Popular Unity

The Popular Unity (also known by the acronym UP) was a Chilean political and electoral coalition of left-wing political parties. It originated on October 9, 1969, when the Socialist Party (PS) and the Communist Party (PC) drew up a public document in which all movements that were ideologically close were invited to join a new political bloc of left.

In December of the same year, the UP was formed, being made up of the Socialist Party led by Aniceto Rodríguez, the Communist Party of Luis Corvalán, the Unitary Popular Action Movement (MAPU), the Independent Popular Action (API) led by Rafael Tarud and the Social Democratic Party (PSD) led by Esteban Leyton. In 1971 the Christian Left (IC) and the Radical Left Party (PIR) joined. The coalition presented the presidential candidacy of the socialist senator Salvador Allende, who He was elected on September 4, 1970, and was later ratified by the Plenary Congress. He took office with the firm conviction of putting the postulates of Popular Unity into practice and establishing the country's Chilean path to socialism.

With the military coup of September 1973 and the subsequent death of President Allende, the "Chilean road to socialism" came to an end. After September 1973, the UP functioned in exile, but only as an expression of identity rather nostalgic. Starting in 1979, the political parties that were members of the UP acted individually, all in order to rearticulate the social organization that would soon overcome the dictatorial regime led by General Augusto Pinochet.

History

Foundation

March for Salvador Allende in September 1964.

The UP was formed in October 1969 for the 1970 presidential election, replacing the Popular Action Front. It was made up of the Radical Party, the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario, the Partido de Izquierda Radical and the Acción Popular Independiente, joining the Izquierda Cristiana and the MAPU Obrero y Campesino (mapu split) in 1973. In addition it had the support of the national trade union center, the CUT (Central Única de Trabajadores). The political parties were represented in the Political Commission of the UP. For independent sympathizers, the CUP (Popular Unity Committees) were formed at the neighborhood, farm, public service, and factory levels.

One of the main problems was the appointment of the standard-bearer of the left, although Salvador Allende was the logical candidate (he had three presidential campaigns: 1952, 1958 and 1964), the Socialist Party, led by Aniceto Rodríguez Arenas —leader of the most radical sector after the Chillán Congress of 1967—did not fully support it despite being part of its ranks. The Communist Party had proposed Pablo Neruda, while the Radical Party suggested Alberto Baltra. Other pre-candidates were Rafael Tarud, for the Independent Popular Action, and Jacques Chonchol, representing the Unitary Popular Action Movement. In the end he won Allende's candidacy on January 22, 1970.

The only left-wing party that was excluded from the pact was the Popular Socialist Union (USOPO), a group that broke away from the PS in 1967. The group, led by Raúl Ampuero, decided to indirectly support Allende and collaborate on the social fronts of his government, without holding public office. The USOPO also contributed from parliament with the vote of its only senator (Ramón Silva Ulloa).

At the same time, extreme left-wing paramilitary groups, such as the Vanguardia Organizada del Pueblo (VOP) and the Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (MIR), began a series of armed actions and organized themselves by violent and non-democratic means, for which they they considered it a "struggle" intended to accelerate reforms towards socialism.

Programmatic content of the Allende government

People ' s Unit participants in 1971.

Based on a critique of the management of the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva, the government program of the UP was embodied in the Basic Program of Popular Unity and The first 40 measures of the People's Government. Together with Allende's action, advised by Joan Garcés, these formed the Chilean road to socialism (the revolution with a flavor of red wine and empanadas, in a speech by Allende). This postulated the possibility of an underdeveloped capitalist country making a democratic and non-violent transition to socialism. Said step would facilitate and create the conditions to reach a socialist State, all of the above through the democratic process and through the use of the legality of the Rule of Law, called by the socialists the "bourgeois State".

Without the need for a single party to carry it out, just the coalition of all the democratic forces that were in favor of social and democratic changes. In a way, it was about creating a new hegemonic bloc along the lines of Antonio Gramsci. The Chilean path to socialism differed from the armed path inspired by the triumphant Cuban Revolution (1959), which was advocated by Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s.

