By Movimiento Anticapitalista
Automatically translated by AI.
Change of command
Today, March 11, 2026, Pinochetism returned to La Moneda in a change of command full of authoritarian and reactionary symbolism, with Gabriel Boric, handing over the presidential sash, for the first time since the return to democracy, to the ultra-right, heir of the dictatorship imposed by blood and fire by the Chilean bourgeoisie and imperialist interests, a gloomy mirror of that past.
Chile, with the arrival of Kast, joins, somewhat belatedly, the wave of the ultra-right, it does so when the tide already begins to go down in other latitudes, the Chilean version of the ultra-right, is the belated foam of a reactionary resurgence that is far from being definitive, that fails to win the streets, and that, of course, opens many opportunities for the class struggle, as long as the socialist, anti-capitalist and revolutionary organizations have the necessary lucidity for the coming period, we do not fall into liquidationist sectarianism or into the trap of an opportunism that yields space to an old social democracy, which to rejuvenate itself, has found nothing better than to put on social-liberal clothes and fall into the boring and restive post-modern spiral. Kast’s neo-pinochetism arrives, with asymmetric polarization and with a far-right that had already won a second term in the USA, but also Italy, Israel, Argentina, El Salvador and Hungary, finally the wave wets the feet of a country that, after Boric’s progressive inter-cycle, joins the global current with the siren song of a promise of order that arrives just when the world begins to wonder what to do with the destruction that the reactionary wave is leaving in its wake.
The self-styled “new radical right” shares common features in various parts of the world, always with local adaptations. As internationalists, we have the obligation to study these traits, characterize them, and organize plans of struggle in accordance with reality.
The international ultra-right, commonalities and particularities
One of the common points are nationalism and sovereignty, especially in the moments of campaign, which then tend to be measured by the principle of reality imposed by the exercise of power within the framework of liberal democracies, this sovereignty is reflected in a rejection of supranational organizations and agreements on international jurisdictional matters, especially with regard to human rights and the environment, In the Chilean case, some of the first measures go in this direction, with a strong populist charge, for example, the “Border Shield”, which declares the border with sister Bolivia a military zone, which means a deployment of Armed Forces for migratory control and the construction of barriers, such as ditches or fences, something that, taking into account the extensive border dimension, would take years to finish. It is a photo for his public, a media show, motivated by years of xenophobic messages against the migrant population, with the paradox that an important part of the Venezuelan population electorally supported Kast, even when his speech did not leave much room for doubts.
Conservatism and the retrograde value agenda is another of the common features, the obscurantist and backward seal, in their cultural battle; the Chilean conservative ultra-right, position themselves as defenders of good customs, opposing what they call “gender ideology”, women’s right to decide, abortion, equal marriage, trans-travestite population rights, ESI, etc. For Kast, as well as his worldwide acolytes, all this is “cultural Marxism” and “woke” culture, they put the family as the forging nucleus of society, that is, the old fascist motto of God, Homeland and Family. A Chilean particularity, is that contrary to other experiences of the rise of the ultra-right, Kast is not an “outsider”, on the contrary, they come from the adaptation of the Pinochettist right, to the return of democracy, Kast breaks with the UDI in 2016, Chilean political party, founded in full dictatorship, by Jaime Guzman, one of the ideologists of the Chilean neoliberal capitalist laboratory, Kast breaks for the right, which is already a lot to say; the populist figure of the outsider who criticizes the caste, like Milei in Argentina, is represented in Chile by Johannes Kaiser, who defines himself as “loyal opposition” but who de facto supports most of the reactionary initiatives of the incoming government. Also, with some nuances, Franco Parisi could be characterized as part of this “outsider” right wing.
Continuing with the common features, and in a central way, one of the most important points of the programs that have brought the ultra-right to power in this last period, are the promises of an iron fist and security, almost as a leitmotiv, so much so that in the Chilean case, Kast defines his own presidency as an emergency government, this is the central axis of his authoritarian narrative, his campaign was practically based on this point: to give a sense of urgency to the security crisis, inherited, according to the same narrative, from the inability of reformism to take charge of security issues, completely inflated by a constant media bombardment, the narrative of the Chilean ultra-right does not differ from the narrative of Meloni or Trump in this sense, i.e., frontal fight against delinquency and organized crime that is ipso facto associated to migrants (as we have already explained above), which leads to the point of the supposed “migratory crisis”, with promises of implementation of extreme measures for border control. Another of the measures already put in place, accompanying the “Border Shield” is the appointment of a Commissioner for the Northern Macrozone, Vice Admiral Alberto Soto, designated to coordinate the borders. All this wrapped up by the everlasting xenophobic, racist, criminalizing story, encouraged by the television channels, by the editorials of the main newspapers and by a real army of bots and digital operators of the ultra-right in social networks. These unilateral measures are accompanied by the parliamentary urgency to classify as a serious crime the irregular entry into the country, that is to say, to create the necessary repressive mechanisms for arrests and expulsions.
