unification congress held in Argentina in March will prove of interest, we believe, to all those who follow the development of the radical movement in Latin America. ' The two organizations involved were the FRIP (Frente Revolucionario Indoamericanista Popular) and Palabra Obrera (the organization built around the newspaper of that name), The report has been translated from the June 1 issue of Palabra Obrera (Worker's Word); subheadings ‘appear in the original.]
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An old working-class comrade who could not attend the first congress of the PRT Ppartido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores -= Revolutionary Party of the Workers], which was just held and which we are going to report, asked us what its political and party-building significance was. The comrade, it appeared, had in mind the congresses of Palabra Obrera in 1959 and 1961.
He recalled perfectly that the 1959 congress culminated all ‘our activity in the Agrupaciones Sindicales Peronistas [Peronist trade-union groupings] and the struggle against the Liberation [the rightist reaction that claimed to have freed Argentina from Perdn'ts
rule]... That congress, where Comrade. Alicia Eguren de Cook was pres-_ ent as an observer, crowned three or four years of struggle. against the worst reaction and efforts to unite a vanguard that had met its first _ tests confronting Rojas and Aramburu and the tanks and "gorillas" [reactionary top officer caste] in the streets. Unfortunately, the year 1959, which saw the culmination of the big upsurge that began in 1956, opened a period of retreat for the labor movement as a whole from which we have not yet recovered. Nevertheless, in 1959 Palabra Obrera brought together many of the best activists of that period. Mario Serra, General Secretary of the CGT [Confederacién’: -' General del Trabajo -- General Confederation of Labor] in Bahfa Blanca, an outstanding member of the metallurgical union_in the same city and an assiduous delegate at the plenums of the 62 [Peronist unions], is the outstanding representative of this heroic period of the labor movement and our party. ne ,
The 1961 Palabra Obrera congress also reflected a new stage in the development of the class struggle. The impact of the Cuban Revolution had been felt in our country, fundamentally among the middle class and the activists of the vanguard of the working class, That congress likewise had a central slogan -- the need to develop the Castroist current on a national and Latin-American scale, The Castroist front, a synthesis of the working class and the middle class, was an expression of this need,...The: elections in Santa Fe at the end of 1961 and in the rest of the provinces on March 18, 1962, were experimental fields for this effort. It did not prosper due to the weakness of the labor vanguard and the sectarianism of the petty bourgeoisie, fundamentally the Communist party, which, instead of seeking a common front with Peronism, ran its own candidates like | Alejandro Gémez in Santa Fe, blocking a wider agreement for March 18. This was one of the reasons why the Castroist front opened the way, although in a distorted and bureaucratic form, to Framini's triumph in Buenos Aires. The keynote for party activities at that time was provided in particular by the presence of fraternal delegates from Peru.
Finally, the first congress of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores in March 1965, in which Palabra Obrera and the FRIP united, also holds deep significance. It was not merely a congress held in accordance with statutes; it symbolized something bigger. than the two united organizations. This first congress of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores sums up several years of efforts to bring together a new vanguard that has appeared in the struggle against the bosses and the capitulationist bureaucracy and among com= rades coming from student circles, disillusioned with the policies of the Communist party and the centrist sects operating in the university milieu. The composition of the congress unquestionably reflected this new polarization in our party: Comrades who recently initiated the explosive method of sit-down strikes in which hostages are taken, like the comrades of Acero Sima, of Buenos Aires, of the San José mill, Bella Vista and Concepcién de Tucumdn; the leaders and activists
in-recent conflicts on-a factory level or of wider scope; the comrades of the -Mar del Plata quarries; the comrades of the fish industry who just.ended a bitter struggle with the bosses; the activists of the © metallurgical union, who participated in one way or another in the struggle against the Vandorista fraudulent elections; the comrades in textiles; in the chemical plants; and especially the comrades of’ Berisso, who organized the Lista Rosa de Unidad movement that: defeated the Cardosista camarilla of Reche; and together with them, the com-— rades of the Pharmaceutical Faculty of Buenos Aires, organizers of -the Unidad Program&tica Estudiantil; the comrades of the Exact Sciences who organized the Agrupacidén FELNA; the student leaders of the universities in Bahfa Blanca, Rosario, Santa Fe, Cérdoba and Tucumdn; and all the other comrades representing various areas of -work and organization in Salta, Santiago, Tucumdn, Santa Fe, Provincia de Buenos. Aires -- all are the positive results of months of consistent work which this first congress reflected in a clear way. ©
Possibly if we had waited two or three more months, new com=rades who have joined in recent months could have attended. But if this was not possible because the congress could not be postponed, — the significance of the congress was nonetheless immense. It was the congress of .the new vanguard of workers and students which became consolidated in the struggle against the bosses and the bureaucracy in the labor movement, and against the: restrictions and pretensions of | the bureaucratic and centrist leaderships in student circles.
