Salvador Allende

Madrigal von Muchow

Salvador Allende (1908-1973) was a physician, political actor, and the president of Chile from 1970-1973. He is known best for championing of social medicine, bringing together his medical training, passion for social justice, and broad leftist political influences to make structural changes

He was born 1908 in Valparaiso, Chile, to an upper-middle class family with a history of political activism. Allende attended medical school at the University of Chile beginning in 1926. While at medical school, he was exposed to the socialist and Marxist ideas that would later shape his political career. He participated extensively in activism, serving as president of the medical student association, and joining Avance, a Communist-affiliated student organization devoted to democracy and social justice (Clark, 2013). Due to his political activity, he was arrested twice and expelled once during medical school (Tedeschi et al., 2003). Unable to find hospital work after medical school due to his radical ties, Allende worked as a pathologist, dissecting cadavers. Here, he was directly exposed to the ravages of poverty on health and the body, later saying, “I won by bread sticking my hands into pus, cancers, and death” (Clark, 2013, p. 30). He eventually established a practice serving the poor in Valparaiso.

Allende was deeply involved in politics from the outset of his adult life, in an often-revolutionary atmosphere. In 1933, a year after his graduation from medical school, Allende founded the Socialist Party of Chile, which was based on Marxist principles. In 1935, he was initiated into the Chilean Freemasons, which included many of the country’s foremost politicians. This may have helped his rapid ascent into political life, but later caused tensions with both his party and the Freemasons, both groups feeling the other deviated from their ideals (Clark, 2013). Allende was elected to the Chilean National Congress in 1937. Two years later, he served as minister of health in Pedro Aguirre Cerda’s Popular Front government, where he championed social medicine and proposed social reforms to address health problems (Tedeschi et. al., 2003; Waitzkin, 2005).

Salvador Allende

In 1939, Allende published his seminal work on social medicine, La Realidad Médico-Social Chilena (The Chilean Socio-Medical Reality). This book encapsulated the philosophy of Latin American social medicine, conceiving of disease as not an affliction of the individual, but a condition influenced by social and economic conditions. The work focused on health issues that are strongly determined by structural poverty and poor working conditions, such as maternal and child health and tuberculosis. It contained proposals of the Ministry of Health to combat public health problems with social interventions, such as income redistribution (Waitzkin, 2005).

In 1945, Allende was elected to the Senate, where he served until 1970, acting as vice president and president for a large portion of that time. During his tenure in Congress, he introduced the legislation for the Chilean national health service, which guaranteed universal health care. The Colegio Médico de Chile, a physician’s organization, opposed this effort, fearing it would threaten private practice (Waitzkin et. al., 2001). Allende ran for president of Chile four times: in 1952, 1958, 1964, and, successfully, in 1970. He was elected under the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) by a slim margin (Tedeschi et. al., 2003). This election marked the first (and only) time a Marxist leader had gained power by democratic election in Latin America (Drake, 2001). The UP was a new party, born in 1969, which hoped to unite leftist politics--socialists, Marxists, and anarchists--under one banner. It brought Allende to power, but the subsequent infighting of his highly heterogeneous party destabilized his presidency (Clark, 2013).

Allende entered office with plans for sweeping social reforms. He championed the public health system and universal health care, which made him unpopular with private physicians across Chile. He fixed bread prices and wages and redistributed property, his policies embodying his social justice inclinations and belief that structural changes would most effectively enhance overall well-being. By the end of his presidency, the economy took a turn for the worse, and inflation soared, which led to widespread economic insecurity (Zapata, 1976).

1970 cover of TIME Magazine, decrying Allende as a "Marxist Threat In The Americas." The United States, in the midst of the Cold War, had concern over Allende's Communist leanings.

Allende’s government ended in bloody failure, spurred by antipathy within and without his party and country. The United States, in the midst of the Cold War, was threatened by Allende’s socialist and Marxist values, and gave large amounts of money to his opponents. Allende’s party was also plagued by internal divisions and infighting, and thus made his presidency precarious. He was both greatly admired and vehemently disliked by large swaths of the population. On September 11, 1973, Allende was overthrown by a military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, who was backed by the United States’ CIA (Tedeshi et al., 2003; West, 2015; Devine, 2014). It is widely believed that his death was a suicide, committed in the midst of the invasion of the presidential palace, though some maintain that he was killed by those leading the coup. He was buried in an unmarked grave until 1990, when his remains were exhumed and he was given a public burial in Santiago (Hite, 2003).

To this day, Allende’s legacy remains contentious across the political spectrum. Many of his policies were immediately dismantled by the military government. Presently, Chile’s political system continues to be marked by a left-right divide. The right considers his presidency an era of chaos that nearly brought the country to ruin, and hold his tenure up as a cautionary tale against leftist, socialist policy. Those on the left are also divided amongst themselves. Socialist leaders stress that his failures came about due to sweeping reforms without broad public support, and stress the need for cooperation with centrist forces; the Marxist wing of the UP accuses socialist leaders of betraying Allende’s vision to pursue gradual reform. A physician, reformer, and revolutionary, he remains both a hero and a villain in the eyes of Chileans (Waitzkin, 2005).

Additional Resources

Allende’s last speech

Allende Gossens, S. (1939). La Realidad Medico-Social Chilena. From http://www.libros.uchile.cl/507

Allende Gossense, S. (1939). Considerations on Human Capital (English), from La Realidad Medico-Social Chilena.

References

Allende, Salvador. (2000). In A. J. Motyl (Ed.), Encyclopedia of nationalism: leaders, movements, and concepts. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Science & Technology.

Allende, Salvador. (2015). In N. West (Ed.), Historical dictionaries of intelligence and counterintelligence: Historical dictionary of international intelligence (2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

Devine, J. (2014). What really happened in Chile: The CIA, the Coup Against Allende, and the Rise of Pinochet. Foreign Affairs 93(4), 26-35.

Drake, P. (2001). Allende, Salvador. In (Ed.), The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World. : Oxford University Press,.

Figueroa Clark, V. (2013). Salvador Allende: Revolutionary Democrat. London, U.K.: Pluto.

Hite, K. (2003). Resurrecting Allende. NACLA Report on the Americas, 37(1), 19-42.

Muir, R., and Angell, A. (2005). Commentary: Salvador Allende: His role in Chilean politics. International Journal of Epidemiology, 34, 737-739.

Tedeschi, S. K., Brown, T. M., & Fee, E. (2003). Salvador Allende: physician, socialist, populist, and president. American journal of public health, 93(12), 2014–2015.

Waitzkin,. H. (2005). Allende and the birth of social medicine. International Journal of Epidemiology, 34, 739-741.

Waitzkin, H., Iriart, C., Estrada, A., & Lamadrid, S. (2001). Social Medicine Then and Now: Lessons From Latin America. American Journal of Public Health, 91(10), 1592-1601.

Zapata, F. (1976). The Chilean Labor Movement under Salvador Allende: 1970-1973. Latin American Perspectives, 3, 85-97.