Fifth Congress of the
Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores
Resolutions of the March 1971 Executive Committee Meeting
National Situation
1. The International Context
Our country is experiencing a pre-revolutionary situation that comes in a particularly favorable international context. The arrogant and all powerful Yankee imperialism of yesteryear has been reduced to impotence by the development of the world revolution, by the significant advances of the workers’ states, especially those in Asia, by the tumultuous advance of the revolution in Southeast Asia, the rising wave of anti-bureaucratic feeling on the part of the masses in the East European workers’ states, the unrelenting struggle of the working class and the popular sectors in the colonial and semi-colonial countries, and the increasing stirrings of the masses in the imperialist centers, both in capitalist Europe and the United States. This is why in the continent it reserves to itself, the United States has had to resign itself to standing by, livid with rage, and watch the emergence of a socialist tinged people’s government in Chile. In the same way, it finds itself prevented from intervening openly in Peru and Bolivia despite the disturbing process going on in these countries, where the pressure of the masses has forced the bourgeoisie, through its military castes, to resort to a last desperate remedy—setting up populist governments whose mission is to brake and derail the revolutionary struggle by means of secondary concessions.
This worldwide struggle of the popular masses, led by the revolutionary proletariat and by the various Marxist Leninist parties, and in particular the heroic and exemplary struggle of the Vietnamese people who have forced the imperialists to concentrate the bulk and the best of their military power in Vietnam, is the most important ally, the solid backer of the Argentine and Latin American revolutionists in their fight.
The establishment of a people’s government in Chile, which shares a 3,000 kilometer frontier with our country, provides a friendly border, an important politico-military necessity, previously lacking, for our revolutionary war.
Despite the recent defeats and the relative setback of the armed vanguard in all the Latin American countries with the honorable exception of Uruguay, the revolutionary war has established its legitimacy on this continent, and ever widening sectors of the working class and the people are turning to this road and preparing the way for the coming qualitative leap of the continental revolution, the tumultuous rise of the second Vietnam predicted by Che.
2. The National Situation Levingston, Faithful Continuer of the Onganía Regime
The Levingston government has shown itself to be the faithful continuer of the policy of the Onganía regime. As is noted in El Combatiente (”Nacionalismo de vidriera,” [showcase nationalism] No. 52), the government’s ostentatious pronouncements about “nationalizing the economy” are pure demagogy. The reality is the opposite. The concrete measures of the dictatorship tend to strengthen imperialist domination and reinforce the process of monopolization, the central drive of economic policy under Onganía. The most recent example is the handling of the meat problem. After shifting the burden of this crisis onto the backs of the workers, the regime is now taking advantage of it to mount an assault on another sector of the petty bourgeoisie. Faced with market difficulties cutting into their profits, the monopolies resorted, without provoking any response from the dictatorship, to a temporary shutdown of the packing houses, a classical way of making the workers pay for the crisis. This development was not even deemed worthy of attention by a government that, a few days ago, after months of shutdowns, months of hunger and poverty for the workers, started taking up the meat problem in order to “save the industry.” One of the points of the government’s “solution” is to encourage the packing houses to eliminate the middleman by setting up meat supermarkets. We know what this means. For a brief period, the supermarkets will cut prices, driving retailers to the wall. Then, when they have won control of the market, they will fix prices to suit themselves.
In a nutshell, the dictatorship’s reaction to the crisis in the meat industry has been to take the typical measures designed to bail out the monopolies and promote their interests permitting a temporary shutdown, granting liberal credits and increasing their margin of profit in marketing, that is subsidizing the monopolies by starving the workers, pauperizing the retailers, and driving up the price of the product for consumers.
After all the playing around with populist gimmicks in its first months, it has become clear that the sole line of the dictatorship toward the mass movement is repression. It is continuing to build up its strength in this area, increasing the numbers of the police, raising their salaries, and re-equipping them; training and equipping the Armed Forces for counterinsurgency warfare and riot control, planning and trying out dragnet operations in the cities, organizing MANO [a counterrevolutionary terror organization], etc. But there is a substantial distinction between the repression under Onganía and the present. The difference arises from the situation of the masses. Under the Onganía regime, the working class movement experienced a pronounced ebb. Thrown off balance by the violent repression of a dictatorship that in the twinkling of an eye had gotten an iron grip on the situation, it retreated. Starting with the Córdoba uprising, there has been a sustained rise of the masses. Now that they have become used to the new situation, they have reformed their ranks and are taking up the struggle everywhere, aiming not only to resist the offensive of the government and the employers but to win back their former gains. In the face of this upsurge, the dictatorship has found itself impotent and had to resign itself simply to containing the struggling workers and people by surrounding them with a wall of repression, not daring to intervene decisively to crush them as it was accustomed to doing under Onganía. The fact is that the dictatorship has learned to respect the masses. The government knows that violent repression will get a violent response and direct the people’s hatred of the dictatorship into more active and energetic channels.
