Action for liberation
Notes, testimonials and debate about the recent liberation struggle...
...of the Argentinean people.
Second part of:
The Time of the Furnaces.
Our thanks to the workmen, farmers, revolutionary activists...
...intellectuals, workers unions and people's organizations...
...who helped making this film.
To the Peronist proletariat, who built the national conscience...
...of the Argentineans.
GENERAL ORDER 27th JULY 1819
Comrades in the Andes army: We must fight however we can.
We may have no money, but we won't lack meat and tobacco.
When our clothes run out, we will wear those our women make for us,
or we'll be stark naked, like our fellow countrymen, the Indians.
We'll be free, and nothing else matters.
Let's swear not to stop fighting until the country is totally free,
or else, let's die fighting as brave men.
Tri-continental brothers:
Revolutionary violence will put an end to imperialist crimes.
Liberation or death!
"The nature of imperialism is what turns man into a beast".
imperialism is international and must be fought internationally.
The Third World!
"The people defend their rights. Neither Wessin nor the Yanks...
...nor death will stop us".
"Coexistence" with imperialism legalises its barbarity.
Unity!
Active solidarity with the peoples attacked!
"...Many Vietnams is the objective. To create two, ...many"
Long live internationalism at the roots of combat!
Revolution is our greatest cultural manifestation.
The nationalism of oppressed countries...
...negates the nationalism of oppressing countries.
Motherland or death!
The destruction of imperialism will free all men.
Death to US imperialism.
Either a socialist revolution or a mock revolution.
The new man.
The victory for third world countries...
...will be a victory for the whole of mankind.
This is not just the showing of a film,
neither is it a spectacle.
It is first of all an action...
...for the liberation of Argentina and Latin America:
an action of anti-imperialist unity.
There's room in it for all those who identify with this struggle.
This is not a space for spectators, or enemy's accomplices,
but for the only authors and main actors...
...in the process that this film tries to document and explain.
This film is a pretext for dialogue,
for the search, for different wills to meet.
It is an open report that we offer to your consideration,
for you to discuss after projection.
The most important thing...
...is to create this unitary space,
this dialogue for liberation.
Our opinions are as valuable as yours,
and you can add to this action...
any other view or experience...
...to enrich this chronicle of the liberation.
To finish, our comrade narrator is going to speak.
He will update the nature of this act, based on current circumstances.
l ask all of you, as a first act of unitary will,
to pay homage to all peoples and their armed fronts,
who are now violently fighting imperialism and colonialism.
To politicize is to open, waken, give birth to the spirit.
It is, as Cesaire said, to invent souls.
Unit and committee meetings are religious acts.
They are privileged opportunities for man to hear and say.
"lf everybody must compromise in the struggle for common salvation,
there are no pure hands, nor spectators, nor innocents.
We all soil our hands in the marshes of our land,
in the empty space of our brains.
Every spectator is a coward or a traitor". Frantz Fanon.
Space for the intervention of our comrade narrator.
National and popular movements were the first appearances...
...in History for most Latin American peoples.
They were the first formulas to break with neocolonial serfdom.
On the 17th of October of 1945...
...the Argentinean masses burst for the first time...
...into the national political scene.
The eternal dispossessed, the marginalised...
...became the great actors in our history.
The 17th of October was the start of the current process...
...of liberation for Argentina.
Hundreds of thousands of workers...
...spontaneously assaulted the iron and stone city.
They submerged their feet in the forbidden fountains...
...to the horror of civil servants and colony administrators.
The "shirtless", who spontaneously invaded...
...the streets of Buenos Aires,
are none other than the direct descendants of those nationals...
...who followed San Mart�n on the Andes,
or of the "Montoneras", who went with Varela or El Chacho.
The people claimed that day their leader's freedom.
The 17th of October marked the birth of Per�n.
Per�n rose as the national expression...
...for a people determined to achieve their definitive independence.
Evita, as the flag carrier for the lowest and most exploited layers.
The working people are the motherland's humble people...
who are standing here and in the whole country...
...will follow Per�n, as he has risen the flag of redemption...
...and justice for the working masses.
They will follow him against oppression from inside and outside traitors.
Because l want my people to know...
...that we are all willing to die for Per�n.
And let the traitors know...
...that we will no longer present to them,
...as Per�n did on the 28th of September.
We will die while taking justice in our own hands.
The enemy is lurking...
...he never forgives.
And those who would sell the country for a few coins...
...are also lurking,
to strike at any moment.
But we are the people,
and l know that if the people are vigilant,
we are invincible,
because we are the motherland itself.
Peronism came to put an end to the remains of an infamous decade.
The era that started in 1930...
...with the oligarchic military dictatorship...
...that overthrew Irigoyen.
The years of national corruption,
and soup kitchens,
ignominious frauds,
and assassins paid by the committee.
A time when Argentinean politics were managed...
...between the British embassy and the army.
A shameless handover of the national wealth.
intellectualism, pseudo-leftism and Peronism.
What was the world in 1945?
The inter-imperialist war was ending.
A new parting of the world was starting.
The Chinese Revolution did not exist,
nor the so-called popular democracies.
The Arab countries had not freed themselves.
India was not yet a republic.
Colonialism ruled in most of Asia and Africa.
In the name of Marxism...
...the idea was encouraged that Soviet and US armies...
...marched together for the liberation...
...of all peoples.
The Third World was hardly an active project.
What did the rising of Peronism at that time mean?
Peronism was a preceding fact,
and a new one in our country.
The Argentinean intellectuals...
...would lose direction again,
as with the "Montoneras" and Irigoyenism.
The justicialist revolution was to challenge all their preconceptions.
It wasn't fronted by a clear leadership,
but a group of military men.
No red flags were raised,
but Argentinean blue and white flags.
How could this not worry...
...an intellectual sector...
dependant on European revolutionary models?
In 1945, the intellectuals lived aside from national needs.
