Infamous Decade
The Infamous Decade is known as the period in Argentine history that began on September 6, 1930 with the civil-military coup that overthrew the radical president Hipólito Yrigoyen and ended on September 4 June 1943 with the military coup that overthrew the conservative president Ramón Castillo.
The name was given to it by the nationalist journalist José Luis Torres, and has been widely used to name the period in historiography close to both radicalism, Peronism, and socialism. This stage has also been called the "neoconservative restoration", period of "political restoration” or "conservative restoration”, "second conservative republic” and "the impossible Republic" (1930-1945).
The period begins with a "provisional" of a fascist nature, endorsed by the Supreme Court and under the command of the radical general José Félix Uriburu (1930-1932), who handed over power to also a radical general Agustín P. Justo (1932-1938), candidate for an alliance called La Concordancia (radical anti-personalists, conservatives, independent socialists) as a result of elections with doubtful electoral results, which also questioned the legitimacy of his successor, the radical Roberto Marcelino Ortiz (1938-1942), who died and was succeeded by his vice president, the conservative Ramón S. Castillo (1942-1943), overthrown by the so-called "Revolution of 43".
During this period, governments sought to prevent the Radical Civic Union from returning to government, through proscriptions and electoral fraud. Faced with the crisis of the world free trade system in 1930, Argentina negotiated the controversial Roca-Runciman pact with the United Kingdom, which guaranteed the continuity of meat exports, in exchange for important economic concessions from Argentina, among which that the quasi-monopoly of exports for English companies was highlighted, the creation of the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic under the control of British capital and banks and the concession of all means of public transport in the city of Buenos Aires to a mixed company named Transport Corporation of the City of Buenos Aires. On the other hand, the commercial isolationism of the great powers contributed to initiate industrial development via import substitution. Economic policy became statist, creating a large number of state regulatory bodies (National Grain Board, National Meat Board, etc.) and public companies (Military Manufactures, Zapla Blast Furnaces, etc.). Under these conditions, the industrial sector and the working class grew notably, fueled by a massive migration from the countryside to the city and from the provinces to Buenos Aires. In 1943, industrial exports exceeded agricultural exports for the first time in Argentine history.
Background
Argentina, born in 1810, went through its first 70 years of life plunged into continuous civil wars, through which the foundations of modern Argentina were forged: a federal political organization; an economic system based on the export of raw materials –first wool and then meat and grains– and the import of manufactured products; a system of public services and trade of European capital, mainly British; and a cultural model in which a Influential Catholic Church and a secularism supported by European influence, especially French. The political system crystallized from 1880 into a conservative regime, which witnessed rapid economic growth and promoted complaints about the poor development of political liberties.
The conservative system entered into a series of successive crises at the beginning of the XX century, which led to the sanction of the electoral reform, which allowed the participation of majorities. Contrary to what its promoters expected, the reform led the government to the Radical Civic Union, under the leadership of President Hipólito Yrigoyen; he carried out some economic and social reforms, which in any case did not question the agro-export model. The conservative sector and various groups within the Radical Party itself opposed these reforms, stopping many of them in the Congress of the Argentine Nation, where radicalism never had a majority.
Yrigoyen's successor was Marcelo T. de Alvear, who distanced himself from the Yrigoyenist leadership and leaned on the "antipersonalist" from the UCR; His government carried out several public works and was favored by the global economic boom. In 1928, Yrigoyen was again elected president, who surrounded himself with young and reformist groups, who hoped to carry out a much more daring economic and social policy. The Great Depression and fierce opposition from both conservatives and anti-personalists thwarted these attempts.
At the end of the decade several fascist-inspired newspapers appeared, although ideologically more linked to the Primo de Rivera dictatorship in Spain than to fascist Italy. Shock groups organized by businessmen, such as the Patriotic League, acted during in the 1920s, mainly as a strike force against the unions. Several senior officers organized military Lodges, initially to escape the politicization to which radicalism subjected them, but later to organize their own political agenda.
