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The revolutionary
days of December 19 and 20 have ushered in a revolutionary phase in
Argentina. A series of three revolutionary events shattered the country
to its foundations back then, bringing down De la Rúa's government
in a revolutionary fashion. These bore the marks that Lenin highlighted
as the hallmark for such situations:
-an exceptional situation in which the ruling classes are no longer
able to rule as they did, thus having to change their "normal"
ways of domination for exceptional ones.
-an exceptional situation fuelled by an "extraordinary aggravation"
of the hardships and "the plight of the oppressed classes",
which in turn leads to:
-"a considerable intensification, due to such causes, of the
activity of the masses that in times of "peace" let themselves
be exploited peacefully, but in times of turmoil are driven to historically
independent actions -by both the crisis itself as well as those at
the top.
However, there are many different kinds of revolutionary phases or
situations ushered in by "historically independent actions".
In previous articles we defined the events of December 19 and 20 as
"revolutionary days", pointing at their revolutionary nature
(i.e., actions that brought down De la Rúa's government going
beyond the framework of bourgeois legality), while at the same time
we differentiated them from superior forms of revolutionary developments,
such as the 1917 February revolution in Russia that smashed the army
and nourished dual power bodies, or the so-called "Cordobazo".
The latter was a mass semi-insurrection (both the workers and the
students participated) that inflicted a partial defeat on the repressive
forces. (see below)
That is why, regardless of the merely descriptive use of the term,
we do not share the view of most left wing parties that claim the
December events were a so-called "Argentinazo" . Such term,
given the Argentine political tradition, can only mean a re-run of
the "Cordobazo" -i.e., a semi-insurrection led by the workers
that defeat the police through street fights-, this time on the national
arena. Last but not least, we do not share in the least the view of
those superficially claiming that what we have seen is a "victorious
revolution".
How can one ponder the events from a Marxist angle while not taking
heed of the fact that the working class was by and large absent from
the December events? How can one overlook the fact that, unlike the
"Cordobazo", the repressive forces were not militarily defeated
this time? They gloss over the fact that the industrial workers are
today in disarray in the face of both the unions' support for the
government and increased unemployment, thus "forgetting"
all about the main advantage playing in the hands of the ruling class,
one that enables them to buy time and also rebuild their weakened
domination.
The lack of any serious appraisal by the left means they cast aside
all the sequels that the lack of a distinct working class intervention
have for the new opening phase. But it also means they cannot accurately
gauge the intervention of the middle classes -which did intervene
to an unprecedented extent for Argentine standards. No matter how
progressive and innovative their actions have been so far (the pot
banging has rapidly become a symbol of struggle worldwide), these
have yet lagged far behind revolutionary actions like the ones staged
by the Albanian masses back in 1997 when the "financial pyramids"
came tumbling down. Back then, the proletariat also failed to gain
the upper hand, but the masses nevertheless stormed the barracks and
armed themselves in the south of the country, building rebels' committees
and momentarily breaking down state power. The whole series of subsequent
pot bangings and their impact on the population have mesmerized many
people, making them forget that the December events broke the limits
of bourgeois legality because they combined the massive pot banging
in the morning of December 20 against the siege, with the lootings
of the urban poor in the big cities in search for food, along with
the long violent clashes with the police in the so-called Battle of
Plaza de Mayo. It was not the pot banging alone that ousted De la
Rúa's government.
The tempo of
the new phase
This first comparison
will enable us to chart the likely tempo of the ongoing process. In
Trotsky's words, "accurately charting the tempo of revolution
is of utmost importance, if not to trace the fundamental strategic
line, but to shape the tactics. Now then, without a just tactic, the
best strategic line might lead to bankruptcy. Naturally, foreseeing
the tempo for a protracted period is impossible. The tempo must be
tested in the course of the struggle, picking up on the most variegated
symptoms. Furthermore, the tempo might suddenly change as the events
are unfolding. But, nevertheless, one should always bear in mind a
given perspective, so that one will be able to make any necessary
corrections to it through experience."
It is unlikely that the revolutionary phase in Argentina will come
to a quick denouement. Its tempo is more in tune with those processes
where the revolutionary phase goes through many changing situations
or phases. We might draw a certain analogy with the Spanish events
in the 30s here - a process sparked off by the downfall of the king
that culminated in the civil war.
In the work quoted above -when the Spanish events were still in the
making- Trotsky set out the difference between the latter and the
dynamics of Russia 1917: "The 1917 Russian revolution was preceded
by the 1905 Revolution, which was branded by Lenin as a dress rehearsal.
All the elements of the second and the third revolutions were prepared
beforehand, in such a way that the forces participating of the struggle
were walking down a road familiar to them. This sped up the upswing
of the revolution extraordinarily until it reached its climax. But
all things considered, we deem the war was a decisive factor when
it came to the tempo in 1917. The question of the land could still
be postponed for some months, even years. But the question of dying
in the trenches could not wait. The soldiers said: 'What do I need
the land for if I'm not going to be there?' The pressure exerted by
the mass of 12 million soldiers was a factor that sped up the revolution
extraordinarily. Without the war, no matter the 1905 'dress rehearsal'
and the existence of the Bolshevik party, the preparatory, pre-Bolshevik
period of the revolution could have lasted longer than eight months,
maybe one or two years, or even longer than that.
