-Rajesh Tyagi/ 21.2.2013
As Morenoists (LIT-CI/ IWL) presented critique of our Kashmir stance, we quickly published refutation to it. (See: http://new-wave-nw.blogspot.in/2011/03/our-viewpoint-on-kashmir-question-and.html). However this critique of theirs, which in our view emerged from a nationalist-centrist standpoint made us curious to trace the origins of Morenoism, which really require more focus in order to educate the workers and youth as to the roots and role of centrists.
We found that their stance on Kashmir, favouring the sections of Kashmiri bourgeois and opposing the independent mobilisation of the working class, is not an isolated and episodic deviation, but emerges out of their entire political trajectory, that they had followed in the foot-steps of national bourgeois in Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America.
Their critique of our stance on Kashmir is in line with their general politics from Argentina to Bosnia, the politics that tails behind the mass consciousness and thus remains oriented to petty-bourgeois which constitutes this mass, specially in backward countries.
This worship of 'masses', is virtual apology for Morenoists to kneel before the domination of bourgeois, adapting to the backwardness of mass, instead of arming the frontlines of working class and through it the masses, with a revolutionary program to overthrow the power of the bourgeois. Their tailist policy proposes to degrade the party of the proletariat from the role of a revolutionary vanguard to tutelage of the backward mass.
As we flip through the history of morenoism presented by the morenoists themselves, we find that this tendency had never remained oriented to and never relied upon the strength of the world working class. Since its emergence in Argentina, way back in 1940’s, Morenoists had remained adhered to the nationalist bourgeois regimes, forming at the most, their democratic left wings.
As their history shows Morenoism not only emerged within the confines of national frontiers of Argentina, but remained all through leaned upon nationalist-petty bourgeois conception of the revolution. Even inside the International they remained nationalists. Instead of seeking a revolutionary solution to the crisis in Argentina and later in Brazil, where they operated, in the unity of working class sections of these countries with the world working class, the Morenoists sought‘pragmatic’ solutions to the crisis in alliance with their bourgeois, betraying again and again the interests of the working class, disarming it and subjecting it to slaughter at the hands of bourgeois regimes.
They claim that they own first, second and third international under Lenin, but do not dwell, even briefly, upon the political reasons of their fall. Instead they evade the issue, by making a generalised statement repeatedly that it was absence of democratic centralism which made the Internationals degenerated. This is not the issue. Issues are the political factors- the anarchism, nationalism, social democracy, menshevism, Stalinism, Maoism and centrism, and not organisational as Morenoists repeat again and again. In clinging to their centrist positions, it is incumbent upon the centrists to evade the real political issues, that came up for debate before the world working class, between Marx and Lasalle, Lenin and Kautsky and Trotsky and Stalin.
In the whole narration of their own history, Morenoists do not whisper anything regarding the founding principles of the Fourth International, in direct struggle against the Stalinist degeneration of the Third.
Their assertion that the fourth international has ceased to exist after death of Trotsky, is contradicted not only by the history which shows that the fight for the trotskyist principles had been carried out inside the organisation of fourth international, but it demolishes their own legitimacy as part of this organisation. As their own emergence does not date back than 1940, the year of murder of Trotsky, it belies their claim then that they had been part of the FI. Their assertion about absence of a world party of working class ignores the whole history of struggle from the platform of FI, in the past 70 years for evolution of a program.
In their history their opposition to the use of term ‘trotskyism’, which in our times represents the living and revolutionary Marxism, in stark opposition to its Stalinist and Maoist degeneration, shows the attempt to discredit Marxism itself and deprive it of its arsenal it acquired over about a century of glorious struggle.
Morenoists have emphasized that the FI fought for workers democracy and power, but failed to highlight its founding spirit, its opposition to Stalinism. Fourth International and the principles for which it put up the implacable fight since 1938, is the strangulation of the world proletariat at the hands of Stalinists and Maoists. But Morenoist history does not bring up this to the fore, rather whole issue for them is democracy simpliciter.
Assertion of Morenoists that the working class ‘leads the process’ is not only insufficient but a concession to bourgeois and its lackeys- social democrats, Stalinists and Maoists. Being not oriented towards the working class Morenoists fall short of saying that in direct struggle against the bourgeois, the working class leads the revolution and establishes its dictatorship.
Morenoists say that, “reconstruction of FI is not the task of trotskyists alone, but all those who agree to the program”. This implies that apart from trotskyists there are others who agree to the program. This is again big concession to those petty-bourgeois currents who consciously stay away from the banner of Trotskyism and are in tacit understanding with their national bourgeoisie. Implicitly, it is these groups which Morenoists are indicating to, while counting upon them as revolutionary force to be relied upon. They forget the declaration of Trotsky that there are no revolutionary elements left outside the fourth international.
In their history morenoists, emphasize building of the “mass international” as main thrust of trotsky, instead of assimilating the advanced sections of the world proletariat into it and bringing focus upon defending the foundations of revolutionary Marxism against Stalinist degeneration.
De-hors to the understanding of Morenoists, mass character of the parties of proletariat, whether national or international depends upon the level of political consciousness of the working class and that demands that first of all its advanced sections ne gathered around a revolutionary program. So, it is not giving the international a mass character, but of gathering advanced elements from the world over around the axis of a revolutionary program, what is the focus of our concern. Morenoists however ignore it and orient themselves to the backward mass.
On the contrary, Morenoists have criticised themselves for their “propagandist” and “worker-ist” attitude, means for whatever limited orientation they had in their view in the past, towards the working class. So they consciously turn away from the working class to other sections of the society, that is to say to petty bourgeois sections. In fact, they had never been oriented to the working class, their proclamation is only an acceptance of the fact.
In saying that they do not consider themselves to be sole revolutionaries and do not see the advance of revolutionary movement bound up with victory of their tendency, morenoists, commit self abnegation and resign from the legitimate political existence. In saying that “it is why our history is full of ‘revolutionary’ agreements and attempted mergers and splits on national and international level", they in fact concede to that they have no revolutionary program or vision, and they are the party of opportunist centrism, joining hands with all who can be joined at different moments.
