Argentina General Discussion 🇦🇷

[Estrella]

No significant elections will be taking place anytime soon, but I've been getting pretty interested in Argentina recently, and there are multiple Argentine posters here, so I figured that a thread for occasional updates and interesting things about the country would be nice.

I'm also planning (fingers crossed) to make a detailed-ish summary of Argentine politics in the past couple of decades, [self promotion] like I did for a couple other countries.

[Estrella]

Anyway, what prompted me to start this thread now is that yesterday was the 26th anniversary of the AMIA bombing. On June 18, 1994, a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was attacked by a suicide bomber in a van, killing 85 people. A front for Hezbollah claimed responsibility, but the whole case was very muddled and dragged on for years, with many political repercussions. The investigation was a mess, suspiciously so in some cases, with rumors about Iran being behind the bombing and offering then-president Menem $10 million to close the case. Under Néstor Kirchner, some progress was made as Alberto Nisman was appointed a special prosecutor and issued several Interpol arrest warrants.

Cristina Kirchner's handling of the case was especially controversial - she was criticised for signing a memorandum of understanding with Iran (later revoked by Macri) about investigating the attack. Nisman alleged that this was an attempt at a cover-up and on January 19, 2015, he was found dead in his home. In 2017, Nisman was proven right after all and Cristina was charged for treason, but thanks to her parliamentary immunity avoided going to jail.

Here's the breaking news informing about the attacks.

[Estrella]

Would love to hear about the summary. Back then it took me a lot of time figuring out Argentina's politics

Yeah, me too lol.

So, anyway, here's the first part of that promised summary/guide/introduction/whatever, starting in 1916 and going president by president. It's shorter than I imagined it at first, but then no-one wanting to read a dozen walls of text is always a good excuse for laziness I'm still sure it was worth it writing this, if only to give me the opportunity to come up with witty titles for the individual parts haha.

Apologies for any mistakes, I wrote most of this at night thanks to my f***** up sleep schedule. If When I'm wrong about anything, you're welcome to correct me

Btw, no idea when the second part is coming.

[Estrella]

The Olden Days

Riche comme un argentin, as rich as an Argentine. A phrase that might sound like a sarcastic quip today, but a hundred years ago, Argentina really was the envy of the world. How did the country fall from grace so hard, and how did it rise to those heights in the first place?

Let's start at the beginning.

❊❊❊

Sometime in the 1600s, shores of Río de la Plata. Under candlelight, a trader brags to his friends about the money he made from smuggling a load of goods with the help of another friend, a local ship captain, avoiding cost of shipping them to the "official" port, all the way to Perú. They all share a laugh and celebrate a job well done.

The Spanish arrived to what is today's Argentina only a decade after Columbus discovered "India", but colonization was slow. Gold, the thing that made it worth coming to what was to become known as South America, was further north, as were the centers of colonial power. In 1776, however, Spanish Empire estabilished the Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata, with the trade port of Buenos Aires as its capital.

❊❊❊

1807, a street in Buenos Aires. A soldier of the Viceroyalty loads his flintlock with gunpowder, just in time to fire at a group of redcoats under the window. His comrades follow suit. The British see that they're outgunned and have no options left, only to retreat.

Early 19th century was a turbulent time on the shores of La Plata. During the Napoleonic Wars, the British, unsuccessfully, tried their hand at an invasion. Three years later, the Viceroy was overthrown and United Provinces of Río de la Plata declared independence and fought to keep it under the legendary general José de San Martín. Years of wars and chaos followed, but ultimately the Republic of Argentina was created.

❊❊❊

The ship is cramped, but then they all are, aren't they? A voyage from Naples to Buenos Aires is hardly pleasant like this, but the — hopefully — bright future waiting for the passengers at their destination makes it at least bearable. Argentina is even better than America, they said. You should try it. Great wages, lots of opportunities.

It better be worth it after all this seasickness, she thought.

Despite prospectors' best efforts, there were no precious metals to be found around the River of Silver, but there was something else: plenty of high-quality land to be used for agriculture, plenty of pastures to be grazed by cattle and plenty of opportunities for processing the cattle into meat, leather and other products that Europeans craved. The good winds of Buenos Aires carried ships full of goods to the old continent and returned with much-needed immigrants to work in the fields and factories. British capital financed railways and docks to help expansion further away from Buenos Aires, by now a rapidly growing city with a large middle class.

❊❊❊

1880s, Tierra del Fuego. A being arguably unworthy of being called human fires a shot into a bush. Someone was hiding here, someone of whom he thinks just the same. At night, he and his friends feast and celebrate another successful kill.

Argentina, and especially Buenos Aires, was seen as a part of Europe transplanted into an exotic continent. It wasn't just the riches, cafés, and top hats. Argentina is, to this day, arguably the "whitest" Latin American country, for a very simple reason: the vast majority of indigenous people were massacred in successive waves of "conquest of the desert" throughout the 19th century, when warlords, prospectors and landowners expanded further and further south. Today, indigenous people comprise only 1-2% of Argentine population.

❊❊❊

"People of Buenos Aires!"

The young man is only barely literate and struggles to decode the words on the poster. Still, he persists. It's too important not to know.

"The great revolution, the holy revolution..."

He keeps on reading, more and more fascinated by the triumphant call.

"Glory to the Army and the Civic Union!"

He leaves to join the barricades with a spring in his step.

The poster would later be proven to be perhaps a little too optimistic, but the events that led to its creation would nevertheless change the country.

A cabal of feudalists can run a country as their personal fiefdom only as long as the people don't know of any better alternative. The rapid economic growth of late 19th century gave Argentina a new middle class: ambitious and unwilling to put up with old hidebound squires. National Autonomist Party, the conservative party of power, found themselves facing a new opponent: Radical Civic Union, or UCR for short. A sudden economic crisis caused by near-bankruptcy of a bank was the last straw.

On July 26, 1890, UCR launched Revolution of the Park — an attempt to overthrow the old structures and implement universal suffrage. The revolution was suppressed within three days, but it was a democratic awakening. It marked the beginning of a series of attempted revolutions that would culminate in UCR democratically ascending to power.

❊❊❊

He holds the end of a stick of wax in the flame of a candle until it starts to melt. He then seals the ballot box. The voting can start now. It's the first real election in the country's history. Surely, this will mean that the still-young twentieth century will propel Argentina towards even more greatness, towards rule by the people and freedom. Surely...

President Roque Sáenz Peña was a conservative, but he recognized that some things cannot go on forever. He, like most of Argentines, was becoming more and more dissatisfied with political corruption and oligarchs who were preventing the country from moving forward. Universal suffrage, he thought, was the only way to prevent the rising discontent from turning into a revolution — there was yet another unsuccessful attempt to get rid of the oligarchy by force, and the elite feared that they might not be so lucky next time. In 1912, he implemented a law making voting compulsory for all adult male citizens. This was still only a third or so of the population, but it meant that Argentina would no longer be run by a small group of oligarchs and vested interests.

Sáenz Peña died in 1914 and did not live to see the consequences of the law named after him, but two years later, Argentines radically broke with the old order: a revolutionary leader was elected to lead the country.

[Estrella]

The Man of the People: Hipólito Yrigoyen

1916—1922

Plaza de Mayo was yet to see some of the most (in)famous events in its long history, but this was perhaps the first of the spectacles it became known for. A seemingly neverending mass of people. At its top, literally, as he was being carried by them, was The Man — the first democratically elected president of Argentina.

Hipólito was on top of the world. The people loved him, and he loved them back — at first, anyway.

The 1916 presidential election was a stunning triumph for the UCR. Hipólito Yrigoyen, a veteran of the Revolution of the Park, was elected President with 47% of the popular vote and a narrow majority in the electoral college. On October 12, 1916, he made Case Rosada his home and a new era began.

The Radicals realized that even though Argentina was a rich country, and getting richer by the day, it was in urgent need of modernization to keep this advantage. Yrigoyen got to work right from the start. With Europe in the middle of World War I, their industries were fully focused on military uses and Argentine products were suddenly in great demand. The economy boomed and wages rose, but workers demanded more. The government passed laws to establish minimum wage and collective bargaining. Another of his major accomplishments was an education reform, creating an autonomous, secular and free system of universities.