The economic crisis led, at the beginning of 1930, to a convergence between the opposition, a large part of the Army and the groups of the extreme right in the intention of overthrowing Yrigoyen. The president, visibly aging, claimed to control every detail of the administration, but did not control even the most general political decisions. The press –especially the newspapers La Prensa and Crítica– supported any initiative against the government, and echoed the more absurd versions to wear him down; For their part, the nationalists had more and more diffusion through newspapers such as Fronda and La Nueva República.
In August 1930, public opinion already knew that a coup d'état was brewing; Yrigoyen rejected that possibility, but it was even clear who the bosses were: Generals José Félix Uriburu –inspector general of the Army who had been displaced by the president– and Agustín Pedro Justo, former Minister of War of the Nation. Outside of these two, the coup had the promise of support from low-ranking officers and a few colonels. Faced with the prevailing disorder of the coup officers, Justo limited himself to critical support. In the first days of September, students and socialist leaders took over the public thoroughfare, demanding the resignation of Yrigoyen to avoid the coup; the government guaranteed freedom of the press and assembly, thereby facilitating the plans of its enemies. The president was on leave, and Vice President Enrique Martínez, who was conspiring against him, was unable to make any decision; the only decree he managed to sign was a measure of censorship against the opposition press, which arrived too late.
Dictatorship of José Félix Uriburu (1930-1932)
Context in which the 1930 coup took place
The global economic crisis of 1929 called the Great Depression had a profound impact on Argentina. It first affected economically since 80% of tax revenues in Argentina came from foreign trade. The crisis created a situation of social tension, with low wages, increased unemployment; that is, a contraction of the economy. And this also generated, on a political level, a context in which the coup of 1930 took place. The Crisis of 1929 was a factor that created a situation of tension, of discomfort regarding the economy, in social terms and of concern and uncertainty. in the dominant economic sectors and this contributed to creating this climate. In Latin America in general there was a crisis of democratic systems practically in the entire region.
On the other hand, the social teachings of the Catholic Church of the time were based on the encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, which dealt with the conditions of the working classes, making clear its support for the right of "forming unions or unions", reaffirmed his support for the right to private property and discussed the relations between the government, companies, workers and the Church, proposing a socio-economic organization that would later be called corporatism. It was not until 1931 that Pope Pius XI condemned fascism and proposed putting into practice the principles of right reason and social-Christian philosophy.
The nationalist positions that arose from imitation of what happened in Italy with Benito Mussolini, who supported the establishment of corporatism, caused the division of the Popular Party and its dissolution. It was then that the Catholic nationalists supported the weekly La Nueva República, an opponent of the radical government of Hipólito Yrigoyen which, in the midst of the Great World Depression of 1929, was highly criticized for a series of interventions in the provinces by decree and assassinations of opponents, including that of Senator Lencinas, which weakened democracy and triggered the military coup led by General José Félix Uriburu.
The coup of September 6, 1930 and the military government
On the morning of September 6, Uriburu led the troops and officers of the Colegio Militar de la Nación and marched on downtown Buenos Aires. The troops under his command were barely 2,000 soldiers and cadets, but as he advanced, a large number of civilians joined him; He met no resistance until he arrived in front of the Congress, where a firefight dispersed the column.Accompanied by a few officers, he continued on to the Casa Rosada, where he forced the resignation of the vice president. Yrigoyen fled to La Plata, where he delivered his resignation to the commander of a regiment. He was arrested, held on the Martín García island, and his house was ransacked.
Uriburu named himself provisional president and issued a proclamation, drafted by Leopoldo Lugones and corrected by Colonel José María Sarobe. He decreed the dissolution of Congress and assumed the legislative power together with the executive; he also decreed the federal intervention of all the provinces, with two exceptions: Entre Ríos and San Luis, the only provinces governed by conservatives. His cabinet of ministers was made up of members of the old Conservative Party, most of them with experience as civil servants, but away from public service since Yrigoyen's inauguration fourteen years ago.
