The “revolutionary days” of December 2001 represent the culmination of over two years of economic, social and political crisis in Argentina. Beginning in the wake of the “Asian crash” in 1997 the country has experienced mounting waves of class struggle, blockades of roads by the unemployed (piquetaros), eight general strikes, local uprisings, plus significant gains for the left in the November 2001 elections.
By the end of November all the classic objective conditions of a revolutionary situation had ripened – the ruling class faced political paralysis. When the IMF pulled the plug on De La Rúa’s repeated requests for loans and demanded an even more severe austerity programme, the ruling class parties proved that they were “unable to continue ruling in the old way”
At the same time, the working class, the petit-bourgeoisie, the pauperised strata of society were not prepared to tolerate an ever-worsening economic situation and yet more austerity, dictated by the IMF. The decision to freeze withdrawals of bank savings outraged the middle classes.
All the popular classes had lost confidence in the Radicals, in the Peronists and Frepaso. Not least because in a federal country, governors from these parties ruled in various town and cities and were all involved in unloading austerity and unemployment on their own electors.
Thus the masses revolted – “spontaneously”- that is, not under an organised leadership but a result of a multiplicity of initiatives from below. A 36- hour general strike closed down the country on December 13-14. The poor of the barrios, the unemployed – often led by women with their children – organised the distribution of food and began emptying the super-and hypermarkets. A de facto coalition of the middle class, the working class and the pauperised sub-proletariat came into being on the streets.
The demonstrators rapidly became convinced “they ALL had to go”. The middle classes entered the political scene, openly solidarised with the looting of the hyper-markets by the unemployed and opposed the state of emergency which took away their right to protest.
This negative rejection of the whole political establishment was powerful enough to sweep away the economic minister with special powers, Cavallo. Then De La Rúa attempted to form a national unity government with the Peronists. He was repulsed and gambled with a state of siege. Without support from the army on the streets this simply ignited the “revolutionary days” of massive militant street demonstrations in which 31 people were killed. De La Rúa was obliged to flee the Casa Rosada in a helicopter.[…]
But the masses on the streets were unable to discover or create a positive alternative to the old gang. Presidents and governments were overthrown, but no organs of a nation-wide alternative power were established. A “power vacuum” existed nationally. This reflected the political weakness of the working class, the lack of an organised expression of the workers on a national level, during the uprising against De la Rúa and in the following days.
Of course, the working class played an important role during the events – crucially in the general strike on December 13. Many workers joined in the struggles in the localities, and there were and ongoing strikes and occupations. But generally speaking, the working class joined in the actions of 19 and 20 December mainly as individuals, or specific workplaces but not as an organised force.
The overthrow of De la Rúa went as far as a spontaneous movement could go. However, this does not mean that it was just a “process”, that no political forces existed within it. It was not only the result of a series of class struggles over the last years. The working class did not enter the stage as a leading force, because of its own misleaders – the leaders of the two CGTs and the CTA, and the leadership of the piqueteros too. The social dominance of the middle classes meant that their ideological impetus was quite strong. Their anti-party sentiments led to them resisting the carrying of banners by political organisations (left parties). It has also led to opposition to the open participation of left parties in the popular assemblies.
This reflects not simply disillusionment with the corrupt bourgeois political caste, but also petty bourgeois distrust of the workers’ movement and revolutionary organisations, a feature which has been observed in all past revolutions. Anarchist confusionists will doubtless celebrate this “anti-political” stance.
Revolutionaries must consciously and openly fight against it. A de facto “ban on parties” denies the masses the opportunity to compare them and their programmes, to accept or reject them. It leaves the field wide open to demagogues, concealed “parties” and to bureaucratic cliques. The freedom and duty of parties to organise is the bedrock of workers and popular democracy
It is the political responsibility of the trade union leaderships and the leaderships of the piqueteros that no general strike took place. They actually called off a planned general strike and thereby aided the ruling class in the moment of its most severe crisis so far.