❊❊❊

Of course, the deeply entrenched oligarchs that the UCR was founded to oppose did not vanish overnight. Yrigoyenismo was a clear danger to their interests and they weren't willing to go down without a fight. Natalio Botana, Uruguay's proto-Rupert Murdoch, founded the sensationalist conservative tabloid Crítica that served as a platform for conservatives criticism of Yrigoyen (their headline on the day of his inauguration was "May God Save the Republic"). Upper-class youths led by Manuel Carlés (a Radical, ironically) founded the Argentine Patriotic League, a far-right anti-leftist and anti-Semitic organization that often joined the police in beating the hell out of striking workers.

Towards the end of his term, though, criticism of Yrigoyen was increasingly justified, despite being very "pot calling the kettle black" — especially when coming from the right. The president's behavior, in a typical Latin American fashion, was becoming more and more egotistic — his previously conciliatory relations with the legislature turned heated and most importantly, he turned against people who made him President.

❊❊❊

In November 1918, the Great War came to an end. European nations could reorient their industries back to producing consumer goods. All of a sudden, Argentina's exports weren't in such high demand anymore. Big corporations cut wages and unemployment rose. This was the spark that set fire to growing discontent within the working class. Inspired by Russian Revolution and emboldened by Yrigoyen's earlier reforms, workers took to the streets and demanded better conditions. On January 7, 1919, trade unions announced a general strike. This was the start of Semana Trágica, the Tragic Week. Over the course of next seven days, pitched battles on the streets between strikers, communists, anarchists, Patriotic League, police and army ended in several hundred deaths.

An even more brutal suppression took place in Santa Cruz, a province in the far south, dominated by sheep farming. A wave of strikes started in 1920 and the situation escalated throughout 1921 until, on November 4, a ranch owner shot two strikers dead. The strikers responded by taking several ranch-owning families hostage.

The Buenos Aires elites were, not to put too fine a point on it, scared sh**less. Conservative press was calling for blood and President gave them what they wanted. On Yrigoyen's orders, an army regiment under command of Col. Héctor Benigno Varela unleashed a wave of terror throughout Santa Cruz. Nobody is sure about the exact numbers, but they reportedly executed as much as 1,500 workers involved in the strike, forcing some of them to dig their own graves.

If Revolution of the Park was the political awakening of the middle class, these events were its equivalent for the working class. Just like with the Park, they were forcibly suppressed and their consequences weren't immediately evident, but they would eventually turn Argentina's political system inside out.

Oh, by the way, for those who wonder how the f*** do you pronounce that name, it's Eergozhen.

[Estrella]

Well the Brits may have had their collective posterior kicked out of the mainland at the start of the 19th century, but they were soon to establish themselves in a certain location nearby. Which has been a factor in Argentine history ever since.

Weirdly enough, it seems that sometime in mid-19th century, Argentina stopped really caring about getting Falklands back and all there was to the dispute were some diplomatic shenanigans (well, with one exception). UK was open to negotiating a transfer of sovereignty to Argentina, maybe even over islanders' heads and had the junta not been desperate for something populist that would make people not hate them, they might have succeeded in getting the islands peacefully.

The junta deciding to go to war with Chile instead would've been a much more interesting outcome for history nerds. Not that that dispute was any less silly.

My biggest cultural shock related to Argentina was seeing that they had the guy behind the Conquest of the Desert (and the process itself) in their money. In Chile, you couldn't put the equivalent guy in a half-cent coin without putting half of the country on fire.

Why is that, I wonder? And who is your equivalent of Roca?

[Estrella]

A Brief Intermission: Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear

1922—1928

Yrigoyen wasn't allowed to seek immediate reelection for a second term, and so a fight erupted within UCR about who gets to be his successor. There was significant backlash within the Radicals to what was perceived as, ehm, radicalism that led to instability and dysfunctional government. As usual in these parts of the world, the dispute was as personal as it was ideological. An "antipersonalist" faction emerged, composed of land-owning moderates and conservatives who perceived him as too populist, too narcissistic and too authoritarian. Yrigoyen decided it was better to keep the elites on his side and it was a member of this faction that won his endorsement for the 1922 election - a well-connected conservative aristocrat and son of the first mayor of Buenos Aires, Marcelo T. de Alvear. He won the election easily, getting 49% of popular vote against a scattered field of conservatives and regional caudillos.

De Alvear's first official act after inauguration was visiting Círculo Militar, a club of high-ranking army officers. For them, this was a welcome change from the days of his confrontational and distrustful predecessor. He appointed multiple officers as ministers in his cabinet and lavished the armed forces with money, turning them into the best-equipped ones in Latin America. This gave them a boost of self-confidence a willingness to assert their place in running the country. It wouldn't be long before an opportunity arose for just that.

❊❊❊

A moderate patrician like de Alvear was a good fit for calm waters of the 1920s . As the post-war economic crisis subsided, so did strikes and social disturbances. The government kept reforms going and passed laws regulating child labor, created retirement funds and kickstarted the oil industry with massive investments into YPF, a state enterprise created under Yrigoyen. YPF's new director Enrique Mosconi massively expanded the company, invested in exploration, refineries and infrastructure and made the company able to compete with other, foreign, firms that exploited Argentine oil.

Nevertheless, there were black spots on his presidency - the darkest one being July 19, 1924, when the Toba indigenous people, confined in camps and used as de facto slave labor in cotton fields, rose up against the ever-worsening conditions. On command of governor of the Chaco province, the army responded with a bloody campaign that killed 400 people in a single day. The name of the compound that was the centre of these events, was Napalpí - Cemetery.

❊❊❊

As the 1928 election was drawing near, cracks were starting to show in UCR. The divisions - again driven by clashes of egos at least as much as by policies - between de Alvear's centrist antipersonalistas and Yrigoyen's leftist personalistas could no longer be papered over. The President was very much an aristocrat of Buenos Aires' new upper class, made rich thanks to ownership of large tracts of profitable land or lucrative trading with foreign companies in the UK or USA. He was a liberal who supported social reforms, but only as long as they didn't go against his interests. Yrigoyen, by contrast, was a middle-class radical who had no time for concerns of people like de Alvear and held no qualms against demolishing the old order they represented.

And so the old strife-ridden Radical Civic Union finally broke up. Yrigoyen, leading the largest faction that kept the name, decided to give the presidency another go and the voters approved. On election day, he triumphed with 61% against the Antipersonalists' 28%.

Hipólito was back.

[Estrella]

He's At It Again: Hipólito Yrigoyen

1928—1930

Throughout the late 19th and early 20th century, the key to Argentina's fast and near-uninterrupted economic growth lied in its geography: massive amounts of arable land and pastures, all of highest quality in the continent. The country became a leading producer of crops, meat and animal products, which were exported all over the world, but especially to Britain. In turn, Britain provided Argentina with investments in infrastructure and businesses and industrial products for its domestic market - all in all, a very globalized economy, if such a word existed in 1929.

Then, on October 24, 1929, Wall Street crashed and so did the economic bonanza sweeping the developed world, of which Argentina was back then undoubtedly a part of. The Great Depression began, international trade subsided and countries that were dependent on it suffered. Argentina wasn't hit as badly, though. The government made a smart decision and made Argentina the first major economy in the world to abandon the gold standard. The value of the peso plummeted, but this move made exports more competitive. Despite 80% of Argentine GDP coming from foreign trade, the effects of the Depression weren't that bad - for example, unemployment was relatively low, never rising into the double digits.

❊❊❊

A crisis may not be catastrophic, but it still is a crisis. Oh, we're not doing as badly as other countries - try telling that to a worker who has been fired from his job, to a family struggling to get by after their wages have been cut, to a businessman who lost his entire livelihood on the stock market. The country needed decisive action, right there, right then.

Alas, the old radical in Casa Rosada wasn't the in his prime anymore. When the crisis hit, the President was 77, weak both physically and mentally and increasingly dependent on his advisors. Already in his first term, Yrigoyen showed that he may be a skilled populist on the campaign trail but rather... pragmatic in government. Worse, he became more authoritarian. He forcefully intervened in provinces governed by dissident Radicals and may or may not have ordered (probably not, but the suspicion was there) the assassination of Carlos Washington Lencinas, an opposition senator and caudillo of the province of Mendoza. His funeral in November 1929 turned into a massive rally against the government.

