often overlooked the positive side organisation in the period preceding the coup.
Faced with the weakness of the Allende Government and a growing economic crisis, as well as a marked offensive by the Right, the working class in Chile has been developing its own organizations for more than a year. Under the Popular Unity Government, these were known as People's Power'.
The first form of People's Power' to emerge was the industrial cordon: a geographical grouping of workers in industries over an area about the size of i borough, The first cordon emerged in June 1972 in the biggest industrial area in the country. a suburb of Santiago with 46,000 workers in 250 industries. This was Cordon CerrillonMaipu: Cerrillos after the industrial area, Maipu after a farm area on its borders. By September 1973, such cordon had been formed in all the Industrial suburbs of Santiago, and the political parties of the left were pushing for the creation of similar cordons throughout the country. The cordons were organized around a coordinating assembly of delegates from the different factories, these being elected in turn by the assembly of workers in each factory The body which had power to take decisions was the assembly of delegates, but an executive commitlee was elected from ils ranks to put decisions into action, and meetings of the assembly were open to anyone who wished to come.
Cordon Cerrillos-Maipu grew out of a set of concrete conflicts within the area at a time when Popular Unity's onginal strategy was already on the verge of collapse. Forty-four peasant leaders in the neighbouring agricultural district of Maipu were arrested for aftempting to take over a large farm which had already been marked for agrarian reform. This was seen as an overt instance of "class justice. There wire demonstrations and conflicts with the police outside the courthouse, including an attempt to hold the judge hostage, and more I peasants in the area developed, occupying more than 150 farms and calling for the takeover of all farms in the province of Santiago. At the same time, there were disputes in three factories in the Cerrillon area, A small chicken processing plant with 15 workers was supposed to be nationalized, but at the last minute the owner refused to go along, It was important to workers in the area as a source of meat which the owner was selling on the black market-Le. to the rich. Another factory, "Polycron", was being occupied by workers because the boss (a great textile monopolist) had refused to honour an agreement with the government giving workers a share of the firm's profit and better housing (it was later "nationalized" by the government because the occupation interrupted supplies to the already nationalized sector of the cconomy). A third, foreign-owned factory was on strike.
Their List of demands for this demonstration were: 1. Support the Government and President Allende in so far as this expresses the struggles. und mobilizations of the workers. 2. Expropriation of monopoly firms and those with more then 14 million escodos capital (about E400,000; this was the original demand of the Popular Unity propam, which had been changed to 91 'strategie In reviewing the important lessons of the Chilean experience, the British left has the creativity and energy which the Chilean masses revealed in organising a largely spontaneous resistance to the forces of reaction. It is for this reason that we publish the following account of popular, mass 3. Also expropriate all industries which are in any way stategie, all those belonging to foreign capital, and all those which boycott production and do not lulli their commitments to their workers 4. Workers" control over production in all industries, farms, mines, and so on, through delegates" councils, delegates being recallable by the base. 5. On salaries: an automatic wage the with every 5% rise in the cost of living, workers" assemblies to fix a maximum and minimum tape, greation of a National Coupcil of Saluries, elected by the base. 6. Repudiate the bosses and the bourgpoisie, who have taken refuge in the courts, in the Contraleria (which rather Ike the Queen, had to approve govern ment legislation, and was refusing to do so) and in the Parliament. 7. Take possesion of all farms which have been legally expropriated. 8. Peasants" and farmworkers" control over the system of credit, distribution of materials and machinery. through delegates" councils in ail agricultural organisations. Deligates to be recallable by the base 9. Creation of a State Construction Fir with control by the urban poor and unemployed and the workers, through delegates" councils. 10. Immediate solution to the housing situation of those who live in temporary camps and squatting SLUEMELES 11. Expropriation of all urban or non agricultural land, with the participation of the urban poor and unemployed, and workers through delegates LOUICES 12. Set up the Popular Assembly to replace Parliament.
All these demands went very much beyond the cautious program of "laying the basis for socialIsm and reconciling all non-monopolist sectors. laid down in the program of Popular Unity. The demand for a Popular Assembly to replace Parhament was part of the Socialist Party's own program at the time(" The task of the moment is to destroy Parliament" was one of their slogans), part of a program whose general line was "Advance, not Retreat", in opposition to the call of the Communist Party and Allende to Consolidate", The Socialist Party has always been the second party of the Chilean working class (the largest working class party is the Communist): its opposition to the line of Allende was thus very important, and 1972 was a year of cooperation and dialogue between the Movement of the Revolutionary Left (MIR the largest revolutionary socialist organisation; not part of the Popular Unity Coalition), the Socialists, and elements in the other parties of Popular Unity who thought of themselves as revolutionaries.
This existence of a revolutionary left within the Popular Unity coalition meant that the spontaneous organizations of the working class were protected from the inevitable attempis of the bureaucratic sectons to "control" them in the interests of conciliating the Right, and that militants from a number of parties representing different sectors of the working class and its allies-the (Socialist Party), the peasantry (MAPU & MIR), the urban poor and unemployed in the pobiacions or people's living quarters (MIR)could take an organized part in pushing forward the development of "People's Power' But "People's Power" was less the creation of the poutical parties of the left than it was of the offensive of the Right. During 1972 and created by their activities. of the government's control. sabotago. SUDAR