Andrew Barnard

Chilean Communists, Radical Presidents and Chilean Relations with the United States,
1940-1947
Author(s): Andrew Barnard
Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Nov., 1981), pp. 347-374
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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I. Lat. Amer. Stud. 13, 2, 347-74 347
Chilean Communists, Radical Presidents

and Chilean Relations with the United
States, I940-1947
by ANDREW BARNARD
Founded in I922, the Partido Comunista de Chile (PCCh) had a somewhat

chequered career before the mid-I93os.1 Although the prestige of its founder,
Luis Emilio Recabarren, and its close ties with organized labour gave the
party an early significance, its progress towards becoming an important force
in Chilean politics halted abruptly when General Carlos Ibafiez came to
power in I927. Forced into clandestinity by Ibaniez, the party emerged on his
downfall in i931 with its membership vastly reduced, its trade union arm,
the Federacion Obrera de Chile (FOCH), moribund, and its remaining
activists deeply divided by ideological, tactical and personal differences.
Too weak to take proper advantage of the social distress and political turbu-
lence generated by the Great Depression, the party was further handicapped
by the Comintern's hard-line revolutionary Third Period policies during the
early I930s. Designed though those were to enable the PCCh to capture the
hegemony of the working class movement and mount repeated assaults on
the tottering capitalist state, they succeeded only in earning the party the
bitter hostility of its most likely allies on the Left and the constant harassment
of government. In short, they helped to lock the party into a vicious circle of
isolation and defeat. With the advent of the Popular Front strategy in 1935,
however, the PCCh began to seek allies among the recently despised re-
formists and social democrats in order to forge a vast popular movement,
intended not only to help stem the rise of world fascism but also able to
further the revolutionary struggle. Initially rebuffed by its major rival for
working class support, the Partido Socialista (PS), the PCCh concentrated its
attentions on the centrist Partido Radical (PR) and, assisted by left-wing
members of that party, created a Popular Front coalition on the basis of a
For accounts of the PCCh's early years, see H. Ramirez Necochea, Origen y
Formacion del Partido Comunista de Chile (Santiago, I965), Elias Lafertte, Vida
de un Comunista (Santiago, I957), and A. Barnard, 'The Chilean Communist
Party I922-I947' (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, London, I978), Chaps I-3.
o022-216x/8I/ILAS-1325 $02.00 .? 1981 Cambridge University Press
348 Andrew Barnard
number of centre and left-wing parties, including the PS. Much helped by
fortuitous circumstance, the Popular Front managed to make a Radical,
Pedro Aguirre Cerda, President of the Republic in I938.2
Over the next decade, co-operation with the Radicals remained the lode-
stone of Communist policy, and during that time the PCCh helped to elect
two other Radical Presidents; Juan Antonio Rios in I942 and Gabriel
Gonzalez Videla in 1946. Through the Radical alliance, the PCCh became
an accepted participant in coalition politics and moved from the margin into
the mainstream of Chilean political life. By the mid-I94os, the PCCh had
extended its activities into every social class and geographical region in Chile,
it had created a formidable organizational machine capable of imposing an
unusual degree of discipline on the membership, and it had displaced the
Socialists as the dominant force in the country's largest trade union con-
federation, the Confederacion de Trabajadores de Chile (CTCh). While many
Radicals had little liking for co-operation with the PCCh, the party's electoral
support, the effectiveness of the party machine and its influence in the union
movement, particularly strong in strategic areas of the economy such as the
nitrate and coal industries, made it an ally worth having. That it was an ally
at all, of course, was largely the product of Comintern decisions. The PCCh's
loyalty to the Comintern was great, and even after the dissolution of that
organization in I943 the party continued to follow faithfully the lead of the
International Communist Movement. Despite the PCCh's foreign links,
however, the Radical presidents were prepared to associate with the party
for the very real advantages that association brought. But, while all the
Radical presidents had reason to be grateful for Communist support and
co-operation, each saw fit to break off his ties with the PCCh at some point
during his administration. For Aguirre Cerda, that time came in December
1940, for Rfos, in February I946 and for Gonzalez Videla, in August I947.
On each occasion, the PCCh had no difficulty in identifying the nature of the
dark forces which lay behind its troubles with the Radical presidents. Yankee
Imperialists were plotting with Chilean reaction to destroy the vanguard of
the proletariat and the entire Chilean working class movement. Leaving aside
the rhetorical aspects of such accusations, it is the intention here to examine
the role of a key agency of 'Yankee Imperialism', namely the Department of
State, in each of the three cases mentioned above.
2 For accounts of the Popular Front coalition, see J. R. Stevenson, The Chilean
Popular Front (Pennsylvania, I942); A Bande, 'The Chilean Radical Party and the
Popular Front' (Unpublished B. Litt. thesis, Oxford, 1970); D. Corkill, 'From
Dictatorship to Popular Front: Parties and Coalition Politics in Chile, I93I-I941'
(Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Essex, I974); A. Barnard, op. cit., Chapter 4.
Chilean Relations with the United States 349
Before proceeding to that examination, it might be as well to ask why the

USA should be interested in Chile's internal affairs at all. While that interest
sometimes stemmed from other considerations, such as international policy,
the economic and financial ties which bound the two countries together
provided the basic reasons for US concern. By the late I930s, US companies
dominated the vital copper industry from which Chilean governments
derived a large part of their revenue, and played important roles in other
sectors of the economy.3 US bondholders held a large share of Chile's foreign
debt and, although challenged for that position by Germany, the US was
Chile's most important trading partner.4 The Second World War consider-
ably magnified the role which the US already played in Chile's economic and
financial affairs. With the closure of European markets, only the US was in a
position to purchase Chile's main exports, nitrates and copper, in any
quantity, and the US became the only realistic source for the credits which
Chile needed to overcome short-term economic difficulties and to finance
development projects.
These economic and financial ties provided the framework within which
US/Chilean relations were conducted during the I940S. If requested credits
were not forthcoming, for example, Chilean officials sometimes intimated to
the State Department that, much as they did not want to do so, economic
necessity would demand that additional revenue be extracted from the
copper industry or that payments on the foreign debt would have to be
suspended. The State Department, on the other hand, regarded regular
payments on the foreign debt and 'fair and non-discriminatory treatment' for
US companies operating in Chile as necessary prerequisites for US aid, and
sometimes used Chile's need for such aid in efforts to secure changes in
Chile's domestic and international policies.6 In short, the State Department
felt that it had reason to be concerned with any development in Chile which
might affect US interests, while the Radical presidents had reason to be
concerned by US reactions to events in Chile, since these could affect the
chances of obtaining much needed aid. In what ways these concerns affected
s In 1936, US investment totalled 484 million US dollars - 383 millions in mining

and smelting, 5 millions in manufacturing, I2 millions in trade and 84 millions in
other areas, including public utilities. M. J. Francis, The Limits of Hegemony
(Notre Dame, I977), p. IO.
4 In 1938, the US provided 27.7 per cent of Chilean imports and Germany 25.8 per
cent. Washington, D.C.: US Department of State Archives (hereafter cited as DSA)
825.50/47, J. B. Faust to State, 6 Sept., I939.
For thorough accounts of US/Chilean relations during the war years and descrip-
tions of the sorts of pressures which each country brought to bear on the other, see
M. J. Francis, op. cit., and A. O'Brien, 'The Politics of Dependency: A Case Study
of Chile, I938-45' (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Notre Dame, I976).
350 Andrew Barnard
the fortunes of the PCCh during the 1940S will become clearer in the three
cases examined below.
December 1940
Although the PCCh gave Aguirre Cerda unconditional support during I939
and proved itself the least troublesome and most co-operative of the major
frentista parties, it began to retreat from that policy in early I940. After a
year in which an hysterical and intransigent right-wing opposition had done
much to stultify the work of the new government, the Popular Front was ex-
periencing fierce internal pressures. On the left, the inconformistas challenged
the unity of the PS and the integrity of the Front and appeared to be making
some headway in winning the support of workers through the advocacy of
more aggressive labour policies than those officially endorsed by either the
PS or the PCCh.6 On the right, conservative Radicals who had long urged
accommodation with the opposition seemed to be getting their way when
Aguirre Cerda reorganized his cabinet to include several wealthy Radical
magnates in February I94o.7 The PCCh responded to these twin threats by
attacking the inconformistas, by becoming less emphatic in its opposition to
strike movements and by launching vigorous campaigns against the Right in
general and the Sociedad Nacional de Agricultura (SNA) in particular.8
Designed though these steps were to rally the Front parties and check the
government's drift towards accommodation with the opposition, they did
not have the desired effect. The Socialists objected to Communist lectures on
the need for unity and suspected that the PCCh, for all its anti-inconformismo,
somehow lay behind the PS's internal difficulties. Moreover, neither Aguirre
Cerda, a wealthy landowner, nor his Radical ministers, two of whom were
SNA members, appreciated the PCCh's attacks on that institution or its
efforts to deepen the gulf between government and opposition.9 Finally,
although the PCCh did not actively encourage strike movements during the
first half of 1940 as its enemies claimed, increases in strikes and the party's
failure resolutely to oppose them placed a further strain on its relations with
government.'0
6 See Alejandro Chelen Rojas, Trayectoria del Socialismo (Buenos Aires, 1967),
pp. 96-103 and Paul W. Drake, Socialism and Populism in Chile, I932-52
(Illinois, 1978), pp. 242-4, for accounts of the socialist inconformistas.
7 La Hora, 9 Feb., I940.
8 See Frente Popular, i8 Feb., 1940; 28 April, I940; I May, I940 for Communist
attacks on the SNA.
9 La Nacion, 25 and 28 April I940.
10 See B. Loveman, Chile The Legacy of Hispanic Capitalism (New York, 1979),
p. 266, for strike statistics for 1939 and I940.
International factors also played an important part in straining relations

