ARGENTINE REVOLUTIONARIES HOLD HISTORIC CONGRESS
{The following article on the "Third Congress of the Revolutionary Workers Party of Argentina," was translated from the July 4 issue of La Verdad.]
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Our Third Co ess was held 15 days ago in Uruguay (for obvious security reasons). Not wanting to fall into the commonplaces which inevitably occur after one has carried out an affair of this sort, we think it much better to reprint here a part of one of the documents discussed at the Congress; in our opinion, it places this event, which was of the utmost importance not only for us but for the Argentine revolutionary movement as a whole, in the best context.
The First Congress of the PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores -- Revolutionary Workers party, the Argentine section of the Fourth International] in 1965 signified, on the one hand, the construction of the programmatic and organizational bases of our party. But, on the other side, it signified something far more profound: the definitive resolution of a deep-going crisis of leadership in the Palabra Obrera organization (which provided the fundamental base of support for the new party). This was simply a reflection of the crisis experienced by almost the whole revolutionary left with the impact of Castroism.
To sum up: the First Congress in 1965 meant, on the one hand, the beginning of something new (the PRT, with solid organizational and political bases), and, on the other, the triumph and enrichment of an organization and leadership which had been hard hit and had gone into crisis as a result of the phenomenon signified by Castroisn.
Two important intimately related circumstances made the unification of two revolutionary organizations like FRIP (Frente Revolucionario Indoamericanista Popular -- Indo-American Revolutionary Front] and Palabra Obrera possible. First of all, there was the beginning of success in overcoming our difficulties, the consistent work among workers (overcoming previous adventuristic and opportunistic deviations), the fundamental axis of which was Palabra Obrera's penetration at the factory level, and the extension of this to the national scale thanks to the unification itself. Moreover, the unification of these two organizations made it possible to formulate a complete revolutionary program for the country as a whole, which for the first time brought together in a harmonious synthesis the general features of the class struggle, not just in Greater Buenos Aires but in its dialectical relation to the other regions and other sections of the working class throughout the country. These two phenomena (the new penetration into the workers movement and the formulation of the program) were the two essential bases of the PRT at its founding.
The Second Congress
The Second Congress last year was historic for many reasons and we have defined it as THE CONGRESS WHICH CONSOLI- DATED A REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST PARTY IN THIS COUNTRY FOR THE FIRST TIME in 30 years. It was a small party, but a nationwide one, with a predominant influence over the workers and student vanguard in all the basic arenas of the class struggle and for all levels (worldwide, Latin American, and national). Before the Second Congress of the PRT we could say that more or less strong revolutionary groups had existed and that some, like Palabra, had possessed important features of a national party, although they had a great weakness in that they had not brought together or synthesized the various aspects of an overall campaign of revolutionary activity for the country as a whole.
With the PRT, however, a small party emerged which was a national party in structure, program, and activity.
In fact, the Second Congress of the PRT marked THE OPENING UP OF THE THIRD HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY SO FAR IN THIS CEN- TURY TO GIVE THE ARGENTINIAN PROLETARIAT LEADERSHIP AND A REVOLUTIONARY PARTY. Up until 1930, the anarchists had this opportunity; afterward (during the Infamous Decade) it was the Stalinists. The loss of both these opportunities prevented the emergence of a revolutionary party with mass influence which would seriously endeavor to take power and to bring about the defeat of the bourgeoisie, the oligarchy, and imperialism.
This does not mean that the Second Congress of our party transformed it into a powerful party with mass influence. Quite the contrary, we stress again, the Second Congress revealed a national party, the first nationwide revolutionary party on the scene in several decades, since Peronism. But, at the same time, it showed a weak party, whose influence and sphere of work remained limited to sections of the worker and student vanguard.
This was the result of profound historical causes which cannot be reiterated too often: first, the fundamental failure of the Stalinist leadership which converted itself from an incipient revolutionary leadership without mass influence into a powerful opportunist and re-
formist leadership collaborating with the enemy class but with great mass influence and control of the largest industrial unions.
