Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after

appointees being placed in positions in the ínterest of ideological conformíty and to the disregard of professíonal or administrative skills.(86) One of the reasons many of tlle state enterprises failed was because the professional managers and engineers were replaced by poi itical appointees who often had little or no education ortraining for the jobs they were to fill."lndeed, one ofthe causesofthe massive strike atChuquicamataduring Allende's last months in office was the presence in the managerial ranks at the mine of a number of autocratic and arrogant political appointees who had alienated much of the leadershi.p among the mine workers.(87) . . Regardless of the Unidad Popular's governmental policíes, or its internal or external political problems, the major problem confronted by Allende was the fact that politically there never existed in Chile a majority sentiment in favor of either the Popular Unity government's program or strategy for achieving it. In addition, the inte,rnal disunity of the coalition and arapidly deteríorating economic situation placed severe restraints on the parameters of Allende's freedom of action to correctthese imbalances.(88) Wíthout a majority in the legislature he was locked into the same legíslative-executive struggle that had characterized Chile for the past 150 years, and without a broad-based mandate for change, he could no! submit his regime to a plebiscite. In addition, the same swirling vortex of multi-party coalitions and opposition that had created havoc forthe Popular Front of the Radicals and for Frei, also worked against the achievement of !he Unidad Popular's programo Since the mílitary was firmly upited in support ofthe Constitution (even theír golpe was jlJstifíed in terms of preserving Chile's constitutional orderfrom a Marxíst take over) the Allende administration was compelled to use "constitutionalloopholes" and questionable legal tactics to gain their ends (Le. the Unidad Popular's refusal to recognizethe social area legislation passed by Congress and the government's political motivated tomas) which in tlJrn brought about charges from the oppositíon that Allende had in both spírit and fact violated the Constitution.(89) The Un idadPopular'& own insistence upon mobilízing.the masses also worked against the administration much as the Chrístian Democrats organization of peasant uníons had against Freí. In Ihe firsl instance obtaining poliiical power was central to the Unidad Popular strategy, so Ihey mobilízed the masses lo carry oul demonslralions, marches and to vole in order to demonstrate theír power c'apability to the oppositíon, a well known techní– que throughout Latin America.(90) However, once in powe'r the Unidad Popular, soon found that therewere very real polílical and economic reslraints which severely limited the government's ability to both meet the defnands of rísing expectation which they had provoked among the masses, and maintain a stable economic situatíon at the samelime. -. The Unidad Popularwas thus caught in a profound dilemma. Without mass support, ii could not hope to win an electoral majority, while the economic measures needed to--máintain what support the coalition enjoyed mean! further weakening the Chilean economy. As the dívision withín Unidad Popular.deepened and opposition to the Marxísts'intensifíed, the government became increasingly unable to develop any coherent programs for stabilizing. the economic aríd political situation.· . . Thus, disintegrating politically and with its economic polícies thrQughly discredited, the Unídad Popular during 1973 began to rely increasingly upon "mobílízing the másses~' through denunciatíons of the opposition asfascists and Nazis employed by the "Internatio– nal Capitalist Conspíracy" to overthrow the government of Salvador Allende. Numerous and flagrant attempts a! silencing the opposition such as the economic war mentioned (86)See QUt!' Pasa, February 15, p. 7. (87)Conversalíons with a number 01 mine workers in Santiago, Chile, July, 1973. (88lBy late 1972 the Radical party split with Alberto Baltra. the man who had been a nominee lor Ihe Presidency on Ihe Unidad Popular banner only Iwo years earlier, leaving 10 lorm Ihe Independenl Radical Party (PIRl and join ranks wilh the opposition against Salvador Allende. ' (89)On August 22, 1973 the Congress passed a resolution declaring thal Ihe Allende administration was in lact aclíng unconstitutionally. Robert Moss, "Chile'!> Coup and After", Eneounter, March, 1974, p. 74. (90)See, lor example, James Payne, Labor and Poli/ies in Peru (New Haven: Yale Uníversity Press, 1965). 199