All language subtitles for La hora de los Hornos - 2 - Acto para la liberaci-3n(The time of liberation)-LEADER.OF.HELL-ENG

Action for Liberation

Notes, testimonials and debate
about the recent liberation struggle...

...of the Argentinean people.

Second part of:

THE HOUR OF THE FURNACES

Our thanks to the workers,
farmers, revolutionary activists...

...intellectuals, workers' unions and
people's organizations...

...who helped in the making this film.

To the Peronist proletariat,
who built the national conscience...

...of the Argentineans.

GENERAL ORDER
JULY 27, 1819

Comrades in the Andes army:
We must fight however we can.

We may have no money, but we won't
lack meat and tobacco.

When our clothes run out, we'll
wear those our women make for us,

or we'll be stark naked, like our
fellow countrymen, the Indians.

We'll be free,
and nothing else matters.

Let's swear not to stop fighting
until the country is totally free,

or else, let's die fighting
as brave men.

Tri-continental brothers:

Revolutionary violence will
put an end to imperialist crimes.

Liberation or death!

"The nature of imperialism is what
turns man into a beast".

imperialism is international
and must be fought internationally.

The Third World!

"The people defend their rights.
Neither Wessin nor the Yanks...

...nor death will stop us".

"Coexistence" with imperialism
legalises its barbarity.

Unity!

Active solidarity with the peoples
that have been attacked!

"...Many Vietnams is the objective.
To create two, ...many"

Long live internationalism
at the roots of combat!

Revolution is our greatest
cultural manifestation.

The nationalism
of the oppressed countries...

...negates the nationalism
of oppressing countries.

Motherland or death!

The destruction of imperialism
will free all men.

Death to US imperialism.

Either a socialist revolution
or a mock revolution.

The new man.

The victory for third world countries...

...will be a victory
for the whole of mankind.

Comrades, this is not just the showing
of a film,

neither is it a spectacle.

It is first of all an action...

...for the liberation of Argentina
and Latin America:

an action of
anti-imperialist unity.

There's room in it for all those
who identify with this struggle.

This is not a space for spectators,
or enemy's accomplices,

but for the only
authors and main actors...

...in the process that this film
tries to document and explain.

This film is a pretext for dialogue,

for the search,
for different wills to meet.

It's an open report that
we offer for your consideration,

for you to discuss
after the screening is over.

The most important thing...

...is to create this unitary space,

this dialogue for liberation.

Our opinions
are as valuable as yours,

and you can add to this action...

any other view or experience...

...to enrich this
chronicle of the liberation.

To finish, our comrade
narrator is going to speak.

He will update the nature of this act,
based on current circumstances.

l ask all of you,
as a first act of united will,

to pay homage to all
peoples and their armed fronts,

who are now violently fighting
imperialism and colonialism.

To politicize is to open,
waken, give birth to the spirit.

It is, as Cesaire said,
to invent souls.

Unit and committee meetings
are religious acts.

They are privileged opportunities
for man to hear and say.

"lf everybody must compromise
in the struggle for common salvation,

there are no pure hands,
nor spectators, nor innocents.

We all soil our hands
in the marshes of our land,

in the empty space
of our brains.

Every spectator is a coward
or a traitor". Frantz Fanon.

Space for the intervention
of our narrator.

CHRONICLES OF PERONISM
1945-1955

National and popular movements
were the first appearances...

...in History for most
Latin American peoples.

They were the first formulas
to break with neocolonial serfdom.

OCTOBER 17

On the 17th of October of 1945...

...the Argentinean masses burst
for the first time...

...into the national political scene.

The eternal dispossessed,
the marginalised...

...became the great actors
in our history.

The 17th of October was the start
of the current process...

...of liberation for Argentina.

Hundreds of thousands
of workers...

...spontaneously assaulted
the iron and stone city.

They submerged their feet in the
forbidden fountains...

...to the horror of civil servants
and colony administrators.

The "shirtless", who
spontaneously invaded...

...the streets of Buenos Aires,

are none other than the direct
descendants of those nationals...

...who followed San Mart�n
on the Andes,

or of the "Montoneras",
who went with Varela or El Chacho.

The people claimed that day
their leader's freedom.

The 17th of October
marked the birth of Per�n.

Per�n emerged as the
national expression...

...for a people determined to achieve
their definitive independence.

Evita, as the flag carrier for the
lowest and most exploited layers.

The working people are
the motherland's humble people...

who are standing here
and in the whole country...

...will follow Per�n, as he has risen
the flag of redemption...

...and justice for
the working masses.

They'll follow him against
oppression from inside and outside traitors.

Because l want my people to know...

...that we are all
willing to die for Per�n.

And let the traitors know...

...that we will no longer
present to them,

...as Per�n did
on the 28th of September.

We will die while taking justice
in our own hands.

The enemy is lurking...

...he never forgives.

And those who would sell the country
for a few coins...

...are also lurking,

to strike at any moment.

But we are the people,

and l know that if
the people are vigilant,

we are invincible,

because we are
the motherland itself.

Peronism came to put an end to
the remains of an infamous decade.

The era that started in 1930...

...with the oligarchic military
dictatorship...

...that overthrew Irigoyen.

The years of national corruption,

and soup kitchens,

ignominious frauds,

and assassins paid
by the committee.

A time when
Argentinean politics were managed...

...between the British embassy
and the army.

A shameless handover
of the national wealth.

Intellectualism, Pseudo-leftism
and Peronism.

What was the world in 1945?

The inter-imperialist war
was ending.

A new parting of the
world was starting.

The Chinese Revolution
did not exist,

nor the so-called popular
democracies.

The Arab countries had not
freed themselves.

India was not yet
a republic.

Colonialism ruled in most
of Asia and Africa.

In the name of Marxism...

...the idea was encouraged that
Soviet and US armies...

...marched together
for the liberation...

...of all peoples.

The Third World
was hardly an active project.

What did the rise of Peronism
mean at that time ?

Peronism was a preceding fact,

and a new one in our country.

The Argentinean intellectuals...

...would lose direction again,

as with the "Montoneras"
and Irigoyenism.

The justicialist revolution was to
challenge all their preconceptions.

It wasn't fronted by
a clear leadership,

but a group of military men.