In those days, the university federation...
...declared a mourning for Roosevelt's death,
and Borges praised the allies.
One was either with the allies, or a Nazi...
...never an Argentinean.
Anything "national" was alarming and suspicious.
The middle classes, influenced by the intellectuals...
...and with the neocolonial blessing,
saw in Peronism just a...
...Nazi-fascist-falangist conspiracy.
The Communist Party leaders...
...called it a clan of the "classless",
of prostitutes and rogues.
They joined with antinational groups...
...in the Democratic Union Front.
"We are going to witness the solemn creation of the...
Democratic Union.
Rodolfo Guioldi, leader of the Communist Party will now speak".
"The people will vote for the Democratic Union formula because:
First, it will mean a constitutional normalization,
and a democratic peace process for the Argentineans.
Second, its program will guarantee the progress of the nation...
...and wellbeing for the people.
Voting for this formula, the people will beat the Nazi-fascist axis...
...in the Argentinean Republic".
"From the Progressive Democratic Party, Dr. D�az Arana:"
The Progressive Democratic Party...
...has long stood for...
...the need of uniting the democratic forces...
...to recover, through common action...
...the constitutional normality and a fully democratic regime...
...not subjugated by dictatorship.
Those who could write...
...had nothing to say.
They marched arm in arm...
...cheered by US ambassador Braden.
Those still illiterate...
...wrote alone, through action, the National Liberation.
That old sing-song of "yes to shoes, no to books"
would be the fair response from the people...
...to the removed and foreign-orientated intellectuals.
The movement was seizing the power...
...lacking in a National Revolutionary intellectualism.
The phenomenon of a dependant intellectualism...
...occurred in Argentina both in the left and the right.
The socialist party conformed to the liberal models...
...of European Social Democracy.
The Communist Party followed the ill international precepts.
The so called "Popular Fronts", with the bourgeoisie,
"Centrism" and Browderism...
...were political expressions of Stalinism.
J. Abelardo Ramos says:
"Stalinism has never supported truly national movements...
...in Latin America, but rather, antinational coalitions.
Due to those politics, from 1945 in Argentina...
...the words Communism, Marxism and Socialism...
...were synonyms with treason for the proletariat...
...through no fault of real Communism, Marxism and Socialism.
Peronism in power.
Peronism displaced oligarchy and imperialism from power,
causing their first great defeat in the history of the country.
The mass movement, that reached power in a few months...
...originated from very particular...
...national and international circumstances.
The strong proletariat and bourgeoisie created by industrial development...
...didn't feel represented by the traditional parties.
A national army and a leader:
Per�n, brought together those new forces,
in a favorable moment for Argentinean economy.
The National Front was constituted by the army,
some sectors of the industrial bourgeoisie,
the church, the middle classes from inner regions,
rural workers, and the whole of the young proletariat.
Three flags unified the movement:
Economic independence, political sovereignty, and...
...social justice.
Peronism is the attempt to go from a semi-colony of shepherds...
...to an independent nation.
This attempt was carried out by a movement...
...whose axis was the proletariat...
...and for whom the revolution of 1945...
...had a deeply anti-imperialist meaning.
Per�n did not assume power as a Marxist,
but as a national politician...
...forced to improvise politics...
...and a party.
He was the embodiment of a force of the masses,
still too historically immature to be anything different from...
...a national movement and its leader.
The movement's popular nationalism...
...unleashed in 1945 the most advanced...
...liberation process that at that time...
...could take place in our country.
1945-1955: Ten years of national democracy.
For the first time, the whole external debt is brought home,
and no deals are signed with imperialist countries.
External commerce is centralized.
industry is protected.
High wages. No unemployment.
The central bank is nationalized, as are railways, gas, telephone,
public services and bank credits.
Women vote for the first time.
A Workers Single Central and industrial unions are established.
76,000 public works.
More schools are built in 10 years...
...than in one and a half centuries of national history.
Contradictions of a national movement.
A national and popular movement in power...
...implies deep contradictions:
some external, in fighting imperialism and oligarchy,
others internal, due to the many social classes integrating it.
The multi-class base of the movement,
which had been its strength in 1945, would later be its weakness.
industrial bourgeoisie was accommodative...
...and had no national consciousness.
It was more scared by the proletariat's demands...
...than by submission to imperialism.
Peronism had taken the power from the oligarchy,
but it had inside the oligarchy's allies.
So, the oligarchic economic power remained the same.
The old regime's institutions were not substantially modified.
A national revolution that...
...doesn't eliminate its main contradiction with the enemy...
...is weakened by its internal contradictions.
Its politics become hesitant.
It attacks the oligarchy,
but does not eliminate its underlying base.
It calls for social revolution,
but doesn't fully carry out the national revolution.
It oscillates between a people's democracy...
...and a bureaucracy�s dictatorship.
Crisis in Peronist power.
From 1950...
...the circumstances that made the National Front possible...
...disappeared.
Political and union leaderships...
entered a clear bureaucratization process.
Evita died then...
...and the movement lost its most combative figure.
The proletariat was unwilling to face the problems alone.
The class struggle, contained for some time,
started to show within the movement.
In 1955, the National Front finally divided itself completely.
The church, some sections of the army...
...and the whole of the bourgeoisie surrendered to the oligarchy...
...and became an enemy of the revolution.
The party was a bureaucratic fiction.
The lack of a revolutionary organization and leadership...
was the movement's weakness.
Without this, any mass organization...
...is an easy target for the enemy.
On 16th June 1955...
...aircraft supported by some navy units...
...attacked the government house and the city centre.
As in 1945, workers left spontaneously their factories,
and flooded into the city...
...to support Per�n.
For the first time in the history of the country,
civilians were the target of a mass bombing.
They demanded weapons from the army, to no avail.
Provided with old shotguns, sticks and tiles...
...they tried to assault the Navy Ministry...
