Garcia line wrong on war

Scan page 13

Dear S.0, We invite readers to send us their letters, up tọ a usual maximum length of 400 words.

Send to Socialist Organiser, c/o 28. Middle Lane. London N8. CARLOS Garcia was wrong before and he is wrong now that he has changed his position.

Certainly Britain as the imperial power was blameworthy in a special sense; this he neglected last time, and this marred his then approach. But his current rediscovery of this essential fact leads him to far-fetched statements. Galtieri's appeal to the bourgeois opposition parties, and the Peronist stooge leadership of the CGT may allow workers' groups for the moment some slight measure of civil liberties but it certainly won't have all the effects he suggests.

If the Junta, through spurious anti-imperialism and a demagogic nationalism, can gain itself a mass plebian - if not proletarian - support, it will gain what it has so far lacked i as a fascist movement. (Peronism had the mass appeal but its fascistic character was derived from the "left fascism" of the Strasser, rather than the MussoliniHitler - Franco variety).

Carlos Garcia's original position, when published in England, was bad mainly in so far as it provided a lett excuse for Liberal supporters of limited war (both the Guardian and Radio our referred to Carlos Garcia - "a leader of a small Argentinian Socialist Party" - and his statement, though not saying where they saw it).

But though published here, it was a dangerous adaptation to liberalbourgeois "anti-fascist" imperialism; the same statement published in the Argentine ¡if perhaps, there, 'ultra-left" by Trotskyist standards - I speak as an ;''ultra-leftist') would have been a courageous blow against the Junta.

The present letter justifies the liquidation of opposition to Galtieri while - though right in insisting on a more vigorous opposition to British imperialism - argues for this so crudely as to alienate support.

Fraternally, LAURENS OTTER