No red flags were raised,

but Argentinean
blue and white flags.

How could this not worry...

...an intellectual sector...

dependant on European
revolutionary models?

In 1945, the intellectuals were not
involved with the national needs.

In those days, the university
federation...

...declared a mourning for
Roosevelt's death,

and Borges praised the Allies.

One was either with
the Allies, or a Nazi...

...never an Argentinean.

Anything "national" was
alarming and suspicious.

The middle classes,
influenced by the intellectuals...

...and with the neocolonial blessing,

saw in Peronism just a...

...Nazi-fascist-falangist
conspiracy.

The Communist Party leaders...

...called it a clan of the "classless",

of prostitutes and rogues.

They joined with
antinational groups...

...in the Democratic Union Front.

"We are going to witness the
solemn creation of the...

Democratic Union.

Rodolfo Guioldi, leader of the
Communist Party will now speak".

"The people will vote for the
Democratic Union formula because:

First, it will mean a constitutional
normalization,

and a democratic peace
process for the Argentineans.

Second, its program will guarantee
the progress of the nation...

...and wellbeing for the people.

Voting for this formula, the people
will beat the Nazi-fascist axis...

...in the Argentinean Republic".

"From the Progressive Democratic
Party, Dr. D�az Arana:"

The Progressive Democratic Party...

...has long stood for...

...the need of uniting
the democratic forces...

...to recover,
through common action...

...the constitutional normality
and a fully democratic regime...

...not subjugated by
dictatorship.

Those who could write...

...had nothing to say.

They marched arm in arm...

...cheered by US ambassador Braden.

Those still illiterate...

...wrote alone, through action,
the National Liberation.

That old sing-song of
"yes to shoes, no to books"

would be the fair response
from the people...

...to the removed and
foreign-influenced intellectuals.

The movement was
seizing the power...

...lacking in a National
Revolutionary intellectualism.

The phenomenon of a
dependant intellectualism...

...occurred in Argentina
both in the left and the right.

The socialist party conformed
to the liberal models...

...of European
Social Democracy.

The Communist Party followed
the ill international precepts.

The so called "Popular Fronts",
with the bourgeoisie,

"Centrism" and Browderism...

...were political expressions
of Stalinism.

J. Abelardo Ramos says:

"Stalinism has never supported
truly national movements...

...in Latin America, but rather,
antinational coalitions.

Due to those politics,
from 1945 in Argentina...

...the words Communism, Marxism
and Socialism...

...were synonyms with treason
for the proletariat...

...through no fault of real
Communism, Marxism and Socialism.

Peronism in Power.

Peronism displaced oligarchy
and imperialism from power,

causing their first great defeat
in the history of the country.

The mass movement, that reached
power in a few months...

...originated from very particular...

...national and international
circumstances.

The strong proletariat and bourgeoisie
created by industrial development...

...didn't feel represented
by the traditional parties.

A national army and a leader:

Per�n, brought together
those new forces,

at a good time
for Argentinean economy.

The National Front
was constituted by the army,

some sectors of
the industrial bourgeoisie,

the church, the middle classes
from inner regions,

rural workers, and the
whole of the young proletariat.

Three flags unified
the movement:

Economic independence,
political sovereignty, and...

...social justice.

Peronism is the attempt to
go from a semi-colony of shepherds...

...to an independent nation.

This attempt was carried out
by a movement...

...whose axis was
the proletariat...

...and for whom the
revolution of 1945...

...had a deeply
anti-imperialist meaning.

Per�n did not assume power
as a Marxist,

but as a national politician...

...forced to improvise politics...

...and a party.

He was the embodiment of
a force of the masses,

still too historically immature
to be anything different from...

...a national movement
and its leader.

The movement's
popular nationalism...

...unleashed in 1945
the most advanced...

...liberation process
that at that time...

...could take place in our country.

1945-1955: Ten years of
national democracy.

For the first time, the whole
external debt is brought home,

and no deals are signed
with imperialist countries.

External commerce is centralized.

industry is protected.

High wages.
No unemployment.

The central bank is nationalized,
as are railways, gas, telephone,

public services and bank credits.

Women vote for the first time.

A Workers Single Central and
industrial unions are established.

76,000 public works.

More schools are built in 10 years...

...than in one and a half centuries
of national history.

Contradictions of a
national movement.

A national and popular
movement in power...

...implies deep contradictions:

some external, in fighting
imperialism and oligarchy,

others internal, due to the many
social classes integrating it.

The multi-class base
of the movement,

which had been its strength in 1945,
would later be its weakness.

industrial bourgeoisie was
accommodative...

...and had no
national consciousness.

It was more scared by
the proletariat's demands...

...than by submission
to imperialism.

Peronism had taken the power
from the oligarchy,

but it had inside
the oligarchy's allies.

So, the oligarchic economic power
remained the same.

The old regime's institutions
were not substantially modified.

A national revolution that...

...doesn't eliminate its main
contradiction with the enemy...

...is weakened by its
internal contradictions.

Its politics become hesitant.

It attacks the oligarchy,

but does not eliminate its
underlying base.

It calls for social revolution,

but doesn't fully carry out
the national revolution.

It oscillates
between a people's democracy...

...and a bureaucracy�s dictatorship.

Crisis in the Peronist Circle.

From 1950...

...the circumstances that made
the National Front possible...

...disappeared.

Political and union leaderships...

entered a clear
bureaucratization process.

Evita died then...

...and the movement
lost its most combative figure.

The proletariat was unwilling
to face the problems alone.

The class struggle,
contained for some time,

started to show
within the movement.

In 1955, the National Front
finally divided itself completely.

The church,
some sections of the army...

...and the whole of the bourgeoisie
surrendered to the oligarchy...

...and became an enemy
of the revolution.

The party was
a bureaucratic fiction.

The lack of a revolutionary
organization and leadership...

was the movement's
weakness.

Without this,
any mass organization...

...is an easy target
for the enemy.

On 16th June 1955...

...aircraft supported
by some navy units...

...attacked the government house
and the city centre.

As in 1945, workers suddenly
left their factories,

and flooded into the city...

...to support Per�n.

For the first time
in the country's history,

civilians were the target
of a mass bombing.

