Some Notes on the Argentine Anarchist Movement in the Emergency

(From Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, fall, 2003)

The social conflict that exploded in Argentina on the 19th and 20th of December 2001 is part of the crisis of legitimacy affecting Latin American political institutions and, in particular, the democratic regime that emerged from Argentina’s sinister dictatorship of 1976 to 1983. The military dictatorships suffered by our people in the 1970s gave birth to weak democracies that were subject to the blackmail of military forces that never fully left politics. The majority of these democracies, in Argentina as in Uruguay and Chile, emerged from pacts between the traditional political survivors of the storm and the military leaders that were in power during the dictatorships.(1)

On the economic plane, these restricted democracies managed to legitimize the violent concentration of wealth produced by the dictatorships for the benefit of a parasitic class, which every day became smaller and more omnipotent. The promises made by populist politicians for a greater distribution of wealth were frustrated with the continuation of a system that simultaneously shrank the economy and condemned millions to exclusion, while concentrating income and making the rich richer and more powerful. In the 1990s, during the Menem’s presidency, the privatization of public businesses, the rationalization of the state, and the weakening of labor legislation brought the number of unemployed to a quarter of the economically active population, on top of a similar percentage that was already excluded from the economy. Citizens were shocked to see politicians, who had sought their support to get into power, enrich themselves.

In 1999, the Alianza Radical-Frepasista,(2) noting the problems created by ten years of Menem’s government, promised to banish corruption from the state apparatus, the justice system, and the parliament, and to elevate the quality of life of the population. However, just after taking over, this splendid government unleashed a formidable policy of state adjustment that deepened the economic stagnation of the last four years. Unemployment, the masses of the excluded population, and the struggles of the new social movements—born at almost the same time that Menem took power—increased exponentially in the face of the administrative dauntlessness of the Radicals(3) who did not manage to institute any palliatives for the victims of their policies. And soon the political front began to fray. The Vice President of the nation resigned a year after assuming power in the face of corrupt maneuvers carried out by the government, behind his back, in the Senate that he himself led. This ending up proving that the second part of the campaign promises—the moralization of public life—was also not a priority of this administration.

Likewise, since the middle of the 1990s, many economists had warned that the “straightjacket” put on the currency by the law of convertibility, which theoretically transformed each Argentine peso into a dollar, could explode the economy at any moment: they noted that productivity was distinct, that the backwardness it produced in market prices would discourage any reactivation of the economy, and that it could only finance itself through an unsupportable foreign debt. At the beginning of 2001, this tension was already so acute that the countdown to the system’s bankruptcy began. Although the Radical government continued denying the urgency of the crisis, it seized bank deposits, which theoretically were in dollars, to avoid a run on the banks. This would have empty the financial system because the banks did not have the capacity to return these dollars to the market. The immobilization of bank deposits, which came to include all bank accounts and affected not only the middle class but also salaried workers, constituted a significant element in the increase of popular irritation that exploded at the end of 2001.(4)

In December of this year, the government responded to the increasing popular mobilization of 2001 with repression that corresponded to the scope of the consensus that the popular mobilization began to have. Also, at the same time that it tried to repress the piqueteros and other activities of the marginalized, it carried out a perverse campaign of disinformation likening the popular mobilization to a political attempt to destabilize institutions carried out by the Peronist opposition. (It is worth remarking that the Peronist opposition, from its privileged places in the parliament and the Supreme Court, did nothing during these two years except support the plundering of the people).

For the first time in our history a “Declaration of a State of Siege” was met with a popular mobilization so massive and multi-sectoral that it became inoperative and was repealed in silence a little later. This supreme symbol of disobedience to the state and its institutions marked the beginning of an extraordinary period of radical social transformation in which countless experiences in self-management and self-government were carried out with distinct success throughout the entire country.

