Argentina

La ofensiva desatada por la gestión Macri no encuentra precedentes en la historia Argentina. Muchos hacen hincapié que la actual crisis encuentra su similitud de la década de los ’90 cuando la ofensiva neoliberal campeaba el planeta.

En medio del jolgorio electoral del partido gobernante, Cambiemos, la aparición de un cuerpo en las aguas del río Chubut que podría ser el de Santiago Maldonado, recrudeció con virulencia el tema de la desaparición forzada de Santiago. El último trayecto de la campaña electoral quedó así, empantanado para los partidos del régimen ante la conmoción de la mayoría del país por esta noticia.

En el marco de la conmemoración del aniversario de los 100 años de la Revolución de Octubre, el camarada Alan Woods ofreció una serie de charlas en la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA) y Rosario.

Editor of marxist.com, Alan Woods, has begun a speaking tour of Latin America with meetings organized by Marxists in Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil. The tour will continue in November with a series of meetings in Mexico City, organised by Esteban Volkov (Trotsky’s grandson) and the Trotsky Museum.

On 1 August the Argentinian social activist Santiago Maldonado was abducted by the National Gendarmerie and has not been seen since. This case is linked to the repression of the land rights movement of the Mapuche indigenous people. It is part of a wider pattern of repression and attacks on social, economic and trade union rights carried out by the right-wing government of Macri.

On April 28 we saw a massive general strike in Brazil, the first in over twenty years, which we reported on, but before this, in Argentina there were dramatic events during a mass trade union rally where the union leaders were booed and shouted down and had to escape the wrath of the workers, escorted by security guards - “unprecedented” for a trade union rally in Argentina. The reason for the anger was the refusal of the leaders to fix the date for a general strike. In both Brazil and Argentina the working class is on the move. Here we provide a report from our comrades in Argentina.

More than a year since its formal application to the Labour Ministry, the new subway workers independent union, having not received an answer from the government, is appealing for international solidarity to demand the Labour Ministry to fulfill its administrative function to register this new, democratically created union.

"After 9 years of struggle we have achieved the definitive expropriation of our factory."

It would seem that the force of the wind, which was blowing at more than 60 km/hr in the Neuquén capital, was an omen of what was to come. 26 deputies supported the definitive expropriation and this sealed the declaration that the factory was of public interest and the transfer of Cerámica Zanon to the Fasinpat cooperative.

We have just received the news that the meeting the trade union bureaucracy of UTA had called on September 2nd with the aim of expelling the shop stewards representing the Buenos Aires Metro workers has been suspended.

Workers in the subways are facing an extremely grave situation: the Committee for Ethics of the Transit Workers Union of Argentina has decided to revoke the mandate of our delegates and expel them from the trade union organisation. We ask workers, social organisations, unions and political parties to send us their support and solidarity.

Due to the lack of a genuine left alternative in Argentina, the masses have voted for Cristina de Kirchner, who will continue the policies of her husband, balancing between the classes while defending the common interests of the capitalists and multinational companies. However, owing to the deep contradictions in Argentine society, this cannot last forever.

On the 30th anniversary of the military coup in Argentina, we remind you of Ted Grant's article on the Argentine Revolution first published in July 1973. As he predicted back then, “The capitalists having clutched the straw of Peronism, will turn to the stick of the generals once again.” This unfortunately is what happened a few years later with another military coup. Today’s activists must study the mistakes of the movement in the past in order not to repeat them today.