The government measures were to raise prices in companies (co-management), end landlordism by accelerating the agrarian reform process, nationalization of banks and companies, nationalization of copper, distribution of half a liter of milk daily to each child. The creation of three property areas (social, mixed and private) that could not be carried out due to the blockade of the opposition in the National Congress.^{[citation required]}

The social reforms promoted by the government generated a large deficit in fiscal resources. In order to continue financing these reforms, the government decided to maintain fiscal spending by excessively printing money. This fiscal over-issuance, among other factors, produced growing inflation that reached 600% in 1973 (officially 342%). According to the World Bank (WB) in its report "Chile an economy in transition" (published in January 1980), average annual inflation was 22% in 1971, 77.8% in 1972, and 188.1% between January and September 1973.^{[citation needed]}

Composition and federated party

The basic program of Popular Unity was signed on December 17, 1969 by the leaders of the founding parties of the coalition:

Party	Cargo	Leader
Communist (PCC)	Secretary-General	Luis Corvalán
Socialist (PS)	Secretary-General	Aniceto Rodríguez Arenas
Radical (PR)	Chairman	Carlos Morales Abarzúa
Social Democrats (PSD)	Secretary-General	Esteban Leyton Soto
Unitarian Popular Action Movement (MAPU)	Secretary-General	Jacques Chonchol
Independent People ' s Action (API)	Chairman	Alfonso David Lebón

During the Allende government, the party structure of the UP was modified. From the Radical Party emerged the Radical Left Party, which was part of the government until 1972, when it moved to the Confederation of Democracy. Splits also appeared in MAPU, such as the Christian Left —a group that received former members of the Christian Democratic Party— and the MAPU Obrero Campesino. On the other hand, the Social Democratic Party was dissolved and the majority of its militants joined the pro-government PR.

Party	Cargo	Leader	Period
Radical Left (PIR)	Chairman	Alberto Baltra	1971-1972
Christian Left (IC)	Secretary-General	Bosco Parra	1971-1981
MAPU Worker Campesino (MAPU OC)	Secretary-General	Jaime Gazmuri	1973-1981

On July 6, 1972, the federated party called "Partido de la Unidad Popular" was created, taking advantage of the ruling of June 6, 1972 of the Elections Qualifying Tribunal that allowed the creation of electoral coalitions (or federated or confederate parties according to the legislation), with which said coalition presented the candidacies for the parliamentary elections of 1973. The federated party was legalized by the Directorate of the Electoral Registry on October 26, 1972.

Some of the leaders of said federation were Adonis Sepúlveda Acuña (PS) —who was its first president in July 1972—, Rafael Agustín Gumucio (IC), Benjamín Teplizky (PR) and Rafael Tarud (API).

The National Executive Committee was made up of 3 representatives from the PS, 3 from the PCCh, 2 from the PR, 1 from MAPU, 1 from the IC and 1 from the API. The Federated Party of Popular Unity held its first and only congress between June 22 and 24, 1973 in Santiago. On the closing day, President Salvador Allende intervened.

Political and economic crisis in the government

The access of the Popular Unity to the government was accompanied and celebrated by murals painted on the streets, either by anonymous artists or special groups such as the Ramona Parra Brigades.

Around 1973, the Popular Unity was confronted by two opposing visions:

• To advance to socialism by the legal way, as proposed by Allende, and whose thesis was supported by the Communist parties, Radical, MAPU Workers and sectors of the Socialist Party.
• Advance in a more radicalized form, a position promoted by the MAPU (leadered by Oscar Guillermo Garretón), plus some sections of the Socialist Party and the MIR, which was outside the coalition.

The monetary expansion and price control policies adopted by the government produced shortages of all kinds of products and hyperinflation, which added to a climate of growing political effervescence ended in a coup that took place on September 11 from 1973.

To this was added the economic boycott promoted by the opposition to destabilize the government and the US action to make the Chilean economy scream, in the words of Richard Nixon himself.

I don't see why we have to stay here and see how a country becomes communist because of the irresponsibility of its own people.

Henry Kissinger (June 27, 1970)

This resulted in an economic embargo, with the United States cutting credit lines, blocking Chilean bank accounts in the US, and putting pressure on financial institutions not to invest in Chile, in retaliation for the nationalization of copper. According to the French academic Christian Delois as a result of pressure from the United States, of the 270 million dollars destined for Chile in 1972, it only received 32.

Regarding the internal opposition, they express that it was due to the fact that soon after, the Christian Democratic Party formed the conviction that a plan was being followed that would ultimately destroy the Chilean economy in its foundations. These same concepts had been expressed by Eduardo Frei Montalva in the letter to Mariano Rumor, president of the World Union of Christian Democracy, in November 1973.

After the coup

Decree Law No. 77 of October 8, 1973 outlawed the parties that make up the Popular Unity, while the federated party was prohibited by Decree Law No. 78 of November 26, 1973. coup d'état of 1973, the Political Committee of the UP continued to exist abroad, but in a symbolic way since each party pursues its own strategy to oppose the dictatorship, although there was an Official Executive Secretariat in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).), headed by Clodomiro Almeyda. In 1979 it entered into a clear crisis due to the splitting of the PS, to disappear definitively in 1981.

