Socialist Party of Chile

History

Beginnings

The Socialist Party of Chile was co-founded on 19 April 1933 by Colonel Marmaduque Grove, who had already led several governments, Oscar Schnake, Carlos Alberto Martínez, future President Salvador Allende, and other personalities. After the Chilean coup of 1973 it was proscribed (along with the other leftist parties constituting the Popular Unity coalition) and the party split into several groups which would not reunite until after the return to civilian rule in 1990.

Socialist thought in Chile goes back to the mid-19th century, when Francisco Bilbao and Santiago Arcos opened a debate on civil rights and social equality in Chile. These ideas took hold in the labour movement at the beginning of the 20th century and, along with them, the various communist, anarchist, socialist, and mutualist ideals of the time were diffused by writers and leaders such as Luis Emilio Recabarren. The impact of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia imparted new vigor to Chile's revolutionary movements, which in the 1920s were mostly identified with the global Communist movement; the Communist Party of Chile was formed.

The Great Depression in the 1930s plunged the country's working and middle classes into a serious crisis that led them to sympathize with socialist ideas, which found expression in the establishment of the short-lived Socialist Republic of Chile in 1932. The idea of founding a political party to unite the different movements identified with socialism took shape in the foundation of the Socialist Party of Chile, on 19 April 1933. At a conference in Santiago, at 150 Serrano, 14 delegates from the Socialist Marxist Party led by Eduardo Rodriguez Mazer; 18 from the New Public Action, headed by the lawyer Eugenio Matte Stolen; 12 delegates of the Socialist Order, whose main exponent was the architect Arturo Bianchi Gundian; and 26 representatives of the Revolutionary Socialist Action of Óscar Schnake formulated the new party's founding document and its short-term action plan, and elected Óscar Schnake as its first executive Secretary General.

The Party's Statement of Principles was:

The Socialist Party embodies Marxism, enriched by scientific and social progress.

The Capitalist exploitation based on the doctrine of private property regarding land, industry, resource, and transportation, necessarily must be replaced by an economically socialist state in which said private property be transformed into collective.

After World War II

The Socialist Party entered into decline in the 1940s.

There was complete confusion in the Socialist Party for the presidential election of 1946. The PS decided to put up its own candidate; its secretary general Bernardo Ibáñez. However, many militants supported the radical candidate Gabriel González Videla, while the Authentic Socialist Party of Grove stopped supporting the liberal Fernando Alessandri.

After the failure of the candidacy of Ibáñez (who obtained barely a 2.5% of the votes), the purges continued. In the XI Ordinary Congress the current "revolution" of Raúl Ampuero was imposed and he assigned to academic Eugenio González the making of the Program of the Socialist Party which defined its north; the Democratic Republic of Workers.

The promulgation, in 1948, of the Law 8.987 "Defense of Democracy Law" that banned the communists, was again a factor of division among the socialists. Bernardo Ibáñez, Oscar Schnake, Juan Bautista Rosseti and other anticommunist socialists supported it with enthusiasm; while the board of directors of the party directed by Raúl Ampuero and Eugenio González rejected it. The anticommunist group of Ibáñez was expelled from the PS and they constituted the Socialist Party of the Workers; nevertheless the Conservative of the electoral Roll assigned to the group of Ibáñez the name Socialist Party of Chile, forcing the group of Ampuero to adopt the name Socialist Popular Party.

The Socialist Popular Party proclamation, in its XIV Congress, carried out in Chillán in May 1952, as its presidential standard bearer to Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, despite the refusal of the senators Salvador Allende and Tomás Chadwick. Allende abandoned the party and united the Socialist Party of Chile, which, as a group with the Communist Party (outlawed), raised the candidacy of Allende for the Front of the People. The triumph of Ibáñez permitted the popular socialists to have important departments such as that of Work (Clodomiro Almeyda) and Estate (Felipe Herrera).

After the parliamentary elections of 1953; where the Socialist Popular Party obtained 5 senators and 19 representatives, the popular socialists abandoned the government of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and proclaimed the need to establish a Front of Workers, in conjunction with the Democratic Party of the People, the socialists of Chile and the outlawed communists.

