This ambitious book offers an interpretation of the Popular Unity experience in Chile from the perspective of its supporters, not its leaders. The text is organized chronologically, but the author’s interests are analytical, not narrative. José del Pozo begins with political socialization and the emergence of a leftist identification, then examines the experience of leftist party members before 1970 and their high expectations of the Allende government at the moment of its inauguration. Chapters covering the “aggressive” and “defensive” phases of la via chilena follow, leading to a consideration of the movement’s failure and historical significance. An interesting epilogue assesses the protagonists’ changes in attitude, views, and politics “20 years later,” a reflection of the experience of exile, the passage of time, and the changes in the world, particularly the socialist world.
A concluding chapter assembles del Pozo’s findings. Most of his conclusions reinforce those of other scholars, but some challenge conventional wisdom. He notes that the influence on his subjects’ politics of parents in general and mothers in particular has been less than expected, and that of “anti-imperialism” unimportant. Veterans of the anti-Communist repression of the postwar decade focused their expectations on power, while younger leftists, particularly those from working-class backgrounds, were more concerned with social progress. Dividing his subjects into clasistas, desarrollistas, and políticos, del Pozo finds that the expectations of the first two predominated during Popular Unity’s aggressive phase, but the question of power became more prominent during the movement’s defensive final phase. Twenty years later, his clasistas remained orthodox in their leftist politics, with expectations similar to those of 1970, while most of the desarrollistas had become more critical and most of the políticos revisionist, having developed serious doubts about their former views.
The book is based on the author’s loosely structured interviews with 120 members and sympathizers of leftist parties, from varying geographic and social origins; he also quotes from the interviews at length to illustrate his points. The limitation of his sources is that almost all were exiled in Canada along with the author, and they seem to have been chosen largely because of the exigencies and economics of exile, which is understandable but regrettable. Because they represent neither a random sample nor a focused group of informants from a particular geographic area, workplace, or political party, they constitute a group of sources thinly spread across the geographic, social, and political map of Chile. Their oral histories may be suggestive but cannot be conclusive.
Within these limitations, however, this is a thoughtful book. It uses oral history to illuminate grassroots perspectives and experiences ignored in more traditional accounts. It makes a valuable contribution to the literature on the Chilean road to socialism and the Latin American Left, as well as to the growing body of oral accounts that have expanded our understanding of the region’s modern history.
