(The following article appeared in the November 28, 1977, issue of El Socialista, a weekly publication of the Colombian Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores. It was reprinted in the December 1977 issue of Revista de América, a monthly magazine published in Bogotá. The translation and footnotes are by Intercontinental Press/Inprecor.|
The specter of a Cordobazo is haunting Argentina-a specter of masses in the streets, building barricades and routing the police forces, as happened in 1969 under the previous military dictatorship. That is how the Videla government and the bourgeoisie felt during the heroic strikes by the railroad workers, the subway workers, the light and power workers in Rosario, the workers of Alpargatas, and other sectors of the Argentine workers movement that were launched during October and the first weeks of November in 1977.
There was no Cordobazo, but the military began to retreat from its plans, and all the sectors of the bourgeoisie reopened their discussions on how best to avoid another semi-insurrection such as that of 1969. In spite of everything, the resistance has made a leap forward that will help to create conditions for modifying the relationship of forces in favor of the workersnot only in Argentina but in the entire southern cone of Latin America.
Railroads and Subways-A Great Victory for the Workers
The struggles that began in October marked the highest point of resistance to the military junta since March 24, 1976 (the date of the military coup). Statistics cited in the bourgeois press showed a record number of production hours lost. It can be said that there is scarcely a single factory or union that has not raised one or another wage demand-through the presentation of petitions, partial strikes inside the plant, "failing to cooperate," or working a desgano [without enthusiasm] and thus slowing down production.
There were struggles in such factories as Canale, Cristalux, Lozadur, Marshall, Camea, Banco Nación, Banco Canadá, Capea, Selsa, Cantábrica, Imsa, Támet, Centenera, Molinos-and the list could go on. The most important of these was the strike at the IKA-Renault plant in Córdoba during the first weeks of October, which was harshly repressed by the army. In the majority of cases, the bosses were forced to grant wage increases.
But the highest "temperature" was shown by the rail and subway workers, who are government employees. The rail workers spontaneously launched a strike against the miserable 15 percent wage increase offered to state employees by [economics minister] Martínez de Hoz. The rail strike began in Buenos Aires and extended to the national level. Other sectors quickly joined the strike-first the subways, then partial strikes at the Hippodrome, in the airlines, among oil workers, Luz y Fuerza [light and power] in Rosario, some motor transport lines, and so on. And they all enjoyed popular support.
After more than a week of struggle, the government was forced to retreat, granting wage increases of between 30 and 40 percent. Although wage levels remain insufficient, the raises obtained represent a great victory for the workers movement, since the military had to recognize the workers' demands and retreat a little.
There was also a leap forward in the forms of struggle: with the conflicts in the railroads and subways, the strike began to be the method employed, outside as well as inside the plants. Before October, working a desgano or "working by the rule book" predominated, and, to a lesser degree, the partial strike.
With the heroic strikes in the state enterprises, the Argentine working class secured the victory that had eluded it in March during the struggles of the power workers (Luz y Fuerza) and the telephone workers. The strengthening of the resistance was shown by the fact that, after the struggles in the state sector, workers in the Apargatas textile plant and in the Banco de Crédito Argentino [Argentine Bank of Credit] went out on strike.
Why Was There No General Strike, Or Another Cordobazo?
During the October-November strikes, the objective conditions for a general strike were created. As never before in recent years, the transport strikes had the support of the whole population, which expressed in its solidarity the desire to put an end to the starvation wages and the situa tion the military government seeks to impose with its economic plan.
Practically the entire workers and popular movement was fighting for higher wages, but there was no one to bring these partial struggles together in a single battle against the government. The leadership to call a general strike was lacking. Had such a call been issued, the situation could have turned into an "Argentinazo," a general strike, calling into question not only the hated figure Martinez de Hoz but the entire regime.
That this did not occur is the responsibility of the Peronist trade-union bureaucracy. Although it retains enormous influence, despite military tutelage over the unions and the CGT,' the bureaucracy was not inclined to go that far.
But it would be a mistake to conclude from this that the union leaders are not part of the workers resistance. The bureaucracy resists with its own method, which is not that of popular mobilization, but rather one of utilizing struggles to create better conditions for negotiating with the bourgeoisie. On the one hand, the bureaucracy pushes struggles forward, or lets them go on once they have begun. Thus a number of unions have made wage demands publicly-the Coordinadora de Gremios Estatales,? the oil workers, commercial employees, health workers, the
Committee of the 25 (a committee of unions, some under government control and some not), and so on. But on the other hand the bureaucracy has not yet carried this to the point of calling a general strike, which would imply a head-on collision with the dictatorship.
