Date: 	Tue, 28 Nov 1995 20:18:11 -0300
From: jinigo-AT-inscri.org.ar (Juan Inigo)
Subject: Re: fascism and unions and the masses


Any attempt to develop a massive conscious revolutionary action in
Argentina today must deal, to begin with, with the following facts:

a) The unions' confederation, CGT, is currently divided into three
separated organizations:

        1) the main one according to the number of unions and workers
affiliated to it, and which massively includes the industrial unions,
commerce and bank employees, and the biggest of the two public employees
unions, defines itself as Peronist, and openly supports president Menem's
Peronist government.

        2) after supporting Menem's government for around 5 years, a minor
part of the former organization split, headed by the leader of the bus and
truck drivers, and started to oppose the government in the name of Peronism
since they find it has betrayed the Peronist principles concerning the
working class.

        3) the CTA split from the CGT when it became clear that the
Peronist government of Menem was actually not to follow Peronism's
"anti-imperialist, industrialist, pro-workers" (their words) traditions.
Its members massively come on a national scale from the teachers and the
second public employees unions, whose leaders are Peronists.

There are no unions outside these organizations. The bureaucrats that lead
all the unions (and they do are bureauocrats) have been massively elected
by the affiliates, and currently won these elections not only just because
they command the apparatus in the most infamous way as they do, but because
they do have the massive acceptance of the affiliates.

b) There are three political lines with massive support on a national scale:

        1) The Partido Justicialista, the Peronist party, is the party of
the government that won its reelection last May with the 50% of the votes.

        2) The Frepaso, mainly headed by former Justicialistas that see
themselves as the true expressions of Peronism. The CTA is one of the basic
supports of this political movement. They rejected the support of the
Partido Comunista, that formed an alliance with another minor Peronist
group (this group didn't get any massive support in the elections).

        3) The Partido Radical, UCR, in marked decay. To avoid any
confusion, "Radical" has nothing to do here with the political meaning
given to the term in the USA. To trace a very rough parallel, to be a
Radical here could be seen as being a Democrat there.

c) Menem won his reelection after his 6 years government with even more
than 50% in the most concentrated industrial areas, although unemployment
had risen there by then above 22%. Just to consider a very expressive
example, a couple of weeks before the election, a worker was killed by the
police in Tierra del Fuego (an industrial enclave) during a march to
protest against the accelerated closing of factories associated with the
national economic policy. Peronism won there for the 60% of the votes.

d) The Partido Justicialista became in the '80s the largest political party
in the so-called "occidental world," with about 3 million members (I can
get the exact figure), over 15 million active voters (notice that voting is
compulsory here).

d) But, of course, Peronism was defeated in the 1983 election. The UCR got
the 50% of the votes against the 39% of the Peronism. Which votes mainly
shifted from Peronists' traditional level to the Radicales? Both parties
closed their campaigns with huge political demonstrations in Buenos Aires
city (the attendance to each of these demonstration was estimated in more
than 500.000 people, over the 15 million active voters in the country).
Yet, there was a visible difference between the people at each
demonstration. The Radicals mainly belonged to the petite bourgeoisie (and
I call petite bourgeoisie what is strictly such: independent producers of
commodities, small and mid-size industrial and commercial capitalists,
etc., not including in it a single wage-laborer; this social class has a
specifically large participation on the total population, given the
specificity itself of the national process of capital accumulation in
Argentina). The second dominating presence at the Radical demonstration was
that of the highly qualified wage-laborers and of those related with the
circulation of capital (office, commerce and bank clerks, professionals
employed for a wage, etc.) These two groups were present in large
quantities in the Peronist demonstration too. But they were clearly
surpassed by two social groups mainly absent from the Radical
demonstration: the industrial workers headed by their union leaders, and
the most technically unskilled laborers grouped behind the political
leaders of the "villas miseria." During the demonstration, the main members
of "the corrupt labor bureaucracy" (in Carlos' words I have no problem in
subscribing) set fire to a coffin symbolizing the UCR and, indeed, as
Carlos says, they become true "pianta votos" ... among the petite
bourgeoisie and the upper part of the wage laborers!

e) During the 5 and a half years of the Radical government, the CGT called
to 13 national general 24 hours strikes, that were massively practiced by
the workers; these strikes were a visible factor in the Radical's
government collapse 6 months before its term. During the 6 years of the new
Peronist government, only a couple of general strikes were called, and with
the partial observance that corresponded to the part of the organization of
the unions that called each of them. And this happened though wages, and
then employment, have been sharply falling in the last years.