The [Spanish] Communist Party has come into the fray in a state of
extreme weakness. Spain is not at war; the Spanish peasants are not
rallied in the barracks and the trenches in their millions, nor are
they facing the immediate danger of extermination. All these circumstances
speak in favour of a longer period of time available to build the
party and seize power."
Trotsky's approach of the Spanish events is relevant for present-day
Argentina, bearing in mind that the recent revolutionary experience
of the Argentine working class is a far cry from that of the Spanish
workers back then. The combination of a deep-going slump, the weakening
of the ruling classes, the lack of a central working class intervention,
the revolutionary immaturity of the masses in general and the great
weakness of revolutionary Marxists- all these tell us that we "might
foresee that we shall have more time to build the party and seize
power". As it happened in Spain back then, it is least likely
that the Argentine process will come to a quick denouement. We can
state, as Nin did when referring to the Spanish events in the 30s
that we are in for "a protracted and painstaking process, during
which the masses try to find a way forward in a struggle fraught with
difficulties, 'chaotic' actions, partial offensives, victories and
defeats." (The General Strike in Barcelona, October 1931)
The class dynamics
at the onset of the revolutionary phase
Having said that,
what is the class dynamics at work at the onset of the phase?
Given the non-intervention of the working class as such in the revolutionary
days, the very beginning of the revolutionary phase bears the mark
of the middle layers. These sectors nourish a "February coalition"
styled atmosphere (or else "December bloc" as we call it
somewhere else), in the sense that Marx spoke of the equivocal "union
of all the classes" that commonly mobilized against the finance
aristocracy headed by Louis Phillip in France 1848. Never mind the
struggle is aimed against a government led by the so-called "productive
sector" that in the past used to voice opposition "against
the model" under De la Rúa's government. Such predominance
of the middle classes accounts for the strong tendencies to a sort
of "citizens" and "neighbours" styled representation,
a non-class one, and also the "anti-party" mood. This reflects
a contradictory phenomenon -similar to that of the so-called "rage
vote" in the last October elections-, with a progressive strand
whenever it reflects a mass hatred against the bourgeois parties,
but rather reactionary when aimed at the left. This is true to the
extent that it also encompasses sectors likely to provide the basis
for future reactionary solutions, coexisting with others who seek
an alliance with the working class, as shown by their participation
in a march with the unemployed. This reflects a phase in which the
inevitable split in the middle classes has not yet taken place openly
and also the absence of the working class movement.
The working class is responding to the crisis unevenly. The unemployed
have mobilized much faster, demanding the job schemes they were promised.
The government might try and incorporate some of its sectors. They
may succeed in this endeavour by implementing the already announced
increase in job schemes, although a tug of war as to their distribution
might ensue also. More than ever before, the progressive nature of
the picketers' movements lie in their ability to fight for genuine
jobs and not merely demanding "workfare schemes".
State workers in general, particularly municipal workers, are more
likely to come out and fight, rather than those in the industrial
sector and the big service companies, given the fact that their jobs
are much more stable than those of the "private sector"
and also suffer chronic wage arrears. The actions undertaken by municipal
workers in the cities of Córdoba, Santiago del Estero, Mendoza
or Villa Constitución -or else the formation of the "Intergremial"
in La Plata- are all symptoms of this.
Although we witness partial fights in response to closures and wage
arrears, and if inflation rises we shall see fights against wage loss,
the industrial working class is being held back by both sky-rocketing
unemployment and the collaboration of the unions with the government.
The bosses are profiting from having 30 or 40% of casual workers in
the factories -this percentage being higher in some cases. It is them
who are bearing the full brunt of the bosses' offensive. The union
bureaucracy refuses time and again to defend all temporary workers,
and so far, the response by the workers has been a rather conservative
one, given their fear of losing their jobs. In the short term, they
are paying a high price for not having got rid of the union bureaucracy
as a whole, and also for their trust both in Peronism and the so-called
"productive" and "national" bosses -never mind
their trust in Peronism has decreased a lot in the last few years.
Two possible ways to outmanoeuvre the union bureaucracy that will
allow workers to be at the center of the scene could be a response
to an all-out onslaught or else hard strikes becoming an example.
This is a key aspect for the future unfolding of the class struggle.
It goes with a saying that the middle class protests exposing the
banks and forming people's assemblies, along with their sympathy for
the picketers and their actions in common with them, all herald the
possibility of welding a far-reaching popular and working class alliance
no sooner the working class enters the fray. But this will not be
the outcome of just making the pickets come together with the pot
bangings, as some put it. Unless the main contingents of the working
class come out in struggle, thus giving the proletariat the leading
role in the people's and workers' alliance, the tasks posed by the
December events will not be duly accomplished. Getting ready for this
likely upsurge of the working class in the next period ahead is precisely
the main task for revolutionary Marxists. Our bet is for a revolutionary
leadership up to the task of leading new coming "Cordobazos"
to victory.