They demanded weapons
from the army, to no avail.

Provided with old shotguns,
sticks and tiles...

...they tried to assault
the Navy Ministry...

...and were repelled
by Gorilla machine guns.

The workers collaborated
with the army...

...in a battle lasting
just a few hours.

The movement had gone through
its first blood and fire ordeal.

The victory cost
over 300 civilian deaths.

A few days later...

...Per�n requested a ceasefire
from the enemy.

"...Very consternated by the facts
and circumstances...

...we offer an open hand
in good faith...

...hoping that our enemy
will hold on to it.

To prove our good will,

and our discipline in the party,
l ask from all our members...

...a political ceasefire.

We will await the results
from this sincere call...

...staying calm in the face of
comments that will surely be made...

...in ill-meaning factions.

As in our past ordeals...

...the way to act is the same:

from home to work,
and back home again.

Always alert and watching.

But a country divided in two
does not accept ceasefires.

On the 31st of August...

...Per�n resigned to the presidency.

The people
took to the streets again,

and forced him to
withdraw his resignation.

In the meantime, the oligarchy
prepared their strike.

The most significant groups of the left
joined Peronism...

...when it was too late.

Per�n was isolated
by a servile bureaucracy,

who was already
making deals with the enemy.

The army deserted him.

From the balconies at
the government house...

Per�n invited the movement
to fight the oligarchy.

That would be his last speech
to the people.

How long ago...

...did this Mayo Square...

...witness yet another infamy...

from the enemies of the people?

They will look for
countless excuses

Reasons of freedom,
justice, religion...

...but what they want
is one thing only:

to bring the situation
back to 1943.

To violence, we must respond
with even greater violence.

The way to act for every
Peronist,

whether isolated or
within an organization...

...is to respond to a violent action
with even greater violence.

And when one of ours
goes down...

...five of theirs will
fall too.

Either we fight to
consolidate...

...what we have achieved...

...or the oligarchy will
destroy the country.

Everyone of you must
remember:

The word now is "fight"...

...and we are going to fight
everywhere!

To finish, l want to remind
all of you...

...that today begins for us
a new armed vigilance.

We all must consider...

...that the people's fight
is on our shoulders...

...and show everyday
in all our actions...

...the necessary will
to save the people's fight.

The National Defeat.

A few days later, the army
removed Per�n from power.

The only base left
for the movement...

...was the organized proletariat,

and some middle class
sectors.

Peronism went down
without a fight.

The CGT, which a few days before
called for workers' militias...

...now made announcements
calling for peace.

The Peronist high council
did the same.

The points of resistance...

...erected in some workers'
neighborhoods...

...were easily annihilated
by the army.

On a gray and desolate day...

...a formerly national army,
now a "Gorilla"...

...occupied the city.

Why did Peron abandon
power?

How could a government
with two thirds of the votes...

...go down without a fight?

Was it Peron's error
not to arm his people?

He could have done.

Was the movement ready
for a civil war?

In what direction?

With what organization?

The rest is a chronicle.

The Gorilla Party.

The city of stone and iron
celebrated.

Rural society sang
their victory on the streets.

The shops closed.

Flags were ordered to hang
from all churches.

The Vatican flag was cheered
by liberals at Mayo Square.

Again, Argentinean intellectuals
were serving the enemy.

The Argentinean writers' society
greeted Peron's fall.

The University Federation said:

"Let today's joy and anxiety...

...give us the measure
of our responsibility."

The Socialist Party said:

"We greet the great
liberation effort...

...that the Argentinean people
have just made."

Victorio Codovila,
leader of the Communist Party said:

"This revolution is positive as it
removed a fascist...

...dictatorial regime."

Ernesto San Martino,
a radical leader...

...who in the past had compared
the people to a zoological horde...

...said:

l believe the Party
must fight united.

Radicalism is the only organic,
serious and responsible solution...

...that the country expects
after this deep political, social...

...and moral crisis
that has shaken the Republic.

The Liberator's Violence.

Meanwhile, the system
plans its violence.

The Congress will be dissolved.

Peronism will be persecuted,
and there will be a ban...

...on mentioning, publishing
or exhibiting its symbols.

There will be an attempt
to erase...

...10 years of history
from the people's memory.

150,000 trade union leaders
will be suspended.

Tens of thousands
will be arrested.

Many of them will be sent
to the Patagonia.

The trade unions, assaulted by the
army and civil "gorilla" commandos,

4,000 teachers and university clerks,

will be suspended
without any trial.

Raul Previs will set the grounds
for an economic plan...

...based on free market.

At the time of Peron's fall
there was no external debt.

10 years later, the debt
will reach 6,000 million dollars.

The lMF will start to influence
national economic measures.

The economy will start
a de-nationalization process,

and the Constitution of 1949,
which granted the rights...

...of workers, family, the elderly,
education and culture...

...will be abolished.

The violent decade
was about to start.

Reflections for a Dialogue.

The defeat of 1955 was the defeat
of the most advanced attempt...

...for a national multiclass front
in Argentina.

The inability of the bourgeoisie to
carry out the liberation process...

...was blatant.

The defeat of 1955 shows again that
the fight for national liberation...

...cannot be separated from
the class struggle,

that there is no winning
national revolution...

...if it is not also
a social revolution.

It is important to look into the past
to extract critical conclusions...

...to reinforce the present struggle:

only those within the battles
will lose or win them.

A national movement's limitations
can only be dealt with from inside,

through the struggle for national
and social liberation.

While in power, Peronism
can be blamed for making errors,

but these can only by judged
within the limitations...

...of a given historical moment.

In September 1955,

it had been one year since American
mercenaries had invaded Guatemala

and defeated the government
elected by the people.

Vargas committed suicide in Brazil
blaming imperialism.

One year later, Fidel Castro
unloaded in Playa Giron.

Two years later, the war in Algeria
shook the world.

Five years for the name of
Lumumba...

to take a continental importance
in Africa.

Five years...

for Cuba to be the first free
state of America

The justicialist revolution was only
one additional expression

of the continental revolution,

which was also ocurring in
Mexico, Bolivia, Guatemala,

and which would gain its first great
victory against imperialism in Cuba.

