The anti-Freudian politics of Argentine fascism: Anti-Semitism, catholicism, and the internal enemy, 1932-1945

HAHR - Hispanic American Historical Review

Volumn 87, Issue 1, 2007, Pages 77-110

  Finchelstein, Federico ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 64949132812     PISSN: 00182168     EISSN: 15271900     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00182168-2006-088     Document Type: Review

References (138)

1. Carlos Meneses, Cartas de juventud de J. L. Borges (1921-1922) (Madrid: Orígenes, 1987), 15
2. See also Federico Finchelstein, "Rileggendo il canone: Renzo de Felice fra storia e teoria," I Viaggi di Erodoto. Trimestrale di Cultura Storica 43/44 (2001): 52-67
3. See also Sandra McGee Deutsch, Las Derechas: The Extreme Right in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, 1890-1939 (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1999)
4. Cristián Buchrucker, Nacionalismo y Peronismo: La Argentina en la crisis ideológica mundial (1911-1955) (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1987)
5. Marcus Klein, "The Legión Civica Argentina and the Radicalisation of Argentine Nationalismo during the Década Infame" Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe 13, no. 2 (2002): 5-30
6. Alberto Spektorowski, Argentina's Revolution of the Right (Notre Dame: Univ. of Notre Dame Press, 2003)
7. On the history of Catholicism, see Loris Zanatta, Del estado liberal a la nación católica: Iglesia y Ejército en los origenes del peronismo (Bernal: Univ. Nacional de Quilmes, 1996)
8. and Lila Caimari Perón y la Iglesia Católica (Buenos Aires: Ariel, 1995)
9. See Hugo Vezzetti, Aventuras de Freud en el país de los argentinos (Buenos Aires: Paidós, 1996)
10. Hugo Vezzetti, ed., Freud en Buenos Aires, 1910-1939 (Buenos Aires: Puntosur, 1989)
11. and Mariano Plotkin, Freud in the Pampas: the Emergence and Development of a Psychoanalytic Culture in Argentina (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 2001)
12. See also Vezzetti's La locura en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Folios, 1983)
13. and El nacimiento de la psicologia ai la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Puntosur, 1988)
14. See also the recent and illuminating collection edited by Mariano Plotkin, Argentina on the Couch: Psychiatry, State, and Society, 1880 to the Present (Albuquerque: Univ. of New Mexico Press, 2003). The APA was affiliated with the International Psychoanalytic Association
15. For an interesting testimonial history of the APA, see Fidias Cesio, La gesta psicoanalitica en América Latina (Buenos Aires: La Peste, 2000), 31-32. Freud first noticed the existence of his influence in Argentina when the Chilean physician German Greve mentioned him at the Congreso Internacional Americano de Medicina e Higiene that was held in Buenos Aires in 1910
16. See Sigmund Freud, On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement (New York: Norton, 1966), 30
17. Filippo's importance for both nationalist groups and his massive audience beyond the usual fascist or profascist public has been addressed by the historiography. In addition to the works by McGee and Zanatta, see the fine collection by Leonardo Senkman, ed., El antisemitismo en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Ceal, 1989)
18. and the recent study by Daniel Lvovich, Nacionalismo y antisemitismo en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Vergara, 2003)
19. This is somewhat attenuated by the recent focus on fascism, anti-Semitism, and sexuality in the historiography of the extreme Right and the church: see Sandra McGee Deutsch, "Los nacionalistas argentinos y la sexualidad 1919-1940," Reflejos: Revista del Departamento de Estudios Españoles y Latinoamericanos (Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) 10 (2001-2)
20. Filippo imported his fascist and anti-Semitic views into a particular strain of Peronist discourse that emphasized the idea of a Jewish and Communist conspiracy against Perón. Filippo fantasized that this "confabulation" acted in combination with a Jewish American and Masonic conspiracy against the Peronist regime. See, for example, Virgilio Filippo, Confabulación contra la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Lista Blanca, 1944), 1, 35, 77-78, 86, 206-7, and 211
21. Virgilio Filippo, Sistemas genialmente antisociales, rev. ed. (Buenos Aires: Lista Blanca, 1949), 295 and 332
22. Virgilio Filippo, El Plan Quiquenal de Perón (Buenos Aires: Lista Blanca, 1948), 40-41
