Partido Comunista de Chile

Partido Comunista de Chile
Party leader	Guillermo Teillier
Secretary General	Lautaro Carmona
founding	June 4, 1912
Place of foundation	Iquique
Headquarters	Santiago de Chile
Alignment	Communist
Colours)	orange
Number of members	46,792 (2009)
International connections	International meeting of communist and workers' parties
Website	www.pcchile.cl

The Partido Comunista de Chile ( Communist Party of Chile , PCCh , also PC ) is the communist party in the South American country of Chile . It emerged in 1922 from the Socialist Workers' Party, founded in 1912, and played a decisive role in the political system of Chile from the 1930s , especially under the government of Salvador Allende from 1970 to 1973. During the brutal repression after the military coup of 1973 and the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet From 1973 to 1990 the party lost its historical influence in Chilean political life. Today, however, in connection with the development of social movements, it again has political influence. Since 2003 the party has formed the left-wing alliance Juntos Podemos Más together with the Partido Humanista de Chile and smaller groups , which won three seats in the 2009 parliamentary elections for the first time since the fall of Pinochet . With the party leader Gladys Marín , who died in 2005 , the communists have lost their most prominent and respected politician. Famous members of the Communist Party included Luis Emilio Recabarren , Pablo Neruda , Violeta Parra , Víctor Jara and Camila Vallejo .

History of the party

Foundation and beginnings 1912–32

In 1912 Luis Emilio Recabarren founded the Partido Obrero Socialista (POS), the Socialist Workers' Party, after being politically active in the Partido Demócrata and after many years in prisons and in exile . Recabarren is therefore seen as the father of the Chilean labor movement. However, the party did not have much electoral success until the 1930s. In 1920 a party congress decided to rename it to the Communist Party of Chile , but this only took place after participating in the Third International in 1922. Only under the impression of the repression by the dictator Carlos Ibañez del Campo was admission into the Comintern in 1927 . At this point in time, the POS-related trade union FOCH and the POS themselves have around 200,000 members (for comparison: Chile 4.3 million inhabitants), and the POS has two of 118 seats in the House of Representatives.

After General Carlos Ibañez del Campo had actually taken power in Chile in 1925, he was the only candidate for president in 1927 and established an extremely repressive dictatorship in the country for four years. Like all other parties, the Communist Party was also massively suppressed; many functionaries and members were forced to go into exile. Due to the consequences of the global economic crisis , which hit Chile like no other country in the world ( see Chile's economy ), the dictator was overthrown in a popular uprising in 1931. After almost two years of political chaos with various presidents and coups, it was not until 1932 that democracy and thus also the party system could be re-established. For the first time, workers' parties were integrated into the political system.

Integration in the party system 1932–73

The Popular Front

In 1932 the left in Chile got off to a brilliant start into the new era when the newly founded Partido Socialista de Chile won six percent of the vote in the parliamentary elections in 1932. At that time, Marmaduque Grove in particular won the presidential elections in the same year with 18% of the vote record very good result. The communists could not benefit from the change in the form of votes. They also suffered from internal ideological struggles that split the party. The Trotskyists around Manuel Hidalgo Plaza were eventually expelled from the party and founded the Izquierda Comunista (Communist Left). In 1936 the majority of the latter's members joined the Socialist Party.

The global economic crisis and the political situation in Europe after the seizure of the Nazis in Germany paved the way for a center-left coalition of communists, socialists and radicals . The latter had a liberal market tradition and a strong anti-communist stance. The CP, on the other hand, had rejected coalitions with “reformists” and “ bourgeois ” parties up to the Popular Front doctrine of the CPSU and the Popular Front in France under Léon Blum . In addition to these external developments, the repressive policies of the “quasi-dictator” Arturo Alessandri Palma led to the establishment of the Frente Popular .

