The results of last week's parliamentary elections (which had fallen due by the constitution) have left the future of the Chilean Popular Unity government in the balance. The Right wing coalition of Christian Democrats and Nationalists was unable to undermine the mass vote for Popular Unity and secure the two thirds majority necessary to impeach and overthrow the government. Yet Popular Unity still has no majority in the legislature; although its share of the vote has risen from 36% in the 1970 presidential elections to 43%. Already the CP is calling for a renewed 'dialogue with the opposition.
Throughout the past two years in which Popular Unity has been in office, the Christian Democrats and Nationalists have used their congressional majority - for example, in October last year, to threaten the impeachment of ministers for violation of the constitution and so deepen the crisis which Allende merely postponed by bringing the military into the government and meeting most of the demands of the reactionary lorry owners' boycott. They have also been free to mobilise their supporters on the streets in massive demonstrations - not even the fascists have been driven from the SLICCIS.
SYMPTOMATIC The freedom of operation of the bourgeois parties is symptomatic of the course of Popular Unity. General Prats, the army chief who has become a leading figure of the government, effected a 'gentlemen's agreement" to ensure the peaceful conduct of candidates at the hustings. But Allende is attempting to make deeper concessions to the Chilean bourgeoisie: his government is now attempting to 'stabilize the situation', i.e. to re-stabilize capitalist production.
At the end of 1972, 70% of Chilean industry was still in private hands. The government has already begun restoring to the capitalists, industries expropriated through workers' struggles: some firms in Arica, a retail consortium, the main concrete firm, Ready Mix, and the big paper producing trust, Papelera Sud. In the pre-election period the CP Economics Minister, Millas, introduced a bill to bring the bosses back into the administration of expropriated firms, restore some firms to the capitalists, and give guarantees to parts of the private sector Gust as guarantees were given to the transport industry after the lorry owners' boycott last year).
DEEPER RIFT This threat has driven deeper the rift between the Popular Unity leadership and the most combative sections of the labour movement. Demonstrations against the bill were organised by the MIR (the main force on the revolutionary left and by the Workers' Council of the industrial suburb, Cerrillo de Santiago. The Political Committee of the Socialist Party denounced Allende and the Stalinist economics minister; and on 24 January the Socialist Party secretary, Altamirano, spoke against the measure on a public platform of the MIR (it was significant that most of the increase in the PU vote went to SP and not CP candidates). In the face of the threat from the Right, the watchword the Stalinists wish to give to the workers of Chile is "Produce, produce, produce': produce more for your capitalist masters, produce more to stabilise capitalism in Chile. The peaceful road" leads not to socialism, but back into the arms of the bourgeoisie. The response to the Millas bill is an indication that the workers of Chile will not allow themselves to be led in that direction.
INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP (British Section of the Fourth International) 182 Pentonville Road London N.1. / would like more infor mation about the IMG and its activities.
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Liz McKee Red Mole Reporter, Belfast.
Women held in Armagh Prison were beaten up and had five hoses turned on them by male warders and British troops on Monday, 5 March. The attack followed an unsuccessful escape bid by five Republican prisoners, including Elizabeth McKee, the first woman to be interned, and Theresa Holland, a 17 year old school student.
Falls M.P. Paddy Devlin has accused the Prison Governor of panicking and trying to cover up what happened: "The escape attempt was used as an excuse to batter Republicans'. Mr. Devlin wants a public inquiry into the incident and demanded immediate visits to the prison by a team of doctors and solicitors. A statement smuggled out of the jail said that one prisoner, Collette McCann, was batoned by at least nine of the staff; and that another, 17 year old Christine Clarke, was hauled down a flight of 15 steps and hurled head first into a cell where she was left unconscious. The warders then hosed the prisoners in their cells Messages of solidarity with Liz McKee and the other women imprisoned in Armagh should be sent to: Liz McKee, Armagh Prison, Armagh, N. Ireland; the Irish News, Belfast; and the Editor, An Phoblacht, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin I.
ANTI-INTERNMENT LEAGUE Britain, for example, there has been a steady
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PRISONERS BRUTALLY BEATEN