The conservative and corrupt bureaucrats of the official CGT were of one mind with the more militant and even radical leaders of the CGT Dissidente (Moyano) and the CTA (Genaro), the CCC and the national piqueteros leadership, in demobilising the working class. This was not simply a question of bureaucratic cowardice but because the bourgeois parties – to which they all have some variety of allegiance – were trying to create a government of national salvation.
The fact that the union leaders were willing, even desperate, to help them to do this reveals the seriousness of the problem of working class leadership. It gives “negative” proof of the political influence of the union bureaucracy (and via this of Peronism) in the working class. To break this influence and create a truly revolutionary workers’ party is the crucial strategic problem of the Argentine revolution.
Strategy and tactics in the December revolutionary days
In the revolutionary days, the struggle could have advanced to the creation of real dual power if the uprising were accompanied by a nation-wide, indefinite general strike.
The organs of such a strike (strike committees; coordinaciones) could have been linked nationally, combined with committees of the masses in town and countryside and could have become nation-wide organs of dual power. During these December days the central demands for revolutionaries to be fighting around were:
• The call for a general strike, road blockades, mass demonstrations.
• The organising of the mass distribution of food, occupation of workplaces attempting redundancies, the development of workers’ control and inspection including in the banks, the immediate payment of back wages, pensions and the release of savings.
• The call for the creation of councils or co-ordinations – elected at mass workers and popular assemblies in the factories, the popular quarters and the barrios. These co-ordinations would need to be progressively centralised at local, regional and at national level – in a national congress of delegates of workers and peoples’ organisations.
• The call for the creation of a militia for the defence of the demonstrations, blockades, food redistribution, strikes and workers’ districts.
• The call for a sovereign constituent assembly as a way of challenging the capitalist politicians’ manoeuvres to solve the governmental crisis behinds the backs of the people, without seeking any popular mandate. This would respond both to the widespread demand for elections and the hatred of the corrupt politicians of all parties. To make such an assembly respond to the will of the people it would need intervention and control by workers’ organisations and democratic popular bodies – in the selection of candidates, in election campaigning, in holding deputies to account for their actions, in putting the assembly under the permanent pressure of mass mobilisations to support their demands.
• The call for a revolutionary workers’ government to solve the crisis by an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist programme of transitional measure, opening the road to socialism. Such a government would have to be based on workers’ and popular councils and a militia. It could take power only by dissolving the police and winning over the rank and file soldiers to the side of the people.
• The call for a mass revolutionary workers’ party, based on the militant trade unions rank and file, the strike co-committees, the unemployed organisations, the students and youth activists.
• The call for international solidarity with the Argentine revolt as an uprising against the IMF – encouraging Latin American and indeed a worldwide revolt against the economic and political rule of imperialism, neo-liberalism and the new world order.
These key demands needed to be accompanied with agitation and propaganda for the immediate programme of revolutionary workers’ government, a set of democratic and social demands to solve the economic misery:
• Cancel the foreign debt;
• Expropriation of the large capitalist and imperialist companies, expropriation of the banks and centralisation to a national bank;
• Programme of public works, divide the hours amongst the workforce.
Central to all these is the call for workers’ control and an emergency plan to run the economy in the interest of the masses and the breaking-up of the bourgeois state apparatus (dissolve the police, smash of the army, call for rank and file committees and councils in the army, arming of the working class).
Duhalde and the next phase of the revolution
For two weeks the Argentinean bourgeoisie was in desperation. Its parties were split into warring factions. Presidents came and resigned. In early January, however, the bourgeois parties united behind a new president – the Peronist Duhalde. His government – unlike De la Rúa’s and Saá’s – was backed by all sectors of the ruling class. Furthermore, it had the support of the trade union leaders. As an “old-fashioned” Peronist Duhalde has some creditability as an non- if not an anti-neoliberal politician. He distanced himself from Menem some time ago. He makes a show of being “self-critical” of his past mistakes. He even made some “anti-imperialist” demagogic remarks, threatened some imperialist companies and countries, and promised to defend Argentine manufacturers, workers and the middle classes.
Duhalde’s government represents the attempt to derail and defeat the revolution by incorporating the labour aristocracy (via the trade union bureaucrats) and the Peronist worker and popular base in the suburbs of the large cities via the party apparatus.
