“That is why today we begin an act of profound solidarity and of great human
significance. Chilean youth will go through the valleys, the
countryside, the villages, the towns, carrying the message of redemption --
the will, the popular government’s creative and revolutionary decision,
carrying this shining faith to tell the old man from whom he gets his
experience that his Chile a different country, a community of all Chileans,
independent economically and sovereign politically. Youth must be the
essential factor in the changes demanded by this uneven society in giving way
to a new society.... As a governmental need, I will sign before you, on
this fine afternoon, the decree that creates the General Secretariat of
Youth.”
December 21, 1970
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Salvador Allende Gossens, “Missions and Tasks of Youth and
Agrarian Reform,” in Salvador Allende Reader: Chile’s Voice of Democracy
(New York: Ocean Press, 2000), 67.