Salvador Allende

Salvador Allende Gossens
President of Chile From: November 3, 1970 – September 11, 1973
Predecessor	Eduardo Frei Montalva
Successor	Augusto Pinochet Ugarte
President of the Senate of Chile From: December 27, 1966 – May 15, 1969
Predecessor	Tomás Reyes Vicuña
Successor	Tomás Pablo Elorza
Senator of the Republic of Chile From: May 15, 1945 – November 3, 1970
Predecessor	Luis Ambrosio Concha
Successor	Adonis Sepúlveda Acuña
Minister of Health, Welfare and Social Assistance of Chile From: August 28, 1939 – April 2, 1942
Predecessor	Miguel Etchebarne Riol
Successor	Eduardo Escudero Forrastal
Deputy of the Republic of Chile From: May 15, 1937 – August 28, 1939
Predecessor	Humberto Casali Monreal
Successor	Vasco Valdebenito García
Information
Party	Socialist Party of Chile
Religion	Agnostic

Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (b. Valparaíso July 26, 1908–d. Santiago, on September 11, 1973) was a Chilean medic, physician and politician, member of the Socialist Party of Chile who worked as an agent for the KGB since 1952. He ruled as the President of Chile from 1970 to 1973. A self-proclaimed "militant socialist", "marxist-leninist" and demagogue, his overthrow and death are very controversial.

History

Background

Allende ran for President in 1952, 1958 and 1964, loosing on all of the occasions.

In November 1967, Salvador Allende and the Socialist Party unanimously approved, at their Congress in Chillán, a true "Declaration of War on Chilean Democracy".

In that declaration it was affirmed: "Revolutionary violence is legitimate (...) it is the only way to take power (...) only by destroying the democratic-military apparatus of the State can the socialist revolution be consolidated (...) peaceful or legal forms of struggle do not lead to power (...) the political process leads us to armed struggle".

International support

A Soviet stamp honoring Salvador Allende.

Salvador Allende and Fidel Castro in 1971.

US intelligence reports implicated Allende in the assassination of several opponents, while KGB files smuggled out of Russia by Vasily Mitrokhin indicate that Allende received funds and support from the Soviet Union. The book "The World was Going our Way" by Vasili Mitrokilin (former KGB agent) and Christopher Anurew reveal:

By far the most important of the KGB’s confidential contacts in South America was Salvador Allende Gossens (codenamed LEADER by the KGB),— whose election as President of Chile in 1970 was hailed by a Moscow commentator as "second only to the victory of the Cuban Revolution in the magnitude of its significance as a revolutionary blow to the imperialist system in Latin America" (...) Allende had first attracted KGB attention in the early 1950s when, as leader of the Chilean Socialist Party (Partido Socialista), he had formed an alliance with the then banned Communist Party. In 1952 he stood with its support at the presidential election but won only 6 per cent of the vote. Though there was as yet no KGB residency in Chile, a Line PR (political intelligence) officer, Svyatoslav Fyodorovich Kuznetsov (codenamed LEONID), probably operating under cover as a Novosti correspondent, made the first direct contact with Allende in the following year .— At the presidential election of 1958, standing as the candidate of a left-wing alliance, the Frente de Acción Popular (FRAP), Allende was beaten into second place by only 35,000 votes. What Allende ’s KGB file describes as "systematic contact" with him began after the establishment in 1961 of a Soviet trade mission in Chile, which provided cover for a KGB presence. Allende is reported to have "stated his willingness to co-operate on a confidential basis and provide any necessary assistance" since he considered himself a friend of the Soviet Union. He willingly shared political information. Though he became a KGB "confidential contact", however, he was never classed as an agent. The KGB claimed some of the credit for Allende's part in the campaign which led to the establishment of Soviet-Chilean diplomatic relations in 1964. — The new Soviet embassy in Santiago contained the first KGB legal residency on Chilean soil.—

In the infamous "Cuban Packages Scandal" that precipitated his eventual ouster, large quantities of weapons were sent from Fidel Castro's Cuba to arm pro-Allende terrorists in Chile. Kissinger privately told Nixon that Allende might declare martial law. By 1973, as a result of covert US aid to Chilean dissidents and financing of pro-democracy protestors, US intelligence indicated Allende would likely lose the next Chilean election if it was held. Volodia Teitelboim, the chief ideologue of the Communist Party in Chile, declared that if civil war came, "it probably would signify immense loss of human lives, between half a million and one million." Allende's sister, Laura Allende, spoke at the Peoples Temple in San Francisco to make the case for Chilean socialism.

