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| by Andy Bevan, LPYS National Committee |
This article, written a year before the coup, gives a prophetic warning of what was to come if the leadership continued to vacillate between reformism and revolution. It was published in the Militant (No.122), 15 September 1972
The fate of Allende's "Popular Unity" (UP) Government hangs by a thread. Recent weeks have seen States of Emergency in Santiago and Concepción where the army has temporarily ruled - by leave of the UP government - and in the Southern province of Bío Bío. Almost nightly clashes between fascist commandos and armed workers and students of the Socialist Party and the MIR have occurred in Chile's major cities.
On August 31st Concepción was clapped under army control after street fighting and rival demonstrations. In an ominous incident, police laid siege to the Socialist Party headquarters allegedly to flush out 200 armed youth who had sought refuge there.
Implicit in this situation is the threat of an army coup, aided and abetted by "unofficial" action of fascist gangs. Allende finally admitted as much! This lays bare the utter folly and crass negligence of declaring States of Emergency and calling in the generals to "restore order".
Does the UP cabinet intend to hand Chile to the reaction on a plate? Whose army is the Chilean army? Of what class, background and outlook are the military top brass? Where States of Emergency are concerned, the Chilean workers and peasants can rely only on their own strength to protect the gains or the UP government and to clear the fascists off the streets.
Workers militias, linked locally and nationally, must be brought into being. Not military rule, but workers' rule on the streets of Chilean cities - that is ABC for Marxists in such a situation. Allende must arm the workers or allow the reaction to go on the rampage.
ALLENDE WARNS
On September 4th, significantly the eve of the massive pro-UP demonstrations throughout Chile, President Allende warned that any coup attempt would be met by the call for a General Strike by the UP leadership. This warning, coming from Allende - always a "voice of moderation" - reveals the true seriousness of the situation. This is the crushing reply to the ostriches in the international labour movement who have sneered at the consistent warnings of the Militant and of the revolutionary sections of the Chilean workers about the threat of reaction and the dangers present in any dithering or vacillation on this question and the central problem of power.
The attempt of the CP leaderships the world over to deny these dangers and to paint a gay picture of a peaceful, national road to Socialism through parliament is a crime against the Chilean revolution, surpassed only by the bankrupt reformism, pacifism and class collaborationism of the Chilean CP leaders themselves, with their pompous, anti-Leninist theories of a ‘pluralistic’ (i.e. many-class, many-party) advance to Socialism.
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| 'Industry for the toilers' demand Chilean workers |
We have only to compare Lenin’s warlike attitude towards Kerensky and the Cadets with the CP leaders' frantic attempts to cuddle up with Tomic, Frei and the whole of Christian Democracy to see this point as plain as day.
What does Allende's call for a General Strike to thwart a reactionary coup mean? While welcoming this gesture of the UP leaders, we have to realise that a General Strike would, in any case, be the instinctive response of the workers to any reactionary attempt to overthrow what they believe is their government. The role of a Socialist leadership is to direct this faith and willingness to sacrifice and struggle on the part of the masses into the channels that lead to the establishment of workers' power.
POWER POSED
What is a General Strike? It brings society grinding to a stop. It poses the question - who rules? It cannot last indefinitely. At some stage the wheels must turn again, electricity must be generated, bread baked, food distributed, services restored. The point is, do the factories come back into production on the basis of capitalist exploitation or of common ownership, on the basis of bosses' power or workers' power?
The General Strike poses the problem of power before the working class. Unless the workers' leaders seize the opportunity presented by the paralysis in society, which is brought about by a General Strike, to mobilise the workers, to neutralise the reaction, to dismantle and break up the organs of capitalist state power and raise the workers' organisations to power, the general strike merely becomes a passive, folded-arms demonstration dependent for success on the possible weakness of the ruling class and on the bosses' ability or willingness to concede to the workers' demands.
In 1920, the German workers staged a General Strike against the putsch of the reactionary Kapp. The German capitalists dispensed with Kapp rather than face an embittered working class. They were prepared and able, under enormous pressure from the workers to concede. On the other hand, in Britain in 1926 the ruling class driven into a corner by economic crisis and the workers' demands were prepared to sit out 9 days of General Strike and emerged the victors - because the workers' leaders had no conception of taking power. Even the defeat of Kapp was a shabby sell-out for the German workers in the sense that, having been within an ace of power, they had to accept the continuance of the rule of capital and merely postponed the moment when reaction would strike.
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| Support for Allende in the Copper Mines |
What would a General Strike mean in Chile? To underestimate the Chilean ruling class would be to toy with fire. Very shrewdly, they have held their most impetuous sections in check. They have understood that they cannot move against the UP government as long as it has the overwhelming support of the masses. Hence their waiting game, their parliamentary blockade on "progressive legislation", their sabotage of industry, their careful currying of discontent, their skillful use of the press, their subsidies to the fascist gangs which are being used to test out the ground. But they are desperate.
The army remains their trump card so long as the UP fails to make a class appeal to the rank and file troops and to isolate the reactionary officer caste by winning the mass of the troops to the revolution.
A steeled Marxist tendency would be forced, in these circumstances, to point out the conclusion that a Chilean General Strike could only defeat the reaction for good and all if it was the opening gambit in the socialist insurrection itself. Even at this late stage the workers of Chile, supported in action by their fellow toilers in the countryside would respond magnificently to such a bold lead if it were given.
The task of the advanced workers in Chile is clear. Theirs is the task of preparing for power. Is Allende prepared to undertake this task? Are he and his cabinet prepared to link the multifarious workers' and peasants' organisations and to weld them into an invincible alternative force, alternative power in the form of Soviets or Popular Assemblies?
Let us remember that a "Popular Assembly", destined to replace the Chilean parliament, is part of the UP election programme. However 'el compañero Presidente' appears to have forgotten this particular 'detail' in his programme, for what does he say, referring to the MIR's attempts to establish such a body in Concepcion (see Militant 121): "An authentically revolutionary popular assembly concentrates within itself the decisive will of the whole people. Consequently it assumes all power. Not only does it deliberate but it also governs. To think of such a thing in Chile at the moment is not only absurd but belies also irresponsibility and total ignorance. Because actually there is only one government, that over which I preside" (Le Monde 8/8/72).
PROGRAMME AND LEADERSHIP THE KEY
The problems of the Chilean workers resolve themselves into the problems of programme and leadership. AIlende and Corvalan, general Secretary of the CP, can see no way forward except through parliamentary mine-fields. Even Almirano, leader of the Socialist Party masses who are earnestly seeking a revolutionary road, displays all the hesitation and weakness of centrism, vacillating between reformism and revolution.
A clear lead is required. This task falls primarily to the leftward moving militants of the SP who, speedily on the basis of a correct programme, could win thousands and tens of thousands of MIR and CP members, as well as the revolutionary peasants of MAPU and the Christian Left to their banner.
Click here to read Militant's report, written a few days after the UP Government was crushed by a coup on 11 September 1973, to understand the dire consequences of continued vacillation.
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