Very few were those who were opposed; just a few students and the dean of the Faculty of Law, the socialist Alfredo Palacios, who resigned from his post. For their part, both the scattered Conservative Party and the Progressive Democratic Party and the Independent Socialist Party immediately recognized the dictator.
Former President Marcelo T. de Alvear, who was residing in France at the time of the coup, supported it at first, also as a consequence of the situation that his co-religionists -mostly anti-personalists- painted him to a large extent they clouded judgment, describing a situation much more chaotic than it really was.
The Supreme Court refused to reject the provisional government at the request of various radical leaders; On the contrary, on September 10, he signed an agreement that recognized the existence of "a de facto government, whose title cannot be successfully challenged by the people insofar as it exercises the administrative and political function derived from his possession of force as a means of order and social security". This decision gave rise to the doctrine of de facto governments.
Government of Uriburu
Uriburu basically represented at that time above all a neocorporatist Catholic nationalism. Even the neocorporative constitution project that Uriburu and his sectors had was a mixed neocorporative system. They wanted there to be a corporate chamber, for example, with representation from unions, businessmen, and another chamber with political representation. Ideologically he was a tributary of Catholic nationalism, which had been growing in Argentina since the 1920s.
Hundreds of radical leaders were arrested, and some of them sent to Ushuaia jail. The dictatorship prohibited all kinds of public demonstrations and decreed martial law for anyone caught committing any crime, even an ordinary crime. Strikes were also prohibited, which came to be considered serious crimes.
The economic plan of the provisional government was, in reality, a continuation of Yrigoyen's; Faced with the Depression, he had decreed the inconvertibility of the peso. Uriburu decreed exchange control, to prevent the exit of the gold that still remained in the state coffers. He established a strict schedule of priorities for public spending, with the intention of not defaulting on foreign debt. In addition, he had to face delays in payments to public employees that the government had incurred, for which new taxes on transactions, revenues and gasoline were created, and the rates of public services provided by the State were increased..
The Banco de la Nación Argentina granted credits to corn producers so they could retain their crops, since the tendency to sell it as soon as possible depressed prices. All public works were frozen, with the sole exception of grain elevators, which it concessioned to the Association of Argentine Cooperatives (ACA), which it also favored to compete with exporting companies in the commercialization of grains abroad; These measures prevented the fall in prices –very significant since the outbreak of the crisis– from being even more pronounced. On the other hand, it failed to force the railway companies to lower the tariffs for the transport of grains.
Corporate essay
Uriburu swore to respect the National Constitution and the Sáenz Peña Law, and in his speech he invited the population to correct the "abuses" of yrigoyenismo through the ballot box. But that speech was due to the support that he had needed from the "liberal" sector. Directed by Justo and Sarobe. As the days went by, he returned to his authoritarian and corporatist ideals in his speeches and in the appointment of authorities. It aspired to replace the Constitution and the democratic system with another, completely different one, in which it was not the individual vote that decided the political course, but the opinion of corporations, in particular employer corporations and professional associations, among which unions they were a minor actor, and who also had to be subjected to an ideological cleansing. The speeches continually mentioned the need to restore order, property and hierarchies. However, unlike European fascisms, the Argentine right considered that the key to the proposed political system was the Army, and not paramilitary organizations.
The dictator proposed the founding of a National Party, to which the other parties should adhere, although Yrigoyenista radicalism and possibly the Socialist Party were excluded. The invitation was rejected by all but a few conservative groups. Uriburu had gone ahead to call elections for governor of Buenos Aires, hoping to present a single candidacy of the National Party against the radicals; when his project failed, he couldn't back down.
