Juan Domingo Peron
Juan Domingo Perón (Lobos, October 8, 1895-Olivos, July 1, 1974) was an Argentine politician, soldier and writer, three times president of the Argentine Nation, once de facto vice president, and founder of Peronism, one of the most important popular movements in the history of Argentina. He was the only person to be elected president of his country three times and the first to be elected by universal male and female suffrage.
He participated in the Revolution of 1943, which ended the so-called Infamous Decade. After establishing an alliance with the socialist and revolutionary syndicalist union currents, he held the title of the National Department of Labor, the Secretariat of Labor and Welfare, the Ministry of War and the vice-presidency of the Nation. From the first two posts, he took measures to favor the worker sectors and make labor laws effective: he promoted collective agreements, the Peón de Campo Statute, labor courts, and the extension of retirement benefits to business employees. These measures won him the support of a large part of the labor movement and the repudiation of the business sectors, high incomes and the United States ambassador, Spruille Braden, for which reason a broad movement against him was generated from 1945. In October of that year, a military palace coup forced him to resign and then ordered his arrest, which triggered, on October 17, 1945, a great worker mobilization that demanded his release until he obtained it.. That same year he married María Eva Duarte, who played an important political role during the Perón presidency.
He ran for president in the 1946 elections and was a winner. Some time later he merged the three parties that had supported his candidacy to create first the Single Party of the Revolution and then the Peronist Party; after the Constitutional Reform of 1949, he was re-elected in 1951 in the first elections held with the participation of women and men in Argentina. In addition to continuing with his policies in favor of the most neglected sectors, his government was characterized by implementing a nationalist and industrialist line, especially with regard to the textile, steel, military, transportation, and foreign trade industries. In international politics, he held a third position before the Soviet Union and the United States, in the framework of the Cold War. In the last year of his government, he clashed with the Catholic Church, increasing the confrontation between Peronists and anti-Peronists, for which the Government hardened its persecution of the opposition and the opposition media. After a series of acts of violence by anti-Peronist civilian and military groups, and especially the bombing of the Plaza de Mayo in mid-1955, Perón was overthrown in September of that same year.
The subsequent dictatorship banned Peronism from political life and repealed the constitutional reform, which included measures to protect the lowest social sectors and the legal equality of men and women. After his overthrow, Perón went into exile in Paraguay, Panama, Nicaragua, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and finally in Spain. Widowed since 1952, during his exile he married María Estela Martínez, known as Isabel. In his absence, a movement known as the Peronist resistance arose in Argentina, made up of various union, youth, student, neighborhood, religious, cultural and guerrilla groups, whose common goal was the return of Perón and the call for free elections. and without bans.
He tried to return to the country in 1964, but President Arturo Illía prevented him by asking the ruling military dictatorship in Brazil to arrest him and send him back to Spain. He finally returned to the country in 1972 to settle permanently in 1973. With Perón still outlawed, Peronism won the elections in March 1973, opening the period known as third Peronism. Internal sectors of the movement clashed politically and through acts of violence: after the so-called Ezeiza massacre, Perón gave broad support to the "orthodox" sectors of his party, some of which in turn created the vigilante command known as the Triple A, designed to persecute and assassinate qualified "left" militants, Peronists and non-Peronists. A month and a half after taking office, President Cámpora resigned and new elections were called without proscriptions. Perón appeared together with his wife as candidates for president and vice president respectively in September 1973 and achieved a wide victory, assuming the Government in October of that same year. He died in mid-1974, leaving the Presidency in the hands of the vice president, who was overthrown without having finished his term. Peronism continued to exist and has achieved several electoral victories.
Family history
Juan Domingo Perón was born at the end of the 19th century in the town of Lobos, Province of Buenos Aires as a "natural child", because his mother and father were not married at the time of his birth, which they did later.
Due to the documentary insufficiencies of the time and the high degree of miscegenation in Argentine society, the family and ethnic background of Juan Domingo Perón, as well as the date and precise place of his birth, have been subject to historical debate. In the year 2000, Hipólito Barreiro published his research on the birth and childhood of Perón in a book entitled Juancito Sosa: the Indian who changed history , while in 2010 and 2011 the historian lawyer Ignacio Cloppet published his on the related genealogical records of Perón and Eva Duarte, tracing them in some cases back hundreds of years. The two investigations do not seem to be mutually exclusive, since Barreiro's focuses on facts not officially registered and Cloppet's on the official records.
Father, mother and siblings
9. Sosa Juana, m [woman], 20 [years], s [sole], no [read and write];
10. Perón Mario, v [varón], 27 [years], s [soltero], employee, yes [you know how to read and write];
11. Perón Mario A, v [varón], 3 [years], s [soltero].
Her father was Mario Tomás Perón (1867-1928), an Argentine born in Lobos (Buenos Aires province) who worked as a justice officer. Her mother was Juana Salvadora Sosa (1874-1953), an Argentine Tehuelche born in the Lobos area (Buenos Aires province).She had her first child, Mario Avelino, at the age of 17, when she was still a child. single woman. They both had three children together without being married:
- Mario Avelino Perón (Lobos, November 30, 1891-Sarandí, January 13, 1955).
- Juan Domingo Perón (Lobos, October 8, 1895-Vicente López, July 1, 1974), treated here.
- Alberto Perón (n. 1899), died when he was a baby.
Juan Domingo was registered with that name on October 8, 1895 in the civil registry of Lobos by his father and his birth certificate indicates that he had been born the day before and was "natural son of the declarant", without mentioning the mother's name. In 1898 he was baptized in the Catholic Church without indicating the name of his father and being registered under the name of Juan Domingo Sosa. Juan Domingo's mother and father were married in Buenos Aires on September 25, 1901.
Paternal branch
His paternal grandparents were Tomás Liberato Perón (1839-1889), a doctor born in Buenos Aires who served as a Mitrista provincial deputy, professor of chemistry and legal medicine, member of the Public Hygiene Council, and advisor to the Faculty of Physical-Natural Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires; and Dominga Dutey Bergouignan (1844-1930), a Uruguayan born in Paysandú.
Her paternal grandfather's parents were Tomás Mario Perón (1803-1856), a Sardinian-born Genoese who arrived in Argentina in 1831, and Ana Hughes McKenzie (1815-1877), a London-born Briton. Her paternal grandmother's parents were Jean Dutey and Vicenta Bergouignan, both French-Basques, originally from Baigorry.
Maternal branch
His maternal grandparents were Juan Ireneo Sosa Martínez, a bricklayer born in the province of Buenos Aires, and María de las Mercedes Toledo Gaona, born in Azul (province of Buenos Aires).
