As the title says, create a scenario in which the Argentine Great Depression leads to a successful socialist revolution. Note: It can take the form of a "Bolivarian" revolution, it can be a classic Marxist-Leninist or a Trotskyist revolution (I would highly recommend exploring the last option because Trotskyism in Argentina is relatively strong).
AHC: Argentine great depression (1998 - 2002) leads to a socialist revolution
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Trotskyism in Argentina is stronger like 4 people into a telephone cabine....there's always the same issues...no matter what happened, if there's a war and Argentina is fighting that war....they will always looses it, second scenario...looses it and a civil war and a "socialist" revolution. Or a nazi argentina in WW2, or something like this. There was no way Argentina could have a "bolivarian" revolution at that time, the "cacerolazos" and "que se vayan todos" were mainly from mid classes, and far from trotksyst...you can see the votes of 2003 elections to see that. Kirchnerism when it appeared in 2003, had its sympathies for Lula and Chavez but it did not show itself as Argentine Chavismo.
It's almost as plausible as making a scenario where the medieval feudal system is restored in Belgium .... you have to see the idiosyncrasy of the Latin American countries, before falling into the prejudice of the "socialist revolution" in any country, without knowing as they think, if they had at least one strong socialist party (communist or Trotskyist). In Argentina, the few extreme left parties do not, together, reach 2% of the vote in their best moments, and on top of that they are at enmity with each other.
It's almost as plausible as making a scenario where the medieval feudal system is restored in Belgium .... you have to see the idiosyncrasy of the Latin American countries, before falling into the prejudice of the "socialist revolution" in any country, without knowing as they think, if they had at least one strong socialist party (communist or Trotskyist). In Argentina, the few extreme left parties do not, together, reach 2% of the vote in their best moments, and on top of that they are at enmity with each other.
Four Argentine trotskysts walk into a bar. When they leave, five new trostskysts political parties have been formed.
I think the crisis dammed even more whatever image hard left parties have, even though they sometimes get votes in the form of "None of the big parties are good, so I'll vote those guys who can't win anyway". Through the 1990s, the hard left campaigned about not paying the foreign debt. Well, that happened, and the results weren't pretty. The 2001 song "De igual a igual" by Leon Gieco had these verses: "if you ask me to return to where I was born / I ask for your corporation to leave my country". That happened, the results weren't pretty. Even today, the left wing politicians who work in the slums parrot about "social economy" and similar non sense, when in reality, it's the poors and the slums whose economy it's the closest to anarcho-capitalist in the country: yes, fixed incomes and soup kitchens are part of the way money and goods show up there, but go ask for a legal invoice when procuring services from someone living in a slum, or see if you can get a legally binding contract in order to rent there.
Anticapitalism in Argentina is the dream of hippies with expensive health care, living in upper class neighbourhoods and, for bonus points, in borrowed apartments and given their dream job in a silver platter by former rivals.
I think the crisis dammed even more whatever image hard left parties have, even though they sometimes get votes in the form of "None of the big parties are good, so I'll vote those guys who can't win anyway". Through the 1990s, the hard left campaigned about not paying the foreign debt. Well, that happened, and the results weren't pretty. The 2001 song "De igual a igual" by Leon Gieco had these verses: "if you ask me to return to where I was born / I ask for your corporation to leave my country". That happened, the results weren't pretty. Even today, the left wing politicians who work in the slums parrot about "social economy" and similar non sense, when in reality, it's the poors and the slums whose economy it's the closest to anarcho-capitalist in the country: yes, fixed incomes and soup kitchens are part of the way money and goods show up there, but go ask for a legal invoice when procuring services from someone living in a slum, or see if you can get a legally binding contract in order to rent there.
Anticapitalism in Argentina is the dream of hippies with expensive health care, living in upper class neighbourhoods and, for bonus points, in borrowed apartments and given their dream job in a silver platter by former rivals.
I do remember I once saw a videoclip of a person recalling her memories from 2001, and she said "I thought this was going to be it, that the revolution would come and everybody would be expropiated". So despite the almost impossibility, I can see where you're coming from.
2001 was really a revolutionary moment, and I'm sure there are a lot of interesting PODs that could be done in and around the period (I often find myself learning new things about it, and I lived through it) but a communist revolution, at least as one understands it, is a highly, highly implausible outcome in any Argentina where Peronism exists as a major force.