The popular pressure on the government to do something kept rising. In the 1930 midterm elections*, UCR still won but lost a lot of support to Socialists. Some months later, Yrigoyen listened at last. He dusted off his old radical credentials and came up with a bombshell: all oil resources in Argentina were to be nationalized and placed under themanagement of YPF. On August 1, 1930, YPF took the first step and intervened in the oil market to regulate prices and break the trust between British oil companies and American Standard Oil.

❊❊❊

The prospect of Yrigoyen turning into a radical and threatening the commercial interests of the upper class, people who became rich thanks to their connections with British and American investors wasn't a surprise to anyone. Antipersonalistas were seen as the bulwark that could keep yrigoyenistas out of power after conservatives became too disorganized and too intertwined with oligarchy to win elections. The spectacular failure of this strategy in 1928 led the right wing to look for different solutions. As soon as Yrigoyen's second term began, Agustín Pedro Justo, one of de Alvear's military cabinet appointees, began scheming. His favored outcome was removal of  Yrigoyen from the presidency and his replacement by a civilian, sort-of democratic government composed of conservatives and anti-Yrigoyen Radicals. This put him in conflict with his main co-conspirator, General José Félix Uriburu, who aimed for an explicitly undemocratic corporatist regime inspired by Mussolini's Italy and Primo de Rivera's Spain.

When the oil nationalization was announced, Yrigoyen's removal from office suddenly turned from a vague possibility into something terrifyingly realistic. YPF's intervention on August 1 started the countdown. Over the next weeks, a military coup was openly discussed, even encouraged, in Crítica and other traditionally anti-yrigoyenista newspapers. On August 5, government suspended elections in provinces of Mendoza and San Juan, whose governors were removed by Yrigoyen earlier that year; on August 29, posters appeared in Buenos Aires demanding the president's resignation; on September 3 and 4, a wave of demonstrations swept Buenos Aires.

At dawn on Saturday, September 6, a group of congressmen, including conservatives and anti-Yrigoyen socialists, visited Campo de Mayo, the largest military base in Argentina. The base commander refused their call to take action, but other officers enthusiastically agreed. The army moved into Buenos Aires with minimal resistance and arrived at Casa Rosada. Yrigoyen and his Vice-President Enrique Martínez were taken to nearby La Plata, where they both signed their resignation.


* A honorable mention to the hilarious number of Radical splinters that ran in that election: UCR-A, UCR-Cab, UCR-O, UCR-C, UCR-D, UCR-P, another UCR-D, UCR-R, UCR-T, UCR-L and UCR-B... that's 11 Radical Civic Unions, in addition to the official one. That's just the splinters that kept the UCR name, though: there was, for example, the Public Health Party (0.9% nationally, 4.2% in Buenos Aires) whose aim was to, among other things, to mandate health certifications for food workers and putting expiration dates on product packaging.

[Estrella]

Let's Try Something New: José Félix Uriburu

1930—1932

The September Revolution, as the coup was called by its proponents, was indeed something new. Since mid-19th century, Argentine politics was, by South American standards, very stable - no successful revolutions, no successful coups, transfers of power based on results of generally democratic elections. Now, General Uriburu was the first in a long list of de facto presidents - ones that came to Casa Rosada not through the ballot box, but rather a tank.

The coup d'état was illegal (duh) and while running around the streets with guns might have given the new regime sufficient legitimacy in practice, they were anxious to get a legal basis for their actions. They got it in a Supreme Court decision that, to put it simply, proclaimed all decisions the junta makes are as valid as ones made by a democratically elected government and allowed it to legislate by decree, as long as the law is later confirmed by Congress. This became known as the de facto government doctrine.

❊❊❊

The ideological division between "business conservative" Justo and corporatist Uriburu continued after the coup. Let's talk about where the latter was coming from.

Remember the striking workers' arch-enemy, the Argentine Patriotic League? They, together with other movements that wanted to continue the pre-1916 conservative social order and opposed liberalism/leftism in general and Yrigoyen in particular, morphed into Nacionalismo, a more-or-less cohesive political movement. Over time, they changed and radicalized - from vaguely anti-revolutionary or reactionary conservatives into a group openly inspired by Fascism and Nazism, though with some local modifications - although they were strongly anti-Communist and anti-Semitic, their motivations for reining in capitalism and helping the working class stemmed from a quasi-Christian Democratic vision of social justice. They were, indeed, strongly Catholic and opposed Yrigoyen's secular education system as a "tool of Freemasons" (who were actually pretty strong among Radicals back then, so this is slightly, just slightly less unhinged than it sounds). Their other main pillar was, as you can guess from their name, nationalism. In conflict with political and economic elites, they opposed British and American ownership of industry, infrastructure and natural resources. Internationally, they had links to similar movements in Europe but they were ideologically closest to people like Francisco Franco and António Salazar.

Nacionalistas never formed any paramilitary group, political party or other organized front for themselves - partly because of internal divisions, partly because Radicals, their biggest enemy, were out of power and there was nobody to fight against and partly because they radicalized to the point where they regarded the existence of parties and even democracy itself as dangerous. They did increase their strength, though, especially in the army - something that was to come to haunt the regime they helped to install.

❊❊❊

After the coup, multiple Radical leaders were arrested after being accused of plotting to overthrow the new government, others were kept under police surveillance and Yrigoyen himself was exiled to Martín Garcia Island. Nevertheless, the coupists wanted to come back to some form of democracy as soon as possible. The de facto government doctrine made the new regime legitimate in eyes of the law (as twisted as it was) and now they were looking for legitimacy from the people. The first attempt wasn't exactly successful - a provincial election in Buenos Aires resulted in a narrow victory for UCR's Honorio Pueyrredón over the government's preferred candidate, and so they decided to try a different approach.

The government's strategy for the 1931 presidential election was, tellingly, called el fraude patriótico. It was created to lead to victory of Concordancia, a grouping uniting the main supporters of the regime. The alliance was composed of Antipersonalist Radicals (UCR-A), National Democratic Party (PDN, an attempt to unify conservatives left in the wilderness after 1916) and Independent Socialist Party (PSI, a spineless pragmatic splinter of the old Socialist Party led by Roberto Nobe, founder of the tabloid Clarín and Federico Pinedo*, a future Minister of Finance). Uriburu's poor health and personal distaste for politics ensured that he was out of the running and Agustín Pedro Justo was the candidate - as a member of the PSI, strangely enough. He won 59% of the vote - a victory that was convincing numerically, unconvincing democratically.

As for the opposition-governed Buenos Aires, a new election was promptly called to, ehm, fix the result. Pueyrredón was kicked off the ballot and the correct candidate won with 55% against his closest challenger, the 42% of voters who voted blank.


* Federico Pinedo later became (in)famous for his involvement a bizarre incident - during a parliamentary debate in 1935, he got into a schoolyard-insult-laden argument with Senator and presidential candidate Lisandro de la Torre, which was followed two days latter by his fellow Minister Luis Duhau physically assaulting the Senator on the floor of Congress. The brawl ended with Duhau's bodyguards shooting and killing (likely on purpose) Enzo Bordabehere, another Senator who was trying to protect de la Torre. Pinedo then challenged him to a duel and probably would have killed his opponent if he wasn't such a terrible shooter (and afterwards refused to reconcile and called the duel "an irrational sham"). As for de la Torre, the Bordabehere murder seems to have played a part in him committing suicide three years later.

[Estrella]

No Democracy Please, We're Argentinian

❊❊❊

Act One: Agustín Pedro Justo

1932—1938

Upon entering office, Justo's government was faced with a bleak economic picture. The Great Depression led to an increase in the popularity of protectionism around the world. Argentina's dependency on exports, especially to United Kingdom, meant that its industries were suffering. The last straw was the Imperial Preference system, designed to promote trade within the Commonwealth by isolating it from outside markets. Argentina was desperate to break a hole in the wall of tariffs to stop its economy from falling into an even deeper crisis.

In 1933 Vice-President Julio A. Roca and Board of Trade president Walter Runciman signed an agreement. Argentina received a (rather low) beef export quota and in return Britain and British companies received a huge number of perks, including exemptions from labor law. The blatant one-sidedness of the deal poured fuel into the fire of outrage about Argentina being exploited by foreign interests and it remained a political powder keg for several years (that Pinedo-de la Torre dispute was started by a debate about just this).

The Roca-Runciman Treaty made it clear that the times have changed and primary sector exports weren't going to be enough for an economic recovery. The government decided to experiment with import substitution industrialization (ISI), a policy that would soon become vogue throughout Latin America. The rationale for ISI was that instead of buying industrial products from abroad, the government would establish tariffs on imports and invest in building factories at home. This would mean that money would stay in the country and plenty of new workplaces would be created.

