The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism - a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule.

I was a minister in the Frente Popular (Popular Front) government, one of the three in Chile during the Pedro Aguirre Cerda years, and I was as much a Socialist then as I am today.

I have always said to workers that they have to work hard, to produce more and better. In Chile, we need to achieve an average annual income of US$2,000, and to do that we need to increase production.

Fidel Castro is a man with a great sense of self-criticism and respect for his political friends. He is not going to give me instructions, and I am not the type of man who would take them. That's not to say that I don't approve of what is happening in Cuba, but he would never send me a letter telling me what to do or not to do.

I believe that every president wants to give everyone work but they can't; they want everyone to eat but they can't make it happen. The same happens with education. So we have to ask ourselves, "Why can't we do anything?"

I can't spend my whole day talking to people.

There can be leftist groups that have not matured politically.