Recently, I have been reading more about the Chilean coup.
Where do you think Allende made his error that resulted in his downfall?
If you were in his position (having been elected as a socialist and successfully taken power, while in the shadow of the United States and having a military hostile to you), what would you have done differently?
he should have done what Fidel told him to do and purge the military from its fascists elements and replace them with loyalists
Ya Fidel also told him to arm the workers, when Fidel fucking Castro gives you advice about maintaining power against imperialist reaction you should probably listen :fidel-balling:
I would've been far more violent. He tried to do things the "fair" way, but the problem is, empire doesn't play "fair." The only way to secure yourself against imperialism is to use force, because imperialism will use force regardless of your approach.
Tldr, crush any semblance of a fascist movement ASAP, aggressively root out foreign actors/interests
He tried to do things the “fair” way
Allowing fascists and counter-revolutionaries to fester is not fair, it's idealistic and tragic.
From what little I understand of the Chile 1970 election's events, "fair" would have been using that Chilean General getting killed in a failed kidnapping by another General for refusing to step in to stop Allende as justification for completely removing all dissidents from commanding ranks of the military and installing his own brass. Like, you have guys in your military that were willing to kidnap and kill generals that weren't even sympathetic to you, but merely refused to interfere with the political process on principle of respecting the Chilean constitution. Giant fucking red flag klaxon alarm screaming "THESE PEOPLE WILL DEPOSE YOU, GET RID OF THEM".
If I was Salvador Allende I would have simply been Fidel Castro instead and survived all of the CIA's attempted assassinations and coups
Man this is a really complicated topic, and makes me so sad every time I think about it. I think you have to dig further than just the military for the answer. Yes, he should have purged the military, but they doesn’t necessarily solve the problem of the Supreme Court and legislature. The coup was planned to preempt him announcing a referendum. Idk...
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Violently purge the military on day 1 the moment power is handed to you. Full purge. Replace with a people's army that is loyal to the revolution.
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Execute all the wealthy land owners and their families in the middle of the night before they can escape. Divide their wealth amongst the people immediately.
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I'm not too familiar with the history of Allende's Chile but... how do you go about purging an army?
Not sure it would work. Remember that Allende thought Pinochet would support him if a coup happened.
As I understand it, the USSR recognised he wasn't taking the "authoritarian" steps necessary to ensure his project survived. They knew what was coming and didn't want to get bogged down supporting a failed project.
Both the USSR and Cuba warned Allende and he didn't listen. The guy was too idealistic, real Corbyn hours.
If he had been more ‘authoritarian’ and secured his power wouldn’t that have just given his enemies including America the precedent and justification to take more drastic action against him earlier? It seems like he just didn’t have enough support either way.
America murdered him anyway. Securing power would have given him and people of Chile the best chance. If you act like a "mad dog", then the imperial core hesitates. See: the DPRK.
Im late to this askchapo but I can tell you that a key factor to consider is that Allende barely got elected, with only 36% of the popular vote and he ruled under the threat of impeachement since day 1. Anything remotely close to a purge would have him ousted by congress in a second
Also, while in hindsight it was obvious that there would be a coup, at the time there was spme perception that “Chile is a democratic country, that kind pf thing doesnt happen here”, so for most of his goverment his main enemies were rival politicians and especially big businesses tht would conduct tactical strikes to disrupt the supply of goods (Chile was suffrering one of its worst economic crisis in modern history right before the coup)Touching the military a little too much would make every powerful person destroy him through the economy or through the goverment.
