Chile: An Ambiguous Left Takes Office

...Alessandri was calling on the nation to respect formal democracy...

...And Jorge Alessandri, shortly before the vote to designate the new President in accordance with the law decreeing that Congress should choose between the two most favored candidates, appealed to the national deputies not to oppose Allende's nomination and to refrain from casting their votes for himself...

...This "tactical error" on the part of the Christian Democrats, who were content to play the parliamentary game, is basically compatible with a class attitude masquerading as "community" spirit...

...The candidates of the left-wing Popular Union coalition won 1,075,616 votes (36.3 percent...

...A combination of election debts owed to various party supporters or congressional electors does add up not to an economic program but to the opposite...

...What is more, several of the parties that be long to the coalition government are suffering from internal crises...

...A birth or rebirth of an authentic labor movement would undoubtedly have created many headaches for a narrowly legalistic government, COMMENTS AND OPINIONS but it would also have meant the creation of a strong pressure group with social drive...

...The "national" (rightist) candidate, Jorge Alessandri, 1,036,278 (34.98 percent...

...This is the case with MAPU (a split-off from the Christian Democrats), in which the Jacques Chonchol faction has been reduced to a minority status by the partisans of revolutionary methods...

...Allende's statements aimed, in the main, at reassuring opinion at home and abroad of the prudence of his program, the moderation of his plans, and the essentially domestic nature of his policies...

...One has only to read El Mercurio, the daily of the powerful Edwards clan, to realize the remarkable capacity of the great Chilean families to adapt to realities...

...Although Tomic carried only one province— Valparaiso—the Christian Democratic vote, province by province, rarely was less than 25 percent...

...Pedro Vuskovic's economic program is more clearcut, authoritarian, and rapid than the Christian Democrats' but finally not radically different...

...One would do well to remember that the presidency of Aguirre Cerda, COMMENTS AND OPINIONS under the aegis of the Popular Front, coincided with the rejection of agrarian reform and the creation of the Corporacion de Fomento (CORFO), an official agency stamped with a business mentality that, oddly enough, the Chilean middle class lacked...

...The Socialist party, for example, is a conglomeration in which one finds, pell-mell, worker cells in the labor unions, small municipal organizations in the Santiago suburbs, old electoral strongholds in the north and in the south, and a considerable number of intellectuals split by conflicting allegiances: nostalgia for a European-style democratic socialism, seduction by Castroism, and adaptation to certain aspects of publicly owned enterprises...

...Election-campaign alliances notwithstanding, the Socialist party's rivalry with the Communists remains constant, nourished on old hatreds, sustained by power struggles within the unions, and spiced by disdain for Stalinist bureaucrats...

...Too great a disappointment would lead to strikes and demonstrations, which neither the unions nor the Communists could easily snuff out and which would strengthen the hand of revolutionary elements within the Socialist party and the MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement...

...This is a phenomenon that one of the best Chilean observers—the economist Anibal Pinto—has clearly stated in a series of books and articles...

...Shortly before the election, the columns of El Mercurio talked of nothing but Marxist terror and, more seriously still, of a plan to expropriate the paper...

...Clashes between "politicians" and "technicians" are likely, and the question is whether the President will have the authority necessary to impose a settlement...

...Thus, from the very first discussions within the new government, which was formed after bitter bargaining among the various coalition parties, sharp differences arose between the economist Pedro Vuskovic, who championed salary increases favoring the poorest social categories, and various ministers who were thinking only in terms of a general wage increase, which in effect would maintain and enlarge the disparity in incomes...

...In his farewell address, Eduardo Frei reckoned up the promises fulfilled: agrarian reform, advances in nationalization, creation of new industries, development of education, and the resumption of relations with the nations of Eastern Europe...

...Only the Communist party possesses a real political machine...

...There is no centralized party machinery to impose discipline, despite several attempts to that end...

...For them, the question is posed in a more direct and immediate way...

...The history of Chile's Socialist party is replete with adventures and misadventures, exhibiting a constant predilection for the coup de force, from the Hundred Days of Major Marmaduke Grove through the Ibana days...

...Most of these initiatives were taken by government agencies set up under Frei to put the agrarian reform into effect...

...And the not inconsiderable influence of the revolutionary extreme Left within the Socialist party makes that party an unstable partner in the administration...

...It is unlikely that the Christian Democratic party will systematically oppose Allende's programs provided they follow constitutional channels...

...Nor is the heterogeneous nature of the Radical party, which today is divided and much diminished in electoral strength, at all unusual...

...One of the most serious charges that can be levelled against the Christian Democrats is their failure while in power to dismantle the structure of laws and decrees that keep the working class straitjacketed in a highly politicized tradeunion system that, for all practical purposes, is powerless except as an electoral sounding board...

...Another threat of crisis can arise from within the government itself, composed as it is of disparate political tendencies...

...In the absence of an autonomous worker movement and bearing in mind that the peasantry is still in an initial phase of self-awareness, without a well-defined status, and if one is also mindful that large unassimilated masses camp on the outskirts of Santiago, eager to enter society by whatever means but having neither steady jobs nor any expectation of employment, one can venture the opinion that, whatever their demands and pressures, these are not the groups that will determine the policy of the Allende regime...