In quoting Nahuel Moreno against the leaders of fourth international, they do not point out against particular leaders, but leaders of FI in general, to discredit the movement of the FI. Here too they don’t touch upon the disputes inside FI, but make simplistic critique of absence of democracy once again. For them democratic centralism, and the not the real political disputes and their origins, is panacea for everything. Moreover, instead of criticising Pablo and Mandel for their revisionist and centrist politics, Morenoists make apology for them on the ground that they were young and inexperienced. They bring no political point for criticism at all.
In discussing the emergence of Pabloism, morenoists incorrectly bring up the point that imminence of WW-III was the issue, to obliterate the fact that Pabloism had emerged from its assumed weakness of the proletariat, strengthening of the bourgeois and its faith in Stalinism as the only viable platform after WW-II.
Their discussion on the new states in Eastern Europe fails to bring about the point as to how the subsequent developments of history have dealt with the disputes on the issue of character of these states, i.e. what they endorsed and what they had rejected.
In their history Morenoists repeatedly admit that Stalinism is responsible for stabilisation of world capitalism, but they omit to say who is responsible for Stalinism to stay in power. They are shy of admitting that if social democracy kept capitalist in power and Stalinists kept social democracy and capitalism in power, it is in fact the centrists like them inside the trotskyist movement who are ultimately responsible for keeping Stalinism in power. It is the centrists- the Pablo-ites of all shades, who after the WW-II had adapted to the strengthening of capitalism and Stalinism, becoming complacent instead of putting uncompromising struggle against them. It is for this reason that Morenoists pay lip service to Trotskyism and make cosmetic criticism of Stalinism, but fail to bring forth the traits of Stalinism and centrism. One would search in vain, through their entire history to find even a single line against centrists.
A study of Morenoist history and politics is essential for all class-conscious workers and youth who wish to understand the fatal essence of centrism inside the trotskyist movement, which in essence is twin of old Stalinism.
Nahuel Moreno had joined the Trotskyist movement in 1940 as leader of the textile workers union in Argentina. Argentine section of the Fourth International was worst affected at that time by its degeneration, under Pablo and Mandel as they had directed it to submit to the leadership of General Juan Peron. Moreno opposed Pablo’s line, but his position at that time was inspired by his factional rivalry with Posadas, the then leader of Argentine section of FI who followed the then centrist leadership of FI. After declaring himself for revolutionary positions of James P. Cannon, in 1953, Moreno soon started to look away from it and towards centrism.
By 1956, Moreno with his supporters formally entered the Peronist movement, thus initiating a process of adaptation to bourgeois nationalism, that was to become the essential characteristic of Morenoism in the times to come. Their paper declared not only its support for General peron and his superior council but it submitted itself to its discipline and decared that in headlines in the same. In the columns of this paper they continued to publish anti-communist propaganda of General Peron.
This opportunist tactics fetched ready support for Morenoism from the left wing Peronists, which swelled their ranks, only to land in crisis within two years in 1958 when Peron from his exile directed Moreno to support the right wing candidate Frondizi, for presidency. Morenoists followed this directive in letter and spirit at a time when even left wing Peronists refused to do so. At the same time, the SWP in US which was at the helm of affairs inside the FI blocked debate on it, in its zeal to reunify all pabloite factions.
Morenoist opportunism came to fore in relation to its policy on Cuba. It opposed Cuban revolution on the ground of Guerillaism, and opposed the first strike call by Castroists in 1958, as the Cuban dictator Batista was considered to be ‘Cuban Peron’ inside the peronist movement inside which Morenoists were submerged at that time.
By the early 1960’s at the time of victory of Fidel’s guerrillas in Cuba, Morenoists took a U-turn, hailing the Castro regime and falling in line with SWP welcomed it as workers’ state. Moreno declared his total allegiance to the short-lived OLAS movement set up by Castro, and defined the Castroites as “the unchallenged leadership of the continental civil war”.
Moreno justified this policy by explicitly renouncing Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution, asserting, “The dogma that the only class that can accomplish the democratic tasks is the working class is false.”
These positions prove that by the 1960s, Morenosim had defined itself as a typical petty bourgeoisie tendency whose connection to Marxism never went beyond the shouting of empty phrases. Failing to pursue an independent class line, Morenoists took turn to petty bourgeois radicalism, albeit under the banner of Trotskyism, like many other groups of its mark.
Though turned to Castroism, Moreno still refused a break with Peronism, and made all efforts to reconcile the two. His party in this period went by the name: “Peronismo Obrero Revolucionario,” and his paper, which still declared on its masthead that it functioned “under the discipline of Juan Peron,” carried pictures of Peron and Castro side by side.
In 1964 Moreno ended direct entryism in the Peronist movement. It fused with a group in northern Argentina, the Polular Indo-American Revolutionary Front, led by Mario Santucho, to form the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT, or Workers Revolutionary Party.)
Not long after, the PRT split and the majority followed Santucho to found the ERP (People's Revolutionary Army) and launching a series of armed actions: assaults and kidnappings. Moreno turned back to Peronist labor bureaucracy, while opposing the ERP.
This split came to be debated in FI ad the SWP since 1969. The SWP and FI leadership at that time being in closets with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in US, during the Vietnam anti-war protests period, both sided with Moreno. However, it was the earlier line of FI and SWP bowing to guerillaism of Castro that had led directly to the liquidation of Trotskyist cadre into ERP.
Instead of basing his opposition to ERP upon Trotskyism, Moreno’s position was of total surrender to Peronism and the bourgeois state, leading directly to the historic betrayal of the Argentine working class.
In the early 1970s, Moreno consciously set out to create a centrist party by merging with the semi defunct Socialist Party of Juan Coral and forming the PST. Moreno wrote: “The formation of a centrist party of the legal left is our main political organisational objective at the moment …. We know consciously that the organisation is the opposite of a proletarian Bolshevik organization….. That is a revealing confession that we are in the company of renegades who have rejected revolutionary Marxism.”
Morenoism was again put to test by the history in 1973 when the Argentine bourgeoisie, wrecked by crisis and confronting the prospect of open civil war, recalled General Peron to power. In the months that followed, Moreno proved completely incapable of freeing himself and his organization from its political dependence on Peron and turning resolutely to the working class. Instead of conducting itself as the revolutionary Marxist party fighting to shatter all ties between the masses and Peronism, the PST opted to act as left wing of the Peronist movement.
