Salvador Allende ( Santiago, Chile , June 26 , 1908 – Santiago, Chile, September 11 , 1973 ) was a Chilean socialist politician, president of Chile between 1970 and 1973 when Augusto Pinochet —in complicity with the United States— carried out a military coup against his government due to his ideas of social changes in favor of the Chilean population. He is one of the most important personalities in the history of Chile.
Biographical summary
Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens was born on June 26, 1908 at 1:30 a.m. at Avenida España No. 615, Santiago, as shown by the certificate signed by his own father who registered him in District No. 2 of the Civil Registry of Santiago, on July 17 of that same year, it appears on page 278, with the number 1754. His childhood years coincided with the incubation of deep economic and social problems, a framework under which he grew up and studied. After learning of her father’s birth in Santiago, Isabel Allende stated that her father always felt like a porteño by heart. It is indisputable that Salvador felt that port from which his ancestors came as his own. This is how he himself stated: “I am a porteño and I am the first President from the port.”
Allende’s birthplace, located on the west side of Avenida España, was later demolished to make way for an apartment building that covers a large section of the block.
The son of an itinerant civil servant, he had previously lived with his parents from the age of three in Tacna, the Peruvian city occupied by Chile , and then in Iquique, in Santiago for seven months as a student at the Instituto Nacional at the age of eleven, and later in Valdivia. Finally, his father took up a position as a notary in Valparaíso and the adolescent Salvador joined the Liceo de Hombres, the future Eduardo de la Barra high school.
In 1918 his father decided to send him to Santiago , to the National Institute. Years later, while in his fourth year of humanities, the young Salvador Allende heard about an event destined to transform the world: the October Revolution . The event raised profound questions and it was a master cabinetmaker, belonging to the culture of the anarchists, called Juan Demarchi , who would introduce him to the problems of the social question.
After military service he entered the university, where he soon became a leader. He assumed the presidency of the Center of Medical Students and the vice-presidency of the FECH , a situation that coincided with a conflictive historical picture, characterized by the end of a golden phase, based on the benefits of the saltpeter surplus and by an acute conflict in all areas of society, a tense and turbulent period that culminated with the irruption of the military and the subsequent dictatorship of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo ( 1927 – 1931 ).
After studying medicine in Santiago, Allende returned to Valparaíso, where he began his career as a doctor, entered politics and was soon elected deputy for the area by the Socialist Party.
Political activity
Early years
At the beginning of the 1930s, after successive popular demonstrations that shook the country, the regime fell. Allende fully assumed his responsibilities as a student leader and shortly after actively supported the Socialist Republic ( 1932 ), an attitude that cost him appearance before three courts martial. Under these circumstances and while under arrest, he was informed of the imminent death of his father. Immediately afterward, making use of a two-hour permit, he would go to the dying man just to say goodbye.
During this phase, the young leader’s thinking acquired guiding matrices and conceptual and theoretical definitions. In his first stage of social awareness, reasoning from the Marxist theory of knowledge, a product of university gatherings and his membership in the Avance group , was intertwined with aspects of anarchist ideology due to the influence and enchantment of the fascinating cabinetmaker J. Demarchi.
In 1929 , adopting the family tradition, he entered Freemasonry .
During this period, his merit lay in the struggle for the imposition of the democratic system that managed to last between 1933 and 1973 , with the exception of the excesses of the government of Arturo Alessandri Palma and Gabriel González Videla . It was during this youthful stage that his talents as a leader and conductor of the socialist ideology emerged.
One of the most significant expressions pronounced by Allende, after the triumph of the Popular Unity , was:
“I cannot and will never forget that everything I have been and everything I am I owe to my party”
The political organization provided him with analytical parameters and theoretical paradigms that accompanied him throughout his life. The bond established was so solid that only death could break the relationship between Allende – the person and Allende – the militant. From militant he soon became the head of the nucleus, and then assumed the position of secretary of social studies and the regional direction of his party. From that position and linked by family to Marmaduke Grove , he supported the experience of the Socialist Republic (1932), a feverish political activity that did not go unnoticed because he soon became the target of the wrath of the dominant sectors, who described him as a dangerous agitator. He was arrested and then relegated to Caldera , in the midst of the repressive overflow unleashed by Arturo Alessandri . He was then 27 years old.
