Chileans remain deeply divided on his legacy. Many see him as a brutal dictator who ended democracy and led a regime characterized by torture and favoritism towards the rich, while others believe that he saved the country from communism, safeguarded Chilean democracy and led the transformation of the Chilean economy into Latin America's most stable and fastest growing economy.
This debate was revisited after Pinochet's arrest in 1998. At that time, the General said of the 1973 coup, “We only set ourselves the task of transforming Chile into a democratic society of free men and women." His supporters made similar claims. Former Prime Minister Thatcher, for example, thanked the General for "bringing democracy to Chile". When in power, however, Pinochet gave a series of speeches that rather clearly indicated that the 1973 coup targeted not only Allende's Popular Unity government, but Chilean democracy itself, which the General saw as hopelessly flawed. In wording that Pinochet repeated several times in various speeches, he claimed that Chile had been “slave and victim of the Congress since 1925, and slave and victim of the political parties.” Arguing for an "organic" type of democracy, Pinochet argued “Merely formal democracy dissolves itself, victim of a demagogy that substitutes simple, unattainable promises for social justice and economic prosperity.” Democracy would inevitably result in a marxist dictatorship, according to his analysis. Chilean democracy, therefore, was “progressively socializing in its economic experiments.... Those who thought they could detain or control this evolution... were given proof under the marxist regime of their impotence and incomprehensible lack of vision.