Forwarded from Nestor

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(Nestor comments on Fred's comments on a Workers World article on Argentina 
and on the WWP article itself. His comments are enclosed by "<" and ">".)

Following is an article from the CubaNews list from a newspaper that seems 
to be making an effort to get an accurate fix on what is happening in Latin 
America today. There are some important questions that they need to think 
more about. One of them is the great weight of the national and democratic 
issues that face the workers and peasants of Argentina today -- from the 
conquest or reconquest of national sovereignty, pride, and independence to 
the land question to aspects of racial-type discrimination and chauvinism.

The article refers to the "myth of Argentina being part of and separated 
from Latin America, helping to shape its national identity. In my opinion, 
neither of these concepts is really a myth. There is no single Latin 
American nation today, although cultural, political and economic factors 
provide a strong basis for unification and overcoming of national divisions 
in struggle. The different countries may have started out as simply lines 
in the dust drawn by European conquerors but Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, 
Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and others are a lot more 
than that now. It seems to me that historical development including lots of 
struggles really have created different nations on the foundation of the 
common cultural heritage. And, just as importantly, there are the 
indigenous peoples of Peru, Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, Ecuador, and 
elsewhere who are clearly not purely and simply "Latin Americans." And then 
there are special situations like Belize and the Atlantic Coast of 
Nicaragua, where the designation "Latin American" is also incomplete.

<Mike apunta aquí a una cuestión algo compleja. Tomaré el ejemplo más 
notable, que es el del Uruguay. El Uruguay es, claramente, un invento de la 
diplomacia inglesa. No hay diferencia alguna entre la cultura, las 
tradiciones, los gustos y deseos del pueblo uruguayo y los de sus vecinos 
argentinos. Sin embargo, es cierto que no se pueden borrar 180 años de 
historia con una declaración "latinoamericanista", y que hoy en día el 
pueblo uruguayo (originalmente, "argentinos orientales") presenta algunos 
rasgos diferenciales con respecto a sus hermanos "argentinos occidentales". 
Pero el rasgo común es el que marca la necesidad de la unificación 
nacional. En rigor, ningún país latinoamericano, ni siquiera el Brasil, 
puede aspirar a una existencia independiente en el período imperialista si 
no es construyendo una poderosa nación común que nos permita enfrentar la 
agresión extranjera (esto es algo que Lula ha entendido magníficamente 
bien). Ni hablar de la perspectiva de una fragmentación sobre líneas 
étnicas (de pasada, comento que al menos en la Argentina mientras que los 
indígenas de la clase obrera buscan la integración con sus compatriotas, 
los indígenas pequeñoburgueses reivindican formas de "independencia").

Para resumir el tema, dada la brevedad del tiempo que tengo, diría que los 
latinoamericanos tenemos muchas "patrias" (homelands) pero no tenemos una 
"nación" (nation), ni podemos tenerla dentro de los límites de cada 
"patria". Curiosamente, ya Bolívar lo había visto, y planteaba que teníamos 
que construir una "Nación de patrias" (a Nation of homelands). Creo que 
éste es el verdadero programa de la revolución, un programa que por otro 
lado también fue planteado por León Trotsky cuando desde México convocaba a 
la constitución de los Estados Unidos Socialistas de América Latina.>

The article describes Peron as a "bourgeois nationalist" who was "loyal to 
capitalism." This strikes me as an undeniable fact. But it also strikes me 
as an undeniable fact that Peronism has been a real, historical political 
form of the Argentine workers movement for many years -- not just a 
bourgeois nationalist movement. Its not necessary to have a cosmic "stages" 
theory of working class consciousness or working-class politics to 
recognize that a stage has actually taken place. The article also failed to 
mention that Peron didn't just fade away, but was overthrown by a 
reactionary military coup backed by US imperialism.

<En 1955, el apoyo principal, en realidad, provenía de Gran Bretaña. La 
Marina inglesa entregó a la Marina argentina las armas con las que pudo dar 
el golpe (Perón, tras el intento de junio de 1955, había desarmado a los 
marinos). En 1976, por supuesto, Gran Bretaña ya había abandonado la 
hegemonía en el Río de la Plata (el proceso duró de 1958 a 1966), y en 
efecto el golpe contra lo que quedaba del gobierno peronista lo apoyaron 
los Estados Unidos.

