Obituary

Jorge Guidobono (1944–2007)

COMRADE Jorge Guidobono died on 2 September 2007 in Buenos Aires.

At the age of 12 he became involved in the struggle for the student bus discount in Uruguay. Two years later he was part of the high school movement to support university students fighting for university autonomy. In 1962, he became an employee of the principal bank in Uruguay, bought by Rockefeller interests. He led a successful strike in 1966, but was fired several months later during the state of siege. The workers responded with a strike that lasted five days.

In 1965, he joined the only Trotskyist organisation in Uruguay at that time: the POR Posadista. He participated in editing their newspaper, but broke with Posadism in 1969. Together with other comrades, he formed the Liga Espartaco, and wrote sharp attacks on the Frente Amplio in the newspaper Marcha in 1971 and 1972 in a polemic with the Communist Party. At this time he joined the PRT (later to become the PST). He became part of the editorial team of the PST’s review América y de Avanzada Socialista.

Later he reached an agreement with the current led by Nahuel Moreno, whose organisation in Uruguay was led by Ernesto Gonzalez. He was exiled to Argentina in January 1974, and joined the leadership of the Argentinean PST. He and about 50 comrades were involved in a confusing split in May 1992, and left the MAS in September.

On 10 October 1992, the Liga Socialista Revolucionaria was founded together with the newspaper Bandera Roja. The name ‘League’ was used to express a political view contrary to the Stalinist conception that some existing group was already ‘The Party’.

Bandera Roja has since published 80 issues, and the LSR is presenting a list of candidates for the October elections in Buenos Aires: Luis Calcagno and Barbara Calarescu are candidates for national Senators; Hugo Benitez, Celeste McDougall and Claudio Andreotti are running for Congress. The central theme of the campaign is ‘Socialist Revolution or More Capitalist Barbarism’.

He had contributed a number of major articles, including The Long March of the Revolution in 1994, Trotskyism Under the Dictatorship in 1996, and NATO Occupies the Balkans in 1999.

Translated by E. Gilman from El Nuevo Topo.