From: ez000281@hamlet.ucdavis.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america
Subject: Re: The Chilean Model
Date: 5 Nov 92 17:03:18 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, UC Davis

In <92307.184859CMLEE@MTUS5.BITNET> Antonio escribe:

>In article 1992Nov2.200819.19289@brtph560.bnr.ca> <1d4cjpINNs2b@girtab.usc.edu

>>>I just thank God that in 1973 an anti-communism revolution succeeded in
>>>saving Chile from the barbarism of Cuba.

>>It was not a "Revolution", it was a violent coup d'etat against a
>>democraticly-elected government in a country that at that point had a very
>>long democratic tradition.

>Can somebody explain the difference betweet a revolution and a
>coup d'etat, please?. I've got confused by the usage of these words in
>the paragrphs above.

I'm not a political theorist, but here's my best shot:

A revoultion involves an abrupt restructuring of the social, economic, and 
political structures of a nation state in such a way in which such are 
radically altered after the process has taken place.  A revolution does not 
necesarilly entail a violent change of the political structure (i.e., 
bloodshed), but rather there are numerous cases of "peaceful" revolutions in 
history. One familiar to me is the case of Puerto Rico, where in the early 50's 
a semi-feudal agrarian society was abruptly transformed to industrial 
capitalism without firing a single shot.  However, it is sometimes the case 
that revoulutions bring about class warfare.  

A  coup de'etat involves a violent overthrow of the center of state power by a 
group of individuals without altering the economic structures of society.  In 
rare occasions, there have been coups which, once having succesfully gained 
power, the power grabbers have decided to change (or not change) society "from 
above". Generally these attempts fail since they involve a minuscule group of 
individuals who rarely extend their interests to the rest of society, and thus 
have no support in bringing about structural change.

In the case at hand, the Marxist President of Chile took the opportunity of an 
electorial triumph over a split opposition to align his countries social 
policies with those of the soviet bloc.  I doub't anybody would argue that 
Allende was building socialism (i.e., state capitalism) "peacefully", although 
at times his follwers and supporters would become violent. In any event, it is 
clear that Allende did not gain power by way of a "coup".  Instead, he was 
attempting to change the socioeconomic structure of Chile in line with 
communist models via the electoral process.  To the point at which he was able 
to change such structures (without violating Chile's Constitution) he seemed 
very ineffective.  However, he was very agile at splitting the non-communist 
democratic opposition, in spite of his socialist endeavours, and promoting 
street chaos and labor unrest. What Allende did not count on was that state 
power did not simply reside within the legislative, executive or judicial 
branches of government, but rather within the military.  Once his revoultion 
took a deeper left turn in 1973 and the country seemed to be headed invevitably 
towards communism, he scared the hell out of the divided middle class and the 
army, both of which effectively united to bring about a (counter) revolution 
which began by way of a coup and ended with repression.  So, in Chile we have 
seen clearly how "revoultions" do not necesarilly entail violence, while at the 
same time, they can certainly be bloody.

In Marxist theory (and practice) Allende was a "revisionist".  He advocated 
for the "empowerment" of peaseants and workers (obviously under the 
"leadership" of the communist party) through electoral means.  It is not clear 
if the Communist Party backing Allende was willing to follow this strategy 
every moment, or whether they were eventually preparing for an insurrection and 
power grab over the military as their mechanism of preserving the CP control 
over the process (as did Castro in 1961).  In any event, in the view of the 
majority of marxists-leninists, Allende was a failure from the begining, since 
he was unable to implement the dictatorship of the proletariat (via the CP) and 
assure the "permanence" of the revolution.  Allende (as well as Sukharno's 
earlier repression of communists in Indonesia) has forced communists to share 
the earlier belief that any true revolution, involves the violent destruction 
of the state and its replacement with a new one.  This has been the preffered 
communist strategy over 100 years and has led many of its followers to believe 
that:

revolution -> overthrow of the state

When such is not necesarrily the case (e.g., the "glorious revolution" in 
England).  Likewise, Jacobins and Girondins proved that coup's were a 
manificent instrument for revolutionaries (as well as counter revolutionaries) 
to gain access to power and bring about change "from above".  Futhermore, if 
the communist assumption held true (revoultions entail the violent overthrow of 
the state), then Pinochet was not involved in a "revoultion" since Pinochet 
himself was representing the state (the armed forces) and Allende was simply a 
tolerable ornament.  However, said assumption also entails that there was no 
such coup de'ETAT, since the STATE was Pinochet's army.  So, communists will 
have a hart time reconciling these two interpretations about Chile..

Finally, another marxist myth about revoultion is the idea that somehow 
revolutions entiail historical progression (i.e., the revoultion is 
historically better than the previous state).  There are many cases in which 
revoulutions "revolve" backward (e.g. Cambodia).  The Cuban case is another 
example of a "revulution" that after taking a step forward in 59, take two 
steps backwards 61.  The same can be said of Nicaragua.

Edelmiro
Newsgroups: soc.culture.latin-america