Argentina: Plenary of the left and the activists. Resolution of the Political Commission

The Open Plenary of the Left, as part of its development, had 13 important thematic commissions that debated during the afternoon and eventually its resolutions were voted by the militancy. From the International Socialist League, we share the document of the Political Commission of the plenary with the Left and the fighters of the entire world.

For a government of the workers and socialism, we go with the left that stands strong

The plenary of the left and the fighters, with thousands of comrades that come from the struggles of the workers, piquetero, environmental, women, LGBT and youth movements calls the workers and the people to raise an alternative in the face of the capitalists parties that have sunk the country in misery, the surrendering to imperialism and national submission.

We highlight the great importance of this plenary, which collects the methods of deliberation and resolution of the working class, assemblies, the debate and collective resolution. We have summoned all of the parties of the Left Front to this plenary. We reject the self-proclamation of candidacies unilaterally and without debate by Bregman and Del Caño, which conspires against the need of orienting our Left Front Unity to come together with those who have been facing the austerity and fighting on the streets and who we want to be protagonists of a revolutionary of the left.

The government of the Frente de Todos was a complete failure. Its policy was to reach agreements with private bondholders and the International Monetary Fund for the repayment of the usurious and fraudulent foreign debt. The result of these agreements is obvious: the country never finished overcoming bankruptcy, inflation is increasing, salaries and pensions are being pulverized and poverty and indigence are growing in neighborhoods all over the country. The Frente de Todos ends its mandate in the same way as Macrismo: with more indebtedness, poverty and at the gates of a huge devaluation.

Under the Frente de Todos government, the plundering of the environment, extractivism and mega mining have been reinforced. In terms of liberties, we have more police brutality and iron fist in the neighborhoods, which coexists with an advance of the narco-capitalism. The state continues to be responsible for violence against women despite the creation of a Ministry that only served to co-opt pro-government organizations.

We call to draw basic conclusions: Peronism in government has definitely shown that far from being a channel for the defense of popular demands, it is a vehicle for the capitalist policy of plundering and austerity. And Kirchnerism has played a fundamental role in this anti-worker policy, even being a battering ram to attack popular organizations. Cristina’s resignation to run as a candidate is a result of the failure of her government and today she is proposing a new electoral line-up that includes the Massismo with Unión por la Patria, while she asks for a national agreement with the right-wing opposition, to solve the problem with the IMF, paying an immoral and illegitimate debt.

For all these reasons we demand: Out with the capitalist politicians! For a government of the workers and socialism.

Alejandro Bodart’s speech at the Plenary’s opening ceremony

Our denunciation of the judicial branch, as an agent of the bourgeoisie, imperialism and many times of the bosses’ opposition, can never serve to cover up for the PJ and any of its variants, including Kirchnerism and its policy of capitalist plunder against the country. The defense of the Left Front as a channel of political independence is a fundamental principle that unites us, that is why we reject the opportunist adaptation on the part of Bregman and Del Caño towards the national government, especially towards Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.

Faced with the collapse of the government of the Frente de Todos, the bosses are coming for fundamental measures against the people: a new devaluation that will hit wages even harder, labor reforms to eliminate rights, new pension reforms to hit especially the special regimes, and privatizations against education and health. Their project is to transform Argentina into an enormous garbage dump at the service of the oil, mega-mining and lithium multinationals.

But they clash with a great popular unrest and a crisis in all the political line-ups. Both Macri and Cristina have resigned as candidates. The breakups in Juntos por el Cambio and Frente e Todos are the expression of the failure in the government of all these variants. This deep crisis is the breeding ground for the growth of fascist variants such as Milei’s, whom we call to confront.

The new attacks projected by all the political forces of the bosses, after years of austerity measures against the people, prepare great struggles and popular rebellions, a reality that we have already seen in France with the rebellion against the pension reform, in Peru with the struggle against the coup of Dina Boluarte, and in all of Latin America. And these weeks the enormous mobilizations in Salta first and in Jujuy later, are the anticipated expressions of the enormous social and fighting strength of the working class and the people to confront the coming attacks. We are heading towards a country where they intend to eliminate social and democratic conquests and we are heading towards great social upheavals in which we must intervene and support from the left.

Luciana Echevarría, Cordoba MST-FITU legislator kicking off the Political Commission

The role of the Left Front

In this context, the Left Front must take on its responsibility: to summon all the mobilized sectors to form a political alternative to intervene in support of all the popular struggles, to prepare the struggles to come and to dispute the political leadership of the working class and the popular sectors. A Left Front that is merely an electoral agreement is incapable of playing this role. Our fundamental role is to contribute to the intervention of the workers as a whole in the crisis, to propose a working class and popular solution. We need a front that acts daily in the class struggle and not every two years when there are elections.

We defend the great piquetero struggle, of which we are protagonists. We call for active support and we propose a national teachers’ strike, denied by the CTERA bureaucracy, for the victory of the big strikes in Salta, Santa Cruz, Jujuy, Chubut, the Province of Buenos Aires and all over the country.

We raise the example of the struggle of tire workers with the SUTNA at the head, which paralyzed the industry and reached a salary increase that is superior to inflation with the methods of the general strike, picket, unity of the employed and unemployed, based on the recovering of the union for workers assemblies headed by the Black List. Also several sectors of the health workers showed that when you fight consequently you can achieve conquests such as in CABA, Buenos Aires and Cordoba.