Today the bureaucracy is resisting, in its own way, along with the workers movement as a whole, because the military government must also strike blows at the bureaucracy to apply its starvation plan. The CGT and the main unions, such as the Unión Obrera Metalúrgica [Metalworkers Union], SMATA* (in the auto industry), and others have been put under military supervision. The millions in social security funds once monopolized by the bureaucracy are now controlled by the military; the regime holds hundreds of union leaders in prison, among them Lorenzo Miguel of the metalworkers-the top figure in the bureaucracy. Others, such as Oscar Smith, general secretary of the light and power workers union, have "disappeared."
Something similar happened in Spain with the Communist Party [PCE]. As long as Francoism denied them a piece of the pie, the PCE bureaucrats played a relatively positive role, organizing resistance to the dictatorship through the Workers Commissions, which accelerated the decay of the regime. But once the liquidation of Francoism began, and especially with the opening of the Suárez stage, things took a different turn. The regime threw some scraps to the PCE: Suárez legalized it, recognized the Workers Commissions as trade unions, and threw open the doors of the Cortes to Carrillo and company. From then on, the Spanish workers were confronted with a situation where Camacho, the legendary leader of the Workers Commissions, no longer called strikes but broke them (as happened in Euzkadi); abandoned the Republican banner and hoisted the red and gold of Francoism; and, finally, accepted the Moncloa Pact, which imposes a wage freeze and represses workers' struggles.
1. Confederación General del Trabajo (General Confederation of Labor).
2. Coordinating Committee of Unions in State Enterprises.
3. Sindicato de Mecánicos y Afines del Transporte Automotor (Union of Automotive Machinists and Allied Trades).
The Argentine union bureaucracy is probably going through a similar process. Martínez de Ho's plan demands the destruction of the big national unions. The dictatorship wants to replace them with small unions at the plant or local level, thus atomizing the workers movement. For the bureaucracy, that is synonymous with liquidation of their big apparatuses. As long as this situation does not change, the bureaucracy will remain in opposition to the dictatorship and play a relatively positive role. Once it can enter into fruitful negotiations, it will again betray the workers, just as the PCE has. But revolutionists must not confuse this historical perspective with the present stage. It would be infantile sectarianism not to understand that what is needed now is to bring about unity of action among all sectors of the workers movementincluding the union bureaucracy—around wage demands, freedom for the prisoners, and restoration of the workers organizations.
he United Front of the Bourgeo arties and the Governmer
Another reason the union bureaucracy was not inclined to call a general strike was that it found no united front in opposition to the government among the bourgeoisie and the bourgeois parties, as had been the case before May 1969 under Onganía and in 1975 when the CGT declared a general strike to bring down the famous López Rega and his counterrevolutionary plan (this went down in history as the "Rodrigazo"). In the latter case there was almost a solid front stretching from the armed forces to a sector of Peronism itself (including the union bureaucracy and the workers movement), and encompassing the church, parliament, and the majority of the bourgeois parties. This time, such a thing did not happen.
The bourgeoisie and its parties fear the Argentine workers movement; they do not want to risk new "Cordobazos" or "Rodrigazos." They prefer to resolve at the negotiating table the differences they may have among themselves and with the military. Thus in the midst of the rail strike and the other struggles, "prudence" predominated among the bourgeois politicians. Even the most "aperturista" figures, such as Lanusse and Balbin, took care that the tone of their statements did not go against the dictatorship.
When journalists asked Lanusse about the strikes, he declared: "I do not have enough information. I think the present circumstances are so complex and delicate that anyone lacking the facts should be prudent enough not to make statements that could upset the proper authorities."
Noting the existence of this front of the military and the bourgeoisie against the workers movement should not lead to the conclusion that friction and disputes do not exist, but rather that the situation is more contradictory. The present advance of the resistance, brought on primarily by low wages, gives rise to further opposition to Martinez de Hoz by most of the political parties and by the national bourgeoisie, with the goal of displacing him and his plan. This plan damages the sectors of the national bourgeoisie that depend on the internal market, which constitutes 80 percent of the country's economic structure. Low wages have caused a big drop in consumption, particularly in the categories of food, beverages, tobacco, textiles, household goods, furniture, and so on. In addition, the national bourgeoisie (industrial and agricultural finds itself affected by high taxes, by the high interest rates the banks have imposed on commercial credit, by the suspension of import tariffs, and so on. The present policies of Martinez de Hoz favor only the financial sectors, the big national and international banking interests, the big exporters and the monopolies.
