From Mercantilism to Imperialism: The Argentine Case
Daniels, Ed
With the evolution of capitalism in Argentina during the early part of the 20th century, new patterns of social relations appeared. The rapid urban incorporation of European immigrants into the...
...The value of the peso consequently declined from 28 to 140 to the dollar...
...Germany, desirous of establishing a foothold in Latin America, increased its investments in Argentina...
...Raul Prebisch transferred his great success in Argentina to the rest of Latin America through his executive position in ECLA...
...The State's intervention for increased real wages and better working conditions solidified a majority of the trade unions' support...
...The Catholic Church -- a pillar of Argentine society -came into open hostility with the regime in 1954, further undermining its base of power...
...the period was branded as the "Infamous Decade...
...bi Up to 1962...
...The resultant Roca-Runciman Treaty, signed in 1933, granted the British government import licenses for 85 percent of Argentine beef exports, while Argentina retained a mere 15 percent...
...See Dario Canton, "Notas Sobre las Fuerzas Armadas Argentinas," working paper No...
...In addition, massive urban under and unemployment led to a contraction in the domestic market for manufactured goods requiring the bourgeoisie to export those goods to new markets, including Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay...
...The oversized reserve labor force thus created weakened the bargaining position of the working class and allowed the bourgeoisie to curtail wage increases...
...For a discussion of Radicalismo as a moral movement concerned with "formal democracy" see Galletti, and Jose Luis Romero, A History of Argentine Political Thought, translated from the Spanish by Thomas F. McGann (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963...
...government policies had shifted toward fulfilling the industrial and landowning bourgeoisies' need for capital and the supportive infrastructure...
...New forms of struggle emerged in May of 1969 during the spontaneous popular uprising in the cities As the economics of the Rio de Plata Zone are of Rosario, Santa Fe, Cordoba, Tucuman, etc...
...Copyright c 1970 by the North American Congress on Latin America, Inc...
...The economic direction pursued by Peronism after 1950 benefited all segments of the bourgeoisie at the expense of the working class and the middle sectors...
...Operating as an autonomous party of the working class, the Partido Laborista embodied most of the reformist demands of the remaining CGT...
...PeriodTHE PERON ERA National populism began to take form between 1943 and 1946...
...6 / October, 1970 Published monthly, except May-June and July-August, when it is published bi-monthly, at 160 Claremont Ave., New York, New York 10027...
...23 Issue...merely an ethical and moral movement...
...From 1930 to 1935 high unemployment and repressive measures weakened the bargaining power of the labor unions...
...From Mrcantilism to Imperialism: The Argentine Case...
...After 1935, rapid industrialization began to incorporate the post-depression rural-to-urban migrant force...
...With the overthrow of Illia, the middle sectors were finally removed from their position within the power structure...
...Government forces were called out, and for a whole week, the strikes were forcibly put down...
...Peron's neutrality was mistaken for fascism, and thus came under the attack of the pro-democratic anti-fascist front...
...President Castillo had unsuccessfully tried to acquire U.S...
...1, No...
...4 6 Later on, a decline in world grain prices and the U.S...
...the draft card became the voter-registration card...
...c) The difference of USS 75 million with the amount of long-term debts published In PEL No...
...As the years passed, the inability of the UCR to introduce changes within the political and economic structure of the nation became clear...
...companies accounted for 22 percent of sales in vehicles and machinery...
...Dept...
...Murphy in Fortune, June, July and August 1969...
...3 3 Radicalismo (the Union Civica Radical, UCR), though predominantly petit bourgeois in numbers, was dominated in Buenos Aires by enlightened elements of large landowning interests (cultivators and livestock growers...
...And many of the newly formed industrial elements culturally identified with and traced their descendence to Italy -- at the time ruled by Mussolini...
...foreign capital continued to penetrate and mold the economy...
...In 1940, German investments equaled $540 million,) 5 4 Argentina chose to remain neutral in order to take advantage of a temporary -- though limited -- margin of economic independence...
...From March to April of 1963 both factions, the azules (developmentists) and the colorados (gorilas, i.e., staunchly anti-Peronists and right-wing) , vied for State control...
...The dynamic of the economy was defined, on the one hand, by the growth of the industrial sector which was strongly dependent on the availability of surplus capital from the export sector...
...Galloping inflation, combined with the IMF's program of economic austerity, accentuated the unequal distribution of income...
...2, July 1964...
...by 1952 more than 80 percent was internally consumed...
...At this point, splits within the bourgeoisie became more important than conflicts between classes...
...However, with the incorporation of the Socialists into parliamentary politics during Radical rule, their position as a working class party began to deteriorate, their base became increasingly "middle class," and they suffered a succession of schisms...
...no one class or sector was able to emerge as nationally dominant...
...By 1960, a network of more than 1,200 such suppliers had been developed...
...Disturbed by Radicalismo's inability to curtail worker, student and popular strikes, the coup's ideology was influenced by the progress of Fascism in Italy and the Prussian training of its army cadres...
...The level of consumption among Buenos Aires workers is For the first time in Argentine history a mass much higher than in the satellite cities (Cordoba, popular uprising, uniting forces from the proletariate, Rosario, La Plata, Tucuman, etc...
...Here was a mass in the process of formation which was beginning to adopt a political attitude opposed to the existing regime of the landowning bourgeoisie...
...5 3 However, low agricultural productivity and a growing urban demand for foodstuffs led to a rise in prices and a consonant decrease in the living standards of the newly urbanized masses...
...The integrated under U.S...
...The foreign-oriented landowning bourgeoisie still maintained a margin of political power through a conservative majority in the Senate...
...flax, 72 percent...
...PERONIST DECLINE: THE COUP OF 1955 In 1950, Peron ran into a crisis over the lack of capital...
...The Klebergs of Texas are one cf the ;uost important world cattle--prcducing families, with ranches in Areentina...
...By 1921, two logias were functioning as pressure groups, and by 1922, when Alvear became president, the Circulo de Armas (a military association) was holding yearly luncheon meetings of officers from all over the country...
...Illia, the new president, was innaugurated with only 26 percent of the popular vote...
...62, July-August 1970, pp...
...See Part I, p. 7. For complete references see Part I (NACLA Newsletter, IV, 4 / July-August 1970...
...Intense exploitation of the labor force permitted the ruling class to extract great amounts of surplus for investment in industry and services...
...Consequently, Brazil was able to show a higher rate of growth than Argentina...
...Military rule Safety Program) expand, it is likely that the forms excluded the traditional parliamentary channeling of of struggle will develop along the lines of protracted political and economic frustrations...
...Another example was in 1920-21 when workers and peasants rebelled, seizing lands in Patagonia...
...The origins of the early labor movements and organizations were directly related to the economic expansion and the immigration process of the last quarter of the 19th century...
...3 5 Moreover, the three Radical presidents submitted themselves to the institutional apparatus of the liberal-landowning state...
...Led by General Uriburu, the 1930 military coup signalled the return of the landowning class to political power, but within the context of industrialization...
...At this point, Peronism had to choose between the various class interests now in open contradiction...
