Some hypotheses about the origin of the U.C.R. (Radical Party) in Salta, in the context of the organic hegemony towards the end of the 19th century

Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce some hypotheses about the origins of the Radical Party (1891) in Salta.

The research team from “Argentine History III" of the School of History, U.N.Sa. (National University of Salta), has developed these hypotheses as an integral part of a larger piece of research about the provincial political system, included in Project No. 330 from C.I.U.N.Sa. (Research Committee from the U.N.Sa.) entitled "Radicalism and Peronism in Salta: Strategies of Social Penetration in their Origins. Comparative Studies".

The present research deals with a topic that has not been much investigated by the local historians. Using Gramscian categories, we have approached the analysis of the mediation of a newly born layer of “organic intellectuals" within the context of the division of the provincial bourgeoisie.

In our opinion, this new layer of organic intellectuals, at first, tries to articulate the interests of the different groups in relation to the National State. In a second stage, with the economic crisis of the late 1880s and the difficulties of the integration, a break occurs in the provincial dominant bloc -also a break in the intellectual bloc-. One faction reinforces domination over society in an exclusionary way, while the other faction, by questioning the oligarchic form acquired by the exercise of power, gives rise to the Radical Civic Union.