Alliance of the Left
A year later, back in port, he contributed to the formation of an alliance of profound historical content for the popular cause and the development of the nation, such as the Left Bloc , the immediate antecedent of the Popular Front , a historical-political episode that contributed to his access to the Chamber of Deputies in 1937 .
The formation of the Left Bloc in Valparaíso preceded the Popular Front, an alliance of significant consequences in which Salvador Allende had a prominent participation as Minister of Health ( 1939 ), representing a party of which he had become deputy general secretary. Among his many activities and responsibilities, his participation in the founding of the Socialist Militias stands out .
The ministerial rank was assumed in a particular situation. President Pedro Aguirre Cerda , incorporated him into the cabinet with the aim of strengthening positions against an attempted coup d’état perpetrated by General Ariosto Herrera , although behind the scenes Carlos Ibáñez del Campo , the former dictator, was hiding .
Days before , the Second World War ( 1939-1945 ) had broken out . In Chile, the repercussions were not long in coming, but the government maintained a benevolent neutrality in favour of the axis. The left demanded the breaking off of diplomatic relations with the fascist Nazi axis, a demand delayed by the death of President Aguirre Cerda, who was succeeded by Juan Antonio Ríos . The Minister of Health resigned due to disagreements in the conduct of national and international policy.
In 1940 he married Hortensia Bussi , a young professor of History and Geography, whom he had met on January 25 , 1939 under the unfortunate circumstances of the Chillán earthquake .
A couple of years later ( 1943 ) he assumed the position of General Secretary of the Socialist Party , and was later elected senator ( 1945 ) for the former 9th constituency of Valdivia , Osorno , Llanquihue , Chiloé , Aysén and Magallanes .
Regardless of their fate, the Popular Front governments had a significant impact on the history of Chile, by modernizing the structures of the State, developing economic infrastructure and accelerating changes in the political system. The characteristic of this phase is the progressive normality and normative political-institutional functioning of the State apparatus, which flourished from 1958 onwards . The historical and political foundation of Allende’s political strategy was the deepening of democracy, the strengthening of development and a new model of social democracy supported by the State.
From FRAP to UP
In 1951 , the Mussolini of the New World , as Carlos Ibáñez del Campo liked to call himself, presented his presidential candidacy, supported by a democratic sector. Faced with this situation, Salvador Allende, together with communists, doctrinal radicals and the socialist left, founded the Frente del Pueblo, an alliance described as a consciousness in motion .
The 52 thousand votes obtained by Allende in the presidential elections of 1952 inaugurated a period that 17 years later culminated in the Unidad Popular. But the central point of these events lies in the appearance of a project that contained a program and a conception of society. Participation in the electoral contest was not a mere symbolism, because new social forces were beginning to take position at the center of the historical scene, which burst into the political system through an expanded mass electorate ( 1958 ), a framework in which the political-institutional strategy was configured.
Salvador Allende, at this juncture, ended up becoming the centre of any alliance, projecting his figure above the left. He was already the natural leader of the dispossessed and a respected leader when he was re-elected senator for Tarapacá and Antofagasta in 1953 .
Three years later, the Frente del Pueblo gave way to a broader alliance, with the incorporation of new social and political groups into the conglomerate. The appearance of the FRAP also coincided with the unification of the working class around the CUT ( 1953 ), the re-entry of the FECH and a new level of development of the organized peasantry, while civil society experienced the expansion of the right to vote and the solidification of the political system, a course further strengthened by the unification of the Socialist Party (PS) ( 1957 ) and the disagreements of the 10th Congress of the PS (1956). All these events materialized in the extraordinary vote obtained by his presidential candidacy in 1958 , when he was defeated by J. Alessandri by a narrow margin of votes.
