“Unidad Popular” in Chile and the Theory of Dual Power in the Works of Rene Zavaleta Mercado

Abstract

The Popular unity in Chile (1970-1973) with its radical social program after the victory in the elections of 1970 faced the problem of power, its completeness, effectiveness of implementation and preservation of leadership functions. This problem was acute for the forces that were part of the ruling coalition and that supported it from the outside. Hav-ing almost no historical experience on which to base their reflections on the complex question of a single, consolidated power and state in-stitutions, Chilean left-wing intellectuals inevitably turned to the lega-cy of the classics, to the experience of the Russian revolution, which suggested as obvious parallels the problems of dual power in the revo-lution, critical balance and the actions of the parties to overcome it in their favor. 50th anniversary of the dramatic military coup that put an end to the historical experiment of the popular government of Salvador Allende and the "Chilean path to socialism" We offer an analysis of the works and ideas of the outstanding Bolivian intellectual René Zavaleta Mercado (1935-1984), who was a contemporary and witness of those events, and who left interesting works on this topic, where the main outline of his theoretical-political work was aspects related to the category of dual power, addressed to the analysis of the experience of National Unity as part of the Latin American revolutionary experience of the twentieth century.

Keywords

• popular unity
• chile
• revolutionary strategy
• dual power
• russian rev-olution
• rené zavaleta mercado