Salvador was a friend of Ernesto Che Guevara who met in 1959 during the early times of the Communist Revolution in Cuba. Guevara dedicated his book "The guerilla war" to the Chilean marxist: "To Salvador Allende, who by other means tries to obtain the same. Affectionately, Che"

1970 Election

Allende, representing a coalition of Marxist parties, won the September 1970 election narrowly beating his closest opponent with 36.2% of the vote against the right-wing candidate, Jorge Alessandri, who obtained 34.9%. In November, the Congress, which could choose between the two (there was no second round), elected him President. Allende was outspoken in his intent to dramatically "transform" Chile according to socialist principles, which concerned moderate voters and politicians. The Chilean Congress voted to give Allende the presidency, in accordance with run-off rules in place at the time, but required Allende to sign a special statement promising that his reforms would always respect the constitution.

Allende was the first democratically elected socialist president in history. The 36.2% in 1970 was less than he had gotten in 1964 when he got 38.93%, in that election the right-wing decided to not have a candidate and instead support Frei.

Government

During his government, Allende instituted a plan called the "Chilean way to socialism" (La vía chilena al socialismo) or "socialism within pluralism" in attempt to address the unequal distribution of wealth in the Chilean economy, but which led to widespread disruption and social polarization. Upon assuming power Allende expropriated private sector business, middle class and bourgeois property and began to implement an agrarian reforms and a program to nationalize vital industry. Allende posted some of his supporters to oversee these expropriations and nationalization, including David Silberman (disappeared) who was assigned to oversee the "nationalization" of Chile's largest copper industry: Chuquicamata. The media wrote extensively of Allende's failures. Strikes and shutdowns caused massive inflation and unrest, and the conservative-controlled Chilean Congress sought to reject Allende's proposals whenever possible, causing considerable political gridlock.

Economic crisis and food shortages

Line to get food during Salvador Allende's Socialist Regime in Chile

Salvador Allende froze the prices of all goods and services and raised the wages by 10% within a few months of these economic policies happening the hyperinflation of the Escudo which was the the currency at the time. The Escudo started to lose value rapidly, it started to disintegrate as a currency, the only thing propping it up were the foreign currency reserves of Chile because in 1970 Chile was a fairly prosperous country and all of the successive governments had been very careful to maintain the positive balance of trade and to never ever run any kind of fiscal deficit so Chile had a very large supply of hard foreign currencies: Dollars, Pounds. Financially Chile was in very good shape when this new agenda came in with his policies that started costing all kinds of money.

The entrepreneurs couldn't raise the prices with the frozen prices and now they had to pay more to employees starting to lose money and closing they businesses and factories causing mass unemployment and shortages. The response of the government was to seize the companies and accuse them of conspiring and being financial speculators.

Chileans started to make huge lines to get basic goods such as toilet paper, toothpaste and food. The black market flourished which only accepted U.S. Dollars. People started selling everything that they had in order to get dollars to buy the basics. The Government created the Committees for Popular Supply (Juntas de Abastecimiento Popular, JAP) rationing a country that had been previously prosperous.

A ration card was implemented, and it was only with the ration card that the people could get the basics like rice, potatoes and cooking oil, the ration card was needed to feed your family. The JAPs were in every neighborhood where the ration card was stamped by the head of the JAP who was a member of the Popular Unity leftist parties. This was used to excluse political opponents and the government accussed those people of being "an oligarch" or "an enemy of the people". Food became politicized the situation in Chile was just just deteriorating on daily basis.

The rumors began in May 1971: shortages, shortages, rationing of food and other essential items. The cards for this purpose were being printed in the Santiago penitentiary. The Undersecretary of Economy, Oscar Garretón, categorically denied: "This is an irresponsible campaign, aimed at creating social tension". But Allende himself speaks already, ominously, of "stocks to be exhausted" in fifteen days or two more months. The Government granting "good money": important salary readjustments -44%-, and applying a brake on the rise in prices, has meant that Chileans have more money than in 1970 and are spending more on all kinds of things. Rumors of crisis and shortages precipitate people to build up their own stocks, and thus produce precisely the crisis and rationing: "Hence the irritation of the Government with the wave of rumors on the matter". In order to undermine this systematic campaign, the Minister of Economy, Mr. Vuskovic, addresses the country on national TV. He explains that the greater purchasing power of the population has been reflected in a higher volume of sales than in any previous period. The dollar reserves are still very respectable, and shortages of any product, especially foodstuffs, can be supplied by importing them. However, at the end of May, the Government put obstacles - deposits of one hundred times their value - to import a thousand products, considered "not strictly indispensable". In the case of "durable and expendable" items -cars, televisions, refrigerators, etc.- customers are placed in a "queue", which automatically produces either a black market or an overprice for those who do not want to or cannot wait.

