Commemoration: 51 years since the CIA-Pinochet coup in Chile
We hereby publish an unofficial translation of an article published by Prensa Chiripilko.
This 11th of September marks 51 years since the coup d’état led by the CIA, that is, by Yankee imperialism through the fascist military junta. It seems like a long time ago, but in many towns throughout Chile, year after year, young people and masses join together to protest every 1th of September.
The reactionaries sarcastically say: Why are they protesting if they were not even born in 1973? It is true that our young people were not born in 1973. But the people’s youth are not struggling for Allende or for the UP [Translator’s note: People’s Unity], but are struggling against injustice and to put an end to the suffering that they experience daily.
LONG LIVE THE HEROIC RESISTANCE OF THE MASSES!
Class character of the old Chilean State
Chile is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Imperialist oppression, mainly Yankee, is gripping our country, allowing only formal independence and developing a backwarded capitalism tied to the interests of the great powers called Bureaucratic Capitalism, typical of semi-feudal countries.
The imperialists are the ventriloquist or puppeteer and the “presidents” are their puppets who, as such, do not decide anything, but act and move as their masters command.
Today Chile is oppressed by imperialism, mainly Yankee imperialism, which acts through the ruling classes of our country, which are the big bourgeoisie and the big landlords. That is why it is correct to say that the Chilean State is a State that represents the old, the obsolete, it is a bourgeois-big-landlord State.
The factions of the big bourgeoisie
In semi-feudal countries the bourgeoisie is divided into two factions: the bureaucratic faction and the comprador faction.
The bureaucratic faction: This is the one that tends to use the state apparatus as a lever for its business. The old State has a class character, it is a bourgeois-big-landlord State, therefore, “nationalization” also has that class character.
The bureaucratic faction tries to deceive us, it wants us to believe that “nationalization” is not a monopoly and that it benefits all Chileans. But in reality, state monopoly capital only serves imperialism and its lackeys. Doesn’t Banco Estado suck the blood of all Chileans? Don’t “State” universities charge as high fees as non-state universities? Isn’t CODELCO one of the “State” mining companies that subcontracts the most?
The comprador faction: It is represented by the sector of the big bourgeoisie that is betting today on strengthening non-state monopoly capital, which is wrongly called “private” to differentiate it from State monopoly capital [1].
These two factions of the big bourgeoisie (bureaucratic and comprador) are in collusion and struggle. They collude to oppress the people and at the same time struggle to reach La Moneda (the presidential palace). To do so, they must take their whiteness test in front of imperialism and both have as their main task to maintain and develop bureaucratic capitalism.
False agrarian reform: bureaucratic capitalism evolves
By 1973 there were two imperialist superpowers: Yankee imperialism and Russian social-imperialism [2]. Both superpowers were struggling to take control of the rest of the world, country by country.
In Chile, the administration of Eduardo Frei Montalva, who served as president from 1964 to 1970 (Christian Democrat – DC), representing the bureaucratic faction and a significant sector of big landlords, bowed down to Yankee imperialism and, in accordance with his mandates, implemented measures to evolve semi-feudalism and to allow bureaucratic capitalism to penetrate the countryside. The central aim was to try to stop the poor peasants’ struggle for land through the “agrarian reform” that Yankee imperialism, with its Alliance for Progress plan, initiated with the administration of Alessandri. This false agrarian reform was nothing more than a purchase and sale of land that maintained a significant part of the big landlords’ property (for more information see our article “The false agrarian reform” available in our blog).
Salvador Allende’s administration also represented the bureaucratic faction, and thus continued with plans to evolve semi-feudalism and with the mission of containing the class struggle.
Despite the fact that it wanted to disguise itself as socialist, within the parties that made up the Peoples’ Unity (UP) there were the Socialist Party, the Radical Party and some sectors detached from the Christian Democrats, three bourgeois parties that were not going to act against their own interests. Added to them was the nefarious role of revisionism ganged up in the false “Communist” Party that tried to pass off its counterrevolutionary policy as Marxism.
The UP government’s tactic was to stop the revolution by disguising itself as revolutionary. For example, where the peasants were struggling for land, UP officials came with their false agrarian reform; where the workers were struggling to expel the big bourgeoisie, the UP management paid millions in compensation to the exploiters and bought their companies at a golden price to declare them “state owned”; the struggles of the people were diverted by the UP leadership towards bureaucratization by controlling the population commands; the universities were free, but the poor masses did not have access to them; the academic aptitude test, implemented by Yankee order, was maintained during Allende’s administration to close the path to higher education for the peoples’ youth.
The imperialist crisis and the management of the UP
By the beginning of 1970, the imperialist powers and superpowers had received heavy blows and great defeats. The Socialist Republic of China gave a new impetus to the peoples of the world; the victory of the people of Vietnam demonstrated that the people of a small country can defeat imperialism; the uprising of the peoples in Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as in the imperialist countries themselves, showed the acute crisis that was deepening.
The Russian social-imperialists tried to get out of the situation by directing guerrilla movements to make them surrender and capitulate, under the wing of the bureaucratic faction of each country. At the same time they resorted to invasions (such as Afghanistan) and coups d’état in the colonies and semi-colonies to subject them to their control.
Yankee imperialism, hit by the crisis of the early 1970s, became more aggressive. Seeing that the Russians generally relied on maintaining their control by using the bureaucratic faction, Yankee imperialism used the comprador faction for its imperialist plans, through which it also carried out a wave of coups d’état.
