The
Socialist Party of Chile ( or PS) is part of
the ruling
Coalition
of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was
the late
President of Chile
Salvador Allende Gossens,
deposed by General
Pinochet.27
years after, The
President of
Chile Ricardo Lagos
Escobar represented the
Socialist
Party in the
1999 presidential
elections. He won 48.0 % in the first round and was elected
with 51.3 % in the second round.
In the last legislative elections on December 16, 2001, the party
won as part of the Coalition of Parties for
Democracy 10 out of 117 seats in the Chamber of
Deputies
and 5 out of
38 elected seats in the Senate. This changed at the
2005 elections to 15
and 8.
Socialist
Michelle Bachelet
Jeria won the
2005 Presidential
election.
She is the first female president to rule
Chile
.
History
The Socialist Party of Chile was co-founded on
April 19,
1933 by Colonel
Marmaduque Grove, who had already
led several governments,
Oscar
Schnake,
Carlos Alberto
Martínez, future President
Salvador
Allende, and other personalities. After the
Chilean coup of 1973 it was proscribed
(along with the other
leftist
parties constituting the
Popular Unity
coalition) and split itself in several groups that would not
reunite until after the
return to civilian rule in
1990.
The socialist thought in Chile goes back in the middle of the 19th
century, when
Francisco
Bilbao Barquín and
Santiago
Arcos Arlegui raised the speech of the equality in Chilean
society. These ideas took force in the
labour movement at the beginning of the 20th
century and the communist, anarchist, socialist, and mutualist
ideals were diffused through the writing and leaders as the
Luis Emilio Recabarren. On
the other hand, the impact of the 1917
October Revolution in Russia gave new
impulses to the revolutionary movements, that in the twenties they
were identified with the world communist movement, arising the
Communist Party of
Chile.
The
Great Depression of 1930
submerged the popular sectors and media of the country in a serious
crisis that carried them to empathize with the socialist ideas,
being expressed in the establishment of the brief
Socialist Republic of Chile in
1932. The idea to found a political party that to join with the
different movements that were identified with the socialism
crystallized in the foundation of the Socialist Party of Chile,
April 19, 1933. In this way, in the Mountain street 150, they
concurred: 14 delegates of the
Socialist Marxist Party conducted by
Eduardo Rodriguez Mazer; 18
of the
New Public Action, headed
by the lawyer
Eugenio Matte
Stolen; 12 delegates of the
Socialist Order, whose main exponent was the
architect
Arturo Bianchi
Gundian; and 26 representatives of the
Revolutionary Socialist
Action of
Oscar Schnake for
protocolize the Minutes of Foundation, his Program of Immediate
Action and to elect his first executive Secretary General, Oscar
Schnake.
Its Statement of Principles (statements) was:
The Socialist Party adopts as method of interpretation
of the reality the marxism, enriched and rectified by all
contribute them scientists of the constant one to occur
social.
The state of capitalist exploitation based on the
private property of the land, of the instruments of production, of
change, of credit and of transportation, necessarily should be
replaced for an economic socialist in which said state private
property be transformed into collective.
The production socialized is organized, according to a
scientific planning, for the benefit of all the community and the
distribution is carried out according to the collective needs and
not with end of gain or private benefit.
During the process of total transformation of the
system (capitalist), is necessary the action of a representative
revolutionary government of the manual and intellectual
workers.
The new socialist state only can be born of the
initiative and of the revolutionary action of the laborious
masses.
The socialist doctrine is of international character
and requires a supportive action and coordinated with the workers
of the world.
To carry out this advanced the Socialist Party will
support the economic unit and politics of the towns of Latin
America for arrive at the Confederacy of the Socialist Republics of
the Continent, as first step toward the World
Confederation.
The socialism fight by obtaining, as first phase of its
action, the establishment of a state that draw the general lines of
a restructures economic-social tending toward developing the
productive forces, to surpass the cultural, technical, and social
delay, and to eliminate the economic subordination.
