army’s loyalty was to the constitutional process
and if Allende had tried to establish an authoritar-
ian Marxist regime he would have plunged Chile
into civil war.
The path to socialism was blocked by
Congress, where the opposition had a majority.
Allende resorted to undemocratic means to bypass
Congress and to continue expropriations, making
use of his presidential powers. He proposed a con-
stitutional amendment, replacing Congress with a
People’s Assembly and submitting this to a
plebiscite. Congress predictably rejected this
device in 1972. The proposal marked the high
point of Allende’s attempts to create a Marxist
state. Allende did not pursue this extra-legal
course; instead with the economy in chaos he
moved towards Frei’s Christian Democrats. Their
support would have provided the coalition with a
firm majority in the country while neutralising the
extremists in the coalition. The negotiations came
to nothing and the appalling state of the economy
in 1973 was creating widespread unrest. The infla-
tion rate had reached 150 per cent, inexperienced
bureaucrats were running the state sectors of
industry, private industry was demoralised and fac-
tory owners were not inclined to cooperate with a
socialist government. A black economy flourished.
Foreign credit was exhausted. And the sorry state
of the economy was primarily the result of
Allende’s policies, though the Nixon administra-
tion remained implacably hostile and helped to
undermine Allende. The principal US weapon was
to deny aid and loans, which totalled only $18
million for the three years from 1971 to 1973, as
against $156 million from 1968 to 1970. Since
mid-1970 Nixon had blocked the Chilean econ-
omy, and private investment dried up.
For a year, from the summer of 1972 onwards,
there were increasing numbers of strikes, boycotts
and mass street demonstrations of the pro- and
anti-Allende masses. The opposition encouraged
this public confrontation and the Marxist coalition
called out its supporters. In the congressional
elections in the spring of 1973, which were free
and democratic, Allende’s Unidad Popular not
only held on to its support but increased it (com-
pared with the presidential election) to 43 per
cent, though this was still less than the combined
opposition figure of 55 per cent. The weakness of
Allende’s ‘transition to socialism’ was that it never
won the support of the lower-middle class – the
shopkeepers and small traders, those with some
stake in a free-enterprise economy. By the summer
of 1973 terrorist incidents were added to large-
scale strikes and demonstrations. After negotia-
tions with the Christian Democrats had failed,
Allende sought the support of the army and
brought in a moderate general as minister of
defence. On this general’s resignation, Allende
turned to another who was believed to share the
army’s traditional constitutional outlook –
Augusto Pinochet. But the military were plotting
a coup. On 10 September 1973, they struck.
Allende hurried the following morning from his
private residence to the presidential palace, reject-
ing offers of safe conduct and exile in the Latin
American tradition. By this courageous decision
he ensured that the coup would be condemned as
unconstitutional. An attack by fighter planes set
fire to the palace and Allende died there resisting
the assault on his authority, an outrage in the long
constitutional history of Chile.
The military junta’s campaign of repression
against civilian supporters of the former Allende
government also had no parallels in Chilean
history. Certainly nothing as bloody had occurred
since the civil war almost a century earlier.
‘Suspects’ were rounded up in the football
stadium. Thousands of likely opponents were
imprisoned; thousands were murdered, perhaps
5,000, possibly three times that number, during
the early days after the seizure of power. The
hope of the urban poor and peasants for a new
deal was buried under bayonets. The military
ruled, Allende was gone and Washington heaved
a sigh of relief. But it was one thing to get rid of
a Marxist leader, another to replace him with a
reformist, democratic, free-enterprise government
respecting human rights. This is what the US
wanted, as did the majority of the Chilean people.
General Pinochet, who emerged as the caudillo,
the strongman of the junta, broke with Chilean
military tradition and did not hand back power to
the civilian politicians. His regime ‘suspended’ all
political activity, sent Congress packing and drove
political parties underground. The democratic