"Action for Liberation" "Notes, testimonials and debate about the recent liberation struggle of the Argentinean people." "Second part of:" "THE HOUR OF THE FURNACES" "Our thanks to the workers, farmers, revolutionary activists intellectuals, workers' unions and people's organizations who helped in the making this film." "To the Peronist proletariat, who built the national conscience of the Argentineans." "GENERAL ORDER JULY 27, 1819" "Comrades in the Andes army:" "We must fight however we can." "We may have no money, but we won't lack meat and tobacco." "When our clothes run out, we'll wear those our women make for us, or we'll be stark naked, like our fellow countrymen, the Indians." "We'll be free, and nothing else matters." "Let's swear not to stop fighting until the country is totally free, or else, let's die fighting as brave men." "Tri-continental brothers:" "Revolutionary violence will put an end to imperialist crimes." "Liberation or death!" ""The nature of imperialism is what turns man into a beast"." "imperialism is international and must be fought internationally." "The Third World!" ""The people defend their rights." "Neither Wessin nor the Yanks nor death will stop us"." ""Coexistence" with imperialism legalises its barbarity." "Unity!" "Active solidarity with the peoples that have been attacked!" ""..." "Many Vietnams is the objective." "To create two, ...many"" "Long live internationalism at the roots of combat!" "Revolution is our greatest cultural manifestation." "The nationalism of the oppressed countries negates the nationalism of oppressing countries." "Motherland or death!" "The destruction of imperialism will free all men." "Death to US imperialism." "Either a socialist revolution or a mock revolution." "The new man." "The victory for third world countries will be a victory for the whole of mankind." "Comrades, this is not just the showing of a film, neither is it a spectacle." "It is first of all an action for the liberation of Argentina and Latin America:" "an action of anti-imperialist unity." "There's room in it for all those who identify with this struggle." "This is not a space for spectators, or enemy's accomplices, but for the only authors and main actors in the process that this film tries to document and explain." "This film is a pretext for dialogue, for the search, for different wills to meet." "It's an open report that we offer for your consideration, for you to discuss after the screening is over." "The most important thing is to create this unitary space, this dialogue for liberation." "Our opinions are as valuable as yours, and you can add to this action... any other view or experience to enrich this chronicle of the liberation." "To finish, our comrade narrator is going to speak." "He will update the nature of this act, based on current circumstances." "I ask all of you, as a first act of united will, to pay homage to all peoples and their armed fronts, who are now violently fighting imperialism and colonialism." "To politicize is to open, waken, give birth to the spirit." "It is, as Cesaire said, to invent souls." "Unit and committee meetings are religious acts." "They are privileged opportunities for man to hear and say." ""lf everybody must compromise in the struggle for common salvation, there are no pure hands, nor spectators, nor innocents." "We all soil our hands in the marshes of our land, in the empty space of our brains." "Every spectator is a coward or a traitor"." "Frantz Fanon." "Space for the intervention of our narrator." "CHRONICLES OF PERONISM 1945-1955" "National and popular movements were the first appearances in History for most Latin American peoples." "They were the first formulas to break with neocolonial serfdom." "OCTOBER 17" "On the 17th of October of 1945 the Argentinean masses burst for the first time into the national political scene." "The eternal dispossessed, the marginalised became the great actors in our history." "The 17th of October was the start of the current process of liberation for Argentina." "Hundreds of thousands of workers spontaneously assaulted the iron and stone city." "They submerged their feet in the forbidden fountains to the horror of civil servants and colony administrators." "The "shirtless", who spontaneously invaded the streets of Buenos Aires, are none other than the direct descendants of those nationals who followed San Martín on the Andes, or of the "Montoneras", who went with Varela or El Chacho." "The people claimed that day their leader's freedom." "The 17th of October marked the birth of Perón." "Perón emerged as the national expression for a people determined to achieve their definitive independence." "Evita, as the flag carrier for the lowest and most exploited layers." "The working people are the motherland's humble people... who are standing here and in the whole country will follow Perón, as he has risen the flag of redemption and justice for the working masses." "They'll follow him against oppression from inside and outside traitors." "Because I want my people to know that we are all willing to die for Perón." "And let the traitors know that we will no longer present to them, ...as Perón did on the 28th of September." "We will die while taking justice in our own hands." "The enemy is lurking he never forgives." "And those who would sell the country for a few coins are also lurking, to strike at any moment." "But we are the people, and I know that if the people are vigilant, we are invincible, because we are the motherland itself." "Peronism came to put an end to the remains of an infamous decade." "The era that started in 1930 with the oligarchic military dictatorship that overthrew Irigoyen." "The years of national corruption, and soup kitchens, ignominious frauds, and assassins paid by the committee." "A time when Argentinean politics were managed between the British embassy and the army." "A shameless handover of the national wealth." "Intellectualism, Pseudo-leftism and Peronism." "What was the world in 1945?" "The inter-imperialist war was ending." "A new parting of the world was starting." "The Chinese Revolution did not exist, nor the so-called popular democracies." "The Arab countries had not freed themselves." "India was not yet a republic." "Colonialism ruled in most of Asia and Africa." "In the name of Marxism the idea was encouraged that Soviet and US armies marched together for the liberation of all peoples." "The Third World was hardly an active project." "What did the rise of Peronism mean at that time ?" "Peronism was a preceding fact, and a new one in our country." "The Argentinean intellectuals would lose direction again, as with the "Montoneras" and Irigoyenism." "The justicialist revolution was to challenge all their preconceptions." "It wasn't fronted by a clear leadership, but a group of military men." "No red flags were raised, but Argentinean blue and white flags." "How could this not worry an intellectual sector... dependant on European revolutionary models?" "In 1945, the intellectuals were not involved with the national needs." "In those days, the university federation declared a mourning for Roosevelt's death, and Borges praised the Allies." "One was either with the Allies, or a Nazi never an Argentinean." "Anything "national" was