Salvador Allende

I

Introduction

Salvador Allende (1908-1973), Chilean politician, President of Chile (1970-1973). Allende was the first socialist to be elected president of Chile, but he was overthrown and died during a coup that ushered in 16 years of military rule.

II

Salvador Allende’s Early Life

Salvador Allende Gossens was born on June 26, 1908, in Valparaíso. In 1926 he entered the University of Chile to pursue a career in medicine. Four years later he became vice-president of the Federation of Students in Chile and became involved with the opposition to the dictatorial government of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. In 1932 he was jailed for a short period for his political activity. A year later he graduated as a doctor. Allende was a founding member of the Socialist Party (PS), along with Oscar Schnake, Marmaduque Grove, Eugenio Gonzalez, and Eugenio Matte. Arrested again, Allende was deported to the city of Caldera, where he remained between July and December 1935.

In 1937, Allende was elected as a deputy for Valparaíso and Quillota, and participated in the creation of the Popular Front coalition. The Popular Front candidate Pedro Aguirre Cerda won the presidential elections of 1938 and in September of the following year, Allende was appointed minister of health and social welfare. He remained in that post until 1942 in which year he also became secretary-general of the PS. At the Ninth Congress of the party, held in 1943, he led the party out of the government coalition.

Elected to the Senate in 1945, Allende retained his seat for 25 years, serving as vice-president (1951-1955) and president (1966-1969) of the Senate. On three occasions, in 1952, 1958, and 1964, Allende ran as a presidential candidate for a left-wing coalition. Although support for his candidacy grew, he lost to Ibáñez del Campo, Jorge Alessandri, and Eduardo Frei Montalva respectively. Between 1949 and 1963 he was president of the Medical College of Chile.

In 1969 Allende helped create the Unidad Popular (People’s Unity) coalition, comprising the main left-wing parties (PS, the Communist Party, and the Radical Party), as well as a splinter group of the Christian Democrat Party. The Unidad Popular focused its programme on the theme of a “Chilean Road to Socialism”, which would be achieved through elections and democratic institutions as opposed to armed revolution. Allende argued in his campaign for the nationalization of major industries, banks, and businesses. In the elections, held on September 4, 1970, Allende won 36.6 per cent of the vote, with his opponent Jorge Alessandri winning 34.9 per cent. Faced with no single candidate receiving an absolute majority of support, the election had to be decided by the National Congress. On October 24 it selected Allende.

III

Allende’s Presidency

During his tenure as president of the republic, which started on November 3, 1970, Allende proposed to renew Chilean society and implement the promises of his campaign. Speeding up expropriations required for land reform, large estates were broken up and land given to poor farmers. In addition, he planned to redistribute income, increase wages, and impose rigid price controls. Although some of these measures had broad support opposition came from both the right-wing Christian Democrats and from the radical left, who thought Allende’s reforms did not go far enough.

A

Government Policies

The Unidad Popular envisioned five key tasks to complete the transition to socialism in Chile: encouraging a new institutional order to establish a genuine democratic state; establishing a new economy based on social ownership of the means of production and deepening agrarian reform; implementing an ambitious package of social reforms in the areas of wages, social security, health, and housing; encouraging popular participation in culture and education; and affirming the full political and economic autonomy of the country.