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was an expansion of the electoral base of the Allende | when the regime's popularity was at its highestcoalition by an appeal to the material interests and point, but in retrospect it does not appear at allthe class consciousness of the lower classes. It was certain that he would have won-particularly sincethe interaction of the various elements of this politi by the time that the constitutional prerequisites forcal and economic strategy that finally produced the such a vote had been fulfilled, the economic andbreakdown of Chilean constitutionalism and the political situation would have been much less favor-intervention of the armed forces that the extreme left able.of the Allende coalition had been predicting all along.## Initial SuccessAt the outset, the new economic policy wasastoundingly successful, although it had within itthe seeds of future disaster. Income redistributionstimulated demand, while price controls and an artificially low exchange rate kept prices down. As aconsequence, a mini-boom ensued. By March 1971the Sociedad de Fomente Fabril (Association for theDevelopment of Manufacturing), representingChilean business and industry, admitted that produc-tion had increased by 6.3 percent over the figureof 12 months before, and by. May that figure hadreached 13.5 percent. The Institute of Economicsof the University of Chile later reported that unem-ployment in the Santiago area dropped from 8.3percent in December 1970 to 5.2 percent in June1971 and declined further to an unusually low 3.8percent by the end of the year. The Consumer PriceIndex stopped climbing entirely in December 1970and had only increased by 6 percent by the timeof the municipal elections of April 1971-its lowestrise in many years. At the same time, salaries andwages increased by 27 percent in real terms.This wave of economic prosperity-combinedwith the absence of the political repression thatsome rightists had predicted would result from avictory by the Marxists-led many, particularly inlow Income groups, to vote for the candidates of thePopular Unity coalition in the April municipal elec-tions. Allende's own Socialist Party bettered its electoral showing in the 1969 congressional elections bynearly 100 percent (a jump from 12 percent to 22percent of the total), and the candidates of all theparties supporting Allende received about 50 percent of the vote, as compared with the 36 percentwhich the President himself had received only sevenmonths before. Yet, gratifying as the results were,the coalition was stili a few votes short of the abso-lute majority that Allende required to win a plebi-scite on a constitutional amendment. He was latercriticized for not calling the plebiscite at the timeThe period after the municipal elections now ap-pears to have been crucial for the long-term survivalof the regime. The Right was still in disarray, theChristian Democrats, had elected a compromiseleadership which was not committed to either of theparty's wings, and the short-run economic and politi-cal indicators were favorable. Yet, instead of takingaction on the economic front to stem the loss offoreign reserves and to dampen inflationary pres-sures-and on the political front to prevent themovement of the Christian Democrats into an alli-ance with the right-wing opposition parties-theregime continued its previous policies, confidentlyassuming that in the long run "the people" wouldsupport it and ignoring the warnings of "bourgeois"economists that the loss of foreign reserves, the ex-pansion of demand, and the sharp decline in invest-ment would produce disastrous consequences in thefollowing year.## Political PolarizationThe hardening of the Christian Democratic posi-tion began in min-1971. It was accelerated in Juneby the assassination of the former Christian Demo-cratic Interior Minister, Edmundo Perez Zujovic, byextremists, at least one of whom had been releasedfrom prison by Allende upon his accession to power.A month later in a by-election in Valparaíso, thevictorious Christian Democratic candidate receivedthe support of the Right. The tacit alliance with theRight led to the secession from the PDC of eightdeputies and a number of other party leaders to formthe pro-Allende Izquierda Cristiana (Christian Left).This was counterbalanced however, by a split in theother direction within the Allende coalition. Five ofthe seven Radical senators (including two formerpresidential candidates) and 7 of the 19 deputiesleft the Radical Party (PR), and formed the Partidode la Izquierda Radical (Party of the Radical Left-PIR) in protest against the Marxist orientation of a[^1] See, e.g., Paul M. Sweezy, "Chile: The Question of Power," Monthly Review (New York, London) December 1973, pp. 1-11.49