Agustín Pedro Justo Rolón (26 February 1876 – 11 January 1943) was an Argentine military officer, diplomat and politician, who served as the president of Argentina from 1932 to 1938 during the Infamous Decade.

[2] Appointed War Minister by President Marcelo Torcuato de Alvear, his experience under a civilian administration and pragmatic outlook earned him the conservative Concordance's nomination for the 1931 campaign.

He was elected president on 8 November 1931, supported by the political sectors that would form shortly after la Concordancia, an alliance created between the National Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Nacional), the Anti-personalist Radical Civic Union (Unión Cívica Radical Antipersonalista) (UCRA), and the Independent Socialist Party (Partido Socialista Independiente).

With the rank of Lieutenant Colonel he completed diplomatic actions, becoming military attaché to the Argentina's envoy at the centennial festivities in Chile in 1910.

In 1915, during the term of office of Victorino de la Plaza, he was appointed director of the Military College, a post where he would remain for the following seven years.

Pursuant to the radical anti-personalist political branch (those that opposed the party leadership of Hipólito Yrigoyen), he established good relations with Marcelo T. de Alvear.

Promoted to the rank of brigadier general on 25 August 1923, Justo requested an increase of the defense budget to get equipment and improve the Army infrastructure.

He did not adhere closely to them, the program of suppression of a republican government and their substitution with a corporative system, similar to the fascists in Italy and Spain, went against his liberal vocation.

Declarations made by Justo in July 1930 about the inconvenience of military intervention, which would put the constitutional rule of law in danger, testify to the opposition between the factions.

By contrast with the more radicalized Argentine Navy, a significant part of the Army supported the ideas proposed by Justo, with the notable exception of the nationalist core that soon would converge at the Grupo de Oficiales Unidos.

Before the promise of José Félix Uriburu, the head of an extremist group, to maintain institutional order, Justo gave his agreement to the coup, which he expressed on the early morning of 6 September, thus starting a military government in Argentina for the first time since the signing of the Constitution.

In Buenos Aires Province, Uriburu did not manage to implement the corporate model with which he wished to replace the republican system, and this failure cost him the political career of his Interior Minister, Matías Sánchez Sorondo.

With Yrigoyen's faction banned from the elections and its supporters using the strategy of "revolutionary abstention", Justo easily won against Lisandro de la Torre and Nicolás Repetto, although under suspicion of fraud[clarification needed].

In addition to political turmoil caused by the coup, he had to make progress on the problems relating to the Great Depression, which had put an end to commercial profits and the full employment enjoyed by the Yrigoyen and Alvear administrations.

On 5 April 1931, the political ideology of the supporters of Yrigoyen had won the election for governor in the province of Buenos Aires against the hopes of Uriburu and Sánchez Sorondo; though the military government rings[clarification needed], cost the career of the Minister[who?]

In December, before an attempted coup led by Lieutenant Colonel Atilio Cattáneo, Justo decreed a state of siege, and again imprisoned the old Yrigoyen, and also arrested Alvear, Ricardo Rojas, Honorio Pueyrredón, and other leaders of the party.

In December, during a meeting of the national convention of the UCR, a joint uprising of the military and politicians broke loose in Santa Fe, Rosario, and Paso de los Libres.

José Benjamin Abalos, who was Yrigoyen's ex-Minister, and Colonel Roberto Bosch were arrested during the uprising and the organizers and leaders of the party were imprisoned at Martín García.

Led by the president of the British Trade Council, Viscount Walter Runciman, they were intense and resulted in the signing on 27 April of the Roca-Runciman Treaty.

As many problems resulted from the declarations of the vice-president Roca, who affirmed after the signing of the treaty that "by its economic importance, Argentina resembled just a large British dominion."