This introduction is only a cramped synthesis of the emergency that caused the resignation of De la Rua and the process of transition in which we are currently living. The word transition seems to suggest that we are moving toward a “telos,” but for the time being it is very difficult to predict a destination for this society that is developing as if it were a laboratory for the most perverse affects of globalization.

What are the bases of this popular mobilization? Does it have organizational referents to some earlier experience or is it totally spontaneous and organic? Any response to these questions is, by necessity, incomplete. On the one hand, December’s mobilization, which continued in an intermittent form during the months of January and February 2002, can be characterized as spontaneous, multi-class, and pluralistic. In fact, the detonator of the generalized mobilization was the discourse of President De la Rua himself in which he announced the “state of siege,” a speech that was immediately answered (minutes later!) by the uncontainable indignation of thousands of residents of Buenos Aires who poured into the streets to express their rage at the taunt that his discourse signified. The spectacle of the people in the street, multiplying as the media covered events, turned the streets over to millions in the whole country with saucepans or anything that could be beaten. The movement did not have leaders, managers, or organizers. Nobody could appropriate the movement’s paternity, and the opposition parties—the left included—were probably the most surprised by the sudden explosion. The movement’s spontaneity and independence from traditional political actors gave rise to an internal crisis of the most varied political forms, a crisis that still has not passed. Although it did not have predetermined slogans, one adopted almost immediately and without recognizable origin, was: “Que se vayan todos”— They all must go —a slogan very dear to anarchists, but doubtlessly lacking concrete content.

On the other hand, it is certain that the new groups of unemployed, known by the generalizing name of “ Piqueteros ,” that have emerged over the last twelve years from the systematic destruction of the population’s sources of work and subsistence, spearheaded an agitation that began much earlier than December 2001.(5) The novelty was that towards the end of De la Rua’s government this movement achieved a visibility never before reached and a sympathy that almost transformed into popular consensus by the end of December.

Another interesting aspect of the movement was the creation of the neighborhood assemblies with an orientation towards self-management. Even when they were excessive with respect to their real possibilities of social management, these assemblies permitted a politicization and a practice of deliberation for social sectors who have been remote from such practices since the repressive storm of the 1970s. This form of democracy—which many neighbors confidently regarded as a replacement of the existing forms of political organization—only unfolded in Buenos Aires and the surroundings areas, a sizable conglomerate of around twelve million people. In the interior of the country, the experience was different and assemblies only occurred in some neighborhoods of Rosario and La Plata, which copied the example of Buenos Aires but lacked great continuity.

Anarchists immediately perceived the possibilities that a movement of these characteristics had and adopted it as a natural environment for its engagement and proposals. Militants of anarchist groups participated in many assemblies in Buenos Aires, such as those from the Federación Libertaria Argentina (Libertarian Federation of Argentina)(6) and groups connected to it, and those from the Biblioteca José Ingenieros (José Ingenieros Library),(7) a small but very dynamic group. These comrades tried to generate some type of internal coordination but could not overcome the slow dissolution of the movement. People began losing enthusiasm and withdrew as the traditional left-wing political parties tried to manipulate the assemblies, a manipulation that ultimately resulted in their definitive asphyxiation. Nevertheless, militant participation in the remnants of this experience continues: assemblies that were consolidated into neighborhood groups continue to carry out important cultural projects and provided help for the weakest families as well as support the efforts in the occupied factories.(8) This is the case of the Asamblea de Palermo Viejo (Assembly of Palermo Viejo), that of Floresta, and the Asamblea Popular del Cid Campeador (Popular Assembly of Cid Campeador), among others. A synthesis of anarchist activity in the Federal Capital and the greater Buenos Aires (GBA), should include the FORA (Regional Workers’ Federation of Argentina); the Organización Anarquista Libertad de Avellaneda (GBA; Libertad); the Organización Anarquista Bandera Negra and the Unión Fraternidad Anarquista de Berisso (GBA; Bandera Negra); the group Nueva Aurora(9) and the Organización Revolucionaria Anarquista of the Flores neighborhood in the Capital.