While becoming a supporting pillar to Peron regime, Morenoists did not forget to employ revolutionary rhetoric, even calling the regime to be serving the interests of imperialists. However with all this opposition, the PST remained loyal opposition to Peron regime. Whenever Peron regime faced any crisis the loyalist PST came to its aid. Instead of acting as a party of proletariat of Argentina, with an aim of smashing capitalism and its state, Morenoists remained a loyal left on the side of bourgeois Peronist regime. In this sense, role of PST in Argentina was far worse than POUM in Spain.
However under historical conditions entirely different from those confronted by POUM in Spain, incomparably more favorable to the proletariat in Argentina and the world over, the PST refused to break with an even more decadent version of popular frontism, i.e. Peronism. It held on desperately to the tail of the senile Bonapartism of the Peron regime, using its "left" criticisms only to disorient the masses and divert them from revolutionary struggle against Peronist bourgeois rule.
In March 1974, in the midst of an acute political crisis based on polarization of the class forces in Argentina, threatening a civil war, Peron called the counsel of eight political parties, including Morenoist PST.
Instead of aggravating the political crisis and leading the proletariat into civil war and win the power against the right wingers, PST alongside other bourgeois and Stalinist parties, signed the joint declaration and published it in March 28, 1974 issue of their paper Avanzada Socialista. The declaration read this: "The participants have confirmed their fundamental commitment to spare no effort to maintain and consolidate the process of institutionalization and consolidation of constitutional bourgeois democracy in our country within the context of the democratic system and through the practice of coexistence and constructive dialogue.... The republic has been experiencing difficult moments as a result of its confrontation with forces that have long subjected it to their pressure. But these problems will be easily surmounted by actions of solidarity conducted by sectors that respect the aspirations of the majority of the people and of the popular strata for freedom that was expressed in the elections, a freedom that guarantees their right to continue to express themselves in the future so that they can apply this liberty in practice to free themselves from the burden of imperialist domination and assure enjoyment by the workers of the benefits of the wealth created by their labor ...
It further read: "...As for those who want the constitutional system to fail or are waiting for circumstances that will permit a new reactionary adventure, those who are trying to use sectors of the regime to prejudice future options, and those who are adapting totalitarian or corporatist practices that fit in ideologically with fascist-type demands and the interests of the multinational companies that exert a constant pressure on our frontiers, all these people must realize that this country is united on the basis of a fundamental agreement and will respond to their actions."
The editorial justified participation in the meeting on the ground of the threat posed by fascist forces. It asserted that "participation in the dialogue with the president of the republic" was a "concrete step in defence of the democratic rights gained in the heroic struggle by the mobilizations of the workers and the people that have developed since the Cordobazo."
The publication of this statement evoked a protest even from the United Secretariat under Mandel, which correctly declared that the PST's participation in the conference and its signing of the joint agreement was a fundamental break with Marxism, as it accepted responsibility for the defence of the bourgeois state under the cover of defending democracy.
Moreno took turn in denying signing of the joint statement by him, saying that the bourgeois press had falsely published so, and that Avanzada Socialista had also mistakenly reported the signature of the PST.
Conscious of the opportunist move, Moreno had to admit, "We recognize that our participation in the meeting with Peron might be misunderstood by a few loyal militants and that some of our opponents might subject it to malicious mis-interpretations." He further said that their defense of "institutionalization" might be "falsely" interpreted as a defence of bourgeois democracy: Moreno said, "We acknowledge that some of the formulations we have used could have led to this impression. We might even have made the error in the current situation in Argentina of not carefully distinguishing between a given bourgeois 'structure' and the defense of democratic rights.” However this ambiguity and confusion created by it, was nothing but a centrist treachery. The fact is that Morenoists were engaged with bourgeois peronists in a double deal, on the back of working class and the revolution.
Two weeks after making this clarification, PST leaders again participated in a meeting between Peronist officials and opposition parties. The report prepared by PST of this meeting, however exposed the Morenoist opportunism to the core. The report was a justification for an alliance with Peron and a section of the “democratic” bourgeoisie against right-wing forces.
Explaining the PST's participation in meetings with bourgeois parties and Peron, the report stated: “Our party considered it obligatory to participate in all the difficult stages of this laborious process involving constitutional democracy which was initiated by Lanusse and Mor Roig and is continuing today under General Peron. The struggle has been over democratic rights: on one side, the masses fighting by means of strikes and mass mobilizations to extend these rights; on the other, various ruling figures, parties, and bourgeois sectors trying to restrict them.”
This was an obvious treachery, clearly showing that the PST was committed to the defence of Peronism with a democratic undercover. This policy of Morenoists was backstabbing of Trotsky's struggle against the Provisional Government in 1917 in Russia through popular frontism proposed by Stalinists, i.e. against any kind of unity with the “democratic sectors” of the bourgeois.
Rather than independently mobilising and arming the working class and behind it the peasantry to overthrow the bourgeois rule, Morenoists continued to rely upon palace coups. Instead of educating the working class, that the defence of democratic rights is possible only through the ruthless struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to establish a proletarian dictatorship – the PST sowed complacency with bourgeois in the minds of youth and workers, singing duets on democracy with bourgeois Peronists. It suggested that through their participation in the conferences, the bourgeois Peronists could be pressured to the left, or at least, away from the right. No illusion is there, than this, more fatal to the interests of the working class. As the bloody history of the workers movement in Latin America has proved time and again, the road to the torture chambers passes beneath the portals of such illusions.
Concealing from the masses the role of the bourgeois state itself, Coral, the then co-leader of the PST wrote, “Today the threat against the democratic conquest of the masses comes from a sector of the ruling party and the union bureaucracy.” In one stroke PST thus exempted Peron clique from the responsibility of the state of affairs inside Argentina.
Instead of calling upon the workers to address the looming political crisis with arms in hand, Morenoists presented five demands to Peron, including the demand that exploitation of people be ended and that Peron must fight fascists and Imperialists. Only a miserable gang of petty bourgeois reformists and parliamentarians would dream of presenting a list of “demands” to the leader of the capitalist state. To present the government with such demands amounted to complete abandonment of revolutionary principles. Obviously in calling upon Peron to establish socialism, the PST lost all legitimacy to appeal to workers to wage a political struggle against Peronist regime.
