Between the Local and the Transnational:

New Historiographical Approaches on

Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943
Jorge Nállim
University of Manitoba1

In the last two decades, new scholarship has revised one of the most contentious
periods of twentieth-century Argentine history: the long decade of 1930-1943.
These years have traditionally been the focus of strong political, ideological, and
historiographical debates due, in great part, to their critical location as a hinge
between two other important periods. On the one hand, they represent the decline
and crisis of the liberal republic, established in 1853, marked by the impact
of the Great Depression in Argentina’s export economy as well as by the first
period of military rule in modern Argentine history, which began in September
1930. On the other hand, the transformations experienced during those years
have also been studied as the prelude to the rise of Juan Perón and his populist
movement, which began in full force with his participation in the military coup
of June 1943 and the ensuing military regime of 1943-1946.
This renewed scholarly interest in the 1930-1943 period can be explained
by several factors. In a way, it is part of the new wave of historical studies that
followed the return to civilian rule in 1983, as the democratization process fueled
interest regarding the nation’s past and provided a more welcoming social and
academic environment for historical research. Moreover, the professionaliza-
tion of the discipline, the application of new methodologies, and interest in new
areas of research were helped, first, by the return to Argentina of scholars who
had been forced into exile during the military dictatorship of 1976-1983, and,
second, by the increasing transnational networks built by students and scholars
through academic programs, conferences, and publications.

[email protected]

E.I.A.L., Vol. 25 – No 1 (2014)

104 E.I.A.L. 25–1

At the same time, the interest of historians in these years has been mirrored
by a revival of debates that flourished in the 1930s and early 1940s, a revival
explained by the current political cycle of kirchnerismo, inaugurated in 2003.
For example, in 2011 the national government created the Instituto Nacional
de Revisionismo Histórico e Iberoamericano Manuel Dorrego, whose very
name and guiding ideas can be traced back to the original historiographical
movement of historical revisionism of the 1930s.2 Revisionism gave birth to
a particular vision of Argentine history based on a series of interpretations,
images, and perceptions about the 1930s and early 1940s. As Michael Goebel
has recently reminded us, revisionism’s relatively limited academic impact has
been counterbalanced by its phenomenal political impact.3 It can be traced in
leftist and rightist nationalist groups as well as in Peronism, and in the deep
presence of revisionist images in widespread popular beliefs in black-and-white
interpretations of a frustrated Argentine past. The reappearance of revisionism
in the current political cycle thus not only highlighted the strong presence of
historical debates in Argentine politics, but also sparked interest in the period
from historians and general public alike.
This article will provide an overview of some of the scholarship that since the
late 1990s and early 2000s has been revising the political and ideological history
of the 1930-1943 period. It will first outline the problems posed by traditional
approaches to those years, which emphasized clear-cut lines and partisan per-
spectives that stressed either nefarious or heroic actors. It will show how these
new studies have begun to offer more nuanced interpretations of the political
context and main parties in this period. A second section will then focus on how
some of the new studies on Argentine politics and ideology have highlighted
transnational linkages and connections, while others pay attention to the local,
social dimensions underlying political processes.

From “the infamous decade” to the new scholarship

Until the 1990s, most studies on the 1930s and early 1940s told a narrative
of decadence and corruption. On the surface, it is easy to understand this percep-
tion.4 The first military coup in Argentine history in September 1930 led, first,
to a military government presided over by General José F. Uriburu in 1930 that
was replaced in 1932 by a limited democratic system that lasted until 1943. In
this system, a conservative coalition of parties, known as the Concordancia,
stayed in power through the increasing use of electoral fraud and reliance on
the unstable support of the army and the Catholic Church. Conflicts between
the ruling coalition and the main opposition parties—Radicals, Socialists, and
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 105

Progressive Democrats—deepened over the decade and resulted in stalemate.

Eventually, this situation resulted in the overall crisis of the political system that
ended with another military coup in June 1943. These developments, added to
their location between the old liberal republic and the rise of Peronism, charac-
terized these years as a decadent, transitional period.
In large part, the bleak view of the 1930s and early 1940s was consolidated
by nationalist writers and historians, from both left and right, many of them
involved in the historiographical movement of historical revisionism, born in
the 1930s, or in the Peronist movement later. In their polemic writings, many
authors such as Julio and Rodolfo Irazusta, Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz, José María
Rosa, and Arturo Jauretche rose beyond their personal, political, and ideological
differences to consolidate a line of criticism against ruling conservative groups
whom they saw as fraudulent and corrupt and a political system that they be-
lieved was based on bankrupt economic and political liberal models.5 They also
denounced economic policies adopted during those years, such as the creation
of the Central Bank, as beneficial to upper-class conservative sectors and con-
trary to the interests of the popular masses and the country. These nationalist
authors coined and popularized the term “the infamous decade” that, despite its
null historiographical value, has become the most popular reference, even in
scholarship, to the long decade of the 1930s.
Beyond these polemic and partisan approaches, other traditional works shared
a negative view on these years. For example, authors linked to the Radical party
such as Félix Luna and Gabriel del Mazo wrote after Perón’s rise to power,
criticizing the leadership and strategy of the Radical Party of the 1930s and
early 1940s as inefficient, contrary to Radical traditions of popular democracy,
and complicit with a corrupt system—an intepretation that explained the Party’s
failure against Perón.6 The perspective of a transitional and decadent period also
informs José Luis Romero’s seminal work on the history of ideas in Argentina,
written in the 1950s and influenced by his position as a Socialist intellectual
engaged with anti-fascist and anti-Peronist groups in the 1940s and 1950s.7 To
name just one more example, the dominant theme of Alberto Ciria’s classical
and influential book on the period is the progressive crisis and corruption of the
political system founded upon the liberal Constitution of 1853.8
While this negative outlook prevailed, other scholarhip on the period eventually
adopted more sophisticated approaches. As a result, a long list of valuable studies
focus on different groups in the 1930s and early 1940s such as the military,9 the
labor movement,10 nationalist groups and ideologies,11 and the Catholic Church.12
Still, much of this scholarship, when dealing with the period, is influenced by a
narrative of decadence and is overwhelmingly focused on those groups in rela-
tion to the emergence of Peronism. This has the drawback of denying specific
106 E.I.A.L. 25–1

