"So the people in Argentina right now who are forming workers collectives to take over factories and neighborhood assemblies are not confronting power?"

Of course the Argentinean workers are confronting capitalist power. That is why revolutionary socialist groups such as the Argentinean Worker's Party play a key role in this movement. The current state of struggle, one that includes the seizure of these factories, however, cannot be sustained indefinitely without the seizure of worker's power. The current capitalist government of Argentina, ultimately is being pushed by the IMF and the Argentinean capitalist class for an extreme crack down on the worker's movement. The failure of that government to meet the workers needs coupled with the violence they’ve already dished out against the working class is far from any type of utopia. Argentina's problems can only be resolved through a workers seizure of power smashing the capitalist state and establishing a planned economy that can meet human needs.

While the Argentinean working class movement (especially its most advanced elements) correctly places the blame for the economic crisis on the IMF, World Bank, Argentinean capitalist class, and the capitalist government; the right-wing reaction blames the workers. The following solidarity letter I wrote to the Brukman workers about a year ago.

Dear Fellow Workers,

It is with sadness and anger that I have heard the reports of the brutal police attacks on 15,000 textile workers and their supporters at the Brukman factory in Argentina. The shooting of rubber bullets and live ammunition caused injury to 32 workers.

Among those shot, and shot in the face, is Vicente Balvanera. I know Vicente from his tireless activities promoting freedom for framed political activist Mumia Abu-Jamal in the United States, his involvement the worker’s struggle in Argentina, and his promotion of the struggle for the liberation of all humanity. Recently he joined us here in Santa Cruz at the memorial of comrade Evelyn Schoenfeld.

We here in Santa Cruz hope for the speediest recovery of those shot and beaten by the Argentinean police. We also demand the release of the 125 people who were arrested and call out for justice for those who carried out this crime.

The chaos of Argentina is the direct result of the failure of capitalism. Unemployed workers, facing the collapse of the capitalist economy and doing what is logical, have seized 100 abandoned factories that are now being run under democratic worker’s control. This provides needed production to meet human needs and curtails unemployment.

Yet the capitalists are insane, or so it would seem. Yet behind their every move against humanity is cold calculated reason. For the capitalists production without capitalist profit is treason. To them it is their God given right to make parasitic profit off of all of the labor of the working class or have no production at all.

So the capitalists sent their cops out against the workers with a court order stating, "There is no supremacy of life or physical integrity over economic interests." This death sentence issued by the courts luckily, but not luckily enough, only injured and maimed people, not murdering them this time. The repressive violence of the capitalist class against those standing up in the interests of humanity is typical, but not acceptable.

The people of Argentina have suffered so deeply under the dictatorship imposed under CIA Operation Condor (headed by George Bush Senior) from 1976 to 1983. That dictatorship left the mothers of the disappeared as the only ones to speak for justice for Argentina and for their dead and tortured sons and daughters. The people of Argentina should never have to endure that same capitalist and pro-imperialist dictatorship ever again. Yet the calls for law and order by present presidential candidates point to the same threat.

All events, past and present, point to the fact that the capitalist class of Argentina is not fit to rule economically, politically, or militarily. This points to the necessity of the working class to form armed militias of self-defense to defend yourselves and your factories against the capitalist class and build a revolutionary party for the seizure of power. The capitalists, if left to their military “solutions� of “law and order�, are already preparing to put another generation of leftists and workers to death.

IMF AND WORLD BANK OUT OF ARGENTINA!

CANCEL THE IMPERIALIST DEBT!

ALL POWER TO THE WORKER’S ASAMBBLEAS OF ARGENTINA!

In the deepest solidarity to the workers,

In the deepest loathing of the capitalists and their paid agents,

Steve Argue of the Peace and Freedom Party of Santa Cruz California.