Popular Unity government

In 1969, skepticism about the "Chilean way to socialism" prevailed in the Central Committee of the Socialist Party. Salvador Allende Gossens was proclaimed as the party's presidential candidate, with 13 votes in favor and 14 abstentions, among them that of its secretary general, Aniceto Rodriguez, of Carlos Altamirano Orrego, and of Clodomiro Almeyda Medina. Nevertheless, the candidacy of Allende galvanized the forces of the left, who formed, in October 1969, the Popular Unity coalition including the Socialist Party, Communist Party, Radical Party, Popular Unitary Action Movement (which had split from the Christian Democrat Party), and Independent Popular Action, consisting of former supporters of Carlos Ibáñez. Popular Unity triumphed in the presidential election of September 1970.

On 24 October 1970 Salvador Allende Gossens was officially proclaimed President of the Republic of Chile. There was world expectation; he agreed to manage the coalition and to be a Marxist president with the explicit commitment to build socialism, while respecting the democratic and institutional mechanisms.

The position of the PS on joining the government of the UP became more radical when senator Carlos Altamirano Orrego took over as party leader, having been elected at the XXIII Congress in La Serena in January 1971. He proclaimed that the party should become "the Chilean vanguard in the march toward socialism".

In the municipal elections of April 1971, the leftist coalition achieved an absolute majority in the election of local councillors, which caused growing polarization due to the alliance of the Christian Democrats with the sectors of the right in the country. The withdrawal of the Party of Radical Left from the government, with its 6 representatives and 5 senators, meant that the government of Allende was left with less than one third of both houses of the parliament.

In the parliamentary elections of March 1973, the Popular Unity ruler coalition managed to block a move by the opposing Democratic Confederation to impeach Allende. This initiative did not attain the required two-thirds majority.

Coup d'état and political suppression

The serious economic problems facing the government only deepened the country's political divisions. The Socialist Party, which had posted its highest electoral showing in history, was opposed, along with MAPU, to any dialogue with the right-wing opposition. Meanwhile, from the United States, a concerted plan was underway to prevent socialists from gaining power around the world, including CIA backing for the right wing in Chile. On 11 September 1973, Augusto Pinochet led the military coup against Allende's government, putting an end to the Presidential Republic Era begun in 1924. President Salvador Allende refused to relinquish power to the Armed Forces, and ultimately committed suicide in his office at the Palace of La Moneda, during an intensive air bombardment of the historic edifice.

The military coup d'état was devastating to the organization of the Chilean Socialist Party. Within a few weeks of the coup, four members of their Central Committee and seven regional secretaries of the Partido Social had been murdered. A further twelve members of the Central Committee were imprisoned, while the remaining members took refuge in various foreign embassies. The Socialist Party's Secretary General, Carlos Altamirano, managed to escape from Chile, appearing in Havana on 1 January 1974, during the anniversary of the Cuban Revolution.

Lack of experience working 'underground' during the ban led to the breakup of the Party's Secret Directorate. The secret services of the military state managed to infiltrate the organization and, one by one, arrested its principal leaders. The bodies of Exequiel Ponce Vicencio, Carlos Lorca Tobar (disappeared 1975), Ricardo Lagos Salinas and Víctor Zerega Ponce were never found.

Other victims of repression were the former home Secretary, José Tohá González and the former Minister of National Defense, Orlando Letelier del Solar. Having reviewed the consequences of the defeat of the Unidad Popular, and observed the experiences of refugees of "true socialism" in Eastern Europe, and seeing the lack of a cohesive strategy to continue against Pinochet's regime, there was deep dissent within its exterior organization, whose central management was in the German Democratic Republic.

In April 1979, the Tercer Pleno Exterior, the majority sector of the party, named Clodomiro Almeyda as the new Secretary General, Galo Gómez as the Assistant Secretary and expelled Carlos Altamirano, Jorge Arrate, Jaime Suaréz, Luis Meneses and Erich Schnake from the party, charging them with being "remnants of a past which is in the process of being overcome who testify to the survival of a nucleus which is irreducible and resistant to the superior qualitative development of a true revolutionary vanguard".

