Liberal intelligentsia under Cold War: Argentinian branch of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (1953-1964)

Abstract

Argentinan Association for Cultural Freedom (AALC) and its global reference, the Congress for Cultural Freedom, were product of the Cultural Cold War. This organization had an original articulation with local politics. It was created in 1955, after the coup d’etat that overthrew Peron, when the liberal elite had a wide hegemony in the field of culture, amalgamated by the antiperonism and cultural liberalism. This organization was widespread over the intelligentsia’s networks of antifascism created in the 30s, by the progressive “Grupo Sur” and socialist intellectuals. The AALC grouped recognized names from the left wing, worked over an extensive network of editorial and magazines, promoted public important meetings and expressed solidarity with various international causes (even Cuban Revolution). Under the notion of “cultural freedom” and Totalitarism, foundation of its theory, the AALC played in a confrontation with the communist intellectuals in a field where the antinomy of peronism/anti-peronism was decisive. The Cuban Revolution and the commitment of the new left generation increasingly distant from the liberal political-cultural values will cause the beginning of the end of the hegemony of the old intelligentsia and as a result the disappearance of the Association.