Montoneros
Source: Undated Juventud Perónista leaflet;
Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor;
CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2011.
They were a pair of kids just like any of us.
They were always political; they loved politics with all their souls. They knew that you have to fight to conquer something; that nothing is given to you. And they did it together, from the time they were boys. First in Tacuara, when they were 14, when the desire to enter into action overwhelmed political speculation. They had be active, and they were. From Catholic activism they began to be influenced by the process the renewed church was living through on a worldwide level, a Christianity where the poor would be the privileged. And the poor are Peronist.
The fight had to advance, but now for something greater, for the whole people. Accompanying this immense unorganized army that was suffering from poverty, repression, the sadness of having its leader disinterred, the wrenching experience of not being able to visit Evita, of knowing they had touched her. The accumulated rage had reached its limits. They could take no more. Everything had been taken from us. We had to prepare ourselves in a different way, be better organized: the hour of the irons had arrived.
Fernando traveled to receive instruction. Carlos remained in the country to continue the gathering of supplies, to prepare the launching of the group. It was 1967; Ongania had been in power for a year, was secure, spoke of ten years. Fernando and Carlos, together with their compañeros, thought differently. The people’s rage continued to mount.
Two years of daily labor, without rest, discussing, planning, culminating in a decision: publicly launching the organization. A name for it had to be found. And they did as they always did, discussing it among themselves, by trying to do simple, direct, Peronist things. There were a few criteria, which were that it not be an acronym, but rather a name, which had to be related to Argentine history, not only politically, but also folklorically, but of a folklore that is listened to seriously, in silence and while drinking maté, recuperating acts and struggles; a folklore that was clearly Peronist. They came up with 15 names. Fernando said the word and liked it: Montoneros.
There was an internal slogan: all or nothing. But aside from rejecting empty verbiage, “Perón or Death” was the all or nothing of Peronism. For Perón everything; without Perón nothing until death. The Long Live the Fatherland, for it was Valle’s final cry before being executed.
And Aramburu.
They were two ordinary kids. They weren’t resentful or drug addicts, or among the frustrated who turn to the guerrilla for personal reasons. They were two sons of the exploited who had the same rage as the worker or woman who can’t give their children enough to eat. They were two Perónists. They were two Montoneros.
If there was something that clearly distinguished them it was toughness, one could almost say asceticism. An absolute discipline, a total subordination of personal life to the political project.
Fernando was a chief, but if it hadn’t been Fernando, Carlos would have been just as tough as him. In that phase where we had to guarantee the functioning of the group it was essential that there be chiefs. Today perhaps things would be different.
Carlos was a little more prosaic.
He always thought about Perón. His fundamental preoccupation was keeping him informed about everything. To give him all the documentation offered by Aramburu. Evita’s corpse had to be recovered; this too was an obsession. All or nothing.
Nevertheless, reality differed from prior speculation. Living through persecution was different from thinking about it. Fatty Mazza was killed, the first death, the compañero from the first days. Their hearts were touched but they weren’t afflicted. The political betrayal of some Peronist leaders, like Paladino, the personal defamation, the wrenching experience of not being able to return to see parents, family; living encircled, unprotected. But on the other hand a process was growing that filled them with happiness. The people began to talk about them, to recognize them as compañeros. The people’s warmth gave them faith in the certainty of the definitive triumph, in the conviction of dying for the triumph of Perónism.
One day they died together, as they lived. Like two ordinary kids, Perónists who biting back their rage and from the breasts that were burst open were able to cry out, in the midst of weeping, the “Perón or Death,” the “All or Nothing” for which banners are today being raised, for which multitudes of young people are in movement.
Fernando and Carlos were two Peronist kids. Two Montoneros. For this they lived. For this they died.