Adding to this historical factor have been profound objective causes unfavorable to the development and strengthening of a revolutionary leadership such as Palabra Obrera. These factors are Peronism, the economic structure, and the evolution of the country's capitalist economy, which have made it possible to give important concessions to the workers movement at the price, however, of its becoming ensnared in a reformist and class collaborationist policy. This policy has prevented the workers from gaining revolutionary experience. The workers movement has had its great mobilizations, but these have always culminated in reformist gains which could be absorbed by the bourgeois structures in our (relatively advanced capitalist) country.
Both the Peronist and the Liberation stages permitted this margin for class collaboration which offered the workers and the labor bureaucracy some opportunity to improve their situation and hold their own.
Nonetheless, the Second Congress was a historic event because it succeeded in welding together a party with real national scope. This fact is being registered in slow but sure progress because it involves the subjective maturing of an ideological revolution in the consciousness of the worker and student vanguard, a process enabling it to draw the most important conclusions from the great defensive battles of the workers and the students.
It is precisely from these experiences and these conclusions that our party is winning the support and respect of the best elements of the workers and the students. This ideological revolution is the objective factor which has permitted us to transform ourselves into a national party in spite of the fact that the workers movement has undergone no massive struggles.
The Third Congress
The purpose of an introduction dealing with our first congresses was to define this Third Congress, which we have just held after one year of the new political regime of the Argentinian bourgeoisie (which we call the "Onganiato" [after Ongania, the present military dictator]).
Our party's performance under the new regime (which is the factor that determines the character of its activity) was summed up in this Congress and in the entire year's activity, and we can say that there are several essential aspects to it: the first and most important has been the party's political and theoretical assimilation of the new phenomenon.
On the subject of the new military government, analysis of it, its perspectives, and a program to confront it, we can note that after an intense and rich exchange of opinions among the leaders and all the cadres, our party arrived at a definitive analysis of the new government's characteristics, its dynamic, and the form of confronting it. This was summed up in one of the most important party documents in the entire history of the PRT and of the organizations which formed it, "The Struggle Recently Begun." It is the only overall statement which not only gives a correct analysis but an exhaustive program to confront the new regime and the new period opening up with the fall of the Illia government [the coup which brought General Onganfa to power].
But the party did not merely analyze the new situation and give a correct program for it but it intervened fully (and this is what has characterized it) in all the great struggles of the workers and students against the military dictatorship.
We not only intervened fully, but by playing an indisputably leading role we demonstrated our capacity as a national party of the vanguard workers and students. Our party was in the forefront of virtually every union or factory struggle fought by the working class or the student movement, except for Junin [railroad strike].
We played a primary leadership role, not merely an important part, in the three great battles of national scope waged against the government. This is the other side of our correct programmatic analysis.
That is, after the great experiences of 1956-58 [the first period after Peron's overthrow], we have proved once again, on a higher level, that we are unquestionably the party which leads the worker and student vanguard in struggle. And we say that we proved this on a higher level because almost all the new rank-and-file and leadership cadres got their first experience in leading struggles in this process; it was not the old rank-and-file and leadership cadres who played this foremost role in any of these conflicts but the new party cadres.
After 20 years (i.e., after the great struggles in the meat industry in 1945 and those accompanying them, which gave rise to the Peronist union movement), a new leadership of the workers movement is emerging and is getting its baptism of fire in strikes in which our older comrades are playing no direct leadership role.
The three great conflicts in which our party played the leadership role were
the student strike in Cordoba, the dock strike, and the great battles of the mill workers in Tucuman. We might also cite other interventions by the party in isolated battles of a major or minor importance; we would also not neglect to note that the party was unable to intervene to the fullest extent in such an important strike as the railroad strike in Junin. But all this is secondary because the essential thing is that the party intervened and played a leadership role in the three great battles fought against the military government.
Our Failings|
It would be a grave error to think that this fundamentally correct, and in many ways brilliant, performance has meant that the party had no serious fail~ ings throughout the period we are analyzing. Of the party's failings in this period, four are most important, and they are intimately linked to one another: the first has been the lack of intensive propaganda work aimed at other political groupings in the attempt to reach all elements at a critical stage of conflict with opportunist or sectarian leaderships, and fundamentally, to exploit the crisis of Stalinism to the fullest in aiding us to develop our revolutionary party.