All the comrades believe that the new activists were strengthened by their work at the congress, For the majority it was the first time they had attended a congress of a revolutionary organization, The democracy shown in the discussions, the absence of any bureaucratic resistance to free expression, the serioveness with which all’ the national and Latin-American tasks were approached, could not but impress all the comrades and help to make them conscious of the enormous perspectives before us if we can succeed in Torging the necessary instruments in our daily activities. :
We hope that the correctness of this view will soon be con firmed through application of the resolutions approved at this first congress: of the Partido Revolucionario de los Traba jadores, Four Fundamental Activities
Whenever it becomes necessary to speak about what we are doing or have done, we run the risk of being taken for pedants; but even at the risk of falling into this danger, we must indicate the successes in our activities, where we failed to achieve our goals, also our errors, This. report was centered around four fundamental facts: (a) The unification of the two organizations whose work in a united front culminated in the formation of a single organization under the name of Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores, (b) Our work in the North, basically in Tucumdn, which was capped with one of the
most notable happenings of the recent period -- the rise of a labor bloc within the Partido Accidén Provinciana which recognizes the discipline of the FOTIA [Federacién Obrera Tucumana de la Industria Azucarera -- Tucumdn Workers Federation of the Sugar Industry]. (c) The strengthening on a national scale of an oppositionist current against the Vandorista leadership in the metallurgical union, a reflection of the maturing of the new vanguard that has arisen in the labor movement, of which another indication was the defeat of Cardoso in the last elections of the meat packers in Berisso, (d) The strengthening, likewise on a national scale, of a revolutionary student tendency.
These were the basic, fundamental facts with regard to the organization's activities, which does not mean that we were not present in many other fronts of the working class and popular sectors -= struggles in the construction industry as in Sima, Avdn, Astarsa; over-all struggles like the campaign to cast a blank ballot in the elections of July 7 and March 14; taking a position with regard to the problem of the return of General Perdédn, etc., etc. But if we confine ourselves to the four preceding activities it is because they reflect better than any of the others the accuracy of an analy- sis. and the correctness of activity with long-range aims.
Tucumin -- A Working-Class Victory
In the oral report the observation was made that there are groups that call themselves revolutionary and who present themselves as "prophets" or "diviners of the future" -- after things have happened. That is, after the success in getting the FOTIA to present a majority of labor candidates and organizing the bloc, these people came forward with recipes for what should: be done. This is real pedantry, a revolutionary pose and nothing more. Against attitudes like that stands the activity of our organization, which after analyzing the situation in the North came to the conclusion that the best possibilities for the labor movement. in an organized form were in- Tucumén, And from that followed the slogan: "Labor candidates of FOTIA on an anticapitalist program." Six months after this analysis, not only did we have a bloc of nine comrades but our own organization. had a candidate elected as deputy as a result of this correct policy © and action. Our Comrade Fote, present at the congress, offered proof of the correctness of this analysis and action. . be
Metallurgical Union -- Correct Activity
The metallurgical elections were another axis of our activity. We said constantly that there should be no illusions about the elec-. — tions resulting in elimination of the Vandorista bureaucracy, but we also said that we must utilize the elections to weaken this. leadership and to strengthen the new vanguard that was rising, extending it on-an overall scale, or at least on a district: level. This objective was fully realized. In Vicente Ldépez, Mordn, Quilmes, Bahfa Blanca
and Rosario, we were one of the basic driving forces for the unification of the vanguard of the union on common slates against the — bureaucracy.
Fraud at the ballot box was the unanimous response of the bureaucracy to counter its growing decline in prestige, Even in: the federal.district, where the bureaucracy presented virtually a single slate due to the absence of a united opposition, Vandor's people: resorted to fraud. In Vicente Lédpez the existence of fraud was proved with cases of dual membership. In Mordédn the process was brought to a climax -- when the final count indicated the defeat of Gutiérrez (Vandor's man) all the ballots were scrambled and they did not bring the motion to adjourn the meeting to a vote.
Our analysis of how we must utilize these elections was con= firmed once again, and not only was our analysis confirmed, but our organization was strengthened with the recruitment of new comrades who had done everything possible to unite the vanguard of one of the basic unions in our country.
At this point in the report, a comrade might say that it didn't require any genius to develop this kind of activity. The possible objection could be correct, but if we bring out this aspect of our activities, it is because no other organization sought to raise the — activity of the vanguard higher than the plant level and to combine it with the struggle against. the Vandorista bureaucracy. Not even the Communist party which could have done it, due:to the size of its apparatus, took the initiative along these lines. On the contrary, in many districts they supported the bureaucracy. Vicente Lépez is an example and the federal district is another, since there the slate made up with the support of the Communist militants, did nothing in the way of seeking unification with the other oppositionist currents; and in Vicente Ldépez they directly supported the bureaucracy, in this way carrying out the general line of supporting the official Peronist leadership in accordance with the CP's latest shift in tactics, Turning from this party to the other currents, we did not see a Single one in any district participating in an over-all sense, Hence, without magnifying it, the importance of our activity.