...To the extent that the new system proved unable to reabsorb these sectors in decline, the position of the middle sectors deteriorated...
...TABLE 7 FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT TN ARGENTINA: 1929 - 1968 (in US$ millions) 1929 1935 1943 1950 1955 1963 19681 Britain 2 2,026 1,813 1,414 243 324 -- -United States 332 -- 380 356 447 829 1,148 Manufacturing 82 -- 101 146 230 454 729 Transport 148 -- 182 77 69 - Transport Petroleum 30 -- 39 48.5 -- -- -Trade 53 -- 27 35 45 38 57 Other 3 19 -- 31 83 28 336 362 1. preliminary figures...
...WORLD WAR II AND THE COUP OF 1943 By World War II the rationale behind industrialization went beyond simply short-term import substitute considerations...
...57 (Buenos Aires: lnstituto Torcuato Di Tella, Centro de Investigaciones Sociales, 1969), and from Zuniga...
...For an in-depth study on the Argentine labor movement see Arberto Belloni, Del Anarquismo al Peronismo: Historia del Movimiento Obrero Argentino (Buenos Aires: Editorial A. Pena ilo, 1960...
...This process was to continue through the next decade, becoming more accentuated as monopoly capita] seized the economy...
...Ortiz, Vol...
...But the most important change favoring the bourgeoisie involved the influx of direct foreign investment...
...of Chicago for the production of pharmaceuticals from the pancreas and pituitary gland of slaughtered cattle...
...However, the plan backfired when, in 1962, the ruling UCRI party lost most of the state and congressional elections to Justicialista candidates...
...Now they joined to extra-legal forms of action...
...ban in 1926 on the importation of chilled beef (because of alleged hoof and mouth disease) reduced exports...
...The working class movement was repressed...
...Peronist nationalizations were accomplished through more than adequate compensation...
...While the abundance during 1943-48 permitted a temporary class collaboration, the economy's contraction and surplus shrinkage revealed the basic antagonism between social classes...
...This development could not have occured had the government opposed it...
...1, from Chart 1, p. 6. 50...
...In addition, the capitalist growth which took place during the first war years precipitated contradictions within the upper class...
...The consequent decline in productivity made it impossible to satisfy consumer demand...
...5 8 In Argentina, Peronist national populism came forth as an alternative to the vacuum created by a general weakening of all social classes...
...The azules won and elections followed...
...Data provided in Ortiz, Vol...
...Henceforth, agricultural exports and productivity showed a continual decline, further reducing available capital...
...See Table 7.) The government's "developmentist" strategy projected that economic growth would follow from foreign investments...
...Zuniga, p. 87...
...This was the point of friction between the military and that regime...
...His ability to implement the nationalist program of the UCRP was seriously hindered by his limited base of power...
...This new central union was controlled by anarcho-syndicalist elements...
...Besides competition on the world market and lower productivity on the land due to a lack of capital investment, the landowning bourgeoisie showed its displeasure with Peron's state monopoly by cutting back production...
...Second-class postage paid at New York, New York.provided services and technology which supported the export-import economy...
...The Peronist mass, in the face of a decline in its standard of living, turned against the government...
...In 1925, the Argentine contribution to total world exports was: maize, 66 percent...
...For example: in 1960, five U.S...
...In 1962, "Peronists obtained almost a third of the total vote, outpolling the UCRI by about 700,000 and gained control of nine of the nation's 22 provinces including all-important Buenos Aires...
...On yet another level, Peronista mobs burned a number of important church buildings in Buenos Aires...
...cartels, was willing to give better deals in its desire to gain entry to the Latin markets...
...Once its quest for "formal democracy" was satisfied, resolving its moral indignation over fraudulent elections and previous disenfranchisement, the movement failed to deal with either social or economic problems...
...Inflation was being controlled by wage freezes...
...Previously, the hegemony of the Argentine bourgeoisie was dependent on its closeness to the world power which sustained it...
...In order to survive, small industrialists had to extract larger amounts of surplus from their workers or attach themselves to foreign-owned or controlled enterprises...
...the external long-term public debt includes all debts with maturities oft more than one year contracted or guaranteed by official Instittlions n Latill America (Ineclulng local governments, public and state enter- prises, as well as central governments) and which are contracted and paid for abroe Excluded are loans ranted by foreln governments, but payable In local currency...
...middle sectors, students and progressive clergy, took place...
...Oligopolies and monopolies increased geometrically within and outside the United States, bringing the economies of more and more countries under U.S...
...and 68.8 percent of the establishments with 78.7 percent of the workers were found in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and the Capital Federal...
...In assuming State control, the armed forces filled a class vacuum and became the bulwark of the system...
...The Partido Laborista founded in 1945, became the vehicle through which Peron attracted the old working class leaders and their organizations into his populist program...
...The reduction in exports produced a decline in surplus capital...
...The gravitation was economic, political, ideological and cultural...
...Military Forces Abroad...
...Benito Marianetti, Argentina: Realidad Z Perspectivas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Platina, 1964), p. 347...
...By 1952...
...Includes mining and smelting for 1929-1950 period...
...on the other labor clamoured for an increased capacity to consume and an improvement in living as well as working conditions...
...6 8 During Frondizi's presidency, the denationalization of the Argentine economy and the satelization of the country's bourgeoisie showed a remarkable rise...
...In Minimum contribution for one-year subscription: $5.00...
...To cite only one outstanding example, Industrias Kaiser Argentina (IKA, recently bought by Renault of France) has actively sought suppliers for components and materials used in the manufacture of its automotive vehicles in Cordoba...
...Argentina, increasingly dependent on the United States for capital goods and technology, was placed in competition with Brazil for the role of sub-metropolitan power in the chain of imperialist exploitation...
...monopoly expansion...
...However, the world economic crisis, and the emergence of the United States and Canada as exporters of wheat, affected the agricultural sector...
...Subscription price: $5 per year for individuals...
...The net result was an unsatisfied consumer market...
...In fact, the official industrial program was not opposed by any social group...
...92-93...
...Engulfed in the war, Britain's hold over the Argentine economy weakened precisely at a time when her foodstuff needs were critical...
...During those years the surge in manufacturing was accompanied by a corresponding development of basic industry controlled by Argentine nationals...
...A conflict ensued, resultingn] in the removal of Catholic instruction from the school curriculum by the administration...
...United Nations, Foreign Capital in Latin America (New York, 1955) p. 37...
...of Commerce, Survy of Current Business, periodic issues...
...4 8An unfavorable balance of trade, a decreased capacity to import manufactured consumer goods, and a contraction in foreign investments, however, prompted the development of import substitute industries...
...6 1 Banking and insurance, as well as the export of cereals came under state control, the latter through the creation of the Instituto Argentino de Promocion de Intercambio (IAPI...
...Law 14,780 put foreign capital on an equal standing with national capital, permitted the unrestricted repatriation of profits and granted customs franchises for the import of capital goods...
...It bought the commodities at low prices and sold them on the world market at higher prices...
...Jaime Fuchs, Argentina: Su Desarrollo Capitalista (Buenos Aires: Editorial Cartago, 1965), p. 267...
