[...] Until the early decades of the twentieth century, the dominant classes in Argentina held no brief for nation building. The oligarchs, the haute portenos, ran the country with an iron fist and held their own wealth in European banks (which meant that they preferred fiscal policies that favored Europe's currencies against Argentina' s economic strength) . This detachment of the elite fueled the growth o f a socialist movement, led by Juan B. Justo and the trade unions, and it angered patriotic sec­tions of the elite [...]