The coup d’état of Yankee imperialism
Allende’s administration sought to ride on two horses. On the one hand, to “make state owned” the mining industry, through million-dollar indemnities to Yankee imperialism and thus establish itself to serve Russian social-imperialism.
At the national level, the UP tried to stop the revolutionary struggle. How? By presenting the false theory of the “Chilean way,” which is nothing but Khrushchev’s revisionist thesis on the peaceful path to socialism. It is the rotten thesis of class conciliation that denies the class struggle. The essence of this was to present imperialism not as a threat but as obedient traitors, to maintain the support of the big landlord parties and to traffic with the demands of the masses so that the latter would not rebel.
As doubts grew among the people, so did demagogy and repression by the UP. By the end of Allende’s administration, the UP was openly calling for no confrontation. The calls were not enough, so the UP passed the Arms Control Law (1972), which gave the monopoly of violence to the armed forces and disarmed the people. Factories, meeting places and the homes of the rebellious masses were then raided.
The fact that the UP leadership wanted to ride on two horses, opening the doors to Russian social-imperialism, was not viewed favorably by Yankee imperialism, which was not prepared to share the spoils. Thus, Yankee imperialism led the coup d’état that ousted the UP and Allende, putting in their place the Fascist Military Junta (JMF). The objective was to restructure the old bourgeois-big-landlord State and to make bureaucratic capitalism evolve, propping up non-state monopoly capital.
The balance of the left
The worst affected by the coup were the working class, the peasantry and the poor masses, who, having been disarmed by Allende and the UP, in addition to being deceived by revisionism, fell into disorganization, without a plan or program to organize the resistance and transform it into a national liberation struggle.
It is true that there were organizations that carried out armed actions and the heroism of their combatants and the masses who gave their blood against the repressive forces during the 70s, 80s and early 90s is unquestionable. However, these organizations, instead of rejecting the rotten politics of the UP and looking forward, learning from their mistakes, looked back with nostalgia. They thought that the struggle against fascism was about overthrowing the JMF led by Augusto Pinochet and returning to the politics of the UP.
The Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR) believed that “Peoples’ Power” was being created during the UP, without realizing that it was a mirage of false peoples’ power since a true revolution did not took place.
The Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR), as the armed wing of revisionism, hoped to execute Pinochet and call a Constituent Assembly, which would be led by the traditional bourgeois parties, which would only have slightly hastened Patricio Aylwin’s arrival at La Moneda.
The Lautaro Youth Movement (MJL), according to testimonies from its own militants, had no clear perspective, they claimed the figure of Allende, signed joint declarations with revisionism, in their press they gave coverage to the “round tables” and on the international level they placed their hopes on the genocidal leader of the Peruvian people, Alan García, to confront imperialism.
Despite this panorama of left-wing armed organisations that did not have the aim of seizing power, the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) was the only organisation that made a correct assessment of the UP. However, the PCR did not assume its role, capitulated and was liquidated in 1980, which is much more serious.
The retreat and the disarticulation
In the 1920s, Carlos Ibañez implemented a fascist plan that claimed to address the economic demands of the masses. This led to organizations that raised only immediate demands without any prospects of seizing power joining fascism. This is how Alejandro Escobar y Carvallo, one of the founders of anarchism in Chile, became Governor of Pisagua.
Something similar happened with the victory of the NO in the 1988 plebiscite and the subsequent agreed arrival of Aylwin to La Moneda.
For Yankee imperialism, Chile could not maintain its governability under the fascist military junta, which, following the doctrine of shock, consisting of ruthless repression, torture, kidnappings, executions and disappearances, had earned widespread rejection by the masses and the tendency to rebellion was growing. Thus, the United States government directed the departure of Pinochet and his henchmen and put in their place its “democratic” puppet, Patricio Aylwin.
The armed left-wing organisations, which, like the anarchists of the 1920s, did not have the prospect of seizing power, were left without a basis, fell into despair and launched their decisive actions almost to prove that they still existed. As if that were not enough, some of their members changed sides, becoming informers or “snitches” for the CNI (secret repressive police of the JMF) which was renamed ANI.
The dismantling of these organizations was not so much due to the blows of the reaction as to their own shortcomings, which were mainly ideological.
The revolution is inevitable
Despite everything, the masses went to these armed left-wing organizations. Why? Because they sought in protests and violence the answers against the fascist military junta. Answers that were also sought by those who participated in the struggle without belonging to any organization, but knowing, even by instinct, that it is right to rebel.
After the traditional bourgeois parties took over, the masses continued to struggle. The problem was that there was no organization to lead this struggle to seize power. And that is precisely what the true revolutionaries are building today: an authentic proletarian Party for the revolution and not to participate in elections, its own revolutionary armed forces and a United Front at the service of the proletariat, peasantry and other democratic masses.
On this September 11, 51 years after the coup, we pay tribute to all the martyrs who gave their lives struggling against the fascist military junta and its imperialist masters.
Despite the repression and betrayals, the class and the people are generous and will never stop giving birth, by the thousands, to their best children.
Notes:
[1] State monopoly capital is also private.
[2] Lenin uses the concept of social-imperialism to refer to those who are socialists in words, but imperialists in deeds. It is correct to use this concept to refer to the State of the Soviet Union (USSR), which after the death of J. Stalin abandoned socialism and, following a coup d’état led by Khrushchev, became imperialist.