alarming and suspicious." "The middle classes, influenced by the intellectuals and with the neocolonial blessing," "saw in Peronism just a Nazi-fascist-falangist conspiracy." "The Communist Party leaders called it a clan of the "classless", of prostitutes and rogues." "They joined with antinational groups in the Democratic Union Front." ""We are going to witness the solemn creation of the..." "Democratic Union." "Rodolfo Guioldi, leader of the Communist Party will now speak"." ""The people will vote for the Democratic Union formula because:" "First, it will mean a constitutional normalization, and a democratic peace process for the Argentineans." "Second, its program will guarantee the progress of the nation and wellbeing for the people." "Voting for this formula, the people will beat the Nazi-fascist axis in the Argentinean Republic"." ""From the Progressive Democratic Party, Dr. Díaz Arana:"" "The Progressive Democratic Party has long stood for the need of uniting the democratic forces to recover, through common action the constitutional normality and a fully democratic regime not subjugated by dictatorship." "Those who could write had nothing to say." "They marched arm in arm cheered by US ambassador Braden." "Those still illiterate wrote alone, through action, the National Liberation." "That old sing-song of "yes to shoes, no to books"" "would be the fair response from the people to the removed and foreign-influenced intellectuals." "The movement was seizing the power lacking in a National Revolutionary intellectualism." "The phenomenon of a dependant intellectualism occurred in Argentina both in the left and the right." "The socialist party conformed to the liberal models of European Social Democracy." "The Communist Party followed the ill international precepts." "The so called "Popular Fronts", with the bourgeoisie," ""Centrism" and Browderism were political expressions of Stalinism." "J. Abelardo Ramos says:" ""Stalinism has never supported truly national movements in Latin America, but rather, antinational coalitions." "Due to those politics, from 1945 in Argentina the words Communism, Marxism and Socialism were synonyms with treason for the proletariat through no fault of real Communism, Marxism and Socialism." "Peronism in Power." "Peronism displaced oligarchy and imperialism from power, causing their first great defeat in the history of the country." "The mass movement, that reached power in a few months originated from very particular national and international circumstances." "The strong proletariat and bourgeoisie created by industrial development didn't feel represented by the traditional parties." "A national army and a leader:" "Perón, brought together those new forces, at a good time for Argentinean economy." "The National Front was constituted by the army, some sectors of the industrial bourgeoisie, the church, the middle classes from inner regions, rural workers, and the whole of the young proletariat." "Three flags unified the movement:" "Economic independence, political sovereignty, and social justice." "Peronism is the attempt to go from a semi-colony of shepherds to an independent nation." "This attempt was carried out by a movement whose axis was the proletariat and for whom the revolution of 1945 had a deeply anti-imperialist meaning." "Perón did not assume power as a Marxist, but as a national politician forced to improvise politics and a party." "He was the embodiment of a force of the masses, still too historically immature to be anything different from a national movement and its leader." "The movement's popular nationalism unleashed in 1945 the most advanced liberation process that at that time could take place in our country." "1945-1955:" "Ten years of national democracy." "For the first time, the whole external debt is brought home, and no deals are signed with imperialist countries." "External commerce is centralized." "industry is protected." "High wages." "No unemployment." "The central bank is nationalized, as are railways, gas, telephone, public services and bank credits." "Women vote for the first time." "A Workers Single Central and industrial unions are established." "76,000 public works." "More schools are built in 10 years than in one and a half centuries of national history." "Contradictions of a national movement." "A national and popular movement in power implies deep contradictions:" "some external, in fighting imperialism and oligarchy, others internal, due to the many social classes integrating it." "The multi-class base of the movement, which had been its strength in 1945, would later be its weakness." "industrial bourgeoisie was accommodative and had no national consciousness." "It was more scared by the proletariat's demands than by submission to imperialism." "Peronism had taken the power from the oligarchy, but it had inside the oligarchy's allies." "So, the oligarchic economic power remained the same." "The old regime's institutions were not substantially modified." "A national revolution that doesn't eliminate its main contradiction with the enemy is weakened by its internal contradictions." "Its politics become hesitant." "It attacks the oligarchy, but does not eliminate its underlying base." "It calls for social revolution, but doesn't fully carry out the national revolution." "It oscillates between a people's democracy and a bureaucracy's dictatorship." "Crisis in the Peronist Circle." "From 1950 the circumstances that made the National Front possible disappeared." "Political and union leaderships... entered a clear bureaucratization process." "Evita died then and the movement lost its most combative figure." "The proletariat was unwilling to face the problems alone." "The class struggle, contained for some time, started to show within the movement." "In 1955, the National Front finally divided itself completely." "The church, some sections of the army and the whole of the bourgeoisie surrendered to the oligarchy and became an enemy of the revolution." "The party was a bureaucratic fiction." "The lack of a revolutionary organization and leadership... was the movement's weakness." "Without this, any mass organization is an easy target for the enemy." "On 16th June 1955 aircraft supported by some navy units attacked the government house and the city centre." "As in 1945, workers suddenly left their factories, and flooded into the city to support Perón." "For the first time in the country's history, civilians were the target of a mass bombing." "They demanded weapons from the army, to no avail." "Provided with old shotguns, sticks and tiles they tried to assault the Navy Ministry and were repelled by Gorilla machine guns." "The workers collaborated with the army in a battle lasting just a few hours." "The movement had gone through its first blood and fire ordeal." "The victory cost over 300 civilian deaths." "A few days later Perón requested a ceasefire from the enemy." ""..." "Very consternated by the facts and circumstances we offer an open hand in good faith hoping that our enemy will hold on to it." "To prove our good will, and our discipline in the party, I ask from all our members a political ceasefire." "We will await the results from this sincere call staying calm in the face of comments that