Re: Forwarded from Anthony (bourgeois nationalism)

[Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

[ from Nestor, Part I ]

En relación a Forwarded from Anthony (bourgeois nationalism), el 21
Apr 01, a las 10:10, Louis Proyect dijo:

> Moreno on the other hand made a worse error when he did not defend
> Peron in 1945 or 6, but learned from it, and defended Peron in
> 1954. Moreno and the POR 's expereince are probably the most
> interesting - since they were actually in the countries' where the
> action was taking place. Anthony

Moreno NEVER defended Peronism. His 1954 (in fact, 1951) experience,
as Anthony calls it, was an attempt to de-Peronize Peronist workers
from within. His was a _classic_, an example for a textbook, in "sepoy
anti-imperialism" (1).

One should not be impressed by this, since although ideas and
doctrines have a dialectics of their own, they DO express tendencies
in the real society.  Moreno's current expressed resiliency of
pro-imperialist conceptions (those generated by the old Socialist
Party of Juan B. Justo) in the state of consciousness of the urban
petty bourgeoisie, shortly before it broke and dissolved into the
"nationalization of the middle classes"of the 60s and 70s.  This kind
of consciousness is the kernel of his "super-leftist" approach.

Moreno's tendency and position was established on his "El Grupo Cuarta
Internacional (G.C.I.), agente ideológico del peronismo en el
movimiento obrero", published as issues 7 and 8 of the "Revolución
Permanente" magazine, the "órgano teórico-político del Partido Obrero
Revolucionario (POR), on November 1951.

Moreno's text was _formally_ directed against the Posadists (the GCI
was their name by those years), and it established a _centrist_
position which, in fact, deformed and mirrored (though in a degraded
way) the ones advanced in 1945 by the _Frente Obrero_ group where the
Izquierda Nacional began. But his actual opponents were the _Frente
Obrero_ group.

Why then, to attack poor Posadas and not his actual opponent? Because
since this group had been the _only_ one which had defended the
Argentinean proletariat against the oligarchic encirclement based on
the petty bourgeois masses, they had been declared non-existent for
"politically correct" Leftists in Argentina, 1950s. So that if Moreno
wanted to polemicize with them, then he had to act "as if" he was
polemicizing with the Posadists. In so doing he was already showing
his subservience to the whole structure of pro-imperialist mental
colonization that affected the fraction of society where he recruited
most of his followers, the petty bourgeoisie of Buenos Aires.

Thus, his original text gave a "leftist" voice to the anti-Peronist
prejudices of the petty bourgeois, and their hysteric rejection of the
1945 mass movements and their consequences. In this sense, the essay
(which from the point of view of theory is less than modest) is very
useful to characterize a good host of Argentinean (and Latin American
and, as I discovered recently, even Serbian) petty bourgeois
"super-leftists" who are always on the opposite side of the street
when the time comes to struggle against imperialism (2).

Moreno was a practical politician. As such, he and his followers saw
all their predictions destroyed once and again by the strong blow of
concrete history.  This is why the theoretic work was given to Peña,
who worked in "pure theory" while Moreno and his POR (or any of the
subsequent names it had) developed the "practical tactics", a much
less pure position. Moreno did not rely on capturing lessons from
reality and thus modify his views. He instead modified in an empirical
way a host of conclusions without any revision of his theoretical
premises, premises which in fact constitute the kernel of
Morenoism. If this doublespeak were not enough to prove that this
tendency was the expression of a system of ideas that had been ran
over by reality, I don't know what it was.

But this division lay far ahead in the future when, in 1951, Moreno
wrote his seminal essay. The POR could still aspire at some congruence
between theory and practice. Moreover, they boldly extracted the full
consequences of their positions. This is why it is good to start with
Moreno's ideas of 1951.

The basic point of departure is the identification of national
bourgeoisie with imperialism. "Point of departure" may be misleading,
by the way, since what we are witnessing is an operation of logical
reversion: the theoretical premises are not grounding a conclusion,
but the conclusion is providing ground to the theoretical
premises. The objective is to justify from a "leftist" point of view
the struggle against Peronism, not to conclude from a coherent Marxist
point of view that Peronism must be attacked.