Once trapped in that, and failing to appeal to the workers to fight against Peron regime, who gave impunity to the fascist bands to act against the socialist minded workers and students, the PST started pitiful and coward appeals to the regime. PST wrote, “This complacentattitude of the government toward the armed bands of rightists has encouraged an escalation of general terrorism which reached a peak in the seditious action of the police in Cordoba, and which is to be seen in the assassination of students and the destruction of headquarters of political groups that is going on; all of which stirs grave uneasiness over the thread from the army to the exercise of civil liberties”. It further said, “In summary, gentlemen, the government should speedily come to grips with such flagrant contradictions as the following: Giving a speech at a peaceful assembly of workers as an act warranting arrest for 'disturbing the public order,' while kidnapping a governor and his entire cabinet, leaving a province at the mercy of armed civilians, does not constitute a crime, not even a offense!”
Still instead of accusing Peron of connivance, PST complained of mere complacence, while Peron was using fascists to put workers under check.
After the death of Peron in July 1974, the loyalist Moreno came to support his bereaved widow, Isabellita. In a meeting with Madame Peron on October 8, 1974, Coral declared: “We fully assume the responsibility that devolves on us in the present political process with the sincerity with which we have always expressed our points of view and with the sincerity that Senora President herself demanded of us in her opening speech; we have come this morning to categorically repudiate all forms of terrorism, all the manifestations of individual violence of groups that act apart from the desires and necessities of the masses, and to repudiate also that other, more general, almost institutionalized, form of violence in our country represented by coups d'etat.” Further he said, “Finally, Senora, let us say that our party considers this form of dialogue, which is unprecedented in the country, to be useful. We do not hope to alter the government's policy with a speech; but surely Senora President and the ministers have noted some of the observations we have formulated.” That was not all: Coral went on to give the official pledge of the PST that it would defend the Peronist government: “The Partido Socialists de los Trabajadores (PST!) will continue struggling against all those factors that create the putschist climate and will struggle for the continuity of this government, because it was elected by the majority of the Argentine workers and because it permits the exercise of some democratic rights that, in turn, are conquests of the workers' and people's mobilizations that have shaken the country since the Cordobazo.”
This explicit defense of the “democratic”bourgeoisie state and its government against the fascists summed up the entire bankrupt and treacherous policy of the PST, which functioned as nothing more than an appendage of Peronism. Again, this was not a careless and episodic formulation, but the central and guiding line of the Morenoite program, which the PST bitterly defended against all critics.
Repeatedly, the PST attempted to justify this position with references to the semi-oppresssed character of Argentina or with calculated mis-representations of the Bolshevik policy in 1917. What all the arguments of PST boiled down to in the end was the reactionary petty bourgeois conception, denounced by Trotsky, more than once, that the struggle against fascism entails a defense of bourgeois democracy.
The PST in defending its supine attitude towards the capitalist state, asserted: “In Argentina we have to take into account as a prime element the struggle against the foreign imperialist power; and this affects the attitude that must be adopted toward a sector of the bourgeoisie that is inclined – however weakly and undependable – to resist imperialism and its most vernal and brutal native agents. The struggle for national independence, a bourgeois democratic task, is one of our foremost considerations. In this our tasks differ from those of Trotskyists in imperialist Germany, weather in 1932 or 1974.”
This reflected the “classical” Stalinist position, against which the Trotskyist movement has fought since the 1920's. This repudiated the core idea of Trotskyism in its opposition to Menshevism defending the Provisional Government of Kerensky. The idea that from the oppressed character of Argentina there arises a democratic and anti-imperialist bourgeoisie, is the key conception upon which the PST's argument was based. And from this flowed its betrayal of the socialist revolution.
Trotsky insisted that the attitude of the national bourgeoisie to the democratic tasks is determined above all by the level of class antagonisms within the given backward country, and not from imperialist oppression in general. But the party of Morenoists clearly rejected the Trotskyist attitude towards the national bourgeoisie in a semi-oppressed country.
It is amazing that in their pernicious politics of supporting Peronist regime, Morenoists take to refuge under the Bolshevik policy of fighting Kornilov, forgetting that Bolsheviks had no complacence with Kerensky and simultaneously made preparations for overthrow of Kerensky. Fight against Kornilov was the door for the Bolsheviks to fight against Kerensky for power with arms in hands, while fight against fascists in Argentina was an apology for Morenoists to be complacent with bourgeois peronist regime.At no time did the Morenoites ever pose to the working class the necessity for overthrowing Peron and, more to the point, never did they make the slightest preparations to carry out such a policy. Instead, as Moreno wrote in one of his typically miserable rationalizations for his cowardly and opportunist policy: “Peron in exile was regarded with reverence by the Argentine working class as a whole. We had no choice but to keep this feeling in mind in all our efforts to educate the class and help it move along the lines of independent political action. To have acted in any other way would have barred us from getting a hearing.”
So strongly did the Morenoites keep this “reverence” in mind that not even Peron’s death could convince them that the time had arrived to mount a struggle against the Argentine state. Instead, they continued it even more loyally with Isabellita, forever.
The politics of PST disarmed the Argentine working class, demoralized its advanced elements, and paved the way for the coup of 1976, resulting in deaths of thousands.
Morenoists’ support to the program of Workers Aid to Bosnia, which they cite with such prominence, had played a political role subservient to Imperialism. Their support to the demand of independence for Bosnia, as counter-posed to the union of socialist states of Balkans, is totally reactionary from the point of view of the working class.
History of Morenoists, from the very inception is the history of collaboration with sections of national bourgeois, albeit on different pretexts, i.e. now to fight fascism and then imperialism, while national bourgeois continues to rely upon both imperialism and fascism, preventing the working class from taking to power.
As Morenoists (LIT-CI/ IWL) presented critique of our Kashmir stance, we quickly published refutation to it. (See: http://new-wave-nw.blogspot.in/2011/03/our-viewpoint-on-kashmir-question-and.html). However this critique of theirs, which in our view emerged from a nationalist-centrist standpoint made us curious to trace the origins of Morenoism, which really require more focus in order to educate the workers and youth as to the roots and role of centrists.
We found that their stance on Kashmir, favouring the sections of Kashmiri bourgeois and opposing the independent mobilisation of the working class, is not an isolated and episodic deviation, but emerges out of their entire political trajectory, that they had followed in the foot-steps of national bourgeois in Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America.