THE RESISTANCE

Comrades,

In facing the realization of this film,
our intention was to collect

information on the fights carried out
by our people starting from 1955.

We knew that this information had been
diminished by the system

and did not appear in the official files,

nor in the libraries,
nor in the cineclubs.

But we discovered that the popular
organizations themselves, trade unions

and even political organizations,
did not have the necessary information

How could this be?

Is it the organizations? The restricted
number of national intellectuals?

In a certain way, yes.

A people not yet free

cannot gather information

nor crystallize solid ideas,

or conclusions, of a fight not
yet defined.

The urgency that imposes
the immediate struggle,

does not make the people conscious of
the importance of the constant battle.

The history remains in
the collective subconscious.

That's why we have directed our research
towards this collective memory

while speaking with workers,
activists,

of the trade-union, and political leaders,

of the peasants, the students and
the employees.

The experience made showed us

the distance between
the intellectuals and the people.

Many comrades avoided
speaking out

for fear of reprisals of the system,
certainly,

but especially natural distrust.
We had to show

that there existed in the country
a nationalized intellectual substrata

and that others are on
this path.

The reality of working clandestinely,

certainly did not facilitate easier
access to information

In spite of that, we bring to
you here

the elements, the notes, the
experiences,

to submit them your consideration,
comrades.

The purpose of this compilation

is to draw certain conclusions
at the end of the projection

about the most effective way
to conduct the fight today.

SPONTANEITY

As we said in the story
about Peronism,

September 1955 is only one
tactical defeat

in a long war of liberation.

Spontaneously, the proletariat went
down in the streets

to show that it was not
overcome.

The flags were torn off

from those who believed they
were jubilant.

The young people climbed
the short wall

and withdrew the flags from
the balconies.

Many trucks full of people came

and some leaders came
in a car

They said "Guys, do not go to the bridge
the army is there"

but no one listened,

enthusiasm was at its highest.

suddenly there were people
on horses.

The comrade, member of the
textile union,

speaks about the first
spontaneous demonstration

which took place in Buenos Aires
on September 1955,

on the same day that the Oligarchy
took over power

... we moved towards the bridge
and started to shout:

Mayo Square!
Mayo Square!

as if we wanted to revive
the 17th October 1945.

And we arrived at the bridge,
but the army was already there.

On seeing the soldiers,
the people stopped.

and the army began to shoot,

and people fled...
then someone said:

"they are firing with blanks
Let's go forward

Let's shout: Viva Per�n!

Enthusiasm was at its highest.

However they did not fire
with blanks.

but with live ammunition as
we could see

holes in the walls and asphalt!

It became serious...
Some fell...

I remember someone
who was in front of us

I do not know what happened to him,
but he fell down.

and did not get up again.

Then the commotion began

We were a good thousand.

Our enthusiasm was at its peak.
but each of us was alone,

because we did not know
what we wanted to do.

everyone had followed the
demonstration

We were numerous,
we wanted to do something,

but we did not have orders,
of any kind.

We did not know

how to attack, retreat.

Essentially, we did not know
how to fight

There was no one to
lead us.

everything was spontaneous.

people fled on all sides.
- Without an adequate organization,

people joined in resistance by
spontaneous mobilization

Peronism had given to
this mobilization

a national cohesion, an objective.

During the last decade,

this spontaneous movement became the
great virtue of the Argentinean masses.

It didn't try to reform the system,
but to destroy it.

The goal of all the political struggles
and trade-unions

were to re-conquer the power
for the people.

Action always came before a
theoretical formulation.

It was insolent, disrespectful.

It was ignorant of the old theoreticians
of the revolution.

Instead of fixed ideology,
it had the advantage

of being a project of an ideology,
of seeking, of invention

THE UNDERGROUND

The experience of comrade
Martiniano Martin

leader of two automobile
unions,

was identical to that of all the
Argentinean proletariat.

From 1955 to date there was a
fundamental change

In 1955 one did not know
the labour laws.

One went to the trade union and
made a complaint.

If there was a problem,

the functionaries would say
"pay him his due, he is entitled"

And that was it.

But after 1955, we could file a
complaint, as we wanted

but there were no more delegations,
they were out,

there were only pursuits
and arrests.

Many comrades had to leave the country and
ask the neighboring countries for asylum.

Our comrades were afraid because
of the constant persecution.

One even feared to confide
between comrades,

for fear the other would
denounce you

with the personnel manager,
which meant persecution.

That is to say, to be taken
from your bed at midnight

and to find yourself in the street
with your children.

Then we began a resistance, we organized
a clandestine resistance.

We met at coffee bars,
or at comrades' homes

with the risk of being caught
by the police.

Very often, we even organized the
resistance while in prison,

when the comrades were
arrested

we somehow tried through
intermediaries,

to continue our activities.

By any means....
Many comrades

died in prison

many struck down by the police.

But in two years, we obtained
the restoration of the Confederation

General of Work. Angel Taborda,
trade unionist

I worked in metallurgy.
I remember that each day

patrols came to teach a lesson to
one of the directors,

a comrade of the board of management
or commissioner of the company.

And they tried..... they took them,
they came, to punish them

Because they were told there was
a Peronist resistance group there.

I remember that the police force
had once tried...

there was a bust of Evita...

The resistance entered a new stage
of the national struggle,

which would become the first
act of the underground movement

During this fight, the proletariat
invented, or discovered,

some forms of resistance which
it had never applied before.

CHRONICLE 1955 - 1959

Peronism constitutes a
cursed event

for the political system.

Supported by the trade-union
organizations

it would cause, during the last 10 years,

the most serious crises of the
democratic-liberal institutions.

Around the world, the Argentinean
proletariat was seen as

carrying out the greatest number of
politico-trade-union fights.

After the 1955 coup d'etat,

the country seems to have been
occupied by an invading army.

Tanks, soldiers, gendarmes,

occupy the streets, evacuate
the factories,

mobilize against trade unions

In the underground, the proletariat
organize the first few strikes.

General Confederation of Labour calls for
a nation-wide strike on November 1955.

Later, the metal workers' strike will
last 50 days and will cost the dismissal

of 30.000 workers and the arrest
of 2.000 activists and delegates.

Each mobilization of the proletariat
leads to the hardest of repressions.