historical weight to the history of those years and framing them narrowly within
the boundaries of the crisis of the liberal order and Peronism.
Since the 1990s, other studies have deepened and expanded the analysis of the
1930-1943 period. They accept some of the major arguments regarding the crisis
of the political system and the importance of this period for the future history of
the country. However, they provide a more nuanced analysis and understanding
of actors and trends that defy easy categorization with their intra-party conflicts
alongside and across party lines. To this end, they pay considerable attention to
the dynamics of the political system and the structure, actions, and ideological
composition of the main political parties during those years.
The simplistic idea that the eleven-year period that followed the military
regime of 1930-1932 was an exceptional period characterized by electoral fraud,
an idea which had already been questioned by some more careful analyses,13
has been dismissed conclusively. For example, Luciano de Privitellio analyzes
the political process in general and elections in particular within the broader
historical framework of 1900-1955.14 By focusing on this larger period, de
Privitellio provides a better understanding of the location of the 1930s and early
1940s regarding continuities and changes in terms of electoral laws and fraud.
He confirms that practices of electoral fraud, a central part of the Argentine
political system before 1930, were more limited between 1931 and 1935, when
the Radical party lifted its electoral abstention and the national government and
its allied political sectors were forced to resort to more blatant electoral fraud
in order to remain in power.
This conclusion receives further confirmation from Maria Dolores Béjar’s
study of conservative political sectors in the province of Buenos Aires.15 She
clearly shows that electoral fraud was not only carried out by the ruling Con-
cordancia sectors between 1932 and 1938 against opposition parties, but also
during the years between the 1931 presidential election and the radical return
to the ballots in 1935, when fraud was mainly used by and against the different
political forces that comprised the Concordancia in order to settle internal dif-
ferences. From the perspective of the history of the ideas of the period between
1930 and 1945, Tulio Halperín Donghi has provided a penetrating analysis and
a wealth of documents that add further proof of the country’s slow, though not
pre-determined slippage over the 1930s into what he labels “the impossible
republic,” increasingly paralyzed by the unresolved conflict between the ruling
Concordancia and the political forces of the opposition.16
These approaches do not deny the crisis of the political system; they qualify
it within larger historical processes and narratives. Detailed analyses of the
main political forces of the period provide additional evidence of a complex
and dynamic picture. This is the case of Béjar’s above-mentioned study on the
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 107

conservative forces of Buenos Aires and, by extension, of the ruling political

sectors in 1930-1943. She shows that the fragmentation and divisions that plagued
the conservative forces in Buenos Aires before 1930 continued in the 1930s and
resulted in numerous conflicts. In fact, they were exacerbated by the ideological,
political, and personal diversity of the groups that formed the Concordancia and
by the changing local and international contexts.17
New studies have also revised the history and make-up of the Radical party
throughout the 1930s, disputing the traditional view that emphasized clear ideo-
logical boundaries between an elitist party leadership, linked to former president
Marcelo T. de Alvear, and popular groups related to yrigoyenismo. Alejandro
Cattaruzza had already uncovered in 1994 those blurred ideological boundaries
as expressed by articles published in the Radical magazine Hechos e Ideas from
1935 to1941. Expanding this analysis, and like Béjar for the conservative forces,
Ana Virgina Persello locates the history of the party in 1930-1943 within a broader
historical framework and shows continuity and change before and after 1930.
Unlike more traditional scholarship, Persello’s works demonstrate that different
groups within the Radical party shared some common ground and that conflicts
were more likely about party control than about party ideology. For example,
Persello shows that different Radical factions shared liberal arguments rooted
in the party’s history to protest anti-liberal trends and political exclusion, and
that they generally agreed to lift electoral abstention in 1935.18
The new perspectives on the Conservative and Radical parties in the 1930s
can be connected to studies on both parties for earlier historical periods. For
example, Paula Alonso offers a thorough analysis of the Partido Autonomista
Nacional in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, showing the dy-
namics and tensions between the national government and the provinces in the
construction of a fragmented yet hegemonic power. For the period of the Radi-
cal administrations of 1916-1930, Marcela Ferrari has explored changes and
continuities regarding the political establishment, with a careful consideration
of social, familial, and professional networks. From another perspective, Joel
Horowitz analyzes how, in a fragmented political situation, the Radical party
could mobilize popular support and stay in power. He argues that combined
patronage at national and municipal levels, symbolic legitimacy for opening
up the political system, and active yet changing policies won support from the
working class and the labor unions.19
A third political force that has received new scholarly attention is the Socialist
party. Socialists participated in elections held between 1932 and 1943, that legiti-
mized the system set up by the Concordancia and, eventually, opened the party
leadership to accusations of complicity with fraud, and neglecting the interests
of the working class. This criticism became part of the explanation of the party’s
108 E.I.A.L. 25–1