...and were repelled by Gorilla machine guns.
The workers collaborated with the army...
...in a battle lasting just a few hours.
The movement had gone through its first blood and fire ordeal.
The victory cost over 300 civilian deaths.
A few days later...
...Per�n requested a ceasefire from the enemy.
"...Very consternated by the facts and circumstances...
...we offer an open hand in good faith...
...hoping that our enemy will hold on to it.
To prove our good will,
and our discipline in the party, l ask from all our members...
...a political ceasefire.
We will await the results from this sincere call...
...staying calm in the face of comments that will surely be made...
...in ill-meaning factions.
As in our past ordeals...
...the way to act is the same:
from home to work, and back home again.
Always alert and watching.
But a country divided in two does not accept ceasefires.
On the 31st of August...
...Per�n resigned to the presidency.
The people took to the streets again,
and forced him to withdraw his resignation.
In the meantime, the oligarchy prepared to strike.
The most valuable groups of the left joined Peronism...
...when it was too late.
Per�n was isolated by a servile bureaucracy,
who was already making deals with the enemy.
The army deserted him.
From the balconies at the government house...
Per�n invited the movement to resolutely fight oligarchy.
That would be his last speech to the people.
How long ago...
...did this Mayo Square...
...witness yet another infamy...
from the enemies of the people?
They will look for countless excuses:
Reasons of freedom, justice, religion...
...but what they want is one thing only:
to bring the situation back to 1943.
To violence, we must respond with even greater violence.
The way to act for every Peronist,
whether isolated or within an organization...
...is to respond to a violent action with even greater violence.
And when one of ours goes down...
...five of theirs will fall too.
Either we fight to consolidate...
...what we have achieved...
...or the oligarchy will destroy the country.
Everyone of you must remember:
The word now is "fight"...
...and we are going to fight everywhere!
To finish, l want to remind all of you...
...that today begins for us a new armed in vigilance.
We all must consider...
...that the people's fight is on our shoulders...
...and show everyday in all our actions...
...the decision necessary to save the people's fight.
The national defeat.
A few days later, the army removed Per�n from power.
The only base left for the movement...
...was the organized proletariat,
and some middle class sectors.
Peronism went down without a fight.
The CGT, which a few days before called for workers' militias...
...now made announcements calling for peace.
The Peronist high council did the same.
The points of resistance...
...erected in some workers' neighborhoods...
...were easily annihilated by the army.
On a grey and desolate day...
...a formerly national army, now a "gorilla"...
...occupied the city.
Why did Peron abandon power?
How could a government with two thirds of the votes...
...go down without a fight?
Was it Peron's error not to arm his people?
He could have done.
Was the movement ready for a civil war?
In what direction?
In what organization?
The rest is a chronicle.
The gorilla party.
The stone and iron city celebrated.
Rural society sang their victory in the streets.
The shops closed.
Flags were ordered to hang from all churches.
The Vatican flag was cheered by liberals at Mayo Square.
Again, Argentinean intellectuals were serving the enemy.
The Argentinean writers' society saluted Peron's fall.
The University Federation said:
"Let today's joy and anxiety...
...give us the measure of our responsibility."
The Socialist Party said:
"We salute the great liberation effort...
...that the Argentinean people have just made."
Victorio Codovila, leader of the Communist Party said:
"This revolution is positive as it removed a dictatorial regime...
...of a fascist kind."
Ernesto San Martino, a radical leader...
...who in the past had compared the people to a zoological horde...
...said:
l believe the Party must fight united.
Radicalism is the only organic, serious and responsible solution...
...that the country expects after this deep political, social...
...and moral crisis that has troubled the Republic.
The liberator's violence.
Meanwhile, the system plans its violence.
The Congress will be dissolved.
Peronism will be persecuted, and there will be a ban...
...on mentioning, publishing or exhibiting its symbols.
There will be an attempt to erase...
...10 years of history from the people's memory.
150,000 trade union leaders will be suspended.
Tens of thousands will be arrested.
Many of them will be sent to Patagonia.
The trade unions, assaulted by the army and civil "guerrillas".
4,000 teachers and university clerks,
will be suspended without any trial.
Raul Previs will set the grounds of an economic plan...
...based on free commerce.
At the time of Peron's fall there was no external debt.
10 years later, the debt will reach 6,000 million dollars.
The lMF will start to drive national economic politics.
The economy will start a de-nationalization process,
and the Constitution of 1949, which granted the rights...
...of workers, family, the elderly, education and culture...
...will be abolished.
The violent decade was about to start.
Reflections for a dialogue.
The defeat of 1955 was the defeat of the most advanced attempt...
...for a national multiclass front in Argentina.
The inability of the bourgeoisie to carry out the liberation process...
...was blatant.
The defeat of 1955 shows again that the fight for national liberation...
...cannot be separated from the class struggle,
that there is no winning national revolution...
...if it is not also a social revolution.
It is important to look into the past to extract critical conclusions...
...to reinforce the present struggle:
only those within the battles will lose or win them.
A national movement's limitations can only be dealt with from inside,
through the struggle for national and social liberation.
While in power, Peronism can be blamed for making errors,
but these can only by judged within the limitations...
...of a given historical moment.
In September 1955,
it had been one year since American mercenaries had invaded Guatemala
and reversed the government elected by the people.
Vargas committed suicide in Brazil by blaming imperialism.
One year later, Fidel Castro unloaded in Playa Giron.
2 years later, the war in Algeria shook the world.
5 years for the name of Lumumba..
to take a continental importance in Africa.
5 years
for Cuba to be the first free state of America
The justicialist revolution was only one additional expression
of the continental revolution.
which would win: along with Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala,
its first great victory against imperialism in Cuba.
THE RESISTANCE
Comrades,
In facing the realization of this film, our intention was to collect
information on the fights carried out by our people as from the year 1955.
