the civic-military dictatorship that governed argentina between june 1966 and march 1973 –which intended to reorganize argentine society– attacked credit cooperatives in their double character: as a financial company oriented to the development of small and medium-sized national companies, wage earners and entities of the social economy, a sector that had no place in the economic plans of the self-proclaimed “argentine revolution”; and as a social movement that had to freeze its activity –along with all the other social and political institutions of the country– during the stage of “economic time” imposed by the dictatorship. in short, of the 974 credit unions that operated in 1966, only 417 were able to survive the dictatorship. their share of total deposits in the financial system had fallen from more than 10% to just under 2%.