Allende vs. Pinochet revisited

[Rhye]

don't you all even bother answering and trying to convince rmsharpe. He's just a fascist fundamentalist and will never admit the dark side of the USA.

 

[Xanikk999]

don't you all even bother answering and trying to convince rmsharpe. He's just a fascist fundamentalist and will never admit the dark side of the USA.

Hes not a fascist hes just being foolish and stubborn to the facts.

 

[Tomas2005]

That is false. “Peaceful coexistence” (not “pacific coexistence”) was the official policy (proclaimed so by Brezhnev in 1973, but started after Khrushchev’s fall) of the USSR regarding the west.

Well but what exactly is false then? If the policy started after Khrushchev fell in 1964, SP could easily stand up against it in 1967.

In the phrase you quote the rejection of this principle does not seem to necessarily refer to any kind of violence.

But then please can you specify what kind of non-violent behaviour can be non-peaceful, yet striking at all costs [as the other sentence declares]?

Still, I have yet to see a shred of evidence that Salvador Allende’s government violated any human rights.

Luckily they hadn't much chances. And I'd like to know if letting Chile turn into second Cuba would be a suitable option in your opinion.
Anyway, breaking the Constitution [GAP units] or expropriation [and I don't necessarilly mean big int'l companies] doesn't sound very democratic to me.

An excerpt from a thesis presented to a congress of the Chilean socialist party means very little.

Not really if you are able to see what such "only thesis" caused elsewhere when brought to life...

As to the first, think a little: how could a party that governed a country for years and allegedly planned a civil war be so easily overthrown by a rebellion of its own military?

Is that a necessary contradiction?

Moreover, how could such a ruthless (“planned a civil war to kill 10.000 people!”) and bellicose party be totally subdued within a few hours, and kept subdued for two decades by killing only some 3,197 of its alleged militants?

Well how could have any groovy communist regime fall day to day in 1989 in Eastern Europe, and kept subdued since then almost everywhere?
Don't forget people were also arrested under Pinochet, and that many "civil people" behave according to what is more safe for them. I read an info about 800.000 pro-Allende demonstration in 1973.

What I gather from this thread is that Pinochet’s apologists are fond of cherry-picking the most inflammatory declarations

You are welcome to bring one non inflammatory to prove your case. I'm curious, as Marxists are always inflammatory IMO, therefore I wouldn't call it cherry-picking.

by a few members of the chilean socialist party

Well if this was discussed on SP congresses, it surely had some higher importance than what a "usual" citizen thinks.

made during years of heated political debate

Marxists were for revolution every year since they started, so heated debate is only a cheap excuse.

in a vain hope to somehow justify general Pinochet’s treachery against his own state, in 1973.

Maybe they prefer treachery against an anti-democrat than "legal" communism.

Think! If the Chilean socialist party was indeed planning a civil war, why were no military tightly under its control (quite the opposite)?

Maybe because they gained only little authority? Again, I see no contradiction in planning a civil war and having military not completely on one's side. Don't forget the document talks about recognizing a principle of armed welfare. Every single true Marxist wants a revolution - has he army or not. Still, if a party with such principles rules a state (and starts to take usual Marxist policy steps), it can hardly be overskipped with talks about how democratically it was elected.

 

[innonimatu]

Well but what exactly is false then?

That the opposite of the soviet doctrine of “peaceful coexistence” was necessarily violence. As I have already explained (and now realize I didn’t write that explanation very well) that doctrine established that neither the USSR nor the US should promote any kind of “regime change” inside each other’s zones of influence. Like in the US not helping the democracy-leaning Hungarian government, and the USSR not helping communism-leaning governments in America (except Cuba, and commitment there came from Khrushchev’s time). The USSR actually actively discouraged communist parties from making any king of grab for power in certain countries.

But then please can you specify what kind of non-violent behaviour can be non-peaceful, yet striking at all costs [as the other sentence declares]?

Of course. Go to the ballots, form a government, govern well and show that a socialist model works. Eventually gain enough votes to legally change the constitution. Or not, simply set and example and hope people will be pleased and keep to that socialist model, while maintaining full liberal democracy.
If Allende managed to pull something like that out in Chile, you can be certain that US influence in Latin America would be struck down to nothing. Of course, independently of how good (or bad) his policies might be, he had no chance of doing this against the US without soviet backing, as the US would undermine all his policies, and if necessary simply have him overthrown and/or murdered. As history has shown.

Luckily they hadn't much chances. And I'd like to know if letting Chile turn into second Cuba would be a suitable option in your opinion.
Anyway, breaking the Constitution [GAP units] or expropriation [and I don't necessarilly mean big int'l companies] doesn't sound very democratic to me.

Allow me to disagree, unluckily. Chile could never be a second Cuba, Allende’s legitimacy was democratic, not “revolutionary” as in Cuba. I absolutely do not share your opinion of where his government led, and would like to have known (seen) what would have happened without Pinochet’s coup. That way (and only that way) we could now be sure as to the results of his policies.

Well how could have any groovy communist regime fall day to day in 1989 in Eastern Europe, and kept subdued since then almost everywhere?

That is a very interesting question. I believe those regimes not only collapsed from within, but were actively brought down by the “nomenklatura” that ruled them, whey they realized that: a) their supporting ideology had wasted away; b) they could get more power/wealth by changing the regime. Yeltsin and his oligarch friends, in Russia, and many CP members in Central Europe, became very wealthy in the nineties.

You are welcome to bring one non inflammatory to prove your case. I'm curious, as Marxists are always inflammatory IMO, therefore I wouldn't call it cherry-picking.

I could but I won’t bother to. If you can’t find them yourself (and you are the one quoting from old documents) you are willingly blind, and I can’t change your opinion.

Maybe they prefer treachery against an anti-democrat than "legal" communism.

It strikes me as more than a little odd that you seek to make of Pinochet’s coup some kind of “treachery justified in the name of democracy”, when his first acts were to disband all democratic institutions and murder the elected president.
Much like the program of Venezuela’s “democrats” in their failed coup a few years ago. Good thing that Allendes’s downfall at least taught something to other people, and the coup failed.

Liberal democracy either is fully respected or ceases to exist. Pinochet, not Allende, overthrew Chile’s democracy. Democracy is the rule of a majority, usually through some mechanism of universal suffrage. Liberal democracy is democracy tempered with a constitution, separation of powers, guarantees of personal freedoms, and the rule of law (the last being the linchpin of it all). Accusations that Allende attacked any of this (specifically, refused to enforce a number of laws) were in 1973 thrown by his opponents. There he probably made a mistake, but the situation in Chile was complex, and before I criticize his refusal to enforce a few laws I would like to discuss what laws, specifically, and his motives… Still, he did not breached the constitution.

Can you produce any proof whatsoever that, had Pinochet’s coup not happened, the next scheduled elections would not have occurred?
(Thanks to the coup, they certainly didn’t!)

Maybe because they gained only little authority? Again, I see no contradiction in planning a civil war and having military not completely on one's side.

“Not completely”!? Not at all! In the end, not even the police, such was the belief that Allende was marked for death, and the cowardice of the chilean military and police.
If you can see no contradiction in that, then I’m afraid you suffer from a hopeless condition of self-induced blindness to facts and basic logic.