In April 1931, the Buenos Aires elections were held, with an unforeseen result: the radical candidate Honorio Pueyrredón won, when the government considered radicalism "out of history", and even when he did not carry out an electoral campaign, nor support from the press. Despite the fact that in the Electoral College, radicalism was several votes behind and had to negotiate with the Socialists to win the governorship, the government panicked and most of the ministers resigned. Uriburu reshuffled the cabinet, naming ministers from the "liberal" sector. On May 8, he suspended the call to the provincial electoral college, and appointed Manuel Ramón Alvarado de facto governor of the province of Buenos Aires.
A few weeks later a revolution broke out in the province of Corrientes, led by Lieutenant Colonel Gregorio Pomar; Although it was quickly repressed, it gave Uriburu the excuse he was looking for: he closed all the UCR premises, arrested dozens of leaders, and prohibited polling stations from electing politicians directly or indirectly linked to Yrigoyen; Pueyrredón had been Yrigoyen's minister, which meant that he could not be elected, but he was also expelled from the country along with Alvear. He also suspended the gubernatorial elections planned for the provinces of Córdoba and Santa Fe. In September he called for elections for November, and soon after annulled the elections in Buenos Aires.
The corporatist experiment had failed, but even so, hours before handing over the government to his successor, Uriburu would declare that "the secret vote is precisely what has allowed the demagogic debauchery we have suffered.& #34;
The Concordance
Since the days after the coup d'état, meetings had begun between the anti-Yrigoyenista parties, which led to the formation of a National Democratic Federation, of which the conservative parties of all the provinces were a part –since the dissolution of the Autonomist Party Nacional, some 25 years earlier, the Conservatives were a tacit alliance between provincial parties – along with the Unión Cívica Radical Antipersonalista and the Partido Socialista Independiente. Uriburu had tried to force the meeting of a National Party, which also included progressive democrats, but his boss, Lisandro de la Torre, was already at odds with the dictatorship, despite the fact that he had initially supported it.
The defeat against radicalism led the conservatives to form a unified party, which was finally formed under the name of the National Democratic Party; With the exception of a small fraction of progressive democracy – in which the ex-governor of the province of Salta, Robustiano Patrón Costas, stood out – all of its members belonged to the conservative parties: among them Julio Argentino Roca (son) and Guillermo Rothe of the Democratic Party of Córdoba, Manuel Fresco and Rodolfo Moreno of the powerful Conservative Party of Buenos Aires, Ricardo Videla and Gilberto Suárez Lago of the Liberal Party of Mendoza, among many others. The anti-personalist UCR and the independent socialism did not agree to be part of the same party, but instead formed an alliance called Concordancia with it.
Everyone agreed to take General Justo as a candidate for the presidency; the independent socialists and the anti-personalists tried to name a non-conservative running mate, but the PDN managed to impose the candidacy of General Roca's son. This refusal of the conservatives led the UCR of Entre Ríos (Antipersonalist) to take Francisco Barroetaveña as a candidate. For their part, the Progressive Democratic Party and the Socialist Party presented themselves as the "Civil Alliance," leading Lisandro de la Torre - Nicolás Repetto as candidates. Radicalism was not prohibited, in the strict sense, but it was prohibited from presenting candidates who had held any position in the Yrigoyen presidencies, which prohibited them from known candidacies; so that the National Committee of radicalism announced the electoral abstention.
The elections of November 8, 1931 were tainted by electoral fraud in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Mendoza, but in the other provinces this was not necessary: with only two exceptions –Entre Ríos and Santa Fe– it was largely successful thanks to the outlawing of radicalism. Justo obtained 607,765 votes (237 voters); In the Federal Capital and Santa Fe, the radical voters respectively supported socialism and progressive democracy, such that De la Torre obtained 436,125 votes (122 voters), while Barroetaveña obtained 156,904 votes (12 voters).