will surely be made in ill-meaning factions." "As in our past ordeals the way to act is the same:" "from home to work, and back home again." "Always alert and watching." "But a country divided in two does not accept ceasefires." "On the 31st of August Perón resigned to the presidency." "The people took to the streets again, and forced him to withdraw his resignation." "In the meantime, the oligarchy prepared their strike." "The most significant groups of the left joined Peronism when it was too late." "Perón was isolated by a servile bureaucracy, who was already making deals with the enemy." "The army deserted him." "From the balconies at the government house..." "Perón invited the movement to fight the oligarchy." "That would be his last speech to the people." "How long ago did this Mayo Square witness yet another infamy... from the enemies of the people?" "They will look for countless excuses" "Reasons of freedom, justice, religion but what they want is one thing only:" "to bring the situation back to 1943." "To violence, we must respond with even greater violence." "The way to act for every Peronist, whether isolated or within an organization is to respond to a violent action with even greater violence." "And when one of ours goes down five of theirs will fall too." "Either we fight to consolidate what we have achieved or the oligarchy will destroy the country." "Everyone of you must remember:" "The word now is "fight" and we are going to fight everywhere!" "To finish, I want to remind all of you that today begins for us a new armed vigilance." "We all must consider that the people's fight is on our shoulders and show everyday in all our actions the necessary will to save the people's fight." "The National Defeat." "A few days later, the army removed Perón from power." "The only base left for the movement was the organized proletariat, and some middle class sectors." "Peronism went down without a fight." "The CGT, which a few days before called for workers' militias now made announcements calling for peace." "The Peronist high council did the same." "The points of resistance erected in some workers' neighborhoods were easily annihilated by the army." "On a gray and desolate day a formerly national army, now a "Gorilla" occupied the city." "Why did Peron abandon power?" "How could a government with two thirds of the votes go down without a fight?" "Was it Peron's error not to arm his people?" "He could have done." "Was the movement ready for a civil war?" "In what direction?" "With what organization?" "The rest is a chronicle." "The Gorilla Party." "The city of stone and iron celebrated." "Rural society sang their victory on the streets." "The shops closed." "Flags were ordered to hang from all churches." "The Vatican flag was cheered by liberals at Mayo Square." "Again, Argentinean intellectuals were serving the enemy." "The Argentinean writers' society greeted Peron's fall." "The University Federation said:" ""Let today's joy and anxiety give us the measure of our responsibility."" "The Socialist Party said:" ""We greet the great liberation effort that the Argentinean people have just made."" "Victorio Codovila, leader of the Communist Party said:" ""This revolution is positive as it removed a fascist dictatorial regime."" "Ernesto San Martino, a radical leader who in the past had compared the people to a zoological horde said:" "I believe the Party must fight united." "Radicalism is the only organic, serious and responsible solution that the country expects after this deep political, social and moral crisis that has shaken the Republic." "The Liberator's Violence." "Meanwhile, the system plans its violence." "The Congress will be dissolved." "Peronism will be persecuted, and there will be a ban on mentioning, publishing or exhibiting its symbols." "There will be an attempt to erase 10 years of history from the people's memory." "150,000 trade union leaders will be suspended." "Tens of thousands will be arrested." "Many of them will be sent to the Patagonia." "The trade unions, assaulted by the army and civil "gorilla" commandos," "4,000 teachers and university clerks, will be suspended without any trial." "Raul Previs will set the grounds for an economic plan based on free market." "At the time of Peron's fall there was no external debt." "10 years later, the debt will reach 6,000 million dollars." "The Imf will start to influence national economic measures." "The economy will start a de-nationalization process, and the Constitution of 1949, which granted the rights of workers, family, the elderly, education and culture will be abolished." "The violent decade was about to start." "Reflections for a Dialogue." "The defeat of 1955 was the defeat of the most advanced attempt for a national multiclass front in Argentina." "The inability of the bourgeoisie to carry out the liberation process was blatant." "The defeat of 1955 shows again that the fight for national liberation cannot be separated from the class struggle, that there is no winning national revolution if it is not also a social revolution." "It is important to look into the past to extract critical conclusions to reinforce the present struggle:" "only those within the battles will lose or win them." "A national movement's limitations can only be dealt with from inside, through the struggle for national and social liberation." "While in power, Peronism can be blamed for making errors, but these can only by judged within the limitations of a given historical moment." "In September 1955, it had been one year since American mercenaries had invaded Guatemala" "and defeated the government elected by the people." "Vargas committed suicide in Brazil blaming imperialism." "One year later, Fidel Castro unloaded in Playa Giron." "Two years later, the war in Algeria shook the world." "Five years for the name of Lumumba... to take a continental importance in Africa." "Five years... for Cuba to be the first free state of America" "The justicialist revolution was only one additional expression of the continental revolution, which was also ocurring in Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala, and which would gain its first great victory against imperialism in Cuba." "THE RESISTANCE" "Comrades," "In facing the realization of this film, our intention was to collect information on the fights carried out by our people starting from 1955." "We knew that this information had been diminished by the system and did not appear in the official files, nor in the libraries, nor in the cineclubs." "But we discovered that the popular organizations themselves, trade unions and even political organizations, did not have the necessary information" "How could this be?" "Is it the organizations?" "The restricted number of national intellectuals?" "In a certain way, yes." "A people not yet free cannot gather information nor crystallize solid ideas, or conclusions, of a fight not yet defined." "The urgency that imposes the immediate struggle, does not make the people conscious of the importance of the constant battle." "The history remains in the collective subconscious." "That's why we have directed our research towards this collective memory while speaking with workers, activists, of the trade-union, and political leaders, of