A macabre fruit salad, of course, accompanies the central plan, which are cutbacks, layoffs, lowering of taxes to big companies and fortunes, adjustment to the working class, which goes hand in hand, evidently, with the increase of police manning, political support to Carabineros, the Chilean military police; at this point, it has already been announced the will to pardon human rights violators, of the Rebellion 2019, in other words: impunity. To carry out this plan shared by the Chilean right wing as a whole, they need coercion, cudgel, and that repression was prepared with a legal framework, the dissonant notes of the emotional call for security, and that was cooked, in a regrettable way, by the government of Boric and his reformist coalition, learning little dance steps with the music that the ultra-right wing of Kast was putting to it. The table was set.
A table prepared for the facha party, and where the genuflection of progressivism was of no use, moreover, among the first measures announced with great fanfare, is the publicized Integral State Audit, a review of ministries and institutions to detect “irregularities” in the management of the government of FA + PC + Democratic Socialism.
The proposed objective is the reduction of 3% of the general budget of all portfolios, which is equivalent to an adjustment of about US$ 3,000 million in the first year of government: layoffs, closure of social benefits, etc. Obviously these announcements are accompanied by the classic ditty of boosting investments, speeding up projects, most of which are extractive and ecocidal.
It must be said that these first measures were to be expected, there are no big surprises in this regard, and the bar on social rights and democratic expansion was not very high.
Our internationalist perspective
The important thing from a revolutionary and internationalist point of view, is to become aware and study, that the arrival of the ultra-right to power, on the one hand, has its own particularities, and a path that is forged in the Chilean case, with the discontent of the majorities with the failed experience of the reformist government of Boric, that instead of breaking with the inertia of previous neoliberal administrations of social democracy/social-liberalism, came to inscribe itself in the same line of the Concertación and of those who made a pact with the still lukewarm bodies of the resistance, on the table. Repeated joke comes out rotten. But it is also necessary to understand that far from being an isolated phenomenon, there is an international coordination of the ultra-right, with forums, foundations, think tanks and summits: Conservative Political Action Conference; The Heritage Foundation; Juan de Mariana Institute; Madero Foundation; just to give some examples. Also with political alliances that whiten and prepare the way: Madrid Forum; with broad alliances of governability of the right and the center, which normalize the arrival of the extreme right to governments, in the Chilean case, Kast even has the support of some figures that once were part of the center-left coalitions.
Kast’s program, as well as that of his neighborhood cronies, is no longer the classic liberalism, or a copy paste of the neoliberal cycles, imposed in Chile by the dictates of the CIA, the Chicago Boys and the Creole bourgeoisie, in the midst of the dictatorship. That world no longer serves capital in this phase of the world crisis, imperialist wars through, the program has much more of an authoritarian capital-conservatism, which combines factors, but always accompanied by repression and iron fist, permanent attacks on the gains of the working class, attacks, after all, to democratic rights, wrested with struggles to the powerful.
Kast comes with extreme promises of economic liberalization, this is the famous freedom they are so fond of, it has nothing to do, even, with the defense of individual liberties of the old liberalism, here what it is about, is to administer without disguises, for the millionaire minority: lower taxes, reduction of the State, with a strong symbolic nationalist component, ideological defense of private property and entrepreneurship as the engines of society. Here we must again express particularities and nuances: Kast is closer to the economic liberalism of the Chicago school on many points, while others (such as Orbán) are more statist and protectionist (Trump). What does have its defined contours, the discourse of Kast and of the ultra-right repeats in a majestic way the reduction of the state apparatus, with an iron fist in security, anti-immigration, anti-women, anti-working class postulates and control of public order with the brute hand of the State.
Kast’s arrival represents a late phenomenon because, unlike Trump (2016) or Bolsonaro (2018), Chile arrives at this disjunctive after a social rebellion that had the Piñera government on the ropes and two failed constituent processes. It comes as the icing on the cake of the restoration of the regime, an authoritarian, ultra-capitalist and patriarchal restoration.
The focus of his emergency government is, as expected, on security with an authoritarian bias and securitization of migration, the great scapegoat. The security and migration measures are a deepening of a punitive and authoritarian approach, already present in previous governments, but extreme in this period. The declaration of a “military zone” on the northern border and the militarization of public security must be confronted by our camp for what they are: practices typical of the Pinochet dictatorship, whose figure Kast has extolled in the past. The approach to irregular migration is made exclusively from the logic of crime and the iron fist, inspired by figures like Trump or Bukele, criminalizing the migrant population and avoiding a human rights approach. The discourse of “order” and strong authority, with references to figures such as Diego Portales, is part of the ideological basis for limiting social protest and dissent. Our responsibility is to give a face, to organize, to regroup.
