Every mass movement important action necessarily entails, for revolutionaries, the responsibility of making a deep assessment. Events of huge magnitude, as was the mobilization of this March 24 and the completely mistaken orientation of a sector of the left, deserve a deep analysis that allows fighters who follow the rhythm of class struggle in Argentina and the performance of the anti-capitalist left to draw as many conclusions as possible.
There were three facts combined that produced a unitary mobilization of all human rights organizations in the country after 20 years of divisions: the growing rejection of Milei’s far-right government, the crisis and feudalization suffered by Peronism and the role of the MST, Argentine section of the ISL. Unity and the content, independent from any government and bourgeois sector, of the event was celebrated by the activism and the crowds that mobilized. Regrettably, a sector of the left not only marginalized itself from this progressive mass action but worked, unsuccessfully, to weaken it. We refer to the PTS/FT, PO, IS/UIT and NMAS/SoB.
The international importance of the debate lies in the fact that these sectors apply the same sectarian/opportunist logic in all the countries where they have collaterals.
We hereby pubblish our last article of the debate with PTS/FT and, following it, the links to other materials that the MST has elaborated on the subject.
Balance of March 24. PTS lies and sectarian nature.
By: Guillermo Pacagnini
In an article written by Guillo Pistonesi, PTS deploys an unfounded attack against the MST by means of a whole series of lies and fabrications. Evidently hit by the strong criticism PTS has received for opposing the call for a historic united day, it now tries to conceal its gross political mistake by means of a fantasy of what really happened. For that reason, we are going to explain those lies one by one. More importantly, we will show again how PTS turned its back on a very progressive and unitary mobilization, a mark that will remain and which is unforgivable in a country with such a long history of struggle against genocide and which is in the midst of a crucial struggle against Milei’s government.
In the first place, and beyond all the lies on PTS article, all the politics they omitted are the reality of what happened on March 24. Guillo Pistonesi says in his article that “Unusually, MST proposed that the EMVJ should participate in the table of organizations act”. False from beginning to end.
Thing is that, for the first time in 19 years, there was a common act of unity of all human rights organizations. This was a highly progressive fact for the struggle for human rights in our country and for the struggle against the government and the Milei regime. There was neither an act of the table of organizations, nor of PJ, nor in favor of that party, nor any of the lies that PTS tries to make believe to cover up its highly sectarian policy of having set itself against that enormous unity achieved in the streets.
That unity in mobilization and the central act, was the unity of all the main human rights organizations, which was evidenced in all the previous common meetings, and was seen in the single call attached here which was distributed the previous days. It was evitdent in the only members on stage in Plaza de Mayo: members of EMVJ organizations and the Table of Organisms. And it was evident in the document read, which was correct and positive. It was precisely this unity that marked the whole day, guaranteed an enormous and emotional mobilization, with strength and with the support of millions who either participated directly in the march and the act in Plaza de Mayo or followed it with much support and sympathy.
(Flyer distributed days before the 24th, that reads “49 years after the dictatorship, we march in unity. Act in Plaza de Mayo, 4:30pm. They were 30.000, it was genocide” followed by the subscribing organizations).
Unity was expressed in thedocument read by our dear mother Elia Espen and Pérez Esquivel for the EMVJ, and of Tati Almeida and Estela de Carlotto for the table of organizations. Does it really seem right to the comrades of the PTS to oppose that? Their position is embarrassing and is a disdain for decades of struggle against impunity, a struggle that happily took place again in unity in the streets and in unity in diversity in n act of all the most important and genuine referents and organizations.
Pistonesi wonders if the MST will “return to its old ways”, if it will “return to its history or will continue to strengthen an option of class independence”. In reality, if something became clear on March 24 is that the MST carried out the policy that has identified us throughout our history since the struggle against the dictatorship until today: to fight in the streets for the greatest possible unity for justice, memory and against the current government. To do so respecting the genuine organizations and their leaders. To do it from the column of the majority of the EMVJ with its own political independence and from a huge column of the MST covering a part of the Plaza with our chants, our figures and our anti-capitalist, socialist and class independence program.
