[The following editorial was published in the March 29 issue of Avanzada Socialista, the weekly newspaper of the Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST-Socialist Workers party, a sympathizing organization of the Fourth International in Argentina).
[Besides the translation Intercontinental Press has supplied the footnotes. The subheadings appeared in the original.]
The workers movement today is wrestling with the problem of an eroding standard of living-inadequate wages, the cruel joke of a 40,000-peso wage increase [US$27], the exploitation involved in having to hold down two jobs to make enough to buy food, a lack of housing and medical care, and-in many areas of the countryundernourishment, hunger, and high infant mortality.
This situation, this lack of economic solutions and favorable perspectives, has driven the workers movement into launching a series of struggles. Although in its majority it still believes in Peronism, it is pressing the Peronist government and the bourgeoisie with urgent wage demands.
On top of the economic pressures and the impending struggles, the workers movement must now face a new worry. We are in the country-hich a coup referring to the changed political situation in the country—a critical juncture has been reached in which a coup could occur. Although this concern seems more distant than those we put up with in daily life at home or in the factory, it is extremely serious. When we speak of a coup we mean that the bourgeoisie and the government are discussing, and even fighting among themselves, over the best way to slow down or smash our struggles.
Thus it is not accidental that the leaders of the CGT and the 62 Organizations? have held an important meeting in the last few days to discuss their position toward the threat of a coup. Nor is it accidental that they have made statements on some aspects of our economic problems.
The Bourgeoisie Faces Its Own Crisis
We are all aware of the crisis experienced by the working class, a crisis of poverty and small and large daily tragedies. In the midst of this the bourgeoisie lives with its privileges.
However, the Argentine bourgeoisie is also undergoing a crisis. This does not the Peronist-led labor federation.
mean that they are going hungry, but it has nevertheless provoked bitter debates among them and between them and the government.
We have already mentioned the immediate cause-it is their reaction to the workers struggles. However much the labor minister the idea, a high percentage of hates factories, small shops, and offices are involved in labor conflicts over wage demands. This pressure is especially felt by the big industrial bourgeoisie. Some of their sanctuaries-Ingenio Ledesma, Acindar, Propulsora Siderúrgica, Petroquímica Sudamericana, Centenera-have been shaken by tough battles or by the election of combative, class-struggle labor leaderships.
The bourgeoisie blames the workers struggles twice-over for its crisis. Since the middle of last year it has felt the repercussions of the capitalist world crisis, and its fabulous plans for exports have been frustrated, reaching only a half of what was counted on.
The first round of confrontations, which fills the pages of the daily papers, is living proof of the crisis affecting the bourgeoisie and their government. Manrique says that "the hour of moral reckoning has arrived." The Sociedad Rural goes on strike. The CGES splits and leaves the government. The guerrillas redouble their attacks, this time against the police, and together with some bourgeoic elements, promote the new Partido Auténtico.® Through Alsogaray and Frondizi,? North American imperialism
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7. Alvaro Alsogaray is a leader of the rightist Nueva Fuerza, who served as a government economist from 1948 to 1970. At a March 5 news conference he attacked the economic policy of the current regime, stating:
"I hope that tanks don't have to come hereeither from outside or inside the country. What I am saying is that serious disorder could lead us to a critical situation where someone would have to intervene."
Arturo Frondizi is a leader of the Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo (MID-Movement for Unity and Development). The MID, which is part of the Peronist electoral bloc, stated March 12 that "the armed forces have to get progressively involved in what is happening."
announces that it is going over to the opposition.
These are the rats that are abandoning or have just abandoned the ship, in addition to fighting among themselves.
The Regime Attacks the Labor Movement
The government, along with various wings of the bourgeoisie, bears the responsibility both for the economic policy, which has bogged us down in these problems, and for the threats of a coup on the political level.
The invention of the coastal "industrial plot," as a pretext for jailing hundreds of militant leaders and activists and for taking over their unions, shows that the government wants to intimidate struggling workers, and at the same time, regain the confidence of the bourgeoisie, especially the big industrial monopoly interests.
The attack follows the same lines as previous government measures: Gómez Morales® was named to please the imperialists and oligarchs and to put an inflationary policy into effect as a means of cutting wages. The Ley de Contratos de Trabajo!" came under fire as soon as it was passed. The right to strike was curtailed with the Ley de Seguridad del Estado. Finally, as part of its attacks on the labor movement as a whole, the government began to attack the Peronist trade-union leadership itself. The most notorious case was its pretense of searching the UOM! headquarters in the capital.
By taking on and injuring the labor movement, the government is repeating, on a still bigger scale, its tragic line of 1955.13 It cannot understand that a hungry and repressed laboring mass will not be able. and will not care to fight against imperialism and the oligarchy. The government gives in to these forces, which will end upin one way or another-trying to bring it down.
But even so the government will not be able to regain the confidence of the bourgeoisie as a whole. The crisis will follow its
573 573
course; deterioration is inevitable, because ever since it took office the government has moved more and more to the right. It moved in that direction to expel the Juventud Peronista, '* then to combat the guerrillas, later to oppose the left in general, and finally to unleash its offensive against the labor movement as a whole. Within itself it developed a counterrevolutionary wing that wants to move even further to the right-to seize total control and launch a national "Navarrazo,"5 unleashing the gangs that a few days ago sowed terror and death in the massacres at Temperley, Bahía Blanca, and Mar del Platal® in reply to actions of the populist guerrillas.
But the bulk of the bourgeoisie and especially the military high command and the CRIT are opposed to the "autogolpe"
["self-coup"| variant, i.e., internal take-over of the government by its fascist wing. They feel that the bourgeoisie's economic crisis forces them to maintain a parliamentary regime where elections, dialogue, and agreements are the rule.
