260959x PDF

The Ideological Origins of Right and Left Nationalism in Argentina, 1930-43
Author(s): Alberto Spektorowski

Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 155-184
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/260959
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AlbertoSpektorowski
The Ideological Originsof Rightand Left

Nationalismin Argentina, 1930-43
This work examines the development of a particular nationalist

ideology from the late 1920s through Peron's ascent to power, an
ideology that has had an important influence on Argentinian politics
ever since. Although the first attempt to implement it politically was
made in 1930, with Uriburu's abortive military coup, the ideology
only achieved consummation with the successful revolution of 1943,
which ushered in Peronism. The following analysis concentrates on
the Argentinian intellectual rebellion against the West's liberal
democratic models of national modernization. This intellectual
rebellion was the basis for the delegitimization of the liberal version of
Argentinian nationalism, which eventually gave way to an organic
populist version.
The Argentinian intellectual rebellion against the West's liberal,
democratic and bourgeois values and its models of national modern-
ization was motivated by two different political and intellectual
trends. One of them was the 'integralist' nationalism of Charles
Maurras, Italian fascism, and the resurgence of the ideal of
'Hispanismo' as a cultural and developmental alternative to the
materialist, utilitarian values of the West. The other was rooted in the
'authentic' national populist tradition raised by the Radical Party,
with its impetus in anti-imperialism and social justice. In the 1930s,
General A. Justo's conservative government provided the necessary
political and economic backdrop for an ideological synthesis between
the two trends, national populism and the integralist concept of
nationalism. This synthesis produced an alternative 'third road' of
political and economic modernization to counter the modernization
programme advocated by the liberal elites, an alternative which, in
the Argentinian context, would include elements of national
integration, social justice, populist mobilization and economic and
cultural anti-imperialism.
Journal of ContemporaryHistory (SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),

Vol. 29 (1994), 155-184.
156 Journal of ContemporatryHistory
This formula was the basis for a particular version of fascist

ideology which emphasized social justice and anti-imperialism, two
concepts that on the surface would appear alien to the fascist ideology
developed in Europe. Whereas in Europe, fascist ideology blended a
new anti-liberal nationalism and an anti-Marxist socialism derived
from Sorel's revision of Marxism, the Argentinian version was
rooted, as mentioned, in the synthesis of two trends of nationalism,
the integralist and the populist.' However, both syntheses represented
a total political, social and economic response to problems created by
political modernization.' Our purpose here is to examine the
development of Argentinian nationalism within the context of the
fascist ideological revolution.3
Any discussion of the emergence of Argentinian anti-liberal

nationalism must deal first with the characteristicsof the Argentinian
liberal-democraticorder and with the appearance of the first 'populist
democratic' attacks on it. From 1810 to 1852, Argentina was a
country divided by the struggle between Federalists and Unitarists.
The eventual triumph of the latter reflected the victory of a national
modernization project based on the principles of the Enlightenment
over the caudillista anti-modernist tradition represented by the
Federalists. In fact, from the defeat in 1853 of Juan Manuel de Rosas,
the Federalist caudillowho best embodied the values of the anarchical
uncivilized past, Argentina began a liberal process of modernization,
a process idealized in the works of intellectuals like Bartolome Mitre
and Domingo F. Sarmiento.
According to them, Argentina was a 'barbarous', ignorant
country, a product of Spanish colonialism, which had to be civilized
by means of a new ideology of progress based on positivist
philosophy.4 The modernizing 6lites were influenced by the American
Constitution and the Declaration of Human Rights. At the same
time, however, they were also inspired by the positivist social thought
of Comte, Saint Simon, Fourier and others. They believed in the
power of reason as a guide for human behaviour, and in the
Enlightenment ideas which linked material progress to science and
human liberties.
When General J.A. Roca's presidency began in 1880, the positivist
ideology was implemented under the slogan 'peace and admini-
stration'. At the end of the second half of the century, Argentina
entered a period of high economic growth, and foreign investment
Spektorowski: Right and Left Nationalism in Argentina 157
was encouraged. The British established new banks, a railroad

network and gas companies, while a great wave of immigration from
Spain, Italy, Ireland and other countries transformed the sociological
face of the country. Buenos Aires, the capital, was federalized, the
provincial guards who constituted the local power base were
suppressed, and the monetary system was unified.
However, under Roca's administration, economic development
took place without political democratization. Indeed, despite the
process of socio-economic modernization, the nation's political
system remained closed until 1912. As late as 1910 it was estimated
that only some 20 per cent of the native male population voted.
Political power was concentrated in the hands of the PAN (Partido
Autonomista Nacional), which representedthe oligarchy's economic
and political interests. As a political analyst of those years has
observed, the government 'accepted all the great ideas of political
liberty... and universal suffrage ... but it has a theory which it
rarelyconfesses, which is its guiding idea, and that is the theory of the
tutelary functions of government'.5
The first protests against the liberal democratic establishment and
the liberal elite's modernization programmescame from two different
sources. The first was the new middle class created by the process of
economic modernization, which was beginning to seek political
participation. As we will see, the Radical Party was the new
movement that expressed the demands of this class, with a populist,
democratic but anti-liberal programme. The second source of unrest
was a class-conscious working class, mostly of immigrant origin,
which supported the Socialist Party and the anarchist-led unions.6
Although both the Socialists and the anarchists threatened the
oligarchy's political programmes, ideologically and culturally they
did not oppose the concept of political modernization based on
secularization, anti-traditionalism and faith in universal human
values. Moreover, they accepted in principle the liberal elite's faith
that the flow of European immigration would exert a modernizing
influence in Argentina by defining the parameters of a modern,
'Europeanized' nation. The anarchists, however, took a more radical,
revolutionary stance, whereas the Socialist Party advocated a policy
of gradual reform.7
In his book Theory and Practice, J.B. Justo, the founder of the
Socialist Party, describes a process of gradual development in
Argentina in which a capitalist stage and the constitution of a
national bourgeoisie were preconditions for the development of a
158 Journal of ContemporaryHistory
socialist society.8 Endorsing the elites' modernization programme,

Justo rejected the spontaneity of the masses and 'caudillo politics',
and accepted the liberal premise that a dependent economy was
merely a temporary stage, a step towards modernization. By
adopting this assumption, the Socialist movement joined the de-
fenders of former democracy and economic liberalism, issues that
became the focus of nationalist attacks during the 1930s.
It is not the intention here to delve into the development of the
Argentinian labour movement or the differences between its socialist
and anarchist ideologies. However, to understand the later devel-
opment ofintegralist and anti-imperialistnationalism in Argentina, it
is important to realize that the socialist and anarchist movements did
not object to culturally enlightened modernization. They both feared
any kind of 'authentic' nationalism. They would never praise the
national collectivity as an organic entity with its traditional myths,
religion, glories and graveyards. They simply refused to bow down
before it and its cultural baggage.
The real ideological challenge to the proponents of an enlightened
and limited democracy, however, came during the first years of the
century, when a new political movement, rooted in the pre-liberal,
traditionalist caudillista populism, made its appearance. In 1890 the
Union Civica Radical led the first violent dissent against what some
members of the oligarchy saw as the fraudulent administration of
President Juarez Celman. During the 1920s the Union developed into
a popular movement that spoke for the new native middle class then
seeking political representation. The Radical movement, indeed, was
the first to raise the flag of universal suffrage, and at the same time it
refused to be defined as a party of sectorial interests. In fact, since the
Radical movement conceived society as integrated and organic, it saw
itself as representing the whole of the nation. As such, it rejected the
bourgeois establishment of the liberal conservatives and reformist
socialists as well as the class struggle of the anarchists. In its view,
both trends, the liberal and the Marxist, contributed to the
disintegration and the 'denationalization' of Argentina.9Advocating
a violent, intransigent struggle for democratization, and for the
rescue of the 'authentic' national identity of the country, the
movement manifested, from the beginning, the rebellious spirit
exemplified by its first leader, Leandro Alem. The latter was
representative of 'the oppressed canons inserted into the caudillist
tradition ... [more] ... than... the idea... of a modern nation'.'0
In other words, Radicalism was synonymous with rebellion, with a
new morality opposed to bourgeois materialism and the cosmo-