23. and Virgilio Filippo, Páginas místicas (Buenos Aires, 1946), 139 and 154. This, of course, does not mean that Peronism itself was a fascist or anti-Semitic movement
24. See also Raanan Rein's excellent study: Argentina, Israel, and the Jews: Perón, the Eichmann Capture, and After (Bethesda: Univ. Press of Maryland, 2003)
25. Ignacio Klich, "Perón, Braden y el antisemitismo: Opinion pública e imagen international," Ciclos 2, no. 2 (1992)
26. and Leonardo Senkman, "The Response of the First Peronist Government to Antisemitic Discourse, 1946-1954: A Necessary Reassessment," Judaica Latinoamericana 3 (1997)
27. See also Cristián Buchrucker, Nacionalismo y peronismo, 354
28. and Bianchi, Catolicismo y peronismo, 232
29. For the discussion on the relation between Peronism and generic fascism, see Gino Germani, Authoritarianism, Fascism, and National Populism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1978)
30. and Paul Lewis, "Was Perón a Fascist? An Inquiry into the Nature of Fascism," Journal of Politics 42, no. 1 (1980): 242-56
31. See also Federico Finchelstein, "Fascismo y peronismo: Una lectura de Gino Germani," Storiografia: Rivista Annuale di Storia (Pisa/Rome) 7 (2003-4)
32. On this topic, see the different arguments in Janine Puget and Rene Kaës, Violencia de estado y psicoanalisis (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de America Latina, 1991)
33. and Plotkin, Freud in the Pampas
34. For an excellent approach to Argentine history, see Luis Alberto Romero, Breve historia contemporánea de la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2001)
35. For a cogent analysis of the intellectuȧl climate of this period, see Tulio Halperin Donghi, La Argentina y la tormenta del mundo: Ideas e ideologías entre 1930 y 1945 (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2003)
36. For the Peronist regime, see James Brennan, ed., Peronism and Argentina (Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1998)
37. Raanan Rein, Peronismo, populismo y política: Argentina 1943-1955 (Buenos Aires: Ed. de Belgrano, 1998)
38. and Juan Carlos Torre, ed. Los años peronistas, 1943-1955 (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2002)
39. Zanatta, Del estado liberal a la nación católica
40. Finchelstein, Fascismo, liturgia e imaginario, 131-44
41. Zanatta, Perón y el mito de la nación católica
42. See Daniel Lvovich and Federico Finchelstein, "L'Holocauste et l'Eglise argentine: Perceptions et réactions (1933 -1945)," Bulletin trimestriel de la Fondation Auschwitz = Driemaandelijks tijdschrift van de Auschwitz Stichting 76-77 (2002)
43. See also Graciela Ben Dror, Católicos, nazis y judios: La lglesia argentina en los tiempos del Tercer Reich (Buenos Aires: Lumiere, 2003)
44. Finchelstein, "Sexo, raça e nacionalismo."
45. Julio Meinvielle, El judío (Buenos Aires: Antídoto, 1936), 11
46. Virgilio Filippo, Los Judíos: Juicio histórico cientifico que el autor no pudo transmitir por L.R.S Radio Paris (Buenos Aires: Tor, 1939), 111
47. Virgilio Filippo, Confirencias radiotelefónicas (Buenos Aires: Tor, 1936), 215
48. See George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality (New York: Howard Fertig, 1985)
49. and Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1996)
50. Sander Gilman, The Jew's Body (New York: Routledge, 1991)
51. and Virgilio Filippo, ¿Quiénes tienen las manos limpias? Estudios sociológicos (Buenos Aires: Tor, 1939), 127
52. Cattaruza, "Algunas reflexiones sobre el revisionismo histórico," in La historiografía argentina en el siglo XX, ed. Fernando Devote (Buenos Aires: CEAL, 1993)
53. and Cattaruza, "Descifrando pasados: Debates y representaciones de la historia nacional," in Nueva Historia Argentina: Crisis económica, avance del Estado e incertidumbre politica (1930-1943), ed. Alejandro Cattaruzza (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 2001)
54. Tulio Halperin Donghi, El revisionismo histórico argentino (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 1970)
55. Halperin Donghi, "El revisionismo histórico argentino corno visión decadentista de la historia nacional," in Ensayos de historiografía (Buenos Aires: El Cielo por Asalto, 1996)
56. and Diana Quattrocchi-Woisson, Los males de la memoria: Historia y política en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1998)
57. See Enrique P. Osés, Sarmiento el indeseable (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de "Asociación Amigos de Crisol," [1939]), esp. 5, 11, 27-32, 33, and 40
58. Filippo, Los judíos, 44, 45, 49
