The four presidents of the period (left-to-right, top-to-bottom): Uriburu, Justo, Ortiz and Castillo

The Infamous Decade (Spanish: Década Infame) was a period in Argentine history that began with the 1930 coup d'état against President Hipólito Yrigoyen. This decade was marked on one hand by significant rural exodus, with many small rural landowners ruined by the Great Depression, which in turn pushed the country towards import substitution industrialization, and on the other hand, conservative governments stayed in power perpetually by electoral fraud. The poor results of economic policies and popular discontent led to another coup in 1943, the Revolution of 1943, by the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos (GOU), a nationalist faction of the Armed Forces, which triggered the rise to power of Juan Perón.

The Coup d'état of September 6, 1930

Besides electoral fraud, this period was characterized by the persecution of the political opposition (mainly against the UCR) and generalized government corruption, against the background of the Great Depression. The impact of the economic crisis forced many farmers and other rural workers to relocate to the outskirts of the larger cities, resulting in the creation of the first villas miseria (shanty towns). Thus, the population of Buenos Aires jumped from 1.5 million inhabitants in 1914 to 3.5 million in 1935.[1] Lacking in political experience, in contrast with the European immigrants who brought with them socialist and anarchist ideas, these new city dwellers would provide the social base, in the next decade, for Peronism.[1]

The democratic liberal senator Lisandro de la Torre (founder in 1914 of the Democratic Progressive Party) denounced various scandals, directing an investigation on the meat trade starting in 1935. In the midst of the investigation, de la Torre's disciple, senator-elect Enzo Bordabehere, was murdered by Ramón Valdez Cora on the Senate floor, and the province of Santa Fe was intervened. The murder was depicted by Juan José Jusid's 1984 film, Asesinato en el Senado de la Nación. CHADE (Compañía Hispano Argentina de Electricidad, an offshoot of the Sofina multinational conglomerate) was also at the heart of an important political and financial scandal. The CHADE scandal, symbol of the Infamous Decade, led to investigations following the revolution of 1943 that deposed Ramón Castillo's government in a military coup, and to the subsequent Rodríguez Conde report on concessions given to the electrical companies.

In 1931, a year after the execution of the Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni and his comrade Paulino Scarfó—who had implemented a propaganda of the deed campaign aimed both at international support of the Sacco and Vanzetti case and at attacking Fascist Italy's interests in Argentina—three anarchists were given life sentences during a show trial in which they were tortured, on the charges of having assassinated family members of conservative politician José M. Blanch.[2] Known as the "prisoners of Bragado" (presos de Bragado), the case raised international public indignation. Anarchists, who had created a solidarity network with comrades expelled under the 1902 Law on Residency which legalised the expulsion of immigrants who "compromise national security or disturb public order", were considered as public enemies by Uriburu's dictatorship.[2][3] Prior to their execution, three anarchist bombs had detonated at three strategic places on the Buenos Aires railway network on January 20 1931, killing three and wounding 17.[4] In 1942, Minister Solano Lima signed the prisoners' releases; their names were cleared by a 1993 law upheld by Socialist deputy Guillermo Estévez Boero.[2] In 2003, a law granted a pension to the daughter of one of the anarchist victims of this show trial.[2]

Dictatorship of José Félix Uriburu (1930–1932)

Agustín P. Justo's presidency (1932–1938)

In 1933 Arturo Jauretche took part in a failed uprising, led by Col. Francisco Bosch and Col. Gregorio Pomar in Paso de los Libres, in the province of Corrientes. He was subsequently detained.

Political situation

Alvear was the leader of radicalism during the Infamous Decade, and for this reason he was imprisoned on Martín García Island.
One of the most notorious corruption cases of the period was the CHADE (Compañía Hispano-Americana de Electricidad) scandal.

In 1936, divisions within radicalism deepened under the influence of the scandal over the concession of the Compañía Hispano-Americana de Electricidad (CHADE), which had been accused of bribing conservative and radical politicians to obtain the concession, including the then Minister of Finance and future president Roberto M. Ortiz.[5]

A mounted police officer chases supporters of radicalism.

Alvear said the following about the conservatives:

UCR uprisings

During his term, the Radical Civic Union opposition, which had declared electoral abstention due to the illegitimacy of the regime, was very pronounced. In 1933, radical uprisings took place in Buenos Aires, Corrientes, Entre Ríos and Misiones, resulting in more than a thousand detainees. Yrigoyen, gravely ill, was returned to Buenos Aires and kept under house arrest; he would die on 3 July, and his burial in La Recoleta Cemetery would be the occasion for a massive demonstration. In December, on the occasion of the meeting of the UCR national convention, a joint uprising of military personnel and politicians broke out in Santa Fe, Rosario and Paso de los Libres. José Benjamín Ábalos, former minister of Yrigoyen, and Colonel Roberto Bosch were arrested for the uprising, and the party's delegates and leaders imprisoned on Martín García. Alvear, a former political sponsor of Justo, went into exile, while others were held in the Ushuaia Prison.[7]