Political Opposition to the Government of Allende

Abstract

THE ANALYSIS OF THE PRESENT CHILEAN POLITICAL PROCESS MAY serve to underline some features of the Marxist theory of the state and of the relationship between social classes and institutional structures. Few countries offer such a clear example as Chile of the impact of the elements forming the ideological superstructure on the social and economic mechanisms which operate at the level of the infrastructure. Its long, bourgeois democratic tradition has led to the accumulation of many juridical and institutional elements, to which formal respect has been given, and which have built up a system of domination thanks to the acquiescence of other social sectors. The achievement of a high degree of consensus had been the other side of the face of a weak bourgeoisie, and in the blind logic of weak dominant classes, they have transformed their superstructure into their Achilles's heel. For the Chilean political process has shown how political power can transform itself into an instrument which will destroy the unity of the institutionalized power structure of the bourgeois state, when it is controlled by an alliance of social forces which escape the influence of the dominant class and its allies.