The party quickly obtained popular support. Its partisan structure
exhibits since the start some singularities, such as the creation
of "brigades" that groups their militants according to environment
of activity; brigades that live together next to the organic that
its militant youths are given grouped in the Confederacy of the
Socialist Youth, or the women, organized in the Confederacy of
Socialist Women. In the second half of the years 30 they enter al
parted the "Left Communist", conformed by a sector splits of the
Communist Party of Chile,
headed by
Manuel Noble Plaza and
comprising the journalist
Oscar Waiss,
the lawyer
Tomás Chadwick and
the first secretary of the
POS,
Ramón Sepúlveda Loyal, among
others.
In 1934 the Socialists, along with the Radical-Socialist Party and
the Democratic Party constituted the "Block of Left" (or
Left-Wings' Cartel). In the first parliamentary election that
participates (March of 1937) obtains 22 representatives (19
representatives and 3 senators), among them its Secretary general
Oscar Schnake Vergara, elected
senator of Tarapacá-Antofagasta, being placed by the PS in a
noticeable place inside the political conglomerates of the epoch.
For the
1938
presidential election, the PS participated in the formation of
the
Popular Front, withdrawing
its presidential candidate, the colonel
Marmaduque Grove, and supporting the
Radical Party's candidate,
Pedro
Aguirre Cerda, who narrowly defeated the right-wing candidate
following an attempted coup by the
National Socialist Movement
of Chile. In the government of Aguirre Cerda the socialists
obtained the Ministries of Public Health, Forecast and Social
Assistance, given to
Salvador
Allende, the Minister of Promotion, trusted to
Oscar Schnake, and the Ministers of Lands and
Colonization, handed out to
Rolando
Merino.
The participation of the Socialist Party in the government of
Aguirre Cerda finished on
December 15,
1940, due to internal conflicts among the
Popular Front coalition, in particular with the Communist Party. In
the
parliamentary
elections of March 1941 the PS advanced outside of the Popular
Front and obtained 17,9% of the votes, 17 representatives and 2
senators. However, the PS integrated the new left-wings' coalition
following Cerda's death, now named
Democratic Alliance, which
supported the candidacy of the Radical
Juan Antonio Ríos, who was
triumphally elected. The Socialists participated in his cabinet,
alongside Radicals, members of the
Democratic Party and of the
Liberal Party and even of the
Falange.
Oscar Schnake occupied again the post of
Promotion and the socialist Pedro Populate you Edge and Eduardo
Squire Forrastal assumed the positions of Lands and Colonization
and Salubriousness, Forecasting and Social Assistance,
respectively.
Due to this hesitancy, the youth of the party assumed a very
critical attitude, which caused the expulsion of all the Central
Committee of the FJS, among them Raúl Vásquez (its secretary
general), Raúl Ampuero, Mario Palestro and Carlos Briones. This
situation accentuated the differences in the interior of the
community. In the IX Congress of the PS of the year 1943 Salvador
Allende displaced the General Office of the secretary to Marmaduque
Grove and withdrew his party from the government of Ríos. Grove did
not accept this situation, and was expelled from the PS and the
Authentic Socialist Party. These conflicts caused, in the
parliamentary elections of March 1945, the PS to descend violently
to only 7% of the votes, diminishing significantly its
parliamentary strength.
After World War II
There was complete confusion in the Socialist Party for the
presidential election of 1946. The PS decided to raise its own
candidate; its secretary general Bernardo Ibáñez. However, many
militants supported the radical candidate Gabriel González Videla,
while the Authentic Socialist Party of Grove stopped supporting the
conservative Eduardo Cruz Coke.
After the failure of the candidacy of Ibáñez (who obtained barely a
2.5% of the votes), the purges continued. In the XI Ordinary
Congress the current "revolution" of Raúl Ampuero was imposed and
he assigned to academic Eugenio González the making of the Program
of the Socialist Party which defined its north; The Democratic
Republic of Workers.
The promulgation, in 1948, of the Law 8.987 "Law of Defense of the
Democracy" that banned the communists, was again a factor of
division among the socialists. Bernardo Ibáñez, Oscar Schnake, Juan
Bautista Rosseti and other anticommunist socialists supported it
with enthusiasm; while the board of directors of the party directed
by Raúl Ampuero and Eugenio González rejected it. The anticommunist
group of Ibáñez was expelled from the PS and they constituted the
Socialist Party of the Workers; nevertheless the Conservative of
the electoral Roll assigned to the group of Ibáñez the name
Socialist Party of Chile, forcing the group of Ampuero to adopt the
name Popular Socialist Party.