Cele Fierro’s speech at thePlenary’s closing ceremony

We denounce the surrender of the union bureaucracy of the CGT in all its internal currents and all the CTA to all these demands, all integrated to the government of the Frente de Todos and we call to defend a united front policy for the recovery of the unions as tools of struggle for the workers and for a new combative and democratic leadership.

We defend and promote the struggles of women, and we say more than ever “Not one less, the State is accountable!” We promote environmental struggles throughout the country against extractivist plundering.

We call to confront especially the policy of criminalization of social protest, carried out by the provincial governments, the judiciary, and promoted by the national government and the right-wing opposition. We raise: down with the reactionary reform of Morales in Jujuy, down with the anti-picket protocols. For the freedom of all political prisoners, enough of criminalization. Acquittal of Cesar Arakaki and Daniel Ruiz. Down with the accusation against Alejandro Crespo. For the dismissal of the fighters.

These struggles must converge in a political alternative for the government of the workers and socialism. But only if the Left Front has a fighting nature, if it groups together the vanguard that is emerging in the struggles, if it strengthens itself by intervening daily in the class struggle, if it promotes the new leaderships, develops in depth the struggle for the demands and the political struggle, if it advances in democratic and massive events to decide like this Plenary, will it be able to transform itself into a tool for the working class to overcome the bosses’ currents and be able to lead a deep social transformation.

Those of us who participate in this plenary seek to overcome the conservative politics and the electoral adaptation that sterilize the efforts of the left, we seek to strengthen the Left Front to conquer the broadest popular masses to the task of fighting to put an end to the regime of hunger and misery of those who have been governing us. And, decidedly to overcome from the left the experience with the Justicialist Party and all its wings, summoning thousands of honest workers and young people disappointed with that experience, to join with the left to fight for another way out. Giving in to any of the wings of Peronism delays the experience of the workers themselves who are disappointed by the submission and surrender to the IMF and the abandonment even of their declared “historic banners”. That is why the formula of Bregman and Del Caño, launched a year ago, a unilateral imposition and not subjected to the debate that we carried out in this massive plenary, does not express to us. A formula that also expresses hegemonistic intentions that are not consistent with the reality of the front and seeks to close more a political tool that needs to convene and not depend only on a single voice or idea of a party.

In this political battle, we denounce especially the fascist offensive of Javier Milei. We are going for a great campaign to snatch the youth away from the rancid ideas of liberalism already embodied in Menem’s Argentina, which ended in the 2001 crisis. We have to take the mask off this dollarization without dollars to kill wages, the false “liberalism” of the defenders of the dictatorship, the demagogy that covers up the privatization policy against education and health, and the anti-rights policy of Mileismo.

We call for a political struggle for a socialist program: For the rupture with the IMF, the investigation and non-payment of the foreign debt. For the nationalization of the banks and foreign trade under workers’ control in order to use these resources for a housing and public works plan in accordance with popular needs. For a salary equal to the family basket and for 82% mobile for pensions. For the distribution of working hours without affecting wages in order to put an end to unemployment. For the cancellation of the concessions to the privatized companies of all public services and their placement under workers’ and social control.  For a government of the workers and socialism, out with the capitalist politicians! For the support to the workers, popular and youth struggles all over the world.

We call to mobilize throughout the country against Morales’ reactionary constituent assembly and to set up a big action of solidarity with the people of Jujuy, who are confronting it in the streets.

We call for a massive mobilization next June 26, on the anniversary of the assassination of Maximiliano Kosteki and Darío Santillán, to the Pueyrredón Bridge, against the repression and criminalization of social protest, yesterday and today.

We resolve to promote, in defense of this perspective, the candidacies of Gabriel Solano for President and Vilma Ripoll for Vice President. In the Province of Buenos Aires, Alejandro Bodart for Governor, Néstor Pitrola for National Deputy, Romina Del Pla for Senator. In the capital, Vanina Biasi for Head of Government, Cele Fierro for Legislator, Jessi Gentile for National Deputy. And with the pride of integrating outstanding fighters of the workers and piquetero movement such as José Meniño, Andrea Lanzette, Ileana Celotto and Guillermo Pacagnini. And at the same time we will open our lists to fighters who adhere to the program of the FIT-U and to the general orientation voted in this Plenary. Inviting all those sectors and referents to be an active part of the activities of our electoral campaign and of the struggles that we promote and support.

We raise this plenary as a method of participation and democratic decision of the militancy and sympathizers of the left, opposed to the punctilious and vertical tradition of the parties of the regime, as a starting point of a methodology that must become habitual in the FIT Unity, if we want to strengthen in the future this experience of unity of the left with an anti-capitalist and socialist program.

In the immediate future, we call to set up a big electoral campaign winning the streets, the popular neighborhoods and the workplaces for this perspective, carrying out dozens of acts at factory gates, talks and debates in the places of study, open assemblies all over the country, taking our proposals to the workers and popular struggles. We call for assemblies and plenary meetings throughout the country to vote for the list, and to strengthen the Left Front Unity at the forefront of all the popular struggles.

We promote a national presentation of the list’s program this June 29, as well as a presentation in La Plata on the 5th and in the Capital on July 6. And tours of our presidential ticket throughout the country.

MST-FITU leader Sergio García’s closing statements at the Political Commission

You can watch the complete opening and closing ceremonies (in Spanish) here:

Opening ceremony

Closing ceremony