Lest the above be considered mere rant, allow me to dive into the
ideas exposed by Moreno in 1951. Perhaps we would all rather dive in
the Caribbean, but, well, this is not the duty we have to face
now. Sorry.

The first theoretical finding by Moreno is that against what was
predicted by what he calls the "bourgeois economists" who believe in a
"cold de- imperialization" as a result of world crises, the general
crisis of imperialism "far from turning the unity of the capitalist
world any weaker" [please remember we are talking of 1951] has
"accelerated the unification of the capitalist world. Bourgeoisies in
backwards countries are increasingly welded to imperialism in
economic, social and political terms, in spite of occasional
skirmishes on the redistribution of surplus value ... These skirmishes
do not make the united front of imperialism and national bourgeoisie
any weaker, on the contrary it makes this front ever stronger".

Thus, Moreno adscribes to his opponents, that is the Izquierda
Nacional, the idea that it is possible to break links with imperialism
by a "cold way" and not by revolutioanry means, only because they do
not believe in Kautsky's (not Lenin's, as can be read on his Foreword
to Bukharin's book on imperialism) theory according to which crises
"make the general unity of the capitalist world stronger". Not my
inference: this is exactly what Moreno blames his _formal_ opponent
the GCI for: "GCI believes that the crisis acts in a mechanical way in
the sense of achieving complete independence of backwards countries
and national bourgeoisies, by the cold way of economic development,
from imperialism".

Mixing all the "rich ones" (as Juan B. Justo, the master of
Argentinean sepoy socialism, used to say) in a single category of
"bourgeois", thus elliminating concrete differences as to forms of
production, relations of property and source of income, Moreno then
goes on and explains that while the "great landowners" are -as "every
bourgeois and imperialist economist explains"- the fraction of the
"bourgeoisie" that has always clashed with American imperialism, "the
Argentinean industrial bourgeoisie is in the best relations with
American imperialism", because this is the only source of capital,
machinery, raw material, spare parts that this bourgeoisie can obtain,
in the best conditions, after World War II. This imperialism "offers
the industrial bourgeoisie of the riverine areas [Litoral", meaning
the Santa Fe-Rosario- Buenos Aires line along the Parana River, NG]
great possiblities for industrial development", which Moreno supports
by quoting the State Department and a publication funded and
controlled by the British Intelligence services in Argentina, the
_Economic Survey_ of 1942.

Thus, in order to justify his anti-Peronism, Moreno -in 1951,
remember!- expressed exactly the same idea that later on was to be
taken to its full consequences by --the developmentists and the
Alliance for Progress! If "even under the conditions of war" the
United States "helped" (_verbatim_ from Moreno) Latin American
bourgeoisies with industrial machinery, why wouldn't they do the same
_after_ the war? This was the project of the developmentists,
particularly in their Argentinean impersonation, Messrs. Arturo
Frondizi and Rogelio Frigerio among others.

Please note that whatever one's face is when uttering the nasty phrase
"American imperialism", if one is convinced that imperialism _can_
help to develop the national bourgeoisies in Latin America, the face
hides a conviction that imperialism has a _positive_, not a
_negative_, role to fulfill here: the development of productive
forces... Not my opinion, but Moreno's, who explicitly stressed that
as against French or British imperialism, American imperialism does
not export _primarily_ capitals, but "products that are essential for
industrial development".

Same attitude towards financial capital. Although he reluctantly
admits that financial capital "makes benefits with industrial
development" of Argentina, Moreno does not allow the bird to fly out
of the cage, and kneels down before the positive effect of this
injection: "War and its aftermath have put in motion a process of
advancement for the industrial bourgeoisie and American imperialism;
both are in intimate relationship, because the former requires the
capitals, the raw matters, and the means of production that only the
latter can give them, while American imperialism, not essentially a
"buyer" imperialism such as the European one, but a "seller" one";
thus both clash against the "seller" bourgeoisie in the backwards
country". Translation: Argentinean industrial bourgeoisie, which can
only get its funds and machinery in the United States, and American
imperialism, share a common goal against the landed oligarchy (the
"seller" bourgeoisie) and European imperialism --the industrialization
of Argentina!!!!(3)

Thus, in Argentina, 1951, only the landowners were
anti-Americans. Thus, when Peron confronted Braden in 1945 he was NOT
an expression of the resistence of national and popular forces against
colonialism, NOR of a will of economic independence, political
sovereignty or social justice (as expressed by Peronism's "three
flags"): he simply expressed the pressure of the most retardatarian
class in the Argentinean formation.