We knew that this information had been diminished by the system
and did not appear in the official files,
nor in the libraries, nor in the cineclubs.
But we discovered that the popular organizations themselves, trade unions
and even political organizations, did not have the necessary information
How can this be?
Is it the organizations? the restricted number of national intellectuals?
In a certain way, yes.
A people not yet free
cannot gather information
nor crystallize solid ideas,
conclusions, of a fight not yet defined.
The urgency that imposes the immediate concrete fights,
does not make the people conscious of the importance of the constant battle.
The history remains in the collective subconscious.
Also we have directed our research towards this collective memory
while speaking with workmen, activists,
of the trade-union and political leaders,
of the peasants, the students and the employees.
The experience made us think
about the distance between the intellectuals and the people.
Many, of the comrades avoided the dialogue.
for fear of reprisals of the system, certainly,
but especially natural distrust. We had to show
that there existed in the country a nationalized intellectual substrata
and that others are on this path.
the reality of working clandestinely,
certainly did not facilitate easier information, and its retrieval
In spite of that, we bring to you here
the elements, the notes, the experiences,
to submit them your consideration, comrades.
The purpose of this compilation
is to draw certain conclusions at the end of the projection
about the most effective way to conduct the fight today.
SPONTANEITY
As we said in the chronicle of Peronism,
September 1955 is only one tactical defeat
in a long war of liberation.
Spontaneously, the proletariat went down in the streets
to show that it was not overcome.
the flags were torn off
from those who believed they were jubilant.
The young people scaled the short wall
and withdrew the flags from the balconies.
Many trucks full of people came
and some leaders came in a car
They said "Guys, do not go to the bridge the army is there"
but no one listened,
enthusiasm was at its highest.
suddenly there were people on horses.
The comrade, member of the textile union,
speaks about the first spontaneous demonstration
which took place in Buenos Aires on September 1955.
on the same day, that the Oligarchy took over power
... we moved towards the bridge and started to shout:
in Place of May!
as if we wanted to revive the 17th October 1945.
And we arrived at the bridge, but the army were there already.
On seeing the soldiers, the people stopped.
and the army began to shoot,
and people fled... then someone said
But no, they are firing with blanks Let us go forward
Let us shout: Viva Per�n!
Enthusiasm was at its highest.
However they did not fire with blanks.
but with live ammunition as we could see
holes in the walls and asphalt!
It became serious... Some fell...
I remember someone who was in front of us
I do not know, what happened him, but he fell down.
and did not get up again.
Then the commotion began
We were a good thousand.
Our enthusiasm was at its peak. but each of us was alone,
because we did not know what we wanted to do.
everyone had followed the demonstration
We were numerous, we wanted to do something,
but we did not have orders, of any kind.
We did not know
how to attack, retreat.
Essentially, we did not know how to fight
There was no one to lead us.
everything was spontaneous.
people fled on all sides. Without directives, nor adequate organization,
people joined in resistance by spontaneous mobilization
Peronism had given to this mobilization
a national cohesion, an objective.
During the last 10 years
this spontaneous movement became the great virtue of the Argentinean masses.
It proposed not to reform the system but to destroy it
the goal of all the political struggles and trade-unions
were to re-conquer the power for the people.
The action took the step of a theoretical formulation
It was insolent, disrespectful.
It was ignorant of the old theoreticians of the revolution.
Instead of fixed ideology, it had the advantage
to be the project of ideology, of seeking, of invention
THE UNDERGROUND
The experience of comrade Martiniano Martin
leader of two automobile unions,
is identical to that of all the Argentinean proletariat.
From 1955 to date there was a fundamental change
In 1955 one did not know the work laws
one went to the trade union and made an announcement
There was a delegation
There were no problems
The functionaries said pay him his due, he is entitled
And that was it.
But after 1955, we could lodge a complaint as much, as we wanted
but there were no more delegations, they were out
there were only pursuits and arrests.
many comrades had to leave the country and to ask the neighboring countries for asylum ...
the comrades were afraid because persecution was continual.
One even feared to confide between comrades,
for fear the other would denounce you
with the personnel manager, which meant persecution.
That is to say, to be torn from your bed at midnight
and to find yourself in the street with your children.
Then we began a resistance, organized a resistance clandestinely.
One met in coffee bars, or in the comrades houses
with the risk of seeing the police force arrive.
we very often even organized the resistance in the prisons
when the comrades were arrested
we somehow tried through intermediaries,
to continue directives.
By any means.... Many comrades
died in prison
many struck down by the police.
But in two years, we obtained the restoration of the Confederation
General of Work. Angel Taborda, trade unionist
I worked in metallurgy. I remember that each day
patrols came to teach a lesson to one of the directors,
A comrade of the board of management or commissioner of the company.
And they tried..... they took them, they came, to punish them
Because they were told that there was a home of Peronist resistance there.
I remember that the police force had once tried...
there was a bust of Evita...
The resistance entered a new stage of the national fight,
which would become the first experience of the underground movement
During this fight, the proletariat invented, or discovered,
some forms of resistance which it had never applied before.
Chronicle 1955 - 1959
Peronism constitutes a cursed event
for the political system.
Supported by the trade-union organizations
it would cause, during the last 10 years,
The most serious crises of the democratic-liberal institutions
On the world scale, Argentinean proletariat, was seen at this time
carrying out the greatest number of politico-trade-union fights.
With the triumph of the coup d'etat of 1955,
The country seems occupied by an army of invasion.
Tanks, soldiers, Gendarmes,
occupy the streets, evacuate the factories,
take by storm, mobilize militarily against whole trade unions
In the underground, the proletariat organize the first fights.
General Confederation of Work proclaims a nation-wide strike in November 1955.
later, a strike of the metal workers will last 50 days and will cost the dismissal
of 30.000 workmen and the arrest of 2.000 activists and delegates.
Each mobilization of the proletariat leads to the hardest of repressions.