In 1961 he was again elected senator of the Republic, this time for his native Valparaíso. A couple of years later, the National Assembly of the People proclaimed him standard-bearer of the popular aspirations, assuming for the third time the responsibility of the presidential candidacy. On this occasion ( 1964 ), he faced Eduardo Frei , historical leader of the Christian Democrats . The campaign quickly gained strength, until in March 1964, a few months before the presidential election, in a by-election for Curicó , the FRAP, against all expectations, achieved a triumph with the election of Dr. Oscar Naranjo . The right, deeply alarmed, chose to give its votes to Eduardo Frei, considering him as a lesser evil .
At the beginning of the seventies, a phenomenon of grave consequences arose in Latin America : the triumph of the Cuban revolution , of which Allende was a staunch supporter and defender. This marked the beginning of a particularly turbulent period, characterized by the intensification of international conflicts, especially in the Third World , an influence to which a large part of the Latin American and Chilean left paid tribute, subscribing to the thesis of the armed path and a direct assault on the political power of the State.
Between 1966 and 1969 , Allende would hold the position of president of the senate, being reelected in the latter year by the constituencies of Chiloé , Aysén and Magallanes.
He played a prominent role in the field of international politics by participating in the Tricontinental Conference and, later, in the founding of OLAS ( Latin American Solidarity Organization ), an episode that, together with his support for Ernesto Che Guevara ‘s guerrilla , put him at the center of right-wing attacks.
Despite unfavorable circumstances, Allende persisted in his analytical stance, bearing in mind the historical characteristics of Chile. The result would be the demand of vast sectors for Allende to once again assume the representation of the left, so that in January 1970 his fourth candidacy for the presidency of the Republic was proclaimed. Unlike previous occasions, he had the support of the radical trunk and the special participation of actors of Christian roots who gave particular weight to the alliance this time called Unidad Popular. Immediately afterward, on September 4, 1970, the most disputed presidential elections in the national history of Chile were held, under a tense and feverish climate. At dawn on September 5, Salvador Allende’s triumph was a reality.
Death
Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973
Then, for a period of a thousand days, the experience of Popular Unity would develop.
A vast conspiracy, in which national and transnational capital, imperialism, political forces from the center and the right, and business and professional associations took an active part, created the conditions that led the armed forces to bloodily interrupt Chilean democracy on September 11, 1973.
In his last message to his people broadcast on Radio Magallanes , he said:
“Workers of my country: I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome the grey and bitter moment, where betrayal seeks to prevail. Keep knowing that, sooner rather than later, the great avenues will open for free men to walk along, to build a better society. Long live Chile, long live the people, long live the workers!”
First burial
After his death, a helicopter of the FACH transports the body of President Salvador Allende to the Santa Inés Cemetery in Viña del Mar. The coffin is taken to the grave of Inés, Allende’s sister, who recently passed away. Amidst a large military deployment, and in view of some cemetery workers, Hortensia Bussi buries her husband, the constitutional president of Chile.
Taking a flower from a nearby grave, Hortensia Bussi declares:
Please know that the one we are burying is Salvador Allende, the president of Chile. He is being buried here anonymously. But I ask you to tell your relatives, your neighbors, your friends who is buried here. And when I am gone, I ask you to bring him flowers, that he never lacks flowers. Please take good care of the grave until I return.
Official burial
On the initiative of the President’s widow, his daughters and grandchildren, the Salvador Allende Foundation (FSA) was created. On September 4, 1990 , the FSA held its first activity: the official funeral of President Salvador Allende. This event was called the Meeting for Peace . The organization was promoted by the first democratic government, led by President Patricio Aylwin Azócar . Salvador Allende’s body found its final resting place in the Mausoleum that bears his name, located in the General Cemetery of Santiago de Chile, a place that is visited daily by hundreds of Chileans and foreigners.
Exhumation and final burial
On May 23 , 2011, Allende’s remains were exhumed again in order to definitively clarify the cause of his death. The exhumation was ordered by a judge after receiving a report from the Legal Medical Service that established “discrepancies” between the official autopsy report, ordered by the dictatorship, and a police expert’s examination of Allende’s body at the place of his death [2] [3] . The expert report resulting from the analysis of the body determined that the former Chilean president had committed suicide [4] .
The former president’s family decided to rebury his remains on September 4, a symbolic date, commemorating another anniversary of the election of Salvador Allende as president and also being the anniversary of his first official burial after democracy was restored in Chile [5] .