...transactions...
...Laclau, p. 15...
...Id) That paid for amortizsatons and Interest on long-term capital, according to the reports of the CRA n i64 and 1965...
...3 6 While the middle sectors had been effectively coopted into the political system, the highly concentrated industrial labor force was not...
...The promised release of imprisoned labor leaders, cessation of the previous regime's repressive policies and satisfaction of traditional trade union demands were forgotten...
...IV, No...
...The party's heterogeneous class composition prevented the development of ideological and programmatic clarity...
...Alberto Ciria, Partidos y Poder en La Argentina Moderna (1930-1946), pp...
...As long as prosperous economic conditions prevailed, Peronism could fulfill these aspirations...
...Some did both...
...Their tactics and strategy pression...
...3 7 Two political currents provided leadership and direction to the working class...
...Robert J. Alexander, An Introduction to Argentina,(New York: Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1969), p. 116...
...9 ARGENTINA: GROSS INTERNAL PRODUCT AT FACTOR COST AND 1960 PRICES FOR SELECTED YEARS (In thousands of millions of NC$ and in % for sectors of economic activity) 1955 1957 1960 1962 1963 1964 TOTAL in thousands of millions of NC$ 748.5 803.5 876.0 916.1 873.3 946.5 INDICES 100 107.3 117.1 122.4 116.7 126.4 PER CAPITA INDICES 100 103.5 107.1 108.3 101.8 108.6 % for sectors of economic activity: 1. Agriculture-livestock 19.9 17.4 16.8 16.4 16.8 16.8 2. Mining 0.7 0.7 1.1 1.5 1.6 1.5 3. Manufacturing 30.3 32.0 32.4 32.3 32.0 33.7 4. Construction 4.1 4.3 4.2 3.9 3.8 3.9 5. Electric energy, gas and water 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.6 1.7 1.8 6. Transport and Communications 7.8 7.7 7.6 7.3 7.3 7.3 7. Commerce 16.5 17.0 17.1 18.2 17.1 16.7 8. Banking, Insurance and Real Estate 4.3 4.2 4.2 4.2 4.6 4.2 9. Government services 7.8 8.1 7.4 7.1 7.5 6.9 10...
...Furthermore, severe droughts, in the period 1950-52, also cut back on agricultural production, inhibiting the agricultural sector's ability to simultaneously satisfy the rising internal and external market demands.The worsening balance of trade (see Table 5) drained the government's gold and hard currency reserves (when Peron came to power, reserves had risen to 6,032 million pesos...
...The economic rivalry between Brazil and Argentina and the national development politics of the military -- embodied in the GOU (United Officers Corps) -- were the leading factors, given Castillos' failures, to the military coup of 1943...
...Since May of 1969 the the economic conditions described above, the triumph Tupamaros, of Uruguay, have become the focus of reof the Cuban Revolution and the harsh military re- volutionary attention...
...When railroads were expropriated in 1948, the British received the equivalent of $300 million above the real value of the railroads...
...investments rose significantly throughout the sixties...
...Peron's intention was to forge a social pact between classes through the apparatus of the State...
...192 1 eplained by the act tt the latter was based on data supplied by the redltors wh.lle hoe that are shown for after 1964 inclusive cocre from tnp Banco Central de IR Repubiica Argentina...
...companies accounted for 18.8 percent of Argentine corporate sales in foodstuffs, beverages and tobacco...
...Its role as a socializing institution was welcomed as long as its political power remained in check...
...3, May-June 197C...
...The regime also passed a law that legalized divorce and another one that legalized prostitution...
...The predominance of large corporations and the monopoly control of markets worked against the development of small-scale industries...
...Ernesto Laclau(h), "Argentina-Imperialist Strategy and the May Crisis," in New Left Review, No...
...The meatpacking industry, which had expanded considerably since 1902, was a prime example...
...From 1935 to 1946, the number of industrial enterprises (excluding construction) doubled...
...Before World War II, 60 percent of the nation's food production was onsumed domestically...
...The Axis, itself in competition with other European and U.S...
...6 7 These "stability"oriented policies extended wage freezes that further aggravated the conditions of the working class...
...Relinquishing any claim to legitimate rule, it declared a state of siege and carried out wide repressive sweeps against militant labor and leftwing leaders and organizations...
...These requests were stimulated by competition with other Latin American powers, particularly Brazil...
...On the other hand, the industrial working class remained loyal to Peron, yearning for a return to the regime's first years...
...In 1935, 5,000 trade union meetings, involving one million workers, were held...
...18 Camilo Yanquificido...
...United Nations, Economic Survey of Latin America: 1957 and 1965 (New York, 1959 and 1967) p. 106 and-p...
...5 5 Argentine neutrality, in contrast to the proU.S...
...Coupled with a growing imperialist economic integration of "developing" economies came increased domination over the dependent countries' social and political systems...
...At this time, banking was under national control with a minimal foreign participation (15.3 percent total capital, 19.1 percent of the loans and 18.3 percent of bank deposits...
...Illia's curtailment of foreign investments and annullment of the 1958 oil contracts elicited pressures from the United States...
...thus the political frustration of the UCR and the dependent character of the classes it represented...
...British and Argentine commercial interests resisted the pressure...
...As the cost of living rose (real wages were declining), the consumer market narrowed, reinforcing the stagnation of the economy (see Table 4...
...penetration broke down...
...indicating the significance of Cuban commerce in U.S...
...Victor Testa, "Crecimiento (1935-1946) y Estancamiento (1947-1963) de la Produccion Industrial Argentina" in Fichas de Investigacion Economica y Social, Ano 1, No...
...4 1 The economy continued to specialize in the export of meats and cereals...
...6 But the ability of Peronism to sustain the equilibrium of social forces rested on the continuation of prosperous economic conditions...
...This in turn would lower fuel costs for manufacturers, but since the concession had little immediate effect, fuel imports continued to rise (see Table 6...
...In this regard, Radicalismo did not pose a threat to the dominant classes...
...27, (Buenos Aires: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Centro de Investigaciones Sociales, 1967...
...Annual report of the BCRA for other years...
...imperialist hegemony, undermined the economic bases of the petitbourgeoisie...
...Thus, the institutionalized violence of the State went unmet by organized violence of the working class...
...Their leader, General Aramburu, who had been president of the provisional government from 1955 to 1958,was responsible for the assassination of numerous Peronist labor leaders...
...Wnen in 1931 the Radicales found themselves excluded by the coup from the electoral process, they turned to an oppositional strategy of conspiratorial and coup d'etat meanderings...
...The rapid urban incorporation of European immigrants into the tertiary (services) and secondary (meatpacking, textiles, food processing) sectors of the economy began to redefine the class composition of Argentine society...
...Australia and Texas...
...For the industrial bourgeoisie, profits from their enterprises were enlarged and wages were stabilized through new controls (i.e., two year labor contracts, instead of the previous one year agreements, were instituted...
...1935 2.3 - 18% 1966 374.3 + 32 % 1940 2.6 + 13 % 1967 483.7 + 29 % 1945 3.5 + 34% 1968 562.1 + 16% 1950 8.6 + 146 %8 trating capital and technology, assumed an extraordinary importance in the world economy...
