Non-State Anti-communism and political violence in Argentina and Uruguay, 1958-1973

BOHOSLAVSKY, ERNESTO; BROQUETAS, MAGDALENA

Berna

Simposio; Anti-Communist Persecutions in the 20th century; 2017

Universidad de Berna

Some political organizations developed an obsessive Anti-communism in Argentina and Uruguay between 1958 and 1973. Organizations such as Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara, Montonera, Movimiento Ruralista and the Federación Argentina de Entidades Democráticas Anticomunistas, among others, displayed an intense anti-communist rhetoric inspired in some cases by Catholic, Francoist authoritarian and nationalist values and in other cases by a pro-business Washington-sponsored perspective. Our goal is to show these organizations? strategies, propaganda and prone-violence political style through street fighting, kidnapping, bomb attacks and gun shooting against Communists and alleged Communists or crypto-communists. Anticommunist organizations? targets were not Communist at all, but members of other Leftist groups, unions, hippie bands or just avant-garde artists. This paper aims to detect these organizations? self-perceptions and ideas ?which can be traced in their publications, letters, and official documents- and the different ways inwhich they were labeled and perceived by their local and foreign allies, such as the American diplomacy and the global Anti-communist networks. Here is offered some evidence on the links between these Argentinean and Uruguayan entities and with some other transnational Anti-communist organizations such as Taiwan-based World Anti-Communist League or World National Socialist Movement led by George L. Rockwell). These activities may be considered a case of non-State Anti-communist persecution; however, data collected in both Argentina and Uruguay Intelligence Service archives allows considering the existence of police support and sympathy for their political cause, by supplying guns, information and training. The anti-communist physical and symbolic violence Tacuara and Montonera, and other Uruguayan and Argentinean entities, showed contributed in the sixties and in the seventies to legitimize the coups d?Etat that led to extremely authoritarian dictatorships that targeted who might be considered a potential threat to status quo.