On June 1956, on the waste
ground of L�on Suarez,

many national militants were shot
without legal procedure

In spite of the repression,

in 1957, 252 trade-union strikes
were organized,

most of them were
national strikes.

And 397 strikes in 1959.

The gorilla revolution
calls for new elections.

The forbidden Peronists deliver
the voting cards blank

and obtain a majority
of the votes.

The trade unions...

are the principal bastions of the
movement in each meeting.

In 1958, the Peronist vote
allow Frondizi to win.

That same year, the
oil industry goes on strike

and in the confederation of trade unions,
there is resistance

against the contracts signed by
Frondizi with the imperialists.

Some time before, sixty-two
organizations,

which emerged after the General Confederation
of Labour's intervention,

approved the "Falda"
program in Cordoba.

This program proposed...

the liquidation of the foreign
monopolies,

expropriation of large estates,

the cancellation of treaties that were
hindering the national economy,

nationalization of the main
sources of our economy,

workers' control on production
and trade.

THE TRADE UNIONS

In 1955, Argentinean trade
unions

ceased being semi-public
institutions

and transformed into authentic
engines of resistance,

becoming for the proletariat the first
school, its only university.

Many comrades have entered
the struggle,

but we shouldn't fool ourselves.

The working class no longer had
a political party

after the fall of Per�n.

A legal party, I mean to say, by the means
of his legal organizations.

The trade unions,
could only carry out

limited action.

Delegates, trade union
leaders, constituted

the only forward looking intellectuals
from which the movement could profit

In a neo-colonized country like Argentina
in the last decade,

the trade unions had a
double role

Of organization and political party

Victor Guilder, nationalist militant

...where the minimum demand is to
shake the whole system

and disturb the economic, social
and political equilibrium.

Very different from developed,
independent countries

where the different sectors in
the political fight

arise relatively independently,
with their own demands,

which can be in conformity
with those of power.

Here that's not the case. On the contrary,
many have tried

to equate our situation with one of
a developed country

hiding the real goals of the workers movement
while wanting to make us believe

that we were in an independent country,
whereas we are

underdeveloped, dependent and colonized.

And the trade unions wanted
to be limited to an impossible reformism

because of the economic situation

of the working class.

The failure in Argentina of the parties
of the left and the supposedly popular parties

made it possible for the trade
unions to replace

what they had not known

in solidarity for the great mass
of the workers.

Angel Perelman one of the founders of
the union of the metal-workers

Argentinean trade unionism

does not fight solely for wages.

we dream and believe particularly in
the possibility

of a large national social revolution,

in favour of the working class

and of the entire country,

for which we have fought
since independence.

It has been thousands of years already

A patriarch named Job said...

Militia est vita hominis super terram..,

...the life of humans on earth is
a continual fight.

Raimondo Ongaro, Recently Appointed
Secretary-general

of the New General Confederation of Work(CGT),
in March 1969.

We can't speak only about the role
which trade unionism must hold,

because today we live at a
time of mobilization

of combat, in an emergency state.

What would it accomplish

to have rich trade unions,
having important properties,

and certain sectors of workers

profiting from right living conditions,
elevated, worthy,

in a poor fatherland,

in a dependent country

in a nation

... whose people are poor,
people who miss

all these goods that civilization

regards as essential for each citizen,
each individual?

That's why we hold to heart
a definition of trade unionism

which thinks according to an
Argentinean dimension

which includes the entire country
and not the restricted zone of a trade union.

Everything else is old history;

In a country which does
not develop itself,

nobody can develop themselves,

neither as a group nor a human.

Those of us who are ready
to write history,

have the same animated spirit,

that these men who, in the catacombs,
faced the governments

faced the power and the
lion's dens.

the weapons and the methods of
repression are modernized.

The blood of the worthy
Argentinean is ready

disposed to rebel against
all repression

...they will not be made
to kneel down

We believe that the rifles

...of those who want to shoot
us will miss

because there will always remain Argentineans
disposed to fight

to achieve the will of the
Argentineans.

ERA OF DEVELOPMENT

This same middle-class which, in 1955,
had accepted oligarchic hegemony,

tried with Frondizi, 3 years later,
an intermediate policy,

aiming at harnessing the
proletariat

In new industrial sectors.

Integration seeks to involve

some sectors of the peronism

in an initiative which favours only the
middle-class related to imperialism

Frondizi personifies the most obvious,
bourgeois opportunism

Naively, the policy of development

hoped to find in the USA, a
generous sponsor

like the old Oligarchy had
found in England.

The outcome of this
policy were

the promotion of the private
free enterprises

and open doors for
foreign capital,

privatization of national
enterprises,

liquidation and removal
of small industry,

subjection to the
International Monetary Fund,

and a repression against
the people.

Compatible with the interests
of the investors

Popular resistance had
not been

forseen by the hypothetical
Kennedyenne development.

In January 1959, the slaughter-house
workers went on strike

and occupied it to prevent its
return to private management.

The police force, in
armored cars,

evacuated the buildings,
crushing resistance

Three months later, it's the bank
clerks who strike for sixty days.

100 employees find themselves
imprisoned in the barracks.

Students also take part
in the fight.

During this year, there are
250 student protests.

Never, as in 1959, had the proletariat
trusted so much in its own force.

Never as in the course of
this year

had the limits of various directions of
politico union activists

become so obvious.

In 1959, the fight for
popular power

became extremely violent.

Peronism combined the trade
union struggle with terrorism

sabotage and military action.

The first guerillas entered into action in
Tucuman under the command of Uturunco

General lniguez

sponsored the military
mutiny of Rosario.

the tanks of the shell oil company
in Cordoba are blown up a little later

and more than 300 million
liters of fuel burn.

The repression of the police

which bore the name of,
Plan Conintes,

led to brutal tortures and murders

The resistance against the force
of the system did not diminish

From 1959 to 1964,

one can count 1400 acts of
terrorism and sabotage.

The Peronist terrorist tactics do not
succeed in conquering the power

but succeed in avoiding, between
1959 and 1962,

The integrationist traps
of Frondizism,

to which certain sectors of the
national movement belonged.

Frondizi, like Betancourt,
Haya de la Torre,

Figueres and so many others,

symbolize the sterility of
the Latin American Bourgeoisie,

their historical death.

