Introduction and plan of study

I’m launching this blog on September 4, 2020–50 years to the date from Salvador Allende’s election night victory in 1970.

This is a project that came together for me throughout the Summer of 2020. I’ve been thinking of this 50th anniversary all year, since I was in Chile last Fall and picked up a book on the country in 1970. I read most of it thinking that Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, had a real shot at being nominated for the presidency and beating Donald Trump. At least, that was what was consuming most of my thought and my time.

So I started cautiously optimistic but still recognizing the huge chasm that exists between the society I live in today, the United States in 2020, and the extraordinarily class conscious and politically mobilized society of Chile in 1970. I guess I was first conceiving of something resembling this project as a kind of compare and contrast to our experience today, but obviously with the circumstances, that changed.

To be frank, there’s also a polemical motivation to this project. In my opinion, the Left in the US is stuck in an unproductive oscillation between embracing reformism (the idea that passing laws and gaining an electoral majority are sufficient for revolutionizing society) and gradualism (the related idea that revolutionary change can and should happen by slow accretion) on the one hand and an equally unproductive fixation on small-scale political organizing and spontaneous mobilization with insurrectionary aspirations on the other. I reject both of those approaches. However, Salvador Allende is often a touch point in debates between these perspectives, and I think studying the reality of what happened in Chile before and after 1970 is important for this debate.

I want to be clear, though, that I don’t want to fall into the reformism/anti-reformism debate here. I’m not interested in denouncing or defending Allende from denunciations on this front partially because I think you miss much of what’s important about what took place there by focusing on its failures and shortcomings. My intention here is not to “explain” the coup d’état on September 11, 1973 and come out on one side or the other of whether Allende “brought it on himself,” or was a pure martyr. I think these questions are profoundly useless.

Still, there’s a certain teleology to this story. There has to be. And part of that is because all of the seeds of the coup were planted even before September 4, 1970 and began to germinate probably that very night.

Lastly, I have a deep personal affinity for this subject. Chile is a country that I like very much, thanks in part because my partner, Abigail, is from there. I’ve visited several times and the social and political dynamics, the culture, and the history are all fascinating to me. And my feeling that this was very much a unique place was only confirmed by last October’s remarkable popular uprising against neoliberalism (one that for many was tied to and came clothed in the still vividly remembered revolutionary era of the early 1970s).

My plan of study, then, is to release roughly one essay every week or every other week, starting with this summary and the introductory post published simultaneously to this one. This introductory post provides a basic outline of what’s to come.

Next, I’ll dive in a bit more deeply into the roots of the class structure and class struggle up to the presidential election in 1970, study the campaign itself to some extent, and then by November 4 — the 50th anniversary of Allende’s confirmation as president, catch up to cover everything between September 4, 1970 and November 4, 1970.

After that, if I’m still feeling engaged and interested, I’d actually like to continue somewhat in sync with events 50 years prior and keep posting periodically about developments during the Allende government itself.