Early Years
The official position established by law no. The official place of birth is Lobos, a small town in the center-north of the province of Buenos Aires, and in turn, in the center-east of the Argentine Republic, but which until shortly before its birth had been a military fort on the border line between the Provinces United States of the Río de la Plata and the territory of the Tehuelche, Ranquel and Mapuche peoples. The eventual belonging of Juan Domingo Perón to the Tehuelche people by maternal line is a matter of debate among historians.
Beyond the debates, he himself referred several times to his ethnicity in private and in public:
My grandmother told me that when Lobos was just a fort, they were already there... My immemorial grandmother was what we can well describe as a machaza woman, who knew all the secrets of the field... When the old woman used to tell that she had been captive of the Indians, I asked her, "Then Grandma... do I have Indian blood? I liked the idea, you know? And I think I actually have some Indian blood. Look at me: outgoing cheeks, abundant hair... Anyway, I own the Indian guy. And I feel proud of my Indian origin, because I think the best thing in the world is in the humble.Juan Domingo Perón, 1967, Report of the Journal 7 Days
In the year 2000, the historian Hipólito Barreiro published his research on the birth of Perón, according to which his entry in the civil registry could have been made two years after his birth and that the exact place could have been the zone of Roque Pérez, close to Lobos and Saladillo. With similar results, historians Oscar Domínguez Soler, Alberto Gómez Farías and Liliana Silva from the National University of La Matanza published their research in 2007 in the book Perón, when and where was he born?. On the contrary, and based on his registry investigations of 2010 and 2011, the lawyer Ignacio Cloppet has argued that his investigations into the legal records related to the birth of Perón indicate that he was born on October 8, 1895, in the city of Lobos. But both lines of investigation do not seem to be exclusive, since the former refers to events not officially registered, and the latter to the official records.
Juan Domingo grew up during his first five years in the rural areas of Lobos and Roque Pérez: "I am one of those who learned to ride a horse before walking," he will tell his friend and biographer Enrique Pavón Pereyra. About his mother, Juana, he says:
My mother, born and raised in the countryside, rode on horseback like any of us and intervened in the hunts and farms with the safety of the things that are dominated. It was a criolla with all the law. We saw in it the head of the house, but also the doctor, counselor and friend of all who had a need. That kind of matriarcado exercised without formulism, but quite effective; provoked respect but also affectionJuan Domingo Perón
In 1900, when Juan Domingo was five years old, the Perón-Sosa family embarked on the steamer Santa Cruz bound for the maritime coast of Argentine Patagonia, a few ranches from the surrounding area from Río Gallegos: Chaok-Aike, Kamesa-Aike and Coy-Aike, that is, at the beginning of a hamlet that was located in old Tehuelche settlements.
In 1902 they moved further north, first to the Chubut town of Cabo Raso, where their distant relatives with the surname Maupás owned property in La Masiega, and later, in February 1904, they moved to the town of Camarones, on the occasion of the appointment of Mario Tomás to serve temporarily as justice of the peace, on December 19, 1906. Shortly after they moved again, this time to the farm they owned which they called La Porteña, located in the Sierra Cuadrada, 175 km from the city of Comodoro Rivadavia, and later they founded another one called The Mallin.
Between 1904, the parents of Juan and Mario decided to send their children to live in Buenos Aires so they could begin formal studies, leaving them in the care of their paternal grandmother, Dominga Dutey, and the father's two half-sisters, Vicenta and Baldomera Martirena, who were teachers. The two children were seeing the big city for the first time and would only see their parents during the summers. The house of the children's paternal grandmother was located in the heart of the city, at 580 San Martín street. He studied first at the school that was next to his house, where his aunts were teachers, and then at various schools until completing his primary education, to later carry out polytechnic secondary studies at the International School of Olivos, directed by Professor Francisco Chelía.
Juan Domingo was called "Pocho" in his inner circle, a nickname that was later spread and was the nickname with which he was mentioned in different areas.
Marriages
Perón had three wives: on January 5, 1929, he married Aurelia Gabriela Tizón (March 18, 1902-September 10, 1938), daughter of Cipriano Tizón and Tomasa Erostarbe, who died of uterine cancer. His remains rest in the Olivos Cemetery, Buenos Aires province, in the Tizón family vault.
On October 22, 1945, he married actress Eva Duarte (1919-1952) in Junín.
According to witnesses from the time, it was precisely while he was in captivity that he thought of getting married. Once released, in an informal meeting, Eva Duarte introduced him to Fray Pedro Errecart, who surprised Perón by his ability to relate to one of his dogs that no one approached, and by the sincerity with which he said: & #34;If you don't get married through the Church, you can't be president".
According to witnesses from the time, it was precisely while he was in captivity that he thought of getting married. Once released, in an informal meeting, Eva Duarte introduced him to Fray Pedro Errecart, who surprised Perón by his ability to relate to one of his dogs that no one approached, and by the sincerity with which he said: & #34;If you don't get married through the Church, you can't be president".
Finally, on December 10, 1945, they were able to finalize the marriage with a private ceremony that was registered on page 2397 of the marriage book of the San Francisco parish. Juan Domingo Perón was 50 years old and Eva Duarte was 26. After the ceremony, the guests shared a meal with them in a large house located a few blocks from the temple.
The oldest residents of the neighborhood remember how grateful the General was to such an extent that he even proposed to build a new church on the Saavedra park property, but in the face of the priest's refusal, he allocated the funds to fix up the parish, which ended to be renovated in 1946.
Known as Evita, Eva Perón collaborated in the management of her husband with a policy of social aid and support for the political rights of women, who were granted the right to vote. On July 26, 1952, while Perón was in office for the second time, Evita died after a long fight against uterine cancer.
On November 15, 1961, he married María Estela Martínez Cartas, known as Isabelita, in Spain, who later accompanied him as vice president in the September 1973 elections and succeeded him in office to her death, until March 24, 1976, when she was overthrown by a military coup.
Juan Perón had no children, so his closest descendants were his nine nephews, children of his brother Mario Avelino and Eufemia Jáuregui: Dora Alicia, Eufemia Mercedes, María Juana (born in 1921), Mario Alberto, Olinda Argentina, Lía Vicenta, Amalia Josefa, Antonio Avelino and Tomás.
Military career
On March 1, 1911, he entered the Military College of the Nation, thanks to the scholarship obtained for him by Antonio M. Silva, a close friend of his paternal grandfather, who assisted him in his illness until his death. He graduated on December 18, 1913 as a second lieutenant in the infantry.
In 1914 he was assigned to the 12th Infantry Regiment based in Paraná, Entre Ríos, where he remained until 1919. In 1915 he rose to the rank of lieutenant.
