Chile: 1970–1973

Extract

In December 1972 Luis Corvalán, the general secretary of the Chilean communist party, was asked if a coup d’etat was possible. ‘It is theoretically possible. But I don’t expect it to happen, because I’m full of confidence in the success of the policies being implemented by the Unidad Popular. And, moreover, there are two very important institutions, the Catholic Church and the armed forces, which have, through their leaders, made themselves very clear on this issue.’ Ten months later Corvalán’s expectations and the hopes of people inside and out of Chile were totally destroyed in a savage and brutal coup.

Corvalán and the communist party were not the only people to seriously misread the situation. I believe the Christian Democrats also totally misjudged the strength of extreme right wing forces. Certainly Corvalán was tragically wrong: the armed forces were the final agents of the coup; the Catholic Church stood by, and a couple of days later the hierarchy were gathered in prayer with the military leaders. The role of the church and of Christianity in the Chilean process is important and I shall return to the theme towards the end of this account.

Most people probably have at least fragmentary ideas of the events which led to the death of Salvador Allende and the installation of the military junta. A complete analysis of the history of the U.P. would need a book. All I can hope to do in a short article is to try to outline some of the main changes in the balance of forces in Chile between 1970 and 1973. Inevitably I shall have to omit discussion of many important factors—for reasons of space there will be little discussion of the agrarian reform, important though it was. However, I believe the outline here to be a reasonably coherent version of events.