dramatic collapse and decline in relevance following Peronism’s rise in 1944-

1946. A fundamental work in the new scholarship on Argentine socialism is the
volume edited by Hernán Camarero and Carlos Herrera covering the history of
the Socialist party since its inception. The editors’ introduction and the chapter
by Juan Carlos Portantiero downplay the image of a homogeneous party under
rigid leadership, shedding light instead on a fragmented party. In this sense, they
build on earlier contributions by Maria Cristina Tortti and Marian Luzzi to show
that the Socialist party was informed by different ideological traditions and was
keenly aware of both international and national developments.20
In this way, the picture that emerges from these new works reveals political
forces very heterogeneous in terms of both ideology and praxis, a result that
challenges the emphasis in the previous scholarship on monolithic actors. One
particular example of this heterogeneity can be appreciated in the analysis of
the impact of the Great Depression on the country’s economic structures and
the subsequent development of new economic policies of state intervention
adopted in the 1930s and early 1940s. The economic policies of the period
have already received major attention given their location between Argentina’s
traditional export economy and Peronism’s expansion of state intervention and
industrialization.21 Various works have pointed out that policies adopted by
the national government in 1930-1943, such as the establishment of exchange
control and the creation of the Central Bank and boards to control and regulate
production of different commodities, did not reflect a consistent ideological
plan but were rather a pragmatic response to the economic crisis that had arisen
from different sources.22
On the policy range and depth of conservative groups in power, Béjar has
added details on the conflicts between conservative legislators and government
officials in 1932 and 1933, when the former demanded that the national gov-
ernment suspend foreign debt payments and take more decisive action to help
bankrupt agricultural producers based on the needs imposed by changes in the
international economy. Tulio Halperín Donghi and Jorge Nállim add evidence
on diverse economic positions within the ruling coalition, which ranged from the
defense of the traditional export economy to the more statist and interventionist
models proposed by figures such as the conservative governor of Buenos Aires,
Manuel Fresco.23 Equivalent policy ranges have been identified for the Radical
and Socialist parties. For the Radical Party, Persello expanded Cattaruzza’s study
of the Party’s magazine Hechos e Ideas with an analysis of economic projects
and ideas defended by Radicals in the National Congress. They show that in a
difficult economic environment at the local and international levels and within
a party whose control was disputed by many groups and factions, Radicals ex-
pressed a variety of economic positions as part of the political struggle against
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 109

the Concordancia. These positions included the defense of traditional classical

liberalism, identified with free-market, laissez-faire ideas; a new economic lib-
eralism that could reconcile state economic intervention and social justice with
political democracy; and even calls for state intervention within a non-liberal
framework. Interestingly, Socialists also expressed a similar tension in their
economic ideas. While the party leadership maintained a strict defense of eco-
nomic liberalism linked to the export economy, Portantiero and Luzzi identify
the influence of European Social Democracy in some party groups, which sought
to reconcile political democracy, socialism, and state intervention.24
In all these manners, the revelation of heterogeneous political discourses in
each major political movement during this period broke with what earlier scholars
had concluded as more fixed policy boundaries. Discovery of tremendous policy
range and depth helps chart the fragmentation of major political actors as well
as a frequent coincidence of policy positions across party lines. This not only
dismisses facile labels and political characterizations; it also offers meaning to
the so-called “infamous decade” not as an interregnum but as a period of politi-
cal ferment that shaped mid-twentieth century Argentine politics.

International perspectives and local dimensions

New studies on the history of the 1930s and early 1940s have also paid
renewed attention to the international dimension of political and ideological
developments in Argentina. This dimension already figured prominently in
scholarship on political, cultural, and ideological trends and groups that tended
to be outward-looking, like Sur, the cosmopolitan literary magazine that brought
together Argentine and foreign contributors and actively participated in the
debates of those years.25 The broad scholarship on nationalist and anti-liberal
groups has also stressed international frameworks and the circulation of ideas
and people, as is the case of Sandra McGee Deutsch’s comparative study of the
right in Argentina, Chile, and Brazil, and Federico Finchelstein’s more recent
work on the appropriation and reinterpretation of European Fascism among
Argentine rightist groups.26 Several excellent studies have placed local political
and ideological developments within the context of of the Second World War.
Such is the case of Ronald Newton’s analysis of the real extent of Nazi penetra-
tion into Argentina as well as Mario Rapoport’s classical study on Argentine
relations with the United States and Great Britain during the World War.27 In
the same line, works by Loris Zanatta, Roberto di Stefano, and Susana Bianchi
locate the political mobilization and increasing movement to the right of the
Argentine Catholic Church within the broader framework of international pro-
110 E.I.A.L. 25–1

cesses (such as the rise of European fascism and anti-liberalism) and debates
within the Catholic Church at a global level.28
The heavy impact of international developments in Argentina is tied to a his-
torically strong immigrant population that kept cultural, ideological, and social
links with the North Atlantic world. This attention to the international context
now appears clearly in the new works on political parties mentioned above.
Portantiero and Luzzi, expanding Tortti’s research, describe the influence on the
Socialist Party of contemporary trends in European social democracy since the
1920s. Similarly, Persello expands Cattaruzza’s analysis of anti-fascist and leftist
Spanish and Italian groups in the Radical party in the 1930s. This is the specific
topic of one of Halperín Donghi’s books, a companion to his larger interpretative
and documentary compilation regarding the political debates of 1930-1945.29 He
clearly shows how ideological and political debates in Argentina in this period
were not only shaped by local developments but also heavily influenced by an
international crisis that would lead to the Second World War.
Other works provide new perspectives on political actors and locate them
within explicit international frameworks. For example, new works have focused
in trends and ideologies previously ignored such as anti-fascism and liberalism.
The dominant negative view on the 1930s and early 1940s, with its focus on the
decadence of liberalism and the rise of Peronism, marginalized a careful analysis
of political and social groups across party lines that were affiliated with those
ideologies. Filling that gap, Andrés Bisso has provided an exccellent and detailed
analysis of anti-fascism in Argentina between 1922 and 1946, accompanied by
a solid compilation of primary documents.30 Comprised of varied political and
intellectual groups across the political and social spectrum, the local anti-fascist
movement was deeply influenced by transnational ideologies and groups, as well
as by specific national circumstances. Bisso shows that the growing visibility of
anti-fascism throughout the 1930s and its capacity to mobilize different groups
went, in a seemingly contradictory manner, hand in hand with tensions and
fractures within and among the related political and intellectual groups that,
eventually, prevented their consolidation into a united front.
Another related perspective is the one offered by Jorge Nállim on liberalism
in Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s.31 His analysis shows that while liberalism
underwent a profound crisis, at the same time it provided the legitimizing ideology
for different political and intellectual groups, from conservatives to Socialists,
as well as for writers and scholars. Paying attention to developments at home
and abroad, these groups emphasized different elements of liberal ideology in
cultural, economic, and political fields and used them to legitimize partisan po-
sitions and inter-party alliances, such as the anti-fascist front that opposed the
Concordancia in the late 1930s and early 1940s, which became the anti-Peronist
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 111