59. Filippo, Los judíos, 48 and 86
60. See also Virgilio Filippo, El monstruo comunista: Conferencias radiotelefónicas irradiadas el año 1938, los domingos a las 13 desde L.R 8 Radio Paris de Bs. Aires (Buenos Aires: Tor, 1939), 426
61. U.S. State Department, Consultation among the American Republics with Respect to the Argentine Situation (Washington, DC: GPO, 1946), 75
62. For a detailed account of the relation between German Nazism, Argentine nationalism, and fascism, see Ronald Newton, The Nazi Menace in Argentina, 1931-1941 (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1992)
63. and Newton, "The 'Nazi Menace' in Argentina Revisited," Patterns of Prejudice 31, no. 3 (1997)
64. See also Cristian Buchrucker, "Latin America in the Time of the Nazis," Patterns of Prejudice 31, no. 3 (1997)
65. Ignacio Klich, "Los Nazis en la Argentina: Revisando algunos mitos," Ciclos 5, no. 9 (1995)
66. Klich, ed., Sobre nazis y nazismo en la cultura argentina (College Park, MD: Hispamérica, 2002)
67. and Federico Finchelstein and Esteban Speyer, "El hilo pardo: Una mirada nazi sobre Argentina," Espacios de Critica y Producción 26 (2000)
68. See McGee Deutsch, Las dérechas, 229
69. "El problema judío en Argentina," Bandera Argentina, Aug. 27, 1932, 2
70. See also Carlos Silveyra, "Los enemigos del nacionalismo," Clarinada, Aug. 1938
71. "Nosotros y los judíos," Bandera Argentina, Apr. 5, 1933, 1
72. Victoria Campos, "Oda al Loro," La Maroma 2 (Segunda Quincena, 1939), 13
73. For an analysis of these constructions in the European context, see Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality
74. Norman Cohn, El mito de la conspiración judía mundial (Buenos Aires: Milá, 1988), 266
75. Julio Meinvielle, Entre la Iglesia y el Reich (Buenos Aires: Adsum, 1937), 66, 68
76. See McGee Deutsch, "Los nacionalistas argentinos"
77. Meinvielle, El judío, 11
78. For an interesting analysis of Ramos Mejía's anti-Semitism, see Jorge Salessi, Médicos, maleantes y maricas: Higiene, criminología y sexualidad en la construcción de la nación Argentina (Buenos Aires: 1811-1914) (Rosario: Beatriz Viterbo, 2000), 244-45. Filippo's reading of Ramos Mejía was probably inscribed in the wider context of a more general Argentine tendency to equate immigrants in general, and Jewish immigrants in particular, with madness. Another interesting case in this regard is that of the Argentine intellectual Lucas Ayarragaray, who shared Ramos Mejia's anti-Semitic understanding of the mental health of Jews
79. See Hugo Vezzetti, La locura en la Argentina (Buenos Aires: Folios Ediciones, 1983)
80. For an excellent work on prostitution in Argentina, see Donna J. Guy, Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentina (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1991)
81. Virgilio Filippo, El reinado de Satanás: Conferencīas radiotelefónicas transmitidas desde L.R.8 Radio París de Buenos Aires el año 1936 (Buenos Aires: Lista Blanca, 1949), 82
82. See Hugo Vezzetti, "Las promesas del psicoanálisis en la cultura de masas," in Historia de la vida privada en la Argentina, vol. 3, ed. Fernando Devoto and Marta Madero (Buenos Aires: Taurus, 1999)
83. See also Mariano Ben Plotkin, "Tell Me Your Dreams: Psychoanalysis and Popular Culture in Buenos Aires, 1930-1950," The Americas 55, no. 4 (1999)
84. and Plotkin, "Freud, Politics, and the Porten̄os: The Reception of Psychoanalysis in Buenos Aires, 1910-1943," HAHR 77, no. 1 (1997)
85. See Vezzetti, Aventuras de Freud, 188
86. Leandro H. Gutiérrez and Luis Alberto Romero, Sectores populares, cultura y política (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1995)
87. and Luis Alberto Romero, Libros baratos y cultura de los sectores populares: Buenos Aires en la entreguerra (Buenos Aires: Centro de Investigaciones Sociales sobre el Estado y la Administración, 1986)
88. For a cogently presented analysis of this book, see Michael P. Steinberg, "Politics and Psychology of Die Schweigsame Frau," in Stefan Zweig: The World of Yesterday's Humanist Today. Proceedings of the Stefan Zweig Symposium, ed. Marion Sonnenfeld (Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 1983), 228, 230-31
89. Stefan Zweig, Freud (1933; Buenos Aires: Tor, 1942), 8, 30
90. Stefan Zweig, Freud Ibid., 86, 114, 137
91. For an innovative account of Gómez Nerea/Hidalgo's intellectual itinerary, see Vezzetti, Aventuras de Freud, chap. 4
92. Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism (1939; New York: Vintage, 1967), 66, 67, 68
