Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after
Table 2: Some Indices of the Chilean Economy, 1970-72 Gross domestic product ( '~;, change) Investment (% change) Real wages and salaries ( ',{, change) Exports ($ mili ion) Imports ($ níillion) SOURGE: Department 01 Economícs, University 01 Chile. 1970 3.7 8.6 13.0 1129 1020 1971 1972 8.3 1.4 -24.2 -8.5 30.0 -9.0 1045 853 1124 1287 The pOlitical involvement ofthe military was accelerated bythe next step in the Chilean tragedy-the October 1972 strike. Respectively termed the "employers' lockout" and "the national strike" by pro- and anti-Allende forces, it began far from Santiago, in the remote southern province of Aisén, with a strike by small truckers. (Referred to by the government press as the "truck-owners", the membership of the truckers' gremio-guild- was almost entirely composed of owners ·of one or two trucks who feared an announced plan to establish a state trucking agency which would have had priqrity access to new trucks and spare parts.) The strike quickly spread across the nation, as the truckers were joined by bus and taxi drivers, shopkeepers, doctors, nurses, dentists, airline pilots, engineers and part of the peasantry. The Christian Democrats and the ríghtist parties supported the str4kers, and the work stoppage dragged on for oyera month resulting in an estimated loss of $ 150-200 mili ion in production. Agriculture was particularly hard hit because the strike took place in the midst ofthe planting season; indeed, there is no doubtthat part, though not all, of the 25 percent drop in the 1973 harvest was the consequence of the sfrike. Industry was not as adversely affected, since workers attempted to keep factories goi[lg despite mana– gement's eff0r:ts to cease production-and the October strike saw the emergency of "Indl,ls– trial Belts" (Cordones) and "Communal Commands", which seemed to embody the type of spontaneous "popular power" that leftist therorists had spoken of as the basis of a genuine revolutionary class consciousness to replace the materialistic "economism" that had characterized Chilean workers until this time.(15) When the workers seized closed facto– ries, the plants were usually "intervened" by the government so that an important result of the October strike was a considerable expansion of the government-controlled se.9tor of industry and trade. The most important outcome of the stríke,however, was the direct involvement of the mil ítary in the Allende cabinet. A cond ition of the settlement of the strí ke was that the mil itary take over key cabinet posts. This resulted most notably in the assignrrient of the Ministry of (15)TheCordones were more 01 less spontaneously organized committees olworkers Irom seized lactories whích coordinated production and distríbution in a given industrial area. The Communal Commands (Comandos Comuna– les) were organized by the Cordones to mobilíze the local population ín the surrounding area. They included representatives 01 neíghborhood commíttees (juntas de vecinos), mothers' groups (centros de madres), príce control and distríbution commíttees (juntas de abastecimientos y precios), and other groups. On Ihe persistence 01 worker "economísm," see James Petras, "Chile: Nalionalization, Socioeconomic Change and Popular Partícípatíon," Siudies in Comparative lnlernationa/ Developmenl (Beverly Hílls, CaUI.), Spring 1973, pp. 24-51; also avaílable in James Petras, Ed., Lalin America: Ff<!m Dependence lo Revo/ution, New York, Wiley, 1973, Chapo 2. 30
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