The 1930 coup d’état against the government of Hipólito Yrigoyen interrupted democratic rule in Argentina. The new dictatorship led by José Félix Uriburu attempted to impose an authoritarian solution inspired by fascist models. However, this project quickly failed because it was unable to build broad political consensus or stabilize the political system. Its failure paved the way for the governments of the Concordancia, a heterogeneous political alliance that brought together conservatives, anti-personalist radicals, and independent socialists.
The Concordancia remained in power the rest of the decade through electoral fraud, political proscription, and institutional control. Even so, its governments contributed to limiting the emergence of more radical authoritarian alternatives similar to those consolidating in interwar Europe. Argentina in the 1930s thus combined a restricted democracy with deep ideological tensions, within an international context marked by the rise of fascism, Nazism, and other authoritarian nationalist movements.
In response to the advance of Nazism in Europe and the local circulation of racist and antisemitic discourse, different sectors of Argentine civil society organized democratic responses. Within this context, one month after the Évian Conference, Buenos Aires hosted the First Congress against Racism and Antisemitism, a pioneering initiative in Latin America. The Congress brought together intellectuals, political leaders, trade unionists, representatives of diverse communities, and European exiles fleeing Nazism and fascism.
Among the most prominent figures who supported or participated in the Congress were political leaders and cultural figures such as Arturo Frondizi, Alicia Moreau de Justo, and Jorge Luis Borges. The resolutions adopted by the Congress explicitly condemned the racial doctrines of Nazism and fascism, defended equality of rights, and promoted pluralistic coexistence. They also affirmed a democratic Argentine tradition that, although marked by electoral fraud and political exclusion, still provided spaces for denunciation, solidarity, and resistance against European antisemitism and its local expressions.
