The Road to Popular Democracy
The 1880s saw the emergence of popular political forces that represented the criollo-immigrant masses, which opposed the Conservative liberalism of the oligarchy. The release of these forces was prompted by the financial debacle of 1889-90 and the emergence of new leadership in Leandro N. Alem and Bernardo de Yrigoyen. Alem, a man of austerity, denounced the regime's corruption to the young audience gathered at the local Civic Union meeting hall in April 1890. Three months later the Union Civica was firmly established as a political movement, having gained the support of dissatisfied Catholics, military officers, and workers. In Buenos Aires Alem led a rebellion in July that, despite being suppressed, forced Celman to resign. Vice President Pellegrini completed Celman's presidential term.
The 1892 election was preceded by growing political unrest. The Conservative political forces favored the candidacy of Mitre but decided in favor of a compromise candidate, Luis Sáenz Peña, who also gained the support of the moderate faction of the Civic Union. Alem opposed the nomination and was arrested and exiled.
In 1891 two new parties emerged, Alem's Radical Civic Union (Union Civica Radical — UCR) and the National Civic Union (Union Civica Nacional), headed by Mitre. Sáenz Peña's administration was too honest to please the landed provincial elites organized into the Córdoba League, and it failed to gain any party support in Congress. After Alem returned from exile, he resumed his congressional duties and led the opposition in Congress. The UCR defended the principles of formal democracy under universal male suffrage and the mobilization of all sectors of society against the oligarchy.
By mid-1893 revolts had spread through the provinces of Santa Fe, San Luis, Tucumán, and Buenos Aires, only to be suppressed by Roca's forces. Sáenz Peña's position did not improve, and in early 1895 he resigned in favor of Vice President José Evaristo Uriburu. The weight of political pressures was also too much for Alem, who committed suicide in 1896 and left the leadership of the UCR to Bernardo de Yrigoyen and that of the Buenos Aires branch to his nephew Hipólito Yrigoyen. Until 1912 the political strategy of the UCR consisted of abstention from the usual electoral fraud and the promotion of "popular" uprisings against the government.
In 1896 the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista — PS) was founded by Juan B. Justo as a reformist party to represent the Argentine proletariat. It opposed both the oligarchy and the UCR for not being responsive to the social and economic grievances of the working class. Immigration brought the influence of European ideas, such as socialism and anarchism, to Argentine trade unions, and in 1905 and 1909 violence and strikes hit the urban areas. In 1890 the Argentine Regional Federation of Workers was formed as a central labor federation, but it soon disappeared.
In 1905 the Argentine Workers' Confederation was created. It was later reorganized as the Argentine Regional Federation of Workers, which became exclusively involved in syndicalist policies. Although they also provided leadership to the proletariat before 1916, socialists and anarchists more often battled each other on ideological principles than on social and political questions.
The strongest political organization that emerged from the popular movement was the UCR of Hipolito Yrigoyen. Its contempt for electoral participation, however, brought the return of Roca to the presidency in 1898.
By 1902 labor agitation was met with the Law of Residence, which provided for the deportation of labor organizers. The presidencies of Quintana and Alcorta were plagued by agitation promoted by the UCR against legislation passed during the Roca regime that provided for strict political control of the labor force in order to end unrest and violence. Alcorta continuously battled with Congress, and in January 1908 he closed it down. Under the influence of PS representatives between 1904 and 1907, important labor laws had been enacted, which, among other things, regulated female and child labor and provided rest on Sundays.
The government's presidential candidate in 1910 was Roque Sáenz Pena, who won the unanimous support of his peers in the oligarchy. He was the son of the former president and a man who had always defended electoral reform. Sáenz Pena realized the strength of the politicized masses under UCR leadership as well as the danger of excluding them from the government. He passed legislation on the rights of foreigners and on the secrecy of the ballot and compulsory universal male suffrage — the Sáenz Pena Law — just before taking a leave of absence in October 1912. He was succeeded by his vice president, Victorino de la Plaza, who enacted further labor laws on low-income housing, work injuries, and prohibition of attaching wages to pensions and retirement benefits.
The improvement of the electoral process during the administrations of Sáenz Pefla and his successor brought the UCR back into the electoral process in 1912. In these elections the UCR gained one-third of the seats in Congress and won the governorships of Santa Fe, Entre Rios, and Córdoba. Hipólito Yrigoyen won the presidential election in 1916 under the banner of the UCR.
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