POLICY
[The outcome of the September 4 elections in Chile has be-~ come the subject of.intensive discussion among left-wing circles throughout Latin America, The following contribution represents the views of the Movimiento Revolucionario Liberal of Colombia, It has been translated from No, 26 of the biweekly MRL publication Vanguardia which is printed in Bogotd,.]
Chilets presidential election correctly aroused the highest expectations of the year among Latin-American leftists. This was not just a routine electoral event, It was not just another case of balloting in the long farce of the "representative democracies" of our continent. At stake was: something of keenest interest to all the revolutionary movements. In brief what was posed was the possibility of a candidate of the left coming to power along the electoral road, by peaceful and "democratic" means, That is, whether the domestic reactionaries and North American imperialism would permit a. victory in accordance with their rules and using their own arms, ,
The reformists throughout the world were certain that Salvador Allende would win. The program of his government was already being converted into laws and decrees, The secretary of the Communist party, on the eve of the election, declared that the issue was no longer the. nationalization of the copper industry but the form of expropriating the Gringo companies. In the previous election,. Allende had been defeated by only 535,000 votes, which were probably fraudulent, It was going to be proved, for” the first time in history, that the socialist: revolution could come to power through elections, But Allende was defeated by half a million votes, The calculations of the reformists ended in a stunning failure, The road was opened for the new face of the right in the continent -- Christian Socialism,
Only incorrigible idealists could advance the hope that the oligarchy and imperialism would permit themselves to be defeated with pieces of paper. How would the victory have been defended if it had been gained? How would the bourgeois state machinery have been destroyed in order to construct the machinery of a new state? It was fortunate for them they weren't caught in such a compromising situation, It was a big victory for revolutionists the world over to see it confirmed once again that only by demolishing the bourgeois state is it possible to open the road to the new society.
It would be very interesting for the Colombian reformists to say something. about the illusions they advanced in this respect in our country. The possible utilization of elections as a form of agitation cannot be confounded with the false illusion of winning a change in the social structure along the electoral road,
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