In June 1956, on the waste ground of L�on Suarez,
many national militants were shot without procedure
In spite of repression,
in 1957, 252 trade-union strikes were organized,
mostly national in character.
And 397, during the year 1959.
The gorilla revolution proclaim new elections.
the forbidden Peronists deliver the voting cards blank
and obtain a majority of votes.
the trade unions
are the principal bastions of the movement in each meeting
In 1959, The Peronist vote renders possible the triumph of Frondizi.
In the same year is the oil industry strike
and in The confederation of trade unions resistance is formed
against the contracts with imperialism, signed by Frondizi
Some time before, 62 organizations
had emerged after intervention from the C.G.T.
approving the program "Falda" in Cordoba
Which proposed, in particular:
liquidation of the foreign monopolies,
expropriation of the latifundia,
The cancellation of treaties injuring the national economy,
nationalization of the sources of our economy,
working control on production and trade.
The TRADE UNIONS
In 1955, Argentinean trade unions
ceased being semi-public institutions
and were transformed into authentic engines of resistance
Becoming for the proletariat the first school, its single university
Many comrades, entered the fight.
But illusions should not be made.
the working class no longer had a political party
after the fall of Per�n
A legal party, I mean to say, by the means of his legal organizations
i.e. the trade unions, could only carry out
limited action.
Delegates, Trade unionists leaders, constituted
the only forward looking intellectuals from which the movement could profit
In a neo-colonized country like Argentina of the last decade,
the trade unions had a double role
Of organization and political party
Victor Guilder, nationalist militant
...where the minimum demand is to shake the whole system
and disturb the economic, social and political equilibrium
very different to developed, independent countries
where the different sectors in the political fight
arise relatively independently, with their own demands,
which can be in conformity with those of power.
Here that is not the case, on the contrary many have tried
to equate our situation with one of a developed country
hiding the real goals of the workers movement while wanting to make us believe
that we were in an independent country, whereas we are
underdeveloped, dependent and colonized.
And the trade unions wanted to be limited to an impossible reformism
because of the economic situation
of the working class.
The failure in Argentina of the parties of the left and the supposedly popular parties
made it possible for the trade unions to replace
what they had not known
in solidarity for the great mass of the workers.
Angel Perelman one of the founders of the union of the metal-workers
Argentinean trade unionism
does not fight solely for wages.
we dream and believe particularly in the possibility
of a large national social revolution,
in favour of the working class
and of the entire country,
for which we have fought since independence.
It has been thousands of years already
A patriarch named Job said...
,,Militia est vita hominis super terram..,
...the life of humans on earth is a continual fight.
Raimondo Ongaro, Recently Appointed Secretary-general
of the New General Confederation of Work(CGT), in March 1969.
It would be ridiculous to currently speak only about the role which the trade unionism must hold,
because today we live at a time of mobilization
of combat, in an emergency state
What would it accomplish
o have rich trade unions, having important Properties,
and certain sectors of workers
profiting from right living conditions, elevated, worthy,
in a poor fatherland,
in a dependent country
in a nation
... whose people are poor, people who miss
all these goods that civilization
regards as essential for each citizen, each individual?
that is why we hold to heart a definition of trade unionism
which thinks according to an Argentinean dimension
which includes the entire country and not the restricted zone of a trade union.
Everything else is old history;
In a country which does not realize itself,
nobody can realize themselves,
neither as a group nor a human.
Those of us who are ready to write history,
have the same animated spirit,
that these men who, in the catacombs, faced the governments
faced the power and the lion's dens.
the weapons and the methods of repression are modernized.
The blood of the worthy Argentinean is ready
disposed to rebel against all repression
...they will not be made to kneel down
We believe that the rifles
...of those who want to shoot us will miss
because there will always remain Argentineans disposed to fight
to achieve the will of the Argentineans
ERA OF DEVELOPMENT
This same middle-class which, in 1955, had accepted oligarchic hegemony,
try with Frondizi, 3 years later, an intermediate policy,
aiming at harnessing the proletariat
In new industrial sectors.
Integration seeks to imply
the sectors of the peronism
in an initiative which favours only the middle-class related to imperialism
Frondizi personifies the most obvious, bourgeois opportunism
Ing�nument, the policy of development
hoped to find in the USA, a generous sponsor
like the old Oligarchy had found in England.
the results of this policy are
promotion of the private free enterprises
and open doors for foreign capital
privatization of national enterprises
liquidation and removal of small industry
subjection to the International Monetary Fund
and a repression against the people
compatible with the interests of the investors?
popular resistance had not been
envisaged by the hypothetical Kennedyenne development.
In January 1959, the workmen of the Municipal Slaughter-house put themselves on strike
and occupied it to prevent its return to private management.
The police force, in armored cars,
evacuated the buildings, crushing resistance
Three months later, it is the bank clerks who strike.
100 employees find themselves imprisoned in the barracks
the students take part in the fight.
Never, as in 1959, had the proletariat trusted so much in its own force.
never as in the course of the same year
had the limits of various directions of politico union activists
become so obvious.
In 1959, the fight for popular power
became extremely violent.
Peronism joined with the trade unions to fight with terrorism
sabotage and military action.
The first guerillas entered into action in Tucuman under the command of Uturunco
General lniguez
sponsored the military mutiny of Rosario.
the tanks of the shell oil company in Cordoba are blown up a little later
and more than 300 million liters of fuel burn.
The repression of the police
which bore the name of, plan Conintes,
led to brutal tortures and murders
The resistance against the force of the system did not diminish
From 1959 to 1964,
one can count 1400 acts of terrorism and sabotage
offensive of terrorism does not succeed in conquering the power
but succeed in avoiding, between 1959 and 1962,
The integrationist traps of Frondizism,
to which certain sectors of the national movement belonged
Frondizi, like Betancourt, Haya de la Torre,
Figueres and so many others,
symbolize the sterility of the Latin American Bourgeoisie
their historical death
THE MIDDLE CLASS AND INTELLECTUALS
The fight of the mass movements
started to weaken the antinational front
which had seized power from them.