That was the theory, at least. In practice, it meant that agriculture, Argentina's most profitable industry, already hurt by the pact with Britain, found itself abandoned. ISI was, to some extent, successful, but as the supply of money from agricultural exports dried up, Argentina found itself in a long spell of mediocre economic growth - not as bad as some other countries during the 1930s, but nevertheless a sharp contrast to the preceding boom decades.

❊❊❊

The 1930s were otherwise not that bad, though. Justo was, in a way, a throwback to de Alvear - a mildly reformist type that supports change as long as it doesn't threaten the position of his social class. His government established the Central Bank of Argentina, introduced a nationwide income tax and had a surprisingly good relationship with workers' unions.

In 1930, the majority of trade unions in Argentina, ranging in ideology from social democrats to communists to anarchists, all merged into the General Confederation of Labour, the CGT. This gave the unions and their hundreds of thousands of members the potential to be a powerful force in society and politics. Union bosses, however, decided to cooperate with the government instead and avoid strikes in return for the occasional wage increase here or a new labor regulation there. This created divisions and various radical splinter groups, but the core organization managed to stay mostly united until 1942, when it split into the hilariously unimaginatively named anti-communist CGT n°1 and communist CGT n°2. After a military coup in 1943, these two groups were forcefully reunified and CGT again became a cohesive, powerful organization. One member of the military junta, a certain Colonel Perón, would realize that this was something he could exploit... but that's a story for another time.

❊❊❊

As Justo's presidential term was nearing its end, it was time for Concordancia to choose a new candidate; they selected Roberto Marcelino Ortiz and Ramón Castillo as his running mate. Both were controversial: Ortiz was clearly a cronyist choice motivated by his ties to British commercial interests and Castillo was a part of the quasi-feudal landowning aristocracy that still clung on to power in the provinces. El fraude patriótico returned and the Ortiz-Castillo ticket won the 1937 election with 54% against former president Marcelo T. de Alvear's 42%.

[Estrella]

No Democracy Please, We're Argentinian

❊❊❊

Act Two: Roberto Marcelino Ortiz

1938—1942

Manuel Fresco was, by all accounts, an ambitious man. That wasn't necessarily for the best - especially if ambition meant remaking his fiefdom to suit his views, especially if those views were a thinly disguised version of fascism. He was the Governor of Buenos Aires Province from 1936 to 1940 and led what was arguably the closest emulation of Mussolini's or Franco's policies among all of their plentiful Latin American fanboys. He even had the former's bust in his office and liked to deliver speeches praising his toothbrush-mustachioed colleague. Massive modernist architectural projects one one hand - an education to instill obedience and "traditional values" on the other.

However, when the clearly (and amateurishly) rigged 1940 provincial election led to a narrow victory of Alberto Barceló, his protégé and the corrupt caudillo of the Buenos Aires suburb of Avellaneda, the President decided to act. Ortiz was, for his part, someone who valued democracy as more than something to be used as a controlled outlet for popular anger. For once, federal government's questionable power to intervene in provincial politics was used for good. The President deposed Fresco and annulled the election. Unfortunately, that didn't last - not long after Ortiz left office, Fresco's ally Rodolfo Moreno was fraude patriótico-ed into governorship.

❊❊❊

You wouldn't know it from the subservience of trade unions, but there was a lot of social discontent in Argentina. Import substitution was successful in that it spurred the growth of industry and led to migrants, both from the countryside and from abroad, flocking into major cities. Between 1914 and 1947, metro Buenos Aires grew by nearly three million people; further hundreds of thousands moved into growing industrial centers in the provinces. The conservative, laissez-faire approach of the government, combined with incompetence and corruption when it did decide to act, meant that these immigrants were forced to live in villas miserias: shanty towns on outskirts of cities, full of overcrowded shacks without access to electricity or sanitation.

Hardly something rare in Latin America, but Argentina had a vibrant tradition of political activism and these people would be the perfect match for socialist or communist parties anywhere in the world. But the Infamous Decade, as the Uriburu-Justo-Ortiz period was known, was an illiberal regime that would permit these parties to exist, but wouldn't look too kindly on any large-scale social activism. Yrigoyen was dead and the PSI was nominally socialist, but nobody held any illusions about their actual policies. There was a political vacuum in society - millions of workers and poor people were dissatisfied, enraged, but they didn't have any ideology or, failing that, a charismatic figure to turn to.

Yet.

❊❊❊

The sad state of President's health was long well-known. In his last months, he had been blinded by diabetes. That was the last straw that led to his resignation on June 27, 1942 and to his death less than a month later. His Vice-President Ramón Castillo took his place.

[Estrella]

No Democracy Please, We're Argentinian

❊❊❊

Act Three: Ramón Castillo

1942—1943

Eighty-nine years ago to the day, on September 1, 1939, international diplomacy broke down and, as the people were calling it back then, a second Great War was about to erupt. Seems like a great time to have a talk about foreign policy, isn't it?

For a country that was so deeply economically and politically intertwined with an European power as Argentina was with Britain, a policy of neutrality in wars in Europe seems like a strange choice. The reason for that connection to Britain, however, was the fact that Argentina was her breadbasket and slaughterhouse. Unrestricted submarine warfare wasn't all that common before WW2, and during wartime it was much easier for Argentine ships to travel to Europe as a neutral third party rather than as enemies. If U-boats were given a justification to start firing torpedoes at Argentine ships as freely as they did at British ones, UK's fragile supply network keeping her soldiers and civilians fed would collapse. It was vital for Britain that Argentina stays neutral.

But by the 1940s Britain wasn't the only player anymore. The United States saw Latin America as their sphere of influence and were keen to weaken Britain's connections to the region, not to mention that they didn't need Argentine exports and didn't have any trade routes that could be endangered by a war. After Pearl Harbor, America was adamant to get as much Latin American countries to join the war as possible. Argentina kept refusing the US plan for South America to join the allies en bloc and American pressure grew and grew, to the point that Argentine government was perceived in some circles as enablers of fascism, if not fascists themselves.

❊❊❊

In 1930, nacionalistas and the oligarchs fought together to remove Yrigoyen. They had a common enemy but as soon as he was out of the picture, the differences between them became visible. The oligarchs were mostly landowners, aristocrats, bankers and old money types in general; they made their fortune thanks to business connections with Britain and weren't particularly happy about endangering them - after all, a threat to these interests was the immediate trigger of the 1930 coup.

The nationalists, on the other hand, were mostly middle class, with their core and most active members being Army officers (ground forces that is, not the Navy, which was very aristocratic). They didn't like Concordancia's policy of appeasing foreign investors and neither did they like their classical liberal economic policies when they saw a need for government to take action. Not to mention that some of them went beyond the call for neutrality and were outright supporters of fascism.

❊❊❊

1943 was an election year. Concordancia announced their preferred candidate and... it didn't quite go as planned. Robustiano Patrón Costas was almost designed to send Argentines frustrated with the increasingly ineffective and out of touch government into a howl of rage.

He supported joining the Allies and sending soldiers to the front; the military hated the lackey of foreign diplomats who used Argentina as a pawn in their grand game. He was an ultra-rich landowner from the provinces and baron of the sugar industry; the bourgeoisie hated the almost medieval feudal aristocrat who prevented them from climbing the social ladder. He was a staunch economic conservative who paraded around with British investors; the working class hated the man who let foreign companies exploit and underpay them at work and let them live in squalor at home.

Costas could not win; and yet, he could not lose. It became clear that the incumbent President would be willing to resort to electoral fraud on an unprecedented scale to get the result he wanted.

In the eyes of the military, they had only one option.

❊❊❊

Nationalists in the armed forces had a core of sorts. The United Officers Group or GOU was created to organize efforts to prevent Costas' accession to power and Argentina's entry into war. It originated from two lieutenant-colonels, Miguel Montes and Urbano de la Vega and over time expanded to 26 members. There was no official leader, but some members had more influence than others; among those were officers such as Arístobulo Mittelbach, Arturo Saavedra and a certain Juan Perón.

The second coup of the century started at the same place the first one did: the Campo de Mayo barracks. The operation itself was much better organized than the previous one. Units moved quickly and secured key locations, with the exception of Navy School of Mechanics on the outskirts of the capital. Officers of Armada were the only group that remained loyal to the government and Ejército had to take building by force, at the cost of thirty lives.