between the PCCh and the government during 1940. Although the PCCh
had not responded to the Nazi-Soviet pact and the outbreak of war by
lurching immediately to the left, those events did give the party an additional
reason for re-assessing its domestic policies and they did produce rapid and
drastic changes in its attitude towards foreign affairs. In particular, the
PCCh became increasingly hostile towards the US as it became clearer that
that country was being sucked into the 'imperialist war'."l The changes in
the PCCh's attitude towards the US earned it the hostile contempt of the PS
and, more important, as Chile began to feel the economic effects of the war
and its need for US aid grew, the party's association with the government
became a source of increasing embarrassment for Aguirre Cerda. Communist
attacks on the US became very pronounced in mid-9I40 when that country
called a Pan American Conference in Havana to concert Latin American
responses to the economic, political and military consequences of the war,
and the PCCh urged the Chilean delegation to that conference to resist the
US's imperialist plans.l2 However, the delegation, led by the Socialist
Minister of Fomento, Oscar Schnake, generally endorsed the US position
and Schnake came under heavy Communist attack, attacks which were
repeated when Schnake went on to Washington to negotiate for credits and
for the sale of Chilean nitrates and copper. The attacks on Schnake were
bitterly resented by the PS and, since he had only been carrying out govern-
ment policy, they strained relations with Aguirre Cerda and some sectors of
the PR.13 By early December, relations between the PS and the PCCh had
deteriorated to such an extent that the President of the PR intervened to
obtain a cessation of hostilities.l4 But this peace proved to be fragile; on
December i5th, shortly after he had returned from Washington, Schnake
delivered a blistering attack on the PCCh and presented the Front with an
ultimatum - either the PCCh was excluded from the coalition or the PS
would withdraw.15 The other Front parties rejected this ultimatum and the
PS left the coalition in January, I941.
The PCCh had no doubts at all that the US lay behind Schnake's attack
on the party and, indeed, there was considerable circumstancial evidence to
support this view. In June and October I940, the US Congress had passed
legislation designed to hamper the US Communist Party, and the Havana
11 The PCCh began to attack the US when neutrality laws were repealed to enable
that country to supply arms to the Allies. Frente Popular, 28 Oct., 1939.
12 Frente Popular, 22 July, I940.
13 Consigna, 6 July, I940; La Hora, 23 July, I940.
14 El Siglo, I3 Dec., 1940.
15 La Hora, I6 Dec., 1940.
352 Andrew Barnard
Conference had adopted resolutions on subversive threats which, though

directed primarily against fascists, could equally well be applied to com-
munists.16 It seemed quite likely, then, that the US was demanding action
against the PCCh as part of the price for economic aid - and the British
Ambassador in Santiago reported as much to his superiors in London.l7
But, despite the weight of such evidence, there are no indications in State
Department records for the latter part of I940 that US officials attached any
such condition to aid for Chile. Indeed, while the State Department's political
reservations about the Aguirre Cerda regime probably did help to make
credit negotiations difficult in both 1939 and 1940, those reservations do not
appear to have been focused primarily on the PCCh nor were they necessarily
the most important factor in the State Department's decisions. After all, the
PCCh did not hold high government office and, for much of I939 and 1940,
it was pursuing more moderate policies than the PS. Certainly, in late 1939
and early I940, it was the PS which was giving some US officials greater
grounds for concern, engaged as it was in campaigns to persuade Aguirre
Cerda to press ahead with his reform programme, to block the acceptance of
US credits on the terms the State Department suggested and to oust Finance
Minister Wachholtz.18 At that time, one US Embassy official even gave a
Chilean cabinet minister an unauthorized warning that the presence of the
Socialists in government would make credit negotiations difficult.'1 But,
political reservations notwithstanding, the State Department approved a 5
million dollar credit for Chile in September 1939 and, in June 1940, a
12 million dollar credit for development purposes.2
Despite the credit of June, 1940, by the end of that year Aguirre Cerda
and his ministers were apparently convinced that their links with the PCCh
were a serious obstacle to obtaining US aid. As an editorial in the government
newspaper, La Nacion, put it on the eve of Schnake's attack on the PCCh,
'logically, the US will not give economic or any other kind of aid to
countries where there exists a danger that Fifth Columns may occupy a
1G See W. Z. Foster, History of the Communist Party of the USA (New York, I968),
pp. 392-3, for an account of the Smith and Voorhis Acts. In late I940, Earl
Browder, the Secretary-General of the CPUSA was also being tried for passport
offences. See, The International Conferences of the American States, First Supple-
ment (Washington, 1940), pp. 35I-3, for the resolutions on subversive threats.
17 London: Public Record Office, Foreign Office Records (FOR) FO/37I/26876 (Chile),
A283/283/9, Orde to Halifax, 14 Dec., 1940.
8I DSA 825.5I/I151, Bowers to State, 23 Sept., 1939; 825.0O/II76, Frost to State,
30 Sept., I939.
19 DSA 825.51/1226, Bowers to Welles, 7 July, I940.
20 DSA 825.5I/II4I, Hull to Bowers, 19 Sept., I939; 825.5I/1227, Interdepartmental
Memo., 14 June, 1940.
decisive role in political events. . .'. And it went on to say that the principal
obstacle to the success of Schnake's mission had not been Chilean economic
conditions 'but the lack of confidence caused by those in Chile who took it
upon themselves to attack his activities'.2
Was this belief, however, the main reason for the government's decision
to break off its ties with the PCCh? Schnake, for example, had powerful
reasons of his own for launching an attack on the party. According to US
officials, Schnake had arrived in Havana an extremely worried man, fearful
that Aguirre Cerda had appointed him to lead the Chilean delegation with
the intention of encompassing his political liquidation in the PS, and he was
so wary of the possible outcome of the negotiations in Washington that he
enquired whether it would be possible to keep his presence there from the
press.22 Since, at first sight, the rewards which Schnake brought back from
Washington seemed so meagre - they included a 5 million dollar credit so
hedged by conditions that it aroused considerable opposition in Chile - it
made good sense, so far as Schnake was concerned, to disguise an apparent
failure by savaging his most hostile critics.23 Personal reasons apart, there
were also powerful party reasons for launching an offensive against the
PCCh. Finally overhauled by the PCCh as the government's most vehement
frentista critic, and with that party, for once, pursuing more aggressive labour
policies than the PS, the Communists looked like outflanking the Socialists
on the left in the run up to the congressional elections in March, I941.
Moreover, Schnake may well have hoped that the offensive against the
Communists would serve to drive a wedge between them and the Radicals
and deliver a mighty blow to the PCCh's electoral ambitions. Finally, despite
the inconformista split in early 1940, there was still considerable opposition
inside the PS towards continued participation in government, and the
offensive against the PCCh helped to rally the Socialists behind their leaders.
Thus, quite apart from any wish to facilitate credit negotiations, Schnake
had powerful personal and party reasons for launching the offensive against
the PCCh.
Aguirre Cerda also had strong reasons for terminating his association with
the PCCh unrelated to the demands of US/Chilean relations. A conservative
Radical with little liking for the Communists, he had only accepted that
association because it was part of the price he had to pay for the Front's
21 La Nacion, 14 Dec., I940.
22 DSA RG 43, Bonsal to Duggan, 15 July, I940; RG 43, Briggs to State, 27 July,
1940.
23 See DSA 825.00/1392, Welles to Bowers, 2 May, I94I, for a summary of