Student Work -- A Full Success
And what we said about the metallurgical workers also goes for the students. As an organization we were the first current that boldly came out in the university against all the restrictive efforts, against the subsidies from imperialist outfits like Ford and Rockefeller. for research that -has. nothing to do with the needs of the country, and against the theory that the university is an island of demo~ cracy in our country, and against the myth that the students, as a whole, constitute the vanguard of the popular sectors. Our comrades did outstanding work in the struggle against Ford "aid" in Bahfa Blanca. Our comrades are at the head of the student mobilizations
in Santa Fe against the "restrictive professorial caste" who in Chemical Engineering want to impose ten-year courses and cloistered studies on poor students who in more than one case have to work their way through school. In a meeting in defense of Santo Domingo one of the speakers recognized by the organizers was Comrade Amato, who had previously been ostracized precisely because he belonged to our organization and who is now accepted because of the general recognition that we are a force on the campus .
Our ‘position that the old formula of for or against reforms is outmoded today, it has given way to.a new antinomy -- with our country or against our country, and the necessity to unite all those who are with our country and with the working class through the new activists who are appearing in the struggle against the bosses and the bureaucracy, is what sets us apart on a national scale.
The FRIP-PO Unification
And if this quick résumé reflects only the central axes of our activity, we must insist on the fact, likewise notable, that two organizations like the FRIP and Palabra Obrera, have united.
When we see in the national scene nothing but divisions and atomization among the various parties and organizations, the FRIP and Palabra Obrera provide an example of constructing a single revolutionary organization, the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores -- one’ more indication. that only those who undertake serious work in the working class and its vanguard, in accordance with a correct analysis and program, are growing stronger.
Discussion on Palabra Obrera
The written document and the oral report were approved unanimously. The discussion centered particularly on three important points: the party's publications, the financial apparatus and the ~ defense of the organization. 7
Some comrades held the position that Palabra Obrera, especially in articles on international topics, used a too advanced terminology, which made it difficult to read and understand. During the discussion and in the final voting, this was clarified and it was agreed that the publications of the organization should use language corresponding to the vanguard to which they are addressed. That if there is a problem, it is in the contents. That is, comrades may believe that it is necessary to lower the political level of the articles, And this was likewise clarified -~ by no means should we stop saying what we are saying. In the course of the discussion, an article was read in which it was shown that the terminology, the language, was what is in current usage, and that the line, the position, was correct. From this the final conclusion was drawn that — Palabra Obrera cannot replace either lectures or pamphlets or other
special educational work, or the theoretical magazine. And this being so, it is a gap which we must try to fill in the immediate future. This was the meaning of a motion that the organization must prepare a series of pamphlets on the most urgent problems of the day for. the benefit of the compades of the new vanguard that is appearing.
Politics, Revolutionary Morals and Finances
The point that aroused the most discussion dealt with whether it is necessary or not to have a financial apparatus in the organization. Although this. problem was not posed explicitly in the document, a reference to the small organizational apparatuses which the zones ~ have set up to carry out their financial obligations touched off a discussion on an old problem in which the two organizations coming together in the fusion have had different experiences.
It was brought out in the discussion that the party, for moral and political reasons, cannot foster or support the formation of com= mercial enterprises of any kind. The economic needs of the organization must be solved through the efforts of its members, its activists, its sympathizers, through a financial committee, or whatever name might be given to it; but the party cannot be in favor from any point of view of creating a financial apparatus on either a national or district scale. The moral reasons: it is not true-that the end justifies the means. The party has its morals. If it is really a:revolu- tionary party and we are against exploitation, no end, no matter how altruistic or humanistic it may be, can justify the party engaging in exploitation. The political reasons: we are against setting up businesses that serve to finance the fundamental activities of the organization, because these apparatuses are a source of bureaucratic perversion and take the comrades away from the everyday struggle, diverting them into discussing economic and financial problems when they are not fighting over the income and the division of the profits, the latter occurring especially if the zones are weak and the leaders are poverty stricken. What we are not against is the organization having members or sympathizers who carry on activities in bourgeois circles, pledging amounts of money set by the organization. This situation is a personal contradiction, a personal sacrifice, but the organization can in no way follow a line of setting up a business in order to gain money on the basis of exploiting other comrades.
One comrade quite aptly cited the example of Engels, who spent many years of his life carrying out bourgeois functions in order to make it possible to maintain Marx.