The President saw the writing on the wall, fled Casa Rosada, boarded a fishing trawler and escaped across the river to Uruguay.

❊❊❊

from commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Revolucion_del_43.jpg - Diarios "La Razón" y "El Día"

Castillo was gone and with him, the Infamous Decade.

[Estrella]

Thank you so much for these, Argentina is a fascinating (if sometimes tragic) country.

Thank you!
Yeah, I feel Argentina is one of the few countries on Earth where you genuinely don't know whether you're writing a summary of history or a melodrama, for better or worse.

[Estrella]

I can see the fun that Radicalism is also a very versatile movement that can be populist, progressive (when they formed Alianza or Intransigente phase), but somewhat conservative and even neoliberal (supporting Macri).

Yeah, anti-Peronists tend to be a little more ideological, but it's not much better. It’s a huge contrast to the other side of the Andes and closer to the meaningless party labels in places like Brazil.

Now that I'm thinking of it... these kinds of cross-country comparisons are a bit silly, but it's superficially* similar to Ireland some decades ago:

Fianna Fáil and Peronists as the dominant political movement whose only ideology is nationalism and amorphous Muh Common People populism. Goes whichever way the wind is blowing on economic policy. Also, corrupt as f***.

Fine Gael and Radicals/Cambiemos etc. as the hopeless main opposition, tend to be more economically liberal except when they don't and not all that different.

Labour and Partido Socialista, far-left etc. as the even more hopeless party that tried to go after working class and got wind stolen from its sails by Perón and de Valera.

* I really, really need to stress this. This is just some #analysis done for fun. The underlying reasons for how the countries got where they are couldn’t be more different.

[Estrella]

Thank you so much for these, Argentina is a fascinating (if sometimes tragic) country.

Thank you!
Yeah, I feel Argentina is one of the few countries on Earth where you genuinely don't know whether you're writing a summary of history or a melodrama, for better or worse.

Just stumbled upon those summaries! They’re really interesting! Are you planning on continuing them into the Peron era?

Thanks! (: Ideally, I'd like to get up to the coup that removed Perón sometime soon and then I'll continue according to how much time/energy I'll have, until I get to present day.

There was a guy named Carlos Menem who was President in the 90’s who famously converted to Catholicism as their constitution required it at time. His Presidency is widely criticized for being tied to the country’s economic troubles at the turn of the millennium.

More like Carlos Meme I remember how Lumine's description of Menem as basically a caricature of Berlusconi helped get me to go down the rabbit hole of Argentine political history. He was, well, quite a character. Hell, he even drove a Ferrari.

Oh, and his ads! They started out reasonably normal, but in 1999 he couldn't stand for reelection and decided to support the anointed successor, which led to the creation of one of the cringier examples of the 'Latin American campaign song probably paid for with embezzled public money' genre, Menem lo hizo (MenemMeme did it). Rather deservedly, it was the target of many parodies, though I have to admit it's pretty catchy. And then there was, of course, ¡VAAAMO MEEENEM!

Indeed, both of his parents were Sunni Muslims from Syria but he converted to Christianity sometime "in his youth". As President, he then pushed through a big constitutional reform that, among other things, removed that requirement. I think the Presidential oath mentions santos evangelios to this day, though.

The tied to the 2001 crisis part is a bit more complicated. Menem's presidency was the first time since early 70s that economy wasn't going down the drain, though that's more thanks to Domingo Cavallo and his Convertibility Plan (1 peso = 1 dollar). You're correct in that lots of things were done wrong - corruption during privatizations, huge deficits, overheating economy, overvalued currency and the fact that money printer can't go brrr when you have a fixed exchange rate meant that all eventually blew up in the face of his well-meaning but hapless successor. Menem had a big part in that disaster, but he was hardly the worst President regarding economic incompetence.

And it might just be the sideburns, but MenemMeme has always reminded me of Ivan Mládek.

[Estrella]

haha what

https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1320172896543772673

From purely anecdotal evidence (=looking at Twitter), people voting for Despertar are mostly the typical far-right demographic, that is men in their 20s and 30s frustrated with TEH SYSTEM and with Macri for being too moderate. Can't blame them, really, this was bound to happen at some point given the very special way Argentina is ed (a big part of which was too much economic interventionism, carried out with criminal stupidity at that, and I'm saying this as a sorta leftist) but it's still surprising to see Espert in double digits. Most likely, like almost everywhere else in the world, 90% of people voting for libertarians are actually various shades of fash and dollars to donuts would've cheered on such charming figures as Videla were they born 40 years earlier.

Somewhat related to this, I have a pet theory on why non-Peronist right was so weak in Argentina post-Perón, something pretty strange when you compare Argentina to other Latin American countries, where middle- and upper-class people vote strongly for the right - in AR, they usually voted for the kinda-sorta-centrist-liberalish-moderate-hero UCR. The easy answer is that Argentine politics was never really ideologically based, and it might just be that simple and I might be overthinking it, but I guess that:

1) they tanked in the 40s and 50s when the middle class flocked to Radicals as better anti-Peronists than stuffy old feduals who ran a dictatorship just a couple of years before

2) they remained unpopular in the 60s and early 70s because of their association with the army and its constant coups that promised to bring political stability but achieved the exact opposite (unlike, say, Pinochet), though they did get one good election result (14% for former dictator P. E. Aramburu in the 1963 election)

3) in the 70s they actually had some support (15% and 12% in the two presidential elections), which led to the 1976 coup, but afterwards...

4) during the Proceso the dictatorship was more concerned with stabbing each other in the back, declaring open season on leftists, committing an ungentlemanly act in the South Atlantic and completely ing up the economy

5) in the 80s there was basically a two-party system not based on the left-right paradigm* that didn't leave much room for them and they were too closely associated with the army and their excesses, both during Proceso and later with the Carapintadas rebellions

6) the 90s was basically a continuation of the previous factors - not surprising given that the most relevant right-wing party was MODIN, a lobby group for disgruntled army officers that served as a receptacle for random protest voters

7) in 2001, López Murphy acutally got a decent result but with the explosion of party system and increasingly personality-based politics, they were unable to find the right candidate. This, however, was a much more liberal right than the anti-Peronist/anti-communist fanatics of the 70s and earlier

8​) Cambiemos Juntos por whatever they're callling themselves today is, probably, centre-right if you're looking for a one-word description, but besides Republican Proposal ("liberal conservatives" as written in the SACRED WIKIPEDIA INFOBOX, which is, admittedly, a reasonable approximation of reality - though Macri did praise Peronism, so there's that) it has also more centrist, centre-left and shameless opportunist people.

* To the extent it was, it could be argued that during much of the 80s and 90s, Radicals were actually to the left of Justicialists, but let's not get into that.

[Estrella]

One thing that seems weird is that Espert/Milei's support appears to be inversely proportional to support for Macri. By conventional wisdom you'd think that they eat mostly from Macri's support and thus poll higher in his strongest regions, but actually they poll worst in Buenos Aires city (where Macri dominated even in 2019), better in Buenos Aires province and best in Argentina as a whole, which seems like the exact opposite pattern.

An explanation I've heard is that a lot of economic liberals voted for Fernandez out of a belief that he might turn out to be like Menem. I'm not sure how accurate that is but it does match up somewhat with your explanation of the non-ideological nature of Argentinian politics. Does that sound plausible or do you have a better explanation?

That... doesn't really make sense?

While ideology doesn't play a big role in Argentine politics, it's not completely dead and last election was an unusually stark choice where it was generally understood that Macri would be more concillatory to the IMF and continue his gradual economic reforms, plus there was a widespread suspicion that Cristina would try to be a backseat driver from the vicepresidency. I'm guessing that virtually everyone who might be called an economic liberal voted for Macri and those few who didn't went for Lavagna - not really a liberal, but at least a respected economist.

What's more important though is that while politics doesn't revolve around the left-right divide, it doesn't mean there are no divides at all; the important distinction is between Peronists and non-Peronists. Right-wing Peronism exists, but it's not what it used to be and what's known as Federal/Dissident Peronism consists of extremely vague populists and provincial strongmen who are conservatives in the same sense Brezhnev was. Not much room for economic liberals there - they never voted for Peronists in any significant number, not even in the 90s. If you look at the maps of 1989 and 1995 elections, the areas that voted for Menem the neoliberal are the same that voted for Cristina the leftist and Alberto the whatever.