This theory does not stem from any form of Marxism, but from the
consciousness of the petty bourgeois of the city of Buenos Aires,
nurtured in the oligarchic vision of the Argentinean past. It is
directly linked with the thesis by the arch-oligarchic Bartolomé Mitre
of the progressive role of British capital.  This thesis was taken up
_in toto_, and provided a "Marxist" format, by the "teacher" of all
these sepoy socialists, Dr. Juan B. Justo, who explained that the
Federal guerrillas of the 19th. century represented a feudal reaction
insurrected against capitalist progress, represented by the British
merchants and the oligarchs of Buenos Aires. "Barbarism versus
civilization", writ short.  The only difference between Justo and
Moreno is that Moreno is hypocritical in 1951, and instead of writing
down "civilization", he writes down "American imperialism". But the
basic axis of ideas is already set.

When he has to understand the Argentinean scenario of 1945, Moreno
explicitly resorts to what he defines as "an expert in Argentinean
economy who works for American imperialism", and approves the theory
by Felix Weil (_The Argentine Riddle_), according to which Argentinean
landowners had supported the June 4th coup because they were already
convinced that Argentinean industrialization could not be stopped, and
resorted to a military coup in order to make the best out of a bad
situation, controlling the path of industrialization by means of a
military dictatorship.

Moreno, who repeats this quote at least once, relies essentially on
this _American imperialist_ view of Argentinean development. For him,
as well as for any imperialist ideologue, the colonized is unable to
act by herself or himself, nor can their flags have any legitimacy of
their own. For the colonizer and his vision of things, "natives" are
not able to have interests of their own and to give an original
expression of those interests. Thus, politics in a given semicolony
can _only_ be explained by the local clash of "world" interests, that
is of ideas and interests that are located _outside_, that have been
_imported_. The feat of Moreno is to (clumsily, let us admit this) put
a "Marxist" robe on all this raw matter.

Instead of applying his Marxism to the words of Felix Weil (thus
bringing to light the kernel of class interests behind them), Moreno
takes them as an idol, and reverently repeats them once and again. He
follows Weil even in the most absurd of his predictions: "Since
nationalist tendencies in Latin America are inevitable and they will
weaken British domination, Britain would apparently be rejoiced with
an Argentinean domination of the South American bloc ... in the hope
to have a better position to compete with their own manufactured
goods".  So that the obvious thrust of Argentinean nationalism under
Peronism to unify Latin America as a market for the goods produced by
the Argentinean bourgeosie becomes --an intelligent British move to
keep the American bourgeoisie out of Britsh hunting grounds! Again, no
independent, original initiative is allowed to "colonials". Any move
must be explained by "foreign" interests. And Moreno relishes in these
explanations.

What is all this for? All this is necessary, because the basic thesis
that Moreno will try to hammer in is that Perón was in fact --a
British agent!

On this, he shared the basic convictions of Rodolfo Katz, an Austrian
Jew economist who was saved from the Holocaust by the British Empire,
and was softly deposited in Argentina to build the _Economic Survey_,
an exclusive "economic newsletter" which during a very long time after
the early 40s represented the voice of the imperial master in
Argentina. As every policeman knows, the first suspect when a theft
takes place is the one who shouts "Thief!  Thief!".

Katz, in 1945, released a long piece denouncing Peron as a British
agent.  Imperialist agents can themselves be
"anti-imperialists". Between a Katz in Argentina, 1945 and a Kostunica
in Belgrade, 2000, there are less differences than one can imagine.