Since some comrades insisted that party perspectives would be © reduced by the lack of funds, it was also brought out that this discussion. of principles did not mean that the party must not exert the ” maximum efforts to solve the economic problems arising from the needs _ of.the party. That the discussion of principles was oné thing and
the solution of concrete problems something else again. A motion was. passed in the light of the discussion that the national leadership should solve the economic problems arising from the agreed on political tasks through the party itself. In the final discussion unanimous agreement was reached, and although it sounds like a commonplace, the discussion on this point certainly proved illuminating.
National Political Discussion
The comrade reporting on the national problem said that in . his presentation he was not going to repeat the written report but. was: going to try to explain how this was drawn up, so that the com rades could get an idea of how a national document is "filmed." That is, they were not going to see the film but how it was produced,.
In elaborating the document, they began by studying the reality, the general situation in the country, the status of the classes, the government, imperialism. Then it was decided what sectors should -- be chosen for party work. And once this was determined, the specific ..places were selected along with the accompanying program.
The comrade said that he was not going to dwell on the characterization of the country, nor on the class structure, nor the government; nor was it necessary to insist on what class is ours and where we work fundamentally. What he intended to do was deal with the pro- . gram we need in order to carry out our work, and, within this, ona - point which he had observed: most discussions had been occurring in the party --. the CGT acting as a Labor party.
Various Kinds of. Slogans —
In our program it is. necessary. to distinguish carefully between immediate slogans, transitional slogans, and those relating -:to power. Immediate slogans are those that at no time place the stability of the regime in danger, or more accurately, the success of which would not place a question mark over the "capitalist order. For, example, an emergency wage boost. Or the demand for a minimum wage of 20,000 pesos [$160]. It can be won or not, but neither reply to this demand compromises the bourgeois, capitalist structures, The slogans relating to power, on the other hand, pose the problem of who holds power or how it canbe gained, "A1l power to the oGT" or "A workers and popular government" are slogans relating to power. Those ~ of a transitional nature, without posing the problem of who is ruling or should. rule, hits the. basic structures of the regime. For example: Workers control over the books and the companies. Or organization of a workers militia, or occupation of the factories with taking of hos-~ tages, do not directly pose taking power but lead to it. And none of them can be concretized for sure except with the working class and the popular sectors in power, A revolutionary organization must offer an answer to all these problems through a series of immediate and transitional slogans and-.those relating to power. Our national docu-
ment centers fundamentally on these answers. A Timely Slogan or Too Late?
And now we come to the key point. Should the CGT act as a political party or not? The discussion centered almost exclusively on this slogan. The reporter took up some of the objections, which were then deepened. We will try to faithfully indicate the main points made by the principal participants.
The first point was why we must adopt this slogan. The comrade assigned to give the report explained that the organization had recently raised this slogan in a fundamental way. Peronism, as a nationalist movement, had been in’a state of crisis for some time, but despite this crisis, despite a leadership that was more and more bureaucratic-and linked with the integrationist [policy of trying to buy off the Peronists] interests of Jorge Antonio and LRogelio] ’ Frigerio, the policies of the governments that succeeded the Liberation had brought Peronism to oppose the regime, Despite the whole capitulation during the Frondizi period, the election of March 18, 1962, without signifying a basic turn, was.a form of expression ‘ against the regime,
The Bourgeois Institutionalization of Peronism
_ The March 14 election showed the opposite. Official Peronism accepted the government's game and joined in forming part of the regime although it played at being "the opposition." Its line is no longer a hard one; on the contrary it seeks to "institutionalize" Peronism. It is becoming weaker and more docile in following a policy that is not that of the labor movement, which in a distorted -form it reflected in the past by generally opposing the ruling capitalist regime.
Throughout the previous stage and basically after the coup of September 16, it was the Agrupaciones Sindicales Peronistas that had the fundamental responsibility in this struggle against the regime. The line of our organization in the past was hence com= pletely correct in recognizing this fact and working to the fullest extent in these organizations. Today this phenomenon no longer “exists... The crisis of the official Peronist movement is complete ‘although they continue to win elections. It no longer confronts the regime but has gone over to being part of it and with an aggravation already analyzed by our organization -- it is losing the tremendous ‘step. forward which the unification of the whole working class around Peronism signified despite the fact that it had a boss methodology and leadership like the methodology of the Leloirs, the Teiseires, etc.
The fact that there are comrades in the labor movement who now vote for the UCRP [Unién CYvica Radical del Pueblo] out of dis-
2426
gust with the conduct of. official Peronism is symptomatic. The perspective of greater atomization is real, actual. Our old line of working within the Agrupaciones Sindicales Peronistas is no longer © good. Clearly the crisis of official Peronism, of the Iturbes, Vandors, Lescanos, does not guarantee avoidance of this atomization.