politan spirit promoted by the oligarchy.
This rebellious spirit was continued by the next 'caudillo' of the
movement: Hipolito Yrigoyen. Under his leaderhip, the Radical
movement accentuated its 'intransigent' struggle for universal suf-
frage by making another revolutionary attempt against the legal
government in 1905. Although this attempt also failed, it enhanced
the movement's revolutionary democratic appeal. It also sparked
renewed popular interest in the ideals of Radicalism, and convinced
the oligarchical elites once and for all to allow democratic reform, in
order to turn the Radical 'rebel' movement into a party of the system.
The Saenz Pefa law of universal suffrage in 1912 was what clinched
the Radical movement's bid for power in 1916. It may be said that at
that point the cultural and political delegitimization of liberal
democracy began, paving the way for the age of populist democracy.
In no time the staid, closed atmosphere of the oligarchy was swept
away by a wave of popular euphoria.
Yrigoyen, indeed, was to challenge the rationalist and materialist
utopia of the liberal elites. Heir to the rebellious, traditionalist,
anti-modernist Federalist spirit, Yrigoyen attempted to integrate
the politics of regional federalism with the constitutional order.
This translated into a concept of direct democracy or clientelist
politics reflected in increased links between Yrigoyen and local
caudillos, particularly in populous areas. This system of patronage
ruffled the feathers of not only the conservative forces outside the
party but also the Radical movement's own elite, which could not
accept Yrigoyen's populist style of operating through the party's
committees."
In contrast to Yrigoyen's constitutional populism, characterized
by federal intervention in the provinces and the sanction of
presidential decrees and ministerial resolutions, the party's aristoc-
racy demanded more congressional control and a more rational
management of public funds. These conflicts reached a peak in 1928,
when Yrigoyen ran for re-election. The anti-Yrigoyenists, dubbed
'antipersonalistas', found common ground with the conservative
parties of the aristocratic elite, who shared their support for an
orderly, institutionalized democracy. Yrigoyen's supporters
remained the 'intransigent', moralist, and organically nationalist
wing of the party. In the 1928 elections, however, Yrigoyen was re-
elected by a wide margin, proving once more that the formula of
popular democracy had been accepted by the Argentinian people.
During the widespread economic depression at the end of the

1920s, however, the regime began to disintegrate. At the height of the
depression, a coalition of interests ranging from conservative liberals
to national corporatists was composed. Although Yrigoyen posed no
threat to their economic interests, the conservative liberals despised
his rhetoric and political style.'2They were flanked by a new group of
nationalist intellectuals who wanted to replace the populist state with
a strong, authoritarian, corporatist state. Common to both groups
was the belief that the political formula of constitutional populism
was inappropriate for confronting the new challenges posed by
economic depression. It is clear, however, that the coalition against
Yrigoyen was the product of a temporary intersection of interests
between corporatist and liberal conservatives.
As we shall see, during the 1930s a different ideological environ-
ment developed. While the Yrigoyenist ideology supported a populist
democratic attack on liberal democracy, the new nationalist inte-
gralist ideology presented a corporatized authoritarian alternative to
it. A synthesis of the two ideological lines, seemingly inconceivable in
1930, was possible later in the decade when the issues of anti-
imperialism, the revision of the Argentine's history, and neutrality in
the second world war became central problems for both trends.
The most prominent pioneer of a new political ideology restating the

values of military strength, heroism, order, technical efficiency and
anti-politics was the renowned poet Leopoldo Lugones. Lugones,
who was well known in Argentina for his poems, historical works
(such as La Historia de Sarmiento), and articles he wrote for various
newspapers in the capital, was unquestionably a poet whose poetry
could not be separated from his political ideas. A radical revolu-
tionary socialist during his youth and a right-wing nationalist and
fascist in later life, Lugones never wavered in his scorn for liberal
democracy and reformist socialism.
His most famous political statement was delivered in a speech at
Ayacucho, Peru, in 1924. There, during the centenary celebrations of
the famous battle of Ayacucho, Lugones heralded the 'hour of the
sword'. He was referringto the Argentinian army, which had fought
for independence and was the only reliable institution exemplifying
hierachy and order. This speech also represented an attack against
bourgeois morality and politics. In fact, Lugones believed strongly in
social Darwinism and the use of force as the basis for a new morality:
'Life does not triumph by means of reason and truth, but by means of
force. Life is incomprehensible and inexorable . . .3
The militarization of society and industrial modernization under a
corporatist state were to be the response to liberal democracy as well
as to anarchist populism. Lugones insisted, moreover, that in a world
of imperialist competition, an industrially backward, militarily weak
country, in which partisan politics took the place of a defined national
identity, could not survive. His political message had a great impact
on a number of army officers, and especially on a group of young
intellectuals who congregated in the offices of the journal La Nueva
Republica,which had begun to appear in 1927. They all agreed with
Lugones that 'the general progress of technology, and the correlative
empire of the scientific method, have certainly modified the old
political concepts . . Majority democracy is already a failed
experiment."4
In the expectation that the world was in the process of a new
conservative revolution, this group of nationalist intellectuals pro-
moted a new interpretation of nationalism and an alternative concept
of 'corporatized' democracy. Instead of liberal democracy and
constitutional populism, La Nueva Republica proposed a different
system of representation based on:
the organized and corporatized collectivity, in which individual interests are
subordinated to the Nation. The common good of the people which is the end of all
government is contrary to these abstract principles of popular sovereignty,
freedom, equality or proletariat redemption.'
This type of nationalism was clearly inspired by Charles Maurras's

idea of'le nationalisme integral', which was deeply suspicious of any
popular participation in the political process.'6 Only an elite not
elected by the process of formal democracy could representthe nation
as an organic unity. For the nationalists of La Nueva Republica, the
Yrigoyenist concept of populist democratization, although based on
the pre-liberal tradition, meant the intrusion of the unintelligent
masses into the political system. Democratization implemented by
means of a law of universal suffrageled inevitably to the consumerism
produced by populism. This assumption, too, reflects Maurras's
influence. In his Enquetesur la Monarchie, Maurras asserts that when
a republic tends towards democratic forms, it passes from a regime of
regular production to a regime of pure consumerism.'7 That was
indeed La Nueva Republica's fundamental objection to Yrigoyen's
democratic populism as well as to liberal democracy.
162 Journal of Contemporary History
This criticism of liberal democracy and constitutional populism

was shared by the anti-liberal wing of the Argentinian Church.'8
Argentina, according to the anti-liberal clergy, was oppressed by a
revolutionary immigrant working class that fomented labour unrest,
and also by a liberal oligarchy responsible for the secularization of the
Argentinian political system. The disputes between the modernizing
political elites and the Church came to the fore when President Roca
took measures to limit the civil functions of the Church in 1884. From
then on, relations between the secular state and the Church were
never completely comfortable, although they managed to establish a
modus vivendi, especially during Agustin Justo's administration.'9
From the theoretical as well as the practical point of view, however,
the right-wing Catholic message conveyed by nationalist Catholic
publications like Criterio (founded in 1928), as well as Sol y Luna
and Baluarte, was far from conciliatory towards the liberal state.
Moreover, it aimed for the theoretical synthesis of Catholicism and
fascism. The same message was imparted in the Cursos de Cultura
Catolica (courses in Catholic culture), set up in 1932 with the
Church's financial support. The ostensible purpose of the Cursos was
to raise the intellectual level of Argentinian Catholic intellectuals, but
their real goal was to prepare for the counter-revolution by
delegitimizing the concept of liberal, popular democracy.
A turning-point for Argentinian nationalist Catholic intellectual
development was Cesar Pico's article responding to Jacques
Maritain's book, HumanismeIntegral. In that book Maritain harshly
criticized Catholics who supported totalitarian regimes. According
to Pico, however, the Italian fascists and the Spanish and Latin
American nationalists were to develop a doctrine in which Cath-
olicism and fascism would find common cause.?2 In spite of the
secular nature of fascist totalitarianism in the world ideological
struggle against liberal democracy, fascism was an authoritarian way
of restoring Catholic doctrinairism.21In the Argentinian context,
however, only the army could rescue this nationalist Catholic spirit.
For more than a decade, the anti-liberalclergy had believed a military
takeover was necessary, and these views, together with those
promoted by La Nueva Republica and the poet Lugones, gained
currency at army headquarters, especially in the influential Circulo
Militar, where the most distinguished officers met. These doctrinary
views were not the only impetus to the military revolution against
Yrigoyen's administration, however.
The first signs of army unrest came when some key officers
complained of what they considered to be an attempt by Yrigoyen to

