Hi @Gukpard my friend. I am going to copy and paste my post from the Paradox forums in which I criticized Paradox's work
Seeing the historical mistakes made in the Brazilian dev diary and in previous dlcs I knew this was coming, but I have to make a comment regardless.
In short, the common theme in the errors found in this focus tree is a lack of research (which is in part understandable thanks to the fact that the team behind HOI4 is a small one, but it isn't an excuse to avoid wanting to do research work specially if the premise of your product is that you are selling flavour). The broken Spanish found in the focus tree also doesn't present a good picture for Paradox, because if they can't bother to even check if the few Spaniish words they used are gramatically correct, what can we expect from the task of historical research which is a lot harder? I will proccede to comment the dev diary.
Ultimatelly while there were another reasons for the coup of 1943 (all the potential acceptable candidates (Justo) dying), the causus belli was that Castillo was going to move to a pro-Allies direction which was unaceptable for the GOU (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos) who were pro-German in the war and were made up of moderate nationalists who supported Germany (Farrell, Perón) or straight up fascists/nazis (Perlinger).
In short: the coup should happen as a reaction to the Argentine player seeking to join the allies.
A more sensible solution is to use the OTL plans. The UCR was in talk with Carlos Márquez (who was Justo's protege and the war minister at the time) to make a coup to restore democracy. These plans were nowhere because the nationalists in the army managed to purge Márquez using his corruption as an excuse, but Márquez coup succeding would allow for a democratic branch that made sence.
The fascist section starts wrong. Like fascism was somewhat relevant in Argentina and the 30s and it would go on to define the country post war:
To illustrate this division: Uriburu (who did the 1930 coup) was from the nationalist wing of the army and he attempted to implement a corporatist/fascist project. Justo (from the army liberals) thought this was cringe and ultimately it was the reason for why he coupted him and created the Concordancia. The Concordancia is thus a regime backed by the army liberals, unlike the following regime of the June dictatorship (GOU) which was created by the nationalists. Thus it doesn't make any sense for Ortiz to want to work with the nationalists given that it doesn't only go against his political beliefs, but it also attacks the base of support of his regime.
The Liga Patriótica Argentina (in singular) was a nationalist paramilitary group created in 1919 which was used by Yrgoyen to kill inmigrants and striking workers during the Tragic Week (mfw the UCR isn't blessed). Carles unlike what KR might tell (undoubtedly the reason for why the LP is here) wasn't an Argentine Hitler, he was a nativist radical (in the sence of belonging to the UCR and later the UCRA) and who was an anglophile. After the Tragic Week the LP faded out of relevancy and its militants would go to other nationalists organizations.
The Legión Cívica Argentina was meant to be Uriburu's regime paramilitaries. Like Uriburu called them "the Argentine black shirts". With the failure of his project they faded out of relevancy and in 1932 they would suffer an split in the form of the Acción Nacionalista Argentina (ANA) who seeked to try to build a political party of this failure.
Finally the Unión Nacionalista Fascista was originally created as a fascist party by Italian-inmigrants and became active in Córdoba. It had a few militants but they never accomplish anything. There wasn't a lack of fascists in Argentina in this era, it is just that they were never united.
This doesn't meant that a fascist route is implausible because there was literally a few moments in which Argentina could have gone fascist. The first of this was in 1936, in which Diego Luis Molinari (from the fascist Partido Radical - Gorro Frigio) tried to coup the goverment with the help of Basilio Pertiné. If you wanted a fascist route this could by the way.
(the screenshots are from our lord and saviour Potash)
Alternatively another way Argentina could have a plausible fascist route is throught the power struggle inside the GOU dictatorship. Perón in popular culture is basically described as a Nazi, but in reality he was in the faction made up of the moderate pro-fascism people. His arch-nemesis Luis César Perlinger in the other hand (who opposed him in many things including the alliance with the trade unions) was basically a fascist and could be even described as even a Nazi.
So basically an alternate route for fascist Argentina is simply Perlinger winning the power struggle against Perón inside the GOU.
Speaking clearly, the PCA was (and it is a meme). Like the most you could say of them is that they supported the 70s dictatorship because they were antiperonists. But the idea that the Argentine communists could lead a revolution is laughable. Unironically the most plausible way I can find of justyfing this is due to a syndicalist revolution rather than just the PCA acting as the vanguard party of a revolution.
Now Argentina had a really important syndicalist movement, however the trade unions split in 1934 between the Marxist faction (the CGT) and the syndicalist ones (the USA). The communist focus tree should begin then with the handwaving of them uniting together. For good measure you could even add a focus about them allying with the FORJA people (the revolutionary socialist radicals).
In my view as I described above the Buenos Aires congress would result either in the Marxists unions winning (in which case Ghioldi takes over, creates a leninist state and joins the USSR faction) or the syndicalists come in top. In any case the syndicalist leader wouldn't be Soto, but Sebastían Marotta, who was the leading syndicalist guy in the 30s.
