AAugusto Ugarte Pinochet is - both in Chile and Poland - an ambiguous symbol of the shaping of historical memory. For the political left he is a dictator who brutally abused human rights, whereas the right sees him as a defender of conservative values, liberal economy and religion, a man who stopped communism and was the author of Chile's economic miracle. Not without significance for the assessment of the junta and the person of the general is the fact that he peacefully transferred power to his democratically elected successors. The aim of the article is an attempt to answer the question how to assess authoritarian past.