Criticisms of Salvador Allende - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....

, President of Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

, has inspired a variety of perceptions regarding his policies, personality and performance as a head of state

Chile under Allende

Salvador Allende was the president of Chile from 1970 until 1973, and head of the Popular Unity government; he was the first Marxist ever to be elected to the national presidency of a democracy...

. Around the world, journalists, polling organizations and others have documented the expression of an evolving array of opinions about him. More than thirty years after his death, Allende remains a controversial figure. Since Allende's death before the end of his presidential term, there has been much speculation as to what Chile would have been like had he been able to remain in power.

Allende is often cited in non-academic discussions about whether a 'communist' government has ever been democratically elected. While Allende legitimately won a democratic election

Chilean presidential election, 1970

A presidential election was held in Chile on 4 September 1970. A narrow plurality was secured by Salvador Allende, the candidate of the Popular Unity coalition of leftist parties...

, the significance of this has been disputed by some because he only had a plurality, not a majority, in the popular vote. This voting pattern is not unknown in representative democracies.

Supporters' view

His supporters argue that he did not win an outright majority because Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomić

Radomiro Tomic

Radomiro Tomic Romero was a Chilean politician of Croatian origin. He was one of the most prominent leaders of that country's Christian Democrat Party....

, running on a leftist platform similar to Allende's, split the Centrist vote. Tomic and Allende together gathered 64% of the vote, a clear majority. His opponents maintain that Allende went much farther to the left than the Centrist voters who supported Tomic could have expected. The Christian Democratic Party was supportive of a military intervention to remove Allende from office but began to disassociate itself from the 1973 coup d'état because of the violently repressive nature of the Pinochet regime

Chile under Pinochet

Chile was ruled by a military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet from 1973 when Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup d'etat until 1990 when the Chilean transition to democracy began. The authoritarian military government was characterized by systematic suppression of political parties and...

.

Allende is seen as a hero to many on the political Left

Left-wing politics

In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

. Some view him as a martyr

Martyr

A martyr is somebody who suffers persecution and death for refusing to renounce, or accept, a belief or cause, usually religious.-Meaning:...

who died for the cause of socialism. His face has even been stylized and reproduced as a symbol of Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, similar to the famous images of Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

. Some hold the United States, specifically Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger

Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...

and the CIA, responsible for his death, and view him as a victim of American imperialism. For his supporters his greatest legacy was his conviction that Socialism

Socialism

Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...

can be reached through a democratic, pacific path. His legacy can be seen in the recent election of governments professing socialism in Venezuela

Venezuela

Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

and, most recently, Bolivia

Bolivia

Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...

Opponents' views

Others view Allende much less favorably. He is criticized for his government's mass nationalization of private industry, alleged friendliness with more militant groups such as the Movement of the Revolutionary Left

Revolutionary Left Movement (Chile)

Revolutionary Left Movement is a Chilean political party and former left-wing guerrilla organization founded on October 12, 1965...

, and the supply shortages and hyperinflation that occurred during the latter years of his presidency; all these had combined to cause a strong polarization in the country and the committed opposition of the Christian Democratic Party at the time of the coup. He is also accused of having had an autocratic

Autocracy

An autocracy is a form of government in which one person is the supreme power within the state. It is derived from the Greek : and , and may be translated as "one who rules by himself". It is distinct from oligarchy and democracy...

style, attempting to circumvent the Congress and the courts, and having a hostile attitude toward critical media.

A common claim among opponents was the belief that Allende's closeness with Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011...

and Eastern bloc

Eastern bloc

The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

countries meant that he was planning to model the Chilean state along Cuban lines. Such allegations are highly controversial. One, offered by the military junta which deposed Allende, accusing him of formulating the supposed "Plan Z", in which the Popular Unity government was accused to have planned a bloody coup of its own to install Allende as dictator. The junta alleged that the plot was to be no less than a blueprint for assassinations of military leaders and general "mass murder". The CIA later concluded that "Plan Z" was probably disinformation. Nevertheless, according to his opponents, Allende's own refusal to obey and/or enforce more than 7,000 Chilean Supreme Court and other legislative rulings (as detailed in the Resolution of August 22, 1973 was a sign of dictatorial style in defiance of Chile's democratic government institutions.