the peasants, the students and the employees." "The experience made showed us the distance between the intellectuals and the people." "Many comrades avoided speaking out for fear of reprisals of the system, certainly, but especially natural distrust." "We had to show that there existed in the country a nationalized intellectual substrata and that others are on this path." "The reality of working clandestinely, certainly did not facilitate easier access to information" "In spite of that, we bring to you here the elements, the notes, the experiences, to submit them your consideration, comrades." "The purpose of this compilation is to draw certain conclusions at the end of the projection about the most effective way to conduct the fight today." "SPONTANEITY" "As we said in the story about Peronism," "September 1955 is only one tactical defeat in a long war of liberation." "Spontaneously, the proletariat went down in the streets to show that it was not overcome." "The flags were torn off from those who believed they were jubilant." "The young people climbed the short wall and withdrew the flags from the balconies." "Many trucks full of people came and some leaders came in a car" "They said "Guys, do not go to the bridge the army is there"" "but no one listened, enthusiasm was at its highest." "suddenly there were people on horses." "The comrade, member of the textile union, speaks about the first spontaneous demonstration which took place in Buenos Aires on September 1955, on the same day that the Oligarchy took over power ... we moved towards the bridge and started to shout:" "Mayo Square!" "Mayo Square!" "as if we wanted to revive the 17th October 1945." "And we arrived at the bridge, but the army was already there." "On seeing the soldiers, the people stopped." "and the army began to shoot, and people fled..." "then someone said:" ""they are firing with blanks Let's go forward" "Let's shout:" "Viva Perón!" "Enthusiasm was at its highest." "However they did not fire with blanks." "but with live ammunition as we could see holes in the walls and asphalt!" "It became serious..." "Some fell..." "I remember someone who was in front of us" "I do not know what happened to him, but he fell down." "and did not get up again." "Then the commotion began" "We were a good thousand." "Our enthusiasm was at its peak." "but each of us was alone, because we did not know what we wanted to do." "everyone had followed the demonstration" "We were numerous, we wanted to do something, but we did not have orders, of any kind." "We did not know how to attack, retreat." "Essentially, we did not know how to fight" "There was no one to lead us." "everything was spontaneous." "people fled on all sides." " Without an adequate organization, people joined in resistance by spontaneous mobilization" "Peronism had given to this mobilization a national cohesion, an objective." "During the last decade, this spontaneous movement became the great virtue of the Argentinean masses." "It didn't try to reform the system, but to destroy it." "The goal of all the political struggles and trade-unions were to re-conquer the power for the people." "Action always came before a theoretical formulation." "It was insolent, disrespectful." "It was ignorant of the old theoreticians of the revolution." "Instead of fixed ideology, it had the advantage of being a project of an ideology, of seeking, of invention" "THE UNDERGROUND" "The experience of comrade Martiniano Martin leader of two automobile unions, was identical to that of all the Argentinean proletariat." "From 1955 to date there was a fundamental change" "In 1955 one did not know the labour laws." "One went to the trade union and made a complaint." "If there was a problem, the functionaries would say "pay him his due, he is entitled"" "And that was it." "But after 1955, we could file a complaint, as we wanted but there were no more delegations, they were out, there were only pursuits and arrests." "Many comrades had to leave the country and ask the neighboring countries for asylum." "Our comrades were afraid because of the constant persecution." "One even feared to confide between comrades, for fear the other would denounce you with the personnel manager, which meant persecution." "That is to say, to be taken from your bed at midnight and to find yourself in the street with your children." "Then we began a resistance, we organized a clandestine resistance." "We met at coffee bars, or at comrades' homes with the risk of being caught by the police." "Very often, we even organized the resistance while in prison, when the comrades were arrested we somehow tried through intermediaries, to continue our activities." "By any means...." "Many comrades died in prison many struck down by the police." "But in two years, we obtained the restoration of the Confederation" "General of Work." "Angel Taborda, trade unionist" "I worked in metallurgy." "I remember that each day patrols came to teach a lesson to one of the directors, a comrade of the board of management or commissioner of the company." "And they tried..... they took them, they came, to punish them" "Because they were told there was a Peronist resistance group there." "I remember that the police force had once tried... there was a bust of Evita..." "The resistance entered a new stage of the national struggle, which would become the first act of the underground movement" "During this fight, the proletariat invented, or discovered, some forms of resistance which it had never applied before." "CHRONICLE 1955 - 1959" "Peronism constitutes a cursed event for the political system." "Supported by the trade-union organizations it would cause, during the last 10 years, the most serious crises of the democratic-liberal institutions." "Around the world, the Argentinean proletariat was seen as carrying out the greatest number of politico-trade-union fights." "After the 1955 coup d'etat, the country seems to have been occupied by an invading army." "Tanks, soldiers, gendarmes, occupy the streets, evacuate the factories, mobilize against trade unions" "In the underground, the proletariat organize the first few strikes." "General Confederation of Labour calls for a nation-wide strike on November 1955." "Later, the metal workers' strike will last 50 days and will cost the dismissal of 30.000 workers and the arrest of 2.000 activists and delegates." "Each mobilization of the proletariat leads to the hardest of repressions." "On June 1956, on the waste ground of Léon Suarez, many national militants were shot without legal procedure" "In spite of the repression, in 1957, 252 trade-union strikes were organized, most of them were national strikes." "And 397 strikes in 1959." "The gorilla revolution calls for new elections." "The forbidden Peronists deliver the voting cards blank and obtain a majority of the votes." "The trade unions... are the principal bastions of the movement in each meeting." "In 1958, the Peronist vote allow Frondizi to win." "That same year, the oil industry goes on strike and in the confederation of trade unions, there is resistance against the contracts signed by Frondizi with the imperialists." "Some time before, sixty-two organizations, which emerged after the General Confederation of Labour's intervention, approved