In 1916 he publicly demonstrated a political stance for the first time. In that year, elections with universal and secret vote were held in Argentina for the first time, although only for men, in which Hipólito Yrigoyen of the Radical Civic Union won, in what is considered the first democratic government. Perón voted in that election for the first time, opting for Yrigoyen and the UCR, in an open confrontation with the conservative and oligarchic sectors organized in the Roquista-ideological National Autonomist Party, which had governed without alternation for the previous 36 years. During the radical governments (1916-1930) Perón would assume a position close to the legalist nationalist military (such as those exemplified by Enrique Mosconi or Manuel Savio), and at the same time critical of the radical government, mainly because of the worker massacre known as the Tragic Week of 1919 and what he considered "ineffectiveness" in the face of the country's serious social problems.
Now with the rank of lieutenant, he joined the 12th Infantry Regiment based in Paraná under the command of General Oliveira Cézar, who was sent in 1917 and 1919 by the Yrigoyen government to intervene militarily in the workers' strikes that were taking place in the forestry factories that the English company La Forestal had in the north of the province of Santa Fe. His position and that of other soldiers of the time was that in no case should the Army repress the strikers.
He attached great importance to sports: he practiced boxing, athletics and fencing. In 1918 he became a military and national fencing champion.He wrote several sports texts for military training. On December 31, 1919, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and to captain in 1924. In 1926 he entered the Superior War College.
In those years he wrote several texts that were printed as study materials in military academies, such as Military Hygiene (1924), Military Morals (1925), Campaign of Upper Peru (1925), The Eastern Front in the World War of 1914. Strategic Studies (1928), among other works. On January 12, 1929, he obtained his diploma as a General Staff officer and on February 26 he was assigned to the Army General Staff as assistant to Colonel Francisco Fasola Castaño, deputy chief of the General Staff.
His time at the NCO School would provide him with contact with the humble aspirants and cadets of the school. During this time, Perón educated the cadets in the strictest military discipline, but he also taught them from manners of coexistence, to morality and ethics. During this stage, Perón also stood out as an athlete, being the army and national swordsman champion between 1918 and 1928, receiving widespread recognition from superiors and subordinates for the task he developed in the practice of sports.
In 1920 he was transferred to the "Sergeant Cabral" NCO School in Campo de Mayo, where he excelled as a troop instructor. Already then he distinguished himself among other colleagues for his special interest and treatment towards his men, which soon turned him into a charismatic military man. In those years he published his first works in the form of graphic contributions to the German translation of an exercise book for soldiers and some chapters of a manual intended for aspiring non-commissioned officers.
At the beginning of 1930 he was appointed substitute professor of Military History at the Escuela Superior de Guerra, and took over at the end of the year. That year the coup d'état of September 6 took place, led by General José Félix Uriburu who overthrew the constitutional president Hipólito Yrigoyen. The coup had the support of a broad spectrum that included radicals, socialists, conservatives, employer and student organizations, the judiciary, as well as the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom.
Perón did not hold any position in Uriburu's dictatorial government, but he participated marginally in the preparation of the coup as part of an autonomous group, with a "nationalist legalist" tendency, led by lieutenant colonels Bartolomé Descalzo and José María Sarobe, who criticized the "oligarchic conservative" group that surrounded Uriburu. This group intended to give the movement broad popular support and prevent the installation of a military dictatorship, which finally occurred. Perón was part of a column that peacefully evicted the Casa Rosada, where civil groups were looting and destroying.
After the coup, the military group of lieutenant colonels Descalzo and Sarobe, in which Perón participated, was dismantled by the military dictatorship, sending its members abroad or to distant positions in the interior of the country. Perón himself would be assigned to the Limits Commission, having to move to the northern border.
The Uriburu dictatorship (1930-1932) organized elections in which it outlawed Hipólito Yrigoyen and restricted the possibilities for Yrigoyenista radicalism to act, thus facilitating the electoral victory of a coalition of anti-Yrigoyenista radicals, conservatives, and socialists, called La Concordancia, who would govern in successive fraudulent electoral turns until 1943. That stage is known in Argentine history as the Infamous Decade.
On December 31, 1931, Perón was promoted to the rank of major. In 1932 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the Minister of War and published the book Notes on Military History, awarded the following year with a medal and diploma of honor in Brazil. He made new publications such as Notes on military history. Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905 (1933) and Araucanian Toponymy (1935).
On January 26, 1936, he was appointed military attaché at the Argentine embassy in Chile, a position to which a few months later he added that of aeronautical attaché. He returned to Argentina at the beginning of 1938, being assigned to the General Staff of the Army.
After the death of his wife in September 1938, Perón tried to distract himself by helping his friend, Father Antonio D’Alessio, organize athletic competitions for the neighborhood children. Shortly after he undertook a trip to Patagonia. He traveled thousands of kilometers by car and returned at the beginning of 1939. The result of that trip and prolonged talks with the Mapuche chiefs Manuel Llauquín and Pedro Curruhuinca, was his Patagonian toponymy of Araucanian etymology .
At the beginning of 1939, he was sent to Italy to follow training courses in various disciplines, such as economics, mountaineering, skiing and high mountains. He also visited Germany, France, Spain, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Albania and the Soviet Union. He returned to Argentina two years later, on January 8, 1941. He gave a series of lectures on the state of the war situation in Europe ―within the framework of World War II (1939-1945)―, after which he was promoted to the rank of colonel at the end of the year.
On January 8, 1941, he was assigned to a mountain unit in the province of Mendoza, to keep him away from the Buenos Aires conspiracy foci, which had been too active since the beginning of the war and had accelerated their activities when the nature of the terminal illness of President Roberto M. Ortiz. There he published an article and instructions on the mountain commandos. On May 18, 1942, he ordered the transfers of Perón and Domingo Mercante to the Federal Capital.
In 1942 and 1943, the two main leaders of Argentina died during the infamous Decade, former president Marcelo T. de Alvear (a leader of the main popular opposition party, the Unión Cívica Radical) and former president Agustín P. Justo (a leader of the of the Armed Forces and of the parties that made up the official Concordance). The sudden absence of leaders, both in the political and military spheres, would greatly influence the military and political events that would unfold the following year, in which Perón played an increasingly important role.
On May 31, 1946, President Edelmiro Farrell reincorporated him into the Army and promoted him to brigadier general. On May 1, 1950, the National Congress approved Law 13896 by which Perón was promoted to division general ―despite the fact that he had expressed his opposition― effective December 31, 1949; the law was enacted in fact.
On October 6, 1950, he was promoted to Army General (later renamed "Lieutenant General"). On November 10, 1955, Decree Law No. 2034/ was published in the Official Gazette of the Argentine Republic. 55 -dated October 31- which formalized the sentence of the Court of Military Honor for disqualification due to a very serious offense in which he was deprived of his military rank, decorations and the right to wear a uniform. This situation was maintained until the publication of Law 20530 -approved by Congress on August 29, 1973 and promulgated on September 10- which declared the total nullity of the laws, decree laws, regulations, decrees and other provisions as of September 21, 1955 that deprived the ex-president of his assets, status and military hierarchy, the right to wear a uniform, distinctions and decorations.
