The Limits of Democracy: Labour Movement, Taken Factories, and the Popular Unity Government (Chile, 1970–1973)

Abstract In Chile, the history of democracy is long, born with the republic at the beginning of the nineteenth century but more as an idea or ideal horizon than an immediate reality. Democratic ideals have been part of the national catechism, supported by all political forces, although they have not been practised with the same emphasis. The history of the southern South American country includes several authoritarian interruptions to democracy, and it is impossible to speak of a proper democracy in the country until the twentieth century. In that same century, Chile suffered two dictatorships, the second of which ended the socialist and democratic experiment of the government of Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity ( Unidad Popular , UP; 1970–1973), replaced by a dictatorial, neoliberal, and profoundly anti-workerand anti-communist military regime. These authoritarian moments received almost unambiguous support from the propertied classes and the right wing, who benefitted from this influence on the state during those periods.