Blackwell Reference Online

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The battle fought and won on October 17, 1945 by workers through a massive mobilization in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires brings class struggle into the arena of parliamentary politics in Argentina. It was a decisive victory. Between 1930 and 1945, the period of military government known as the era of “patriotic fraud” made it impossible for workers and other citizens to vote. Prior to those years, most workers were foreigners and therefore did not vote. Through the October 17 mobilization, workers achieved a new status, acquiring full political citizenship under their own leadership and initiative. The October 17 action was the culmination of a series of important events. On October 13, Cipriano Reyes, a veteran leader of the union of meat workers, which was affiliated not with the General Confederation of Labor (Confederación General del Trabajo, CGT) but with the Comité de Enlace Intersindical (Interunion Liaison Committee), requested its Federal Central Committee (Comité Central Confederal) to call a meeting for a general strike. General Avalos, chief of the military center in Campo de Mayo, who had been responsible for stripping Juan Perón of his positions as vice-president of the republic, war minister, and secretary of labor, met Luís Monzalvo, a representative from the railway workers' union then in charge of the CGT General Secretariat, at the war ministry on October ... log in or subscribe to read full text