Montoneros 1979

Galimberti and Gelman’s Break with the Leadership of the Montoneros


Source: Monotoneros, Documentos internos, resoluciones, comunicados y actas de guerra. Cuadernos de la memoria, elortiba.org;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2010.


February 22, 1979

We, militants of the Montonero Movement, Party, and Army, resolved to recover the revolutionary content that nourished the struggle of Montonero Peronism until today, have resolved to renounce our status as members of the party, our rank in the army, and our charges in the Montonero Peronist Movement, convinced that the relevance of these structures have been converted into an obstacle to the effective carrying out of our struggle against the dictatorship and for the liberation of the Argentinean people.

With the prospects that exist for the modification of the Argentine situation, and given the obvious failure of the dictatorship, it is consequently essential that we positively resolve the situation affecting our forces.

Serious reasons lead us to take this considered decision:

The prolonged absence of the party’s national leadership from Argentine territory, and consequently from the real conditions in which the Argentine resistance is developing, have resulted in the failure to effectively exercise leadership of the forces fighting within the country, has aggravated old deviations that have never been corrected, and has also favored the appearance of new deformations.

Without pretending to give all of them we will point out the most serious ones:

Resurgence of militarism of a foquista stamp, which impregnates all manifestations of the political life and structures that we renounce. A militarism which also attempts to appropriate all the actions the Argentine resistance carried out in conjunction with the people.

The reaffirmation of the elitist concept of the party of cadres, which has generated a progressive isolation from the masses and its natural protest organizations.

The reiterated application of conspiratorial practices by party cadres within the leadership organs of the Montonero Peronist Movement, aimed at guaranteeing the hegemony of the party at the cost of sabotaging the organizations advance of alliances.

The fanatical sectarianism that seeks to deny representation within the popular camp to whoever is not under the control exercised by the party, with harmful consequences for all attempts at developing the revolutionary organization of the working class.

The definitive bureaucratization of all levels of the leadership of the party, whose ultimate expression is the absolute absence of internal democracy. This strangles all attempts at critical reflection, qualifying it as defection or treason, framing the lack of political respect with an irresponsible triumphalism that convinces no one.

Despite so many errors, there arises the rich reality offered by the struggle of the masses, headed by the working class with the heroic assistance of the militants of Montonero Peronism, who are no longer ready to be sacrificed for a “putschist” and adventurist policy which is pursued solely to improve the conditions for negotiations already begun which will have results unacceptable for the dignity of the Argentinean resistance.

Let us be clear: we renounce the structures that are a hindrance to reaching the objectives that justified their creation, but we don’t renounce Montonero Peronism or the banners under which we have traversed the last ten years of Argentine political life, the banners of political sovereignty, economic independence and social justice that have marked the road that must be taken in order to construct socialism in our fatherland.

We affirm that the obvious failure of the dictatorship can be converted into a definitive and irreversible popular victory strictly through the organization of all forms of popular resistance, with the contribution of Montonero Peronism whose mass groups should be democratically convoked and organized as a tendency within the Peronist Movement and whose unity it should consequently work towards.

We would also like to point out that as long as there is a dictatorship there will be armed popular resistance, with the participation of Montonero Peronism, and that the heroism that has been socialized along with the sacrifices is the patrimony of the entire people, and no one has the right or the force to negotiate what they neither own nor control.

Finally, we call on the compaņeros of the Montonero Peronist Movement and the honest compaņeros of the party to democratically discuss in their turn these questions which everyone knows of but few speak about, bearing in mind that history too will know how to judge those who are silent.

We sign for the compaņeros of Montonero Peronism,

Rodolfo Galimberti/ Juan Gelman