Argentine Revolution

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For the 1810 revolution, see May Revolution. For the 1905 revolution, see Argentine Revolution of 1905.

1966 Argentine coup d'état
Part of the Cold War

Generals Juan Carlos Onganía, Roberto Marcelo Levingston and Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, the three successive dictators of the "Revolución Argentina".
Date28 June 1966
Location
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Result Overthrow of the government of Arturo Umberto Illia. Suspension of the liberal democracy and establishment of military dictatorship.
Belligerents
Argentina Argentine Armed Forces Argentina Government of Argentina
Commanders and leaders
 Arturo Umberto Illia
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Argentine Revolution (Spanish: Revolución Argentina) was the name given by its leaders to a military coup d'état which overthrew the government of Argentina in June 1966 and began a period of military dictatorship by a junta from then until 1973.

The Revolución Argentina and the "authoritarian-bureaucratic state"

The June 1966 coup established General Juan Carlos Onganía as de facto president, supported by several leaders of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), including the general secretary Augusto Vandor.

This was followed by a series of

workers' movement, and the press
.

While preceding military coups were aimed at establishing temporary, transitional

1964–1985 Brazilian military regime and Augusto Pinochet's regime
(starting in 1973).

Onganía's rule (1966–70)

Onganía implemented

labor legislation
(reducing retirement age, etc.).

The workers' movement divided itself between Vandoristas, who supported a "Peronism without Perón" line (Augusto Vandor, leader of the General Confederation of Labour, declared that "to save Perón, one has to be against Perón") and advocated negotiation with the junta, alongside "Participationists" headed by José Alonso, and Peronists, who formed the General Confederation of Labour of the Argentines (CGTA) in 1968 and were opposed to any kind of participation with the military junta. Perón himself, from his exile in Francoist Spain, maintained a cautious and ambiguous line of opposition to the regime, rejecting both the endorsement and open confrontation.

Cultural and education policies

The Night of the Long Batons, an Onganía police action against University of Buenos Aires students and faculty came to be known.

Onganía ended university autonomy, which had been achieved by the University of 1918.[2]

He was responsible for the July 1966 La Noche de los bastones Largos ("The Night of the Long Truncheons"), where university autonomy was violated, in which he ordered police to invade the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires. They beat up and arrested students and professors. The university repression led to the exile of 301 university professors, among whom were Manuel Sadosky, Tulio Halperín Donghi, Sergio Bagú, and Risieri Frondizi.[3]

Onganía also ordered repression on all forms of "immoralism", proscribing

miniskirts, long hair for young men, and all avant-garde artistic movements.[2] This moral campaign alienated the middle classes, who were massively present in universities.[2]

Change of direction of the Armed Forces

Towards the end of May 1968, General

Alejandro Lanusse
replaced Julio Alsogaray, Pedro Gnavi replaced Benigno Varela, and Jorge Martínez Zuviría replaced Adolfo Alvarez.

Increasing protests

On 19 September 1968, two important events affected Revolutionary Peronism.

Peronist Youth.[4]

Images of the Cordobazo, May–June 1969

In 1969, the CGT de los Argentinos (led by

Rosario (Rosariazo). While Perón managed a reconciliation with Augusto Vandor, he followed, in particular through the voice of his delegate Jorge Paladino, a cautious line of opposition to the military junta, criticizing with moderation the neoliberal policies of the junta but waiting for discontent inside the government ("hay que desensillar hasta que aclare", said Perón, advocating patience). Thus, Onganía had an interview with 46 CGT delegates, among them Vandor, who agreed on "participationism" with the military junta, thus uniting themselves with the Nueva Corriente de Opinión headed by José Alonso
and Rogelio Coria.

In December 1969, more than 20 priests, members of the

villas miserias (shanty towns).[5]

The same year, the MSTM issued a declaration supporting Socialist revolutionary movements, which led the

archbishop of Buenos Aires, to proscribe priests from making political or social declarations.[6]

Various armed actions, headed by the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación (FAL), composed by former members of the

urban guerrilla actions in Argentina. Beside these isolated actions, the Cordobazo uprising of 1969, called forth by the CGT de los Argentinos, and its Cordobese leader, Agustín Tosco, prompted demonstrations in the entire country. The same year, the People's Revolutionary Army (ERP) was formed as the military branch of the Trotskyist Workers' Revolutionary Party
, leading an armed struggle against the dictatorship.

Levingston's rule (1970–71)

Faced with increasing opposition, in particular following the

Minister of Economy
.

A coalition of political parties issued the statement known as La Hora del Pueblo ("Time of the People"), calling for free and democratic elections which would include the Justicialist Party. Under this pressure, Levingston was ousted by an internal coup headed by the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces and strongman of the Revolución Argentina, General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse.

Lanusse's rule (1971–73)

The last of the military presidents de facto of this period,

Alejandro Lanusse
, was appointed in March 1971. He was as unpopular as his predecessors. His administration started building infrastructure projects (roads, bridges, etc.) necessary for the development of the country, without responding to popular demands concerning social and economic policies.

General Lanusse tried to respond to the Hora del Pueblo declaration by calling elections but excluding Peronists from them, in the so-called Gran Acuerdo Nacional (Great National Agreement). He nominated Arturo Mor Roig (Radical Civic Union) as Minister of Interior, who enjoyed the support of the Hora del pueblo coalition of parties, to supervise the coming elections.

There had been no elections since 1966, and armed struggle groups came into existence, such as the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP, the armed wing of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, PRT), the Catholic nationalist Peronists Montoneros and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR).

In August 1972, an attempt by several revolutionary members to escape from prison, headed by Mario Roberto Santucho (PRT), was followed by what became known as the Trelew massacre. Fernando Vaca Narvaja, Roberto Quieto, Enrique Gorriarán Merlo and Domingo Menna managed to complete their escape, but 19 others were re-captured. 16 of them, members of the Montoneros, the FAR, and the ERP, were killed, and 3 managed to survive. On the same night of August 22, 1972, the junta approved law 19,797, which proscribed any information concerning guerrilla organizations. The massacre led to demonstrations in various cities.

Finally, Lanusse lifted the proscription of the Justicialist Party, although he maintained it concerning Juan Perón by increasing the number of years of residency required of presidential candidates, thus excluding de facto Perón from the elections since he had been in exile since the 1955 Revolución Libertadora.

Henceforth, Perón decided to appoint as his candidate his personal secretary Héctor José Cámpora, a leftist Peronist, as representative of the FreJuLi (Frente Justicialista de Liberación, Justicialist Liberation Front), composed of the Justicialist Party and minor, allied parties. The FreJuLi's electoral slogan was "Cámpora in Government, Perón in power" (Cámpora al Gobierno, Perón al poder).

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Guillermo O'Donnell, El Estado Burocrático Autoritario, (1982)
  2. ^
    EHESS), Put on line on 15 June 2008. URL: http://nuevomundo.revues.org//index35983.html
    Accessed on 28 July 2008. (in French)
  3. ^ Marta Slemenson et al., Emigración de científicos argentinos. Organización de un éxodo a América Latina (?, Buenos Aires, 1970:118)
  4. ^ a b Oscar R. Anzorena, Tiempo de violencia y utopía (1966-1976), Editorial Contrapunto, 1987, p.48 (in Spanish)
  5. ^ Oscar Anzorena, 1987, p.49
  6. ^ Oscar Anzorena, 1987, p.53

References

  • Oscar R. Anzorena, Tiempo de violencia y utopía (1966-1976), Editorial Contrapunto, 1987
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