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Chile's Allende Life and Revolutionary Legacy
At 9.15 a.m. on September 11, 1973, minutes before US-backed military jets bombed the Presidential Palace, the President of Chile, Salvador Allende, took to the radio and addressed his fellow citizens.
“I will always be with you. At least the memory of me will be of a dignified man who was loyal to the fatherland. I have faith in Chile and in its destiny. Other men will overcome this grey and bitter moment when treachery tries to impose itself. Viva Chile! Viva the People! Long live the workers!”
Salvador Allende’s last words to the Chilean people were probably the greatest words of farewell ever uttered by a political leader, and they had an immense impact on people around the world.
Yet there is much more to the life of Salvador Allende than the last seven hours or even the last three years of his life. These years were the culmination of his political ambitions and the triumph of his political methods, but they were also the last stage in a long process of struggle and organisation that had its roots at the beginning of the twentieth century, around the time Allende was born.
Allende’s death and the overthrow of his government are often told as a dramatic tragedy, but Allende’s significance for Chile and the wider world also lies within the story of his life, intertwined with the history of the popular movement he led. Victor Figueroa Clark’s magnificent biography tells that grand story.
“I will always be with you. At least the memory of me will be of a dignified man who was loyal to the fatherland. I have faith in Chile and in its destiny. Other men will overcome this grey and bitter moment when treachery tries to impose itself. Viva Chile! Viva the People! Long live the workers!”
Salvador Allende’s last words to the Chilean people were probably the greatest words of farewell ever uttered by a political leader, and they had an immense impact on people around the world.
Yet there is much more to the life of Salvador Allende than the last seven hours or even the last three years of his life. These years were the culmination of his political ambitions and the triumph of his political methods, but they were also the last stage in a long process of struggle and organisation that had its roots at the beginning of the twentieth century, around the time Allende was born.
Allende’s death and the overthrow of his government are often told as a dramatic tragedy, but Allende’s significance for Chile and the wider world also lies within the story of his life, intertwined with the history of the popular movement he led. Victor Figueroa Clark’s magnificent biography tells that grand story.
- GenresHistory
322 pages
Published January 1, 2023
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About the author
Victor Figueroa Clark
4 books5 followersVictor Figueroa Clark has a background in economics, politics, and history. His PhD research focused on the Chilean left after the 1973 coup, examining the way that the parties of the left developed ideologically, and how their relationships in Europe, in Cuba and elsewhere contributed to the participation of many Chileans in revolutionary processes in Central America. It is a transnational approach to history, and a transnational approach to Latin America.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 23, 2024
A really great read that follows Allendes life and with it the development of the left in Chile. It was really interesting to see the different perspectives of the various left wing groups as time passes and their responses to different dilemmas. Allende was an absolute titan of his day and his, and the movement he was able to cohere, experience has a lot of lessons for the left today. The breadth of the coalition, the use of violence, the attitude towards the current state and its legitimacy are all pondered by the various groups.
I was also very surprised to learn about the contested versions of his death, I had long believed that he fought valiantly and then committed suicide once out of ammunition. It seems that possibly he was directly killed/gravely wounded in defending the palace.
Inspirational story and makes me wish for such cooperation and seriousness in the UK left.
I was also very surprised to learn about the contested versions of his death, I had long believed that he fought valiantly and then committed suicide once out of ammunition. It seems that possibly he was directly killed/gravely wounded in defending the palace.
Inspirational story and makes me wish for such cooperation and seriousness in the UK left.
May 29, 2024
A thorough, thoughtful, sympathetic, sophisticated and essential analysis of Allendismo - the political principles and practice of Salvador Allende, which culminated in three years of socialist-oriented Unidad Popular government in Chile (1970-73) and the brutal CIA-backed military coup that brought Allende's political project - and life - to an end.
What went wrong is the question people have always asked. There are many answers to the question, some of them fairly credible, some of them less so. Victor gives an overview of each of the most prominent theories, and concludes that each has its merits but that ultimately Allende's insistence on constitutionalism, and his strategy of pursuing unity with the centrist Christian Democrats in order to build a broad majority in favour of the socialist path, was correct, and was undermined from both the left and the right. I'm not completely convinced, and I'd like to see a more detailed engagement with Marxist theory on the state, along with an assessment of how the Venezuelan revolutionary process has been able to survive where the Chilean revolutionary process didn't.
But overall this is an excellent book that deserves to be widely read and studied.
What went wrong is the question people have always asked. There are many answers to the question, some of them fairly credible, some of them less so. Victor gives an overview of each of the most prominent theories, and concludes that each has its merits but that ultimately Allende's insistence on constitutionalism, and his strategy of pursuing unity with the centrist Christian Democrats in order to build a broad majority in favour of the socialist path, was correct, and was undermined from both the left and the right. I'm not completely convinced, and I'd like to see a more detailed engagement with Marxist theory on the state, along with an assessment of how the Venezuelan revolutionary process has been able to survive where the Chilean revolutionary process didn't.
But overall this is an excellent book that deserves to be widely read and studied.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews