page_title: Cordobazo
section_title: Consequences
hierarchical_section_title: Cordobazo / Consequences
caption_attribution_description: Agustín Tosco, Secretario General de Luz y Fuerza Córdoba English: Agustín Gringo Tosco (1930-1975) was an Argentine union leader, member of the CGT (General Confederation of Labour) and an important participant in the historic local uprising known as the Cordobazo.
context_page_description: The Cordobazo was a civil uprising in the city of Córdoba, Argentina, at the end of May 1969, during the military dictatorship of General Juan Carlos Onganía, which occurred a few days after the Rosariazo, and a year after the French May '68. Contrary to previous protests, the Cordobazo did not correspond to previous struggles, headed by Marxist workers' leaders, but associated students and workers in the same struggle against the military government.
  The labor union CGT de los Argentinos, headed in Cordoba by Agustín Tosco, called for National strike on May 30, 1969. But in Cordoba they decided to do a general strike one day earlier, on 29 May 1969. This strike brought police repression and a civil uprising, an episode later termed the Cordobazo.
context_section_description: The Cordobazo immediately influenced events in other parts of the country, where violent demonstrations also occurred, and favorised the influence of trade unionists radically opposed to the dictatorship. This latter current, known as sindicalismo clasista, came to head the SMATA trade union of 
  Córdoba, as well as the autonomous unions of Fiat Concord and Fiat Materfer (SITRAC-SITRAM). Workers' leaders of Córdoba, such as  
  Agustín Tosco, René Salamanca, Gregorio Flores and José Francisco Páez, played a role on the national political stage. In Salta, Armando Jaime also headed the CGT clasista.
  It also underlined two new facts in Argentine politics: on one hand, the alliance of the students' movement with the workers, and on the other hand, the predominance of the interior (or of the provinces of Argentina) on the capital, Buenos Aires.
  The Cordobazo also had lasting influences on the history of Argentina. On one hand, it showed that the population accepted violent means to defend themselves against the military dictatorship, since no other democratic means of expression could be used. On the other hand, liberal democracy, parliamentarism and the system of elections was globally refused by what came to be known as the New Opposition (Nueva Oposición). Even Arturo Frondizi, who had been elected in 1958, had legitimized the 1955 military coup, known as the Revolución Libertadora, which had toppled Juan Perón.
  Henceforth, the Cordobazo showed, to contemporary activists, that they could find popular support for violent and revolutionary means of actions against Onganía's dictatorship, thus radicalizing the social and political context of Argentina. Several armed groups were formed or strengthened in the aftermaths of the Cordobazo, among them the Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas (FAP, 1967), the Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación (FAL, 1968), the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP), the Revolutionary Peronists Montoneros, and the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias.
  Finally, the Cordobazo showed Onganía's weakness. He forced his Minister of Economy Vasena to resign, while a transition period opened itself, the military junta, supreme organ of the so-called Revolución Argentina, deciding to depose Onganía of his leadership, replaced in June 1970 by General Roberto M. Levingston, former military attaché at the Argentine Embassy in Washington D.C.. Instead of calling for elections, Levingston decided to go ahead with the Revolución Argentina, governing against the will of the different political parties.
  The latter countered Levingston's policies by the conjoint declaration of 11 November 1970, named la Hora del Pueblo (The Hour of the People), which called for free and immediate democratic elections to put an end to the political crisis. The declaration was signed by the Radical Civic Union (UCR), the Justicialist Party (Peronist Party), the Argentine Socialist Party (PSA), the Popular Conservative Party (PCP) and the Partido Bloquista (PB).
  The Opposition's call for elections led to Levingston's replacement by General Alejandro Lanusse, who called for elections but excluded the Peronist Party from participating to it. Lanusse tried to implement starting in July 1971 the Gran Acuerdo Nacional (Great National Agreement), which was to find an honorable exit for the military junta without allowing Peronism participation to the elections. The proposal was rejected by Perón, exiled in Spain, who formed the FRECILINA (Frente Cívico de Liberación Nacional, Civic Front of National Liberation), headed by his delegate Héctor José Cámpora and which gathered the Justicialist Party and the Movimiento de Integración y Desarrollo (MID), headed by Arturo Frondizi. The FRECILINA requested free and unrestricted elections, which took place on March 11, 1973.
caption: Union leader Agustín Tosco
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