The path that brought Kast to power
The path that leads Kast to power, counts on the legislative support, controlling the parliamentary tables, that is to say, he has certain possibilities to turn on his own chainsaw, but with limitations, with a (relative) majority in the Chamber of Deputies, with a fragmented Senate but in agreement with several of his reforms in matters of security and fiscal adjustment, and with an opposition that does not cease to raise the idea of doing everything in its hands to reach governability agreements, which could be translated into votes available for the body of reforms that come to impose adjustments to the social majorities.
However, the margin of action is narrower than it seems, their policy will not take long to collide with reality, a reality that we must organize from below, with the social reserves of a people that has demonstrated throughout the history of the Chilean workers’ movement, its courage, its dedication and resistance in the defining moments. The real pulse will be in the streets and not in an institutionality that has proven to be at the service of the millionaires.
The sinister return of pinochetism by the hand of Kast, cannot be reduced only to the context, it is multifactorial, it has contradictions, it is inscribed in the role played by the progressive government of Boric, with its promises of structural changes that never came, with repressive policies, with servility towards big capital in all matters, etc. But it would be reductionist to focus only on one cause, we revolutionaries must take reality with its complexities, interpret the world with our tools, with clear methods, with dialectical and historical materialism, understanding that the class struggle is the engine of history.
What to do?
Here nobody gives up, nobody gets disillusioned or backs down, as we have summarized in our internationalist program: “We revolutionary, internationalist and anti-capitalist Marxists fight irreconcilably against this reactionary tendency. We actively encourage spontaneous internationalist tendencies among the workers, the women’s movement, the youth, the struggles against imperialism and against the destruction of the environment. Only in this way will it be possible to win activists and fighters for a revolutionary program.”[i]
The reality of this cycle, as we have already seen in other latitudes, is more fiscal adjustment with a social cost, which falls on the impoverished sectors and the working class. The 3% cut in public spending, although presented as an “audit” and an “efficiency” measure, is the beginning of an adjustment that will end up damaging the already deficient public services. The promise to “strengthen social benefits” with greater “efficiency” in practice speaks of a fiscal adjustment that means fewer resources for health, education and social protection, just at a time when waiting lists and social needs are critical. In order to carry out its plan, the ultra-right needs to corner rights and impose its so-called value agenda. The ideological framework of the government, defined by Kast himself with the pillars of “order, God and family”, leaves no room for imagination. Frontal attacks are coming against conquered rights, such as the three-causal abortion law or egalitarian marriage, as well as a brake on gender equality and diversity policies. The designation of authorities and the tone of the presidential discourse point to a step backwards in terms of civil and human rights.
At the international level, the line is submission to U.S. geopolitical interests. The signing of the declaration on critical minerals with the United States marks an automatic alignment with the foreign policy of the Trump administration, putting national sovereignty over strategic resources at risk. From our perspective, this represents a return to a relationship of dependence and subordination to the interests of the hegemonic power, to the detriment of an autonomous foreign policy and South-South cooperation, although of course, at this point the bar, beyond the discursive, was not very high either. It is a return to asymmetrical relations, which never really went away.
Faced with these setbacks in an already neoliberal space, the revolutionaries, we have the imperative to ask ourselves what to do? We emphasize the need for the regroupment of revolutionary socialists, anti-capitalists, anti-imperialists, from below and to the left, on a healthy method of democratic centralism, respecting differences and different traditions. We call in this sense, to anti-capitalist unity, to the struggle against harmful sectarianism, which continues to do so much harm to the revolutionary currents, to solidarity with all emerging global movements of the oppressed. From the Anticapitalist Movement, we are available and we will take all the necessary initiatives for the unity of action to confront Kast and his allies.
Kast’s ultra-right kneels in front of Trump and arrives in the midst of imperialist aggressions, wars, genocide, invasions.
To forge an alternative with a vocation for power, so that we govern who have never governed, so that it is the working class who direct the destiny of humanity, so that we put our bodies in front of the fachos and say loud and clear No Pasarán. We call on all comrades, on all the currents that claim to be socialists, communists and Trotskyists who agree with the need to unite on the basis of an international program for a revolutionary response to the coming attacks.
We call for a regroupment on the left, adding independent anti-capitalist activism, for a project that is neither sectarian nor opportunist.
We call on the revolutionaries of the world to regroup in the same international current, to intervene together in the struggles underway and in the battle to set up a new and powerful Revolutionary International; in this sense, we invite you to join in activating with the LIS in Chile in the Anti-Capitalist Movement.
[i] https://lis-isl.org/es/2025/12/iii-congreso-de-la-lis-manifiesto-y-programa/
