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By: Sergio García
The Partido Obrero has published a note very critical of the Anti-Fascist Conference to be held in Porto Alegre, March 26-29. Within the note, as is its historical custom, it develops a whole series of lies and unfounded attacks on the MST. It is a regrettable method, although it does not surprise us because it is recurrent in this organization.
On the one hand, PO criticizes the character of the call based on the characterization of some of its conveners from different countries. And from there it falsifies that the MST supports their politics by participating in previous meetings or in March of the event itself. The accusation is ridiculous from beginning to end.
In today’s world, where one of its central characteristics is the rise of new ultra-right in a highly reactionary or neo-fascist sense, the political need to promote the greatest unity of action in the streets to defeat them imposes itself. This is the task that must be carried out in all countries against the governments that apply these ultra-reactionary plans or any plan of adjustment against social and democratic rights of the working people.
At the same time, in different countries debate events arise, like this Conference of Porto Alegre, where the task that is posed is to debate in depth how to confront the ultra-right, with what policies, with what relation between mobilization and the construction of an alternative policy that cannot be together with pro-bourgeois forces nor of a reformist character in its program and project. Wherever the possibility arises to discuss all this it is important to do so, so that the anti-capitalists and socialists gain strength and space in this key struggle against the plans of Trump, Milei, Bolsonarism and other ultra-right expressions of dangerous actuality.
It is for this reason that it is not only licit but also necessary to participate in any event of debate and exchange, such as the Porto Alegre Conference, to which we were invited to participate in order to disseminate our concrete and strategic proposals and we will do so. The MST is not the organizer of this event, it is not our responsibility, nor is it our responsibility who participates, nor the policy of the same in each country. We are participants in an event to which we were invited, and as such we will take there the positions we believe to be correct, as part of the exchange that will take place.
Other organizations from Argentina will also be part of the Porto Alegre Conference, among them, Vientos del Pueblo, an organization that has just joined the lists of the Frente de Izquierda together with us. If PO and other forces of the FIT-U also participated, there would be a much stronger bloc of anti-capitalists and socialists at the Conference, acting in common with other left organizations that will be there. But the PO’s sectarianism of saying “thanks I don’t smoke” ultimately only favors those organizations of progressivism that it claims to criticize by leaving the way clear for them. When it is very necessary to participate thoroughly in all the debates, to do them openly, to encourage the exchange on how we can defeat the ultra-right. And as there will surely be divergences with different convening and participating organizations, several of which are part of progressivism and reformist conceptions, also in this exchange it is necessary to mark the political responsibility of sectors which, having been administrators of the adjustment from the bourgeois states, disappointed and collaborated so that the new extreme right-wingers could come to power. These are all debates and political fights that have to take place, for the alternative political construction that is needed. There are differences of program and project and we promote everywhere the necessary anti-capitalist and socialist left alternatives that truly play for fundamental changes and we will always try to converge with those who are willing to build them. All this debate can be promoted instead of staying on the sidelines with symptoms of infantilism -a quite old political disease- when we can coincide, debate, try to advance as we do in every event in which we participate.
In the world we live in today, the unusual and regressive thing is that there are organizations like PO that reject the possibility of being part of plural events of debate against the ultra-right. To such an extent that in its note PO recognizes that the topics under debate in the Porto Alegre event will be: “the offensive of the ultra-right in the world, the solidarity of the peoples, the advance of the ultra-right in Brazil, the Palestinian resistance to Zionism and genocide, the confrontation of the workers against fascism in America, resistance, articulation and democratic alternatives, and others“. And what is the problem of intervening in each of these issues? Of course none. Except for PO, which must believe that alone and on its own it is going to defeat the advance of the ultra-right without debating with anyone or fighting politically in other spheres and against other positions, for a socialist and deep-rooted policy. Furthermore, it is unusual because the PO itself has long participated in other events, for example, called by the NPA and Lucha Comunista with whom it also has differences, and even participated many years ago in the World Social Forum itself in Porto Alegre. But suddenly to participate and debate, because the MST does it, would now be wrong.
