El poder de la solidaridad con Chile. La izquierda británica frente al golpe de Estado, 1973-1979

Abstract

El artículo busca primeramente identificar cuáles fueron las lecciones que las distintas versiones de la izquierda británica extrajeron del fin de la Unidad Popular y la consecuente instalación del régimen militar en Chile, en circunstancias de un gobierno liderado por el Partido Laborista. Asimismo, busca arrojar luz sobre cómo la actividad británica de solidaridad con la causa chilena permitió unir y dar sentido colectivo a esta dividida y a veces contrapuesta izquierda, representando un caso excepcional en el escenario de Europa occidental. Para ello se revisaron las colecciones de Judith Hart y la Chilean Solidarity Campaign en el Labour History Archive, en Manchester, y documentos del Foreign Office en el Archivo Nacional Británico. Se complementó lo anterior con bibliografía secundaria y entrevistas a informantes claves.

Challenging Bipolarity: The Socialist International and the ‘Chilean Democratic Cause’ during the Cold War

“…While divisions within the Chilean left remained and even deepened in the period immediately following the coup, the management and organisation of international solidarity was a key point of unity among exiles. These connections and the building of bridges between people, institutions and political ideas in host countries proved to be of major importance to the exiled left's political reformulation in Europe, especially towards the end of the 1970s and the early 1980s (Perry, 2020b).…”

“…Joop den Uyl, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, travelled to Chile for the UNCTAD conference and expressed his support for the Chilean path to socialism, which facilitated cabinet decisions to handle the coup issue. Minister of Development Cooperation Jan Pronk founded the Chile Committee in the Netherlands to raise awareness of the international pressures to which the Allende government was subjected (Perry, 2020b). In a statement issued by the British Labour Party, a prominent member of the SI, argued that the UP government 'had a concept of socialism that we share' (Labour Party, S. 4, fos.…”

British Academia's Response to the coup d'état in Chile: The Case of Academics for Chile

“…The impact of the Chilean coup in Britain has been addressed from a comparative state perspective with the Argentine case by Livingstone (2018), from the perspective of the British labour movement by Jones (2014) and Hirsh (2016), from the perspective of everyday life by Kay (1987) and Gideon (2018), from the response by the British left to the Chilean case in Perry (2020), and through the formation of aid agencies by Bayle (2012). Bayle (2010) has analysed the specific case of academia, stressing the impact that British support had for the Chilean community.…”