Who are we?
Poder Popular emerges as a result of the fusion of three organizations with diverse traditions, but with common practices and a shared vision for transformation. We want to integrate the experience of new social movements (feminism, socio-environmental, anti-racist and the piqueteros) which have come to the forefront in social struggles, without losing sight of the fundamental elements of the labor movement and of the revolutionary left. In the middle of a crisis of political representation, our emancipatory project seeks to break with conventional labels in the revolutionary left. In this article, we explore our vision, our participation in the current context and the recent Youth World Conference in Paris.
Why people power?
Our concept of people power refers to a concept that, in the new left of the 70s, referred to the construction of dual-power spaces by revolutionary forces, which could dispute the organization of the oppressed and exploited classes from dominant bourgeois power, in a political and economic perspective as well as in military terms. As such, the Worker’s Revolutionary Party – People’s Revolutionary Army (PRT ERP, from its initials in Spanish), and the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR, from its initials in Spanish) in Chile, in the context of Salvador Allende’s Popular Unity government, are the regional historical precedents of this strategic concept. But with the passage of time, defeats included, and by incorporating the debates and experiences of the MIR during Allende’s experiments with Democratic Socialism, we have understood that this is another aspect that must be considered within the bourgeois democratic framework: disputes within the State, which can prefigure the construction of a new revolutionary, anticapitalist hegemony. After 40 years of relative democratic stability, reality has become more complex and we must integrate this concept of political struggle as a dimension within that context. This is why our strategic task is to successfully contribute to the dominated classes’ self-organization, and their exercise of self-emancipation, and also to wage the political struggle in the context of these democracies.
Our Political Organization
We embrace the basic principles of unity in struggle and class independence as the political direction of a revolutionary project. We reject reformism and class conciliation, while recognizing that imperialism is a global system with contradictions that are insurmountable for humanity and the planet. This is why we highlight the need to reconstruct a concrete internationalism based on solidarity against imperialism, the ecological crisis, and the patriarchy. This is why we are connected to similar movements on a global level, building connections to strengthen our common struggle.
We do not have much recent experience, but we have been coming together through political work in diverse contexts. From local experiences in street occupations movements and neighborhood community centers; in the struggle for the defense of water and against extractive industries; participating in organizations within national public universities, in the student and faculty sectors; some union experience; and we have also managed some small incursions into the electoral world. We seek to have our concrete policies take root with a strategic perspective in all of our initiatives, without falling into false vanguards, but also always questioning reformist possibilism and progressive conformism.
Current Context in Argentina
Amidst the political, economic and social crisis in Argentina, we always try to actively involve ourselves in the daily struggles of our people. We emphasize the importance of unity to defend our rights on every front, facing challenges that neither of the two big political coalitions have been able to resolve while they were in office. We believe that the failure of the administrations of the past 8 years have created an electorate that is “willing” to condemn the currently-existing system in any way possible. This is where the rise, at a global level, of varying reactionary right wings (Trump, Bolsonaro, Bukele, Zelenski) has hedged its bets, unleashing repressive and authoritarian policies made into flesh in the form of occasional “saviors”. Macrism as well as peronism are directly responsible, though in different degrees, for the rise of the far-right in Argentina.
Their failures are rooted in how neither of these projects question the country’s economic structure and its position of dependency, as assigned in the imperialist world order. After the uprising against neoliberal policies in 2001, the political reconstruction spearheaded by Nestor and Cristina Kirchner’s peronism tried a lukewarm neodevelopmentalist approach to resolve the social crisis without disputing the condition of dependency on transnational capital. Favored by the devaluation of the currency and by the high prices of commodities, it was able to partially revert both shortages and unemployment, by reestablishing a series of social security measures, but it did not substantially modify the local capitalist accumulation nucleus. Later, with the global crisis in 2008, it tried to protect itself by taxing the extraordinary income of the agro-exporting sector, but it could not or did not want to confront this sector’s resistance, with a betrayal on the part of its political allies. This led to a deterioration of the political project and a slow weakening of certain socioeconomic measurements. Along with the political and economic burnout, there were also other conditions that allowed a new right-wing coalition to emerge, led by Mauricio Macri, who tried to disassemble the social security apparatus by applying an intense re-adjustment, defunding the state and deregulating service pricing established over 12 years by kirchnerism. However, this was blocked by large-scale social mobilization between 2017 and 2018, to which, in order contain the failure of their project, they responded by running to the International Monetary Fund for aid, which resulted in a brutal level of debt that we still suffer from.