But while the offensive against the minister will probably grow (as much to scrap his plan entirely as to modify it), the number one problem for the bourgeoisie is the political one: how to make preparations for a political solution to avoid or derail the rise in workers struggles now taking place. Thus pressures are also mounting for carrying out a preventive relaxation of the dictatorship. Agreement on the necessity for such a move is shared by the bourgeois parties, the imperialists, and a portion of the government.
The Government and he Government an reventive Relaxatic
The other factor, although more secondary, that contributed to lessening the possibility of a general strike was the opening-in a very halfhearted way—of a policy of preventive relaxation; the military junta was very careful not to repress the strikes. On the contrary, it recognized that wages were low and that the strikes were not "subversive." One can imagine what might have occurred if the government had launched repression against the rail workers and the other workers involved in struggles. This could have brought about a situation in which the bureaucracy would have been obliged to call a general strike. It should be recalled that the Third Army Corps' repression at bayonet point in the Renault plant provoked a strike that spread throughout the factory, uniting all sections.
Thanks to the fact that there was no semi-insurrection, the military government was able to stay on its feet. Nevertheless, its instability will continue, since it is faced with a combination of pressures running from the workers' resistance all the way to the imperialists' policy of relaxation on a world scale, including the bourgeois political parties and the capitalists who want to shore up the internal market. The pressure of the workers' offensive did not reach the point of upsetting the government's equilibrium, or inflicting a major political defeat, as would have happened had Martínez de Hoz or other ministers resigned (something that did occur after the Cordobazo in 1969). The dictatorship did, however, add to its unpopularity among the masses and was weakened further.
In any case, the development of preventive relaxation is still in its early stages, and political indecision predomi. nates inside the armed forces. The present offensive by the workers will help along the offensive that is growing inside the government. This was already becoming obvious as the conflicts unfolded—a sector of the armed forces began to fight Martínez de Hoz on the wage problem, thus encouraging the workers' demands.
First was the minister of labor, General Liendo, and then the Marines through their official organ Gaceta Marinera [Marine Gazettel, which criticized the wage policy and recognized the "justice" of the demands for an increase.
Once the directly counterrevolutionary policy is defeated inside the armed forces, and before a rise in the workers movement really gets under way, rifts and clashes among the ranks of the government will probably increase, while it searches for a political definition, a plan (with restricted elections, a plebiscite, or other variants) that will permit channeling the process toward the so-called "military-civilian convergence." In these conflicts, Massera (the top officer of the Navy and its representative in the military junta), with the support of the desarrollista sectors and others, will have his own political plan. For his part, Videla will try to convince the divided top staff of the Army of the necessity of preparing an "aperturista" plan for 1979 at the latest.
Perspectives—A "Spanish" Outcome?
What did the October-November strikes lead to? Are we at the threshold of a prerevolutionary situation? If the most probable variant for the future is certainly that relations between the classes will be altered in the mass movement's favor, it is also evident that the heroic strikes of the rail workers and others in the state sector have not yet brought a leap toward a new stage, for the reasons noted above.
The accord between the armed forces and the bourgeois parties, and the pressure of Carter's policy (to hold back the masses with bourgeois-democratic methods and not exclusively with the hangman's rope will make the process unfold more slowly. The scare brought on by the state employees' strikes has confirmed that differences among the bourgeoisie's cast of characters are best resolved through negotiations. That the process will go more slowly does not mean that continued resistance cannot provoke social explosions in one or another local area or trade union. But today, could Carter's dream, the dream of Videla and the political parties (including the Argentine CP), be to carry out a "Spanish" solution?
The minister of the interior, General Harguindeguy, seemed to indicate this when he said that the Argentine process should "go down the center of a road that has both a right and a left side." In Spain itself, after meeting with Suárez, Admiral Massera—apparently repeating the minister of the interior's concept-declared that in Argentina there is a place in politics for everyone, "except for the extreme right and the crazy left."
But the military and the bourgeois parties face a problem without solution: who is the Argentine Suárez? Candidates, of course, are not lacking. Admiral Massera seems to be working earnestly to appear "presidential," seeking the support of politicians and trade unionists. Agribusiness leader Jorge Aguado has launched a "Movement of Opinion" that defines itself as "liberal" and supports the principles of March 24, 1976. Perhaps Videla, with his plan for "civilian-military convergence," will be another candidate. The one who has gone furthest is Lanusse (the former military president who called the 1973 elections): he will try to concretize his old project of being the candidate of "national unity," obtaining the support of the two biggest bourgeois electoral forces-
Peronism and the UCR [Radical Civic Union].