...In the large majority of enterprises, the industrial union is dependent on management...

...Measures such as free milk distribution to schoolchildren can have an emotional and practical significance which is on a very different level from that of nationalizing banks, manipulating credit, or controlling foreign capital...

...For a long time, the Radical party functioned as an extremely supple political machine, protecting certain groups of landowners in the south, promoting legislation favorable to numerous categories of white-collar workers and civil servants, and beginning the creation of state-owned industries...

...A public agreement—made possible when the Communists and the Radical party threw their support to the pact—and the additional constitutional provisions voted by both houses of Congress testified to the general will to preserve a parliamentary framework for the new regime, to set legal limitations on its powers, and to exclude any one-party system...

...With respect tothis last group, the distribution of wealth wouldalso be very unequal given the fact that, according to available data, employers and thoseof independent means who represent 5 percentof the work force received not less than 25 percent of the national income...

...There was a new abrazo between Alessandri, the old exPresident and ex-candidate who harks back to a Chile that is tradition-minded and prudent in matters of change, and Allende, the new President who, victorious after three lost elections, is a symbol of hope for fundamental changes...

...What, then, are the possible sources of conflict and tension for the Allende regime...

...His action preceded by only a short time the assassination of General Rene Schneider, commanderin-chief of the armed forces, who had been a guarantor of the rules of the democratic game...

...First, the discrepancy between the prodigal promises made in the course of the election campaign and the government's immediately available financial resources...

...and Europe...

...The Soviet press, to judge by the Spanishlanguage publications of its various information services, handled its Chilean news with great prudence, not focusing exclusively on Allende, and emphasizing the community of views shared by the Christian Democrats and the Popular Unity coalition on important problems (Tiempos Nuevos, Moscow...

...and 824,849 voted for Tomic, the Christian Democrat (27.84 percent...

...On the other hand, President Allende is supported by a movement for change, which the nation as a whole feels to be necessary...

...While skillful in infiltrating labor unions, the party has never been able to create a powerful labor movement or even to control the existing organizations...

...for the whole economy in 1968, employedworkers who constitute 45 percent of the nation's labor force received only 21 percent ofthe national income...

...The Outlook for the New Regime SALVADOR ALLENDE'S PRESIDENCY has, then, begun in an atmosphere that favors experimentation so long as it extends and deepens the reformist policy of Eduardo Frei...

...He has many supporters and useful contacts that have been sustained over the years through Masonic connections...

...He cannot count on a Socialist party machine, though he will have to take into account that of the Communist party...

...Nor has it managed to influence the student movement decisively...

...In international terms, it does not seem that the United States will forcibly oppose nationalizations affecting the interests of American firms but rather will follow the policy already in effect in Peru and Bolivia—a grudging retreat...

...Its basis, which is narrow, is composed of unions that act in line with corporate business interests...

...he also called attention to the two black marks against his administration— unemployment and inflation—and announced his intention of pursuing the political battle, indicating his candidacy in 1976...

...The President, in carrying out his policies, will have at his disposal only his presidential COMMENTS AND OPINIONS powers and prerogatives...

...Apart from colorful headlines such as "Red Dawn over the Andes," or "A Second Cuba," intended to titillate weary reflexes, C. L. Sulzberger's hairraising evocation in the New York Times of the evil days that can befall Chile betrayed a journalism informed more by the State Department than by first-hand observation...

...He can count on an element within the Christian Democratic party which is attracted by the possibilities of collaboration...

...It has been well tuned up by some 40 years of perfect submission to the orders of the International and the exigencies of Soviet foreign policy...

...Its daily paper, El Siglo, has a small circulation...

...More recently, the name of Allende has been presented in its pages as that of a guarantor of the sound functioning of constitutional freedoms...

...rhetoric aside, they reflect the interests and aspirations of social strata that, by virtue of profession or income more than property ownership, are already favored by comparison to the poorer elements...

...Allende's plurality was based on his lead in the northern provinces (notably Tarapaca, Antofagasta, Atacama) and in several southern provinces (Arauco, Magallanes), together with his clear majority in the province of Concepcion (metallurgy and coal mining) ; whereas Alessandri carried Santiago and numerous rural areas...

...American firms will undoubtedly be replaced by multinational investment groups whose capital funds are deodorized and innocent of national ties, and who favor sale-credit arrangements for industries and projects that, by the terms of the contracts, become the property of the client-country...

...Such has not been the case with the creation of numerous peasant organizations which mark the birth of self-awareness and the entry, for the first time, into national life of an important segment of the population...

...It is understandable then that, while opinion among the Christian Democrats as well as in the Popular Unity coalition favors the pruning of unproductive yet costly branches from the national tree and reducing the drain on public resources which is created by remnants of the old oligarchy, this intent vanishes when it becomes a question of deciding which social group will assume the management role and which needs will be assigned priority...

...There is, furthermore, the eventual problem of a lack of technically trained personnel, which will hinder the government's undertaking certain public projects and services...

