[The following article on the workers' candidates running in Tucumán, Argentina, in the upcoming Argentine elections was published in the January 18 issue of Avanzada Socialista, the weekly newspaper of the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST- Socialist Workers party). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
In spite of the abstention of the Peronist Coordinadora (Coordinadora de Agrupaciones Peronistas — Coordinating Committee of Peronist Groups], some important working-class leaders have remained on the slates of candidates being presented by the Workers' Front. Several of them were leaders of some of the main struggles in the recent period.
The candidate for governor of the province is the at-large delegate of one of the largest groups of construction workers in Tucumán- Lorenzo Paredes. Paredes is also a candidate for national deputy, along with the teacher-activist Hugo Polti.
The slate of candidates for national senator is headed up by the vice president of the Unión de Taximetreros [Taxi Drivers' Union), Marcelo Magallanes. Héetor Lencina, president of the same organization, is running for mayor of Tucumán. This union recently took the lead in organizing an important mobilization in the wake of attacks on its drivers at night that caused the death of one. The demand for authorization to bring a companion along on night shifts and for a thirty percent hike in the nighttime rate was backed up by work stoppages and massive demonstrations.
The slates of candidates for seats in the provincial legislature representing districts in the provincial capital are made up of various frontline fighters. For provincial senators, the candidates are Armando Chaves (railroad worker) and Angel Serrano, delegate and top leader of the pottery workers' union. There has been an important mobilization in this union against the bureaucrat Márquez. The employees at the Santa Rosa Pottery Works (where Serrano is a shop steward) played a key role in this mobilization.
The slate of candidates running for the posts of provincial deputies for the capital districts is headed up by a well-known student leader - Carlos Esteban Moya. Moya was one of the top leaders of the Tucumán uprising in November 1970, following which he was detained for several months. This is not the only time he has been arrested, since his name is on the list of leaders who are hunted down every time the army or the police decide it is necessary to intimidate the workers' and people's movement. On the same ticket, there are two activists from the Movimiento de Recuperación Sindical de Empleados Pú- blicos [Public Employees Trade Union Reform Movement] (former Victor Vi- Ilalba grouping), which is opposing the Suleta bureaucracy; they are Guillermo Herrera and Laura Figueroa. It was the strike by public employees that kicked off the second Tucumán uprising in June of last year.
Activists in various unions that have been involved in recent struggles are beginning to form Workers' Front Support Committees. The most important are those in Alpargatas, which have just engaged in a big struggle against the bosses. The citrus workers, who are in the process of organizing a union, have also formed a support committee.
But the Workers' Front does not constitute an alternative simply because its slates of candidates are full of worker and student leaders who have been actively involved in the struggle. It is also because of its program and its activity, and because of the fact that it has not hooked up with any of the representatives of the bosses, that the Workers' Front constitutes the only way out for the workers of Tucumán.
The bosses and bureaucrats on the Peronist ticket are trying to reach an understanding with the Radicals and the government, not with the exploited workers. Although the Coordinating Committee is attempting to push the struggle forward, by doing Peron's bidding it is slipping dangerously close to falling in behind types like Juri.
Finally, the Alianza Popular [Popular Alliance] — not to mention the traditional variants of the right wingis including as one of its candidates the top bureaucrat of FOTIA [Federación Obrera Tucumana de la Industria Azucarera - Federation of Tucumán Workers in the Sugar Industryl, Basualdo, who has been repudiated by the sugar workers.
Only the Workers' Front - which neither subordinates itself to nor makes any deals with the government or the Radicals, nor with Alende or Perón, and whose candidates are workingclass fighters and not bureaucratsonly this Front will unflinchingly defend the interests of the workers.
The Coordinating Committee Gives In to Pressures
The calamitous state in which the Justicialist [Peronist] local in Tucumán was left when rank-and-file militants gave vent to the indignation they felt at the candidates that were being forced on them is an indication of the crisis of Peronism. The picture was completed by the congress that was to formalize the election of the candidates: It carried out its deliberations under the protective presence of two armored cars.
These were to protect persons of no less stature than Amado Juri, powerful cane grower, exploiter of workers, and former police chief, who is the gubernatorial candidate for the FREJULI [Frente Justicialista de Li-
Liberation beración - Justicialist Front). But this wouldn't be anything if his running mates for other posts were not Carlos Imbaud, the former governor of the "Argentine Revolution"
[the military dictatorship] during the Tucumán uprising in 1970; Eduardo Paz, the conservative, longtime follower of Patrón Costas; and Márquez, the general secretary of the local CGT [Confederación General del Trabajo - General Confederation of Labor], who has been repudiated by his own union (the pottery workers).
The Coordinating Committee of Peronist Groups rose up in opposition to the leadership of the bosses and the bureaucrats. This Committee brings together various sectors that have agreed to confront the official leadership by putting forward a more militant position.
Both our party and the Workers'
Front proposed to the Coordinating Committee that we run joint candidacies comprised of militant workers with no links to any sector of the bosses, including Peronism. In the November 8, 1972, issue of Avanzada Socialista, Benito Romano, leader of the Coordinating Committee, stated that he could not vote for any Peronist candidate who was bound to the official machine or who accepted the rules imposed by the regime. He admitted that "every day it gets harder to put up a fight inside the party."
On November 25, another important leader of the Coordinating Committee, Leandro Fote, attended the preparatory meeting of the Workers' Front. He told the gathering: "We are working for the Workers' Front within the Peronist movement because we believe that the workers are not represented in the leadership of the movement."
Unfortunately, the Tucuman Coordinating Committee did not completely break with the Peronist machine. It ended up presenting its own candidates in order to be able to promote the "candidacy" of Perón and not to break with Peronism. But in spite of their good intentions, not breaking with Peronism means not breaking with Cámpora, Rucci, and Calabró, who are the leaders of the Peronist movement and who are recognized and defended by Perón. It means ultimately ending up by not breaking with Juri and Riera, who are the ones who run the Peronist movement in Tucumán with Perón's blessing. It means falling in behind the policy of Perón, who defends the regime through the daily betrayals of the leaders whom he himself names.
In view of this situation, the Workers' Front proposes: Don't trust any boss, and vote for those of our compañeros who have most distinguished themselves in struggle. Trying to straddle the fence and to continue to invoke the name of Perón means in the final analysis endorsing the policy of an accord with all the parties of the bosses, in order to save the regime.
If there had been great workers' struggles going on in Tucumán, it is almost certain that the thousands of activists involved in these struggles would have constituted a pressure group in support of the Workers' 192
Front. Going into the elections with working-class fighters as candidates would have been a natural continuation of these struggles against the bosses. However, the absence of such great struggles resulted in the pressures of the Peronist machine being much stronger and in the Coordinating Committee giving in to them.
This weakness of the Coordinating Committee is, in the last analysis, a product of the weakness of the workers' struggles in Tucumán. It has the effect, against the wishes of the committee, of helping to carry out the Peronist plan of preserving the regime, and it prevents the prestige of leaders like Romano and Fote from being placed in the service of a class-struggle alternative.
In spite of this, we believe that the main thing at this time is to unite all forces in the struggle to defend our standard of living. To this end, we call on the compañeros of the Coordinating Committee to join us in the struggle to win such agreements.
But this is not all. Since they are promoting the candidacy of Perón, we believe that they should demand that General Perón issue a statement indicating his support for an immediate fifty percent increase in all salaries and for a minimum wage of 1,200 pesos [U.S.$1 equals approximately 10 pesos], as well as a public pledge that if the Peronists win the elections, this will be their first governmental act.