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

earlier that had been waged by the governmen! against the Papelera; increasing illegal take-overs of factories and farms; the unfair sysfem of food distribution (used by !he government to influence the votes of dwellers in poblaciones) and many more violations of bo!h the spirit and letter of the law, created aclimate of political polarization and antago– nism that by mid-1973 had divided Chile into two opposing camps and made agolpe all but an inevitabilily lo many observers. CONCLUSION As has been illustrated in this paper, the major causes of Allende's downfall were of his own making. Certainly, Allende did not inherit either a favorable political climate or a healthy economy, and in this sense cannot be blamed for havjng created the socio– economic and political problems he set out to solve. Nonetheless, after three years in office his policies succeeded mostly in only aggravating these problems and creating some new ones. As we have seen, for example, in 1970 the Unidad Popular inherited an inflation rate of 35 percent a year; in 1973 it left a legacy of an inflation rate of 350 percent a year. In 1970 the country was spending over 160 million dollars per year on the importation of foodstuffs, while by 1973 this had risen lo 600 million. Some observers have argued that part of Allende's difficulties were broughl on by a decline in the world market price of copper which accounted for 85 percent of Chile's foreign earnings. Yet during Allende's last year in office the price of copper was rising lo new heights. Still others point to subversive opposition from extremist, neo-fascist groups; a general fear of Marxism; opposition by multi-nalional corporations and the United States to Allende's nationalizations wilhout compensation; and recent revelations of Central Intelligence Agency involvemenl in Chile's internal affairs, as contribuling faclors in the downfall of Allende. It is true that al~ of these factors contri buted to Allende's difficulties. Nevertheless, had Allende not chosen lo declare hímself an enemy of the United States; natíonalize enterprises without compensation; encourage Ihe formalion of a left-wing militia armed with Communist manufaclured weapons; engage in queslionable !egal maneuvers to carry out expropriations; and suffer from numerous polílical conflícts within his own coalition, opposition from both outside and within Chile would have been much less intense, and it is doubtful that the socio-economic and polítical situation would have deteriorated to the extent tha! It did. The bloody coup of September 11, 1973 and the heavy-handed military government lhal followed has tended to blurthe fac! !ha! the Unidad Popular's policies had, for the most part, produced negalive results for the country. Revulsion over alleged inslances of murder and torture since the golpe de estado has tended 10 make the Allende years appear mild by comparison to the currentjunta. However, condemnation of Chile's military go– vernmenl does not mean that the policies followed by the Unidad Popular are therefore vindicated. No amount of commentary critical of the present government can changelhe fact that the pOlicies pursued by the Allende administration played the major role in . destabilizing the Chilean economy and socio-polítical system. At the same time, failure of the Unidad Popular to reach its goals does not mean that there is no such things as a peaceful road to socialism. Nor does Allende's failure prove that Marxism is not a viable ideology for other Latin American nations. Allende did not fail because he was a Marxist, but rather because, as we have seen, the economic policies which his administration followed were both largely populist and demagogic as well as often times self-serving and inept. The Unidad Popular, as one observer put it, was a revolution of "popular consump– tion", no! a true revolution of production and cooperation toward the goal of socialism. 200