Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro delivered this speech at the same Havana rally, on September 28, 1973, which was addressed by Beatriz Allende, days after the coup.
Less than 10 months ago in this same plaza, on December 13, 1972, our people had their last meeting with President Allende. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans met with him here to hear his magnificent words and to express our confidence, fellowship, and support for Allende and the revolutionary process in Chile. We expressed our determination to support him as much as we could, and demonstrated as such with a gesture we know deeply touched President Allende’s heart: our decision to give up a little of our own food so we could send it to the Chilean people.
We remember how happy the president was during those short days of his visit here; he felt himself among friends, among true brothers and sisters, among his family... It was in this same plaza we became convinced he would behave as a revolutionary in times of crisis, and here that he told us the Chilean people would answer counterrevolutionary violence with revolutionary violence.
President Allende and the Chilean revolutionary process awakened great interest and solidarity throughout the world. In Chile, for the first time in history, a new experience developed: the attempt to bring about the revolution by peaceful, legal means. He had the understanding and support of all the world in his effort—not only of the international communist movement, but of very different political tendencies as well.
Our party and people—in spite of the fact that we had made our revolution by other means—and all the other revolutionary peoples in the world supported him. We didn’t hesitate with our support for one minute, because we understood there was a possibility in Chile of winning an electoral victory, in spite of imperialism’s resources and those of the ruling classes; in spite of all the adverse circumstances. We didn’t hesitate in 1970 to publicly state our agreement and support of the efforts the Chilean left was making to win the elections that year.
And, sure enough, there was an electoral victory. The left, Popular Unity, with its social and political programs, won at the polls. Of course, that didn’t mean the triumph of a revolution; it meant access to very important positions of power by peaceful, legal means.
It wasn’t, however, an easy task that Allende was faced with. There were conspiracies from the beginning. An attempt was made to keep him from being inaugurated after the elections, when imperialism and its agencies—the CIA and multinational companies—conspired to keep Salvador Allende from becoming president of the republic. They murdered the commander of the Chilean Army in attempting to prevent it. Former President Frei, an arrogant and profoundly reactionary man, wasn’t resigned to having Salvador Allende occupy the presidency, as had been decided by the people’s vote.
Yet in spite of the conspiracies, in spite of imperialism’s efforts, Salvador Allende, in the name of Popular Unity, took office.
What problems confronted him? A bourgeois state apparatus was firmly intact. The armed forces called themselves apolitical, institutional—that is, apparently neutral in the revolutionary process. There was a bourgeois parliament, where a majority of members jumped to the tune of the ruling classes. The judicial system was completely subservient to the reactionaries. The country’s economy was also completely bankrupt and the Chilean state was $4 billion in debt. It was in those circumstances that Allende had to carry out his governmental duties.
That huge debt was the product of imperialist policies, the product of US engineering, which was trying to create a showcase of a Christian Democratic government so as to confront and halt the advance of the social movement.
When Frei was president, the United States granted Chile huge loans. But they weren’t loans to aid development of the country; they were loans for lavish consumption—for cars, television sets, refrigerators and all kinds of other consumer goods which gave an image of progress and well-being to the Christian Democratic government.
President Allende found himself with a country heavily burdened by debt; a country in which imperialism had introduced its customs and its consumer habits; a country in which the mass media—the press, television and radio—was in the hands of the oligarchy. It was a time when the price of copper plummeted from 75 cents to 48 cents a pound.
Moreover, the people had crying needs that simply had to be met, such as large-scale unemployment. The demands most felt by the population had to be attended to, and the Popular Unity government found enormous economic obstacles in its path. When agrarian reform began to be put into effect, large landowners and the agrarian bourgeoisie immediately started sabotaging agricultural production. The bourgeoisie—owners of the distribution centers, warehouses and stores—cornered the market, sabotaging the Popular Unity government.
As soon as the nationalization of the copper enterprises was approved—that had extracted millions of dollars from the labor and sweat of the Chilean people—imperialism froze all loans granted by all international organizations to the Chilean government and went about stifling the economy of Chile.
The bourgeois political parties—essentially the National Party and the Christian Democratic Party—took it upon themselves, in complicity with imperialism and the reactionary classes and with the reactionary press, to place obstacles in the way of everything President Allende tried to do, making it practically impossible for him to govern; they virtually tied the hands of the government to keep it from doing anything.
