By PLM International Desk via Facebook
11 September 2026 marks the 53rd anniversary of the U.S.-backed military coup in Chile—and the 25th anniversary of the September 11 attacks in the United States.
For the international left, September 11 carries two different historical meanings. But remembering both requires us to confront the nature of imperialism, the violence of the capitalist state and the struggle for an alternative to a world dominated by war, exploitation and oppression — socialism.
Remembering Chile
On 11 September 1973, the Chilean armed forces backed by the CIA-US government, overthrew the democratically elected government of President Salvador Allende, Latin America’s first socialist president elected through democratic elections.
The coup destroyed Chile’s democratic institutions and inaugurated the brutal dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. The regime murdered, tortured, imprisoned and disappeared thousands of Chileans and systematically smashed the organisations of workers, peasants, students and the political left.
The Chilean coup was a decisive episode in the history of U.S. imperialism.
The Nixon administration regarded Allende’s parliamentary road to socialism as an intolerable threat to U.S. strategic and economic interests in Latin America. Washington funded opposition forces, supported anti-Allende media and political organisations, and pursued a systematic policy of destabilisation overthrow the Allende government.
The coup demonstrated one of the central realities of imperialism: When left politics threatens the fundamental interests of capital and imperialist power, the defenders of “democracy” become its executioners.
Pinochet and Operation Condor
The dictatorship that followed became a laboratory for a new model of capitalist restructuring.
Under Pinochet, repression destroyed working-class
organisations while neoliberal economic policies were imposed on Chilean society. Chile became an early laboratory for radical market policies associated with the Chicago School: privatisation, deregulation, attacks on organised labour and the retreat of the state from social provision.
Political repression and neoliberal economic restructuring went hand in hand.
Pinochet also became central to Operation Condor, through which the military dictatorships of Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia and Brazil coordinated the pursuit, abduction, torture and assassination of left-wing opponents across borders.
U.S. intelligence, military and political support helped create the conditions in which this transnational system of repression operated.
Chile therefore stands as a warning against the myth that U.S. imperialism is fundamentally a force for democracy and human rights.
The history of Latin America tells another story: coups, dictatorships, counter-insurgency, economic domination and the destruction of popular movements whenever they challenge imperial interests.
September 11, 2001
Twenty-eight years later, on 11 September 2001, the World Trade Centre in New York City was attacked by Al-Qaeda, killing overwhelmingly civilians and first responders.
The civilians who died on 9/11 must be remembered with dignity.
But remembering the victims does not require us to accept the political uses subsequently made of their deaths by successive U.S. governments — Democrat and Republican.
The War on Terror
The U.S. ruling class responded to 9/11 by dramatically expanding the “national-security” state and launching the “War on Terror.”
Afghanistan was invaded.
Iraq was invaded despite having no responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians would die in the wars and conflicts that followed. Torture, extraordinary rendition, indefinite detention, mass surveillance and the erosion of civil liberties became features of the new security order.
9/11 became the justification for expanding state and military power, with U.S. imperialism exploiting the political consequences of the attacks to advance its geopolitical and military objectives.
From Chile to Cuba, Venezuela and Palestine
The history of Chile is not simply history.
It continues to illuminate the treatment of governments and movements that challenge the political and economic order dominated by U.S. imperialism.
Cuba
For more than six decades, revolutionary Cuba has faced a U.S. economic, commercial and financial sanctions and embargo designed to isolate and economically pressure the Cuban Revolution.
The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly called for an end to the U.S. embargo. In October 2025, the Assembly again voted overwhelmingly — 165 states in favour, 7 against and 12 abstentions — for an end to the embargo.
In 2026, under the Trump administration, the economic strangulation of Cuba has intensified.
The Cuban Revolution has survived because its people have repeatedly defended their sovereignty against the most powerful imperial state in the hemisphere.
We stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and demand an end to the U.S. blockade.
Venezuela
Venezuela provides another current example.
The Bolivarian Revolution has confronted years of U.S. sanctions, economic pressure and political intervention aimed at weakening the government and reversing a project that sought to use Venezuela’s oil wealth for social development and regional solidarity.
The U.S. government now has a stranglehold over the Venezuelan government.