Decorations and Badges
During his military career he received numerous decorations and distinctions:
- “Office of Staff” College of War
- "Distinctive Mountain Troop" (Andes Condor).
- « Military Pilot Distinctive»
Dictatorship called Revolution of 43
On June 4, 1943, there was a coup that overthrew the government of conservative President Ramón Castillo. Castillo's government was the last in a series of governments known in Argentine history as the infamous Decade, imposed by the dictatorship of General José Félix Uriburu (1930-1931) and sustained by electoral fraud. In 1943 General Arturo Rawson took office, but three days later he was in turn dismissed by General Pedro Pablo Ramírez.
Several historians link Perón to the GOU, acronym for a military lodge that could correspond to Grupo Obra de Unificación or Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, or to ATE (Association of Army Lieutenants), made up of medium and low-ranking Army officers graduation. This or these groups are credited with having had a great influence on the coup and the military government. However, several important historians, such as Rogelio García Lupo and Robert Potash, have argued that the GOU never existed as such or that if it had existed it had little power. Historian Roberto Ferrero maintains that the Farrell-Perón duo tried to form a pole "popular nationalist" that led to a democratic exit from the regime, confronting the undemocratic "elitist nationalist" sector, which had supported Ramírez as president.
Perón did not hold any position in the Rawson government or initially in the Ramírez government. On October 27, 1943, he took office as head of the National Labor Department, then a small state agency of little political importance.
Perón's beginnings in the new government: the alliance with the unions
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Perón worked as the private secretary of General Edelmiro Farrell, who had been in charge of the Ministry of War since June 4, 1943. A few days after the coup, the CGT No. 2 led by the socialist sector of Francisco Pérez Leirós and Ángel Borlenghi and the communists met with the dictatorship's Minister of the Interior to offer him union support through a march to the Casa Rosada. The government rejected the offer and shortly after dissolved CGT No. 2, imprisoning several of its leaders.
In August 1943, the labor movement attempted a new rapprochement with the military dictatorship, this time as a result of an initiative by the powerful Union Ferroviaria Union of the CGT No. 1, upon learning that one of its leaders was brother of Lieutenant Colonel Domingo Mercante. Those talks prospered and little by little other union leaders joined them and at the request of Mercante, Colonel Juan Domingo Perón. Until then, the unions had played a minor role in the political life of the country and were led by four currents: socialism, revolutionary syndicalism, communism and anarchism. The two main unions were the Railway Union, led by José Domenech, and the Confederation of Commerce Employees, led by Ángel Borlenghi.
In the first meetings, characterized by mistrust, the unionists proposed to Mercante and Perón to form an alliance that would be installed in the small National Department of Labor, to promote from there the sanction and especially the effective application of labor laws demanded for a long time by the labor movement, as well as the strengthening of the unions and the Department of Labor itself. Perón's growing power and influence came from his alliance with a sector of Argentine syndicalism, mainly with the socialist and revolutionary syndicalist currents.
Based on that alliance and seconded by Mercante, Perón maneuvered within the government to have him appointed as head of the National Department of Labor, which was not very influential at the time, a fact that happened on October 27, 1943. Perón appointed union leaders in the main positions in the department and from there they launched the union plan, initially adopting a policy of pressure on companies to resolve labor conflicts through collective labor agreements. The vertiginous activity of the Department of Labor caused the growing support for his management by union leaders of all currents: socialists, revolutionary syndicalists, communists and anarchists, and in turn incorporating other socialists such as José Domenech (railroad worker), David Diskin (business employees), Alcides Montiel (brewer) and Lucio Bonilla (textile); revolutionary syndicalists from the Argentine Trade Union, such as Luis Gay (telephone) and Modesto Orozo (telephone); even some communists like René Stordeur (graphics) and Aurelio Hernández (health) and even Trotskyists like Ángel Perelman (metallurgist).
Secretary of Labor and Welfare
On November 27, 1943, a decree ―drafted by José Figuerola and Juan Atilio Bramuglia― created the Secretary of Labor and Welfare of the Nation; and appointed Perón as secretary, heading it.
The new body incorporated into its organization chart the functions of the Department of Labor and other departments, such as the National Retirement and Pension Fund, the National Directorate of Public Health and Social Assistance, the National Board to Combat Unemployment, the Chamber Rentals, among others. It reported directly to the President, so it had all the powers of a ministry; its function was to centralize all the social action of the State and monitor compliance with labor laws, for which it had regional offices throughout the country. In addition, the services and faculties of a conciliatory and arbitration nature were transferred to the Secretariat, as well as the functions of labor police, industrial hygiene services, inspection of mutual associations and those related to maritime, fluvial and port work..
As a reflection of the administrative hierarchy of the new Secretariat, Perón moved the offices of the old Department ―which were in a small building in Peru at the corner of Victoria, currently Hipólito Yrigoyen― to the headquarters of the Deliberative Council of the City of Buenos Aires.
At the end of 1943, the socialist trade unionist José Domenech, general secretary of the powerful Railway Union, proposed to Perón that he personally participate in the workers' assemblies. The first union assembly that he attended was on December 9, 1943 in the city of Rosario, where Domenech introduced him as "the First Worker of Argentina." Domenech's presentation would have historical consequences, since that title would be one of the arguments for Perón's affiliation to the new Labor Party to be accepted two years later, and would also appear as one of the most outstanding verses of the Peronist March.
Secretary of Labor, Minister of War and Vice President
In February 1944, the Farrell-Perón duo ousted Ramírez from the presidency; Perón was appointed to the strategic position of Minister of War on February 24, 1944 and the following day Farrell in the Presidency of the Nation, first temporarily and definitively as of March 9 of that year.
As Secretary of Labor, Perón carried out a remarkable work, getting the approval of labor laws that had historically been demanded by the Argentine labor movement, among them, generalization of severance pay, which had existed since 1934 for business employees, retirement for business employees, the Peón de Campo Statute, creation of labor justice, Christmas bonus, real effectiveness of the labor police, already existing, to guarantee its application, and for the first time collective bargaining, which became general as a basic regulation of the relationship between capital and labor. He also annulled the decree-law on union associations sanctioned by Ramírez in the first weeks of the dictatorship, which was criticized by the entire labor movement. [citation needed ]
Hand in hand with this activity, Perón, Mercante and the initial group of trade unionists who made the alliance (mainly the socialists Borlenghi and Bramuglia) began to organize a new trade union current that would gradually assume a laborist-nationalist identity.
During 1944, Farrell decisively promoted the labor reforms proposed by the Secretary of Labor. That year, the government called on unions and employers to negotiate collective agreements, a process that was unprecedented in the country. That year, 123 collective agreements were signed, reaching more than 1.4 million workers and employees, and the following year (1945) another 347 agreements would be signed, covering 2.2 million workers.
