Criticisms of Salvador Allende

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Salvador Allende, President of Chile, has inspired a variety of perceptions regarding his policies, personality and performance as a head of state. Around the world, journalists, polling organizations and others have documented the expression of an evolving array of opinions about him. More than thirty years after his death, Allende remains a controversial figure. Since his life ended before his presidential term was over, there has been much speculation as to what Chile would have been like had he been able to remain in power.

Allende's story is often cited in non-academic discussions about whether a 'communist' government has ever been democratically elected (this circumstance has occurred in Nepal, Moldova, San Marino, Cyprus, and several states of India). While Allende legitimately won a democratic election, the significance of this has been disputed by some because he only had a plurality, not a majority, in the popular vote. This voting pattern is not uncommon in representative democracies, however; George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson, and Abraham Lincoln are among those leaders who have been elected without a majority of the popular vote.

Contents 1 Supporters' view 2 Opponents' views 3 Marxist criticism and assessment 4 Accusations of racism 5 Additional information 5.1 See also 5.2 References

[edit] Supporters' view

His supporters argue that he did not win an outright majority because Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomić, running on a leftist platform similar to Allende's, split the Left vote. Tomic and Allende together gathered 64% of the vote, a clear majority. His opponents maintain that Allende went much farther to the left than voters could have expected, but the Christian Democratic Party who were initially supportive of military intervention to remove Allende from office began to disassociate itself because of the manifestly undemocratic and violently repressive nature of the Pinochet regime.

Allende is seen as a hero to many on the political Left. Some view him as a martyr who died for the cause of socialism. His face has even been stylized and reproduced as a symbol of Marxism, similar to the famous images of Che Guevara. Some hold the United States, specifically Henry Kissinger and the CIA, responsible for his death, and view him as a victim of American imperialism. For his supporters his greatest legacy was his conviction that Socialism can be reached through a democratic, pacific path. His legacy can be seen in Venezuela and, most recently, Bolivia.

[edit] Opponents' views

Others view Allende much less favorably. He is criticized for his government's mass nationalization of private industry, alleged friendliness with more militant groups such as the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, and the supply shortages and hyperinflation that occurred during the latter years of his presidency; all these had combined to cause a strong polarization in the country and the committed opposition of the Christian Democratic Party at the time of the coup. He is also accused of having had an autocratic style, attempting to circumvent the Congress and the courts, and having a hostile attitude toward critical media.

A common claim among opponents was the belief that Allende's closeness with Fidel Castro and Eastern bloc countries meant that he was planning to model the Chilean state along Cuban lines. Such allegations are highly controversial. One, offered by the military junta which deposed Allende, accusing him of formulating the supposed "Plan Z", in which the Popular Unity government was accused to have planned a bloody coup of its own to install Allende as dictator. The junta alleged that the plot was to be no less than a blueprint for assassinations of military leaders and general "mass murder". The CIA later concluded^[1] that "Plan Z" was probably disinformation. Nevertheless, according to his opponents, Allende's own refusal to obey and/or enforce more than 7,000 Chilean Supreme Court and other legislative rulings (as detailed in the Resolution of August 22, 1973 was a sign of dictatorial style in defiance of Chile's democratic government institutions.

[edit] Marxist criticism and assessment

Many Marxist intellectuals and groups such as the MIR in Chile and international Trotskyist organizations provided only critical support to the Salvador Allende led Popular Unity government. Many argued that Allende’s idea of a “peaceful transition to socialism” or that socialism could indeed be established in Chile within the framework of existing parliamentary democracy was doomed to failure. Many looked to past historical experiences – such as Kerensky in Russia, to the contemporary history of Spain and France – to counter Allende’s reformist vision.

Unlike other democratic socialist or social democrats in history Allende called upon the Chilean working class to form organs of poder popular (popular power); this initiated an unprecedented mass mobilization of working class people in Chile. Working class people peacefully began to organize many of their affairs independently of official state institutions and during the period of severe scarcity of goods brought about by CIA orchestrated black marketeering, these organs took over the distribution of basic goods and provision within the working class districts of Santiago and rural provinces. When factory owners left the country for fear of “communism” and abandoned their plants (taking spare parts with them) organs of poder popular organized and kept these industrial plants running – with surprising efficiency. These organs of popular power incorporated the most loyal supporters of Salvador Allende and the most committed people to the socialist cause and in many ways became fundamental to the survival of the Popular Unity government.

But Salvador Allende and other leaders in the Popular Unity coalition, such as Luis Corvalan refused to recognize these working class organs of poder popular as capable of maintaining and advancing the transition to socialism in Chile. As his Popular Unity government began to crumble under the weight of right-wing organized terrorism along with direct and indirect U.S. intervention Allende sought to appease sectors of the left of the Christian Demomcratic Party to strengthen his government. He also constantly emphasized the constitutionality of his government and began to lean more and more on the “neutral and apolitical traditions” of the Chilean Armed Forces to defend the process.

