CHILE:

‘Armed element
necessary to aid
the struggle’

Among the fraternal delegates attending
the 26th Convention of the Communist Party
of Canada was Jorge Montes, member of the
Secretariat of the Communist Party of Chile.
During a break in the proceedings, the
Tribune talked to Montes about recent events
in his country.

* * *

Tribune: How would you describe the
situation in Chile in the most general
terms?

Montes: I see it as a growing
development of the struggle of the
masses to do away with the dictatorship.

However, at the same time as the mass
struggle against the dictatorship
heightens, the resistance of the dictator-
ship is also growing, and its repression is
becoming more brutal. It’s like this: mass
struggle — repression; more mass strug-
gle — more repression. This is the
dynamics today in Chile.

For example, just under a week ago,
there was a nation-wide protest. And the
dictatorship, with the objective of
spreading terror among the people, had
its agents murder three members of the
Communist Party. All three of them were
young people. One was the president of
the Teachers Federation of Santiago. The
second was a sociologist working in the
Solidarity bookstore. The third was a
young artist. They were kidnapped and
then assassinated ina really horrible way
— castrated, beaten to death, their faces
bashed into a pulp. Their bodies were
then cast out into a field near the airport,
and found a couple of days after they
were assassinated.

This produced a feeling of great horror
among the people. But opposite to what
the dictatorship wanted — that the
people would become afraid — indigna-
tion is growing all the time among the
majority of the people, who want to put
an end to these crimes, who want to live
in peace and tranquillity, who want to rid
themselves of the constant stormclouds
they live under because of the Pinochet
regime.

Tribune: If almost everyone is opposed
to Pinochet and his regime, why is he still
here?

Montes: Pinochet hasn't fallen be-
cause he is supported by the army, by the
armed forces.

He also enjoys the international sup-
port of the United States. The USA sup-
ports the tyranny of Pinochet. And the
United States is responsible for the fact
that the Chilean people continue to be
repressed by this dictatorship.

Tribune: How does the Communist
Party operate in this situation of terror,
repression and cruelty?

Montes: The Communist Party pur-
sues a political line that poses, as the first
great problem of doing away with
Pinochet, the necessity of the entire
population uniting against Pinochet. In
Chile the opposition is very large — it
comprises 90 per cent of the population.
Nevertheless, Pinochet hasn’t fallen.
Why not? Because the opposition is di-
vided. It hasn’t been able to unite. There
is a popular opposition, as we call it, and

there is a bourgeois opposition. Both of
them detest the dictatorship. It is the
opinion of the Communist Party that all
anti-fascists must unite with. the objec-
tive of doing away with Pinochet, and
after that the people must decide freely
which path they want to follow: whether
the path outlined by the Communist
Party and the popular democratic
movement, or the path outlined by the
bourgeois sectors of our country. But
still, there has to be unity among all sec-
tors of the opposition.

The second big problem is that the
Communist Party estimates that the
Pinochet regime will not fall without
struggle. And for this reason popular
struggle is the essential element that will
determine the fall of Pinochet. Thus the
Communist Party has evolved a policy
which we call the policy of rebellion, by
which we mean the use of all forms of
struggle to do away with Pinochet. Up to
now there has been mass struggle,
strikes, ongoing and periodic demonstra-
tions by distinct social sectors. How-
ever, we have not yet been able to build
up sufficient forces to topple Pinochet.
For this reason the Communist Party
feeld it is necessary to add to these —
what we can call traditional forms of
struggle — a new element, the element of
armed struggle. This is why we speak of
the use of all forms of struggle, because it
also includes the element of armed self-
defense of the people in their struggle
against the dictatorship.

This policy of the Communist Party
has stimulated the formation of an
armed organization in the country which
calls itself the Manuel Rodriguez Patrio-
tic Front. It has issued manifestos and
appeals in which it has defined itself as
the armed wing of the people. The Man-
uel Rodriguez Patriotic Front is the
expression of the fact that armed struggle
is necessary to confront and topple the
dictatorship. And the Communist Party
sympathizes with and supports the
MRPF, and feels it to be an important
element that plays a positive role in
developing the mass struggle.

Tribune: Wouldn’t the formation of
the MRPF alienate sections of the bour-
geoisie which traditionally ‘‘shuns vio-
lence’’? Is Communist Party support for
the MRPF an inpediment to the unity you
have spoken of?