politicize the army. The events that followed, however, were not
prompted solely by practical professional concerns. It was impos-
sible, in fact, to isolate the army from the new ideological develop-
ments in the world and in Argentina; the Argentinian military was a
microcosm of ideological developments in the country as a whole.22
Two important military figures represented the two major rival
ideologies in Argentina. One of them was General Agustin Justo, who
had been war minister in Marcelo T. de Alvear's administration and
director of the influential Circulo Militar in 1928; the other was Jose
Felix Uriburu, who played a cardinal role in the ensuing political
developments. While Agustin Justo was a legalistic military man of
liberal democratic convictions, Jose Felix Uriburu was a corporatist
nationalist and an admirerof Prussian military discipline. Trained in
Germany under Prussian officers(the army had sent him to Germany
during the first world war to study command techniques), Uriburu
was well aware of the nationalist uprising in Europe, and believed
that a new nationalist style and political method could be developed
in non-European countries.23 Influenced also by contacts with
Lugones and the nationalist intellectuals of La Nueva Republicaand
by their writings, Uriburu reaffirmed the nationalist corporatist
concepts he had developed as a result of his European experience.
Both Uriburu and Justo conspired against Yrigoyen by organizing
the military coup d'etat of 1930, but they demanded Yrigoyen's
resignation for different reasons. While Justo wanted the military
revolution to restore political hegemony to conservative liberalism,
Uriburu believed the liberal democratic political structuresshould be
transformed into those of a functional or corporatized democracy.
Preparations for the military coup were accompanied by discussion
of these goals.
It is a fact, however, that although Jose Felix Uriburu led the
revolutionary upheaval of 1930,most of the regularofficerssupported
General Agustin Justo's defence of constitutionality. Thus, from the
outset it was clear that without the support of Justo's line officersand
the representatives of the political opposition parties there would be
no revolution at all. In short, contrary to the expectations of Lugones
and the rest of the nationalist intellectuals, Uriburu's revolution was
doomed to failure from the start. Thus, the uprising of 6 September
1930 did not give rise to the corporatist state as the integralist
nationalists had expected. Scarcely a year later, the old conservative
establishment returned to power under General Justo.
However, the return of the oligarchical liberal democracy provided

a framework for a radical metamorphosis of the nationalist ideo-
logues' political discourse. Until the end of the 1920s, Argentinian
integral nationalism remained elitist in nature. Its adherents feared
political participation by the masses. But in the 1930s radical
nationalists were introduced to the language of anti-imperialist
economics, something that was to be reflected in their ideology. The
Justo era, although characterized by a modicum of industrial
modernization and political stability, was in fact an era in which the
dependent character of the Argentinian economy and society was
greatly felt. Argentinian nationalists defined these years as the
'infamous decade';24 the time was ripe for a new synthesis between the
concepts of economic emancipation, fascism and traditional Cathol-
icism. In other words, in the context of liberalism and economic
dependency, a new ideology receptive to the modernist message of
fascism merged with the demand for economic emancipation and the
recovery of cultural identity.
To Argentinian nationalists, fascism offered a new anti-liberal order,

synthesizing a novel concept of nationalism and a different under-
standing of socialism. For Carulla, C. Ibarguren and R. Laferrere
(the founder of La Liga Republicana), fascism was not properly
Italian but representedthe ideas of a new order, an attractive form of
nationalism from which the Argentinian renaissance could learn. It
was a doctrine full of vitality, discipline and order, comprising a new
conception of political life and cultural revolution. In 1933, the
nationalist newspaper Bandera Argentina wrote:
Fascism was born of the necessity for pure action. The war imposed it on the world,
but before the war, in 1904 and 1910, Sorel and his disciples, Peguy, Lagardelle and
some other French and Italian syndicalists, had tried to revitalize socialism by
adding to it a spirit of action in order to drive electoralist opportunism out of it.25
To the Argentinian nationalists, however, fascist ideology was

neither a response to communism nor purely a result of the first world
war, but rather a total cultural and political response to the problems
presented by political modernization, in both developed and under-
developed or economically dependent regions. Whereas for the
Catholic wing of Argentinian nationalism fascism was the political
movement that would halt anti-traditionalist world forces, for most
modernist nationalists fascism represented a new call for mass

mobilization and national revolution.
One man who clearly understood this point was the prominent
nationalist writer Manuel Galvez, who specifically addressed himself
to the modernist significanceof the fascist revolutionary trend for the
Argentinian national uprising. Inevitably, Galvez's analysis of
fascism as a modernist, populist phenomenon reopened a local
discussion of the problem of populist democracy in Argentina.
Acceptance of the idea that the masses had a role to play in the
political game was in fact a step towards a synthesis of the ideological
elements of the fascist revolution with the authentic republican
tradition of the Yrigoyenist movement.
Galvez was seriously convinced that fascism could develop in
Argentina. Galvez's conception of fascism, however, was linked to
populism and social justice; in this respecthe differedsharply from the
La Nueva Republicanationalists, whom he defined as authoritarians
and militarists rather than true fascists. For Galvez, fascism had a
social and modernizing content; he tried to prove that 'fascism (in
Italy) is a doctrine of the right, which opposes democracy and
socialism, but socially belongs to the left'.26The fact that in Argentina
the people had responded to the call of Yrigoyen's Radical Party, a
populist and nationalist movement, led him to the conclusion that 'an
authentic "Radical" could not be far from fascism'.27He wrote his
own biography of Yrigoyen, an act that indicated his reconciliation
with the 'populist caudillo' deposed by Uriburu's military coup.
It must be remembered that most nationalists hoped Yrigoyen's
fall signalled the beginning of a new corporatist era that would
completely change the structuresof the liberaldemocratic system. Up
to that point, the revolutionaries could visualize a corporate
authoritarian society, anti-liberal and anti-oligarchic, full of youthful
vigour, but they could not envision the function of the people in that
schema, since anything connected with the people would carry
connotations of Yrigoyenism, anarchy and disorder. Manuel Galvez,
however, recognized that, alongside the corporatist formula devised
by the integralists, the Radical Party's populist tradition had
introduced a new kind of anti-bourgeois political style based on the
heroic spirit of Argentinian national traditions. This was the spirit of
the old caudillos, struggling for independence at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. In this analysis, the new spiritual force of fascism
revolutionizing the world was the modern embodiment of the old
caudillista spontaneous rebellion against the liberal mode of
modernization.
The idea of rebellion was an ideological development of cardinal

importance in Europe as well as in Argentina. It would revive the
myth of the state and the nation, elevating them over the utili-
tarianism and individualism of liberal democracy. The myths of
heroic life in Argentina had been destroyed by the post-independence
modernizing elites, but the new heroic age was an era of vitalism and
idealism. Carlos Ibarguren wrote of the new force 'which repudiated
the dominant intellectualism of the end of the XIX century' in Europe
and America, to replace it with 'a wave impregnated with a new
mysticism which appears and inspires a spiritual exaltation. After an
era in which the world was inundated by an anti-heroic materialism,
now we want to breathe in a new heroic breeze ...28
Clearly, an attack against the liberal &lites'project of national
modernization had to be accompanied by the revival of the historical
myth of Juan Manuel de Rosas. Rosas, it will be recalled, represented
traditionalist leadership, the politics of order and violence, and the
struggle against imperialism. The true political use of the revision of
Argentinian history began in 1930 with Carlos Ibarguren's book,
J.M. de Rosas, su vida, su tiempo, su drama (1930).29This book, like
others, was a clear attempt to link Argentina's liberal tradition with
cultural and economic dependence, and the Rosas reaction with
nationalism and anti-imperialism.
These books invoking the mythical values of the pre-liberalpast, as
well as Galvez's attempt to fuse the concepts of Argentinian populism
with fascism, included, as mentioned, criticism of Argentina's
political and economic dependence. While world fascism was rebel-
ling against liberal democracy and Marxist socialism, Argentinian
nationalism waged its struggle against liberal democracy, which it
held responsible for Argentinian dependence. This conclusion,
developed by the brothers Julio and Rodolfo Irazusta, was the basis
of the Argentinian right-wing anti-imperialist conception. These
same issues- the revival of Juan Manuel de Rosas as a cultural hero
and the new criticism of economic and cultural imperialism
became dominant concerns for a new group of intellectuals in the
Radical Party, who found the old Yrigoyenist political style to be an
inadequate response to the problems of a new era. In spite of the
different perspectives of the two groups, their criticism would fuse to
become the intellectual framework for a new nationalist ideology
combining the revolutionary populist tradition of Yrigoyenism with
the corporatist system of mass control idealized by the integralists.
Right-wing nationalists like the Irazustas reserved their main criti-

cism for the association that non-productive interests -public
adminstrators, lawyers and financiers -maintained with British
foreign interests. And the ideological framework for these foreign
interests and the local unproductive bourgeoisie was liberalism.
Argentinian prosperity cost too much ... the liberal formula of Alberdi stimulated
immigration but it was realized without criteria ... if it promoted commerce and
agriculture, it was promoted in an artificial and disproportional way... if it
provided for development of a huge railway network this was done according to
immediate foreign interests without planning for the future.3"
For the Irazusta brothers, the liberal democratic model of progress

