Unwilling allies: the USSR, the Communist Party of Argentina, and the military dictatorship in Argentina, 1976–1983

Abstract

The author of this article aims to explore the complex and contradictory relationship between the Communist Party of Argentina, the Soviet Union, and the military regime in Argentina between 1976 and 1983. It was a period of right-wing military dictatorship domination in the region, characterised by outright terrorist policies against left-wing forces, mass violations of human rights, which put the International Communist Movement in an ambiguous position due to the USSR’s close cooperation with the Argentine military junta. A unique situation of mutual interest between Soviet foreign policy and the military dictatorship developed in the USSR’s relations with the military regime in Argentina. The most important factor in this contradictory situation was the position of the Communist Party of Argentina, supported by the CPSU, on co-operation with a regime that other communist parties and leftist forces qualified as fascist, ultra-reactionary, and anti-communist. The USSR found moral and political justification for its cooperation with the Argentine regime in the policies of local communists who supported the regime, justifying its repression of leftist radical movements, especially the Montoneros. The Argentine Communist Party justified its policy by referring to the junta’s growing cooperation with the USSR. The article explores the reasons for this policy of the Communist Party, which caused tension in the international communist movement and the subsequent isolation of the Argentinian Communist Party. The specific political interests of the USSR were supported by the Argentine communists, who, in turn, saw in them a guarantee of their interests in the conditions of the harsh right-wing military regime in the country. For the first time in historiography, this paper, drawing on records from the archive of the CPSU Central Committee, documents the complex process of reconciling the USSR’s economic and political interests in Argentina during this difficult period of the Cold War.