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Originally Posted by mono tejano
Well, here we go...
With any luck this one may be as long and winding as the Ukrainian famine...
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It's looking like it given the answer you just started with, I'm going to need to write this in parts.
First off, let me make my position on this clear (or as clear as possible). I dont primarily blame the US, i blame the fascists. The US was a supporting actor. But their guilt should not be diminished, or role forgotten. This coup along with Guatemala and Lumamba's death are for me the 3 most overlooked events in modern history. My point of such a thread is simply to bring a little attention on this board to the event. (I was tossing up whether to make one on Allende, Lumumba or Arbenz- it just so happened that i stumbled across this article and so went with Allende, out of laziness if nothing else)
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
You may remember, I lived in Chile for a year as an undergrad. While I was there I read more books on Chilean history than you could shake a stick at, discussed 'el golpe' with more people or different political orientation than you could shake a stick at and have heard about every possible angle one could take on this whole issue.
I am neither pro nor anti Allende and am very much anti Pinochet. I celebrated with a bottle of 'Gato Negro' the night he finally died.
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Lets just pretend you are a Pinochet supporter so i can call you names
Right on to the serious stuff.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
Regarding the issue of 'planning'...
The US State Dept, Embassy personel and CIA agents were definitely involved, paid many bills and likely shared lots of 'ideas'.
"The CIA spent $425,000, however the CIA did not provide direct assistance to any candidate as they had in 1964, but rather focused on anti-Allende propaganda, a "scare campaign" of posters and pamphlets linking an Allende victory with the violence and repression associated with the Soviet Union [1]. Editorials and news stories reinforcing this message were also written with CIA guidance, especially in the newspaper El Mercurio, and disseminated throughout the national media. The goal was to contribute to and exploit the political polarization and financial panic of the period."
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Everything there was pretty much all the support i meant they gave. My OP was admittedly short and vague. This may have allowed it to be construed to mean many things. I wont pretend to have as many sources as you on this. Anything i know or believe to be true is simply stored in memory from articles and TV. In my memory the role of the US was to bankroll the coup, but the primary role was to fight the propaganda war that is touched upon above. I remember seeing an interview with a CIA operative in Chile where it was said that the US dropped propaganda leaflets from the sky, propaganda that was at best misleading and worst totally false.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
But they did not 'plan' the coup. According to every source I know...
here's some:
Chile - LANIC |
It would be almost baseless of me to claim they did, though the article certainly does. I do not know their sources, but i actually have quite a bit of faith in Granma, it is my favourite media outlet. Of course it could be all speculation, but i do think a lot of Granma (you may think foolishly). But i cannot say with any degree of certainty that they did or did not do as the article claims.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
FYI: LANIC is the best source I know for Latin America, so if you're ever looking for info, I can't recommend it highly enough.
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Cheers, i will favourite it as soon as i've completed my response.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
The US government got involved FIRST at the behest of the Chilean right and only later at the behest of US business interests. What you call the 'propaganda war' was aided but not led by the US or any of its agents but led and principally funded by Chileans themselves. Yes, we have blood on our hands, but clearly we don't learn from previous experience.
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Again, there is not too much to disagree with. But that alone paints the US involvement as wrongful and unjust. The fact they didn't request the right revolt, that it was the other way around only detracts from US guilt in the most small of ways.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
With regard to the 'CIA line' that you claim I 'follow'...
Yes, Allende was a Socialist. He helped found the Chilean Socialist party. But as you well know, there is no clear line between Communist and Socialist especially as seen from the American perspective.
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In there i believe lies a key issue, the US sees no difference between socialist and communist and that has been the major downfall of their foreign policy in the past 90 years.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
Allende called himself a Marxist:
"The Communist Party is the party of the working class, the Communist Party is the Party of the Soviet Union, the first socialist state in the world, and whoever wants to create a socialist government without the communists is not a marxist; and I am a marxist."
so one could be forgiven for concluding that Allende is also a Communist.
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I'm not buying that. It is a logical inconsistency. He says you cant have a socialist government without the communists. To me that simply means is they have to be involved, there has to be solidarity as both parties ultimately represent the same people and interests.