-a democratic party system based on the Saenz Pefa Law of 1916-
was uneconomic on the one hand, and immoral and anti-national on
the other. Their central thesis was that the liberal tradition was
associated with the foreign plutocracy and responsible for the eternal
dependence and underdevelopment of the Argentinian nation.
At the same time, an emphasis on the need for economic
emancipation was to become the link between the Irazustas' philo-
sophy and that of FORJA (Fuerza de Orientacion Radical de la
Juventud Argentina), the new left wing of the Yrigoyenist move-
ment.3' FORJA promoted a new species of economic nationalism
that would greatly influence the former integral nationalists. Despite
their diverse philosophical roots and different perspectives on the
specific results of liberal modernization, both nationalist wings
contributed complementary components to a third path of
development.
FORJA members did not speak in terms of class struggle, but
addressed themselves to the 'Argentinian people' at large. As the left
wing of the Yrigoyen populist movement, they understood better
than the integralists that giving the masses political expression was
the only route to integration. This process went hand in hand with
economic anti-imperialism,which in their case was directed virulently
towards Great Britain.
Common to both the right-wing integralists and the left-wing
populists was that they did not consider the Argentinian economic
crisis as structural- that is, the result of free market forces. In their
view, the crisis was political, a result of the dealings between a non-
nationalist elite and British interests. Breaking off this disadvan-
tageous relationship was a precondition for national industrialization
and integration. Moreover, the question of economic dependence
was clearly linked to what FORJA members defined as the problem

of cultural imperialism, a syndrome to which both the rational right
and left fell prey.
Arturo Jauretche, one of the most prominent FORJA intellectuals,
linked the problem of colonization of the mind to the rationalist and
materialist right and left. In other words, the 'enlightened' intellectual
proponents of liberal democratic modernization and the left-wing
intellectuals who relied on a 'class struggle' Marxist analysis for
peripheral countries held misconceived ideas.
The struggle for emancipation and social justice cannot be won separately by
different social classes. Moreover, the class confrontation was one of the most
effective techniques used by British policy . . .The proletarian revolution as an
instrument of national realization had been abandoned by the national movements
long ago.32
Nationalism in any context meant class union rather than class

struggle. For a peripheralcountry like Argentina, nationalism meant
both class union and anti-imperialism.
Altough Jauretche did not develop the concept of the corporatist
state as the nationalist integralists did, he did form a mythic ideal of
populist democracy. However, apart from the loose reference to the
traditional populist democratic principles of Yrigoyenism, he never
defined any formal political organization that would express those
principles. Clearly, the solution to FORJA's predicament would be a
strong, mobilized nationalist state, removed from political liberalism
and collectivist Marxist socialism.
Rejecting the easy agro-export economic order required a social
consensus based on a third way of development, one that was neither
liberal democracy nor socialist proletarian revolution. Unques-
tionably, the answer was a populist, corporatized society that would
push for social integration and industrialization. However, in
contrast to the Italian nationalists, who emphasized productivity,
Argentinian nationalists believed the principle of productivity should
be balanced by a clear concern for social justice. This was the basis of
the 'inclusionary' concept of corporatism, which integrated a demand
for benefits for the poor and less protected classes.33In addition, anti-
imperialist politics, which to FORJA members meant economic
emancipation and mass participation in the political process, were
also a precondition for the development of an authentic national
programme of industrial modernization and social welfare.34
The 1930s were characterized by several attempts by the nationalists

to form a unified movement, attempts that in most cases failed. A
number of fascist-style leagues were created, such as La Liga
Republicana, which performed the function of the 'Camelots du Roi'
for La Nueva Republica, or La Legion Civica, originally created by
Felix de Uriburu as the civil militia of the abortive revolution of 1930.
These leagues reflected the paramilitary, revolutionary fascist spirit.
The Legion Civica, for instance, was initially identified with the
nationalist goals of the army that took power in 1930, and was
inspired by the martial spirit that characterized the revolutionary
groups of the right and left all over the world.35The Legion's doctrine
was based on the assumption that war 'more than a function of
armies was a function of peoples, and no component of the
nation ... could not participate in it'.36There was no danger of war in
Latin America, but the Legion Civica was organized on military lines,
with brigades and divisions that would parade in columns of eight
members. In poor neighbourhoods bands of 'legionaries' were
organized in groups of twenty headed by a leader. Since one of the
organization's proposed objectives was to give the population
ideological guidance, its activities naturally included women and
children,37who were trained in military camps. At the same time, on
the ideological level, the Legion adopted a political discourse based
on the specific conditions of Argentinian development, proposing a
political programme that employed anti-imperialist, reformist and
even proletarian concepts.
The Alianza de la Juventud Nacionalista, founded by Juan
Queralto in 1935, had a less military style than the Legion Civica.
However, it was the nationalist group that synthesized most clearly
the new populist and 'pro-worker'-oriented approach, the struggle
for economic independence, and the traditional concepts of corpor-
atist organization. In other words, the Alianza combined the
fundamental ideological elements of fascism - the hierarchical
organization, the violent style and the nationalist rhetoric- with the
indigenous Latin American nationalist features arising from the
particularities of the continent's own development, such as anti-
imperialism and the concern for social justice. The Alianza advanced
the idea of the syndicalist state by boosting the participation of
workers and the unemployed, precursors of Peron's descamisados.It
was the first nationalist group to succeed in organizing mass rallies in
the Plaza San Martin in Buenos Aires to celebrate the First of May, in
what was a clear attempt to transform the international workers'
holiday into a national celebration of the Argentinian worker. In the

words of the Alianza's founder, Juan Queralto:
Our struggle against the oligarchy is parallel to our struggle against Marxism. We
repudiate the 'latifundist' [agrarian] oligarchy, since its existence delays national
progress; [we repudiate] the capitalist oligarchy, because it is the flag of reaction
against... our revolution in march, and [we repudiate] the political oligarchy
. . because it has no patriotism . . 3
The Alianza accepted the right to private property and freedom of

contract but provided for government intervention against economic
speculation and the formation of monopolized trusts. 'Production
would rest on the principle of being at the service of the country and
not at the service of liberal capitalistic accumulation... '.3 Fur-
thermore, 'until now any social policy was based on reforms,
conceded by the liberal system' but 'our national revolution will
transform the main concept of work .... Work is going to be
associated as a partner in the production of wealth'.4 Although the
Alianza, unlike the Legion Civica, became during Peron's admini-
stration the movement of the 'declasses', the 'plebeians', its rhetoric
resembled that of the Legion. It was clear to both of them that the
evils of capitalism and industrialization could be overcome by a
strong syndicalist state, to the benefit of the workers.
Anticipating Peronist ideology, which was to become popular in
the mid-1940s, the Legion announced, 'We are not enemies of the
workers'. Solutions to the workers' problems had not yet been
provided by socialism and could not be provided in the future. The
only road left was 'class syndicalism . . .that can mediate between
workers and employers. . . that would certainly develop into a
corporatist state that binds and harmonizes'.4'In fact, it was evident
that the liberal democratic regime would have to be turned into a class
state that could preserve both harmony and social justice.
Nevertheless, the nationalists made few attempts to put their
political beliefs into practice. One of the sole efforts to institute an
inclusionary, corporatist system in Argentina was made by Manuel
Fresco, the right-wing nationalist governor of Buenos Aires from
1936 to 1940. Manuel Fresco understood that despising democratic
practices was not enough, and that another kind of democracy, or
another way to reach the people, should be proposed.
Fresco's assertion that the democratic regime was a 'plutocratic
regime, that is bourgeois, capitalist, atheist, materialist, sensual and
positivist; sceptical, pragmatic and utilitarian',42did not, in his eyes,
rule out acceptance of an alternative conception of democratic and

social practices, that which characterized the fascist regime. His visit
to Italy in February 1935, while he was president of the Chamber of
Deputies in Congress, convinced him of the effectiveness of Italian
corporatist procedures; and while governing the province of Buenos
Aires he instituted an experimental administration based on the
socio-economic corporatist model of Salazar's 'Estado Novo' in
Portugal.43 Under the slogan 'God, Fatherland, and Home', he
proceeded to give an unprecedented boost to public works in the
province, thereby solving unemployment there. These reforms were
accompanied by reactionary policies in education and politics. He
instated religious education in the schools and outlawed the
Communist Party. These measures gave him a certain prestige among
the nationalists, even though he was considered a controversial
personality of questionable morality because of his relations with
foreign interests.44
Fresco severely repressed the radical left although he considered it
politically impotent. In the Chamber of Deputies, Fresco defined the
Socialist Party as 'a conglomerate of the bourgeoisie',45limited to
parliamentary politics. For Fresco, parliamentarist procedures were
obsolete. He defended what he called 'patriotic fraud' and 'patriotic
violence', if they would lead to the requirednationalist social reforms.
This was the synthesis of a nationalist fascist state, which, in contrast
to the liberal, socialist state, could provide social solutions to the
demands of the working class.
Fresco sought a system of representationin which unions would be
recognized by the state and would be required to submit their
demands to compulsory state arbitration. These principleswere given
expression in the Organic Labour Act of 1937. Fresco also stressed
that while the nationalists were working for national emancipation
and social justice and fighting against economic imperialism, the
communists and socialists, who had formed the Popular Front in the
mid-1930s, had made the struggle against fascism their priority. In
other words, while the struggle for democracy kept the socialists,
communists, and liberal democrats busy, both the right-wing and
left-wing nationalists were engaged in the fight against imperialism.
On 4 June 1943, the armed forces led by General Rawson took power
in Argentina. The military uprising followed a political crisis within
the conservative government then in power. The domestic front had
seen growing dissatisfaction with the government's economic strat-