Those three years of the Popular Unity government were really three years of struggles, difficulties and agony as it attempted to carry out its program. Three years of one plot after another, conspiracy after conspiracy. Owners, merchants and even professionals—the kinds of professionals we knew here, most of them at the service of the ruling classes, sabotaged the government’s tasks: they called work stoppages and strikes and completely paralyzed the country on more than one occasion. This wasn’t all. They continually called on the armed forces to overthrow the Popular Unity government.
President Allende kept working in the midst of these tremendous difficulties. He tried to do—and did do—many things for the Chilean people. Throughout those three years, the Chilean people—especially the workers and farmers—understood that there was in the presidency of the republic a representative not of the oligarchs, large landowners and bourgeoisie but of the poor and the workers—a true representative of the people, for whom he was fighting, in spite of the enormous difficulties he faced.
President Allende realized the difficulties and foresaw the dangers; he was witnessing the birth of fascism. All that he had to oppose those forces, which had been created and spurred on by imperialism, was his fighting spirit and determination to defend the process at the cost of his very life.
We recall what he said, in a clear and decisive manner, on the afternoon of December 4, 1971, in a stadium in the city of Santiago, at a farewell rally for the Cuban delegation:
...I tell you calmly, with absolute tranquillity, I am not an apostle or a messiah. I do not have the spirit of a martyr. I am a social fighter fulfilling a task given him by the people. Let those who want to turn back the clock of history and ignore the will of the majority of the people realize that even though I am not inclined to being a martyr, I will not retreat. They must realize that I will only leave La Moneda when I fulfil the people’s mandate.
They must realize this, they must listen well and let it sink into their heads: I will defend this Chilean Revolution and I will defend the people’s government, because it is the mandate that the people have given me. I have no other alternative. Only by pumping me with bullets will they be able to keep me from fulfilling the program of the people.
That wasn’t just rhetoric. It showed the will and determination of a man of honor.
Salvador Allende kept his word, dramatically and impressively!
The fascists have tried to keep the events of September 11 from becoming public knowledge. With the reports of some of the survivors who were with the president that morning, we have established what happened on September 11 around President Allende. Allende’s daughter, who gave us a clear account of everything she saw and heard that day, next to her father, also provided some information. Her words centered on President Allende’s humane side, his concern over the comrades who were unarmed or who might be killed there uselessly—since he was aware of the need for cadres and leaders to aid in the future struggle. How right he was!
If Comrade Beatriz Allende had been killed that day in La Moneda Palace, the one million people here, and the world’s public as a whole, would never have known about Allende’s gestures, concerns and worries, and especially about his great preoccupation with the unity of revolutionary forces, his call for unity and his feelings and unshakable determination to fight to the death in defense of his just cause. Now we know what President Allende’s attitude was and what spirits he was in that day.
At 6:20 a.m. that day, the president received a telephone call at his Tomás Moro residence informing him of the military coup taking place. Immediately, he alerted his personal guard and made the firm decision to go to La Moneda Palace to defend the Popular Unity government in his post as president of the republic. With him were 23 bodyguards, armed with 23 automatic rifles, two .30 caliber machine guns, and three bazookas. They went to the Presidential Palace in four cars and one pickup truck, arriving there at 7:30 a.m.
Carrying his automatic rifle, the president, accompanied by his bodyguards, entered the main gate of La Moneda. At this time, there was the usual Carabinero protection in the palace.
Once inside, he called a meeting, informing those with him that the situation was very serious and telling them of his decision to fight until death defending the legitimate and popular constitutional government of Chile against the fascist coup. He examined the available weapons and gave the first instructions for the defense of the palace.
Seven men from the Investigations Service arrived to join the defenders. The Carabineros, meanwhile, were in their places, and some of them took measures to defend the building. A small group of personal bodyguards guarded the entrance to the presidential office, with instructions not to let any armed military officer enter, to avoid any acts of treason.
Within the space of one hour, he spoke to the Chilean people three times over the radio, expressing his will to resist.
Just after 8:15 a.m., the fascist junta, using the palace’s intercom system, urged the president to surrender and to give up his office, offering him an airplane in which to leave the country with his family and colleagues. Allende told them, “As traitorous generals, you are incapable of knowing what honorable men are like,” and indignantly rejected the ultimatum.
