PREPARES T0 MOVE AGAINST ARGENTINE WORKERS
[The following article has been translated from the August 22 issue of the Buenos Aires weekly La Verdad, a labor news bulletin. Before the new military junta in Argentina banned all political parties, La Verdad was the official organ of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores. ]
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A famous French writer described Napoleon as "Robespierre on horseback." Artistic intuition enabled him to see that in many ways Napoleon was following the same bourgeois policies as Robespierre, but with other methods, authoritarian, bureaucratic, military, instead of appealing for a popular mobilization like the head of the Jacobins.. oy Do
We can describe the Ongania government in a similar way: "Frondizi-Alsogaray with tanks." It is :-following essentially the same policies as the Frondizi: government; especially in its. Alsogaray stage -- but in place of bothering about elections and the possible support or winning of the popular sectors, it does everything in a bureaucratic, direct, authoritarian way. A deep Alsogarayan winter will be upon us until ‘the workers overcome. this government. . 7
"The regime is the best agent. which the big industrial concerns and imperialist consortiums and monopolies have had up to now. The coup d'état signified a colossal triumph for these bourgeois. sectors against the working class and the toiling people as a whole. It has not yet fully revealed its true character because its recent victory was political. Now, as the agent of the. big monopolies, the government will move into the economic arena to capitalize on its political triumph. We have entered the stage in which the bourgeoisie will try to convert the political victory it won over the workers into gains in the field of economic and. labor relations.
Thus, in a different historical period, is being repeated another transitional stage much like.the one following the triumph of the liberating revolution. [Peron's downfall.] Lonardi had scarcely gained power when a transitional stage opened in: which the; oligarchy and the middle class began to seek the fruits of theiz political victory at the union and plant level.
This stage lasted three months, up to the big strike | of November 1955, which was followed by the triumph of reaction in the trade-union field. The workers movement had to accept defeat; that is, intervention in ‘the trade-union movement.
Today we ‘have entered a similar stage. The government and the big-bourgeoisie are hastening: to.translate their porate victory’ against the working class into the whole social and. te economic arena.
This offensive against all the toilers, beginning with the working’ class, is being carried forward on various levels. Ls
First, carte blanche has been given to the companies ‘to. rationalize their plants and increase the speed up. 'Ongania's. declaration to the national press clearly indicates that he is authorizing an increase in productivity in the plants.
Second, the plan to increase productivity will- be accom= panied by a similar policy in. the state enterprises. They will. rationalize and increase production, firing everyone considered superfluous under this plan of superexploitation. Parallel with this they will authorize such increases in social services as may be necessary to cea th the state (enterprises into profitable affairs.’ :
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Third, in order to impose the productivity plan on the plant level, they will open an offensive up and down the line against the shop stewards, seeking to prevent them from intervening in produc- . tion problems, in order to speed up production and the profits that go with it.
' Fourth, on the trade-union level they will press a policy including various points. Above all they will try to win the tradeunion bureaucracy itself, respecting its privileges in order to get its help in applying the plan of superexploitation. As a concession, so as not to completely destroy their prestige, they will concede wage increases of thirty.percent to various unions under condition that no strikes are engaged in for a year or more. These increases will rapidly be wiped out: with the general increase in prices. At the same time they will try to transform the bureaucracy into an - a administrative. agency for some social services, mainly the build-. ing of homes; while the government, to pacify the labor movement, . will try to directly furnish other social services, such as unem-~ployment insurance, public health, etc.
Any resistance from the labor bureaucracy or the unions is to be smashed through compulsory bargaining and intervention in the unions. In combination with the bureaucracy, the government plans an all-out offensive to oust the best activists from the plants and unions, mainly the leftists. They will open a witch~hunt in the trade unions with the collaboration of the bureaucracy. This tactic of the government and the bosses will run up against the bureaucratic structure itself, since many locals have plant leaders hated by the bosses who belong to the union apparatus.
Fifth, the process of an offensive against the working class, — including rationalization of the plants and superexploitation, can _. be carried out with much greater facility than before by the big monopolies and companies. As a consequence of this, the same big outfits can upset the market in carrying out. a commercial offensive against the lower layers of the bourgeoisie itself and the middle class.
Indirectly the offensive against the workers will likewise signify an offensive against the middle class by the big concerns. For the first time in the past twenty years, the two popular classes will confront the national government, considering it as an enemy and the agent of the big monopolies.
The present sympathy of sectors of the labor movement for the student movement is symptomatic of this process. The government has overcome the historic alienation and enmity between the urban middle class and the working class, uniting them in fact into a single front against the reactionary and dictatorial government.
In short, a stage is opening in which the. working class will suffer in an immediate way: superexploitation in the plants, loss of jobs and unemployment, a high cost of living; the union activists
and the leftists will be targets of a real witch-hunt by the bosses, the government and the union bureaucracy or a sector of it; the middle class will be hit by a brutal offensive on the part of the big companies,.provoking unemployment and growing misery.
But this will not be the last word. The government and the ~big bosses have not. yet defeated the working class in this new transitional: stage. The big task of our party is to prevent this ~ defeat if it occurs, to be in the vanguard of the defensive =~ strugeles “th order to prepare a new rise of the labor movement.
FORT HOOD THREE SET FIRM