The sweeping Peronist victory in the March presidential elections opens a new period in the pre-revolutionary crisis in Argentina. For months it had been extremely doubtful whether the military would allow the elections to take place within the forms of bourgeois demoстасу. The fact that they have done so by no means impies an abdication of their counterrevolutionary role though the precise course they will take is still uncertain.
Campora and Peron, the new fox and the old, must now form a government. Yet to do so, like any possible bourgeois government in Argentina today, they need the support of the army, or at least its toleration.
STRENGTH Large sections of the Argentinian working class undoubtedly see the election result as an important victory. But such a view is in conflict with the experience of past struggles and of those in prospect. The Argentinian workers face massive and bitter struggles in pursuit of the demands which they have piled up over the years of the military dictatorship. The strength the working class has acquired, and on which it will be forced to draw, does not lie with Peron and the CT trade union bureaucracy; it lies in the traditions of militant, independent struggle such as it has waged against the military dictatorship in the recent years, with insurrectional strike movements and armed struggle against the violence of the bourgeoisie.. If the Argentinian bourgeoisie has made any retreats, this has been forced on them by the working class. After two years of still more vicious repression had failed to crush the combativity which produced the Cordoba uprising of 1969, a change of strategy was forced on the military dictatorship. General Lanusse took office as president in April 1971 with the mission of stabilising" the crisis facing the ruling class. A necessary condition of this was the attempt to restore "constitutional rule, and a "Great National Agreement" was therefore made with the bourgeois political parties, to hold elections in March 1973.
But throughout the two years of the Lanusse operation, the pre-revolutionary crisis has deepened, bringing Argentina to the brink of civil war. Real wages have again been forced down, and the workers have responded with more strikes, even defending these against the army. The repression against the revolutionaries has been intensified, but they have not been politically isolated from the working class, rather there have been political strikes against the repression (e.g. the response to the Trelew massacre).
From mid-1972 on Lanusse was being forced to -play the most desperate card from the point of view of the bourgeoisie: allowing Peron to run a candidate, to re-visit the country, even finally to win the elections. The immediate outcome of the 'stabilisation' process is still one of great instability for the bourgeoisie.
ACCORD Because of the divisions in the bourgeois camp as well as the pressures on Peron from his working class support, no open agreement was reached between Peron and the army in the pre-election period. But some kind of accord is important to both parties. The change in their public positions during the election campa an a year ago Peron was making public overtures to the military; now Campora has been forced in election meetings to shout "Long live the armed struggle!) does not hide the fact that Peron cannot govern without the army. The army, for its part, is deeply divided in its attitude to the Peronists; but no section of it could now launch a coup without unleashing a civil war in which at this point in time the opposing side would be in a very strong and confident position.
It is, then, likely that the Argentinian working class is to be faced with a new and pernicious variant of military reformist" government -in a country where the contradictions of capitalism do not allow for much in the way of reforms. The upsurge of the Argentinian workers which this election must open up will not soon be checked, and revolutionaries will have to intensity their efforts to strengthen the independent fighting ability of the working class against the deals with the military now being prepared in the Peronist camp.
INTERNATIONAL MARXIST GROUP (British Section of the Fourth International) 182 Pentonville Rosc London N.1. / would like more infor mation about the IMG and its activities.
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ADDRESS The significance of this fact is completely missed by the erstwhile pillars of the International Committee, the Lambertists and the British SLL, who refer to the IRA as middle-class terrorists. The task posed for itself by the RMG at its second conference, in relation to the Republican Movement, was one of serious analysis and fraternal dialogue, realising that the only way forward for the Irish struggle lies in the development of a revolutionary marxist perspective in the anti-imperialist struggle. The struggle for a socialist republic in Ireland will not be advanced by attempting to bypass the national struggle or the Republican Movement.
CATHOLIC CHURCH The backward nature of many of the institutions of Irish society, especially the dominance and the reactionary role of the Catholic Church, give an increased dynamic to the struggles of other oppressed layers of Irish society. This is especially true of the struggle among women and students. Thus an important part of the conference was that which dealt with perspectives for struggle in those layers. This part of the conference was open, and was well attended by contacts and invited members of the Republican Movement. With a young, confident and politically educated membership, the Revolutionary Marxist Group will continue to make an important contribution to the development of a revolutionary perspective and a marxist revolutionary party in Ireland.
BELFAST 10 DEFENCE COMMITTEE Last Sunday in London, a committee was formed representing most Irish organisations, and British left sroups in concon. Known as the Belfast Ten Defence Committee, the object of the committee is to organise the defence, in the political, legal and welfare sense of the ten Irish prisoners removed at gun-point from a plane at London Airport on the day of the London bombing.
Offers of help, money, etc. are urgently needed. Details from Maureen Maguire, 88, Rosyn Road, London N. 15.