The provincial governments remained in the hands of the conservatives, with the exception of Santiago del Estero, where the radicalism united and imposed Juan Bautista Castro; Entre Ríos, where the anti-personalist radical Luis Etchevehere retained the provincial government for his party; and Santa Fe, where the demo-progressive Luciano Molinas was elected.
Government of Agustín Pedro Justo (1932-1938)
After the failure of José Félix Uriburu's Catholic nationalist neocorporatist essay, Argentina was governed by a political alliance called the "Concordance" which was a political alliance formed between the National Democratic Party (also known simply as the Conservative Party), the Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union, and the Independent Socialist Party. This alliance governed the country between 1932 and 1943, through presidents Agustín P. Justo (1932-1938), Roberto M. Ortiz (1938-1940) and Ramón Castillo, who had to complete the term due to the death of president Ortiz (1940- 1943).
Agustín P. Justo took office as president on February 20, 1932. In addition to the political convulsion caused by the coup, he had to face the results of the Great Depression, which had ended the trade surplus and ended the comparative advantages of the commercial exchange due to the closure of markets where the country's exportable products were placed.
Radical Revolutions
During his tenure, the radical opposition, which had declared electoral abstention due to the illegitimacy of the regime, was very marked. In 1933, radical uprisings took place in Buenos Aires, Corrientes, Entre Ríos and Misiones, resulting in more than a thousand arrests. Yrigoyen, seriously ill, was returned to Buenos Aires and kept under house arrest; he would die on July 3, and his burial in the Recoleta cemetery would be the occasion of a massive demonstration. In December, on the occasion of the meeting of the national convention of the UCR, a joint uprising of soldiers and politicians broke out in Santa Fe, Rosario and Paso de los Libres. José Benjamín Ábalos, ex-minister of Yrigoyen, and Colonel Roberto Bosch were arrested for the uprising, and the conventional and party leaders imprisoned in Martín García. Alvear, Justo's former godfather, would go into exile, while others would be held in the Ushuaia prison
Roca-Runciman Pact
Justo's first finance minister was Alberto Hueyo; his management was marked by restrictions on all public spending, although a public investment policy was carried out in parallel; The area where the investments became most notable was transportation, where the National Highway Administration was created, headed by the engineer Justiniano Allende Posse. The same, supported by a tax of two cents per liter of gasoline, would build the trunk network of national routes, many of which would be paved.
He invited Otto Niemeyer to Argentina, but he preferred to make an agreement with the presidential envoy, who was Vice President Julio Argentino Pascual Roca. Hueyo confronted him, who was willing to give up everything to the claims of Great Britain in exchange for recovering it as a market for Argentine exports. In particular, he opposed the British claim to control the exchange rate, since this control would force Argentina into debt. He also opposed granting customs benefits to Great Britain without compensation.The signing of the Roca-Runciman Pact in May 1933 worsened Hueyo's relations with the rest of the cabinet, until he finally resigned in August.
One of the most controversial events of Justo's term was the signing of the Roca-Runciman Pact with Great Britain in 1933. The British had adopted, at the Ottawa conference in 1932, measures tending to favor imports from their colonies and domains, seriously damaging the Argentine landowners.
The treaty caused a scandal, since the United Kingdom assured Argentina only a quota lower than that of its domains, of 390,000 annual tons of meat, in exchange for large concessions for British companies. 85% of the export had to be carried out through British refrigerators, the rates of the railways operated by the United Kingdom would not be regulated, customs duties would not be set on coal, special treatment would be given to British companies with investments in Argentina and export prices would fall. No less problematic were the statements of Vice President Roca.
Political geography does not always succeed in our time to impose its territorial limits on the activity of the economy of nations. Thus it has been able to say a publicist of jealous personality that Argentina, for its reciprocal interdependence, is, from an economic point of view, an integral part of the British Empire.
