They discreetly slipped away, after dis-
Argentina tributing a document calling for the re-
'at the turn of power to civilian hands latest by October 12, 1983?"
On March 28, 1983, a new 24-hour a year after general strike took place, called by the two CTs (Confederacion General del
- General Confederation of the Malvinas war
Trabajo Labor). Both CTs identify with Peronism. One, called more moderate, is led by Triaca. The other, called more radical in the press, is led by Saul Ubaldini. The following article was originally pub- play by
Although the March 28 strike was declared illegal by the minister of labor and although the minister of the interior declared that he would "repress any actions detrimental to internal security," this action was highly successful.
La march for bread, and work," was held in Buenos called by Ubaldini and Lorenzo Miguel. It was held on the date of the big workers march that shortly preceded the start of the Malvinas war, a demonstration that was brutally attacked the "forces of order," and in which a trade-union activist was killed
About 15,000 people participated in
Le Monde of April 1 reported: "Mr. Saul Ubaldini gave a violent speech, interrupted repeatedly with shouts of To the gallows, to the gallows, the military who have sold the nation,' and 'murderers.?"
The Peronists obviously still represent the major force in the Argentine workers movement and in politics. But, according to Le Monde's correspondent Jacques Despres, their influence is much weaker than it was.
lished in the March 4 issue of Rouge, the paper of the French section of the Fourth International. It was, therefore, written before the buildup to the recent national strike in Argentina. Jean-Pierre BEAUVAIS
BUENOS AIRES. demand that you confirm or retract the statement attributed to you that 'the heros who built the fatherland did not devote themselves to plunder like today's military men.'"
This telegram, accompanied with unveiled threats, was on the front page of all Argentine papers on February 11. It was sent by the general secretary of the military junta to Victor Martinez, leader of the Radical Party, one of the country's two main bourgeois parties and a possible candidate for the vice presidency in the elections that have been scheduled for October. Martinez disavowed the statement on the spot!
Just before this, the censors had shut down several movie houses that were showing the film, le Choc They also closed a theater that was presenting a
• Jorge Amado (a Brazilian CP writer). The directors were arrested, and the spectators held for hours, if not more.
It is a strange sort of "liberalization" that the military have opened up after their debacle in the Malvinas last June.
After being banned for years, the main political groups have been relegalized. They have been invited to undertake "membership drives," in accordance with the rules set by the junta. And once these drives are concluded and the identities of the new members verified, it will be decided whether these parties will be allowed to run candidates in the elections.
At the same time, trade-union bureaucrats who not so long ago were in jail or under house arrest have become "responsible interlocutors."
Nonetheless, the octopus-like apparatus of repression, with its bemedalled and brass-hatted torturers, is still there. And they are still at work. They are everywhere. Their notorious Ford Falcon cars prowl the night-time streets of the capital. Thousands of prisoners remain in their hands.
Moreover, these torturers have forced
nearly everyone to maintain a guilty silence about the fate of the victims of one of the most recent and monstous crimes against humanity, that is, the 25 thousand people who have gone "missing" in this country. The only people who talk about them are the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, the activists of the human-rights defense groups, and the militants of the far left.
The military are hated, but they are still, for the time being, in control of the situation. However, in the wake of the Malvinas adventure, the regime seemed to be in a full-fledged crisis, on the brink of collapse.
"I got a telephone call at work. Seventy-two hours later, I was landing in the islands. I had no training. During my military service two years ago, I was given essentially administrative tasks. Despite everything, I was assigned to the defense of Puerto Argentino (Port Stanley), stationed on one of the hills overlooking the town...
"We were not equipped for the cold. At our post, people on night guard duty often suffered frost bite....In the last two weeks, after the British landed, our main concern was getting food. We had to kill sheep. Although it was forbidden, we went down into the town in turns. The disorganization was total. But we always found a noncom or even an officer who would sell us rations."
The long story I heard from this draftee, a survivor of the fighting on the islands, was a devastating indictment of the military. He confirmed, along with others I talked to, that the junta had totally misestimated the determination and the capacity of British imperialism to strike back.
This former soldier also confirmed how half-cocked this operation was. It was nothing more than a desperate plunge the military took to try to escape from its internal political problems.
Isolated, discredited, incapable of controlling the crisis, and frightened by the growing signs of a mass rebelliousness that was more and more difficult to keep down, the military sought a new lease on life for their regime by presenting themselves as the defenders of the "national sovereignty."