We have another political vision; we consider it positive to participate not only in this, but in every event, conference, forum or place where there is a debate on how to confront the ultra-right and where we are invited to give our opinions. Because millions of workers and youth need to confront this reactionary advance and it is key to give a political struggle everywhere. This Conference was to be held last year and was suspended due to floods when its organization was more focused on some political and social forces of Porto Alegre, in particular the MES, which is an important leftist organization in Brazil with whom we have a fraternal relationship and a common past, although at the same time we have different international constructions and therefore logical differences. After the MES joined the SU (IV) with more strength, this international current assumed more directly the organization of the Conference together with other forces. On our part, having many differences with the SU, for which we built another international space with the LIS, at the same time we are open to debate, to exchange, to seek points of agreement to promote mobilization in the countries. Actively participating in this Conference in Porto Alegre is part of making these exchanges always useful to clarify positions and thus try to help in depth in the fight against the extreme right. And in the event, besides debating and exchanging, we will try to advance in agreements or some common tasks with those with whom we have more coincidences on what has to be done from now on.
Logically in any event like this there are points of agreement, at the same time different positions and surely there are important political discrepancies with sectors of reformist progressivism that will participate and of the method of struggle with many of them. But only PO can think that the fact of participating is equivalent to giving support to pro-bourgeois or reformist policies. With that criterion it would not be possible to participate in any event, because in many that take place in the world there is heterogeneity of positions and stances, and on that basis it is very correct and necessary to seek common points of action, without hiding the things in which there are nuances or differences. So it happened, to give an example, in past events organized by the FIT-U where differences arose on Ukraine, the new imperialisms and how to respond to those facts. Because the problem of leadership of our class is very complex, where not only reformism puts obstacles, but also sometimes the infantilism of sectors of Trotskyism itself, as is the case of PO and other forces.
The reality, as always, is far removed from PO’s ultra-sectarian analyses, including the fallacious criticisms that in his text he makes of our politics in Argentina. Since the MST, as is evident, does not support any pro-bourgeois or reformist force. In fact, we propose that the FIT-U change its electoral and limited character, precisely to attract thousands and thousands of workers and thus strengthen an anti-capitalist and socialist construction against all the variants that do not have that character. Something that PO has opposed for years, tied to an electoralism that in fact strengthens the possibilist or reformist variants. The truth is that the MST in the Frente de Izquierda, as a member of the International Socialist League, we have just been part of a very important 3rd International Congress of the ISL with delegates and representatives from all continents. There we debated and voted on very important substantive and strategic documents that are public and available to anyone who wants to see them and really debate. Something that PO could have done, instead of inventing things that are not.
In summary, our participation in the Porto Alegre Conference, as in other events against the extreme or neo-fascist right wing that exist or that may arise in the future, is positive. That is why we thank the comrades of the MES and other leaders who have invited us to participate. And we will do so as part of a political struggle that we give and will continue to give everywhere against all the ultra-right and their accomplices in different countries, without any limitation to the necessary criticism or to the political delimitation on what political tools need to be built and which are the models that have failed. Nor falling into an abstentionism product of reasoning so limited and functional to the extreme right, as the one expressed in PO’s fallacious note.
Lies to boycott a massive and united 24M of struggle
On the other hand, needing to invent arguments, in his note PO criticizes our vision on the struggle for Human Rights in our country and says that, in my case, as representative of the MST in the preparatory meeting towards Porto Alegre, I said that: “I celebrated the growth of anti-fascist Movements and advanced that on March 24, on the 50th anniversary of the coup, we must unite forces against the ultra-right and urgent fascism“. A question to the PO leadership: Shouldn’t we be happy if an anti-fascist movement grows? 50 years after the coup, should we not unite in the struggle to defeat the extreme right? From what is written in your note it is clearly interpreted that PO does not believe that it is necessary to do so, in a definition once again functional to the extreme right of Milei and his projects.