However, the number of products that are difficult to find continues to increase. The board of directors of the Santiago Bus Union reports that hundreds of buses are paralyzed due to "a growing shortage of spare parts". The newspaper "Tribuna" denounces the lack of medicines, "both because of the official policy regarding the dollar, as well as the delay in resolving the prices". However, the shortage of basic food products is the most worrisome and the long "queues" are an increasingly frequent spectacle. Allende recognizes this, speaking to the students of Antofagasta: "Vast sectors of Chile are beginning to feel - and I say this with regret, but I am telling the truth - difficulties in supply. Vuskovic himself admitted a few days later, at the end of a meeting of the Supply Committee, chaired by the Head of State himself. Undersecretary Garretón will continue, however, to insist that the problem is due to a "psychosis created by the media".

Several facts show the reality of the situation: Bolivian meat was imported in the north, and in Santiago, when DIRINCO inspectors tried to seize meat that a southern cooperative was selling directly to the public, they had to leave amidst a hail of carterazos (scuffles) by the owners of the house. SOCOAGRO, the CORFO subsidiary that channels the state supply of meat, has the butchers going crazy, sleeping in the offices of the firm to get some piece of animal.

Opposition and government agreed that the issue is not a sympathetic one. "The former blame the government's mistakes: increase of the purchasing power, discouragement of production, errors in the exchange policy". "The government parties say it is a fabrication of the opposition". As far as construction materials are concerned, the problem was generalized. Cement, nails, wire, wood and hardware products are in short supply. As for clothing, the cotton and cashmere line is out of stock. When Undersecretary Garretón was asked about the possible outcome of all this, he said that the problems arise from the State's failure to intervene sufficiently. "There are distribution problems; we cannot rule out boycotts and there has been an increase in demand. This leads us to conclude that we have to participate in distribution".

The climate of confrontation in the country reaches its boiling point on Wednesday, December 1. At dusk, the demonstration of the "empty pots and baskets", called by the women of Santiago, begins. Even its organizers were surprised by the number and enthusiasm of the participants, and it became the most multitudinous, enthusiastic and combative women's rally in the country's history. Ultra-left elements of the MIR and MAPU and of the increasingly famous communist and socialist brigades attacked the women with stones, chains, sticks and even with potatoes bristling with pieces of razor blades.

The economic, political, social and cultural situation of the country could not have been worse. Chile broke the world record for inflation, with 143%. The Central Bank announced that a total of 36 367 million escudos were issued that year, which implied an increase of 174.4% over 1971. In a high-level meeting of the Communist Party, the Minister of Finance gave equally gloomy statistics: the 140 nationalized companies left 50 000 000 escudos of losses in 1792; during the month of October alone, 6 000 000 escudos had to be printed to cover their enormous "financial hole"; and a third of the 1973 fiscal budget was spent on buying foreign foodstuffs. The exasperation of the Chilean consumer with inflation and shortages was demonstrated in daily acts of violence. Calama: 200 people assaulted two trucks carrying Argentine meat for Antofagasta, forcing them to go to the city slaughterhouse, which (said a neighbor) did not receive "not even bones from the authorities".

Despite the proximity of the parliamentary elections, the government decided to face the problem. The Minister of Finance announced, on radio and television, that rationing had arrived in Chile: "The Government is aware that there is a set of difficulties, derived from the shortage of products indispensable for consumption; from rampant speculation; and from the black market, difficulties that have tended to worsen in recent times".

The Minister's revelations provoked an avalanche. Former President Eduardo Frei Montalva defined them as "a clear and definitive action for the totalitarian control of the country". Christian Democrat Senator Juan Hamilton described the speech as "shameless and sinister". "Those who have plunged the country into hunger, want to impose dictatorship through the stomach. Whoever does not submit to the JAP ("Committees of Popular Supply") and the Popular Unity Party Coalition, will not eat".

The Government's ineffable official comment was transmitted by Bosco Parra: "It is not rationing - he said -. On the contrary, it is a search for a solution to the existing problems. It is the establishment of standards for the identification of needs. Allende himself tried to minimize the problem, saying: "There will be no food rationing, but a truly equitable and humane distribution of essential items for consumption. distribution of essential items for family consumption".

Agrarian reform

"Here, now the peasants will be in charge," declared the Minister of Agriculture at a press conference. Very few dared to think that Jacques Chonchol's words were prophetic. The timid - according to the UP - Agrarian Reform initiated by the Frei Government, was going to transform, in the coming months, to a real revolution in the countryside.

This was going to go beyond Allende's declarations, according to which this reform would not be carried out through land occupations, but within a technical process, with an adequate planning, so that the country would produce more food. However, in December, the press began to reproduce news like this: "Occupations of estates and land in San Bernardo, Puerto Montt and San Fernando". In January 1971, along with the new year, the seizures increase: 50 properties in the area of Temuco; another 52 in Cautín; more than 30 "arbitrarily occupied in the provinces of Valdivia, Osorno and Llanquihue.