The engagement of more specifically militant anarchist organizations is more systematic and of a broader perspective. This is the case of the AUCA,(10) which has an influence in La Plata and southern parts of the province of Buenos Aires and the Organización Socialista Libertaria (Libertarian Socialist Organization), with a center in the Federal Capital and Greater Buenos Aires. The latter is the heir to the ideas “declared by Bakunin, outlined by Malatesta, developed by the Ukrainian group Dielo Trouda in exile and picked up by Federación Anarquista Uruguaya in 1955 in the Latin American context…[who] propose an anarchism that is a product of the class struggle, a tool for political militancy, that is social and popular, class-based, and revolutionary.” It was constituted halfway through 1996 with the name CAIN Agrupación Anarquista (CAIN Anarchist Association). In November 1997, they began to publish their periodical En La Calle ( In the Street ) monthly, together with AUCA from La Plata and the Organización Anarquista de Rosario (Anarchist Organization of Rosario). This collaborative work was maintained until September 2000, when AUCA abandoned it. The OAR also abandoned the project in September 2001.(11) Since then En La Calle has been the official periodical of the OSL.

Today, due to the radical character that this struggle has assumed, the OSL has put great energy into the Piquetero movement. They have sought to affect the direction of the movement by developing their own formation with Movimiento de Trabajadores Desocupados Anibal Verón (Unemployed Workers’ Movement Anibal Verón), a neighborhood movement that has stood out for its radicalism while not excluding the work with other unemployed groups. Their activity focuses on denouncing the true character of unemployment, publicizing the experiences of these movements, insisting in movement unity, and supporting the demands and methods that contribute to the creation of popular power. Likewise, they promote the creation of autonomous, self-sufficient, and productive projects as laboratories for the emergence of new models of sociability. They also carry out work on the union plane, wherein they promote workers’ democracy, horizontalism, and federalism.

AUCA-Socialismo Libertario is an “anarcho-specificist” organization “which means, in general terms, the union of all militant anarchist in the same collective, in the same organic body, trying to introduce anarchism to all the social processes where the class struggle is expressed.” Since 2001, they have produced their periodical Ofensive Libertaria ( Libertarian Offensive ), and also edit other newsletters that serve their areas of engagement, such as the union publication Mate Cocido ( Boiled Mate ). Their work in the unemployed movement includes its own tendency, the Movimiento de Unidad Popular (Popular Unity Movement), which is active in ten neighborhoods of three jurisdictions in the southern part of the Buenos Aires and La Plata. There they carry out propaganda and organize things such as soup kitchens, gardens, workshops for academic assistance and political eduction, political activities like the assemblies, and economic activities such as self-managed bartering networks.(12) Aguanegra is the name of a group through which they work in the La Plata’s student and university movement. They engage in political work in the Department of Journalism, Fine Arts, Humanities, Social Work and Law, and have even co-led the Student Center in the first two departments.

The AUCA and the OSL both participate in the HIJOS(13) movement and other human rights organizations as well as the struggle against police repression. In summary, the scope of both groups is considerable and the quality of its engagement magnifies and multiplies the effect of its militants.

There is less activity in the interior of the country. In addition to that already mentioned, in Mar de Plata there is: Biblioteca Juventud Moderna and the Grupo Anarquista Marplatense; in Rosario the Biblioteca Alberto Ghiraldo (magazine: Archivo ) and the Grupo Autogestionario (Magazine: Ideacción ). In Cordoba there is the activity of the Cooperativa Agrícola CARACOL and the GRANCO Grupo Anarquista de Córdoba; in Neuquén there is considerable activity through the ONAS Organización Neuquina Antonio Soto(14) and the group Colectivo Feminista Libertario “Kasandras” ; in the south in Bariloche (Province of Río Negro) the MALO (Movimiento Anarquista de Liberación Obrera) works as a neighborhood group with a library.