The hindrances
blocking the working class
We deem, however,
that the working class does not have a few obstacles to overcome if
it is to become a revolutionary actor.
1) The working class has not waged major revolutionary combats worldwide
after the 1968 revolutionary upswing, which came to a close with the
failed Polish revolution in 1980-81. With the sole exception of Bolivia
in 1985, it has not been in the spotlight ever since, but quite otherwise,
has been put on the defensive by the "neoliberal" imperialist
offensive. The French state workers strike back in 1995 marked the
beginning of the decline of the "neoliberal" agenda and
also showed the reinvigoration of the working class, which ever since
staged major fightbacks. In Argentina, there have been more than ten
general strikes since 1996. This went hand in hand with more revolutionary
fights being waged by the unemployed. But the working class has not
been the main actor, either in Argentina or worldwide, in the revolutionary
events we have witnessed in the last few years. Other sectors of the
exploited classes have instead being at the forefront, as it happened
with great mass revolutionary actions that brought down the governments
in Albania, Ecuador, Indonesia or Serbia -all the more so in the more
contradictory upheavals which provoked the demise of the Stalinist
regimes in Eastern Europe and the former USSR.
2) Both the masses and the vanguard now fighting in Argentina have
no revolutionary experience whatsoever, contrariwise to those in the
70s that had participated in radicalized (and sometimes revolutionary)
actions, from the 1955 coup onwards -a protracted experience in the
workers' and youth vanguard. They had fought back both military dictatorships
and bogus democratic administration, and even challenged the union
bureaucracy. Although the 1969-76 period was a sort of revolutionary
"dress rehearsal" in our country, the lessons to be drawn
from it are not incarnated in the vanguard, and the generation that
took part in it was either annihilated or else became part of the
bourgeois regime. The 18 year-long bourgeois democratic regime, along
with the nefarious experience of the guerrilla in the previous period,
have nourished strong pacifist prejudices in the masses and the vanguard
alike. Although there were tendencies to an embryonic civil war in
the struggles waged by the unemployed from 1996 onwards (if we understand
it in a broad sense, as Trotsky put it , only on rare occasions did
the clashes with the repressive forces go beyond spontaneous stone-hurling,
and these did not take place in the main economic and political centres
of the country.
3) Although the union bureaucrats are massively discredited, no anti-bureaucratic
fights have yet unfolded within the working class challenging the
rule of the union bureaucracy in main working class battalions. There
exist hundreds of "fighting" shop stewards, dozens of internal
commissions and shop stewards committees, but there are few independent
and anti-bureaucratic unions. Furthermore, the workers have hardly
any experience at all in building inter-union bodies, coordinating
forums or else other bodies of their own going beyond the narrow union
framework which might thus become a mass united front of the fighting
masses as an embryo of a new working class and popular power. The
revolutionaries should do their best to encourage every step taken
in this direction.
4) The lack of "socialist horizon" for the working class
movement and the masses is another additional factor hindering the
political ripening of the vanguard and the revolutionary process in
general. People have taken bold steps and identified all those responsible
for the "neoliberal" agenda -the banks, the privatized companies,
the IMF, the politicians of the establishment, the judiciary, the
police, the unions bureaucrats- as their enemies, but there are some
sector that still have expectations in the so-called "productive
and national" bourgeoisie, and the workers have not still made
their final experience with Peronism, either. The middle classes,
on their part, even those far left-leaning sectors within it, might
provide the basis for a "new regime" -one that while doing
away with most of the old political caste, props up the capitalist
system and prevents the realization of the workers' and people's alliance.
5) Last but not least, there is no revolutionary Marxist leadership
with mass influence (such as the Bolsheviks in Russia) that could
be able to accelerate the process, and also a key element so that
the mass mobilization culminates in a people's and workers' government.
The conquest of political independence by the workers in a revolutionary
fashion is a key task ahead of us. So far, we have carefully described
all the limits holding back the working class movement from intervening
decisively in the ongoing revolutionary process. However, we conclude
that no matter how big such obstacles can be, the colossal economic,
social and political crisis today along with the social weight of
the proletariat make a revolutionary intervention by the Argentine
working class all the more likely. To these we should add the crisis
of the reformist misleaderships, both the fighting and organizational
experiences done by the unemployed, and also sectors of state workers
and the workers' vanguard (such as the ceramic workers in Neuquén
or else the miners in Río Turbio), and also the influence of
several left tendencies on hundreds or perhaps thousands of working
class activists nationwide. Such elements have developed more in Argentina
than in those countries going through revolutionary or acute pre-revolutionary
situations in the last few years. They are dealt with in the article
"The Argentine working class is confronted with a new 'historical
turn'".
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