The president had a brief meeting in his office with several high officials of the Carabineros who had gone to the palace. They cowardly refused to defend the government. The president dismissed them with contempt, ordering them to leave the palace immediately. While this meeting with the Carabinero officers was taking place, the three military aides-de-camp arrived. The president told them it was not the moment for trusting men in military uniforms, and asked them to leave La Moneda.
Minutes after the aides-de-camp and the Carabinero officials left, the commanding lieutenant of the Carabinero garrison at the Presidential Palace, taking orders from his headquarters, instructed one Carabinero to go through the building and order the garrison men to withdraw. These men immediately began to leave La Moneda, taking some of the weapons with them. The Carabineros’ armored trucks, which up until that moment were stationed in front of the palace in defense positions, followed suit.
A group of 10 Carabineros, accompanied by the bearer of the withdrawal order and, no doubt, following instructions, turned their rifles on the president as they were leaving by the main stairway and nearing the exit. The president’s personal bodyguards shot back, engaging in the first shooting with those military carrying out the coup.
While these events were taking place, numerous ministers, undersecretaries, advisers, the president’s daughters Beatriz and Isabel, and other members of Popular Unity, had been arriving at the palace to be at the president’s side at this critical time.
At approximately 9:15 a.m., the first shots were fired at the palace from outside. Fascist infantry troops, numbering over 200 men, were moving along Teatinos and Morandé streets, on either side of the Plaza de la Constitución, toward the Presidential Palace, firing at the president’s office. The forces defending the palace did not exceed 40 men.
The fascists then brought in tanks, supported by the infantry. A tank moved along Moneda Street, another along Teatinos, another along Alameda at the corner of Morandé and another along the Plaza de la Constitución toward the main door. At that moment, from the president’s own office, bazooka fire opened upon the tank at the main door, destroying it completely. Two other tanks aimed their fire at the president’s office, and an armored truck shot at the private secretary’s office and that of the bodyguards with their machine guns. Several artillery detachments located on the side of the Plaza de la Constitución also fired at the palace. The president went to the different combat positions, encouraging and leading the defenders. The fierce struggle continued for more than one hour, and the fascists were unable to move forward an inch.
At 10:45 a.m., the president met in the Toesca Room with the ministers, undersecretaries, and advisers who had come to the palace to be at his side. He told them that the future struggle would need leaders and cadres, that all those who were unarmed should abandon the La Moneda Palace as soon as possible, and all those who were armed should continue at their combat posts. Of course, none of the unarmed agreed, and neither the president’s daughters nor the other women at La Moneda wanted to leave the palace.
The battle was fierce. Over the palace’s intercom system the fascists furiously issued new ultimatums, announcing that if the defenders did not give up, they would immediately send in the air force.
At 11:45 a.m., the president met with his daughters and the other nine women at the palace, firmly ordering them to leave La Moneda, since he thought it senseless for them to die there without being able to defend themselves. He immediately asked for a three-minute ceasefire from the besiegers, in order to evacuate the women. The fascists did not agree to the truce, but their troops began to withdraw from the vicinity of the palace at this time, in order to launch the air attack, and this brought about an impasse in the fight which allowed the women to leave.
At about 12:00 noon, the air attack began on the palace. The first rockets went through the roof and exploded in the Winter Courtyard, located in the center of the building. More air raids and rockets followed one after the other, filling the whole building with smoke and toxic fumes. The president gave orders to get all the gas masks, noted how much ammunition was left, and urged all fighters to staunchly resist the air raid.
The president’s bodyguards were running out of ammunition for their automatic rifles after almost three hours of fighting, so the president ordered that the door to the palace Carabinero garrison’s armory be broken down, since some arms were stored there. Growing impatient over the delay in information about the weapons, he crossed the Winter Courtyard and went to the armory himself, where he ordered that hand grenades be used in the operation. A hole was opened in the door of the armory, and four .30-caliber machine guns, numerous Sik rifles, and a lot of ammunition, gas masks and helmets were brought out. The president ordered that all this be immediately taken to the firing line, and he toured the Carabinero dormitories, picking up what Sik rifles and other weapons he found there.
Carrying numerous weapons on his shoulders to reinforce the combat positions, the president said, “That is how we write the first page of this history. My people and the people of the Americas will write the rest.”