The installation of the Duhalde government also proves that, faced with the threat of a socialist revolution, all the sections of the bourgeoisie unite against the masses. They prefer to “hang together” against the proletariat, the poor and the middle classes, rather than to end up “hanging separately”.
But as the pressure of the masses on the streets relaxed somewhat in January the splits in the ruling class began to open up again. Menem – as ever the voice of his masters in Washington – has made repeated criticism of Duhalde’s measures. This indicates that the divisions within Peronism were, at best, temporarily obscured. The first serious difficulties for Duhalde will open up the factional feuding again. Populist rhetoric and the broadening of the political base of the government will not solve the economic crisis, nor will it pacify the middle classes and the labour aristocracy for long when actions do not follow words. A new crisis is inevitable.
If the trade union bureaucracy is able – for an extended period – to frustrate, fragment and paralyse the mobilisation of the central core of the working class in productive industry, the transport system and the public sector, then a counter-revolutionary solution will become a possibility. But to prepare this, given the ongoing militancy of the masses, will take some time. Nevertheless, if Duhalde fails in another catastrophic breakdown of public order then the Argentinean bourgeoisie (supported by imperialism) might have to resort to new elections or even to some sort of a military-bonapartist intervention. In addition the middle classes could turn towards a strong government, even to fascistic solutions.
The only alternative – the only way to prevent this tragic outcome – is a proletarian revolution that will deliver the deserved end to imperialist exploitation and capitalist rule in the country. But for this the stranglehold of the bureaucrats must be broken. This is the alpha and the omega of the Argentine revolution. To rely on spontaneity alone to solve this problem is to gamble with the lives and livelihoods of the masses.
The imperialists are themselves divided over their response to the crisis and the Duhalde government. Some imperialists (Spain’s Aznar, some advisors of the IMF like Sachs) opt for a temporary relaxation of the debt burden for bankrupt semi-colonies. Others fear that the Argentine “school” will prove an example for other semi-colonial regimes. In addition, the large foreign investors like FIAT, but also the MNCs of other imperialist countries continue to announce closures or mass sackings.
So despite all his demagogic, populist rhetoric, Duhalde has to look for an agreement with world imperialism, in particular in order get new money into the economy. World imperialism on the other hand has, for the time being, to deal with the Duhalde government and try to realise its own interests via this government, since no other viable immediate bourgeois leadership is available.
The decisive task is now to prevent Duhalde from dividing and splitting the revolutionary movement and to bring the working class to the leadership of the movement – that is to build a revolutionary mass party of the Argentine working class. The question is not simply, whether or not Duhalde can stabilise the economy and push through certain measures. If the question of working class leadership is not solved, the non-proletarian classes and strata will look for different political leadership, or leaderships of other classes will make inroads into the impoverished strata.
Revolution is not an automatic process. The period opened up in December can only be resolved in favour or one of the main classes of society – either by the defeat of the masses and victorious counter-revolution (irrespective of the form it takes) or by the seizure of power by the working class, by a socialist revolution.
We strongly reject all objectivist and spontaneist views, ideologies and hopes. They only obscure the need to fight for proletarian leadership and against all forms of conciliation and wavering. The main obstacle to this on a national level is the influence of Peronism in the workers’ movement (via the trade unions leaderships) and amongst the urban masses. Therefore the key, interlinked questions at the moment are: How to construct organs of working class power? That is, how to build and link soviet-like bodies and build a mass revolutionary mass workers’ party?
Soviet-type bodies
The slogan for workers’ councils is a crucial one in the current situation. It has to be advanced in all partial, local, regional and national struggles occurring in the next period. Given the current situation the slogan of popular assemblies or similar multi-class bodies actually runs the danger of leaving the workers open to other class forces and populist demagogues. It is therefore essential that delegates which are responsible and recallable to the rank and file are elected in the workplaces, the departments, but also in the districts and by the unemployed associations.
To root fighting organs strongly in the working class, in the factories and shops is a means not only to bring in the social weight of the working class in the movement, it is also a means to help the workers test their current leaderships at all levels, to reject and replace the inadequate ones and chose new ones.
