Fascism in South America
Although the fascist ideology originated in and is primarily associated with Europe, fascism crossed the Atlantic Ocean during the interwar period and influenced South American politics.
[2][3][4] During the 1920s, Argentinian writer Leopoldo Lugones became a supporter of fascism, after which the country's coterie of pro-fascist intellectuals grew, including Juan Carulla, Ernesto Palacio, Manuel Gálvez, Carlos Ibarguren, Roberto de Laferrere, Mario Amadeo, and the brothers Rodolfo and Julio Irazusta.
The fascists specifically gathered around the journal La Nueva Republica [es] and expressed ideas reminiscent of those by French author Charles Maurras.
[6] They did, however, work closely with the regime of José Félix Uriburu, which initially attempted to introduce corporatism inspired by Benito Mussolini, before giving way to the Infamous Decade.
[11] The governments of David Toro and Germán Busch were vaguely committed to corporatism, ultra-nationalism, and national syndicalism, but they lacked coherence in their ideas.
Such concepts were later adopted by the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement (MNR), which openly acknowledged its ideological debt to fascism and joined the military under Gualberto Villarroel's pro-Axis government in 1943.
[12] From an initially oppositional stance, Óscar Únzaga's Bolivian Socialist Falange was an important group in the 1930s that sought to incorporate the ideas of José Antonio Primo de Rivera in Bolivia.
[6] Additionally, there were Italian and German fascist organizations acting through both communities between the 1920s and the end of the war, specifically in the Southeastern and Southern regions where most of their members operated.
[16] Under the direction of Carlos Keller and Jorge González von Marées, the National Socialist Movement of Chile, following its formation in 1932, took up a position similar to that of Adolf Hitler, albeit with heavy criticism of his racial principles.
Links were alleged between Nazi Germany and Laureano Gómez's newspaper El Siglo during the 1930s and 1940s, although Colombia has generally had little fascist activity in its history outside of the German community.
[12] Following the collapse of Reblagiati's movement, the country's main outlet for fascism became the Peruvian Fascist Brotherhood formed by ex-Prime Minister José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma.
During the 1930s, it developed certain similarities with fascism, such as calling for a new national community and founding a small paramilitary wing, but it very quickly changed course and emerged as a mainstream social democratic party.
[6][24] The academic Hugo Fernández Artucio wrote the book Nazis in Uruguay in 1940 and campaigned against German fifth column activity in the country during the war.
However, among the country's German population, Arnold Margerie formed the Groupo Regional de Venezuela del Partido Nazi before the Second World War.