While the president was carrying arms and ammunition from the armory, the air attack was renewed. An explosion shattered the windows near where the president was stationed, and he was wounded in the back by fragments of glass. This was the first wound he suffered. While being treated for his wound, he ordered the transfer of arms to continue. He was always concerned about the fate of his comrades.
A few minutes later, the fascists resumed their attack, joining the planes with artillery, tanks and infantry. According to witnesses, the noise, shelling, explosions, smoke and noxious gases turned the palace into an inferno. Although the president had ordered that all the water pipes be opened to prevent fires on the ground floor, a fire started on the left side of the palace and spread to the aides’ room and the Red Room. In spite of this, the president wasn’t discouraged, not even in the most critical period, and ordered that the massive attack be countered with all possible means.
Then Allende, with the palace in flames and under fire, crawled to his office on Plaza de la Constitución, took a bazooka, aimed at a tank on Morandé Street which was firing at the palace and put it out of action with a direct hit. A few minutes later, another fighter put a third tank out of action.
The fascists brought in new armored cars, troops, and tanks along Morandé Street, increasing their fire against the door of the La Moneda Palace. Fire continued to rage in the palace. The president and several other fighters went to the ground floor to throw back the fascists’ attempt to enter the palace from Morandé Street, and this was accomplished.
Then the fascists halted their fire in that sector and shouted for two representatives of the government to come out for a parley. The president sent Flores, general secretary of the government, and Daniel Vergara, deputy secretary of the interior, who went out through the door on Morandé Street and approached a military jeep that was stationed in front. This was at about 1:00 p.m. Flores and Vergara talked with a high-ranking officer in the jeep. On their return to the palace, when they were near the door, they were fired on from the jeep. Flores was hit in the right leg, and Daniel Vergara was hit in the back several times and was dragged into the palace while other defenders gave covering fire.
The fascists had requested the parley again to demand surrender. They offered the president and the defenders facilities to leave the palace and go anywhere they wanted. The president immediately reiterated his determination to fight to the last. On the ground floor they resisted the attack that came from Morandé Street. The main entrance to the palace was already practically destroyed.
At about 1:30 p.m. the president went back up to the second floor. By then, many of the defenders had been killed by the shelling and explosions or been burned to death. Journalist Augusto Olivares amazed everyone with his extraordinary heroism. Seriously wounded, he was taken away and operated on in the palace’s medical room, but, when everyone thought he was still lying there, he grabbed a weapon and came back to fight along with the president on the second floor. The names of the fighters who distinguished themselves there and their acts of heroism are endless.
After 1:30 p.m. the fascists took over the ground floor of the palace; the defense was organized on the second floor, and the battle continued. The fascists tried to break through via the main staircase. At about 2:00 p.m. they managed to occupy a corner of the second floor. The president and several of his comrades had barricaded themselves in a corner of the Red Room. Advancing to where the fascists had broken through, the president was shot in the stomach. The pain doubled him up, but he didn’t stop fighting. Supporting himself in a chair, he kept shooting at the fascists, who were only a few yards away, until a second bullet got him in the chest, the impact threw him to the floor and, already dying, he was riddled with bullets.
Seeing the president fall, the members of his personal bodyguard launched a powerful counterattack and fought the fascists back to the main staircase. Then, in the midst of combat, there was an amazing gesture of dignity: they took the body of the president to his office, sat it in the presidential chair, placed the president’s sash on it, and wrapped Allende’s body in a Chilean flag.
Even after their president was dead, those immortal defenders of the palace resisted the savage fascist attacks for two more hours. It was only at 4:00 in the afternoon, when the Presidential Palace had been burning for several hours, that the last resistance was put down.
Many will be amazed by what has just been narrated here. And it is, simply, amazing. The fascist high officers of the four armed corps had risen up against the Popular Unity government, and only 40 men resisted for seven hours against the weight of the artillery, tank, planes and fascist infantry. Few times in history has such a page of heroism been written.
The president was not only courageous and firm in keeping his word that if need be he would die in defense of the people’s cause, but he grew in the critical hour to incredible heights. His fortitude, serenity, dynamism, leadership and heroism were invaluable. Never in this hemisphere has any other president taken part in such a dramatic feat. Unarmed ideas have often been crushed by brute force. Now it can be said that never had brute force come up against such resistance, carried out in the military field, by a man of ideas, whose weapons were always the spoken and written word.
Salvador Allende showed more dignity, honor, courage and heroism than all the fascist military men put together. His incomparable actions sank Pinochet and Pinochet’s accomplishes into ignominy forever...
