Luis Zamora, who claims to be part of the Left, must revise his position

By Francisco Torres

The MST and other forces of the FIT Unidad have also called Luis Zamora and his group Autodeterminación y Libertad (AyL) to be part of the unity. Once more, because they have been repeatedly called to contribute to a broader unity together with those of us who are part of the anti-capitalist struggle and for socialism. Unfortunately, once again AyL has said in the press that they will maintain their position of not integrating an electoral agreement with the FIT-U, focusing on differences rather than prioritizing what unites us.

A few days after our proposal was made public, AyL excused themselves in Clarín as follows: “We distinguish ourselves from those left groups. We want to build an alternative from below, but self-directing and not repeating the traditional paths of the Left that postulates decisions”.

They charged in the media against all calls for unity. They say that they have already “evaluated the proposals” and decided to present their own candidates, “whose names will come out of a national assembly in the coming days.” It is striking that those who make a cult out of self-determination and call for “Self-determination! No more leaderships” as Zamora did in his tweet on Wednesday 16 to reject our unitary proposal, had already resolved everything. Even before their assembly was called, which would not even debate whether or not the broadest left unity is needed to confront the Frente de Todos and the macrista right. They would only resolve names and candidacies.

To argue in favour of their mistaken position, in his tweet Zamora quotes Marx: “The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.” And he says he is for “a party to support the struggle for self-leadership, not parties that lead, as those of the FIT-U try, which always prevented the class from exercising its power to defeat capital.”

It is a major nonsense, since it blames the Left and not the bosses and bureaucrats for preventing the working class from defeating capital or exercising its power. Unheard of, because never and nowhere has the working class “exercised its power to defeat capital” without an organized party as leadership. Faced with the criticism he receives for refusing to join the FIT-U, Zamora insists on differentiating himself: “For the class to be self-determined, it is necessary to defeat all the treacherous leaderships and prevent them from being replaced by parties that are built to lead it.” Another outrage: putting the revolutionary Left on the same level as the bourgeois and treacherous leaderships. In short, and beyond quoting Marx and talking about self-determination and socialism, these positions move him further and further away from the Left. With a strong personality cult and a group that considers “fighting when there are elections every two years” as Zamora himself writes, they only favor division. We call on Zamora and AyL to review their position, stop putting differences before agreements and join the broadest unity to confront the government and the right.