Argentina

Anti-American handbill, 1944

In 1943 Col. Juan Peron became part of a successful military coup in Argentina, beginning over a decade in which he dominated the nation’s political life. After helping to oust the conservative government of Ramon Castillo, Peron was appointed Minister of Labor and soon attracted an avid following among the working classes through a series of progressive social reforms and labor laws that benefited urban industrial workers and labor unions. Drawing support from workers, organized labor, Socialists, and Syndicalists, Peron’s influence within the government grew rapidly as he helped implement the nation’s first social insurance system, the first minimum wage laws, and the first social welfare for unionized workers.

Building on this strength, Peron was elected to the presidency in 1946, defeating the centrist Union Civica Radical as well as the Socialists, Communists, and conservatives. Peronism, as it developed, was built on a Third Way platform that drew on the “three flags” of social justice, economic independence, and political sovereignty. Once in office, he nationalized the Central Bank, the railways, universities, and other services, leading to a rapid rise in income among workers. Peron’s support was elevated further by the popularity of his wife Eva, who became a symbol for social justice through her promotion of suffrage for women and her charitable Fundacion Eva Peron, even as her opponents criticized her for corruption. After her death to cervical cancer in 1952, she was transfigured in the popular imagination and widely idolized.

Despite strong support among the working classes, Peron faced significant opposition. In foreign policy, his independent nationalism led to deterioration in relations with the Cold War-era government of the United States that badly affected the Argentine economy, and his domestic opponents accused him variously of Fascist sympathies, demagoguery, and authoritarian tendencies. The left reviled the capitalist elements in Peronism, and the right and upper classes rejected his anticlericalism and modernism outright. Against a fractured opposition, Peron won reelection in 1951, but a new suite of social reforms he introduced in 1954 further alienated the church. An attempted coup in June 1955 led to reprisals by Peronists and threatened national stability until a second coup in September 1955, the Revolucion Libertadora, succeeded in forcing Peron into a sixteen year exile in Francoist Spain.