Pinochet, Allende and Chilean path to socialism
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PINOCHET AND SOCIALISM. Is it relevant to the case of the Socialist Party ?The arrest of the Chilean ex-dictator Pinochet in London in October reopened the debate about the overthrow by the armed forces of the Allende government in 1973. At the time Leninists and anarchists trumpeted this as confirmation of their argument that it is not possible to use existing limited, political democracy to abolish capitalism. So it is worth restating why what happened in Chile in 1973 is not relevant to our case that capitalism can be abolished by a democratically-organised socialist majority using already-established elective and representative institutions.
The Chilean experience is not relevant for three basic reasons. First, Allende and the People’s Unity (Unidad Popular) alliance which supported him did not enjoy majority support. Second, Allende and People’s Unity did not stand for socialism but for state capitalism. Third, it was an attempt to improve things within the context of a single country on its own.
Chile myth and reality
Marxism in Chile ?
PS: List of Chilean presidentshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_Chile. Several liberals and self proclaimed socialists, Land, Agrarian reforms and nationalization is not new in Latin America, it was also done in Mexico by Zapatas, Hidalgo and Cardenas movements, and several other nationalist movements, and Nationalization was a process started by the Manchesterists in England
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/09/11/ivoh-s11.html
This is the opinion of a Trotskyist group on the military coup of Chile, They call revolution the reforms implemented by the government
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Today marks the 50th anniversary of the infamous CIA-backed military coup in Chile led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, which established one of the most brutal regimes of the second half of the 20th century.In the early morning hours of September 11, 1973, the three branches of the Chilean armed forces and the military police issued a radio announcement that they had taken control of the country and demanded the resignation of elected President Salvador Allende of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity–UP) coalition government.
Chilean troops burning leftist literature on 9/11/1973 [Photo: CIA/Freedom of Information Act]
The Army and Air Force laid siege to the La Moneda presidential palace, bombarding it with fighter jets and tanks. Cornered and refusing the coup leaders’ demand that he resign, Allende died at La Moneda, according to investigations from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.https://en.internationalism.org/ir/115_allende.htm
This is the opinion of a left communist groups on Salvador Allende and his government, the analysis was made after 30 years of the fall of Allende regime
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30 years after the fall of the Allende regime in Chile– democracy and dictatorship: two faces of capitalist barbarism
Submitted by International Review on 27 November, 2004 – 21:36Printer-friendly version
Dictatorship and Democracy: Two Faces of Capitalist Barbarism
On 11th September 1973, a bloody military coup led by General Pinochet overthrew Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government. A terrible period of repression of the working class followed: thousands of people,1 mostly workers, were systematically massacred, tens of thousands imprisoned and tortured. This appalling barbarity was accompanied by hundreds of thousands of redundancies (10% of the workforce during the first year of military dictatorship).The order that reigned in Santiago (set up with the support of the CIA2) was nothing other than the order of capitalist terror in its most caricatural form.
With the 30th anniversary of the overthrow of Allende’s “socialist” government, the whole “democratic” bourgeoisie has made full use of the occasion to try to derail workers from their own class interests. It has been trying to sell the idea that the only struggle workers should support is the defence of the democratic state against dictatorship and evil tyrants. This is the meaning of the campaign orchestrated by the media, when they draw the parallel between Pinochet’s coup d’Etat of 11th September 1973, and the attack on the Twin Towers in New York (see for example, the headline in Le Monde of 12th September: “Chile 1973, the other 11th September).
In the forefront of this campaign by all the forces of bourgeois democracy are the left wing parties, and the leftists who supported the Chilean MIR3 to the hilt by enrolling the workers behind the Allende clique and thus delivering them over to Pinochet’s butchers.4 Against this gigantic mystification that consists in presenting Allende as a pioneer of “socialism” in Latin America, revolutionaries have the responsibility to re-establish the truth about the reality of Chilean democracy. For the workers should never forget that Pinochet’s military junta only finished off the job of putting down workers’ struggles that had already been begun by the “popular” army of Allende’s “socialist” government.
The Left believe that weak countries which defy imperialism from the powerful ones are doing so because they want to help their people. The reality is they want to support their OWN capitalist class at the expense of the capitalist class of the powerful, imperialist country.
The Left believe that weak countries which defy imperialism from the powerful ones are doing so because they want to help their people. The reality is they want to support their OWN capitalist class at the expense of the capitalist class of the powerful, imperialist country.
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Anti imperialism is not anti capitalism
Anti Yankees-ism is not anti capitalism. The Cuban government had the same slogan and they became ally of the soviet capitalist and imperialist ( The Chinese capitalist call it the soviet social imperialism )
https://socialist.net/50-years-since-pinochets-coup-in-chile-the-defeat-of-reformism/
Chile the defeat of reformism, an opinion from the International Marxist Tendency
——————————————————————————–50 years since Pinochet’s coup in Chile: The defeat of reformism
Today marks the 50th anniversary of the coup in Chile, when General Pinochet and the military – backed by US imperialism – overthrew the socialist government of Salvador Allende. Revolutionaries must fully absorb the lessons of these tragic events.
Fifty years ago, on 11 September 1973, the coup d’état against Salvador Allende’s socialist government took place in Chile.
Allende’s election was the first time in history that a candidate who identified as a Marxist came to power through the electoral route. This fostered great illusions amongst social democrats around the world.
As president, however, Allende failed to carry the revolution through to its conclusion. The ensuing counterrevolution was relentless. The cost was paid by millions of Chilean workers.
This is the opinion of a Stalinist group on the government of Salvador Allende. Apparently, all these tendencies they have differences of opinion, but all of them have something in common: They wrongly believe that this was the establishment of a socialist society, headed by a Leader, along with a group of so called Marxists, and that socialism in one country is possible to be established by a minority of party leaders. None has said that it was the transition from market capitalism into state capitalism and the the coup was the opposite transition. Only one said that which was the International Communist Current, but they believe that Leninism is a socialist trend, and that the Soviet Union was socialist until Stalin took over
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Despite this event, in which Schneider was seriously injured, the Congress confirmed Salvador Allende as president on October 24, 1970. He was described as “the first Marxist president in the world to come to power through general elections in a state of law.” His purpose was to establish socialism “by democratic means.”
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