Conversations with Allende

On the 50th anniversary of the coup that overthrew Allende, a new edition of this classic text on Chile's socialist president

The election in Chile of the Marxist leader of the Socialist Party, Salvador Allende, to the presidency in October 1970 inaugurated a political situation unique in Latin America and of world-wide significance. Allende's Popular Unity coalition embraced Socialists and Communists and campaigned on an election programme of unprecedented radicalism – nothing less than the abolition of monopoly capitalism and imperialism in Chile.

In this book, Régis Debray, recently released from his Bolivian gaol, questioned President Allende about his strategy for socialism. These discussions ranged widely over the history of the workers’ movement in Chile, the strength of imperialism in Latin America, the experience of the first months of the Allende government, the role of the Chilean armed forces, Allende's personal background and friendship with Che Guevara, the seizure of land by peasants since the Popular Unity victory, and the international outlook of the new Chile.

In an introductory essay, Debray furnished an analysis of Chilean history and politics which situated Allende in the past and present of the country and explored the dynamics of the class struggle now unfolding there.

For this new anniversary edition, leading Chilean leftist scholar Camila Vergara has written a new introduction which appraises the book in the light of recent political developments in Chile.Régis Debray teaches philosophy at the Université de Lyon-III and is director of the European Institute of the History and Science of Religion. He is the author of many books, including Media Manifestos, Critique of Political Reason and God: An Itinerary.

Camila Vergara is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at University of Cambridge. She is the author of Systemic Corruption. Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic (Princeton University Press 2020).