front in 1943-1945. From their analyses, Bisso and Nállim prove, on the one hand,
that anti-fascism and liberalism did overlap but were not synonomous—not all
anti-fascim was liberal, as demonstrated by the most radical groups in the left,
and not all liberalism was anti-fascist, as shown by conservative liberal groups
within the Concordancia. On the other hand, they show that the political crisis
of the country in the 1930s and early 1940s that ended in the military coup of
June 1943 was not only due to exclusionary practices such as electoral fraud
implemented by the ruling conservative sectors, but also due to divisions within
every political force, coupled with their inability to consolidate a united front or
to formulate a strategy to break the consolidated conservative hold on power,
which played a major role.
Those works are part of the growing scholarship on anti-fascist cultural and
political groups. Along that line, Ricardo Pasolini has studied the international
networks of solidarity towards the Italian anti-fascist diaspora built by intellec-
tuals and political organizations such as the Communist, Radical, and Socialist
parties and gathered in publications and institutions such as the Asociación
de Intelectuales, Artistas, Escritores y Periodistas (AIAPE), Hechos e Ideas,
and the Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores (CLES).32 Osvaldo Graciano has
also contributed to a better understanding of the intellectual networks built by
a prominent group of leftist intellectuals, mainly anarchists and socialists, be-
tween the University Reform of 1918 and the fall of Perón in 1955. His book’s
central section, on the 1930-1943 period, deals with the process of politicization
of many of these intellectuals in the political context of the 1930 coup and its
aftermath. Graciano explores their professional and social networks, alongside
the cultural and professional projects they developed from instituions such as
the Universidad Popular Alejandro Korn in La Plata.33 Germán Friedmann of-
fers an excellent study of the presence and networks of anti-Nazi Germans in
Argentina during the 1930s and 1940s,34 complementing previously developed
scholarship on Spanish Republican exiles and the impact of the Spanish Civil
War in Argentina.
Furthermore, the understanding of anti-fascism and liberalism within an
international framework has been further illuminated by the addition of a gen-
der perspective. The best example is Sandra McGee Deutsch’s book on the
transnational dimension of Jewish women in Argentina. It details the active
involvement of many Jewish women in a varitey of political groups, such as the
Socialist and Communist parties, as well as in the anti-Fascist organizations of
the 1930s.35 Moreover, her current work on the Junta de la Victoria is expanding
the research on the role of women in the anti-fascist front of the early 1940s.36
This all-female organization, created in 1941, followed in general the same
ideas and arguments voiced by other anti-fascist organizations, such as Acción
112 E.I.A.L. 25–1

Argentina, and publications such as Argentine Libre. The Junta thus shared with
those spaces its main goal—support for the Allies in the war—and its fate—it
was closed by the military regime installed in 1943, although it was eventually
allowed to renew activities in 1945 for a second, yet less relevant stage, until
1947. What makes the Junta interesting is that it attracted women from varied
social and ideological backgrounds, achieved a membership of more than 40,000,
and established branches throughout the country. Mobilized mainly by suffrag-
ists and communists, its history provides an interesting persepective on wider
political and ideological struggles.
McGee Deutsch’s research is in close dialogue with others who have studied
the transnational experience and active participation of Jewish people in political
and cultural institutions in Argentina in the 1930s and 1940s, such as the essays
on Argentina available in the book edited by Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein in
2008 on Jewish Latin Americans.37 Indeed, these studies on Jewish groups and
their political background is linked to a renewed interest in anti-fascist Catho-
lic groups. This line of research has been pursued by José Zanca and Adriana
Valobra, whose ongoing research has shed light on the trajectory of a group of
anti-fascist Catholic women in the 1930s and 1940s. Reacting against a Catholic
Church increasingly dominated by male-centered and anti-liberal trends, these
women reclaimed a space for social and political action from a place of double
marginalization, as women and as anti-fascists. This space opened possibilities for
collaboration with other female groups, political parties, and ideologies, includ-
ing anti-fascist organizations such as the Junta de la Victoria and Communists.38
Attention to the international dimension of Argentine political, ideological,
and cultural developments at the national level and mostly focused on Buenos
Aires has not precluded work on provincial and local levels. Several scholars
have moved to explore politics in the provinces that, as Béjar did for Buenos
Aires, illuminate the broader political contours of those years. Darío Macor
has provided extensive research on the Progressive Democratic Party in Santa
Fe, showing how this provincial force from conservative origins became in the
1930s one of the major actors in the national arena—through the actions of its
leader and Senatorial representative, Lisandro de la Torre—at the same time that
it was attentive to the its local provincial base.39 Provincial politics in the 1930s
and early 1940s have also been considered by studies that trace the origins of
Peronism from different areas of the country. Such is the case of Mark Healey’s
recent book on the San Juan’s earthquake of 1944, which played a major role
in launching Perón’s career and became a key issue for building state power at
both local and national levels. The book’s detailed analysis of San Juan’s eco-
nomic and political structures in the 1930s and early 1940s shows the intrinsic
connection between local and national politics, in a province and city riven by
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 113