Chilean objections to the conditions of this credit and the State Departme
response.
354 Andrew Barnard
presidential nomination. Content to allow it to continue while the party gave

him unconditional support, he was not prepared to do so when the PCCh
began to move away from that policy. And, during I940, as Chile's economic
problems increased and labour became more restive, and as the government
signalled its determination to maintain industrial discipline, the PCCh moved
slowly leftwards - a process which culminated in the adoption of more
aggressive policies and a left-wing platform at the Ninth Plenary Session of
the Central Committee in October g940.24 As the PCCh and Aguirre Cerda
diverged, the State Department began to receive reports that the government
was going to break its ties with the PCCh. Those reports began as early as
March 1940, became more emphatic in August and reached a crescendo in
October.25 Indeed, just after the Ninth Plenum, Aguirre Cerda took what
came to be the classic first step of any Radical president expecting - or seeking
- a confrontation with the PCCh. Accusing the party of being the 'shock
troops of the Nazi Fifth Column' and of planning to sow economic chaos in
preparation for a golpe, Aguirre Cerda called on the State Department to
send coal shipments.26 Months before Schnake returned from Washington,
then, Aguirre Cerda was apparently committed to a break with the Com-
munists. Indeed, even before Schnake had left Chile for Havana, the govern-
ment was evidently giving serious consideration to such a step, and the
British Ambassador reported that Schnake had expressed the hope that,
should it prove necessary to take 'undemocratic measures' against the PCCh,
Britain and others would understand.27
If Chile's increasing economic problems and the PCCh's shift towards the
left gave Aguirre Cerda reason enough to dispense with the party, there was
another factor which made that action attractive and possible. In late 1940,
the Right had succeeded in pushing a bill through Congress which outlawed
the PCCh and which only needed the presidential assent to become law.28
Thus, Aguirre Cerda could engineer the breach with the Communists in the
knowledge that the PCCh could not react too sharply to that event. And,
indeed, after a brief burst of industrial unrest in January 194I, the PCCh
took steps to ensure that unions under its control did not embark on precipi-
tate strike actions and, during that month and later, resolutely refused to
24 El Siglo, 6 Oct., 1940.

25 See various reports from Bowers to State. DSA 825.00/I204, 6 March, I940.
825.00/12I0, 8 May, 1940; 825.00/1239, 14 Aug., I940; 825.5I/I267, II Oct.,
1940.
26 DSA 825.51/I267, Bowers to State, II Oct., I940.
27 FOR, FO 371/24182, A 2389/5I/9, Bentinck to Halifax, 10 July, I940.
28 See Sergio Fernandez Larrain iTraicion! (Santiago, I94I), for the speeches which
the architect of this bill gave to Congress.
launch offensives against either Aguirre Cerda or the government, reserving

its passionate hostility for Schnake and his 'henchmen'.29 Nevertheless, it is
clear that Aguirre Cerda was intimately involved in engineering the breach
with the PCCh and it may well be that he, rather than Schnake, who has
historically taken the blame, was the architect of the whole affair. Certainly,
Schnake received assurances from Aguirre Cerda and Radical Ministers that
they would do their best to ensure that the PR would remain neutral in the
coming struggles between the PCCh and the PS.30 And it was, perhaps, with
that end in mind that La Nacion published the editorial cited earlier.
By claiming that it was international factors which made the breach with
the Communists necessary, Aguirre Cerda and his ministers were able to
defend that action to the Radical Left and to other non-Communist frentista
supporters.
If, as Aguirre Cerda and Schnake apparently believed, the breach with the
Communists would create a better climate for aid negotiations, they were
soon disillusioned. The US refused to make substantial alterations to the
terms of the 5 million dollar credit which Schnake brought back from
Washington, and Chile rejected it in April I94I.3 Moreover, despite
Aguirre Cerda's expectations, the US did not become any more accommo-
dating over the matter of military supplies.32 True, Chile did obtain a
io million dollar credit in July 194i but only after the government had
threatened to squeeze extra revenue from the copper companies if the credits
were not forthcoming.33 And by July, of course, the entrance of Russia into
the war and the increasing likelihood that the US would soon follow gave
Chile's copper additional importance and considerably strengthened the
government's bargaining position.
It would seem, then, that the decision to end the government's association
with the PCCh responded to changes in both domestic and international
circumstances. Indeed, it would seem that Aguirre Cerda and Schnake
sought to reap international advantage from an action which had already
become attractive, even necessary, for a variety of domestic reasons.
Certainly, while they were probably sincere in their belief that a breach with
29 For examples of Communist attacks on Schnake, see El Siglo, I3-15, 30 Jan., I94I;
4 Feb., 194I.
30 La Hora, I March, 194I. Letter from Schnake to Aguirre Cerda.
31 DSA 825.51/I328, Bowers to State, 29 April, 194I.
32 According to Bowers, Aguirre Cerda linked US reluctance in this matter directly to
his own failure to take drastic action against the PCCh. DSA 825.00/I39T, Bowers
to Welles, 4 April, I94 .
33 DSA 825.5I51/629, Bowers to State, 30 June, 194I; 825.515I/633/PS/RB;
825.51/1349, State to Bowers, 3 July, I941.
356 Andrew Barnard
the PCCh would facilitate aid negotiations with the US, the available
evidence appears to indicate that they came to that conclusion independent
of any official US pressure or suggestion.
February 1946
Elected President in 1942, Rfos, like Aguirre Cerda, found Communist help
and co-operation useful even though he had based his presidential campaign
on an anti-Communist stance and his regime proved to be conservative in
character. However, the Nazi invasion of Russia had caused the Comintern
to replace the Popular Front strategy with the National Unity concept
which committed the PCCh to a general policy of support for Rfos once he
had been elected. Under National Unity, the PCCh sought to group together
all anti-fascist forces, including those of the Right, around a series of
objectives. Those objectives included the defence of democracy at home and
abroad, the fulfilment of Pan American Conference resolutions on con-
tinental solidarity, and the maximization of Chile's contribution to the Allied
war effort.34 While National Unity committed the PCCh to supporting Rfos,
that support was not unconditional but was geared to his performance on
both the national and international planes. Nevertheless, the PCCh gave Rios
rather more consistent support than either the PR or the PS. Indeed, by late
I944, the PR had left government and declared itself to be in formal
opposition while the PS, which had left government in I943, had split over
the issue of continued participation in government to give birth to the
collaborationist Partido Socialista Autentico (PSA) in July I944 and was still
suffering from the effects of those internal struggles.35 In contrast, by that
time, the PCCh was even more committed to supporting Rios. Under the
influence of Earl Browder's ideas that class collaboration rather than class
conflict would be the motor force for fundamental change in the post-war
world, the PCCh adopted policies consistent with that analysis at its i5th
Plenum in August i944.36 Thus, by late I944, the PCCh's support for Rios
had distanced it from its old Radical allies while the theory and practice of
i5th Plenum National Unity had exacerbated relations with the PS.
During I945, however, various presures combined to push the PCCh
away from its position of support for the government and towards a more
left-wing stance. In March I945, the old frentista parties which the PCCh
had managed to pull into a new coalition, the Alianza Democratico de Chile
34 Andres Escobar Diaz, Unidad Nacional contra el Fascismo (Santiago, I941),
pp. 20-2.
85 See Drake, op. cit., pp. 270-7, for an account of the PS's travails during the war
years.
36 El Siglo, 5-7 Aug., I944.
(ADCh) in 1942, lost their control over Congress and, while the PCCh
suffered fewer losses than either the PR or the PS, the party considered its
poor showing to be the popular verdict on i5th Plenum National Unity.37
The end of the war also contributed to this process by exacerbating Chile's
economic problems and generating a climate of increasing industrial unrest.
The defeat of the Axis having robbed the PCCh of its most compelling
reason for collaborating with the government on the labour front, the party
was increasingly less inclined to use its influence to curb industrial unrest,
particularly since the PS was pursuing aggressive labour policies. Abroad,
the comportment of the Chilean delegation to the United Nations Conference
in San Francisco, where, according to the PCCh, Chile had lent itself to anti-
Soviet manoeuvres, helped to strain relations between the party and Rlos.88
Finally, the French Communist Party's denunciations of Browder's 'heresy'
gave the PCCh yet another reason to reassess its policies.39 The PCCh began
that formal re-assessment at its i6th Plenum in July 1945 and completed it
at a National Party Congress in December of that year. At that Congress, the
PCCh urged the government not to be drawn into the anti-Soviet block and,
without abandoning the National Unity concept, called for a re-grouping of
political forces around a sweeping reform programme designed to thrust
Chile through the bourgeois democratic revolution.40
The PCCh's shift towards the left during 1945, gradual though it was,
did not please the Radicals who from May 1945 were once again in govern-
ment. Neither did it impress the Socialists who, in July, had carried out their
own post-mortem of the March election failure, placed a large share of the
blame on National Unity, and opted for a policy of independence from both
the PCCh and the government.41 Having failed to persuade the ADCh
parties to abandon National Unity and to adopt a far-reaching reform pro-
gramme, the PS left the ADCh in August and relations with the Com-
munists, never easy, deteriorated sharply. As the shadows of the Cold War
gathered in late I945 and the PCCh became increasingly hostile towards the
US, the PS responded with attacks on the International Communist Move-
ment in general and the PCCh in particular.42 The battle between the PS and
the PCCh spread into the union movement as the Socialists fought against
Communist efforts to gain endorsement for the new version of National
Unity and attempted to undermine Communist influence by pursuing more
37 See Principios March/April, I945, pp. I0-I5, article by Carlos Rosales.
38 El Siglo, I June, I945.
39 Ibid., Io June, I945.
40 Ibid., 9 Dec., I945.
41 La Opinion, 30 July, I945.
42 See, for example, La Opinion, 20, 22 and 31 Oct., 1945; io and I9 Nov., I945.
358 Andrew Barnard
aggressive labour policies. By January 1946, there was open warfare in the
union movement, and the PS denounced the PCCh for having made Chile
into a battleground between the Great Powers.43 In that month, when the
PR was holding a National Convention, the PS declared that the US would
soon be fighting Communism as it had fought Nazism, and told the PR that
it would have to choose between co-operation with the PS or the PCCh -
it could no longer have both.44
In late January I946, events briefly called a halt to hostilities between the
PCCh and the PS. In order to restore labour discipline in an increasingly
turbulent industrial climate, the government threatened to rescind the legal
status of any union which went on illegal strike. On January 22nd, Vice
President Duhalde, who had just taken over from the mortally-ill Rios,
removed the legal standings of two nitrate unions for precisely that offence.45
The action was denounced by the CTCh, the ADCh and the PS; protest
demonstrations were called and a general strike was announced for January
30th.46 At a protest demonstration held at Plaza Bulnes in Santiago, police
opened fire, killing several participants - an event which caused Duhalde to
impose a state of siege and invite Armed Service chiefs into the cabinet.47
At this, several parties, including the PR, resigned from the cabinet.48 Despite
the state of siege, the strike called for January 3oth was successful, and
Duhalde agreed to a number of demands made by the CTCh in order to have
it lifted. Although the government had begun to honour some of its under-
takings by January 3ist, the CTCh sought to enforce the rapid fulfilment of
the others by announcing its intention to re-impose the strike from February
4th.49 At that point, the paths of the PS and the PCCh began to diverge
sharply once more. On February 2nd, the PS accepted an invitation from
Duhalde to join the government and declared that the decision to re-impose
the strike had been forced on the CTCh by the PCCh; the PS, therefore,
ordered its supporters not to respond to the strike call.50 As a result, the
February 4th strike was not as effective as the previous one, even though it
was initially supported by the PR as well as the PCCh and, on February 7th,
the PCCh ordered a general return to work.51 Even so, it was not until
February 2Ist that Duhalde was able to announce that general tranquillity
had been restored.52
The PS's rejection of the second strike call and its acceptance of govern-
48 Augustin Alvarez Villablanca, Objectivos del Socialismo (Santiago, 1946), p. I.
44 La Opinion, 17 Jan., 1946. 45 El Siglo, 23 Jan., 1946.
46 Ibid., 26 Jan., 1946. 47 Ibid., 29 Jan., I946.
48 Ibid., I Feb., 1946. 49 Ibid., 2 Feb., 1946.
50 Ibid., 3 Feb., 1946; La Opinidn, 3 Feb., 1946.
51 El Siglo, 8 Feb., I946. 52 Ibid., 22 Feb., I946.
ment office caused the CTCh to split and produced a prolonged, bitter and
bloody struggle inside the union movement which lasted for much of I946.
Socialist ministers and the government as a whole used their powers to harass
the PCCh and, by April, there were over 0oo Communist activists in jail,
including the director of the party newspaper, El Siglo.5 During these
struggles, both sides made use of Cold War language and analysis. Duhalde
accused the Communists of obeying international slogans designed to upset
the national economy and undermine the democratic regime, and declared
that the PCCh's recent conduct had been openly subversive and revolu-
tionary.54 The PCCh, for its part, accused the US of plotting with the
Chilean oligarchy in order to install a dictatorship which would ensure that
Chile remained in its underdeveloped state.55 How much truth was there in
these allegations?
That the PCCh's foreign policy followed that of Russia and that the party
increasingly attacked the US and its imperialist plans is clearly true. Just as
clearly, however, the PCCh had no revolutionary intentions during early
1946. Indeed, ever since i938, the PCCh had consistently opposed extra-
constitutional attempts to oust elected authority and had argued, when
rumours of a socialist inspired military golpe circulated in late I945, that the
working class had nothing to expect from such movements, other than the
establishment of a more repressive and dictatorial regime.56 Since there was
nothing in the circumstances of early 1946 which could have caused the
PCCh to change its position on this fundamental point, it seems reasonable
to conclude that revolution was far from the party's intentions. Rather, the
PCCh's actions were dictated by other considerations. During the first strike,
the PCCh, like the PS, was determined to show the government that it could
not embark on an anti-labour offensive with impunity, and the government's
treatment of the nitrate unions, more reminiscent of the early 1930S than the
mid-I94os, appeared to indicate that such an offensive was under way.57
53 Ibid., 15 April, 1946.