The Ministry of Labor and Welfare began to make the historic program of Argentine trade unionism a reality: Decree 33,302/43 was sanctioned, extending to all workers the severance pay that commercial employees already had; the Journalist Statute was sanctioned; the Polyclinic Hospital for railway workers was created; private employment agencies were prohibited and technical schools geared towards workers were created. On July 8, 1944, Perón was appointed Vice President of the Nation, maintaining the positions of Minister of War and Secretary of Labor.
On November 18, 1944, the promulgation of the Peón de Campo Statute (Decree-Law No. 28,194) sanctioned the previous month was announced, modernizing the semi-feudal situation in which rural workers still found themselves, alarming the large ranchers (latifundistas) who controlled Argentine exports. On November 30, labor courts were established, resisted by the employer sector and conservative groups. This regulation established for the first time, for the entire territory of the republic, humanitarian working conditions for non-transitory rural wage earners, including: minimum wages, Sunday rest, paid vacations, stability, hygiene conditions, and accommodation. This decree was ratified by Law 12,921 and regulated by Decree 34,147 of 1949. In this way, the bargaining power of rural unions was strengthened, established the Tambero-Mediero Statute, publicly supported and promised to maintain the mandatory reduction of the price of leases and the suspension of evictions, and transferred the National Agrarian Council to the scope of the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, from where some expropriations were carried out. Perón would maintain: "The land should not be an income asset, but a work asset."
On December 4, the retirement regime for business employees was approved, which was followed by a union demonstration in support of Perón, the first in his support and in which he spoke at a public event, organized by the socialist Ángel Borlenghi, general secretary of the union, gathering a huge crowd estimated at 200,000 people.
That same year, the National Health Directorate was created, under the Ministry of the Interior, which began to administer the Federal Aid Fund intended to compensate the imbalances in the jurisdictions in health matters, and through the Regional Delegations exercised influence on public health in the country's provinces and governments. Through resolution 30,655/44, which promoted free medical care in factories under the responsibility of the company, policies were supported for the unions to develop social security as a complement to state action, and hospital services were created under the control of the unions of the sugar, railway and glass industry, among others.
In parallel, unionization of workers increased: while in 1941 there were 356 unions with 441,412 members, in 1945 that number had increased to 969 unions with 528,523 members, mostly "new" workers, ethnically different from the immigrants of the previous decades, coming from the massive migration that was taking place from the interior of the country and neighboring countries to the cities, especially to Greater Buenos Aires. They began to be called contemptuously "morochos", "fats", "blacks", "blacks" and "little black heads" by the middle and upper classes, and also by some of the "old" industrial workers, descendants of European immigration.
The Ministry of Labor, with the support of an increasingly important sector of trade unionism, was massively reforming the culture that sustained labor relations, characterized until then by the predominance of paternalism characteristic of the ranch. An exponent of the employer sector opposed to the "Peronist" labor reforms; he maintained at the time that the most serious of these was that the workers had “began to look their employers in the eye”.
In this context of cultural transformation referring to the place of workers in society, the working class was constantly expanding due to the accelerated industrialization of the country. This great socio-economic transformation was the basis of Labor nationalism that took shape between the second half of 1944 and the first half of 1945 and would adopt the name peronismo. He played a central role in the enactment of decree-law 1740/45 setting the vacation regime for industrial workers and the creation of the National Labor Court. By decree No. 33,302 of December 20, 1945, the "National Institute of Remunerations" is created, a salary increase is granted and, for the first time, the complementary annual salary or bonus is instituted. Perón represented the line of greatest openness to social problems. Through the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, created at the initiative of Perón, fundamental changes were produced aimed at establishing a stronger relationship with the labor movement, and a series of labor law reforms were sanctioned, such as the Laborer's Statute, which it established a minimum wage and sought to improve the conditions of food, housing and work of rural workers, and also established social security and retirement, which benefited 2 million people. In addition, Labor Courts were created, whose rulings, in general lines, were favorable to the workers' demands (among them, the fixing of salary improvements and the establishment of the Christmas bonus for all workers), and professional associations were recognized, with which which unionism obtained a substantial improvement in its position in the legal field. It also grants new rights such as compensation, paid vacations, licenses, prevention of work accidents, technical training, etc. Likewise, between the years 1936 and 1940, the unions had signed only 46 collective labor agreements, and only between the years 1944 and 1945 they signed more than 700. On October 2, 1945, the Professional Associations Law was enacted, by which which unions are declared entities of public good. Workers thus obtain recognition of their rights, are given legal support and have the state as their backing.
1945
1945 was one of the most significant years in the history of Argentina.
Started with the obvious intention of Farrell and Perón to set the stage for declaring war on Germany and Japan, Perón's role in this decision should be noted. On January 26, 1944, the Argentine Government had broken diplomatic relations with Germany and Japan -Italy was occupied by the allies-: "Declare the state of war between the Argentine Republic and the Empire of Japan", and only in the article 3 war was declared on Germany. On March 20, the British chargé d'affaires Alfred Noble met with Perón to stress the need for such a step. But there was opposition within the Army and public opinion was divided around declaring war or not, however, it took measures to improve its image: total cessation of trade with the Axis countries, closure of pro-Nazi publications, intervention of German companies, arrest of a significant number of Nazi spies or suspects.
Already in October of the previous year, Argentina had requested a meeting of the Pan American Union to consider a course of common action. Subsequently, Perón's alliance with the unions gradually displaced the right-wing nationalist sector that had been installed in the government since the 1943 coup: Foreign Minister Orlando L. Peluffo, Corrientes comptroller David Uriburu, and above all General Juan Sanguinetti, displaced from the crucial position of comptroller of the province of Buenos Aires which, after a brief interregnum, was assumed by Juan Atilio Bramuglia, the socialist lawyer of the Unión Ferroviaria, a member of the union sector that initiated the rapprochement of the labor movement to Peron.
In February, Perón made a secret trip to the United States to agree on the declaration of war, the end of the blockade, recognition of the Argentine government, and its adherence to the Inter-American Conference of Chapultepec, which was scheduled for February 21. February of that year. Shortly after, the right-wing nationalist Rómulo Etcheverry Boneo resigns from the Ministry of Education and is replaced by Antonio J. Benítez, a man from the Farrel-Perón group.
On March 27, at the same time as most of the Latin American countries, Argentina declared war on Germany and Japan and a week later signed the Act of Chapultepec, being empowered to participate in the San Francisco Conference that founded the United Nations on June 26, 1945, integrating the group of 51 founding countries.
Simultaneously, the government began a turn to hold elections. On January 4, Interior Minister Admiral Tessaire announced the legalization of the Communist Party. The pro-Nazi newspapers Cabildo and El Pampero were banned, and the cessation of university auditors was ordered to return to the reformist system of university autonomy, while reinstating the dismissed teachers.