Sure of their move, knowing that the cause was popular, the military loosened the straitjacket on internal political life. Bourgeois politicians - Peronists, Radicals, and others - that had been repressed or gagged right up to the operation, were invited to collaborate. They did so. The population was called on to mobilize. But its response was very uneven.
Most of those who came out to the mass rallies were from sections of the petty bourgeoisie with a nationalist tradition inherited from Peronism. The working class, battered by the crisis and the repression, remained suspicious and very largely passive
"Fight the Brits, fight the imperialists, to win the Malvinas - I'm a 100 percent for that....But go in behind these sons of bitches, never!" That was what a
Discarded Argentine Army helmets and equipment on the Malvinas (DR) class-struggle workers leader told me with a great deal of force and hatred. He was one of the vanguard who came to the fore in the big struggles of 1974 and 1975. He got off with a mere six years in prison for the role he played.
Despite everything, the sorcerers apprentices installed in the military general staffs created a new situation that was in many respects irreversible. Regardless of the outcome of the war, a "liberalization" had become inevitable. But it did not reduce the isolation of a military government that was already too discredited.
The military fiasco only accelerated and intensified the process that had been set in motion. This was further accentuated by public wrangling between the top officers trying to avoid the blame by putting it on to their colleagues.
When General Reynaldo Bignone's brass-hatted cronies handed him the presidency, the days of the dictatorship seemed to be numbered: "Power is up for grabs," one of the few Argentine press commentators taken seriously wrote at the time.
But today, the better part of a year later, the military, their agents, and their institutions are still there. The reason for this primarily is the collaboration that the military have gotten from an "opposition" that is concerned first and foremost about its narrow class interests and at the same time suffers from a chronic collapse of the backbone - that is the leaders of the main bourgeois political organizations.
Already before the Malvinas war, most of the bourgeois groups had joined the heterogeneous coalition called the Multipartidaria. It embraced the Radical Party, the Independent Movement for Development (MID), the Partido Intransigente, the Christian Democratic Federation, and the official Peronist Party, which, despite its divisions, remains the political force that has the biggest following in the country
After the Malvinas defeat, the great majority of the Argentine bourgeoisie say that they "favor the withdrawal of the military to their bases." This position also coincides with the wishes of the imperialist powers.
On the basis of this position, and utilizing a certain antiregime rhetoric, which the military now tolerates within limits, the bourgeois politicians are trying to channel the mass hatred of the junta to serve their interests.
But, after seven years of dictatorship, the bourgeois parties themselves are weakened, ossified. They are riven by clique warfare and pushing and shoving
7
Who can give real leadership to the unions Of course, you have to take into account among various would-be caudillos. They fear a political vacuum. And they are frightened at the extent of the economic crisis and the threat of a social explosion that it is generating. They know that from their point of view they have no alternative.
The Argentine bourgeoisie has accepted and will continue to accept the directives of the IMF experts who represent their imperialist creditors. These directives are already being applied today by the junta. The bourgeoisie knows, therefore, that in order to rule and to continue to impose this policy on the masses thrown into destitution, they will need the military.
As for the military themselves, majority of them now seem reconciled to the idea of a withdrawal to the barracks. But this does not mean that they are prepared to withdraw without conditions or
The crisis that opened up within the military is far from having
The settling of accounts in the armed forces is still going on, although in a reviving. Conflicts are breaking Struggles are becoming more persistent. The bosses are being forced to accept, de facto, forms of workers organization in the plants. These developments are still very scattered and still essentially on a defensive level.
But the working class has already ceased to be the passive and silent mass that the bourgeois leaders hoped that it would remain, so that they would be able to carry off their "dialogue" with
In this regard, the rather new situation in which the old union bureaucracy, one of the components of the Peronist movement, finds itself is significant. to the Multipartidaria, it has been developing its own forms of collaboration with the military dictatorship. But, in this framework, its role has been growing rapidly, and at the same time it has been obliged to sharpen its tone. Along with this, the rifts within it generated by this contradictory position are tending to widen.
The national strike that the Peronist bureaucracy was obliged to call on December 6 was not accompanied by any mobilization. But the strike call was very largely followed
The most revealing event came ten days later, however, on December 16. With the tacit approval of the junta, the Multipartidaria leaders called for a big public rally to show support for their policy. The demonstration rapidly went over their heads. They chose to slip away quietly, while great contingents of marchers, mostly workers, turned the rally into a mass demonstration against the dictatorship.