Just because a socialist government requires the backing or involvement of the communists does not necessitate that the socialist government must be communist.
If i can use a completely hypothetical analogy. One could say that you can't have a socialist government without the feminists. But that doesn't mean that everyone in the government has to be a feminist.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
Allende's Socialist party was part of a coalition called 'Unidad Popular' (Popular Unity). Other coalition members included the Communists and the Radicals among others.
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I may be wrong, and you may be able to correct me here, but i'm pretty sure i'm not. Prodi's Italian coallition included the communists, but no one could seriously say that Italy has been a communist country for the past few years.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
Now to the election...
Allende did win a very hard fought elecion by a slim margin. However, he only won a plurality. Additionally, there was a lower than average turnout for this election for some reason (83%, it's usually over 90%). Admittedly, if it had been higer it might have helped Allende, but of course things might have gone any other way as well.
Allende won only 36.6% of the vote. While his top opponent, Alessandri won 35.2%. You have to admit (OK, no you don't), that's a pretty small margin for victory. Honestly, in most other countries there would have been a run-off, which Allende would likely have lost, but we'll never know.
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This is not totally unique. Blair's government were elected with 35.3% of the vote with the Tories on 32.3%. Okay its not quite as slim, but nevermind a run off, Blair actually got a resounding majority in parliamenton the back of it (thats the oxymoron of British democracy for you)
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
Now to the Soviet involvement:
"KGB money was more precisely targeted. Allende made a personal request for Soviet money through his personal contact, KGB officer Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, who urgently came to Chile from Mexico City to help Allende. The original allocation of money for these elections through the KGB was $400,000, and additional personal subsidy of $50,000 directly to Allende [1]. It is believed that help from KGB was a decisive factor, because Allende won by a narrow margin of 39,000 votes of a total of the 3 million cast. After the elections, the KGB director Yuri Andropov obtained a permission for additional money and other resources from the Central Committee of the CPSU to ensure Allende victory in Congress. In his request on 24 October, he stated that KGB "will carry out measures designed to promote the consolidation of Allende's victory and his election to the post of President of the country"
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^ a b c d e f Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages ISBN 0-465-00311-7, pages 69-88. A great read! Highly recommended!
And Cuba:
You probably know of Castro's visit to Santiago as well as Allende's visit to Havana. Support was clear, at least of the ideological and intangible sense. But, and I can't find a source for this yet, but it has been contended that Cubans were responsible for shipping Soviet-made weapons to Chile for use by the coalition party members should they need to take a more 'radical' approach to the 'Chilean road to Socialism'. |
I not surprisingly not only find nothing wrong with this. I find it morally praiseworthy. Surely to aid a newly elected government facing the threat of imperialism and fascism should be aided. If only more had done the same when it was Franco with the Nazi empire threatening the government in Spain, WW2 could have been avoided.
Now, let me say this from my personal experience:
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
Chile is still a very divided nation when it comes to politics. Those wounds are just below the surface and many, many people, rightly have very strong emotions one way or the other regarding the events of the 70's and since then. There are those who would, and do, argue that without the Coup and the resultant bloodshed, Chile would not be where it is today, one of the most stable nations in the hemisphere. And of course others who say that no amount of political or economic success or stability is worth 15 thousand murders.
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I think we have been here before, so i wont bombard you with stats unless you wish to see them. The so called ecomnomic miracle was closer to a niightmare. It brought boom and bust, more often bust. It brought a reduction in real wages (a huge one at that) and unemployment. It furthered the gap between rich and poor. So there are plenty of negatives to match the apparent stability.
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Originally Posted by mono tejano
The truth is, I agree with both sides.
Chile is 1973 was involved in a Civil War, nothing less. And laying the blame for what happened at the feet of Uncle Sam is disingenuous at best and does not take into account ANY of the developments IN Chile that led to it and which would have led to it whether the US got involved or not.
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Back to what i said earlier in my post, i do not believe this was ever my position. My position is and has always been that this was an attack by fascism on both democracy and socialism and that this was supported by the US.