The fascists have tried to hide the extraordinary behavior of President Allende from the people of Chile and the world. They have tried to push Allende’s suicide as the “real” version of events. Even if Allende, seriously wounded, had shot himself so as not to fall prisoner to the enemy, it would not have damaged his integrity. It would have been an act of extraordinary courage.
After President Allende’s death, they have tried to muddy his name in a low, ignoble, vile attack.
But what can you expect of fascists? They made a big thing of the rifle Allende fought with, the automatic rifle we had given him, using it for their despicable, ridiculous propaganda. But facts have shown that there could have been no better gift for President Allende than that rifle, used in defending the Popular Unity government!
Our premonition in giving the president that rifle was correct. No rifle has ever before been used by such an heroic, constitutional and legitimate president! No rifle has better defended the cause of the poor, the cause of the Chilean workers and farmers! If every worker and every farmer had a rifle like it in their hands, there would never have been a fascist coup!
That is the great lesson which revolutionaries should draw from the events in Chile.
A few days ago, they published a letter we sent President Allende at the end of July. But the fascists are dirty, and many parts of the letter were suppressed. This is the full text:
Havana, July 29, 1973
Dear Salvador,
Using the pretext of discussing with you matters related to the conference on nonaligned nations, Carlos and Manuel Piñeiro are coming to see you. Their objective is to get from you information on the situation, and to offer, as always, our willingness to cooperate in the face of the difficulties and dangers that block and threaten the process.
Their stay will be brief, because they have many obligations pending here, but we decided on the trip even though it involved sacrificing their work.
I see that you are now involved in the delicate matter of dialogue with the Christian Democrats, in the midst of serious events like the brutal murder of your naval aide-de-camp and the new strike of truck owners. I imagine that tensions must be high and that you want to gain time to improve the balance of power in case fighting breaks out and, if possible, find a way to continue the revolutionary process without civil strife, avoiding any historic responsibility for what may happen. Those are praiseworthy objectives. But if the other side, whose real objectives we are not able to judge from here, continues to carry out their perfidious and irresponsible policy, demanding a price which it is impossible for Popular Unity and the revolution to pay—which is quite likely—don’t ever forget the extraordinary strength of the Chilean working class and the firm support it has always given you in difficult moments. In response to your call when the revolution is in danger, it can block those who are organizing a coup, maintain the support of the fence-sitters, impose its conditions and decide the fate of Chile once and for all if the need arises. The enemy must realize that the Chilean working class is on the alert and ready to go into action. Its power and fighting spirit can tilt the scales in Santiago in your favor, even though other circumstances may be unfavorable.
Your determination to defend firmly and honorably the process, even at the cost of your life—something everyone knows you are capable of doing—will drag all the forces that are able to fight and all the worthy women and men of Chile into the struggle along with you. Your courage, cool-headedness and audacity in this historic hour of your homeland, and, above all, your firm, resolute and heroic leadership is the vital element in the situation.
Let Carlos and Manuel know how your loyal Cuban friends can be of service.
I reiterate the affection and limitless confidence of our people.
Fraternally,
Fidel Castro
All attempts to present this letter as evidence of Cuba’s interference in the internal affairs of Chile is absurd and ridiculous. This letter was a message of solidarity, friendship and inspiration that our people gave a president who was harassed by imperialism, reaction and fascism.
Looking at things in such a way, then the universal condemnation of the coup by scores of statespeople, other public figures and many, many organizations; the condemnation of the massacres and other crimes, would also constitute interference in the internal affairs of Chile.
The problems of the anti-imperialist struggle, which affect the revolutionary movement and humankind, also affect and interest revolutionary and progressive peoples all over the world!
For Chile, as is the case for Vietnam, we are not only willing to give part of our sugar rations, we are willing to give our very blood!
When Chile became independent, people from other parts of the hemisphere didn’t limit themselves to sending letters, they went to fight alongside the Chileans for the independence of that country.