Peronism and anti-Peronism
The main characteristic of the year 1945 in Argentina would be the radicalization of the political situation between Peronism and anti-Peronism, promoted to a great extent by the United States, through its ambassador, Spruille Braden. From then on, the Argentine population would be divided into two frontally confronting factions: the supporters of Perón, who were the majority in the working class, and the non-Peronists, who were the majority in the middle class (especially in Buenos Aires) and the upper class.
On May 19, Spruille Braden, the new US ambassador, arrived in Buenos Aires and would serve in the post until November of the same year. Braden was one of the owners of the mining company Braden Copper Company of Chile, a supporter of the hard imperialist policy of the "Big Stick"; He had an openly anti-union position and was opposed to the industrialization of Argentina. He had previously played a relevant role in the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay, preserving the interests of Standard Oil and in Cuba (1942) operating so that break relations with Spain. He later served as the United States Undersecretary for Latin American Affairs and began working as a paid lobbyist for the United Fruit Company, promoting the coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954.
According to the British ambassador, Braden had "the fixed idea that he had been chosen by Providence to overthrow the Farrell-Perón regime". From the outset, Braden began publicly organizing and coordinating the opposition, exacerbating the internal conflict. The radical historian Félix Luna says that the appearance of anti-Peronism preceded the appearance of Peronism. The Stock Exchange and the Argentine Chamber of Commerce launch Manifesto of Commerce and Industry together with 321 employer organizations, criticizing the labor policy of the Secretary of Labor, since it was creating "a climate of suspicion, provocation and rebellion, which stimulates resentment, and a permanent spirit of hostility and vindication".
The trade union movement, in which open support for Perón still did not predominate, reacted quickly in defense of the labor policy and on July 12 the CGT organized a massive act under the slogan "Against the capitalist reaction". According to Félix Luna, this was the first time that the workers began to identify themselves as "Peronistas".
Anti-Peronism adopted the flag of democracy and harshly criticized what it called anti-democratic attitudes of Peronism; For his part, he took social justice as his banner and harshly criticized the contempt for the workers of his adversaries. The student movement expressed its opposition with the slogan "no to the dictatorship of the espadrilles" and the union movement and the worker demonstrations that supported the labor laws that Perón was promoting answered "sandals yes, books no."
On September 19, 1945, the opposition appeared united in a huge demonstration of more than 200,000 people, called the Constitution and Freedom March, which headed from Congress to the Recoleta neighborhood, led by fifty opposition personalities, among them the radicals José P. Tamborini, Enrique Mosca, Ernesto Sammartino and Gabriel Oddone, the socialist Nicolás Repetto, the anti-personalist radicals José M. Cantilo and Diógenes Taboada, the conservative (PDN) Laureano Landaburu, the Christian Democrats Manuel Ordóñez and Rodolfo Martínez, the pro-communist Luis Reissig, the progressive democrat Juan José Díaz Arana, and the rector of the UBA Horacio Rivarola.
It has been said that the demonstration was mainly made up of middle and upper class people, which is historically indisputable, but this does not invalidate the historical significance of its social amplitude and its political plurality. The march had a full impact on the power of Farrell-Perón and triggered a succession of military proposals against Perón's permanence in the government that materialized on October 8, when, before an adverse vote by the officials of Campo de Mayo, who was Under the command of General Eduardo J. Ávalos -one of the leaders of the GOU-, with the support of radicalism through Amadeo Sabattini, Perón resigned from all his posts. On October 11, the United States asked Great Britain to stop buying Argentine goods for two weeks to bring about the fall of the government.
On October 12, Perón was arrested and taken to Martín García Island. At that time, the leaders of the opposition movement had the country and the government at their disposal. "Perón was a political corpse" and the government, formally presided over by Farrell, was actually in the hands of General Eduardo Ávalos, who took over as Minister of War in Perón's replacement and only wanted to hand over power to civilians as soon as possible.
Perón was replaced in the vice presidency by the Minister of Public Works, General Juan Pistarini, who kept both positions, while the head of the Navy, Rear Admiral Héctor Vernengo Lima, assumed ownership of the Ministry of the Navy. The tension reached such a point that the radical leader Amadeo Sabattini was booed by a Nazi in the Casa Radical, a gigantic civil act attacked the Círculo Militar (October 12) and a paramilitary command came to plan the assassination of Perón.
The Radical House on Tucumán street in Buenos Aires had become the center of deliberations for the opposition. But the days passed without any resolution being taken, many times going so far as to promote the bosses' revenge. Tuesday, October 16, was pay day:
When they went to collect the fortnight, the workers found that the salary of the trade fair was not paid, despite the decree signed days earlier by Perón. Panaderos and textiles were the most affected by the patronal reaction. "Go and claim Perón!" was the sarcastic answer.
Organizations such as the Buenos Aires University Federation, the Argentine University Federation and the Bar Association participated in some cases in coup and terrorist activities.
October 17
On Wednesday, October 17, 1945, there was a massive mobilization of between 300,000 (according to Félix Luna's calculations) and 500,000 people, most of them workers from very humble sectors, who occupied the Plaza de Mayo demanding freedom of Peron. The union leaders, the metallurgists Ángel Perelman and Patricio Montes de Oca, Alcides Montiel from the brewing union, Cipriano Reyes from the meat union, grassroots leaders of the CGT, who went touring the factories inciting the workers, played a decisive role in it. workers to leave work to march chanting slogans in favor of Perón through the main streets towards the center of the Federal Capital, and activists such as the Uruguayan writer Blanca Luz Brum. Previously, at dawn on the 17th, a mobilization of the workers of La Boca, Barracas, Parque Patricios and the popular neighborhoods of the west of the Federal Capital as well as the industrial zones of its surroundings. The number of workers who left Berisso, a town near La Plata, was also very important. The action was barely coordinated by some union leaders who had been agitating the previous days, and the main driving force came from those same columns that fed back into the movement as they marched.
President Edelmiro J. Farrell maintained a no-nonsense attitude. The most anti-Peronist sectors of the government, such as Admiral Vernengo Lima, proposed opening fire on the demonstrators. The new strongman of the military government, General Eduardo Ávalos, remained passive, hoping that the demonstration would dissolve on its own, and refused to mobilize the troops. Finally, faced with the forcefulness of popular pressure, they negotiated with Perón and agreed on the conditions: Perón would speak to the protesters to reassure them, he would not refer to his arrest and obtain their withdrawal and on the other hand the cabinet would resign in its entirety and Ávalos would request your retirement; Perón would also retire and would not hold any position again, but in exchange he would demand that the government call free elections for the first months of 1946.