These are the plans of the bourgeoisie; things could turn out differently in the class struggle. Repeating the process Suarez carried out in Spain will not be easy for the Argentine bourgeoisie. The Spanish regime had margins for applying bourgeois parlamentarism after the proletariat had lived through forty years of Francoism; besides that, in all its history the Spanish working class had known only five years of bourgeois democracy. At the same time, the Spanish experience occurs when European parlamentarism has not yet entered its final crisis.
In Argentina, as in the rest of Latin America, there is less leeway. Argentina has passed through the most varied experiences in the last forty years: populist governments, military coups, bourgeoisdemocratic governments. The semicolonial character of our country prevents the national bourgeoisie from granting big concessions that would enable them to enjoy relative stability in the style of the metropolitan countries. In the case of Argentina, this structural problem, characteristic of all Latin American countries, is combined with a subjective factor-the lack of a bourgeois leader who could be utilized for a change in the bourgeoisie's policies, someone like Perón. His death in 1974 accelerated what is now a full-blown inside the largest bourgeoiscrisis nationalist mass movement in Latin America-Peronism.
Complicating the bourgeoisie's situation even further is that, besides lacking a "Suárez, rrillos" and the Argentine "Felipe González." The only possible candidates right now are the Peronist union bureaucrats, but the present crisis of Peronism will make it more difficult for them to play the role of "wet blankets" and traitors in the pattern set by the CP and SP in Spain. For thirty years, the Argentine working class has been Peronist. The disastrous experiences with the last government of Perón and with Isabel's regime provoked great disillusionment among the workers. Nevertheless, this does not mean that Peronism is totally liquidated; what has disap peared, especially with Perón gone, is the possibility that Peronism will again be the mass movement that it was until 1973, when it had organizational hegemony over the whole of the working class. The crisis of Peronism, combined with a situation of mass upsurge, can bring on an important turn to the left among the workers.
Neither must one dismiss other possibilities, as Irene Rodríguez, a national leader of the PST," pointed out in an article last March:
6. Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (Socialist Workers Party), Argentine sympathizing group of the Fourth International.
"But in the context of the rise of the masses, the crisis of Peronism may give rise to a new phenomenon. It is not excluded that the trade-union bureaucracy, which, as the union component of Feronism has constituted virtually a party within the party, could decide to organize itself as such, initiating the building of a labor party. Should this process occur, it would have a positive aspect, since it would mean a step toward the political independence of the working class. For this reason the party [the PST] would have to have a policy of fully participating in it.
"We also believe that the reality of the country could come to pose another possibility. The political rise of the world working class, now occurring fundamentally in Europe, expressed in the resurgence and tremendous weight of the Communist and Socialist parties, will, we believe, begin to have an influence. The influence of these mobilizations and processes and the direct action of the world apparatuses of the
I the Communist
Social Democracy and parties will have effects on the Argentine situation." Irene Rodriguez also noted that "the emergence of a strong Socialist party-that is, a workers party—would be an enormous step, for in addition to being a step forward in relation to independence of the employers' parties, it would have the advantage over a labor party of fostering a clearly political outlet, even if in a reformist form, and would introduce discussion on the need for socialism among the broad masses."
In view of all these possibilities, and in face of the political traps that the bourgeoisie is preparing with the military and imperialism, revolutionists must prepare themselves to struggle for the political independence of the workers, pushing toward the formation of a socialist, workingclass party with mass weight.
The victories of the rail strike, of the subway workers, of the Rosario Luz y Fuerza workers, and of the wave of earlier struggles have strengthened the morale of the Argentine working class-it will face its new battles with increased strength. The workers' triumph and the rise of resistance open the way toward liquidating the attempts at an undemocratic, limited political relaxation. The advances achieved will strengthen and favor the struggle for wages that have not yet undergone sufficient modifications, and for the recovery of the workers organizations (the CGT, the unions, and the internal commissions in the plants). It will favor the struggle for freedom for the political prisoners and the appearance of those kidnapped—a struggle that was initiated by the Committee of Families with a march on Congress October 14. And it will accelerate the crisis and defeat of the military dictatorship, leading to the calling of truly free elections without any restrictions and the convoking of a constituent assembly.
Notes
4. Refers to those sectors of the bourgeoisie favoring an apertura, or political liberalization.
5. Desarrollar means development-those bourgeois sectors that want to intensify industrial development, especially in heavy industry, are called desarrollistas.
7. "Argentina-One Year After the Coup," Inprecor March 17, 07%, p. 5, AMarch loup, p. re