[The following statement was published in the September 26 issue of Avanzada Socialista, the weekly of the PST (Partido Socialista de Trabajadores - Socialist Workers party) following the assassination September 25 of the general secretary of the Argentine trade-union federation. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
As we go to press, we have just heard the first news of the deaths of José Ignacio Rucci and his driver as well as the mortal wounding of one of his companions. We do not know who is responsible for this action.
Whoever did this, we must state once again, in the case of this killing of one of the most resented bureaucrats and one whom we have most criticized, that the method used against Rucci was not a working-class method and therefore is alien to us.
We have continually opposed Rucci, and there are attacks on him in this very issue which was printed before his death, but we have done so from the standpoint of defending workers democracy and the interests of the working class. We want the workers to have genuinely representative leaders that they can respect and who are democratically elected. Therefore, we have fought the clique that today controls most of the unions as well as the national federation and of which Rucci was a part.
But it is the workers themselves, by mobilizing and making their opinions felt in a democratic way, who will clean out this clique by their own class methods and replace it with a new leadership.
Therefore we condemn this action, since it was not carried out by the workers, even though it may be claimed that it was done in their name and because of their feelings and their needs.
At the same time, we call attention to the danger that this action may be used by the union bureaucracy to step up its constant campaign of persecuting militant activists and class-struggle tendencies.
As regards the problem that the CGT has now of choosing a new leader, we say that the only ones who have the right to choose a replacement are the rank and file, who have never been consulted. We call for holding factory assemblies and scheduling a National Congress of Rank-and-File Delegates of the CGT to select a new general secretary.