And while Alberto looks like he'll end up governing more moderately than Cristina, I really doubt he'll turn into another Menem. Menem got away with what he did because of specific circumstances of that era, but those policies are toxic among Peronists after the 2001 crisis.

tl;dr once you discount random middle-finger protest voting, I think there are just quite a lot Fernández ↠ Macri and Macri ↠ Espert voters. After all, Mauricio was never truly hated and had some genuinely spectacular popularity ratings when it appeared he's handling things well. Who knows, maybe his loss will turn out to be a blessing. okay so Alex corrected me on this.

Or maybe it's just a crap poll ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Estrella]

Here's a great video about Argentina's response to the coronavirus. The most important thing isn't even about the quarantine itself; it's that this crisis is on track to become as bad as the one in 2001... but there isn't any sort of massive popular reaction to it, not like what the country has seen before. In 2001, the people went out in the streets and there were strikes and protests and riots and ¡que se vayan todos!, but now - almost nothing. This is, obviously, due to the quarantine but I can't help but feel like people are becoming resigned to this.

Oh, and the dollar is about to cross 80 pesos. Was 60 this time last year and 35 two years ago. *slow clap* That is the official(-ish) exchange rate, though. Dólar blue, the more realistic black market rate, is something like 170. Joy.

[Estrella]

Can anyone explain Lavagna's ideology and support base? He seems to have been supported by a coalition of both more moderate Peronists as well as the Socialist Party and served in Nestor Kirchner's cabinet suggesting he isn't exactly a neoliberal in economics despite his technocratic inclinations. From what I can tell, he seems like the best choice in the Presidential elections last year.

Ideology - you pretty much explained it yourself. However, he doesn't really have a base, that was his problem. 99% of Peronists coalesced behind Alberto and 99% of non-far-left/non-far-right non-Peronists coalesced behind Macri. I took a look at the results and I was astonished at just how evenly spread his support was. He got the same roughly mid-single digits result basically everywhere in the country. His best provincewide result was 10.7% (Salta), his worst was 3.1% (Corrientes). Based on that, I'm guessing he got the generic "they all suck but this old moderate hero guy seems okay" vote.

[Estrella]

What is happening in Guernica right now with all this eviction talk?

A couple of months ago, a tract of private land in an outer suburb of Buenos Aires was occupied as a protest against poverty, mostly by people made homeless during the pandemic. Some families left in exchange for building materials, but others stayed and had their homes demolished by the police. The whole affair was quite violent - 4000 police took part, and there was plenty of tear gas, stone throwing, molotovs, rubber bullets and several wounded people on both sides.

There's something delightfully ironic about a Kirchnerist Minister of Public Security bragging about this operation and talking about a right to private property and how usurpation is a crime (and then going on TV and ranting about left-wing groups).

https://twitter.com/SergioBerniArg/status/1321820121002876929

something something peronists helping the poor

[Estrella]

We Want the Colonels: Arturo Rawson / Pedro Pablo Ramírez / Edelmiro Julián Farrell

1943—1946

Considering why the Revolution of '43 took place, it might seem strange that someone like General Arturo Rawson would be made president after Castillo was deposed. Apart from his career choice, he was virtually indistinguishable from old grandees that ran the country during the Infamous Decade. He was militantly Catholic, conservative, well-connected, and so were his cabinet appointments. Even to those who weren't a part of GOU, such a blatant attempt to keep things as close to the old regime as Rawson was trying to was unacceptable. After a paltry three days in power, poor Arturo resigned on June 7, 1943.

His successor was another General: Pedro Pablo Ramírez. He still wasn't as friendly to GOU as they might have liked, but unlike Rawson, he appointed an all-military cabinet (except Minister of Finance) and distanced himself from the pre-coup government.

Everyone hated Castillo's government, and so the junta of Ramírez was quite popular, at first. However, he soon came up with many authoritarian measures: arrest and imprisonment of communist leaders, dissolution of troublesome trade unions and taking control of universities (nacionalistas harboured a seething hatred towards teachers and the secular education system in general). On the other hand, he passed some measures to help farmers and launched investigations into some Infamous Decade corruption scandals. All in all, something, but not much.

Some people in the junta didn't want to continue Concordancia's inaction, though. They had bigger plans.

❊❊❊

Juan Domingo Perón was born on October 8, 1895 in Lobos^*, not far from Buenos Aires. He did well in elementary school and clearly had potential, but he had a problem. In those times, the best way for someone from a decidedly non-elite background to move up the societal ladder was a military school. But Juan was an illegitimate child and even worse, the son of an Indigenous (Quechua and Aónikenk) mother. That didn't stop him: a forged birth certificate gave young Juan an opportunity to join the prestigious National Military College.

Juan was a good student and quickly progressed through ranks until he was high enough to join the United Officers Group. When Ramírez was forced to resign over being too unfriendly to Axis and GOU finally got their man in Edelmiro Farell, his old friend Perón got a promotion: he was appointed Minister of Labour. As previously mentioned, CGT had a tradition of, ehm, "cooperation" with the government. It was a pragmatic organization with little socialist or communist presence, so the task wasn't very difficult. Nevertheless, Perón proved more active than expected. To chagrin of his cabinet colleagues, he regularly took the side of workers in labour disputes and pushed for better labor laws and more social benefits. The unknown officer suddenly became a well-known and popular figure among otherwise apolitical ordinary people.

On January 15, 1944, the Andean city of San Juan was hit by a devastating earthquake. Aroun 10,000 people died, the whole city was destroyed and in need of complete rebuilding. Minister Perón got to work: he led the organization of relief efforts. This made him well-known throughout the country, not just among the unionized workers of Buenos Aires. He also organized a fundraiser gala for high society of the capital city, where he met a certain someone... but let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Perón's colleagues viewed his rising popularity with suspicion. In September 1945, he made a radio speech excoriating conservatives opposed to his policies. In reaction to this, General Eduardo Ávalos pressured him to resign. Days later, Perón was arrested and exiled on Martín García Island. On October 17, on a date that would later become known as Loyalty Day, hundreds of thousands of workers gathered in Plaza de Mayo to call for Perón's return. It was the largest popular mobilization since the days of Yrigoyen. At this point, the junta seems to have become genuinely frightened; they released Perón and called for elections to be held the following year.

❊❊❊

On one hand stood the National Coordination Junta: Partido Laborista, Perón's attempt to create a trade-union based party inspired by British Labour, in alliance with UCR Junta Renovadora, Radicals' left wing. On the other hand was Unión Democrática. As shown by the phrygian cap in their logo, they were ostensibly a grand front of forces from the whole political spectrum united against a dangerous populist and/or wannabe dictator, led by intelligentsia, professionals and the middle class. In reality, they were a barely functioning shotgun marriage of conservatives and liberals who thought Perón was a crypto-communist with socialists and communists who thought he was a crypto-fascist. Despite its ideological incoherence, UD was, at first, surprisingly good at mobilizing support. An anti-junta (which Perón was considered to be an arm of in these circles) rally in September 1945, March of Constitution and Liberty, drew some 200,000 people.

An important part of UD's campaign was the fact that Perón came to power thanks to an anti-US and somewhat pro-Axis military junta. They were opposed to nacionalistas and considered good relations with US and UK crucial to Argentina's future. They had an ally in this - the American ambassador Spruille Braden⁺. Braden was fluent in Spanish and personally addressed UD rallies, an idea that might have looked good to US-friendly elites but screamed "Yankee interference!" to vast majority of voters. Reacting to this, the Peronist propaganda machine cast the election as a clear choice: Braden or Perón. Ordinary Argentines were tired of exploitation by foreign companies and receptive to a message of restoring national dignity. They knew where they stood.

Imperialist lackeys on one side, a dictator-in-waiting on the other - after what was possibly the ugliest campaign in Argentine history, the election finally came on 24 February 1946. The Juan Perón/Hortensio Quijano ticket won 53% against 46% of UD and José Tamborini/Enrique Mosca. The Peronist alliance won a two-thirds majority in Chamber of Deputies, all but two seats in the Senate and every single governorship except Corrientes.

The voters didn't know it yet, but this election was the first example of the way this country's politics would be divided from now on:  two camps, not liberals and conservatives, not left and right, but two separate Argentinas: one of the Peronists, other of the Anti-Peronists.