...Instead, the Radical government annulled the elections of 1962...
...This was the ex- workers at the barricades and defended their own pression of a class rather than an economic conscious- communities with snipers...
...5 9 With the development of light industry, a favourable balance of trade, and the accumulation of foreign exchange, the new regime attempted to mesh both the interests of the industrial and proletarian elements...
...1964...
...Once it became clear to the Peronist working class that its economist demands could not be met by the regime, it repudiated Frondizismo...
...The Argentine bourgeoisie depended on the world market for its survival...
...On the one hand, the landowning bourgeoisie, best represented in the Navy, strongly opposed a rapprochment with the working class...
...Yankee "ingenuity" began to devise numerous mechanisms for social pacification, cooptation and control...
...Finally, growing labor militancy (expressed during the Plan de Lucha of the CGT -- which involved general strikes and the seizure of plants) and high school and university demonstrations against the U.S...
...In order to regain access to British markets, Argentina was forced to submit to metropolitan capital interests...
...On the other, the Socialist Party, founded in 1896, espoused economist and reformist politics...
...Despite these anti-working class measures, the anxiety of the bourgeoisie -- shaken by the Peronist electoral victory and ill at ease with a regime which lacked popular support -- was not allayed...
...and, on the other hand, by the expansion of a domestic market...
...data Is taken from the book "El Fnanclamiento Eterno de Amenca Ltna...
...73 activity...
...Smith, p. 135...
...Hectares under cultivation in grains and forage increased from six million in 1900 to 20 million in 1913 and 25 million in 1929, under the control of the landowning bourgeoisie.42 Cereal exports grew faster than meat exports even under conditions of world-wide market contraction...
...In fact, as soon as the interests of international capital came into contradiction with the economic policies...
...From a speech given May 1, 1944, quoted in Romero, p. 246...
...Worker exploitation and rising employment increased worker demands and labor union expansion...
...The first workers' societies were established along immigrant-ethnic lines: French, German, Italian, Spanish...
...hegemony, and military and failure of traditional forms opened people up to ex- police programs (such as AID's Office of Public periment with new forms of struggle...
...The process of economic denationalization, halted briefly during World War iI, was again proceeding apace...
...December...
...Testa, from Chart 1, p. 6. 54, Foreign Capital in Latin America, (New York: United Nations, 1955) by Department of Economic and Social Affairs,_p...
...The exhaustion of foreign exchange reserves, accumulated during World War II, was accentuated by the world-wide recession of 1949...
...8 ARGENTINA: EXTERNAL LONG-TERM PUBLIC DEBT AT YEAR'S END (a) (In US$ millions) Indices o Unpaid Payments Interest Year unpaid balance bsaloaces World Bank World Bank 1955 100.0 600 - - 1956 114.3 685.5 14.4 3.4 1957 178.8 1,072.8 52.7 20 1958 229.2 1,375.1 92.7 32 1959 248.8 1,492.6 118 43 1960 246.4 1,478.1 203.9 50 1961 310.4 1,862.6 194.5 57.4 1962 (b) 348.7, 2,092.1 203.2 74.6 1963 PEL 343.8 2,002.8 182.2 67.0 1964 BCRA 318.0 1,908.1 lc) 173.5 d) 39.6 (dal 1965 ,, 299.1 1,794.3 140.5 (d) 30.1 (d} (a) According to World Bank norms...
...Out of this experience grew a new sense of power: The splits within the Socialists, Communist and the that the organized violence of the popular masses remnants of the Radicalismo and the social christian could, in time, battle and defeat the repressive movements were caused by several factors, including: apparatus of the State...
...Saturating the employment market, this mass prohibited the native lower classes from entering the new productive areas...
...To the contrary, it indicated how weak that class was...
...This class collaboration was personified through the mediating role of The Leader and took place within an urban context...
...Fatteners purchased the bred cattle and, being closer to the ports of exit, sold their livestock directly to the meat packers...
...Brazilian policy, resulted in the United States favoring Brazil and not Argentina with economic and military aid...
...FRONDIZI: THE FAILURE OF LEGITIMIZATION In 1958, national elections brought to power the Union Civica Radical Intransigente (UCRI), a faction of the old Radical party (UCR...
...When the military seized State power in 1943, the coup did not, as in 1930, signal the return of the landowning bourgeoisie as a ruling class...
...Britain feared that if Argentina were Sefores: Es tiempo de decir que la policia debe ser no solamente respetada sino tambi6n honrada...
...Frondizi proved unable to assure the social tranquility and political order necessary to cement a bourgeois democracy...
...military aid...
...This time, the Peronists abstained from voting in protest against their party's exclusion from the electoral process...
...ECLA...
...In fact, while helping to offset an unfavorable balance of trade, import substitute industrialization allowed the dominant class to adapt itself to the changing conditions in the world market...
...133 respectively.9 For instance, in order to attract foreign capital, Argentina was forced to submit to the economic policies of the International Monetary Fund...
...4 7 THE 30's: REGROUPING OF SOCIAL FORCES AROUND INDUSTRIAL UNDERDEVELOPMENT The general breakdown in international trade, the establishment of tariff barriers in metropolitan countries, and the emergence of the United States as an exporter of wheat elbowed Argentine exports out of their traditional markets...
...3 9 Foreign interests dominated: by 1926, U.S...
...capital, were nationalized (i.e., railroads, urban transport, gas and electric utilities, mass media and telephones...
...Import substitute industries increasingly attracted large amounts of capital and labor...
...Furthermore, the government devalued the peso and readjusted prices in favor of agricultural producers...
...4 4 This meant that the landowning bourgeoisie maintained its hegemony over the financing of production throughout the period of Radicalismo's dominance...
...Moreover, fascism fitted the Argentine bourgeoisie's ideological needs of nationalism and their approach to the working class...
...These obstacles were reinforced at the Ottowa Conference where the United Kingdom accorded preferential treatment to its dominions -- Canada, Australia and New Zealand...
...The increased penetration and domination of the strategic sectors (banking, manufacturing, trade, public services, wholesaling and retailing) by U.S...
...The military, led by former Commander-inChief of the Army, General Juan Carlos Ongania, seized power in 1966...
...416-417...
...The limited nature of industrial growth did not conflict with the interest of the predominant segment of the landowning class, which sought to decrease imports to the level of exports...
...The working class ws to respond by organizing itself into a strong political force, fighting persistently to regain those economist rights -- political participation and wage increases -- attained during Peronism...
...ers had achieved the fewest economist demands...
...In 1952, the government granted a major concession to Armour & Co...
...Taking place at a time when the landowning bourgeoisie suffered its hegemonic crisis, due to the rupture in the foreign sector, Peronism sought to create autonomous capitalist development...
...On the one hand, this brought the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie into contradiction with those of the landowning class...
...Once Peron was overthrown, resistance to U.S...