Marxist criticism and assessment

Most of the analysis on the Chilean situation by Marxists were based on political literature and studies published by Lenin and Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

. Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution

Permanent Revolution

Permanent revolution is a term within Marxist theory, established in usage by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels by at least 1850 but which has since become most closely associated with Leon Trotsky. The use of the term by different theorists is not identical...

(1905) and Lenin’s work State and Revolution

State and Revolution

The State and Revolution , by Vladimir Lenin, describes the role of the State in society, the necessity of proletarian revolution, and the theoretic inadequacies of social democracy in achieving revolution to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.Citing Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, Lenin...

(1917) were heavily cited and referenced in light of Allende’s reformist ideas. The overthrow of his UP democratically elected government and its replacement with a capitalist military dictatorship only served to reinforce among orthodox Marxist the theoretical infallibility of applied Marxism

Marxism

.

Shortly after the military coup one of the most prominent opponent of Salvador Allende’s reformist policies, the young physician and MIR leader Miguel Enriquez

Miguel Enriquez

Capt. Miguel Henriquez also spelled Enriquez , was a Puerto Rican Privateer in the latter part of the 17th century. Henriquez intercepted English merchant ships in the Caribbean Sea and was considered a pirate by his enemies...

stated:

The reformist project put in place by the UP enclosed itself within the bourgeois order…it aimed to forge an alliance with sectors of the bourgeoisie, it didn’t lean on the revolutionary organizations of the working class, in its own organs of popular power, it rejected an alliance with rank and file soldiers and sub officers in the armed forces, it sought to seal an alliance with the bourgeois faction. The reformist illusions allowed the ruling classes to prevail in the superstructure of the state from where it initiate its reactionary counter offensive, by, firstly, leaning on industrialist federations, on the petty-bourgeoisie and finally on high-ranking officials of the Chilean Armed Forces…

Accusations of racism

Recent controversy has surrounded Allende's 1933 doctoral dissertation "Mental Hygiene and Delinquency", the subject of a recent book Salvador Allende: Anti-Semitism and Euthanasia by Victor Farías

Victor Farias

Victor Farías is a native Chilean historian and author. A one-time student of Martin Heidegger, he is perhaps best known for his controversial book Heidegger and Nazism , which concluded that Heidegger's philosophy is inherently fascist. His writings are informed by his philosophical education in...

, a Chilean-born teacher at the Latin America Institute of the Free University of Berlin

Free University of Berlin

Freie Universität Berlin is one of the leading and most prestigious research universities in Germany and continental Europe. It distinguishes itself through its modern and international character. It is the largest of the four universities in Berlin. Research at the university is focused on the...

. In his book, Farías claims that Allende held racist, homophobic

Homophobia

Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...

and anti-semitic

Anti-Semitism

Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...

views, as well as believing at that time that mental illnesses, criminal behaviour, and alcoholism were hereditary.

Farías' allegations have been challenged by the Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

President Allende Foundation, which published various relevant materials on the internet, including the dissertation itself and a letter of protest sent by the Chilean Congress (and signed among others by Allende) to Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

after Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and...

. The Foundation claims that in his thesis Allende was merely quoting Italian-Jewish scientist Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso, born Ezechia Marco Lombroso was an Italian criminologist and founder of the Italian School of Positivist Criminology. Lombroso rejected the established Classical School, which held that crime was a characteristic trait of human nature...

, whereas he himself was critical of these theories. Farías maintains the affirmations that appear in his book. The President Allende Foundation replied publishing the entire original text of Lombroso and in April 2006 filed an anti-libel claim against Farías and his publisher in the Court of Justice of Madrid (Spain).

