Argentine Historiography Under Dictatorship: Political Repression and Academic Resistance (1966-1983)

Meta Description: An analysis of how Argentina's 1966 and 1976 military coups purged universities, politicized historical revisionism, and transformed Marxist and nationalist historiography through exile and repression.

The Argentine military coup of June 1966 fundamentally altered the nation's academic landscape. One month later, the new regime intervened in the national universities, seeking to dismantle centers of political opposition and intellectual reform. At the University of Buenos Aires, students and professors responded by occupying university buildings in protest. This resistance was brutally crushed on July 29, 1966, in an event memorialized as the ‘Noche de los Bastones Largos’ (Night of the Long Truncheons), where police violently evicted scholars. The immediate consequence was the mass resignation of hundreds of faculty, particularly reformers; within the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters alone, approximately 300 historians and academics departed.

This systematic purge forced historians into exile or into precarious alternative institutions. Many sought refuge abroad, while others found positions within newly established private universities or independent research centers. A key sanctuary was the Di Tella Institute, founded in 1958 with substantial foreign foundation funding, which became a crucial hub for displaced social scientists. Despite the regime's efforts to suppress the progressive spirit of the 1960s, this era indelibly influenced Argentine historiography. Intellectual currents shifted decisively toward critical, independent leftist perspectives, prominently expressed through the framework of dependency theory.

The application of dependency theory, particularly the models associated with Andre Gunder Frank and Fernando Henrique Cardoso, provided a structural critique of Argentina’s place in the global capitalist system. Simultaneously, orthodox Marxist discourse gained profound traction, fueling intense debates over the colonial economic mode of production—specifically, whether it was feudal or capitalist. By the 1970s, Marxist terminology and analysis had become commonplace within academic history, reflecting a broader societal radicalization. This period also witnessed the evolution of Revisionist historiography, which traditionally challenged liberal nationalist narratives.

The dominant form of Revisionism increasingly fused Peronism, Marxism, and nationalism, though traditional right-wing versions persisted. Left-wing Revisionism, developing since the 1940s from within the Communist Party, was inherently nationalistic and largely embraced Peronism. This wing expanded with the growing influence of the Peronist left, using history to promote a political vision while rejecting liberalism. However, many left-wing Revisionists, unlike their rightist counterparts, were ambivalent about glorifying the 19th-century dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas. Historians like Rodolfo Ortega Peña and Eduardo Luis Duhalde instead exalted provincial caudillos like Felipe Varela, framing his 1866-70 rebellions as an anti-imperialist struggle, though often with scant evidence.

A significant exception was the influential Revisionist José María Rosa, who controversially argued that Rosas’s Argentina functioned as a socialist state because all dominant classes were subordinate to his rule. The brief democratic interlude from 1973, allowing Juan Perón’s return, turned universities into critical political centers. While Ortega Peña and Duhalde gained popularity at the University of Buenos Aires, they faced competition from moderates like Félix Luna, whose solid biographical work, such as his study of the pivotal year 1945, attracted large audiences. However, this leftist ascendancy was short-lived, crushed by right-wing Peronist violence even before the 1976 coup.

Historical scholarship became intensely politicized and popular in this period, as symbolized by the renaming of a major Buenos Aires street. Canning Street, named for the British foreign secretary, was renamed for Revisionist founder Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz in the early 1970s. The military junta that seized power in March 1976 immediately reversed this change, a symbolic act foreshadowing a far more brutal repression. This dictatorship initiated a systematic campaign of state terrorism, with an estimated 30,000 desaparecidos (disappeared); 21% were students, including 13 history students from the University of Córdoba.

The regime purged universities through killings, arrests, and dismissals, burning books and forcing a massive brain drain. Exiles fled to Mexico, Spain, France, and the United States, while those remaining endured marginalization in private institutions or social science institutes like PEHESA (Programa de Estudios de Historia Económica y Social Americana). Founded in 1977, PEHESA created a vital space for social history, influenced by British Marxists like E. P. Thompson. Its early work focused on the 19th-20th century working class, with members sustaining themselves through grants or non-academic jobs until democracy’s return.

Exile and repression catalyzed a profound ideological rethinking. Exposure to international historiography and new sources, combined with the left’s defeat, prompted a turn toward democratic values. Historians like Tulio Halperín Donghi adapted their methodologies; his initial reliance on microfilmable documents for topics like 19th-century finance later shifted toward the history of ideas and mentalities, which required less direct archival access. This generation of scholars, whether exiled or internally isolated, often perceived themselves as distinct—a “lost generation” whose entry into the profession was delayed or fractured by dictatorship.

Despite these challenges, their legacy is evident in the sustained critical examination of Argentina’s social and economic structures. The post-1979 shift in secondary school history curricula toward the 20th century and official anti-Marxism underscored the regime’s attempt to control historical narrative. Yet, the resilience of academic networks, both in exile and in clandestine institutes, ensured the survival and eventual transformation of Argentine historical thought, embedding themes of dependency, social conflict, and memory at its core. The personal and collective trauma of this period continues to shape historiographical questions and the identity of Argentina’s academic community.