[The following article is reprinted from the March 6 issue of the Argentine weekly Avanzada Socialista, published by the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International.]
Friction occurred between the government of Córdoba and the forces supporting it, on the one hand, and the bureaucracy and the right in general, on the other, mainly in three areas. First there was a conflict with the bus companies, who were unwilling to pay the wage increase granted to the UTA [Unión Tranviarios Automotor - Bus Drivers Union]. There was trouble inside the 62 Organizations [the Peronist trade-union group], where the Ortodoxos [right-wing Peronists] failed to come to a definitive agreement with the Legalistas [left-wing Peronists] on uniting in the CGT [Confederatión General del Trabajo -General Confederation of Labor]. (This situation was settled by the Plenario de Alta Gracia.) Third, there was conflict with the provincial police hierarchy, which operated as the spearhead of the opposition.
In connection with the dispute with the police, the magazine El Descamisado claimed that the police murdered the five farmers in Córdoba [who were allegedly mistaken for guerrillas in January of this year] as a provocation to force federal intervention. The factis that the government removed and retired Lieutenant Colonel Navarro, who then declared himself in rebellion and shut himself up in the barracks with the troops. From that point on, the pace of events quickened. That brings us to Wednesday [February 27, the date of the coup].
Shortly before this, Agustin Tosco wrote an article, which was published in the daily El Mundo on March 2. It contained a number of curious points. As we know, Tosco, Salamanca [leaders of the class-struggle tendency], and other militant trade unionists had been pushing for several weeks for a meeting of representatives of the militant tendency throughout the province. A meeting was scheduled for March 2. In the article, without any further explanation, Tosco wrote that the date was the 9th instead of the 2nd. The important thing was that in the middle of the Córdoba crisis the leaders of the class-struggle tendency chose to postpone holding a meeting that was the only feeble hope of developing a centralized leadership to take on the right. A possible explanation for this suicidal attitude is that at this point Tosco and Salamanca had managed to renew their arrangements with the Legalistas, who were once again in conflict with the Ortodoxos.
On Wednesday, February 27, the coup was launched. The Ignacio Rucei Comandos seized the radio stations, which they still control. Groups of armed civilians appeared on the street claiming to be under the orders of the "62 Ortodoxas" organizations and the Juventud Sindical Peronista [JSP —Peronist Trade-Union Youth].
The police, who had remained shut up in their barracks, went at midnight to the government offices and arrested the governor and deputy governor, along with about seventy officials, who were taken to the Comando Radioeléctrico and held there incommunicado. Navarro, the chief of police, justified his position by saying that arms were being distributed at the government offices, a claim that has been refuted by the reporters sent there by almost all the dailies.
The police and armed groups of the JSP seized the streets. All day Thursday work in the factories as well as commercial and banking activities slowly ground to a halt. The workers, sent away by the bosses, dispersed to their homes. The "62 Ortodoxas" called for a strike in support of the police. Tosco, along with Tapia, a Legalista and a member of the old CGT secretariat, also called for a strike.
Thus, the police, the bosses, the fascist commandos, and the two rival trade-union leaderships, for different reasons, all converged on one point, closing down Córdoba. The working class was completely dispersed. This situation was definitely solidified on the next day. From Friday on, it can be said that there was no possibility of a Cordobazo insurrectionary general strike], since the factories were all shut down.
On Friday also an important event occurred. With the blessing of [Luis Longhi] the interventor delegate of the Movimiento NacionalJusticialista National Social Justice Movement, the main Peronist organization], Dr. Mario D. Agodino moved into the governor's chair. It was a maneuver similar to the one with Lastiri [who took over as provisional president after Perón forced out Cámpora until the caudillo could get himself elected in a special election]. Agodino had the support, direct or indirect, of the national government and Balbin [head of the Unión Civica Radical, Radical Civic Union]. (The minister of the interior came out for nonintervention in Córdoba, and Balbin publicly backed him.)
Dr. Agodino was going to play a centrist and vacillating role that reflected the mixed feelings and cautious attitude of the national government. The daily La Nación noted two legal errors, obviously intentional ones, that reveal the character of Agodino's takeover. He was sworn in by the presiding judge of the Superior Tribunal de Justicia [State Supreme Court], which implied recognition that he was a provisional governor. At the same time, the federal district judge declared himself competent to try Colonel Navarro for the crime of sedition. All this, together with Agodino's statements indicating that he was willing to restore power to Obregón Cano and that his first official act would be to order the imprisoned governor set free, indicates that his accepting this post may have been a maneuver carried out at the top levels to turn back the coup.
However, other facts indicate the contrary. Colonel Navarro has not been fired; he was present at Agodino's swearing in, and it is the police under his command, along with the civilian goons wearing yellow armbands, who exercise the real power in Córdoba. At the same time, the national government indirectly endorsed the coup by sending its minister of labor, Otero, to the Plenario de Alta Gracia, where only the putschist "62" were present. Thursday night and the morning and afternoon of Friday were a time of uncertainty, when no oneknew which way Agodino would turn or who was pulling the strings.
By Friday night, things had already become clearer, when no Cordobazo had occurred and the workers remained dispersed and confined to their homes, with resistance limited to a few barricades and isolated sniping. The right gained confidence and redoubled its attack.
On Friday night there were three new developments. In the absence of the main trade unions, and with Otero's blessing, a new leadership of the CGT was elected. The putschist "62 Ortodoxas" were left in control of the union federation. At the same time, with the scheduling of new elections for September 1, a blow was struck at Obregón Cano's chances of regaining his office. These were the two news items most widely circulated over the Buenos Aires radio stations, where news about Córdoba was under the eye of the censors.
The third item of news was that Obregón and the other officials had been released, and that after asserting their authority - and fruitlessly demanding the support of Minister of the Interior Llambi and the Policia
Federal -they had gone into hiding, where they remain until this moment.
The ground given up by the masses (who did not carry out a new Cordobazo) was entirely occupied by the right and the fascists. Criticism began to develop of the "62 Ortodoxas" (or tendencies they represented), of Dr. Longhi, and of the deal that resulted in the choice of Dr. Agodino. They wanted more.
Over Saturday and Sunday, the police and parapolice gangs raided the headquarters of the oppositionist unions. On these and preceding days there were dynamite attacks against figures in the deposed government. On Saturday, the headquarters of the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores was raided, and twenty-eight companeros were arrested, to be released the next day.
Their control over the city and all movements, as well as the paralysis of the political and trade-union forces, enabled the police and their"collaborators" to take a "benign" attitude. At night there was shooting. But aside from a few cases in which snipers or small resistance groups were involved, all the reporters have agreed that the shots were fired by the police themselves to heighten the climate of insecurity and provoke the step the government took on Sunday, March 3, in decreeing federal intervention, which had already come under discussion in the congress.
Monday dawned on a paralyzed Córdoba, where no one thought of going to work. The "62" (in full control of the CGT), most of the bosses, and the police all agreed that no one should go to work. They demanded rapid installation of the federal interventor, who they thought would help them consolidate their victory and continue their attack. With the government overthrow, their target was the class-struggle and oppositionist unions. These unions have issued a call for the workers to return to their workplaces and organize the resistance from there. But today, Monday, March 4, as we close this disjointed chronicle of the semifascist coup in Córdoba, the workers have been unable to heed this appeal.