A Vacuum that Only the CGT Can Fill
Although we can lose sight of the axis of our positions because of discreditment of the present leaderships of the tradeunion organizations, the vacuum left by official Peronism in institutionalizing itself and becoming another piece in the hands of the regime, can be filled today only by the CGT which, despite everything, is the only organization that the masses consider to be their own. From this we have drawn the conclusion that the experience in the North with the FOTIA holds for the entire country, The FOTIA acted as a political party, although it has not adopted any special name, when it recognized that its bloc of deputies had won appreciation and that they ought to be used in its own service. All the other regional, provincial and national trade-union organizations should act the same way. With this slogan that "the CGT should act like a political party" we are only generalizing the Tucumdn experi-~ ence. Points Debated
As was to be expected, after this explanation by the reporter, all those who participated in the discussion dwelt almost exclusively with this point. The fundamental arguments given in opposition were the following: (1) To favor converting the CGT into a political party would: separate us from the vanguard which formed vrecisely because of its experience with the present bureaucratic leaders. (2) To favor this is to capitulate to the bureaucracy and is a consequence of an opportunist and tail-endist policy. (3) The Tucumdn experience is completely different because the leadership of the FOTIA is an antiboss, class-conscious leadership. (4) To go to the masses with this slogan means diverting them from the fundamental role which our revolutionary party is now playing. (5) The participation of the masses in elections is a tactical problem which can be worked out five or six months before the elections are held. (6) The slogan of a mass labor party based on the CGT is a consequence of the entryist. experienee of some of the comrades. that cannot and must not be applied at the present time. |
Almost all the comrades who argued against the CGT acting as a political party agreed with the analysis that had been made of the situation. so that the discussion centered on this point from the beginning. In response to the arguments indicated above, some aspects were brought out which, it was insisted, should be taken into account.
What Do We Do About the Bureaucracy?
- In-the first place it was maintained that in-calling for the CGT. to act as.a political party, this should not be identified with the present; leaders. The problem to be answered is -- how to fill the vacuum left by the incapacity of official Peronism to oppose the regime today? The position that it should be us, as the revolution-~ ary party, as the pole of attraction, is a sectarian position. To say that we are the mass party is to ignore the reality -- we are a revolutionary party of the vanguard and we have no possibility of reaching the masses due to our own weakness and the objective situation itself... In the past our policy of striving to reach the masses was made through the Agrupaciones Sindicales Peronistas., To say. that we can fill this vacuum is to fall into sectarianism, is to deny ourselves a broader policy. To refuse to call for the conversion of the CGT into a political party because today this means the Vandors, the Framinis, is the same as refusing to collaborate on the level of struggle for the same reason, Independently cf who is in the .caT, : it would be tremendously positive if its leaders would decide to act as a political party. If the Vandors would agree that the CGT should be converted into a political party this would be super positive (independently of the fact that Vandor would control such a party) and if they refuse it in face of our call, this negative answer would unquestionably contribute to discrediting them. It would be wonderful if Vandor and Co. would accept this slogan, For the whole working. class to act as a class in an election, even if headed. by “pur éaucrats, would be equally positive. ; Support and Criticism of the Tucumén Example»
This does not signify that we would thereby be capitulating to Vandor and that we would say that everything Vandor does in utilizing the CGT as a party is good. We would adopt the. same position that we are now adopting with regard to the plan of struggle; our support does not invalidate our denunciation of them as agents of the regime. Our own party would be strengthened by this policy as it was strengthened in Tucumdn by proposing that the FOTIA should run labor candidates. No one in Tucumdn was tricked and we did not contribute to any trickery in recommending a vote for the labor can= didates of the FOTIA in the last elections although we knew that some of the comrades had not been elected in plant. meetings and that some of the comrades were presenting a quite soft line. The process in © itself was positive. For the first time in the history of the labor movement .a trade-union council was acting as a labor party.
After some of the comrades insisted on some of the arguments we have indicated, giving numerous examples, agreement was reached that the analysis made in the national document on the need for the CGT acting as a political party was correct and it was agreed that in the next meeting of the central committee the slogan would be reformulated, that is, there was no doubt that the CGT must intervene
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in the political field, but the slogan would be given a new form, that is, the way in which we should propose that the trade~union council should act like a political party. Perhaps the form will be through the setting up of a front of parties or something similar, In a word, agreement was reached on the contert of the document that was presented although the slogan will be reformulated.
