C onflict in the squares. Strategies, symbols and rituals of the nationalist first of May (Buenos Aires, 1930-1943).

Abstract

Right-wing and far right-wing groups in Argentina have developed a range of forms of political intervention that cannot be dismissed as out-and-out rejection of the presence of large sections of the population in public life. Rather, they reveal different attempts to control and channel this participation. In the thirties, a decade during which nationalist organisations sprung up in profusion, the Argentine right-wing changed from being an arrangement of small groups of conspiring intellectuals to become a militant movement, with stable organisations and clear-cut intentions to mobilise the masses. The 1st of May was a key component of the nationalist strategy to bring the these sections of the general public on board, as their intention was to use the celebrations to forge a new working class identity. These were mobilisations that had an impact on the inhabitants of the city that took part in the protests to differing degrees, as well as on the workers — who joined this idelogical current or rejected it.