This very interesting study is an in-depth analysis of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende (1970-73) and the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-89) until the first year of the democratic return with Patricio Aylwin (1989-90). It represents a joint research project undertaken by several scholars, Chilean, Canadian, and North American, under the direction of José del Pozo and André Jacob, both of the University of Quebec, Montreal.
The study is divided into eight chapters, plus an appendix with valuable data: “Chile in Figures, 1970-1990” and “Chronology, 1970-1993”; and a bibliography for those who wish to delve even deeper. In an introduction, del Pozo gives an overview of the entire project.
The first two essays deal with the record of the Allende government. The author of the first essay, Jacques Chonchol, sees Allende’s failure in the regime’s excessive revolutionary zeal. Fernando Mires, in the second essay, interprets the government’s program as contradictory: serious limitations on one side, discrimination against a group of workers on the other. The third article, by Nibaldo Galloguillos, sees the military coup simply as a defensive action of the Chilean middle classes, horrified by the possible outcome of Allende’s social reforms.
Del Pozo continues with a fourth essay, in which he analyzes the different currents of opinion in the Chilean Left at the beginning of 1970 and at the end of the military government. Following this, André Jacob explains the attraction Allende’s program had for labor unions, intellectuals, and even Quebec priests; he also denounces the Chilean church for its attitude toward the Pinochet coup. Arch Ritter delves into the economic policies of the military government, with its failures and different phases, which the democratic government of Aylwin continued in 1989.
Hernán Pozo analyzes the contradictions between the political parties and the social movements, although he recognizes the progress made by Aylwin, even with all the limitations inherited from the military regime. The eighth and final essay, by James Petras, deals with today’s Chilean situation in the context of international relations. The author comments that the United States will continue its aggressive policies and that the transition from military to civilian governments did not change much except to produce a process, based on the defeat of the Left, in which the followers of authoritarianism still exercise a powerful influence.
In del Pozo’s view, Chilean society in the 1990s is more polarized than ever, and even if Chile’s peaceful transition and macroeconomic evolution represent a great success, the country continues to be plagued with problems because much of the population is not sharing the new wealth.
In sum, this is a well-researched work, even though it omits mention of Hugo Cancino Troncoso’s Chile: la problemática del Poder Popular en el proceso de la vía chilena al socialismo, 1970-1973 (1988).