The return of peronism with Alberto Fernandez, encouraged by Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner’s support, was a pitiful attempt to distance itself from neodevelopmentalist rhetoric and to show itself as friendlier towards monopolies. In a sort of path towards the center, that government ended up drowning in a halfway attempt at progressivism, which maintained the relationship with the IMF, with a gradual re-adjustment of income and no questioning of the illegitimate and illegal debt brought on by its predecessor. Some might say that the global COVID19 pandemic was a player in the midst of all of this, but instead of taking advantage of the context to take urgent measures on behalf of the popular classes, it decided to manage the crisis and continue towards debt and plunder.
This is the profound crisis of political representation that created the perfect conditions for the recent rise of Javier Milei as president. A supposed “outsider” from traditional politics, with far-right ideas and closely linked to multimillionaires, who makes us re-think our role and future tasks in the face of a government with a neoliberal-authoritarian vision. As we speak, this far-right government is taking a series of brutal re-adjustment measures that will hit us far harder than previous ones. It will affect the totality of the working class, especially women, queer people, pensioners and children. We believe that a new electoral fraud is taking place as they had announced that they would adjust the “casta política” (political caste), when in reality, from their perspective, the “caste” was the people. There are debates and meetings in place to find the best ways to respond to this offensive by Capital in the coming weeks. We believe that we must respond intelligently, with unity, to be strong and block the repressive threats made by Milei’s government.
Among these measures were a brutal devaluation of the currency by 120%, state budget cuts and wage freezes. Additionally, a Decree of Necessity and Urgency which seeks to erase dozens of laws, regulations and essential protest rights, presenting a bill which we call the “Tank Law”, which would, in a single stroke, create a sort of constitutional reform and change the totality of the national judicial order. It’s an authoritarian overreach in terms of its content because, in its foundation, it seeks to arrogate the sum of public power for 4 years, which would declare the expendability of parliament during that time. This is a clear measure of authoritarian neoliberalism which, if it is not stopped, could converge into a sort of neofascism.
Context in Abya Yala
If we look at the struggles taking place in Abya Yala (Latin America) in the past few years, we see convulsive and contradictory scenarios. We are amid a new cycle in the crisis of capitalism and patriarchy, which has manifested in many protests and partial rebellions in countries like Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia. In several of these uprisings, indigenous communities, which have resisted the economic and cultural serfdom of colonialism for over 500 years as well as present imperialism, have emerged in these protests, in many cases coming together with the population of large cities. This is how we were able to identify common challenges in our regional conditions, among which it is necessary to strengthen our continental connections with youth, women, and queer movements as well as with communities resisting extractivism, and the working class against exploitation and poverty. There is a common denominator in our region: the high level of labor precarity in large cities, with the youth being one of the biggest victims of precarious and miserable working conditions, which limits their participation in the common struggle and their integration into the struggle against the system. Although in some of these rebellions these realities have partially come together, they have not fully been able to converge into higher levels of organization. But the positive side is that these rebellions have shown the vitality of the continental struggle, a movement which exists and marches onwards.
World Youth Conference
The experience of the World Youth Conference was extraordinary and enriching, with diverse delegations that allowed us to reflect on the importance of internationalism. It’s clear to us that it is fundamental to reconstruct a new internationalism from the youth movement to consolidate the network and our organization. The Kurdish liberation movement’s participation is inspirational and hopeful. The strength of their youth encourages us to focus our efforts on strengthening solidarity with the women’s revolution, seeking a socialist and ecological way out of the catastrophe that capitalism is dragging us into. The revolution in the region of Rojava is a light in the darkness of the current crisis.
We are currently immersed in a process of review and strengthening of our youth policy, taking advantage of the historical opportunity presented by the conference. We participated in the coordinating committee of the Youth Writing History Network and, despite our limitations stemming from an adverse economic and social context, we will contribute to future meetings and actions.
Rebuilding Revolutionary Internationalism
The relevance of internationalism is more and more evident each day in the new global crisis. Youth plays a central and strategic role, and we must channel its creativity and inventiveness to propose a concrete alternative that breaks the subjective ceiling of capitalism.
The challenges of the new century require the power of inventiveness and creativity for the construction of a political alternative that centers overcoming the capitalist consumerist lifestyle that has brought about the current crisis, with wars, pollution and misery. This alternative must bring together a new social and political bloc capable of transforming social fatigue and the disappointment in traditional political coalitions responsible for the hardships we endure. The goal must be to call for the construction of people power with the vision of a self-governed society, based on the principles of feminism, ecosocialism, and proletarian internationalism. These are the only possible pathways towards resolving the primary issues of our time.
Finally, we would like to end on the slogan of the conference in Paris, which reflects the will of revolutionary transformation, which we must make our own in every territory that we inhabit across the planet: Youth of the world, unite and change this world!
Comentários