Many of the activities initiated and demands being made by the working class organs of poder popular began to be officially discredited as extremist or as ultra-leftist adventurism by the official Communist Party newspaper El Siglo. In mid-1972 the Communist Party of Chile secretary Luis Corvalan stated:

The activity of the ultra-leftists hampers the revolutionary process which calls for concentrating fire against the main enemy and for winning over to our side some sections of the population and neutralizing others. The behavior of the ultra-leftist make it more difficult for the government to get tough with the reactionaries. The majority of Chileans believe that all extremists, both of the left and of the right, should be dealt with equally when they overstep the mark and break laws.^[2]

As Salvador Allende began to officially distance himself from the organs of poder popular he himself had called upon the Chilean working class to create he began to offer concessions and important governmental posts to Christian democrats. The most disastrous move in this attempt to appease his right-wing opponents was Allende’s promotion of the shadowy General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (a former military officer of the infamous 1940s Pisagua Concentration Camp under the Videla regime^[3]) to Commander in Chief of the Chilean Armed Forces. Allende also allowed the Chilean Armed Forces to apply an "arms control law" to comb the country for ‘alleged’ stock of arms that conservative parties in Chile claimed working class people were hoarding in their ‘shanty-towns’. The military maneuvers, operations and intelligence involved and compiled in the implementation of this law became the final stage of preparation for the September 11, 1973 military coup that brought to a violent end Salvador Allende’s “peaceful road” to socialism and opened the path to one of the bloodiest military dictatorship in Latin American history.

Many Marxists argued that Allende’s ideas of scientific socialism and his notion that this could be achieved within the framework of bourgeois democratic institution was fundamentally flawed and contradictory to the most fundamental principles of Marxism. They argued that applying such a flawed and contradictory programme that abandoned Marxist theory and ignored the lessons of history would be a tragic disaster for the Chilean working class.

Trotskyists argued that the social crisis in Chile would not be resolved by the bourgeois democratic institutions that were responsible for it; that the crisis could only be resolved by the working class taking control of the state via their independently created organs of popular power (viz. poder popular – cordones industriales). If the working class was unable to or failed to do this the crisis would be resolved by a totalitarian capitalist dictatorship.

Most of the analysis on the Chilean situation by Marxists were based on political literature and studies published by Lenin and Leon Trotsky. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution (1905) and Lenin’s work State and Revolution (1917) were heavily cited and referenced in light of Allende’s reformist ideas. The overthrow of his UP democratically elected government and its replacement with a capitalist military dictatorship only served to reinforce among orthodox Marxist the theoretical infallibility of applied Marxism.

Shortly after the military coup one of the most prominent opponent of Salvador Allende’s reformist policies, the young physician and MIR leader Miguel Enriquez stated:

The reformist project put in place by the UP enclosed itself within the bourgeois order…it aimed to forge an alliance with sectors of the bourgeoisie, it didn’t lean on the revolutionary organizations of the working class, in its own organs of popular power, it rejected an alliance with rank and file soldiers and sub officers in the armed forces, it sought to seal an alliance with the bourgeois faction. The reformist illusions allowed the ruling classes to prevail in the superstructure of the state from where it initiate its reactionary counter offensive, by, firstly, leaning on industrialist federations, on the petty-bourgeoisie and finally on high-ranking officials of the Chilean Armed Forces…^[4]

[edit] Accusations of racism

Recent controversy has surrounded Allende's 1933 doctoral dissertation "Mental Hygiene and Delinquency", the subject of a recent book Salvador Allende: Anti-Semitism and Euthanasia by Victor Farías, a Chilean-born teacher at the Latin America Institute of the Free University of Berlin. In his book, Farías claims that Allende held racist, homophobic and anti-semitic views, as well as believing at that time that mental illnesses, criminal behaviour, and alcoholism were hereditary.

Farías' allegations have been challenged by the Spanish President Allende Foundation, which published various relevant materials on the internet, including the dissertation itself^[5] and a letter of protest sent by the Chilean Congress (and signed among others by Allende) to Adolf Hitler after Kristallnacht.^[6] The Foundation claims^[7] that in his thesis Allende was merely quoting Italian-Jewish scientist Cesare Lombroso, whereas he himself was critical of these theories. Farías maintains the affirmations that appear in his book. The President Allende Foundation replied publishing the entire original text of Lombroso^[8] and in April 2006 filed an anti-libel claim against Farías and his publisher in the Court of Justice of Madrid (Spain).^[9]