As I stated it in my previous post, when many years ago my early socialist
formation clashed against the same type of manifestations of the Argentine
political reality at that time, I found myself pushed by the necessity of
discovering why the process of capital accumulation takes in Argentina a
national form that needs to develop itself by making the working class not
to have an external and circumstantial relationship with Peronism
(suggested in Carlos' previous post) but, rather, that "Peronism massively
_is_ the ideological and practical political expression of the Argentine
working class since 1945."

Carlos seems to be so upset by this same reality that he has developed a
very different way of facing it: he has decided that that real facts he
does not like have no other existence than being "untrue" mental "theses."

>        "Ideological and practical political expression of the
>        Argentine working class"?  Well, this is a discovery of
>        Juan Inigo.  It is the basic theses of evey bourgeois
>        thinker in Argentina since aproximately 1949.  This
>        is however, not true.

Then, he further encloses Peronism in the world of ideas:

>Peronism represents the level
>        of consciousness of the argentine working class, and not
>        from 1945, but as a recurrent phenomenae.

What sort of abstraction is the "consciousness of a class" that does not
express itself through political concrete forms, political concrete
practices, that agree with it?

>The fact that workers in
>    Argentina are still Peronists is the results of 30 years of
>    political and physical defeats.

What sort of abstraction is "the fact" of the Peronist "still resulting
being" attributed now to the Argentine workers by Carlos (!) that does not
result from the Peronist political practice of the workers itself?

On which basis could Carlos defend these abstractions? A clue can be found
in selective memory.

>        Ideological and practical political expresion?  There were
>        many, since those ideological and political expressions were
>        determined by the prxis of the working class as a whole an/or
>        of its vanguard at different times.

Of course, the political action of the Argentine working class has followed
different paths along a period of 50 years, expressing at each time the
specificity of the national process of capital accumulation under
development at that moment. But Carlos seems to be decided to forget that
all the practical political actions in which the working class massively
participated since 1945 took concrete form as Peronist political actions.
Just to consider a couple of examples of Carlos selective memory, what he
claims was

>        After the gorilla coup d'etat, a bloody coup against peronism
>        orchestrated 'AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS AND NOT AGAINST PERON,
>        THE WORKING CLASS INITIATED WHAT IT WAS NAMED AS 'La
>        Resistencia', a democratic, tradeunion-centered, mass
>        mobilization that was led by an alliance of the left wing of
>        Peronism and sectors of the so called "emerging left"

was actually called "La Resistencia Peronista." What he claims was

>the
>        "Standing 62 Organizations", a tradeunion allaince of many
>        unions that organized strikes, rebellions and street agitation;

was actually called the "62 Peronist Organizations," with the "Standing"
standing for "standing together with Peron," as opposed to the "Loyal to
Peron 62 Peronist Organizations."

Carlos has omitted also the complete question of the CGT "Plan de Lucha" in
1965/66 against the UCR government (that was elected with the 26% of the
votes while the Peronism was proscribed). It included massive strikes and
the occupation of factories by the workers, and acted as one of the
triggers for the 1966 military coup. The metallurgist A. T. Vandor was the
main leader of the "Loyal 62" and of the CGT at that time, and he was
present with the leader of the "Standing 62" when the new military dictator
was placed in charge, since they expected to reproduce the "Army-People
aliance" and the 43-45 situation. Why do I add these facts here? Not only
because the "Plan de Lucha" was a massive political action performed by the
working class in the name of Peronism but because, according to Carlos,

>        El Cordobazo, a working classs semi-insurrection, overthrew
>        one dictatorship and left non-Peronist left wing leaderships
>        in the most important sectors of the industrial working class.
>        This was an ideological and practical representation of the
>        working class hardly of the Peronist type.