Their critique of our stance on Kashmir is in line with their general politics from Argentina to Bosnia, the politics that tails behind the mass consciousness and thus remains oriented to petty-bourgeois which constitutes this mass, specially in backward countries.
This worship of 'masses', is virtual apology for Morenoists to kneel before the domination of bourgeois, adapting to the backwardness of mass, instead of arming the frontlines of working class and through it the masses, with a revolutionary program to overthrow the power of the bourgeois. Their tailist policy proposes to degrade the party of the proletariat from the role of a revolutionary vanguard to tutelage of the backward mass.
As we flip through the history of morenoism presented by the morenoists themselves, we find that this tendency had never remained oriented to and never relied upon the strength of the world working class. Since its emergence in Argentina, way back in 1940’s, Morenoists had remained adhered to the nationalist bourgeois regimes, forming at the most, their democratic left wings.
As their history shows Morenoism not only emerged within the confines of national frontiers of Argentina, but remained all through leaned upon nationalist-petty bourgeois conception of the revolution. Even inside the International they remained nationalists. Instead of seeking a revolutionary solution to the crisis in Argentina and later in Brazil, where they operated, in the unity of working class sections of these countries with the world working class, the Morenoists sought‘pragmatic’ solutions to the crisis in alliance with their bourgeois, betraying again and again the interests of the working class, disarming it and subjecting it to slaughter at the hands of bourgeois regimes.
They claim that they own first, second and third international under Lenin, but do not dwell, even briefly, upon the political reasons of their fall. Instead they evade the issue, by making a generalised statement repeatedly that it was absence of democratic centralism which made the Internationals degenerated. This is not the issue. Issues are the political factors- the anarchism, nationalism, social democracy, menshevism, Stalinism, Maoism and centrism, and not organisational as Morenoists repeat again and again. In clinging to their centrist positions, it is incumbent upon the centrists to evade the real political issues, that came up for debate before the world working class, between Marx and Lasalle, Lenin and Kautsky and Trotsky and Stalin.
In the whole narration of their own history, Morenoists do not whisper anything regarding the founding principles of the Fourth International, in direct struggle against the Stalinist degeneration of the Third.
Their assertion that the fourth international has ceased to exist after death of Trotsky, is contradicted not only by the history which shows that the fight for the trotskyist principles had been carried out inside the organisation of fourth international, but it demolishes their own legitimacy as part of this organisation. As their own emergence does not date back than 1940, the year of murder of Trotsky, it belies their claim then that they had been part of the FI. Their assertion about absence of a world party of working class ignores the whole history of struggle from the platform of FI, in the past 70 years for evolution of a program.
In their history their opposition to the use of term ‘trotskyism’, which in our times represents the living and revolutionary Marxism, in stark opposition to its Stalinist and Maoist degeneration, shows the attempt to discredit Marxism itself and deprive it of its arsenal it acquired over about a century of glorious struggle.
Morenoists have emphasized that the FI fought for workers democracy and power, but failed to highlight its founding spirit, its opposition to Stalinism. Fourth International and the principles for which it put up the implacable fight since 1938, is the strangulation of the world proletariat at the hands of Stalinists and Maoists. But Morenoist history does not bring up this to the fore, rather whole issue for them is democracy simpliciter.
Assertion of Morenoists that the working class ‘leads the process’ is not only insufficient but a concession to bourgeois and its lackeys- social democrats, Stalinists and Maoists. Being not oriented towards the working class Morenoists fall short of saying that in direct struggle against the bourgeois, the working class leads the revolution and establishes its dictatorship.
Morenoists say that, “reconstruction of FI is not the task of trotskyists alone, but all those who agree to the program”. This implies that apart from trotskyists there are others who agree to the program. This is again big concession to those petty-bourgeois currents who consciously stay away from the banner of Trotskyism and are in tacit understanding with their national bourgeoisie. Implicitly, it is these groups which Morenoists are indicating to, while counting upon them as revolutionary force to be relied upon. They forget the declaration of Trotsky that there are no revolutionary elements left outside the fourth international.
In their history morenoists, emphasize building of the “mass international” as main thrust of trotsky, instead of assimilating the advanced sections of the world proletariat into it and bringing focus upon defending the foundations of revolutionary Marxism against Stalinist degeneration.
De-hors to the understanding of Morenoists, mass character of the parties of proletariat, whether national or international depends upon the level of political consciousness of the working class and that demands that first of all its advanced sections ne gathered around a revolutionary program. So, it is not giving the international a mass character, but of gathering advanced elements from the world over around the axis of a revolutionary program, what is the focus of our concern. Morenoists however ignore it and orient themselves to the backward mass.
On the contrary, Morenoists have criticised themselves for their “propagandist” and “worker-ist” attitude, means for whatever limited orientation they had in their view in the past, towards the working class. So they consciously turn away from the working class to other sections of the society, that is to say to petty bourgeois sections. In fact, they had never been oriented to the working class, their proclamation is only an acceptance of the fact.
In saying that they do not consider themselves to be sole revolutionaries and do not see the advance of revolutionary movement bound up with victory of their tendency, morenoists, commit self abnegation and resign from the legitimate political existence. In saying that “it is why our history is full of ‘revolutionary’ agreements and attempted mergers and splits on national and international level", they in fact concede to that they have no revolutionary program or vision, and they are the party of opportunist centrism, joining hands with all who can be joined at different moments.
In quoting Nahuel Moreno against the leaders of fourth international, they do not point out against particular leaders, but leaders of FI in general, to discredit the movement of the FI. Here too they don’t touch upon the disputes inside FI, but make simplistic critique of absence of democracy once again. For them democratic centralism, and the not the real political disputes and their origins, is panacea for everything. Moreover, instead of criticising Pablo and Mandel for their revisionist and centrist politics, Morenoists make apology for them on the ground that they were young and inexperienced. They bring no political point for criticism at all.
In discussing the emergence of Pabloism, morenoists incorrectly bring up the point that imminence of WW-III was the issue, to obliterate the fact that Pabloism had emerged from its assumed weakness of the proletariat, strengthening of the bourgeois and its faith in Stalinism as the only viable platform after WW-II.
