The following is an excerpt from the speech given by Tarig Ali at last Saturday's IMG public meeting in solidarity with the Chilean workers and peasants.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is the following one: why did American Imperialism, in collusion with the Chilean bourgeoisie and the Brazilian military dictatorship, decide to organise the overthrow of the Allende The Americans are quite prepured to tolerate reformist governments, as long as these governments carry out one essential task: to keep the mass movement down, to inflict constant and consistent defeats on the mass movement. If you study the record of the Peruvian military regirne, that is precisely what it has been doingThe bourgeoisi, isn't simply guided by cconomic interests. It will tolerate the nationalisation of Gulf Oil (with suitable compensation). nationalisation of other industries, as long as the reformist regimes carry out the functions which in the past were carried out by the traditional oligarchies in Latin America. Imperialist investment in Latin America is changing. American imperialism today is concentrating more and mote on manufacturing industry, talber than on raw materitis. This is undermining the traditional oligarchies which once dominated Latin America.
The Torres regime in Bolivia began this trend. But the minute the Tortes regime couldn't con- far as social democratic parties go, had adopted tain the mass movement, a military coup was organised by the United Statos, using the biggest struggled, with arms in hand, alongside the continental ally they have developed in Latin Red Weekly 21 September 1973 Page 4 America -uamely the Brazilian military dictator- Government and Popular Unity as a whole ship. The miltary colp of Banzer in Bolivia was carried out largely under Brazilian guidance, with Brazilian encouragement, If the coup bad been cotcated burho Broco resistance or the Bolivian masses, the Brazilians would have intervened.
The Allende reformist experiment in Chile failed not only in the sense in which we Marxists mean it —that it failed to achieve socialismbut it failed also from the point of view of being able to contuin the mass movement. That is what the Allende regime was expected to do, and that is why a section of the Chilean bourgeoisie tolerated it for the first year. If you study the balance sheet of the first year of the Allende Government, there were no strikes by the bourgecisie, no national lock suts, no strikes by the lorry owners. They looked carefully and tried to smell out which way this regime was moving, and they gave this regime three years to do the job. Well, this regime was unable to do the jub.
Here were reflected the pressures on the princi pal party, the party which had the President of Chile in itsranks Che Socilist Party. This, so Tairly lelt-wing rhetoric. Sections of it had miners agoinst the Frei regime, So, the Allende faced a very ditticult choice i choice which every reformist will confront at some stage or other, particularly in a pre-revolutionary period: either you break with the ruling class, and orpanise und prepare for this break, or you smash the mass movement. You can sit on the fence for a certain time, a few months, a few years at most. But finally history catchbs up with you.
In the case of the Allende povernment, history began to catch up with it very quickly. The minute Allende began to nationalise sections of the manufacturing industry in Chile, when factory occupations sturted to break ouf towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year, then sections of the American ruling ciass began to openly prepare for the overthrow of this regime.
Of course, they would have preferred it if this could bave been carried out within the framework of Chilean, bourgeois democracy, But they were not ahle to do that, purtly becamse they made a number of serious tactical mistakes, and one of these mistakes was found our, The great Amicricin multi national corporation International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), was caueht with its trousers down, The IT hoses began to caucus with other bosses in Chile, with other Americon capitalists and with members of the U.S. State Department, to prepare to overthrow the Allende regime. The ITT organised sabotage Allende, of course, nationalised the ITT's Interests in Chile, and all this lovely information came out when the ITT appealed to the American ruling class under a law that any American firm expropriated by a foreien government can claim an enormous amount al compensation.