National sovereignty and international solidarity are not
concessions to any government. They are principles of anti-imperialism.
Palestine and the genocide in Gaza
And nowhere is the violence of the contemporary imperialist order more devastating than in Palestine.
The Israeli genocide in Gaza has produced mass death, destruction, displacement, starvation and the systematic ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
For the Palestinian people, this is not simply a humanitarian catastrophe.
It is a struggle against occupation, dispossession, apartheid, settler colonialism and the denial of national self-determination.
And it is inseparable from the structure of imperialist power.
The United States remains Israel’s principal political and military backer.
For the Philippine left, solidarity with Palestine therefore means opposing not only the Israeli assault but also the imperial system that enables it.
From Chile to Cuba, Venezuela and Palestine, the lesson is clear: imperialism uses military force, economic coercion, political intervention and diplomatic power to defend an international order favourable to global capitalism.
From Chile to the Philippines
For Filipinos, Chile is not distant history.
The Philippines has its own history of dictatorship, martial law, political imprisonment, torture, disappearances and massacres carried out in the name of fighting communism and defending “national security.”
The Marcos dictatorship was sustained within the geopolitical framework of the Cold War and the U.S. alliance system.
Today, U.S. imperial power continues to shape the strategic environment of the Philippines.
The expansion of EDCA, the growing U.S. military presence, Pax Silica and the Luzon Economic Corridor and the integration of the Philippines into Washington’s Indo-Pacific strategic architecture cannot be separated from the wider contest between U.S. and Chinese interests.
We reject both subordination to U.S. imperialism and dependence on any other great power.
The Philippines must not become a battlefield, military platform or proxy in a great-power confrontation.
The Philippines must pursue an independent foreign policy based on the interests of the masa— not the strategic requirements of Washington, Beijing or the local oligarchy.
The lesson of Chile
The deepest lesson of Chile is that when political power of working people begins to challenge the material power of capital, the ruling class will respond with economic sabotage, political destabilisation and ultimately military violence.
This is why the struggle for socialism cannot be reduced to elections alone.
Workers need organisations capable of defending democratic gains, challenging capitalist power and transforming the economic foundations of society.
Political democracy without economic democracy leaves the power of capital fundamentally intact.
And economic transformation without democratic popular power creates its own dangers.
The task of the socialist movement is to unite the two.
Against imperialism and war
The history of the past half-century demonstrates that imperialism has repeatedly presented its interventions as struggles for freedom, democracy or security.
But from Vietnam and Chile to Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine and the Indo-Pacific, the underlying issue is the preservation of a global order in which U.S. economic, political and military power remains dominant.
PLM rejects this order.
Our alternative is socialism and internationalism — not alignment with imperialism and global capitalism.
Remember Chile. Remember 9/11. Resist imperialism.
Today we remember Salvador Allende.
We remember the Chilean workers who fought for democracy and socialism.
We remember those murdered, tortured and disappeared by Pinochet.
We remember the victims of the 11 September 2001 attacks.
And we remember the millions who subsequently suffered from wars conducted by the U.S. in their name.
We remember not to reproduce the propaganda of ruling classes, but to learn from history.
Chile teaches us what imperialism will do when the masa threaten capitalist power.
9/11 teaches us how imperialist states can transform tragedy into justification for war and expanded power.
Socialist Cuba teaches us that a small nation can resist imperialist domination.
Venezuela teaches us that political sovereignty remains a battlefield against imperialist intervention.
Palestine teaches us the devastating human cost of an imperialist order that permits occupation, dispossession and genocide to continue with impunity.
And all of them remind us that working people cannot rely on ruling classes to defend democracy, peace or freedom.
We must organise to defend them ourselves.
From Chile to the Philippines:
Against dictatorship! Against imperialism! Against militarism and war! Against capitalist exploitation! Against occupation and
genocide! For national self-determination!
For socialism! For international solidarity!
¡Allende vive!
Free Palestine!
Hands off Cuba!
Hands off Venezuela!
End U.S. imperialist intervention!
Never forget Chile. Never forget the victims of 9/11. Never forget the lessons of imperialism.
Organise. Resist. Build socialism.
PLM International Desk
September 11, 2026
