The Argentinazo is alive in our consciousness

The Argentine press was unable to assimilate the mobilization commemorating the third anniversary of the Argentinazo. It seemed to the political operator of the daily Clarín that the multitude that marched to Plaza de Mayo last Monday had gone to celebrate "black December" -not an epic, but rather a nightmare. For the dailies La Nación, Cronista and Ambito there was only "chaos and protests" and a city "center again in chaos". Because all of them had been spending the past few months decreeing the passage on to a next and better life for the piqueteros movement. Instead of this they were faced with a demonstration which, according to estimates, oscillated between 30 and 50 thousand people on a workday and which, if the rest of the country is added in, comes close to one hundred thousand demonstrators. Also right in front of their eyes was a call signed by more than eighty organizations. As a final exasperation for this press, on the tribunal in the Plaza, mounted on a modest truck that was light years away from the stages that Ibarra sets up for Blumberg, there were present representatives of the workers struggles of the last few months: telephone workers, railway workers, subway workers, workers of Parmalat, the opposition slate in the food processing and printers unions, workers from Bagley, TDO (bus drivers), teachers, court employees, state employees, workers of Perfil, Brukman, Zanon, Gatic. The human rights and student organizations were also there, together with the savings account holders and the mortgage debtors. The proletarian character of the piqueteros movemement was made manifestly clear in the social movement that filled the Plaza.

The 'run of the mill' cannot conceive of commemorating the Argentinazo (even the national and popular 'run of the mill') for the simple reason that they are ignorant of the historic significance of the people's rebellion. It is about the exploited playing a collective role in answer to the collapse of the existing social system. Every people's rebellion opens up a fissure in the domination of the exploiters and becomes part of a chain of experience that will culminate in a victorious revolution. That a multitude celebrate this perspective is in itself a revolutionary event.

The document read from the tribunal marked a considerable progress in relation to the waterfall of orators that followed each other on past occasions, and that gave the impression that the real movement of the people was fragmented. The text they signed calling for the event is, moreover, exceptional, for very strong reasons. It traces a clear delimitation with bourgeois nationalism which has historically led the masses in Latin America and denounces the pseudo-leftist attempts to substitute it. It attacks the policies of the left-wing governments that send troops to Haiti to act as Bush's agents and it even tears to shreds the recent Rosario Encounter of the Argentine center and left-wing. Everyone knows that many of those signing abjure what they have signed, no-one is going to fool themselves over this; we are as far apart as before the rally, but it is not true that the movement of the masses themselves finds itself fragmented, becaused the Plaza document is the only one acceptable to the immense majority of those masses. We are definitively in the presence of a programmatic document which crystalizes a certain political experience.

Of all the demands of the Plaza, those which occupied the most strategic place were those referring to the freeing of the imprisoned brothers and sisters the the dropping of all charges against those brought to trial. There exists an acute consciousness of this being a struggle between two political regimes and two antagonic political powers. The bourgeoisie, which wishes to impose its methods of social discipline and 'legal' and illegal despotism in order to smash the people's rebellion and to reconstruct their State, and the working class, for whom the right to struggle against the State and the capitalist social regime is the mother of all rights. Not in vain are the murderers of December 20 free and the fighters of the people going to jail every day. In the name, of course, of the 'rule of law state'.

The main columns in the march were those of the Partido and the Polo Obrero and those which, together, were organized by the MTD and the CCC. The 'united left' was on a 'work-to-rule', reflecting the fact that the political line of the mobilization was not theirs, nor did it correspond to their strategy. The strong presence of the CCC and the MTD had the intention of producing the impression of a differentiation with the allies of the government, such as D'Elía, la CTA or Barrios de Pie, but which will not be carried forward consistently. The 'first minority' of trade union and factory representatives on the tribunal was the Partido Obrero's, which perhaps will definitively shut the mouths of those who attribute to us the invention of a new 'social subject'. What attracts the workers to the Partido Obrero is, without a doubt, the fact that they see it struggling in the heart of all the classes and sectors against capitalism and its governments (a political struggle for the replacement of the bourgeois State by a proletarian regime) in place of giving cheap lessons of workerism. The piqueteros movement once again proved that it is a factor of regroupment of the working class.

The mobilization transformed, from three in the afternoon on, a working Monday into a holiday, in a major part of the city. Which is to say that it had a higher social impact than that registered by the march; many workers feel that the Argentinazo was not in vain. It must be said, in the light of this, that Argentina clearly occupies a place on the left in the world arena. The bourgeoisie characterizes that a reversing of this tendency can only be brought about, for the moment, by nationalism, its transversal partner and the democratizing left. That is why it contemporizes its moves while reaping the economic benefits of the devaluation and the elevated international export prices. The 'patience' of the capitalists with Kirchner's continual sumersaults reflects the function assigned to the latter in order to deviate the popular masses.

From this characterization as a whole, the need emerges of concentrating the attention of the fighters towards the fundamental problem of the moment: to develop a leadership, to put in place a political working class alternative, to build and develop a revolutionary party, all of which mean, consistency.

--Jorge Altamira