[The following article appeared in the Oc tober 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.]
As if he were seeking to place himself in the forefront of the bourgeois reaction against the workers movement, Dr. Ricardo Balbin! has launched a campaign against the workers' demands and job actions, describing them as "industrial guerrilla warfare" and "subversive" acts. At the same time he resorts to the old false argument of the bourgeoisie that workers who engage in struggle do so as the result of threats and physical pressure from tradeunion activists.
By putting the demands of the workers on the same plane as guerrilla warfare, he is proposing that they be repressed in the same way. At the same time, he exhorts the trade-union leaders to control their ranks more effectively and prevent mobilizations. To enable readers to judge for themselves, we provide two quotes from the Radical leader himself.
Balbin stated on television:
"We have guerrilla warfare in a factory where 3,000 workers want to work because they are thinking of their families. They have children in school and they want to continue working to pay for their studies. A man comes up behind them and says, 'Slow down or a piece of iron is going to fall on your head' or 'Slow down or we are going to kill one of your kids. Here is his photograph.' At such a time this man is helpless. He is alone. He does not know who is defending him but he does know who is attacking. We must fight against this. I am committed to oppose it." (El Cronista Comercial, September 3, 1975.)
"Subversion is all around us ... the guerrillas in the mountains and those here in the factories. Their aim is power for power's sake and I have no doubt that they are working for foreign interests and are very well paid... It is the duty of all Argentines to face this problem responsibly. It must also be taken up by the trade-union leadership in regard to the unfortunate situations in the plants." (El Cronista Comercial, October 8, 1975.)
The policy of the UCR is two-faced. One face requests reports in Congress, denounces attacks against constitutional rights, opposes José López Rega," and provides UCR headquarters for assemblies of struggling students or workers, with Balbin himself condemning the government-protected fascist gangs. In short, an effort to make Radicalism and logically, its most representative leader- Dr. Balbin-appear as the strongest defender of civil liberties.
However, there is another face. Unlike the previous one, it is hated by the workers. It is the face of the UCR that votes in Congress for the Social Pact, the face that accepts the existence of the state of siege, that monstrosity in whose name all the outrages against democratic rights are committed; a face that recently-through the statements of Balbin-has joined the chorus of the entire bourgeoisie against a wage increase. It is also the face that launched the infamous slander of "industrial guerrilla warfare" against the workers and that calls the workers' demands subversive.
What is the reason for this shifting attitude? Which is the real face of Radicalism? What characterizes its current actions? That is what we propose to deal with.
We believe that to understand UCR policy and its current trend-Balbinism-we must go back at least five years.
In November 1970 the agreement called La Hora del Pueblo' was signed between the Radicals, the Peronists, and other bourgeois currents that opposed the military dictatorship. It was looked upon favorably by the church and by the majority of the armed forces, which six months later would take charge of the federal government via Gen. Alejandro Lanusse.
This pact was the main pillar of the socalled Gran Acuerdo Nacional concluded among almost all sectors of the bourgeoisie. It provided for the return to the institutions of bourgeois democracy and to a relatively democratic regime so as to channel and detour the workers and people's struggles that had reached the point of endangering the stability of the bourgeois state itself.
Along with this "decompression" to avoid new explosions like the Cordobazo," the agreement involved economic measures to guarantee the earnings of the entire bourgeoisie-the Social Pact, for example, which froze wages for two years.
If we start by considering the UCR as an integral part of the Gran Acuerdo Nacional, one of its fundamental pillars and guarantors along with the armed forces and the Peronists, it becomes easier to understand its policy. In the assignment of roles, the UCR drew that of "constructive opposition," as Dr. Balbin likes to say.
The UCR subordinates the defense of democratic rights to its policy-in this case the strengthening of the Gran Acuerdo Nacional-so as to demobilize the workers movement and force it to retreat. That explains why it accepted with silence the imposition of the state of siege, a measure that cut back civil liberties in one sweeping blow.
This profoundly reactionary and antidemocratic policy does not stop the UCR from denouncing the most brutal forms of repression. This is what it did in the case of the AAA, taking advantage of the situation to confront López Regaism. In his attempt to dominate the government, Rega endangered the equilibrium painfully reached through the Gran Acuerdo Nacional.
However, since López Rega and his followers disappeared from the top levels of the government, the entire furor of denunciations and demands for an investigation have been relegated to oblivion. When the moment arrived to prove his accusations in the courts, Dr. Balbin himself took a step backward, denying that he had any proof. This retreat is of such magnitude that Radical Deputy Massolo complained bitterly that not a single one of the requests for parliamentary reports had been met.
But not even this timid defense of civil liberties was pursued to its final conclusions. The Radicals drafted statements, attended meetings and interviews, and presented motions. They did everything except one thing: mobilize the masses. From the meetings of the "Nine"s to the fall of López Rega, the leadership of the UCR consistently refused to do the only thing that, as events have since shown, could brake the fascistlike right wing-mobilize the masses. In this it showed itself faithful to the reactionary spirit of the Gran Acuerdo Nacional-to brake and block the
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mobilization of the people.
The mobilization that the UCR did not want to initiate took place anyway. The July general strike toppled López Rega and his followers. This made the possibility more remote that the Gran Acuerdo Nacional would be superseded by an openly counterrevolutionary regime in the Pinochet style. Fascist terrorists, although they continue to function, are not at present playing the role of spearhead that the supporters of López Rega envisioned in their plan for seizing power.
The UCR, as the "constructive opposition," has supported all the anti-workingclass measures of the government from the Social Pact on. The fact is that the policy of superexploitation of the workers movement and maintenance of the level of bourgeois profits are also part of the agreement.
The campaign against López Rega might have concealed this anti-working-class role of the UCR. But today the UR's attempt to compare workers' struggles with guerrilla warfare has made everything crystal clear. This slanderous campaign would make it appear that the old Radical leader wants to move into the front lines of bourgeois reaction in face of the new labor struggles.
Notes
1. Head of the Unión Civica Radical (Radical Civic Union), the main bourgeois opposition party.
2. Former rightist strongman and minister of social welfare of the Peronist regime.
3. The former wage-freeze policy of the regime.
4. The People's Hour.
5. Great National Agreement.
6. The 1969 semi-insurrection in Córdoba.
7. Alianza Anticomunista Argentina (Argentine Anticommunist Alliance), the rightist terrorist organization responsible for hundreds of assassi nations in the last two years. López Rega was closely linked to the AAA.
8. The legal political parties in Argentina.