LITMIR.BIZ

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import tariffs, and a massive surge in public and private debt.⁶ Between 1973 and 1979, private bank lending increased in Latin America from US$30 to $60 billion. In Argentina alone, debt more than doubled, from US$6 to $14 billion over that same period.⁷ Yet contrary to general conceptions of the wholesale introduction of neoliberalism in Argentina, the regime never advocated outright privatization of the economy. In fact, state enterprises took on a majority of new debt in order to maintain high levels of public expenditure.⁸ Nonetheless, neoliberal logics jibed with the refoundational goals of the National Reorganization Process (the junta’s name for its project), which drew a straight line from populism, to economic crisis, to political and social subversion. The fiscal packages of the early years of the dictatorship combined short-term, anti-inflationary measures with a view to long-term structural readjustment. The policies aimed to displace the power of national manufacturing in favor of finance and to replace blue-collar workers with white-collar employees. Drastic economic adjustments correlated with extreme and violent attempts to reform Argentines themselves.

      For a brief time, the schemes worked. The economic program of the junta led to immense short-term profits and an increase in capital flows, known better as the era of plata dulce, or sweet money. Many middle-class Argentines reaped the benefits of newfound prosperity as income values rose and purchasing power for the flood of imports increased. The regime wasted no time in putting the power of its propaganda mill behind the economic changes. In one television spot, a lone consumer stands next to an Argentine-made chair. When he sits down, it shatters instantly under his weight. Rattled, the man jumps up to see a flood of new chairs adorned with signs that say, “Made in . . .” crowding the screen as a calm voiceover states: “Before, competition was insufficient. We had good products, but buyers had to settle without being able to compare. Now, [the consumer] can choose from national products and imports alike.” From the jubilant smile on the buyer’s face as he peruses the new foreign-made chairs popping up on the screen, to the splintered pieces of wood with the “Industria nacional” sign in tatters on the floor, the choice, the ad makes clear, is no choice at all.⁹

      The regime’s fiscal measures lent themselves to purchases and trips abroad. However, prosperity was fleeting and was based mostly on speculation and an overvalued peso. The first signs of distress began in 1979, when the United States raised interest rates, which increased loan payments for debtor nations worldwide. Increased debt payments led in turn to more requests for loans and assistance. And since debt incurred over the 1970s was mostly in dollars, the real burden of the debt sharply increased. Mexico’s eventual default on its debt in August 1982 set off a regional crisis that endured for the rest of the decade.¹⁰ Yet even before the Mexican default, Argentines felt the effects domestically in the form of an increase in business shutdowns, job layoffs, and looming recession.¹¹

      By 1981, divisions had appeared within the ruling junta. The year began with a shift in leadership, with General Roberto Viola replacing Jorge Rafael Videla as de facto president. According to most observers at the time, the decision stemmed from the folly of Videla’s economic policies in the face of mounting fiscal distress, in addition to international reprobation of the regime’s human rights crimes.¹² Viola’s economic measures fared no better than his predecessor’s had, and he was ousted less than a year later on the cusp of the regional debt crisis, replaced by a hard-liner, General Leopoldo Galtieri, who vowed to restore the National Reorganization Process to its founding principles. Viola’s short tenure was nonetheless significant, as the regime made several overtures to allow for the gradual regrouping of political parties and labor. Although still two years off, these events played a role in the regime’s collapse and the return of democratic governance.

      In the midst of economic decline and power struggles within the junta, political forces regrouped. In July 1981, the leaders of five of the country’s main political parties came together to create the Multipartidaria, a coalition with designs on a transition to institutional rule, and the most forceful call from political elites for a return to democracy since the dictatorship began.¹³ The group’s first communiqué described its project in the context of “the most profound socio-economic crisis in the history of the country.”¹⁴ Prominent members of the Multipartidaria believed direct negotiations with the junta were essential for a political transition, even borrowing from the regime and the Catholic Church’s calls for “national reconciliation.” The political transition envisioned by the Multipartidaria in 1981 outlined a joint civilian and military endeavor. The coalition’s first pronouncement only briefly referenced human rights and left out mention of state repression altogether. The absence of a more explicit treatment of the armed forces’ crimes said something about the place of human rights in the vision of many political elites at the time, who believed that any intimation of legal redress or punishment for the armed forces would derail a return to constitutional rule.

      For its part, the human rights movement, the most vocal force to denounce the regime, continued to mobilize. The Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who had marched weekly since 1977 in the center of Buenos Aires to call for the return of their disappeared children and grandchildren, remained the most visible organizations among a wide-ranging movement made up of victims’ relatives, survivors, and other public and religious figures. The year 1981 saw the Mothers’ first March of Resistance, a twenty-four-hour march and vigil around the Plaza de Mayo, which drew several dozen Mothers and the watchful gaze of the authorities, who surrounded them.¹⁵ The place of human rights during this first moment of political openings was in no way certain, however. It would take another year, when the regime’s exit was assured, for massive crowds to join the marches waving the banners on human rights.

      The political opportunities of 1981 also provided a space for renewed labor mobilization. The combative sector of the General Confederation of Labor, known as the CGT-Brasil, named after the street in Buenos Aires where its headquarters was located, intensified its organizing efforts with the goal of promoting an end to the dictatorship.¹⁶ Its leader, Saúl Ubaldini, had led the first general strike against the regime in 1979, after making a name for himself at the helm of the union of beer industry workers. Equally important were cultural openings. In the year before the Malvinas War, Buenos Aires’s effervescent music scene drew crowds to concert halls to hear the emerging idols of rock nacional. The British group Queen played to packed stadiums in Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Mar del Plata during its South American tour. At the Vélez stadium in Buenos Aires, army tanks surrounded the arena as the band belted anthems banned by the authorities. Shortly afterward, in February 1982, the folk singer Mercedes Sosa returned from exile. She celebrated her homecoming with ten days of sold-out shows and the release of a live album that became an instant hit and a marker of a decisive cultural shift.¹⁷ Though the regime still firmly held the reins of power, these clamorings—in song and in the regrouping of political forces—reflected a national mood clearly looking toward a future beyond the regime.

      POPULAR MOBILIZATION AND THE BREAKDOWN OF AUTHORITARIAN RULE

      Amid these rumblings, mobilizations outside of the generally accepted centers of political and cultural activity in Buenos Aires played a vital role in forging popular expectations for the return to democratic life. Indeed, it was in the places that felt the full force of state terror—in terms of both physical violence and economic duress—that notions of a just society came together in ways that would reshape the political field at the end of the Malvinas War. This was especially apparent on the ground in the industrial townships of Greater Buenos Aires, as historic social struggles for housing, employment, and food were recast in light of the emergency caused by military rule.

      The densely populated municipalities and townships of Greater Buenos Aires felt the acute impact of military rule. The areas that made up the southern industrial belt of the capital swelled between the 1930s and 1950s, spurred on by an industrial boom and a new wave of migration from the Argentine interior. Residents flocked to the expanding margins of the capital, seeking abundant factory work, social mobility, and the chance to benefit from the inclusive policies of a growing welfare state. It was in these municipalities that Peronism first flourished and the promise of new forms of social citizenship and national belonging were forged. Following the 1976 coup, low-wage earners and industrial workers bore the brunt of terror and free-market reforms.¹⁸ The regime

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