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RICHARDJ. WALTER
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Becauseof the richnessandextentof the socialistpressin turn-of-thecentury Argentina,only a relativelysmall numberof examplescan be
consideredhere. However,thosechosenrepresentthe best-known,most
widely distributed,andmostinfluentialof the scoresproduced.All to be
consideredin detailwere publishedin BuenosAires, althougha number
of publicationsappearedin othercities as well. The exampleschosenare
primarilysocialist in orientation.It should be noted, however, that a
substantialanarchistpressalso appearedin Argentinaat this time and is
also worthyof closerinvestigation.13
Beforeturningto an examinationof specificpublications,some brief
descriptionof the historicalcontextin whichthey madetheirappearance
is necessary.Duringthe years between 1890and the outbreakof World
War I in 1914, a period bracketedby two severe economiccrises, the
Argentinerepublicexperiencedrapideconomicanddemographicexpansion. The export of livestock and cereal grains, foreign capital
development
investment-mostly British-, and extensiveinfrastructure
spurredeconomicgrowth. Massiveforeignimmigration,primarilyfrom
Italy and Spain, contributedto demographicgrowth, which saw a
doublingof the population,from about four million to eight million,
between1895and 1914. Urbanization,a markedincreasein literacy,and
the beginningsof significantsmall-scaleindustrializationaccompanied
these changes. Politically, a tightly-knit oligarchy of wealthy landowners, and their urbancommercial,financial,and professionalallies
dominatedgovernmentthroughintimidation,fraud,patronage,and the
strongcentralizationof authority.
Economicand demographicgrowth produceda sizable expansionof
the middle and workingclasses. The middle classes, with leadership
from dissidentsectorsof the elite, from 1890onwardbeganto demand
greaterparticipationin governmentand a largershareof the expanding
pie of prosperity.The Uni6nCivica,and later the Uni6nCivicaRadical
(UCR, Radicalparty),articulatedand mobilizedmiddleclassdissentand
used alternatingpolicies of confrontationand abstention to force a
change in oligarchical political practices. Eventually, these tactics
13Fora review of the anarchist impact on Argentina's working class, see Diego Abad de Santillan,
La F.O.R.A.: Ideologiaytrayectoria,2nd ed. (Buenos Aires: Editorial Proyeccion, S.R.L., 1971). An
extraordinary collection of anarchist and socialist periodicals is located at the Institute of Social
History in Amsterdam. A listing of the items on file, numbering over 400 and mostly published
before 1930, indicates the size and vitality of the radical press in Argentina. See Erick Gordon,
Michael M. Hall and Hobart A. Spalding, Jr., "A Survey of Brazilian and Argentine Materials at
the International Instituut Voor Sociale Geschiedenis in Amsterdam," Latin AmericanResearch
Review, III, 3 (Fall 1973), 27-77.
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RICHARD
J. WALTER
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RICHARD
J. WALTER
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THE SOCIALIST
PRESSIN ARGENTINA
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RICHARD
J. WALTER
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RICHARD
J. WALTER
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grew steadily during these years to cover almostthe entire back page.
Professionalnotices, listing the names, addresses,and office hours of
dentists, doctors, and lawyers, usually socialists, shared space with
noticesfor food stores, pharmacies,and clothingestablishmentswhich
sought to attracta working-classclientele. Variousbrandsof beer and
cigarettes advertised in La Vanguardia,despite the Socialist party's
oppositionto alcoholandthe askancewith which some membersviewed
smoking.By 1897andthereafterpoliticalcaricaturesandcartoons,many
of them masterpiecesof politicalart, lampoonedthe bourgeoisieand the
politicalopposition.By 1914the paperfeaturedfront-pagephotographs
of Socialistpartycandidatesand campaignrallies.