In the hearings on this cinim ail chis information came out about low they had been organising with the State Departinent, how ITT had contributed half a million dollars to Nixon's elec tion fund, had promised to make four million dollars available to the ClA to organise a few commando raids in Santiago So the bourgeoisie, after Allende prosed incapable of crushing the mass movement, were determined to overthrow him, And the United States government was, of course, involved in this because it was too serious a decision for the Chilean Army to take on its own. Chile is the only country in Latin America which has had some sort of bourgeois-democratie tradition over the last four or five decades. When you are trying to present armed struggle, when you are trying to crush the mass movement on a Latin American scale, then vou have to have some model to pur tarward, for a whole period Chile has been that model. The 'Chilean Road' has more than one meaning The Communist Party and the Socialist Party used it to mean that state power could be taken peacefully. But the ruling class also wed the phrase. For them, it meant a bourgenis democratic country, where there was iredom to orpanise trade unions, political parties, ete Su when the Chilean Army decides, in one mortal blow, to cod this tradition, don't imagine they take this decision on their own
police to break up the strike and to take possession of the lorries. It was this scries of events that led directly up to the military coup. REVOLUTIONARY STRATEGY Clearly a workers government guided by a revolutionary strategy would never have dealr with the crisis in this way. A mobilisation of the masses should have been used to demonStrate the real strength of the Government and to end the lorry owners strike. If hundreds of thousands of workers had surrounded the lorry owners encampment there is every likelihood that they could have forced them to abandon the strike. Though the fascist groups were certainly active among the lorry drivers, a proletarian mobilisation would have split the drivers and persuaded a section of them to ahandon their conspiracy against the Government. However, instead of mobilising the masses in sotne such way as this, the Popular Unity Government insisted that the best way to beat the lorry owners strike was for the workers to stay at work and maintain production. The decision to invite the military into the cabinet could only help to legitimise military intervention and to prepare the ground for a coup. Al'every point the Popular Unity sought to do deals with the military top brass and failed than continually alerting the masses to the need the army. In the first months of victory the Government was in an excellent position to insist that the rank and file of the armed forces he organised in trade unions which would have provided a counterweight to the authority of the military chiefs. The existence of the still untouched capitalist armed forces was a critical obstacle with which the Popular Unity Government had to deal. However, these forces were in some ways less formidable than they might have been. They numbered some 25,000fairly small compared with the mass organisations on which the Popular Unity was based, which number theit members in hundreds of thousands.
ARM THE MASSES The central aspect of any revolutionary strategy should have been to arm the mass organisations. Though some clements to the left of the SociaTEst Party, and in the left wing of Popular Unity, did raise this question, the leadership of the Popular Unity, and above all the Communist Party, completely evaded it.
Workers" and peasants" militias could only have been formed on the basis of careful technical and political preparation. The Communist Party and the right wing of the Socialist Party, rather cally fed them with parliamentary illusions, and inhibited them from any independent mobilisation. Political preparation for armed struggle should have been carried out both by propacanda and by degeloping the beginnings of proletarian power. The technical preparation should have been undertaken with all necessary The slogan 'arm the masses' can be an abstract the Sudanese Communists discovered to their cost in 1971, since the masses they armed completely lacked the necessary organsation and training, But in the Chilean case the struggles around the implementation of the Popular Unity programme could have provided many opportunities to carry out the technical and political preparation that was necessary. The forces of the counter-revolution give the Popular Unity nearly three years' grace. To have moved against it right in the beginning would have been very difficult, If the Government had heen following a revolutionary strategy the muitary top brass might well have moved soonet, but they would have met a workers" mosement which was equipped to do battle As it was, the three years were wasted and Popular Unity met its decisive test in complete Allende's response to the military coup seems to have reflected the contradictions of his whole previous record. He was woken early in the morning with the news of the revolt. He then went to a Government-controlled radio station to urge the workers to remain at work and to appeal to the Arny officers to remember their security by the working class parties themselves. duty to the Nation'. With a foroe of armed police he then occupied the Moneda Palace, absurdity if it is left too late-this was somerbing the forces which he had so hopelessly and so where be put up a last desperate resistance to disastrously sought to appease. He chose not only to die fighting -an honourable decisionbut to die fighting in the symbolic home of Chilean bourgeois constitutionalism, rather than in the working class suburbs where the strength of the Popular Unity lay.
His reported last words were: "Trust in your leaders, trust in the masses". At that very moment those workers and peasants who had trusted their traditional leaders were paying a terrible penalty. Those who trusted ondy their own strongth and their own struggles were heginning the task of confronting the dictatorship with armed resistance.
to agitate politically among the rank and file of to establish their own armed force, systematidisarray.
September, It shows how the army was uctive as a counter-revolütionary foros, attempting to crush the organisations of the workers, long before the military coup which finally toppled the Allende government.
elements have a strong influence.
al and trade union lines, They sprang up in 1972 in response to the first lorry-owmers" strike, In the months before the coup, the class struggle became polarised around the political strikes launched by sections of the middle class against the Allende Goverment, threatening the exis goods, directly affecting the lives of the workers and peasants, in trying to break these counterrevolutionary strikes, the condons, along with the People's Supply Committees set up by the Government, attempted to orgin se the distribution of essentials, place controls on stores and worehouses, and prevent the sabotage of production.
extension of organs of working class power such as the cordons-popular bodies which broke in practice with the capitalist constitution and the laws of private property, acting as the armed representatives of the workers and peasants. The failure of the military and the fascists to crush if the counter-revolutionary struggle was to succeed.