Farías paraphrases of Lombroso have been much quoted; for example The Daily Telegraph (UK) reported 12 May 2005 that "Allende… wrote: 'The Hebrews are characterised by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, slander and above all usury. These facts permits the supposition that race plays a role in crime.' Among the Arabs, he wrote, were some industrious tribes but 'most are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft'^[10]

The Telegraph's quotation about the Jews appears to be a combination of two sentences that are not adjacent in the dissertation. Both are part of Allende's summary of Cesare Lombroso's views on different "tribes", "races" and "nations" being prone to different types of crime; the latter is misquoted. Allende's passage about the Jews reads "The Hebrews are characterized by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, defamation and, above all, usury. On the other hand, murders and crimes of passion are the exception." After recounting Lombroso's views, Allende writes, "These data lead one to suspect that race influences crime. Nonetheless, we lack precise data to demonstrate this influence in the civilized world." The passage about Arabs is "Among the Arabs there are some honored and hardworking tribes, and others who are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft." There is no statement that the latter applies to "most" Arabs.^[5]

Farías further claims to have found evidence that Allende had tried to implement his ideas about heredity during his period as Health Minister 1939-1941, and that he received help from German Nazis E. Brücher and Hans Betzhold in drafting of an unsuccessful bill mandating forced sterilisation of alcoholics. The President Allende Foundation has challenged Farias in the Court of Justice of Madrid (Spain)to prove that any bill on this issue has been proposed by Minister Allende to the Chilean Government or Parliament, and to prove as well Farías' allegation that Allende was bribed by the Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop without providing any evidence of it.^[9]

Surviving personal friends of Allende have completely rejected the validity of Victor Farías accusations of "racism" and "anti-semitism" for two major reasons: Allende's mother, Laura Gossens Uribe, was of Jewish descent and Allende considered himself a Marxist and socialist internationalist for most of his adult life.

Allende’s supposed “anti-semitism” is left unfounded not only because of Allende’s own Jewish ancestry, which was well known in Chile, but by the fact that it was often used by his political detractors against him. The renowned neo-Nazi intellectual and former Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano (who was the mentor to many in the fascist “Patria y Libertad” movement, which was instrumental in overseeing the CIA’s backed programme of destabilization in Chile) often spoke about Allende’s “Jewishness” or his “Judeo-Bolshevik” agenda.

During his term in office, Allende - who was himself an atheist - supported a more ecumenical approach to national festivities and encouraged participation from the small Chilean Jewish community in celebrating Chile’s Independence Day, which had always been sanctified by the Roman Catholic Church. During his term in office, the Great Rabbi of Santiago, spiritual leader of the Jewish Community, had a principal role in the preparation of an ecumenical service for this event.

Further countering accusations of anti-semitism is the fact that Allende entrusted two of the most important tasks of his government to Chilean Jews: Jacques Chonchol to direct and implemented the successful agrarian reform which completely transformed the country’s agricultural structure, and David Silberman Gurovich, who was in charge of consolidating the nationalization of the most important industry in the country, Codelco-Chuquicamata (the largest open-pit copper mine in the World).

In 1972, Salvador Allende suggested the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal ask the Chilean Supreme Court to extradite former SS Colonel Walter Rauff to Germany. The letters exchanged between Wiesental and President Allende are published in CLARIN.^[11]

[edit] Additional information

[edit] See also

Chilean presidential election, 1970 Schneider Doctrine Chile under Allende U.S. intervention in Chile Cuban packages

Carlos Prats Project FUBELT Allende's death Vuskovic plan Project Cybersyn

[edit] References

History of Chile
v • d • e Salvador Allende Life and politics Biography · 1952 election · 1958 election · 1964 election · 1970 election · Chile under Allende · Tanquetazo · 1973 Chilean coup d'état · Death Policies Vuskovic plan · Economic policy · Nationalization of copper · Schneider Doctrine · Project Cybersyn · Allende stamps Perceptions Project FUBELT · Cuban packages · Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy · Criticisms of Salvador Allende Allies Carlos Prats · Carlos Altamirano · Orlando Letelier · José Tohá · Pedro Vuskovic Family Ramón Allende Padín · Laura Allende · Isabel Allende Bussi · Andrés Pascal Allende · Isabel Allende v • d • e 1973 Chilean coup d'état Background United States intervention in Chile · Schneider Doctrine · 1970 election · Project FUBELT · Chile under Allende · Cuban packages Events Tanquetazo · Declaration of the Breakdown of Chile’s Democracy · 1973 Chilean coup d'état Participants Salvador Allende · Carlos Prats · Augusto Pinochet · Jose Toribio Merino · Gustavo Leigh · Miguel Enriquez · Carlos Altamirano Post-Events Government Junta of Chile (1973) · Letelier case · Operation Condor · Chile under Pinochet Controversies Death of Salvador Allende · Criticisms of Salvador Allende