In the next period many bodies may arise which have the character of popular assemblies or mass meetings. Revolutionaries have to work in these bodies and help them to develop a recallable and responsible executive or leadership body. They must help the organisations from various districts to come together.
Related to this is the question of arming the workers. Today this has to be posed as the call for self-defence organisations against the state repression, but also against pro-government thugs as could be seen in the clashes between the supporters of Duhalde and the left. We also need demands to link with rank and file soldiers in the army, to break the chain of command and to create councils. But what shall all these organs be constructed for? What shall they fight for?
As Duhalde negotiates with the IMF – the general strike is still needed
The threats and the pressure for another austerity package are mounting. Revolutionaries need to keep up the agitation for a general strike. This can either make it difficult if not impossible for Duhalde to agree to the IMF’s diktats or it can greet his surrender with an explosive rejection by the entire Argentine working population. To the workers in the unions which have declared support for Duhalde we have to say: “trust without control will lead to betrayal. Organise to hold Duhalde and the union leaders to account. Look at the complete contradiction between the promises Duhalde made to the working class when he was sworn in as president and those he is already making to Bush and the IMF.”
If, or rather when, Duhalde announces another austerity budget we must force the union leaders to call a nation-wide indefinite general strike. If they will not we must “declare” one from below – from the assemblies and co-ordinations – and spread it by the example of the militant vanguard, by mass picketing out of other sectors.
When and if this takes place workers and anti-capitalists around the world must take to the streets, take strike action wherever possible, in solidarity with the resistance in Argentina. This could be the first global class struggle response to the IMF and all the forces of neo-liberalism. It can be directly linked – in most countries – to similar ongoing struggles “at home” (against privatisation, unemployment, slashing of public services, etc). Revolutionaries must keep up agitation for such a general strike, raising as key demands:
l No new IMF austerity budget!
l Renounce the entire foreign debt!
l Release all the frozen bank accounts up to $100,000!
l Nationalise the banks under control of the workers to stop capital flight!
l Release all political prisoners now!
l Nationalise under workers’ control all enterprises which go bankrupt to stop mass sackings! Nationalise the supermarket multinationals, the big farms and ranches under workers’ control and distribute food to the poor!
But even the struggle for these immediate demands will not solve the crisis. They will pose the question of economic reorganisation and mobilise the forces which can achieve it. But revolutionaries must emphasise that the solution for the crisis lies only in a workers’ government based on workers’ councils and defended by armed militias which could implement a socialist emergency programme.
The struggle for an emergency programme to solve the economic and political misery in the interests of the workers should be put forward to all workers’ organisations, unions, unemployed organisations. For a programme of socially essential public works – housing, schools, hospitals – under control of workers and popular organisations and with wage levels agreed by them!
This call has to be directed to the rank and file and the leadership in the unions and the CCC, combined with the call to break with the bourgeoisie. This is necessary not because we believe that the bureaucrats will agree – indeed unless there is enormous mass pressure on them they will reject it and even if they do agree, they will sabotage it.
But it is necessary in order to expose those who do want to fight for such a programme, or at least some of its demands.
A sovereign, revolutionary, constituent assembly
The call for a sovereign, revolutionary, constituent assembly remains an important slogan in the present situation. The continued economic and political crisis has led to continuing mass mobilisations in which the middle classes play a prominent role whilst the organised working class – particularly the industrial workers – thanks to the class collaboration of the union- have not entered the political scene in an organised fashion. As a result of this, in the series of popular assemblies which have been formed, the middle classes play a disproportionate role – at least in Buenos Aires.
The blue-collar workers are largely absent from these bodies. These popular assemblies, although they represent the growing political involvement of the masses, must not be confused with workers’ councils. The popular masses-despite their disillusion with all parties and politicians still have major democratic illusions.
Many people demand new elections because the Duhalde government called off the elections planned for March. Any new political crisis for Duhalde will raise the issue of the illegitimacy of his administration in terms of a popular mandate. In this situation the call for elections for a sovereign constituent assembly in the manner outlined above retains its validity.