...The most significant of these, in 1918, led to the formation of the International Socialist Party (a forerunner of the Argentine Communist Party) which joined the Third International.38 In as much as the workers' movement postulated a total transformation of society and through militant strikes threatened landowning and foreign capital interests, it was brutally suppressed...
...It should be noted that metropolis control of this accumulated debt offers a marvelous lever for manipulating the economy to their advantage...
...In the 1950's, however, the Church tried to establish...
...Conglomerates and multinational corporations, concenBohemia (Cuba) TABLE 4 COST OF LIVING INDEX Year Index Varintio Yeanr Index Varintion 1915 2.3 1955 19.8 + 130%c 1920 4.0 + 74% 196;0 100.2 + 406 % 1925 2.9 - 28 % 1965 283.8 - :;3 1930 2.8 - 3...
...7 0 Thanks to the services rendered by these key men, U.S...
...The middle sectors, increasingly lost their capacity to follow the traditional parliamentary route...
...In Argentina, intra-class contradictions (vaguely aligned with inter-imperialist ones), were reinforced by the instability generated by World War II...
...Young workers seized their factories and took to the streets...
...This lack of available capital necessarily constrained export-related industrial development, and contracted the capacity of Argentina to import manufactured goods...
...For example, the state monopolies decreased their prices they paid for commodities, including beef...
...14,780 in December of 1958 on foreign capital investment in the country...
...this resulted in the massacre of 2000 persons by the military...
...303-5...
...and British firms did most of the slaughtering of the cattle and controlled the marketing of produce...
...this dependency forced a readjustment among the dominant classes and a polarization between classes...
...They not only produced systems for the training and equipping of Latin American armies and police forces for the maintenance of political stability in economic crisis, but also resulted in the transformation of the U.S...
...When ITT's holdings were expropriated, the U.S...
...In 1946, 29.1 percent of the industrial establishments, employing 10.7 percent of the industrial workers, were concentrated in the Capital Federal...
...See Part I, pp...
...6 2 The public debt was stabilized and reduced through a favorable balance of trade...
...Moreover, industrialization was of a peripheral nature, sustaining its dynamic growth by relying on the basic industries of the developed countries...
...13 Young Lcrds...
...Smith, from Table 2.4, Rural Society Representation in Inaugural Cabinets, 1910-1943, p. 49...
...new loans and credits were extended...
...13 U.S...
...The high concentration in these industries provided the economic base for the industrial bourgeoisie (59 firms controlled 50 percent of industrial production in 1954).63 But after 1950, these same industries became increasingly dependent on U.S...
...Other services 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.6 7.7 7.3 SOURCE: PEL, based on data published In the Yearbook of Current Accounts, for 1955 and 1957...
...The presidential election of 1963 brought the Union Civica Radical del Pueblo (UCRP...
...In Buenos Aires, a metalworkers' strike at the Pedro Vasena plant (mixed Anglo-Argentine capital) became the nucleus of a series of solidarity strikes throughout Argentina...
...For instance, the growth rate in the production of electrical and metallurgical machinery surpassed that of the 1937-45 period (see Table 3 ). This process took place within the context of further concentration of capital, primarily in the dynamic industries (e.g., electric, chemical, synthetic fibers, etc...
...This contradiction was aggravated by the law of exchange control introduced by the Central Bank, which made available to the industrial sector foreign exchange funnelled out from the agro-export sector...
...According to the 1925 Census, of the 91 banks in Argentina, five controlled 60.3% of the total capital, 57.5% of loans and 60% of deposits...
...This crisis in the job market was intensified by the internal rural-to-urban migration which followed the decline in agro-exports of the early 1950's...
...Their collective orientation was presented by Ambassador Stanton Griffis (1949-51) when he arrived in Buenos Aires: I will carry out ny assignment trom the point of view of a businessman...
...As quoted in George I. Blanksten, Peron's rgentina, (Chicago, [Chicago, 1953] pp...
...I have drawn heavily on this study for the analysis of intra-class conflicts, alliances and fusions for the 1930-1940 period...
...Finally, increased wages stimulated the development of an internal market...
...company received $95 million in compensation...
...A rise in foreign investments, however, did not shake the economy out of its stagnation...
...Victor Testa, "Significacion del Capital Internacional en la Industria Argentina: El Capital Norteamericano," in Fichas, Vol...
...A rise in agricultural prices, in the domestic market, meant that consumers spent a greater percentage of their income in purchasing foodstuffs than manufactured goods...
...The brain trusts created subtle and not-sosubtle techniques of couterinsurgency to meet the guerrilla and insurrectionary movements in rural and urban Latin America...
...However, strikes no longer brought victories to the working class...
...companies accounted for 19.2 percent of sales in electrical equipment 69 MILITARY RULE: THE END OF BOURGEOIS DEMOCRACY The count of 1962 brought to the fore the divisions within the upper class with regard to the working class whose identification with Peronism still remained high...
...The result was that it now started to become conscious of its own revolutionary goals...
...During Peron's first Presidency, the Church became a supporter of populism...
...The "Tragic Week" of January 1919 best illustrates Radicalismo's anti-labor stance...
...Insofar as the middle sectors and the nationally oriented sectors of the landowning bourgeoisie gained access to political power, they weakened the hegemony-of the traditional ruling class...
...evolved into a regional strategy of liberation from U.S...
...Their recommendations influenced Alvear's selection of his Minister of War...
...Prior to 1930, European immigration, concentrated in the cities, provided commerce and industry with a labor force...
...The relative autonomy previously enjoyed by the bourgeoisie gave way to clear cut satellization...
...En un cierto sentido, se puede decir que en la historia, el polibia ha precedido al profesor...
...It appeared first in the cities where the work- a supportive capacity...
...imperialism...
...As a cooptive measure, he permitted the working class to express itself through the Partido Justicialista (under Peronist command...
...At the same time, foreign firms sought to integrate nationally owned firms into their line of production...
...Peter G. Snow, "Argentine Political Parties and the 1966 Revolution," (University of Iowa, 1968), prepared for conference on Political Parties and International Stability in Latin America, held at SUNY at Buffalo, March 21-22,.1968...
...When in 1925 the Union Industrial Argentina (Argentine Industrial Union) granted honorary membership to the Sociedad Rural Argentina, it only recognized a well-known fact: "most of Argentina's industry at the time NACLA NEWSLETTER Vol...
...ambassadors that have served in Argentina from 1939 to the present reveals that seven were career diplomats ad six were big businessmen...
...In the words of Peron himself, "We seek to suppress the struggles between classes, and to supplant them by a just agreement between workers and employers -- that is to say, the people -- under the sheltering justice that emanates from the State...
...imperialism with the Argentine industrial and landowning bourgeoisies relegated to the status of junior partners...
...imperialism...
...A new set of international contradictions emerged, placing the dominant segment of the Argentine bourgeoisie in conflict with the United States and in collusion with both the British and Axis markets...
...eight U.S...
...By 1930, the military was neither foreign to politics nor inexperienced in its role as a praetorian guard...
...and meat, over 50 percent...
...14 U.S...
...companies also showed a marked control over the domestic market of basic and manufacturing goods...
...The stockmen themselves were split into two factions: breeders and fatteners...
