CHILE AND THE (QUESTION OF PEACEFUL TRANSITION 31
working-class incomes, all these are part of the popular government's record. These were gains won in battle.
The popular forces were quite aware of the need to be strong enough to curb the counter-offensive of reaction. It found itself faced with the task common to all popular revolutions, a fundamental reconstruction of the entire structure of law and power. This is evident from the speech of Luis Corvalan at the 24th Congress of the G P S U. In fact, the counter-offensive launched by the reactionary forces in June 1973 was defeated with popular support. The people and the army defended the government.
Yet the government of the Popular Unity Bloc has been overthrown by the reactionary military coup in September and Chile has passed, for the time being at least, under a fascist regime. We do not know as yet what weaknesses were displayed and what mistakes were committed by the Popular Unity Bloc and its constituent parties. When fuller information is available it should be thoroughly studied and analysed in order to assess the achievements and the weaknesses or failures of the Chilean experiment.
The temporary defeat of the Chilean Revolution cannot be used as a pretext to pass a final judgement on the experiment. The resistance of the popular forces is growing. For the time being, at least this much can be said that the achievements of the Popular Unity Bloc government helped to extend the mass base of the revolution. This made it possible to organize resistance against the fascist junta so quickly.
As for the theoretical conclusions which can be drawn at this stage about the possibility of the peaceful transition to socialism, on the basis of the available information, it would be appropriate to quote the words of a Soviet author written in 1972:
The peaceful road to socialism is not straight. Peaceful progress to socialism is accompanied by crises, spontaneous uprisings of the people, acute confrontations between the forces of democracy and reaction, the entry of the army on the political scene and sudden changes in the political weather.
Acute crises, advances, retreats and detours on the road of the relatively peaceful and gradual approach and transition to socialism pose countless complicated problems whose solution is no less difficult than the solution of the problems of armed struggle.2
(This was a paper presented at the-seminar on Chile and the Parliamentary Road to Socialism held on November 28, 1973, under the auspices of the Indian School of Social Sciences, Calcutta.)
1 An Outline History of the Communist Internationale Progress Publishers, Moscow.
2 V Krasin, The Dialectics of Revolutionary Process, Novosty Press Agency Publishing House, Moscow 1972.