egy; this, together with certain administrative malpractices and the
threat of a possible communist upheaval, galvanized the army leaders
into action. The actual trigger, however, was the military leaders' fear
that Robustiano Patron Costa, a supporter of the Allies, would be
elected president and end Argentina's neutrality in the second world
war.
The defence of Argentinian neutrality in the second world war was
a cause that united nationalists of both the right and the left.46
Moreover, this issue, which in the case of the nationalist right wing
meant clear support for the Axis, could not be separated from the
political and ideological convictions of both rightists and leftists who
sought the end of the liberal state.
The conviction that Argentina had to change its political path went
hand in hand with the conviction that the old world of the Western
democracies would soon collapse. In the words of Marcelo Sanchez
Sorondo, it was the 'revolution we announced'.47It was, in fact, the
anticipated revolution that would put Argentina both on the road of
national liberation and in the midst of the universal fascist revolution
against the Western democracies. Although its objectives were
unclear, the GOU (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, the military pressure
group that led the military uprising in 1943) seemed to be fascist-
oriented.
For the anti-semitic priest Meinvielle, the coup was the expected
counter-revolution, while for the 'plebeian' Alianza it was a radical,
anti-imperialistic, populist revolution that would create a single
nationalist party supported by the declasses. As it turned out, these
developments would have to await Peron's accession to power, but
Colonel Juan D. Peron was an integral part of the revolution from the
beginning.
One of the most significant acts that determined the political
direction of the government took place on 27 October 1943, when
President General P.P. Ramirez, who had been part of Uriburu's
political circle, decreed the conversion of the Departamento Nacional
de Trabajo into an autonomous department, one which Juan Peron
would later use as a springboard from the military to political
leadership. As Ramirez declared, 'social justice' was to be one of the
'fundamental objectives' of the military government. In Decree
156.074 of 27 November 1943, Peron was assigned the task of taking
the necessary measures to improve relations among the productive
forces in the country.48
Indeed, the improvement of the relationship between the workers'

unions and the state was essential for the implementation of the
military government's short-term industrial policies. Mixed indus-
trial complexes were created with the goal of exploiting national
resources, and long-term loans were offered to industrial concerns.
The 'productive' conception inspired by Lugones's thesis of national
strength was accompanied by a limited social policy designed by the
nationalist intellectuals, reflectingtheir attempt to achieve a degree of
social justice.
However, social justice and the welfare of the workers could only
be achieved by the regulative hand of the state. This control allowed
the state to manoeuvre freely when circumstances warranted. The
ideas implemented by Peron, as we have seen, were originally
developed by the nationalists. Yet the local nationalists were not the
only influence on Peron's ideological development. Peron had also
been deeply impressed by his visit to Italy in the period 1939-41. That
personal experience encouraged his admiration of Italian fascism,
especially as a way to lead the working class.49 In fact, Peron's
approach to industrial relations resembled Mussolini's. In his view,
all syndical organizations must be corporatized by the state, because
it suits the state to have organic forces it can control and lead rather than inorganic
forces that escape its leadership .. We do not want unions divided into political
factions, because what is dangerous is, precisely, the political unions.5s
At the same time, however, Peron was convinced that he could

improve upon Mussolini's experience, by paying greater attention to
worker welfare.
The Syndical Statute, initiated by the military government in 1943,
represented the first effort to institute corporatist authoritarian
control of the workers' organizations, which had to be approved and
supervised by the government. Yet it also offered benefits for the
working class, including a reduction of housing rents and a rise in
salaries for the lowest-paid public administration workers. The
Syndical Statute was followed by the 1945 Law of Professional
Associations, whose provisions were also almost identical with those
of Mussolini's Labour Code. Under this law, only officially recog-
nized unions and employers' associations could sign labour
contracts, and only one employers' association and one labour union
was to be permitted in each economic field, and strikes and lockouts
were forbidden.
The nationalist press reacted enthusiastically to what it saw as an

attempt to establish a productive economic system with clear positive
implications for social justice:
The declarations to the press by Peron . . .projected what we have been
maintaining in these pages over the last 10 years. Labour problems, along with
relations with capital, have overcome the provisions of legislators and statesmen of
the early century . .. the state will abandon its passive attitude ... and repressive
attitude of the past which favoured . . . those who abuse the weaknesses of others.5'
Peron's particular and direct approach was evident even before he

assumed the presidency. During the military government Peron
established direct contact with the union leaders, aided by his
colleague, Lieutenant-Colonel Mercante, the son of a railway
worker. Peron met syndicalists from the dissolved CGT (Confeder-
acion General del Trabajo- General Workers' Confederation), and
in 1943 he intervened in favour of the workers in the Berisso
'Frigorificos' strike in La Plata. Through such efforts, the first
collective agreement was reached between labour and government.
Although the nationalists and the military suspected that Peron's
personal approach and habitual intervention in favour of the workers
would bring worker participation into the political arena rather than
the desired corporatization, most of his military comrades agreed
with Peron's social and political agenda. They realized that only
under Peron would the unions accept corporatization.
While the working class had already been corporatized under the
military government, it was only after Peron took charge that he
finally succeeded in bringing big business under control by setting up
the General Economic Confederation in 1952. In tandem with the
Peronist-controlled CGT, this confederation gave the state enormous
regulatory power over the economy.52
The basic goals of Peron's first administration were to achieve a
'just equilibrium among all the factors that take part in pro-
duction... collaboration between labour and employer organiza-
tions, and the humanization of the function of capital . . and [to]
improve the living conditions of the workers'.3 The revision of the
1853 federal constitution in 1949 provided a constitutional basis for
the new ideological approach. The constitutional amendments
proposed by Peron's close collaborators, Jose Figuerola (a
Catalonian syndicalist during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera
who had emigrated to Argentina in 1930), the law professor Arturo
Sampa and Domingo Mercante, provided a new legal framework for
social reform. A new chapter III enumerated a series of rights inspired

by Catholic encyclicals that had spoken against abuses in the
capitalist system and in favour of state intervention in the economic
sector.54
Of all the new legislation, the law that most frightened the rural
oligarchy was the 'Estatuto del Peon', which recognized rural
labourers as workers with normal labour rights. This law, one of the
most recognized symbols of Peronism, had been promoted by
Enrique Oses in the pages of the right-wingjournal Crisol, as well as
by left-wing nationalists like A. Jauretche, who directly influenced
Peron in the matter as well.
Meanwhile, while all this social progress was being made, Peron
was pushing a policy of productionism that was destined eventually
- at the beginning of the 1950s- to conflict with the requirementsof
social justice. In this respect, 1949 was a watershed year for labour in
Argentina. Up to then, without abandoning its policy of heavy
industrialization, the government had allowed wages to rise by as
much as 40 per cent from 1946 to 1949, a feat made possible by
Argentina's tremendous revenuesduring the second world war. From
1949 on, however, things began to change. Wages declined by over 20
per cent, and a new discipline was imposed on the unions.55In the
name of'productionism', salaries were devalued by up to 11 per cent
from 1949 to 1952, and holidays were sensibly reduced. Thus, under
government control, workers improved their living conditions until
the state could no longer afford it. When that happened, the unions
were in no position to protest.
All the instruments created by the state during Peron's ad-
ministration from 1946 on were designed to further the aim of
industrialization and social justice. The IAPI (Argentinian Institute
of Production and Trade), in particular, was the symbol of state
economic regulatory power, and was created to promote the
industrialization plan launched in October 1946. This 'Plan
Quinquenal' forced farmers to sell to the government at low fixed
prices;the government then made a good profit by selling the produce
at free market prices. While on the surface the Plan Quinquenal
appeared to favour the industrial sectors, the latter still feared the
regulatory power of the state and the labour legislation that
supported the IAPI's industrial policies. And indeed, as mentioned
earlier, during Peron's second administration (from 1951), the
productionist trend began to take precedence over concern for
workers' rights. In fact, in the latter stages of the regime, big business
began receiving favourable treatment in the form of easier loans and

