The military was opposed to Governor Robustiano Patrón Costas, Castillo's hand-picked successor, a major landowner in Salta Province and a primary stockholder in the sugar industry.

In both world wars, Great Britain needed to guarantee the provision of food (grain and meat) for its population and its troops, and this would have been impossible if Argentina had not maintained neutrality, since the cargo ships would have been the first to be attacked, thus interrupting the supply.

For the United States, which was not affected by the interruption of trade between Argentina and Europe, World War II was presented as an excellent opportunity to finish imposing its continental hegemony, both politically and economically, and permanently displace Great Britain from its stronghold in Latin America.

The two previous presidents, Radical-Antipersonalist Roberto María Ortiz (1938–1942) and National Democrat Ramón Castillo (1942–1943), had maintained neutrality, but it was clear that Patrón Costas, the official presidential candidate, would declare war on the Axis.

[29] American historian Robert Potash, who has studied in detail the actions of the Army in modern Argentine history, has greatly de-emphasized the participation of the GOU in the 4 June coup.

The GOU lacked a precise ideology, but all its members shared a nationalist, anti-communist, neutralist view of the war and highly concerned with ending the open acts of corruption in the conservative governments.

Regardless of the debate over the true influence of the GOU on the Revolution of '43, the armed forces, particularly after the death of General Justo, was an unstable conglomeration of relatively autonomous groups with indeterminate ideologies who were developing relationships with the old and new powers, and who would go on to assume definite positions as the process unfolded.

The committee, whose mission was to delve into the fight against corruption, published the well-known Rodríguez Conde Report in 1944, proposing two decrees to remove CHADE's status as a legal person.

On 5 August 1943, he sent a personal letter to U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull, anticipating that Argentina intended to break relations with the Axis Powers, but also beseeching his patience while he created a climate of rupture in the country.

[42] This action had the opposite effect of what Hull intended, provoking a recrudescence of already powerful anti-American sentiment — especially in the armed forces — thus bringing about Storni's resignation and replacement by a neutralist, Colonel Alberto Gilbert, who was then acting as Minister of the Interior.

In order to fill the later position, Ramírez appointed a member of the GOU, Colonel Luis César Perlinger, a Hispanic-Catholic nationalist who would lead the right-wing reaction against Farrell and Perón in the following years.

On 14 October 1943, a group of 150 political and cultural figures led by scientist Bernardo Houssay signed a Statement on Effective Democracy and Latin American Solidarity, calling for elections and the country's entry into the war against the Axis.

The Ramírez administration had assumed a similar position toward unions as had previous governments: granting of little political and institutional importance, widespread non-compliance with labor laws, pro-employer sympathies, and punitive repression.

[56] On the other hand, Alain Rouquié points out that in the negotiations brought to a close by colonels Perón and Mercante resulted in an agreement with the new Autonomous Butcher's Union of Berisso and Ensenada, in open opposition to the communist Workers' Federation of the Meat Industry.

[57] The effect on the labor movement was remarkable and the group of unionists in favor of an alliance with the military government grew, incorporating other socialists like José Domenech (railroad), David Diskin (commerce), Alcides Montiel (brewer), Lucio Bonilla (textile); revolutionary syndicalists from the Argentine Labor Union, such as Luis Gay and Modesto Orozo (both telephone); and even some communists like René Stordeur, Aurelio Hernandez (health)[58] and Trotskyists Ángel Perelman (metallurgy).

It succeeded in attracting other factions from diverse backgrounds, who expressed their concern about the advance of unions in the government, and it essentially aimed at dismissing Farrell and replacing him with General Elbio Anaya.

Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Tomás Adolfo Ducó, convinced that the generals' meeting intended to launch a coup to support Ramirez, called upon the strategic Infantry Regiment 3 and directed them to the city of Lomas de Zamora, where they took the key buildings and positions and entrenched themselves there.

[66] On the basis of the document, the United States refused to recognize the new government and withdrew its ambassador in Buenos Aires, pressuring Latin American countries and Great Britain to do the same.

The Farrell-Perón duo reached the height of its power, which they would use to expel the other right-wing nationalists: Bonifacio del Carril, Francisco Ramos Mejía, Julio Lagos, Miguel Iñiguez, Juan Carlos Poggi, Celestino Genta, among others.

On November 18, 1944, the Field Hand Statue was announced, which modernized the quasi-feudal situation in which rural workers found themselves and alarmed the owners of the large ranches that controlled Argentine exports.

It began with the obvious intention of Farrell and Perón to prepare the atmosphere to declare war on Germany and Japan with the aim of exiting the state of total isolation in which the country found itself and providing a path to conduct elections.

Consequently, new members of the right-wing nationalist faction went on to abandon the government: the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Orlando L. Peluffo; the "interventor" of the Corrientes, David Uriburu; and above all General Sanguinetti, ousted from the crucial position of "interventor" of the Buenos Aires Province, which, after a brief interregnum, was assumed by Juan Atilio Bramuglia, the socialist lawyer of the Railway Union, combining the union faction that began the rapprochement of the labor movement and the military of Péron's group.

For Argentina, the year 1945 was characterized primarily by the radicalization of the conflict between Peronism and Anti-Peronism, driven to a large extent by the United States through its Argentine ambassador Spruille Braden.

[75] It had previously played a significant role in the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, preserving the interests of the Standard Oil[76] and operating in Cuba (1942) in order to sever relations its Spain.

On June 16, the opposition went on the offensive with the famous Trade and Industry Manifesto, in which 321 employers' organizations, led by the Argentine Stock Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce, sharply questioned the government's labor policies.

[78] The union movement, in which Perón's open support still did not predominate,[79] reacted swiftly in defense of labor policy, and on 12 July the CGT organized a multitudinous event under the motto "Against capitalist reaction."

50 eminent figures of the opposition led the march, among whom were the radicals José Tamborini and Enrique Mosca, the socialist Nicolás Repetto, the radical anti-personalist Diógenes Taboada, the conservative Laureano Landaburu, the Christian democrats Manuel Ordóñez and Rodolfo Martínez, the communist sympathizer Luis Reissig, the progressive democrat Joan José Díaz Arana, and the rector of the University of Buenos Aires Horacio Rivarola.

From the perspective of the present, one can claim that the demonstration consisted of one of the two sides into which society was dividing, but at the time the march appeared to unite practically all the political and social forces that had operated in Argentina.

A few days later the unions secured an important victory, which strengthened Peronism and left anti-Peronist forces descoloadas, by reaching an agreement with management over the recognition of SAC, which would be paid in two installments.

The initiative had been prepared by Spruille Braden and consisted of an attempt by the United States to propose internationally the military occupation of Argentina, applying the so-called Doctrine Rodriguez Larreta.