The Socialist Popular Party proclamation, in its XIV Congress,
carried out in Chillán in May 1952, as its presidential standard
bearer to Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, despite the refusal of the
senators Salvador Allende and Tomás Chadwick. Allende abandoned the
party and united the Socialist Party of Chile, which, as a group
with the Communist Party (outlawed), raised the candidacy of
Allende for the Front of the People. The triumph of Ibáñez
permitted the popular socialists to have important departments such
as that of Work (Clodomiro Almeyda) and Estate (Felipe
Herrera).
After the parliamentary elections of 1953; where the Socialist
Popular Party obtained 5 senators and 19 representatives, the
popular socialists abandoned the government of Carlos Ibáñez del
Campo and proclaimed the need to establish a Front of Workers, in
conjunction with the Democratic Party of the People, the socialists
of Chile and the outlawed communists.
Finally, on March 01, 1956, the two socialist parties (Socialist
Party of Chile and Socialist Popular Party), the Party of the
Workers (communist outlawed), Democratic Party of the People and
the Democratic Party all signed the minutes of constitution of the
Front of Popular Action (FRAP) with Salvador Allende Gossens as the
president of the coalition, which participated successfully in the
municipal elections of April 1956.
After the parliamentary elections of March 1957 the "Congress of
Unit" was carried to power, formed from the Popular Socialist Party
directed by Rául Ampuero and the Socialist Party of Chile of
Salvador, directed by Allende Gossens. These chose the secretary
general of the unified Socialist Party; Salomón Corbalán.
July 31, 1958 the Law of Permanent Defense of the Democracy was
derogated by the National Congress, therefore the ban of the
Communist Party was repealed. In the presidential elections of
1958, the standard bearer of the Front of Popular Action (FRAP),
the socialist Salvador Allende, lost the presidential election
narrowly to Jorge Alessandri. In spite of the loss, the unification
of the socialist parties had a new leader, and Chile was one of the
few countries of the world in which a Marxist had clear
possibilities to win the presidency of the Republic through
democratic elections.
The overwhelming triumph of Eduardo Frei Montalva over the
candidate of the FRAP Salvador Allende Gossens in the presidential
elections of September 1964 caused demoralization among the
followers of the "Chilean way to the socialism". The National
Democratic Party (PADENA) abandoned the coalition of left; and the
influence of the Cuban revolution and above all of the "guerrilla
way of Ernesto Guevara" they were left to feel the heart of the
Socialist Party. The discrepancies of the party were perceived
clearly. In July from 1967 the senators Raúl Ampuero and Tomás
Chadwick and the representatives Ramón Silva Ulloa, Eduardo Osorio
Pardo and Oscar Naranjo Arias were expelled, and founded the
Popular Socialist Union (USOPO). In the XXII Congress, carried out
in Chillán in November of 1967, a radicalization of the political
line was made, favored by Carlos Altamirano Orrego and the leader
of the Rural Confederation Ranquil, Mentioning Cauldron Aránguiz,
leader of the faction "elenos"; "Marxist-Leninist" to declare as
inevitable and legitimate the "revolutionary violence" as a path to
obtain economic and political power.
The Popular Unity government
In the year 1969, the skepticism for the "Chilean way to the
socialism" was the majority in the Central Committee of the PS.
Salvador Allende Gossens was proclaimed presidential preliminary
candidate of its party with 13 votes in favor and 14 abstentions,
among them that of its secretary general, Aniceto Rodriguez, of
Carlos Altamirano Orrego and of Clodomiro Almeyda Medina.
Nevertheless, the candidacy of Allende galvanized the forces of
left, who constituted, in October of 1969, the
Popular Unity coalition of the Socialist
Party, Communist Party, Radical Party, Movement of Unit Popular
Action (split of the Christian Democrat Party) and former
supporters of Carlos Ibáñez grouped in the Independent Popular
Action alliance, that culminated with the presidential triumph of
September of 1970.
October 24, 1970 Salvador Allende Gossens was officially proclaimed
President of the Republic of Chile. There was world expectation; he
agreed to manage the coalition and to be a Marxist president with
the explicit commitment to build socialism, while respecting the
democratic and institutional mechanisms.