The oligarchy
lost its traditional influence on the middle class.
There developed, and strengthened gradually
in the intellectual circles
the idea to understand Argentina like a nation.
It seems important to me, to explain the role of the intellectual in Argentina,
in particular the intellectuals of the left.
Franco Moni, writer, journalist.
until today the left-wing intellectuals in Argentina
did not play any serious part,
no coherent role of the left or revolutionary.
it was a very elegant alibi of the system, playing his game
the system incorporated it.
why did he not understand
the most brilliant moments of the Argentine people?
Why was the intellectual of the left not tied,
for example, with the Peronist process?
Because he always thinks in the shadow of old Europe,
That hands are dirty or clean.
I believe it is time to clear up this old problem,
of the conscience, of purity, of the Oedipus complex .
As long as the Argentinean left
operates under this shadow created by Europe
besides being magnificently propagated by our system
and liberal education,
quite simply it has no purpose.
The MILITARY
the provincial elections of 1962 surprise the military.
the Secretary-General of the textile trade union, Andres Framini,
is elected governor of the most important province in the country
Buenos Aires.
The army intervenes, and cancels the elections
Overturned, Frondizi dissolves the national congress
and places an assistant like a president: Guido: Guido.
The national movement is unable to respect the will of the people.
Large sectors of the movement had done nothing except
that to engage in an electoral game which was dedicated to the fraud
The facade of the bourgeoisie had already begun to crumble long before.
the only two times, in 1916 and 1946
that the government
was elected by the people
it was reversed by a military coup.
The continual action of P�ronism till 1962 places the power
in a difficult crisis.
Its greatest concern is
to find the best way to neutralize the movement
From 1962, the trade unions begin a new form of resistance:
The occupation of factories.
The confederation of trade unions, deepens in 1964,
the said plan of conflict.
For the first time in the history Latin America
1' 000 premises are occupied simultaneously.
More than three million workmen take part in these occupations.
1964 is also
the year, in which Per�n tries to return.
the Brazilian military force it, obeying instructions from the Pentagon
to return him from exile.
It is in 1964 that new groups of Guerillas appear
who are decimated, before they even enter into action
the most intense battles at this time are by the proletariat of the interior
with strikes, occupations and hunger marches
The triumph of P�ronistes at the time of the elections in 1965
shakes the system again
to counter the threat of another success of P�ronistes in 1967
army decides to forestall them becoming an arm the government
completely naturally it becomes the government itself
Only the Communist Parties and Socialists
require the maintenance
of democratic-civil institutions to exist
the local center of the Peronism
place their hopes in allegedly nationalist sectors of the army
however the goals of the so called Argentine revolution
soon become obvious.
By prohibiting the political parties
they do not want to limit the generous freedom
that the civil parties enjoy
but to suffocate the Peronist movement
By dismantling the autonomy of the universities,
they want to act against the radicalization
of important sectors of the middle class
By the continued threat of an intervention
in opposition to the confederation of trade unions,
it wants to push then into an open collaboration
with the system in place to give the victory to neocolonialism
THE STUDENT MOVEMENT
Leader of the new reform movement, economic science
what is your opinion the most important actions
of the student movement in the last ten years?
In the first place..
one can establish the great force of mobilization of student movements.
it is also important to see,
that the processes of this fight have been directed towards only one political direction
with the liberal goals,
established by facts
such as for example in 1955
when they were deceived by the oligarchy to contain the popular movement.
The great strike of 1959,
with more than 100'000 students
was about the issue of "liberal or national training"'
while Frondizi sold off the riches of Argentina
to imperialist Yankees.
In the more recent battles, in 1964/65
the student movement perceived a new reality
and realized that it was to deviate from its old positions
to stick to the most important question of the moment:
anti-imperialism or colonial dependence..
Octavio Getino questioned of Julio Barbarao, a student
how he sees the current situation of the student movement
after the last coup d'Etat.
' I think that the coup d'etat contributed,
..like all the means which the right tested
to a slow down the historical development
and in the final analysis, the revolutionary process
that is, it forced us students to leave our island
the situation has really important and interesting aspects for us
who come from Christianity;
we break the patterns and return to the origin
We collaborate with people who come from the Marxism
of the orthodox Marxism, the Marxism
which is regarded as the historical axis
with those who reason with old values
and with the peronists groups really revolutionary
These three currents will fight together with the people
for national liberation.
Roberto Grabois, leader of the student national front,
speaks about the current political position of the student movement
' Perhaps we could say
that what characterizes the process of the student movement
comes from the nature of the universities
meaning that the fight for great ideals,
conform to a narrow, specific prospect for the students
and of a paternalist type with respect to the popular movement
until that a national conscience, in the direction of a fusion
with the popular movement
a conscience that the fight for a liberated fatherland,
a socialist fatherland, inevitably implies our fusion
in the essential axis of the Argentinean revolution
that is the working class
not understood like an abstraction,
but realized by its battles and its feelings.
From that fundamental point, the process of the national consciousness
understanding,, re-evaluation, of the Peronist process
and of its significance for the Argentine working class,
becoming our business, our own business
It involves no Peronism of bureaucrats
which does nothing but negotiate and concede, but of P�ronism of the masses,
that of the anti-imperialistic and revolutionary fight,
which leads to socialism.
In this sense, the Cuban revolution
a national, nationalist and anti-imperialist revolution...
had a great influence.
its heritage is for us, Marxist-Leninist, a guide,
which establishes the link with the history, with the life, of our working class,
and which opens the way
towards the national liberty and the construction of socialism, unity with our people ''
The OCCUPATION OF THE FACTORIES
What was the high point reached by the resistance in the last 10 years?
Generalizing we could say
what was said to us by many comrades..
the demonstration of a national conscience in any test...
