Allende's Feet of Clay -- the collapse of another left-wing icon

Jonathan Gewirtz, over at Chicago Boyz, has an interesting post on the Allende myth, as well as links to Val Dorta's must-read essay on the subject, and a discussion of an important new book by Victor Farias to be published in the US next month.

Farias' book, Salvador Allende: Antisemitism and Euthanasia, is extremely significant because it undermines many elements of the Allende Myth. It holds that Allende as a young man held views that can only be called racist or fascist. Some samples:

"The Hebrews are characterised by certain types of crime: fraud, deceit, slander and above all usury. These facts permits the supposition that race plays a role in crime."

Among the Arabs, he wrote, were some industrious tribes but "most are adventurers, thoughtless and lazy with a tendency to theft".

"The southern Italians - in contrast to the north Italians - and the Spanish have a tendency to barbaric and primitive crimes of passion and are emotionally unpredictable."

In his doctoral dissertation, "Mental Hygiene and Delinquency," written in 1933, Allende advocated compulsary sterilization for alcoholics and the mentally ill. These views, Farias argues, Allende carried into adulthood and into his service as Chile's Minister of Health.

Only determined opposition from medical associations prevented him introducing a compulsory sterilisation programme harsher than that in Nazi Germany, said Farias.

Farias explains the importance of this information. Allende has long been considered a hero of the left, portrayed as an enlightened democrat whose removal by Gen. Pinochet (backed by the US CIA) was a horrendous crime. Yet, Farias notes, the myth of Allende was largely constructed in Europe to support left-wing ideological imperatives.

Allende was a false hero. Europeans need a socialist hero in South America. That's never been the case for Allende, his image is a construct made in Spain and Germany and other countries. But I think with this book this construct must go.

Hannah Cleaver in the Telegraph. Read the whole article here and her followup here.

I highly urge you to read Val Dorta's entire essay, but you can get a sense of it from his opening paragraph.

The failed and tragic attempt by Salvador Allende and the Popular Unity at creating socialism in Chile in 1970-1973 has become a myth for the world left, presented as the possibility of a peaceful and democratic transition to socialism that was destroyed only because the almighty CIA acted as master puppeteer of the Chilean reaction. The myth reinforces itself; while the Cold War context is never mentioned, neither is the fact that the CIA’s workings are well documented whereas the Cuban and Soviet interventions are still mostly unknown. The Allende myth may be good for keeping the socialist faith alive, but it evidently contradicts the historical facts.

By all means read it here.

UPDATE:

The President Allende foundation claims that Allende's quotes were taken out of context by Farias. See the comments below.