After the unsuccessful army coup on 29 June, an offensive by the military against working class organisations in Corno took place. On 3 July, the regional leader of one of the Popular Unity parties MAPUvas arrested. "At about the same time, the military patrols begen, and the way in which these patrols behave, Inspecting pedestrians for sons, is humilisting and crimes active rasentment.... owing to the state of need brought about by the strike of the lorry owners, we have to organise the distribution of paraffin, petrol and liquid gas. So we established workars guards on the stores solling patrol, where the right had infittrated. This is where the black markat in petrol begins, with these same people who are given a quota [by the government distribution agency-DIRINCO and thon sell supplies privately. The CUT Inational trade union federation] had called for the formation of workers guards, But these guards were apposed by the military, who said: either we aro in control, or the CUT & in control. And broke out from the ranke of the workers: "Solliers, this was when the cose of the comrades in the People's Istant You too will be one of the axploited! Will you Supply Committes care up:
The People s Supply Committees were set up by the get u were morong class suburb, to ture on directly the task of controlling food distribution and prices in the lece ol a rampant black market. In practice, they were mainly composed of working class the workers, But then they began to lose their narve TE USELES are articular woman were r charge of controlling stepped in, hurled himelf ags inat his comrades, and paraffin and liquid ges being sold in Aliro Conche's house. They were under orders from the CUT. And Then the officers came, and these comrades wore put Later we heard the Mayor's voice complaining of the out at the point of machine guns, by an enormous detachment of troops: all this to deat with women: who were completely unarmed! Meanwhile, the Testoranes sood by applauang, as they did in the square on 21 Дорц.
The confrontation in the square on 21 August ves sise over the issue of warkers' guards, then being arcanised by the loed cournment distribution grey masse to a government order trot the trucks held by the senkers should be forcefully renuisitianed: In Chorno, the Mayor had agroed to ow The trade unions police support ta tarry aut these requisitions-support they would need, as the strikers had smom not to give aver ther vehiclesand were armed The palice were supposed t0 jair the trade union detachment in the square. Enstand. soldiers arrived.
The square was surrounded by a company of We print below a summary of an interview which appeared in a left-wing Chilean magazine on 7 The intorview is with a Chilean worker, president of the local condon in the small city of Osorno, in Southern Chile, Osoro is located in an agricultural area settled by small farmers, where fascist The cordons were spontaneously created local organisations of workers which out aeross industri lenice of the Government. Those strikes resulted in severe breakdowns in the cistribution of basic these developments at the hase made it necessary for the army to topple the Allende Government soldiers-. The officer at the head of the column gav orders to the infantry, who advanced with bayonets.
The alumn stoppod about 20 yards away, and formed up into a line in front of the workers. The workers stood firm. The CUT's chairmen talked with the officer, while those of us who ware leading went back slong the detachment of workers, informing them of the details of whet was happening. Then we were told that we had five minutes to disperse.
Meanwhile, in front of the town hall, they set up three sub-machine gure pointing directly of the workers. Soldiers wore running around with bones ot ammunition and walkie tabcies, making connection with another detachmant of infantry that was marching into the square from the South - A group of soldiers stepped out and sterted advancing towarde the browd.
There, we in the first ranks opposed this assault with our arms tensed with rage and frustretion. The sall shoot against your fathers, against your clam brothers?"
This chant halped to witten the workers detarmination to Sand TIrm In from of the town hall. The polios hit out with the wooden-butts of their guns againat (they were little more than childrand and started to pass round some ammunion, buddant a sokie : snoison Back! and stopped 2 matsaora way he had been trasted when his car was searched tor arms. But his voie was lost in. the shouts of workers who wanted to do something. "Thee lice were going to shoot us" many of them were shouting.