Name of the Party a and Election of Officials
Due to the fact that some of the comrades from the North had | to return to their jobs the next day, the order of the agenda was changed and the statutes, new name of the organization and election of officials were taken up before the discussion on the North and on Latin America,
With the statutes there was little discussion because these were taken up thoroughly in advance at a meeting of the central committee. The choice of the new name of the party was voted on directly by all the delegates, Among the three names previously selected, Partido de la Revolucidén Obrera, Partido Unificado de la Revolucién and Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores, the toss up was between the first and the last name. On the count it was found that the name Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores had won by one vote. The two united organizations stopped calling themselves FRIP and Palabra Obrera respectively to take the single name of PARTIDO REVOLUCIONARIO DE LOS TRABAJADORES. A year of joint activity. culminated its formal aspects in this new-.designation, All the comrades present took the occasion for a big celebration. After this they went on to elect the officials of the new party, all of whom were unanimously approved,
The comrades elected to the leadership are unquestionably the’ best comrades in the various zones of the country although they were not elected on a federated basis. They have demonstrated in daily activity that they merit being in the top party leadership from one congress to the next. Before being elected, the comrades of the new central committee gave a short biography of each one of the nominees. When this had been completed, the first session of the first congress of the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores was adjourned,
Our Activity in the North
One of the themes that was awaited most expectantly in the discussion was certainly the North, Throughout the past year, one of our fundamental activities was there, so that it was not strange that this should prove to be one of the richest discussions, filled with contributions that will have to be taken into account in working up a new document on the basis of the fundamental outline contained in two of the documents presented for discussion,
The reporter explained that due to the lack of time he had
~45-.. —
not been able to present a document spelling out some of the differ-ences with regard to characterization of the area, but that he had nevertheless been able to give some indications on the problem in the document before the delegates, We will see how this characterization of the North.became one of the points of greatest debate although at the end there was virtual unanimity. The document which the comrade read was, however,.a document on activities, telling what we have done in the North, the broad lines of which’ were covered by the report on national activities. He pointed out the necessity of intensifying our work in the mills, supporting the strengthening of one tendency throughout the sugar workers union, for which a bulletin or newspaper should be brought out as a polarizing organ, pressing the slogan. of. the CGT acting as a political party, which could be utilized after reformulation for better utilization of legal forms . in extending our political influence, especially in Santiago del Estero where the conditions of work.are the most difficult.
The other document that was presented, discussion material ‘for a plenum in Tucumdn, led to one of the delegates asking for sufficient time for a counter report. When this was granted, the comrade making the counter report pointed out what he considered to be a very dangerous error -- the absence in. the document. of a policy on the FOTIA bloc, and on the FOTIA itself as a political party of the Tucumdén working class. The comrade said that in his opinion this lack in the document was not accidental, but a consequence of, the . sectarian position shown in the previous session when the national. document was being discussed, especially the point on the CGT as a political party. He explained that this work involved the super~. structure, but it was very important. That he had no doubts about the correctness of the work of the comrades in the North, where the daily stress was on the struggles in the mills.and on the importance of massive participation in drawing up the new contract which was now being discussed, but he insisted on the need for a policy with regard to the deputies elected by the FOTIA labor. bloc in connection with the concrete problems confronting the Tucumdn workers and those in the North generally as this could enter into the elections in Jujuy.
_. He took as an example that Comrade Romano, who has already taken up his duties as a deputy, should present a platform for the. FOTIA with the fundamental demands of the workers. in the sugar industry, as for example, control of the company books and the need to expropriate mills that cannot guarantee jobs or that condemn the workers of the province to hunger and misery. Along with. this he pointed to the lack of a characterization of the North of the country, and although it might be a little venturesome for him.to do so, he thought the party should have a characterization of the North so as to settle once and for all the fundamental areas of work, Thus in his opinion, in the North there are three provinces having relatively advanced capitalist development, Tucumdn, Salta and Jujuy. The first one is in decline, the others on the rise. The rest of the provinces surrounding these three are subsidiary to them, that
+
is they furnish the army of unemployed necessary for cheap labor for heavy exploitation during the harvest. .The Tucumdn workers have no © way out if they don't unite their fate with that of the workers of Salta and Jujuy. Not to have a perspective along these lines means shipwreck in the near future, and if we are really a revolutionary political party we must, on the basis of this characterization, set precise objectives and distribute our forces in accordance with these characterizations,
Many comrades, on reading this, may feel surprised that without any embarrassment we publicize discussions that appear to be of an internal nature. It is precisely this method that has served to strengthen our organization. We believe that hiding differences, or: trying to cover them up, does not help us advance -- on the contrary. Since we hold that discussions are intended not to win points ina debating club but to forge the tools needed to interpret reality and then go into action, we bring our differences into the light of day. In the discussion on the North, we did no more than apply this method. To make our differences clear helped to single out the points in the discussion, ,
With regard to the question of the North, the following shadings were to be noted: (1) That the lack of activity in respect to FOTIA mentioned above was due basically to the enormous number of tasks facing us out of which we had to concentrate on the most important. (2) That it is already an old project to turn to Jujuy and Salta. .(3) That we must gather more exhaustive information in order to completely characterize the North,
Nevertheless it was agreed that we would have to work up. another document correctly characterizing the North, utilizing the generalizations and material contained in the other documents. The reservation was made that. in coming to a vote the importance of the characterization of the North still remained unclarified and consequently it would be necessary to have a basic discussion on the conclusions sketched out in one of the documents.