the "Falda" program in Cordoba." "This program proposed... the liquidation of the foreign monopolies, expropriation of large estates, the cancellation of treaties that were hindering the national economy," "nationalization of the main sources of our economy, workers' control on production and trade." "THE TRADE UNIONS" "In 1955, Argentinean trade unions ceased being semi-public institutions and transformed into authentic engines of resistance," "becoming for the proletariat the first school, its only university." "Many comrades have entered the struggle, but we shouldn't fool ourselves." "The working class no longer had a political party after the fall of Perón." "A legal party, I mean to say, by the means of his legal organizations." "The trade unions, could only carry out limited action." "Delegates, trade union leaders, constituted the only forward looking intellectuals from which the movement could profit" "In a neo-colonized country like Argentina in the last decade, the trade unions had a double role" "Of organization and political party" "Victor Guilder, nationalist militant ...where the minimum demand is to shake the whole system and disturb the economic, social and political equilibrium." "Very different from developed, independent countries where the different sectors in the political fight arise relatively independently, with their own demands, which can be in conformity with those of power." "Here that's not the case." "On the contrary, many have tried to equate our situation with one of a developed country hiding the real goals of the workers movement while wanting to make us believe that we were in an independent country, whereas we are" "underdeveloped, dependent and colonized." "And the trade unions wanted to be limited to an impossible reformism because of the economic situation of the working class." "The failure in Argentina of the parties of the left and the supposedly popular parties made it possible for the trade unions to replace what they had not known in solidarity for the great mass of the workers." "Angel Perelman one of the founders of the union of the metal-workers" "Argentinean trade unionism does not fight solely for wages." "we dream and believe particularly in the possibility of a large national social revolution, in favour of the working class and of the entire country, for which we have fought since independence." "It has been thousands of years already" "A patriarch named Job said..." "Militia est vita hominis super terram.., ...the life of humans on earth is a continual fight." "Raimondo Ongaro, Recently Appointed Secretary-general of the New General Confederation of Work(CGT), in March 1969." "We can't speak only about the role which trade unionism must hold, because today we live at a time of mobilization of combat, in an emergency state." "What would it accomplish to have rich trade unions, having important properties, and certain sectors of workers profiting from right living conditions, elevated, worthy, in a poor fatherland, in a dependent country in a nation" "... whose people are poor, people who miss all these goods that civilization regards as essential for each citizen, each individual?" "That's why we hold to heart a definition of trade unionism which thinks according to an Argentinean dimension which includes the entire country and not the restricted zone of a trade union." "Everything else is old history;" "In a country which does not develop itself, nobody can develop themselves, neither as a group nor a human." "Those of us who are ready to write history, have the same animated spirit, that these men who, in the catacombs, faced the governments faced the power and the lion's dens." "the weapons and the methods of repression are modernized." "The blood of the worthy Argentinean is ready disposed to rebel against all repression ...they will not be made to kneel down" "We believe that the rifles ...of those who want to shoot us will miss because there will always remain Argentineans disposed to fight to achieve the will of the Argentineans." "ERA OF DEVELOPMENT" "This same middle-class which, in 1955, had accepted oligarchic hegemony, tried with Frondizi, 3 years later, an intermediate policy, aiming at harnessing the proletariat" "In new industrial sectors." "Integration seeks to involve some sectors of the peronism in an initiative which favours only the middle-class related to imperialism" "Frondizi personifies the most obvious, bourgeois opportunism" "Naively, the policy of development hoped to find in the USA, a generous sponsor like the old Oligarchy had found in England." "The outcome of this policy were the promotion of the private free enterprises and open doors for foreign capital, privatization of national enterprises, liquidation and removal of small industry, subjection to the International Monetary Fund, and a repression against the people." "Compatible with the interests of the investors" "Popular resistance had not been forseen by the hypothetical Kennedyenne development." "In January 1959, the slaughter-house workers went on strike and occupied it to prevent its return to private management." "The police force, in armored cars, evacuated the buildings, crushing resistance" "Three months later, it's the bank clerks who strike for sixty days." "100 employees find themselves imprisoned in the barracks." "Students also take part in the fight." "During this year, there are 250 student protests." "Never, as in 1959, had the proletariat trusted so much in its own force." "Never as in the course of this year had the limits of various directions of politico union activists become so obvious." "In 1959, the fight for popular power became extremely violent." "Peronism combined the trade union struggle with terrorism sabotage and military action." "The first guerillas entered into action in Tucuman under the command of Uturunco" "General lniguez sponsored the military mutiny of Rosario." "the tanks of the shell oil company in Cordoba are blown up a little later and more than 300 million liters of fuel burn." "The repression of the police which bore the name of, Plan Conintes, led to brutal tortures and murders" "The resistance against the force of the system did not diminish" "From 1959 to 1964, one can count 1400 acts of terrorism and sabotage." "The Peronist terrorist tactics do not succeed in conquering the power but succeed in avoiding, between 1959 and 1962," "The integrationist traps of Frondizism, to which certain sectors of the national movement belonged." "Frondizi, like Betancourt, Haya de la Torre," "Figueres and so many others, symbolize the sterility of the Latin American Bourgeoisie, their historical death." "THE MIDDLE CLASS AND INTELLECTUALS" "The fight of the mass movements started to weaken the antinational front which had seized power from them." "The oligarchy lost its traditional influence on the middle class." "There developed, and strengthened gradually in the intellectual circles the idea to understand Argentina like a nation." "It seems important to me, to explain the role of the intellectual in Argentina, in particular the intellectuals of the left." "Franco Moni, writer, journalist." "until today the left-wing intellectuals in Argentina did not play any serious part, no