You could also add FORJA as a path if you wanted le classic Latin American left-wing nationalism. Like they were starting the bullshit that Juan Manuel de Rosas was a leftist hero and what not.
The part about Liberation theology should be purged. Like it doesn't make sense without things like the II Vatican Council and the Movement for Priests of the Third World. It is a Cold War phenomen that doesn't fit here.
if Rosas in the XIX century had managed to conquer Uruguay and Paraguay he wouldn't have renamed the nation, it would still be Argentina.
To finish, I would recommend the team to read Potash' work "The Army and Argentine politics". Like he is a foreign but he interviewed a lot of relevant Argentine military people (you can check those online) and he is perhaps the only one who understood fully the Azul-Colorado wars from the 60s.
Like as a TNO dev I can't overstate how essential his work is to understand Argentina. And with this I say goodbye.
Seeing the historical mistakes made in the Brazilian dev diary and in previous dlcs I knew this was coming, but I have to make a comment regardless.
In short, the common theme in the errors found in this focus tree is a lack of research (which is in part understandable thanks to the fact that the team behind HOI4 is a small one, but it isn't an excuse to avoid wanting to do research work specially if the premise of your product is that you are selling flavour). The broken Spanish found in the focus tree also doesn't present a good picture for Paradox, because if they can't bother to even check if the few Spaniish words they used are gramatically correct, what can we expect from the task of historical research which is a lot harder? I will proccede to comment the dev diary.
The Concordancia wasn't a party, it is the name of the electoral alliance made by the UCRA (the radicals who opposed Yrigoyen's authoritarism), the PSI and the Conservatives. These groups remained as independent parties and this is important for Castillo later.
Yeah Castillo wasn't elected. He was from the PDN (the conservatives) and he was choosen as the VP of Ortiz. When Ortiz died he took office. Unlike Ortiz, who wanted to reform away from electoral fraud at some point (a goal also shared by Justo and his protege Carlos Márquez, which at this point were in talks with the UCR about doing so). Castillo on the other hand came from the wing of the conservatives who wanted to return to the """glory""" days of the PAN, which is to say an aristocratic conservative """democracy""".
Ultimatelly while there were another reasons for the coup of 1943 (all the potential acceptable candidates (Justo) dying), the causus belli was that Castillo was going to move to a pro-Allies direction which was unaceptable for the GOU (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos) who were pro-German in the war and were made up of moderate nationalists who supported Germany (Farrell, Perón) or straight up fascists/nazis (Perlinger).
In short: the coup should happen as a reaction to the Argentine player seeking to join the allies.
Okay, for this section we have to face the problem that HOI4 is a sandbox and that one of the design philosofies is to allow countries to go for all the ideologies in their focus tree which is unrealistic. Here what it is described for the democratic branch is that the player just decides to run the 1937 elections in a clear manner which doesn't work, like at all. La Concordancia and the Patriotic Fraud were made to render a Yrigoyenist (UCR) victory impossible, like they wouldn't allow the chance for the UCR to win and if the radichetas managed to do it so a coup would be made.
A more sensible solution is to use the OTL plans. The UCR was in talk with Carlos Márquez (who was Justo's protege and the war minister at the time) to make a coup to restore democracy. These plans were nowhere because the nationalists in the army managed to purge Márquez using his corruption as an excuse, but Márquez coup succeding would allow for a democratic branch that made sence.
The fascist section starts wrong. Like fascism was somewhat relevant in Argentina and the 30s and it would go on to define the country post war:
but the way it comes about doesn't make any sense at all. To explain this we have to take into account the division that has always existed in the Argentine army: military liberals vs nationalists. The military liberals unlike what their name would seem to imply don't particulary like democracy (in fact the dictatorship of the 70s was formed by army liberals), but their objective is to basically maintain the status quo of the military being a separate body from the state, while the nationalists as their name indicates are nationalists and it is where all the "funny" (fascist) people fall in.
To illustrate this division: Uriburu (who did the 1930 coup) was from the nationalist wing of the army and he attempted to implement a corporatist/fascist project. Justo (from the army liberals) thought this was cringe and ultimately it was the reason for why he coupted him and created the Concordancia. The Concordancia is thus a regime backed by the army liberals, unlike the following regime of the June dictatorship (GOU) which was created by the nationalists. Thus it doesn't make any sense for Ortiz to want to work with the nationalists given that it doesn't only go against his political beliefs, but it also attacks the base of support of his regime.
This section is complety wrong, like not only fails to correctly reference the LP but it also mixes it with other nationalists groups which were independent.