1980s reemergence under dictatorship

In the 1980s socialist factions reemerged as active opponents to the Pinochet government. A sector, from among the so-called "renewed socialist", founded the Convergencia Socialista (the Socialist Convergence), which contributed to the Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria – MAPU (Unified Movement of Popular Action), the peasant worker MAPU, and the Christian Leftists. They aimed, in conjunction with the Christian Democracy, to end dictatorship through "non-disruptive methods". The other sector (majority from among the socialist militants in the interior of the country) formed the "popular rebellion" alliance – an agreement with the Communist Party, the Leftist Revolutionary Movement and the Radical Party of Anselmo Sule. The objectives were the same. After the First National Protest against the Pinochet regime, which occurred on 11 May 1983, the efforts of the different factions of the Socialist Party intensified.

The XXIV ("renewed") Socialist Party Congress, directed by Ricardo Ñúnez, decided to form the Democratic Alliance. This was a coalition of Christian Democrats, Silva Cimma radicals, and sectors from the republican and democratic right wing. They convened the Fourth National Protest Day (11 August 1983) and proposed, in September 1983, the formation of the Socialist Bloc, the first attempt at a unification of Chilean socialism under the slogan "Democracy Now!".

In the meantime, the "Almeyda" Partido Social, in conjunction with the Communist Party, Aníbal Palm radicals and the Leftist Revolutionary Movement, founded the "Movimiento Democrático Popular" (MDP) (Popular Democratic Movement) on 6 September 1983, which caused the Fifth Day of National Protest.

The signing of the National Accord in late August 1985, between the Democratic Alliance and sectors of the right wing aligned to the military regime, deepened divisions among the Chilean left wing. The most radical politico-military arm opposed the method of gradual transition towards democracy. Their primary exponent was the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez (FPMR) (the Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front).

The MAPU-OC, whose main figures were Jaime Gazmuri, Jorge Molina and Jaime Estévez, was added to the "renewed" Partido Social, now directed by Carlos Briones.

Concertación

In May 1989, the "renewed" PS held internal elections by secret ballot by its nationwide membership, for the first time in the history of Chilean socialism. The list composed of Jorge Arrate and Luis Alvarado won, against the competing lists of Erich Schnake and Akím Soto, and of Heraldo Muñoz (supported by Ricardo Lagos' faction within the party).

The winning list of Jorge Arrate represented the tendency of the "socialist renewal", upholding a permanent alliance with the Christian Democrats within the Concertación, and strongly defending the unity of the party, in contrast to other internal tendencies. After the elections the XXV Congress was convoked at Costa Azul, which took the momentous decision for Chilean socialism to abandon its traditional isolationism and join the Socialist International.

In June 1989, the Concertación appointed the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin as its standard bearer for the presidential elections. Aylwin had beaten Gabriel Valdés and Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle in the party's internal elections, and a few weeks before the election he received the support of the radicals of Silva Cimma and even of the former Almeyda supporters (PS-Almeyda). Finally the PS-Arrate (or "renewal" PS) dropped its candidate Ricardo Lagos and added itself to the candidacy of Aylwin, who as president of the Christian Democratic Party was one of the main opponents of the Popular Unity government.

Aylwin won easily in the presidential elections of 1989, gaining more than the 55% of the valid votes. "Renewal Socialism" was strengthened as 16 representatives of the PPD were elected, 13 of whom were members of the PS-Arrate. In the matter of senators, three of their members were chosen (Ricardo Núñez Muñoz, Jaime Gazmuri and Hernán Vodanovic), but there was regret over the rout of Ricardo Lagos in his candidacy of Santiago West.

PS-Almeyda obtained seven representatives, two of them standing for the PAIS, and the other five elected as independents within the Concertación list. Rolando Calderon Aránguiz was elected as senator in Magallanes.

The fall of the wall of Berlin, on 9 November 1989, deeply affected the Chilean left, especially in its more orthodox sector. This accelerated the process of unification within the party, which was finalized on 27 December 1989. The Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria, led by Oscar Guillermo Garretón, took this chance to join the united PS.

Nueva Mayoría

Michelle Bachelet won the second round of the 2013 Chilean presidential election with 62% of the votes. She was the candidate of Nueva Mayoría ("New Majority"), a broadened version of the Concertación now including the Communist Party and others.

Presidents elected

1970 – Salvador Allende

2000 – Ricardo Lagos (with dual membership in the Party for Democracy)

2006 – Michelle Bachelet

2014 – Michelle Bachelet

Election results

Due to its membership in the Concert of Parties for Democracy, the party has endorsed the candidates of other parties on several occasions. Presidential elections in Chile are held using a two-round system, the results of which are displayed below.