[In its first issue after the death of Perón, Avanzada Socialista analyzed the political alternatives before the Argentine workers. To those workers who supported the so-called orthodox, or "anti-Marxist," wing of the Peronist movement, the weekly of the PST (Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores- Socialist Workers party, a sympathizing group of the Fourth International) pointed out that there could be no more doubt now about what "orthodoxy" implied.
[A contradiction had persisted while the populist caudillo was still alive: Some trade-union militants had fought for the interests of the workers against the effects of Perón's class-collaborationist deals, while still pledging unconditional obedience to "our general."
["Now this contradiction is finished," Avanzada Socialista wrote. "If you had any hope about Perón making a turn, that is over." The "orthodox" Peronist workers had to realize that backing official Peronism meant supporting the wage freeze, rightist goons, and a trade-union bureaucracy that denied the workers even the right to elect their own leaders.
[As for the left Peronists, who had been under direct attack from the rightist gangs and under political attack from "el lider" himself for many months, they also offered no alternative. In the first place, the left Peronist politicians had proved their inability to stand up to the offensive from the right:
["You who want to defeat adversaries such as imperialism and the oligarchy," Avanzada Socialista asked, "can you rely on an Obregón Cano, who confronted the semifascist coup in Córdoba by resigning?"
[Along with politicians like Obregón Cano, the Peronist left includes the old nationalist guerrilla groups now united under the name of the Montoneros (the Irregulars). Avanzada Socialista recalled how ineffective their military actions had proved in countering the political plans of the bourgeoisie.
["When they kidnapped Aramburu, they said that they had scuttled the 986 986
Gran Acuerdo Nacional [Great National Agreement, the scheme for a class-collaborationist regime that was eventually implemented by Perón], but it continued to sail along."
[The Trotskyist weekly also noted how the needs of staying in the framework of Perón's movement had prevented the left Peronists from effectively supporting or leading workers' struggles.
[The guerrillas' objective of winning 'hegemony" within a bourgeois move ment and a bourgeois government was illusory, Avanzada Socialista stressed. Either they would end up administering the capitalists' government for them or be forced to break totally from the bourgeoisie and its political formations.
[The major part of the article, which follows, discussed the problem of class-collaborationist politics at some length and contrasted this with the alternative of the PST, building a mass revolutionary workers party. The Spanish text appears elsewhere in this issue. The translation is by Intercontinental Press.]
There is a third alternative not very different from the one proposed by the Montoneros, although it has more of a left, or Marxist, veneer. This is the popular front advanced by the Communist party and other sections of the left that are seemingly opposed to the Communist party, such as the FAS [Frente Anti-imperialista y por el Socialismo-the Front Against Imperialism and for Socialism].
The Communist party has been proposing a national coalition that all the bourgeois, oligarchic, and pettybourgeois parties would enter to govern the country jointly. That is, it proposes a Social Pact too, although one with different - leftist-trappings.
We believe that such a recourse would be disastrous. We don't have to go very far to find examples. What happened in Chile with the Unidad Popular? What happened in Uruguay with the Frente Amplio?
Some of our readers may work in factories owned by Argentine capitalists. Maybe your bosses have problems in competing with the Yankees. But what do you think? When the fat is in the fire, are your bosses going to join with the workers against the Yankee big boss? Or is the little boss going to join with the big boss against the workers?
When the time comes to decide who owns the factories and the banks or who manages production, or still more, who rules in the country, who owns the means of production, who has the right to hold arms or to make the economic plans, are the bosses going to let us workers give the orders? Haven't we had to fight tooth and nail against the bosses, including the Argentine ones, in order to get food to eat, clothes to wear, and a place to live?
When the Social Pact was signed, all the advantages went to the bosses. Despite the fact that it was designed to guarantee them maximum profits, they were not satisfied and resorted to hoarding and black-market operations to get still more. If, when everything was in their favor, they still tried to gouge the workers for more, does it seem likely that they're going to let us run the economy of the coun try? Do you think that if we go into a government with them, they're going to become our benefactors?
So, the Communist party is deliberately deceiving us, because experience has already shown what happens in a deal between the bosses and the workers; it has already shown that even when the scales are tilted in favor of the bosses, they wont carry out their end of the bargain.
What is the Communist party trying to get us to swallow? That when we are in a government together with the bosses we can do what we want and the bosses will accept what they have never accepted before?
As regards imperialism, experience has shown us what is going to hap pen. Every bosses' government has a fundamental understanding with imperialism, an agreement to maintain the system of exploitation. Along with this, friction develops from time to time over problems of competition. In view of this understanding, a bosses' government is hardly likely to expropriate the imperialists altogether. Moreover, in the cases where some governments have made partial expropriations, as did Perón's first administration and the Allende regime in Chile, the bosses have shown that they were completely incapable of resisting the imperialists when the latter struck back.