Able to resist the executions... with repressions, tortures
with the traps of the System
to quote an example, let us announce
the most important of these demonstrations
occupation of the factories.
Cirillo Ramallo speaks about one of the first occupations of a factory
the metallurgy factory ,,Siam de Montechingolo.
The occupation resulted from the dismissal of 300 comrades.
What measures were taken to defend the factory?
All measures likely to guarantee to us
that the police force would not make us evacuate
and at the same time to maintain the normality of the factory
in order to avoid disorders.
We distributed the gasoline depots in various places,
likewise fire extinguishers , to be used
in case of an attack by the police force.
The defense of the factory, it is me who organized it,
with the comrades of the internal commission
I personally constituted the strike pickets
who circulated in the factory
and in the district
whose solidarity was always given to us
we feared that the police would drive us out
Rudy Taborda speaks of the first occupation,
the one large textile mill under worker administration: La Bernalesa...
In the country, there were many occupations
like ours.
But it acted as a historical event
unique in its kind, because, for the first time,
a factory functioned under workers control
For the first time, we felt
absolute owners of a factory
where for 30 years the comrades had been
exploited and crushed by the employers' class.
We had a double responsibility:
to show the employers' class
that we were able to keep up production
to work and, at the same time, to manage the production
We were going to show that we were capable of production.
we had to succeed in doing both things at the same time.
And we succeeded there rather well, it seems to me
For example: the quality of the products,
compared with that of those
which was stored, appeared, at the end of the 13 days during
which we had ensured the management of the factory, was definitely superior.
Another fact important to announce, is the participation of the employees.
They joined with us unanimously.
A really extraordinary fact
For the first time,
two thousand workers assume autonomy for their work
For the first time, they discover that they are worth as much, or even more,
than those which always benefited from them.
They became aware of their own capacities
their own possibilities.
the workers, this time, took the occupation very seriously
During the previous occupations
people came with their portable radios,
the workers organized barbecues,
the comrades played cards
or football in the streets bordering the factory.
This time, on the other hand, it was very different.
The truth, it is that the majority of us are illiterate.
We grew up in the absolute misery
working since tender childhood
without learning how to read and write
Me, I worked in various places for a mouthful of bread
I am not ashamed to say that I had to beg to eat.
And then, at 17 years old, I came to Buenos Aires
to seek my fortune.
All of that was before 17th October. And then General Per�n appeared
I was not the only one to arrive from my province.
We were very numerous in total ignorance of the social laws
In fact, in the countryside, we do not profit
from any protection.
in view of this panorama of total misery,
Like many Argentineans I came to the capital
But the trade unions were not yet well organized,
and there were still some difficulties.
however it was still better than living in poverty in the country.
One afternoon the Minister of Justice from La Plata came,
We received him at the gates.
And he said to us that we must evacuate the factory
Because we had taken possession of a private property.
I replied to him: you are Minister for Justice? And your justice,
is to lay off 300 workmen!
and he replied to me that he was not a Minister for Labour,
and that this was a trade-union problem.
Then, I said to him that, in this case,
he had nothing to do with this factory.
But he repeated that we must evacuate,
that there were 150 police officers ready to employ force
I answered him that 150 police officers were not enough.
He would have to call the army
He was surprised like two custard pies.
And I added
that if they made us evacuate by force,
we would blow up the plant.
and I showed him, where we had the gasoline containers
which were ready
or any eventuality and any aggression
If, as a representative of the government
he had with him the police force and the owners,
me, I had the support of all the comrades
to face any aggression..
occupations are violent events
disinfectants,
which erase in the conscience of the workmen
all long series of myths, lures, and oppressions
Thanks to the occupations, the workman accelerates his own decolonization,
find the conscience of his own work,
re-conquers his own humanity.
THE LIMITS OF SPONTANEITY
Up to which point can one carry out, inside the system,
the battle for the means of production?
the dominant classes control
all the other levers of power
Resistance, at its spontaneous level,
has arrived today at a critical moment
If, until yesterday, the trade unions were the axis of resistance
today they lost their political effectiveness
As an instrument of revolutionary fight
They have reached the limits of their possibilities.
The spontaneity..
Is the great virtue of the Argentinean masses.
But it also constitutes their limit.
It is to spontaneity that the Argentinean proletariat
owes its most memorable day
but also its defeats.
the 17th October and the month of September 1955.
the combativeness and the heroism of resistance
is not enough to overcome the enemy.
When spontaneity and the initiative of the mass
do not take the path of the seizure of power,
everything is transformed into dispute, resistance, self-defence
The initiative is always taken by the Powers that be
THE WAR TODAY
If the war is the sum of partial battles
we lost some of them, but, on the level of the catching conscience
we have won many others.
Imperialism also has its experiments.
Since the Cuban revolution, it learned better ways
to fight the revolution
that the revolutionists did not learn
This is a miguelito.., a small iron rod
an inch in length.
One sharpens the points and one folds them with right angle
in order to form a base which hangs
Initially, we d made a larger model,
of a good centimeter thickness
Then we cold not get rods of this format any more
we make it now from
the bars, which we can get
I cut out it, I sharpen it, I prepare it thus.
Because I know that the people can make use of it.
Where is that? In the streets.
One hide them as well as possible
into a heap of garbage or into a puddle,
The motors pass, without seeing them, and it punctures the tires
One especially uses them during the strikes
One leaves at dawn, each one with his bag
and we place them.
1963 to 1966, the Pentagon
gave special training
in its centers of Panama, to 19.000 soldiers of Latin America.
the armies of the continent behave like troops of occupation
and they have all the advantages.
these are the Peruvian "hunter commands"
the Bolivian "Rangers", the Argentine gendarmerie
the ODECA, the American defence council,
the military operators, are all directed by the Pentagon
Latin America
is the theatre of a silent escalation.
devoted to genocide.