Santa Fe senator Lisandro de la Torre of the Progressive Democratic Party was one of the main opponents of the treaty and denounced the crimes that the English refrigeration companies and the government were committing under his protection, leading to the opening of an investigation for part of the Senate that earned him the nickname "Fiscal de la Patria". The investigation would have a tragic outcome on July 23, 1935, when the progressive-democratic senator Enzo Bordabehere, was assassinated with three bullets in the middle of the Senate compound by a thug related to the ruling party, in an attempt to assassinate de la Torre. The incident has been the subject of the film Murder in the National Senate.
The Roca-Runciman pact was denounced unilaterally in 1936 by the United Kingdom; The negotiations to sustain it led to the signing of another treaty, the Malbrán-Eden, which set heavy tariffs on the importation of Argentine meat in Great Britain.
Foreign Policy
In 1933, Justo ordered the reincorporation of Argentina into the League of Nations.
Faced with the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, the government of Justo through its foreign minister Carlos Saavedra Lamas, tried to mobilize the governments of the region against the Monroe Doctrine, promoted by the government of the United States. His initiatives led in 1933 to the signing of the so-called Saavedra Lamas Antiwar Pact. After arduous and complex negotiations, on June 7 Bolivia and Paraguay finally signed two protocols ending the war to end up signing the Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Limits in 1938. For his efforts in the conflict, Saavedra Lamas received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936.
Economic policy
The replacement of Alberto Hueyo by the independent socialist Federico Pinedo as finance minister would mark a change in government policy. Government intervention in the economy became more marked, creating the National Grain Board, the Meat Board, and a short time later, with the advice of the English economist Otto Niemeyer, the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic.
Justo's government was characterized by starting in Argentina the construction of an interventionist state in the economy. In 1934 the centralized collection of taxes was legislated. The Wine Regulatory Board, the Grain and Meat Board, and the National Directorate of National Parks were created. On June 6, 1935, with a design by the British Otto Niemeyer, the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic was created, directed by Raúl Prebisch. The Transport Corporation was created, aimed at protecting the rail and tram services in British hands from the competition planted by the collectives.
That same year the first industrial census was carried out, which established the number of workers employed in the activity at 600,000. Laws regulating banking activity and investments were enacted. The conditions offered for the settlement of foreign capital promoted industrialization, especially in the provinces of Buenos Aires and Santa Fe, where food companies (Adams, Royal, Suchard, Quaker), rubber (Firestone), electricity (Eveready, Osram, Philco) and textiles (Ducilo, Sudamtex). The first large Argentine companies begin to gain importance, such as Di Tella, which will manufacture household appliances and automobiles.
Political situation
In 1935 Marcelo T. de Alvear returned from his exile leading to the end of electoral abstention. The decision would force the Concordance to appeal again to fraud and repression to avoid defeat at the polls.
On May 1, 1936, the UCR called a massive event, in which for the first time all the opposition parties and the labor movement met. That same year, union pressure obtained the sanction of Law 11,729 on the employment contract for the services sector.
That same year, the divisions within radicalism were accentuated by the scandal over the concession of the Hispano-American Electricity Company (CHADE), which had been accused of bribing conservative and radical politicians to obtain the concession, including the then Minister of Finance and future President Roberto M. Ortiz.
Alvear represented the main obstacle to the continuation of the Agreement. La Concordancia opposed the candidacy of the anti-personalist radical Roberto M. Ortiz and the conservative Ramón Castillo. Elections were held in September, in which incidents with deaths and injuries, as well as police intervention against opposition prosecutors, were frequent; Several provinces were intervened, including Catamarca, at the head of which Justo had placed the ultra-nationalist and pro-Nazi Gustavo Martínez Zuviría. The crucial provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Mendoza were left in the hands of the Concordancia, which eventually consecrated Ortiz as president.
Alvear spoke about the conservatives:
I know this radicalism and the conservatives of Buenos Aires for fifty years, and we agree that these conservatives have not improved in anything, they have done nothing for the good of the province. I've known them for fifty years, because I acted there. They had double-funded thugs and urns at their service. I broke one in Morón. They are preparing to use the same weapons today.Marcelo T. de Alvear.
