Objective/Context:

This article analyzes the reception among the Communist Party of Spain (pce) and the Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (psuc) of the “Chilean Road to Socialism“ and Salvador Allende’s Unidad Popular (up). The initial expressions of solidarity with Chile are also studied. Both processes take place in the context of the late Francoism.

Methodology:

We work analytically on primary Party sources from Spanish and Catalan communist factions, the press, and other clandestine media of communist organizations between 1970-1973. Secondary sources have also been consulted to reconstruct the political context of the period and the transnational dynamics that contributed to the conformation of the Spanish vision of Chile.

Originality:

Although the literature has been interested in the impact of the Chilean up and the coup d’état on the international scene, the cases of European countries with dictatorships, such as Spain, have not been highlighted, nor has the role of communism in opposition to Francoism. The contribution of this article is to study two partisan actors (pce, psuc) from the learnings and lessons they draw from the Chilean experience, highlighting the transnational character of the transfer of ideas from Chile to Spain, which were always adapted to the national reality.

Conclusions:

The lessons left to Spanish communism by the Chilean experience during and after the up’s government related to the previous positions of the pce and the psuc and justified the pertinence of the democratic way to socialism as a national project. At the same time, transferring ideas from the Chilean reality to the European context served as a basis for the revisions of communism in Spain and solidarity actions.

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