Fw: Analysis of Argentine workers' options

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg@tin.it>]

 Argentina Erupts!
 By DAVID TURPIN
 
 On Dec. 19 and 20, a spontaneous mass explosion drove Argentine
 President Fernando de la Rua and his economics minister, Domingo
 Carvallo, from office. The president had to be evacuated in a
 helicopter.
 
 Demanding bread and work, tens of thousands of demonstrators
 converged on the Plaza de Mayo in the center of Buenos Aires. In
 disregard for the truce with the government arranged by the trade-
 union bureaucracy, they confronted police repression. After several
 hours of pitched battles with riot police, demonstrators forced the
 de la Rua government to throw in the towel.
 
 As this article goes to press the ruling-class parties are scrambling
 desperately to put together a government that can withstand the
 pressure from below and force through the budget and wage cuts
 required to meet payments on the foreign debt.
 
 The country's fifth president in two weeks, Eduardo Duhalde, a former
 senator and governor of the Peronist party, took office on Jan. 2. He
 is supposed to serve out the remainder of de la Rua's term, which
 ends on Dec. 10, 2003.
 
 Duhalde promised immediately that he would give a kick-start to
Argentina's economy, now in its fourth year of recession.
 
 He announced a devaluation of the peso, abandoning its one-to-one
 match with the U.S. dollar established by the former Peronist
 government several years ago. Parity with the dollar had made
 Argentine goods non-competitive on the world market and had boosted
 prices on food and other domestically produced consumer items.
 
 Duhalde also reaffirmed the pledge by interim president Adolfo
 Rodriguez Saa that the government would refuse to pay its huge
 foreign debt.
 
 The backdrop to the recent uprising is the near collapse of the
 Argentine economy under the crushing weight of the debt. The
 draconian measures required to satisfy foreign bondholders have led
to unemployment rates of 20 percent and plunged millions into dire
 poverty.
 
 A mighty mass upsurge is overflowing the containing walls of
 bourgeois rule in Argentina. It cannot be foreseen how far it will
 go. But already the tempo and development of the events that
 culminated in the December rebellion offer activists inspiring
 lessons about the power of mass movements.
 
 The school of class struggle
 
 Argentine workers have had far less time than workers in this country
 to experience the frustrations of big business "democracy"-the choice
 between capitalist party candidates. However, the Argentines have
 learned very quickly in the school of hard knocks, the brutal
 economic crisis driven by draining foreign debt payments.
 
 In fact, in 1989, only six years after the collapse of the military
 dictatorship imposed in 1976 and maintained by the murder of 40,000
people, President Alfonsin was brought down by an explosion of anger
 by the masses, who would not wait six months for his term to expire.
 
 This momentary victory of the working people, however, was reversed
 by secret negotiations between the traditional parties.
 
 The deal allowed President-elect Carlos Menem, a representative of
 the Peronist party, a bourgeois party that gets most of its votes
 from the workers, like the Democratic Party in this country, to take
 power before his inauguration date.
 
 The sustained offensive that has left Argentina's ruling class
 reeling, dumping ministers and whole cabinets willy-nilly, shows that
 Menem inadvertently taught workers and the poor another vital lesson-
 don't ever give the enemy a chance to recover.
 
 Even though Menem took power only a few short months after the
 insurrection that brought down Alfonsin, the new government moved
 quickly to regain the ground that the ruling class had lost.
 Argentina's workers suffered defeat after defeat, as major strikes
 were broken and key state industries were privatized.
 
 Menem's economic policies, implemented by minister Cavallo, who would
 reappear in a tragic repeat of history in de la Rua's cabinet, sowed
 the seeds of the present crisis. While Cavallo's measures brought
 inflation under control, they did so through cuts in real wages and
 layoffs.
 
 Massive layoffs led to double-digit unemployment rates. At the same
 time, Cavallo's tying of the peso to the U.S. dollar and
 his "liberalization" of foreign trade rules led to a balance-of-trade
 deficit that made the economy entirely dependent upon foreign
 investment.
 
 These policies, commonly dubbed "neoliberal," amounted to an
 offensive aimed at lowering the workers' standard of living and
 raising the capitalists' profits, while selling off lucrative state
 enterprises at give-away prices. Menem's offensive, however, did not
take the fight out of the working class.
> 
In 1994, the city of Santiago del Estero exploded in rage, initiating
 an upsurge of the workers and the poor that undermined the Menem
 government. A key element of this renewed militancy was the
 discrediting of the trade-union leadership, which backed Menem's
 administration. The treachery of the bureaucrats did not go unnoticed
 by the rank and file, and the "Santiaguenazo," as it was called,
 marked the beginning of the end for the Peronist party's traditional
 hold over the organized sections of the working class.
 
