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Socialist Democracy (DS) is a revolutionary organization in Argentina that supports the Workers’ Left Front (FIT) in the upcoming presidential elections. The article below, written by DS, outlines their view of the political situation in Argentina and raises certain criticisms of the FIT leadership, specifically of the Partido de los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS — Socialist Workers Party) to which the FIT presidential candidate, Nicolás Del Caño, belongs. They place this criticism in the context of the ongoing international discussion of socialist electoral strategy and tactics. When referring to “Kirchnerism,” DS means the state-led populist policies developed by Justicialist Party (as the Peronist party is called) presidents Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (CFK, as she is often referred to), who ruled Argentina from 2003 until this year. Termed out this year, Kirchner’s handpicked heir Daniel Scioli offers little of his mentors’ populist flair or policies, though he is favored to win the elections against his main rivals on the Right, Buenos Aires Mayor Mauricio Macri and dissident Peronist regional boss Sergio Massa.

We are coming to the end of a general political cycle, that is, the end of Kirchnerism in government, although not necessarily the liquidation of Kirchnerism as a political and social experience. Kirchnerism constituted what has been called a “state with weak commitments.” Examining mutations in the state machine in relationship to the class struggle and the accumulation of capital allows us to understand the possibilities open to different political forces, their potential tactics, and perspectives for anticapitalist militancy. As we know, Kirchnerism comprised a clear response on the part of the ruling class to the crisis of legitimacy suffered by the state on December 20, 2001. The popular rebellion that exploded on that day did not aim to go beyond capitalism, but simply rejected its neoliberal brand (which still rules today), as well as a generalized popular repudiation of the existing political parties. This situation generated, in other words, a change in the correlation of forces between the social classes. The Kirchnerist political elite elaborated a complex game of continuity and rupture with the brutal austerity policies of the 1990s which allowed it to effectively reconstruct (even if with its own limitations) the legitimacy of the capitalist state and its mechanisms for creating consensus. Yet this consensus was based on relatively weak objective foundations, not radically distinct from the preexisting neoliberal policies. In economic terms, it stressed continuity with the forms of accumulation (including even deepening national reliance on agricultural exports as the most important motor force for growth), an increase in economic dependency, and an intense exploitation of the workforce, made possible through a sharp devaluation of the peso (which cut real salaries) and the massive creation of an informal and precarious labor market. This was all made possible by the restoration of capitalist accumulation which began in 2003 as well as a series of state initiatives that coopted popular anti-neoliberal slogans and demands. Government support for policies, which were often as social, political, and even cultural as they were economic — including reforms such as Universal Aid for Families with Children, support for equal marriage, and putting military officers on trial for crimes committed during the dictatorship — helped Kirchnerism reposition the state as the apparent guarantor of the reproduction of social consensus, developing new forms of class compromise. The weakness of this social pact stemmed from various factors, among them, the frailty of its objective economic pillars and the development of a “self-cancelling” dynamic in the correlation of forces that made the pact possible in the first place. The combination of what we might call two de-linked elements led to a slow-motion turn to the right within the government. It began with the “fine-tuning” carried out by CFK in 2011 and ended with Daniel Scioli’s candidacy today. First, economic limitations made themselves felt when growth slowed dramatically at the start of the 2008 crisis, leading to one of the worst capital accumulation bottlenecks in the history of Argentina’s dependent development. Second, Kirchnerism only managed to stabilize social conflict without completely liquidating it, therefore allowing for the reemergence of the subaltern movements born during the popular mobilization in 2001. In this sense, the Kirchner government generated the conditions for a counteroffensive against the ruling class. At the same time, the elite demonstrated that they were not willing to continue making social, democratic, or popular concessions, but were rather disposed to take the reins of the state and society back into their own hands.

