Spanish version

The successive postponements imposed by the quarantine resulted that the 27th Congress of the Workers’ Party, which was supposed to meet on May 25th, ended up being held last weekend, between October 9th and 12th. The pre-congressional debate, which had begun last March, lasted, therefore, almost the entire current year. This allowed us to capture the changes in the national and international political framework, put our forecasts and slogans to the test, balance the results of our intervention and also make the debate in the congress itself a central instrument for recruiting new comrades who joined the PO.

As several delegates pointed out, the 27th Congress matched with the most acute moment of the government’s crisis, when early exhaustion and the need for a turnaround are characterized by all sectors. As stated in the political resolution, the government’s initial premise that the debt restructuring would be the starting point of an economic re-launch that would allow the recession to be left behind, was completely unfounded. It has been several weeks since this restructuring was completed and the crisis has hit several highs: capital flight intensified; the exchange gap exceeds 100%; devaluation pressures are increasingly intense; the small economic rebound achieved by the relaxation of the quarantine was left behind and industrial production, construction and consumption have fallen again; the social situation continued to worsen, with a huge jump in unemployment, poverty and homelessness. Putting together all these factors, the unanimous conclusion reached by the delegates was that we are facing the imminence of a mega devaluation, that, as the initial impact, will aggravate all the contradictions presented in economic and social matters.

The debate regarding the international situation was especially useful in order to to analyze the different scenarios that are presented for Argentina in a greater context. In the document presented by the International Commission and later approved by the Congress, it is characterized that the pandemic accelerated the passage from the pre-existing recession to a global economic depression, which affects the United States with the particular strength. The current situation is the result of the lack of resolution of the 2008/9 crisis, given that on that occasion the States resorted to unbridled monetary issuance to save the capitalist groups from their respective countries. In this way, they blocked the work of the cleaning out of surplus capital that every capitalist crisis must carry out to allow a return to an adequate rate of profit that enables a new accumulation process. This bailout also heavily indebted the States, which began to have debts greater than their GDP. Thus, with the outbreak of this new crisis, the economic resources of the States are no longer the same as those of the past and the ability to avoid a wave of bankruptcies has been significantly reduced. A point that was highlighted in the document, and later taken up by several delegates, is that a meaningful difference with the 2008/9 crisis relies on China not being able to play the role of locomotive of the world economy, because its State is over-indebted, as well as a significant part of its industrial and banking corporations. This economic depression exacerbates the trade war and, from now on, it is also the fuel that explains the growth of war conflicts in different parts of the planet. But for Argentina in particular, its immediate importance is that it makes a way out through exports unfeasible, canceling out the “positive” part that devaluations usually have. Therefore, the attempt to repeat the experience of kirchenrismo of 2003 lacks support, because international conditions have a different sign.

The debate also highlighted that the acceleration of the economic crisis goes hand in hand with a political crisis within the government. While the deliberations of the 27th Congress were carried out, the newspapers spoke of the imminence of a cabinet change that, for now, the government resists due to its own internal struggles. However, this resistance to a ministerial change does not reflect a strength but a tendency to paralysis. The development of the events made it possible to evaluate with greater precision the characterizations formulated in the documents calling for the party congress and subsequent updates made by the National Committee of the PO. In these, it is affirmed that the government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner represents a new attempt to establish a Bonapartist regime to arbitrate the clashes of interests within the capitalist class, and between it and the masses. But this Bonapartist attempt is very peculiar: on one hand, it lacks cash, that is, it’s Bonapartism in default; and on the other, it lacks an exclusive head, it could be called a two-headed or three-headed Bonapartism – if in addition to Alberto and Cristina we add Massa. This adds a crisis factor to the government’s block, since, within it, expressions of opposing interests coexist, such as pressure from direct sectors of American capital or others that channel interests from other powers such as China. These clashes have nothing to do with those who affirm that we are facing a government in dispute, where there would be a progressive wing that would have to be supported to the detriment of other sectors. This reissue of the “siege” theory is the excuse of sectors of the left to capitulate to the government.

An advance in understanding the situation was to characterize the country’s political regime more generally and to frame the current political crisis within this characterization. The Political Commission document indicates that after the 2001/2 crisis, which led to the almost disappearance of radicalism, there was a period of vacancy for sectors more linked to the right outside of Peronism. This situation was modified with the strengthening of the PRO, which ceased to be a party exclusively from the City of Buenos Aires, and later in the formation of a coalition between it, the UCR, the Civic Coalition and other minor forces. Thus, a regime with two blocks was established that, beyond its clashes and precariousness, it provides a phenomenon of permanent political polarization. To a large extent, it also repeats a similar situation in Latin America. In between, attempts to establish a political center failed, such as the frustrated attempt of Lavagna’s candidacy, and after, the elections of an inter-party alliance between Alberto Fernández and [Horacio Rodríguez] Larreta [Chief of Government of the City of Buenos Aires, in Macri´s party, PRO], in opposition to Cristina Kirchner and Macri. The limits of the differences between both blocks, at the same time, are clear. Both supported the restructuring of the debt, showing that the national bourgeoisie prioritizes first of all its access to international financing, in part because it’s necessary in order to continue with capital flight; they all want an agreement with the IMF, knowing that it will entail more adjustments against the people and more conditioning for an autonomous national development.

