(Militant No. 231, 15 November 1974, p. 4-5)
Arm the workers against reaction
A few months before his death on 1st July, Perón, speaking of the challenge to his government from the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants declared to a delegation of Young Peronists … “If we do not have the law we shall do it outside the law and do it violently”. By “it” Perón meant the forcible elimination of this danger to him and the capitalists and landlords which his regime was brought to power to defend. Perón did not live to see his words translated into deeds. But his widow and the present President of Argentina, Isabel Perón, is more than fulfilling his prophecy.
In the last few months she has presided over an unbridled wave of terror which has been unleashed against workers, students and even liberals. Since Perón’s death over 130 political assassinations have taken place – in September there was one such murder every 19 hours.
Most of the victims have been left wing trade unionists, student leaders, left wing Young Peronists and Marxists. Many workers’ leaders have been assassinated, some on trade union premises.
The perpetrators of the bulk of these crimes is the “Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance” (AAA). The capitalist press has reported that the AAA have used police credentials in order to gain entry to the premises of workers’ organisations.
This would present no difficulties as it is obvious that the AAA is the police – the ‘ordinary’ and political sections – under another name! It is clear that these fascist criminals have the support of Isabel Perón and her Government.
Thus the hated López Rega – her closest adviser – recently gave his blessing, through his weekly paper Semana Politica to the grisly murders of the AAA …
“We don’t know who the 3As are, but it is obvious that their activities have in the last few days disarmed the leadership of extreme Left groups” (quoted in the English Guardian/La Monde weekly 26/10/74).
Apart from assassinations the AAA has issued “death lists” and demanded that those named should leave the country or be murdered.
These lists have included Congressmen who are not voting in “the right way”, film producers, actors and sportsmen like the boxer Carlos Monzón. One Congressman, for his protection, took up residence with his whole family in the Congress building itself.
The police and state terror against the workers’ organisations is the culmination of a stormy revolutionary period which preceded and followed Perón’s return after an 18 year exile. The Argentine ruling class decided to restore Perón to power as a means of checking the magnificent movement of the working class in the last six years. This period has seen an unparalleled offensive of the workers and peasants against the military dictatorship.
The generals had been confronted by strikes, general strikes and street battles between the working class and the police and army. In the major industrial city of Cordoba virtual insurrections took place in 1969 and 1971. But the Argentine working class was still under the political spell of the exiled Perón.
Peronism
The explanation of this is to be found in the history of Peronism and particularly the period when he was in power between 1954-55.
His Government in this period was a Bonapartist one – a military police dictatorship.
Bonapartism is – in the words of Karl Marx – a government of “rule by the sword”, when the state is enabled to rise above the classes and Parliament and attain a relative independence by balancing between the classes. Perón’s regime rested on the workers and peasants.
He initiated important reforms by legalising the trade unions, nationalising industries controlled by imperialism like the transport system and the telephones. He introduced a land reform as well. These measures, while striking blows at the landlords and capitalists still left their power intact.
In the final analysis he feared the movement of the masses more than the opposition of the capitalist and landlords whom he represented. This was shown clearly by his refusal to arm the masses in the period preceding his overthrow in 1955 when it was obvious that the Generals were preparing a coup.
Perón was only able to initiate his reform programme because of the world economic situation which followed the Second World War – when there was a sellers market for Argentina’s meat, wheat, wood etc. Nevertheless the memory of those reforms were engraved on the minds of the Argentine working class and accounted for the mass support for Peronism
But the situation which preceded his return was entirely different. Argentina was wracked by dire economic and political problems and bitter divisions between the classes which were reflected within the Peronist Movement itself.
Under the pressure of the revolutionary upsurge the military junta was forced to concede elections for the Presidency in which the “officially approved” candidate Héctor Cámpora won in March of last year.
This was taken as a signal by the masses for an offensive. Factories, radio stations, universities, schools, even hospitals and other workplaces were occupied by the workers. The peasants and landless labourers clamoured for a land reform which would eliminate the power of the legendary 200 families who own 40% of the land.