93. For a cogent argument on Freud and the Austrian Catholic context, see Michael P. Steinberg, "The Catholic Culture of the Austrian Jews, 1890-1938," in Austria as Theater and Ideology: The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2000)
94. See Sigmund Freud, Moses and Monotheism, 67
95. See Filippo, El Renado de Satanás, 2:103
96. See also Virgilio Filippo, ¿Quiénes tienen las manos limpias? (Buenos Aires: Tor, 1939), 69
97. See Filippo, El Reinado de Satanás, 2:111
98. J. Gómez Nerea, Freud y el problema sexual, 182
99. Filippo, Los judíos, 193, 219
100. See Steinberg, "Politics and Psychology of Die Schweigsame Frau," 231
101. See Jules de la Vaissière, Educational Psychology (St. Louis, MO: B. Herder, 1932), 36-37, 76-77, 271-72
102. and Leonardo Castellani, "Preface to Ernesto Palacio," in La historia falsificada (Buenos Aires: Difusión, 1939)
103. Luis Enrique, "Marginando," Criterio, May 8, 1930, 595
104. See also Tomás de Lara, "Crónica," Criterio, Oct. 4, 1928, 20
105. Leonardo Castellani, Conversación y critica filosófica (Buenos Aires: Espasa-Calpe, 1941), 47
106. and McGee Deutsch, Las derechas, 243
107. See "Comunismo," Criterio, May 14, 1936, 46
108. For an analysis of this theme, see Dominick LaCapra, Representing the Holocaust: History, Theory, Trauma (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1994), 104
109. See "Comentarios. El Barón Hirsch y el anti-Semitismo," Criterio, Nov. 2, 1939, 201-2
110. Filippo, Los judíos, 188, 210
111. Jacques Maritain, Freudismo y psicoanâlisis: Conferencias pronunciadas en la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Filosofía, Univ. de Buenos Aires, 1938), 46
112. See also Filippo, El Reinado de Satanás, 2:103, 106-7
113. See Maritain, Freudismo y psicoanálisis, 53, 64
114. See Maritain, Freudismo y psicoanálisis, 57
115. Filippo, ¿Quiénes tienen las manos limpias? 133
116. See Mijail Bajtin, La cultura popular en la Edad Media y en el Renacimiento (Buenos Aires: Alianza, 1994)
117. On Bakhtin and the carnivalesque, see Dominick LaCapra, "Bakhtin, Marxism, and the Carnivalesque," in Rethinking Intellectual History: Texts, Contexts, Language (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1983)
118. See also Degreff, Sión el último imperialismo (Buenos Aires, 1937), 76. Degreff was a close associate of Enrique Osés and the nationalist group Amigos de Crisol
119. Filippo, Los judíos, 37, 226
120. Albérico S. Lagomarsino, La cuestión judía: Su estudio analitico y crítico (Buenos Aires, 1936), 84-87
121. See Juan Palmetta, "Fe de erratas: Freud. La gastro-análisis, " Criterio, Oct. 5, 1939, 109
122. On this topic, see Carlo Ginzburg's perceptive piece "Pope Wojtila's Slip," in Wooden Eyes: Nine Reflections on Distance (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2001), 174-75
123. Freud actually had cancer of the jaw, not the tongue. See Leonardo Castellani, Freud en cifra (Buenos Aires: Cruz y Fierro, 1966), 11. Many fascists, including Castellani, compared Vienna with Buenos Aires and claimed that both cities were "monstrously" overwhelmed by the Jews
124. See Degreff, Esperanza de Israel, 51. For them, both cities faced a pollutant from a lower world that was a combination of both modern and ancient threats to Christianity and its foremost creation, "the white race."
125. and Leonardo Castellani, "Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)," La Nación, Oct. 8, 1939, 1-2 (2nd section)
126. See LaCapra, Representing the Holocaust, 104
127. Filippo, Los judíos, 70, 163
128. See Steinberg, Austria as Theater and Ideology, 184
129. For a cogent historical argument on Catholic fascism, see Zanatta, Del estado liberal, 287
130. and Enzo Collotti, Fascismo, Fascismi (Milano: Sansoni, 1994), 33
131. See Ramón Perez de Ayala, "Psicología étnica," La Prensa, Oct. 16, 1938
132. See Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983), 23
133. See Freud, On the History, 23
134. See Sigmund Freud, "The Ego and Id," The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 19 (London: Hogarth, 1961), 37
135. See Jeffreey Mehlman, Legacies of Anti-Semitism in France (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minessota Press, 1983)
136. For an excellent discussion of psychoanalysis and fascism, see Eli Zaretsky, Secrets of the Soul: A Social and Cultural History of Psychoanalysis (New York: Vintage, 2005), 217-45
137. See Michel David, La psicoanalisi nella cultura italiana (Torino: Boringhieri, 1970)
138. and Piero Meldini, Mussolini contro Freud: La psicoanalisi nella pubblicistica fascista (Firenze: Guaraldi, 1976)