I remember a demonstration, November 5
after the fall of Per�n.
With a comrade, we had gone to Plaza Alsina in Avellaneda,
where the police force charged ferociously
proceeded with horses against the demonstrators turning back the crowd
there was a comrade sitting on a bench
they came from the rear whipped him , and threw him to the ground
and trampled him with their horses
I felt such an indignation
that I remembered a trick from back home
I entered a grocer and bought packets of pepper
and launched we them in the direction of the wind,
after having removed packing, naturally
When the horses breathed the odour of pepper,
they started to sneeze and reared up
then the police charged more furiously.
We were sorry for the horses, but not for them, certainly
after having been subject to the brutality with which they treated our brothers!
pepper is effective, certainly!
We knows that from when we lived in the countryside!
And can it stop the police force?
That, is a little more difficult!
What can be achieved these days by politico-trade-union organizations
in the face of a well trained , well equipped modern army,
and mainly made up of mercenaries?
But is this army really invincible?
Algeria
Cuba, Vietnam
proves the opposite
a people resolved to liberate themselves coast to coast
are invincible
But victory over these armies
are conceivable only through the people
The power is Only possessed.
by those who possess weapons,
or those who decide to brandish them.
The language of weapons is in our time
the most effective political language.
Is it therefore necessary to teach the people this language?
And won't that mean a long and painful war?
Do any other alternatives for liberation exist
INTRODUCTION TO THE DEBATE
Comrades,
the reflections which we have just subjected to you,
arise from the current national situation
and of the experience accumulated during years of resistance.
Let us point out the facts.
The military government has been in place since 1966
destroying the resistance
of different trade unions, like the trade union of the dock labourers
who closed the sugar factories of Tucuman.
They have assigned the energy reserves, giving no rights for the people
and has found no opposition , which could confront and overcome it.
This is the symptom.
thoughts and reflections are like contributions to this discussion
also appear in experiences encountered during filming.
Rudy Taborda was laid off
recently with his comrades of fight
Cirillo Ramallo, also, was laid off
and the factory where he worked laid off
Angel Taborda was arrested
and laid off because of his trade-union engagement.
Martiniano Martin is no longer on the committee of the car factory,
He appears on the black lists of the employers and can not find any more any work
At Tucuman we spoke with the most combative leaders of FOTIA.
can you speak to me about the fight carried out by the workmen of Tucuman?
I am called Leandro Fot� I am a secretary-general of the Trade union of San Jos�.
It is Only four hours ago
That I left prison.
I was arrested for organizing the fight of the sugar workers.
However that is not important
what I make a point of underlining, is that in Tucuman
we have important experiences of combat.
We have occupied factories
we fought in the streets,
we had victims. Recently we lost
one of our comrades at Bella Vista, where the fight was particularly keen
Did these fights, bring us any solutions?
Comrade, these fights did not bring any solution
No solution for the sugar workmen.
Because of that I believe that the workers fight must be quite different.
We have recognized that one should not only fight for
wage increases, but against government and its domination.
the workers must understand
that we need a popular government of the workers
This is the only way we can provide for the future of the country
and for the workers, to worry about the proletarian people of the country.
Now, comrade, at this moment,
The situation of the workmen of Tucuman is disastrous
there are 24,000 unemployed, from the closed factories
of people who will emigrate towards other provinces,
without any other possibility than increasing unemployment elsewhere in the country
Like at Tucuman in the last year
resistance and self-defence,
by reaching their culmination,
expose the people to lassitude,
with exhaustion.
Each point of defense is located by the enemy, isolated, and eliminated
But the memory of the people assimilates the experience
One day I asked:
Father, where is God?
My father became serious,
but answered me nothing.
My father died in the mine.
In the bottom of the gallery.
Color of blood of the mine.
Where the gold of the owner piles up
One day I asked:
My brother, what do you know of God?
My brother lowered his eyes,
but answered nothing.
My brother lives in the mountain
Where no flowers grow.
Sweat, malaria, snakes
This is life of the logger.
And that nobody asks of him
if he knows or has found God.
Another important person
Me, I sing in the streets.
And when I am in prison,
I listen to the voices of the people
who sing much better than me
Does God take care of the poor?
Perhaps yes, Perhaps no,
what I know,
Is that he sits at the table of the patron
If there is anything on this earth
more important than God
it is that nobody has to spit blood
so that others can live better
I am, Andina Lizarraga,
I am the Chief of Peronist Youth of Tucuman
Although experiences
of the population of Tucuman were invaluable since 1955
mobilizations, street battles, occupations of factory
and fights against the oppressor,
for the historical process,
I believe that they
are not applicable at present,
and that it would be a great error to repeat them.
people do not want these battles any more .
They wants another form of action.
An action for the political seizure of power
which can only be carried out
by an armed struggle.
However, an armed struggle is not possible
without a revolutionary organization prepared to make
themselves victims and to risk their lives
like the Argentinean people until now.
The time of the chief bureaucrat is finished.
That depends only on us, on yourselves,
to contribute to the foundation of this organization of revolutionary direction
Otherwise we will waste our time miserably.
We crossed vast parts of the country
and found in many provinces a similar situation,
more dramatic, perhaps, in the North
more particularly in Tucuman.
However, the proletariat does not appear at all beaten, or overcome
Many means of fight were tested in the course of time,,
but the truth is that no organization, no direction is yet in sight
which could direct the proletariat towards the victory
In the meantime we experience a kind of dynamic waiting
The search continues.
Comrades... Important now are the conclusions
That you as the true the authors and Protagonists of this history can draw.
The experience which we have gathered here
and our conclusions are relative.
They are helpful only in the measure
of how useful to the presence and the future of the liberation struggle they are.
Of this liberation you represent
The only importance, is the action which can follow these conclusions,
The agreement on the basis of action.
Is why our film is suspended here.
For you to continue it.
You have the floor.