It is an fact, regardless of how you might feel about it, that Peronism in Argentina has the biggest support from the working class and the underemployed (the Proletariat, if you will) and a good portion of the middle and intelectual class, and that no leftist movement in Argentina has ever had that like Peronism. And not only that, but it is also the most powerful and influential political party/system in the country, so even after the utter chaos of 2001 it was able to keep power in the country. There was no way that the trotskyst parties, or any other left party in Argentina would have commanded such power to begin a revolution, and in fact would be viewed even more as a joke if they had attempted (or a menace, probably both)
Yes, of course the Kircherism that came to power after 2003 had leftist sympathies and to an extent policies. It's not implausible that a more radical Néstor Kirchner or Cristina (could have there been other similar figures? I'm not sure) would take the country on a more "Bolivarian" path. But no matter how the right here likes to complain and redscare, there was not a single point in Argentina's recent history where we have ever even been close to anything remotely resembling communism (the ideal or the Evil version), no, not even a Venezuela-like situation. Kirchnerism is indeed a "left" leaning movement and it had (has) a lot of failures, but it never sought to fundamentally revolutionize the country, just to implement a more "pink" capitalism with more distributionism and "social justice" , developmentism if you will. Wethever they succeeded or not is a debate for Chat*, but the fact is that they never even became close to a communist or socialist revolution, and they would have most probably failed if they tried: for one, a good part of Peronism is conservative in many areas and would have not supported such a move; for two, even if they had commanded the support of the people, their policies would have been catastrophic and Argentines are, if nothing else, a very militant people; you would see 2001 all over again.
The closest thing we ever had to taking the means of production was nationalizing YPF, and we're still paying the owners and their stupid lawyer fees because of that. If CFK was a communist she was the most lukewarm ever, any commie worth their salt would have nationalized everything and told them to fuck off.
*For the record: I do sympthize with Kirchnerism and I believe Néstor did the very best he could to fix the disasters of 2001 and make the country grow. Just to clear up that this is most probably a biased take, but I stand for it.
2001 was really a revolutionary moment, and I'm sure there are a lot of interesting PODs that could be done in and around the period (I often find myself learning new things about it, and I lived through it) but a communist revolution, at least as one understands it, is a highly, highly implausible outcome in any Argentina where Peronism exists as a major force.
It is an fact, regardless of how you might feel about it, that Peronism in Argentina has the biggest support from the working class and the underemployed (the Proletariat, if you will) and a good portion of the middle and intelectual class, and that no leftist movement in Argentina has ever had that like Peronism. And not only that, but it is also the most powerful and influential political party/system in the country, so even after the utter chaos of 2001 it was able to keep power in the country. There was no way that the trotskyst parties, or any other left party in Argentina would have commanded such power to begin a revolution, and in fact would be viewed even more as a joke if they had attempted (or a menace, probably both)
Yes, of course the Kircherism that came to power after 2003 had leftist sympathies and to an extent policies. It's not implausible that a more radical Néstor Kirchner or Cristina (could have there been other similar figures? I'm not sure) would take the country on a more "Bolivarian" path. But no matter how the right here likes to complain and redscare, there was not a single point in Argentina's recent history where we have ever even been close to anything remotely resembling communism (the ideal or the Evil version), no, not even a Venezuela-like situation. Kirchnerism is indeed a "left" leaning movement and it had (has) a lot of failures, but it never sought to fundamentally revolutionize the country, just to implement a more "pink" capitalism with more distributionism and "social justice" , developmentism if you will. Wethever they succeeded or not is a debate for Chat*, but the fact is that they never even became close to a communist or socialist revolution, and they would have most probably failed if they tried: for one, a good part of Peronism is conservative in many areas and would have not supported such a move; for two, even if they had commanded the support of the people, their policies would have been catastrophic and Argentines are, if nothing else, a very militant people; you would see 2001 all over again.
The closest thing we ever had to taking the means of production was nationalizing YPF, and we're still paying the owners and their stupid lawyer fees because of that. If CFK was a communist she was the most lukewarm ever, any commie worth their salt would have nationalized everything and told them to fuck off.
*For the record: I do sympthize with Kirchnerism and I believe Néstor did the very best he could to fix the disasters of 2001 and make the country grow. Just to clear up that this is most probably a biased take, but I stand for it.
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