Institute for the Study of the Americas

The coup in Chile in 1973 must rank as amongst the most important and controversial events in the history of Latin America since the Second World War. The holdings here certainly attest to that, more numerous than for any other nation and predominantly concerned with the Allende government and the junta that replaced it. There had been coups in other countries in the region (amongst others Guatemala in 1954, Brazil and Bolivia in 1964, Argentina in 1966), but none that resonated with the outside world in the same way. It was Chile's misfortune to be seen as a paradigm example, a test case for the democratic road to socialism. Following the moderate reformism of Eduardo Frei's Christian Democratic administration (1964-1970) the 1970 election was won by a narrow margin by the Popular Unity coalition led by Socialist Party leader Salvador Allende. Allende sought to increase state ownership and control in the economy (an early move being the nationalisation of the copper industry), but to do so within the constitutional bounds of Chilean democracy. The result was an increased polarisation of society between the upper and middle classes with most to lose from the expropriation of privately-owned assets and the redistribution of income and the supporters of Allende (primarily the peasants, the working class and the marginal poor). This conflict exarcerbated Chile's growing economic difficulties (blamed either on the new government's reforms or on the obstruction of those reforms by the opposition and its tacit supporters in the United States), and led to the emergence of more radical left-wing groups such as the MIR (Revolutionary Movement of the Left) and eventually to the September 11th military coup led by General Pinochet. That this succeeded was due in no small part to the divisions on the left, with the Communist Party (and through it the Soviet Union, whose limited funding of the Popular Unity government was provided increasingly reluctantly) continually urging caution in the face of the maximalist demands being put forward by the MIR and the radical wing of Allende's Partido Socialista.

The coup was significant not just for its resounding verdict on the democratic socialist approach but also for the opportunity it provided for the trial of the monetarist policies advocated by economists such as Milton Friedman. Thus the Chile of Pinochet continued to attract and divide international attention and opinion, organisations such as Amnesty and the Betrand Russell Tribunal publicising the regime's human rights abuses whilst conservative leaders in the UK and US in the 1980s supported its sound anti-communist and neo-liberal economic stances. The materials held here are predominantly from groups more concerned with torture and disappearances than with interest rates, and include items produced by expatriate branches of the Popular Unity parties, reports from external Church, UN and labour investigators and a host of materials from organisations representing those who suffered under Pinochet. There is also a sizable collection of contemporary material dating from the time of the Allende government.