Communist Party of Argentina

(CPA, El Partido Comunista de Argentina), founded as the International Socialist Party (ISP) in Buenos Aires in January 1918 at a congress of representatives of the left wing of the Socialist Party of Argentina. The congress adopted a manifesto proclaiming the creation of the party, ratified its rules and a declaration of principles, declared its solidarity with the Great October Socialist Revolution, and sent greetings to the Russian Bolsheviks. The party’s founders included L. Recabarren, V. Codovilla, A. Kühn, R. Ghioldi, and G. Muller. The Second Congress of the ISP, held in April 1919, adopted a resolution to break with the Second International and join the Comintern; the party was accepted by the Comintern in 1920. At the Extraordinary Congress of the ISP in December 1920 the party was renamed the Communist Party of Argentina.

During the 1920’s, the CPA considerably broadened its ties with the masses and was politically and organizationally strengthened, eliminating both leftist and rightist antiparty groupings. The Eighth Congress of the CPA (November 1928) characterized the coming revolution in Argentina as being bourgeois-democratic agrarian and anti-imperialist, thus providing the correct solution to the question of the proletariat’s allies in the revolution. From 1930 to 1945, the CPA was banned, persecuted, and forced to operate underground. The Eleventh Congress of the CPA (August 1946) devoted special attention to the need for increasing educative work among the masses, which had fallen under the influence of the bourgeois-nationalist ideology of J. D. Perón (president from 1946 to 1955); it also stressed the necessity of organizing the struggle of the masses to achieve democratic liberties and to defend the national economy against the monopolies of the USA. The party’s active struggle for these goals contributed to the growth of its influence among the masses. The CPA won three seats in the Constitutional Assembly in 1957. Its influence also grew in the trade unions. In 1959 a trade union center, the Union Unification and Coordination Movement, was established on the initiative of the CPA.

In April 1959 the government of Argentina, fearing the growth of the CPA’s influence, again banned the party. The police raided the party’s premises, and its newspapers and publishing houses were closed. After the coup d’etat of 1966 all political parties were banned, and in August 1967 a special anticommunist law, On the Defense Against Communism, was adopted. The Twelfth (1963) and Thirteenth (1969) Congresses were held secretly and were attended by delegates representing more than 100,000 CPA members. The congresses called for organizing a struggle of the masses to win power (peacefully or by other than peaceful means) and to create a popular democratic government. After the presidential and general elections of March 1973, constitutional government was restored in Argentina. In May of that year repressive decrees, including the law banning the CPA, were repealed. The Fourteenth Congress (1973) called for the unification of all progressive forces to ensure the country’s economic development.

Delegations of the CPA have participated in the International Conferences of Communist and Workers’ Parties held in Moscow in 1957, 1960, and 1969. The CPA has approved the documents elaborated at these conferences.

The structure of the CPA adheres to the principle of democratic centralism. The party’s highest body is the congress. Between congresses, party work is directed by the Central Committee, which elects the Executive Committee and Political Secretariat. The general secretary is G. Arnedo Alvarez. The central organ is the newspaper Nuestra Palabra, and the theoretical organ is the journal Nueva Era. (See Table 1 for a list of the congresses of the CPA.)