<< wonder what people here think of the Allende government's attempts, economic or otherwise, 25 years ago in Chile, before it was murdered. As far as I know, the only Marxist government that was elected into power. Arguably a casualty of the cold war?
Allende was what would in Europe be described as a left social democrat. He was not a Marxist who wanted to disposses the bourgeoisie and give power to the workers or to a Communist or Socialist Party. It was only that in America's "backyard" that policies that had to be tolerated in Britain, France, Germany, or Sweden--largely because of the cold war, i.e., we needed those governmentsa s our friends--were intolerable. Henry Kissinger is reliably reported to have remarked with regard to Allende that "We can't let those people gp Communist through their own stupidity."
Other elected more or less Mrxaist governments include: the Czech Communists in 1947--there was a lot of fruad, but no more than in most European elections in those days. France and Italy would certainly have elected Communist governements in the immediate postwar era but for the efforts of the CIA and Stalin's order that the CPs were not to really contest those elections. More relectly and more Marxist than any of the above, the Sandinistas in 1984--remember the amzing disappearing election that no one ever talks about?
>> The only book I've seen on the coup is "Allende's Chile" by Richard
Boorstein. What do people think of it? Any other books you can recommend?
Petras and Morely havea good book,a vailable from Monthly Revire, called The United States and Chile.
--jks