Enter the FIT At this point, two new phenomena appeared. First, no center-left alternative managed to oppose the government. All center-left options over the past few years were integrated into the Peronist ruling party. This blockage of a potential center-left opposition has to do with Kirchnerism’s relative success in constructing a social consensus. The government’s concessions, retreats, and vacillations appeared to be in the interests of the popular sectors, promoting state intervention in the economy and broadening ordinary people’s rights. In other words, Kirchnerism appealed to “progressive” voters. And when faced with the choice between a center-left government and a center-left opposition, progressive voters worried about opening the door to the Right by splitting their votes, so they elected to stick with the Kirchners. Moreover, given the successful “Kirchnerization” of Scioli in the current campaign (along with the threat represented by right-wing candidate Mauricio Macri), we can say that Kirchnerism has succeeded in containing the center-left or progressive threat. No left split has emerged from the broad and diffuse Kirchner movement; it has shown itself to be gelatinous and creative, capable of adapting itself to new conditions, able to bend, but not break, at least for the moment. This context also determines the limits and the potential for the anticapitalist left in the current conjuncture. Given the relative success of the Kirchner consensus and the persistence, for the moment, of the idea that the state will guarantee the continuation of the social pact between the classes (although with reverses and mutations), it is not possible today to create an anticapitalist left that can become a truly mass political alternative. Instead, faced with Kirchnerism’s hegemony (including even Scioli’s version), the Left is faced with the task of constructing an active and non-sectarian minority which can accumulate forces, resist the ruling class’s offensive, and prepare ideologically and politically for a more favorable period. Tactics which seek to increase the Left’s electoral base by adapting to progressivism will be cut off at the pass by Kirchnerism, as we see being confirmed in this election cycle. However, it is possible to construct a left that can lead resistance and opposition, even if there are no immediate perspectives for power, as long as this is based on clear independence from the government. The push to the right in the political spectrum is a product of the class struggle, but it does not correlate to any such turn to the right in society as a whole. The Left must build an alternative to engage with sections of the electorate who voted for the governing party in the past but who today, unhappy with Scioli as CFK’s successor, are open to voting for a more radical political option. Our hypothesis is that the Workers’ Left Front (FIT), even with its limitations, has filled this alternative space, for the moment, and is capitalizing on the generalized discontent. The fact that the FIT is the left alternative at this stage requires little explanation. It is the only left-wing force which has built its own parliamentary bloc, one free from all alliances with ruling-class parties. Its forces have developed a certain level of implantation in the workers’ movement and in other important areas of struggle. Its elected officials have personally participated in social conflicts and are gaining experience in using parliament as a platform for supporting the movements. At the same time, the FIT has important limitations as an alternative. It has not completely succeeded in making itself into the active minority which can give voice, at least electorally, to the rejection of the consensus among the capitalist candidates. These limits have to do with, in part, the FIT’s inability to bring together, in a broad manner, the totality of the Argentine left as well as, despite some of the political lessons it has learned, some difficulties in implanting itself in mass politics. The limits of the FIT’s growth can be seen in its insertion into the social movements and the working class, but these limits are also reflected in the August primary election results. If we compare the conditions in 2011 to those prevailing today, we can see that the front has grown, but only relatively. In 2011, CFK won more than 50 percent of the votes, while her main opposition was the neoliberal, but cosmetically social-democratic, Hermes Binner. Today, Kirchnerism has moved well to the right, and the alternatives (Macri, Massa) are not even cosmetically social democratic. Taking this into account, the FIT has gained very few of the votes lost by the Front for Victory (Scioli’s Peronist-led electoral coalition). Instead, these voters have turned to the Right. The FIT must consider, if it aims to constitute itself as a genuine pole for regrouping the Argentine left, a thoroughgoing methodological and organizational renovation. It must develop the broadest socialist democracy possible, promote a radical pluralism of left parties, and champion the construction of a militant culture where ideological disagreements are handled in a fraternal manner based on anticapitalist unity. For the moment, the FIT has limited itself to being an exclusively electoral front between three Trotskyist organizations. The two currents within the FIT which competed against one another during the August primary elections also raised the question of the very nature of the FIT as a political front. The Unity List tended to promote, even if within its own limits, the FIT as a pole for regrouping the Argentine anticapitalist left. Headed by the Workers Party (PO) and Socialist Left (IS), this list opened itself up to a relatively broad level of participation from groups outside it. On the other hand, the Renovate and Strengthen List (whose Nicolás Del Caño won the internal FIT primary), led by the Socialist Workers Party (PTS), advocated a sectarian exclusion of groups which it characterized as populists, reformists, or Chavista (those supportive of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela). They want to maintain the FIT as an ultra-left formation, whose lines of demarcation are not based on independence from the Kirchnerist government, but rather by more ideological discussions such as how to characterize the Bolivarian process in Venezuela, Podemos in the Spanish state, or Syriza in Greece. In the current context, arguing about Chavismo as a precondition to an electoral agreement in Argentina means putting a sectarian roadblock on the development of the FIT as a whole.