The Radical Administration, 1916-30
A new era in Argentine politics commenced upon Yrigoyen's victory in 1916, brought about by a coalition of disparate groups united by the ideas of political participation and the redistribution of the benefits of the nation's exports. The UCR found its support among the former middle class of criollo independent farmers and the new middle class of children of immigrants — small shopkeepers and white-collar government workers. The immigrant industrial middle class had been growing since the 1890s but had not previously participated in Argentina's political life. Yrigoyen, the party leader turned president, was himself a schoolteacher and small farmer.
After 1916 the general trend of Argentine politics was determined by the relationship between the various Radical governments and the Conservative elite, which controlled five out of the eight cabinet posts in Yrigoyen's cabinet. The political alliance of Radicals and Conservatives, domination of the economy by the export sector, and support of Radical policies by the urban professional middle class and labor groups characterized the period from 1916 to 1930. The major challenges to the Radical administrations in these years stemmed from conflicts arising among these groups, which seemed to threaten the elite's relationship with foreign capital and markets. Another trademark of Yrigoyen's administration was the introduction of a personalistic political style revolving around the president.
At the time of Yrigoyen's inauguration, the country was in the midst of an economic depression that resulted from a lack of foreign investments and trade. These in turn resulted from a financial crisis in Europe and the Great War. Despite opposition from congressional leaders, Yrigoyen maintained Argentina's neutrality all through the war. The war generated higher shipping charges and production costs in Europe, to which the Argentine market responded by curbing imports and raising prices. By 1917 growing demand for Argentine primary products in the European markets created another boom era that lasted until 1921, when the effects of the postwar recession began to influence international trade. Inflation became a major concern of Yrigoyen's government, which found itself caught between the urban consumers and the export interests of the elite.
To appease the urban sectors, the government developed a system of patronage, which was sternly opposed by the socialists. Opposition to Yrigoyen's personal power over middleclass groups developed within the Radical coalition itself. The system of favoritism led to an increase in public spending after 1918, a tendency to alienate urban groups outside the bureaucracy's clientele, growing tensions with elite sectors, and the preeminence of Buenos Aires over the interior provinces.
One of the most important benefits acquired by the middle class was the university reform of 1918, which provided for more comprehensive criteria for university entry, changes in university curricula, and the establishment of new universities. The reform, however, was only granted in response to student strikes that denounced the ills of scholastic and clerical influences in Argentine universities.
The main source of friction between the Radical government and the elites developed in relation to the working class, whose support was needed by the Radicals in congressional disputes and for the political control of urban Buenos Aires. To defend the workers was to take a stand against the exploitation of their cheap labor by the elite and indirectly by the foreign interests. Because the government lacked congressional support and because no legislative measures had been introduced to integrate workers into the political process, the main avenue for contacts between the government and the workers was the series of strikes that occurred between 1916 and 1919.
The strikes resulted from rising inflation and a drop in workers' real wages during the prewar and postwar economic recessions in Argentina. Government involvement in the strikes stemmed from its control and strategic use of the police force. In reality, the government tended to blame foreign enterprises for labor grievances, as in the cases of the maritime workers' strikes of 1916-17 and the railroad strikes of 1917. By doing so, the government hoped to neutralize the socialists and allow for the growth of the more moderate syndicalists within the union movement. In 1917 and 1918 strikers involved in conflicts with the government of Buenos Aires (as in the case of the municipal workers' strikes) or whose actions interfered with the export interests (in the railroad stoppage and the meatpackers' strikes) were harshly suppressed.
Tensions between the government and the Conservative elite over the strike situation came to a head during the socalled Semana Tragica (Tragic Week) in January 1919. The conflict developed from a metalworkers' strike in November 1918, which grew to a general "solidarity" strike in January 1919 that was followed by severe repression. Despite the strike's ending, civilian and paramilitary groups continued the violence and attacked the Russian-Jewish community in the center of Buenos Aires on charges of communist activism among immigrants. The bloody reaction against the immigrants unveiled the fears of the upper and middle classes that strikes were political conspiracies. The government's labor policies thus became an obstacle to ongoing middle- and upper-class political support. At that point a new group of power brokers was born in Argentina — the armed forces.