In his note he also advances that he intends to do the same on the next 24M. To hide this sectarianism that this year will be even more serious and visible, once again he falsifies the facts, he invents and says about the MST: “Its position regarding the struggle against fascism with a clear inclination towards a front with progressive fringes of the parties of the bourgeoisie has already manifested itself last March 24, 2025, when it broke with the realization of an independent column and converged with the bourgeois opposition complicit with the government, La Cámpora, the Evita Movement, pejotist fringes“. Here their absolute absence and boycott of the enormous unitary mobilization of last March 24 in 2025, where nothing of PO’s inventions took place, is evident. What did happen was a very correct policy of the enormous majority of the Encuentro Memoria Verdad y Justicia to articulate a common act of all the human rights organizations, as could be seen in the stage, in the reading of their correct slogans and in the absence of the PO apparatuses controlling the event. While PO ended up with a few other forces in a marginal act at the side of Plaza de Mayo, several hours later and while most of the thousands that mobilized that day had already left. This is the result of a political short-sightedness that it seems they intend to repeat on the anniversary of the 50th anniversary of the coup. All very regrettable.
In all this debate, there is a more than unusual fact: the PO and other forces refused to march to a common and very progressive act of all the human rights organizations of our country, but then they went without complaining to an act in Plaza de Mayo called by the PJ, with a stage in the background that said as the only slogan “Argentina with Cristina” and under the general chant and speech with the axis “we are going to return“. He had no problem to go there with his column. And that was an absolute surrender to the PJ apparatus, which confirms that where there is sectarianism, opportunism comes to its side. He may have acted under the same old and mistaken logic of pretending to change the content of the acts, just because of his presence. He had already made serious mistakes due to that conception years ago, when he went to the Blumberg march and even before that he went to the reactionary march of the Pope in Argentina.
National Trotskyism, apoliticist unionism and falsehoods: the living history of PO
As part of his fallacies, PO also criticizes from Buenos Aires our Brazilian comrades whom he pretends to accuse senselessly. It says that: “Socialist Revolution remains in the PSOL, even now, that integrates a political coalition with the PT and has called to support Lula and his candidates“. A whole absurd and national Trotskyist definition of giving an opinion from a distance and because the air is free, since our comrades have been giving a political struggle, they are a public and ultra-critical fraction of the majority leadership of the PSOL, as can be seen and read in all their interventions and public materials. And they are doing their best to articulate with other organizations, both from the left of the PSOL and others that are outside, to try to set up a real alternative in Brazil. PO, sitting in a local office in Buenos Aires, is not even aware of all this.
It seems unusual, but it is not. All the above is part of the reality of an organization and its daily actions, where it has also been doing everything possible to prevent the FIT-U from politically positioning itself as a great convener of a huge articulation that fights thoroughly against the whole plan of the Argentine government. Within the National Bureau of the FIT-U, he is the one who is most opposed to our front acting, growing, summoning, coordinating, promoting and playing the role it should play for being the main political force of the left in our country.
However, PO acts to impede its advance and in the face of each fact, pretends that the rest goes behind its more than criticized union interventions. Such as those carried out in the leadership of the SUTNA, where it has been making serious mistakes, weakening and reducing that union and the struggle for the rights of its workers, under a bureaucratic method in its functioning, which weakens the necessary unity against the bosses. Against such a harmful position, we will continue to give a political fight in the FIT-U.
From the MST we will continue to fight for a better Left Front, neither electoral nor trapped in the postures of small union apparatuses in crisis and giving political battles in every event where we are invited, where we are going to take our basic anti-capitalist and socialist positions against all the ultra-right. A task that needs to develop strong political exchanges in events like Porto Alegre, for which we will participate with an outstanding delegation of our party. And, on the other hand, the broadest unity in the streets in each country, as in ours against the labor reform and in defense of the workers of Garrahan, who have just carried out an enormous Open Lobby that should have continuity to win this fight, which has become an undisputed center of the class struggle in our country.
To conclude, and in order to understand why PO writes so many attacks against the MST, let us remember that its current leadership, marked by many elements of crisis, has just broken with its historical leader Altamira a few years ago. But it is very evident that it has not broken with its method of falsehoods and staunch sectarianism/opportunism that comes from its origins. For this reason, if there is no change in its mistaken conceptions, it is condemned to repeat the profound errors that have placed it in the most acute marginality in the international arena.