 Sensing the historic loss of prestige of its principal party,
 Argentina's bourgeoisie prepared a "left" alternative to channel the
 rising discontent: the Frepaso, which together with the Radical Civic
 Union (UCR), would replace the Peronists as an alternative in the
 1999 elections.
 
 The merry-go-round of elections did not save Cavallo, who was brought
 down by a series of general strikes in 1996. The bureaucrats of the
 two union federations, the CGT and the CTA, however, saved Menem.
 
 Together with the Alliance, a coalition between the UCR and the
 Frepaso parties, the trade-union bureaucracy succeeded in controlling
 and defusing the upsurge. The bureaucrats led the workers to the
 election booth, where they voted in de la Rua's Alliance government,
 hoping it would bring them relief from the crisis.
 
 Brazil's currency devaluation in 1999, however, forced the government
 to tighten the screws even more, as the debt began to devour the
 country.
 
 Workers forge new alliances
 
 The New York Times, the voice of the more mealy-mouthed U.S.
 imperialist ideologues, has characterized de la Rua as "indecisive."
 Yet any serious analysis of the new government's immediate resumption
 of Menem's attack on workers would indicate that de la Rua knew
 exactly what he was doing. What he could not foresee was how quickly
 the workers and the unemployed would respond.
 
 The de la Rua government's first crisis came almost immediately after
 the approval, thanks to the shameless bribery of practically the
 entire congress, of a series of anti-labor reforms to workplace
 legislation. The reactionary reforms set off a demonstration 30,000
 strong to the capital's Plaza de Mayo.
 
 Shortly thereafter, on May 5, 2000, the government was shaken by the
 first of several general strikes. Unemployed workers played a
 vanguard role in the fightback, leading mass insurrections in several
 regions.
 
 The new role played by the unemployed is one of the most striking
 characteristics of the upsurge that has shaken bourgeois rule in
 Argentina. Organized in committees of picketers, called "piqueteros,"
 the unemployed have cut vital arteries for the transportation of
 goods, led popular insurrections-in the face of brutal repression-
 and, most importantly, deprived the bourgeoisie of one its
 traditional weapons against workers: scab strike breakers.
 
 In effect, the developing alliance between Argentina's militant rank
 and file labor movement and unemployed workers has been a powerful
 antidote to the traditional demoralizing effect of prolonged
recessions on the working class.
 
Moreover, the piquetero movement, which enjoys greater freedom from
 the labor bureaucracy, allowed Argentina's working class to outflank
 the bureaucrats at key moments. De la Rua's second crisis came about
 precisely because the piquetero movement was able to break the truce
 imposed by the bureaucracy following the first general strike.
 
 The initiative of the unemployed set off another wave of the working-
 class counterattack, forcing the bureaucracy to convoke a 36-hour
 general strike on Nov. 23, 2000.
 
 This strike, which paralyzed every branch of industry, was much more
 active than the previous two general strikes because the piqueteros
 took control of roads and some municipalities during the action.
 Rather than stay home, the striking workers took to the streets too.
 
 Imperialism cuts the rope

 The combined pressure of the masses from below and imperialism from
 above precipitated de la Rua's third crisis. Early in March 2001,
 Economy Minister Jose Luis Machinea resigned after Washington made it
 clear there would be no more IMF credits until de la Rua found a
finance minister who could discipline the workers.
 
 On March 16, the new economy minister, Ricardo Lopez Murphy,
 arrogantly announced new austerity measures, threatening the masses
 with the specter of economic catastrophe if payments on the foreign
 debt were not met.
 
 Yet this threat of chaos in the capitalist economy, which is very
 real, did not have the desired impact on the masses. Only hours after
 Lopez won accolades from a crowd of investors gathered in Argentina's
 stock market, students took their desks out into the streets, where
 they held classes, while the teachers union announced a strike.
 
 The spontaneous mobilization forced the bureaucracy to make plans for
 another general strike on March 21 and yet another on April 5. Even
 before the strikes, however, Lopez resigned on March 18, beaten only
 48 hours after having accepted his portfolio.
 