THE MIDDLE CLASS AND INTELLECTUALS

The fight of the mass movements

started to weaken the
antinational front

which had seized power
from them.

The oligarchy

lost its traditional influence on
the middle class.

There developed, and
strengthened gradually

in the intellectual circles

the idea to understand
Argentina like a nation.

It seems important to me, to explain
the role of the intellectual in Argentina,

in particular the intellectuals
of the left.

Franco Moni, writer, journalist.

until today the left-wing
intellectuals in Argentina

did not play any serious part,

no coherent role of the left
or revolutionary.

it was a very elegant alibi of the system,
playing his game

the system incorporated it.

Why did he not understand

the most brilliant moments
of the Argentine people?

Why was the intellectual of
the left not tied,

for example, with the
Peronist process?

Because he always thinks in the
shadow of old Europe,

That hands are dirty or clean.

I believe it is time to clear up
this old problem,

of the conscience, of purity,
of the Oedipus complex.

As long as the Argentinean left

operates under this shadow
created by Europe

besides being magnificently
propagated by our system

and liberal education,

quite simply it has
no purpose.

THE MILITARY

the provincial elections of 1962
surprise the military.

the Secretary-General of the textile
trade union, Andres Framini,

is elected governor of the
most important province in the country

Buenos Aires.

The army intervenes,
and cancels the elections

overturnes Frondizi,
dissolves the national congress

and places an assistant
like a president: Guido.

The national movement is unable
to uphold the will of the people.

Large sectors of the movement
had done nothing except

that to engage in an electoral game
which was completely fraud.

The facade of the bourgeoisie
had already begun to crumble long before.

The only two times,
in 1916 and 1946

when the government

was elected by the people,

it was reversed by a
military coup.

The continual action of P�ronism
till 1962 places the power

in a difficult crisis.

Its greatest concern is

to find the best way to
neutralize the movement

From 1962, the trade unions begin
a new form of resistance:

The occupation of factories.

The confederation of trade unions,
deepens in 1964,

the so called "Conflict Plan".

For the first time in Latin
American history,

a thousand premises are
occupied simultaneously.

More than three million workers
take part in these occupations.

1964 is also

the year, in which Per�n
tries to return.

the Brazilian military force it,
obeying instructions from the Pentagon

to return him from exile.

It is in 1964 that new groups
of Guerillas appear

who are decimated, before
they even enter into action

the most intense battles at this time
are by the proletariat of the interior

with strikes, occupations
and hunger strikes

The P�ronists victory
at the 1965 elections

shakes the system again.

To counter the threat of another
P�ronist success, in 1967

the army decides to forestall them
becoming an arm the government.

It becomes
the government itself.

The only thing the Communist
and Socialist parties can do

is to ask for the...

democratic-civil institutions
to be maintained.

The local center of Peronism

place their hopes in allegedly
nationalist sectors of the army

however the goals of the so called
Argentine revolution

soon become obvious.

By prohibiting the political
parties

they do not want to limit
the generous freedom

that the civil parties
enjoy

but to suffocate the
Peronist movement.

By dismantling the autonomy
of the universities,

they want to act against
the radicalization

of important sectors
of the middle class.

By the continued threat
of an intervention,

in opposition to the confederation
of trade unions,

it wants to push then into an
open collaboration

with the system in place to give
the victory to neocolonialism

THE STUDENT MOVEMENT

Leader of the new reform
movement

What are the most
important actions

of the student movement in
the last ten years?

In the first place..

one can establish the great force
of mobilization of student movements.

It is also important to see,

that this fight has been directed
towards only one political direction

with liberal goals,

established by facts

such as for example in 1955

when they were deceived by the oligarchy
to contain the popular movement.

The great strike of 1958,

with more than 100.000 students

was about the issue of
"liberal or national training"'

while Frondizi sold off the
riches of Argentina

to imperialist Yankees.

In the more recent battles,
in 1964/65

the student movement perceived
a new reality

and realized that it was to deviate
from its old positions

to stick to the most important
question of the moment:

anti-imperialism or colonial
dependence.

Octavio Getino questioned of
Julio Barbarao, a student

how he sees the current situation
of the student movement

after the last coup d'etat.

I think that the coup d'etat
contributed,

..like all the means which
the right wing tested

to a slow down the historical
development

and in the final analysis,
the revolutionary process

that is, it forced us students
to leave our island.

For most of us, who come from
a Christian background,

we break the patterns and
return to the origin

this situation has really important
and interesting aspects for us.

We collaborate with people
who come from Marxism

from orthodox Marxism,
the Marxism

which is regarded as
the historical axis

with those who reason
with old values

and with the peronists
revolutionary groups.

These three currents will fight together
with the people

for national liberation.

Roberto Grabois, leader of the
student national front,

talk about the current political position
of the student movement

Perhaps we could say

that what characterizes the process
of the student movement

comes from the nature
of the universities

in other words, the fight
for great ideals,

which conform to a narrow, specific
prospect for the students

and to a paternalistic type with respect
to the popular movement

towards a national conscience,
together with the...

popular movement.

Conscience that the fight for
a liberated fatherland,

a socialist fatherland, inevitably
implies our fusion

with the essential axis of the
Argentinean revolution

which is the working class

not understood as
an abstraction,

but understood by its
battles and its feelings.

From that fundamental point, the
process of the national consciousness

understanding, re-evaluation,
of the Peronist process

and of its significance for the Argentine
working class,

becoming our business,
our own business

Not Peronism of
the bureaucrats

which does nothing but negotiate and concede,
but of P�ronism of the masses,

that of the anti-imperialistic and
revolutionary fight,

which leads to socialism.

In this sense, the
Cuban revolution

a national, nationalist
and anti-imperialist revolution...

had a great influence.

its heritage is for us,
Marxist-Leninist, a guide,

which establishes the link with the history,
with the life, of our working class,

and which opens the way

towards the national liberty and the construction
of socialism, unity with our people

The OCCUPATION OF THE FACTORIES

What was the high point reached by the
resistance in the last 10 years?

Generalizing we could say

what was said to us by
many comrades..

the demonstration of a national
conscience...

