Education
University of Chile.
University of Chile.
He was the general secretary of the Chilean Socialist Party (Personal) between 1971 and 1979. Before that, he was deputy from 1961 to 1965 and senator from 1965 to 1973. He escaped after Pinochet"s coup d"état on September 11, 1973 and lived as a refugee in Cuba.
Carlos Altamirano started as professor of financial law and public finances in the University of Chile.
During the Salvador Allende"s rule, Altamirano was one of the leaders of the more radical left-wing, revolutionary faction of the Socialist Party. After the anticommunist coup of 11 September 1973, he first fled to Cuba and later lived in the German Democratic Republic. He wrote Dialéctica de una Derrota en 1977 ("Dialectics of a Defeat").
He now favoured more Western style social democratic positions. In 1979, supporting an alliance with the Christian Democrats, he was expelled from the Socialist Party, that split in two: the Personal-Almeyda (nostalgic of the positions of the Allende era) and the Personal-Briones, that later became the Personal-Nuñez (favorable to Altamirano"s positions).
He returned to Chile after the end of Pinochet"s dictatorship in 1993, and although he did not participate actively in politics, he did continue his political reflections.
Carlos Altamirano led the way for armed struggle against the bourgeoisie, in particular after the tanquetazo failed right wing coup. In 1973, sectors of the Chilean Navy tried to convince leaders of the far-right paramilitary organization Patria y Libertad to assassinate him. The plan, however, was not enacted.
After the September 11, 1973 coup, Altamirano fled to Cuba.
According to lawyer Alun Jones, representant of the Spanish justice during Spain"s request to Great Britain for the extradition of Augusto Pinochet, Augusto Pinochet had planned an attack against Carlos Altamirano just after Franco"s funerals in 1975. A declassified Federal Bureau of Investigation document suggests that Altamirano had become an obsession of DINA director Manuel Contreras, who wanted him assassinated at all cost, but that others within the agency cast doubts, because Altamirano seemed to be a decisive factor among the Chileans living in exile.
The same document indicates that the neo-fascists associated with Stefano Delle Chiaie were to assassinate Bernardo Leighton instead.
He ruled out any compromise with the Christian Democrats whom he regarded as reactionary and counterrevolutionary, and supported an armed struggle of the workers. Altamirano became one of the main protagonist of the ideological renovation of Chilean socialism.