64 Ibid., 21 April, 1946.
55 See articles by Humberto Abarca and Galo Gonzalez in Principios, February/March
1946 and April 1946 and El Siglo, 24 Jan., 4 April, and 8 May, 1946 for expressions
of this viewpoint.
56 El Siglo, I8 Nov., I945; DSA 825.00/I2-1945, Hoover to Lyon, 19 Dec., I945.
57 The nitrate union dispute involved important issues of trade union principle and
practice. The unions in question had initially struck in sympathy with striking
copperworkers and had been sued by their employers for lost production. The
Labour Court found for the employers, awarding over 3,000 US dollars in damages
- evidently the first time such an award had been made. In January, the nitrate
unions struck against this award and set in motion the events described above.
DSA 825.5045/5-646, Hoover to Lyon, 6 May, 1946.
360 Andrew Barnard
But in the second strike other motivations were at work. Ever since late I944,
the PCCh had been trying to emulate International Communist experience
and participate in government. Out-manoeuvred by the PS on February 2nd,
the PCCh sought to punish the Socialists for their opportunism and to
demonstrate to the government that it had chosen the wrong partner in
selecting the PS.
If the PCCh was not guilty of the most serious charge levelled against it,
there is little evidence to suggest that the US State Department initiated or
conspired in Duhalde's confrontation with the Communists. True, the State
Department did respond to Duhalde's requests for coal, but those requests
were made after and not before confrontation was joined.58 In fact,
Washington seems to have been unimpressed by the rather alarmist reports
which Ambassador Bowers was sending from Santiago, and Assistant
Secretary of State Braden, a vehement anti-communist, was surprised when
Bowers suggested that the PCCh was launching a revolutionary attempt.59
Interestingly enough as well, it does not seem that the Chilean government
sought confrontation with the Communists in order to create a better climate
for credit negotiations. According to the State Department, there were some
53 million dollars worth of credits available to Chile in late 1945, and
certainly Rios, who visited Washington in October 1945, made no special
plea for credits, even though State Department officials expected him to do so
and were prepared to be sympathetic.60 However, in his talks with President
Truman and Secretary of State Byrnes, Rios did say that if Chile went into
recession, the PCCh would grow stronger - a development which he wished
to avoid. But Rios evidently felt that recession could best be staved off with
the help of private US investment rather than US government credits.
He was told that in that case he should take steps to regularize payments on
Chile's foreign debt.'6 It could be, of course, that at the same time he was
told - if a man of Rios's convictions and experience needed to be told - that
a firm hand with the Communists would also help to restore the confidence of
US investors. But there is no evidence in State Department files that any such
suggestion was made and, since Rios, on his return to Chile, apparently gave
serious consideration to inviting the PCCh to enter government, it seems
likely that no such suggestion was made.62 And, although Rfos himself
58 DSA 825.5045/2-846, Byrnes to Embassy, 8 Feb., 1946; 825.6362/2-1146, Bowers