Farías paraphrases of Lombroso have been much quoted; for example The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

(UK) reported 12 May 2005 that "Allende… wrote: 'The Hebrews are characterised by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, slander and above all usury. These facts permits the supposition that race plays a role in crime.' Among the Arabs, he wrote, were some industrious tribes but 'most are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft'

The Telegraph's quotation about the Jews appears to be a combination of two sentences that are not adjacent in the dissertation. Both are part of Allende's summary of Cesare Lombroso

Cesare Lombroso

's views on different "tribes", "races" and "nations" being prone to different types of crime; the latter is misquoted. Allende's passage about the Jews reads "The Hebrews are characterized by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, defamation and, above all, usury. On the other hand, murders and crimes of passion are the exception." After recounting Lombroso's views, Allende writes, "These data lead one to suspect that race influences crime. Nonetheless, we lack precise data to demonstrate this influence in the civilized world." The passage about Arabs is "Among the Arabs there are some honored and hardworking tribes, and others who are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft." There is no statement that the latter applies to "most" Arabs.

Farías further claims to have found evidence that Allende had tried to implement his ideas about heredity during his period as Health Minister 1939-1941, and that he received help from German Nazis E. Brücher and Hans Betzhold in drafting of an unsuccessful bill mandating forced sterilisation of alcoholics. The President Allende Foundation has challenged Farias in the Court of Justice of Madrid (Spain)to prove that any bill on this issue has been proposed by Minister Allende to the Chilean Government or Parliament, and to prove as well Farías' allegation that Allende was bribed by the Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop

Joachim von Ribbentrop

Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was Foreign Minister of Germany from 1938 until 1945. He was later hanged for war crimes after the Nuremberg Trials.-Early life:...

without providing any evidence of it.

Surviving personal friends of Allende have completely rejected the validity of Victor Farías accusations of "racism" and "anti-semitism" for two major reasons: Allende's mother, Laura Gossens Uribe, was of Jewish descent and Allende considered himself a Marxist and socialist internationalist

Proletarian internationalism

Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...

for most of his adult life.

Allende’s supposed “anti-semitism” is left unfounded not only because of Allende’s own Jewish ancestry, which was well known in Chile, but by the fact that it was often used by his political detractors against him. The renowned neo-Nazi intellectual and former Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano

Miguel Serrano

Miguel Serrano was a Chilean diplomat, explorer and author of poetry, books on spiritual questing and Esoteric Nazism...

(who was the mentor to many in the fascist “Patria y Libertad” movement, which was instrumental in overseeing the CIA’s backed programme of destabilization in Chile) often spoke about Allende’s “Jewishness” or his “Judeo-Bolshevik” agenda.

During his term in office, Allende - who was himself an atheist - supported a more ecumenical approach to national festivities and encouraged participation from the small Chilean Jewish community in celebrating Chile’s Independence Day, which had always been sanctified by the Roman Catholic Church. During his term in office, the Great Rabbi of Santiago, spiritual leader of the Jewish Community, had a principal role in the preparation of an ecumenical service for this event.

Further countering accusations of anti-semitism is the fact that Allende entrusted two of the most important tasks of his government to Chilean Jews: Jacques Chonchol to direct and implemented the successful agrarian reform which completely transformed the country’s agricultural structure, and David Silberman Gurovich, who was in charge of consolidating the nationalization of the most important industry in the country, Codelco-Chuquicamata

Chuquicamata

Chuquicamata, or "Chuqui" as it is more familiarly known, is by digged volume the biggest open pit copper mine in the world, located in the north of Chile, 215 km northeast of Antofagasta and 1,240 km north of the capital, Santiago...

(the largest open-pit copper mine in the World).
In 1972, Salvador Allende suggested the Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal

Simon Wiesenthal KBE was an Austrian Holocaust survivor who became famous after World War II for his work as a Nazi hunter....

ask the Chilean Supreme Court to extradite former SS Colonel

Standartenführer

Standartenführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that was used in the so-called Nazi combat-organisations: SA, SS, NSKK and the NSFK...

Walter Rauff

Walter Rauff , was an SS officer in Nazi Germany, attaining the grade of Colonel in June 1944...

to Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. The letters exchanged between Wiesental and President Allende are published in CLARIN

Clarin

Clarin or Clarín may refer to a number of things:*In Argentina, Clarín , the country's main newspaper*In Chile,El Clarín de Chile, a Chilean newspaper*In the Philippines:**The municipality of Clarin, Bohol...

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