On September 11, the fascists attacked the Presidential Palace and ruthlessly bombed President Allende’s residence, where his family was. It is very lucky that his wife wasn’t also killed there. Allende’s relatives have told us about their anguish on that day and the following days, when the Chilean people were not told of Allende’s death until more than 24 hours after it had happened. The funeral was held in the strictest secrecy. In various ways, his wife and one sister were located. They were taken to a military airport in Santiago, where they boarded a military transport plane and flew to Valparaíso. From there—in the midst of an extraordinary display of forces—they went to the city cemetery, where the Allende family plot is located. The casket was covered by an army blanket, and they never opened it. They never let the relatives view the body of President Allende. Why? What were they trying to hide? They were clearly afraid of exposing themselves. They were evidently trying to conceal the fact that Allende’s body had more than 10 bullets in it and that he had been fired on even after death.
The fascists—as you know—also took out their fire on the Cubans, on our embassy. At about noon, the fascists attacked our embassy for the first time. They attacked the second time at midnight. Both attacks were resolutely repelled. We are proud of this! They are aware of the loyalty of the Cuban Revolution, the solidarity of the revolution with the Latin American revolutionary process and this frightens them.
After those attacks, the fascists tried to intimidate our diplomatic representatives. They threatened to use tanks, cannons and planes; but our diplomats repeatedly told the generals and other goons: “We will defend the embassy, which is Cuban territory, to the last person.” The fascists knew they would have to kill every last Cuban in our embassy. In the early hours of September 12, they fired sporadically, but the final attack never came off, and our diplomats returned to Cuba once diplomatic relations were broken...
Those events will become more important than they seem to be now, because the fascists are using violence and force in order to impose terror, and there is only one solution for this, only one: having no fear of the fascists!
The exemplary conduct of President Allende morally destroyed fascism in Chile. They underestimated Allende, they were convinced he would get on a plane and give in to force. The fascists were given extraordinary lessons that day, lessons which serve as an indication of the resistance they will be running into, which indicate what is to be expected when people refuse to let themselves be oppressed any longer, when people refuse to let themselves be intimidated, when men and women are willing to die...
Chilean military men have been educated in the concepts of geopolitics, vital spaces, and territorial expansion that are utterly Nazi in nature. Yet not all Chilean officers are fascists. Generals Prats, Pickering, and Sepulveda Esqueda all made great efforts to keep the military institutions loyal to the constitutional government and within the law. Of course, they were forced out of their positions by the fascist majority of Chilean officers and this, unfortunately, opened the way to fascism.
We have also received reports that an officer of the Carabineros went to the palace in the midst of the battle and joined President Allende’s bodyguards in the fight against the fascists. We must mention these things. The class makeup of the officers of the Chilean armed forces is reactionary, they have seen to it that their officers come from the middle and upper classes—young men of the most downtrodden sectors cannot become officers. Although most of the officers are fascists and have been educated in fascist methods, we are sure that there will be officers who will realize the shameful and criminal role that the fascist leaders are making the Chilean armed forces play and, when the time comes, they will join the people in their struggle against fascism!
The coup has sealed the fate of the Chilean armed forces.
They completely exposed themselves. The nature of their “apolitical” stance and their “institutionalism” became clear. Those positions were maintained as long as the interests of the ruling classes were not threatened. But when those interests were threatened, they dropped this alleged apolitical and institutional posture and lined up with the reactionaries and exploiters against the people.
A deep and insurmountable gap now divides the best of the Chilean people—workers, farmers and militant young people—from the Chilean armed forces! That gap is a sea of blood of the workers, farmers, students and murdered revolutionaries, assassinated and massacred by the fascist hordes!
The insurmountable gap made by the blood of Salvador Allende and the men who died together with him that day stands between the fascist armed forces and the Chilean people!
We must say so without fear! Because the people will have to confront fascism—and they will confront fascism!
The military junta is fascist in its ideas and its acts: the mass murder of workers, bombing of universities, burning of books, the concentration camps, and the terrible acts of terrorism against the masses. Dispatches tell of the banning of political parties, the dissolving of trade unions, and crimes and abuses of all kinds. The fascists murder, and when they search communities, universities and the homes of revolutionaries, they plunder ruthlessly and steal everything they can, acting like bloodthirsty and money hungry bandits… These things: murdering workers, banning parties, burning books, violating international laws, attacking embassies and defenseless ships, and establishing concentration camps are clear examples of fascism in action.
But 40 years have passed since the 1930s, and this is no longer the era in which Hitler and Mussolini stalked the world. There is now a universal awareness which is much more far-reaching. Humankind has advanced and is more progressive; it resolutely condemns these criminal deeds.
