The Legión Cívica Argentina and the Radicalisation of Argentine Nacionalism during the Década Infame

Resumen

The discussion about the nature of the Argentine Nacionalistas, which dates back to their emergence on the political scene in the late 1920s and early 1930s, is controversial and multifaceted; the assessments put forward by various scholars over the years cover the entire range of right ideologies, from reactionary to fascist. Marysa Navarro Gerassi uniformly describes them as "counterrevolutionaries" who lacked any original qualities and simply adopted the "anti-democratic concepts that were fashionable in Europe" at the time; Mario Nascimbene and Mauricio Isaac Neuman equally stress the essentially reactionary nature of even "the most extreme and revolutionary Nacionalistas", putting special emphasis on their Catholicism. José Luis Romero, on the other hand, does not hesitate unequivocally to term them fascists. Cristián Buchrucker and Sandra McGee Deutsch, though less categorical than Romero, also conclude that the Nacionalistas largely belonged to the fascist orbit. Ronald H. Dolkart assumes a position between these extremes, arguing that they "ranged across a spectrum from moderate conservative to openly fascist." While it is not possible to outline the ongoing debate about the nacionalista movement in more detail, nor the variety of different assessments offered in a growing number of publications, in this article I would like to focus on one specific group, namely the Legión Cívica Argentina (LCA).