Carlos Petroni

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Carlos Petroni is an Argentinian author and political activist.

[edit] Overview

Born, August 8, 1947 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Petroni was a leader of the Morenist tendency of Latin American Trotskyism from 1973 to 1988 and was a collaborator of the founder of this movement, Nahuel Moreno.

Petroni has contributed to more than 30 political newspapers around the world and is the author of half a dozen books on politics, Marxist theory and political organizing. As the founder of numerous Trotskyist groups in Latin America, Europe and the United States, his organizing skills and his experience in working class struggles. As a member of the leadership of graphic workers, metal workers, meatpacking and other unions, he led strikes and working class struggles for over two decades. As a result of his trade union and political work, he was the target of three assassination attempts in 1975 by death squads known as Triple A^[1].

He was also a member and leader of the Argentinean Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores (PST) from 1973 to 1976 and its continuation, the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) from 1983-1988. Petroni was a delegate and member of the Presidium of the Morenist international tendency in its different stages: Bolshevik Tendency of the Fourth International (1976-1980), Fourth International (International Committee) (1981) and International Workers League (Fourth International) -- Liga Internacional de los Trabajadores (Cuarta Internacional) from 1981 to 1988.

Petroni was responsible for the Northern American Secretariat of the Morenist tendency from 1978 to 1985, and he participated in the Nicaraguan and Salvadorean Revolutions in the late 70s, helped found the Nicaraguan section, helped develop other Central American organizations and the Mexican section of the Morenists. He (as well as Nahuel Moreno) was also a member of the International Committee of the LIT(CI) and its International Secretariat from 1982 until the death of Moreno in 1986. He was also a member of the US section of that Trotskyist international grouping, first called Internationalist Workers Party. He was expelled from the LIT(CI) in 1988 for controversial reasons, two years after Nahuel Moreno's death, and he continued his political work in the US, founding a group called the Left Party.

As of 2006, he is back in his native Argentina where he is editing the online and printing editions of Izquierda.info. Petroni also emerged as a key witness in the trial of the "crimes against humanity" attributed to the Triple A (death squads which operated under the protection of Peronist governments from 1973-1976) ^[2]. Among other evidence, Petroni introduced in court papers asking judge Oyarbide to arrest more than a dozen members of the right wing terrorist organization CNU/Triple A and to question the participation in those crimes of present day General Secretary of the CGT, Hugo Moyano.