[104-10225-10027.pdf — page 73]
# Allende in Retrospectperiods in factories. The ensuing uproar involved the Catholic Church for the first time in formal opposition to the government and mobilized thousands of secondary school students in violent demonstrations in downtown Santiago. Stories of fierce arguments over the school proposals among the top military officers (the military had left the cabinet after the elections) filtered into the national press, and a military delegation held a formal meeting with the Education Ministry to express their opposition. The controversy subsided only when the government announced that the proposal had been postponed, pending further discussion.Within the government, the debate continued on whether to "consolidate in order to advance" (the Communist position) or to "advance without compromise" (the Socialist stance). One indication of how the debate was resolved was the decision by the government to use a constitutionally-authorized "decree of insistence" allowing the cabinet to override the rulings of the Controller General of Chile, Hector Humares, who had disallowed the requisitioning of some of the factories taken over during the October 1972 strike. Conflicts also continued with the judiciary over the executive's refusal to obey court orders to return seized properties. On May 26, the Supreme Court sent a public letter to the President denouncing... the illegal attitude of the administration... [Its] open and continual rebellion against judicial orders... which signifies a crisis of the rule of law [and] the imminent breakdown of the juridical structure of the country."The stalemate between the executive and the Congress over the constitutional amendment on the "Three Areas of Property" was compounded when the Constitutional Tribunal refused to take jurisdiction over the disputed question of whether, in the absence of a plebiscite, the Congress could override the President's item vetoes by a majority or by a two-thirds vote." A second constitutional conflict along the same lines developed when the opposition majority in Congress voted in favor of an amendment to give farms under 40 hectares (about 100 acres) in size an absolute guarantee against expropriation[^18][^19]and to compel the distribution of land in the "reformed" sector to the peasantry after a transitional period of two years. (The government had once again used a loophole in the 1967 law to postpone indefinitely the distribution of expropriated land by individual title.)In May the official price Index jumped 20 percent, indicating that the inflation was moving into a new hyperinflationary stage. The one effort that the government had made to hold the line--its refusal to grant a full cost-of-living wage increase to the El Teniente copper miners on the grounds that under their contract they had already received partial cost-of-living increases--led to a bruising two-and-a-half month strike, which included a miners' march on Santiago, mass rallies, and simultaneous one-day general strikes for and against the government in mid-June. By that time, Allende was once more ready to resort to military involvement in the cabinet to restore social peace.## Last Stage-Decline and FallOn June 29, the last act of the Chilean tragedy began with an abortive revolt by the Second Armored Regiment in Santiago. Apparently, several army units had been in contact with Patria y Libertad, a right-wing political organization, and had planned to seize President Allende at his residence and to occupy the presidential palace. The revolt was canceled one day before it was to occur, but when one of the officers of the Second Armored Regiment was arrested and held in the Defense Ministry, the Regiment decided to free him and in the process to seize the presidential palace as originally planned. General Prats, the Army Commander, used the other military units in Santiago to put down the revolt in a few hours--most of which were spent in negotiation rather than shooting--but not before President Allende had gone on the air to urge "the people" to take over all industries and enterprises as a response to the uprising of "a small group of rebellious military men." The Central Labor Federation also urged the workers to occupy the factories, and in one day the number of companies taken over by the government rose from 282 to 526. The "Industrial Belts" that had sprung up at the time of the October strike now achieved new importance. The spread of "people's power (poder popular) had been seen by Allende as a deterrent to a possible future coup, but it created many additional problems for the[^18]: Libro Blanco, p. 215.[^19]: The term "items veto" reflects the fact that the Chilean president, unlike his US counterpart, can veto or even rewrite individual sections of proposed laws.