THE ARGENTINE ELECTIONS
The Argentine parliamentary elections provided a new demonstration of the political crisis of the bourgeoisie, of the political instability of the country, and of the in ability of all the bourgeois political sectors and tendencies to overcome this situation.
The election campaign took place in a period of great struggles by the workers and the other exploited sectors midst of an increasing repression by the Frondizi government and the army, who, two weeks before the elections, imposed a "regime of exception" tantamount to martial law, and put the whole country under the direct control of the army.
The election results show that the three big parties o he Argentine bourgeoisie — the Intransigent Radicals o Frondizi (1,783,000 votes), the People's Radicals of Balbín (2,060,000), and the Peronists, who again called for blank ballots (2,086,000) — not only did not win new voters (despite the normal population increase), but even polled a number of votes slightly lower than in the previous elections of 1957 and 1958.
The bourgeois opposition's inability to capitalize on the leep popular discontent against the policy of Frondızi, bi offering a real alternative to that policy, was reflected or the one hand by the government's maintaining its electoral positions, and, on the other, by the lack of a bourgeois political centre of a decisive weight nationally, of a bourgeois political force that electorally controls a majority sector of the population. None of the three main bourgeois parties succeeded in obtaining even 25% of the votes. nore to operate directly as the bourgeois arbiter of ven This result will, on the one hand, spur the army gentine politics, and also, on the other hand, encourage those in favor of unifying the two Radicalisms to form a majority bourgeois party.
The Peronist campaign for blank ballots was carried out mainly by the "62 Organizations," the trade-union federation led by the Peronists, which forms part of the MOU Movimiento Obrero Uniticado), enormous publicity campaign of public meetings, leaflets, house-to-house visits, etc. The blank-ballot idea ran counter to the whole combative trend of the masses. It was a passive orm of expression, and signitied indirect support of the government by denyin either the Peronist the masses any way of expressing themselves positively. Party nor the Peronist trade-union bureaucracy made any effort to "overturn" the government's decision preventing them from participating in the elections. In reality, blank-ballot voting constituted for them a means of keeping up their indirect alliance with the government, and especially of keeping the proletariat in a state of political passivity by preventing its mobilization and increase in political maturity.
Although the idea was at first received with great resistance, blank-ballot voting again got the support of the fundamental sectors of the proletariat, which, in the absence of any alternative, expressed in this way its desire to maintain its cohesion and unity and to vote against both the government and the bourgeois opposition tied up with the oligarchy.
The blank-ballot vote also showed the decisive political weight of the trade-union organizations, whose leaderships and apparatuses were the main support of the campaign, and the decisive argument for the proletariat and the
This fully confirms the policy of the Argentine Trotskyists in fighting for the formation of a labor party based on the trade unions in order to swing on to this path of positive action, independent of the bourgeoisie, the 1mmense political force centred round the trade unions.
The Communist Party also limited itself to blank-ballot voting. It made no real fight against the Frondizi government's decision not to permit its participation in the elections (as a matter of fact, in at least three provinces the local authorities had disregarded this decision, recognizing the CP as a having a right to run). It joined the Peronist trade-union bureaucracy the road to increased political maturity for The Communist rank and file received with deep opposition and many protests the passive position of casting blank ballots, which had just been added to the GPs treacherous position of welcome to Eisenhower on his recent tour. It is certain that the (not very numerous) Communist electorate and even part of the CP members turned a deaf ear to the appeal to cast blank ballots, and gave their votes to the Left or to the Trotskyists. The Communist contribution blank-ballot vote can be estimated at not over 70,000 to 80,000 in the entire country. The result of blank-ballot voting constitutes a new failure of the Stalinist leadership and will within a short time deepen the crisis that is shaking the Argentine CP.
The only bourgeois party that achieved an important increase in votes (781,000 as against 407,000 in 1957) was the Conservative Party, supported by landowning sectors and favored by the Frondizi government's policy, bjectively strengthens and gives confidence to the limited electorate of the most right-wing sectors. . Nevertheless, its weight as a national bourgeois force continues to be pletely secondary.
Reformist socialism was divided into two sectors: the Argentine Socialist Party (left, 342,000 votes), ratic Socialist Party (right, 297,000 votes). While the latter kept a large part of the traditional votes of the SP (especially of the petty bourgeoisie), the left SP in addition won over Peronist and Communist votes, although not in the proportions hoped for by its leaders.
The Christian-Democrats (345,000 votes) declined in comparison with 1957, and a whole series of small parties virtually disappeared from the electoral map.