Their discussion on the new states in Eastern Europe fails to bring about the point as to how the subsequent developments of history have dealt with the disputes on the issue of character of these states, i.e. what they endorsed and what they had rejected.
In their history Morenoists repeatedly admit that Stalinism is responsible for stabilisation of world capitalism, but they omit to say who is responsible for Stalinism to stay in power. They are shy of admitting that if social democracy kept capitalist in power and Stalinists kept social democracy and capitalism in power, it is in fact the centrists like them inside the trotskyist movement who are ultimately responsible for keeping Stalinism in power. It is the centrists- the Pablo-ites of all shades, who after the WW-II had adapted to the strengthening of capitalism and Stalinism, becoming complacent instead of putting uncompromising struggle against them. It is for this reason that Morenoists pay lip service to Trotskyism and make cosmetic criticism of Stalinism, but fail to bring forth the traits of Stalinism and centrism. One would search in vain, through their entire history to find even a single line against centrists.
A study of Morenoist history and politics is essential for all class-conscious workers and youth who wish to understand the fatal essence of centrism inside the trotskyist movement, which in essence is twin of old Stalinism.
Nahuel Moreno had joined the Trotskyist movement in 1940 as leader of the textile workers union in Argentina. Argentine section of the Fourth International was worst affected at that time by its degeneration, under Pablo and Mandel as they had directed it to submit to the leadership of General Juan Peron. Moreno opposed Pablo’s line, but his position at that time was inspired by his factional rivalry with Posadas, the then leader of Argentine section of FI who followed the then centrist leadership of FI. After declaring himself for revolutionary positions of James P. Cannon, in 1953, Moreno soon started to look away from it and towards centrism.
By 1956, Moreno with his supporters formally entered the Peronist movement, thus initiating a process of adaptation to bourgeois nationalism, that was to become the essential characteristic of Morenoism in the times to come. Their paper declared not only its support for General peron and his superior council but it submitted itself to its discipline and decared that in headlines in the same. In the columns of this paper they continued to publish anti-communist propaganda of General Peron.
This opportunist tactics fetched ready support for Morenoism from the left wing Peronists, which swelled their ranks, only to land in crisis within two years in 1958 when Peron from his exile directed Moreno to support the right wing candidate Frondizi, for presidency. Morenoists followed this directive in letter and spirit at a time when even left wing Peronists refused to do so. At the same time, the SWP in US which was at the helm of affairs inside the FI blocked debate on it, in its zeal to reunify all pabloite factions.
Morenoist opportunism came to fore in relation to its policy on Cuba. It opposed Cuban revolution on the ground of Guerillaism, and opposed the first strike call by Castroists in 1958, as the Cuban dictator Batista was considered to be ‘Cuban Peron’ inside the peronist movement inside which Morenoists were submerged at that time.
By the early 1960’s at the time of victory of Fidel’s guerrillas in Cuba, Morenoists took a U-turn, hailing the Castro regime and falling in line with SWP welcomed it as workers’ state. Moreno declared his total allegiance to the short-lived OLAS movement set up by Castro, and defined the Castroites as “the unchallenged leadership of the continental civil war”.
Moreno justified this policy by explicitly renouncing Trotsky's theory of the permanent revolution, asserting, “The dogma that the only class that can accomplish the democratic tasks is the working class is false.”
These positions prove that by the 1960s, Morenosim had defined itself as a typical petty bourgeoisie tendency whose connection to Marxism never went beyond the shouting of empty phrases. Failing to pursue an independent class line, Morenoists took turn to petty bourgeois radicalism, albeit under the banner of Trotskyism, like many other groups of its mark.
Though turned to Castroism, Moreno still refused a break with Peronism, and made all efforts to reconcile the two. His party in this period went by the name: “Peronismo Obrero Revolucionario,” and his paper, which still declared on its masthead that it functioned “under the discipline of Juan Peron,” carried pictures of Peron and Castro side by side.
In 1964 Moreno ended direct entryism in the Peronist movement. It fused with a group in northern Argentina, the Polular Indo-American Revolutionary Front, led by Mario Santucho, to form the Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores (PRT, or Workers Revolutionary Party.)
Not long after, the PRT split and the majority followed Santucho to found the ERP (People's Revolutionary Army) and launching a series of armed actions: assaults and kidnappings. Moreno turned back to Peronist labor bureaucracy, while opposing the ERP.
This split came to be debated in FI ad the SWP since 1969. The SWP and FI leadership at that time being in closets with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party in US, during the Vietnam anti-war protests period, both sided with Moreno. However, it was the earlier line of FI and SWP bowing to guerillaism of Castro that had led directly to the liquidation of Trotskyist cadre into ERP.
Instead of basing his opposition to ERP upon Trotskyism, Moreno’s position was of total surrender to Peronism and the bourgeois state, leading directly to the historic betrayal of the Argentine working class.
In the early 1970s, Moreno consciously set out to create a centrist party by merging with the semi defunct Socialist Party of Juan Coral and forming the PST. Moreno wrote: “The formation of a centrist party of the legal left is our main political organisational objective at the moment …. We know consciously that the organisation is the opposite of a proletarian Bolshevik organization….. That is a revealing confession that we are in the company of renegades who have rejected revolutionary Marxism.”
Morenoism was again put to test by the history in 1973 when the Argentine bourgeoisie, wrecked by crisis and confronting the prospect of open civil war, recalled General Peron to power. In the months that followed, Moreno proved completely incapable of freeing himself and his organization from its political dependence on Peron and turning resolutely to the working class. Instead of conducting itself as the revolutionary Marxist party fighting to shatter all ties between the masses and Peronism, the PST opted to act as left wing of the Peronist movement.
While becoming a supporting pillar to Peron regime, Morenoists did not forget to employ revolutionary rhetoric, even calling the regime to be serving the interests of imperialists. However with all this opposition, the PST remained loyal opposition to Peron regime. Whenever Peron regime faced any crisis the loyalist PST came to its aid. Instead of acting as a party of proletariat of Argentina, with an aim of smashing capitalism and its state, Morenoists remained a loyal left on the side of bourgeois Peronist regime. In this sense, role of PST in Argentina was far worse than POUM in Spain.