coherent role of the left or revolutionary." "it was a very elegant alibi of the system, playing his game the system incorporated it." "Why did he not understand the most brilliant moments of the Argentine people?" "Why was the intellectual of the left not tied, for example, with the Peronist process?" "Because he always thinks in the shadow of old Europe," "That hands are dirty or clean." "I believe it is time to clear up this old problem, of the conscience, of purity, of the Oedipus complex." "As long as the Argentinean left operates under this shadow created by Europe besides being magnificently propagated by our system and liberal education, quite simply it has no purpose." "THE MILITARY the provincial elections of 1962 surprise the military." "the Secretary-General of the textile trade union, Andres Framini, is elected governor of the most important province in the country" "Buenos Aires." "The army intervenes, and cancels the elections overturnes Frondizi, dissolves the national congress and places an assistant like a president:" "Guido." "The national movement is unable to uphold the will of the people." "Large sectors of the movement had done nothing except that to engage in an electoral game which was completely fraud." "The facade of the bourgeoisie had already begun to crumble long before." "The only two times, in 1916 and 1946 when the government was elected by the people, it was reversed by a military coup." "The continual action of Péronism till 1962 places the power in a difficult crisis." "Its greatest concern is to find the best way to neutralize the movement" "From 1962, the trade unions begin a new form of resistance:" "The occupation of factories." "The confederation of trade unions, deepens in 1964, the so called "Conflict Plan"." "For the first time in Latin American history, a thousand premises are occupied simultaneously." "More than three million workers take part in these occupations." "1964 is also the year, in which Perón tries to return." "the Brazilian military force it, obeying instructions from the Pentagon to return him from exile." "It is in 1964 that new groups of Guerillas appear who are decimated, before they even enter into action the most intense battles at this time are by the proletariat of the interior with strikes, occupations and hunger strikes" "The Péronists victory at the 1965 elections shakes the system again." "To counter the threat of another Péronist success, in 1967 the army decides to forestall them becoming an arm the government." "It becomes the government itself." "The only thing the Communist and Socialist parties can do is to ask for the... democratic-civil institutions to be maintained." "The local center of Peronism place their hopes in allegedly nationalist sectors of the army" "however the goals of the so called Argentine revolution soon become obvious." "By prohibiting the political parties they do not want to limit the generous freedom that the civil parties enjoy but to suffocate the Peronist movement." "By dismantling the autonomy of the universities, they want to act against the radicalization of important sectors of the middle class." "By the continued threat of an intervention, in opposition to the confederation of trade unions, it wants to push then into an open collaboration with the system in place to give the victory to neocolonialism" "THE STUDENT MOVEMENT" "Leader of the new reform movement" "What are the most important actions of the student movement in the last ten years?" "In the first place.." "one can establish the great force of mobilization of student movements." "It is also important to see, that this fight has been directed towards only one political direction with liberal goals, established by facts" "such as for example in 1955 when they were deceived by the oligarchy to contain the popular movement." "The great strike of 1958, with more than 100.000 students was about the issue of "liberal or national training"' while Frondizi sold off the riches of Argentina to imperialist Yankees." "In the more recent battles, in 1964/65 the student movement perceived a new reality and realized that it was to deviate from its old positions to stick to the most important question of the moment:" "anti-imperialism or colonial dependence." "Octavio Getino questioned of Julio Barbarao, a student how he sees the current situation of the student movement after the last coup d'etat." "I think that the coup d'etat contributed," "..like all the means which the right wing tested to a slow down the historical development and in the final analysis, the revolutionary process that is, it forced us students to leave our island." "For most of us, who come from a Christian background, we break the patterns and return to the origin" "this situation has really important and interesting aspects for us." "We collaborate with people who come from Marxism from orthodox Marxism, the Marxism which is regarded as the historical axis with those who reason with old values and with the peronists revolutionary groups." "These three currents will fight together with the people for national liberation." "Roberto Grabois, leader of the student national front, talk about the current political position of the student movement" "Perhaps we could say that what characterizes the process of the student movement comes from the nature of the universities in other words, the fight for great ideals, which conform to a narrow, specific prospect for the students" "and to a paternalistic type with respect to the popular movement towards a national conscience, together with the... popular movement." "Conscience that the fight for a liberated fatherland, a socialist fatherland, inevitably implies our fusion with the essential axis of the Argentinean revolution which is the working class not understood as an abstraction, but understood by its battles and its feelings." "From that fundamental point, the process of the national consciousness understanding, re-evaluation, of the Peronist process and of its significance for the Argentine working class, becoming our business, our own business" "Not Peronism of the bureaucrats which does nothing but negotiate and concede, but of Péronism of the masses, that of the anti-imperialistic and revolutionary fight, which leads to socialism." "In this sense, the Cuban revolution a national, nationalist and anti-imperialist revolution... had a great influence." "its heritage is for us, Marxist-Leninist, a guide, which establishes the link with the history, with the life, of our working class, and which opens the way towards the national liberty and the construction of socialism, unity with our people" "The OCCUPATION OF THE FACTORIES" "What was the high point reached by the resistance in the last 10 years?" "Generalizing we could say what was said to us by many comrades.." "the demonstration of a national conscience..." "Able to resist the executions..." "with repressions, tortures with the traps of the System to quote an example, let us announce the most important of these demonstrations" "occupation of the factories." "Cirillo Ramallo speaks about one of the first occupations of a factory the metallurgy factory, Siam de Montechingolo." "The occupation resulted from the dismissal of 300 comrades." "What