Salvador Allende, a doctor and veteran of the Chilean Socialist Party, won the presidency of Chile in 1970 and set out to build socialism through the country's existing democratic institutions. He is often described as the first Marxist elected president of a Latin American liberal democracy. His government ended on 11 September 1973 in a military coup, during which he died inside the presidential palace; Chilean courts have since ruled that he took his own life.
Doctor, Socialist and senator
Allende was born in Santiago on 26 June 1908 into a middle-class family with a tradition of liberal and progressive politics. He studied medicine at the University of Chile, qualifying in the early 1930s. In 1933 he helped found the Socialist Party in Valparaíso. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1937, he ran the 1938 campaign of the Popular Front's Pedro Aguirre Cerda and then served as his health minister, introducing measures such as maternity care, workplace safety rules and free school meals.
From 1945 Allende sat in the Senate for a series of provinces, serving as its president from 1966, and in the 1950s he sponsored the law creating Chile's national health service. He ran for president in 1952, 1958 and 1964 and lost each time. Declassified documents show that in 1962–64 the CIA spent millions of dollars backing his opponent Eduardo Frei and on propaganda against him.
Election in 1970
As candidate of the Popular Unity coalition, Allende won 36.6 per cent of the vote on 4 September 1970, narrowly ahead of the former president Jorge Alessandri. With no majority, the decision passed to Congress. The Nixon administration, which regarded his victory as unacceptable, tried through the CIA to block his confirmation or to encourage a coup, and the army commander René Schneider, who opposed military interference, was mortally wounded in a kidnap attempt. Congress confirmed Allende on 24 October after he signed a statute of constitutional guarantees, and he took office on 3 November.
The Chilean path to socialism
Allende's government nationalised the copper mines and banks, extended land reform, returned land to Mapuche communities, and expanded health and education. The first year brought strong growth and falling unemployment, but by 1972 inflation exceeded 100 per cent, shortages fed black markets, and copper prices and output fell. Washington cut off support and, according to later released documents, funded opposition groups and strikes, while the Soviet Union offered credits on a smaller scale than Allende had hoped. Chile restored relations with Cuba, and Fidel Castro visited for a month.
Polarisation
A truckers' strike in October 1972 paralysed the country, and Allende brought the army commander, General Carlos Prats, into his cabinet. Congress, dominated by the opposition, clashed repeatedly with the government. A failed tank revolt in June 1973 was followed by more strikes, and on 22 August the Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution accusing the government of breaking the constitution. Prats resigned under pressure two days later and was replaced as army chief by Augusto Pinochet.
The coup and his death
On 11 September 1973 the armed forces rose against him in the Chilean coup. As troops closed in on La Moneda palace, Allende made a farewell radio broadcast, refused safe passage, and was found dead inside. The junta announced that he had shot himself. Many doubted this account during the dictatorship, but an international team of experts exhumed his remains in 2011 and concluded that he had killed himself, a finding confirmed by the courts in 2011 and 2012 and accepted by his family. The CIA has acknowledged its earlier role in Chilean politics but says it played no direct part in the coup.
Legacy
The military regime that followed dissolved Congress and persecuted opponents, killing or disappearing at least 3,095 people before democracy returned in 1990. Allende is honoured by many on the left around the world as a martyr of democratic socialism, while economists critical of his record have cited his policies as a case of "macroeconomic populism".
On our maps
Our 1960 map shows Chile a decade before his election, and the 1985 map shows the country under the dictatorship that replaced him.
From the atlas
Salvador Allende in time and on the map
Salvador Allende lived from 1908 to 1973. Borders of Time has 6 world maps from those years: 1914, 1920, 1930, 1938, 1945 and 1960.
Living at the same time, among others on this site: Chiang Kai-shek (1887–1975), David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973), Deng Xiaoping (1904–1997), Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974), Golda Meir (1898–1978), Haile Selassie (1892–1975), Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), Hirohito (1901–1989) and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980).
Events of those years: Indian independence movement (1757–1947), Satsuma Rebellion (1877–2005), Scramble for Africa (1885–1914), Progressive Era (1897–1920), Nahda (1900–2000), Herero and Nama genocide (1904–1908), Young Turk Revolution (1908), Tunguska event (1908), Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910 (1910).
Born just before and after, among others on this site: before, Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989) and Frida Kahlo (1907–1954); after, Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986) and Kwame Nkrumah (1909–1972).