It’s easier to remember the histories of defeat, than those of social transformation. But in the three years preceding the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, the country experimented with a form of socialism that was both top down and bottom up. Historian Marian Schlotterbeck discusses how under Salvador Allende’s government, the radical left fueled changes at the grassroots, including through popular assemblies — and altered, for a few years, expectations about the possible.

Resources:

Marian E. Schlotterbeck,  Beyond the Vanguard: Everyday Revolutionaries in Allende’s Chile UC Press, 2018

“A Thousand Days of Democracy: Sasha Lilley Interviews Marian Schlotterbeck”

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