The Communist Party of Chile ( es, Partido Comunista de Chile, ) is a

communist party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. It was founded in 1912 as the Socialist Workers' Party () and adopted its current name in 1922. The party established a youth wing, the Communist Youth of Chile (, JJ.CC), in 1932.

History

The PCCh was founded on 4 June 1912 by

Luis Emilio Recabarren Luis Emilio Recabarren Serrano (; July 6, 1876 – December 19, 1924) was a Chilean political figure. He was elected several times as deputy, and was the driving force behind the worker's movement in Chile. Early life Recabarren was born in ...

, after he left the Democrat Party. The party was initially known as the Socialist Workers' Party, before adopting its current name on 2 January 1922. 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 The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

and the Third International, the PCCh participated in the

Popular Front A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition ...

(''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 The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because t ...

, led to its being outlawed in 1948 by a Radical government, 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 Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

, the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

-winning poet, and

Violeta Parra Violeta del Carmen Parra Sandoval (; 4 October 1917 – 5 February 1967) was a Chilean composer, singer-songwriter, folklorist, ethnomusicologist and visual artist. She pioneered the Nueva Canción Chilena (The Chilean New Song), a renewal a ...

, the songwriter and folk artist. At the time, the

U.S. State Department The United States Department of State (DOS), or State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs of other n ...

estimated the party membership to be approximately 27,500. It later came to power along with the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of ...

in the '' Unidad Popular'' ("Popular Unity") coalition in 1970. Within the broad Unidad Popular alliance, the communists sided with Allende, a relative moderate from the Socialist Party, and other more moderate forces of that coalition, supporting more gradual reforms and urging to find a compromise with the Christian Democrats. This line was opposed by more radically leftist factions of the Socialist Party and smaller far-left groups. The party was outlawed after the 1973

coup d'état A coup d'état (; French for 'stroke of state'), also known as a coup or overthrow, is a seizure and removal of a government and its powers. Typically, it is an illegal seizure of power by a political faction, politician, cult, rebel group, m ...

that deposed

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Salvador Allende. Much of the Communist leadership went underground, and for a while the party's moderation continued even after the coup had taken place. Also, it has been argued by Mark Ensalaco that crushing the Communist Party was not a top priority for the military junta. In its first statement after the coup, the party leadership still argued that the coup could succeed because the Unidad Popular was too isolated, due to actions of the 'far-left'. Around 1977, the party changed direction. The Communist Party 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. Between 1983 and 1987 it was a member of the

People's Democratic Movement The People's Democratic Movement is a political party in Papua New Guinea. It was founded by Paias Wingti in 1985, after his faction left the Pangu Party. Wingti served as prime minister from 1985 to 1988 and from 1992 to 1994. He was later re ...

. In the 1999/2000 presidential elections the party supported

Gladys Marín Millie Gladys may refer to: * Gladys (given name), people with the given name Gladys * ''Gladys'' (album), a 2013 album by Leslie Clio * ''Gladys'' (film), 1999 film written and directed by Vojtěch Jasný * Gladys, Virginia, United States * ''Gladys t ...

for the national presidential elections. She won 3.2% of the vote in the first round. At the 2005 legislative election, 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. From 2013 to 2018, the PCCh was a member of New Majority ( es, Nueva Mayoría), a leftist coalition led by Michelle Bachelet.

Controversies

The PCCh faced criticism from several parties in Chile after congratulating Venezuelan president

Nicolás Maduro Nicolás Maduro Moros (; born 23 November 1962) is a Venezuelan politician and president of Venezuela since 2013, with his presidency under dispute since 2019. Beginning his working life as a bus driver, Maduro rose to become a trade union ...

on his party's victory in the 2020 parliamentary election. Prominent members of the Party for Democracy, Radical Party, and

questioned the PCCh's praise of the election as "flawless", echoing criticisms from opposition parties in Venezuela that the election was neither free nor fair.

Leaders

Electoral performance

;Keys * RP = supported a candidate from the Radical Party * SP = supported a candidate from the

* PU–SP = member of the Popular Unity coalition, supported the candidate from the Socialist Party * PDC = supported a candidate from the

Christian Democratic Party __NOTOC__ Christian democratic parties are political parties that seek to apply Christian principles to public policy. The underlying Christian democracy movement emerged in 19th-century Europe, largely under the influence of Catholic social tea ...

* Ind = supported an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

candidate * HP = supported a candidate from the

Humanist Party The Humanist International (also known as the International Humanist Party) is a consortium of political parties adhering to universal humanism (also known as Siloism, after the nickname of the movement's founder), founded in 1989 by over 40 na ...

* NM–SP = member of the New Majority coalition, supported the candidate from the Socialist Party * NM–Ind = member of the New Majority coalition, supported an independent candidate * AD-SC = member of the

Apruebo Dignidad ''Apruebo Dignidad'' (; in English, ''Approve Dignity'', AD) is a left-wing Chilean electoral coalition officially created on 11 January 2021, by the Broad Front and Chile Digno in preparation for the Constitutional Convention election. Histo ...

coalition, supported the candidate from Social Convergence

Footnotes

External links

* {{Authority control 1912 establishments in Chile Communist parties in Chile Left-wing politics in Chile Left-wing populism in South America Political parties established in 1912 Populist parties International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties