E MS NAMBOODIRIPAD
Chile and the Parliamentary Road to Socialism
THE military coup in Chile has dashed all the revisionist illusions that the election of Salvador Allende as President would further confirm the thesis of'peaceful transformation through the parliamentary path'.
Naturally, therefore, a good deal of discussion is taking place in our country, as well as abroad, about the lessons to be drawn from the experience of Chile. The whole question of the validity or otherwise, the extent of usefulness, of the struggle on the parliamentary arena for the further development of the democratic and working-class movement is once again being discussed in the light of this latest experience.
It is proposed in this paper to examine the question both from the theoretical and practical angles. While examining it from the practical angle, it is proposed to deal with the experience we have gathered in our own country, where for more than two decades the leftist parties and organizations have functioned under the bourgeois parliamentary system, going to the extent of forming state governments which functioned for sometime: twice in Kerala during 1957-59 and in 1967-69; in West Bengal during 1967-69.
False Comparison
An interesting remark was made by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on the relevance to India of the military coup in Chile. Speaking at the