The masses therefore attempted to put Cámpora’s programme into effect. Thus Cámpora promised an amnesty for political prisoners. On May 26th, 50,000 workers and students assembled before the Villa Devoto prison demanding the release of imprisoned workers.
The same day an amnesty was declared and 371 political prisoners were released! The situation was similar to the events which followed the election of the Popular Front Government in Spain in 1936.
The landlords and capitalists panicked before this movement – the beginning of the Argentine revolution. Barely four months after the election of Cámpora, Person was wheeled out of his 18 year exile to be used as a brake on the movement of the masses.
But not even Perón’s “magic” was capable of reconciling the Peronist workers with the Peronist landlords and capitalists – nor the rank and file trade unionists with the bureaucratic trade union leadership.
From the first step that Perón took on Argentinian soil his Justicialista Party began to split along class lines.
The unbridgeable gulf between the Young Peronists – who had borne the brunt of the struggle against the military dictators and supplied most of the “Peronists martyrs” and the tops of the Justicialista movement was shown on June 20th 1973 at the airport gathering to welcome Perón.
Hundreds of Young Peronists were killed and wounded by hired gangsters. Their crime had been to chant for a “Socialist Fatherland”!
But the Young Peronists experienced a spectacular growth following Perón’s return. They organised “mass fronts” – powerful organisations – amongst young (JTP) the students (IJUP) and secondary school students (UES).
Perón himself put their support at “no more” than 10% of the 7 million who voted for him in the Presidential elections i.e. 700,000! This represented a colossal force which, won to and organised on a clear Marxist programme and perspective could have very quickly led to the victory of the Argentinian revolution.
Although Perón’s return coincided with a favourable market for Argentina’s meat which accounts for 25% of the country’s exports, at the same time a number of factors combined to ensure that he faced a radically different situation than in the post war period. The country’s two biggest customers Italy and Britain, because of economic difficulties cut back their purchases of meat.
No dramatic increase in livestock or wheat production was possible because of the system of land ownership; with land left idle because it suited the big landowners. Perón’s Government dared not challenge the power of the landlords, inextricably bound up with the capitalists and a pillar of the regime.
The demand for land reform from the landless labourers met the retort from the big landlords “They are only lumbering elephants who are incapable of thinking”. The landlords, in collaboration with speculators supplied meat to the black market because the Government’s fixed price for meat was “too low”.
The property-owners left 150,000 flats empty as a deliberate defiance of the law limiting rents. This at a time when more than a million workers crowded into the shanty towns around Buenos Aires – the aptly-named “villas miserias”!
Perón was completely incapable of satisfying the aroused expectations of the masses. He was forced more and more to act as the open representative of the capitalists and landlords as he tired desperately to rein-in the movement of the masses. His earlier demagogic assaults on “imperialism” gave way to vitriolic attacks on “Left extremism” both inside and outside the ranks of Peronism
He was undoubtedly helped in the task of bridling the movement of the masses by the continuation of the urban guerrilla campaign of kidnappings, assassinations etc., by the People’s Revolutionary Army (ERP).
The ERP is undoubtedly composed of self-sacrificing opponents of the Argentine ruling class. But the road to Hell is paved with good intentions! Their methods have in no way advanced the cause of the Argentine workers’ movement.
On the contrary like the Tupamaros who paved the way for an army coup in Uruguay, in the long run they are unwittingly supplying reaction with the excuse they need to behead the Argentine Labour Movement.
The ERP have claimed, in the past, to follow the ideas of Leon Trotsky. Yet Russian Marxism – of which Lenin and Trotsky were the greatest leaders – began as a political trend in a stubborn fight against the proponents of individual terror.
They opposed individual terrorism, not on pacifist grounds, but because it was incapable of defeating the Tsarist autocracy and actually allowed far worse state terror to be employed against the workers’ movement.
In the final analysis the individual terrorist is like the liberal – both believe that their individual efforts can effect change – the one with the bomb and gun and the other with a Ministerial Portfolio.
Marxism counterposes to this the conscious movement of the working class to change society. It will be the workers themselves who will make the socialist revolution. The task of Marxists is to assist the workers to become conscious of their power.
