[28] While serving in that position, Allende was responsible for the passage of a wide range of progressive social reforms, including safety laws protecting workers in the factories, higher pensions for widows, maternity care, and free lunch programs for schoolchildren.

[55]Upon assuming the presidency, Allende began to carry out his platform of implementing a socialist program called La vía chilena al socialismo ("the Chilean path to socialism").

That included nationalization of large-scale industries (notably copper mining and banking) and government administration of the healthcare system, educational system (with the help of a United States educator, Jane A. Hobson-Gonzalez from Kokomo, Indiana), a free milk program for schoolchildren and in shanty towns of Chile, and an expansion of the land seizure and redistribution already begun under his predecessor Eduardo Frei Montalva,[56] who had nationalized between one-fifth and one-quarter of all the properties listed for takeover.

[57] Allende also intended to improve the socio-economic welfare of Chile's poorest citizens;[58] a key element was to provide employment, either in the new nationalized enterprises or on public-work projects.

In December 1970, the administration fixed bread prices; sent 55,000 volunteers to the south of the country to teach writing and reading skills and provide medical attention to an underserved sector of the population; established a central commission to oversee a tripartite payment plan in which equal place was given to government, employees, and employers; and signed a protocol agreement with the United Center of Workers, granting workers representational rights on the funding board of the Social Planning Ministry.

Workers benefited from increases in social security payments, an expanded public works program, and a modification of the wage and salary adjustment mechanism that had originally been introduced in the 1940s to cope with the country's chronic inflation.

[63] In addition, state-sponsored programs distributed free food to the country's neediest citizens,[64] and in the countryside, peasant councils were established to mobilize agrarian workers and small proprietors.

The Allende government encouraged more doctors to begin practising in rural and low-income urban areas, and built additional hospitals, maternity clinics, and especially neighborhood health-centers that remained open for longer hours to serve the poor.

With eighteen-year-olds and illiterates now granted the right to vote, mass participation in decision-making was encouraged by the Allende government, with traditional hierarchical structures now challenged by socialist egalitarianism.

In the first year of Allende's term, the short-term economic results of the economy minister Pedro Vuskovic's expansive monetary policy were highly favorable: 12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP, accompanied by major declines in inflation (down from 34.9% to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%).

The average real GDP contracted between 1971 and 1973 at an annual rate of a 5.6% negative growth, and the government's fiscal deficit soared while foreign reserves declined.

[86] The combination of inflation and price controls, together with the disappearance of basic commodities from supermarket shelves, led to the rise of black markets in rice, beans, sugar, and flour.

Allende undertook the pioneeristic Project Cybersyn, a distributed decision support system for decentralized economic planning, developed by British cybernetics expert Stafford Beer.

Finally, a sophisticated operations room (Opsroom) would provide a space where managers could see relevant economic data, formulate feasible responses to emergencies, and transmit advice and directives to enterprises and factories in alarm situations by using the telex network.

Other than the inevitable damage to the economy, the chief effect of the 24-day strike was to induce Allende to bring the head of the army, general Carlos Prats, into the government as Interior Minister.

Allende's increasingly bold socialist policies (partly in response to pressure from some of the more radical members within his coalition), combined with his close contacts with Cuba, heightened fears in Washington.

[43][44] The possibility of Allende winning Chile's 1970 election was deemed a disaster by the Nixon administration that wanted to protect American geopolitical interests by preventing the spread of Communism during the Cold War.

During Richard Nixon's presidency, United States officials attempted to prevent Allende's election by financing political parties aligned with opposition candidate Jorge Alessandri and supporting strikes in the mining and transportation sectors.

[116] After the 1970 election, the Track I operation attempted to incite Chile's outgoing president, Eduardo Frei Montalva, to persuade his party (PDC) to vote in Congress for Alessandri.

[118] During the second term of office of Democratic President Bill Clinton, the CIA acknowledged having played a role in Chilean politics before the coup, but its degree of involvement is debated.

Nikolai Leonov affirmed that whenever he tried to give advice to Latin American leaders, he was usually turned down by them, and he was told that they had their own understanding on how to conduct political business in their countries.

[130] That failed coup d'état – known as the Tanquetazo ("tank putsch") – organised by the nationalist Patria y Libertad paramilitary group, was followed by a general strike at the end of July that included the copper miners of El Teniente.

[citation needed] In August 1973, a constitutional crisis occurred, and the Supreme Court of Chile publicly complained about the inability of the Allende government to enforce the law of the land.

[134] Specifically, the government of Allende was accused of ruling by decree and thwarting the normal legislative system; refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its partisans; not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravened its objectives; ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office; sundry media offenses, including usurping control of the National Television Network and applying economic pressure against those media organizations that were not unconditional supporters of the government; allowing its supporters to assemble with arms, and preventing the same by its right-wing opponents; supporting more than 1,500 illegal takeovers of farms; illegal repression of the El Teniente miners' strike; and illegally limiting emigration.

"[137] Allende argued that he had obeyed constitutional means for including military men to the cabinet at the service of civic peace and national security, defending republican institutions against insurrection and terrorism.

I solemnly reiterate my decision to develop democracy and a state of law to their ultimate consequences...Congress has made itself a bastion against the transformations ... and has done everything it can to perturb the functioning of the finances and of the institutions, sterilizing all creative initiatives."

On that same day, the Chilean military under Pinochet, aided by the United States and its CIA, staged a coup against Allende,[139] who was at the head of the first democratically elected Marxist government in Latin America.

Just before the capture of La Moneda (the Presidential Palace), with gunfire and explosions clearly audible in the background, Allende gave his farewell speech to Chileans on live radio, speaking of himself in the past tense, of his love for Chile and of his deep faith in its future.

In a post-junta Chile where restrictions on free speech were steadily eroding, independent and seemingly reliable witnesses began to tell their stories to the news media and to human rights researchers.

[172] The Malaysian rock band Martin Vengadesan & The Stalemate Factor paid tribute with a folk song called The Final Hours Of Salvador Allende[173] which was released in 2018.