The Chilean physician and lifelong socialist who, in 1970, became the first openly Marxist president elected in a liberal democracy, promised to build socialism through the ballot and the constitution rather than the gun, nationalized the copper mines and much of industry at the head of his Popular Unity coalition, and died three years later in the burning presidential palace as the military bombed his project into seventeen years of dictatorship — remembered by admirers as a martyr of the democratic left and by critics as a leader whose radical program, alongside US hostility, helped plunge Chile into chaos.
Salvador Allende is the man who tried to vote his way to revolution. A Chilean doctor and lifelong socialist, he ran for president three times and lost, then won in 1970 and became the first openly Marxist president elected in a liberal democracy. He promised something the world had not seen: socialism built through the ballot box and the constitution rather than the gun. He took the copper mines and big industry into state hands and raised the wages of the poor, who became some of his strongest supporters. But inflation soared, shortages spread, the country split into hostile camps, and the United States under Richard Nixon worked, in its own words, to make the economy "scream." On 11 September 1973, the military bombed the presidential palace. Allende refused to flee. In a final radio address he bade his people farewell, and as troops stormed the burning building he took his own life, a death later confirmed by forensic investigation. To admirers he is a martyr of the democratic left. To critics he is the leader whose radical project helped invite its own ruin. Both readings point at the same man.