socioeconomic inequalities and political fragmentation.40 Similarly, Darío Macor

and César Tcah edited a book on the construction of Peronism in the provinces
that also sheds light on provincial political dynamics upon which Peronism
would be built after 1943.41
Other studies have gone from provincial to local politics, specifically to the
city of Buenos Aires and following the path of scholars who studied the city of
Buenos Aires in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Such is the case of
Hilda Sábato’s work on politics and public life in 1852-1880—complemented
more recently by Pilar González Bernaldo de Quiró’s study on politics and the
creation of a public sphere in the first half of nineteenth century—as well as
Leandro Gutiérrez and Luis Alberto Romero’s analysis of popular sectors.42
As these authors show, the people of Buenos Aires created many organizations
with popular participation that included neighborhood development groups
(sociedades de fomento), libraries, mutual aid associations, and unions. The
focus of these scholars is not only the realm of formal politics, identified with
political parties and elections, but more importantly those associations through
which social and political bonds were created. The existence of these kinds of
associations in the nineteenth century, for example, allowed people to have a
voice in politics despite the absence of fair elections.
Theoretically, this fruitful approach to politics draws from different authors
and trends, from Jürgen Habermas’ concept of public sphere to social and cultural
history. This framework has also been applied to the 1930s and early 1940s by
Luciano de Privitellio’s study of Buenos Aires’s politics in the interwar years.43
He connects the transformation of the city’s politics between 1917 and 1941,
related to the history of the city council, to the role of associations such as the
sociedades de fomento in the interaction between society, political parties, and
the municipal state. Following this thread, Joel Horowitz has considered the
relationship of soccer clubs and politics in Buenos Aires.44 Soccer’s popularity
and massive following, along with the clubs’ strong roots in the city’s neigh-
borhoods, necessarily attracted the attention of politicians and political parties,
interested in securing the mobilization of popular support that had become in-
dispensable following the Ley Sáenz Peña in 1912. The construction of politics
at the intersection of urban geography, social life, and formal politics is also
behind Lila Caimari’s work on crime and journalism in Buenos Aires city during
the interwar years.45 Building on her previous research on crime for the earlier
part of the century,46 she links the city’s rapid urban transformation to changes
in patterns of crime, how and what was reported as crime in the press, and the
development of the police apparatus in the city. Although Caimari differs from
Horowitz and de Privitellio in that she does not deal with political or ideologi-
114 E.I.A.L. 25–1

cal developments per se, her analysis challenges historians to understand the
specific contexts of state-society relations in a changing world.
This kind of social and cultural approach is relevant, as is its application
to theoretical frameworks for understanding the 1930-1943 period, because it
has yielded excellent results in other countries and periods of Latin American
history. In this way, this approach combines insights from cultural and social
history with broader analyses of state power and political dynamics, opening
exciting new areas for research on this period.

Conclusion

What are the main conclusions that can be drawn from the works on politics
and ideology considered here? What do they reveal about the period 1930-1943,
what are their theoretical insights and shortcomings? In the first place, a careful
assessment of the history of these years seems particularly relevant in Argentina’s
current political context. The revival of historical revisionism, with its associ-
ated Manichaean ideas about the Argentine past, highlights the relevance of the
recent historiography on those years as it helps correct distortions and mistakes
originating from explicit political concerns rather than serious academic research.
Second, it is clear that the political crisis of the country between 1930 and
1943 evolved in a context of ideological fluidity when global processes—the
Great Depression, the rise of European totalitarianisms, the Spanish Civil War,
and the Second World War—were processed and interpreted within the particular
national context—the military coup of 1930, the worsening conflict between the
ruling conservative coalition and opposition parties, the increasing weight of the
army and the Catholic Church in politics, and the growing visibility of anti-liberal
groups and ideologies. In a context of fragmented political forces, these new
studies show that the binary categories that the different political actors used at
that time and that eventually influenced later studies— democracy/dictatorship,
oligarchy/popular sectors, and so on—do not withstand closer examination. The
varied groups that came together in the failed projects of the Popular Front in
1935-1936 or the first Democratic Union in 1943 and the internal divisions within
the different political forces witness this very dynamic and fragmented scenario.
Another interesting contradiction that emerges from these different works
is that despite the military coup and ensuing military regime in 1930-1932, the
growing presence of anti-liberal groups and ideologies and the Catholic Church,
and the political crisis that slowly evolved throughout the long decade, the country
did not slip toward any alternative political system such as fascism. In this sense,
evidence confirms Halperín Donghi’s and Fernando Devoto’s conclusions on the
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 115

resilience of the republican liberal structure based on the Constitution of 1853.

Halperín Donghi sharply observed that the Concordancia’s electoral violations
also confirmed the validity of the broken liberal democratic principles. In the
same line, Devoto concludes that while democracy did not consolidate in Ar-
gentina after the Sáenz Peña law, neither did authoritarianism.47 This increasing
disconnect between a liberal constitutional order and rhetoric and the actions
of political players was a central part of the crisis of the political system that
led to the military coup of June 1943. However, the military regime’s attempts
to refashion Argentina’s structure along anti-liberal and Catholic lines in 1943-
1944 would also fail and led eventually to Perón’s election in 1946, who would
preside over a regime that combined the old structure with new policies, ideas,
and practices.
Finally, the new studies on the 1930s and 1940s indicate several fruitful areas
for future research. Attention to both international and local frameworks of politi-
cal and ideological development has resulted in a more nuanced understanding
of a period which, until very recently, was trapped in rigid, outmoded categories.
Bridging those two perspectives with the insights of social and cultural history
enriches the field. In this sense, McGee Deutsch’s study of transnational Jewish
women and their important role in numerous political and social institutions in
Argentina represents an excellent model of the intersection of political and ideo-
logical history, with trends related to social history such as gender and ethnicity,
which might be employed by future scholars of the period. Also, the works by
De Privitellio, Caimari, and Horowitz on different social aspects of the city of
Buenos Aires open interesting perspectives on the multiple and multifaceted areas
of interaction between state and society that could result, in Joel Migdal’s words,
in a veritable anthropology of state-society relations.48 And the recent new wave
of studies on Peronism, with their emphasis on culture, popular consumption,
and gender, could also lead to research in those areas for the 1930-1943 period.49
In this way, the new historiography on the 1930s and early 1940s is redefining
our understanding of a relevant period of twentieth-century Argentine history.