It is clear that, in comparison with the vast number of revolutionary and opportunist groups in crisis and in need of a correct orientation, our party has done only sporadic work with other political groupings.
The second failing has been the meager increase in the circulation of our paper [La Verdad], a failing which is intimately linked to the other phenomena: the party has not increased the paper's circulation in accordance with its inprovement in form and content.
The party's third basic failing in this stage has been the lack of a division of labor within the party. Our party came to this Third Congress without having changed the organization or the basic objective of its work as regards the party members as a whole.
Basically, we are a party engrossed in, and tormented by, work. And we are all, in our entirety, specialized in pure trade-union and factory work. All other tasks have this as the basic objective and are subordinated to it. Almost all the party members and leaders are specialists in factory contact work and in the development and formulation of programs for this activity.
This serious weakness in the party is also our strength because, obviously, the party's primary activity for this period is, and must continue to be, tradeunion activity. But because this is a weakness does not mean that specialization does not improve our work. What we consider to be a serious weakness is that the party has specialists in this work alone.
And the fourth deficiency, which is intimately bound up with the others, is that the party leadership has been incapable of leading the party by instituting a division of labor, injecting dynamism, or imposing overall formulations arising out of the division of labor itself. That is, the party as a whole is unevenly developed and the leadership is not in the vanguard of the party but in many cases in its rear guard. The leadership shows a pronounced slowness in its action and its formulations, in relation to the party's needs and its development.
In spite of the efforts made during the year to overcome this situation, we must recognize that we came to this congress without having accomplished it.
These failings come in the context of enormous progress scored by the party and its leadership. The most conclusive proof of this progress is the form and content of La Verdad [the weekly eightpage newspaper of the PRT] which is published clandestinely. We are the only leadership and the only revolutionary party which has been able to put out a weekly publication that confronts the dictatorial regime as we do. This striking fact augments the others which we have already mentioned and therefore will not repeat.
That is, none of these failings, which we are the first to point out, ought to obscure the fact that the weapons necessary to prepare the way for, and to lead, the Argentinian revolution are being forged in the crucible of the day-to-day struggle itself.
The existence of the Revolutionary Workers party and the emergence of a leadership with close ties to the struggles of the workers and the people are the best assurances for all steadfastly revolutionary young workers and students who want to join in the process, not as mere spectators but as real participants in the action.
Our doors are open.
TERRORISM IN GUATEMALA
A further report of the campaign of savage, right-wing terror in Guatemala appeared in the May 24 Toronto Daily Star.
"On Feb. 4 in the town of Ipala," writes Norman Gall from Guatemala City, "in the mountains east of this Central American capital, a dog emerged from the forest dragging a human hand in his mouth.
"When local authorities investigated, they found a common grave with 13 corpses, most of them of high school and university students still wearing graduation rings -- victims of the White Hand."
The reporter for the commercial press testifies to the semiofficial status of this murderous gang:
"The White Hand is a right-wing terrorist group working closely with the Guatemalan army, which has the endorsement of the United States mission here."
Gall describes the discovery and opening of the mass grave:
"On March 27, the Guatemalan army announced the deaths in a 'battle' of 15
guerrillas in the village of Los Achio-
tes.
"Te relatives of several persons
who had disappeared in previous weeks ob-
tained, after long delays, a presidential
order to open the mass grave....
"A scar on one identified the
corpse of Otto Rene Castillo, a well-
known Marxist poet."
Victims were spared nothing because
they were women:
"Another body was identified as
that of a 22-year-old schoolteacher, Nora
Illeala Paiz Carcamo, sister of a female
guerrilla known as ‘Rosa Maria.'
"Nora's body was missing an arm
and an eye and her skull was crushed....
her breasts and feet showed signs of
severe burns.
"In this manner, between 500 and
700 Guatemalans have died in recent months,
according to anti-Communist sources inter-
ested in minimizing the extent of the
slaughter still raging."
Te June 10 London Economist esti-
mated the total dead at 2,000.
SUMMER SCHEDULE
World Outlook is now on its summer schedule. This means publication every other week on the average.
schedule.