Trafford Publishing: Adelante con Allende

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Adelante con Allende

by Richard Avila

499 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0048; ISBN 1-55369-235-7; US$38.50, C$45.00, EUR31.50, £22.50

This is the untold, behind the headlines story of the rise and fall of Chile's Salvador Allende, and the restoration of Chilean democracy.

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About the Book

    In 1970, Chile's citizens made Salvador Allende the first freely elected Marxist president in the americas. Three years later, he was overthrown in a violent military coup led by Augusto Pinochet with the no-so-secret complicity of the U.S. Government and powerful corporate interests. Chilean democrats were brutally suppressed and all Chileans were stripped of their constitutional rights.
    "The dynamics which enabled Allende to win at the polls, including the expectations raised but only partially fulfilled by President Eduardo Frei and Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, are examined form multiple perspectives. Allende's policies, the reason for the coup, the repression which followed, and the events leading to the restoration of democracy are critically scrutinized.
    "Allende's legacy as a democratic politician with a socialist agenda is reviewed from the vantage point of the struggle by Chileans to overcome a military tyranny nurtured for 16 years by domestic and foreign elites in the name of "liberty and freedom."
    It is a lesson which all democrats of the Americas ignore at our own peril."

About the Author

    Attorney Richard Avila is a graduate of Occidental college and U.C.L.A.. He is a serious student of Latin American History and Politics and a pracitioner of plitical organizing, and a promoter of strategies to empower all underdogs.

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION: UNDER THE LAMPPOST

    With nightfall tired bones fall to rest, holding within a soul eager for adventure and renewal. Imagination bursts through the locked doors of a crusty mind and envelopes the youthful spirit, lifts it and carries it up among the sunlit clouds where it floats over purple mountains to the capitol and the great monuments of freedom. Gentle winds call its name and prompt the journey South over the home of Twain and above the great Gulf until Cuba says hello. South and further south travel seeing but unseen eyes over oil laden Venezuela, Camilo's Colombia, and Brazil's River Amazon. Onward drifts the inquisitive spirit over tin pregnant Bolivia until it descends down the continental leg to Iguique, Antogagasta, Valparaiso and Santiago. Down below flickers a tiny light beckoning the curious and courageous. The questioning eyes pierce the clouds and toxic haze to greet two shadows standing beneath a lamppost outside of shanty New Havana near the garbage dump.
    Great hands bring the spirit forward so that the lamp light covers three. It is time to listen. The man in the tailored suit points with his index finger to his companion and says: "To complete the revolution of the Americas...political freedom must accompany material progress...progreso si, tirania no!" Through eyes full of passion and tearful sacrifice emerges a response to freeze the fires of hell: "People must see clearly the futility of maintaining the fight for social goals the framework of civil debate." Who is this magnetic true believer, this bearded figure of black beret and jungle fatigues. Without hesitation the well broomed Bostonian strikes a smile that would charm Lucifer into repentance. seemingly within his grasp is a civilian "where, within the rich diversity of its own traditions each nation is free to follow its own path toward progress." But the words of the charismatic man scarred by tests of courage are rebuked by the noble warrior and hardened doctor who says: "If all the Latin american peoples should raise the flag of dignity, as Cuba has done, monopoly would tremble."
    Suddenly the shadows freeze in silence. Someone is coming. Sunlight begins to break through the dark and mist. Someone shouts, "Aqui viene el Companero Presidente Don Slavador!" It is Spanish for Slavador, the Comrade President. A man comes into view as the rays of sun glisten off his glasses onto his mustached face. This is an ordinary man. No? Perhaps he is more. It is time to stay and learn.
    On November 4, 1970, Salvador Allende was inaugurated as the President of Chile. He came to this position through the free exercise of the popular will within a framework of elective democracy. This was not new to Chile. Since 1833 enfranchised citizens had been voting to select their national leaders. By 1970 this practice was in full bloom as over a third of the population has become eligible to vote. What has transpired since 1970, however, has been a cause for concern and study among people involved in public affairs because Allende gained and assumed leadership as a self-proclaimed Marxist.
    Allende was not merely one of the leading actors of our time, but the product of an irrefutable historic evolution. Over many decades Chileans had developed a system of democratic rule which tended to exclude underdogs. It was not until 1952 when the proportion of citizens eligible to vote doubled to reach 16 per cent of the population that the formerly disaffected masses first exercised the opportunity to oust the tired, old Radical leadership. As the franchise expanded for four successive national elections the people shifted from Ibanez with his incestuous relationship with the military to Allessandri, a captive of free enterprise orthodoxy, to Frei, the leading spokesman for Christian Democracy, and then to Allende, the astute Marxist democrat.
    All of these leaders responded to a great groundswell of restless and volatile dissent on the part of various low income groups who together comprised the popular majority. Each arrived with a sense of mission to carry forward the human journey for justice and progress. New doors were opened for formerly excluded people allowing their access to the money economy and the political society. But as this process was accelerated new grievances and problems arose to frustrate nourished expectations. Broadened access to the political process led to a growing concentration of power in the hands of low income communities at the expense of the wealthy aristocracy. As a result, a pattern developed whereby the hand-picked successors to sitting Presidents were rejected by the voters in favor of candidates and parties who promised radical initiatives.
    The response was not repression from above but a more elastic and tolerant political society. For example, Communists were outlawed in 1948 but returned to function quasi-clandestinely in 1952 and regained legitimacy in 1958. As the broadened franchise eliminated wealth as the sole springboard to power and position the number of political parties proliferated and then joined in election coalitions to maximize electoral success. This ocurred in 1970 when three coalitions jousted for the Presidency (i.e., the Conservative National Party, the moderate-radical Christian Democrats, and the Marxist Popular Unity.) This most probably would be the basic arrangement today were it not for the illegal intervention of anti-democratic forces in Chile.
    Once a political party developed a capability to challenge established powers, its continued existence and success was conditioned on the acceptance of cooperative rules. the focal point of this coexistence was the Presidency. From the time of Chile's independence from Spain in 1823, government was centralized with the President enjoying immense power. A Congress-led civil war in 1891 crippled the Presidency for thirty years. But in 1924 when the reform government of Arturo Alessandri failed to receive the cooperation of the conservative congress to implement even the most basic state functions, the military intervened t remove the stalemate by staunchly allying itself with the President. the brutal liquidation of the Nazis after their attempted coup in 1938 stand out as an exception to the pattern of political civility.
    The roles of the military and Roman Catholic church also have been paramount in maintaining a healthy equilibrium of power. As the possessor of the coercive means of control the military has functioned to preserve the existing political system. But when competition between political growth has produced gross inefficiency the military has been ready to disorganize the system to reestablish orderly process. As the harbinger of national morality and ethics, the Church has evolved into an agent for social reform. However, its position within the political system has remained precariously neutral. It welcomed the election of a Christian Democratic government in 1964 but maintained a formal cordiality toward the reformist Allende. The fundamental interest of the Church has remained religious worship and education. It has relatively little coercive power, but does possess the facility for international propoganda and mass persuasion.

Catalogue Information