Allende's form of socialism was distinct from the centrally planned soviet style economy, focusing on responding to problems and creating high level economic goals, but otherwise focusing on a self organizing, bottom up, worker led economy extremely distinct from the Soviet system.
This idea started actually working, and the United States fearing, in the CIA's own words, "a successful socialist experiment" tried everything they could to remove Allende and push the country away from socialism. They even looked at the idea of invading the country, but couldn't because of the public opinion of how poorly Vietnam was going. The most successful intervention was, in the United States government's own words again, "making the economy scream". However despite this Allende still kept being elected clearly in elections that no one has disputed the validity of.
So enough being enough, the US government backed one of the most brutal dictators ever, Pinochet, to illegitimately take over the government, killing Allende in cold blood and beginning a reign of terror. Theyd do stuff like rape your wife and children to death in front of you, so that when they took you out to sea on a "helicopter ride" to dump you at sea still alive, you welcomed death. We as the United States trained his staff in torture in the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, and provided an immense amount of funding. Over 10,000 people were killed.
To rebuild the economy after the intervention, they brought in the Chicago Boys, a set of Chicago school economists, to "unleash the economy" from the socialist practices of Allende, but it didn't really work. Chile's growth trailed the rest of South America's until those practices were rolled back.
And even now the scars of all this still exist in Chile, with the massive protests that have been going on for over a year focusing on demands to replace the terrible Pinochet era constitution, and state security forces openly killing protestors.
people unfamiliar with the story might find it interesting that the exact manner of his death is somewhat disputed. obviously he wouldn't have died then if it weren't for the coup, so it's not like what you wrote is really a stretch.
http://archive.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/05/31/c...
[1] https://obtienearchivo.bcn.cl/obtienearchivo?id=documentos/1...
They also sent a letter to the armed forces so they enforce the constitution.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta...
Also, going to throw out there that the ones screaming about how unconstitutional Allende's actions simply wholesale replaced the constitution as Pinochet took power.
Allende believed in an armed revolution and his house had a large stash of Soviet-made weapons. He destabilized the country because he wanted his revolution at any cost.
And there was a revolution, just of another flavor that he didn't like.
And yes, while I'm sure you prefer the events as they occurred, I take a different approach of preferring democracy and peaceful transitions of power rather than the aristocracy killing presidents they don't agree with.
Mitrokhin worked 30 years for the KGB and defected to the UK in 1992, bringing a collection of notes now known as the Mitrokhin archive. These notes contain the facts I am mentioning.
Some of the funds sent to Allende were raised by KGB director Yuri Andropov himself, the guy that then went to become the 6th paramount leader of the Soviet Union.
After Allende was overthrown, the Soviet Union refused to play Chile in the 1974 FIFA World Cup for political reasons.
The KGB directly supported Allende, and Allende directly received help from them. It's well documented.
And them refusing to play Pinochet's government says more that they don't like a brutal fascist (surprise surprise) than any support for Allende.
And in 1970 Chile you could do a lot with today's equivalent of $3,000,000.
And everything else you said is pretty much pretentious nonsense.
If you want to join a personality cult, at least follow someone worth following not a failed alcoholic communist sponsored by the KGB.
I bet Allende met Stafford Beer by accident while looking for beer.
While the School of the Americas would eventually move to Fort Benning, it was in Panama (in the US controlled canal zone) when this was happening. I don't think it was moved to Columbus until some time in the mid-1980s, about a decade after Pinochet's rise to power.
Not because Pinochet was not brutal, of course he was... he killed 3,000 people in brutal ways for 17 years. Sure... But add 2 zeroes to that death count and multiply the regime length by 3 and you get Fidel Castro.
The Chilean armed forces (navy, army, air force, police) intervened when they saw an imminent civil war, combined with a likely Argentinean invasion.
That would be effectively the end of Chile.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_conflict
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Soberanía
And Allende's regime was very far from suceeding. He had inspiring speeches but in practice he was a failure as a leader. Allende was a demagogue on the KGB's payroll with drinking issues, his administration was undistinguishable from anarchy.
