[The following article, entitled "Another Betrayal by the Communist Party," appeared in the January 18 issue of Avanzada Socialista, the weekly newspaper of the Argentine Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST — Socialist Workers party). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
"Frankly, I'm not very enthusiastic about Alende or Sueldo [candidates of the Alianza Popular (Popular Alliance)]. But the CP is banned and so it can't run its own candidates. And since the elections are going to be held, what we are trying to do is to use our vote to repudiate the most reactionary sectors."
These words of a Communist compañero call attention to a fact that our party too has been denouncing - the existence of a Repression of Communism Law that bans the CP and that constitutes a threat to all revolutionary activists. And we agree with the companero on the need also to use the elections to confront the agents of big capital and the monopolies, and those who are responsible for repression and anticommunism. But the truth is that voting for Alende and Sueldo will not accomplish this.
'Alianza Popular' Is No Guarantee
Some compañeros have replied to LLE us by asserting that "it is not a question of people but of programs. Let's vote for the Alianza because it is antiimperialist." But don't they think that it is important to see who will be applying a particular program and how they intend to do it? Just remember that this same Alende joined Frondizi in supporting an anti-imperialist program as far back as 1958, and then after winning the votes of the Peronists and Communists, they gave back the oil to the Yankees! Don't forget that Alende supported the Onganía coup in 1966, that a year later he approved "the realistic measures 206
of Krieger Vasena"
[an economics minister associated with a conservative fiscal policy], and finally that he was the greatest defender of continuing in office the second government of the "Argentine Revolution" the military dictatorship] by supporting Levingston and his minister Ferrer.
Sueldo offers no greater guarantees. His anti-imperialist veneer can't quite hide his ties to the reactionary policy of the church, which is interested in creating reformist currents as a way of diverting the masses from revolution. Sueldo has opposed the socialist transformations in Cuba and supports the maneuvers of Frei, the obvious head of the Chilean reactionary forces that are opposing the workers and peasants who want to march ahead to socialism.
Both are known anticommunists. During his regime, Alende repressed the left and went so far as to initiate, along with Gelsi, the formation of an anticommunist Investigating Commission. As late as 1967, he warned that if "we let ourselves be influenced by the issues raised by the left, which is basically interested in the disintegration and corruption of the country, then we are lost."
Sueldo has shown his true colors by preventing the CP from joining the alliance "because it is an illegal party" and by maneuvering to exclude Communist candidates.
Just think about these precedents. Remember too that Alende and Sueldo supported the imposition of "free education," which meant involving the church in education and liquidating the state school. In light of these things, it is obvious why we say that supporting this ticket is a betrayal of the workers and of socialism.
Workers Must Vote for Workers
The Communist leader R. Iscaro said that "the efforts of the CP are oriented toward reaching an agreement with other forces equally prepared to defend the interests of the people, including in the electoral arena, with the aim of giving the workthe opportunity to vote against ers the government and the right as a ine government and the right as a whole."
The workers need an alternative in March, but it cannot be the "Alianza Popular." It is not the alternative because of its history of betrayals and because those involved in it themselves say that they are part of the "National Movement" along with Perón and the FREJULI [Frente Justicialista de Liberación - Justicialist Liberation Front]; and both Sueldo and Sandier have already indicated that they will go together with the FREJULI on the second ballot in March. And this should not surprise us because they too are an alliance of bosses and professors in the service of the bourgeoisie who have joined with some sellout trade-union leaders like Basualdo, the top bureaucrat in FOTIA (Federación Obrera Tucumana de la Industria Azucarera - Federation of Tucumán Workers in the Sugar Industry]. If the CP wants "to give the workers the opportunity to vote against the government," the way to do it is not to make a big fuss trying to come up with some bourgeois disguised as a progressive. The way was and is to collaborate in building a Front of the Workers that will run workers' and socialist candidates. The workers want to vote against the government, but the best way to do this is to vote for workers. To this end, our party called on the Communists to join this front, where they will not be discriminated against because they are "illegal" or for any other such strange reason.
Today we are insisting again. Do not call for support to professors who defend "free education" and who are friends of the church, the military, and anticommunism. Work together side by side with us in the Committees of Support to the Front of the Workers and in the Socialist Front. Let this be our starting point in developing support for the demands of the people and the workers, and let us together build, from the bottom up, the great force that will make it possible to get rid of exploitation and to build a socialist Argentina.