For the 1937 elections, the Concordance made massive appeals to electoral fraud, which the conservative leaders called "patriotic fraud", since they considered that violating the law was justified if with that they prevented the return of radicalism. Some of the most widespread practices consisted of accepting multiple votes from electoral cards, generally retained by employers from their employees, or by "pointers" politicians in exchange for favors; the systematic rejection of prosecutors from opposition parties; ballot boxes with a double bottom, full of votes since before the elections began; replacement of envelopes; and rejection of the votes of those who were known to vote for the opposition.
Government of Roberto M. Ortiz (1938-1940)
Roberto M. Ortiz was the first civilian in eight years to wear the presidential sash. He tried to promote a series of reforms that would allow the establishment of a democratic regime, he wanted to dismantle the apparatus set up by Agustín P. Justo and tried to obtain fair elections by all means for his successor. One of the most controversial measures of his tenure was the secret anti-Semitic circular signed in 1938 by the foreign minister, also a radical anti-personalist José María Cantilo, which ordered "Argentine consuls in Europe to deny visas to 'undesirables or expelled', alluding to Jewish citizens of that continent".
Shortly after he was sworn in as president, Ortiz became seriously ill with diabetes, a disease that would later render him completely blind. In 1940, Ortiz's physical disability would prevent him from exercising the presidency, for which he requested leave and was replaced in office by Vice President Ramón Castillo, who would finally assume as president in 1942, after Ortiz's death.
Government of Ramón Castillo (1940-1943)
Ramón Castillo had been Governor of the province of Tucumán during the de facto administration of José Félix Uriburu. Due to Ortiz's illness, from 1940 he was effectively in charge of the Executive Branch.
He continued the foreign policy of his predecessor, maintaining Argentine neutrality in World War II. He created the State Merchant Fleet. It took other measures of a similar nationalist nature, such as the revocation of the concession for the port of Rosario, in the hands of a French operator, the nationalization of the British Compañía Primitiva de Gas, the creation of the Directorate of Military Manufacturing and the opening of the Altos Zapla ovens.
He carried out an openly authoritarian policy, disposing of the ministerial portfolios with ease and dissolving the Deliberative Council of Buenos Aires due to allegations of corruption in it.
Military coup of June 4, 1943
Since the United States was attacked by Japan in 1941 and forced to come out of its neutralism in the face of World War II, the northern power began to put heavy pressure on Latin American countries to do the same. The opposition among supporters of fighting in World War II or maintaining neutrality, was accentuated. For its part, control of the Army and its support for the government became increasingly precarious since the death of General Agustín P. Justo on January 11, 1943.
As had been happening since the dictatorship of General Uriburu, in view of the upcoming elections (1943) President Castillo had begun to organize a large-scale fraud to impose the conservative formula made up of Robustiano Patrón Costas and Manuel de Iriondo. The well-known aristocratic and authoritarian inclinations of Patrón Costas, as well as his public position in favor of bringing Argentina into World War II, mobilized sectors of the most diverse origins.
President Ramón Castillo had faced several military conspiracies and failed coup attempts and at that time several civil-military conspiracies were taking place (such as the one of the GOU, the one carried out by the radical Ernesto Sanmartino and General Arturo Rawson, the operations carried out by the radical unionist Emilio Ravignani, etc.). However, the coup of June 4, 1943 was not foreseen by anyone and was carried out with a great deal of improvisation and, unlike all the coups that took place in the country, with almost no civil participation.
The concrete event that triggered the military coup was the resignation that President Castillo demanded on June 3 of his Minister of War, General Pedro Pablo Ramírez, for having met on May 26 with a group of leaders of the Radical Civic Union that offered him the candidacy for president in the upcoming elections, heading the Democratic Union, an alliance that the moderate wing of radicalism (the unionists ) was trying at that time to concretize together with the Party Socialist and the Progressive Democratic Party with support of communism.