remaineda weekly, although
Between 1894 and 1905La Vanguardia
there was a brief experimentat bi-weeklypublication(Wednesdayand
Saturday)in 1897-1898.From 1900 plans were made to convert the
newspaperinto a morningdaily, plans which were realizedon September1, 1905. Publishedsix times a week(exceptMondays),the paper
still numberedfour pages but now containedsix columns a page. The
price of a single issue was five centavos;monthlysubscriptionssold for
$1.25 pesos. With daily publicationthe paperexpandedits formatto
includegeneralnationalandinternationalwire-servicenews, indicatinga
shift from strictly a party organ to one which might attracta larger
grew to eight pages,although
readership.On July 1, 1913La Vanguardia
the cost of a single issue remainedfive centavos.In additionto regular
publication,the editorsalso producedlargespecialeditionsto celebrate
May 1 as the day of the worker.These were sometimesprintedon red
paperand usually includedliteraryand artisticcontributionsas well as
political articles. On occasion a largerthan normalJanuary 1 edition
summarizedeventsof the past year.
Althoughfigureson distributionare scatteredand imprecise,circulation reportedlygrew from 1,500 issues in 1896 to 75,000 in 1912. By
had 100 sales agentsthroughoutthe countryand in
1912La Vanguardia
and
neighboringChile
Uruguay.37Beginningwith a handfulof editors
had a staff of 55 (nineteeneditors
and printersin 1894, La Vanguardia
and writers,thirty six administratorsand printers)by 1914.38
The paper'sgrowth was steady and impressive,but it was far from
easy. Like its predecessors,the paperexperiencedcontinuousfinancial
difficulties.Its first editionswere printedon a press purchasedthrough
p. 71.
37Spalding,Laclasetrabajadora,
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RICHARD
J. WALTER
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RICHARDJ. WALTER
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working class, which, after a lifetime of labor, has only the prospect of
more misery." La Vanguardiapromised to be on the side of the poor and
to struggle for improvements in their conditions: "We appear to combat
all privileges, all laws made by the rich to their own advantage, [which]
are no more than means to exploit the workers . . ." And, reflecting the
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RICHARDJ. WALTER
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usually featuring the tally on the front page. When socialists were
elected from Buenos Aires to the Chamberof Deputies in 1904, 1912,
1913and 1914and to the Senatein 1913,La Vanguardia
gave prominent
play to their activitiesin the Congress.Frequentlythe paperreprinted
lengthy excerpts from the Diariode sesiones(CongressionalRecord)in
which socialistlegislatorswere featured.
In conjunctionwith a concentrationon campaigns,La Vanguardia
throughoutthe year focusedon issues relatedto politics and elections.
Of particularconcernwas the need to convinceforeigners,who madeup
the bulk of the workingclass and potentiallythe electorate,to become
naturalizedcitizensand henceeligibleto vote. As an early articleput it,
"It is now time for Europeanworkersestablishedhere to recognizethat
to becomecitizens is the surest meansto influencethe progressof the
countryand to betterthe situationof the workingclass. We ought not to
leavea meansof struggleas powerfulas politicalrightsfor the exclusive
use of bourgeois foreigners. . ."48 Despite La Vanguardia's
persistent
efforts in this direction, few foreigners actually became citizens in these
years.49
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among two sectors of the bourgeoisie little concerned with the socialeconomic position of the proletariat.54
La Vanguardiasaved its heaviest and most persistent criticism, however, for the conservative governments of the period, which, the
socialists charged, represented solely the interests of the country's
bourgeoisie. For La Vanguardia,the bourgeoisie in preindustrial Argentina meant the wealthy land-owning
57Their overall
railroads than of the opinion of the Argentine people.""
attitude towards foreign investment, however, was somewhat more
moderate and ambiguous than that of El Obrero.A 1910 article on "Pan
Americanism," printed almost two decades after El Obrero'spiece on the
same subject, noted the enormous economic expansion of the United
States in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South
America. On the whole, however, La Vanguardiaviewed this penetration
with only mild alarm and indeed seemed to regard the spread of U. S.
influence benignly, pointing to the future economic benefits of the
Panama Canal.58
At the same time La Vanguardialambasted the opposition it also laid
out for all to see the many tensions, dissensions, and disagreements
within the ranks of the Socialist party itself. In 1899 the paper presented
all the gory details of an embarrassing incident wherein the party
expelled its recently-elected secretary-general, Honorio Pineau
54"Lapolitica criolla y el motin militar,"La Vanguardia(February 11, 1905), p. 1.
