Mapping the Argentine New Left: Social Liberation, National Liberation, and Revolutionary Violence, 1969–1977

• Author: David Copello
• Date: 01 September 2020
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20939101
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20939101

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 234, Vol. 47 No. 5, September 2020, 179–198

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20939101

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

179

Mapping the Argentine New Left

Social Liberation, National Liberation, and

Revolutionary Violence, 1969–1977

by

David Copello

In recent years, investigation on 1960s/1970s revolutionary activism in Argentina has

led to the publication of multiple case studies. Building on this literature, a more general

view of what is often called the “new left” indicates that it is characterized by the impor-

tance assigned to three issues: social liberation, national liberation, and revolutionary

violence. Two differentiating lines within this political space are an ideological divide

(Marxism vs. Peronism) and an instrumental division over the strategic status of violence

(insurrection vs. protracted people’s war vs. political-military action).

En los últimos años, las investigaciones sobre el activismo revolucionario de la década

de 1960–1970 en Argentina han dado lugar a la publicación de múltiples estudios de

caso. En base a este material, se propone una visión más general de la a menudo denomi-

nada “nueva izquierda”, y cómo esta se caracteriza a partir de la importancia asignada a

tres factores: la liberación social, la liberación nacional y la violencia revolucionaria. Hay

dos dimensiones dentro de este espacio político: una división ideológica (marxismo vs.

peronismo) y una división instrumental en torno al papel estratégico de la violencia

(insurrección vs. guerra popular prolongada vs. acción político-militar).

Keywords: New left, Argentina, Revolutionary Peronism, Revolutionary left, Guerrilla

warfare

In the 1960s and 1970s, Argentina experienced an unprecedented wave of

political unrest (Anzorena, 1998; de Riz, 2000; Franco, 2012; Novaro and

Palermo, 2003). After the urban insurrection of Córdoba in 1969 (often nick-

named the Cordobazo), a series of armed revolutionary organizations

emerged in public space. These revolutionary movements deeply affected

Argentine politics up until 1977, when they were physically annihilated by a

civil-military dictatorship established a year earlier (Carnovale, 2011;

Gillespie, 1982). They have become a major element in Argentine contempo-

rary political debates, marked by regular controversies over the 1970s “guer-

rilla”; oversimplified and/or anachronistic accounts of recent history are a

common component of Argentine political competition. At the same time,

academic contributions have privileged case-study approaches rather than

David Copello is a postdoctoral researcher at Casa de Velázquez (Madrid). He thanks Felix de

Montéty, Tomás Crowder-Taraborrelli, Pablo Pozzi, and Kevin A. Young for their very useful com-

ments and suggestions on earlier versions of this article.

939101LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20939101Latin American PerspectivesCopello / MAPPING THE ARGENTINE NEW LEFT

research-article2020

180 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

theoretical synthesis, making it harder for the public to grasp the main issues

of the period’s revolutionary action. This article aims at providing a general

frame for understanding the complex dynamics of radical protest during that

period. It discusses some of the concepts used to describe that cycle of mobi-

lization with a special focus on the new left, for which it provides a synthetic

definition based on the existing literature.

From a global perspective, the new left was a wave of radical movements

that emerged in the “long sixties” (Marwick, 1998) or “1968 years” (Dreyfus-

Armand et al., 2000). These movements criticized the traditional left focus on

economic exploitation and denounced a broader process of alienation in capi-

talist and bureaucratic systems (Gosse, 2005; Keucheyan, 2012). In Latin

America “there was a tendency to define the left not so much by the goal it was

pursuing [i.e., socialism] [as] by the means it used to reach that goal” (Harnecker,

2015), armed struggle or institutional struggle. What is usually referred to as

“new left” in the region is the combined appeal for socialism and armed strug-

gle. However, the idea of a new left involves a very heterogeneous political

reality whose limits are hard to draw and whose form and content vary from

one country to another.

Although Argentina was clearly a major actor in the consolidation of a trans-

national new-left political culture in Latin America (Marchesi, 2017), there have

been strong discussions in Argentine scholarship on radical politics about the

correctness of the “new-left” label. Indeed, Argentina’s political structure of

divisions has some peculiarities—notably the impact of Peronism on the blur-

ring of ideologies. Studies on radical Peronist organizations have seldom used

the new-left frame and instead privileged the concept of “revolutionary

Peronism” (Bozza, 2001). This may seem logical, since a large proportion of

progressive Peronists (aspiring to a “socialist homeland”) do not identify them-

selves as part of the left, which is sometimes associated with antinationalism

and intellectual elitism. However, interactions between revolutionary Peronists

and left-wing organizations, intellectuals, and activists were constant

(Altamirano, 2011), forming a universe of common references that is key to

understanding the Argentine politics of that period. It will therefore be argued

that the concept “new left” can be a useful (although imperfect) tool for explor-

ing revolutionary unrest in Argentina in the 1960s and 1970s and more specifi-

cally between 1969 (Cordobazo) and 1977 (annihilation of revolutionary

organizations on Argentine soil).

DEFINING THE ARGENTINE NEW LEFT

Scholars and activists have used several conceptual frames to study the

1960s/1970s Argentine revolutionary wave, but none of them has achieved

general approval. This section first gives a definition of the “new left” based on

three criteria and then discusses the relevance of the alternative “revolutionary

left” framework.

First, we can define the Argentine new left in terms of its belief in an imme-

diate horizon of social liberation, one directly connected to the influence of

the Cuban Revolution. The seizing of power by Fidel Castro in Havana in