^* Probably.

⁺ Unsurprisingly, Braden was a big fan of Truman Doctrine and after leaving Buenos Aires helped organize the 1954 United Fruit coup in Nicaragua.

[Estrella]

Nationalism, Socialism, Orbis Tertius: Juan Domingo Perón

1946—1955

I won't be explaining the detailed definition of Peronism here, whatever it is; it wouldn't tell us much anyway. But if you'll go looking for a succinct description, you'll be disappointed. It's an ideology on the left and right, progressive and conservative, moderate and radical, seeking justice but opressing those who need it, free of ideology yet staunchly dogmatic; all of that tied together with grandiose politics of spectacle.

So what better way to talk about Perón than through a melodramatic series of opposites?

— it was the best of times —

On Tuesday, 4 June 1946, General Juan Domingo Perón was inaugurated President of Argentina. Immediately after entering office, he got to work. His positions on many issues weren't clear. Nevertheless, he had an idea - vague in many respects, specific in others - of how a new Argentine state should look like. More than that, he was absolutely determined to turn it into reality.

Perón could thank the dominant trade union confederation, the CGT, for his ascent to power, and thank he did. He appointed many trade unionists to high positions in the government, created a very union-friendly environment in workplaces, gave wide-ranging powers to labour courts and radically expanded workers' protections and enshrined them in the Workers' Bill of Rights. By 1950, CGT had grown to over 2 million members, some 40% of Argentine workforce. In return, they served as his closest political ally, campaigners and GOTV organization.

Radicals and even Infamous Decade governments made cautious steps to create a rudimentary welfare state, with some successes. What Perón did in the first years of his term blew these attempts out of the water. By early 1950s, the vast majority of working population had access to social security and health insurance. The country's economy benefited hugely from the post-war economic boom and years of quick growth and rise in real wages ensued.

Even after industrialization of the ISI era, Argentina's economic growth was driven largely by natural resources of all sorts - soil, pastures, forests, oil or minerals. But after being harvested or extracted, these commodities need to be delivered to waterfront and from there to their destinations overseas. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that whoever controlled the infrastructure used to transport these goods controlled the country's economy - and since late 19th century, it had been the British. It was understandable - back then, Argentina was a poor backwater while UK was the world's most advanced industrial economy and had the know-how to go with that - but by 1940s, they had overstayed their welcome.

Perón cut his political teeth taking the side of workers in labor conflicts involving companies owned by British private conglomerates and absentee landlords, so it won't come as a surprise that he had no time for the latter. He came up with a solution that was in the vogue even in capitalist countries: nationalization. In the first years of his presidency, railways, public transport, merchant marine, mining, metallurgy, siderurgy, grain elevators, electricity, gas or telephones were transformed into state-owned enterprises that were to form the backbone of Argentina's new economic system.

All of this was put under an umbrella with a familiar name: the Five-Year Plan. The first one was launched in 1947, the second one would start in 1951. Given how these sorts of master plans tend to go, this one was surprisingly succesful. The main achievement was the creation of IAPI, a state-owned enterprise that controlled foreign trade, but there were many other projects, mostly in infrastructure (new roads, railways, power plants, electrification etc) that were created during this era.

It seemed like Argentina was, at last, becoming a true first world country.

— it was the worst of times —

The President's plans were very nice, but turning them into reality was a different matter. Sure, many of them did work, but there were plenty of bumps on the road.

As CGT grew larger, it also became more emboldened. Unions stopped with their subservience and strikes became a regular occurrence - especially in industries that were still in private hands. Peronism certainly isn't Communism and isn't inherently opposed to private businesses, but Perón's relationship with industrialists wasn't great. As long as strikes weren't too common in nationalized industries, the government had nothing against them - in fact, they were given tacit encouragement. It wasn't long before Peronists started seeing strikes not as a protest from angry workers that needed to be addressed, but as a tool to be used against political opponents - a way of thinking that lasts to this day.

There was also another problem. The Cold War had just started and the US government was concerned about the spread of communism to its South American backyard. Perón himself had very little sympathies towards communists and left-wing opposition to himself in general, but the State Department thought that his left-wing nationalist policies were the first step towards Soviet infiltration or at least moving Argentina away from the NATO sphere of influence. The country's exports were hurt by the US refusal to buy them for use in the Marshall Plan. In reaction to this, Perón again proved that he was a pragmatist first and foremost and ratified a regional security treaty with the US. Otherwise, he still remained... well, a heroic anti-imperialist to some and a dangerous isolationist to others: Argentina refused to join what was to become the WTO and IMF.

[Estrella]

— it was the age of wisdom —

The nationalizations, Five Year Plan and general nationalist attitude of the government were all very popular among the working class, but they were all pretty "abstract" things. Standards of living had improved somewhat during the wartime economic boom, but millions of people were still living in precarious conditions - suburban fields littered with rotting shacks or damp, cramped city apartments, subsisting on meager wages, often barely enough to afford food and basic necessities.

A massive expansion of social programs did huge lifting to help with this, but a more permanent solution was needed. Before Perón, Argentina had an extremely imbalanced educational system: free, universal and compulsory primary school education and correspondingly high literacy rates, better than even some developed countries; on the other hand, higher education was only available to those in military officer training and a narrow circle of elites. Perón's government sought to change this. Enrollment in commercial and technical high schools more than doubled and a National Workers University was created for working-class engineering students.

Juan Perón was a friend of the hard-working and the needy - that's how he and his half of the country saw it, anyway.

— it was the age of foolishness —

He wasn't a friend of intellectuals, though. Shoes yes, books no was a famous Peronist slogan; another, unofficial one, was haga patria, mate un estudiante - build the fatherland, kill a student. Universities were a stronghold of opposition to Peronism - partly, of course, because students and faculty were coming from the elite, but also because of the creeping illiberal nature of the regime, exemplified by new textbooks filled with propaganda ("Long live Perón! Perón and Evita love us."). Perón didn't like this at all. He fired over a thousand university professors who spoke out or signed petitions against him. A famous writer was threatened with being fired from Buenos Aires city library and sent to work as a poultry inspector at the city's market after criticizing the President.*

Nuclear physics, sadly, wasn't Perón's strong suit either and after surrounding himself with yes men, he didn't have anyone to warn him when he was approached by a certain Ronald Richter. Richter, an Austrian physicist of rather dubious credentials, convinced Perón to help him continue one of Nazi Germany's many unfinished vanity projects, an attempt at creating a workable fusion nuclear reactor (something which, by the way, we still haven't accomplished today). This started the Huemul Project - an utterly insane pseudoscientific endeavor that made Argentina waste millions of dollars at a time of increasingly struggling economy. Hell, even Evita herself called out Perón for being so naive, and yet the project continued, with ever-louder scientific ridicule (Edward Teller, the co-inventor of hydrogen bomb, didn't mince words and called Richter "crazy") until Perón was deposed. In the meantime, the President bragged about Argentines being soon able to buy energy in milk bottles^x.

Even worse, Richter was far from being the only Nazi given shelter: hundreds of Wehrmacht and SS officers or functionairies in the Third Reich government fled to Argentina where they avoided prosecution - most famously Adolf Eichmann, one of the very few to be later brought to justice.

— it was the epoch of belief —

Since Argentina existed, it was, obviously, a Catholic country. Like in the rest of Latin America, the Catholic Church held an important social role, especially in providing education and healthcare for the poor. Under Yrigoyen first cracks in this arrangement appeared with establishment of a secular education system, but his overthrow by and replacement by a reactionary government put a stop to it. When Perón came to power, he wasn't very inclined to disrupt this arrangement. After all, his political roots weren't on the left, but in a culturally conservative, arguably fascist movement. But things changed.

— it was the epoch of incredulity —

Starting in the early 1950s, the President was more and more opposed to the Church. He saw it as a conservative bulwark that prevented his efforts to reorganize Argentine economy and society to his liking⁺. Government passed a series of laws aimed at reducing the influence of the Church, including allowing for divorce and prostitution, not recognizing many Catholic holidays, banning religious expression in public and petty things like a ban on display of religious figures at Christmas.

The Church, until now ambivalent or even supportive of the government, began to find common cause with the opposition. Perón lit the fuse. It wouldn't explode, not yet, but it would ultimately be the first domino in the chain of events leading to his downfall.