55"Sobreel origen del capital y del proletariado argentino,"La Vanguardia(April 14, 1894), p. 1.
56"Elocaso de una mediocridad,"La Vanguardia(August 26, 1910), p. 1.
57"Alpueblo de la repdblica," La Vanguardia(February 26, 1914), p. 1.
58"Pan-americanismo,"La Vanguardia(September 1, 1910), p. 1. For more on the socialists'
attitude toward foreign capital, see Walter, TheSocialistParty, pp. 165-168.
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RICHARDJ. WALTER
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J. WALTER
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68Some centronewspapers, consulted in the Biblioteca Obrera "Juan B. Justo" in Buenos Aires,
included La Luz: PeriodicoSocialista,
(1901-1905), located in circunscripcid6n
four;ElSocialista:Organodel
Centro SocialistaJuventud Obrera;Circunscr*pci6n
Ha (1903-1904); La Antorcha: Organodel Centro
2a (1903);El Alba: OrganoSocialistade la
Socialistade la Circunscripci6n
Circunscrci6n 20a (1904); and,
Adelante:Organode la Circunscripi6n10a (1904-1911).
"6VidaNueva appeared twice monthly between January 1906 and February 1907.
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cartoons. In terms of layout and presentation, Nueva Era was the most
sophisticated and attractive socialist publication of the period.70
The best-known and most influential of the socialist magazines was
the monthly Revista SocialistaInternacional,which appeared regularly
between 1908 and 1915.71 The Revista'sdirectors and contributors were
mostly those associated with La Vanguardiaand the party. The first
editor and guiding force was Enrique Del Valle Iberlucea, who would be
elected senator from Buenos Aires in 1913 and later leave the party in
disagreement over the socialists' failure to support the Bolshevik Revolution and join the Third International.72 Del Valle Iberlucea forecast
these disagreements in his first Revista editorial, in which he attacked
Bernsteinian reformism and urged that the socialist movement be one of
"criticism and action," criticism not only of capitalism but also of the
movement itself. He promised to use "scientific socialism" to explain the
economic development of the republic and to make the new periodical
". .. a living archive where the actions of the world-wide working-class
movement would be recorded."73
True to his word, Del Valle Iberlucea included in the pages of the
Revista many articles, from home and abroad, which discussed the
application of Marxism to historical conditions in Europe and America.
The magazine also repeated many of the functions of La Vanguardia.It
reported the details of party congresses and chronicled strike actions and
resultant repression. However, the Revista tended more to analytical
"think pieces" and to allowing contributions by critics, both within and
outside the party, than did the official socialist newspaper. In 1909, for
example, the Revista published in full the responses of those socialists
who opposed the party's attempt to accommodate itself to growing
nationalist sentiment in the republic and in the process, so the critics
charged, abandoned the Marxist concept of an an international socialist
revolution.74 A prominent feature of the Revista's early years were
articles by Martin Casaretto, a member of the local printers' union, who
charged the Socialist party with moving too far away from working-class
70The complete run for 1914 was examined in the Biblioteca Obrera "Juan B. Justo."
71In 1910 the title was changed to HumanidadNueva:RevistaSocialistaInternacional.
72For biographical information, see Benito Marianetti, EnriqueDel Valle Iberlucea:Una bonrada
a la revolucidnrusa (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Silaba, 1972), pp. 7-11.
conductafrente
73Enrique Del Valle Iberlucea, "Critica y acci6n: Nuestro programa,"RevistaSocialistaInternacional, I, 1 (Buenos Aires: December 15, 1908), 1-7.
74Formore details, see Walter, TheSocialistParty, pp. 67-70.
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RICHARD
J. WALTER
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WashingtonUniversity
St. Louis,Missouri
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