Notes

1 I want to express my deep gratitude to David Sheinin and Jessica Stites Mor for their
comments on earlier drafts of this article.
2 The Instituto’s institutional goals, members, and activities can be consulted in its website,
http://institutonacionalmanueldorrego.com/. A furious polemic between the Instituto’s
supporters and opponents appeared and can be followed in the pages of the newspapers
La Nación and Página 12 on the days that followed its creation.
116 E.I.A.L. 25–1

3 Michael Goebbel, Argentina’s Partisan Past: Nationalism and the Politics of History
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011).
4 An excellent overview of the 1930s and early 1940s seen from different angles is available
in the collected volume edited by Alejandro Cattaruzza, Crisis económica, avance del
estado e incertidumbre política, 1930-1943, Nueva Historia Argentina, vol. 7 (Buenos
Aires: Sudamericana, 2001).
5 On nationalist and historical revisionist writers, see Goebbel, Argentina’s Partisan Past;
Tulio Halperín Donghi, El revisionismo argentino como visión decadentista de la historia
nacional (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2005); Diana Quattrocchi-Woisson, Los males de la
memoria. Historia y política en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1995); Alejandro
Cattaruzza, “Algunas reflexiones sobre el revisionismo histórico,” in La historiografía
argentina en el siglo XX, Vol. 1, ed. Fernando Devoto (Buenos Aires: CEAL, 1993),
113-39.
6 Gabriel del Mazo, Caída de la república representativa: el contubernio y la “Década
Infame”, 1922-1945, vol. 2. of El radicalismo: ensayo sobre su historia y doctrina
(Buenos Aires: Gure, 1959); Félix Luna, Alvear (Buenos Aires: Hyspamérica, 1986).
7 José Luis Romero, Las ideas políticas en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 1956).
8 Alberto Ciria, Parties and Power in Modern Argentina, 1930-1946 (Albany: State Uni-
versity of New York Press, 1974).
9 Robert Potash, The Army and Politics in Argentina, 1928-45. Yrigoyen To Perón (Stan-
ford: Stanford University Press, 1969); Alain Rouquié, Poder militar y sociedad política
en la Argentina, 1928-1943 (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1981) and Poder militar y sociedad
política en la Argentina, 1943-1973 (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1982).
10 Torcuato di Tella, Perón y los sindicatos. El inicio de una relación conflictiva (Buenos
Aires: Ariel, 2003); Juan C. Torre, La vieja guardia sindical y Perón. Sobre los orígenes
del peronismo (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana/Instituto Torcuato di Tella, 1990); Joel
Horowitz, Argentine Unions, the State, and the Rise of Perón 1930-1945 (Berkeley:
Institute of International Studies-University of California, 1990) and “Ideologías sindi-
cales y políticas estatales en la Argentina, 1930-1943,” Desarrollo Económico 24, no.
94 (1984): 275-95; Hiroshi Matsushita, Movimiento obrero argentino, 1930-1945: Sus
proyecciones en los orígenes del peronismo (Buenos Aires: Siglo XX, 1983); Samuel
Baily, Labor, Nationalism, and Politics in Argentina (New Brunswick: Rutgers University
Press, 1967).
11 Daniel Lvovich, Nacionalismo y antisemitismo en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Javier
Vergara, 2003); Federico Finchelstein, Fascismo, liturgia e imaginario: el mito del general
Uriburu y la Argentina nacionalista (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2002);
Fernando Devoto, Nacionalismo, fascismo y tradicionalismo en la Argentina moderna:
una historia (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2002); David Rock, Authoritarian Argentina.
The Nationalist Movement, Its History, and Its Impact (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1993); Cristian Buchrucker, Nacionalismo y peronismo:
la Argentina en la crisis ideológica mundial, 1927-1955 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana,
1987); Marysa Navarro Gerassi, Los nacionalistas (Buenos Aires: Julián Álvarez, 1969);
Enrique Zuleta Alvarez, El nacionalismo argentino (2 vols., Buenos Aires: La Bastilla,
1975); María Inés Barbero and Fernando Devoto, Los nacionalistas, 1910-1932 (Buenos
Aires: CEAL, 1983).
12 Susana Bianchi, Catolicismo y peronismo. Religión y política en la Argentina, 1943-1955
(Tandil: Trama-Prometeo, 2001); Loris Zanatta, Del estado liberal a la nación católica.
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 117