At 11:10 p.m. Perón went out onto a balcony of the Government House and spoke to the workers as they celebrated the triumph. He announced his retirement from the Army, celebrated the "democracy party" and before asking them to return to their homes peacefully, taking care not to harm the women present, he said:
I've often attended workers' meetings. I have always felt enormous satisfaction: but since today, I will feel a true pride of Argentina, because I interpret this collective movement as the rebirth of a workers consciousness, which is the only thing that can make the homeland great and immortal... And remember workers, join and be more brothers than ever. On the brotherhood of those who work, our beautiful homeland, in the unity of all Argentines, must be lifted.Juan Domingo Perón, 17 October 1945
1946 Election
After a short period of rest, during which he married Eva Duarte in Junín (Buenos Aires province) and his friend Mercante assumed the leadership of the Ministry of Labor and Welfare, on October 22 Perón began the political campaign which would culminate in his being elected president in the elections of February 24, 1946. The Radical Civic Union sector, which supported him, formed the UCR Junta Renovadora, to which the Labor Party and the Independent Party joined; For its part, the radical organization FORJA dissolved to join the Peronist movement.
An active role in the campaign would be played by the Argentine Rural Society (SRA), with the active support of Spruille Braden, US ambassador to Argentina. During the campaign, two events occurred that profoundly affected the result: on the one hand, the discovery of an important check delivered by an employers' organization as a contribution to the Unión Democrática campaign. The second was the involvement in internal affairs of the United States Department of State ―at the request of Ambassador Braden― in the electoral campaign in favor of the Tamborini-Mosca formula.
At the same time, it came to light that Raúl Lamuraglia, a businessman, had financed the campaign of the Democratic Union, through millionaire checks from the Bank of New York that had been destined to support the National Committee of the Radical Civic Union and its candidates José Tamborini and Enrique Mosca. Later, in 1951, the businessman contributed resources to support the failed coup d'état by General Benjamín Menéndez against Perón, and in June 1955 he financed the bombing of Plaza de Mayo.
In 1945, the United States embassy led by Spruille Braden promoted the unification of the opposition in an anti-Peronist front, which included the Communist, Socialist, Radical Civic Union, Progressive Democrat, Conservative parties, the Argentine University Federation (FUA), the Rural Society (landowners), the Industrial Union (large companies), the Stock Exchange, and the opposition unions. During his brief tenure as ambassador, and using an excellent command of the Spanish language, Braden acted as a political leader of the opposition, in an evident violation of the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of a foreign country. In 1946, a few days before the elections, Braden promoted the publication of a report called "The Blue Book", accusing the military government, like the previous one ―the Castillo presidency― of collaborating with the Axis powers, according to documents compiled by the US State Department. In response, the political parties supporting Perón's presidential candidacy published a response book entitled "The Blue and White Book," which skillfully installed the slogan Braden or Perón.
In the middle of the electoral campaign of 1946, sectors linked to the Argentine Rural Society, the local section of the Radical Civic Union and the Liberal Party of Corrientes, planned an attempt on his life in Corrientes. On February 3, 1946, this group, before Perón's march through the streets of Goya, positioned themselves on the roofs with weapons. From a vehicle in which the Liberals Bernabé Marambio Ballesteros, Gerardo Speroni, Juan Reynoldi and Ovidio Robar were traveling, they shot people from the port who heard the news and were marching downtown to repudiate the assassination attempt..
The Democratic Union supported the Blue Book and the immediate occupation of Argentina by US-led military forces; Additionally, he demanded the legal disqualification of Perón from being a candidate. This, however, did not happen and only served to destroy the chances of victory for the Democratic Union. Perón, in turn, published the Blue and White Book and published a slogan that established a forceful dilemma, "Braden or Perón", which had a strong influence on public opinion at the time of voting.
Popular support, organized by the Labor Party and the UCR Junta Renovadora, gave Perón the presidency. In the elections of February 24, 1946, being defeated only in Córdoba, Corrientes, San Juan and San Luis, Perón prevailed with 52.84% of the votes, while Tamborini placed second, with 42.87% of the vote. votes, ten points below Peronism. In the Electoral College (there was no direct vote), Perón received 299 electoral votes against only 66 for Tamborini. The Democratic Union collapsed upon its defeat and never reunited, while Perón's allied parties were unified into the Peronist Party later that year.
Unlike the elections held during the "Infamous Decade," the elections of February 1946 were recognized as absolutely fair by the opposition leaders themselves and newspapers.
Some opposition media refused to publish the result, once the presidential elections were held. The newspaper La Prensa did not publish the news that Perón had been elected president. It took him more than a month to print the news, indirectly, publishing a quote from the New York Times that took it for granted that Perón had won the presidential election. When power was transferred, the newspaper chronicled the event without ever mentioning Perón.
First Presidency (1946-1952)
The first presidential term of Juan Domingo Perón lasted from June 4, 1946 to June 4, 1952. Among the most outstanding actions is the creation of an extensive Welfare State, centered on the creation of the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare and the Eva Perón Foundation, a broad redistribution of wealth in favor of the most neglected sectors, recognition of women's political rights, an economic policy that promoted industrialization and the nationalization of basic sectors of the economy and a foreign policy of South American alliances supported by the principle of the third position. In the same period, a constitutional reform was carried out that sanctioned the so-called Constitution of 1949.
At the party level, the three parties that had supported her candidacy ―Labor, UCR-JR and Independiente― were unified in the Peronist Party and she supported the founding of the Feminine Peronist Party in 1949.
Economic policy
During the Perón government, the import substitution policy was deepened through the development of the light industry that had been promoted since the previous decade. Perón also invested heavily in agriculture, especially in planting wheat. During this time the agricultural sector was modernized, from the development of the steel and petrochemical industry, modernization and the provision of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery were promoted, so that agricultural production and efficiency increased.
The four pillars of the first Peronist economic discourse were: «internal market», «economic nationalism», «preponderant role of the State» and «central role of industry». The State gained increasing importance as a regulator of the economy in all its markets, including that of goods, and also as a provider of services.
In 1946, with Perón already elected president, the Central Bank of the Argentine Republic was nationalized, through Decree Law 8503/46. Simultaneously, a policy of discretionary credit allocation took place, through the formation of specialized official banks: the recently created Banco de Crédito Industrial supported the activity of "industry and mining", Banco Nación did so with "agriculture and commerce”, the National Mortgage Bank financed the “housing construction”, and the National Postal Savings Bank financed the “consumer credits”. The Caja was also the body that was assigned the impulse to "capture small savings" arising from the new distributive policies.
The value of the active rate differed according to the destination of the credits and was the discretionary and sole spring of the National State. All deposits in public and private banks were nationalized. With this measure, added to the “absolute control of the monetary issue” (by virtue of the nationalization of the BCRA), the State obtained hegemony over the sources of money creation in the system. Likewise, and in return, it assumed the total guarantee of bank deposits.