 The spontaneous response to Lopez's threats marked a watershed in the
 developing class consciousness of the Argentine masses. The fact that
 the working class and its allies did not cower before the very real
 danger of economic chaos, a threat which came directly from Lopez's
 masters in Washington, shows that while Argentina's workers have yet
 to develop the mass-based organizations required for a revolutionary
 seizure of power, they appear already to have intuitively accepted
 many of the risks involved.
 
 De la Rua falls
 
 The heady days of March, and Lopez's sudden resignation, left the
 working class somewhat off balance, like a boxer who swings too
 wildly against his opponent on the ropes, and needs to regain his
 balance before he can deal the knock-out blow. The bourgeoisie
 rapidly seized upon this hiatus in the class struggle to appoint
 Cavallo, Menem's minister, to pull the irons out of the fire.
 
 Cavallo was granted extraordinary legislative powers, with the
 parliamentary support of both the Peronists and the Frepaso, yet he
 moved cautiously, imposing austerity measures in a piecemeal fashion
 so as not to give the workers an easy target. The labor bureaucracy
 gave the new minister a helping hand by ordering yet another truce,
 leaving many strikes and actions isolated.
 
 The financial crisis, however, notched up another tick on the onset
 of the world recession in the fall of 2001, finally forcing Cavallo
 to announce what he called the "Zero Deficit Plan."
 
 Although the reaction to Cavallo's plan was not as rapid as the
 working-class counterattack that brought down Lopez, the upsurge that
 began this November and continued through the year-end festivities
 embraced almost every sector of society. It culminated in spontaneous
 marches and the sacking of supermarkets in the capital.
 
 De la Rua declared a "state of siege" on Dec. 19. But the police
 repression only infuriated the masses more. Indeed, one sharp
 observer noted that it was the government that was under siege. The
 ferocity of the insurrection forced the bureaucracy to convoke a
 general strike, not to be lifted until de la Rua resigned. This was
 the final nail in the government's coffin, and in the evening of Dec.
 20, Cavallo resigned, followed a few hours later by de la Rua.
 
 The new president, Adolfo Rodriguez Saa, immediately suspended the
 country's debt payments. Upon approving the measure, congressional
 representatives chanted, "Argentina, Argentina," in an attempt to
 mask their past betrayal of the Argentine people. The masses,
 however, were in no mood for more games.
 
 On Dec. 29, demonstrators sacked the Congress, pulling the building's
 furniture out into the streets, where they made mockery of the
 pretense that passes as democracy in the not-so-hallowed legislature.
 Rodriguez resigned shortly thereafter.
 
 Shuffling ministers and officials-while leaving in place an economic
 program favoring the monopolies, big banks, and foreign investors-
 will not offer the Argentine working people the real democracy that
 they are thirsting for.
 
 Only an assembly representing workers, students, small shopkeepers,
 the unemployed, and all sectors of the great majority who must labor
 to live can approve the economic program required to pull the country
 out of disaster, and appoint-subject to immediate recall-a government
 to carry out this program.
 
For a government of the workers!
 
 Even before the dust settles, it is clear that the December events in
 Argentina constitute a setback for imperialist intervention in Latin
 America, for they will complicate both the military expression of
this intervention, Plan Colombia, and its economic expression, the
 Free Trade Area of the Americas.
 
 The battles waged and won in Argentina will serve as an impetus to
 other mass movements in the Americas, and the southern tip of Latin
 America in particular.
 
 Outside of Latin America, the suspension of payments on Argentina's
 debt objectively constitutes a blow against capitalist globalization.
It will surely provide more momentum for the worldwide movement of
 activists demanding an end to IMF austerity measures and the economic
exploitation of the Third World.
 
 What is more, the successes scored by the Argentine masses come as a
 counterpoint to the U.S. military victory in Afghanistan and offer
 the world's oppressed an example of the power of mass movements, as
 opposed to the failure of guerrilla strategies and terrorism.
 
 In effect, Argentina's workers have shredded the credibility of
bourgeois democracy, leaving the regime built to replace the military
 dictatorship in tatters. The debt crisis has put before them the
 challenge of taking political power and establishing a government of
 the workers. It is clear that another bourgeois government will only
 impose a new austerity package, since the neoliberal offensive is the
 inevitable result of a capitalist system in crisis.
 
The only alternative is a government of the workers, which would
 immediately be forced to call on other debtor nations to declare a
 moratorium on debt payments. Forming a bloc of debtor nations would
 aid Argentina in challenging the world economic order that condemns
 the overwhelming majority of humanity to misery. Challenging this
order is a hard road to hoe, but there is no third way.
 
 Socialist Action /January 2002
 <http://www.socialistaction.org/>