Iglesia y ejército en los orígenes del peronismo, 1930-1943 (Buenos Aires: Universidad
de Quilmes, 1996) and Perón y el mito de la nación católica. Iglesia y ejército en los
orígenes del peronismo, 1943-1946 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1999); Austin Iver-
eigh, Catholicism and Politics in Argentina (New York: St. Martin’s Press-St. Anthony’s
College, 1995); Lila Caimari, Perón y la Iglesia Católica. Religión, estado y sociedad
en la Argentina, 1943-1955 (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1995).
13 For example, see Luis Alberto Romero, A Brief History of Argentina in the Twentieth
Century (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002); Luciano de Privi-
tellio, “La política bajo el signo de la crisis,” in Crisis económica, avance del estado e
incertidumbre política, 1930–1943, ed. Alejandro Cattaruzza, Nueva historia argentina,
vol. 7 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2001): 97–142; Darío Macor, “Partidos, coaliciones
y sistemas de poder,” in Cattaruzzza, Crisis, 49–94.
14 Luciano de Privitellio, “Las elecciones entre dos reformas, 1900-1955,” in Historia de las
elecciones en la Argentina, 1805-2011, eds. Hilda Sabato, Marcela Ternavasio, Luciano
de Privitellio, and Ana Virginia Persello (Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 2011), 135-233.
15 María Dolores Béjar, El régimen fraudulento. La política en la provincia de Buenos
Aires, 1930-1943 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2005). She had already advanced some of
these arguments in her much earlier work, Uriburu y Justo. El auge conservador (Buenos
Aires: CEAL, 1983).
16 Tulio Halperín Donghi, La república imposible (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 2004).
17 See also María Inés Tato, “Nacionalistas y conservadores, entre Yrigoyen y la “década
infame,” in Conflictos en democracia. La vida política entre dos siglos, eds. Lili Ana
Bertoni and Luciano de Privitellio (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2009), 149-170.
18 Alejandro Cattaruzza, “Las huella de un diálogo: demócratas radicales y socialistas en
España y América durante el período de entreguerras,” Estudios Sociales: Revista Uni-
versitaria Semestral 4, no. 7 (1994): 29-48; Ana V. Persello, El partido radical: gobierno
y oposición, 1916-1943 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2004) and Historia del Radicalismo
(Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2007). The role of Radical leaders in both national politics and
party dynamics in the 1930s has been explored in Cattaruzza, Marcelo T. de Alvear: el
compromiso y la distancia (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultural Económica, 1997) and
Luciano de Privitellio, Agustín P. Justo: las armas en la política (Buenos Aires: Fondo
de Cultura Económica, 1997).
19 Paula Alonso, Jardines secretos, legitimaciones públicas: el Partido Autonomista Nacio-
nal y la política argentina de fines del siglo XIX (Buenos Aires: Edhasa, 2010); Marcela
Ferrari, Los políticos en la república radical. Prácticas políticas y construcción de poder
(Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2008); Joel Horowitz, Argentina’s Radical Party and Popular
Mobilizations, 1916-1930 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 2008).
20 Hernán Camarero and Carlos Miguel Herrera, “El Partido Socialista, en Argentina: nudos
históricos y perspectivas historiográficas” and Juan Carlos Portantiero, “El debate en la
socialdemocracia europea y el Partido Socialista en la década de 1930,” in El Partido
Socialista en Argentina. Sociedad, política e ideas a través de un siglo, ed. Hernán Ca-
maero and Carlos Miguel Herrera (Buenos Aires: Prometo, 2005), 9-73 and 299-320,
respectively; María Cristina Tortti, “Crisis, capitalismo organizado y socialismo,” in
Representaciones inconclusas: las clases, los actores y los discursos de la memoria,
1912–1946, ed. Waldo Ansaldi, Alfredo Pucciarelli, and José C. Villarruel (Buenos Aires:
Biblos, 1995), 199–222; Mariana Luzzi, “’El viraje de la ola’: las primeras discusiones
sobre la intervención del estado en el socialismo argentino,” in I Jornadas de Historia
de las Izquierdas (Buenos Aires: CEDINCI, 2000), 21–32.
118 E.I.A.L. 25–1

21 Among them, Peter Alhadeff, “The Economic Formulae of the 1930s: A Reassessment,”
in The Political Economy of Argentina, 1880–1946, eds. Guido Di Tella and D. C. M.
Platt (Oxford: St. Anthony’s College, 1986), 95–119; Arturo O’Connell, “Argentina into
the Depression: Problems of an Open Economy,” in Latin America in the 1930s: The
Role of the Periphery in World Crisis, ed. Rosemary Thorp (New York: St. Martin’s,
1984), 188–221; Juan Pablo Gerchunoff and Lucas Llach, El ciclo de la desilusión y el
desencanto: un siglo de políticas económicas argentinas (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 2007),
107–53; Amalia Louro de Ortiz, El grupo Pinedo-Prebisch y el neo-conservadorismo
renovador (Buenos Aires: GEL, 1992); Cortés Conde, Political Economy, 78–121; Mario
Rapoport, Historia económica, política y social de la Argentina 1880–2003 (Buenos
Aires: Emecé, 2005), 208–40 and 267–86.
22 For example, Raúl Prebisch and Federico Pinedo, the national government officers and
architects of the main economic reforms, were forced to change their orthodox economic
views due to the circumstances. See Raúl Prebisch, “Argentine Economic Policies since
the 1930s: Recollections,” in The Political Economy of Argentina, 1880–1946, eds. Guido
Di Tella and D. C. M. Platt (Oxford: St. Anthony’s College, 1986), 134, 137; Edgar
Dosman, The Life and Times of Raúl Prebisch, 1901–1986 (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s
University Press, 2008), 69–116; Federico Pinedo, En tiempos de la república. Vol. 1,
129–3, 141–45; Elvio Baldinelli, “Federico Pinedo y el comercio exterior argentino,”
in Comercio internacional, integración y estabilidad monetaria: en homenaje al dr.
Federico Pinedo, ed. Roberto Alemann et al. (Buenos Aires: Abeledo Perrot, 1996), 86;
Gerchunoff and Llach, Ciclo, 104.
23 Béjar, Régimen fraudulento, 96-106; Tulio Halperín Donghi, República Imposible; Jorge
Nállim, Transformations and Crisis of Liberalism in Argentina, 1930-1955 (Pittsburgh:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012), 90-92.
24 For a comparison of Radical and Socialist economic positions, see Jorge Nállim, “Be-
tween Free Trade and Economic Dictatorship: Radicals, Socialists, and the Politics of
Economic Liberalism in Argentina, 1930–1946,” Canadian Journal of Latin American
and Caribbean Studies 33, no. 65 (2008): 137–72.
25 John King, A Study of the Argentine Literary Journal and Its Role in the Development
of a Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986); Rosalie Sitman, Victoria
Ocampo y Sur: entre Europa y América (Buenos Aires: Lumière, 2003); Nora Pasternac,
Sur: una revista en la tormenta (Buenos Aires: Paradiso, 2002); Maria Teresa Gramuglio,
“Posiciones, transformaciones y debates en la literatura,” in Cattaruzza, Crisis, 331–81.
26 Sandra McGee Deutsch, Las Derechas. The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile,
1890-1939 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999); Federico Finchelstein,
Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919-
1945 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).
27 Mario Rapoport, Gran Bretaña, Estados Unidos y las clases dirigentes argentinas,
1940–1945 (Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano, 1980); Ronald Newton, The Nazi
Menace in Argentina, 1931–1947 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992).
28 Loris Zanatta, Del estado liberal; Zanatta and Roberto di Stefano, Historia de la Iglesia
argentina: desde la conquista hasta fines del siglo XX (Buenos Aires: Mondadori, 2000);
Bianchi, Catolicismo.
29 Tulio Halperín Donghi, La Argentina y la tormenta del mundo. Ideas e ideologías entre
1930 y 1945 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2003).
30 Andrés Bisso, El antifascismo argentino. Selección documental y estudio preliminar
(Buenos Aires: CEDINCI Editores/Buenos Libros, 2007). Other works by Bisso in the
Argentine Political History, 1930 to 1943 119