high guaranteed prices. Thus, the productionist impetus in Peronism
was at least as strong as the doctrine of social justice, although
Peron's personal approach won him the continued support of most
workers even when government policy was unfavourable to their
interests.
In conclusion, Peron united under the doctrine of justicialismo
both nationalist currents analysed in this article, adding the fillip of
his own charismatic leadership. Peron defined European fascism as
an exaggerated combination of idealism and collectivism that
excluded individualism and a salutary materialism. He added the
latter himself, defining it as social justice. The justicialista doctrine
attempted a synthesis of the four principles of idealism, materialism,
individualism and collectivism. In reality it was a new version of
national socialism for a peripheral society.
It is impossible to separate Peronism as a social ideal from
Peronism as a national idea. The army, the Peronist movement and
the workers were the productive forces of the nation organized as a
living organism, while the anti-national forces were the political
parties associated with world financial imperialism, the socialists and
the communist parties associated with Moscow. In other words, the
ideological confrontation was between nationalism represented by
Peronism and the old conservative order.
This is clearly reflected by the circumstances of the 1946 elections
which put Peron in power. In those elections, Peron was the conduit
for the integralism-populism formula supported by most of the
working class, which countered the liberal-democratic formula
advocated by conservative liberals, socialists, communists and
American Ambassador Braden. They all considered Peron a fascist;
but for the Argentinian working class, Peron's 'fascism' was true
welfare.
Peron defined this political confrontation very simply: 'Braden or
Peron'. That slogan transformed the conflict between two different
political and ideological conceptions into a conflict between the
nation and 'American' imperialism. In this respect, the Americans'
determination to prove Peron's complicity with the nazis was a key
factor in Peron's success. Although it proved impossible to prove any
such complicity even with the LibroAzul published by the Americans,
certainly both Peron and the nationalists before him represented an
alternative view of nationalism that was clearly linked to fascism. By
the time Peron assumed power, the war was over, and it would have
been absurd to expect a pragmatist like Peron to identify himself as

fascist under the new circumstances. However, Peronism became a
link between the old 'third road' of fascism and the new 'third road' of
non-aligned countries in the post-second world war period. In short,
although there was a sincere attempt to authenticate the Argentinian
position in terms of the country's specific problems in the new post-
war era, Peron himself admitted that the Third Position had a clear
precedent in fascism and national socialism.56
While not attempting to expound any theory on Peronism, this
article has tried to show that the ideological elaboration of the
Peronist synthesis between national integralism, anti-imperialism
and social justice was carried out in the intellectual laboratories of the
Argentinian nationalist right and left wings during the 1930s. As
Hector Bernardo has noted, Peron's themes are 'our themes ... The
Revolution was fed by the action and thought of the generation called
nationalist.'57This intellectual elaboration was made possible by the
specific 'nationalization' of the universal message of fascism. The
military revolution of 1943 and Peronism were both actually direct
products of the unique characteristicsof Argentinian nationalism. At
the same time, Argentinian nationalism was well-rooted within the
ideological framework of fascism as an ideology which representeda
third strand of development unifying socialism and nationalism.
Thus, it is no wonder that the myth of Peronism, combining as it did
fascism with social justice, remainedpart of the political culture of the
Argentinian people.
Notes
1. See Zeev Sternhell's thesis on 'Fascist Ideology', in W. Laqueur, Fascism. A