to State, ii Feb., 1946; 825.6362/3-946, Memo, 9 March, 1946.
59 DSA 825.00/I-1746, Braden to Bowers, 6 Feb., I946.
60 DSA 825.5I/9-I045, Burns to Kennedy, Io Sept., I945; 825.5I/9-2045, Phelps to-
Collado, 20 Sept., I945.
61 DSA 825.ooB/io-i645AW, Memo, 11 Oct., I945.
62 DSA 825.00/I2-T945, Hoover to Lyon, 19 Dec., I945.
Chilean Relations with the United States 36I
apparently told Communist leaders at some point in 1946 that he was under
powerful national and international pressures to outlaw the party, there are
no indications in State Department records that the US government was
involved in those pressures.63 Indeed, State Department officials attributed
rumours of US involvement in attempts to outlaw the PCCh to Aprista
propaganda.64
The US government, then, does not appear to have exterted any pressure,
direct or indirect, to persuade the Rios-Duhalde administration to break
with the PCCh. And, apart from an isolated effort by the Chilean Ambassador
in Washington to obtain finance for housing projects by trading on US anti-
communist sentiment, there is no evidence to suggest that the Chilean govern-
ment sought confrontation with the Communists in order to creat a favour-
able climate for credit negotiations.65
In fact, the actions of the Chilean government in early 1946 can be
explained in exclusively Chilean terms. Determined to re-impose labour
discipline at a time of increasing industrial unrest, the government found
itself confronted by a united and angry left-wing opposition and sought to
destroy that unity by offering the PS cabinet office. Once the Socialists were
in government, Duhalde was able to identify the CTCh's second strike and,
indeed, industrial unrest generally, as Communist-inspired and launch an
offensive against the party. Duhalde may also have been motivated by
personal and party considerations. With Rfos ill and presidential elections
probable in the not-too-distant future, the lines of contest for the Radical
presidential nomination were already being drawn. And it seemed quite
likely that the left wing of the PR, led by Gonzalez Videla, which had
dominated the Party Convention held in January, had a good chance of
winning that nomination. Duhalde, however, was a conservative Radical
with presidential ambitions of his own. The offensive against the PCCh,
then, can be seen as an attempt to underline the Radical-Communist alliance
with which left-wing Radicals were primarily associated, and to win over
centrist Radicals by agitating anti-communist fears. Indeed, Duhalde was
later expelled from the PR for being intimately involved in the emergence
of an anti-communist Radical faction, the Movimiento Radical Demo-
crdtico.66 However, these motivations probably came into play after February
4th, rather than before.
63 El Siglo, 3 July, 1946.
64 DSA RG 59, ARA Memo, 9 March, i946. This was because the rumour that the
US was pressuring Rios to outlaw the PCCh appeared in Ercilla, a magazine edited
by the Peruvian Manuel Seaone.
65 DSA 825.5I/3-946, Memo, 9 March, 1946.
66 La Hora, 27 July, I946.
362 Andrew Barnard
The PS's reasons for taking a leading part in the anti-communist offensive
of early 1946 seem clear enough. The PS had adopted an anti-communist
stance in late I945, apparently in an attempt to restore its prestige and
fortunes after its fractionalization and decline during the war years. And it
probably accepted government office to secure advantages for the party in the
coming presidential elections and to use the machinery of state to undermine
the PCCh's electoral and trade union support. But, like Duhalde, the Socialist
leader, Bernardo Ibaniez, may also have had reasons of his own. According
to State Department files, Ibafiez was due to retire from the Presidency of
the CTCh and contemplated a return to the teaching career he had left in
the early 1930s.67 His actions in early 1946 certainly saved him from that
terrible fate though it seems unlikely that such a prospect weighed heavily
in his calculations. More problematic still were Ibafiez's links with the State
Department and the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Ibaniez appears
to have made courtesy calls at the State Department when passing through
Washington and he had amicable relations with the US Embassy in
Santiago.68 At the same time, he had close relations with Serafino Romualdi,
the AFL's Latin American organizer. Romualdi, who had helped the OSS
re-organize Italian trade unions in the final stages of the war, was a premature
Cold War warrior who may well have encouraged Ibfanez to adopt an anti-
communist line.69 Certainly, Romualdi has stated that the AFL began to send
funds to the CTCh faction led by Ibafiez during I946, though such funds
were probably the result of Ibafiez's anti-communist commitment rather than
its cause.70
Romualdi's past links with the OSS and later evidence that the CIA
funded anti-communist trade union organizations in Latin America with
which Ibafiez was involved brings up the question of whether secret US
agencies played any role in the events of early 1946.71 If they did, the CIA
was not involved since it appears that that agency was not operating in Chile
until mid-I947. However, even before the war, US Naval and Military
Intelligence Units were functioning in Chile, and after 1941 the FBI was
also active.72 During the war, all these units concentrated on the surveillance
of Axis agents and activities, Naval Intelligence being the recipient of at least
67 DSA 825.504/6-II45 CS/MAJ, Bowers to State, I June, 1946.
68 DSA 825.504/7-2645, Memo, 25 July, I945; 825.504/9-1547, Bell to State,
15 Sept., I945; 825.5043/4-3047, Bowers to State, 30 April, I947.
69 Serafino Romualdi, Presidents and Peons (New York, 1967), pp. 3-7, 2i.
70 Ibid., p. 332.
71 For the story of CIA involvement in Latin American labour organizations see,
George Morris, CIA and American Labour (New York, I967).
72 DSA 825.00/I39I, Bowers to Welles, 4 April, I94I; 825.00/I392, Welles to Bowers,
2 May, I941.
one Communist offer of co-operation in this task.73 As the war drew to its
close, the Intelligence Units turned their attention towards the PCCh.
The FBI was particularly active, building up a network of informants of
past and current party members, who, if they generally failed to penetrate the
inner recesses of Central Committee deliberations, collected a great deal of
information about leading party figures, organization and finance, which was
duly relayed back to Washington. But, so far as the available evidence shows,
all these agencies were concerned with gathering information rather than
with executive action and, while it is always possible that individual members
of these units did participate in the events of early 1946 without official
sanction, there is nothing to suggest that this was the case. Indeed, the
available evidence suggests that the confrontation between the PCCh and
Duhalde and the Socialists, clothed in Cold War language though it was, was
largely generated by domestic factors and fought for domestic reasons.
August I947
The final occasion on which a Radical president saw fit to terminate his
association with the PCCh was altogether a more traumatic experience both
for the party and for Chile. After allowing the PCCh to occupy cabinet
office between November 1946 and April I947, Gonzalez Videla formally
broke with the Communists in August of that year. Not content with this, he
forced confrontation in the southern coalfields in October I947 and launched
a national offensive against the PCCh which, a year later, culminated in the
promulgation of the Law for the Defence of Democracy, a measure which,
nominally at least, excluded the party from Chile's political and trade union
life for i I years.
In their different ways, both Gonzalez Videla and the PCCh blamed the
Cold War for the events of 1947 and 1948. The PCCh alleged that the US,
intent on securing its domination of the hemisphere, pressured the President
to renege on his reform programme and move against the party.74 Gonzalez
Videla always denied this and claimed that his actions had been determined
by the need to respond to Moscow-inspired attempts to overthrow his
regime.75 How much truth was there in these allegations and what role did
the Cold War play in the events of I947?
73 Office of Naval Intelligence Archive (ONI) C-IO-M, 24075, Report from USNLO
Tocopilla, 5 Oct., 1942; C-Io-M,24284, Report from USNLO Valparaiso, I2 Dec.,
1944.
74 This viewpoint was expressed in innumerable articles and statements in the
Communist press. See, for example, El Siglo, 13 April, 8 May and 30 June, I947;
Principios, November I947, pp. 3-4, article by Galo Gonzalez.
75 For a succinct summary of this position, see Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, Memorias,
(Santiago, I975, 2 vols.), Vol. I, pp. 707-9.
364 Andrew Barnard
While Cold War pressures had already begun to have some effect on Chilean
politics in late I945, they were not powerful enough to alter the outcome of the
presidential elections held in September I946. Thus, although US officials
identified Gonzalez Videla as the candidate most dangerous to US interests
and felt that the election results would be close, they did nothing to intervene
in the electoral process. Approached by the partisans of all the candidates,
including Gonzalez Videla's, the US Embassy rejected all requests for
financial support and instructed US companies operating in Chile to follow
suit.76 Neither were Cold War pressures strong enough to persuade the right-
wing parties to set aside their differences and unite around a single candidate;
still less did they persuade many Radicals to abandon the alliance which had
captured the presidency twice in recent years. As a result, while the Cold
War certainly coloured the 1946 presidential campaign, it did not stop
Gonzalez Videla from winning a plurality of votes in a four-cornered contest,
nor from being confirmed in office by a Congreso Pleno with help from the
right-wing Partido Liberal (PL).77
Gonzalez Videla's first government, which took office in November I946,
included representatives of the three parties which had helped him to become
President - Radicals, Communists and Liberals. While his decision to base
the administration on these ill-assorted bed-fellows might seem surprising,
Gonzalez Videla had little real choice in the matter, given the problems he
faced and given his political debts and objectives. Thus, while the PL
demanded cabinet office as part of the price for its support in the Congreso
Pleno and while custom alone entitled the PCCh to government office as a
member of a triumphant electoral coalition, he had powerful additional
reasons for including both parties. Rebuffed by the Conservatives, Gonzalez
Videla needed Liberal support to secure a working majority in Congress and
to prevent the emergence of the sort of united and intransigent right-wing
opposition which had made Aguirre Cerda's first two years in office so
difficult. Moreover, he looked to the Liberal presence to counterbalance that
of the Communists and to reassure public opinion and the Armed Services
that his government would not be dominated by the PCCh. He included the
Communists, in the first instance, because they were, for once, demanding a
proper reward for their electoral support and because he owed them a greater
debt of personal gratitude than either of his Radical predecessors.78 Further-
more, unable to count on the support of a powerful PS, Gonzalez Videla
76 DSA 825.00/8-546, Bowers to Braden, 5 Aug., I946.