This is what happened to the Chilean workers. Their government did not arm them or prepare them to resist the coup by Pinochet. It left intact all the economic levers that could be used to create scarcity and a black market. It did not touch the armed forces, but left the officers armed and ready to strike. In short, the Allende government carried out a capitalist and not a working-class policy.
So, the government of workers and bosses that the Communist party proposes to us is really a government of the bosses. It would use false representatives of the working class to inflict on us the same thing that the Social Pact does now.
What they are calling on us to do is join hands with the so-called good, progressive bosses, with the "patriotic" officers, to adjust the program and the organization of the workers to fit the needs of the bosses.
At this point you might think that we believed we could never come together with bourgeois currents on anything. This is not so. There are some minimum, limited questions on which we might agree at times with currents that represent the bosses. For example, our position coincides with that of Balbin in opposing the penal code reform the reintroduction of harsh penalties for political offenses]; and we have also found ourselves in agreement about the right of El Mundo's publishers to put their paper out. We agree with Oscar Alende that our oil should be exploited by Argentines and not by imperialists.
On these questions, we don't object to a common struggle embracing workers and bosses. These are struggles based on specific agreements that in no way involve the workers' movement in the plans of the bosses' government. They may even be very beneficial. But these agreements do not mean that we should participate in July 22, 1974
the bosses' governments or let ourselves be directed by them, or join their parties, or vote for them. These are agreements for concrete struggles and not agreements involving support for a government.
The line of the Communist party in Argentina is the same as that taken by the Communist party in Chile. If the workers' movement takes this course, it will be heading for a catastrophe like the one suffered by our Chilean brothers.
All these variants differ considerably among themselves. It is possible,
moreover, that they will not emerge in precisely the same way as we have described them. It is possible that in the immediate future we will have a certain stability. But sooner or later we are going to see a struggle between the proponents of these different lines, who will be spurred on by the crisis of the Social Pact, by the conflicts among different sectors of the capitalist class, and also by the pressure of our own struggle, the fight waged by the workers' movement. These battles may lead to shifts in the government. The confusion that reigns in all sectors, including the capitalist class, makes it impossible to make any definite predictions.
However, all these variants, those put forward by the ruling group as well as by the opposition, have one thing in common. In all of them the workers' movement is seen as the tail of one or another section of the capitalist class. What they have in common is their opposition to political independence for the workers' movement.
What does political independence for the workers' movement mean? It means that the workers' movement should organize its own political party. If this were achieved, it would be a big step forward. We, for our part, would try to make this party revolutionary.
For some time- to be more precise, since the Cordobazo [the insurrectionary general strike of May 1969]- the Argentine workers' movement has been starting to move in the direction of class independence, although in a contradictory way. The workers did not carry out the Cordobazo by following the Peronist principle of obedience to superior officers. They did it in opposition to the orders of the recognized leaders of the movement.
Most of the struggles the workers' movement has waged since the Cordobazo have pointed in the direction of political independence. In every one of these strikes, the workers have gone against the orders and advice that came both from their "lider" and the trade-union bureaucrats. They did not follow the order to "dismount until the dust settles." Riding over all these obstacles, the workers' movement has adopted a program of action, although a limited one in many cases, to fight for higher wages and to get rid of bureaucrats.
When the workers' movement voted for General Perón, it did so with the hope that he would defend its interests. But, in contradiction to the logic of this vote, it did not abandon this road toward working-class independence. While it continued to struggle against Perón's own directives and at times against his direct representatives, it voted for him in the elections.
This is a historic confusion, because many workers sincerely believed that voting for Perón was voting for the working class. This confusion can no longer be maintained; even while Perón was alive, it was dissipating.
If you are an activist in the printing workers' union and you are fighting for higher wages, if you are a metalworker in Villa Constitución and you are trying to get the representatives you elected recognized, and if you are not listening to those who are telling you that you've got to go along with the Social Pact and the bureaucracy, then you're taking steps along the road to independence for your class.
What has been happening is that this class independence has been expressed in trade-union or political struggles. But this has been in an isolated, atomized way, without the compañeros in different parts of the country being able to get to know one another, to raise their voices in a coordinated and united way, or develop clear objectives.
The workers have got to govern this country. That is the only way to solve its problems. But in order to do this, they need a party. Only a workers' party, led by workers and with a program expressing the immediate and future interests of the workers, can unite the class and lead it to setting up its own government.
Both because we fought against the 1955 coup and for Perón's right to return and because we did not vote for him, we have a right now to say that this is the time to push to build a big, independent, working-class revolutionary party. The ranks of our party are open to those who want to build such an organization.
The fundamental purpose of the PST is precisely this-to lay the foundations of a mass revolutionary workers' party. We know that the working class as a whole does not recognize us as its leadership. We are convinced, moreover, that there are other working-class currents that are in favor of political independence and will contribute to building a mass party.
Compañeros, don't let the Cámporas, the Bidegains, or the López Regas, or the Oscar Alendes decide things for you. You have seen all the variants they represent in power and you know what they are. Think back and you will recognize them.
It is the workers now, through their party, who should decide things without the tutelage of any boss.