Anti-dictator Activism: Uruguayan University Students and Transnational Student Networks in the Early Cold War

In the July 1944 edition of their newspaper Jornada, Uruguay’s largest student organization at the University of the Republic in Montevideo spoke out against the repression of students in neighboring Argentina.  Following Uruguay’s own brush with dictatorship under the rule of Gabriel Terra in the 1930s, the Federation of Uruguayan University Students (FEUU) reveled in the return to democracy and took full advantage of the renewed freedom to publish political critiques without major repercussion.  Far from being an isolated incident, the FEUU continued to publish stories like this one, connecting their anti-dictatorship stance with a growing transnational activism throughout the 1940s and 50s.  They denounced other instances of government repression, published manifestos from students living under dictatorship, and offered safe-haven to those fleeing in exile.  Alongside this anti-dictator activism, the FEUU also demanded to be included in conversations about how to rebuild and safeguard democracy in Uruguay, expressing a deep commitment to improve society through what they referred to as the “social mission” of the university.  Drawing on select student federation documents, publications, conference proceedings, and oral histories, this paper examines the changing role of students in public discourse and the connection between the FEUU’s social mission and their anti-dictator platform.  Showing how both domestic circumstances and international politics influenced the growth of student-based transnational activism in the 1940s and 50s, this paper also illustrates how solidarity networks of the Early Cold War preceded the more storied surges of global student activism that followed in the 1960s.