The position of the PS at first,, of the government of the UP, was
radicalized with the choice of the party's direction, chosen in the
XXIII Congress, carried out in The Serene One in January 1971, by
the senator Carlos Altamirano Orrego; who proclaimed that the party
he should transform into "the Chilean vanguard in the march toward
the socialism".
In the municipal elections of April 1971, the leftist coalition
reached the simple majority in the election of managers, which
caused growing polarization due to the alliance of the Christian
Democrats with the sectors of the right in the country. The retreat
of the Party of Radical Left from the government, with its 6
representatives and 5 senators, meant that the government of
Allende remained with less than one third of both houses of the
parliament.
1973 election poster for PS candidate
Fidelma Allende.
Slogan reads 'Against the Black Market - Forward with the
Socialists'.
In the parliamentary elections of March 1973, the Popular Unity
ruler coalition managed to block the initiative of the opposing
Democratic Confederation to promote a constitutional accusation
against the president Allende, to obtain this two thirds of the
votes would have been required.
The Socialist Party under Pinochet
Nevertheless, the serious economic problems that faced the
government deepened the political division of the country. The
Socialist Party, that had achieved its better historic voting, was
opposed, along with
MAPU, to any dialogue with
the right-wing opposition. On
September
11,
1973,
Augusto Pinochet led the
military coup against Allende's
government, putting an end to the
Presidential Republic Era started
in 1924. President Salvador Allende refused to give the power to
the Armed Forces, and committed suicide in its office of the Palace
of La Moneda, submitted to an intense air bombardment.
The coup d'état was devastating for the organization of the Chilean
Socialist Party. Within a few weeks of the coup; 4 members of their
Central Committee and 7 regional secretaries of the PS had been
murdered. Other 12 members of their Central Committee were
imprisoned, while the remainder members took refuge in various
foreign embassies. Its secretary general, Carlos Altamirano,
managed to escape from Chile appearing in Havana on January 1,
1974, during the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.
The lack of experience in the subterranean work during the ban
produces the break-up of the Secret Direction of the Party. The
secret services of the military state infiltrate and one to one are
persons under arrest their main leaders; Exequiel Ponce Vicencio,
Carlos Lorca Tobar, Ricardo Lagos Salinas and Víctor Zerega Ponce.
Their bodies have never been found.
Other victims of the repression are the former home Secretary, José
Tohá González and the former Minister of National Defense, Orlando
Letelier del Solar. Slowly the self-critical analysis of the
consequences of the rout of the Popular Unit, united to the
experience of the refugees in the "real socialisms" of Eastern
Europe, al permanent contact with the western European social
democracy and to the strategy to continue against the regime of
Pinochet causes deep dissents al interior of its exterior
organization, whose central direction was in the German Democratic
Republic.
In April 1979, in the Third Full Exterior one, the majority sector
of the party, names to Clodomiro Almeyda as new secretary general,
to Galo Gómez like the undersecretary; and expels of the party to
Carlos Altamirano, to Jorge Arrate, to Jaime Suaréz, to Luis
Meneses and to Erich Schnake under the charges to be
"representative elements of the unpleasant aftertaste of a past in
trance of beating and that testify the survival Implacable and
resistant al development qualitatively superior of an authentic
revolutionary vanguard".
Altamirano does not accept is situation, declares the
re-organization of the party and calls to a Congress. The XXIV
Congress is carried out in France in 1980 and in the; Altamirano
declares: "Only the rigorous and very deep renewal of definitions
and proposals of action, of lenguage, of style and methods of" to
do politics" will do cash our revolutionary action (..) It does not
it oblige us "to relaunch" the Socialist Party of Chile. It
signifies, yes, "to renew it", to understand it as ours more
precious instrument of change, like an option to be able, as an
alternative of transformation"
In the 1980s decade the socialist factions revived as opposing
assets al government of Pinochet. A sector; that of the calls
"socialist renewed", case the "Socialist Convergence", alliance to
which concur the Movement of Unit Popular Action, the MAPU Working
Rural and the Christian Left and search, as a group with the
Christian Democracy, through "methods not rupturistas" the term of
the dictatorship. The other sector (majority among the socialist
militants of the interior of the country) promulgates, for equal
end, as a group with the Communist Party, the Movement of
Revolutionary Left and the Radical Party of Anselmo Sule, the line
of that of popular rebellion". After the First Day of National
Protest against the state of Pinochet, occurred May 11, 1983, the
activities of the different factions of the Socialist Party
intensify.