The National Agricultural Society denounced that since Allende took office, 250 properties had been illegally occupied. In summary, in February, 30 or 40 estates were expropriated every week. The expropriation procedure was simple: the illegal seizure, even if carried out by persons outside the estate, was classified as a "conflict". The resumption of work was decreed, with an intervener to direct it and an arbitration tribunal to resolve the pseudo-conflict. The owner, an absolute minority in this tribunal, finds himself with the estate in the hands of strangers and directed by a stranger, and with an arbitration decision issued by his counterpart in the conflict, a decision that meant unacceptable demands and impossible expenses. With this fact, the owner is forced to accept expropriations without legal cause. The Supreme Court has decided not to intervene in the arbitration rulings, thus throwing the agricultural entrepreneurs into complete indifference.

Taking stock of the agrarian policy in Temuco, Allende affirms without even blinking: "we have committed ourselves to emphasize that we are not looking for twisted procedures to promote the Agrarian Reform extra-legally". Three days later in the Plaza de la Constitución, he said: "We have wanted to play absolutely clean and the interveners will not go beyond the clear instructions that the Government has given... the agricultural boss who complies with the Law and wants to work his land, knows that he will be supported by the Popular Government".

=1973 Parliamentary Election Vote Fraud

On July 17, the dean of the Catholic University Law School, Jaime del Valle, announced on Channel 13, "Chilean men and women: our nation is the victim of an infamy". This consisted of having perpetrated, in the last parliamentary elections, a massive fraud, 200 000 votes, in benefit of the Popular Unity and its candidates. The fraud had been committed through the multiple registration of the same person in several communes, with his real identity or with his real identity and other falsified identities, so that when the election came, the same person could vote several times. Organizing the crime in a systematic way, throughout the whole country and on a gigantic scale, would have totally adulterated the electoral results.

The Popular Unity coallition increased its power in the Congress after the election.

Congress accusations

In July 1973, the then President of the Senate and former President of the Republic, Eduardo Frei Montalva, faced with the serious crisis after 900 days of government of the Socialist Party united with the Communist Party, told important businessmen: "This problem can only be solved with guns", as revealed in the Rivera Act.

Allende was formally condemned by Chile's Congress, the Chamber of Deputies, the arm of the Congress that had elected him, in its Resolution of August 22, 1973, called for Allende's removal from the Presidency in a historic Accord which accused Allende of 20 violations to the Constitution and the law: support of armed groups, torture, illegal arrests, muzzling the press, manipulating education, confiscating private property, and not allowing people to leave the country. The text of the Resolution was published in the government newspaper LA NACION on August 25, 1973, and (English translation by Chilean economist José Piñera) "...it is their (the Chilean military's) duty to put an immediate end to all situations herein referred to that breach the Constitution and the laws of the land..." It is eloquent that the Agreement was voted in favor by all the deputies of the Christian Democrats (including B. Leighton).

To understand this situation, the key premise is this: Whoever from power violates the Constitution of a country is the one who gives a "blow" to the democratic system and becomes a "tyrant".

The most famous case in history: Hitler with the so-called "enabling law" of March 23, 1933. Elected democratically, he becomes a tyrant. I even suggested to the historian Niall Ferguson to write a "virtual history" essay: What if the Reichstag had approved an Agreement similar to that of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies?

Good Constitutions (e.g. USA) contemplate reasonable rules to remove by vote the President who tries to become a tyrant. Unfortunately, the one in force in Chile in 1925 made it almost impossible to remove a violator of the Constitution and the law.

In these cases, democrats face a terrible crossroads: surrender to the violator of the Constitution (as in the case of Germany in March 1933) and suffer the consequences, or seek the most democratic formula possible, albeit imperfect, to prevent a path to tyranny. Chile followed this second path and found that formula in the Agreement of the Chamber of Deputies. So those who really removed Allende were the 81 Chilean deputies (63.3% of the Chamber) who voted in favor of the Agreement of August 22, 1973.

Military Intervention

Main article: 1973 Chilean Military Intervention

Military intervention, La Moneda Presidential Palace, 11th of September 1973.

Two weeks later, on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military began the removal of the Allende regime. With the Presidential palace surrounded, Allende committed suicide with a gold-engraved AK-47 given to him as a gift by Castro rather than be arrested.

This Chamber of Deputies legislatively authorized removal is ubiquitously and fallaciously referred to as a "coup" by those pushing or under the sway of Marxist propaganda. The coup, proper, began only when Army Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet, victorious, refused to return governmental power to the civilian legislature, and to rule instead at the head of a junta.

The Senate Intelligence Committee under Senator Frank Church investigated US involvement and exonerated the Nixon administration of any unlawful activity.

External links

• What Really Happened In Chile 30 Years Ago, James R. Whelan, Wall Street Journal Online, 12 September 2003.
• CIA Activities in Chile, September 18, 2000.