Communist Party of Chile

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Communist Party of Chile
Partido Comunista de Chile
NewspaperEl Siglo
Youth wingCommunist Youth of Chile
Membership (2023)46,031[1]
Ideology
Political positionLeft-wing[3] to far-left[4][5]
National affiliationChile Digno (since 2020)
Apruebo Dignidad (since 2021)
Formerly:
Regional affiliationSão Paulo Forum
International affiliation
Colours
  •   Red
  •   Yellow
Chamber of Deputies
12 / 155
Senate
2 / 50
Party flag
Website
www.pcchile.cl Edit this at Wikidata

The Communist Party of Chile (Spanish: Partido Comunista de Chile, PCCh) is a communist party in Chile. It was founded in 1912 as the Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Obrero Socialista) and adopted its current name in 1922. The party established a youth wing, the Communist Youth of Chile (Juventudes Comunistas de Chile, JJ.CC), in 1932.

History

Luis Emilio Recabarren, Communist Party of Chile leader and founder (1912–1924)
Luis Corvalán, Secretary-General of the PCCh (1958–1990)

The PCCh was founded on 4 June 1912 by Luis Emilio Recabarren, after he left the Democrat Party.[7] 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

Democratic Alliance
.

Concern over the PCCh's success at building a strong electoral base, combined with the onset of the

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, the Nobel Prize-winning poet, and Violeta Parra, the songwriter and folk artist.[8]
At the time, the
U.S. State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 27,500.[9]

It later came to power along with the

President 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.[10] 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.[10] 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.

In the 1999/2000 presidential elections the party supported

Gladys Marín Millie
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 (Spanish: 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 on his party's victory in the 2020 parliamentary election. Prominent members of the Party for Democracy, Radical Party, and Socialist Party 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.[11] However, some of its leaders have also publicly condemned the human rights abuses that have taken place in Venezuela under the government of Nicolás Maduro.[12]

Leaders

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Former parties

Related topics
Leaders of the Communist Party of Chile
General Secretary Period President Period
Ramón Sepúlveda Leal 1922–1924 Non-existent position
Luis A. González ?–?
Galvarino Gil ?–?
Maclovio Galdames ?–?
José Santos Zavala ?–?
Isaias Iriarte ?–1929
Carlos Contreras Labarca 1931–1946
Ricardo Fonseca 1946–1948
Oyarzun Galo González 1948–1958
Elías Lafertte 1956–1961
Luis Corvalán 1958–1990
Non-existent position
Volodia Teitelboim 1990–1994
Gladys Marín 1994–2002
Guillermo Teillier 2002–2005 Gladys Marín 2002–2005
Lautaro Carmona Soto 2005–2023 Guillermo Teillier 2005–2023
Bárbara Figueroa [es] 2023–present Lautaro Carmona Soto 2023–present

Electoral performance

Keys
  • RP = supported a candidate from the
    Radical Party
  • SP = supported a candidate from the
    Socialist Party
  • PU–SP = member of the Popular Unity coalition, supported the candidate from the Socialist Party
  • PDC = supported a candidate from the Christian Democratic Party
  • Ind = supported an
    independent
    candidate
  • HP = supported a candidate from the Humanist Party
  • 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 coalition, supported the candidate from Social Convergence
Election Chamber of Deputies Senate Presidential
No. of votes % of votes Seats No. of votes % of votes Seats Year Nominee No. of votes % of votes
1918 1,548 0.64% 0 — — — 1920 Luis Emilio Recabarren 681 0.41%
1921 4,814 2.16% 2 — — — 1925 José Santos Salas 74,091 28.4%
1924 1,212 0.49% 0 — — — 1927 None — —
1925 19,446 6.72% 9 — — — 1931 Elías Lafertte 2,434 0.9%
1932 3,350 1.0% 1 — — —
1932
 Elías Lafertte 4,128 1.2%
1937 7,543 5.1% 1 7,543 7.1% 1 1938
RP
) 		222,720 50.5%
1941 65,671 14.4% 17 28,449 12.2% 3 1942
RP
) 		260,034 56.0%
1945 46,133 10.3% 15 25,708 12.8% 3 1946
RP
) 		192,207 40.2%
1961 157,572 11.8% 16 75,123 12.2% 3 1952
SP
) 		51,975 5.5%
1965 290,635 12.7% 18 — — 5 1958
SP
) 		356,493 28.9%
1969 383,049 16.6% 22 181,488 18.0% 9 1964
SP
) 		977,902 38.9%
1973 578,695 16.2% 24 — — 5 1970
SP
) 		1,070,334 36.61%
1993 336,034 5.0% 0 65,073 3.5% 0
1989
 Patricio Aylwin (PDC) 3,850,571 55.17%
1997 398,588 6.9% 0 357,825 8.4% 0
1993
Ind
) 		327,402 4.70%
2001 320,668 5.2% 0 45,735 2.6% 0 1999 Gladys Marín 225,224 3.19%
2005
 339,547 5.14% 0 104,687 2.19% 0
2005
 Tomás Hirsch (HP) 375,048 5.40%
2009
 133,718 2.02% 3 — — —
2009
 Jorge Arrate 433,195 6.21%
2013 255,242 4.11% 6 6,467 0.145% 0 2013
SP
) 		3,466,358 62.15%
2017 275,096 4.59% 8 20,209 1.21% 0 2017
Ind
) 		3,157,750 45.42%
2021 464,885 7.35% 12 335,709 7.21% 2 2021 Gabriel Boric (AD–SC) 4,620,890 55.87%

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Total de afiliados a partidos políticos". Servicio Electoral de Chile (in Spanish). Retrieved 9 February 2023.
  2. ^ Córdoba, Andrea Aguilar (14 December 2020). "Izquierda radical y populista en Chile, ¿realidad o especulación de Piñera?". Anadolu Agency (in Spanish). Retrieved 13 August 2021.
  3. ^ "Historia Política". bcn.cl. 2020.
  4. ^ Sanders, Philip (24 May 2021). "Communist Contender Vaults Atop New Poll of Chile's Presidential Race". Bloomberg News. Retrieved 20 July 2021.
  5. ^ Cristóbal Rovira: "El Partido Republicano no es de extrema derecha; es derecha populista radical" Revista Pauta. October 31, 2021. Retrieved November 25, 2021.
  6. ^ "Communist and Workers' Parties". SolidNet. Retrieved 16 February 2019.
  7. ^ Rubio, José Luis. Las internacionales obreras en América. Madrid: 1971. p. 61
  8. ^ "Chile – The Parties of the Left". countrystudies.us.
  9. JSTOR 1953329
    .
  10. ^
    ISBN 0-8122-3520-7
    .
  11. Emol
    (in Spanish). Retrieved 10 October 2022.
  12. Cooperativa
    (in Spanish). 5 July 2019. Retrieved 24 November 2023.

Further reading

  • Olga Ulianova and Alfredo Riquelme (eds.), Chile en los archivos soviéticos: 1922–1991: Tomo I, Komintern y Chile, 1922–1931 (Chile in the Soviet Archives: Volume 1, Comintern and Chile, 1922–1931). Santiago: Centro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana, Lom Ediciones, 2005.
  • Olga Ulianova and Alfredo Riquelme (eds.), Chile en los archivos soviéticos: 1922–1991: Tomo II, Komintern y Chile, 1931–1935 (Chile in the Soviet Archives: Volume 2, Comintern and Chile, 1931–1935). Santiago: Centro de Investigaciones Diego Barros Arana, Lom Ediciones, 2009.

External links

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