Compilation of Articles about the Electoral Campaign 2021 of Convergencia Socialista (Argentina)

Note of the RCIT Editorial Board: Below we publish articles from our Argentinean comrades in Convergencia Socialista concerning the elections in Argentina in autumn 2021. The comrades have decided to stand several candidates as part of the FITu list – an alliance of four large Trotskyist organizations (PTS, PO, IS and MST). They do so despite their criticism of the centrist policy of these organizations and present their independent program. The RCIT strongly welcomes this initiative of the Argentinean section as it presents a great opportunity to reach a wider audience for the struggle for revolutionary socialism!

Article published by Convergencia Socialista (Argentinean Section of the RCIT), 3 August 2021, https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com

The original Spanish version of this article can be read here: https://convergenciadecombate.blogspot.com/2021/08/hablan-gabriela-y-juan-carlos.html

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Who are Gabriela and Juan Carlos, what other colleagues are candidates and what are the axes of the campaign of Convergencia Socialista?

As we have indicated in previous notes, we will be part of the electoral lists of the Frente de Izquierda (Left Front). This decision results from considering that, despite the differences, we agree to defend the political independence of the working class against the representatives of the ruling classes. For this reason, we will campaign to support the candidacies of the FIT led by Del Caño, Del Pla and Giordano, along with colleagues from CS.

Gabriela Capurro, who is part of the leadership of our party, is one of the comrades who heads the Defensorías de Géneros (Gender Advocates), a feminist and classist organization. After heading the Coordinadora de Barrios en Lucha of Ezeiza, she founded the Red List of the Institute of Teachers 103 of Villa Urbana, winning four consecutive times the student center, which historically was in the hands of the Communist Party. As a History and Literature teacher, she is a member of the Suteba Lanús Green List.

Hernán Centeno is a leader of Convergecia Socialista and of the directive commission of the Suteba Escobar representing the Red and Black list. He was one of the main promoters in the organization of the Technical Schools Coordinator, which in 2019 mobilized thousands of teachers and students, stopping the reforms that the government of María Eugenia Vidal tried to implement.

In 2017 he was arrested and prosecuted for mobilizing against the presence of the World Trade Organization, a few days before the "Battle of Congress" against the Partido Justicialista and Macri’s Pension Reform. The campaign for his acquittal, which was taken by broad workers, popular and democratic sectors, resulted in the end of the case as soon as the oral trial against him and Natalia Pérez, tried for the same cause, began.

Before teaching as a Physics professor, he worked in several factories in the northern zone and on the Pan-American Highway. He was one of the main fighters who faced the bureaucratic mafia of Facundo Moyano, who heads the sector union.

Juan Carlos Beica, founder of Convergecia Socialista, began his activity in the PST in 1974. He joined the Roca Railroad in 1979. Years later, he was General Secretary of the 17 de Marzo section of the of the signaling union, the largest section, and in 1991 he was one of the main leaders of the 46-day strike that faced the government of Carlos Menem.

In 2001, as a delegate from the Suteba Esteban Echeverría, he led the self-organized strike against Governor Ruckauf's adjustment policies, a struggle that lasted more than 40 days. Now, with Gabriela Capurro, he is part of the Suteba Lanús Green Teachers List, and is a delegate from Secondary School 56, Villa Diamante Educational Pole.

He participated in the organization of the Committee of Solidarity with Kurdistan and the Commission for the Freedom of the Oil Workers of Las Heras, Santa Cruz. After traveling to Rojava, northern Syria, to show solidarity with the Kurdish guerrillas, he wrote Revolución de Kurdistán y Medio Oriente (Kurdistan and Middle East Revolution). He is currently the director of the CS media team, which publishes the newspaper “El Trabajador”, a daily news blog and various programs that are broadcast on the party's YouTube channel.

Alberto Maillie, a rural doctor from the town of Las Marianas, in Navarro's party, is an old militant of the “Morenoite” current, which he joined in the early 1970s as a member of the PST. He is part of the group of scientists who from the beginning denounced the anti-health policies of the WHO, the government and the pharmaceutical companies.

Finally, it is important to highlight our special support for the candidacies of Natalia Pérez and Layla Faistein, from Luján and General Rodríguez respectively, two independent colleagues who are also part of the Defensorías de Géneros together with Gabriela Capurro and most of our CS comrades.

Axes of our electoral campaign

As happened in previous elections, we will be part of the FIT lists with our own candidates and political independence. The main agreement we have with this electoral alliance is the defense of the independence of the working class against the capitalist or bureaucratic alternatives. For that reason, we are convinced that the votes for the Frente de Izquierda will help advance the consciousness of broad sectors of the working class and the people!

Beyond this loyal and principled position, which we will highlight in each of our interventions, we will propose the slogans that we consider appropriate to face the national and international situation, marked by the phenomenal crisis of the capitalist system, which pushes millions into poverty and super-exploitation. Our first proposal will be to explain that there is no way out inside the "bourgeois democratic" regime, which exists to support the big monopolies!

The answer to this reality is Socialism, which can be accomplished if the mass movement organizes itself independently, with assemblies and other democratic bodies, to build a revolution that will make true the slogan that resounded in the days of 2001 – “Kick them all out and not a single one remains!” - giving rise to a workers' government that rebuilds the national economy in the interests of all and definitively liberates the country from the yoke of the big capitalists.

Socialism has nothing to do with the Cuban regime, which is a capitalist dictatorship, imposed by individuals who use the revolutionary "story" to cover by the "left" their plans for adjustment and repression, which benefit the bourgeoisie from Europe, China, Brazil and even the Yankees. Throughout the campaign we will promote solidarity with the heroic people of Cuba, who are rebelling against the government of Díaz Canel and the gravediggers of the revolution, delimiting us from the gusanos that conspire from Miami to recover their properties.

Our party, made up mostly of female militants, vindicates the Gender Self-Defense practiced by Nancy Montiel and Karen Marín, imprisoned for refusing to be victims of sexist violence. We will demand the freedom of our comrades and the deprocessing of thousands of fighters, persecuted by the capitalist and patriarchal justice, which defends the owners of the country and the world, fiercely attacking those below.

We will promote the expropriation of the clinics and the pharmaceutical companies, to make them work based on a National Plan, controlled by its own workers and financed with funds from the deny of payment of the foreign debt and from progressive taxes to large companies. There it will be necessary to develop the best products to put an end to all the plagues that make the working class sick, which, being savagely exploited and living in poverty, constitutes the most "vulnerable" sector of the population.

The State must promote the use of alternative products to face the coronavirus, several of which have been developed in the country, such as Soluble Ibuprofen or plasma, both human and equine. Vaccines, which are experimental in nature, cannot be mandatory, but rather the choice of those who decide to apply them. We reject the implementation of the "health pass or passport", which stigmatizes people who do not want to be vaccinated, which is why thousands in Europe are taking to the streets to protest!

We will call to support and defend the vote of the Frente de Izquierda, always explaining that getting some legislative positions will not solve any of the evils that afflict the majorities. Those seats, if they are won, will have to become a trench from where the need to destroy Capitalism will have to be agitated, organizing a new and more forceful Argentinazo, which shall be in line with the rebellions that are exploding all over the world!