The individual terrorist acts apart from and substitutes himself for the masses. The ERP “liberated” the capitalists of a reputed £12 million – ransoms received from kidnapping – and also distributed goods and food to the poor. But in the end this merely teaches the working class to rely on a small band of heroes to liberate them from above.
In this sense – if successful – it would merely reconcile the masses to their so-called “helplessness”. This merely complements the work of the capitalists who cultivate the idea that the working class is powerless before them.
But the most crushing argument against the ideas of individual terrorism is the Russian Revolution itself. It was not individual terror but the arming of the mass of the workers and peasants and their mobilisation on a clear class and internationalist programme which resulted in the victory of the revolution.
After the revolution “mass terror” – workers and peasants militias together with the Red Army etc. – was used to hold down the former exploiters and to repel the intervention of the armies of Imperialism.
Acts of individual terror also allow reaction the excuse for taking measures not just against the “terrorists” but also against the Labour Movement by murdering workers’ leaders and also by the introduction of reactionary legislation.
Argentina provides a perfect example of this kind of situation.
Apart from the AAA using the ERP’s campaign as ‘justification’ for its systematic campaign of murder and assassinations the Peronist Government has also been able to introduce “emergency” legislation – supposedly aimed against “terrorism” – but in reality directed against the organised Labour Movement.
Thus the Government has been able to introduce a bill which allows for penalties “for offences against the State in the field of illegal labour disputes and strikes”. Already warrants are out for the arrest of left wing union leaders like René Salamanca and Augustín Tosco. Their organisation, the car workers’ union has been placed under the control of the Minister of Labour!
The ERP leadership – engaged in single combat with reaction over the heads of the masses – has obviously begun to have a glimmer of understanding of the whirlwind which has been reaped from their campaign. Thus it has recently declared that it “was disposed to an armistice on condition that 1) all political prisoners were freed 2) repressive legislation was repealed and 3) the decree outlawing the ERP be revoked”.
There is no way that these demands can be implemented except by a successful movement of the workers and peasants against the Isabel Perón Government.
If the ERP were to play any role in this it would mean the abandonment of the present guerrilla struggle and a turn towards mass action and the workers’ organisations. The reaction and their armed detachments obviously hope that the ERP campaign will continue. They can then persist in crushing the workers’ organisations.
The only way to stop the bloody work of the AAA is by organising a workers’ militia – a trade union defence force – to defend all workers organisations, their premises and public meetings.
It is a shameful fact that the so-called Communist Party of Argentina – and in Britain – have not clearly raised this demand nor begun a campaign to organise the workers to resist effectively the AAA.
The Morning Star – organ of the British CP – carried an article on 23rd September, which gave the details of the AAA and their connections with the CIA …
“The CIA’s objective was to set up extreme right wing para-military groups in countries like Argentina which were struggling for liberation … in a communiqué (the AAA claimed) it had killed five left-wing Peronists since July 29 and would kill 12 more … the communiqué was issued soon after … an 18 year old building workers’ leader Luis Jesus Garcia had been murdered.”
The jeering comment of the AAA was also carried … “Five down already and the lefties will go on falling wherever they are.”
Yet there is not one word about how their “brother party” together with the Argentine workers can counter the AAA assassins. They understand their “fraternal” task as merely to publish details of reaction’s bloody work – like any capitalist journal – without suggesting, as an international duty, a way of meeting this threat.
Contrast this with the instinctive understanding of some of the young workers in the Peronist youth who see that the arming of the workers and peasants is the way to defeat reaction. Thus last year Rodolfo Galimberti – leader of the Peronist Youth – called for the formation of an armed “popular militia” to prevent another revolt of the generals. This infuriated Perón and he called for – and got – the resignation of Galimberti from his position.
Four months after Perón’s death the Argentine revolution is at the crossroads. Reaction seems to be in the ascendant. But the workers organisations still remain largely intact. Some of the illusions in Peronism amongst the masses have been dispelled by the blatant attempt of Perón before his death (and, following in his footsteps, his widow) to carry out the orders of the landlords and capitalists to disarm and crush the workers’ organisations.