From 1938 to 1952, various coalitions ruled in Chile under the leadership of the Partido Radical , in which the communists were often involved. As early as 1936, the Popular Front ( Frente Popular ) was formed from radicals, socialists and communists. For the parliamentary elections in 1938, President Alessandri banned the Communist Party, which then won six of the 147 seats in the House of Representatives as the “Partido Nacional Democrático” . Socialists (11%) and radicals (19%) celebrated electoral successes. In the same year, the Frente managed a narrow victory in the presidential election and Pedro Aguirre Cerda became president. Three years later, the Communist Party achieved its first real electoral victory: 12% in the parliamentary elections in 1941. When the radicals then made a political turn to the right, the Frente Popular broke that same year. However, the next two presidents Juan Antonio Ríos (1942–46) and Gabriel González Videla (1946–52), both from the radicals, relied at times on the communists, for example under the name "Alianza Democrático".

The "damned law"

Under the government of Videla, the communists first took part in the government (which they had previously refused for ideological reasons). The actions of the communist agriculture minister in particular led to serious conflicts in the governing coalition, which was also supported by the liberals, who are deeply rooted in the rural landowners. In Europe, the Cold War began at the same time as the Berlin crisis . At the end of 1947, González dismissed the communist ministers. In January of the following year, the so-called “ley de defensa permanent de la democrácia”, better known as Ley Maldita (“damn law”), is passed. This not only banned the Communist Party, removed all Communists from elected seats and public office, but also removed all Communist voters from the electoral register: a total of more than 25,000 voters, about 4% of the electorate. In Pisagua of I. Region of Chile one was a concentration camp for political prisoners established. This concentration camp was temporarily headed by the then officer Augusto Pinochet , who rebuilt it after his coup 25 years later. As expected, almost all MPs and senators from the right-wing parties (liberals and conservatives) and radicals approved the law, as did around half of the socialists. However, it was rejected by the other half of the PS (including the young Allende ) and the Falange Nacional . As a result of the Ley Maldita , poet Pablo Neruda also had to go into exile . The Partido Comunista was banned in Chile for ten years.

Unidad Popular

After it was legalized in 1958, the two big left-wing parties, PC and PS, founded the Frente de Acción Popular (FRAP, Front of Popular Action). After at least 25 years of division, the Chilean left was united - at least superficially. In the same year, her presidential candidate Salvador Allende achieved electoral success with 28.5% of the vote and was only slightly behind the election winner Jorge Alessandri , who received 32.2% of the votes. In fact, he would have become president if the village priest Antonio Zamorano had not started a left-wing populist anti-party election campaign financed by the right-wing parties shortly before the election and thus won 3.3% of the votes (which would otherwise have gone to Allende).

After a failed economic liberal program, the progressive Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva was elected president six years later . Under him, the influence of the left parties and their electoral success increased further. The Partido Socialista is becoming increasingly radical, supporting the armed struggle as a path to revolution .

In 1970 the FRAP was renamed Unidad Popular . In the same year Salvador Allende was elected president. Within the heterogeneous coalition, the communists formed the moderate wing. Although Allende was a socialist, towards the end of his term in office he relied mainly on the CP. ( For a detailed discussion of this epoch, see also: Unidad Popular , Salvador Allende , History of Chile )

Military dictatorship 1973–90

Like all parties in the UP, the CP was banned immediately after the coup on September 11, 1973. The Partido Nacional , which emerged from liberals and conservatives, dissolved itself and the Christian Democrats were banned four years later. The constitution was repealed, Congress dissolved, the electoral register burned, the Constitutional Court dissolved, all political events banned and practically all civil rights suspended, most of them for 17 years. In the weeks after the coup, countless functionaries and sympathizers of the party were tortured and murdered. The Dirección Nacional de Inteligencia (DINA) secret service, which was founded the following year, first systematically destroyed the party structure of the Socialist Party in 1975, before practically wiping out the Communist Party within Chile in 1976: Practically all active Communists were murdered or fled into exile. Unlike the MIR, the communists rejected armed resistance against the regime in order not to facilitate the justification of the repression.

