Argentina

By Jack Staunton The Hotel BAUEN in Buenos Aires, Argentina, occupied by its workers since early 2003, is under threat of eviction by the local government in an effort to return the hotel to its original owners. They charge that since the workers’ seizure of control over the hotel was illegal, it must now be returned. Dozens of other worker-managed workplaces and co-operatives in Argentina fear similar attacks, as BAUEN is a key symbol for the labour movement. Five years ago, some two hundred businesses were taken over by workers not prepared to go without work in the wake of an economic...

This is how the "victory to Argentina" section of the WSL argued their case, in their major initial statement (WSL Internal Bulletin 7, June 1982). "The class camp into which Argentina fits in a war against imperialism cannot change... We have to determine our position according to the basic class camps... The course of action followed by the proletariat in one country should be subordinated to international considerations. Difficult or not, we have to base our position on an assessment of the international meaning of the conflict. Whatever the implications of that for the Argentinian or...

In 1982, the Socialist Workers’ Party, still retaining bits of a “Third Camp” (independent working class) political tradition from its old slogan “Neither Washington nor Moscow, but international socialism”, took a roughly similar attitude on the British-Argentine war over the Falkland Islands to that of Socialist Organiser, forerunner of Workers’ Liberty. Like us, they said, in effect, “neither London nor Buenos Aires”. The 4 April 2007 Socialist Worker rewrites their position (without saying that it is doing so), the better to square it with their current politics. For the SWP 1982 position...

Part One ... And Argentine nationalism? Argentina suffered British and French intervention some 140 years ago. Modern Argentina, however, has essentially taken shape over the last 100 years. Argentina had no war of liberation. Its population is, to within one per cent, of European immigrant origin — most from immigration within the last 100 years. Its mass popular nationalism dates from the 1920s. This nationalism was, especially in its labour movement manifestations, shaped and consolidated by Peronism. Peronism was not and is not fascism. But corporatism and fascism are its essential...

By Sean Matgamna: from Workers’ Socialist Review no.2, 1982 Time and again the same quotations from Trotsky have been used to justify a pro-Argentine stance in the Falklands/Malvinas war But the main thing the quotations prove is the pro-Argentine comrades’ lack of grip on the points in dispute. Everyone in the WSL majority would agree that if the comparison with China and the other colonies and semi-colonies of the 1930s referred to by Trotsky is legitimate, then we would not invoke the character of the Argentine regime as a reason for not siding with Argentina. We could immediately arrive at...