16 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
the Popular Unity government, headed by the martyred President Salvador Allende, had registered some major advances on the path towards the country's liberation from the stranglehold of US imperialism and towards national regeneration. Through the nationalization of the entrenched US imperialist interests in the vital natural resources sector, through the state takeover of private banks and many strategic industrial installations, through the break up of the large landed estates and a programme of redistribution of land among the poor peasants and sharecroppers—through all these and many other measures of similar character the Popular Unity government had succeeded in ushering in an entirely new phase of the liberation struggle on the American continent.
Such being the direction of its strivings, it can^e easily imagined how furiously the American imperialists and their Chilean clients reacted to these progressive undertakings of the Popular Unity government. Not only was a financial blockade of Chile imposed by the US government and the agencies dominated by it, not only attempts were made to prevent the sales abroad of the product of the nationalized copper mines, but terro-ristic and sabotage activities were planned and carried out on an expanding scale within the country. As President Allende declared at the U N General Assembly earlier this year, between September and November 1970, before his formal installation,
terrorist actions that were planned outside my country took place there ... I have with me the document (presented to the US government by the multinational corporation, the International Telephone & Telegraph Company dated October 1972 that contains the 18-point plan that was talked about. They wanted to strangle us economically, carry out diplomatic sabotage, create panic among the population, and cause social disorder so that when the government lost control, the armed forces would be driven to eliminate the democratic regime and impose a dictatorship.2
It would appear that the scenario that was eventually followed by counter-revolution was known to the leadership of the Popular Unity alliance in all its details. Why then the tragic failure to counteract and defeat this heinous crime against the Chilean people ? Was it then really inevitable, ordained by history ? C Rajeswara Rao, CPFs general secretary at least thinks so.
If the progressive forces lost in Chile it is not because of bourgeois illusions. . . but because the odds were against them. There may have been some mistakes in implementing the democratic programme but this cannot be stated as the basic reason for this defeat. The basic reason lies in the fact that the Allende government was hampered by a lack of majority in the parliament and the traditional dependence on the US economy. The US imperialists actively intervened and used all weapons to upset the Chilean economy and helped reactionaries to stage a military coup.8
V Teitelboim,memberoftheCC Political Commission of the Chilean Communist Party, apparently thinks otherwise. He says,"one of the bitter