Workers. And students. Not just in my hometown, mind you, but all over the country. And I don't mean it in a nebulous "they keep society running" way, but in a "kicked dictatorship ass" way
that time the US trained a bunch of Latin American military officers to be better at crimes against humanity
I'm sure you'll be shocked to learn that after WW2, the US was scared of the USSR and made it everyone's problem. This was known as the "Cold War", which is called that because there wasn't like, active combat. It was all cool espionage and propaganda and ideological standoffs.
Also a bunch of people died in the Global South as a direct consequence of military intervention but it was a bunch of third-world nobodies so it doesn't count as "active combat".
Anyway, during the 60s the US military adopted a "national security doctrine" in which, in order to protect the state from the dangers of communism, they needed to destroy not only communist sentiment inside the US, but violently destroy leftist movements everywhere else.
Enter The School Of The Americas, in which the US military gracefully trained military officers from all over Latin America in things like "counter insurgency" and "special warfare" and "enhanced interrogation" allegedly. Anyway check out the list of "notable graduates". The cool thing about this is that it wasn't just training for skills, but also facilitating cooperation between all the dictatorships of the time, as well as providing ideological support. The national security doctrine spread through Latin America and armed forces started seeing more enemies inside their borders than outside. The justification was that in order to maintain national security, they needed to ferret out the "poison" of communism.
the first Argentine dictatorship
In 1966, the Argentine military overthrew the democratic government and installed a permanent junta, because the only way to truly do away with communism was rejecting the concept of democracy altogether.
Now, technically, this was the fifth coup in the 20th century, but the previous four were "transitional" and called for democratic elections after "stabilizing" the country (a coup d'état is famously not a source of instability at all). This is the first coup in which the resulting dictatorship didn't even try to pretend they were transitional, the whole point was to establish an authoritarian bureaucratic state.
The dictatorship dissolved political parties, forbade political participation, installed military rule, martial law, a bunch of civil rights were taken away... the whole time they were also trying to encourage "economic growth", which looked like deregulation, tax incentives for foreign investors, brutal repression of any kind of labor organizing, reduction of wages... you know the drill.
Hometown Heroes: Puebladas or "-azos"
Obviously this was a bad time for most people and it came on the heels of one of the moments in Argentina when the labor movement had made visible gains, people still remembered that shit. They remembered how it used to be, how it could be.
This was originally going to be a post about the two popular insurrections that happened in my hometown: "Cordobazo" (1969) and its sequel "Viborazo" (1971). But then I realized they mean nothing in isolation.
Between 1969 and 1972 there were at least 20 insurrections in different cities throughout the country. Most likely way more, but it's hard to find scholarship on any except the "big" ones. These were pointedly not in the capital, but in "el interior", the provinces that the junta loved to ignore, to its detriment.
All of these insurrections were led by workers and students. Usually in response to a policy or event that fucked over the town and became the straw that broke the camel's back. A factory closing, a university being privatized, the government appointing some asshole as head of the province, holidays and safety measures taken away from workers, assassinations. All of these started as regular protests with people marching or chanting, violently suppressed by the military or the police. Most of them turned into the people occupying parts of the city and barricading against the armed forces.
The insurrections were named by adding the superlative suffix "azo" to the name of the city in which they took place, which is why sometimes people refer to them collectively as "azos"
some notable ones
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Ocampazo, 1969. One of the first ones, the government closed down a sugar processing plant and skipped out on paying outstanding wages. Workers and students led an uprising (also, a local priest, who was using the church's bells to rally the people, organizing, etc... this ties into the "third world priests" movement in the catholic church). They managed to keep the plant open and restructure its functioning. One of the priests negotiated with the dictatorship.
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Correntinazo, 1969. Started by university students because the dictatorship announced the privatization of the university kitchen, which would result in a 500% increase in prices. Apparently the protests were too scary for the governor and the police chief, who fucking fled. People would fucking throw boiling water on police officers that tried to "contain" the protests. People also opened their doors to fleeing students. When a student was killed, a bunch of unions decided to strike and join the movement, 7000 people joined the procession. The kitchen was not privatized.
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Rosariazo, 1969. Started by students, in response to the events in Corrientes (described above). It escalated to the point of the government declaring martial law in the city. Students and workers barricaded parts of the city and took over a radio station.
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Cordobazo, 1969. Started by worker unions, in response to the government increasing their working hours while decreasing their salary. Reportedly, the leaders of the two main unions hated each other (one was a communist, the other a liberal) but agreed this was more important. Police, obviously, escalated the situation and shot a protester, fatally. In response, people started joining the protest which resulted in 50k people taking over the city. Police ran out of munition and tear gas, they had to fold and barricade themselves in a government building. They ran out of fuel and could not use vehicles anymore because the students took over the depot. Protesters burned down every police station, they burnt down military offices, they burnt down office buildings belonging to foreign companies. They burnt down private clubs for rich assholes, banks, government buildings. When one of the fires spread enough it could have damaged an adjacent building, students called the fire department and provided an armed guard for them while they took care of it. The army was called and people retreated to their neighborhoods, setting up barricades, helped by residents. Nobody wanted to fight the army, but they did want to slow it down. There are pictures of graffiti addressed to the soldiers: "soldier, stand up to your murderous officials" "soldier, don't shoot at your brothers and sisters". It took three days for the army to regain control of the city, but this is widely regarded as the beginning of the end for the dictatorship.
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Choconazo, 1970. Workers took over a hydroelectric plant in response to unsafe conditions. The police tried to take over, but they held them off and threatened to blow the whole thing up. Nearby towns kept sending food and supplies to the workers. Another priest facilitated negotiations.
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Viborazo, 1971. Second Cordobazo. The "governor" appointed by the military referred to the labor movement as a poisonous snake (vibora) that he would cut the head of, hence, the name. Unions called for a general strike against this asshole, students joined, the general population joined. The people gained control of around 500 blocks of the city, the military responded violently, the city refused to back down... In the end, the "governor" was forced out.
El Pueblo Al Poder
That same year, 1971, there was an internal coup and the dictator was replaced by a different dictator, who had no choice but to start the process to reinstate democracy while a different city was on fire every month, until elections were called in 1973
From 1969 to 1972, a bunch of labor and student movements followed each other, they were all borrowing strength from each other, being inspired by each other. In the space of three years over twenty insurrections took place. Over twenty times people looked around, said "fuck this" and took over their city. They did not let the military rest for a second, they did not let any asshole that was currying favor with the dictatorship get comfortable. And they lost so much, people were arrested, killed, tortured. But they won. They won over twenty times. They won their rights, their safety, their cities. Their country.
Yes, there were figureheads, martyrs, organizer, and leaders, But every person that marched, that fed the workers, that donated materials for the barricades, that opened their doors, that threw rocks and oranges at the cops, that boiled water and oil to pour on the soldiers, that refused to back down... they were all heroes.
Nobody does it alone.
P.S. Obviously we got democracy back and nothing bad happened every again. Especially not a second, more brutal dictatorship financially backed by the US.