The soldiers then arrested the Mayor along with the local chief of DIRINCO and two airpenters who had boen carrying sticks. The Mayor was later roleased, but not the others. "As in inary parts of the country, in Osarno today, the sue! of consciousness and organisation of the people i something which most poople could not haw Imagined. Thee repressive actions have only succeeded in speeding up the formation of other industrial cordoris, strengthening the workers' committess for defence and vigilanoe, and pressing forward the task of organising distribution-in summary, this escalation has served to unify and strengthen the workers in this Rad Woekly 21 Septemoer 10/3 Page b
In January of this year, I reviewed the change in the economic situation which had taken place in 1972 and which had led all the imperialist countries (with the exception of Italy) towards an economic upswing. I wrote that, despite the energy crisis", the growth of East-West trade, and the reappearance of shortages in the foodproducing sectors of the Western economy, the current boom would not last very long. Today, a growing chorus is predicting a recession in 1975 if not 1974. One after unother, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, (which includes representatives of all the imperialist countries), the British weekly The Economist. und the West German weeklies Die Zeit and Der Spiegel. have all referred to the same prospect. These voices of doom add an especially depressing note to their already disturbing prophecy for the world capitalist conomy: since the current phase of economic upswing embraces all the imperialist countries (again, with the exception of Italy). they fear that the coming recession will like. wise occur simultaneously throughout the imperialist world. The world of the capitalist ruling class is today haunted by the famous has doubled in one year and is now more than three times what it was two years ago.) When gold begins to move up in value and paper money declines. "Gresham's Law" starts to operale: bud money drives good out of circulation. The "bad money' & above all the dollar, which is held on to less and less, and therelare circulated more and more, In turn it hecomes subJect to the merciless law of supply and demand and increasingly declines in value.
But this hunt after real vali's" becomes much more serious in its effects when i touches on two key areas of cconomic life: real estate and Taw materials, Under conditions of permanent inflation. the buying of land and the buying of raw materials become increasingly speculative. divorced from the immediate needs of the market.
On the New York commodity exchange the number of speculators has grown ceaselessly during recent years. A 'seat' on the exchange now sells for several hundred thousand dollars, Prices have risen at a dizzy pace - in the course of this last year, under the twin lashes of speculation and and cconomic upswing, the price of raw matertals has risen 939.
But a rise in the cost of building land (and therefore a rise in rents), and in the cost of raw Emest Mandel fate if profit lomed on the borizon OVERPRODUCTION Finally, bankruptcies broke out in the German construction industry. threatening to drag severul hanking houses into the storm us well. Tight credit policy and high interest rates have heen blained for this catastrophe. But the deeper cause lies in the fact that for the first time since the end of the Second World War. while dwellings are being built in the Federal Republic of Germany at the rate of 500,000 year, there are now more than 100,000 new dwellings for which there is neither a buyer nor a tenant at the prevailing prices, that is to say alowing for the prevailing rate of profit. Another example: everyone is waiting for a drop in the price of raw materials. "Speculation cannot keep prices going up for ever, the pundits say. A more basic explanation lies in the fact that the trusts who hold a monopoly in many raw material, their appetites aroused by the dizzy rise in prices and profits, have now And what individual capitalists can do, capitalist companies can obviously do on a much grander scale. In its July 14, 1973, issue the weekly Fconomar published an article with the appropriate title 'A Good Time to Buy America?". British Petroleum bought the American oil company Sohio; Plessey absorbed Alloys. British-American Tobacco absorbed the huge New York department store Gimbel's for a mere $200 million. Nestle bought our Stouffer Foods from the Litton Industries conglomerate for $100 million: Saint-Gobain acquired the firm Certaioteed. And this list is far from exhaustive, As For Japanese imperialism, it went through an expansion of capital exports that drove American capital out of a good part of the East Asian market and is disputing important American game preserves like Brazil and Mexico. In South Kurea and Taiwan, Japanese trusts are setting up huge complexca in stel, petrochemicals, and ship building. In Brazil they are investing more than the United States is. The Fuji Bank estimates that export of Japanese capital will reach $3.5 to 4 thousand million for 1973 alone, and it anticipates an armal rate of $25 thousand million by the end of the 1970s.
But once again, it is an extrapolation that imprudently ignores conjunctural fluctuations, structural crises, social tensions, and revolutiomary explosions.
MONETARY REFORM Even on the commercial level, the devaluation
----- pull-quotes -----
This activity, which often required armed patrols by the workers, showed dramatically that the defence of the Government against the Right could not be carried out without the creation and