However agitation for the constituent assembly alone will not solve the question of the present preponderance of the middle classes, the unemployed and the urban poor in the struggle. To turn it into a self-sufficient “democratic stage” of the revolution would be a big mistake. The first task in this period is to fight to overcome the absence of the working class from the centre of the struggle against Duhalde.
The central focus of agitation and propaganda has to come to the following conclusion: the bourgeois government is incapable of fulfilling our needs, so our struggles have to be combined and co-ordinated on a national level. We need centralised councils of the workers and the unemployed. We need a workers’ government based on these organs of struggle. Such a government must carry through to completion a socialist revolution.
The crisis of leadership and how to resolve it
The crisis of leadership, as it stands at the moment, is felt by many working class activists. The centrists and the left reformists suggest an easy looking, but politically dangerous solution to it. The “left” forces, revolutionary, centrist, reformist, should just unite. The question of the crisis of working class leadership is reduced to a simple task – “regroup” the current organisations around a reformist or centrist programme. The mortal danger of such an organisation and such a programme is that it would deprive the Argentine proletariat of a clear revolutionary alternative.
The uselessness of the centrists – PO, MAS, MST – can be seen in their confusion of mass meetings with soviet-type bodies, composed of delegates; in their regarding the constituent assembly as the basis for a workers’ government; in their failure to call clearly for self-defence organisations of the working class; in their refusal to spell out the political tasks to bring about a proletarian revolution.
It is also reflected in the sectarian bluff of the Partido Obrero which claims responsibility for leading the masses in during the “revolutionary days” and at the same time signed an unprincipled declaration with the reformists and the popular frontists of the United Left. Clearly any unity acceptable to these centrists will only mean uniting to build yet another obstacle to a revolutionary working class leadership. It would only be a contribution to the crisis of leadership not a solution to it.
The positions of the Partido de los Trabahadores por el Socialismo (PTS), advanced in the present crisis are qualitatively superior to those of the other organisations claiming to be Trotskyist in Argentina and entitle them to the active support of revolutionaries world wide.
The PTS fought from the outset of the economic crisis for a general strike to defeat and bring down the governments which sought to impose the hunger policies of the IMF on Argentina. In the December crisis they correctly raised the slogan of a sovereign constituent assembly over which the working people should exercise the maximum control through democratic mass organisations.
They have argued consistently for an action programme of transitional and immediate demands leading to the revolutionary conquest of power by the proletariat and all the exploited and oppressed. They have fought to promote the building and extension of workplace and popular assemblies and committees of elected and recallable delegates. They have also argued for a workers’ government based on such bodies, in particular upon a national workers and popular assembly.
In short the PTS has put forward the fundamental elements of a revolutionary strategy for the Argentine revolution. Nevertheless they have remained clear that the PTS cannot simply proclaim itself already to be the revolutionary party that the Argentine working class needs. But it is playing a key role in fighting for such a party.
The PTS calls on all militant working class and popular forces to come together to create a mass revolutionary workers party. The PTS is fighting for this party to adopt a revolutionary transitional programme and to play a role internationally in fighting for a revolutionary International, which the PTS believes will be the refounding of Trotsky’s Fourth International.
With all of these positions the LRCI is in fundamental agreement. For these reasons the LRCI has done all in its power to both intensify its discussions with the PTS and its fraternal organisations in Latin America (the FraccÃon Trotskista) and to make its positions known in the world working class and revolutionary movement.
We are continuing discussions with the PTS and FT comrades in the hope of resolving remaining tactical differences (e.g. on exactly how to break the unions from Duhalde and the PJ, who should the call for a revolutionary workers party be focussed on, whether or not the use of the workers’ party tactic is appropriate in Argentina).
Whilst we and the PTS/FT agree on the need for the refounding of a revolutionary international and that this must be both Leninist and Trotskyist, we in the LRCI are not in agreement that this requires the slogan of the refoundation of the Fourth International.
Nevertheless as we have said for 20 years, we would never allow this secondary issue to obstruct the search for programmatic agreement. What matters is the programme we advance for a new international and the commitment to build it on democratic centralist lines as a world party of socialist revolution.
