Allende's Hundred Days

In a downtown commercial district of Santiago, a middle-class businessman shakes his head and declares sadly: "You stop trying to get ahead because you just don't know what is going to happen next." Twenty miles away in the tiny village of Las Vertientes, a local handyman has quit working and spends most days sitting idly in front of his crude shack. "El companero presidente," he says, "will give us everything we need."

"Comrade President" is Chile's Salvador Allende Gossens, who recently completed his first 100 days as the only Marxist chief of state ever elected by free vote. So far, he has realized neither the businessman's worst fears nor the handyman's impossible dream. He has been more reformist than revolutionary, more populist than Marxist. "He is a better President," concedes an opposition politician, "than he was a candidate." Still, Allende has moved more quickly and forcefully than expected by U.S. officials to direct Chile toward full socialization, and his Communist allies have begun to speak of "making the revolution irreversible." He admits: "I would be a hypocrite if I were to say that I am President of all

Chileans. There are some who would like to see me fried in oil. But I respect all Chileans and the fact that the law applies to all Chileans."

Settling a Score. In fact, a good many middle-and upper-class Chileans have begun to doubt that claim. Some of Allende's more radical followers have illegally seized some 5,000 houses and apartment units and driven owners off some 750,000 acres of farmland. (The government has legally expropriated nearly 1,800,000 acres.) Allende has asked Congress to pass a law making violent seizures of property a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. But his government has done little or nothing to enforce laws already on the books; in fact, it has ordered police not to use force in evicting the squatters.

The most troubled area is the province of Cautin, 400 miles south of Santiago in the heart of Chile's farming belt. Often at the instigation of the radical group M.I.R. (for Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionario), peasants have occupied at least 350 farms, some too small to be legally expropriated. Many of the raiders are impoverished Mapuche Indians who have lived in squalid villages since their tribe was conquered by the Chileans in 1881 and are all too eager to settle a score with the "huincas" (white men). Allende dispatched agriculture Minister Jacques Chonchol to the province in January. In an effort to salvage untended crops on the occupied farms, his ministry contracted with many groups of squatters to take over their operation. The administration evidently hopes that land seizures will end when its own, legal expropriation program, which so far has not relocated a single family, finally gets off the ground.

Fearful that illegal takeovers may spread, Chile's middle and upper classes are becoming increasingly self-conscious about overt displays of wealth. Los Leones, one of Santiago's most elegant country clubs, has opened its manicured golf course and pine-shaded swimming pool to working-class children at least once a week ort "dias populares."

People's Courts. Allende's No. 1 priority has been the full nationalization of Chile's copper mines, many of which are already partly owned by the government. Last week, in a preliminary step toward that goal, a Senate committee gave approval to a constitutional amendment permitting the government takeover and giving Allende wide bargaining powers in compensating the three U.S. corporations (Anaconda, Kennecott and Cerro) who now hold part-ownership. The companies are claiming that they have invested over $ 1 billion in the mines; the government is unlikely to set the sum anywhere near that high. How Allende conducts these negotiations will determine the state of U.S.-Chilean relations for some time to come. Whatever the results, there is some doubt as to the immediate benefits for Chile: the world price for copper has tumbled from 88-c- to 48-c- per pound in the past year. That drop could further worsen Chile's current 9% rate of unemployment, already up from 6.4% in November because of dire business uncertainty about Allende.

The government's plans to nationalize banking ran up against opposition from the Christian Democrats, whose 75 votes in the 200-seat Congress are necessary to assure passage of any legislation proposed by Allende's leftist coalition. The President, however, is getting around that barrier by purchasing private bank stock with government bonds; the regime has already bought 20% of all bank shares by this method, though it controls only three non-government banks outright.

Allende has not yet found a way, however, to skirt the Christian Democrats on another issue. He has thus been forced to abandon temporarily his plan to set up "people's courts" to hear cases involving drunkenness, family quarrels and other minor offenses that rarely go before the regular judiciary. The opposition feared that the proposed courts, like people's tribunals in China, might also start doling out punishment for "counter-revolutionary" behavior.

There is considerable skepticism as to whether Chile's masses will continue to support Allende's "revolution" when their turn comes to make sacrifices. A current joke making the rounds in Santiago's cocktail circuit has a government official explaining the "new Chile" to a peasant. "If you have two houses, the state takes one and you keep the other," says the official. "I understand," replies the peasant. "If you have two cars, the same," the official continues. His listener again nods. "It is the same if you have two chickens," the official adds, but the peasant interrupts angrily: "Oh, no, it's not." "But I thought you understood," says the official. "I do," replies the peasant. "But I've got two chickens."

For the time being, however, Allende has never been more popular with Chileans at large. He has distributed some 5,230 tons of powdered milk in a heroic (though not quite successful) effort to keep his campaign pledge to provide a quart of milk a day for every Chilean under 15. His government has ordered 500,000 pairs of shoes for free distribution to rural schoolchildren. He has refused to permit the customary presidential portrait to be hung in government buildings and budgeted the savings to rural health programs. By imposing price controls, he hopes to shrink inflation from 34.9% in 1970 to 10% this year.

During a recent appearance at his summer White House in Valparaiso, Allende heard a peasant in the cheering crowd shout: "Companero Presidente, this arm of mine will work 20 times harder than before the people came to power!" Allende's first measurable test of popularity will come in a nationwide round of municipal elections in early April, when he hopes that his "Popular Unity" front will win control of Chile's major cities. To keep things as calm as possible, the President has announced that a planned visit by Fidel Castro has been postponed until after that vote.

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