'We don't want your revolution': Conflicting Relations between Youth Countercultures and the New Left in Argentina, 1966--1976

MANZANO, VALERIA

Washington, DC

Congreso; 122nd Annual Meeting, American Historical Association; 2008

American Historical Association

Notwithstanding counterculture organizers and new leftists self-represented themselves as revolutionaries; to the early 1970s it was apparent that they did not want the same revolution. This paper explores how, after some years of “tactical convergence” in the late 1960s, new leftists and counterculture organizers articulated competing notions of revolution, which involved different imageries of masculinity. By examining counterculture magazines and rock lyrics, this presentation shows how musicians, journalists, poets, and rock and roll audiences reacted against the increasing youth politicization in the frame of parties or guerrilla movements. Conversely, by a meticulous reading of leftist and student press, internal memos of guerrilla movements, and oral interviews, the paper analyzes how new leftists reacted against youth countercultures, particularly what they considered their petit-bourgeois individualism, lack of “national consciousness,” and ultimately lack of “true” revolutionary spirit. The paper contends that in their efforts to criticize the others’ cultural and political stances, counterculture organizers and new leftists sought to counteract what was becoming a hegemonic representation of youth, which chained political “terrorism,” drug abuse, and sexual deviancy, a representation that ultimately informed the repression carried out by the military during the last, and most dramatic, Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983).