Most studies of Latin American populism are either heavily abstract or deal only with more contemporary populist national leaders, such as Vargas or Perón. Celso Rodríguez’s book falls in neither of these categories. His is a study of the early twentieth-century local precursors of populism: the Lencinas and Cantoni families of the Argentine Cuyo provinces, Mendoza and San Juan. The main subjects of the study are José Néstor Lencinas and his son Carlos Wáshington Lencinas of Mendoza, and the Cantoni brothers, Federico and Aldo, of San Juan. All these figures enjoyed their heyday between the end of the First World War and 1930.
Rodríguez’s approach is conventionally chronological. He recounts the rise of Lencinismo as an aspect of the broader political transformation in Argentina during these years, which saw the triumph of Radicalism, led by Hipólito Yrigoyen, over the conservative oligarchy. He studies each of the populist administrations in Cuyo in turn, examining the thrust of their objectives and policies, the main issues that confronted them, and the local scene against the broader national background, as it developed before 1930. The book is highly original both in theme and material. It contains much penetrating analysis and incisive, accurate judgment. Of its kind, it is a top-rank study.
The author sees populism in Cuyo as a more extreme version of Radicalism. He skillfully examines its primary characteristics: its quixotic, sentimental, and paternalist leadership; its proto-Peronist egalitarian ideology and political vocabulary (here were born the descamisados, justicia social, and the chusma de alpargata); its etatist and authoritarian proclivities. The book also succeeds in capturing the atmosphere of politics in this period: some of its humorous little dramas, its corruption, and its violence. There are many interesting sidelights on the peculiarities of these provincial economies, such as the uses and abuses of treasury notes as quasi-money.
This is a fascinating and impressive piece of work, a great credit to its author. Where it fails is in giving too much attention to day-to-day political issues and in neglecting a thorough analysis of the social basis of populism. In this study the populist constituency tends to be an amorphous mass. There is little insight into its class base. Examination of these issues would have required methodological techniques in addition to the ones the author employs. From this study there is no clear account of why populism took such firm root here, and not in say Tucumán or Salta. The key of course lies in the land-tenure system of Cuyo, in the structure of its wine industry, and in phenomena like the economic cycles of the period. All these issues are mentioned, but are not tied in with the political analysis.