After announcing their “unified left party” proposal, the PTS (Socialist Workers Party) published an open letter to the parties that “claim to be socialist and of the working class”. We share here our opinion and proposal to the PTS and the rest of the left.
The PTS explains the need to confront the rise of Bolsonaro in Brazil and its disastrous implications in our country, an issue that we share. Why not make the greatest unitary efforts against Bolsonaro and the danger he represents! We have to be in the first line of this struggle that has just begun.
In its letter, the PTS also proposes to join that fight to the fight against Macri, the IMF and the false opposition of the PJ, including Kirchnerism and the entire centre-left; proposal with which we agree, being a necessity in the present, and a task of the entire left.
It is necessary to promote the largest possible mobilization of workers, women and youth, here and in Brazil. With mobilization and coordination of the struggles, we can confront the Macri and the right, not waiting for 2019 as the bureaucracy and the PJ want, but taking them on now and demanding elections to a free and sovereign Constituent Assembly.
To acheive all this, the active organization of thousands of militants, postulating a left wing alternative and building a big revolutionary party, with a socialist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist program is a strategic necessity. Hence the importance of the debate.
A first question that needs answering
Because we are talking about the future of millions of workers and youth and the role of the left, there can be no confusion or ultimatums. Let’s openly debate with all the forces that claim to be socialist. So far we do not see in the PTS either that clarity nor a unified convocation.
There´s one point that the PTS leadership has to clarify: does its proposal include the MST or not? Because the MST is one of the main workers and socialist forces, with national extension and an important presence in unions and working-class neighborhoods, universities and the feminist and LGBT movement. However, the PTS leadership did not contact us to discuss its proposal, and its members tell us that the proposal “does not include the MST”.
If so, the PTS should explain why, far from being unitary, its proposal begins with the exclusion of a significant part of the socialist and anti-capitalist left, or even worse, begins the debate assuming to have the power to decide who can or cannot be part of a unified party on the left.
This method of claiming “veto” rights is alien to the working class, who always starts from a base of concrete needs and democratic proposals. A correct method would propose a program and a project, arrange meetings so that we can all contribute our opinions and for this discussion to determine which organizations agree or not. Never on the left is preemptive exclusion the method. Even less among those of us who claim to be Trotskyists, who fought for decades against bureaucratic and petty-bourgeois currents that excluded us because of their political cowardice and to avoid debates. This is why the PTS has to clarify this issue.
The political contradictions in their proposal
About the main issue, in its letter there are some contradictory issues between what is written and what policy it carries out.
On one hand The PTS clarifies that its proposal “is not a common party of reformists and revolutionaries”. However, in Brazil it has repeatedly requested to join the PSOL, which is a left-wing party of reformists and revolutionaries, and in its current leadership, the reformist wing has more and more influence. Why is it ok to be part of a party like that in Brazil and not here? In addition, the PTS in the US is part of the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America) that runs candidates in the Democratic Party. Why does the PTS support this policy that includes reformists and within an establishment party?
For us it is valid to be part of the PSOL in Brazil even if there are reformist sectors, because it is a broad organization of the left. And that it is valid to work in the DSA in the USA. We do not see the problem there, but in the inconsistency of the PTS, which has a policy in Brazil and the US and then says that what they do over there is wrong here.
Another contradiction of the PTS´s letter is when they say that they don’t want a party “of anti-capitalists in general”. They should inform this to their comrades in France that are part of the NPA, a party that is “anti-capitalist in general.”
And if the PTS also confirms that it excludes the MST from its proposal, then it does not even contemplate all Trotskyism, which is the apex of sectarianism and a worse contradiction, that clashes with its letter that proposes “a party of those who share the strategy of building a revolutionary party of the working class,” something we believe in and do in the MST.
We must clear up the confusion and start from reality instead of a scheme. Building a revolutionary party is a strategic task we work on every day in the MST. In turn, common constructions with other sectors of the anti-capitalist and socialist left could be very positive. There can be several ways to do it, as long as there is agreement on the program and the project proposed. But the PTS mistakennly takes the first step rejecting various possibilities.
It is clear that Trotskyists in Argentina have a strong influence which could establish positive characteristics in a unified party of the left. Why then fear different variants of confluence? Why not bet on the construction of a great party of tendencies with democratically organized leftist currents inside? Or do they want monolithic thought, which is the opposite of what we need?