One sentence, apparently a harmless one, was shown to carry very big implications: "The process of antibureaucratic struggle by the sugar worker or the lumber worker, which is based on the worst economic and organizational conditions..." In placing the sugar worker and the worker in the Santiago workshops on the same plane, the characterization is made that both have been playing the same role in sharpening the struggle against the bureaucrats and the bosses. Some comrades pointed out that today they do not play the same role and that without the least doubt the proletariat of Tucumin stand in the vanguard in this struggle against the bureaucrats and the bosses. This means that they agree with the characterization that the bastions of the struggle must go through Tucumdn, Salta and Jujuy. Finally, they agreed that in establishing this characterization it was necessary to complete it, to deepen it, but that it.
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was basic, because, despite its schematic nature, it would permit us to work correctly; not to accept it would mean wandering from the axis and putting an equals sign in all work offering possibilities in the North. And that it was out of the question that all fields merited our attention at the present moment.
Three points were finally put to the vote for working-up a new document: (a) The characterization which the organization should take in these three provinces as the basis of our work and especially our work among the sugar workers. (b) To approve taking the struggle for the contract and the present struggles in the mills as the basis of our activity. (c) That the FOTIA should act as a political party with regard to all the happenings in the North and that it is necessary to organize a whole trade-union tendency with a journal as the polarizing axis. On the first point, there was only one abstention, all the rest voting for it. The other two points were passed unanimously. Thus one of the most important discussions in the party came to a close, a discussion which we do not doubt will prove of fundamental importance in daily application of the line. Because of this, the discussion was long and extensive.
Latin-American Discussion
The report and discussion on Latin America closed the final session of the Congress, Partly because the documents concerned had already been amply debated (our Latin-American Theses have been circulated and discussed in detail for more than a year by the two united organizations) and also because of the lateness of the hour, the discussion did not go into such detail as it did on the other points. The reporter then made a brief summary and reply to questions and clarifications and there was unanimous approval of the report made by Comrade Alejandro Martell and the document previously presented as. a draft resolution. The outstanding points of the document are as. follows: The Course of the Latin-American Revolution
The Latin-American Revolution has entered its fourth period of ascendancy since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, The first period, as considered by the PRT, extended from the triumph of the Cuban masses to the defeat of the Paraguayan guerrilla fighters. This cycle began with great triumphs and advances and closed with some defeats. The characteristic of this first period was the consolidation of the Cuban workers state; the development of Castroism as a continental movement; the development of the armed struggle advocated by vanguard groups of the middle classes of Latin America which, becoming radicalized, broke with the old nationalist boss parties and movements that had channelized them; and, as a consequence of this, the upsurge of new political tendencies marked by Castroism and guerrillaism in program and methodology.
The second period, inaugurated in our opinion by the defeat of the Paraguayan guerrilla fighters, was marked by two facts: ‘the defeat was tragic proof of the incorrectness of the guerrilla methodology and program; and, while the Castroist vanguard and organizations moved into a process of crisis and reevaluation, another fact characterizing this stage developed simultaneously -- an upsurge in the Latin-American mass movement.
' The third period began when the mass upsurge became general and along with the continuing subjective revolution of its vanguard, the following events occurred: offensive of the proletariat and the peasantry (and not of the urban petty bourgeoisie as in the preceding: stages); "nationalization" of the revolutionary process on the basis of conditions in each country, overcoming abstract Latin-Americanism; rise of a new vanguard in labor and revolutionary positions; development of Trotskyist cadres in the leadership. of the revolutionary processes, The best example is provided by the Peruvian Revolution, epicenter of an upsurge with the Trotskyist leader Hugo Blanco at the head. Nevertheless the gap between the upsurge of the masses and the weaknesses of its leaderships (in slow evolution toward revolutionary positions and with marked organizational and political deficiencies was the reason for this third period of upsurge of the masses likewise ending in momentary defeats.) (Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, etc. ) . ‘But the fourth period of upsurge was not long in coming -= at the end of 1964 -~- since the counterrevolution did not succeed in becoming consolidated in any country: with the outstanding victory of the Bolivian miners over the army and the subsequent downfall of Paz Estenssoro and the continuation of the process of occupying the land in Peru, the continental offensive of the masses began again. But this now has new specific characteristics -- the complete crisis of petty-bourgeois Castroism, of the Communist parties and the bank-=ruptcy of putschism, and the new advances and the rise of consistent revolutionary leaderships (Trotskyist unification in Peru, strengthening of the POR [Partido Obrero Revolucionario] and rise of the Frento de Partidos Obreros in Bolivia, unification of the guerrilla groups in Colombia, Trotskyist unification in Chile, unification of the FRIP and Palabra Obrera into the Argentine PRT, etc.),. The present relationship between the development of the new revolutionary leaderships of the masses and the crisis of the old reformist, bureaucratic and putschist leaderships is without question marked by the fact that the former have not succeeded as yet in filling the vacuum left by the latter. Nevertheless its presence is giving new tone and content to the present stage of the Latin-American revolution. This contradiction is so decisive for the revolution that the masses have been able to win victories only where the new leaderships have orystallized. out.
