Juan B. Justo
Encyclopedia
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, journalist, politician, and writer. After finishing medical school he joined the Unión Cívica Radical, later participating in the foundation of the Socialist Party
Socialist Party (Argentina)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in Argentina. The history of socialism in Argentina began in the 1890s, when a group of people, notably Juan B. Justo, expressed the need for a greater social focus....
in 1896, of which he was chief director until his death. He married Alicia Moreau de Justo
Alicia Moreau de Justo
Alicia Moreau de Justo was an Argentine physician, politician, pacifist and human rights activist.Born to French parents in London, United Kingdom, the Moreau family moved to Argentina while Alicia was still a child....
, with whom he had three children.
The physician
Justo studied medicine at the Universidad de Buenos Aires while working as a journalist to earn a living. He graduated with honors in 1888, after which he travelled to EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
where he learnt about socialist ideas
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. Back in Argentina, he worked as a surgeon at the Hospital de Crónicos.
The journalist
Justo wrote his first pieces at the La PrensaLa Prensa (Buenos Aires)
La Prensa is an Argentine daily newspaper.Based in Buenos Aires, it was founded on 18 October 1869 by José C. Paz. La Prensa ranked among the most widely circulated dailies in Argentina in subsequent decades, earning a reputation for conservatism and support for British interests in Argentina...
newspaper as a parliamentary journalist. At the beginning of 1890 he started writing for the socialist newspaper El Obrero. In 1894, together with Augusto Kühn and Esteban Jiménez he founded the La Vanguardia
La Vanguardia (Argentina)
La Vanguardia is an Argentine newspaper, founded by Socialist Party leader Juan B. Justo in 1894.-Early history:La Vanguardia was founded by Juan B. Justo, Esteban Jiménez, Augusto Kühn, Isidro Salomó, and Juan Fernández. Its first issue was published on April 7, 1894, and Jiménez served as its...
publication that became two years later, with the creation of the Socialist Party
Socialist Party (Argentina)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in Argentina. The history of socialism in Argentina began in the 1890s, when a group of people, notably Juan B. Justo, expressed the need for a greater social focus....
, the official organ of the party. In 1905 La Vanguardia became a daily newspaper, in an important cultural extension that exceeded its original purpose of political diffusion. Justo directed the newspaper until his death.
The politician
Juan B. Justo participated in the UCR from its beginnings as Unión Cívica in 1889. During the Park Revolution of 1890 he took care of the revolutionary wounded. Shortly after, Justo deepened its participation in workers' circles and socialist currents, to finally found the Socialist PartySocialist Party (Argentina)
The Socialist Party is a social-democratic political party in Argentina. The history of socialism in Argentina began in the 1890s, when a group of people, notably Juan B. Justo, expressed the need for a greater social focus....
in 1896 with Estéban Jiménez, Augusto Kühn and Isidoro Salomó. He directed the party from its creation to his death in 1928.
In 1912 Justo was elected a national deputy, seat that he kept until 1924 when he was elected senator, in both cases representing the city of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. As a deputy he was chief of the commission that investigated the trusts
Trust (19th century)
A special trust or business trust is a business entity formed with intent to monopolize business, to restrain trade, or to fix prices. Trusts gained economic power in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some, but not all, were organized as trusts in the legal sense...
conflict, and participated of the deliberations that led to the University Reform of 1918. Justo also proposed several projects of law for the social welfare, and against gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
, alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and illiteracy.
Justo also participated of the creation of cooperative El Hogar Obrero, the Biblioteca Obrera and the Sociedad Luz of culture and promotion of socialism. As president of the Argentine Socialist Party, he assisted to the socialist congresses held in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
and Bern.
The writer
Justo focused on political and social essays. His most important work is considered Theory and Practice of History (Teoría y práctica de la historia) of 1909. He also wrote Scientific Theory of History (Teoría científica de la historia) in 1898, Argentine Socialism (El socialismo argentino) in 1910, Socialism and Imperialism (Socialismo e imperialismo), International Socialism (La internacional socialista), The Socialist Program for Agriculture (El programa socialista en el campo), and the posthumously published The Currency (La moneda) of 1937 and The Free Cooperation (La cooperación libre) of 1938. Justo also made the first SpanishSpanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
translation from German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
's Das Kapital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
.
External links
- Biography at El Historiador