El Cordobazo started when two columns of workers marched into the city of
Cordoba. One, estimated in 1000 workers, was headed by A. Tosco (from the
lighting and power union), who defined himself as a socialist and even as a
Marxist. But the other column was headed by E. Torres, from the
auto-workers union, who was an active member of Vandor's line (Vandor has
moved by then into the opposition). This column was estimated in 5000
industrial workers. The joint action was agreed in a meeting between Tosco,
Torres, the local metalurgic leader, ... and Vandor himself. The Cordobazo
"was an ideological and practical representation of the working class
hardly of the Peronist type" only from Carlos' very narrow point of view
fed by his selective memory.

Peron enjoyed claiming that Peronism was a very wide "movement" where all
political expressions from the extreme-left to the extreme-right fitted,
with only the ultra-left and the ultra-right excluded. Let aside the
intentional ambiguity of this assertion (specially concerning the
ultra-right), this sort of range can be seen all along the development of
the Peronist movement, but always with the working-class massively
recognizing itself as a main participant in it. Again, the true problem
from the point of view of developing a conscious revolutionary action in
Argentina is to discover which is the specificity of the national process
of capital accumulation that makes it reproduce itself by taking concrete
ideological and political form in a constantly reproduced many-faced
Peronist movement always massively supported by the working class.

In my previous post I pointed out how, instead of looking for that
specificity, Carlos was bringing down every determination to abstract
political "mistakes," "stupidity," "lack of understanding," or misplaced
projects. In his reply Carlos added more to his abstract point of view:

>        Peron's first "theoreticians" as a "national bourgeois
>        progressive and revolutionary movement" came out of the
>        Communist Party and the left wing of the Radical Party
>        in 1945.  Peron aseduced them to write and propagate the
>        myth of national revolution.
>
>        All the first cadre of Peronism came from the CP and the
>        Socialdemocracy when Peronism started.  peron concessions
>        to the working class have, as a central design to attract
>        the support of the working class against his opponents in
>        some sectors of the bourgeoisie.  iN ORDER TO DO THIS MADE
>        CONCESSIONS TO THE WORKERS AND NEEDED TO ATTRACT LEFT WING
>        TRADENUIONISTS (THEN THE DOMINANT FORCE IN THE TRADEUNION
>        MOVEMENT).

In the first place, Peron managed to theorize about the "national ...
progressive and revolutionary movement" (bourgeois excluded, of course,
since he had the face to equally call himself the first worker or the first
capitalist, according to his audience) by himself in his discourses. But
this is not the real problem. In the second place, the first cadre of
Peronism came from many sources beside the CP and the Social democracy,
unless one decides to call such the trade-unionists that didn't adhere to
the Socialist Party, but to the UCR, and members of this party and former
conservatives that were furious anti-communists/socialists. But this is not
the real problem, either.

The real problem starts when Carlos brings down the determinations that
took concrete shape in the "theoreticians" Carlos refers to, to them being
"seduced" by Peron. It grows when Carlos associates the participation of
the ex CP and Social-democrats, with Peron looking for a "mantle of
"progressiveness"." And the problem shows its complete scope when Carlos
brings down the determinations of the process of national accumulation
personified by the trade-unionists and the workers, that took concrete form
in their massive political action, to Peron "seducing" them with
"concessions." In fact, this story that mistakes Peron's "seductions" and
"concessions" for the concrete genesis of the Peronist movement has a very
"gorila" taste.

When I commented Carlos' posts to a reckoned Marxist researcher of the
history of the Argentine working class, he replied: "how does this guy dare
to call what the Argentine working class finally conquered for itself
through decades of hard struggle against the bourgeoisie a "concession"
someone gave to it? Why do you waste you time discussing with such a
"gorila"?!"

