Salvador Allende Was Overthrown Because His Government Showed Chile Could Be Transformed [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

09.12.2021
CHILE
STATE POLICY HISTORY

AN INTERVIEW WITH
TOMÁS MOULIAN

This weekend marks the 48th anniversary of the US-backed coup against Chilean socialist president Salvador Allende. That coup’s history is important, but we can’t forget that Allende’s government also achieved incredible things while in power.

INTERVIEW BY
Mía Dragnic

The first commemorative march for Chile’s Popular Unity government took place on September 11, 1989. Paying homage to the victims of the military dictatorship, it gathered more than five thousand people at Salvador Allende’s then-unmarked tomb in Viña del Mar.

It would also be the final year of Augusto Pinochet’s bloody dictatorship. Before stepping down, Pinochet ominously announced on national radio that even in his absence the “struggle against Marxism must go on.”

Every year since that date, a commemorative march is held in Santiago de Chile. However, in 2005, the route was reversed so that it would begin, rather than end, at the cemetery and head toward its final destination at the Moneda Palace. The message behind the route change was clear: there will always be a place for the Left to mourn its fallen heroes, but its ultimate destiny lies elsewhere.

The Chilean left also seems to be reversing course in recent years, most spectacularly by winning majority representation in the all-important Constitutional Convention, responsible for rewriting the nation’s magna carta.

Amid growing confidence on the Left, many people have also begun to look back with a different attitude on the history of Allende’s Popular Unity government (Unidad Popular, UP) — less as a solemn act of remembrance than an active search for useful political experiences.

More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/09/salvador-allende-popular-unity-government-chile-quimantu-industrial-textile-democracy-nationalization-banks-copper