77 La Hora, 25 Oct., I946.
78 The PCCh not only supported Gonzalez Videla's candidacy in 1946 but also in
I941.
looked to the PCCh to exercise a moderating influence on labour at a time of

economic recession and sharpening industrial and social tensions, and
apparently thought, as did others, that the party would be easier to control
inside government.79 Finally, while Gonzalez Videla's commitment to the
reform programme on which he had been elected might fairly be questioned,
he was, nevertheless, a left-wing Radical who had no wish to be over-
dependent on the Right whether inside or outside the government, and he
seems to have thought that the PCCh would provide a counterbalance in that
respect. Indeed, although Gonzalez Videla assured the US and British
Ambassadors and the PL that he would get rid of the PCCh as soon as
possible, he appears to have wanted to govern on his own terms by balancing
and manipulating the contending forces.80 Unfortunately for Gonzalez
Videla, however, conflict and not balance resulted from the juxtaposition of
antagonistic forces in government. The PL, in particular, conducted itself
from the beginning more like an opposition than a government party; it
campaigned openly against government economic policy, it supported oppo-
sition candidates in congressional by-elections, it systematically tried to block
the appointment of Communists to government posts, and it co-operated
with the Right to push a restrictive law on peasant unionization through
Congress.81 The PR, which in any event, had a historical distaste for the
PL, found that party's actions utterly reprehensible. But the PR was no less
annoyed with the PCCh which, despite holding cabinet office, attempted to
exert pressure on the government through mass mobilizations and which,
despite expectations, did not rapidly impose a moratorium on strike actions,
insisted on its full share of the spoils of office, and conducted vigorous
campaigns to unionize the peasantry, attacking any Radical official who stood
in the way.82
Although the PCCh put forward a programme which called on the
workers to exercise restraint in their industrial conflicts in February I947,
relations between the government parties did not improve and, in April,
the Liberals resigned from the cabinet, closely followed by the Radicals and
Communists.83 The PCCh, which had resisted an earlier Liberal attempt to
force it from the cabinet, left fairly willingly in April.84 It had just recorded
79 DSA 825.00/1I.I446, Bowers to Acheson, 14 Nov., 1946.
80 DSA 825.5045/11-1846, Bowers to Braden, i8 Nov., 1946; Luis Corvalan, Ricardo
Fonseca, Combatiente Ejemplar (Santiago, 1971), p. I79; FOR, FO 371/52003,
AS 6682/I6/9 and A 7055/16/9, dated 21 Oct., I946 and 4 Nov., 1946 respec-
tively, Leche to Bevin.
81 La Hora, I9 Dec., 1946; Io Jan., I Feb., I947.
82 Ibid., 20 Jan., I947. 83 El Siglo, i6 April, I947.
84 See Ricardo Fonseca's article in Principios, February/March I947, pp. 3-4, for a
Communist account of this incident.
366 Andrew Barnard
its highest ever poll in the municipal elections (some 9o,ooo votes - 17 per
cent of the total cast); it had become clear that the government was not going
to pursue the radical policies which the party advocated, and the PCCh had
no wish to be associated with a government which was intending to approve
a restrictive law on peasant unionization.85 Moreover, in April Chile was
engaged on delicate negotiations for US economic aid at a time when
Chile's economic problems and Cold War tensions were rapidly increasing
and, while the PCCh vehemently denied that US aid was either necessary or
desirable, it nevertheless appreciated that its presence in government was a
serious embarrassment for the President.86 Finally, Gonzalez Videla, offered
the resignations of all Communist officeholders, rejected them and intimated
that in a few months time he would invite the party to return to the cabinet,
if conditions permitted.87 Given national and international circumstances,
then, the PCCh felt that it had obtained as much as it could from the experi-
ence of office for the time being, and that it could at least claim that it left
with clean hands and head held high.88
The Radical-Technical government formed after the demise of the so-
called 'Tricolour' cabinet was greeted with coolness but not with outright
hostility by the PCCh, which pledged its support in so far as the new govern-
ment followed the programme on which Gonzalez Videla had been elected.89
But in May the PCCh began to adopt a more aggressive stance and, in June,
a bus strike which spilled over into bloodshed caused the first angry public
exchanges between the party and the President.90 In July, after returning from
a trip to Rio de Janeiro where he endorsed recently announced US economic
and military plans for the continent, Gonzalez Videla entered into lengthy
negotiations with all political parties, except the PCCh, and in early August
formed a cabinet of administration in which right-wing 'technocrats' and
Armed Services chiefs held key positions.91 The PCCh reacted fiercely to this
development. Declaring that the choice which now lay before the country was
either popular democracy or military dictatorship, the party called on its sup-
porters to develop mass mobilization to the maximum in order to ensure that
popular solutions were given to Chile's problems.92 In the days which fol-
85 For an account of this law and its repressive effects, see Brian Loveman, Struggle in
the Countryside (Indiana, I976), Chaps 4 and 5.
86 According to Luis Corvalan, op. cit., p. 196, all cabinet ministers were informed in
February I947 that the State Department would only approve economic aid to
those countries which followed the US lead in foreign affairs.
87 Luis Corvalan, op. cit., p. 196; El Siglo, 17 April, I947.
88 Luis Corvalan, op. cit., p. I9I.
89 El Siglo, 17 April, I947. 90 Ibid., 23, 29 May; 15, 19 June, 1947.
91 Ibid., 2 Aug., I947.
92 Ibid., ii Aug., 1947.
lowed, the PCCh supported a series of strike actions and Gonzalez Videla,
accusing the Communists of seeking to overthrow his regime, declared all
posts held by them in public administration to be vacant and asked Congress
for special powers.93 For its part, the PCCh claimed that the strike movements
were the worker's spontaneous reaction to rising prices and economic hard-
ship, and denied that they formed part of a revolutionary plan, pointing to the
fact that the strikers had returned to work once the special powers had been
invoked.94 In fact, the PCCh stepped back from confrontation, and from late
August softened its attacks on the government and made repeated appeals for
a re-grouping of popular forces. But, by late August, the PR had cut its last
formal link with the PCCh by ordering its members to withdraw from the
Communist-dominated CTCh, and the die was already cast.95 Almost com-
pletely isolated, it only remained for Gonzalez Videla to select the time and
the place for the final confrontation. That came on October 4th in the
southern coalfields, already an Emergency Zone under military rule, when
miners on legal strike refused government orders to return to work. The strike
leaders were arrested, miners on the reserve list were recalled to the colours,
and those who refused to work were deported from the region, the govern-
ment accepting offers from Bernardo Ibafiez to provide replacements.6
Even so, the strike was not rapidly broken and the military authorities found
it necessary to seize food stocks and to prohibit fishing in an effort to ensure
that those who did not work did not eat.97 After a fortnight, the strikers
began to drift back to work and, after October 2Ist, when miners staged a
final protest by refusing to surface after their shifts were over, the strike
ended.98
Gonzalez Videla claimed that the coal strike was part of a Communist
attempt to overthrow the democratic regime, mounted in obedience to orders
from Moscow. During October, he ordered the arrest of Communist leaders,
closed El Siglo, and broke off diplomatic relations with Yugoslavia, Czecho-
slovakia and the USSR.99 Despite such claims, however, it seems highly
unlikely that the PCCh had any such revolutionary plans. Isolated from its
old allies and with few signs of deep contradictions either in the ruling classes
or the Armed Forces, the PCCh can have had little illusion that Chile was
93 Ibid., 20 Aug., 1947.