measures were taken to defend the factory?" "All measures likely to guarantee to us that the police force would not make us evacuate and at the same time to maintain the normality of the factory in order to avoid disorders." "We distributed the gasoline depots in various places, likewise fire extinguishers, to be used in case of an attack by the police force." "The defense of the factory, it is me who organized it, with the comrades of the internal commission" "I personally constituted the strike pickets who circulated in the factory and in the district whose solidarity was always given to us we feared that the police would drive us out" "Rudy Taborda speaks of the first occupation, the one large textile mill under worker administration:" "La Bernalesa..." "In the country, there were many occupations like ours." "But it acted as a historical event unique in its kind, because, for the first time, a factory functioned under workers control" "For the first time, we felt absolute owners of a factory where for 30 years the comrades had been exploited and crushed by the employers' class." "We had a double responsibility:" "to show the employers' class that we were able to keep up production to work and, at the same time, to manage the production" "We were going to show that we were capable of production." "We had to succeed in doing both things at the same time." "And we succeeded there rather well, it seems to me" "For example: the quality of the products, compared with that of those which was stored, appeared, at the end of the 13 days during which we had ensured the management of the factory, was definitely superior." "Another fact important to announce, is the participation of the employees." "They joined with us unanimously." "A really extraordinary fact" "For the first time, two thousand workers assume autonomy for their work" "For the first time, they discover that they are worth as much, or even more, than those which always benefited from them." "They became aware of their own capacities their own possibilities." "the workers, this time, took the occupation very seriously" "During the previous occupations people came with their portable radios, the workers organized barbecues, the comrades played cards or football in the streets bordering the factory." "This time, on the other hand, it was very different." "The truth, it is that the majority of us are illiterate." "We grew up in the absolute misery working since tender childhood without learning how to read and write" "Me, I worked in various places for a mouthful of bread" "I am not ashamed to say that I had to beg to eat." "And then, at 17 years old, I came to Buenos Aires to seek my fortune." "All of that was before 17th October." "And then General Perón appeared" "I was not the only one to arrive from my province." "We were very numerous in total ignorance of the social laws" "In fact, in the countryside, we do not profit from any protection." "In view of this panorama of total misery," "Like many Argentineans I came to the capital" "But the trade unions were not yet well organized, and there were still some difficulties." "however it was still better than living in poverty in the country." "One afternoon the Minister of Justice from La Plata came," "We received him at the gates." "And he said to us that we must evacuate the factory" "Because we had taken possession of a private property." "I replied to him: you are Minister of Justice?" "And your justice, is to lay off 300 workers!" "and he replied to me that he was not a Minister for Labour, and that this was a trade-union problem." "Then, I said to him that, in this case, he had nothing to do with this factory." "But he repeated that we must evacuate, that there were 150 police officers ready to employ force" "I told him 150 police officers were not enough." "He would have to call the army" "He was completely surprised." "And I added that if they evacuated us by force, we would blow up the plant." "I showed him, where we had the gasoline containers which were ready in case of any aggression." "As a representative of the government, he had the police force and the owners." "Me, I had the support of all the comrades to face any aggression." "Occupations are violent acts traumatic, which erase from the workers' memory... many myths, lies, and oppression." "Through occupations, the worker accelerates his own decolonization, finds the conscience of his own work, re-conquers his own humanity." "THE LIMITS OF SPONTANEITY" "Up to which point can one carry out, inside the system, the battle for the means of production?" "The dominant classes control all the other levers of power" "Resistance, at its spontaneous level, has arrived today at a critical moment" "If, until yesterday, the trade unions were the axis of resistance today they've lost their political effectiveness." "As an instrument of revolutionary struggle... they have reached the limits of their possibilities." "The spontaneity.." "is the great virtue of the Argentinean masses." "But it also constitutes their limit." "It is to spontaneity that the Argentinean proletariat owes its most memorable day but also its greatest defeats." "On October 17th and the month of September 1955," "the combativeness and the heroism of resistance are not enough to overcome the enemy." "When spontaneity and the initiative of the mass do not take the path of the seizure of power, everything is transformed into dispute, resistance, self-defence." "In this case, the initiative is always taken by the enemy." "THE WAR TODAY" "If the war is the sum of partial battles, we've lost some of them, but, on the level of creating conscience we have won many others." "Imperialism also has its experiments." "Since the Cuban revolution, it learned better ways to fight the revolution, ways that the revolutionists themselves did not learn." "This is a "miguelito," a small iron rod about an inch in length." "The points are sharpened and then folded into a right angle in order to form a base which hangs." "Before, we'd make a larger model, of one centimeter in thickness." "Then we coldn't get rods of that type any more." "Now we make them from the bars, which we can get." "I cut it out, sharpen it." "Because I know the people can make use of it." "Where is that?" "In the streets." "We hide them the best we can into a heap of garbage or into a puddle," "The motors pass, without seeing them, and it punctures the tires" "We especially use them during the strikes." "We leave at dawn, each one with his bag and we place them." "From 1963 to 1966, the Pentagon gave special training" "in its centers of Panama, to 19.000 soldiers of Latin America." "The armies of the continent behave like troops of occupation and they all have the advantage of blending in easily." "These are the Peruvian "hunter commands"" "the Bolivian "Rangers", the Argentine gendarmerie the ODECA, the American defence council," "the military operators, are all directed by the Pentagon" "Latin America is the theatre of a silent escalation devoted to genocide." "I remember a demonstration, on November 5th after the fall of Perón." "With a comrade, we had gone to Plaza Alsina in Avellaneda, where the police force charged ferociously." "They used horses to turn back the crowd." "There was