Political Ideas and Class Interests: A Glance at Argentina
Marx wrote a century ago that all history, since the rise of class divided society, has been a history of class struggles. Constitutions have been made and unmade, kings dethroned and executed, treaties and alliances have been sworn (and broken), wars and civil wars have been fought, all involving the interests of rival classes; though the class interest at stake has always been half-hidden under the slogans phrased in terms of supposedly universal truths and philosophies.
Though modern capitalist writers are constantly having the real nature of the struggles forced on their attention, they usually abhor admitting it. When Liberals and Tories fight elections they are ready enough to accuse each other of having sinister designs against the workers, but neither—for obvious reasons—will admit that it fights to further the interest of its own section of the propertied class. So with wars, each of which has its appropriate collection of abstract aims and justifications—democracy, freedom of the seas, national independence, self-determination, rule of law, the just rights of superior races, etc., etc. On the Allied side in this war pride of place has been given to the idea of overthrowing dictatorship, and to suit this view politicians and the Press have studiously refrained from harping on the fact that a large number of the Allied countries are themselves dictatorships.
This expedient lack of candour has not, of course, been applied so rigorously to neutral countries. So when Russia made its treaty with Germany in August, 1939, it was permissible to refer to Russia as a dictatorship. “If war comes,” said the Daily Express (August 26th, 1939), “the issue will be clearer. The democracies will be ranged against totalitarian States.” Naturally that candour lapsed again when Russia became an Ally and is now customarily described as a democracy.
Later in the war most of the South American Republics, many of them dictatorships, gave support to the Allied side, with, however, the notable exception of Argentina, which has been much criticised for showing no enthusiasm. Criticism has been levelled against the near-Fascist dictatorship in that country, and the unilluminating explanation that has contented the capitalist press has been that the Argentine Government is anti-Ally because its own ideas are against democracy, and it therefore “sympathises” with Nazi Ger many. Such an “explanation” is obviously inadequate. If sympathies and abstract ideals were a real guide to international alignments, half the history of all the Powers would be utterly incomprehensible, since they have all of them waged wars in the past in alliances which contained Christian Powers on opposite sides, Christian and non-Christian Powers on the same side, democratic powers and dictatorships, kingdoms and republics, white and yellow peoples all in seemingly inexplicable groupings. Let us, however, look further at Argentina.
The first curious fact to notice is that democratic U.S.A. and democratic Great Britain are at loggerheads over the attitude to be adopted towards Argentina. Roosevelt’s Government—in the name of democracy—wants stronger action against this South American Republic which is out of step, but the British Government holds aloof and wants to continue its existing trading relationships. The Economist (August 5th, 1944), putting the British capitalist point of view, admits that something else enters into the question besides abstract ideals, that something else being “British long-term trading interests.” “For decades,” says the Economist, “Argentina has been one of the main suppliers of cheap food for Britain’s industrial population. In return, it has been a valuable market for British goods, and a fertile ground for British capital—to the great benefit of both Countries.”
The article goes on to remark rather acidly that “In British eyes, American policy in Argentina is suspected of being moved less by the desire to defeat Hitler than by the desire to extend the influence of Washington from the northern half of South America to Cape Horn—in short, by a doubtless beneficent but none the less real imperialism.”
Then the writer quotes the President of the American Import-Export Bank, who admitted that when U.S.A. interests lend money to South American borrowers, the U.S.A. insists “that all machinery and materials not available in the country of the borrower shall be purchased or leased in the United States, and that such machinery and materials shall be transported in American ships.”
This is a usual procedure when capitalism lends abroad, and has its counterpart ill a British-Argentine agreement of 1935, which forced Argentina “to discriminate against American goods.”
In short, Britain and U.S.A. are both moved by the capitalist necessity of finding markets and favourable areas for investment of capital.
Further light is thrown on the situation by a candid letter from an American correspondent, Isobel Fisk, in the Economist for September 23rd, 1944.
She largely admits the charge of imperialism against the U.S. Government, but urges that on a long view Britain and U.S.A. should act together because if they don’t it will be worse for both of them. Her case, in brief, is this : Argentina has been almost entirely an agrarian country producing wheat, meat, etc., for export, and importing machinery and other manufactured goods from Britain. This has suited both the British industrialists and investors and the Argentine landowning class, the latter having fought “tooth and nail” against efforts by rival Argentine interests to build up manufacturing industry in that country. (According to the Statesmen’s Year Book, 1940, there were in the whole country only 36 factories employing more than l,000 workers, in a population which totals 13,000,000.)
The rival Argentine interests are those behind the present dictatorship of President Farrell. They want to build up industry and end Argentina’s dependency on the British market. Their argument, in the words of Colonel Labarca, a member of the Argentine Government, is that “in the twentieth century all countries are trying to process their own raw materials; they know, that they can obtain very low prices by direct sale; they know that, on the other hand, when industrialised they will manutacture a wide variety of products and will utilise by-products, which will give work to their labourers. . . . Everybody now knows that a country has either the economy of a colony or of a world power, and that only the countries which are capable of elaborating what nature places within their reach are worthy of preserving their independence. . …”
The issue, then, in Argentina is not just one of democracy and dictatorship, but whether the landowners or the growing industrialists shall dominate, and the latter are prepared to use dictatorship and armed force to impose their will.
Miss Fisk, though the words she uses are that British and American interests should join together to try “to put down this American brand of Fascism which has sprung up in Buenos Aires,” makes no attempt to conceal the real issue. If Colonel Farrell and his fellow-Fascists succeed, “British investments,” she says, are “in mortal danger.” and “the system by which Britain bought Argentine meat and sold manufactures is doomed to go.”
The Economist, however, doubts whether an attempt to coerce Argentina now would be practicable, and is not prepared to support such a policy if the outcome is to be that of enabling American capital to get control there. Rather the Economist would prefer to wait till the end of the war in the evident hope that the changed situation then will put back the state of affairs that existed in 1939, with the landowners in power and British investments and exports safeguarded not only against Farrell’s group but also against U.S.A. interests. So much for the proclaimed concern of the British and American Governments with the establishment of democracy and overthrow of dictatorship.
There is another class interest that neither the Economist nor Miss Fisk takes into account, the world-wide interest of the working class. We are not concerned to prop up one or the other propertied class in Argentina, nor to try to safeguard British investments, or to make an open door for the products and investments of U.S.A. capitalists. The paramount interest of the working class inside and outside Argentina is to destroy the capitalist system and institute Socialism. Then there will be no problems of markets and investments to solve, and no country will have to face the choice between being a colony or a world power — all will be Socialist.
H.