We believe that the lessons of the Argentine revolution, along with the resistance to the US and British imperialism’s “war on terrorism” are an essential starting point for the rallying of revolutionary forces worldwide and we invite all those organisations who consider that they are in broad agreement with the positions contained in this resolution to enter into the discussion process with us.
The LRCI’s views on the workers’ party tactic
If revolutionaries are striving with the utmost seriousness and determination for working class power – for the dictatorship of the proletariat – then both soviets and a revolutionary party are absolutely essential. Soviets are not enough on their own because without a revolutionary party they will be incorporated and/or dissolved. The party is the essential means for achieving power.
But the “need for the party” cannot remain an abstract slogan, included in lists of demands but no more. Revolutionaries must have concrete tactics to bring this about which they put into operation amongst the masses. They must warn in the clearest and sharpest terms that this is a life and death question for the vanguard fighters of all the sectors of the struggle. That unless it is made a reality by the masses – not just by small propaganda nuclei of “Trotskyists”- then the revolution will go down to defeat.
Some concrete tactic has to be developed to make it possible for the advanced workers in all sectors of the struggle to form units of an independent class party of the proletariat, to thrash out a revolutionary action programme for working class power which it will fight for. The arithmetical growth of a revolutionary propaganda group of a few hundreds is highly unlikely to achieve this in time.
Nor will a “regroupment” of those who call themselves “revolutionaries” or “Trotskyists” be any better. Indeed it will be much worse because it will lead the revolutionaries straight into the opportunist swamp. Such a fusion can only be realised on less than revolutionary programme. This would not strengthen the revolutionary forces but fatally weaken them. It would prove a rotten block, breaking down at the first serious challenge. It would blunt the edge of revolutionary criticism precisely when it was most needed.
A revolutionary crisis is the worst of all conditions for a block between revolutionaries and centrists. Real Bolshevism requires complete intransigence towards those claiming to be revolutionaries but who do not have a consistent revolutionary strategy. At the same time it requires the boldest and broadest use of the united front towards the mass organisations of the working class and its potential allies
Alternatively, it could lead to the formation of a “revolutionary united front” as proposed by the MST. This latter is in fact sectarian in that its is too narrow to reach out to the best class fighters, to the vanguard of the class, which consists of hundreds of thousands.
For this reason we believe that it is possible to call on the fighting organisations of the working class including the trade unions to set about convening local and national conferences to form a workers’ party on a revolutionary action programme. This struggle has to be combined with the struggle to build a rank and file movement in the unions which can oust the bureaucrats and replace them with militant fighters.
All working class activists, all militant trade unionists, all youth and student activists, whole workplace organisations, organisations of the unemployed, should rally together, and break their links with the bourgeois parties. This process needs to be open to all workers’ organisations, be they political or trade union. It is a struggle for class independence. It is a struggle to break the unions from all forms of affiliation to or alliance with the PJ, Frepaso and the Radicals and from all projects of a popular front, or class collaborationist character.
This fight could begin by the more militant workers and unemployed organisations in specific areas deciding to run “workers candidates” in any election called – debating out the action programme for such a candidate, the form of political organisation on which it should be based.
The Argentine workers’ movement must have its own mass political party capable of fighting and defeating the parties and the state machine of the Argentine bourgeoisie and imperialism. The workers need a party which can lead the entire class and which can successfully smash the political influence of Peronism. This is not a distant task but an immediate one.
This is no less the case even if it is not spontaneously in the consciousness of the masses. It is absolutely necessary to fight for such a workers’ party to be a revolutionary one from the very start. Such a call would also be addressed to the centrist organisations and, wherever they are moving in a revolutionary direction, include concrete agreements to work together to achieve it.
This tactic is in essence that which Engels advocated in Britain in 1881 and Trotsky advocated in the late 1930s for the USA. It is aimed at winning the mass vanguard of working class fighters away from “non-political” economism and syndicalism and/or attachment to bourgeois parties , in struggle, using their own existing organisations, and “discovering” a programme en route.
Given that the call for a new mass workers’ party relates directly to the experience, the sentiment and the needs of the vanguard workers who are not in the existing left organisations, it will find a very positive resonance and be a central tactical weapon to build a revolutionary l