From ‘Healthy’ Patriotism to the Malvinas Cause: The Argentine Partido Socialista and the National Question

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Argentine Socialist Party, the main social democratic party in Latin America, adopted the concept of "healthy patriotism," based on the social progress of the majority. This article examines changes in party identity regarding nationalism in the 1930s, using local sources and global socialism. I argue that the PS underwent significant changes by adopting a "bourgeois" idea of ​​patriotism, strongly contested by the party until then. In this sense, it played a prominent role in promoting the Falklands cause, all of which ties into the broader political transformations of the period, all connected to broader political transformations of that time.