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

following Ihe 1970 presidential electíon", Allende's representatives confidently replied that "with a gradual heighlening of Ihe political consciousness of the proletariat, there seemed to be no obstacles in the internallogic of the Chilean bourgeois state to prevent the workers' winning sufficient strength to gain control ofthe legislature as well as the executive".(1 O) On the political front, there were individuals and groups on both sides who attempted to stem Ihe movement toward polarization, Which Ihey correctly foresaw would lead lo Ihe breakdown of Chilean institulions. Two important efforts to arrive at a compromise on the issue of the constitutional amendment on the "Three Areas of Property" were made in the first part of 1972, In April the Left Radicals, who had entered the Allende government in January, carried on lengthy negotiations with the Christian Democrats to hammer out a satisfactory agreement on this issue, only to have il rejecled by the top command of the Popular Unity coalition parties. The Left Radicals responded by leaving the government and joining Ihe opposition, a move Allende described as,"a stab in the back",(11) A second set of negotiations in June belween Ihe head of the Christian Democratic Party and Allende's Minister of Justice broke down when Ihe lime limit set by the Christian Democrals expired and the PDC leadership refused to extend it. The two sets of negoti'ations seem lo have collapsed for related reasons. In Apri IIhe left wing ofthe Popular Unity coalition was unwilling lo accept a compromise which wpuld l:;low . down or stop the forward movement of Ihe government nationalization J:>rogram, while in June the right wing of the Christian Democrals could point to an impending by..election in mid-July as a reason for discontinuing discussions, 80th cases illustrated a general problem posed by the Chilean mulliparty system. Once poiitical conflict became polari– zed, Ihe ~xtremes held the rest of the opposing coalitions hostage and prevented what could have been a convergence of views in the center. The negotiations were interspersed with a series of demonstrations and counterde– monstrations by the governmenl and the opposition which always stopped jusI short of open violence. Several observers, including the American Ambassadorto Chile, Nathaniel Davis, remarked on the pattern of "brinkmanship" thal the Chileans exhibiled.(12) Social and polítical tensions increased-bul as long as economic deteríoration was not reflected in runaway inflation, the Chilean system seemed able to conlain them, THE TURNING POINT The straíns in the system only became unmanageable in mid-1972, when the lid blew off Ihe fragíle Chilean economy and lel loose the pressuresthat had been building up for at least a year. As the deficit in government spending rose, particularly because of lts subsid ies to the "social area", its foreign reserves dropped nearly to zero, and the growth of industrial output slowed down. Allende replaced Economics MinislerVuskovic with Carlos Matus and appointed Orlando Millas as Finance Minister. The Matus-Millas leam sought lo "find slability at another level", ordering a drastic currency devaluation, raising prices in the nationalized sector, and permitting limited agricultural price increases, The result was a sharp jump in Ihe cost-of-living index, which climbed from 27,5 percenl at Ihe end of June to 99,8 percent al the end of September. A wage re,adjustment lo compensate for the increase in Ihe cosl of living on Iy acceleraled the infl,?tion, so Ihat by the end of the year the official consumer price index had rE:ached 163 percent (see Table 1), In September, (10)J, Ann Zammil and Gabriel Palma. Eds" The Chí/ean Road to Socialism, Auslin, Universily 01 Texas Press, 1973, pp. 38, 247. The Communist Party report appears in El Mercurio (Inlernalional Edilion) Jan, 31-Feb, 6, 1972, p, 4, (1 i)Partido Izquierda Radical, Trayectoria Política del PIR (Political Path 01 the RIR), Santiago, i972, p. 79. (12)A secret cable Irom U.S. Ambassador Nalhaniel Davis lo Ihe Slale Departmenl. published in Jack Anderson's column in The Washington Post (Washinglon, OC) on March 28,1972, commented Ihal "Ihe Chileans have a greal abjlity lo rush lO Ihe brink, embrace each other, and back off." Oh Ihe same pOjnt see Mauricio Solaún and Fernando Cepeda, Allende's Chile: On the politics ofBrinkmanship. Bogotá. Universidad de Los Andes, i972, 27