Based on this overall characterization, the debate on the central slogans occupied a prominent place. The approved proposal was “No to the pact with the IMF. Down with the regime of hunger and looting of those who ruled in the last decades. For a working class socialist political alternative”. With these slogans we establish an immediate questioning of the government and the opposition, who are seeking an agreement with the IMF; and at the same time we pose a comprehensive questioning of the regime, the social class that governs and its political representatives. The slogan seeks to give expression to a growing popular feeling of frustration and failure of the country, which with its recurring crises unbearably affects increasingly broad popular layers. Argentina appears as a country whose economy is in deep decline and with widespread impoverishment. Some delegates called attention to carefully follow phenomena such as those that happened in several cities of Salta, where popular demonstrations took place with slogans like “out with them all”, given the collapse of the health system and the growing number of infections and deaths.

The 27th Congress launched a political campaign with these slogans and approved a manifesto to do a political work during the next weeks. It was considered essential to complement this comprehensive approach with the most pushing slogans and demands of the moment, such as the fight for land, housing, wages, work, health to combat the pandemic, etc. These proposals occupy a central place because they are the way through which the masses process the break with the bourgeois nationalist government and allows the emergence of new groups of fighters. The method of action of the united front was placed as an axis of the stage’s politic because, through unitary action, the revolutionary left must make close contact and, to some extent, merge with the sectors of the masses that come out to fight. The plenary meeting that we promoted for housing in Guernica during the congress itself and that had the participation of 30 occupations of lands from Buenos Aires Province; the anti-repression plenary, which we held a couple of weeks ago with organizations and relatives of the victims of institutional violence, and which also voted on a plan of struggle; the national plenary of retiree organizations, which voted for a national march for the next few weeks; the call to all educational sectors to march to the Congress against the budget adjustment imposed by the 2021 Budget project, are all examples of the PO’s action in defense of the united front. A special debate was held on the Pleanrio de Sindicalismo Combativo [Plenary of Combative Unionism], which we also defend as an instrument of the workers’ united front to confront the ongoing adjustment. In its own internal development, this defense of the united front implies that the workers’ organizations have the preeminence in the Plenary and to combat any attempt to transform it into an auxiliary wheel of electoral politics by the left.

This united front policy must be intensified to help generalize the partial experiences of breaking the containment imposed by the union bureaucracy. The wage neogotiations obtained by the Sutna [national tire workers union, led by PO], of an annual 37%, was highlighted, showing that even in a situation of recession and economic depression it is possible to obtain demands if struggles develop. In the union commission, attention was drawn to an underground process in many unions, like the case in Commerce, where there is a true powder keg that manifests itself in anti-bureaucratic groups, debates, etc. The ongoing struggles in many cases take the form of self-calls, as is quite common in the health sector, but also in teaching and other unions.

We consider it essential to place the situation in Argentina with the rebellions in Latin America and the United States. The government of Alberto Fernández and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner made it their mission to prevent these rebellions from being repeated in our country. Furthermore, they demand the support of imperialism to finance this work as a continental firefighter. However, the ability to achieve this self-imposed mission is questioned by the scale of the crisis and the government’s marked inability to confront it and, more generally, by the tendencies to struggle that nest in our people.

From these conclusions, the tasks to be carried out by the Partido Obrero and by the Frente de Izquierda-Unidad emerge. The congress debated at length the proposals that we have made to the FIT-U for systematic political action, and considered that the refusal to face a comprehensive political plan is the result of an adaptation to bourgeois nationalism and, in general, to electoralism. The defense of the FIT-U requires to fight so that it leads a political campaign against the entire regime on the basis of a defined program of class independence and in order to gain through this program a direct influence on the masses. Based on these definitions, the 27th Congress redoubled the call to the FIT-U parties to carry out a massive political act in the coming weeks. For the elected National Committee was the mandate to promote this campaign, and in case refusal persists, to call an act of the Partido Obrero itself. Along the same lines, the appeal includes the need to convene the II Latin American Conference of the revolutionary left, to intervene in the second wave of rebellions that is beginning in our continent.

An important place was occupied by the debate on party development and the specific tasks involved in the construction of the PO. One point that stood out was the advance in Prensa Obrera, which, at the moment, has more than 400 comrades collaborating with articles. For the first time in the history of our party we are making our paper the central instrument of all our work, with a growing participation of the militancy. It was also pointed out the need to deepen the tasks of formation and theoretical struggle, such as the release of the magazine “In Defense of Marxism” and several books that we have published in recent weeks. Measures were also approved to deepen recruitment, which has been growing in recent months. The massive UJS Congress, with more than 1,600 participants, the 40 union groups in action the enormous growth of the Polo Obrero, the intense activity of the PdT, and the very prominent international activity that has gained new vigor in the last period, are all expressions of the political vitality of the Partido Obrero.

The 27th Congress crowned an extraordinary work of all the Partido Obrero’s militants throughout the country. It was this great work and militancy that has made it possible to overcome the liquidationism of Altamira’s group, not only organizationally but also politically, unmasking its political involution at all levels.

Among all the approved initiatives, a fundamental and immediate one is the campaign for the 10th anniversary of the murder of Mariano Ferreyra. In the coming days, the PO will carry out a huge number of initiatives to pay tribute to Mariano and, at the same time, denounce the political regime responsible for his assassination, which has in outsourcing and job insecurity, as well as in the union bureaucracy, its fundamental pillars. Our tribute to Mariano will be fighting to build his party, the Partido Obrero.