Moreno not only did not subject Katz's writings to the most elementary
critical analysis. On the contrary, he (thus showing again the mood of
the petty bourgeois in a dependent capital city, completely reliant on
the imperialist agencies) transcribes the "denunciations" by Katz, and
writes: "All the above, with slight variations, we can sign". Moreno
goes on by expressing that the _Economic Survey_ is "the most serious
journal of the Argentinean bourgeoisie"(4). Then, he goes on and on to
give further evidence of the obvious fact that Peron was a British
agent: his Latin American allies, the reactionary foreign policy, the
establishment of the "third position" thesis (for Moreno, a
continuation of the pro-British "America for humankind" established by
the Argentinean ruling classes against American Monroist "America for
Americans", plus some "populism"), the policy of Latin American common
tariff zones ("British imperialism looks upon this policy with the
best will") a policy that "only protectionist manufacturers resist",
and so on.

All the above is directed against the idea that all these developments
are concrete expressions of the Latin American national question, a
thesis that was first proposed not by the GCI who are explicitly under
attack, but by the "Grupo Octubre" which gave life to the Izquierda
Nacional.  Against the latter, which is -at least once- mentioned here
(it was impossible not to do so), Moreno utters these great words:
"Even a schoolboy understands that a Federation of States is not the
same thing as the large national state proposed by the GCI and October
groups".  Of course, and even a schoolboy understands that the United
States of America are not a Federation, or either not a national
state...

Why this apparent detour? Because if one stresses that there are
different nations in Latin America, one can also add to the
anti-Peronist thesis of "Perón the British agent" a second one, that
of "Argentinean imperialism" over Latin America whenever Argentine
attempts to unify parts of Latin America (5).  Of course, this is
exactly what Moreno does: he blames his opponents to be
representatives of the Argentinean bourgeoisie and its thirst for
further markets, destroying other, weaker (presumably also more
progressive?) Latin American bourgeoisies.

Finally, Moreno executes an analysis of the events that took to 1945
and afterwards that has nothing to do with Marxism and a lot to do
with monetarist orthodoxy (rejection to the increase of the national
budget and to the strengthening of the state particularly included
--Moreno might well be among the sources of many IMF theorists
today). This analysis brings him to the triumphal conclusion: "On
october 17th, 1945... small bourgeoisie, middle bourgeoisie and the
great bourgeoisie march against Perón and for the troops stationed at
Campo de Mayo... the largest and most backward fraction of the
proletariat follows Perón, due to the conquests that he gave
them. Behind Perón, British imperialism; behind his opponents,
American imperialism".

Thus, the living process of the Argentine society is dissolved into a
couple of external determinations. Is this Marxism? If this is
Marxism, this is _sepoy_ Marxism, anti-Peronist Marxism, and, in the
end, pro-imperialist Marxism.  Systematic self-denigration, an
ïnstinct" of national powerlessness, these are the true ideological
coordinates of his mind: every actor is just a puppet in the hand of
foreign managers.

American imperialism, in his text, not only industrializes. It is also
the democratizing medicine. Since the Americans have encircled this
"British agent" Perón, he unleahes a ferocious campaign of demagoguery
among the most backwards workers, and imperialism forces him to
concede something extraordinary, "free elections". It is only his
"ferocious" (again) demagoguery which will gain for him of the
backwards sectors, and thus bring him to power. Against this good,
democratic, American imperrialism, Peronism is, as Braden wouldn't
have said it better, "overtly totalitarian".

This is Moreno's exposition of the events of 1945. Anthony says that
in 1954 he "recnats".  Not at all. In 1951, Moreno explained that in
his struggle against American intervention in Argentina and against
American ally, the industrial bourgeois, Perón resorts to
"anti-capitalist" demagoguery, "does not provide a protective tariff
for industry" and leads to American car assembly plants to bankrupcy
("assembly plants" of American origin are something different, I
guess, from industrial plants, but Moreno becomes protectionist only
when these maquiladoras are closed: what was obvious was that in
absence of a domestic car industry, Peronism preferred the cheaper and
more energy-efficient European models).