The coup was decided the day before at a meeting in Campo de Mayo led by Generals Arturo Rawson and Pedro Ramírez. It is of historical interest to mention that neither General Edelmiro Farrell nor Colonel Juan Domingo Perón participated in that meeting, who would later be the leading leaders of the Revolution of 43; Farrell because he excused himself from participating in the coup group for personal reasons when he was invited by General Rawson, and Perón because he could not be found.
During this time, the use of electric prods and the persecution of the opposition became more popular, to assassinate them and later hide them in abandoned sheds where hundreds of corpses were later found.
At dawn on June 4, a military force of 8,000 soldiers led by the leaders of the uprising: Generals Arturo Rawson and Elbio Anaya, Colonels Emilio Ramírez, left Campo de Mayo, northwest of the City of Buenos Aires. and Fortunato Giovannoni and Lieutenant Colonel Tomás A. Ducó. Upon arriving at the Navy Mechanics School, in the Núñez neighborhood, the column was attacked by loyalist forces entrenched there, resulting in the combat 30 dead and 100 wounded. ESMA surrendered, President Castillo embarked on the Drummond tracker with orders to move away in the direction of Uruguay, leaving only the Casa Rosada where Generals Juan Pistarini, Armando Verdagauer, Pedro Pablo Ramírez and Edelmiro Farrell entered, and Admirals Sabá H. Sueyro and Guisasola, who received the rebel column shortly after the noon, assuming General Arturo Rawson as president.
The triumph of the insurgents was undeniable, and Castillo disembarked the next day in La Plata, where he signed his resignation.
At first, all the political and social forces supported the coup, with greater or lesser enthusiasm, with the sole exception of the Communist Party. The same thing happened with Great Britain and the United States, which greeted the blow "with shouts of satisfaction", according to Sir David Kelly, British ambassador to Argentina at the time. The German embassy, on the other hand, he burned his files the day before.
Antarctic claims and formal takeover of the Antarctic mainland
In 1939, Argentina temporarily created the National Antarctic Commission to attend a Norwegian invitation by decree No. 35821, but by decree No. 61852 of April 30, 1940, it became a permanent body with the purpose of to intensify research in the area. Explorations, scientific tasks, survey of terrain and beaconing were carried out.
On November 6, 1940, Chile established by decree the limits of its Antarctic claims.
They form the Chilean Antarctic or Antarctic Chilean Territory, all the lands, islands, islets, reefs, glaciers and other known and to know, and the respective territorial sea, existing within the limits of the casket made up of the 53rd meridians, west length of Greenwich, and 90th, west longitude of Greenwich.
Argentina formally protested the Chilean decree through a note dated November 12, 1940, rejecting its validity and expressing a potential claim to the same area. In turn, the United Kingdom protested on February 25, 1941.
In October 1941 the Argentine Military Geographic Institute published maps showing the extent of the future Argentine claim between 25° W and 75° W.
In January 1942 Argentina, in accordance with the theory of polar sectors, declared its Antarctic rights between the 25º and 68º 24' West (the Dungeness Point). Which gave rise to a response memorandum from the Chilean Government on March 3, 1942, reserving its rights.
Argentina formally took possession of the Antarctic continental territory on Deception Island on November 8, 1942, by placing a cylinder containing an act and a flag left there by an expedition under the command of the frigate captain Alberto J. Oddera. In January 1943, personnel from the British ship HMS Carnarvon Castle destroyed the evidence of the Argentine takeover, planted the British flag and sent the act to Buenos Aires. On March 5 of that year, the Argentine ship ARA 1° de Mayo removed the British flag.
In popular culture
María Luisa Bemberg's film Miss Mary (1986) takes place at this time, showing the hypocrisy and excessive social conventions of the dominant oligarchy.
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