Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Email
Answers.com

Communist Party of Chile

 
Wikipedia: Communist Party of Chile
Partido Comunista de Chile
Leader Guillermo Teillier
Founded January 2, 1922
Headquarters Vicuña Mackenna 31
Santiago
Ideology Communism
International affiliation Sao Paulo Forum
Website
http://www.pcchile.cl/

The Communist Party of Chile (Spanish: Partido Comunista de Chile) is a Chilean political party that advocates communism. It was founded in 1922, as the continuation of the Socialist Workers Party.

Contents

History

Luis Emilio Recabarren, Communist Party of Chile leader and founder (1922 - 1924)
Luis Corvalán, Secretary-General of the PCCh (1958-1990)
Gladys Marín, Secretary-General of the PCCh (1994-2002)

It achieved congressional representation shortly thereafter and played a leading role in the development of the Chilean labor movement. Closely tied to the Soviet Union and the Third International, the PCCh participated in the Popular Front (Frente Popular) government of 1938, growing rapidly among the unionized working class in the 1940s. It then participated to the Popular Front's successor, the Democratic Alliance.

Concern over the PCCh's success at building a strong electoral base, combined with the onset of the Cold War, led to its being outlawed in 1948, a status it had to endure for almost a decade until 1958 when it was again legalized. By the 1960s, the party had become a veritable political subculture, with its own symbols and organizations and the support of prominent artists and intellectuals such as Pablo Neruda, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, and Violeta Parra, the songwriter and folk artist.[1] At the time, the U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 27 500.[2]

It later came to power along with the Socialist Party in the Unidad Popular ("Popular Unity") coalition in 1970, but was outlawed again following the 1973 coup d'état that deposed President Salvador Allende. During this time, Communist Party members set up a guerrilla organization, the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front. With the restoration of democracy and the election of a new president in 1990, the Communist Party of Chile was legalized again.

As part of the Popular Unity coalition the PCCh advocated a broad alliance; however, it swung sharply to the left after the 1973 coup, regretting the failure to issue arms to the working class and pursuing an armed struggle against Pinochet's regime. Since the restoration of democracy it has acted independently of its previous partners.

In the 1999/2000 presidential elections the party supported Gladys Marín Millie for the national presidential elections. She won 3.2% of the vote in the first round. At the last legislative elections, 11 December 2005, the party won 5.1% of the popular vote, but as a result of Chile's binomial electoral rules, no seats. The small but significant support of the PCCh is believed to have aided in the electoral victories of former socialist president Ricardo Lagos in the 2000 elections, and in the more recent victory of Chile's first female president, the socialist Michelle Bachelet in January 2006, both of whom won in competitive second round runoffs.

Notable members

See also

References

  1. ^ Chile - The Parties of the Left
  2. ^ Benjamin, Roger W.; Kautsky, John H.. Communism and Economic Development, in The American Political Science Review, Vol. 62, No. 1. (Mar., 1968), pp. 122.

External links


Search unanswered questions...
Enter a question here...
Search: All sources Community Q&A Reference topics
 
 

 

Copyrights:

Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Communist Party of Chile" Read more