However under historical conditions entirely different from those confronted by POUM in Spain, incomparably more favorable to the proletariat in Argentina and the world over, the PST refused to break with an even more decadent version of popular frontism, i.e. Peronism. It held on desperately to the tail of the senile Bonapartism of the Peron regime, using its "left" criticisms only to disorient the masses and divert them from revolutionary struggle against Peronist bourgeois rule.
In March 1974, in the midst of an acute political crisis based on polarization of the class forces in Argentina, threatening a civil war, Peron called the counsel of eight political parties, including Morenoist PST.
Instead of aggravating the political crisis and leading the proletariat into civil war and win the power against the right wingers, PST alongside other bourgeois and Stalinist parties, signed the joint declaration and published it in March 28, 1974 issue of their paper Avanzada Socialista. The declaration read this: "The participants have confirmed their fundamental commitment to spare no effort to maintain and consolidate the process of institutionalization and consolidation of constitutional bourgeois democracy in our country within the context of the democratic system and through the practice of coexistence and constructive dialogue.... The republic has been experiencing difficult moments as a result of its confrontation with forces that have long subjected it to their pressure. But these problems will be easily surmounted by actions of solidarity conducted by sectors that respect the aspirations of the majority of the people and of the popular strata for freedom that was expressed in the elections, a freedom that guarantees their right to continue to express themselves in the future so that they can apply this liberty in practice to free themselves from the burden of imperialist domination and assure enjoyment by the workers of the benefits of the wealth created by their labor ...
It further read: "...As for those who want the constitutional system to fail or are waiting for circumstances that will permit a new reactionary adventure, those who are trying to use sectors of the regime to prejudice future options, and those who are adapting totalitarian or corporatist practices that fit in ideologically with fascist-type demands and the interests of the multinational companies that exert a constant pressure on our frontiers, all these people must realize that this country is united on the basis of a fundamental agreement and will respond to their actions."
The editorial justified participation in the meeting on the ground of the threat posed by fascist forces. It asserted that "participation in the dialogue with the president of the republic" was a "concrete step in defence of the democratic rights gained in the heroic struggle by the mobilizations of the workers and the people that have developed since the Cordobazo."
The publication of this statement evoked a protest even from the United Secretariat under Mandel, which correctly declared that the PST's participation in the conference and its signing of the joint agreement was a fundamental break with Marxism, as it accepted responsibility for the defence of the bourgeois state under the cover of defending democracy.
Moreno took turn in denying signing of the joint statement by him, saying that the bourgeois press had falsely published so, and that Avanzada Socialista had also mistakenly reported the signature of the PST.
Conscious of the opportunist move, Moreno had to admit, "We recognize that our participation in the meeting with Peron might be misunderstood by a few loyal militants and that some of our opponents might subject it to malicious mis-interpretations." He further said that their defense of "institutionalization" might be "falsely" interpreted as a defence of bourgeois democracy: Moreno said, "We acknowledge that some of the formulations we have used could have led to this impression. We might even have made the error in the current situation in Argentina of not carefully distinguishing between a given bourgeois 'structure' and the defense of democratic rights.” However this ambiguity and confusion created by it, was nothing but a centrist treachery. The fact is that Morenoists were engaged with bourgeois peronists in a double deal, on the back of working class and the revolution.
Two weeks after making this clarification, PST leaders again participated in a meeting between Peronist officials and opposition parties. The report prepared by PST of this meeting, however exposed the Morenoist opportunism to the core. The report was a justification for an alliance with Peron and a section of the “democratic” bourgeoisie against right-wing forces.
Explaining the PST's participation in meetings with bourgeois parties and Peron, the report stated: “Our party considered it obligatory to participate in all the difficult stages of this laborious process involving constitutional democracy which was initiated by Lanusse and Mor Roig and is continuing today under General Peron. The struggle has been over democratic rights: on one side, the masses fighting by means of strikes and mass mobilizations to extend these rights; on the other, various ruling figures, parties, and bourgeois sectors trying to restrict them.”
This was an obvious treachery, clearly showing that the PST was committed to the defence of Peronism with a democratic undercover. This policy of Morenoists was backstabbing of Trotsky's struggle against the Provisional Government in 1917 in Russia through popular frontism proposed by Stalinists, i.e. against any kind of unity with the “democratic sectors” of the bourgeois.
Rather than independently mobilising and arming the working class and behind it the peasantry to overthrow the bourgeois rule, Morenoists continued to rely upon palace coups. Instead of educating the working class, that the defence of democratic rights is possible only through the ruthless struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and to establish a proletarian dictatorship – the PST sowed complacency with bourgeois in the minds of youth and workers, singing duets on democracy with bourgeois Peronists. It suggested that through their participation in the conferences, the bourgeois Peronists could be pressured to the left, or at least, away from the right. No illusion is there, than this, more fatal to the interests of the working class. As the bloody history of the workers movement in Latin America has proved time and again, the road to the torture chambers passes beneath the portals of such illusions.
Concealing from the masses the role of the bourgeois state itself, Coral, the then co-leader of the PST wrote, “Today the threat against the democratic conquest of the masses comes from a sector of the ruling party and the union bureaucracy.” In one stroke PST thus exempted Peron clique from the responsibility of the state of affairs inside Argentina.
Instead of calling upon the workers to address the looming political crisis with arms in hand, Morenoists presented five demands to Peron, including the demand that exploitation of people be ended and that Peron must fight fascists and Imperialists. Only a miserable gang of petty bourgeois reformists and parliamentarians would dream of presenting a list of “demands” to the leader of the capitalist state. To present the government with such demands amounted to complete abandonment of revolutionary principles. Obviously in calling upon Peron to establish socialism, the PST lost all legitimacy to appeal to workers to wage a political struggle against Peronist regime.
Once trapped in that, and failing to appeal to the workers to fight against Peron regime, who gave impunity to the fascist bands to act against the socialist minded workers and students, the PST started pitiful and coward appeals to the regime. PST wrote, “This complacentattitude of the government toward the armed bands of rightists has encouraged an escalation of general terrorism which reached a peak in the seditious action of the police in Cordoba, and which is to be seen in the assassination of students and the destruction of headquarters of political groups that is going on; all of which stirs grave uneasiness over the thread from the army to the exercise of civil liberties”. It further said, “In summary, gentlemen, the government should speedily come to grips with such flagrant contradictions as the following: Giving a speech at a peaceful assembly of workers as an act warranting arrest for 'disturbing the public order,' while kidnapping a governor and his entire cabinet, leaving a province at the mercy of armed civilians, does not constitute a crime, not even a offense!”