In short, they favor the line agreed on in the days of Lanusse-that of La Hora del Pueblo and the Gran Acuerdo Nacional. '8 To achieve that they are willing-if the government continues its rightward course toward a self-coup—to accede to a classical coup of the kind that the gorilla critics of the government now call for and that is fostered by the provocations of the populist guerrillas.
Unite to Defend Our Living Standard and to Fight Against the Two Coups
The proceedings and display advertisements published by the CGT and the 62 Organizations deal with the problems that we are discussing here. They are very important not only because they come from people who are in a position to lead the trade unions, but also because up to now the CGT and the 62 had been bending to the
14. Juventud Peronista-Peronist Youth, leftist
16. The Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance) killed twenty-four persons in these cities between March 20 and March 22.
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right turn, to many of the most negative measures of the government.
The first advertisement of the trade-union wing sharply criticizes the populist guerril las who objectively foster a coup, and also Manrique,
Frondizi, and Alsogarayrepresentatives of the oligarchy and imperialism-who are in fact oriented toward a coup.
The second advertisement, published
Tuesday, March 25, is a plea directed at the government itself, expressing disagreement with several measures.
Both documents come out firmly for maintaining the continuity of the government and oppose the two variants of a coup. In addition, in speaking of "exploiters in white gloves," they criticize all sectors of the bourgeoisie.
It is this correct position, combined with the fact that the trade-union leaderships did not bend to the insidious campaign on the "industrial plot," and the positive attitudes displayed by some leaders who endorsed or ended up recognizing struggles and victories of the ranks of labor-like the ones in Villa Constitución, Centenera, or
Rigolleau-that impels us to call for unity of all sectors of the workers movement in the fight against the grinding down of our standard of living and against all variants of a coup.
This means uniting to extend to all factories, small shops, and offices the emergency wage increases of up to 100,000 pesos. They have been won in many places and they help prepare us to achieve a sliding scale of wages starting at 400,000 pesos, along with price freezes, in the upcoming negotiations.
This means-and it is part of the same struggle-defending and freeing prisoners who belong to the labor movement, the jailed compañeros who are paying the price of being the vanguard of the struggle to defend our interests—in Villa Constitución, Zárate, and Jujuy.
And this also means uniting to fight against the two coup variants. Without doubt we must confront the ultrareactionary coup by the fascists in the government. To stop it we cannot trust in a countercoup by the GAN gorillas. This means that we workers for the first time must enforce our own political and economic class demands.
We congratulate the trade-union leadership for having correctly stated that our enemy is the coup. But things must not be left to a mere display advertisement. For the united labor movement there is only one way to guard the interests of the class in the face of threats from the bourgeoisie. The CGT and the 62 Organizations know it well enough. That way is the same one used by the CGT to greet the winning of the Ley de Contratos de Trabajo-with a march and a general strike.
For a General Strike and a Workers Demonstration to Present the Document to the President
The gravity of the crisis and the need to face and oppose the fascist and gorilla threat of a coup, along with the government's policies of starvation and repression, compel us to mobilize. The CGT and the 62 have on the agenda a postponed meeting with the president.
We propose that when the meeting is held and the leaders show up to present their positions, criticisms, and complaints, that they do so backed by a general strike and a massive demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo.
We propose that they solicit and demand a statement from all the nation's political parties so that they will know who supports the workers' demands and who does not, who is for maintaining inflation and wage slavery and who is not, and to see who wants a coup and who is opposed.
We propose that all currents in the workers movement, whether of the left or the right, form a united front to guarantee the success of the strike and demonstration. This would include the guerrilla currents 'that have moved to help in the labor conflicts although they act arbitrarily and do not subordinate themselves to the leadership of the struggles, thus usually falling into provocations and adventures that only aid the bourgeoisie.
We are saying this because such a demonstration and strike, as the beginning of a mobilization against a coup by the gorillas or the fascists, is a question of principle-no one who plays into the hands of the gorillas or fascists can claim to be part of the workers movement.
Finally, for the strike and assembly in the Plaza de Mayo, we propose the following demands:
Get rid of the ultrareactionary fomenters of coups!
No to the gorilla countercoup!
Freedom for the imprisoned workers! Immediate return of the union headquarters that have been raided and seized!
Enough of hunger and poverty!
For a 400,000-peso minimum wage with a sliding scale! For price freezes!
For a general strike of indefinite duration if faced with any attempt whatsoever of a coup!
Notes
1. Confederación General del Trabajo-General Confederatian of Lener, the Peronist-led heral
2. The traditional Peronist union bloc. April 28, 1975
3. Francisco Manrique, leader of the conservative Alianza Popular Federalista (Federalist People's Alliance).
8. According to the "industrial plot," heavy industry along the Rio Paraná to the north of Buenos Aires was to be disrupted by subversives.
9. Alfredo Gómez Morales, economics minister.
10. Work Contract Law, granting workers the right to demand redress of grievances.
11. State Security Law. See Intercontinental Press, January 13, p. 18, for a description of this law.
12. Unión Obrera Metalúrgica-Metalworkers Union.
13. In September 1955 the Peronist regime was overthrown in a military coup encouraged by U.S. imperialism and sectors of the Argentine ruling class most favorable to imperialist penetration.
14. Juventud Peronista-Peronist Youth, leftist youth group of the Peronist movement
15. The February 1974 coup that ousted the elected Córdoba provincial governor.
17. Unión Civica Radical- Radical Civic Union, the main bourgeois opposition party.
18. The People's Hour and the Great National Agreement (GAN). Schemes developed by the Peronists, the Radicals, and other bourgeois forces during the final phase of the military dictatorship to get agreement from the armed forces on the need to return the country to constitutional rule.