The Socialist Party XXIV Congress (or "renewed"), directed by
Ricardo Ñúnez concurs to the foundation of the Democratic Alliance,
coalition of democrats-Christian, radicals of Forest Cimma, and
sectors of the republican and democratic right, which calls to the
National Protest Day Quarter (August 11, 1983) and favorable, in
September of 1983, the formation of the Block Socialist, first
intent of unification of the low, Chilean socialism Democracy
Now!.
In the meantime the Socialist Party "Almeyda", as a group with the
Communist Party, radicals of Aníbal Palm and the Movement of
Revolutionary Left found September 06, 1983 the "Popular Democratic
Movement" (MDP), which calls to the Fifth Day of National
Protest.
The signing of the National Accord to the end of August 1985,
between the Democratic Alliance and sectors of related right al
military state deepens the division of the Chilean left. Al
gradualist focus of transition toward the democracy is opposed the
way political-soldier of the most radicalized sectors, whose main
exponent is the Patriotic Front Manuel Rodriguez (FPMR).
Al PS "renewed", now directed by Carlos Briones, adds him
themselves the MAPU-OC, whose main figures are Jaime Gazmuri, Jorge
Molina and Jaime Estévez.
In September 1986, the way political-soldier of the "national
uprising" finally is aborted after the failure from the "Operation
20th century", like al is known I try of murder of Pinochet on the
part of the FPMR. The own PS-Almeyda begins to take distance of the
Communist Party, al to consider some of its main leaders, among
them Germán Correa Díaz, Luciano Valle Acevedo and Ricardo Solari,
that the idea of the overthrow of the dictatorship is an unfeasible
strategy.
In this way is imposed in the socialist left the tendency that a
"negotiated exit" al conflict does not be able found al margin of
the conditions created by the Constitution of 1980.
In March 1987, Clodomiro Almeyda enters secretly to Chile and is
presented before the justice to normalize its situation. The
socialist leader is deported to Chile Chico, condemned and
despoiled of his civic rights.
In April 1987, Ricardo Núñez, new leader of the socialism "renewed"
announces in the 54° Anniversary of the PS: "To Pinochet do not we
be going to remove him of the political setting by the weapons, we
shall defeat Him in the ballot boxes (..) Ourselves are convinced
that the town is going to stop to Pinochet through the ballot
boxes. That we are going to build that army of seven million
citizens to face the different alternatives of the Chilean
political panorama".
In December from 1987 the socialism renewed founds the Party by the
Democracy, a party "instrumental" that serve as tool to supply
legally to the democratic forces for participate in the Plebiscite
of 1988 and in the subsequent elections. It is appointed to Ricardo
Lakes as their president and upon they adhering some radicals,
dissident communists, and even democratic liberals.
In February 1988 is formed the Concertación de Partidos por el No
(Coalition of Parties for the No), to which they adhere 17
parties and Chilean political movement, among them the ones that
formed the Democratic Alliance, the PS-Almeyda and the Christian
Left. The political direction of the campaign falls in the
Christian Democrat leader Patricio Aylwin and in the socialist one
Ricardo Lakes, which culminates existosamente with the results of
the Plebiscite of October 5, 1988, where near the 56% of the votes
valid emitted they reject the idea that Pinochet will continue as
the President of the Republic.
After the plebiscite of October 1988, the Coalition of Parties for
Democracy requires a constitutional reform that eliminate the
"authoritarian enclaves" of the Constitution of 1980.
This aspiration of the democratic opposition partly is received by
the authoritarian government by means of the Plebiscite of July 30,
1989, where 54 reforms to the Constitution are approved in force,
among them the revocation of the controversial article 8°, which
served of base for the exclusion of the political life of the
socialist leader Clodomiro Almeyda.
In November from 1988 the PS-Almeyda, the Christian Left and the
Communist Party, among others organizations of left create a party
"instrumental" called Amplies Party of Socialist Left (PAIS), with
Luis Maira as the president and Ricardo Solari like secretary
general.