What about mass movements? "We deny that the mass and proletarian
mobilizations in this Latin American post-war era have already
obtained a revolutionary character, either anti-imperialist, either
anti-capitalist, in the main countries". Only in Europe and Asia
"there have been revolutionary mobilizaitons".  In Argentina, in
particular, war puts and end to the revolutionary rise that took place
during the second half of the 30s (probably the bleakest political
period in Argentina before the current one!) and was killed by the
World War. "Reactionary, totaliatarian and anti-democratic" Peronism
relied, under particular conditions, "on the support of a narcotized
and handcuffed proletariat". This was possible only because against
the first wave of proletarianization (generated by migrants from Spain
and Italy), which had a clear class consciousness (something nobody
would deny, only that these early socialists did not have any kind
national consciousness, a fact that Moreno omits completely in order
to establish his own filiation with that "purely socialist" alienated
working class), the second one -generated by migrations from the
Argentinean countryside- "has a tremendous political backwardness due
to its previous ... condition of farmer or rural proletarian."  This
mass was, of course, easily captured by the Police of the military
regime, whose cadre, insurrected, visited the leaders of the working
class and prepared the mobilization of October 17th...

Moreno is, of course, for breaking up the workers' union CGT (again, a
coincidence with the worst enemies of the Argentinean working class
and a typical petty bourgeois tenet). However, since this proposition
did not give good milk in everyday political work with Argentinean
workers (and even petty bourgeois) in 1951 he exposed this in a
twisted manner: we are accused, he explains, of a desire to break up
the CGT. "This is false", he retorts. What the Moreno current actually
states is that "during its ascensional period, the proletariat will
break the straitjacket of the CGT", that in the meanwhile it was
necessary to "defend any workers union that did not fall in the CGT",
and "not to remain for a single minute within the CGT if the workers
of a branch or sector of industry realize its reactionary character
and decide to break away from it". Speak of doublespeak!!!

Moreno also shares with the oligarchs and imperialism the
characterization of the basic struggle during Peronism as a struggle
between democracy against totalitarism. Once Perón was overthrown,
however, he immediately began to scream that the struggle for
democratic liberties was a "bourgeois" struggle.  That is, FOR
democratic liberties during a popular regime, AGAINST them during a
pro-imperialist regime...

Moreno also heaps tons of shit on the martyr president of Bolivia,
Villarroel (a task where he would later find the enthusiastic help of
Lora, but this is a different story), indirectly supports American
interventions in the Caribbean, and on and on...

Moreno's main task is to "raise" stupid Peronist workers to a
consciousness of how stupid they were. All of his political science
(which is _still_ the political science of a good deal of the
Argentinean "Left") can be enclosed in his concluding remark: "We
believe that Peronism is a reactionary, right-wing, movement that has
capitalized mass support. [Thus] the real revolutionary progress
against imperialism, against capitalism, will take place after
Peronism falls down. Peronism is the greatest hindrance for the
process of class struggle to take root in this country ... The real
revolution will begin the day when the proletarians overthrow
Peronism"

This is the moment when Anthony, with a murderous smile, says: "Hey,
Nestor, don't be such an ass! You are demolishing Moreno in 1951, and
I spoke of him in 1954!"

The problem lies in that the Moreno of 1954 was simply an opportunist
who pretended to support Peronism (he even pretended to _be_ a
Peronist shortly afterwards) in order to fulfill his task as stated in
1951. Let us now see what did the "new" Moreno answer to his critics
after 1954.

These critics were the developmentists. They shared Moreno's general
idea that the Argentinean workers had to be "regenerated", thus they
competed politically. Both tried to win the soul of the Peronist
working class union leaders. Moreno, for his own kind of socialism,
the developmentists for the bourgeois dogma of Rostowian
development. Thus, the latter accused the Morenoist fraction of being
"infiltrates" in the Peronist movement. They received an indignant
answer, which will show what did _actually_ Moreno's support to
Peronism mean.

Moreno's answer was that they were just another line within the
Movement, with the same right to be a part of it as anyone else,
whether Nationalist, Catholic, Liberal, or whatever. That the Peronist
compañeros with a revolutionary conception of Justicialism were those
who shared a theoretical and practical Marxist formation were those
"formed only and exclusively during the period that was opened in
1943". Anything else that should be put in clear, they stated, could
be put to the open by simply referring to the collection of "Palabra
Obrera". That is, to his own, complete past record of anti-Peronism!

This posting, which is in essence a précis of the criticisms made by
the Izquierda Nacional to Moreno in Jorge Enea Spilimbergo's
"Socialism in Argentina", does exactly that: goes to the source that
the "Peronist" Moreno proposes to look at. When you look at it, _this_
is what wells out from the source. This, and nothing else.

[ end Part I ]