same direction are Acción Argentina: un antifascismo nacional en tiempos de guerra

mundial (Buenos Aires: Prometeo, 2005) and “Los socialistas argentinos y la apelación
antifascista durante el ‘fraude tardío’,” in Camarero and Herrera, Partido Socialista,
9-73.
31 Jorge Nállim, Transformations and Crisis of Liberalism in Argentina, 1930-1955 (Pitts-
burgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012).
32 Ricardo Pasolini, “‘La internacional del espíritu’: la cultura antifascista y las redes de
solidaridad intelectual en la Argentina de los años treinta,” in Fascismo y antifascismo,
peronismo y antiperonismo. Conflictos políticos e ideológicos en la Argentina, 1930-
1955, ed. Marcela García Sebastiani (Madrid: Iberoamericana-Vervuert, 2006), 43-76.
33 Osvaldo Graciano, Entre la torre de marfil y el compromiso político. Intelectuales de
izquierda en la Argentina, 1918-1955 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Universidad de Quilmes,
2008).
34 Germán Friedmann, Alemanes antinazis en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI,
2010).
35 Sandra McGee Deutsch, Crossing Borders, Claiming A Nation: A History Of Argentine
Jewish Women, 1880-1955 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2010).
36 Sandra McGee Deutsch, “Argentine Women Against Fascism: The Junta de la Victoria,
1941-1947,” Politics, Religion & Ideology, Vol. 13, No. 2 (June 2012): 221–236.
37 Jeffrey Lesser and Raanan Rein, eds., Rethinking Jewish-Latin Americans (Albuquerque:
University of New Mexico Press, 2008), in particular the chapters by Rosalie Sitman,
“Protest from Afar: The Jewish and Republican Presence in Victoria Ocampo’s Revista
Sur in the 1930s and 1940s,” 132-160; Sandra McGee Deutsch, “Changing the Landscape:
The Study of Argentine-Jewish Women and New Historical Vistas,” 161-186; and Donna
J. Guy, “Women’s Organizations and Jewish Orphanages in Buenos Aires, 1918-1955,”
187-206.
38 José Zanca, “Dios y libertad. Católicas antifascistas en la Argentina de entreguerras” and
Adriana Valobra, “‘Feminismo sagrado, guerra heroica y heroicos contreras:’ Eugenia
Silveyra de Oyuela, un ideario en los márgenes,” papers presented at the Primer Coloquio
sobre Género y Trayectorias Antifascistas, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la
Educación, Universidad Nacional de la Plata, June 24th-June 25th, 2013.
39 Darío Macor, Nación y provincia en la crisis de los años treinta (Santa Fe: Ediciones
Universidad Nacional del Litoral, 2005) and “¿Una república liberal en los años 30? La
experiencia demoprogresista en el estado provincial santafesino,” in Representaciones
inconclusas: las clases, los actores y los discursos de la memoria, 1912-1946, ed. Waldo
Ansaldi, Alfredo Pucciarelli, and José C. Villarruel (Buenos Aires: Biblos, 1995), 165-98.
40 Mark Healey, The Ruins of the New Argentina. Peronism and the Remaking of San Juan
after the 1944 Earthquake (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2011).
41 Darío Macor and César Tcah, eds., La invención del peronismo en el interior del país
(Santa Fe: Universidad del Litoral, 2005).
42 Hilda Sábato, The Many and the Few: Political Participation in Republican Buenos Aires
(Stanford: University of California Press, 2001); Pilar González Bernaldo de Quirós,
Civility and Politics in the Origins fo the Argentine Nation: Sociabilities in Buenos Ai-
res, 1829-1862 (Los Angeles: UCLA-Latin American Center, 2006); Leandro Gutiérrez
and Luis Alberto Romero, Sectores populares, cultura y política: Buenos Aires en la
entreguerra (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1995).
43 Luciano de Privitellio, Vecinos y ciudadanos. Política y sociedad en la Buenos Aires de
entreguerras (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2003).
120 E.I.A.L. 25–1

44 Joel Horowitz, “Soccer Clubs and Civic Associations: Politics and Soccer in Buenos
Aires between the Two World Wars,” unpublished paper, presented at the conference of
the Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CALACS, Montreal,
2010). Another excellent recent study on soccer, less focused on politics, is Raanan Rein’s
Los bohemios de Villa Crespo. Judïos y fútbol en Argentina (Buenos Aires: Sudameri-
cana, 2012). Rein highlights the historical connection between the Atlanta soccer club
and Jewish community and identity in the neighborhood of Villa Crespo.
45 Lila Caimari, Mientras la ciudad duerme. Pistoleros, policías y periodistas en Buenos
Aires, 1920-1945 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2012).
46 Lila Caimari, Apenas un delincuente. Crimen, castigo y cultura en la Argentina, 1880-
1955 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2004).
47 Halperín Donghi, República imposible, 79; Devoto, Nacionalismo, 284.
48 Joel Migdal, “Introduction: Developing a State-in-Society Perspective,” in State Power
and Social Forces: Domination and Transformation in the Third World, eds. Joel Migdal
et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 1-34.
49 Matthew Karush and Oscar Chamosa, eds., The New Cultural History of Peronism:
Power and Identity in Mid-Twentieth Century Argentina (Durham and London: Duke
University Press, 2010); Eduardo Elena, Dignifying Argentina: Peronism, Citizenship,
and Mass Consumption (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011); Natalia
Milanesio, Workers Go Shopping in Argentina: The Rise of Popular Consumer Culture
(Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2013).
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