a comrade sitting on a bench." "The police came from behind and threw him to the ground and almost trampled him with their horses." "I felt such an indignation that I remembered a trick from back home." "I went to a grocery store and bought packets of pepper and launched them in the direction of the wind," "When the horses inhaled pepper, they started to sneeze and reared up." "That made the police even more angry." "We were sorry for the horses, but not for them, certainly after the brutality with which they treated our brothers!" "Pepper is effective, certainly!" "We knew it works." "We used it in the countryside!" "And can it stop the police force?" "That, is a little more difficult!" "What can trade-union organizations achieve these days in the face of a well trained, well equipped modern army, that also has mercenary forces?" "But is this army really invincible?" "Algeria" "Cuba, Vietnam prove the opposite." "People determined to liberate themselves are invincible." "But victory over these armies are only possible with the will of the people." "Power is held exclusively by those who possess weapons, or those who decide to obtain them." "The language of weapons is in our time, the most effective political language." "Is it therefore necessary to teach the people this language?" "Does this mean a long and painful war?" "Are there any other alternatives for liberation?" "INTRODUCTION TO THE DEBATE" "Comrades, the reflections which we have just talked about, arise from the current national situation and from the experience accumulated during years of resistance." "Let us point out the facts." "The military government has been in place since 1966 destroying the resistance of different trade unions, like the trade union of the dock labourers who closed the sugar factories of Tucuman." "They have assigned the energy reserves, giving no rights to the people and has found no opposition, which could confront and overcome it." "This is one symptom." "At the same time, certain proletarian tendencies have begun to stray away from their roots bureacratic, confused by the enemy moving closer towards them." "These tendencies existed before... but they'd never acted in such a sneaky way." "This is another symptom." "Thoughts and reflections which are contributions to this discussion are also based on experiences encountered during filming." "Rudy Taborda was recently laid off together with the most active comrades." "Cirillo Ramallo, was also laid off and the factory where he worked was closed down." "Angel Taborda was arrested and laid off because of his trade-union engagement." "Martiniano Martin is no longer on the committee of the car factory." "Employers have blacklisted him and he can't find work anymore." "At Tucuman we spoke with the most combative leaders of FOTIA." "Can you talk about the fight carried out by the Tucuman workers?" "I'm Leandro Foté." "I'm the secretary-general of the Trade Union of San José." "Let me say that it's only four hours ago that I left prison." "I was arrested for organizing the fight of the sugar workers." "However that's not important." "The important thing is that in Tucuman we have valuable combat experience." "We have occupied factories, we've fought on the streets, we've had victims." "Recently we lost one of our comrades at Bella Vista, where the fight was particularly keen" "Did these fights bring us any solutions?" "Comrade, these fights did not bring any solution" "No solution for the sugar workers." "That's why I believe the workers fight must be quite different." "We have recognized that one should not only fight for wage increases, but against government and its domination." "the workers must understand that we need a popular government of the workers." "This is the only way we can provide for the future of the country and for the workers, to worry about the proletarian people of the country." "Now, comrade, at this moment, the situation of the Tucuman workers is disastrous." "There are 24,000 unemployed, from the closed factories." "People who will emigrate to other provinces, which will increase unemployment elsewhere in the country, like at Tucuman in the past year." "Resistance and self-defence, by reaching their culmination, expose the people to lassitude, with exhaustion." "Each point of defense is located by the enemy, isolated, and eliminated" "But the people's memory assimilates the experience." "One day I asked:" "Father, where is God?" "My father became serious, but answered nothing." "My father died in the mine." "In the bottom of the gallery." "Color of blood of the mine." "Where the owner's gold piles up" "One day I asked:" "My brother, what do you know about God?" "My brother lowered his eyes, but answered nothing." "My brother lives in the mountain" "Where no flowers grow." "Sweat, malaria, snakes" "This is life of the logger." "And that nobody asks of him if he knows or has found God." "Another important person" "Me, I sing on the streets." "And when I am in prison," "I listen to the voices of the people who sing much better than me" "Does God take care of the poor?" "Perhaps yes, Perhaps no, what I know," "Is that he sits at the owner's table" "If there is anything on this earth more important than God it is that nobody has to spit blood so that others can live better" "I, Andina Lizarraga," "Chief of Peronist Youth of Tucuman" "Although experiences of the population of Tucuman were invaluable since 1955 mobilizations, street battles, occupations of factory and fights against the oppressor," "for the historical process," "I believe they are not applicable today, and that it would be a great mistake to repeat them." "people don't want these battles any more." "They want another form of action." "An action for the political seizure of power which can only be carried out by an armed struggle." "However, an armed struggle is not possible without a revolutionary organization prepared to make sacrifices and to risk their lives like the Argentinean people have done until now." "The time of the chief bureaucrat is over." "That depends only on us, on yourselves, to contribute to the foundation of this revolutionary organization" "Otherwise we will waste our time miserably." "We crossed vast parts of the country and found in many provinces a similar situation, more dramatic, perhaps, in the North specially in Tucuman." "However, the proletariat doesn't appear defeated, or overcome." "Many means of fight were tested in the course of time, but the truth is that no organization, no direction is yet in sight which could direct the proletariat towards victory." "In the meantime we experience a kind of dynamic waiting" "The search continues." "Comrades..." "Important now, are the conclusions you can draw." "You as the true authors and protagonists of this story." "The experience which we have gathered here and our conclusions are valuable to a certain extent." "They are helpful depending on how useful they are to the present and the future of the liberation struggle." "Of this liberation which you represent." "The importance is the action which can follow these conclusions," "An agreement based on facts shown here." "This is why our film ends here." "For you to continue it." "You have the floor." "OPEN SPACE FOR DIALOGUE"