Able to resist the executions...
with repressions, tortures

with the traps of the System

to quote an example,
let us announce

the most important of
these demonstrations

occupation of the factories.

Cirillo Ramallo speaks about one of
the first occupations of a factory

the metallurgy factory,
Siam de Montechingolo.

The occupation resulted from the
dismissal of 300 comrades.

What measures were taken
to defend the factory?

All measures likely to
guarantee to us

that the police force
would not make us evacuate

and at the same time to maintain the
normality of the factory

in order to avoid disorders.

We distributed the gasoline depots
in various places,

likewise fire extinguishers,
to be used

in case of an attack by
the police force.

The defense of the factory,
it is me who organized it,

with the comrades of
the internal commission

I personally constituted
the strike pickets

who circulated in the factory

and in the district

whose solidarity was always
given to us

we feared that the police
would drive us out

Rudy Taborda speaks of
the first occupation,

the one large textile mill under worker
administration: La Bernalesa...

In the country, there
were many occupations

like ours.

But it acted as a historical
event

unique in its kind,
because, for the first time,

a factory functioned under
workers control

For the first time, we felt

absolute owners of a factory

where for 30 years the
comrades had been

exploited and crushed by the
employers' class.

We had a double responsibility:

to show the employers' class

that we were able to keep
up production

to work and, at the same time,
to manage the production

We were going to show that we were
capable of production.

We had to succeed in doing
both things at the same time.

And we succeeded there rather well,
it seems to me

For example: the quality
of the products,

compared with that of those

which was stored, appeared, at the end
of the 13 days during

which we had ensured the management
of the factory, was definitely superior.

Another fact important to announce,
is the participation of the employees.

They joined with us unanimously.

A really extraordinary fact

For the first time,

two thousand workers assume
autonomy for their work

For the first time, they discover that
they are worth as much, or even more,

than those which always
benefited from them.

They became aware of their
own capacities

their own possibilities.

the workers, this time, took the
occupation very seriously

During the previous occupations

people came with their
portable radios,

the workers organized barbecues,

the comrades played cards

or football in the streets
bordering the factory.

This time, on the other hand,
it was very different.

The truth, it is that the majority
of us are illiterate.

We grew up in the
absolute misery

working since tender
childhood

without learning how to
read and write

Me, I worked in various places
for a mouthful of bread

I am not ashamed to say
that I had to beg to eat.

And then, at 17 years old,
I came to Buenos Aires

to seek my fortune.

All of that was before 17th October.
And then General Per�n appeared

I was not the only one to arrive
from my province.

We were very numerous in total
ignorance of the social laws

In fact, in the countryside,
we do not profit

from any protection.

In view of this panorama
of total misery,

Like many Argentineans I came
to the capital

But the trade unions were not yet
well organized,

and there were still
some difficulties.

however it was still better than
living in poverty in the country.

One afternoon the Minister of Justice
from La Plata came,

We received him at the gates.

And he said to us that we must
evacuate the factory

Because we had taken possession
of a private property.

I replied to him: you are Minister of
Justice? And your justice,

is to lay off 300 workers!

and he replied to me that he was
not a Minister for Labour,

and that this was a trade-union
problem.

Then, I said to him that,
in this case,

he had nothing to do with
this factory.

But he repeated that we
must evacuate,

that there were 150 police officers
ready to employ force

I told him 150 police officers
were not enough.

He would have to call
the army

He was completely surprised.

And I added

that if they evacuated
us by force,

we would blow
up the plant.

I showed him, where we had
the gasoline containers

which were ready

in case of any aggression.

As a representative of
the government,

he had the police
force and the owners.

Me, I had the support of
all the comrades

to face any aggression.

Occupations are violent acts

traumatic,

which erase from the workers'
memory...

many myths, lies, and oppression.

Through occupations, the worker
accelerates his own decolonization,

finds the conscience of
his own work,

re-conquers his own humanity.

THE LIMITS OF SPONTANEITY

Up to which point can one carry out,
inside the system,

the battle for the means
of production?

The dominant classes control

all the other levers of power

Resistance, at its spontaneous
level,

has arrived today at a
critical moment

If, until yesterday, the trade unions
were the axis of resistance

today they've lost their
political effectiveness.

As an instrument of revolutionary
struggle...

they have reached the limits of
their possibilities.

The spontaneity..

is the great virtue of the
Argentinean masses.

But it also constitutes
their limit.

It is to spontaneity that
the Argentinean proletariat

owes its most memorable day

but also its greatest defeats.

On October 17th and the month of
September 1955,

the combativeness and the heroism
of resistance

are not enough to overcome
the enemy.

When spontaneity and the initiative
of the mass

do not take the path of the
seizure of power,

everything is transformed into dispute,
resistance, self-defence.

In this case, the initiative is always
taken by the enemy.

THE WAR TODAY

If the war is the sum
of partial battles,

we've lost some of them, but,
on the level of creating conscience

we have won many others.

Imperialism also has
its experiments.

Since the Cuban revolution, it learned
better ways

to fight the revolution,

ways that the revolutionists
themselves did not learn.

This is a "miguelito,"
a small iron rod

about an inch in length.

The points are sharpened and then
folded into a right angle

in order to form a base
which hangs.

Before, we'd make a larger model,

of one centimeter in
thickness.

Then we coldn't get rods
of that type any more.

Now we make them from

the bars, which we can get.

I cut it out, sharpen it.

Because I know the people
can make use of it.

Where is that?
In the streets.

We hide them the
best we can

into a heap of garbage
or into a puddle,

The motors pass, without seeing them,
and it punctures the tires

We especially use them
during the strikes.

We leave at dawn, each
one with his bag

and we place them.

From 1963 to 1966,
the Pentagon

gave special training

in its centers of Panama,
to 19.000 soldiers of Latin America.

The armies of the continent behave
like troops of occupation

and they all have the advantage
of blending in easily.

These are the Peruvian
"hunter commands"

the Bolivian "Rangers",
the Argentine gendarmerie

the ODECA, the American
defence council,

the military operators,
are all directed by the Pentagon

Latin America

is the theatre of a
silent escalation

devoted to genocide.

I remember a demonstration,
on November 5th

after the fall of Per�n.