After a large part of the socialists initiated a reform course in exile in the early 1980s and thus paved the way for their current social democratic and often market-liberal position, the communists gave up the attempt to found a new popular front against the “fascist dictatorship”. From his exile in Moscow , Communist Party Chairman Luis Corvalán founded the Frente Patriótico Manuel Rodríguez to fight the dictatorship in Chile with violence. In 1988 the Communist Party boycotted the plebiscite.

on persecution under the dictatorship see also Torture in Chile

Since the transition

Party leader Gladys Marín, who died in 2005

Unlike the Socialist Party, the KP did not fundamentally change ideologically during the dictatorship. Slowed down by the binomial electoral system , it formed an extra-parliamentary opposition until 2009 . The PCCh achieved mostly single-digit results in the elections. Until the death of party leader Gladys Marín , the party appeared primarily as a protest party and its supporters took part in numerous demonstrations and protests.

After Marín was no longer active in politics due to her illness, the Communist Party tried to strengthen its influence through official political channels. Since 2004 it has appointed four mayors in the municipalities of Diego de Almagro , Canela , La Ligua y Tiltil . Together with the Humanist Party and a few smaller groups, the CP forms the electoral alliance Juntos Podemos Más . The central demand is a reform of the electoral system and the abolition of the binomial electoral system.

The youth organization Juventudes Comunistas de Chile has existed since 1932 and has around 5500 members (2012).

Election results

Communist Party : election results 1932–2005 By 1973 there were 150 MPs and 50 senators; since 1989 only 120 and 38 respectively. Half of the Senate is always re-elected. Swell. Election results: Elecciones en Chile and partidos políticos de Chile in the Spanish-language Wikipedia. Home Office, Servel, Cruz-Coke. Population: Nohlen,INE( Memento from December 16, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF)
General election	1932	1937	1941	1945	1949	1953	1957	1961	1965	1969	1973	1989	1993	1997	2001	2005	2009
MPs share of the vote	3 1.0%	6 4.2%	3 2.0%	15 10.2%	forbidden			16 11.8%	18 12.7%	19 16.7%	26 16.0%	-	0 5.0%	0 6.9%	0 5.2%	0 5.1%	3 2.02
Senators
voter turnout	70%	87%	78%	70%	79%	70.8%	68.4%	74.5%	80.6%	74.2%	81.1%	89.9%	83.4%	71.8%	76.1%	87.7%	86.7%
Voters / population	7.4%	8.7%	8.9%	8.4%	8.1%	12.0%	12.3%	17.7%	27.2%	25.7%	36.3%	52.4%	48.5%	39.2%	39.9%	44.3%	42.8%
Presidential election	1932	1938	1942	1946	-	1952	1958	-	1964	1970	-	1989	1993	1999	-	2005	2009
Share of votes candidate alliance	1.2% Lafertte -	51.0% PAC Frente	56% JAR pension	40.1 González Frente	forbidden		28.9% Allende FRAP	-	39.9% Allende FRAP	36.4  % Allende UP	-	-	4.7% Pizarro MIDA	3.2% Marín -	-	5.4% deer Podemos	6.2% Arrate Podemos
voter turnout	%	%	%	%	-	%	%	-	%	%	-	94.7%	86.2%	87.3%	-	87.7%
Voters / population	8.0%	8.9%	9.2%	8.7%	-	16.1%	15.9%	-	29.0%	30.1%	-	54.3%	48.8%	45.8%	-	46.2%

For more results see election results in Chile .

See also

• Political system of Chile
• Juventudes Comunistas de Chile , youth organization

Web links

Commons : Partido Comunista de Chile  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official Homepage (Spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Estadistica de cantidad de afiliados a partidos politicos, al 14/08/2009 (PDF; 12 kB)
2. ^ Ricardo Cruz-Coke: Historia electoral de Chile. 1925-1973. Editorial Jurídica de Chile, Santiago de Chile 1984.
3. ↑ Dieter Nohlen: Chile - The socialist experiment . 1973, p. 339 .