All of these groups have distinct (and occasionally contradictory) perspectives and sometimes are products of splits that occurred between groups many years ago. Nevertheless, their development and growth nurtures the rise of radical social movements in Argentina and the desire to organize these movements horizontally and democratically.

The recent elections in Argentina, although eventful and a product of the emergency, marked the beginning of the re-institutionalization and re-legitimization of the state. Although the government has responded rapidly and decisively to deeply felt social demands, the new social movements have not lost their legitimacy and continue to pressure the state and generate autonomous spaces. Participants in the popular mobilizations will need to think about how to manage a new society and how to replace of the state if such autonomous spaces are to grow. It is possible to imagine that a basis exists for the creation of a new Left in which the anarchist movement and the emergent socio-political and cultural actors could converge into a broader movement for anti-authoritarian self-management.

Translated from Spanish by Chuck Morse

Fernando López is a longtime anarchist and presently lives in Buenos Aires with his daughter. He is an active member of the Centro de Documentación e Investigación de la Cultura Izquierdas en Argentina, a radical archive specializing in the history of the Argentine Left. He received a grant from the IAS in January 2000 for his book The FACA and the Anarchist Movement in Argentina, 1930-1950 .

Notes

1. In Uruguay the period came to a close—although not totally—with a plebiscite in 1985, in which the recently elected government shamelessly blackmailed the people with the threat that the militaries might not withdraw to their barracks, and thus managed to release militaries from legal action who were implicated in the brutal repression of the 70s. The Chilean case is better known. The regime managed to impose a new constitution and institutionalize the power of the military over the state. The hostage character of the Chilean people in this negotiation between political and military leaders became a symbol of what these new “democracies” have meant in the last twenty years.
2. In 1999 the Peronists, in power since 1989, confronted at the ballot box a coalition of the UCR (Unión Cívica Radical, a hundred year old liberal progressive party) and the FREPASO (Frente País Solidario), a conglomerate of dissident Peronists, social democrats, and various liberal parties that took the name Alianza.
3. “Radical” refers to the UCR (Unión Cívica Radical), who are populist liberals.
4. The total “bankization” of the economy was instituted during the Menemist government by the same minister of the economy of the later government of Alianza Domingo Cavallo. It established that the payment of even the lowest daily wages or any remuneration must pass through banks, thus enriching the banks with millions of new and involuntary clients.
5. This name is generalizing because it only refers to the most common method of struggle. The activity of the marginalized is, by its own definition, invisible to the mass media, although the interruption of the circulation of people and merchandise in the country’s roads carried out by these movements imposed a visibility that the mass media (in the hand of national and multinational consortiums) tried to hide. Highlighting the distance between “reality” and that showed by the media, a slogan was popularized—painted on thousands of walls—that read, “they piss on us and Clarin says rain.” Clarin is Argentina’s largest circulation newspaper and is owned by the Consorcio Multimedios.
6. Heir to the FACA (Argentinean Anarcho-Communist Federation), which publishes the monthly El Libertario .
7. It publishes Desde el Pié .
8. Factories declared bankrupt—at times fraudulently—and abandoned by their owners that were then taken over by their personnel and put to work in a self-managed form.
9. Nueva Aurora publishes an anarchist cultural magazine of the same name.
10. AUCA means “rebel” in the Mapuche language.
11. Very likely due to internal problems of the Rosario group.
12. The MUP in the Capital Federal edits the newsletter La Voz de los sin Voz ( The Voice of the Voiceless ) together with Milicias Culturales Autónomas and Colectivo Editorial Desalambrando.
13. H.I.J.O.S. (Hijos por la Identidad, la Justicia, contra el Olvido y el Silencio—Children for Identity, Justice, Against Forgetting and Silence) is one of the most dynamic groups in the human rights movement.
14. This is the name of a celebrated anarchist leader that led the Patagonian strikes in the 20s.