En cuanto a lo de las "fases", en realidad la cosa es más simple. Perón 
intentó llevar adelante un proyecto nacionalista burgués con apoyo de la 
clase trabajadora y de los sectores patrióticos de las Fuerzas Armadas y el 
aparato del Estado. La burguesía nacional no sólo no lo apoyó sino que se 
sumó al bloque antiperonista liderado por la oligarquía terrateniente y el 
imperialismo. Esta actitud no es casual: el proyecto era "capitalista" en 
su programa inmediato, pero en tanto era antiimperialista en su proyección 
general, estaba también inscripto en el ciclo general de la lucha por el 
socialismo. El intento de Perón fue constituir en la Argentina un 
capitalismo autocentrado, en lugar de un capitalismo colonial y 
extrovertido: asegurar el fluido intercambio entre las Ramas I y II de la 
economía que permitiera a la Argentina liberarse de su dependencia con 
respecto a los flujos internacionales de capital. "Burgués" en tanto no 
discutía la relación salarial, "popular" en tanto modificaba la 
distribución del ingreso para asegurar un mercado interno poderoso, pero 
antiimperialista. Esto marcaba un límite, porque la oligarquía argentina es 
una clase _capitalista_. En el momento clave en que se veía obligado a 
enfrentar a la oligarquía y expropiarla para poder asegurar la continuidad 
de la revolución, Perón se exilió (esto lo digo con todas las letras: 
militarmente, él tenía la situación perfectamente dominada en 1955, en la 
Argentina no sucedía lo que sucedió en Chile en 1973). Cuando retornó al 
poder, la misma opción terminó paralizando al peronismo. Curiosamente, para 
instalar el capitalismo en la Argentina había que atacar la piedra 
fundamental del capitalismo: el régimen de propiedad privada, bajo la forma 
de la gran propiedad terrateniente. De allí la debilidad del peronismo y de 
allí que a partir de 1955 Perón se quedara con el apoyo exclusivo de la 
clase trabajadora.

Perón era "leal al capitalismo ARGENTINO" y por lo tanto era "desleal al 
capitalismo EXTRANJERO". Sin embargo, para enfrentar al capitalismo 
extranjero, tenía que atacar un aspecto clave del capitalismo argentino. 
Allí está el núcleo del drama (y también de la revolución permanente...)>

A tendency to underestimate the national question in Latin America is part, 
it seems to me, of the broader tendency to underestimate the potential for 
national democratic revolutions as the opening of a revolutionary process 
that has the potential to lead to worker-peasant revolutions against 
capitalism.

<Estoy completamente de acuerdo con esto que afirma Mike. Sólo agrego que 
en la Argentina y el Uruguay la "cuestión agraria" no es una "cuestión 
campesina", dado que no existen "campesinos sin tierra" en nuestros países. 
Es una "cuestión socialista".>

Of course, I didn't come up with these ideas all by myself. I have learned 
quite a lot of them from reading Nestor Miguel Gorojovsky on this list (as 
I understand him). I hope that Nestor will soon enlighten us further about 
these questions. I thought about starting a broad, nonexclusive coalition 
to get him to do so but I decided it wouldn't be prudent.

Fred Feldman

-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Oct. 17, 2002 issue of 
Workers World newspaper
-------------------------

ARGENTINA: CAPITALIST CRISIS SPURS LEFT ORGANIZATIONS

By Alicia Jrapko

[Excerpts from a talk at the Sept. 21-22 Workers World Party Conference.]

<...>

While growing up in Argentina, I was taught that it was different from the 
rest of Latin America; that Argentina was more like a European country. My 
country was once the most prosperous country in Latin America, with an 
abundance of natural resources and an educated and skilled work force, many 
of them immigrants from Europe.

After World War II, Juan Domingo Peron, a bourgeois nationalist, was 
elected president and Argentina went through a period of rapid industrial 
expansion and increased social benefits. Significant increases in union 
membership consolidated the power of the General Confederation of Labor.

The Peron regime nationalized large parts of the economy and put up 
protective trade barriers. Steel and iron industries were built; the 
manufacture of farm and industrial machinery was subsidized. Argentina made 
airplanes and ships for its merchant marine. <Which became the third newest 
in the world in a few years>

The government bought 70 percent of the nation's railways and the entire 
trolley system, which had been British-owned.

<The remaining 30 pct had been built by the State and was State-owned from 
the onset. What really matters here is that this purchase allowed to open 
up a system of differential freight and passenger rates to favor 
Argentinean industrial development>

Peron nationalized the U.S.-owned International Telephone and Telegraph. He 
put limits on the amount of foreign-owned firms' profits, resulting in a 
dramatic drop in foreign investment.

Even though Peron provided working-class reforms, including women's right 
to vote, he was a loyal defender of capitalism. This was the basis of the 
myth of Argentina being part of and separated from Latin America, helping 
to shape its national identity.

<In fact, this is quite obscure: every Latin American country is part of 
Latin America and separated from it AT THE SAME TIME. But the question 
remains as whether any Latin American country can expect to attain economic 
independence by itself alone. Perón foresaw the problem very well, and as 
early as 1952 he began very serious secret talks with Vargas in Brazil, 
where he was decided to accept whatever the Brazilians would request in 
order to achieve an unification as soon as possible. As regards Chile, 
Perón was of the idea that the all the Andean passes had to be levelled 
down, so to say. Not to speak of strong partnerships with Paraguay and 
Bolivia. Uruguay, by those times, was a basis for American diplomacy and 
spies, so that although the Blanco Party was pro-Argentinean, there was not 
too much ground for integration in that moment>

After Peron's tenure, years of civilian and military governments followed. 
By the end of the 1960s, the United States prepared a continental plan of 
neo-liberal policies that changed Argentina's social landscape.