94 Ibid., 23 Aug., I947.
95 Ibid., 22 Aug., I947.
96 DSA 825.5045/i2-2347, Bowers to State, 23 Dec., I947. This dispatch enclosed a
53-page report on the coal strike by the Labor Attache James Bell. Pp. I7-19.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 La Hora, 9, 22 Oct., I947.
368 Andrew Barnard
ripe for revolution, or that it was capable of leading a successful revolutionary

attempt. Nevertheless, it is true that the party, which had reluctantly accepted
government orders ending strike actions during the war years, did support
the miners in their resistance. But that support did not obey any revolutionary
plan; rather the swift and drastic measures taken by the government on
October 4th gave the PCCh the choice of abject capitulation or acceptance of
confrontation on the government's terms. Given the prevailing political
climate, given the legal and legitimate nature of the miners' conflict and the
importance of that body of workers, the party had little alternative but to
accept the government's challenge.
The PCCh, for its part, alleged that Gonzalez Videla, acting under
pressure from the US, had engineered the confrontation with the precise
intention of launching a national offensive against the party and the working
class movement. That Gonzailez Videla did engineer the confrontation seems
clear enough. While there was some justice in the government's claim that
the dangerously low state of coal stocks demanded swift action, its handing
of the conflict was little short of provocative. No attempt was made to
persuade the miners to return to work; instead, a decree was peremptorily
issued which did not explicitly order a return to work but which set out new
wage scales and empowered the Commander of the Emergency Zone to
recruit new personnel.100 In effect, the government disregarded the strikers'
legal and constitutional rights and treated their conflict as if it were
illegal. No trade union could be expected to accept such treatment without
protest.
But was Gonzalez Videla subjected to US pressure to move against the
PCCh? State Department records show that he was. Indeed, the State
Department placed an informal embargo on all credits to Chile in November
1946, an embargo which appears to have remained in force until October
1947 when Gonzalez Videla made his irrevocable commitment to the anti-
communist cause.
Although Cold War pressures had not been strong enough to persuade the
US to intervene in the 1946 presidential elections, by that time they had
already begun to colour the State Department's perceptions of events in Chile.
In September I946, copperworkers in a Communist-dominated union at
Sewell went on legal strike, even though three other Socialist-dominated
unions in the same complex had accepted company offers of improved wages
and conditions.101 Kennecott, the US corporation which owned the Sewell
mines, was determined not to give way and believed that the strike formed
100 El Siglo, 6 Oct., 1947; La Hora, 7 Oct., I947.

101 DSA 825.5045/10-2546, Bowers to State, 25 Oct., 1946.
part of a Communist offensive against US interests in Chile, a point of view

which Assistant Secretary of State Braden, whose father had created the
Sewell mines, had little difficulty in accepting.102 However, the State Depart-
ment made no move to intervene until late October when it was alerted by
Stannard, Kennecott's President, that the Chilean government was planning
to order the strikers back to work and decree unreasonable wage increases.103
At this, the Chilean Charge d'Affaires in Washington was called in and
given a fairly gentle warning that, should the dispute be settled on terms
favourable to labour, the impression would prevail that the government was
acting under Communist pressure and this would cause an unfavourable
reaction in the US.104 In the event, Kennecott challenged the decree in the
courts and it was rejected by the Contraloria General de la Republica.105
However, in early November, the news that the Chilean government was
going to issue a decree of insistence, that is a decree signed by all cabinet
ministers which would over-ride the objections of the Contraloria, caused
Braden to place an informal embargo on all further credits to Chile, pending
a satisfactory conclusion to the copper strike.l10 A little later in Santiago,
US Embassy officials warned Finance Minister Wachholtz and other Chilean
officials that, should the insistence decree be implemented, it would have an
adverse affect on future economic co-operation with the US.107 During
November, Ambassador Bowers delivered similar warnings to Gonzalez
Videla, who, however, was unmoved by them. Determined to bring
Kennecott to the negotiating table and to accept voluntary arbitration,
Gonzalez Videla offered to ensure that the arbitrator would be a person
acceptable to Kennecott and that all unreasonable or illegal features of the
strikers' petition would be eliminated.'08 At the same time, Gonzalez Videla
told Bowers that he was prepared to replace any minister who refused to sign
the insistence decree and pointed out that, should this happen, the US would
lose its closest friends in the cabinet and his dependence on the Communists
would be increased.109 He also said that if the US did stop granting credits to
Chile, this would inevitably add fuel to the existing anti-imperialist campaign
in the country.10 Finally, Gonzalez Videla mentioned that although he had
102 DSA 825.5I/I1-646, Braden to Clayton, 6 Nov., I946; 825.6352/II--2946, memo,
29 Nov., I946.
103 DSA 825.5054/IO-2246. memo, 22 Oct., 1946.
104 DSA 825.5045/IO-2445, memo, 24 Oct., 1946.
105 DSA 825.5045/II-546, Bowers to State, 5 Nov., 1946.
106 DSA 825.5045/I1-646, Braden to Clayton, 6 Nov., 1946.
107 DSA 825.5045/11-746, Bowers to State, 7 Nov., 1946.
108 DSA 825.5045/11-I246, Bowers to State, 12 Nov., I946.
109 DSA 825.5045/11-1846, Bowers to State, i8 Nov., 1946.
11o DSA Ibid.
370 Andrew Barnard
no wish to take them up, he had had offers of credits and trading agreements
from Argentina, then the US's bete noir in Latin America.111
By mid-November, both Ambassador Bowers and Kennecott's manager in
Chile were pressing Stannard to accept Gonzalez Videla's arbitration offer.l12
But Stannard, a peppery and bombastic individual who offended Chilean
and US officials with equal impartiality, refused to give way until early
December, when Gonzalez Videla threatened to take the mines over.l13
The arbitration award announced in January I947 gave the strikers no more
than the Socialist miners had received in September I946. Bowers reported
that Kennecott was delighted but that it would probably protest loudly to
enable Gonzailez Videla to sell the award to the Communist miners.l4
The Sewell strike had important consequences for Chile. During its course,
State Department officials became convinced that Gonzalez Videla was
dominated by the Communists despite his protestations that he was prepared
to break his ties with them but could not do so so soon after coming to
office.15 His manoeuvres to get Stannard to the negotiating table, his
apparent unresponsiveness to State Department warnings, his practice of
making starkly contradictory statements of his attitude towards the PCCh to
different people - all helped to give US officials deep suspicions as to his
motivations and intentions and convinced them that Chile should get no
further credits until Gonzalez Videla was definitely committed to the anti-
communist crusade.
That crusade did not officially commence until the publication of the
Truman Doctrine in March I947 and, indeed, some State Department
officials were deeply critical of Braden's use of economic sanctions in the
Sewell dispute, arguing that they were neither effective nor proper."6
But proper or not, the embargo on credits to Chile remained in force.
By mid-December, Braden and the Export-Import Bank had come to an
informal understanding that Chile had absorbed all the credits it could
service for the time being.117 Later that month, Chile requested a 40 million
dollar credit from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Develop-
ment and the State Department did what it could to ensure that that request
was rejected.l8
111 Ibid.
112 DSA 825.5045/1I-I246, memo, 12 Nov., I946.
113 DSA 825.5045/I2-246, Braden to Briggs, 2 Dec., 1946.
114 DSA 825.5045/I-247, Bowers to Braden, 2 Jan., I947.
115 DSA 825.00/11-1846, Bowers to Braden, i8 Nov., I946.
116 DSA 825.5045/1I-I546, memo, I5 Nov., 1946.
117 DSA 825.5I/12-I046, memo, io Dec., I946.
118 DSA 825.51/2-2047, Acheson to Bowers, 20 Feb., I947; 825.5I/4-447, Woodward
to State, 4 April, I947.
Chilean Relations with the United States 37I
By April I947, Gonzalez Videla had been advised by a number of US

sources, official and otherwise, that in order to obtain aid he must first put
the economy in order and break with the PCCh.119 On the eve of sending a
mission to Washington to explore the possibilities for aid, Gonzalez Videla
apparently took note of that advice and eased the Communists from his
cabinet. However, if he thought that this would be sufficient to clear the way
for aid, he was mistaken. Braden swept aside Finance Minister del Pedregal's
attempts to justify Gonzalez Videla's association with the PCCh and told
him that the State Department regarded the Communist Fifth Column as a
more dangerous threat than the Nazi had been, and that it was incumbent on
every American republic to take a firm stand against the Communists.120
Braden went on to say that Chile would get no further credits from the US
until it had regularized its debt situation, that Chile's best hope lay in
attracting private capital, and that such capital would not be forthcoming if
the copper companies continued to be subjected to discriminatory taxes or
until exchange regulations had been satisfactorily adjusted.121
The message which del Pedregal brought back from Washington cannot
have been news to Gonzalez Videla and, indeed, even while the Chilean
mission was in the US, he made an informal approach to Ambassador
Bowers to enquire whether there would be any possibility of the US providing
20,000 tons of coal in anticipation of a strike in that industry.122 State
Department officials considered that request in early May but rejected it on
the grounds that such a small amount of coal would only enable Gonzalez
Videla to continue temporizing with the Communists. The officials argued
that an economic 'tie up' would discredit the Communists and persuade the
President to break with them and that only at that point would coal ship-
ments 'be of real and lasting benefit to us and Chile'.123 While the State
Department pondered, Gonzailez Videla approached Stannard, told him of his
determination to break with the Communists and persuaded him, or rather
the Kennecott Corporation, to underwrite the coal shipments he wanted.l24
During June, Gonzalez, supported by Ambassador Bowers, began to
reconnoitre the possibility of meeting some of the economic requirements
mentioned by the State Department and others, but neither the Foreign
Bondholders Protective Council (FBPC) nor the International Bank showed
any willingness to compromise. Indeed, in July, Bowers complained to
119 Luis Corvalan, op. cit., p. 196. 120 DSA 825.00/4-1847, memo, i8 April, I947.
121 Ibid. 122 DSA 825.00/4-2147, Bowers to Braden, 21 April, I947.
123 DSA RG 59, memo, 5 May, I947.
124 DSA 825.5019/7-2347, memo, 23 July, I947; 825.5019/I0-I047, memo, Io Oct.,
I947. Stannard complained in October that he had still not been paid for the
coal he sent in July.
372 Andrew Barnard
President Truman about the unco-operative attitudes of the International

