Hi, Lou, could you please fwd to Marxmail? Johannes asked: Nestor, just a few questions: - Is Storani's reference to these organisations (Partido Obrero, Partido Comunista Revolucionario, Patria Libre y Quebracho) just propaganda or do they have really any influence in Salta? There are many things to take into account here. First of all, the general context, which is of a basically Radical (of the Radical Party) government under desperatingly stressing conditions. Radicals, essentially a petty bourgeois formation, have some hues that range from Storani´s Alfonisinism -somewhat this could be defined as a "Liberal" fraction in the USA sense- to roguish, more clearly oligarchic wings such as the one that De la Rúa represents. Storani is the Minister of Interior, that is the head of the Police. His reference must be put in the context of a Radical government scared at the possibility of mounting anger at their own policies. In this context, the declaration simply means that the government is active and is waving straw men against popular mobilizations, as well as preparing for repression. The declaration is thus a Macarthyst warning. It is also in the same line of behaviour that generated the situation which led to the Tablada misdeeds. Radicals are always imagining some conspiration against them, "democratic" rulers, by the Dark Forces of Totalitarism. That the government began with two shot people at the demonstrations over the Corrientes-Barranqueras bridge has no meaning at all for these people, they will always react in the same way. While Alfonsín was able to build up a generalized climate of fear and suspicion which eventually led to the frustrated storming of the Tablada military basis by the Gorriarán Merlo group, neither Storani nor De la Rúa can even dream of such a possibility, since too much time and experience has elapsed, and people in Argentina are not buying that kind of rotten meat any more. Thus, instead of waving the straw man of the Fascist coup (as Alfonsín´s minister of Interior Nosiglia did), Storani -who once was a rebel young Leftist within Radicalism during the late 60s, early 70s- is waving the Leftist straw man today. Storani, thus, obtained some information from our relatively stupid intelligence services, and managed to generate the declaration according to which a group of social misfits are trying to turn the situation in the North harder and more serious than it actually is. How much truth is there in that declaration? Let us see. The most important reference is to the Partido Comunista Revolucionario, the participation of which in the events of Tartagal is hardly news to anyone. The Corriente Clasista y Combativa, a group of unions led by the "Perro" Santillán, is overtly related to the PCR, which is the Argentine expression of Maoism, and they never hid themselves at the "piquetes" (piquete meaning road block) either in Tartagal, Salta, or (more meaningful) in Laferrere, an important town of lower middle class / working class ridden by unemployment constituency, at the outskirts of Greater Buenos Aires. The Partido Obrero is a Trotskyist ultraleft fraction without actual relevance in serious politics, who are spinning between reorganization of the Fourth International at the global level and petty squabbles over the budget at the Legislative body of the Federal District (Buenos Aires city proper). They are the epitome of what we could define as the sepoy leftist, but they are harmful in the main, though they have some following at a few local unions. Quebracho and Patria Libre are two groups of mixed "Left Peronist" and Leftist origin which have been developing lately, whose basic politics is to further -sometimes without limits- road blocks, strikes, and so on. Neither of these groups has too real an influence on the desperate people who are blocking roads, exception made of the PCR, who are doing an organizational effort. But they are still just a minority everywhere. - Is the FATPREN mentioned here related to the CTA? Is it a printer's or journalists union? It is the journalists union, it is related to the CTA. - Is the planned congress identical to the one to be convened by the CTA? Same and one Congress. - What is in general the relationship of the piqueteros to the workers' movement as a whole? To see them being courted by both the ultra-leftists and the Blairite unions seems to be contradictory to me. Please remind me to answer this one later, Johannes. Too long and got work to do right now. A hug, Lic. Néstor M. Gorojovsky Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
