1 Rethinking Working Class Radicalism in Argentina CLASISMO Adam Fishwick, University of Sussex [email protected]

2  Origins debate (Germani, Murmis & Portantiero etc)  Who were the Peronist workers?  A ‘new’ working class or a continuity of union leadership?  Return to the grassroots (James)  Politics of Peronism and the significance of working class experience  Ideological credibility and persistence of experience  Beyond the centrality of Peronism – from struggle to the political PERONISM AND WORKERS’ IDENTITY

3  Rethinking passivity in the 1930s  Limited strike activity BUT popular radicalisation  Growth of Communist Party influence  1936 general strike – ‘social combat’ of masses  Workers under and against Perón in the 1940s-1950s  Persistence of conflictividad amongst workers  Direct transmission of worker discontent from factories to and against union and CGT leadership  Continued relative weight of the Communist Party  La Resistencia and beyond in the 1950s-1960s  Unsanctioned protest and new methods of struggle  Alternative political currents and ‘recomposition’  Compañerismo and nascent class consciousness BEYOND PERONISM

4 “abrevaba de elementos que se encontraban en la conciencia y en la identidad de los obreros como sujeto social” (Schneider 2005: 387)  Younger workers, more modern industries, prominent across industrial cities  Culmination of protest and struggle, locally rooted but politically significant, a coherent class identity? CLASISMO AFTER 1969

5  “se propone ser el fiel intérprete de la lucha de los trabajadores por la eliminación de la burocracia sindical, la explotacion de los obreros por parte de los grandes capitales y la liberación social y nacional de la patria” (Boletín del Sindicato Trabajadores Concord, 1:1, 13/01/71, Archivo del SITRAC, Subarchivo 1, Ficha 1, p. 6)  Workers’ movement at FIAT plants in Córdoba against ineffective union representation – clasismo came after  Addressing worker demands alongside hierarchical relations  New forms of organisation and struggle – from the masses SITRAC-SITRAM

6  “la marcha a una sociedad realmente NUESTRA, a un estado popular y revolucionario y a una época de enfrentamiento real y franco al imperialismo, dirigido por la clase obrera y el pueblo” (SMATA Córdoba, No. 102, 18/05/73, p. 1)  Union representing automobile workers – later formation than traditional Peronist unions; historical role of Left  Tensions persisted and increased both in the workplace and with the leadership in Buenos Aires  Growth of clasista influence after 1969-71 under Salamanca, control after 1972 and Movimiento Sindical Combativo SMATA AND SALAMANCA

7  Peronism and the working class – related but separate  No passivity – persistence of working class conflictividad  Clasismo as a embedded in historical experience  From the workplace to the political CONCLUSION