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# Allende in RetrospectSpecic aspects of the Chilean system also made the Allende experiment a particularly difficult one. He was able to come to power in the first place because of Chile's deeply-rooted commitment to the democratic system and because the Marxist parties were able to mobilize a part of the proletariat and the peasantry, and he had at his disposal many instruments for state control of the economy which had been developed by previous administrations since the 1930's. However, he was required to operate within an institutional system which included frequent and staggered elections, proportional representation, and a multiparty system which made majority rule very difficult and often gave veto powers to the extremes of Right and Left. The economy had been characterized for nearly a century by a chronic tendency to inflation, and successive governments had consistently ignored agriculture in the Interest of securing urban electoral support. The most important systemic constraint of all, of course, was the existence of a professionalized and institutionally-loyal military which was unresponsive to the ideological blandishments of the Left."The immediate causes of the military intervention are apparent from the preceding account. In the last part of 1972, the military were drawn into Chilean politics by both sides and became as polarized as the rest of Chilean society-with the overwhelming majority joining the opposition to Allende. The conflict over education in March-April 1973 heightened that polarization just at the time the military were attempting to extricate themselves from political Involvement. Then the expansion of arms searches in mid-1973 revealed the extent to which Chile was becoming an armed camp on the verge of civil war. Finally, the efforts to subvert the existing military hierarchy by a combination of leftist activity among enlisted men and presidential maneuvering with promotions and retirements provided the classis scenario for a coup d'état.> The Socialists always believed that they could convert the military to their outlook. This is strikingly revealed in Socialist Party documents published in the Libro Bianco, pp. 124-30.One can also relate Allenge's difficulties to the inherent contradictions in the Marxist theory to which he appealed.. At the same time that he proclaimed his faith in a democratic, pluralist and libertarian transition to socialism, many of his Marxist-supporters spoke and acted on the basis of a belief in the inevitability of armed confrontation. With his knowledge, they armed themselves and-what was worse-talked incessantly about revolution. The repeated statements of Regis Debray and others that the observance of the rules of "bourgeois" legality was only a tactic until the balance of forces had improved was hardly likely to persuade doubters of the sincerity of Allende's commitment to democracy. When the importation and distribution of arms was combined with efforts to reorganize education along ideological lines, to sübvert military discipline, and to rearrange the hierarchy of command, It is not altogether surprising that the military finally took action.A positive evaluation of the Allende years would certainly credit him with a sincere effort to ralse the living standards of low-income groups and to involve them actively In the determination of their own future. It would likewise stress the continued existence of freedom of expression for all points of view in Chile right up to the coup. A more negative assessment would ask whether the low-income groups in Chile genuinely benefited from an economic policy which after the first half of 1972 produced hyperinflation, a continuous drop in agricultural and industrial production, and a reduction in the real value of wages and salaries. Even more critically, one could inquire who has suffered the most in economic and in human terms as a result of the breakdown of the Chilean system-the Marxist politicians, many of whom were able to escape or go into exile, or the workers, peasants and slum-dweilers they claimed to represent, who are now paying the price of the Allende regime's mistakes in the form of the hardships imposed by sharply reduced consumption and the strictures of dracon-ian military rule.