CIA, Chile & Allende

 

This video gives a clear and yet brief summary of the forces which destroyed Chile's attempt to have a democratically elected Communist President - Salvador Allende..The internal forces included the middle class and ruling elites of the rich and the military who feared loss of the wealth and power under a communist government.
One exception to this was that some of the students, academics and writers who wanted a communist government were caught up in the idealistic, some would say naive view of communism and Marxism which was fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s in Western Universities.
There were some people and groups who were also caught up in a panic that socialism/communism would come to power all over the world and we would all live under a terrible dictatorship, with no personal freedom. It was a time when it was 'cool' for young people to be interested in politics, it was just a few years after the murder of JFK and MLK and young people wanted to know more about politics and how 'to change the world.'
The external forces included the USA President Nixon who saw every country as either with the USA or with the USSR, the former communist empire led by Russia.
One irony of all this is that the author of the play, Ariel Dorfman became a Professor of Literature in the USA, despite being a critic of American Foreign Policy. Another refugee from Chile, was Isabel Allende the daughter of the ousted President Allende. She later became famous as author of the novel,  "House of Spirits" which was made into a film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons.