Re: Argentina: the credibility factor

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Armand wrote:
> He would have preferred that his loved CGT (rebelde)
> of Mr. Moyano would have done something, but they did
> not.  Instead, those who he calls the middle class and
> the lumpen proletariat (with other terms, though) did.

What a demagogic post. If the Morenoites had 1/100th the capacity for
self-criticism that Nestor's current did, the Argentine left would be in
much better shape. If you go to the debate section of their new website,
you'll discover that as a faction of the section of the CWI, they opposed
their mother ship's neutrality over the Malvinas war from the beginning.
What possibility would there have been for them voicing public criticisms.
ZERO. So for over a decade, they remained silent because the rules of
"democratic centralism" prevented them from criticizing their own gang. Now
that they have broken with this British based Fourth International
contraption, they are finally free to make their criticisms.

We obviously need an alternative to this form of functioning which reminds
me more of the Mafia's 'omerta' or the NY Police Department's "Blue Wall of
Silence" than how Lenin's party functioned. Let us never forget that
Bukharin voiced his criticisms of Lenin's views on the national question in
public, even if others prefer to sweep that fact and others under the rug.

Turning to the question at hand, it is no secret that there are serious
difficulties in the mass movement in Argentina that can only be resolved
through the creation of a true vanguard party, as opposed to all the
grotesque midget formations scurrying about. You have divisions not only
within the working class, but between it and the middle-class whose "pots
and pans" demonstrations have often had the same character as the
anti-Chavez protestors in Venezuela. In other words, they desire that
Argentina return to "normalcy" rather than move forward to socialism. To
not see this weakness is folly.

By the same token, the piqueteros make mistakes all the time. For instance,
leftwing trade union leader Juan Carlos Schmid, who toured NYC a few months
ago, reported that they violently clashed with low-paid docking house
workers who were not involved in the planning stages of an action that
would have shut down their workplace.

Argentina desperately needs a party of the type that Lenin constructed. The
sad thing is that all the people who are so cocksure that they understand
Lenin have so little understanding at all.



Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org


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