...As grains gave way to meats as the most important export commodity, it became increasingly clear that the Roca-Runciman Treaty assured only the stockmen of a steady market for their goods...
...As Table 4 shows, in the period 1955 to 1960, the cost of living index skyrocketed by 400 percent...
...sources: Alberto J. Pla, America Latina Siglo XX: Economia, Sociedad y Revolucion (Buenos Aires, 1969) p. 232...
...there was a conflict over consumer markets...
...Despite minor nationalist measures dealing primarily with the petroleum industry, Irigoyen left the Argentine economy almost exactly as he found it: dependent on the world market for the sale of its cereals and meats, and the national economy depepdent on the agrarian sector...
...The establishment of the Industrial Bank in 1944, along with a strengthened system of controlled exchange, promoted light industry...
...II, pp...
...Economically weakened by the depression, their political power rested cn the resumption of fraudulent elections and repression of the working class movement...
...4 5 President Alvear (1922-28) was himself a prominent member of this Society...
...In order to understand the military's role in the coup, some background information is needed...
...TABLE 6 ARGENTINA: IMPORTS OF GOODS (percentages) Consumer Raw Fuels & Capital Goods Materials Luoricants Goods Total 1937-39 40.2 19.9 8.2 31.7 100% 1947-49 21.2 24.4 10.6 43.8 100 1950 11.9 29.6 17.1 41.2 100 1957 7.7 46.0 23.1 23.3 100 1960 9.7 36.1 13.5 35.2 100 1965 9.2 53.2 10.2 23.3 100 Sources: Arthur P. Whitaker, The United States and Argentina (Cambridge, 1954), p. 198...
...6 4 Finally, the bourgeoisie, hoping to accelerate the economy's shift toward U.S...
...However, this crack in the power structure never brought it to the point of collapse...
...For example, Hipolite Irigoyen, the Radical president of Argentina from 1916 to 1922 and again from 1928 to 1930, was himself a rich Buenos Aires estanciero (landowner who sells his produce in the internal market...
...With the bourgeoisie weakened, new groups vied for power...
...This will be my function...
...In other words, they were excluded from seems to have crossed geographic boundaries and government and economic well-being...
...When the military coup occurred, their passive response insured them a minor role in the post-Peron governments...
...2. Years are 1931, 1934, 1945, 1949, and 1955...
...See Table 9; the equivalent figures for 1969 in the major sectors are: manufacturing 35.4 percent, agriculture-livestock 16.9 percent, commerce and finance 20.8 percent...
...under its control, a faction in the labor movement...
...See Part I, p. 6. 40...
...In these circumstances, any incident could produce a conflict of a new and unexpected magnitude...
...At the same time the increasing unemployment, caused by the long periods of recession and by the installation of capital-intensive large enterprises with a high technological performance, eliminated the tradeunions' room for manoeuver and obliged them to move beyond mere economism by an increasing resort to political mobilizations of the working class...
...Though Radicalismo defined itself in political opposition to the previous foreign-oriented landowning regime, it remained The NACLA NEWSLETTER is published ten times a year by the North American Congress on Latin America...
...By 1891, the movement had a shortlived central federation, the Federacion de Trabajadores de la Region Argentina...
...wheat, 20 percent...
...The petit bourgeois and working class elements which emerged and expanded in the late 19th century sought out political means to express their needs...
...13-14...
...This led to the curtailment of foreign immigration in the early 30's, enabling peasants to find employment in the Litoral cities...
...LOS RADICALES LOS RADICALES LOS RADICALES LOS RADIC The landowning bourgeoisie, threatened in its ability to extract surplus capital, and supported by commercial and emergent industrial sectors, chose to consolidate its weakened political power by calling on the military...
...The process of turning over the economy to foreign control was most clearly exemplified in the dramatic rise in the long term public debt...
...Imports of manufactured goods diminished significantly (from 39.1 percent to 11.8 percent of total imports between 1945 and 1952), while imported capital goods rose from 13.3 percent to 41.5 percent of total imports between 1945 and 1950...
...The landowning bourgeiosie raised the cattle...
...British coal became exempt from import duties and 1930 tariffs remained frozen for all other goods...
...Economist labor urban guerrilla warfare, to achieve national along leaders were displaced from the center of political with international liberation...
...Finally, practically all were from the U.S...
...and on the board of ADELA Co., a multinational corporation -- as Minister of Economy, gave foreign capital confidence in the regime...
...This marked a return to a "limited democracy" form of government based on the restriction of popular participation...
...UCRI's electoral program was tailored to meet the demands of the Argentine bourgeoisie for the capital, capital goods and technology needed to revitalize the nation's economy...
...IMPERIALISM: THE INTEGRATION OF THE BOURGEOISIE The coup of 1955 clarified the social, economic and political crisis of the populist regime and brought to an end the period of autonomous capitalist development which had begun in 1935...
...The revitalization of the Argentine economy would occur within the framework of U.S...
...In the 1940's and 1950's, six also served in Cuba or had important business connections with that country...
...Thus, Germany and England preferred a neutral Argentina...
...10 for institutions...
...3 4 These elements of the dominant PART 2 classes in the original Buenos Aires leadership of the UCR, however, were not closely tied to the world market...
...In the interior, Radicalismo was composed of those landowning sectors not admitted into their own provincial power structures...
...Following the military occupation of the universities in 1966, students gained exFOOTNOTES 37...
...Sefiores: Es tiempode decir que el hombre, antes de sentir la necesidad de la cultura, ha sentido la necesidad del orden...
...In addition, Alvaro Alsogaray, former Argentine Ambassador to the United States, represented the interests of Deltec International Corp...
...In so doing, they finally went beyond the limits of liberalism and began to comprehend the historical meaning of Peronism...
...Following the initiation of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the United States began to rationalize the administration of its Latin American empire...
...goods...
...Among these were the Alliance for Progress and the American Institute for Free Labor Development (AIFLD...
...During the 1935-46 period, half-a-million persons entered the industrial labor force, an increase of over 100 percent...
...Insofar as the working class was concerned, industrialization, under conservative control, followed the tradition of classical capital accumulation through worker exploitation...
...Thus, during Peronism no one class could control State power...
...Bagu, p. 74...
...and roads were constructed, facilitating the urban-rural movement of goods...
...In 1961, U.S...
...by 1941, the numbers decreased to 3,000 and 200,000 respectively...
...In addition, the domestic consumption of foodstuffs rose steadily according to increased demand in the urban areas...
...The imperialist role of the IMF is described in Hector Melo and Israel Yost, "Funding the Empire, Part II: The Multinational Strategy," NACLA Newsletter, Vol...
...Political parties were on he decline...
...Under this condition it was no longer possible to satisfy simultaneously both the economist demands of the working class and the capital-technological needs of the industrial bourgeoisie...
...investments realized a 15.2 percent return on total capital invested and a 17.0 percent return on capital invested in manufacturing...
...IV, No...
...The presence of Adalbert Kreiger Vasena -- director of National Lead Co...
...On the one hand, the anarchosyndicalists were influential in the militant strikes that preceded Irigoyen...
