The Effect of the Cold War on Chile In the midst of a Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, countries in Latin America find themselves caught in the middle of a Marxist Revolutionary movement and the US
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The two opponents of course had a powerful alliance with the CIA who then determined that Allende’s government needed to be overthrown by a coup. The CIA was able to receive outside leverage from the United States who cut off international credit from Allende’s government. This external factor of another country who is involved in the exchange of Allende’s finances lead the country to triple digit inflation despite the Popular Unity imposing price freezes and wage increases to raise the standard of living for the Chilean poor (Wolfe 1). Getting external help from another country demonstrates the great length in which those opposed of a socialist-communist government will go to in order to make sure that socialism is not successful. Despite the great effort of those opposed to Allende’s socialist style of government, there was still a popular resistance of urban workers who were the strong backing behind the idea of …show more content…
However, the death of Allende was not the last of events to occur in Chile after the rise of Pinochet. The Chilean Coup commenced after the death of Allende in order to put an end to socialism. Pinochet suggested the destruction of the popular movement and popular legal politics (Guardiola-Rivera 340). In order to do this they had to rid Chile of the popular unity, and this is when the Chilean coup occurred. Pinochet believed that those with socialist views were dangerous since they were different from his. People that were part of the Popular Unity were herded into the Santiago Soccer Stadium, never to be heard of again, and shuttled to secret mass graves (Chasteen 300). It did not stop there however, the military coup was intimately involved in rounding up, torturing, and slaughtering tens of thousands of Chilean workers, students and left-wing intellectuals (Auken 1). Since Pinochet started the coup, he soon became a dictator of Chile, and was said to have broken the previous record length of tenure among Chilean rulers (Collier and Sater 359). These tragic events were the result of a country’s desperation to rid the ideas of socialism leading to the rise of a dictator which also ironically goes against the Chileans ideas of a democracy and
The two opponents of course had a powerful alliance with the CIA who then determined that Allende’s government needed to be overthrown by a coup. The CIA was able to receive outside leverage from the United States who cut off international credit from Allende’s government. This external factor of another country who is involved in the exchange of Allende’s finances lead the country to triple digit inflation despite the Popular Unity imposing price freezes and wage increases to raise the standard of living for the Chilean poor (Wolfe 1). Getting external help from another country demonstrates the great length in which those opposed of a socialist-communist government will go to in order to make sure that socialism is not successful. Despite the great effort of those opposed to Allende’s socialist style of government, there was still a popular resistance of urban workers who were the strong backing behind the idea of …show more content…
However, the death of Allende was not the last of events to occur in Chile after the rise of Pinochet. The Chilean Coup commenced after the death of Allende in order to put an end to socialism. Pinochet suggested the destruction of the popular movement and popular legal politics (Guardiola-Rivera 340). In order to do this they had to rid Chile of the popular unity, and this is when the Chilean coup occurred. Pinochet believed that those with socialist views were dangerous since they were different from his. People that were part of the Popular Unity were herded into the Santiago Soccer Stadium, never to be heard of again, and shuttled to secret mass graves (Chasteen 300). It did not stop there however, the military coup was intimately involved in rounding up, torturing, and slaughtering tens of thousands of Chilean workers, students and left-wing intellectuals (Auken 1). Since Pinochet started the coup, he soon became a dictator of Chile, and was said to have broken the previous record length of tenure among Chilean rulers (Collier and Sater 359). These tragic events were the result of a country’s desperation to rid the ideas of socialism leading to the rise of a dictator which also ironically goes against the Chileans ideas of a democracy and