Loyalty Day (Spanish: Día de la lealtad) is a commemoration day in Argentina. It remembers 17 October 1945, when a large labour demonstration at the Plaza de Mayo, in downtown Buenos Aires, demanded the liberation of Juan Domingo Perón, jailed on Isla Martín García. It is considered the foundational moment of the Peronist movement.
On 4 June 1943, nationalist sectors of the Argentine Armed Forces led by General Arturo Rawson orchestrated a coup d'état against President Ramón Castillo, the last president of the Infamous Decade, a line of corrupt governments that had imposed the so-called "patriotic fraud" since the end of the José Félix Uriburu administration.
The labor movement was against the coup, initially perplexed and undecided about the position that should be adopted. It was divided into the four main groups (CGT N º 1, CGT No. 2, USA and FORA). One of the first actions was to dissolve the government CGT No. 2 (led by the socialist Francisco Pérez Leirós), the Employees' Union of trade unions of Borlenghi and the communist-led unions (construction workers, meatpackers, etc.). It led to a number of unions that formed it to return to the CGT N º 1 (general secretary José Domenech). Shortly after, the government passed a law on trade unions that met some expectations except for union, while allowing them to intervene by the State. Then the military government applied this law to the powerful rail unions involved and the heart of the CGT, the Union Railway and the Brotherhood. In October a series of strikes were answered with the arrest of dozens of labor leaders. It soon became apparent that the military government was composed of influential anti-union sectors.
Under these conditions some union socialists, trade unionists and some communist revolutionaries led by Ángel Borlenghi (a socialist and secretary general of the powerful General Confederation of Employees of Commerce in the dissolved socialist CGT No. 2), Francisco Pablo Capozzi (PFI), Juan Bramuglia (Railway Union), among others, agreed, albeit with reservations and distrust, to undertake a series of alliances with certain sectors of the military government which shared the union demands. Among young military colonels were Juan D. Perón and Domingo Mercante.
The union proposed the military create a Ministry of Labor, strengthen the CGT and enact a series of labor laws that accepted the historical claims of the Argentine labor movement. Soon after, the alliance between trade unionists and military government appointed Perón as Director of the Department of Labor, a position apparently worthless. A month later, the status of the organism raised to a Secretary of State (December 2, 1943). From the Department of Labor, Perón, with the support of the unions began to develop much of the historic union agenda: it created employment tribunals; 33.302/43 Decree was passed extending the severance pay to all workers, more than two million people were beneficiaries of the retirement was enacted the Statute of farm workers and the status of the journalist, it created the Polyclinic Hospital for railway workers, prohibiting private placement agencies, the Technical Schools aimed at workers; 123 more decrees were signed. In 1944 collective agreements reached more than 1,400,000 workers and employees, and in 1945 another 347 covered 2,186,868 workers. Additionally Perón succeeded to repeal the decree-law regulating unions sanctioned in the first days of military rule.
Within this framework, the unions began a period of high growth, and what was even more important, they began to recruit large numbers to the "new" workers, who were migrating en masse to the city from the countryside, called "morochos "" fat "and" black heads "with the middle and upper classes and the workers themselves" old "descendants of European immigration.
Soon after, some unions that had remained aloof, the CGT N º 1, the USA and the autonomous unions, are beginning to unite around the Secretary of Labor. But to the contrary, in September 1945, 4 major unions split from the CGT: Fraternity, the Textile Workers Union, the Confederation of Commercial Employees and the Union of Footwear.
The alliance between unions and the group of young military officers led by Perón immediately generated strong opposition from conservative political, economic and military, with support from the U.S. Embassy (Ambassador Braden) that generates a high polarization for 1945. The events unfolded rapidly.
On 12 July 1945, the trade unions led by Borlenghi perform a large act of downtown Buenos Aires (on Diagonal Norte and Florida). When finished, the crowd of workers begin to chant the name of Perón and proclaim it as a candidate for president.
The workers' demonstration was answered on September 19 by the middle and upper classes with the "March of the Constitution and Freedom," which brought the extraordinary sum of 200,000 people marching in the upscale Recoleta ward, where supporters of the Former President Arturo Rawson gathered at the balcony of his house.
General Eduardo Ávalos demanded Perón's resignation, organizing a military show of force in support of this on 8 October; the military government, to avoid conflict, accepted, and Perón resigned the next day.
On 10 October, upon Perón's leaving office as vice president, the CGT held a rally in his support in the corner of Peru and Alsina Streets, downtown. He directed himself to the rally, and gave a famous speech in which he detailed an ambitious program to redress labor grievances. On 11 October Ávalos took over as Minister of War, and that night a meeting was held at the Military Club (Paz Palace) with nearly 300 officers, among whom were about 20 of the Navy, to discuss the course to be followed, including as to whether to retain Farrell as president. The assembly decided to send a delegation to meet with Ávalos and, indeed, the only points that had agreed was to request the immediate convocation of elections, the appointment of civilian ministers, lifting the siege and the arrest and prosecution of Perón. Concurrently, a senior Senator from the Socialist Party of Argentina, Alfredo Palacios, obtained a Supreme Court ruling against the regime, and when the Paz Palace meeting ended at midnight, a presidential decree calling for elections was announced on the airwaves.
A meeting of opposition leaders gathered around a Democratic Coordinating Board on 11 October. Emboldened by the course of events, the Army decided to demand that power be handed over to the Supreme Court. Historian Félix Luna wrote on the lack of realism that made this decision such a tactical mistake:
While the army was divided into sectors that had serious disagreements, none of them could accept at that time give the government to recognize the Court as it involved a humiliating defeat. Moreover, the Chief Justice was Dr. Roberto Repetto, a respected jurist but lacking any political experience.
On 12 October, after receiving the military delegation, Farrell called for the resignation of all ministers except Ávalos; Lima Vernengo was appointed as Minister of the Navy. At the same time, a demonstration was held around the Paz Palace by the most conservative students, who shouted anti-military slogans and seized the building. They demanded the Supreme Court's intervention against Perón and any government decision on his behalf, a position which further unified the latter's base of support.
When in the afternoon a delegation of civilians took this position to Ávalos, the War Minister considered unacceptable, tried to reassure them and informed them that she will be arrested. The delegation returned to inform the protesters, who were still in place, causing visible irritation. On several occasions there had been clashes between elements Alliance and students, about nine o'clock that night without any clear explanation of its origin had a violent shootout between police and a group of protesters who threw the one person dead and more than fifty wounded.