Widening Possibilities for Legal and Semi-legal Struggle
This phenomenon of a growing mobilization of the laboring and popular strata and the dictatorship’s inability to repress it has opened up new possiblities for legal and semi-legal struggles by the masses and the vanguard. At a time when the workers in the factories are raising their heads, engaging in struggles, and winning some economic victories, new working class and popular strata are going onto the streets to raise their own demands. The telephone workers, civil service, municipal, Fatum employees, etc., are mobilizing, along with the students. The wave of strikes is rising. In the poor neighborhoods, the masses are trying to organize and fight. But no real neighborhood movements have arisen because of the braking and controlling role played by the reformist CP and the government organs. That the poor peasantry is not remaining outside this process is shown by the extensive mobilization in the Chaco, in which 5,000 peasants marched from Sáenz Pena to Resistencia. This awakening of the masses throughout the country who were shaken from their apathy by the Córdoba uprising, by the great struggles in Rosario and Tucumán, and heartened by the growing activity of the armed vanguard, which is part of the same phenomenonis bringing disorientation and crisis into the enemy camp. Unable to find any way to deal effectively with the new situation, the repressive forces are venting their hysteria against the people, earning only hatred and repudiation and generating a renewed will to struggle in the masses. The government is stumbling from pillar to post, with one “incompetent” functionary coming on the heels of another. The perspectives for a coup are increasing.
This situation, the impetuousness of the masses and the crisis and disorientation of the dictatorship, is being reflected in widening possibilities for legal and semi-legal struggles. For the first time since the establishment of the dictatorship, opportunities are opening up for winning partial successes in economic struggles, successes that will have a cumulative effect in stimulating more and more struggles. This will favor a widening of the mass movement and the masses taking the offensive where the workers are best organized and led. It will help to bring in sectors that up till now have shown little dynamism. The strike wave is spreading; the bureaucracy is losing control of the movement. A broad dynamic vanguard is arising that is eager for a revolutionary orientation and ready to take the struggle into its own hands, to take its battle stations with revolutionary determination. This gigantic process, impossible today for the enemy to control, requires our party’s special attention. We must move audaciously to exploit every opportunity to develop our organization by legal and semi-legal means, to widen its influence, to bring our program, our slogans, and our banner to the broadest possible masses.
Levingston on a Tightwire
Nine months after his rise to power, the proconsul Levingston’s days are numbered. The mobilization of the workers and people has proved uncontrollable; and as usual the bourgeois army in its blindness is attributing every failure to this or that personality, in this case the current dictator. With the abortion of its absurd demagogic maneuver of “popular governors,” Levingston’s government has plunged into a crisis. In nine months, the Levingston team has not been able to come up with any political plan whatever. The Joint Chiefs have grown impatient and, while making sure to safeguard their own immediate interests, have left the proconsul to his fate and to his wits. This is the prelude to a coup. The masses have nothing to hope for from such a change, and as for our party it needs only reaffirm the clear position it took toward the replacement of Onganía. We have no part in palace coups. We know that they mean absolutely nothing. We are familiar with the way the dictatorship maintains its continuity, and we know that we must avoid falling into any electoralist traps. As on the previous occasion, we raise the proper slogan No Coups and No Elections, Develop the Revolutionary War!
[line missing] of the unions traditional channels in our country which in most plants are controlled by bureaucrats who have sold out to the government and the bosses, or have been taken over directly by government interveners. In Córdoba, Buenos Aires, and Chocôn successes have been achieved in one way or another in winning back some unions. The greatest of these have been in Córdoba, where the results have been excellent. In the present situation of expanding legal and semi-legal opportunities, there is a perspective for generalizing this trend of winning back unions, making them into channels for economic struggles and politicalizing them, as is happening in the case of Córdoba. We all realize that this singularly positive development involves a danger of syndicalism—reformism on the political level and adventurism on the trade union level, the two sides of the same coin. The way to block both, to achieve a firm anti-dictatorial line in the unions, is by involving and building our party, through armed activity by the ERP in the factories and in coordination with trade union struggles, by founding cells of our party in the factories and other places of work, and by increasing recruitment of factory workers into the ERP.
The Mass Movement
With the military dictatorship nearing the end of its fifth year, the standard of living of the masses has dropped steadily, exceeding the most pessimistic estimates. Ever wider sectors of the working class and the people have seen their sufferings multiplied and felt their hatred of the dictatorship grow. To them it is impossible for this situation to continue, and they have shown their determination to fight in the explosive mobilizations in Córdoba, Rosario, and Tucumán. After these outbursts, the masses have been looking for a way of waging the fight in a more sustained way. In the case of the workers, they find the way impeded by the state takeover . . . [line missing].