...But this does not gainsay the fact that the irruption of the small landowners and the agrarian proletariat into a society that is in a process of change constitutes a major and irreversible development...

...that of that income, 32 percent was absorbed by white-collar employeeswho represent 24 percent of the labor force, and that the remainder, which is to say 31 percent of the population of working age—selfemployed persons, employers, and those ofindependent means—received almost 50 percent of the national income...

...Also to be taken into account is the agressive nature of the Communists' infiltration into the new government, and their greed for key posts in which they can place the faithful (already a CP member is Undersecretary of the Interior...

...At the risk of being accused of exaggeration, I will say that the Chilean working class has no voice...

...The Chilean CP might then adopt an extremist role in order to compensate for the Soviet Union's inability to intervene directly...

...Allende, on the other hand, refused to sign a special provision that would have limited his presidential prerogatives in the appointment of high-ranking military officers, though orally he promised not to intervene in the normal game of promotions within the various services...

...At no point did negotiations between Tomic and Allende bear on social economic programs...

...The excessive language Chilean newspapers and magazines indulged in can be attributed to the usual methods of political warfare, but it is harder to understand the excitement, not to say hysteria, of the foreign press in Latin America and even in the U.S...

...Political Parties and Social Classes CONTRARY TO the generally accepted view, the Chilean political system has been for some decades more flexible and open than its social structures...

...The rightist leader was not rallying to Allende's program...

...It will rather be the leadership of the various recently allied parties now striving to evolve a program that can respond to the pressing needs of an ill-balanced society and that can reform old, and create new, social structures...

...they were confined to certain guarantees that the Christian Democrats understood they were obtaining with regard to essential freedoms—freedom of the press, of political activities, and of labor organization...

...There is no party tactic acceptable to all elements, unless it be during an election campaign...

...In fact, Tomic's promise to COMMENTS AND OPINIONS throw the Christian Democratic votes in Congress to the Popular Unity candidate, were the latter to defeat him by a margin of 30,000 votes, was a personal guarantee not endorsed by responsible leaders of the party...

...In composition these leadership groups are lower-middle or middle class...

...There was, first of all, Tomic's salute to Allende on the eve of the election, a gesture in keeping with a Chilean parliamentary tradition, but not to the liking of the Christian Democratic party...

...This distribution of votes testifies to a measure of continuity in the expression of public opinion, despite some campaign tall talk (the rightist candidate described himself as an independent, the leftist cited endorsements from the military, and the Christian Democrat talked revolution...

...For workers and peasants, the prospect of a redistribution of the national wealth does not present itself in the form of active participation in making basic decisions—for example, sharing in some form of industrial democracy...

...Despite all its efforts, it has not taken firm root among the peasants...

...The development of events was rapidly to restore the Chilean political scene to its traditional stage style...

...It can also be interpreted from another perspective...

...The trade union center is manipulated from above by groups associated with the various political parties...

...Male voters gave an indisputable margin to Allende (almost 632,000 as against less than 480,000 for Alessandri and less than 393,000 for Tomic), whereas women voters favored Alessandri (557,000 as against 18 December 15, 1970 some 444,000 for Allende and 432,000 for Tomic) . In any case, one can scarcely discuss the election in terms of a landslide...

...The clearest example is that of the copper workers whose organization, despite its periodic revolutionary declarations, functions pretty much Iike a North American union...

...But what lies beyond the parliamentary facade...

...The transfer of power, the great presidential cortege, the Te Deum in the cathedral, the public celebrations in the center of Santiago were marked by no new style but, on the contrary, pointed to the continuity of what one might call officialdom's political folklore...

...IN THE OCTOBER 1970 PRESIDENTIAL ELEC TION, there were some 3,540,000 registered voters...

...Simply stated, the interests of the privileged social classes have been defended not by the creation of any ad-hoc governmental apparatus but thanks to a continuous adaptation to unsuppressed political pressures and to compromise with parties reflecting interests differing from those of the oligarchy...

...The National Planning Agency (Oficina de Planificaci6n Nacional) writes in its "Eco nomic and Social Development in Chile, 1970-80," that The estimates of national income indicate that...

...Finally, in the event that the tortuous negotiations between Washington and Moscow were to require some further gestures of offensive power by either side, Chile could become a hot spot in the conf ict...

...This is not to say that its machine is entirely effective...

...Apparently, then, the election of a Socialist president in Chile in no way ruptures the country's relatively stable history in which changes are imposed by necessities rather than by ideologies...

...The fact that none of the popular parties— Socialist, Communist, Christian Democratic— presents itself as a workers' party is significant, underlining the fuzziness of class boundaries in Chile and the primary role of the "middle classes" in the political life of that nation...

...People in workingclass neighborhoods and in the shantytowns are looking for immediate action and results...

...And he knows that in case of need, in order for him to carry out the presidential mandate for which he fought for 20 years, the nationalists, like the Christian Democrats, are prepared to give him a slim majority...

...Alessandri, the leader of the Right, concerned over the mischief being hatched by an extremist faction in the nationalist camp, chose that timely moment to reaffirm his confidence in the way of law, condemning violence from the Right and forestalling possible violent reactions from the Left...