Still instead of accusing Peron of connivance, PST complained of mere complacence, while Peron was using fascists to put workers under check.
After the death of Peron in July 1974, the loyalist Moreno came to support his bereaved widow, Isabellita. In a meeting with Madame Peron on October 8, 1974, Coral declared: “We fully assume the responsibility that devolves on us in the present political process with the sincerity with which we have always expressed our points of view and with the sincerity that Senora President herself demanded of us in her opening speech; we have come this morning to categorically repudiate all forms of terrorism, all the manifestations of individual violence of groups that act apart from the desires and necessities of the masses, and to repudiate also that other, more general, almost institutionalized, form of violence in our country represented by coups d'etat.” Further he said, “Finally, Senora, let us say that our party considers this form of dialogue, which is unprecedented in the country, to be useful. We do not hope to alter the government's policy with a speech; but surely Senora President and the ministers have noted some of the observations we have formulated.” That was not all: Coral went on to give the official pledge of the PST that it would defend the Peronist government: “The Partido Socialists de los Trabajadores (PST!) will continue struggling against all those factors that create the putschist climate and will struggle for the continuity of this government, because it was elected by the majority of the Argentine workers and because it permits the exercise of some democratic rights that, in turn, are conquests of the workers' and people's mobilizations that have shaken the country since the Cordobazo.”
This explicit defense of the “democratic”bourgeoisie state and its government against the fascists summed up the entire bankrupt and treacherous policy of the PST, which functioned as nothing more than an appendage of Peronism. Again, this was not a careless and episodic formulation, but the central and guiding line of the Morenoite program, which the PST bitterly defended against all critics.
Repeatedly, the PST attempted to justify this position with references to the semi-oppresssed character of Argentina or with calculated mis-representations of the Bolshevik policy in 1917. What all the arguments of PST boiled down to in the end was the reactionary petty bourgeois conception, denounced by Trotsky, more than once, that the struggle against fascism entails a defense of bourgeois democracy.
The PST in defending its supine attitude towards the capitalist state, asserted: “In Argentina we have to take into account as a prime element the struggle against the foreign imperialist power; and this affects the attitude that must be adopted toward a sector of the bourgeoisie that is inclined – however weakly and undependable – to resist imperialism and its most vernal and brutal native agents. The struggle for national independence, a bourgeois democratic task, is one of our foremost considerations. In this our tasks differ from those of Trotskyists in imperialist Germany, weather in 1932 or 1974.”
This reflected the “classical” Stalinist position, against which the Trotskyist movement has fought since the 1920's. This repudiated the core idea of Trotskyism in its opposition to Menshevism defending the Provisional Government of Kerensky. The idea that from the oppressed character of Argentina there arises a democratic and anti-imperialist bourgeoisie, is the key conception upon which the PST's argument was based. And from this flowed its betrayal of the socialist revolution.
Trotsky insisted that the attitude of the national bourgeoisie to the democratic tasks is determined above all by the level of class antagonisms within the given backward country, and not from imperialist oppression in general. But the party of Morenoists clearly rejected the Trotskyist attitude towards the national bourgeoisie in a semi-oppressed country.
It is amazing that in their pernicious politics of supporting Peronist regime, Morenoists take to refuge under the Bolshevik policy of fighting Kornilov, forgetting that Bolsheviks had no complacence with Kerensky and simultaneously made preparations for overthrow of Kerensky. Fight against Kornilov was the door for the Bolsheviks to fight against Kerensky for power with arms in hands, while fight against fascists in Argentina was an apology for Morenoists to be complacent with bourgeois peronist regime.At no time did the Morenoites ever pose to the working class the necessity for overthrowing Peron and, more to the point, never did they make the slightest preparations to carry out such a policy. Instead, as Moreno wrote in one of his typically miserable rationalizations for his cowardly and opportunist policy: “Peron in exile was regarded with reverence by the Argentine working class as a whole. We had no choice but to keep this feeling in mind in all our efforts to educate the class and help it move along the lines of independent political action. To have acted in any other way would have barred us from getting a hearing.”
So strongly did the Morenoites keep this “reverence” in mind that not even Peron’s death could convince them that the time had arrived to mount a struggle against the Argentine state. Instead, they continued it even more loyally with Isabellita, forever.
The politics of PST disarmed the Argentine working class, demoralized its advanced elements, and paved the way for the coup of 1976, resulting in deaths of thousands.
Morenoists’ support to the program of Workers Aid to Bosnia, which they cite with such prominence, had played a political role subservient to Imperialism. Their support to the demand of independence for Bosnia, as counter-posed to the union of socialist states of Balkans, is totally reactionary from the point of view of the working class.
History of Morenoists, from the very inception is the history of collaboration with sections of national bourgeois, albeit on different pretexts, i.e. now to fight fascism and then imperialism, while national bourgeois continues to rely upon both imperialism and fascism, preventing the working class from taking to power.
paragraph 10: "Morenoists have emphasized that the FI fought for workers democracy and power, but failed to highlight its founding spirit, its opposition to Stalinism. Fourth International and the principles for which it put up the implacable fight since 1938, is the strangulation of the world proletariat at the hands of Stalinists and Maoists. But Morenoist history does not bring up this to the fore, rather whole issue for them is democracy simpliciter."
ReplyDeleteWell, this fight of Fourth International against Stalinism dates back to the Left Opposition in the Russian Party, or perhaps more accurate to say the International Left Opposition, which is anyways certainly BEFORE 1938:
the fact is, Trotsky's perspectives and therefore programme re: the Soviet Union and the possibilities of reforming it - along with the Party and International, were WRoNG and so Trotsky did not call for a new International actually until 1933 after Hitler's triumph in Germany........ but the struggle was by then about 10 years old
steve revins
the best refutation of "Bolshevik collaboration with Kerensky in the face of the Kornilov attack, July 1917" is from Trotsky in My Life, as well as in his brilliant History of the Russian Revolution:
ReplyDeleteto sum it up - i cannot find it right now, the only armed forces that came out were soldiers that were allied with the soviets - Kerensky/Provisional Govt troops were nowhere to be seen!
steve revins