...New Zealand...
...An increased and stabilized world demand for chilled beef gave them a monopoly control over sales to the export market...
...As exports fell, the landowning bourgeoisie's surplus contracted and the industrial bourgeoisie was constrained in its ability to import capital goods (machinery, equipment, fuels and raw materials...
...technology...
...With the conclusion of World War II, the United States had emerged as the metropolitan center of the capitalist world...
...Smith, pp...
...1 have devoted all my lfe to business, and it is the only thing I know...
...a faction of the old Radical Party in opposition the the UCRIS' to rule...
...3, p. 60...
...56.6 percent of the establishments with 69.6 percent of the workers were in the Capital 4 Federal and Buenos Airds province...
...39...
...It is in this context that the working class is revealed as the enemy of capitalist "development...
...3 When compulsory military service was established in 1901, the military became a socializing institution...
...capital-technological dependency, turned to the military for a coup d'etat...
...Following a period of capitalist growth based on intense labor exploitation, the working class, systematically excluded from political power, found its demands unfulfilled, its experiences in struggle frustrated...
...Postin Paper on omen...
...presidents chose their successors...
...As economism fails, workers were forced to resort perience in clandestine activities...
...This factor opened up the possibilities for a national populist regime...
...In the Capital Federal alone, 36 banks held 79.5% of the total capital, 95.7% of loans and 84.7% of deposits...
...Governments after 1963 tried to cutback on Fondizi's exhorbitant spending, but to this day the Argentine economy remains saddled with an overwhelming burden...
...The resulting economic crisis affected all social classes...
...This was an extension of Plan Conintes, the domestic component of the Argentine military's overall counter-revolutionary strategy...
...Next the government handed over a lucrative concession to Standard Oil of California in order to raise domestic petroleum production and diminish expensive imports...
...companies accounted for 15.6 percent of sales in chemical products...
...Much of the class analysis on roots and emergence of Peronist national populism was drawn from Juan Carlos Portantiero and Miguel Murmis, "El Movimiento Obrero en los Origenes del Peronismo," working paper No...
...The unpaid debt Includes the authorized loans sinous disbursements, so that it comprises the disbursed and undisbursed portions of authorized loans...
...1 Che...
...invasion of the Dominican Republic precipitated the overthrow of the regime...
...This process of industrialization redefined the nature of Argentine dependency and spurred a regrouping of social forces, leading to a new configuration of class alliances, fusions and contradictions...
...control...
...Throughout the sixties, the percentage contribution of economic sectors to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) remains constant...
...oats, 32 percent...
...Ferrer, p. 99...
...Irigoyen's popular base became alienated from his government, and a social-political crisis resulted...
...7 211 TABLE No...
...I do not know any better way to improve relations between wo countries than bv the establishment of reciprocal trade...
...The Socialists, in turn, created the Union General de Trabajadores (UGT...
...In short, the Sgialists coalesced while the Communists were repressed...
...In rupturing those ties, however, World War II withdrew the stabilizing mechanisms of metropolis-satellite relations...
...Moreover, the British expected that, following the war, Argentina would remain within her Imperial domain...
...This monopoly, reinforced by their control over the Argentine Rural Society, sustained the privileged position of the fatteners among the stockmen and made them the dominant sector of the landowning bourgeoisie...
...However, from 1916 to 1922, Irigoyen chose to ignore army requests for modernization of its forces...
...On the one hand, industry needed a domestic market in which to place its manufactured goods...
...It now started to turn toward a popular alliance whose basic axis could only be workingclass...
...of_the Illia government, the political life span of the regime expired...
...A study of the thirteen U.S...
...The decline was greatest for salaried service workers, and skilled workers suffered more than unskilled...
...49, (Buenos Aires: Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, Centro de Investigaciones Sociales, 1968), p. 17-19...
...As bourgeois democracy failed to provide the conditions necessary for imperialist development, the Argentine armed forces increased in political power...
...65 From 1955 to 1958, the provisional military government partially implemented what was known as the "Prebisch Plan," a strategy geared to the elimination of those industries with a low rate of capital accumulation and productivity and a high labor concentration...
...1, No...
...On the other hand, the "developmentists," with industrial interests, were best represented by a segment of the Army, led by General Juan Carlos Ongania...
...It could not challenge the interests of the hegemonic sector of the landowning bourgeoisie (tied to the world market) as long as the agro export sector remained the base of the Argentine economy...
...In addition, friction arose over control of certain key unions such as the meat packers union...
...The latter were especially hard hit and their economic decline was soon transformed into poltical opposition...
...academic community into the "fourth armed service" of U.S...
...Testa, p. 8. 51...
...II, p. 11...
...112-3...
...Brazil...
...4 9 Industrial productign expanded by 53.7 percent between 1937 and 1946U and the number of workers employed in industrial enterprises (employing more than ten workers) doubled (from 440,582 to 936,387) in the period 1935-46.51 Industrial growth also reinforced the trend toward economic centralization in the Litoral, and primarily in the Capital Federal and Gran (metropolitan) Buenos Aires...
...7 1 The military regime had thus now simultaneously antagonized the democratic tradition of the middle sectors) and the populist tradition of the working-class movement, and potentially created the conditions for their alliance...
...The utilization of highly advanced industrial technology in underdeveloped Argentina caused severe labor dislocations (i.e., unemployment...
...The internal market was in check: an inflationary process had set in (between 1946 and 1952 money in circulation jumped from 17 to 45 billion pesos...
...They wiped out the Uturunco guerrilla front in Tucuman (1958), enforced a state of seige six months after Frondizi's inauguration and implemented Plan Conintes (see above...
...Moreover, the Radicales failed to fulfill all their campaign promises to the Peronist supporters which had been crucial for their election in 1958...
...These disadvantageous arrangements, as well as strong competition even within the British market, forced the Argentine bourgeoisie to gravitate toward the Axis market...
...The depletion of available surplus set the stage for the demise of Peronism...
...From then on, the rapid monopolization of industry, under further U.S...
...Rural unemployment soared, propelling a mass migration to the urban centers...
...direct investments in manufacturing rose 60 percent in five years (1963-68) while overall U.S...
...6 6 As small businesses closed, the reserve labor force expanded and the ranks of the under- and unemployed swelled...
...Reliance on surplus capital from the export sector left industrialization dependent on that (agrarian)sector, and subject to fluctuations in the world market...
...Alfredo Parera Dennis, "Una Decada Decisiva en la Formacion de la Moderna Clase Obrera Argentina: 1935-1945" in Fichas..., Ano...
...61...
...In order to attract the unorganized new proletarian masses, parallel trade unions were established from the top down...
...Deltec, another multinational firm, recently bought out International Packers Limited (a meat producer) and has on its board the Klebergs of the notorious King Ranch...
...and seven U.S...
...The surplus was channelled to the industrial sector...
...Throughout the thirties, the British-oriented segments of the ruling class had the upper hand...
...The Communist and Socialist parties, predominant in the leadership of the CGT (Confederacion General de Trabajadores), failed to introduce new forms of struggle...