Bank and other financial institutions.125 Although Gonzalez Videla broke
with the Communists in August and immediately sought and received State
Department approval of that action, there was no fundamental change in
official US attiudes towards him or Chile's credit worthiness.l26 The break-
through only came after Gonzalez Videla had made his irrevocable commit-
ment to the anti-communist cause in October. A week after Gonzalez Videla
had joined battle with the coal miners and after increasingly desperate
entreaties from him and Bowers, the State Department agreed to arrange for
the shipment of Ioo,ooo tons of coal to Chile.127 It also undertook to
approach the Eximbank for credits to finance the coal shipments on Chile's
behalf, and the bank, insisting on absolute secrecy, agreed to provide 4 million
dollars against an existing steel mill credit for that purpose.128 Other matters
also began to improve. On October I3th, the State Department approved
Chilean plans for amortization and interest payments to the FBPC, with the
result that Chile was able to regularize its foreign debt situation with US
bondholders.'29 Not wishing to seem too intimately involved with events in
Chile, the State Department turned down offers of public thanks for its good
offices in this matter on the grounds that its intervention could be mis-
construed or misrepresented.'30 Despite this understandable shyness, however,
the goodwill of the US government soon became clear. No protest emanated
from the State Department when the Chilean Congress slapped a 20 per cent
surcharge on the copper tax in late October, even though this was one of the
discriminatory taxes it theoretically abhorred.131 And, finally, Chile began to
receive credits once more. In March I948, the International Bank, over-
coming reservations, approved a 16 million dollar credit; in April, credit
availability was extended for some projects at the Chilean government's
request and in August and December, Eximbank approved further credits
totalling 23 million dollars.132
125 DSA 825.5I/8-2647, McCloy to Lovett, 26 Oct., I947.

126 DSA 825.00/8-2247, memo, 22 Aug., 1947.
127 DSA 825.5045/I0-1447, memo, 14 Oct., I947.
128 DSA 825.5045/IO -I747, memo, 17 Oct., I947.
129 DSA FW 825.5I/I0-I347, memo, 13 Oct., I947.
130 DSA 825.5I/2-448, memo, 4 Feb., I948.
131 Admittedly the surcharge was only intended to last for two months but it is almost
certain that the State Department attitude would have been very different had
Gonzalez Videla not made his move against the Communists. DSA 825.51/I0-3047,
Bowers to State, 30 Oct., 1947.
132 DSA 825.5I/3-2548, memo, 25 March, I948; 825.5I/4-I348, memo, 13 April,
I948; 825.5I/8-I648, memo, I6 Aug., 1948; 825.5I/I2-2148, memo, 21 Dec.,
I948.
Of course, after late I947, US and international financial institutions

could well argue that with Chile pursuing 'sensible', i.e. conservative,
economic policies, it was now a good financial risk. Indeed, they could argue
that Chile's poor economic performance and limited prospects meant that
political motivations of one sort or another were necessary even to contem-
plate investing in that country and that, when Chile appeared to be going
communist, it would have been foolish to extend credits. But, however the
problem is regarded, it is clear that the State Department did exert pressure
in an effort to bring about changes in Chile's domestic political arrangements.
Even granted that business criteria made the international financial institu-
tions reluctant to invest in Chile, the State Department did mount campaigns
to concert and strengthen that reluctance and, at the same time, campaigned
to persuade Gonzalez Videla that he had no alternative but to break with the
PCCh. And it may well be that some US Intelligence units went beyond
State Department manipulations and were actively involved in the planning
and execution of the October confrontation.133
On this occasion at least, the PCCh was correct when it accused the US of
pressuring a Radical president to break his ties with the party. But important
though US pressure was in the events of I947, it was not the only factor
involved. Chile's parlous economic and financial situation, the rising tide of
industrial and social unrest and the logistics of party strengths in Congress
all played their part. Indeed, even had the US not exerted the pressure it did,
it seems highly probable that Gonzalez Videla, like Aguirre Cerda and Rios
before him, would have found it necessary to break with the party at some
point - as he himself recognized shortly after coming to office. Gonzalez
Videla was, after all, no revolutionary, and by August i947 he was faced
with a choice between a radical economic policy and continued co-operation
with the PCCh - a course which could have only led to constitutional dead-
lock and extra-constitutional attempts to oust him from office - and a
conservative economic programme and co-operation with the Right. That
he chose the latter alternative was, in the final analysis, as much a pro-
duct of his own political convictions as it was of US pressure. Moreover,
once having made that choice, the decision to seek confrontation with the
PCCh, the strongest and most aggressive working class party, can be seen as
133 Three pieces of evidence suggest this. First, the British Ambassador reported that he
thought it likely that the FBI had played a 'considerable part' For, FO/371/6I232,
AS6026/32/9, Leche to AS Dept, 20 Oct., I947. Second, Galo Gonzalez claimed
that six US agents directed military operations in the coal zone from the Intendencia
in Concepci6n. Third, CIA records and reports from Chile, which began to be
fairly regular from May I947 onwards, have proved resistant to the Freedom of
Information Act.
374 Andrew Barnard
a step designed to cow and contain a labour movement whose quiescence was
necessary for the success of his economic programme. Nevertheless, while it
is possible to identify powerful domestic imperatives in the events of 1947, it
is quite clear that all the major actors were heavily influenced by the Cold
War in one way or another. Further, it does seem that the form and nature
of the October confrontation owed much to Ganzalez Videla's need to
convince the US that he was irrevocably committed to the anti-communist
cause.
The three cases examined above suggest that the PCCh's

the Radical presidents owed rather more to domestic fac
to US pressure. Indeed, only in I947 is there clear eviden
Department exerted pressure on a Radical president to break
party, and even then the precise importance of that pressur
for debate. But, if the State Department was not always
potent as the PCCh apparently believed, it does seem, as
A. O'Brien have pointed out, that the Radical president
accepted Chile's dependence on the US.134 Thus, as t
strength and importance and as Chile's need for US aid incr
like the copper industry or the foreign debt, became an
Chilean relations, to be brought into play when either a Rad
a US Secretary of State saw fit.
"34 M. J. Francis, op. cit.; A. O'Brien, op. cit.

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Chilean Communists, Radical Presidents and Chilean Relations with the United States,

Chilean Communists, Radical Presidents

Founded in I922, the Partido Comunista de Chile (PCCh) had a somewhat

Before proceeding to that examination, it might be as well to ask why the

s In 1936, US investment totalled 484 million US dollars - 383 millions in mining

International factors also played an important part in straining relations

Conference had adopted resolutions on subversive threats which, though

23 See DSA 825.00/1392, Welles to Bowers, 2 May, I94I, for a summary of

presidential nomination. Content to allow it to continue while the party gave

24 El Siglo, 6 Oct., 1940.

launch offensives against either Aguirre Cerda or the government, reserving

53 Ibid., 15 April, 1946.

58 DSA 825.5045/2-846, Byrnes to Embassy, 8 Feb., 1946; 825.6362/2-1146, Bowers

76 DSA 825.00/8-546, Bowers to Braden, 5 Aug., I946.

looked to the PCCh to exercise a moderating influence on labour at a time of

93 Ibid., 20 Aug., 1947.

ripe for revolution, or that it was capable of leading a successful revolutionary

100 El Siglo, 6 Oct., 1947; La Hora, 7 Oct., I947.

part of a Communist offensive against US interests in Chile, a point of view

By April I947, Gonzalez Videla had been advised by a number of US

President Truman about the unco-operative attitudes of the International

125 DSA 825.5I/8-2647, McCloy to Lovett, 26 Oct., I947.

Of course, after late I947, US and international financial institutions

The three cases examined above suggest that the PCCh's

"34 M. J. Francis, op. cit.; A. O'Brien, op. cit.

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