This first comprehensive study of the political history of the Chilean Communist Party (the PCCh) is both scholarly and explicitly relevant to Left struggles and revolutionary movements throughout Latin America.

One of the oldest Communist Parties in the Third World, the PCCh has survived three prolonged periods of suppression and illegality; has from time to time successfully forged alliances with a broad range of class forces, and in the 1950s, originated a strategy that led, in 1970, to the election of the first Marxist President in Chile. Dr. Furci examines why. despite the PCCh being the dominant and most coherent force in Salvador Allende's government of Popular Unity, the Party's strategy of peaceful transition to Socialism was ultimately destroyed. The reasons relate in part to the organization and theoretical perceptions of the Chilean Communist Party itself as Dr. Furci shows in his account of the issues the Party faced over the years, analyses it made, and actions it took.