In 1948, on the initiative of Chilean President

Gabriel González Videla Gabriel Enrique González Videla (; November 22, 1898 – August 22, 1980) was a Chilean politician and lawyer who served as the 24th president of Chile from 1946 to 1952. He had previously been a member of the Chamber of Deputies from 193 ...

, the Chilean National Congress enacted the Permanent Defense of Democracy Law ( es, Ley de Defensa Permanente de la Democracia, Ley N° 8.987), referred to by many as the Damned Law (''Ley Maldita''), which outlawed the

Communist Party of Chile The Communist Party of Chile ( es, Partido Comunista de Chile, ) is a communist party in Chile. It was founded in 1912 as the Socialist Workers' Party () and adopted its current name in 1922. The party established a youth wing, the Communist Youth ...

and banned 26,650 persons from the electoral lists. The law banned the expression of ideas which appeared to advocate "the implantation in the republic of a regime opposed to democracy or which attack the sovereignty of the country." The detention center in Pisagua, used during

Carlos Ibáñez del Campo General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (; 3 November 1877 – 28 April 1960) was a Chilean Army officer and political figure. He served as President twice, first between 1927 and 1931, and then from 1952 to 1958, serving for 10 years in office. T ...

's dictatorship in the late 1920s (and which would be used again during Pinochet's dictatorship), was re-opened to imprison communists, anarchists and revolutionaries, although on this occasion no detainees were executed. Prominent communists such as the senator

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

fled into

exile Exile is primarily penal expulsion from one's native country, and secondarily expatriation or prolonged absence from one's homeland under either the compulsion of circumstance or the rigors of some high purpose. Usually persons and peoples suf ...

. González Videla also broke relations with the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

and

Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...

states. A pro-communist miners'

strike Strike may refer to: People * Strike (surname) Physical confrontation or removal *Strike (attack), attack with an inanimate object or a part of the human body intended to cause harm *Airstrike, military strike by air forces on either a suspected ...

in Lota was brutally suppressed. Demonstrations against the legislation led to the declaration of martial law and were successfully repressed. The law was replaced by Law n.º 12.927, about State Security Law (Seguridad del Estado), on 6. August 1958 which ended the proscription of the Communist Party and lowered penalties for crimes against state security and public order to levels comparable with those that existed prior to 1948.

References

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External links

Memoria Chilena
Anti-communism in Chile Political repression in Chile Legal history of Chile McCarthyism Political and cultural purges Political scandals in Chile Politics of Chile 1948 in Chilean law

See also

References

External links