It is in this frame of reference that one must place the
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL votes obtained by the Partido Obrero (Trotskista), which show the development of a considerable nucleus of the workers' vanguard toward the positions of revolutionary
The Partido Obrero (Trotskista) put up slates in those of the country's five provinces with the highest concentraproletarians: Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Tucumán, Santa Fé, and the Federal Capital; but finally it was able to run only in the first three, since the government arbitrarily prohibited its legal recognition in the others.
Despite its limited economic and material means, carried out a vigorous election campaign, with various daily public meetings, speeches on the radio, posters, a weekly newspaper, etc — in spite of the unending obstacles raised by the police (forbidding meetings, arresting party members), and of the fact that in some zones, like Tucumán, its public election campaigning was prohibited up until a few days before the elections.
The Partido Obrero (Trotskista) proposed for the elections the formation of a proletarian united front composed of the trade unions (62 Organizations, Movimiento Obrero Unificado), the CP, the Left SP, and the Partido Obrero (Trotskista). This united front was rejected by these ten-
The Partido Obrero (Trotskista) obtained 27,800 in province of Buenos Aires, 8,340 in Córdoba, and 1,602 Tucumán: a total of 37,742 votes.
In Buenos Aires, the Trotskyist party had run winning 11,700 votes. But the increase in its votes is even greater if the zones of the greatest proletarian concentration are taken into account. Indeed, in the whole workers' belt round the city of Buenos Aires, the Partido Obrero (Trotskista) spurted from 5,294 votes to 19,342 in 1960, i e, an increase of 365%. And in some zones of the Trotskyist traditions, this average Avellaneda, 471% in Matanza, 641%; in Quilmes, 556%; in Berisso, 459%; and in 520% (all compared to the 1958 figures).
In Tucumán, where the Trotskyist were running for the first time, their vote of 1,602 is to be compared with 4,275 for the Socialist Party, and with the CP's 3,300 votes in
In Córdoba, where they were also running for the first time, their 8,340 votes are to be compared with 9,325 for the S P, and exceeded the CP's 7,736 in the 1958 elections.
The success of the Argentine Trotskyists must be measured not only by the percentage increases, everywhere constant, but also in the fact that the 37,700 votes, coming in their majority from the most proletarian and combative zones, show the existence of an important nucleus of worker militants who support Trotskyist policy, and mean that
Partido Obrero (Trotskista) foundation for extending its influence over the of workers and other exploited masses who stuck together, with their unions, in the blank-ballot voting, in order to spur them on toward the fundamental way out for the Argentine masses in this period: the formation of a labor party based on the trade unions, which centralizes and helps increase the political maturity of the numerically enormous fighting force of the Argentine proletariat.
The Peronist trade-union leadership, after calling on the toilers to cast blank ballots "to defeat the government," has begun once more to apply its policy of conciliationism and retreats before Frondiz!, clearly demonstrating the passive and capitulationist essence of blank-ballot voting.
The following are the main conclusions that Voz Proletaria, organ of the Partido Obrero (Trotskista), draws from the elections, in an article by Comrade J Posadas, "The Elections and the Proletarian United Front":
The crisis of the bourgeois parties continues and this. The Peo T's Cladials have Sensed that they been a proot of cannot win the majority, and will be tempted by
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Party
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL coup d'état as a way out. The government, to maintain themselves, will resort to, and have to resort to, the poldeals will the traderion leademidation, and deals with the - but basing themselves in reality on The army — more openly than at present, because the bourgeoisie is showing itself to be incapable of overcoming its own crisis — will tend to intervene more directly.
The election results also sharpen the crisis of Peronism. The votes for the Partido Obrero, the resistance to blank-ballot voting among broad sectors, the ineffectiveness of the passive way of casting blank ballots, and the lack of results from the struggle and of concrete advances through blankballot voting, will drive much broader sectors of and petty bourgeois to pressure and seek for a way out through an independent class policy and the fighting programme of the Proletarian United Front.
Under these conditions, with firm bases, the will of the proletariat and the rest of the exploited
7 population continues to favor struggle. The workers who cast blank ballots feel strong and firm, feel that they won in the voting but obtained no victory. Before disillusion can make its way among layers of worker militants and sectors of the proletariat, it is necessary to organize the Proletarian Jnited Front with the 13-point programme of the Movimiento Obrero Unificado All the preconditions exist for the organization of a labor party based on the trade unions, to force adoption of the workers' programme against unemployment, against the high cost of living, and for workers' control of production, for a Constituent Assembly, and for a workers' government based on the trade unions.
This is the programme which the Partido Obrero
Poston came he bean Until on., to
support the same programme, to bring the country out of the chaos into which it is being led by the crisis of the bourgeoisie and the instability of the
THE CONGRESS OF THE ITALIAN CP
In the first months of 1960 the interest of the