Political Violence and Trauma in Argentina. Antonius C. G. M. Robben
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oppression. The violence was an expression of anger directed at the sources of subjugation. The euphoria came from the removal of the stings of command, and the sense of equality that was experienced in the crowd. These feelings became inscribed in people’s crowd memory and touched each following Peronist crowd with its mythic unity and aggrandizement.
Why did the founding myth of Peronism as a spontaneous movement in search of Perón become hegemonic, despite many indications to the contrary? Belief in a spontaneous mobilization is most attractive from a political perspective and most persuasive emotionally. It invokes effervescence and feelings of equality which only derive from the crowd itself, not from external forces. Understandably, the evocation of the spontaneity and equality of 17 October gave way to nostalgia when the political fortunes of the Peronist movement turned, when demands were no longer met, and the overall living conditions of the working class worsened. Peronists of succeeding generations continued to long for another 17 October of fraternization, hope, and dignity that became so indispensable to the Peronist identity.
Politically, the myth was attractive because it could accommodate various interpretations that suited Peronist leaders, supporters, and opponents alike. Each party to the event cherished its own account of the mobilization. Union workers considered the demonstration as the purest expression of the popular will. The rank and file recognized themselves in the throngs of ordinary people accompanying them to the Plaza de Mayo. In turn, Peronist union leaders saw 17 October as legitimizing their pivotal role in the Peronist movement by channeling the feelings of discontent into an organized protest. Perón himself stated that the Day of Loyalty took place because he had prepared the Argentine working class for his leadership. The spontaneous mobilization was his harvest.25 Surprisingly, the Peronist founding myth was also embraced by anti-Peronists. For the opposition, the protest was ominous evidence that a political movement could either turn into tyranny or mob rule. This hostility to Peronism was fed by a fear that popular crowds were driven by deep-seated irrational and violent instincts. Perón’s opponents portrayed the 17 October crowd as irrational, primitive, and moved by bestial outbursts.26 In sum, 17 October 1945 could readily be interpreted in different ways. Competitive versions of crowd conceptions must be examined further because the post-World War II crowds became such formidable players in Argentine politics from then on.
The Fear of Popular Crowds
The perception of the crowd as either a mass of people ruled by a strong leader or a mob threatening the established order has been common among political philosophers since antiquity.27 This fear was given a theoretical foundation during the late nineteenth century, when mass psychologists like Tarde and Le Bon reflected on the political significance of the riots and insurrections of their times. Their ideas about the irrational and violent nature of popular crowds found willing ears in a turn-of-the-century Argentina where labor unrest was growing rapidly, and combative unions were being formed. In 1899 the physician José María Ramos Mejía published his book The Argentine Crowds. Ramos Mejía relied heavily on Le Bon. He drew an analogy between the individual and society, comparing the crowd with the body and the elite with the brain. In addition, he associated the crowd with madness and the elite with reason, concluding that “the day when the rabble is hungry, the organized socialist crowd will be relentless, and the leading agitators will be the perfect example of this virulent mob that will contaminate everything.”28
These ideas pervaded Argentine police and justice departments. The image of a violent and culturally regressive crowd threatened to become reality as Argentine workers were becoming a distinct, class-conscious sector of society. Argentina was modernizing rapidly, attracting many European immigrants between 1865 and 1880. Exiles from the Paris Commune established an Argentine branch of the First International in 1872, and workers began organizing themselves in unions, boosting their demands with strikes and street protests. Anarchists and socialists multiplied during the last decade of the nineteenth century, and raised the class consciousness and combativeness of the workers.
A second immigration wave between 1900 and 1908 brought nearly two million people to the shores of the River Plate. These impoverished Europeans added social ferment to the labor movement. They had fled economic exploitation, and arrived in Buenos Aires with high hopes, only to find a sprawling capital in which workers received no better treatment than in their homeland. Political agitation and street protest were forms of resistance familiar from the old country.29 The working class was coming of age, and popular crowds had become such a force in twentieth-century Argentine politics that Hilda Sabato talks of a “culture of mobilization” among disenfranchised Argentines. The streets and squares of Buenos Aires became “an arena of mediation between certain sectors of civil society and political power, through which relatively large numbers of people were involved in various forms of politically consequential public action.”30
These mobilizations did not arise exclusively from a disaffected working class but were also organized by the middle class demanding universal suffrage for all men. This right was finally gained in 1912. In other words, there existed among the ruling elite a great suspicion of crowds in general, but of working class crowds in particular because of their revolutionary potential. Confrontations with the guardians of order were just a matter of time as the police began to fight strikes and protests with increasing force.
The first major strike was in 1902. The repression of the 1909 May Day celebrations led to the death of a dozen workers, and renewed protests in 1910 made the authorities declare a state of siege in Buenos Aires.31 The police repression of striking metal workers in January 1919 cost the lives of four men. The confrontation by army and police of the protesters accompanying the funeral killed around thirty workers during what became called the Tragic Week (Semana Trágica).32 At this time, workers were already carrying banners which demanded “dignity,” a slogan that became Perón’s rallying cry.
It was the fear of either mob rule or the manipulation of the masses by a dictator that frightened the middle and upper classes most, only months after the Allied victory over fascism in Europe. Thus, the 17 October 1945 protest did not come unexpected, while the ideas of Le Bon and Ramos Mejía about the irrationality of crowds provided a scientific framework to explain the events. The panicked reaction by some cabinet members on 17 October, upon hearing that column after column of workers was marching on downtown Buenos Aires, expressed their fear of the crowd. Navy Minister Admiral Vernengo Lima ordered an army captain to shoot at the crowd, but War Minister Avalos refused to ratify the order. General Avalos believed that the people would disperse quietly once word was out that Perón had been released.33
The negotiations between Colonel Perón and General Avalos during the late-afternoon of 17 October are unknown but possibly they agreed that only Perón’s able manipulation of the crowd might avoid street violence and prevent a radicalization of the working class. The military’s fear of a violent crowd taking revenge for Perón’s political death was greater than the price of his reinstallation. Their belief in the likelihood of a social revolution had already been exploited by Perón in 1944 when he explained to Argentine industrialists how his aggressive policy of unionization had rescued the working class from the clutches of communist agitators.34 Still, however opportune the temporary alliance with Perón might have been on 17 October 1945, the fear that some day he might incite these workers against the established conservative forces, or that the masses would disentangle themselves from his control, kept feeding the mistrust of Peronism among the elite and the majority of conservative military officers. Their understanding of crowds convinced them that this fear was justified when Perón tightened his grip on Argentine society, and the violence surrounding his fall from power in 1955 made them feel that their suspicion had been right all along.
Perón and the Masses
Perón’s appearance at the balcony of the presidential palace at the Plaza de Mayo on 17 October 1945 was certainly one of the greatest political comebacks in Argentine history. His political career had begun three years earlier after a sojourn in Italy as a military attaché to the Argentine embassy in 1939 and 1940. Upon his return to Argentina in December 1940, he became a military instructor in Mendoza, and was assigned in March 1942 to the inspectorate of mountain troops in Buenos Aires.35 Once in the capital,