ensitivity to the claims of the people is in fact the only way we have of contributing to the solution of the great human problems - for no universal value is worth the name if it cannot be applied on a national or regional scale and to the local living conditions of each family. Allende

Patrice Lumumba made history in Congo by confronting the colonial regime with its brutalities and paid for the ‘audacity’ with his life. That saga was repeated in South America. This time the victim was Salvador Allende, Chile’s first socialist president.

His full name was Salvador Allende Gossens. He was born on June 26, 1908, in Valparaíso. After leading an eventful life, he died on September 11, 1973 in Santiago.

Like several other South American countries, Chile had been a colony of Spain for nearly 300 years until Napoleon Bonaparte’s conquest of Spain weakened the country’s imperial grip on its South American colonial possessions.

Under the Spanish colonial rule, northern and central Chile were part of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Allende was born into an upper-middle-class family when Chile’s destiny was in doldrums. In a situation of extreme uncertainty, Allende took a degree in medicine but instead of practising medicine opted for a career in politics. In 1933, he helped found Chile’s Socialist Party, which had a Marxist ideology.

Success didn’t come to Allende instantaneously. He had to strive long and he strived assiduously. America was already finding it hard to contend with Fidel Castro in Cuba after he came to power in 1959. Another socialist-led polity could not be countenanced.

Plots hatched from within and from outside to bring the government down had started surfacing immediately after Allende assumed power. After election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1937, he served (1939–42) as minister of health in the liberal leftist coalition of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda. Allende won the first of his four elections to the Senate in 1945. He ran for the presidency for the first time in 1952 but was temporarily expelled from the Socialist Party for accepting the support of the outlawed Communists; he placed last in a four-man race.

He ran again in 1958—with Socialist backing as well as the support of the then-legal Communists—and was a close second to the Conservative-Liberal candidate, Jorge Alessandri. With the same support, he was decisively defeated in 1964 by the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei.

For his successful 1970 campaign, Allende ran as the candidate of Popular Unity, a bloc of socialists, communists, radicals and some dissident Christian Democrats, leading in a three-sided race with 36.3 percent of the vote.

Thus, he ran for president unsuccessfully three times before winning narrowly in 1970. Despite the slim margin to sustain him in power he attempted to restructure the Chilean society along socialist lines while retaining democracy, civil liberties and due process of law. He reformed the education system and provided free milk for children. He also arranged distribution of land among landless farmers. Allende was opposed to foreign companies that were taking away natural resources, like copper, from the country.

Despite his good intentions and well-meaning efforts to create an egalitarian society by redistributing wealth, he had to contend with stagnant production, food shortages, rising inflation and widespread strikes. The American media and Chicago school of economists under the tutelage of Milton Friedman highlighted the rising inflation and labour strikes with extraordinary zeal.

Some of his problems can be put down to his coalition partners, who didn’t allow Allende to carry out reforms the way he wanted. In neo-colonial states, the colonial structures and the forces lending them support trenchantly resist any measure taken to reform society or the state. In some cases, the leaders vying to undertake reforms are summarily deposed. Some are physically obliterated like Lumumba and Allende and demonised through false narratives.

The US government believed with a great deal of consternation that Allende would move closer to socialist countries like Cuba and the Soviet Union. They feared that he would push Chile into socialism and that all American investments in the copper-rich Chile would be lost.

A document released by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 2000, titled, CIA Activities in Chile, revealed that the CIA actively supported the military junta after the overthrow of Allende and that it recruited many of Pinochet’s officers as paid contacts of the CIA or US military.

Having said that, one must not lose sight of the fact that Allende’s coalition, Unidad Popular, faced the problem of being a minority in the congress and was beset with factionalism. On September 11, 1973, a successful coup led by Gen Augusto Pinochet overthrew the government. It is argued that Allende too had a part in the process having himself appointed Augusto Pinochet to replace Gen Carlos Prats, although the appointment of Pinochet was strictly in compliance with the rules, procedures and according to military ranks. Pinochet had been, until then, a constitutionalist and a defender of the Allende government. Allende was an unfortunate victim of the circumstances. He fought, failed and died.

During a concerted attack on the presidential palace, Allende died, and the manner of his death became a subject of controversy. Military officials claimed that he had committed suicide. Others believed that he had been killed and that the evidence of an apparent suicide had been planted.

Long years of atrocious rule by Gen Pinochet followed.

Allende had the support of many workers and peasants; his electoral coalition had won 44 percent of the vote in the March 1973 congressional elections.

The writer is Professor in the faculty of Liberal Arts at the Beaconhouse National University, Lahore