Chile: The Great Fear of the World Bourgeoisie

South America has experienced constant rioting and turmoil in recent months. Ecuador has experienced many days of bloody unrest. Some of this turmoil has spread to Argentina and Bolivia, and are aspects of a wider trend.

In Chile, immediately preceding these riots, there were protests over the continued increases in subway ticket prices. Groups of young people organized to skip the subway turnstiles in the Capital Santiago. All over a modest increase, from 800 to 830 pesos or about 0.03 US$. However, it must be considered that in Chile the minimum wage is 310,000 pesos per month, or about 430 US$. The cost of utilities and electricity has also risen to be comparable to most American and European cities. These increases have exacerbated workers and middle classes in the process of proletarianization.

After a few days, the government deployed the police forces to the turnstiles across the city. This led to the escalation of the protests and the first riots: destruction of the turnstiles and the burning down of a number of subway stations. All resulting in the Friday October 18th incendiary bomb assault on the headquarters of the power company, Enel, totally destroying it.

That evening President Sebastián Piñera, having learned of the incidents in the capital, proclaimed a state of emergency. He dispatched the police and carabineros to the nerve centers for the Santiago Metropolitan area. This did not stop the spread of the protests, expressed above all in the “cacerolazos”. Processions of demonstrators beat pots, alluding to the difficulty of filling them. Along with processions of cars that sound their horns as a sign of solidarity to the gatherings of demonstrators. In a few hours the protests spread to many other cities in the country.

It was then that President Piñera appeared on television, denouncing the protests as works of delinquency. He announced the revocation of the increases in metro prices. Piñera also delegated General Javier Iturriaga to manage public order. This is as a choice that sounds threatening to Chilean workers. Both for the involvement of the army in politics, and the fact that General Iturriaga belongs to a family of soldiers notorious for their ferocity with which they perpetrated infamous crimes against political opponents. Especially for the family’s careers during the time of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. It is therefore not surprising that Iturriaga soon proclaimed a curfew in most provinces.

However, on the first night of the curfew, thousands of protesters defiantly remained in the streets. Supermarkets and goods depots were stormed and plundered in various parts of the country. Where the mass media all over the world diminish the severity of the struggle in Chile, videos in which the military is seen shooting to kill have been circulating on social media.

After a Sunday with at least eight deaths, the days following saw an intensification of demonstrations and strikes. These demonstrations also saw the mobilization of proletarian strata including the miners in the Antofagasta region. The mobilizations were able to make classist economic demands: increases to the minimum wage and the meager pensions of the Chilean proletarians.

On Tuesday, October 22, processions with hundreds of thousands of participants erupted across Chile’s main cities. A sign that the anger of the proletarians and of ruined middle classes do not fear the bullets of army nor the tanks.

At the end of the day, three others were killed by the carabineros. However, the president was forced to make economic concessions of some importance: an increase in the minimum wage from 310,000 to 350,000 pesos, 20% increase in basic retirement pensions allowance, and the cancellation of the recent increase of 9.2% in electricity tariffs.

At the same time, in the style of every bourgeois demagogue, Piñera introduced a tax rate of 40% on incomes above 8 million pesos (11,004 US$) and a reduction in the salaries of public administration staff. A reduction in allowances and the number of parliamentarians as well as other cosmetic positions were also announced. As if it is not capitalism but only its parasitic political apparatus that is responsible for the harsh conditions of workers.

It is of some note that Piñera is forced by circumstances to revive the “reform” of retirement pension allowances imposed by his older brother José, acting as Minister of Labour under the Pinochet regime. The continued survival of the people and institutions of the dictatorship, betray its formal end in 1990, in proving once again that a democratic regime is but the mask of the ferocious dictatorship of capital.

But that is not the reason for the exacerbation of proletarian rage. The real cause is the global economic crisis that has already taken its first steps in slowing down the growth of the manufacturing sector in several large industrial countries. In the background of the South American protests is a drop in the prices of raw materials of which these countries are producers of. Because of the decrease in global demand, Chile is affected by a 6% fall in copper prices, which contributes significantly to Chile’s export income.

A false representation of social dynamics, passed off as Marxist determinism, wants riots to come only when the classes are forced to starve. In reality, this is a mechanistic and simplistic parody of Marxism. The “prosperous” Chile remains a weak link in the imperialist chain. Meanwhile the proletarians who have generated its growth in recent decades are driven by the crisis to regain a part of the surplus value extracted from them.

The story of the class movement that is shaking Chile is a matter of great concern for the international bourgeois class: “if it can happen in Chile, a prosperous and socially modern country, then it can happen anywhere”. The media all over the world, in charge of reproducing the ideology of the ruling class, repeats themselves.

What most fears the greedy and murderous bourgeoisie is the contagion of the storm throughout Latin America. In one of his delirious speeches, President Piñera, cautioning against a coarse conspiracy theory, literally said “we are at war with a powerful enemy”. This time we agree with him. Indeed, this powerful enemy exists, but unfortunately it still does not have an organization that is up to its historical tasks. This powerful enemy, nightmare and terror of the bourgeoisie of every climate, is called the world working class. And the organization in which it will recognize itself is called the International Communist Party.