The liberal fascist Peronist Party regained power in the October 27 Argentinean elections, as workers once again had to choose between two anti-working-class options. In this case, “center-left” president-elect Alberto Fernandez beat the free-market incumbent, Mauricio Macri. Fernandez made vague nationalist promises to reform his way out of a worsening recession and out-of-control inflation. It’s just the latest capitalist crisis in Argentina. Regardless of which political party happens to be in power, one thing is sure: the working class gets screwed.
Back on top, for the moment, is Vice President-elect and former president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the Peronists’ star populist stooge. She will take office facing 11 cases of alleged bribery, embezzlement, and money laundering. In one case, her former chauffeur testified that he stashed 40 bags of money “in the mausoleum of Mrs. Kirchner’s late husband and predecessor, Nestor, who died in 2010” (Telegraph, 10/27).
From the U.S. to China, from Ecuador to Honduras to Haiti to Iraq, the bosses are mounting “anti-corruption” campaigns to discipline their ranks and contain workers’ anger. But since capitalist relations are rooted in individualism, it’s impossible for the ruling class to completely stamp out self-interest. Moreover, capitalism is based on the theft of the value of workers’ labor. It’s inherently corrupt from the jump! Cristina Fernandez steals—whether legally or illegally under the bosses’ laws—because that is what capitalists do. As one disillusioned former Macri voter told the New York Times, “I know they are all thieves, and I’m fed up of standing by while they all steal from me” (10/27).
Only a communist revolution can put an end to the bosses’ criminality. Only communism can create a society run by and for workers—without money or exploitation, racism or sexism, imperialist rivalries or imperialist war. Only communism can point the way forward for the international working class.
The Pink Tide of poverty
In 2003, on the heels of an economic collapse triggered by the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund, Nestor Kirchner came into power. He rode the Latin American “Pink Tide,” the same capitalist reform movement that elevated Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Argentina’s “left-wing” Peronists were elected after pledging to boost social spending and to end the austerity packages tied to massive loans from the IMF. Kristina Fernandez de Kirchner succeeded her husband as president in 2007 and was re-elected four years later.
For a time, conditions for workers in Argentina improved. Millions benefited from a new universal welfare program. More money was spent on pensions and unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, the Kirchners clamped down on the country’s “traditional powers,” including landowners and mainstream media, while subjugating judges and legislators. They subjugated the country’s judges and legislators while tightening the state’s control over industry—all hallmarks of rising fascism (Stratfor, 4/9/13). Meanwhile, their administrations took bribes for favors from industrialists like Paolo Rocca, “head of the conglomerate Techint Group and one of Argentina’s richest men” (New York Times, 8/25/18).
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008, the Kirchners’ protectionist, high-tariff policies no longer worked so well. As soy and beef prices plunged, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner cut back government spending and social services, which triggered mass layoffs. By 2015, her last year in office, “inflation levels were so high that Kirchner’s government had altered official statistics” and “roughly a third of the population lived in poverty” (New Yorker, 8/28).
In the profit-driven chaos of capitalism, any gains made by workers are invariably limited and short-lived.
Fake-left frying pan, imperialist fire
Once the Kirchners’ economic “miracle” lost its sizzle, the pro-market Macri campaigned on a “zero poverty” pledge and won office in 2015. He proposed widespread privatization and went all-in for foreign investment, heavy debt, and ultimately a $57 billion bailout from the IMF, the largest loan in that bloodsucking organization’s 73-year history (Telegraph, 10/27).
Macri had wide support among business owners and big farmers, two sectors that have made China the country’s second largest trade partner, surpassing the U.S. “Chinese investments in Argentina have multiplied in … mining, oil and gas, hydropower, nuclear energy, solar energy, biodiesel, transportation, telecommunications and electronics” (Argentine Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship, 2017). Most recently, amidst the U.S.–China trade war, the two countries struck major commodity export deals, a loud warning to the U.S. of China’s growing influence in Latin America (Reuters 9/10).
As favored bosses flourished, workers in Argentina found the new Macri reforms an even bigger disaster than the old Kirchner regime. When foreign investors failed to arrive, and the U.S. Federal Reserve hiked its interest rates, the peso lost more than half its value. The country’s poverty rate is up to 35 percent, and 52 percent for children under 15 (Buenos Aires Times, 9/30). Without the Kirchners’ lavish state subsidies, utility prices have gone through the roof. In September, thousands of protestors occupied downtown Buenos Aires to protest a food emergency. While Argentina is classed as “upper-middle-income” by the World Bank, it also ranks high for inequality, “slightly worse than the United States” (BA Times, 1/28/18).
As the Nazi-loving Juan Peron [see box], the notorious founder of Peronism, once said: “It is not that we were good, but those who came after us were so bad that they made us look good” (New Yorker, 8/28).
Latin America: hotspot for insurrection
Through much of Latin America, workers are taking to the streets in violent protest against decades of austerity, U.S. imperialism, and strangulation by the IMF. Massive demonstrations have broken out in Chile and Ecuador. A strike wave has erupted amid a challenged election in Bolivia. In Ecuador, protests against an end to fuel subsidies grew so intense that President Lenin Moreno fled Quito, the capital, and moved his government to the calmer city of Guayaquil.
As the history of Argentina shows, liberal bosses are the main danger. Capitalist reforms are deceptions that pave the way for fascism. The next global war is coming—and with it, sharper attacks on our class. As communists, we must support rebelling workers around the world. Most important of all, we must destroy capitalism with communist revolution, organized and led by the Progressive Labor Party. Join us!
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Founding fascist father
As Eva Peron became a media darling and self-styled champion of the impoverished working class, her husband, Juan Peron, helped many Nazis fleeing Europe after World War II to find a safe haven in Argentina. Among them were mass- murdering fiends like Adolf Eichmann and Josef Mengele. Peron also offered a haven for German profits that were generated by the Nazi war machine (NYT, 4/4/2005).
Though Argentina was technically neutral when World War II broke out, there was broad support for the Axis powers—in part due to the country’s large Italian and German communities, in part to a tradition of sanctioned anti-Jewish racism. Argentina refused Jewish immigration during the pre-war Nazi pogroms. Peron remained loyal to the defeated Third Reich throughout his presidency (1946-55 and 1973-74). He vehemently attacked the Nuremberg Trials, which held former high-ranking Nazis accountable for war crimes. He also worked with the Catholic Church to gain amnesty for refugee Nazis who’d settled in Argentina.