While in exile, I was lucky to be
part of the process of changes
staged by the Chilean people up
until Pinochet’s coup d’état.
I can summarize my experience
with the chess player’s maxim:
“Attacking is the best defense,”
a truth I painfully attested to in
the case of Chile. As it often happens, these changes were soon
challenged by the corporate sector with a number of attacks that
the government failed to rebuff
with a firm hand, taking a soft,
conciliatory line on them instead
of joining forces with the people
against the saboteurs. Encouraged, the attackers reinforced
their siege, whereas frustration
and disappointment got the better of the ordinary citizens back-
ing the process. Therefore, the
time was ripe for the coup to
succeed.

Overview

Having reached maturity in
their struggle as well as in their
conscience, the Chilean people
became disillusioned with the
Christian Democrat government
and elected Unidad Popular’s candidate Salvador Allende despite
the smear campaign unleashed
against him by the big owners.
Calmly and without taking any
spectacular revolutionary measure, the government moved on
and tried to implement the agrar-
ian reform law enacted by its
predecessors, decreed considerable price reductions for essential
goods, and accorded the right to
strike.

For their part, the poor were
gaining ground:

The workers took control of industries where damaging actions
like sabotage against production
were committed, and prepared to
defend themselves against rightwing paramilitary gangs tolerated
by the police.

Organized by production sectors
(in textile, metallurgical, shoe
and other industries) like in any
other country, they established
another, more agile group, the
“Industrial Cordons”, geographically divided into production ar-
eas where workers from every
branch united for self-defense
and combat and planned mobilizations that included blockades
and occupation of factories.
Also the marginalized and
peasants, who seized lands to
demand a faster agrarian reform,
took part in self-defense preparedness.

Shopkeepers responded to the
price reductions with hoarding,
giving rise to shortages and thus
forcing people to buy their goods
in the black market at very expensive prices. The people react-
ed by condemning and publicly
exposing the hoarders.
As the great media unleashed
the usual smear campaign the
right made aggressive public
demonstrations in full view of a
dismissive police.

As the driving force behind
the coup, the American empire
had already revealed its criminal
intentions before Allende’s inauguration by ordering the murder
of Army commander Schneider
for refusing to mount the coup. A
crime, needless to say, that has
remained unpunished.
Instead of taking any action
against the saboteurs that the
people had unmasked and de-
nounced, the government hogtied the popular advance on the
grounds that they were being
supported by the “constitutionalist military”, who were worried
about the peoples’ actions. One
of such “constitutionalist military”
was Pinochet.

“Confiscated” factories

As mentioned above, the workers
occupied factories where irregularities were discovered and for
which a provisional manager was
appointed by the government.
Called “confiscated” factories,
they implemented labor self-
management to some extent. A
tomato sauce factory was seized
after the boss tried to have it
closed down by neglecting to
buy raw materials during the
harvest time. Once confiscated,
the workers decided to produce
much-needed canned baby food.
Another factory where luxury
furniture was manufactured was
devoted to the production of affordable furniture. Clearly, when
revolutionary awareness increases among the workers, solidarity
replaces selfishness.

These were the factories attacked by fascist gangs that the
workers decided to defend given
the police’s inactivity.

The end

The right kept undersupplying
the economy while its media
howled accusations against the
government. Anti-government
rallies and unfettered fascist
violence were rampant while the
regime prohibited self-defense,
which of course encouraged the
right-wingers and disheartened
the people.

In June 1973 the Empire staged
a “testing coup” to pinpoint where
popular resistance was stronger.
Once detected, those who took
part in the action “surrendered”
and the repressive forces proceeded to inflict cruel punishment
on the sources of resistance thus
detected (Cerrillos cordon, “Nueva Habana” village, the seamen
who refused to take part in the
coup, the mapuches, etc.), all
under Allende’s government and
on account of his inaction.

In September, Pinochet’s coup
took place by extraordinarily
violent means to make sure the
courageous Chilean people could
be defeated. And they killed Allende, who bravely refused to
surrender and whose last speech
had condemned the “treacherous
military who until very recently
swore their allegiance”.

Perón’s Argentina

I had already taken part in another similar event: Argentina in
1955, when the Yankee government mounted a coup against Perón. There was also a testing
coup in June to find pockets of
resistance, and then the real one
in September, just like in Chile.
There too the government put
a curb on anti-coup activity and
even punished those who op-posed, with similar results: the
right became bolder and the
people lost heart, which paved
the way for the September coup’s
success.

Guatemala

A year before, the exiled Peruvian
left discussed the case of Guatemala (another imperial coup).
Both the Communist Party and
APRA (on the reformist left at the
time, not the current empire’s
lackey) believed that Arbenz’s
government was going too fast
and therefore making a mistake.
I joined the party that stated
further progress was needed to
avoid disaster, a current and a
conception that led me to par-
ticipate in the Argentinean and
Chilean processes.

Venezuela learned

All indications are that Venezuela learned the lesson. Yesterday
in “El Comercio” daily an alarming
article headlined “A civil war in
the making” decried the “threat
to the militia” of “armed groups
parallel to the Army”.

We know it will only be a “civil
war” if imperialism and its servants dare to overthrow Venezuela’s legitimate democratic
government.

Naturally, what concerns that
newspaper is pleasant and reas-
suring for us.

Another piece of good news
coming from that country: far
from pushing Chávez back, the
shortage of foodstuffs caused
by hoarding merchants makes
the Venezuelan president move
forward to warn that if they keep
hoarding supplies the supermarkets will be nationalized and assigned to the people’s “community councils.”

Way to go.

It goes without saying these
are different times, not those of
a Chilean nation surrounded by
gorilla governments in Argentina,
Brazil, Bolivia and Uruguay, but
the epoch of a failed coup d’état
in Venezuela and the victories of
Morales in Bolivia and Correa in
Ecuador.

Defeat can also teach a valuable lesson.