^* In 1940 the same writer wrote a short story that the title of this chapter is a reference to and that, if it were written a couple of years later, would have ended up as a parody of Peronism. Seriously: a way of thinking that is completely alien to anything we know, impossible to understand for anyone not surrounded by it from birth and, depending on the observer, either the answer to all of world's problems or a dangerous delusion completely detached from reality.

^x youtube.com/watch?v=C5pbxl4j7Eo ... wait, no, wrong president. Also, "Huemul Project" sounds like an SCP canon or an esoteric cult of the Peoples Temple sort, and was somehow less in touch with reality than either of those.

⁺ Perón's relations with the Church were also hurt by his very public extramarital affair with a certain Nelly Rivas, which could perhaps be excused if the girl in question wasn't thirteen (!) years old. Perón's response to questions about her age was "I'm not superstitious".

[Estrella]

— it was the season of light —

Perón's regime was extremely personalistic from the start, but the spotlight wasn't just on him. When he went to that party at the Luna Park and met a young star of B movies and radio melodramas, a certain María Estela Duarte, he didn't know just how useful she would prove to his cause. Their love was strong and they married just a year later; even if their feelings for each other might have gotten weaker with time, they were careful to present an image of a perfect couple.

Eva Perón, as she was known now, first got involved in politics when she was elected the head of broadcasters' union; by this time, her husband was already famous and that might have helped, but she went on to have accomplishments of her own. She successfully lobbied for women's suffrage and that was what propelled her to fame. She created her own political movement, the Female Peronist Party. As her husband was doing the nitty-gritty of governing the country, she became the public face of the regime. She became associated with philanthropic work, schools, hospitals, La República de los Niños, helping the needy - all while battling an increasingly serious cancer.

But as the real Eva started wilting, little Eva, the mythical Evita was born. She was the spiritual leader of the country, the light that would lead people through darkness - if you were a Peronist, at least. The light was only for true believers in The Cause; others were enemies that needed to be destroyed.

— it was the season of darkness —

Several years into Perón's rule, Argentina was still operating under a heavily amended version of the original 1853 constitution. Perón wanted a new founding document, one that would enshrine the three pillars of Peronism: an Argentina that is socially just, economically free and politically sovereign. He got it in the new constitution, passed in 1949. The document was very progressive: it enshrined, among others women's rights and rights to education and welfare for ordinary people, but it also did something unthinkable: allowed for unlimited consecutive reelection of President.

The constitutional reform and behavior of government in general was drawing more and more criticism. At this time, Perón started showing his authoritarian tendencies for real. Hundreds of opposition figures or disloyal employees were sacked, blacklisted from employment, harassed or forced to leave the country. Even CGT wasn't Perón's ally anymore; they were his subordinates. He ruled the organization with an iron fist and many prominent trade unionists were deposed or even imprisoned after critizing the President.

The year 1951 came and an election was approaching. Juan Perón needed a running mate - who else than his beloved (by the people, at this point not necessarily by him) wife? On August 22, CGT called a workers' rally; over two million people gathered in Plaza de Mayo for the expected announcement of the Perón-Perón ticket. And then, Evita, to the shock of her supporters, said... maybe. She needed time to think it through, she said. But later that day, she announced on the radio that she renounces her decision to stand as her husband's vice-presidential candidate.

Why?

There was the issue of her health, obviously, but that wasn't the whole story. Perón was an army man: he knew how to control them and keep them happy, but what he was doing now was starting to be too much.

— it was the spring of hope —

On November 11, 1951, Juan Perón was triumphantly reelected to a second term. He won 63% of the vote and thanks to a changed voting system, the Peronist Party won 152 out of 166 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, along with every single governorship - all while singing a new song hailing their gran conductor (based on the tune of a football club anthem, of all things).

All seemed to be well, but not for much longer.

— it was the winter of despair —

By now, it was hard to keep Evita's illness a secret. In the election, she famously voted from her hospital bed. Her ovarian cancer continued to deteriorate and despite receiving the best treatment available (she was the first Argentine to undergo chemotherapy), in the morning of June 26, 1952, she passed away.

Today, the reaction of Argentines to her death is remembered as a massive outpouring of grief from ordinary people to whom she was a new Virgin Mary. Sure enough, her funeral put that of Maradona to shame and she was given the title of Spiritual Leader of the Nation by an act of Congress... but there was another side to it. Despite the great philantrophic work she accomplished, she was, rightly, denounced as a dangerous demagogue and a puppet of her husband. This turned into open celebrations of her death in some quarters.

It was ugly, but it was a sign of things to come.

[Estrella]

— we had everything before us —

At first, things seemed to be on right track after Perón's reelection. Industry was booming - the best example was the way Argentina kickstarted its domestic automotive industry with the IAME Justicialista. The ridiculously propagandistic name aside (the car even had a Justicialist logo on the back!), it showed how advanced Argentine technology was at the time and that the country had no problems competing with Europe or America. Living standards kept increasing, a new scientific insititute was founded, hundreds of kilometres of railways were built and Argentina's national debt was paid off.

— we had nothing before us —

Perón was always opposed by the old landowning classes and urban bourgeoisie, but his massive popularity and the fact that Army was, the Evita incident aside, still loyal to him meant that they couldn't do much but tolerate him. However, his increasingly autocratic style made him more enemies than he needed. First, he alienated the Church, then the new middle classes he helped create and, slowly but surely, the army as well.

— we were all going direct to heaven —

...or so might have thought the people marching towards the Cathedral of Buenos Aires on June 11, 1955. A record 200 thousand people attended that year's Corpus Christi procession. They weren't just Catholics - the whole opposition was united in solidarity with the Church, even traditionally secular groups like socialists and communists. They were incensed at Perón's latest round of anticlerical reforms that aimed to at last achieve not just separation of Church from the state, but eradicating its influence in society altogether. In fact, this very parade was prohibited by law, but that just helped to turn it into an angry protest that called for removing Perón from the presidency.

This, in turn, helped to infuriate his supporters, especially the most radical ones. The next day, June 12, the Catholic-turned-radical-Peronist Nationalist Liberation Alliance attempted to set the Cathedral on fire, prevented at last minute by a rally of Argentine Catholic Action, led Mons. Manuel Tato. The editor of a religious newspaper covering the events was arrested, Tato was stripped of his position and forced to leave the country.

Until now, Perón got away with things no previous President could dream of, but what he did this time was a step too far.

— we were all going direct to hell. —

Argentina wasn't involved in World War II, not even indirectly. Aside from a September 1939 incident in Río de la Plata, the country was isolated from the conflict. Fortunately, Argentina wasn't at war with her neighbours either, and so the Morón air base on outskirts of the capital remained unused, its planes staying in hangars - until Thurday, June 16, 1955.

On that day, a workers' rally was taking place in Plaza de Mayo. It was called by Peronist trade unions in response to an alleged burning of national flag during the June 11 Corpus Christi procession. More than that, icreasingly credible rumours of a coup were spreading. At midday, thirty aircraft took off from Morón and bombed the square and surrounding government buildings. More than 300 civillians were killed.

The country descended into something akin to a civil war. Rebel army units tried to capture Casa Rosada, but they were stopped after a series of firefights in surrounding streets. Despite anti-aircraft fire, planes from Morón carried out more bombing and strafing runs. That night, radical Peronists sought revenge: they burned down ten churches and looted two convents. In response, radical Catholics created armed commandos and called for overthrow of the President. Fighting broke out in the streets, infrastructure was sabotaged and buildings of Peronist organizations were bombed.

On September 16, General Eduardo Lonardi, commander of the Córdoba garrison, took over the city. He faced resistance from loyalist infrantry units and more than 100 people died in the fighting. The next day, rebel navy ships bombed the coastal city of Mar del Plata. Bahía Blanca was bombed and taken over by rebel marines, who were expelled by loyalist forces. On September 19, the coup seemed to be failing: Lonardi's troops in Córdoba were surrounded and a loyalist attack was imminent. However, in a show of force, the ships of rebel Admiral Isaac Rojas bombed Mar del Plata again, hitting fuel tanks in the port and causing great destruction.

This seemed to convince Perón that he had to go unless he wanted the country to descend into a full-blown civil war. Paraguyan dictator Alfredo Stroessner gave him a helping hand and on September 21, Perón fled aboard a Paraguayan gunboat and requested asylum in the country.

And it was over.