THE DYNAMICS OF VIOLENCE AND LABOR CONFLICT IN VILLA CONSTITUCIÓN, ARGENTINA, 1973?1975

SANTELLA, AGUSTIN

Research in Political Economy

Emerald

Año: 2021 vol. 35 p. 183 - 204

0161-7230

This chapter aims to contribute to the study of social protests around theworld and particularly in Latin America during the 1960s and 1970s, witha focus on an Argentinean case. Throughout these years, Argentina likemany other Latin American societies witnessed the growth and develop-ment of intense social and political struggles in concert with the armedinsurgency. Did workers or other popular social sectors support guerrillaorganizations in Argentina? What was the interconnection betweenworking-class and armed insurgent struggle? This chapter examines theseliaisons by studying the case of an industrial city that has been identifiedto be a paradigm of labor radicalization and political violence inArgentina?Villa Constitución. Through the reanalysis of documents andsources as well as interviews, we discuss established interpretations onarmed and labor struggles that reveal a broader heterogeneity in the formsof social support to revolutionary violence. We find two components toworkers and insurgent militants? solidarity. One can be found in a dualidentity of the latter, for these were both workers and elected unionleaders, as well as insurgency militants. The fact that many armed actionswere carried out as a way of endorsing worker movements could beindicative of one another. But, by no means can we directly deduct fromthis that rank and file workers immediately identified their strikes withideologically revolutionary objectives.