The Concertacion
In May 1989, the PS "renewed" carried out (in an unpublished fact
in the history of the Chilean socialism) internal elections by
secret ballot of its membership throughout the country. The list
was composed of Jorge Arrate and Luis Alvarado, besides the
competitive lists of Erich Schnake and Akím Soto; and of Heraldo
Muñoz (this last one supported by the internal tendency of Ricardo
Lagos).
The winning list of Jorge Arrate represented the tendency of the
"socialist renewal", follower of a permanent alliance with the
Christian Democracy in the framework of the Coalition, as he was a
firm champion of the unification of the party, to the opposition of
the other internal currents, more excépticas in this last matter.
They finalized the elections in the XXV Congress, that was carried
out in the locality of Costa Azul, and in which the transcendental
decision for the Chilean socialism was taken to abandon its
traditional isolationism and incorporate the International
Socialist.
In June 1989, the Coalition appointed the Christian democrat
Patricio Aylwin as its standard bearer for the presidential
elections. Aylwin had imposed, in the internal elections of its
party, to the preliminary candidates Gabriel Valdés and Eduardo
Frei Ruiz-Tagle and received, in the few weeks before its election,
the support of the radicals of Silva Cimma and of the own one
PS-Almeyda. Finally the PS-Arrate (or "renewed") low to its
candidate Ricardo Lagos and adds to the candidacy whose was one of
the main adversaries of the government of the Popular Unity, being
president of the Christian Democratic Party.
The candidacy of Aylwin is imposed easily in the presidential
elections of 1989, gaining more than the 55% of the votes valid.
This position was strengthened as 16 representatives of the Party
were elected, 13 of whom were militants of the PS-Arrate. In matter
of senators, three of their militants were chosen (Ricardo Núñez
Muñoz, Jaime Gazmuri and Hernán Vodanovic), but there was regret
over the rout of Ricardo Lagos in his candidacy of Santiago
West.
The PS-Almeyda obtained a total of 7 representatives, two of them
chosen via Amplied Party of the Socialist Left and 5 of them chosen
as independent in the ready Coalition. In matter of senators,
Rolando Calderon Aránguiz was chosen by Magallanes.
The fall of the wall of Berlin, which occurred November 9, 1989,
affected deeply the Chilean left, especially in its more orthodox
sector, which accelerated the process of unity of the party, which
itself strengthened December 27, 1989. This opportunity
incorporated itself to the PS Unified the Movement of Unit Popular
Action, headlined by Oscar Guillermo Garretón.
Between the 22 and November 25, 1990 the Savior Unit Congress
Allende was carried out , where itself incorporated historic
leaders as Raúl Ampuero and Aniceto Rodriguez and the Christian
Left headed by its president Luis Maira and its two representatives
(Sergio Aguiló and Jaime Naranjo). In that Congress Jorge Arrate
MacNiven was chosen as the president, Ricardo Núñez Muñoz as vice
president and Manuel Almeyda Medina as secretary general.
The first challenges for the unified socialism were the exercise of
power and the relation of "double membership" that had the
"socialist renewed" in the PS and in the Party for Democracy.
Finally, the Socialist Party decided to be recorded under its name
and symbols in the electoral rolls and gave a time limit to its
militants of two years to opt for the PS or the PPD. A prominent
number of socialists "renewed" did not return; among them Erich
Schnake, Sergio Bitar, Guido Girardi, Jorge Molina, Vicente Sotta,
Víctor Barrueto and Octavio Jara.
In power; the socialist Enrique Correa (as the minister General
Secretary of Government), Carlos Ominami (Economy), Germán Correa
(Transportation), Ricardo Lakes and Jorge Arrate MacNiven
(Education) and Luis Alvarado (National Goods) integrated the
cabinets of the Patrician president Aylwin, while in the Camera
(House) of Representatives the socialist José Antonio Viera-Gallo
and Jaime Estevéz exercised its presidency.
In the elections of 1992, Germán Strap was chosen as president of
the PS, supported by the sector "renewed" of Ricardo Núñez Muñoz
and the fraction "tercerista" of the almeydismo, who imposes on
themselves the candidacy of Camilo Escalona, Clodomiro Almeyda and
Jaime Estevez, who represent an alliance between the traditional
supporters of Clodomiro Almeyda and a faction of the "renewed" of
Jorge Arrate MacNiven.
Presidents elected under Socialist Party of Chile
See also
References
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