The Enduring Significance of the 1930s for Chile's Long Cold War

Abstract

Abstract: Chile was no exception to the reorientation of Latin American politics during the 1930s. Radical politics, mass mobilizations, and defeated coups established major reference points for the memory and behaviour of political actors during the Cold War. Salvador Allende's template for how to deal with a military coup in 1973, for instance, came from his experience as health minister in 1939. That year he witnessed the Popular Front government defeat an insurrection. Events earlier in the decade profoundly shaped the Pinochet regime (1973–1990)'s view of democratic political transitions and their potential for anti-military backlash. Overseas, the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) tore the Iberian country apart and deeply impacted its former colonies. In Chile, the Spanish Civil War contributed to the establishing of ideological fault lines and political speech that framed the nation's electoral choices as one between fascism and communism, slavery or liberation. This article examines the significance of events in the 1930s for the subsequent politics of revolution and counterrevolution that gripped Chile in the second half of the twentieth century. It concurs with the concept of a 'long Cold War' in Latin America and argues that Chile entered a distinctly new phase in that struggle after 1931.