When the military dictatorship imposed after the coup ended, the parties and movements that make up the UP took different paths. Socialists, radicals, MAPU factions, and the Christian Left formed the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, allying with the Christian Democratic Party—a former opponent of Allende—and other center-left movements. On the other hand, the PCCh made political-electoral pacts with social organizations and other left-wing political parties such as the Humanist Party and the Christian Left, generating coalitions such as the Movimiento de Izquierda Democrática Allendista (1991-1993) and Juntos Podemos Más (2003). -2011). A large part of these communities met again decades later with the formation of the Nueva Mayoría in 2013.

In retrospect, it is possible to make the balance that various political sectors of the UP failed to understand the strategy of the Chilean road to socialism. This touched on an essential issue, which was the importance of the democratic system and its validity as a field of political action. Aspect that was criticized in sectors of the left. As well as a lack of discipline on the part of the PS, the president's party, in the face of government measures.

Ideology

All the political groups that are members of the Popular Unity agreed on an analysis of the reality of the country. At the time of its formation, they released to public opinion a document called Basic Government Program of the Popular Unity and in it they stated the following:

"Chile is experiencing a profound crisis that manifests itself in the economic and social stagnation, in the widespread poverty and in the deferrals of every order suffered by workers, peasants and other exploited layers, as well as in the growing difficulties faced by employees, professionals, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs and in the minimal opportunities available to women and youth".

In the aforementioned document, the Popular Unity also strongly criticized the work of the previous government, pointing out that “in Chile the 'reformist' and 'developmentalist' recipes promoted by the Alliance for Progress and endorsed by the government of Frei have not been able to alternate anything important".. In a more political orientation, the Popular Unity proposal aspired to maintain and deepen the rights and achievements of workers; transform the institutions and the state apparatus, so that the workers and the people could really exercise power. They advocated a structural reform, which would completely change the prevailing political system in Chile, advocating for a new institutionality, which was "really inclusive with the popular masses", all this through the change of the Political Constitution.

The political organization that was proposed at that time to achieve the democratization of the country, was based on a very particular organization of the State, giving way to a new structure at the national, regional and local level, where the preponderant organisms would be the « Assembly of the People". This Assembly thus became the superior entity of power, and would express popular sovereignty, since in it "the various currents of opinion would come together and manifest themselves”. Regarding the economy, the UP sought to reform the existing economic structure at that time, definitively break with the power of foreign capital and large estates, and move towards the Chilean road to socialism.

Regarding this item, in their political program they stated that:

"What has failed in Chile is a system that does not correspond to the needs of our time. Chile is a capitalist country, dependent on imperialism, dominated by sectors of the bourgeoisie structurally linked to foreign capital, which cannot solve the fundamental problems of the country, which derive precisely from its class privileges to which they will never voluntarily renounce.".

To promote the change that they implied in these matters, a "national system of economic planning" would be implemented, together with the existence of control mechanisms, credit for production, technical and political assistance, in addition to the participation of the state sector In the economy. With all this, they sought to solve the immediate problems that the popular and worker sectors of the country were going through, guarantee employment and ensure sustained economic growth. The programmatic axes expressed by the Popular Unity raised a profound structural change in Chilean society, both economically and socially, as well as politically. Likewise, he wanted to materialize a structural change at the cultural level, redefining the dignity of the human being as a worker, placing him at the center of the development process, guiding "human work as the highest value”, rooting in the collective imagination the desire for affirmation and independence, generating a critical vision of reality.

Anthem

The song "Venceremos", with lyrics by Claudio Iturra and music by Sergio Ortega, was the anthem of the Popular Unity.

Election results

1970 Presidential Election

Candidate			Party		Coalition Political support	Votes	%
		Salvador Allende Gossens		PS	Popular Unity	1 070 334	36,62 %
		Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez		IND	PN-DR	1 031 159	35.27 %
		Radomiro Tomic Romero		PDC	PDC-PADENA	821 801	28.11 %
Total valid votes						2 923 294	98.93%
White and null votes						31 505	1.07%
Total votes cast						2 954 799	100%
Total registered						3 539 747	Abstaining: 16.53%

Municipal elections of 1971

1973 parliamentary elections

Party	Votes	Percentage	Deputies (150 in total)
Socialist Party	678 796	18.70%	28
Communist Party	593 738	16.36%	25
Radical Party	133 745	3.69%	5
Unitarian Popular Action Movement	92 592	2.55%	2
Christian Left	41 589	1.15%	1
Independent People ' s Action	29 972	0.83%	2
Votes list Popular Unity	34 738	0.96%
Total UP	1 605 170	44.23%	63

Symbols

• 

  Emblema used in the 1970 presidential election. The central symbol represents an acronym of the phrase "Vote por Allende" (V-X-A).

• 

  Emblem used in the votes of the 1973 parliamentary elections.

• 

  Alternative assembly used in the 1973 parliamentary elections.