We share below the words of Alejandro Bodart, leader of the MST in the Left Front Unity and coordinator of the International Socialist League, at the May Day rally on International Workers’ Day.
Good afternoon, comrades. This rally looks beautiful from here. We have built a great International Workers’ Day gathering. From the MST and the International Socialist League, we send our greetings to all our comrades, to the millions of workers who have mobilized around the world today against capitalism, against capitalist barbarism, for their rights. Also, of course, to all our comrades in the Left Front, to our comrades in Izquierda Socialista, the Partido Obrero, and to my comrades in the MST, who are holding rallies throughout the country, because we couldn’t be absent on this day without raising our voices.
For the past two days, some of us haven’t slept, following what was happening with our comrades on the Global Sumud Flotilla. They were unexpectedly kidnapped far from Gaza, in European Union waters, off the coast of Greece, which shows the complicity involved. They tried to take them to Israel, to put them back in the prisons where they were held last year. It was the widespread condemnation, the mobilizations that began to take shape in various countries, that forced them to retreat, return to Greece, and release our comrades. This condemnation of the actions of the genocidal state of Israel is shared by the majority of people around the world.
But if the Zionists think that with these kinds of actions they will frighten those of us who defend the Palestinian cause, they must know that they not only do not frighten us, but no amount of persecution, like the current persecution of Vanina Biasi, like the persecution they subjected me and many other comrades to, can make us stop defending the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian cause is a cause of all humanity, and we will not stop fighting until there is a single Palestine, from the river to the sea, until we defeat that monster created in 1948. Until there is a socialist Palestine in a socialist Middle East, and all peoples can live in peace as they did before 1948. That is our commitment. We will never abandon the Palestinian cause.
We cannot fail to mention that two comrades, Thiago and Said, are still abducted and being taken to Israel, where they intend to imprison them, prosecute them, and make an example of how anyone who crosses the Zionists will suffer the consequences. We cannot fail to express our condemnation of this. But above all, we will organize a global campaign for their freedom, and we will not stop until our comrades are free. They must know that every comrade they try to imprison will become a symbol of struggle for all of us.
Those of us here stand unconditionally with Iran, unconditionally with Lebanon, unconditionally with Cuba, and unconditionally for the military defeat of the United States and Zionism. We say it openly: we celebrate that US imperialism doesn’t know how to get out of the mess it’s gotten itself into and that Iran is giving it a tremendous beating. We celebrate that the American people are mobilizing and rising up and will defeat the monster that is Trump. We celebrate because, one by one, the far-right figures that thought they could bring about cultural changes and convince the world’s population that being poor is acceptable, that being unemployed is acceptable, that only the super-rich can live in this world, will fall behind Trump.
We have a task in Argentina. It falls to us to defeat the monster that is Milei, and we will defeat him, as we have defeated many monsters throughout our country’s history. But we are living an exceptional moment in our country, one that we must become fully aware. Milei is in bad shape, he has never been worse than he is now. And it’s unlikely his friend Trump, who is also in bad shape and would lose if elections were held in the US today, will be able to save him again.
But the other pillar of the Argentine bourgeois regime, the Partido Justicialista, is also in bad shape. The PJ is going through a crisis that can only be described as historic, because millions of workers have broken through the barrier that has always held workers back from building a different, socialist alternative.
And the unprecedented development is that the crisis of these two isn’t strengthening other right wing figures like Macri or the pastors they attempt to prop up. It’s strengthening the left. We are becoming stronger in this country. We have to assimilate that. For the first time in history, the left is what everyone is talking about.
And it’s not a coincidence. We are receiving recognition from the workers for having been the only ones who stood up to this government from day one, for having faced the repression in support of our retirees. Because we are the ones who stood with the Garrahan Hospital, who stand with FATE, who support the disabled, who are present in every struggle, who stand with the environmental movement. We are the ones who don’t sell out, who don’t change our politics, who keep saying the same things, the ones who have a program to pull the country out of the crisis. All of this is beginning to be recognized by a sector of the Argentine working class.
There isn’t a poll in this country that doesn’t indicate that the left, that the Left Front, is already above ten percent. There isn’t a poll in this country that doesn’t show that Myriam Bregman is the figure with the most support and the highest positive image. And we should be proud, because Myriam is part of something we’ve all built together.
So we have a unique opportunity and also a unique responsibility, because what we do will determine whether that 10 percent becomes 15, 20, 30 percent. And we can achieve that. We know that some comrades, faced with this new situation, are asking themselves: Can we govern? Do we have the strength to pull it off?
Look, comrades, not only can we govern, we have to! The left has to govern to pull the country out of this crisis. If we open the doors of the Left Front so that all the environmentalists, educators, healthcare workers, the scientists who are being expelled by this government, and the thousands who are fighting to defeat the union bureaucracy in their locals and factories can join us, we will have tens of thousands of people organized with us.
But there are theoretical and political debates that we must have. And we must have them out without petty squabbles among ourselves. Comrades, no party in the Left Front can lead the Argentine working class to victory today on its own. We must accept this. Only the unity of the Left Front, open to the thousands of fighters who, if we open the doors to them, will join us, can allow us to win.
We have to open this debate, put an end to the belief that one will be hegemonic over the other, to the fratricidal struggles that often make one happy when the other has a setback, thinking that this can benefit one. No, comrades, we must defend the Left Front, we must all defend Myriam so that she becomes stronger, because if she becomes stronger, we all become stronger.
Our comrades have proposed a Workers’ Party (PT). What’s the problem? Let’s discuss it; it could be a solution. We have proposed a unified party, that the Front be transformed into a unified party with internal tendencies. It’s a proposal, but we are willing to consider other proposals. Our comrades of the Partido Obrero propose an assembly with all members. We are open to any solution that allows us to openly discuss how we can seize this opportunity, how we can take on the challenge that stands before us.
For the first time in a hundred years, the left has a historic opportunity in our country, and we can’t kick the ball out of bounds. It’s a huge responsibility. We have to assume it. We have to break with sectarianism and discuss together how we can definitively defeat Argentine capitalism and see if the working class can govern for the first time.
This isn’t just an Argentine problem; it’s an internationalist task. Because what happens here, if it ends in a victory, will open the prospect of definitively defeating imperialism and allowing the world’s working class, for the first time, to hold the reins of power and begin solving humanity’s problems. Barbarism or socialism, but we say that a glimmer of hope is beginning to emerge that socialism is possible.
Long live May Day! Long live the Left Front! Long live the mobilized working class! We can win! Let no one convince us otherwise.