The point of view of this Marxist is opposed in every sense to Carlos'.
Yet, we cannot stop at it without risking falling into Carlos' same
abstractions concerning the question of the place that corresponds to class
struggle in the development of Peronism. Carlos states:

>    Capital accumulation creates the conditions of development of the
>    working class but does not determine its scope of action as class
>    nor its conciousness.  Your assertion on the contrary is not new,
>    it is the prevalent one among Peronists.

Capital accumulation is the general social form in which the material
process of human life rules itself today. Now, what does it exactly mean to
"create the conditions of development of the working class" if it is not to
"determine its scope of action as class or its consciousness"? What precise
difference does exist between "creating the conditions" and "determine"?
Isn't consciousness determined by the material conditions of life? Aren't
the "scope of action as class" and "consciousness" two concrete forms
through which the accumulation of capital takes concrete form? In that
case, what does determine them?

Oh, but Carlos has an answer:

>    What shape working class
>    counciousness is the class struggle.

Is it a real answer? Class struggle shapes class consciousness, but what
shapes class struggle then? Carlos' is only an apparent answer. It does but
to extend the previous questions into new ones: what shapes the class
struggle? Isn't the class struggle a necessary form of the process of
accumulation itself? Has it other determinants than the development of this
process until it realizes its necessity to annihilate itself into the
general conscious regulation of social life, socialism/communism, through
the revolutionary action of the proletariat? When Carlos claims for "the
result of social and political conditions," these conditions are the
concrete forms taken by ...? Argentine general "stupidity" perhaps? Peron's
"seductiveness"? Or is it that Carlos actually believes in "the supremacy
of the politics over the economy"? In that case, what determines the
proletariat's political action? The "natural" human search for a
"non-exploitative" society or for "social justice"?

In fact, the idea about the "supremacy of the politics," in search for
"social justice" actually "is the prevalent one among Peronists" and,
rather, much of the stuff the Peronist doctrine is made of. Not in vain,
Laclau's roots have to be looked for here.

This inverted conception is opposite to the awareness about capital
accumulation determining the working class' "scope of action as class or
its consciousness," from the beginning to the end. Everybody would know
here that no Peronist agrees with the latter, and therefore, with my point
of view. But Carlos has resorted to the trick of inverting this fact too,
to present me as having fallen to the Peronist ideological shit in a place
as the Marxism list where most of the potential readers of the discussion
have no way of being immediately aware that the inversion has taken place.

>    An yes, together with these developments were some stupid things
>    done by many leftists, including the fact they theorize about
>    the Peronist counciousness of the working class instead of seeing
>    it a mediated, transitory, result of social and political
>    conditions and not an inescapable expresion of ideological and
>    practical representation of the working class.  We had too many
>    peole killed as to accept this missrepresentation of Marxism.

If I enjoyed making abstract claims about stupidity as a determinant of
real social processes, I would say that it is really stupid to deny the
reality of the working class' massively Peronist ideology and political
action currently present in Argentina, provided one is interested in the
development of a conscious revolutionary action here and now. But a
political action that starts by imagining that the Peronist ideology and
political action of the working class has no reality other than being "a
bourgeois thesis," that "stupidity" and "seduction" can account for the
specificity of the national process of capital accumulation, that it
suffices with claiming for some "social and political conditions" that can
abstractly account for their own necessity, and that mistakes
"(non)transitory" and "inescapable" for the true awareness about the
reality of "the ideological and practical representation of the working
class" today, is certainly not a matter of stupidity. The true question is:
what specificity of the national form taken by the process of capital
accumulation in Argentina needs to realize itself by taking such a
political and ideological expression that starts by abstracting from
reality at the same time that presents itself as following Marx's path?
Just to begin with, it is certainly not an action aware of its own
necessity beyond appearances.

The way in which Carlos turns the barbaricaly truncated real lives of real
people into a high-sounding frivolity apt to close his discourse here does
not deserve any comment, only the most complete repulse.

Juan Inigo
jinigo-AT-inscri.org.ar



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