk of the Socialist ministers in the present government.
Since the Unidad Popular came to May 10,1971
power, the situation inside the SP has changed to a large extent, reflecting the profound process of radicalization and politicalization of the Chilean masses now going on.
At the party's last congress in January 1971, the left wing, representing unquestionably revolutionary currents, increased its strength notably. Thus, the ELN [Ejército de Liberación Nacional - National Liberation Army], a current of Castroist origin which today advocates arming the proletariat to struggle effectively against the threats of the bourgeoisie and imperialism, won sixteen seats out of forty-five on the Central Committee. The resolutions of the congress reflected this evolution rather faithfully as regards the general analysis of the situation and the measures to be taken. They posed the problem clearly of mobilizing and arming the Chilean workers in the framework of the Unidad Popular committees.
But the SP is also a "government party." That is why, at the request of Allende and his ministers, the passages dealing concretely with these problems were not made public in their entirety, in order not to provoke the bourgeoisie! This is a strange way of educating the Chilean masses politically in order to mobilize them.
In these conditions, the revolutionary tendencies, essentially the ELN, are working on their own behalf outside the party. But they are torn between maintaining minimum discipline toward the party and taking up the far-from-resolved problem of concretely arming the Chilean workers, as called for by their strategic analysis - and that's without mentioning the organizational weaknesses inherent in this kind of ambiguous situation. These difficulties narrow the actual practice of the ELN, and its political vision as well, to arming and training small networks of sympathizers, which, when the time comes, threaten to be only a drop of water in the ocean.
These tendencies have, nonetheless, to their credit the important accomplishment of opening up debate on these crucial questions in the SP, and thus in the Unidad Popular as a whole, with all the public discussion this involves. This achievement is far from negligible in the context of a situation where the mobilization and politicalization of the masses are growing.
Of course, the CP is playing a considerable braking role in the process and stands as the chief defender of the present order. It was this party, for example, that condemned the peasant land occupations in the most unrestrained language, while in many cases the Socialists and Minister of Agriculture Chonchol, a dissident Christian Democrat, saw them as a good way of prodding a reluctant bureaucracy committed to serving the most reactionary bourgeoisie. The fact remains that today, even though the masses are unorganized, their support of the Allende government is too great and the process of politicalization too rapid for the bourgeoisie and the imperialists to take the risk at this time of a confrontation, which, moreover, is not justified by the measures taken so far by the Unidad Popular.
The tactic of these reactionary forces is clearly more subtle and of longer range. The daily harassing maneuvers of the Christian Democrats in parliament and the provocations organized by extreme rightist elements must not be taken at face value. Their objective is much more that of creating a climate of permanent instability, plotting, and scandals, than of launching a real battle against Allende and the Unidad Popular.
The bourgeoisie and the imperialists are already waging a real fight on the economic level. Their method is not a ruthless blockade, as in Cuba, which would involve the risk of seeing the regime turn abruptly toward the USSR and the East European countries, with all the dynamic that implies. Moreover, a blockade would cut both ways. Chile is the world's main exporter of copper, which has become quite scarce on the international market because of the needs of the American army in Vietnam. Blockading Chile would bring on a considerable rise in the price of copper on the world market, from which the United States would be the primary loser.
On the other hand, measures severely restricting credit, banning loans, and limiting or halting investment are already in force. And they will quickly put the Chilean economy, which is very dependent on the world market, in a difficult position, forcing Allende to resort to austerity measures which will cut down the prestige and popular support he enjoys. Such a perspective is all the more likely if the masses are not prepared politically and organizationally for this new situation. That is when the bourgeoisie and the imperialists will step in -when they have been able to show that the experiment was a failure. Whether this intervention is a hot one, in the framework of a military and police operation, or a cold one, through an electoral victory of the Christian Democrats, is not the essential thing today.
What is important is that, at any price, as its strategy proves, imperialism is trying to avoid creating the conditions for a confrontation, and thus, in the present context, an almost inevitable mobilization of the masses. 3
This only highlights still more the suicidal side of the Unidad Popular's policy regarding mobilizing and arming the Chilean workers, and the criminal irresponsibility this represents in conjunction with the illusions it is cultivating in the Chilean masses.
In the present political context in Chile, it a revolutionary organization, standing in independence from the Unidad Popular, correctly posed the problem of mobilizing and arming the proletariat, and had the minimum base among the workers and peasants enabling it to lay the first foundations for carrying out such a policy on a mass scale, this would change the situation entirely. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
Many vanguard nuclei exist today in Chile. But their extreme organizational weakness and their almost total lack of a working-class base prevent them from influencing the development of the situation, even though 'some of them have a highly lucid and correct analysis of the problem.
With its organizational base, its influence in the shantytowns and poor neighborhoods of Santiago, Concepción, and other Chilean cities, its influence in some important sectors of the poor peasantry, and its prestige and real influence in the student milieu, the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario- Movement of the
Revolutionary Left] could have been a key element in forming this revolutionary rallying point, if not itself serving as the rallying point.
Unfortunately, this organization's great political weaknesses and its apparently divided leadership did not prepare it to play this role. A high degree of schematism in their analysis and thought led its leaders to believe that it was impossible for Unidad Popular to win in the elections. When Allende was elected, they didn't know what to say or do.
Some ambiguous statements suggest that the MIR leaders are giving critical support to the Unidad Popular, but on a basis that has not been clarified. They seem to have direct personal relations with Allende, to the point of assigning several MIR members to guard him. The organization has already vanished from the poblaciones4 around Santiago where it had mass influence. On the other
4. Shantytowns around Santiago and the main Chilean urban centers. In Santiago, between one-third and one-half of the population of 1,800,000 live in these poblaciones.
hand, it is very active in the southern part of the country trying to organize the Mapuche Indians and politicalize them so as to make the agrarian reform a reality in this area and convert the region into a revolutionary "bastion." In the absence of other statements and analyses, these scattered items make it difficult to assess the role and perspectives of the MIR.
One thing is certain, however, so far it has failed in what should have been its role at this time: to be a revolutionary mobilizing center to the left of the Unidad Popular.
Atomized and scattered in the SP left wing and the MIR, for the most part, as well as in numerous groups, the Chilean revolutionists have an immense task to accomplish in an extremely short time. On their capacity to organize themselves, to sink roots even in a limited way into the decisive sectors of the workers and peasants, and to organize them, will depend essentially the capacity of the Chilean masses to counter the maneuvers of their own bourgeoisie and the imperialists and to achieve a real socialist revolution.
Notes
1. The gains of the SP must be qualified, however, by the fact that small formations like the MAPU [Movimiento de Accion Popular Unitaria - United Popular Action Movement], a grouping of dissident Christian Democrats led by J. Chonchol, the minister of agriculture, were unable to get on the ballot and that their supporters voted mainly for the SP.
2. While the landowners in the barren or uncultivated regions are giving up their land without any difficulty, in exchange for an attractive compensation, in the richer areas, where industrial crops are grown, this is not the case. Here,
3. This strategy does not, however, protect the Chilean regime from a coup d'etat carried out by some sector of the army, for example, with the encouragement of one or another service of U.S. imperialism. Such a development, of course, owing to the dynamics entailed, would greatly alter the situation.