Tactics and strategy
Another tactical but important debate is about electoral alliances and political agreements. In its letter, the PTS critically mention past experiences such as Pino Solanas or Syriza in Greece, and in other texts they criticize Izquierda Unida. They call these experiences “agreements with the center-left.”
Some thoughts on this. If the idea is to unite, debating assessments of past events is not very useful. It would be better to begin by discussing the current proposal and see who agrees with it. Only on that basis can the debates of the past be deslt with fraternally, not by posing them as a precondition for an agreement. Because conditioning with assessment debates isn’t part of the revolutionary and working class methods.
The MST has been part of some of these tactical experiences, and according to some PTS militants, this is one reason why they don´t include us in the unified party proposal. If this is so, it would be a very electoralist line of thought. Since when are electoral debates so important for the revolutionaries? Divergences around tactics in an election are more important than programmatic agreements, than agreements in struggles or in the working class? If we are all part of union and student lists, and we organize active general strikes in common, shouldn´t this be above a debate of electoral tactics?
These electoral disagreements with the MST show another political incoherence of the PTS proposal. The PO (Workers Party) called to vote for Syriza in Greece and proposed “a government of the left”; IS (Socialist Left) was part of the two Izquierda Unida fronts in Argentina, while PO algo wanted to join it. If the issue is so important for the PTS, it should exclude both PO and IS from the debates towards a unified party. Why then -according to its own militants- does it exclude only the MST? Which is also the party that has been proposing electoral unity to the FIT -not with the center-left- for years.
In this debate over tactics, the PTS does not argue with the MST, but with the whole history of Leninism and Trotskyism, which always had all kinds of political tactics. Lenin called to vote and help the reformist English Labor Party win; Was he a center leftist? Trotsky called to join the Social Democratic parties in Europe. Was he another center-leftist? Did they have problems of principle or class? No, those were simply political tactics. Mistaking tactics for strategies is a mistaken Marxist method and does not help to create a great revolutionary party at all.
For example, the comrades of the PTS in Brazil called to vote for Boulos, who does not have revolutionary positions and is very close to Lula and reformism. Was it a problem of principles? No, it was a political tactic that we understand. Our party also called to vote for the PSOL, though clarifying that we would have preferred another candidate and another policy. There’s no class confusion in voting for Boulos, or voting for Syriza before it governed and betrayed, or for Pino Solanas when he had an anti-imperialist program against the PRO (President Macri´s Republican Proposal) and the PJ. They are all valid tactics, which can be supported or not, but never mean differences of principles. That is why an organization that claims to be revolutionary has to clarify that this debate is of a tactical nature. But it seems like the PTS wants to use it as an excuse to divide.
Our political proposal
Let’s place every proposal on the table, without exclusions. In the MST, we propose to unite all the left activism with a socialist, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist program, to fight against the government and every wing of the PJ, including Kirchnerism, and other center-left forces. To unite against of all variants of the Argentine bourgeois regime, forming a great independent third space of the entire left. Does the PTS leadership agree with this? Because it is a proposal that has nothing to do with the center-left and in fact would strongly confront it.
We also propose to do it now, in the struggles and the coordination of class unity. Also in the national elections and in the elections in every province without exception. Why could the PTS not share a common project with the MST around this proposal? What problem of class or principles would impede it? None. It only depends on the political decision of its leadership, on whether it wants to unite the anti-capitalist and socialist left, or not. This is what the PTS needs to decide without maneuvers.
In the MST we are in favor of discussing all possibilities of unity of the left, including the proposal of a unified party of the workers and socialist left. And we believe that taking several unitary steps would help much more than grand debates that easily become abstract.
To the comrades of the PTS, the FIT and all those who want to build something unitary and independent of the regime, we propose taking steps to achieve it. Intervening together the process of struggles against Macri, the IMF and the governors. In the labor movement, strengthening and expanding the unity achieved in the Plenary of Lanús. In the student movement, uniting all the left and abandoning the veto that the PTS aplies against us in many student fronts. In the feminist movement, promoting in common the struggle for legal abortion and the separation of Church and State. And forming a great political front for the next elections; so that both the president, the governors and the legislative slates of the left are united in a single front. If we took these steps,we would be closer to being part of a unified party.
We propose meeting to advance with these discussions, and also to discuss the proposal of the PTS of a unified party. For that, the comrades have to clarify what their proposal to the MST is. We hope that they decide establish a real dialogue, privileging our many agreements over our differences. This is the true revolutionary method.
Sergio García