That is why the questions to be asked are others and the PTS has to answer them: Is it going to continue with its attempts to marginalize the Frente de Izquierda in the face of historic events like the 24M? Is it going to try to muddy the name of the FIT-U by putting it against the unity of the genuine human rights organizations of our country? Is it going to continue to assimilate itself to the historical sectarian policy of PO, which from the first day said that two different marches had to be held? Is it going to continue lying saying that the EMVJ marched from Congress, when it was clearly seen that the absolute majority of the EMVJ participated in the unitary act in Plaza de Mayo? Is the PTS going to reflect after such a political mistake, or is it going to continue with its sectarian ways, which are basically highly opportunist? Those of us who proudly have an anti-capitalist, socialist and revolutionary politics ask ourselves these questions. Because it is this sectarian course that weakens the Left Front and not the positions of the MST.
Specifically, after making several pirouettes and changes of position, which showed a very wrong reading of reality on the part of the leadership of this party, they ended up adopting a divisive position. For the PTS nothing changed and it was necessary to act as in the last 20 years. Just as since 2006 the PJ was responsible for dividing the struggle for human rights and the organizations, now it was the PTS with its partners who with an enormous political myopia tried to divide, without succeeding. Their sectarian essence does not let them see the enormous changes that were produced by the anti Milei political context and by the crisis of Peronism that cannot impose anything. These two reasons, plus the correct position of the absolute majority of the EMVJ allowed a highly positive unity in diversity and the change of the character of the unitary act and the massive mobilization.
In its sectarianism, the PTS does not understand anything of what happened. And it tries to cover up its own divisive political incapacity with lies. In different places they even went so far as to say that the majority of the EMVJ that went to the unitary act was going to participate in an act of the PJ, of Milani, of Berni. A whole series of unrealities that the only thing they confirmed was their sectarian denial to see the changes that were taking place with the table of organizations, prioritizing the unity with the EMVJ and leaving the PJ out of the organization of the act, out of the stage, without their flags in the center of the Plaza and not even sending adhesions to the act. That is why, instead of inventing campaigns against the MST, the comrades of the PTS should explain why they opposed and played the game of wanting to divide such a unitary and independent action with all the human rights organizations at the head. Division that we reiterate they did not achieve, failing in the attempt.
Serial lies
Having clarified the central political debate, we cannot fail to refer to a series of false facts that the PTS relates in an unusual way. It says that “the proposal of ‘one march, one square, two documents’ was taken by the EMVJ to the table of organizations”. FALSE. That proposal was discarded from the start by the EMVJ itself. That is why this possibility was never part of a real debate with the table of organizations and they quickly began to discuss other possibilities of agreement.
Not satisfied with what they falsify in their text, they insist: “Later, the EMVJ plenary proposed to read some slogans against Milei’s government and those who support it, and each space would read its document and slogans during the march”. FALSE: The EMVJ never proposed as a second proposal that some slogans would be read and each space would read its own document “during the march”. The debate was focused on the elaboration of a common text and that the act would be from the stage only for members of the organizations, as it finally happened.
To complete its fables, the PTS text also says that: “The table of organizations then made a ‘proposal’ (ultimatum) in which they stated that a ‘single’ document would be read that would speak for its notorious and deliberate omissions. Take it or leave it was extortion.” FALSE. The EMVJ never received any ultimatum or extortion from anyone, when not even, as happened in previous years, the table of organizations launched its own call, but they were always open to discuss a unitary proposal of slogans, format and confluence in the Plaza of the two columns and received the text proposals that we made from the EMVJ.
