ABSTRACT
"In Chile, eight years of authoritarian rule passed without significant movement out of the initial authoritarian situation: civil society remained debilitated in the face of state strength". The 1982 economic crisis had created a widening fissure between the military and its supporters, opening the doors to a growing movement of opposition. The 1983-1986 Chilean protest movement, if not the harbinger of a new social actor or a spontaneous response to the 1982 economic crisis, was more than the product of isolated political militants operating out of shantytowns. The Chilean protest movement was like its Spanish equivalent in the 1940s and 1970s, "dependent on the underground survival of the parties of the Left. The success of any day of national protest depended in large part on the level of protest activity in the sporadically combative poblaciones. The poblaciones that emerged as the central core of the resistance movement in 1983 were those formed by the Communist party.