Reader's Guide (London 1976), 349. This thesis is developed by Zeev Sternhell in 'Ni
Droite ni Gauche' and 'Fascist Ideology', both in ibid., and in Z. Sternhell, Mario
Sznajderand Maia Asherri, La Naissanc ede 'ideologiefasciste (Paris 1989). Its central
idea is that fascism is the ideological synthesis of a new radical nationalism and a new
anti-Marxian socialism, the product of Sorel's moral revision of Marxism and the
Italian national revolutionary syndicalists' revision of Marx's theory of value. The first
meetings of Sorelian syndicalists with integral nationalist followers of Charles
Maurras, in 'Les cahiers du Cercle Proudhon' in 1910, and in 'La Luppa' in Italy in
1911, represented the first ideological synthesis of fascist ideology, long before its
translation into political practice. This thesis does not enter into the causes of fascist
success or failure in differentplaces, but maintains that when structuralcrisis appeared,
fascism had already matured as an ideology, presenting a real ideological alternative
for actual crisis. Although integral nationalism, which represents a rejection of the
political values and revolutionary violence of the French Revolution, is one of the
ideological pillars of fascism, a different proposition comes from George Mosse,
'Fascism and the French Revolution', Journalof ContemporaryHistory, 24, 1 (January
1989). Mosse suggests that although fascism arose in opposition to the liberal and
materialist symbiology of the French Revolution, that same French Revolution
provided fascism with some of its political concepts. The concept of nationalism and
politics as a civil religion is part of the French Revolution's heritage. A new
nationalism was based upon a new 'religious' concept, 'the general will of the people'.
According to Mosse, 'Nationalism provides the link between the French Revolution
and fascism; the nationalization of the masses was a common bond between the
French and the fascist revolutions.'
2. A very important and illustrative discussion on fascism and the 'modernization'
of consciousness appeared in ComparativePolitics, 10, 2 (July 1977). Arthur L. Greil
posits that the content and style of fascism were based on romantic epistemology, on
faith and on sentiment; at the same time, he relates modern consciousness to rational
liberal consciousness. Indeed, Greil assumes what Henry A. Turner suggested before
him, that no matter what kind of modernizing policies were implemented during the
fascist and nazi regimes, basically their ends were anti-modernizing. Henry A. Turner,
Jr, 'Fascism and Modernization', in Henry A. Turner (ed.), Reappraisals of Fascism
(New York 1975), 131. James Gregor responds to most of Greil's assumptions, trying
to prove that what seem to be 'traditional attitudes' were in fact characteristic of the
Soviet regime as well as of radical guerrilla movements like those of Che Guevara and
Mao. See James Gregor, 'Fascism and Counter-modernization', ComparativePolitical
Studies, 10, 2 (July 1977), 239. The same viewpoint was presented in Anthony James
Joes, 'On the Modernity of Fascism: Notes from Two Worlds', ibid., 259. Indeed, the
ideological synthesis of a new organic nationalism with a moral and anti-materialist
socialism is itself the result of a modernist intellectual revolution. That synthesis, far
from being liberal utopian or socialist, is still revolutionary and modernist. In fact,
'radical nationalism was a vision of the future, not of the past. In this sense it harnesses
the cultural aspirations of many who were comfortably placed in the emerging
bourgeois society . . . whose political sensibilities were offended by the seeming
incapacity of the establishment to respond to the left-wing challenge.' Geoff Eley,
'What Produces Fascism: Pre-industrial Traditions or a Crisis of a Capitalist State',
Politics and Society, 12, 1 (1983), 71. This assumption in fact challenges the outlook
that links the concept of revolution to rational 'utopian' ideologies.
3. The most important historiographic works on Argentinian nationalism are of
recent publication. Two books which came out during the last few months and which
consequently could not be evaluated in this article are David Rock, Authoritarian
Argentina(Berkely, CA 1992) and Sandra McGee Deutsch and Ronald Dolkart (eds),
The ArgentineRight, Its History and IntellectualOrigins, 1910 to the Present (Delaware
1993). These books are the latest in a series of important analytical works beginning
with such early studies of Argentinian nationalism as Marysia Navarro Gerassi, Los
Nacionalistas, ed. Jorge Alvarez Gerassi (Buenos Aires 1968). This book, while
providing an interesting historical description of the evolution of Argentinian
nationalism, offers very little in the way of a comparative analysis of the fundamental
ideologies of those times.
Much more important is Cristian Buchrucker,Nacionalismoy Peronismo,Argentina
en la crisis ideologica mundial (1927-1955) (Buenos Aires 1987). Buchrucker, who
studied with Ernst Nolte, used the latter's phenomenological method to trace the
genesis of Argentinian nationalism. This work is of great significance because it
analyses the development of Argentinian nationalism in the framework of world
ideological trends. Basically, Buchrucker attempts to differentiate between what he
considers a 'restorative' anti-modernist nationalism, influenced by fascism and
Spanish Falangism, and Peronism, which he sees as an authentic popular movement.
Another important work is Enrique Zuleta Alvarez, El Nacionalismo Argentino, 2
vols (Buenos Aires 1975), which is the best documented book on Argentinian
nationalism. The author makes a clear distinction between what he considers
'doctrinaire' nationalists, who were influenced by fascism and Catholicism, and the
'republican' nationalists, whom he defined as authentic anti-imperialist nationalists.
Zuleta Alvarez clearly attempts to legitimize the second ideological line, that being the
political trend he personally defended in the Argentinian ideological struggle.
Other important works that are politically and ideologically relevant to Argentinian
ideological disputes ratherthan objectively analytical are those written by Argentinian
left-wing nationalists such as J.J. Hernandez Arregui, La Formacion de la Conciencia
Nacional (Buenos Aires 1960), or Jorge Abelardo Ramos, Revolucion y
Contrarrevolucionen la Argentina. Las masas en nuestra historia (Buenos Aires 1957).
Both books present integralist nationalism as a nostalgic movement associated with
the liberal oligarchy. In their view, the populist nationalism developed by the left wing
of the Radical Party (FORJA) was the same populist nationalism that supported
Peronism, which is perceived as left-wing nationalism. Those works attempted to
rehabilitate Peronism as an authentic revolutionary, anti-imperialist, nationalist
movement, a precursor to the left-wing anti-imperialist struggle in Latin America.
The two books were in fact an answer to other 'ideologically' minded books that
appeared during the 1950s and 1960s, which were influenced by the modernization
theories predominant in the United States during those years. Some of these works
pointed to the direct connection between Argentinian reactionary nationalism and
Peronism, which they considered a reactionary fascist movement. Certain other works
based on similar analytical concepts reached less clear-cut conclusions regarding
Peronist fascism. In any case, most of them considered the Argentinian nationalism
that preceded it as reactionary.
Among these studies is John Johnson, Political Change in Latin America: The
Emergence of the Middle Sectors (Stanford, CT 1958). A slightly more sophisticated
analysis is Kalman Silvert's The Conflict Society: Reaction and Revolution in Latin
America (New Orleans 1961). Both Silvert and Johnson see Argentinian nationalism
before the second world war as a sort of criollo's fascism, but Silvert accentuates the
fact that after the war this nationalism was transformed into a positive integrationist
political formula.
Similarly, James Scobie, in Argentina: A City and a Nation (New York 1963),
describes the Argentinian nationalist uprising as the result of patriotic feeling against
foreign economic penetration. A more important work reflecting this distinction
between populist nationalism on the one hand and the nostalgic, traditionalist trend of
nationalism on the other is Arthur Whitaker's essay, 'Argentina, Nostalgic and
Dynamic Nationalism', in a book published with David Jordan, Nationalism in
ContemporaryLatin America(New York 1966).
Among the more recent books on the period preceding the appearance of
Argentinian integral nationalism, mention must be made of Sandra McGee Deutsch,
Counter-Revolutionin Argentina, 1900-1932, The ArgentinePatriotic League (Lincoln
180 Journal of ContemporaryHistory)
and London 1986). This book analyses the origins of the Argentine Patriotic League, a
group that played a particularly important role during the first two decades of the
century. Unlike the populist nationalists who originated in the Radical Party and the
integralists who appeared at the end of the 1920s, this group did not develop a
nationalist ideology as an alternative to the liberal ideology of the modernizing &lites.
However, McGee's interesting comparison between the Liga Patriotica and the
integral nationalists who came later is a useful contribution to the discussion on
nationalism as a generic phenomenon in Argentina.
In contrast to most of the works mentioned here, the thesis I have presented
radically defies the perception of Argentinian nationalism as nostalgic and
reactionary. Furthermore, it propounds the view that fascism served as an
inspirational theoretical framework for an alternative formula for national
modernization. More precisely, it attempts to trace the ideological roots of Argentina's
change of tack in the development process, which in my view transformed the country
from a limited but established liberal democracy into a corporatized, mobilized society
that emphasized autarky and social justice. Unlike other works, which point up the
differences between the various strains of nationalism, this book identifies the
ideological elements shared by both populist and integralist nationalism, which
together produced an alternative, unified nationalist line.
4. See Tulio Halperin Donghi, 'Un nuevo clima de ideas' and Marcelo Montserrat,
'Una ideologia del progreso' in G. Ferari and E. Gallo (eds), La Argentinadel Ochenta
al Centenario(Buenos Aires 1980).
5. Rodolfo Rivarola, 'Filosofia de la eleccion reciente', Revista Argentina de
Ciencias Politicas, no. 8, cited in D. Rock, Politics in Argentina, 1890-1930: The Rise
and Fall of Radicalism(Cambridge 1975), 29.
6. On the anarchist movement in Argentina see Yaacov Oved, El anarquismoy el
movimientoobrero en Argentina (Mexico 1978).
7. On the history of the Argentine Socialist Party see J. Oddone, Historia del
socialismo argentino(Buenos Aires 1934). Also see Jorge Spilimbergo, El socialismo en
Argentina (Buenos Aires 1969), and Richard J. Walter, The Socialist Parti of
Argentina, 1890-1930 (Austin 1977).
8. See J.B. Justo, Teoria v practica de la historia (Buenos Aires 1931).
9. On the ideology and practice of the Radical Party see Gabriel del Mazo, El
Radicalismo, Ensavo sobre su historia Y doctrina, 2 vols (Buenos Aires 1957). See also
David Rock, Politics in Argentina.
10. Hebe Clementi, El Radicalisnmo.Travectoria politica, 2nd edn (Buenos Aires
1983), 10.
11. Until the end of the 1920s, however, Yrigoyen managed to keep the party
unified. In order not to alienate the aristocratic sectors of the party, Yrigoyen
nominated Marcelo T. de Alvear, a member of the patrician group of the Radical
Party, as presidential candidate for the 1922 elections. Alvear was a symbol of
retrenchment and consolidation, and enjoyed the co-operation of the aristocratic
members of the party. On Alvear's political life, see Felix Luna, Alvear (Buenos Aires
1956).
12. Yrigoyen nationalized the oil production industry, and had a differentapproach
to labour. Nonetheless, the intransigent revolutionary wing of the Radical Party did
not propose an alternative modern industrialist and developmentalist thesis. In other
words, Yrigoyen's economic policies did not threaten the actual agro-export economic
system supported by British and local landowning interests, and its social policies were
populist and reformist. See Juan Carlos Grosso, 'Los Problemas Economicos y
Sociales y la Respuesta Radical en el Gobierno (1916-1930)', El Radicalismo(Buenos
Aires 1968).
13. Leopoldo Lugones, La Patria Fuerte (Buenos Aires 1930), 40.
14. Ibid., 52.
15. La Nueva Republica,22 September 1928.
16. On Charles Maurras'sinfluence on Argentinian nationalism, see EnriqueZuleta
Alvarez, op. cit., 27-31.
17. According to Maurras, democracy meant a regime of profit and immediate
pleasures, forgetful of the past and negligent of the future. See Charles Maurras,
L 'Alleedes philosophes(Paris 1924), 28. Psychologically, the regimecould be defined as
the intense antagonism of eleven million egos. See Charles Maurras, Enquete sur la
monarchie (Paris 1924), lxxxvii, cited in Michael Curtis, Three Against the Republic.
Sorel. Barres and Maurras (Princeton 1959), 77.
18. On the ideas of the Argentine Catholic right, see Graciela Ben Dror, La iglesia
catolica v la problematica del pueblo judio (1845-1933), unpublished PhD thesis,
Hebrew University, Jerusalem. See also J.J. Kennedy, Catholicism, Nationalism and
Democracy in Argentina(Notre Dame 1958).
19. President Justo managed to deal successfully with the Church. During the great
Eucharist Congress that took place in Buenos Aires in 1934, the Church did not lead a
direct attack on Justo's government; Justo proved to have a positive attitude towards
the Church for political reasons. (The journal Criterio, for instance, praised Justo's
support in contributing to the organization of the Eucharist Congress.)
20. See Carta a Jacques Maritain sobre la colaboracion de los catolicos con los
movimientosde tipo fascista (Buenos Aires 1937), 13.
21. Most of the more important figures of right-wing Catholicism could not accept
the totalitarian and secular characteristicsof fascism. However, in most of the writings
of the priests Julio Meinvielle, Gustavo Franceschi and Leonardo Castellani, fascism
is perceived as a preamble to the Catholic solution. In the main, they saw Catholic
dogma as providing the doctrine lacking in fascism. Most of them, however, felt that
the Spanish Civil War had produced the military fascism that synthesized fascism and
Catholicism. See Gustavo Franceschi, 'El Despertar Nacionalista', Criterio (October
1932); Julio Meinvielle, Concepcion catolica de la politica (Buenos Aires 1961), and
Entrela iglesia v el Reich( 1937); Eduardo Lustosa, 'La Idea Corporativa', Criterio(31
March 1938); A. Ezcurra Medrano, Catolicismo y nacionalismo(Buenos Aires 1939).
22. See Juan V. Orona, La logia que enfrento a Hipolito Yrigoven (Buenos Aires
1965), 107.
23. In a letter to Uriburu from the Argentinian military attache in Germany,
Nicolas Accame, the latter expressed surprise at the failure of the Munich putsch
because 'such a [revolutionary]nationalist reaction can be felt in Europe, that not to be
affiliated with it is synonymous with being a traitor to the country to which one
belongs'. See Archivo General de la Nacion, Archivo General Uriburu, Legajo 1.320.
On the differences between Justo and Uriburu and on the process that led to the
revolution, see Jose Maria Sarobe, Memorias sobre la revoluciondel 6 de Setiembrede
1930 (Buenos Aires 1957), and Juan V. Orona, La revolucion del 6 de Setiembre
(Buenos Aires 1966). On the chain of events that led to the failure of Uriburu's
corporatist attempt, see also Alain Rouquie, Poder militar 1 sociedad politica en la
Argentina,I, 7th edn (Buenos Aires 1983), 223-52.
24. The nationalist Jose Luis Torres defined the decade as 'la decada infame'. It was
characterized by the bilateral agreements between Great Britain and Argentina, which
put Argentina in a position of growing economic dependence on Great Britain. The
Roca-Runciman pact saw the symbol of that dependence. See Jose Luis Torres, La
decada infame (Buenos Aires 1945).
25. Bandera Argentina, 13 July 1933.
26. Manuel Galvez, 'Perspectivas de fascismo en Argentina', Este Pueblo Necesita
(Buenos Aires 1934), 119.
27. Ibid., 127.
28. Carlos Ibarguren, La inquietud de esta hora, Biblioteca del Pensamiento
Nacionalista Argentino, vol. VI (Buenos Aires 1975), 101.
29. Other important books are Julio Irazusta, Ensayo sobre Rosas (1935), and
Manuel Galvez, Vidade Juan Manuel de Rosas (1940).
30. Rodolfo Irazusta, 'El precio del liberalismo', in Julio Irazusta, La Revolucionde
1930, P.D. Revolucionario II (Buenos Aries 1975), 35.
31. The historical event that led to the emergence of FORJA was the failed Radical
uprising headed by Colonel Roberto Bosch, in Paso de los Libres. That revolutionary
attempt, although endorsed by various military officers,did not have the support - for
obvious reasons -- of the Radical antipersonalista leader, Marcelo T. de Alvear.
Alvear representedthose in the party who set store by the rules of the political order; he
attempted to transform the party from a rebellious movement to a legitimate faction
that played by liberal democratic rules. According to J.J. Hernandez Arregui, FORJA
grew out of the meetings of old veterans of Radicalism, such as Manuel Ortiz Pereira,
Gabriel del Mazo, Juan B. Fleitas, not long after the Bosch revolutionary attempt. The
Manifesto of the Radicales Fuertes (Strong Radicals) was drawn up during the
National Convention of the Union Civica Radical which ended the period of Radical
refusal to participate in the national elections.
32. Arturo Jauretche, Los Profetas del Odio (Buenos Aires 1957), 126.
33. See Carlos Waisman's definition in his Reversal of Development in Argentina.
PostiwarCounter-revolutionarY Policies and TheirStructuralConsequences(Princeton,
NJ 1987), 256. See also Carlos Waisman's justification for the pro-labour convictions
of the Argentinian anti-liberal mass movement, ibid., 250.
34. What the Irazustas promoted was an 'economic harmony between
manufacturing and the easy products of agro export'. That was the synthesis of proper
industrial development for a country with the characteristics of Argentina. Rodolfo
and Julio Irazusta, La Argentina , el imperialismo britanico. Los eslabones de una
cadena 1806-1833 (Buenos Aires 1934), 182.
35. Lautaro Montenegro, Origen de la Legion Civica ArgentinaY la doctrina de su
constitucion(Buenos Aires 1931), 5.
36. F.G. Molina, Graciela Etchevest, Ana Maria Galibert and Omar Cerdeira, 'La
Legion Civica Argentina (1931-1932)', (Buenos Aires !985).
37. See Policia Federal, 'Prontuario Carulla', Legajo 1, Exp. 1, Folio 52, Leg.
Legion Civica, 15 June 1931.
38. Juan Queralto, Speech at the 1 May 1939 Rally of the Alianza Nacionalista,
Combate, June 1939.
39. Tribuna,29 December 1945.
40. Ibid.
41. 'Nacionalismo y Sindicalismo', Bandera Argentina, 8 September 1932.
42. Manuel Fresco, Conversando con el pueblo, Hacia un nuevo estado, 3 vols.
(Buenos Aires 1943), 20-1.
43. See La Razon, 12 May 1967.

