Writing on the Russian Revolution, Lenin said that there
are decades where nothing happens and weeks where decades happen. It was this
revolution, and the period of brutal wars thereafter that led to deposing of
the Russian tsar and the establishment of the world’s first truly socialist
government (Paris Commune notwithstanding). It was this revolution that shook
the world, and sent the spirit of liberation rippling through the hearts of the
international proletariat.
And while decades of progress can be achieved through
weeks of struggle, so too can it be undone by mere days of counterrevolution.
Chile’s socialist party was founded in 1933. Following
a path similar to Venezuela, the party sought change through the democratic
election of socialist leaders, rather than wage war against its colonial
oppressors. This approach culminated to the election of Marxist president
Salvador Allende in 1970, the first ever leader to be put into power through
democratic socialist means.
This period after the second world war saw the
attempted liberation of many Latin American nations. But just as it had
throughout Asia and Africa, the iron fist of Western Imperialism came to bear
down once more on those it had oppressed for so long. In Nicaragua, in
Guatemala, in Chile. On September 11th, 1973, a military coup backed
by the CIA overthrew Allende and brought Chile under the rule of General
Augusto Pinochet, which saw the establishment of a brutal fascist regime, and a
return to a west-backed capitalist economy. His dictatorship, which lasted all
the way into the early 90s, led to the torture and killing of socialist and
left-wing rivals and the “disappearance” of some 3,000 dissenters. Unions were
banned, institutions previously state-run were privatized, and wealth disparity
rose as mass corruption and collusion spread across the government and economy.
The heart of the Chilean people bled as decades of trauma were inflicted upon
them, all so that the US could continue to enforce its imperialist and
extractivist rule over the soul of a nation wrought with centuries of suffering
and oppression.
Eventually, the military dictatorship ended, and
Chile’s government transformed into a liberal democracy not too unlike that
seen throughout most of the West. And while the terror of Pinochet was over,
neoliberal market reforms continued to inflict scars on its citizenry. The West
continued to starve the nation of its natural resources to fuel imperialist
rule elsewhere in the world.
But the people can only be oppressed for so long, can
only be pushed so far until they realize, as Marx said, that they have nothing
to loose but the very chains of their enslavement. It is under these conditions
that class-consciousness forms, and the revolutionary spirit takes hold once
more.
Right now, the people of Chile have taken to the
streets in protest, but you’ll see little coverage of it in the news. Western
media has for the most part covered only the bourgeois-backed protests
happening in Hong Kong, paying scant attention to what’s going on in Chile. Or
Haiti. Or Lebanon. Or Iraq, Kashmir, Catalonia, Palestine, Ecuador and many
other nations across the world that are fighting as the contradictions of
neoliberalism begin to rear their gruesome head, as climate change poses an
existential threat to the world and the bourgeois capitulate to fascism rather
than undertake any semblance of socialist reform. In many ways, history is
repeating itself, and as was the case before, so it is now: the ruling class
will let the world burn and society devolve into barbarism if it means they
remain in power. That is why they are silent on the Global South’s current
string of uprisings, directing the public’s attention away from these, lest international
solidarity is built.
In Chile, the protests began with a price increase of
subway fares, or at least that was the tipping-point for the Chilean people.
Subway fares, representative of a step too far. These protests, like many
others, are the result of years of unrest amongst the people, leading to a
point where enough is enough.
At the time of writing this, over one million people
have taken to the streets of Chile, demanding massive economic reforms and the
resignation of current president, Sebastian Pinera. The unrest has led to the
destruction of most of Chile’s transit system, alongside the burning and
looting of various private businesses. This has led to the president declaring
a state of emergency, sending the Chilean army to crush the protests.
Currently, the military has killed 19 people, and arrested thousands of others.
And yet the fight continues.
These are conditions in which revolution is born.
To my understanding, currently there isn’t an
organized force leading the protestors, no underlying ideology beyond anger
toward the government. It is a movement of spontaneity. Its hard to say then what
these protests may achieve: a move toward minor reformation, or a full-scale
upheaval of the Chilean ruling class?
Solidarity with the people of Chile.
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