escape only because of assistance from the MIR.
Recently the Slattempted to restructure itself by setting up a network of militants across the country. This attempt rapidly unet with disaster, the military soon identified the militants involved and arrested or killed a large number of then. As a result the SP has still not succeeded in restracturing itsell and although of course there are thousands of people who regard themselves as members of the SP thit is quite another thing from its existence as a political and organisational force.
The situatiog is much the sante for the MAPU which has still not recovered from the blow it suffered by the isolation of the membership (rom the leadership who were forced to take refuge in foreign embassies immediately after the coup. Of the other major organisgtions only the Communist Party and the MIR have managed to retain some level of organsation and lo function as political parties inside ACTIONS The Young Communist section in particular has managed to initiate several actions (such as the demonstration at Pablo Neruda's" funeral) and it is clear that there are isolated cells of the CP which still exist. But these do not function as part of One year after the Chilean military coup the various parties of the Popular seriously hit by the repression has made little headway in its attempts to re-establish itself. On its own admission, it lost one third of its militants during the coup. Carlos Altamirano, the SP General Secretary, was able to so general und ambigunus as to give no clear perspective for the struggle against the junta. The February statement did, however, call for a broad front of strupale apsinst the junta in which there was a clear overture towards sections of the Christan Democracy: 11 was not until May | 1974 that u major point statement was issued in Chile which both drew what it sw as The lessons of the UP and laid down the way thai the struggle should develop against the junta document although issued in the name of the UP was in fact signed only by the CP. SP', and MAPU-OC. The driving force behind the statement is the CP.
The May 1 UP siatement purports to be a balance sheet of the UP period. It asks:
We have suffered a heavy, although necessarily temporary defeat.
But the answers which it gives to this vital question indicate that these most isourable conditions for the its evil nature:
makes several points. Is two main did not succeed in creating the stances necessiry to deleat The reactionaries, and that, "there was a lack of understanding of the domestic situation and the special characteristics Chilean peasants looking for leadership against the junc defeat of this enemy, not to bemoan When it comes to the behaviour of the UP itself the 1 May statement criticisms are that the Popular Unity In other words the Ul shual have formed an alliance with a section of the bourgeois Christian Democrats (CD), It is unfortunately necessary to remand the authors of the document of a few simple facts, It was che CD party is a whole which played the nujor part in the political preparation for the coup and which isued a statement on 12 Seplember 1973 warmly welcosing the military Why did the CD support the coup? The reason was that they feared that the radicaliation of the working class had developed beyond the control of the UP and that only a military solution could control che situation.
CAPITALIST FRAMEWORK They wowid have entered into an ailiance with the UP on one condition only - that the UP wus able to contain and control the working chess and pesentry formly within the frame work of the capitalin susten.
There is only one conclusion possible, the May statement says that only by abject capitulation in sections of the Chilean hourecousie and by limiting the struggle of the working class could the military coup have been avoided, This is truly the voice of the On the lack of understanding of the Armed Forces, we would agree wholehcartedly, There has hardly been such a criminal lack of understanding in the history of the world working class movement. But, unfortunately, that is not what the document For the UPstatement tbe main problem was the lack of collaboration between the patriotic and constitutionalist sectors of the army and the popular mosement.
Are we lo believe that was the main error? Of course not. The mistake was to helieve and continually pedale the nousense that the Armed Forces would defend the constitutJon and the guins of the working class. The mistake was to fail right from the beginning to provide the warkers and peasants with the only meaningful guaranter against / coup, to ann them, to form self-defence teams qualitatively new structures of in the lactories and locnlities, and to form a militia.
Even after the coup the CP still believes that the army could have performed these tasks - if only the UP had snuggled up closer to the 'constitutional sectors!
It is apparent that the statement affirms the essential correctness of the UP strategy with the main criticism that it did not work sufficiently hard enough to build an alliance with the Christian Democracy and the 'exceptional' Chilean Armed Forces.
PEACEFUL LOGIC 1
But such alliances, as we bave already noted, could only have been created on the understanding that the UP would control the workers and peasants and allay the fears of the bourgeois sectors with whom i wanled unity Such is the logic of the peaceful road to socialisin!
It is of course not a question of this or that 'crror committed by the UP, but that the whole strategy of the UP was totully wrung The UP did not pose the central question of the destruction of the bourgeois stale apparatus and the building of Workers democracy such as the
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Unity (UP) and revolutionary left are still largely in a state of disarray. The Socialist Panty' (SP), which of ull the orgunisations was the most