44. It should be noted that M. Fresco's personal economic interests were connected
with the oligarchy. This raised suspicions about his real intentions. After the election of
1940, President Ortiz, succeeding PresidentJusto, decided to intervene in the province,
removing Fresco from office. Fresco founded the Union Nacional Argentina (Patria),
which became a political party in 1941. Later, by virtue of his paper Cabildo, he set
himself up as a leader of the nationalist movement, something that other nationalists
did not accept.
45. Manuel Fresco, Diario de Sesiones, Camara de Diputados, Congreso Nacional,
15 June 1932, 12.
46. A few democratic groups also favoured neutrality and asked the US for a non-
belligerence pact, as a way of gaining US approval and protecting Argentinian
economic interests at the same time. Moreover, even the British had an interest in
Argentina's remaining neutral in the second world war. On this point see Joseph S.
Tulchin, 'The Argentine Proposal for Non-Belligerency, April 1940', Journal of Inter-
American Studies, XI, 4 (1969). On the question of Argentina's neutrality, see also
Mario Rapoport, G. Britania, Estados Uniossy las clases dirigentesargentinas, 1940-
1945 (Buenos Aires 1981).
47. See Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, La revolucion que anunciamos (Buenos Aires
1945).
48. See Alain Rouquie, Poder militar v sociedadpolitica en la Argentina,II (Buenos
Aires 1986), 32.
49. Peron's admiration for fascism is easily detected. In 1939, Peron was sent to
Italy on a study mission by the Argentinian army. At the University of Torino and
Milan he studied political economy. He was impressed by the political and social
practices of fascism. Peron never denied that 'to guide people is a technique, the
technique of leadership. A technique, an art of military precision. During 1940, I have
been taught that in Italy: that people really knew how to command.' See the interview
given by Peron to Eduardo Galeano, in Eduardo Galeano, Reportajes, Tauro,
Montevideo, 1967, 74. During 1940, Peron visited Germany and the rest of the
countries occupied by nazi Germany. On his return to Argentina, he became the
ideological mentor of the GOU.
50. Juan Peron, El pueblo quieresaber de que se trata (Buenos Aires 1944), 161.
51. 'El Estado regulara las fuerzas de la Produccion', Crisol, 30 October 1943. See
also 'La Secretaria de Trabajo y Prevision', El Pampero, 1 December 1943.
52. Paul Lewis, 'Was Peron a Fascist?', The Journal of Politics, vol. 42, 1-2 (1980),
247-8.
53. Vicepresidenciade la Nacion, Consejo Nacional de Postguerra, 'Ordenamiento
economico-social' (Buenos Aires 1944), 55-6, 68.
54. See Robert D. Crassweller, Peron and the Enigmas of Argentina (New York
1988), 193-5.
55. See S. Baily, Labor Nationalism and Politics in Argentina (New Brunswick
1967), 138, 142.
56. See Juan Peron, La hora de los pueblos (Buenos Aires 1973), 35.
57. Hector Bernardo, Para una economia humana(Buenos Aires 1949), 18-21.
AlbertoSpektorowski
is a post-graduate student at the Hebrew
University, Jerusalem. He is the author of
several articles and is at present researching
the Argentine's transition to democracy and
the threat of the nationalist revival: the case
of Aldo Rico and the Carapintadas.

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The Ideological Origins of Right and Left Nationalism in Argentina, 1930-43

Author(s): Alberto Spektorowski

The Ideological Originsof Rightand Left

This work examines the development of a particular nationalist

Journal of ContemporaryHistory (SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi),

This formula was the basis for a particular version of fascist

Any discussion of the emergence of Argentinian anti-liberal

was encouraged. The British established new banks, a railroad

socialist society.8 Endorsing the elites' modernization programme,

new morality opposed to bourgeois materialism and the cosmo-

During the widespread economic depression at the end of the

The most prominent pioneer of a new political ideology restating the

This type of nationalism was clearly inspired by Charles Maurras's

This criticism of liberal democracy and constitutional populism

complained of what they considered to be an attempt by Yrigoyen to

However, the return of the oligarchical liberal democracy provided

To Argentinian nationalists, fascism offered a new anti-liberal order,

To the Argentinian nationalists, however, fascist ideology was

modernist nationalists fascism represented a new call for mass

The idea of rebellion was an ideological development of cardinal

Right-wing nationalists like the Irazustas reserved their main criti-

For the Irazusta brothers, the liberal democratic model of progress

was clearly linked to what FORJA members defined as the problem

Nationalism in any context meant class union rather than class

The 1930s were characterized by several attempts by the nationalists

holiday into a national celebration of the Argentinian worker. In the

The Alianza accepted the right to private property and freedom of

rule out acceptance of an alternative conception of democratic and

seen growing dissatisfaction with the government's economic strat-

Indeed, the improvement of the relationship between the workers'

At the same time, however, Peron was convinced that he could

The nationalist press reacted enthusiastically to what it saw as an

Peron's particular and direct approach was evident even before he

social reform. A new chapter III enumerated a series of rights inspired

began receiving favourable treatment in the form of easier loans and

been absurd to expect a pragmatist like Peron to identify himself as

1. See Zeev Sternhell's thesis on 'Fascist Ideology', in W. Laqueur, Fascism. A

43. See La Razon, 12 May 1967.

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