The Lessons of Chile

The Lessons of Chile
Edited by John Gittings
Transnational Institute Spokesman Books, 1975

The Kissinger Doctrine and Chile by Richard J. Barnet
Co-founder of IPS and former TNI Fellow

This volume contains a selection of papers and discussion from the proceedings of a conference held in Amsterdam on 22-24 February, 1974. It was organised by the Transnational Institute, and those taking part included Chileans who had been forced to leave their country, European socialists of various tendencies, and fellows and staff of the Transnational Institute and its parent body in Washington, DC, the Institute for Policy Studies. Among the Chileans were members of all the political groupings which had participated in the Unidad Popular under President Allende, as well as the MIR. Also taking part were observers from some American church groups as well as former Senator Eugene McCarthy.

The purpose of the Amsterdam Conference was to look at Chile, from a mainly European perspective, and to ask not so much the question What went wrong? but the rather more useful question What can we learn? For socialism, it was felt, should be as multinational as the forces which oppose it. "The Lessons of Chile"'s brave socialist effort and the reaction which it induced would need to be applied to other such efforts and other such reactions in the coming years and in our own countries.

Contents

• Introduction, by John Gittings
• Preface, by André van der Louw
• Europe and Chile, by Claude Julien
• The Kissinger Doctrine and Chile by Richard J. Barnet
• Militarism and Chile, by Johan Galtung
• Chile and the Socialist Movements in Post-Colonial Society, by Hamza Alavi
• Chile and Europe's Struggle for Socialism, by Bernard Jaumont
• Discussion:
  • On the history of the coup
  • On the role of imperialism
  • On armed and constitutional struggle