Montes: The Communist Party of
Chile estimates that the people have to
use violent methods in order to do away
with Pinochet. The fact is that peaceful
methods have not led:to the necessary
level to topple the dictatorship. On Sep-
tember 4, 1980, the general secretary of
our party, Luis Corvalan, proclaimed
what he defined as the policy of rebellion
— that is to say, the right of the people to
use any method they wish to end the
dictatorship.

There are sectors who are against — or
who say they are-against — the use of
violence. And for this reason they op-
pose the fact that within the left there has
arisen a movement which enables the
people to defend themselves against the
police repression, against the encircle-

JORGE MONTES

ments, against the crimes being commit-
ted against the people.

There are sectors of the opposition, I
repeat, which do not agree with this pol-
icy. But the opinion of the Communist
Party is very clear and very well defined.
The principal element of struggle in Chile
today is the struggle of the masses. But
the armed element is necessary in order
to aid this struggle.

Tribune: How do you reply to the criti-
cisms of the ultra-left, which always ac-
cused the Party for Allende’s downfall be-
cause it ‘‘wouldn’t distribute arms to the
people’’? z

Montes: Fifteen years ago, and even
before that, the Communist Party of
Chile evolved a policy whose develop-
ment in fact led to the victory of the
people, without the necessity of resort-
ing to armed struggle. And Salvador Al-
lende became the president of Chile, the
president of a revolutionary government,
which for the first time, won a part of
political power without the use of armed
struggle. We believed this was a contri-
bution, not only practical, but also
theoretical, by the Communist Party to
the cause of the people, to the struggle, to
the experience of the peoples, to their
social development. Nevertheless, the
popular government, which the Com-
munist Party was part of, committed an
error, a historical error. When the milit-
ary coup took place, we did possess a
certain amount of strength, but we were
not strong enough to defend the govern-
ment with any possibility of success.

This was primarily because we centred
our policy on the military, on the
perspective of divisions within the armed
forces. That is to say, the armed forces
had the constitutional duty of supporting
the constitutional government. If an
attempted coup were to take place, we
thought that at least part of the armed

ee eee sei

MONTES: The Communist Party 15 years ago and even before that evolved a policy |
whose development led to the victory of the people without the necessity of resorting

to armed struggle.

forces would take the side of the
government.

On account of this insufficient strength
which we created, we thought that this,
together with the loyal troops, would be
enough to defend the government. But
we were wrong. And errors in the strug-
gle have to be paid for dearly.

This is the experience of the Chilean

‘revolution, which was defeated because
“this factor was not sufficiently de-

veloped. It was not the only factor — the
popular government fell not because of
its mistakes, but because of the effec-
tiveness of its accomplishments, because
it was a revolutionary government and
imperialism would not accept a revolu-
tionary government in our country.

But your question is very clear. We
were defeated. Fascism ensconced itself
in our country. And we today, living
through this experience, feel that our
people have to count on their own armed
detachments in order to develop the rev-
olutionary process and after that to de-
fend the conquests of the people.

Tribune: There are now young people
of 18, 20 years old who were relative in-
fants at the time of the coup. Are they a
‘rebel youth’’? Are they involved in the
Young Communist League?

Montes: The Communist Youth is a
great force in Chile. They are working in
unity with other sectors of the left. And
they are teaching young people through-
out the country to rebel. In our country,
the young people who have grown up
under fascism are a youth which is strug-
gling against fascism. Because they have
physically suffered from this regime. In
our country young people are playing a
decisive role in the struggle against Pino-
chet — working youth and student
youth alike.

University and secondary students are

a leading, a very important force of the —

revolution, and could at any given mo-
ment constitute a well-nigh decisive fac-
tor in our struggle.

For this reason, we work with a great
deal of passion, with a great deal of love,
among young people, in order to or-
ganize them, to give them a perspective.

The creation of the MRPF has pro-
duced great hope among young people,
who independent of political parties,
have joined the Rodriquez militias,
which have organized themselves in the
neighborhoods, in the trade unions,
among students. And in these Rodriquez
militias one can find young Communists,
young Socialists, young people who
don’t belong to any political party, who
want to take up arms to fight against the
dictatorship. This is very important, be-
cause youth is the future. — M.S.

20 » PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 1, 1985

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