With a comrade, we had gone to
Plaza Alsina in Avellaneda,

where the police force
charged ferociously.

They used horses to
turn back the crowd.

There was a comrade
sitting on a bench.

The police came from behind and
threw him to the ground

and almost trampled him
with their horses.

I felt such an indignation

that I remembered a trick
from back home.

I went to a grocery store and bought
packets of pepper

and launched them in
the direction of the wind,

When the horses inhaled pepper,

they started to sneeze
and reared up.

That made the police even
more angry.

We were sorry for the horses,
but not for them, certainly

after the brutality with which
they treated our brothers!

Pepper is effective, certainly!

We knew it works. We used it
in the countryside!

And can it stop the
police force?

That, is a little more
difficult!

What can trade-union organizations
achieve these days

in the face of a well trained,
well equipped modern army,

that also has mercenary
forces?

But is this army really
invincible?

Algeria

Cuba, Vietnam

prove the opposite.

People determined to
liberate themselves

are invincible.

But victory over these
armies

are only possible with the
will of the people.

Power is held exclusively

by those who possess
weapons,

or those who decide to
obtain them.

The language of weapons is
in our time,

the most effective political
language.

Is it therefore necessary to teach
the people this language?

Does this mean a long
and painful war?

Are there any other alternatives
for liberation?

INTRODUCTION TO THE DEBATE

Comrades,

the reflections which we have just
talked about,

arise from the current
national situation

and from the experience accumulated
during years of resistance.

Let us point out the facts.

The military government has been
in place since 1966

destroying the resistance

of different trade unions, like the
trade union of the dock labourers

who closed the sugar factories
of Tucuman.

They have assigned the energy reserves,
giving no rights to the people

and has found no opposition,
which could confront and overcome it.

This is one symptom.

At the same time, certain proletarian tendencies
have begun to stray away from their roots

bureacratic, confused
by the enemy

moving closer towards
them.

These tendencies existed
before...

but they'd never acted
in such a sneaky way.

This is another symptom.

Thoughts and reflections which are
contributions to this discussion

are also based on experiences
encountered during filming.

Rudy Taborda was
recently laid off

together with the most
active comrades.

Cirillo Ramallo, was also
laid off

and the factory where he
worked was closed down.

Angel Taborda was arrested

and laid off because of his
trade-union engagement.

Martiniano Martin is no longer on
the committee of the car factory.

Employers have blacklisted him
and he can't find work anymore.

At Tucuman we spoke with the most
combative leaders of FOTIA.

Can you talk about the fight
carried out by the Tucuman workers?

I'm Leandro Fot�. I'm the secretary-general
of the Trade Union of San Jos�.

Let me say that it's only
four hours ago

that I left prison.

I was arrested for organizing the
fight of the sugar workers.

However that's not important.

The important thing
is that in Tucuman

we have valuable combat
experience.

We have occupied factories,

we've fought on the streets,

we've had victims. Recently
we lost

one of our comrades at Bella Vista,
where the fight was particularly keen

Did these fights bring us
any solutions?

Comrade, these fights did not
bring any solution

No solution for the
sugar workers.

That's why I believe the
workers fight must be quite different.

We have recognized that one should
not only fight for

wage increases, but against government
and its domination.

the workers must understand

that we need a popular government
of the workers.

This is the only way we can provide
for the future of the country

and for the workers, to worry about
the proletarian people of the country.

Now, comrade, at
this moment,

the situation of the
Tucuman workers is disastrous.

There are 24,000 unemployed,
from the closed factories.

People who will emigrate
to other provinces,

which will increase unemployment
elsewhere in the country,

like at Tucuman in the
past year.

Resistance and self-defence,

by reaching their culmination,

expose the people to
lassitude,

with exhaustion.

Each point of defense is located by
the enemy, isolated, and eliminated

But the people's memory
assimilates the experience.

One day I asked:

Father, where is God?

My father became
serious,

but answered nothing.

My father died in
the mine.

In the bottom of
the gallery.

Color of blood of
the mine.

Where the owner's
gold piles up

One day I asked:

My brother, what do you
know about God?

My brother lowered
his eyes,

but answered nothing.

My brother lives in
the mountain

Where no flowers grow.

Sweat, malaria, snakes

This is life of the logger.

And that nobody
asks of him

if he knows or has
found God.

Another important person

Me, I sing on the streets.

And when I am
in prison,

I listen to the voices
of the people

who sing much better
than me

Does God take care
of the poor?

Perhaps yes,
Perhaps no,

what I know,

Is that he sits at the
owner's table

If there is anything on
this earth

more important than God

it is that nobody has
to spit blood

so that others can
live better

I, Andina Lizarraga,

Chief of Peronist Youth
of Tucuman

Although experiences

of the population of Tucuman
were invaluable since 1955

mobilizations, street battles,
occupations of factory

and fights against
the oppressor,

for the historical process,

I believe they

are not applicable today,

and that it would be a great mistake
to repeat them.

people don't want these
battles any more.

They want another
form of action.

An action for the political
seizure of power

which can only be
carried out

by an armed struggle.

However, an armed struggle
is not possible

without a revolutionary organization
prepared to make

sacrifices and to risk
their lives

like the Argentinean people have
done until now.

The time of the chief bureaucrat
is over.

That depends only on us,
on yourselves,

to contribute to the foundation of this
revolutionary organization

Otherwise we will waste our
time miserably.

We crossed vast parts
of the country

and found in many provinces a
similar situation,

more dramatic, perhaps,
in the North

specially in Tucuman.

However, the proletariat doesn't appear
defeated, or overcome.

Many means of fight were tested
in the course of time,

but the truth is that no organization,
no direction is yet in sight

which could direct the proletariat
towards victory.

In the meantime we experience
a kind of dynamic waiting

The search continues.

Comrades... Important now,
are the conclusions you can draw.

You as the true authors and
protagonists of this story.

The experience which we have
gathered here

and our conclusions
are valuable to a certain extent.

They are helpful depending

on how useful they are to the present and
the future of the liberation struggle.

Of this liberation which
you represent.

The importance is the action
which can follow these conclusions,

An agreement based
on facts shown here.

This is why our film
ends here.

For you to continue it.

You have the floor.

OPEN SPACE FOR DIALOGUE