Last week, the Assembly of Civility dropped its appeal to the executive branch and wrote a letter to the second-ranking officer in each of the three military branches and the police asking that they ''make it possible, immediately and without interference, for the people to define their destiny.''

Dr. Gonzalez said Tuesday that the letter represented an effort to ''dialogue'' with the armed forces, but that it had drawn no response. He said the strike had been called ''because we have no other recourse.''

The opposition political parties, which earlier failed to open a dialogue with General Pinochet about the future of the country, supported the strike, but were not directly involved in organizing it.

Mr. Seguel and other leaders of the Assembly of Civility repeatedly called on their followers to avoid violence.

In Santiago's poor neighborhoods, however, where unemployment is high and the Communist Party is active, people put up barricades and threw rocks at passing vehicles. Many buses abandoned along the street had punctured tires or broken windows. At least one bus was destroyed by fire. A bomb went off on the edge of the downtown area shortly after 8 A.M., damaging an office building.

''Whatever violence occurs won't come from us,'' Dr. Gonzalez said. ''We don't want more bloodshed or deaths in this country.'' Police React Quickly

Although the army presence in the capital was not as great as in other recent periods of tension, the militarized national police reacted quickly and in large numbers to any sign of a protest.