During the 1970s, many Latin American leftist organizations, including 
those in Argentina, followed the example of Cuba and joined the 
revolutionary currents developing in Africa and Asia. These movements 
threatened imperialism's plans in Latin America, which the United States 
was not willing to concede. The United States began covert operations 
causing economic destabilization.

<This gives these organisations too much merit. Unfortunately, most of 
them, including the "Peronist left", took to little groups violence and 
abandoned mass politics. This proved, in the end, functional to the desires 
of the US, and turned our politics into a nightmare where the masses could 
only watch while others, in their name, murdered Admirals, kidnapped 
businessmen, and militarized politics without concern about the will of the 
masses, exactly the OPPOSITE as what one would term a serious guerrilla 
warfare>

First there was the overthrow of President Salvador Allende in Chile in 
1973, followed by bloody military coups in Uruguay in 1975 and in Argentina 
in 1976.

While the U.S.-backed military were torturing and murdering students, 
workers and cadres of leftist political organizations, imperialist 
economists implemented free- market policies that devastated domestic 
industries but rewarded financial speculation.

Thirty thousand people paid with their lives. I left Argentina during that 
time, and many of my college friends disappeared and were killed.

<This explains a lot on the point of view of Ms. Jrapko, but unfortunately 
is of little avail to understand the deep currents of Argentinean politics. 
And the whole balance sheet that she traces of the 1976 dictatorship is 
highly defficient in that she does not mention the main issue of that 
regime, which is the imposition of a fraudulent foreign debt which has 
become the axis of our struggles today. From her account, the debt seems to 
have been contracted after 1983, which is utterly false. Ms. Jrapko does 
not mention, either, the Malvinas War, which was the origin of the 
"constitutional" colonial democracy that we were bestowed with by Thatcher 
and Reagan.>

Beginning in 1983, civilian governments followed the austerity measures 
imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Argentina's 
foreign debt grew to $164 billion. It faced a devalued peso, a shrinking 
middle class and third-world status. Argentina was forced to sell off 
everything and every sector of the economy became privatized.

Probably the most graphic example of this was the highway between Cordoba 
and Buenos Aires. A French firm bought the right to collect the tolls.

<Ms. Jrapko forgets some most graphic examples, which are widely known in 
Argentina and have sparked bitter struggles here and elsewhere: tap water 
is in foreign hands, for example. Maybe this is due to her slight relation 
with Argentinean reality, but I don´t know.>

One of the schemes by which Argentina plans to pay loans on which it 
continues to default is to give away huge areas of land in Patagonia as 
payment. This concession to foreign banks weakens sovereignty.

Last December massive resistance began in response to unemployment over 20 
percent, 18 million people living below the poverty line and children dying 
every day. Huge demonstrations have caused five imperialist-backed 
presidents to resign.

<This misses completely the point. It would be long to explain here, but 
not all the Presidents after December 2001 were imperialist-backed. And, at 
any rate, there are important though subtle differences between a Duhalde 
and a De La Rúa. The main issue with the mobilisations is that after them, 
there is no room for smooth enforcement of neoliberal policies. This 
escapes Ms. Jrapko completely. This is why she is confused as to the goal 
of the Piquetero movement. Its goal is not social control. They are some 
kind of "union of the dispossessed" who struggle for some food, or some 
lower paid job. There are other, much more interesting outgrowths not of 
privatization but of the December 19th mobilisations and the historic 
failure of the bourgeoisie: the Movement for the Recovery of Plants, which 
puts factories abandoned by their owners under workers´ control. I am not 
opposing both movements. But they are different, both in social composition 
and in perspectives.>

An outgrowth of privatization has been the formation of unemployed workers' 
organizations known as Piqueteros, whose social program is geared towards 
workers' control.

Part of this movement has dismissed the notion that more IMF loans are a 
good thing. A significant part of this current shows no confidence in the 
national bourgeoisie and is willing to struggle on every issue against 
them. I was able to see a meeting of the Piqueteros, and it was 
working-class democracy in action.

<Mistaken again. The whole people hates IMF, and even sections of the 
owning classes. There is a very sectarian outlook in Ms. Jrapko´s account, 
because against all dreams by mainstream Leftists the Piqueteros cannot 
offer a general program to the basic classes of our society.>

If the Piqueteros and the unions can merge, it will be a pivotal ingredient 
to the overthrow of the national bourgeoisie and freeing Argentina from 
imperialist domination.

<This, however, is very true, and we can only hope for such a merge to take 
place. But the starting point is to take the unions such as they are, and 
the working class such as it is, something I am afraid Ms. Jrapko is not doing>

A mass movement is reawakening and reorganizing. There are positive signs 
of a recovery of the revolutionary movement that could be even greater than 
the 1970s and could eventually seize state power. This potential is why the 
IMF and the World Bank have not been able to complete their plans of 
recolonizing Argentina.

<On this, we are in FULL AGREEMENT with Ms. Jrapko. The problem lies in 
whether the "Piqueteros" are the kernel of that movement, or not. Methinks 
not.>

- END -



Louis Proyect
www.marxmail.org


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