This was shown clearly at this year’s May Day demonstration addressed by Perón. He attacked the left wing as “stupid, treacherous and mercenary” 30,000 Young Peronists who made up half of Perón’s audience, left the meeting in protest!
Veteran Peronists in the “Agrupación de Peronistas” (APA) in a communiqué nine days later came out in solidarity with the young Peronists, criticising Perón for his abuse and reminding him that “it was not only the young ones but that there were thousands of mature men and women who also think like the young ones and who are not in agreement with many things that have happened”.
The Peronist workers – particularly the young workers – during Perón’s tenure of power shifted dramatically towards the Left. Perón tried to counter their influence by a number of punitive measures.
The Young Peronist leaders were expelled from the Executive Committee of the Justicialista Party. In October of last year Peronist leaders declared that “all branches which had not been officially authorised by the Party (such as those in high schools and among workers) were to be considered as outside the Peronist Movement”.
This was a clear attempt to undermine the influence of the Peronist young workers and high school students on the Peronist trade unionists.
The magnificent working class youth assembled in the Young Peronists are groping towards a class and Marxist position. But in the wake of Perón’s death and the terror which the Peronist capitalist leadership has deployed against them, “terroristic” moods have undoubtedly been engendered.
Thus the Peronist Montonero guerrillas have recently returned to the underground “guerrilla struggle”, although the leaders of the political wing of the Young Peronists subsequently declared that they “were neither going into clandestinity not to take up arms … (we) are politically organised and unarmed”
Peronist Youth
However the continuation of the AAA campaign is bound to lead many of the Peronist Youth, thirsting for revenge against this fascist gang back to the blind alley of individual terror – unless the Marxists reach them with their programme and perspective. The only way to call the AAA assassins to account is by eliminating the system that breeds them.
Those working class martyrs who have fallen can only be avenged by destroying landlordism and capitalism through the socialist revolution!
Arm the Workers – Create a Workers’ Militia as the only defence against a fascist attack!
Organise workers, students, peasants soldiers and sailors councils! Drive the bureaucratic stooges of the Isabel Perón Government out of the unions by democratising them on a programme of election of all officials, right of recall, no official to receive more than the average wage of a skilled worker!
Create a real workers’ party pledged to the demand for the nationalisation of the monopolies, the banks and insurance companies. Land to the tillers!
With this programme and a Marxist perspective of turning towards the workers in the unions and factories the Young Peronists could become a mighty lever for the socialist transformation of Argentina. With the support they already have they could very quickly reach the mass of the working class, stop reaction in its tracks and prepare a mass offensive against the capitalists and landlords.
But if the Marxists fail to reach and convince the Young Peronists in time on the basis of this programme a terrible fate awaits the working class and poor peasants of the country. The AAA are merely pace-makers for another army coup along the lines of Chile.
The “state of siege” declared by the government on 6 November is only one step removed from complete martial law. This measure allows the “security forces” to arrest suspects at will, hold them without trial, banish them to remote corners of the country and in addition gives them the right to ban public meetings.
And fascist reaction in Argentina can put even the butchers of the Chilean people in the shade. Thus a fascist Peronist magazine El Caudillo recently said …
“To those who argue that a million people died in the Spanish Civil War, we reply; this country can do without a million Argentinians”!
This is a chilling reminder of the nightmare which will face the Argentinian masses unless they complete their revolution against landlordism and capitalism.
The victory of the Argentinian Revolution would also mean the collapse of other dictators which plague the continent. It would detonate revolutionary explosions in all the countries of Latin America, lead to the Socialist Federation of the Continent and have an electrifying effect on all the exploited throughout the world.
Socialist Federation
It is for this reason that Pinochet of Chile, the Geisel dictatorship in Brazil. Banzer in Bolivia and their military cohorts in other countries of Latin America tremble before the prospect of victory of the Argentinian workers and peasants. It is for the same reason – but with diametrically opposite hopes – that politically aware British workers follow with keen interest the progress of the Argentinian workers’ struggle, offer assistance – political and material – if necessary – and look forward to the socialist revolution – the only hope for freedom from hunger and misery for the poor of Argentina.
By Peter Taaffe
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