And the Chilean military would have been part of that civil war. "There would have been a civil war because we would have attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government and they would have fought back, so we took american money and 'advisors' to move so quickly that there was no chance of the legitimate government fighting back" doesn't really hold moral water with me.
Also, the Beagle Conflict was five years into Pinochet's reign so not really sure how that's a reason to overthrow Allende.
> Allende was a demagogue on the KGB's payroll with drinking issues
The KGB hated the shit out of Allende. Their bottom up socialism stood to be an alternative that would have taken away the KGB's legitimacy even with die hard communists at the time.
Most of the South American dictators from Operation Condor were more brutal than Pinochet, and many of them stole everything they could and left nothing behind.
And the Cuban and Venezuelan dictorships are far more dehumanizing and brutal and Pinochet's regime. Also, Castro's regime started decades before Pinochet and is still there.
Pinochet stole money but left behind a working economy, that was a substantial improvement over what came before.
Allende was trying to consolidate power and eventually turn Chile into a 1 party communist system, through a communist revolution.
Pinochet had a 44% approval rate towards the end of this dictatorship in 1988. Although many people was unaware of the extent of the regime attrocities at that time.
There were extremists/terrorist groups in Chile, such as MIR and FPMR. Some of the Pinochet victims were inocent, others were not.
If Chile had a civil war, that would have accelerated Argentina's invasion plan.
In addition to that, Bolivia has manifested territorial ambitions over their former territories, something that is even in their constitution.
A civil war followed by an invasion by at least 2 countries, or a Cuba/Chile/Soviet union alliance were all excellent reasons to remove Allende. He failed, his ideas were bad, his execution was bad. Beautiful speeches, but a failure nevertheless.
Next time some Mr. Che Guevara t-shirt guy tries to sell you the Communist miracle, go to Cuba and see how they live there, and tell me if you would like to raise your kids in a place like that. Or go to Venezuela, another "miracle". Technically they have equality because most people (except for the regime and party members of course) are equally poor.
Fidel was such as charismatic leader he would only eat food from his own personal garden out of fear of being poisoned, he also lived a life of excess and lived in an oppulent mansion unlike most Cubans.
Following those defintions, the Beagle Conflict goes all the way back to the 1880s. Still failing to see how this is something to remove the legitimate government over and install a brutal dictator.
> If Chile had a civil war, that would have accelerated Argentina's invasion plan.
So, alternative plan, don't have a coup _or_ a civil war. Respect the democratically elected government rather than killing the president in his office.
As illustrated in a quote from one of your favorite comrades:
"Every society is three meals away from chaos", Vladimir Lenin
These people would rather destroy their own economy than give the socialists a fair chance, then use that destruction as "see that's why we need to kill the president".
Now, imagine you hypothetically decide to call yourself exactly that. And then, run for president of a country and manage to get elected.
What do you think will happen to you if you do that? It does not take much IQ to figure out that is certainly going to end really bad for you.
It is a really stupid idea, and that is what Allende did, and he suffered the consequences.
Because that is how things work in the real world.
This comment assumes that in the past, governments around the world always made decisions to placate the U.S., as if whether the U.S. approval or disapproval is required for nation-building. While this may have been true for some countries that considered the U.S. response, it wasn’t widely known that if you made an earnest attempt at “new” social organisation, you’d be killed and replaced by a newly minted, U.S. approved fascist.
>Because that is how things work in the real world
It may look like that’s how things work; i.e. make the U.S. mad and suffer the consequences. But in 1970 there were multiple conversations about how to build a country, and by 1973 there was one less. I personally prefer a reality in which there are multiple methods for governing people, instead of this one-size-fits-all approach that, in 2020, appears to be ill suited for solving modern problems.
If you oppose the international community and their leaders, they will oppose you in different ways.
They will sanction, boycott, sabotage, denounce, impoverish and indebt your country... and if none of that works they will invade you. That's the way it has always been.
A "fun" excerpt from the School of the Americas training manual: https://twitter.com/LLinecook/status/1314164836427857921
It resulted in a large, cascading failure, with scarcity and shortages everywhere. So as a last resort they created this solution, which seemed better than the previous approach: manage the economy via government appointed people, usually union leaders and friends.
Cybersyn was dismantled after the government was replaced through a coup.