The Semana Trágica almost provoked the government's collapse. A new paramilitary vigilante organization threatened the government; the Liga Patriôtica (Patriotic League), a loose coalition of conservative and liberal groups, replaced the criterion of class conflict with one of Nationalism against communism. Institutionalized in 1919, the Liga provided the military support for the control of workers and agitators. Meanwhile that same year 259 strikes took place in Buenos Aires, and a movement for unionization of workers gained strength. The government used both the repression of strikes and political patronage to co-opt the international business interests, the army, and the elite. However, the events of January 7-17, 1919, underlined the frailness — despite Yrigoyen's charisma — of the first Radical government and also demonstrated the revolutionary potential of the Argentine labor movement.
During the last two years of Yrigoyen's administration continual attempts were made to gain support among members of the Liga, the military, the church, the international interests, and the elite. After the government acted against a dockworkers' strike in 1921, unionization was discouraged.
Despite conflicts with labor, the Radical administration enacted a homestead law and a series of laws that regulated hours of labor, minimum wages, and female and child labor. It also established municipal workers' pensions; required arbitration in international disputes; reduced penalties for strikes; called for supervision of the manufacture and distribution of dangerous materials; created water and sewage systems for Argentine urban communities; and founded numerous universities and primary schools. The postwar economic slump, coupled with labor agitation and congressional opposition, handicapped further legislation. The government's commitment to the rough reform program was realized only by the following administration.
The inflationary trend of the war and postwar periods ended with the postwar recession in 1921. In the 1920s a decline in agricultural production took place as a result of the scarcity of both finance capital and new lands to be brought under cultivation. There was also a shift in the international demand for agricultural products from grains to beef. This new phase of the Argentine economy was characterized by an increasing presence of United States interests, which provided both financial capital and goods to Argentina and became increasingly linked to Argentine industrialization.
Between 1923 and 1927, when total foreign investments in Argentina grew from 3.2 billion to 3.6 billion pesos, United States investments rose from 200 million to 505 million pesos. In the 1920s Argentine politics, previously dominated by the relationships between the elite and the urban working class, changed to reflect those between the elite and the middle class.
Radical candidate Marcelo T. de Alvear won the 1922 elections. During Alvear's administration the Radicals split over the question of government spending. Yrigoyenistas (Yrigoyen's supporters) defended the patronage system, while alvearistas (Alvear's backers) defended government budget cuts. In 1923 Alvear ended his emphasis on controlling spending because the unpopular measures were undermining his political support. At local UCR conventions the next year, two factions appeared that identified themselves as for or against Yrigoyen's personalistic brand of politics. Those aligned against Yrigoyen were led by Vicente C. Gallo, who founded the Antipersonalist Radical Civic Union. The remainder of Alyear's administration was characterized by his attempts to play one faction against the other.
Despite his advanced age, Yrigoyen maintained his leadership position and popular support, and after 1924 the yrigoyenista faction of the UCR strengthened its power base among the middle-class groups that longed for a return of the patronage system. The faction also tried to win working-class support by reminding workers of Yrigoyen's intervention in favor of the strikes of the previous decade. Yrigoyen's move was facilitated by a crisis within the PS, which split into two factions upon the creation of the Independent Socialist Party, which advocated patronage to win urban middle-class support.
By 1925 the yrigoyenistas found it more politically acceptable to justify government spending on the promotion of industrialization and the defense of the country's natural resources. Economic Nationalism and, in particular, the nationalization of foreign-owned oil resources became a popular rallying cry. This political program gave Yrigoyen a landslide victory in the elections of 1928.
In 1928 the yrigoyenistas changed their political power base from the old landowning elites to the urban professional middle class. Purges of Alvear's partisans, growing corruption, and abuses of power came to characterize Yrigoyen's second term in office. Yrigoyen used the banner of anti-communism to consolidate his position toward the army and the elite groups. Government troops were used to crush labor unrest in Santa Fe in late 1928 and early 1929.
No attempt was made to revive former labor policies, and labor was controlled through local UCR committees that used patronage to elicit support for the government. At the same time, the government favored British interests over both the local working class and United States economic interests in Argentina. Yrigoyen had no majority in the Senate and turned to the provinces to secure support for his Nationalist policies toward Argentine natural resources. Despite growing violence in Buenos Aires, the government continued to enjoy middle-class support.
The Wall Street stock market crash of October 1929 brought severe declines in agricultural prices and investments in Argentina in 1930. Adverse climatic conditions and the Great Depression provoked the collapse of the export sector. The resulting inflation and decline in imports further hampered the government's financial position and its ability to maintain its system of political patronage, thus undermining its popular support. Radicalism, which had sprung up through periods of growth, crumbled during times of stagnation and depression. Argentina's attempt at popular democracy failed, but it unveiled a pluralistic society within a political structure that was distinguished by elitism and privilege.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
