In April 1947, barely six months after having moved into La Moneda as the third successive president belonging to the Radical Party, Gabriel González Videla took the first in a series of measures against the Chilean Communist Party that eventually culminated in what was officially known the Ley de Defensa Permanente de la Democracia, or what its critics preferred to call the Ley Maldita. The law, promulgated in September 1948, proscribed the party, led to the expulsion of Communist officials from the public administration and state institutions, saw thousands of voters removed from the electoral registers and also severely limited the right to strike in particular and union activities in general. It was in force for a decade, banning a party that represented, in the mid-1940s, on average about one-tenth to one-eighth of the electorate, thereby restricting democratic choices and depriving especially people in the mining communities of their preferred political voice.

The actions taken by González Videla, justified as a necessary means in a purported war against alleged communist subversion, mirrored events in other Latin American countries, where, in the context of the incipient Cold War, communists and other leftist parties and groups were also persecuted and forced into illegality at more or less the same time. What makes the case of Chile so interesting is the fact that the Chilean Communists had been integral if minor protagonists in Chilean politics for over a decade prior to their legal prohibition. They had, more importantly, backed the successful presidential candidates in both 1938 and 1942, and had been outspoken and highly visible supporters of González Videla during this presidential campaign in 1946. Indeed, apart from González Videla's own Radicals, the Communists had been the only other party that had canvassed for him, with Pablo Neruda acting as his national campaign coordinator, for instance. In 1946, Communists, for the first time, even joined the cabinet, making their subsequent outlawing all the more remarkable.

While these facts are generally known, the merit of Carlos Huneeus' latest book is that it provides the first detailed account of the Ley Maldita itself as much as the events that led to it and the obvious and not so obvious impacts it had on Chilean politics long after it was finally repealed in 1958 under Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. With a good many quotes from the lengthy debates about González Videla's various anti-communist initiatives in the Chilean Congress, from newspaper editorials and articles, and also from some unpublished primary sources (reports of the British Embassy, for instance), Huneeus manages to convey something of the passion and controversy that characterised the passage of the law, and the different leyes de facultades extraordinarias that preceded it. He is less successful, I feel, when it comes to identifying the broader trends of the debates, the reasons why the positions assumed by the different parties, while largely conforming to a division one might expect, were not clear-cut, as was particularly the case for the Conservatives. Here one would have wished for a more analytical approach.

At the same time, the book would have benefited from some comparisons with other Latin American countries, if only in a single chapter or, if one is even more frugal, in some longer passages. After all, the move against leftist parties and labour unions that one could witness in Chile at the time could also be observed elsewhere in the subcontinent, and this begs the question as to why this should be so. Huneeus seems to be aware of this shortcoming and attempts to pre-empt criticism by stressing that he only wants to present ‘a case study’ (p. 30), but this is not entirely convincing. Nor, it has to be said, can one easily accept his definitive statement that the United States did not put any pressure on González Videla to remove the Communists from his administration and outlaw them altogether, essentially based as it is on the very limited secondary literature available. One would like to think that one should only reach such a conclusion after having revised the relevant US files. This Huneeus has not done; he visited the Public Records Office at Kew instead.

While a note of caution seems expedient in this respect, all things considered, the various national factors that Huneeus claims explain the anti-communist policies of González Videla do seem convincing. González Videla was a relatively weak president, as he had only received a relative majority of the popular vote and lacked the support of a reliable coalition in Congress with anything even remotely resembling a coherent programme, yet faced considerable economic difficulties. To make things even more complicated from his point of view, the Communists aggressively attempted to broaden their power base and influence in the union movement and the public administration (much to the displeasure of all other political sectors), encouraged the expansion of unions in the countryside (which was objected to by Conservatives and Liberals as well as some Radicals) and organised strikes in mining centres (raising the ire of the government). Under these circumstances, González Videla sought and received the support of the traditional elite and the parties of the Right; his admiration of and even fondness for rightist authoritarian leaders (for example, Marshal Pétain), which he had developed during his time as Chilean Ambassador to France in the early 1940s and which he had obviously kept well hidden from friends and foes alike upon his return to Chile, made the rapprochement all the easier.

In the end, the anti-communist policies of González Videla were anything but successful. When the ban on the Communist Party was finally lifted, its electoral support was as strong as before the enactment of the Ley Maldita and its influence in the union movement had not been reversed either. González Videla's own Radicals also did not benefit from the measures, and nor did the Conservatives. Indeed, as Huneeus points out, overall the anti-communist measures of González Videla had a decidedly and uniformly negative impact on Chilean politics and society as well as the Catholic Church. Necessary economic adjustments and agrarian reforms were postponed, and the military was politicised, partly charged as it was with carrying out the government's repressive measures. González Videla, it also should be noted, was another big loser; his political career was all but over when his term ended in1952, and to this day the noticeable achievements of his presidency, like the enfranchisement of women, are overshadowed by his misguided policies against his erstwhile allies.