| The Unidad Popular (UP) coalition government (1970-1973), led by Salvador Allende Gossens, was voted into power under a program designed to initiate socialism in Chile. It presents a significant case study of coalition dynamics and the possibilities for change through the constitutional system in an underdeveloped country. Conflicts within the UP affected coalition policy-making and the political process as a whole, making it difficult to attain the 1970 goals.;Once in power, as part of a UP government, the two wings clashed over interpretation of the theory of the transition to socialism. They differed over questions of theory such as the dynamic of the transition process, the type of electoral alliance to form, the nature of dual power and the role of workers in the transition period.;These conflicts translated themselves into differing policy positions on the critical issue of the creation of a strong social sector of the economy, or area de propiedad social, (APS). (The creation of an APS was viewed by the UP as a fundamental component of its program to begin the construction of socialism in Chile.) Policy conflicts included disagreements over the APS' size or scope, the means or method for creating an APS, and the role of workers and worker participation in the transition process. Radicals pushed for expansion of the APS while moderates favored maintaining a smaller number of industries under government ownership. On the question of means, radicals encouraged worker action, such as tomas, the use of administrative decrees to requisition or intervene in private enterprises, and opposed negotiating with the center Christian Democratic Party (PDC). Moderates were against extensive worker tomas and frequent use of administrative decrees, favoring instead a legislative solution--which implied negotiations with the PDC. Last, radicals and moderates differed over the role of worker participation. While moderates called for a centralized, planned economy, with emphasis on increasing production--and worker participation which supported these goals--radicals pressed for militant worker action and expansion of worker control, whether it was government sanctioned or not. In all of these cases, the two groups' policy positions stemmed from long and firmly held ideological views about how to attain socialism in Chile.;The consequences of these ideological and corresponding policy differences (which were exacerbated by weak coalition rules), for UP decision-making were several. There were delays in decision-making, ambiguous signals about UP policy, conflicting implementation of policy, and threatened as well as actual party withdrawals from the UP coalition.;The UP divided into the ideological groupings--one moderate and the other radical--over the proper path to socialism and a set of related issues. The origins of these groupings are discernible in an earlier epoch. By 1970, UP moderates and radicals, led by the Communists and the radical Altamirano Socialists, respectively, had passed through a forty-year history of ideological conflict, as well as electoral competition.;The intra-coalition conflict also affected Chilean politics as a whole, principally by allowing the opposition to take advantage of UP disunity. Although internal UP conflicts do not explain the downfall of Allende (activities of domestic opposition groups, encouraged--both "morally" and materially--by the United States, were critical factors to Allende's overthrow), they constitute an important factor for an understanding of contemporary Chilean politics. |
