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From International Socialism (1st series), No.88, May 1976, pp.32-33.
The main groups are the Montoneros and The Peronist Youth; both have basically the same line. They see the main struggle in Argentina as being centred around the fight for ‘national independence’ from US imperialism and its internal allies – chiefly the landed oligarchy. They see Peronism as the chief expression of the anti-imperialist, nationalist consciousness of the working class and the Argentine people in general. Their ultimate goal is an ‘Argentine Socialism’ but first there will have to be a struggle for national independence which will lay the basis for industrial development that will overcome the underdevelopment imposed on Argentina by imperialist exploitation. This will be done within an alliance of the broadest possible sectors of democratic, anti-imperialist strata – including important sectors of the national bourgeoisie which have interests opposed to imperialism. It is only after a stage of national reconstruction, led of course by the working class, that the transition to socialism will be made. They saw the Justicialist Liberation Front, with which Peron won the elections of 1973 as the embodiment of such an anti-imperialist alliance. The main lesson they have learned from the disaster of the last three years is the necessity to have a better organised armed wing to guarantee that the Liberation Front carried out its tasks.
Their popularity amongst many workers, particularly young workers through the Peronist Youth, should not be underestimated. They are easily the biggest force on the left. The Montoneros are an extremely well organised armed force, and they probably enjoy the tacit admiration of many workers.
Originated in a split-off from the Trotskyist Revolutionary Workers Party in 1967. Split over attitude to guerrilla warfare – they took a fairly standard Guevarist line, though they continued to use some Trotskyist rhetoric. The Fourth International accepted the rhetoric and made them the majority Argentine section of the Fl. They have a totally militaristic conception of politics and put forward a blend of popular front and third world populism. They describe Argentina as basically a US colony which needs liberation by a popular revolutionary army, with its political expression a Patriotic Front of anti-imperialist classes. Their differences with the Montoneros and the Peronist left hinged on their classifying of Peronism as an ideological front for imperialism.
They are probably the most professional of all the guerrilla groups in Argentina, with what seems a fairly constant stream of recruits from the disillusioned middle class youth. During the late 60s and early 70s, they did construct a considerable base in the semi jungle, sugar growing province of Tucuman in the far north – particularly among some sections of the sugar workers. They have split several times. One group ERP 22 entered Peronism in 1973, another ERP Red Fraction has adopted a fairly consistent Fourth International (Mandel) line. But the main body, under the control of Roberto Santucho, is by far the most important.
An almost totally petit bourgeois sect with almost no influence in the working class, although some support among Argentina’s very big middle class. It has not unsimilar theoretical positions to the Peronist left although it has a far greater respect for bourgeois democracy than they do. Argentina must go through an anti-imperialist bourgeois stage to combat US imperialism before Socialism can even be thought of. In this way they came to support Peronism as representing progressive anti-imperialist forces. It has traditionally been one of the most subservient pro-Moscow parties.
Two separate Maoist groups that came up in the late 60s. Rejected the Communist Party’s pacifism without rejecting its basic theoretical tenets or its Stalinist politics. Again fundamentally stagist though of course with the added dimension of the need to assess what is and is not in the world interests of China. Thus last year during the general strike of 6 million workers the PCR opposed it saying that it was misleading the workers and deflecting them from the main enemy: Soviet Imperialism, which Isabel Peron was opposing.
In the late 60s both these groups had an influence in relatively new proletariat of the Cordoba car plants. The leader of the car workers union in Cordoba, Rene Salamanca, was a PCR militant. A declining force since the militant leadership of the car union was smashed by the union bureaucracy in 1974.
The PCR and the Communist Vanguard give much weight to land reform and the necessity of a worker/peasant alliance. The supposed benefactors and main agents of this change, the Argentine peasant, is in fact almost nonexistent – apart from some small areas in the far north.
A Lambertist group in origin. Of very little influence in the working class. Spends most of its time attacking other Trotskyist groups – particularly the PST.
Argentina is also the home of Posadas of revolutionary atomic warfare fame, and socialist flying saucers. Of no influence whatsoever in working class. During the 50s and early 60s, recognised by Fourth International as the official representative of the Argentine workers!
Originated with the group of old Trotskyists around Nahuel Moreno who were left after the ERP split off in 1967. In the early 60s pursued an entrist policy inside Peronism. In 1972 they fused with a left wing split from the old Argentine Socialist Party – a thoroughly right wing social democratic party with no influence in the working class. The fusion with this left wing split from the Socialist Party was justified on the grounds that it would give them an electoral front with which to contest the elections of 1973. Their candidate in the elections was the leader of the left social democrats – Coral.
They are very much under the influence of the US SWP, following its line exactly on Portugal. They are recognised as a sympathising section of the Fourth International, though they are bitterly opposed to the dominant Mandel line. They do have some influence in the working class – particularly in some of the car plants in Buenos Aires and in the state steel complex in San Nicolas, where they have led some of the anti-bureaucracy struggles. Have been hard hit by right wing terrorism in last two years. They regarded Peronism as a classic case of Bonapartism, reformist nationalist – and this did enable them to pose to a certain degree an independent alternative to working class militants. This was particularly the case in the early 70s when some militants, particularly in the car plants were beginning to break with Peronism. However their serious industrial work has been offset by a chronic electoral opportunism and they have seen their main task in the last two years as being to call on the government to safeguard formal democratic rights and asking it to submit itself to a new election to see if the people still support it.
A number of these arose in the late 60s and early 70s with the growing working class and student opposition to the military. Mainly student-based, they tended to see their main task as the resurrection of marxist theory and analysis after its debasement with the semi-populist anti-imperialist stagism of most of the traditional ‘marxists’. In particular they rejected the notion of Argentina as a colony or semi-colony whose main enemy was US imperialism, hence they rejected any form of stagism and replaced the working class in its direct conflict with Argentine capitalism at the centre of any revolutionary process in Argentina. They also emphasised the limits of the spontaneous rebellion of the Argentine workers against the military – posing the problem of their lack of an adequate ideology or revolutionary organisation. To a certain extent they tended to adopt an ultra-leninism as a reaction to the populism of much of the left. Their influence during the populist euphoria of ’72 and ’73 was very limited. The possibilities of future work very much depend on the degree of repression, and also on the extent to which they can unify. Having tended to divorce theory from practice in the past and with little work in the working class to measure their theoretical differences against they have often split. It should be emphasised that there are also non-affiliated revolutionary workers in Argentina. There are also within Peronism several currents much nearer to Marxism than the Montoneros, who recognise the multi-class, reformist nature of Peronism but who think that it is necessary to work there as it has the at least tacit allegiance of most workers. They also recognise the need for a revolutionary party but they tend to see this within a guerrillaist context. In general these currents have in the last two years gone into clandestinity to prepare the basis for open armed confrontation. They are also much smaller than the Montoneros and Peronist Youth.
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Last updated on 7.3.2008