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the Chilean people over the single pi.. Allende rádio station that had not yet been shut down by the military. He began:This is surely the last time that I will be able to speak to you..... My words are not spoken in bitterness but disappointment. In the face of these events / can only say to the workers, "I am not going to resign." At this historic juncture I will pay with my life for the loyalty of the people.Blaming "foreign capital, Imperialism, and reaction" for persuading the armed forces to break with their tradition, he said:History will judge them.... My voice will no longer come to you, but it does not matter. You will con- tinue to hear it; it will always be among you. At the least, you will remember me as an honorable man who was loyal to the revolution."At 11:00 a.m., the coup leaders permitted those who wished to do so to leave the building, and— except for his personal secretary—all the women, Including Allende's pregnant daughter, left. The military also offered the President and his family safe conduct out of the country if he would sur- render. Allende rejected the offer. The Air Force then sent in Hawker Hunter bombers, which re- peatedly hit the palace with rockets and set fire to large portions of it. Finally, shortly after 1:30 p.m., Allende decided to discontinue the resistance, and the members who had been with him left the build- ing in single file, led by the secretary carrying a white flag. Allende stayed behind and, sitting on a sofa in a reception room on the second floor, put two bullets into his head. The automatic rifle that he used was a gift from Fidel Castro."ConclusionsSince the coup, comments in the world press representing widely divergent political postures have cited the Chilean case as proof that the hope of achieving Marxist socialism through democratic means is a vain one. Yet most people have failed to note two fundamental errors of the Allende policy. mither of which was essentially related to the : attempt to establish democratic socialism:(1) As noted at the outset, the very quotation from 'Engels that Allende cited at the beginning of his61administration to justify , course states as a pre- requisite "the support of the majority of the people." Allende acted as if he had that support; but even at the highest point of his popularity in the April 1971 elections, he never achieved it. Moreover, his policy of deliberate class polarization, aimed at ex- panding his electoral base, was more successful in pitting professional and middle-class groups against him than in widening his support among workers, peasants and low-income groups.2) Marxist economists and policymakers have always placed primary emphasis on investment and the expansion of the productive capacity of the economy. By contrast, the Allende policymakers emphasized increases In consumption and cornbined this with a headlong rush to take over industry and agriculture—a course far removed from the "two steps forward, one step back" of Lenin. The conse. quences of these policies after their deceptive initial success were massive government deficits, runaway inflation, and a near-breakdown of the economy. (The argument that Allende's economic problems were the result of a shortage of foreign credit does not really hold water, since they were caused by policies initiated before the foreign squeeze 'and since, in any event, Allende's regime managed to secure enough foreign credits from Latin American, European, Soviet and Chinese sources to increase the Chilean foreign debt from $2.6 billion to $3.4 billion in less than three years. Much of the new indebtedness was to Western Europe and other Latin American countries. Surprisingly, Chile's debt to the USSR, China and Eastern Europe increased only from $9 million to $40 million between 1970 and 1973.")Translated from the transcript of the tape recording of the speech published in Ricardo Boizard, *El Ultimo Dia de Altende (The Las Day of Allende)*, Santiago, Editorial de Pacifico, 1973, pp. 53-55.On Allende's suicide, see the medical report in *El Mercurio (International Edition)*, Oct. 29-Nov. 4, 1973, pp. 1 and 7. The eyewitness testimony of one of the President's personal physicians, who entered the room immediately therearter, is published in *Ercilla*, Jan. 28, 1974 pp. 10-13. Allenda's widow has asserted that witnesses told her they had seen bullet wounds in his chest and stomach. A supposed account by a personal bodyguard circulated in Mexico and elsewhere describing his murder contains numerous factual errors and describes events which could not have taken place because of the physical design of the building. On this and many other myths of Left and Right concerning the overthrow of Allende, see Paul E. Sigmund, "Allende through the Myths," *Wortaview (New York)* April 1974 pp. 16-21.Secretaria, Comité Interamericano de la Alianza para el Progreso (CIAP), *El Estuerzo interno y las Necesidades de Financiamiento Externa para el Desarrollo de Chile (Domestic Efforts and the Needs for External Financing for the Development of Chile)*, Washington, DC, 1974, p. V-9.i