The Great Need -- Revolutionary Parties
We can state that the big defeats of the masses have been caused exclusively by the social, organizational, political and methodological incapacities of their leaderships. No mobilization can be victorious without a revolutionary leadership. Thus it was that the big upsurge in the peasantry, the proletariat, the students and lower officers of the army ranks that occurred in Brazil, ended in the present semifascist dictatorship; and in Venezuela, after the downfall of Pérez Jiménez, the great democratic revolutionary. process was brought by the leaderships of the CP and the MIR [Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria] into dragging behind Rémulo Betancourt and then, in face of his "betrayal," into a policy of adventurism that tremendously reduced the trade-union and urban forces of both parties, which, after successive self-criticisms, confined their action to unpopulated zones in the mountains in an essentially urban country. Likewise in Chile, where the opportunist policy of the leaderships of the FRAP [Frente Revolucionario de Accién Popular] blocked the outstanding upsurge of the masses and paved the way for Frei's victory.
Contrariwise, in the countries where genuinely revolutionary leaderships developed even on a regional or local scale, if only. episodically, the masses won big victories, This is the reason for the invincibility of the agrarian revolution in Peru which is utilizing the methods and the organization derived from Hugo Blanco and the FIR [Frente de Izquierda Revolucionario] -- agrarian unions and occupation of the land. And in Bolivia, where the presence of the organization and methodology of the POR, which backed the workers! militia against government attempts to disarm them and which led the miners to victory ‘at Sora Sora, enabled the workers to save their revolution despite the thousand betrayals of the Lechinist bureaucracy. And in Colombia, where the agrarian revolution continues to advance despite. the massacres of peasants, the firing squads, the napalm bombings and semigangster deviations, because the vanguard there were able, through self-sacrifice, to unleash the social class and the method of struggle proper to their country ~-- the peasantry and guerrilla warfare.
These facts demonstrate the imperious necessity of building a revolutionary leadership but likewise bare two fundamental problems -- that up to now the revolutionary leaderships have been only regional (Peru), embryonic (Bolivia, Argentina) or have not yet reached the level of Leninism-Trotskyism (Colombia); and that in order to prevent further developments along this line, we revolutionists must be very careful not to provoke adventures which, leading inevitably to defeats, can cause serious setbacks to the revolutionary process on a regional, national and even continental scale,
From a United Front toa Revolutionary Party
The crisis in the leadership of the people, which has developed in crescendo during the periods analyzed above, has brought consider=
able sectors of the vanguard and the activists to search for a new organization and a program that could lead to victory. These are ~ the honest comrades disillusioned with the failure of petty=bourgeois Castroism, of the stumbling around of the Communist parties and the holocaust and. defeat of guerriliaism. : -
With complete earnestness we must say that our organization believes that the program and the organization sought by these comrades are to. be found in Trotskyism. In view of this, we consider it to be the duty of all the Latin-American Trotskyist organizations to make a fraternal appeal for a revolutionary united:front of all the revolutionary tendencies that have appeared as a result of the crisis among the reformist, bureaucratic or empiricist currents and which have reached programs resembling in general outline our own. program and activities. oe -
This policy should be applied on a national and continental scale. In our countries, we believe that the Peruvian FIR (Trotskyist unification), the Bolivian POR, the Argentine PRT, the Chilean Trotskyist unification, are the pivots for winning the necessary revolutionary unity. And on a continental scale, the Cuban leadership, which in:reecent months has taken stupendous steps (just as in the: previous period it smashed the Stalinist camarilla of Escalante, today it is defeating the rightist wing of Carlos Rafael Rodrfguez, supported by Moseow, and.in another field is giving.a lesson to revo-=_ lutionists throughout the world with its policy of solidarity with Vietnam), along with the Frente de Partidos:Obreros.in Bolivia, the Colombian revolutionists, the Peruvian FIR-and all the organizations that agree on struggling for a common program and organization, we must pose the construction of a Revolutionary Latin-American International, and convert into reality the aim advocated by Leon Trotsky -- demolish the bourgeois governments and found a great Federation of Latin-American Socialist and Workers States.
Directeur-G’erant: Pierre FRANK. 1'éditeur).