From détente to Revolution: Soviet Solidarity with Chile after Allende, 1973–79

Abstract

Based on untapped sources from the state and foreign policy archives of the Russian Federation, and bridging the historiographies of human rights, Cold War Latin America, and Second-Third World relations, this article argues that Soviet solidarity with Chile after the 1973 coup that toppled socialist president Salvador Allende reflected the fundamental dilemma at the heart of Soviet policy in the 1970s: the pursuit of détente jeopardized Moscow’s leadership of the international communist movement. Soviet solidarity with Chile is analyzed at the diplomatic level; at the transnational level, through exchanges with a variety of political and social groups not limited to communist parties; and at the international level, where these groups pursued their agendas in the United Nations and other organizations. Removing the East/West lenses and viewing Soviet responses to Allende's downfall in the context of intra-communist bloc rivalries and the explosion of global human rights activism, demolishes the orthodox paradigm of the Cold War international system and reveals the ways in which Soviet ideology was shaped not only by official party interpretations of Marxism-Leninism, but by the innovations of allies and competitors in the Global South, and the universal language of the UN Charter and human rights.