REGR OUPMENT PROCESS CONTINUES IN CHILE
The shake-up in left-wing political alignments in Chile has been reflected in several recent incidents that have received considerable publicity in the Chilean press,
In Valparaiso two separate meetings were held on the same day in celebration of the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. One, sponsored by the Movimiento de Solidaridad con la Revolucién Cubana, featured as main speakers the well-known Communist poet Pablo Neruda and the regional secretary of the Socialist party Sergio Salinas, It was held in the Teatro Imperio,
The other meeting, held in the Teatro Lux, featured Jaime Barros, the Communist member of parliament who recently resigned from the Communist party in protest over its class=-collaborationist policies, [See World Outlook January 8,]
This meeting was sponsored by a committee. composed of Alonso Zumaeta, Daniel Quiroz, Nelson Salinas, Antonio Tavolari, Manuel Contreras, Marcos Portnoy, Luis. Vega, and.the socialist candidate for parliament Isabel Cdrdenas.
The resignation of Jaime Barros and the well-known Communist intellectual Marcos Portnoy as well as José Vega, a former Valparaiso city councilman, was a heavy blow to the Chilean Communist -party. The reaction of the party officialdom.has been in the traditional Stalinist groove, A campaign of denigration was opened::in El Siglo, the official newspaper of the Chilean Communist party.
In the January 10 issue, for instance, a report was published that "20 thugs, directed by Marcos Portnoy and Luis Vega -~- recently expelled from the Communist party because of their antiparty activities -- yesterday morning cowardly attacked 8 members of the Commun= ist Youth" who were distributing literature.
.. The Stalinist sheet claimed that the police stood: by "without intervening" and that two of the youth had to be taken to the hospital, one of them "badly injured.
—Qe.
. Responsibility for the alleged attack was foisted on the Communist leaders who recently resigned, in the following deft way: "The whole operation was directed from an automobilésby Portnoy and Vega who, together with the expelled Dr. Jaime Barros, have dedica-ted themselves to intense anti-Communist action through the 'Espartaco! [Spartacus] group."
Meanwhile, in the Socialist party, a parallel process has. provided tidbits for the gossipmongers. The Socialist Youth, who recently launched a struggle against the class-collaborationist policies of the right-wing Social Democratic leadership [see World Outlook January 8] were given a taste of the bureaucratic whip.
In Santiago, leaders of the Regional Committee of the Socialist Youth scheduled a meeting for January 9 in the party headquarters in San Martin street, On their agenda was preparation for the Spe- cial Congress of the Socialist party which they have demanded "to finish with the bureaucracy" and to elect a new, democratic leadership dedicated to the program of revolutionary socialism.
When they arrived, however, they were met by Ratil Ampuero, ° a Socialist party senator, and a number of his associates. According to the press, this group refused to permit the youth to enter the headquarters, and beat them up.
"Eduardo Diaz, regional secretary of the Young Socialists, and Jecar Neghme, member of the Central Committee and leader of the National Health Service union, were beaten," according to an account in one of the daily papers next day. Then -=- again according to the same account -- the Socialist party leaders ‘Ampuero, Garay and Jaime Ahumada called the Radio Patrol of the Carabineros, saying: that ‘Christian Democratic gangs were trying to assault the party headquarters.''
An enterprising photographer of El Mercurio, Santiagots main daily, got a picture of Ratil Ampuero and two armed carabineros barring one of the leaders of the Socialist Youth from entering, the =. headquarters. anes ;
The Young Socialists thereupon went to the headquarters of the Supply Workers union in Arturo Prat street where they held their meeting. They decided to set up a committee together with adult members of the Socialist party to organize a Special Congress of the party in February.
In an attempt to nullify the bad publicity resulting from ~~ their bureaucratic actions, the right-wing Socialist party leaders sent a statement to the press, denouncing the "factional, splitting © work carried out by agents provocateurs: ‘who infiltrated the party: organization." The statement affirmed that these "agents provocateurs" were "Christian Democrats." It ended up by announcing the expulsion of the following individuals: "René Orellana, Victor 0%: ©
Berberis, Marfa Elena Peralta and Eduardo Dfaz or Omar Letelier,"
The article in the capitalist press ended dryly: "As can be seen, those expelled are not the same ones who 'tried to enter violently.'"
In an interview with El Mercurio, Youth leaders Patricio Figueroa, Enrique Barrios Arratia and Mario Iniguez Raddatz said that they were in opposition to the "bureaucratic, reformist, elec- . toralist leadership of the party."
They said that their movement to bring + the party back to its revolutionary program had been fully supported by seventeen sections of Santiago province at a plenum held last month. The ranks of the Youth “demonstrated their complete repudiation of the present adult and youth central committees.
' At the Special Congress, they said, their objective would be the election of a "genuinely revolutionary leadership that would faithfully represent the sentiments of most party members, replacing a leadership which for years has utilized our party for personal and electoralist ends, .. "
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