Going to other falsehoods, the PTS insists: “The MST accompanied by other organizations such as the Association of Former Disappeared Detainees and the Correpi opted for the former and signed an agreement behind the back of the EMVJ”. FALSE. Just by looking at the signatures of the call for the central act in Plaza de Mayo, it is absolutely clear that all the genuine human rights organizations of the EMVJ and the vast majority of organizations and collectives of the EMVJ assumed the common call. And we also fought from the beginning to the end for unity in diversity. That is to say, an EMVJ document that we disseminated before, during and after the event, and at the same time making the maximum efforts to go to a unitary event exploring that possibility around a text with a correct system of slogans and agreed between both spaces.
After everything evidenced by the thousands of people present and by millions who saw it on all the TV channels and on social networks, with a huge common head and column of the EMVJ in Plaza de Mayo, the PTS writes another lie on a big scale: “together with the rest of the parties of the FIT and numerous organizations of the EMVJ, we kept the call in Congress and marched in an independent column with 80% of those who mobilized with the Encounter”. Does the PTS not wonder why none of the genuine human rights organizations of the EMVJ were in their column? Let us explain it to them: because they were in the real column of the EMVJ in the march and unitary act in Plaza de Mayo. As evidenced again by the images and the flyer calling for the unitary act, which we reproduce here again.
The truth of the facts is that in the run-up to March 24 they decided to break the working agreement that had been reached jointly to maintain the unity of the Encounter. A chronogram had been agreed upon to read the document elaborated in common in Plaza Congreso, without any “gag” and a march with a common head to the Plaza, and they had even said that they were going to enter the Plaza. And they turned around like a sock, joining the sectarian and divisive policy of the PO and NMAS, changing the departure time and refusing to read the document where it had been agreed.
In spite of the fact that the majority consensus was ignored, the organizations of the EMVJ that formed a common column to march to the Plaza did not proclaim ourselves and publish calls as member organizations of the EMVJ. On the contrary, in a bureaucratic attitude and a maneuver of complete disloyalty, at odds with the tradition of revolutionaries, PTS together with the minority sector that broke the unity usurped the flag, the networks and the logo of the EMVJ and falsely spread that there was another act “of the EMVJ”. With cynicism and impotence they tried to confuse in the face of the slap in the face of reality.
Without unity of action, can’t have any action at all
Going to a final debate with Pistonesi’s text, he mentions the following: “PTS is part of a revolutionary socialist current that participates and promotes a broad unity of action to strike the enemy in the face of multiple attacks, unity ‘both with god and with the devil”. Plain schizophrenia. Because the PTS writes this after having opposed the act of the mothers, the grandmothers and all the genuine human rights organizations of the EMVJ. That is to say that it carried out a policy that has nothing to do with unity of action, nor with socialist and revolutionary unity, and it did relate itself to the worst of the politics of such marginal and sectarian groups as the NMAS and Política Obrera.
That’s as far as the PTS got on the 24M. Evidently it has a particular way of understanding the unity of action. A propagandist vision that serves neither to push the mobilization nor to develop the left-wing political tool that is needed. That’s why they acted proclaiming unity, but when the time came, they divided and stayed away from one of the most important and progressive mass events against Milei. Precisely acts of unity such as the 2×1, Maldonado and the march for the freedom of the prisoners of the Basic Law that they themselves mention, were made possible by unity in diversity, which now, when it is most needed, they deny. They quote Trotsky, but they do the opposite.
The reactionary policy and the authoritarian regime implemented by Milei in the context of the rise of the ultra-right as a global phenomenon and, above all, in the light of the changes that the inauguration of Trump places in the world merit the need to explore the greatest unity in action to mobilize. Always with an independent and disputing policy to all bourgeois, reformist and bureaucratic leaderships. We did that once again this 24M, while the PTS, in a sectarian and opportunistic way, refused to give that dispute in the only place that had to give it: in the Plaza de Mayo.
March 24th in Argentina: Historical crowd, news and debates https://lis-isl.org/es/2025/03/24-de-marzo-en-argentina-multitud-historica-novedades-y-debates/
March 24th. Conclusions of a historic day:
