In history there are two presidents who during their government experienced acute confrontations but who with the passage of time have grown to reach universal dimensions: Balmaceda and Allende.
Karl Marx in his text on the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte points out, taking Hegel’s thesis, that characters and great historical events are repeated, that they are repeated twice, once as a tragedy and again as a miserable farce or farce.
I will refer here to the Balmaceda government and its repetition as a historical drama in the government of Dr. Salvador Allende.
Essentially, President Balmaceda’s government attempted to take Chile’s great leap towards its modernity and transform itself into a regional power. The government of Dr. Allende attempted to develop Chile within a framework of social justice.
They were two attempts to make a great leap in history and both have an intimate relationship with the mining wealth of our country.
President Balmaceda deployed great public management, creating the Ministry of Public Works, a network of railways throughout the country, hundreds of schools, high schools and university campuses, the Pedagogical Institute, the Malleco viaduct, he channeled the Mapocho River, founded the Salvador hospital, sought to modernize the army, strengthened and modernized the navy, created the first Lyceum for young ladies, created the Barros Arana National Institute for provincial students. Balmaceda’s creative work is gigantic. He had the nitrate wealth.
For his part, Salvador Allende was not in a financial position to carry out a program of achievements of that magnitude since he received the public treasury in a state of many hardships that reflected the need to put the country into a new economic development project.
Nevertheless, Allende carried out a successful program of construction of what today we would call social housing, established free education at all levels, distributed half a liter of milk daily to all the children of the country when there was malnutrition in Chile, strengthened and developed a public passenger transportation program expressed in the State public transportation company (ETC), improving the salaries of teachers and the armed forces. He nationalized copper and carried out agrarian reform.
Both presidents were overthrown by the actions of foreign governments. In the case of Allende this is very clear and is documented by the State itself that carried out the destabilization: the North American Senate reports known as Church in 1975 and Hinchey in 2000 leave it clearly established.
The war of 1891 was not, as official history wants to show us, a dispute between parliament and a presidential regime. The Chilean president and our country were attacked by the British Empire at the instigation of financial speculator John Tomás North, who through juggling and use of privileged information had obtained the nitrate riches.
Allende nationalized copper as he had promised and that is why he was the object of North American aggression, even before taking office as president, as reported in North American senatorial reports. Already since 1964 there was a conspiracy against him, starting with the terror campaign of that year.
In the case of Balmaceda, it must be said that the English fleet operated in the war against the constitutional government of Chile and that these services were so significant that once the victory was achieved, a celebration and gratitude dinner was held at the Palace of the Coin to the officers of the English warships that had participated.
In the case of Allende it is evident that the American ships participating in the Unita operation would not have remained indifferent if things had gone against the coup plotters.
Allende nationalized copper, giving continuity and deepening the Chileanization initiated by President Eduardo Frei Montalva; For his part, Balmaceda announced in a speech in Iquique in 1889 that Chile would nationalize the Saltpeter which implied that without touching the existing English nitrate companies, everything that was started in the future could only be in the hands of Chileans who would have to exploit such deposits in partnership with the State.
This is the fundamental cause of the overthrow of Balmaceda and Allende, our mineral wealth.
When Allende assumed command of the nation on November 4, 1970 and moved to the Castillo de Viña del Mar palace in the afternoon, he commented that the most exciting thing that day had been that a descendant of Balmaceda had given him La Moneda a copy of his ancestor’s political will.
There is no doubt that Allende studied and took lessons from Balmaceda.
Unlike this, its relations with the Catholic Church were very good to the point that it sponsored until the last a political dialogue that would avoid a tragic and foreseeable outcome.
Allende took great care, perhaps too much, to preserve public freedoms and never resorted to the harsh punitive hand of President Balmaceda’s government; he allowed freedom of expression that amounted to abuse. He rejected before his own supporters on June 29 after a military week any initiative that would involve closing congress. He did everything possible, even allowing tiny groups to become disrespectful, to maintain the unity of the left unlike Balmaceda who ended up antagonizing many people, including many liberals.
Allende and Balmaceda did similar things. For example, bringing soldiers into the government, the first being General Prats and the second being General Velásquez who had been the head of the Chilean artillery in the Pacific War, both decisions were highly discussed at the time, even in their own field.
Allende tried to avoid civil war, although this did not prevent genocide.
Dragged to death and ridicule after his departure, both characters have been vindicated. Balmaceda’s funeral took place 5 years after his death and was a gigantic demonstration of affection and popular support.
Allende had to wait 17 years for the timorous democracy to carry out a state funeral that was withheld from his people. In return, political figures who had even participated in his overthrow paid tribute to him in a private ceremony behind closed doors in the general cemetery. Outside of it, a million and a half people watched their leader’s funeral from a distance.
The entire history after 1891 vindicates Balmaceda, Alessandri Don Arturo himself, a young coup leader of that year, orders a constitution to be drafted as president that is clearly of Balmaceda content.
Allende cited Balmaceda many times in his speeches, many streets and avenues are named in his honor, he has monuments in many places. Nobody remembers the coup plotters Jorge Montt Estanislao del Canto, Holley or the mercenary/parliamentarian Walker Martínez. The name of Allende’s murderer is today an insult in world politics.
For his part, Allende is the most universally known Chilean along with Neruda. In France alone, 2,000 squares, streets, avenues, places and public spaces bear his name. In Ankara, the capital of Turkey, in its main square there is the monument of Allende next to that of the founder of modern Turkey Ataturk, the union of health workers in the The Republic of El Salvador is called Salvador Allende, in Mexico a town that had grown a lot and that had to create a municipality and give itself a name by decision of its inhabitants adopted Salvador Allende, one of the most important hospitals in Havana is called Salvador Allende, there are many monuments around La Moneda and tourists only stop to take pictures at the Salvador Allende one.
This president made mistakes such as launching attacks against the national industry in circumstances when the right had supported the nationalization of copper, tolerating the ravings of the ultra-left that ended up frightening the middle class, taking for granted the support of the socialist camp for the revolution Chilean. But nevertheless, these are not the efficient or suitable causes that determine his overthrow.
In his last speech and in the haste of imminent death Allende does not call for revenge, he points out that he does not have bitterness but rather disappointment, he predicts the path of other men.
Balmaceda in a letter to his wife daughter asks her not to speak ill of anyone because the war has ended.
Neruda was right. Chile has only had two great presidents, Balmaceda and Allende.
