[The following article is from the July 4 issue of Avanzada Socialista, the weekly paper of the Argentine PST (Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores — Socialist Workers party, a sympathizing group of the Fourth International). The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
Our party is the only militant left party in Argentina that has publicly stated that it supports the "process of institutionalization." In line with this, it was the only working-class and socialist current that, in order to participate in this process, did the work necessary to gain the status of a legal party and intervene in the elections.
In October 1972, representatives of our party went to meet with the representative of the military dictatorship to tell him that we supported the "process of institutionalization" and to demand the withdrawal of the military junta from the government. More recently, in the case of the coup by Navarro in Córdoba, we met with the Peronist government. And, along with reiterating our opposition to military dictatorship, we called for a series of measures such as the repudiation of the Social Pact, democratization of the unions, and expropriation of the oligarchy and the imperialists.
These are the same demands we make today, when once again, in the aftermath of General Perón's death, we have reiterated our support for the "process of institutionalization" against the attacks of the putschist right.
What is the meaning of this process that we find ourselves supporting together with bourgeois political forces?
In Argentine politics, the term "process of institutionalization" began to be used a few years ago with more or less its present meaning. This was not happenstance. Its meaning was associated with the struggle against the military dictatorship. More concretely, it meant ending the dictatorial regime of Ongania. Thus, different sectors that opposed the Ongania regime from different standpoints and with different perspectives, could use this common language.
In the same way, in these days, actions that represent an attempt to return to the methods of the Ongania dictatorship- the coup in Córdoba; the murders of left-Peronist, Communist party, and PST militants by fascist gangs with government protection; or the closing down of El Mundo or El Descamisado by the Ministry of the Interior - have all been condemned in the name of the "process of institutionalization." Different currents, including some bourgeois ones such as the UCR [Unión Civica Radical - Radical Civic Union] and Alende's party, as well as working-class ones such as our party, have condemned these acts.
In a nutshell, since the Cordobazo unleashed the struggle against the Ongania regime, the word "institutionalization" has acquired a meaning in Argentine politics different from the one given in the dictionary. It has become a synonym for fighting to defend or win democratic rights.
This is why we have used the term in public statements. And we do not regret using it to condemn military dietatorship, even though this could have the effect of defending the elections the Peronists won; or to condemn the Navarro coup, even though this could have the effect in practice of defending Obregón Cano; or to condemn a coup d'etat now, even if this has the effect of defending the Peronist government.
"Anyone who cannot defend a higher form of government against a lower one does not deserve to be called a revolutionist. "( Lenin)
Neither the government of Obregón Cano nor the one of María Estela Martinez de Perón is the revolutionary socialist workers' government we want. But we condemn and will condemn any reactionary attempt to overthrow these governments, and we will fight together with them against July 22, 1974
the common enemy for two reasons.
The first is that as far as we are concerned only the workers have the right to elect and to remove governments. As long as the masses want these governments, we will fight together with them against any reactionaries that try to overthrow them. At the same time we will patiently explain, until we convince the majority of workers, that what is needed is a socialist workers' government, that the constitution that governs Peronist Argentina is a bourgeois constitution and it serves the interests of the exploiters, that under Peronism the organization and leadership of the country is in the hands of the bosses, and that the working class must develop a new program, a new socialist, working-class plan and constitution, to replace this kind of organization and leadership.
And the other reason is that we must distinguish carefully among the various kinds of bourgeois governments. It is true that Perón's government was just as bourgeois as the one of Aramburu and Rojas. This can be easily demonstrated. Under Perón as well as under Aramburu and Rojas, the owners of the factories and those who controlled the police, the armed forces, and all institutions were bosses or agents of bosses.
Nonetheless, there were profound differences between the Peronist government and the "gorilla" dictatorship. For example, under Perón, the plant committees functioned; Aramburu tried to ban them. Under Perón, the unions could operate, although with bureaucratic leaders; Aramburu sent in military interventors. That is, the bosses' government of Perón was vastly more favorable for the workers and for the country than the bosses' dietatorship of Aramburu and Rojas.
This is what Lenin was referring to when he said that every revolutionist had to distinguish between forms of government and defend the higher ones. These forms are higher because they give a basis for better elements, types of organization, and more rights and opportunities for the workers so that they can fight the bosses more effectively to win their class and socialist objectives. What these higher forms of organization- which may be unions or revolutionary parties granted legal status by bourgeois governments - represent precisely are islands, tools of workers' power, the first fragments of power won by the workers that are advance installments of the future workers' government and the future socialist society.
How must the process of institutionalization be defended?
The fact that in defending democratic rights our position coincides with that of non-working-class and nonsocialist currents and parties does not mean that we agree with them on anything else or on the way to defend these democratic rights.
Our party will always agree with Balbin and the FAS Frente Antiimperialista y por el Socialismo- Front Against Imperialism and for Socialism] lawyers in opposing by all means the suppression of the daily El Mundo. Balbin does this in the name of the bourgeois liberal constitution he supports. We do so in the name of workers' democracy and socialism.
These convergences with bourgeois sectors can be expressed in the form of limited agreements, documents, statements, etc. A recent example was by pache elt, a the rally organized by our party in condemnation of the Pacheco Massacre, * in which, besides the left, almost all the bourgeois democratic forces participated. All these various types of public actions, from joint communiqués to rallies, are useful and help to create the kind of social consciousness and climate needed to defend civil liberties or condemn fascism. Moreover, they safeguard and reinforce the legal rights of the revolutionary party.
It would be naive, or-worse still -legalistic cretinism, to think that these rights can be defended simply by a scrap of paper or from a public platform. In our country, moreover, this would mean completely ignoring recent history. Here, the celebrated "process of institutionalization" is the direct result of the Cordobazo. It was this great mobilization of the workers and the people that awakened and spurred the dormant democratic consciences of the bourgeoisie. Since then, every gain, every prize, has been the result of great struggles, strikes, demonstrations, occupations, and mobilizations. The pride of our party,
the only militant left party intelligent enough to take the lead in the "institutionalization," is precisely that it has intervened in every one of these struggles, strikes, demonstrations, occupations, and mobilizations.
*The murder of three members of the PST by rightist goons. - IP