Long before jihadists destroyed the World Trade Centre, another September 11th had entered history as a dark day, especially for Latin America. On that date in 1973 Chile’s armed forces overthrew Salvador Allende, an elected Socialist president, and his chaotic, divided government. The coup was a national trauma and a continental shock. Augusto Pinochet, its leader, went on to erect a brutal personal dictatorship that lasted 17 years. It murdered several thousand opponents. Tens of thousands were tortured. Pinochet’s aim was to eradicate not just Marxism but the democracy that he believed had allowed it to thrive. That his regime’s free-market policies laid the foundations for sustained economic growth in Chile cannot erase that infamous stain.
Now Chile is entering a stage in its history when the split between left and right again feels acute. Gabriel Boric, the millennial president who came to power on the back of a “social explosion” against inequality, has offered more fulsome praise of Allende than any of his predecessors, invoking him in his inauguration speech.
But support for the young left-winger has fallen: since he took office last year, Mr Boric’s approval ratings have dropped from 50% to less than 30%. An attempt, backed by his government, to replace the constitution, which is descended from the one introduced under Pinochet, was rejected by a whopping 62% of voters last year. And while the left may be in power, the far right, led by José Antonio Kast, appears to be ascendant. What can Chile’s politicians learn from 1973?
The first reaction should be: never again. Many Chileans imagined that the coup was the only way out and that Pinochet’s regime would be a temporary expedient. He proved them wrong. Some on the left still claim that the coup was manufactured in Washington, coming as it did at the height of the cold war. That is too easy. Certainly Richard Nixon’s administration, fearing a second Cuba in Latin America, did what it could to weaken Allende’s government. But the coup was home-grown and commanded much support among Chileans.
It was the consequence of a disastrous political failure, that of Allende’s Popular Unity coalition. Allende is remembered today around the world as a martyr for democracy, largely because of his stirring final speech and his decision to take his own life rather than yield to force. He proclaimed a “Chilean road to socialism” by peaceful parliamentary means. But many in his coalition wanted revolution and had little regard for democracy. Allende was a self-declared Marxist-socialist, not a European-style social democrat. What he meant by socialism was state control of the economy, which failed in Chile as it did elsewhere. His biggest mistake was to attempt to impose his revolution, intended to be irreversible, without a clear popular mandate or a parliamentary majority.
The year of the coup thus carries lessons for the left. First, that democracy, human rights and the rule of law offer the best protections for the powerless. Second, that the best way to achieve lasting change and fairer, more egalitarian societies is through reforms that command broad political consensus. It was Chile that learned this lesson best, under the auspices of the centre-left Concertación coalition, which governed successfully for the 20 years after democracy was restored in 1990.
Today left-wingers are in power in much of Latin America. Some of them, such as the Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela, never accepted these lessons. Instead, they concluded from Pinochet’s coup that only military power could safeguard revolution. Their road has led to tyranny and impoverishment.
Others are now forgetting the meaning of 1973. Similarly to Mr Boric, Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s left-wing president, came to office last year wanting to remake everything, from security to health care, instead of building on what he inherited. Like Mr Boric, he has achieved little. Argentina’s powerful vice-president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, has made repeated attempts to nobble the judiciary.
Rather than a cautionary tale, Allende has become a cherished myth for the left. But most ordinary Latin Americans are rightly focused on the present, and its flaws. Their unmet demand for order and security—which Mr Boric, like Allende before him, overlooked—is encouraging a swing to Mr Kast and disillusion with democracy among younger voters.
In Chile the attempt to write a new constitution failed because of the new left’s extremism; now that of Mr Kast’s party may doom a second attempt. The best commemoration of 1973 would be approval of a moderate constitutional draft drawn up by a committee of experts that distils many of the lessons of the past half-century. But the new polarisation makes that uncertain. Fifty years later, history may be rhyming in Chile. But at least it is doing so without violence. That in itself is progress. ■
