"Revolutions" in Twentieth-Century Argentina: an Analysis of Their Meanings

Abstract

This article provides a historical analysis of five civilian-military or military coups d’état that took place in twentieth-century Argentina – in 1930, 1943, 1955, 1966, and 1976 – and examines their circumstances, discourses, and goals. These coups toppled legally constituted governments in contexts of political crisis. The first four of them were presented, more or less successfully, as “revolutions” – a term also given to the regimes of exception that they established. The article compares such coups regarding the different meanings predominantly ascribed in each of them to the keyword “revolution.” It argues that those coups may be classified into three types: 1) the “revolutions” that sought to restore the republican tradition, overthrowing “radicalismo” in 1930 and Peronism in 1955; 2) the “revolutions” that intended to transform political, economic, and social order, in a nationalistic way in 1943 and in a modernizing way in 1966; and 3) the military coup of 1976, the self-styled “Process of National Reorganization,” which aimed to eradicate the keyword “revolution” from Argentinean society and culture.