Bravo, Mario (1882–1944)

Mario Bravo was an Argentine Socialist congressman and senator. Bravo, who was elected a national deputy from the city of Buenos Aires four times (1913–1914, 1914–1918, 1918–1922, and 1942–1946) and a senator twice (1923–1931 and 1932–1938), was one of the leading Argentine Socialist Party politicians of the early twentieth century. Born in the city of Tucumán on July 27, 1882, he received his law degree from the University of Buenos Aires and joined the Socialist Party soon thereafter. He rose rapidly through the party's ranks, becoming its general secretary in 1910. The Socialist Party, which grew quickly from its foundation in 1896, remained a minority party throughout the period. Electoral fraud until 1912 and the popular strength of the urban middle-class party Unión Cívica Radical (Radical Civic Union, or Radical Party) between 1916 and 1930 kept the Socialists from any real chance of forming a government.

As a legislator, Bravo was best known for initiating measures to democratize the selection process of the consejo deliberante (city council) of the federal capital, a change that took effect in 1918, as well as for bringing attention to the conditions of sugar plantation workers in his home province of Tucumán. Notwithstanding the electoral fraud after the military coup of 1930, which he denounced in the pages of La Vanguardia, the main Socialist newspaper, Bravo returned to Congress in 1932. For this period he is remembered for his criticism of the repression of the Communist Party. A well-regarded poet, his literary efforts focused primarily on social issues. Collections of his poems include Poemas del campo y de la montaña (1909) and Canciones y poemas (1918).

See alsoArgentina, Political Parties: Radical Party (UCR); Argentina, Political Parties: Socialist Party.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Cantón, Darío. Elecciones y partidos políticos en la Argentina, Historia, interpretación y balance: 1910–1966. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 1973.

Suriano, Juan, ed. La cuestión social en Argentina, 1870–1943. Buenos Aires: La Colmena, 2000.

                                 Richard J. Walter