The recuperation, the resurgence of the trade union movement, will offer exceptional opportunities for checkmating the bourgeoisie, mobilizing the broadest masses of the workers and the popular strata and strengthening Party work, as well as for stepping up the activity of the ERP. Of course such a possibility depends directly on the development of the revolutionary war, on fortifying the armed vanguard with a mass orientation and intensifying economic struggles. Nor does this mean that we have any illusions about winning the leadership of the legal CGT. It should be clear that the chances for winning the trade unions to the revolutionary struggle are closely tied to consolidating a strong Marxist Leninist party and that if this comes about it will be achieved essentially in semi-legal and underground conditions in a direct confrontation with the dictatorship, as part of the revolutionary war, with all that this implies. But we must take note of the tendencies of the masses to channel their struggles through the trade unions so as to be perfectly prepared, participate fully in this process, and struggle to take the lead and set a course toward socialism and revolutionary war. At the same time, this will help to bring the working class vanguard to revolutionary theory and accelerate the process of proletarianizing our Party and Army.
The starting point for achieving full involvement and a leading role on the factory and trade union front is to consolidate the cells of the party that are already working there, forming ERP units in the factories; and to deploy our forces effectively, giving priority to this sector.
Simultaneously with the mass process we are analyzing, the armed struggle has taken a qualitative leap. From its origins last year, the actions have multiplied. And most important: By applying a consistent mass line in its operations, the ERP, which was founded in July by our party, has managed to reach the masses, breaking the isolation of the armed vanguard, an achievement of decisive importance.
Developing out of a buildup in armed propaganda, operations of some scope are beginning to be undertaken and we can see a trend starting toward larger military units, for the moment on the order of companies. Our experience is confirming that consistent application of the line of the Fifth Congress is leading to the involvement of new social sectors in the armed struggle, to winning the active support of the entire exploited people, and to the emergence of a respectable military force.
In this regard, we cannot fail to take account of the fact that sustained growth will be made significantly more difficult by an escalating response from the repressive forces, which will increase their efforts and perfect their methods. In order to block this threat we must strengthen our ties with the masses and adopt strict security measures, substantially improve our methods of work, root out all liberalism, reinforce the cells politically and morally, constantly increase their effectiveness, and zealously apply strict security measures.
Our Tasks
In this situation, the operations of our party are shifting into a different context. The execution of the resolutions of the Fifth Congress and, in particular, the successful implementation of the First Operational Military Plan, worked out by the CC, has presented our organization with a new situation. We have begun to win “the hearts and minds” of important sectors of the masses. Our prestige is great and we have exceptional chances for winning hegemony within the worker, student, and popular vanguard. The immediate objective the Party must set its sights on is precisely winning such hegemony, translating the prestige of the ERP into organizational and practical gains. This will open up for us the possibility of playing a real leading role in the class struggle in this country, of firmly orienting the vanguard sectors in carrying out the proletarian line of revolutionary war, and putting ourselves before the people as a new option, a revolutionary option that has been lacking in this country since 1938.
How are we to achieve this? Extending and deepening the work of the Party and the Army among the masses, constantly strengthening the cells and regions, and concretizing the new operational plan voted by this CC—these are the pillars on which we will base our growth, the steps we must resolutely take in order to win hegemony and channel the activity of ever broader contingents of workers and vanguard intellectuals.
Extending and deepening the work of the Party and the Army among the masses will be achieved by pushing the trend toward proletarianization, toward living and working among the masses, quantitatively and qualitatively advancing our propaganda and agitation, increasing the publication of propaganda, spreading socialist literature and the line of our organization broadly among the masses, increasing agitational actions (leaflet distributions and painting slogans) periodically carrying out agitational actions in the neighborhoods and in the downtown areas, in the cities and in the countryside, learning to take the leadership of spontaneous demonstrations and organize demonstrations for specific demands as well as political demonstrations, pushing the mass line of armed propaganda. Another factor in achieving success will be paying adequate attention to the immediate problems of the masses, participating in, and trying to lead economic struggles in order to raise the level ’of their objectives and accelerate the politicalization of the strikers and those who are fighting on the streets for their demands. Constant strengthening of the cells and regions will undoubtedly be the mainspring of the Party’s progress in fulfilling its formidable tasks and responsibilities. Nothing can be done unless we have strong and homogeneous cells made up of professional revolutionists; of compañeros devoted in mind and body to revolutionary struggle; of politically, militarily, and morally prepared elements. Strong, disciplined, homogeneous cells dedicated to struggle and to study will be the elementary schools in which our Party will forge thousands of revolutionists, the irreplaceable general staff of the Argentinean revolution.
The achievement of the new Operational Plan will constitute a qualitative leap in the life of the organization and, at the same time that raises our prestige, it will create more difficult problems for the enemy, sharpening his internal contradictions. It will represent a new and resolute step in building up the military strength of the powerful Revolutionary Army of the People that is destined to back up the coming victorious insurrection of the working class and people.
Compañeros, we must resolutely set to work, each assuming his own responsibilities, and firmly take up the tasks that have been laid out.