The only ones who believe we are living in the 1930s are those stupid, ignorant cretins, the Chilean military goons who carried out the coup d’état.
When we were in Chile, we could see the upsurge of a fascist spirit in the face of the revolutionary movement in the heart of Chilean society. When we left, on December 2, 1971, we told the Chilean people:
We have learned something. We have witnessed the verification of another law of history—we have seen fascism in action. We have been able to verify a contemporary principle: the desperation of the reactionaries, the desperation of the exploiters today tends toward the most brutal, most savage forms of violence and reaction.
You are all familiar with the story of fascism in the many countries that are the cradle of that movement. You are all familiar with how the privileged, exploiting class destroy the institutions they created—the very institutions they created to maintain their class domination: the laws, the constitution and the parliament—once these institutions are no longer of any use to them.
What do the exploiters do when their own institutions no longer guarantee their domination? How do they react when the mechanisms historically depended upon to maintain their domination fail them? They simply go ahead and destroy them. Nothing is more anticonstitutional, illegal, antiparliamentary, repressive or criminal than fascism.
Fascism, in its violence, wipes out everything. It attacks, closes and crushes the universities. It attacks, represses and persecutes the intellectuals. It attacks political parties and trade unions. It attacks all mass organizations and cultural organizations. There is nothing as violent, as reactionary, as illegal as fascism.
Those things we said then are happening, unfortunately, now in Chile.
Imperialism continues to deny its complicity in and responsibility for the fascist coup. Imperialism is an economic, social, political and cultural system directed at oppressing the peoples. In Latin America, imperialism has tried to prevent the peoples’ movements from taking power. In Chile, it was plotting even before the victory of Popular Unity, mobilizing millions of dollars and giving them to the bourgeois parties in order to crush Popular Unity. It won several elections through bribery and the large-scale use of funding, lies, terror campaigns and slander.
Imperialism tried to corrupt the Chilean people. The monopolies tried to corrupt the workers in their mines: as a result of the high price of copper and the monopolies’ huge profits, the miners’ wages were much higher than those of other Chilean workers.
While preventing Chile from obtaining any loans in the economic field, the Pentagon maintained magnificent relations with the Chilean armed forces. Many of the officers of the Chilean armed forces were educated in imperialist academies. The Chilean government was denied all loans, but Mr. Nixon approved a $10 million loan to the Chilean armed forces for use in purchasing arms just a few weeks before the coup.
Imperialism, playing a shameful game, was driving a wedge between the government and the armed forces, blocking the former and aiding the latter.
Imperialism created the Organization of American States, the Inter-American Defense Board, and the Joint Naval Manuevres Organization. Imperialism created these institutions to plot and carry out counterrevolution in this hemisphere.
The Popular Unity government was not even able to block or forbid the Chilean Navy from participating in joint manuevres with the US Navy.
On September 11, the day of the coup, US warships were positioned just outside Valparaíso. Manuevres by the Chilean and Yankee fleets were to get under way that day. The ships of the both fleets apparently sailed out to sea—and a few hours later returned to Valparaíso to lead the uprising.
In fact, the coup d’état had been in preparation for several days.
When the history of these events is written, the responsibility of [former President] Frei and his rightist clique of the Christian Democratic leadership must be emphasized, as must the responsibility of the reactionary press, the National Party, the judiciary and the parliament for the events which have taken place in Chile, because they will have to settle accounts with the Chilean people.
We revolutionaries must draw our own conclusions from these events. Imperialism is on the move, and it is waging a strategic offensive in Latin America: first the coup d’état in Bolivia, then in Uruguay, and now in Chile.
Ten years ago, the bourgeoisie and imperialism defended themselves with other means: parliaments and bourgeois constitutions. Uruguay and Chile were considered models of legalistic, constitutionalist countries. Yet it was the bourgeoisie and imperialism themselves that rode roughshod over the constitutions and bourgeois democratic systems in Uruguay and Chile, countries which—together with Brazil—now constitute the group of reactionary countries at the service of imperialism in South America...
The Chilean example teaches us a lesson. It is impossible to make the revolution with the people alone: arms are also necessary! That arms alone will not make a revolution: people are also necessary!
We hope this gives our people a better idea about the general situation in this hemisphere.