The Liga Patriótica Argentina (in singular) was a nationalist paramilitary group created in 1919 which was used by Yrgoyen to kill inmigrants and striking workers during the Tragic Week (mfw the UCR isn't blessed). Carles unlike what KR might tell (undoubtedly the reason for why the LP is here) wasn't an Argentine Hitler, he was a nativist radical (in the sence of belonging to the UCR and later the UCRA) and who was an anglophile. After the Tragic Week the LP faded out of relevancy and its militants would go to other nationalists organizations.
The Legión Cívica Argentina was meant to be Uriburu's regime paramilitaries. Like Uriburu called them "the Argentine black shirts". With the failure of his project they faded out of relevancy and in 1932 they would suffer an split in the form of the Acción Nacionalista Argentina (ANA) who seeked to try to build a political party of this failure.
Finally the Unión Nacionalista Fascista was originally created as a fascist party by Italian-inmigrants and became active in Córdoba. It had a few militants but they never accomplish anything. There wasn't a lack of fascists in Argentina in this era, it is just that they were never united.
This doesn't meant that a fascist route is implausible because there was literally a few moments in which Argentina could have gone fascist. The first of this was in 1936, in which Diego Luis Molinari (from the fascist Partido Radical - Gorro Frigio) tried to coup the goverment with the help of Basilio Pertiné. If you wanted a fascist route this could by the way.
(the screenshots are from our lord and saviour Potash)
Alternatively another way Argentina could have a plausible fascist route is throught the power struggle inside the GOU dictatorship. Perón in popular culture is basically described as a Nazi, but in reality he was in the faction made up of the moderate pro-fascism people. His arch-nemesis Luis César Perlinger in the other hand (who opposed him in many things including the alliance with the trade unions) was basically a fascist and could be even described as even a Nazi.
from: https://antigua.unlam.edu.ar/index.php/antigua_matanza/article/view/70/188
So basically an alternate route for fascist Argentina is simply Perlinger winning the power struggle against Perón inside the GOU.
The idea that an hypernationalist Argentina could core the rest of SA is laughable, like just in Brazil it would be impossible given the classic racism towards Brazilians by Platineans. Even in Uruguay they would have problems given that the whole point of Uruguay is that its people hate being ruled by Buenos Aires.
Okay, before writting further I have to clarify that a communist revolution is completely ASB. But we have to have one, so we need to take a look at Argentine leftism in order to see what would be the most "plausible" way this could work.
Speaking clearly, the PCA was (and it is a meme). Like the most you could say of them is that they supported the 70s dictatorship because they were antiperonists. But the idea that the Argentine communists could lead a revolution is laughable. Unironically the most plausible way I can find of justyfing this is due to a syndicalist revolution rather than just the PCA acting as the vanguard party of a revolution.
Now Argentina had a really important syndicalist movement, however the trade unions split in 1934 between the Marxist faction (the CGT) and the syndicalist ones (the USA). The communist focus tree should begin then with the handwaving of them uniting together. For good measure you could even add a focus about them allying with the FORJA people (the revolutionary socialist radicals).
Edelman doesn't make sense as a leader, like clearly she is just there because le epic girlboss (which I would support but it doesn't make sense). Like she wasn't never that relevant and it doesn't make sense to differentiate her from Ghioldi as she was in the PCA. To not speak of how the woman in the photo isn't even her, that is a common misconception.
In my view as I described above the Buenos Aires congress would result either in the Marxists unions winning (in which case Ghioldi takes over, creates a leninist state and joins the USSR faction) or the syndicalists come in top. In any case the syndicalist leader wouldn't be Soto, but Sebastían Marotta, who was the leading syndicalist guy in the 30s.
You could also add FORJA as a path if you wanted le classic Latin American left-wing nationalism. Like they were starting the bullshit that Juan Manuel de Rosas was a leftist hero and what not.
The part about Liberation theology should be purged. Like it doesn't make sense without things like the II Vatican Council and the Movement for Priests of the Third World. It is a Cold War phenomen that doesn't fit here.
This is a common tendency in foreigns, to add formable tags to Argentina like "La Plata" (I hate that name). And it doesn't work like that. Like if you read the Argentine constitution, it says on it that "The United Provinces of the Río de la Plata" and the "Argentine Confederation" are valid names of the nation, which is to say that in theory they have the same status as the official name which is "Argentine Republic". From the Argentine POV the Argentine Confederation and the previous United Provinces are the same thing as Argentina, and thus unless you are a Rosist larper it doesn't make sense to ressurect any of the two. (To not say how Argentina controlls more territory that the Argentine Confederation ever did)
if Rosas in the XIX century had managed to conquer Uruguay and Paraguay he wouldn't have renamed the nation, it would still be Argentina.
To finish, I would recommend the team to read Potash' work "The Army and Argentine politics". Like he is a foreign but he interviewed a lot of relevant Argentine military people (you can check those online) and he is perhaps the only one who understood fully the Azul-Colorado wars from the 60s.
Like as a TNO dev I can't overstate how essential his work is to understand Argentina. And with this I say goodbye.