...Peron, an army colonel, rose from Secretary of Labor and Welfare to Minister of War, then to Vice President under Farrell, and finally to President in 1946...
...The military's economic plan was oriented to service the needs of U.S...
...In this venture, the ruling class was backed by anti-Irigoyen Radicals and the right-wing Independent Socialist Party...
...5 2 As the capitalist mode of production strengthened itself through industrial capital accumulation, in and around Buenos Aires, the demand for labor expanded...
...which may not have taken Into account some of the recently as yet undisbursd authorlzed loans...
...as an autonomous capitalist class it was now dead...
...Bourgeois democracy proved unable to cope with the deepening-class antagonisms and unable to secure the position of the ruling class...
...Guido Di Tella and Manuel Zymelman, Las Etapas12 del esarrollo Economico Argentino (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1967), p. 84...
...Since domestic savings were insufficient to finance industrial growth (Argentina had not recovered from the post-War depletion of its monetary reserves), the government approved Law No...
...Instead, the CGT, wrought by internal dissention, split into two factions in 1942: CGT-1 (socialists) and CGT-2 (communists...
...IAPI was a state monopoly for the buying and selling of agricultural products...
...Public services, previously under the control of British, German or U.S...
...and U.S...
...At one time they exported 30 percent of all Argentine grains and, being middlemen for many other products, Bunge and Born came to control most of the available foreign exchange...
...Foreign firms demanded a stabilized economy and the government complied: wage freezes were instituted, strikes were banned and the currency stablized after an initial devaluation...
...The industrial bourgeoisie, hurt by a sharp decline in consumer capacity, vied for a greater participation in the power structure...
...The government, led by a group of Army officers (the GOU), attempted to enlist the support of the existing trade unions -- CGT 1 and 2. CGT 2 refused to cooperate and was crushed while CGT 1 implemented the government's program...
...Disoriented and frustrated in their experiences, the rank-and-file turned away from active political or trade-union participation...
...5 7 Conflicts among the international imperial powers impeded any world metropolitan center from dominating the country...
...A national populist regime evolved wherein the diverse social classes found, through compromise, satisfaction of their perceived interests...
...by 1952, net gold and exchange reserves had fallen to 1,354 million pesos...
...Once in power, Radicalismo turned out to be no more than a variation in the status quo whose possibilities and limitations were well known to and controlled by the traditional ruling class...
...upper class-- not one was a labor leader, professional, black, a woman, Chicano or Puerto Rican...
...to join the Allies, Germany would impede the flow of goods from Argentina to Britain...
...In the words of Ongania himself, "The country welcomes foreign investment and it neither fears nor distrusts foreign capital...
...Furthermore, from 1916 to 1930, ten out of a total of 21 cabinet posts were held by members of the Sociedad Rural Argentina (Argentine Rural Society) -- the crucial core of the landowning upper class...
...The next one, the Federaci Obrera Argentina (FOA), founded in 1904, was crushed, but reorganized itself as the Federacion Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA...
...capital (see Table 7 ) initiated a process of vertical and horizontal integration of the Argentine economy...
...To this end, the State adopted economic measures for strengthening the development of the industrial bourgeoisie...
...The Argentine post ranks very high in assignments--six ambassadors served as Under Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs (or its previous equivalent) just before or after being stationed in Buenos Aires-- primarily because of the country's important world-wide commercial operations and investment opportunities...
...investments increased 35 percent in the same years...
...National populism was by now inimical to imperialism, By this time the industrial bourgeoisie's need for capital, capital goods and technology forced it to submit tO the new metropolis...
...attempts to include the country in mutual defense agreements and bring the market under its domination proved to no avail...
...Besides vertically integrating Armour's meat packing operations and thus raising its profits, the agreement permitted the export of production in excess of Argentine consuption...
...Benito Mussolini - .5 TABLE 3: ANNUAL GROWTH RATE OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT (1937-55) Foodstuffs Textiles Metals Vehicles and Machinery Electrical Equipment 1937-45 2.90 11.80 -0.06 5.00 1.06 1945-55 2.93 1.39 9.12 5.74 45.10 Source: Juan Carlos Esteban, Imperialismo y Desarrollo Economico (Buenos Aires: Editorial Palestra, 1961), Table 1, p. 19...
...companies controlled 330 million and British companies 228 million cubic meters of volume in freezing chambers and meat deposits, while Argentine companies held only 86,000.40 A year later, a new meat pool gave the United States control over 54.9 percent of meat exports, the United Kingdom 35.1 percent, and Argentina 10 percent...
...Testa, from Chart 1, p. 6. 52...
...4 3 The trend toward capital concentration and centralization in the Litoral carried over into the financial and commercial sectors...
...See Table 8.) 10 TABLE No...
...The Communist Party, at the time, put its energies into a popular front to support the Allied cause...
...But, when Irigoyen returned to the presidency in 1928, he cut back on military appropriations and, ignoring the Circulo's candidate, appointed his own Minister of War...
...After this it includes petroleum and several other sectors and is obviousely used to mask some of the data after 1950...
...In these conditions, the workers' movement could only become politically effective as the organized nucleus and vanguard of the entire popular masses...
...This systematic suppression of labor was a part of the continuing capitalist consolidation of the economy...
...Middle sectors joined in ness...
...See Smith and Miquel Iurmis and Juan Carlos Portanteiro, "Crecimiento Industrial y Alianza de Clases en la Agrentina (1930-1940)," working paper No...
...mark(ing) the beginning of the end for Frondizi who was deposed by the armed forces just eleven days later...
...The result was a political radicalization of this group which made it increasingly difficult to keep within the dominant oligarchic bloc formed in 1955...
...Although real wages had increased between 1943 and 1949, by the time Peron was overthrown in 1955 they had fallen back to approximately their pre-Peron era...
...Through this penetration, the bourgeoisie began its process of satellization...
...In the commercial sector, the firm of Bunge and Born, founded by BelgianJewish financiers with world-wide connections, controlled over fifty companies, including flour mills, estancias, chemical and industrial firms, and loan associations...
...The first real break in this direction occurred in 1950 when the government agreed to guarantee a $125 million loan from the United States Export-Import Bank to purchase U.S...
...The resulting inflation particularly squeezed the salaried middle sectors...
...Henry W. Lavrant, Factors Affecting Foreign Investments in Argentina (Menlo Park, Cal.:Stanford Research Institute, 1963), International Development Center, Investment Series-5, p. 29...
...In addition, the army was put in charge of overseeing elections...
...U.S...
...often they needed and received technical or management assistance to develop their potential....many companies have found it a good investment for the long run, both from a purely business viewpoint and as evidence of their wholehearted integration into the Argentine Community (sic...
...On the other hand, the wage freezes produced wide discontent among the popular masses, making them a viable political means for a populist regime...
...as well as obIlgatlols derived from notes drawn on tile IF...
...See an article in three parts by Charles J.V...
...Such monopolies centralized the buying of foodstuffs and therefore regulated prices so that the State took most of the surplus from agricultural trade for reinvestment in the industrial sector...
Vol. 4 • October 1970 • No. 6