Some news agencies have enthusiastically applauded the Chilean military coup, also saying that the growing tendency toward establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba will be interrupted…
What grieves us in the case of Chile is not that a country has broken relations with us. These events in Chile hurt us because of the blow dealt to the Chilean people and because of the long and bloody struggle they will have to wage… As far as our relations with the Chilean people are concerned, we have no doubt that the Chilean people will fight fascism. We know the people of Chile. We have been among their workers, farmers and students, and we will never forget the spirit of the Chilean people: their enthusiasm, patriotism and revolutionary fervor, their attitudes. We could not forget the workers or the farmers, from Magallanes to the miners of the north; the coal miners, the industrial workers, the Chilean youth, the fighters and the revolutionaries.
We are absolutely certain they will know how to fight fascism. We are absolutely sure that September 11 marked the beginning of a struggle that will end only with the people’s victory. It won’t be an immediate victory. No one can expect miracles in the Chilean situation. The people have had a severe blow and the parties and organizations will have to recuperate from the fascist assault. Without any doubt, the Chilean revolutionaries will organize themselves to fight fascism without rest.
Chilean revolutionaries now know that there is no alternative other than revolutionary armed struggle.
They tried the electoral way, the peaceful road, and the imperialists and reactionaries changed the rules of the game, trampling on the constitution, the laws, the parliament, everything, and there is no way out of that situation. They can only govern Chile through force, by means of fascist institutions.
The fascists say now they are going to reconstruct the economy. They do ridiculous things: calling upon the wealthy wives of the colonels and generals to donate a few jewels to reconstruct the Chilean economy. Who will believe this fairy tale? We know the fascists want to develop Chile’s capitalist and bourgeois economy with the labor and blood of the Chilean workers. We know very well they will not rebuild the Chilean economy with their fancy ladies’ jewels, but with the blood and sweat of Chilean workers. Imperialism will surely now give the fascists immediate credit through the World Bank and other institutions, and will arm Chile to the teeth.
President Allende has given his people the highest, most heroic example he could offer. It’s impossible for each honest and worthy Chilean not to feel their blood boil with indignation when confronted with the recent events that have taken place in his country and the example given by President Allende and by those fighters who fell with him.
The fascists say that peace has reigned in Chile since September 11. But, just as surely as there was a September 11 as we in Cuba had a March 10 [military coup led by Fulgencio Batista], Chile will also have a July 26 [armed insurrection] and a January 1 [revolution]!
On arriving at the plaza and seeing this huge, impressive crowd; listening to the national anthems of Chile and Cuba; and seeing a million people observe absolute silence in memory of President Allende—during these moments filled with emotion, deep affection, and respect for the Chilean people, we were thinking that some day crowds like this will gather in a Chile without exploiters or exploited; a Chile in which the armed forces and the people are one and the same; a Chile as well-armed as Cuba; a Chile in which the people are as united as ours; a Chile as well organized as we are and with a level of political development similar to that of the Cuban people today, without any large landowners, henchmen, exploiters, fascists or bourgeois press; with no radio stations or other means of mass communication that aren’t in the hands of the people; a Chile without a bourgeois parliament, without a Rio de Janeiro Treaty, without joint manuevres. We are convinced the Chilean people will succeed; we are sure that, just as the Cuban people succeeded, the Chilean people will also succeed because of their revolutionary spirit, their civic attributes, their enthusiasm, their humane qualities and their courage; and, moreover, because ours is a just cause, the cause of the future, the cause of the peoples’ liberation; and because progressive forces are growing and developing throughout the world, and imperialism is on the decline.
We saw how imperialism declined in this hemisphere; we started the process. Our nations will surely see the end of imperialism in this part of the world.
Our people will stand by the people of Chile and give them all the help we can in all fields. We’ve already given a part of our sugar ration to the Chilean people, and we’ll give them our hearts, if necessary, to help the Chilean Revolution! We believed in President Allende; we trusted him. Our people did, too. Our people had the fullest confidence in his integrity, his courage and his willingness to defend his post to the death. President Allende did not let the people of Chile and Cuba down. But neither will the Chilean people fail President Allende. The Chilean revolutionaries won’t disappoint President Allende. Above all, they will heed his call for close unity to carry forward the liberation struggle.
The Cuban people too, will not fail their loyal friend, their comrade, their brother in the struggle, Salvador Allende. The Chilean people will overthrow fascism!
“If every worker and every farmer had a rifle in their hands, there would never have been a fascist coup!”
—Fidel Castro