In the PO periodical 971, there is a long article by Nestor Pitrola dedicated to FOS. It upbraids us for saying that “there is no problem of principles in occupying a post together with bureaucratic leaders in a trade union as long as it serves the purpose of advancing the struggle and the demands of the workers, but that occupying posts with Yaski is no good because the CTA leadership supports Kirchner and carries out a policy of betrayal to the workers.” 

We fail to see the point of this criticism. Is it that PO believes that they are contravening principles because they share the FOPETRA leadership with Iagarola, who responds to Moyano? And if the reason for which they share that leadership with a sector of the bureaucracy is not that it is useful for the struggles of the workers, than why do they do so? Only to handle a post in the trade union? Or do they believe that Iagarola from Telephone Workers is not part of the bureaucracy? Or does the rub stem out of the fact that they do not agree that going with Yasky has a different contents, because it means being committed to someone who supports the government?

In that same article, Pitrola accuses us of trying to conceal the truth from the fighters and of not applying workers’ democracy. That is because, if we understand him correctly, because what we have been decidedly against the method used by the PO of publishing loose phrases and quotations out of context of contributions made in an internal discussion of an organisation to which they do not belong. And they declare that this has something to do with workers’ democracy! This is much more similar to the method of espionage that Stalinism had made a habit of, using remorselessly all those who aware or unawares, could serve this purpose.

What we want to do is to develop at a level of the advance guard a discussion on class independence, workers’ democracy, on the features the new leadership should have. But we want to do so by thoroughly developing the political discussion and the debate on programme and not to resort to the method of bamboozling the debate the way the PO does.

Why do they grant us so much space?

This is the question activists who have read PO‘s article are bound to ask themselves. Why should one of the main leaders of a major left-wing party spare the same amount of space for us in this number that LS dedicates to the Russian Revolution, to attack as small a party as the FOS?

On the other hand, this attack has not started now, with the debate on the elections in the CTA. In April 2001 a great march against the AAFTA was held and an important IWL-FI column, and Brazilian workers’ leaders, leaders of Paraguayan peasants, Chilean activists and FOS militants joined in. This column was warmly greeted by workers who marched with the CTA and who opened their cordon for the international column to join in. This made PO furious and they attacked the IWL column with clubs, they broke the arm of one of the FOS militants and seriously injured a workers of the CTA.

Lately they have been applying the tactics of demand and denunciation (a tactics normally used only for the leaders of the bureaucracy or the bourgeoisie) against our comrade teachers in Bahía Blanca. They distributed leaflets demanding from them, giving the name and surname, to abandon List 2 of the CTA and to support List 3.

And all this is part of a systematic attack against Morenism. The latest has been a defamatory accusation against Nahuel Moreno in relation to his policy towards the State of Israel, which we responded in number 127 of our Lucha Socialista.

This attack is no coincidence

We believe that what the PO is attacking is a way of conducting policies, a conception. A conception that Morenism has always upheld, that of defending unity of struggle and a thorough exercise of workers’ democracy in order to advance in the struggle against the governments, the employers and the bureaucracy. This conception has led us to stand up against those who have pretended to impose the decisions of the political trends making them prevail over the democratic resolutions of mass organisms.

This was what made us confront the way the PO acted in the Piquetero Block (of which we were founders) and in the ANT just as we challenged the way the MST acted in the Popular Assemblies.

These methods have a lot to do with an electoral logic that forces them to constantly stand apart and draw the attention of the media even in the foremost moments of the revolution, to place all the emphasis on the Constituent Assembly and not on the development of organisation of power.

It is a well-known fact that these methods could not be defeated and that they led to the sterilisation of the Popular Assemblies and the Piquetero Assemblies, the embryos of dual power of the 2002 revolution. They were turned into fenced-in manors of the MST and the PO and engaged in the service of their electoral policies, something that became extremely useful for the regime to deviate the revolution into an electoral solution. Our Morenist conception has led us to challenge these methods in the trade union plenary meeting held on 2 April 2005 and to coincide with an ample fringe of fighters with whom we organised the Labour Day rally on the Lorea Square and the MIC.

All this is what caused the PO attack. They are not harassing a small party. They are out against a policy and a conception that challenges them and goes out to meet of the feeling in ample sectors of activism who repudiate their methods. That is why the raid against the FOS is part of an attack against the new leaderships and everything they cannot lead and control.