Argentina
Like Chile, Argentina was ruled by an authoritar-
ian military junta during the 1970s which paid no
respect to human rights. Unlike Chile, however,
Argentina had never developed a broadly based
parliamentary tradition. The second-largest coun-
try in Latin America after Brazil, Argentina covers
an area greater than Western Europe, but the
countryside is sparsely populated, since grain-pro-
duction and cattle-ranching, the agricultural back-
bone of Argentina’s export economy, require
relatively few labourers. It trades profitably,
exporting wheat and refrigerated beef and import-
ing manufactured goods. Before the Second
World War, Britain had the largest foreign stake,
having invested in railways and some industries.
Argentina’s population is concentrated in the
towns and grew rapidly from less than 2 million in
the mid-nineteenth century to 8 million by 1914,
and to 37 million in 2000. This growth derived
mainly from massive immigration from Italy and
Spain during a period of rapid expansion from the
1880s until the onset of the depression in 1929.
Argentina thus became the most Europeanised of
Latin American nations, but these Western tradi-
tions were more those of southern Europe, where
representative government and democracy had
not flourished in what was still, then, a largely
underdeveloped region. Government in Argentina
was nominally representative and democratic, but
in reality it was manipulated by a wealthy oligarchy
whose power was based on their ranches and
related agricultural industries and, of course, on
the support of the army. The oligarchy had noth-
ing to fear from peasants in the countryside, as
there were practically none; nor were there indi-
genous Indians in significant numbers: they had
been decimated in the last of the Indian wars
towards the close of the nineteenth century when
the military took away their lands to the south and
south-west of Buenos Aires.
Political, social and economic tensions arose
from a different quarter as Argentina developed –
from the urban workers, the small shopkeepers,
the low ranks of trade, industry and the profes-
sions, excluded from influence and from a fair
share of the country’s growing wealth. They did
not, however, organise themselves to participate
in the electoral process. Trade unions, which fol-
lowed the anarchist and syndicalist traditions of
Spain, were severely repressed and their leaders
imprisoned.
More successful was another new group of
outsiders, the recently prosperous and the middle
classes, who had gained their share of economic
but not political power. They formed the Radical
Party and finally came to power in 1916. In the
strikes following the First World War, their
earlier, more sympathetic attitude to the urban
workers turned to repression. In socialism, syn-
dicalism and anarchism they identified the enemy
within. During the 1920s the urban workers’
wages rose but expectations grew even faster. The
Radicals had made many enemies on the left as
well as among the ousted conservative oligarchy,
and a limited democracy functioned only until a
military coup in 1930. The conservative–military
alliance, contemptuous of democracy – though
manipulated elections were held – saw much to
admire in the Nazi Germany of the 1930s and
only entered the war against the Axis at practi-
cally the last possible moment to avoid exclusion
from the Allied United Nations in 1945.
1
THE WORLD OF LATIN AMERICA 695
Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay and Chile, 2000
Population GDP per head (US$) GDP per head, Purchasing
(millions) Power Parity (US$)
Colombia 42.1 1,930 6,060
Peru 25.7 2,080 4,660
Bolivia 8.3 1,000 2,360
Paraguay 5.5 1,360 4,450
Chile 15.2 4,640 9,100
