Re: AUT: Argentina: Diary of a Revolution

["Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Scott Hamilton" <s_h_hamilton@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <aut-op-sy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: 29. januar 2003 01.39
Subject: Re: AUT: Argentina: Diary of a Revolution



> It is sad that we have to have a debate on this list
> over whether it is possible or even desirable to make
> revolution in Argentina in the short-term.

Desireable does not always translate into possible -- or
as I would prefer to put it -- a likely prospect. But
to remind you of the tired old line repeated in one of
your recommned forwarded texts -- revoltion is not today
possible in Argnetina due to the lack of the Party. Or
have you rejected this "truth"?
        This said, the situation is still very open, and no-
one can know for sure what developments tomorrow
might bring. I  tend to believe that the devolpements
outside of Argnetina in case would be decisive.

You write: "To argue that Argentina can now hope to
establish economic independence,  ..."  Nobody else
than you have argued this. I cannot say I am surprised
that you are not aware of this. That the world is a bit
larger than Argentina implies certain both subjective
(psycologically) and economical constraints. The
looming war against Iraq also casts a shadow that
I am sure is also felt in Argentina.

The project of a social revolution is hardly something that
is born from one day to another. I takes time to mature
both in depth and more important today than ever in
geographical and econmical extension. With a similar
deveopments as Argentina in Brazil and Chile whole new
possibilities would open up. Even if South and Central-
America are better prepared is some respects than most
parts of the world, the continued influence of a Leninst;
Castroist, Peronist etc  legacies, also suggests that
there is still way to go.

I will not enter into the discussion of the possibility or not
of "left-wing reforms" -- whatever that is exactly supposed
to mean -- within the great range of countries you simply
reduce to the big bag "semi-colonies," a term -- at least
when translated into some ahistorical everpresent iron law --
quite useful  to nourish that great legacy of leftist uncritical
thinking. Though Argentina have seen some such "left-
wing reforms" in the past, and so might even a country as
Sri Lanka -- despite a long civil war -- be said
to have seen,  measured in things such as infant mortiality
and literacy rates. But workers gaining greater power over
their lives is far from indentical to "left-wing reforms."
Not too seldom they even become a means to undermine
such power, which again in the long run will tend to
undermine those "left-wing reforms". If you take Scandinavia
as an example -- the greatest level of working class
power might have said to be roughly in 19101920ies and
30ies, the higest  level of of "left-wing reforms" in the
1950ies and 60ies, and from then on a ecalating erosion
of working class power.

I might end by saying that I veiw what we have seen in Argentina
as one of the most promising developments we have seen
in the post-world War II period. Hopefully it will also be
contagious. In all circumstances all teh concrete expereriences
made are very valuable ( and far more interesting than talking
about Menseheviks in relation to contemporary reality.)

Harald


Once again,
> some members of autopsy seem to lag behind the workers
> on the ground in a revolutionary situation.
>
> Mass workers' organisations capable of making
> revolution clearly already exist in Argentina.
> Subjectively and objectively, the Second National
> Assembly of Employed and Unemployed Workers
> constituted a 'Soviet of Soviets' capable of taking
> power. The struggle, and the arguments inside the
> workers' movement in Argentina, is over the strategy
> these mass organisations should take in their quest
> for workers' power, not over whether or not they
> should take power. It is this struggle that is
> documented in 'Argentina: what happened to the
> revolution?'. Even the left bureaucrats that this
> article criticises as blocks to the revolution call
> for workers' power - they sell their strategies (ie
> the call for a Constituent Assembly) on the basis that
> they will facilitate workers' power.
>
> Can the Argentineans really gain greater feedom within
> global capitalism, or do they have to get rid of
> capitalism to win even basic improvements in their
> standard of life? This question, of the potential of
> capitalism today to provide sufficient dynamism to
> fund left-wing reforms in the semi-colonies, is really
> a fundamental one which divides this list and the
> international left on issue after issue - on
> Palestine, East Timor, South Africa...it is the
> question that divides reformsit from revolutionary,
> Porto Alegre from revolutionary international.
>
> Thos who answer 'yes' to our question seem very
> reluctant ever to get down the nitty gritty of
> actually stating how a material basis for left reforms
> might be created in the semi-colonies. How does Harald
> imagine that the Argentineans might be able to gain
> more power over their lives within the framework of
> global capitalism? The whole history of their country
> speaks against this possibility. When capitalism was
> enjoying its longest twentieth century boom, the
> Argentineans made great efforts to establish a
> national capitalism based around protected domestic
> markets for a new industrial sector. Yet, despite its
> huge earnings for primary produce after WW2 and the
> protections tariffs afforded, Argentina still failed
> to break out of its semi-colonial status and become
> economically independent. When the long boom ended at
> the end of the 60s and the US started to move to shore
> up its own economy by breaking into protected
> semi-colonial markets Argentina (like New Zealand)
> began its long fall. To argue that Argentina can now
> hope to establish economic independence, when the
> global economy has suffered a 30 year failure to
> restore the long boom and is heading for a possible
> 30s-style depression, is surely extremely utopian,
> much more utopian than the call by the second national
> assembly of workers for a workers' revolution.
>






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