The active participation of the State in economic activity, added to the distributive salary policy and the recapitalization of the industry that, more due to supply problems than regulations, had been unable to equip itself during the entire war period, put pressure on global demand, which grew at a rate disproportionately higher than supply, causing an explosive increase in imports. This fact would imply the birth of high inflation in Argentina.[citation required]
The set of measures taken clearly denotes a strong stimulus to consumption, to the detriment of savings, for this sub-period. Despite the appearance of incipient inflation, the demand for money remains high throughout the stage, although with a declining trend from 1950.
Given the lack of foreign currency, a product of the stagnation of the primary sector, with which capital goods and inputs necessary for the industrialization process were imported, in 1946 Perón nationalized foreign trade by creating the Argentine Institute for the Promotion of the Exchange (IAPI) which meant the state monopoly of foreign trade. This allowed the State to obtain resources that it used to redistribute to industry. Said intersectoral exchange from the agricultural sector to the industry caused conflicts with some agricultural employers' associations, especially the Argentine Rural Society.
In 1947, he announced a Five-Year Plan to strengthen the new industries created, and begin heavy industry (steel industry and electricity generation in San Nicolás and Jujuy). Perón affirmed that Argentina had obtained political freedom in 1810, but not economic independence. Industrialization would diversify and make the productive matrix more complex (Scalise, Iriarte, s.d) and this, in turn, would allow Argentina to transcend the role assigned in the International Division of Labor. The Plan sought to transform the socio-economic structure; reduce external vulnerability (reducing debt and nationalizing public services); improve the standard of living (through redistribution and public works in health, education and housing); accelerate industrial capitalization and develop the local financial system (to stabilize the balance of payments). Thus, the State assumes an active participation in the economy.
That same year he created the Sociedad Mixta Siderúrgica Argentina (Somisa), appointing General Manuel Savio and the company Agua y Energía Eléctrica as its head. In 1948 the State nationalized the railways, mostly owned by English capital, and created the company Ferrocarriles Argentinos. Also in 1948 he created the National Telecommunications Company (ENTel). In 1950 he created Aerolíneas Argentinas, the first Argentine aviation company.
In the area of science and technology development, the development of nuclear energy began with the creation of the National Atomic Energy Commission in 1950, with scientists such as José Antonio Balseiro and Mario Báncora, who thwarted the fraud of Ronald Richter and then they laid the foundations of the Argentine nuclear plan.
In the aeronautical sector, a great boost was given to national production through the Military Aircraft Factory, created in 1927 by the radical president Marcelo T de Alvear, highlighting the development of jet aircraft through the Pulqui Project directed by the German engineer Kurt Tank. In Europe some 750 specialist workers were hired, two teams of German designers Reimar Horten, an Italian team (in charge of Pallavecino) and the French engineer Emile Dewoitine. These teams, along with Argentine engineers and technicians, would be in charge of designing the Pulqui I and Pulqui II jet planes, the twin-engine Justicialista del Aire, later renamed I.Ae. 35 Huanquero, Horten flying wings, etc. Likewise, San Martín managed the entry into the country of an important group of professors from the Polytechnic of Turin, with whom the School of Engineering of the Argentine Air Force was created. This academic staff was also part of the faculty of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Córdoba. Aircraft I.Ae. 22 DL advanced training, the I.Ae. 24 Bombardment and attack calquin, the I.Ae. 23 primary training fighter, the twin-engined fighter I.Ae. 30 Ñancú. Rounding out that period is the assault glider I.Ae. 25 Manque, the «El Gaucho» aviation engine, the AM-1 Tábano remote-controlled rocket and elementary instruction and civilian use aircraft: the Colibrí, the Chingolo, and the F.M.A. 20 Cattle. The realization of these aeronautical projects led to the formation of an important network of suppliers of high-quality parts, and as a consequence, the creation of the industrial park that was the basis for the subsequent development and industrial takeoff of Córdoba.
After the first three years of government, the classic phase of the import substitution process ends and the expansive phase of the economic policy supported by the growth of global demand and income redistribution concludes. The political crisis will extend until 1952, the year in which the government decides to adopt a new political-economic direction.
The political crisis that began in this period has its origins in the external sector, with the drop in imports and exports by 33%, and supported by the resounding drop in reserves that dropped to 150 million dollars when at beginning of the management had reached levels of 1500 million dollars. This scenario had a great mitigation: "The strangulation of productive capacity" result of the insufficient capitalization of the productive structure in a long period, which was added to the lower availability of goods due to the contraction in imports. In addition, it is important to highlight the fall in agricultural production in the years 1951-1952 generated by the effects of droughts.
The Government maintains its expansive monetary, fiscal, and salary policy, but the pressure of global demand on an economy with fewer goods and services available enervates inflationary pressures until, in 1951, an inflationary record is reached in our country so far this century XX. The cost of living rose 37% and wholesale prices 48%.
Education policy
Primary and secondary education
During the Peronist government, the number of students enrolled in primary and secondary schools grew at higher rates than in previous years, while in 1946 there were 2,049,737 span> students enrolled in primary schools and 217,817 in secondary schools, for the year 1955 they were 2,735,026 and 467,199 respectively.
There was access to secondary education for most of the children of the middle class and for a significant part of the upper strata of the working class, especially in commercial and technical education.
Religious teaching in primary and secondary schools that came from the presidency of Ramírez was abolished on December 16, 1954 in the context of the conflict with the Catholic Church.
One of the reasons for the irritation of the opponents was the introduction in the school textbooks of drawings, photographs and laudatory texts of Perón and Evita such as «¡Viva Perón! Perón is a good ruler. Perón and Evita love us» and other similar ones. In secondary school, the subject "Citizen Culture" was introduced, which in practice was a means of government propaganda, its protagonists and their achievements, the book La razon de mi vida by Eva Perón was mandatory in the primary and secondary level.
The faster growth of secondary school compared to the first indicates that access to secondary education occurred for most of the children of the middle class and for a significant part of the upper strata of the working class, which which is confirmed by the fact that the greatest increase occurred in commercial and technical education. In 1954, the Congress with a Peronist majority repealed religious education in public schools (but not in private ones). Congress approved the Statute for the Teaching Staff of Private Education Establishments and the Private Education Union Council, which equalized the rights of private school teachers to those enjoyed by public ones.
Regarding kindergartens, the Simini law was approved in 1946, which establishes the guidelines for preschool education for infants from three to five years of age. In 1951, the Law of Stability and Escalafón number 5651 was sanctioned, which was approved by all sectors. With regard to the teacher salary, it established that it would be determined by the budget law and that the periodic bonuses would correspond to both the holders and the substitutes. Regarding promotions, it specified that positions above first category vice director would be appointed through competitive examination. In turn, the teachers managed to integrate the teacher classification panel.
University education
In terms of university policy, during his first presidency Perón promoted measures that tended to bring the popular sectors closer to the public university. In 1948 he sent Congress a bill to create the National Workers University ―currently called UTN―, which was created by Law 13,229 and put into operation in 1952, with centers in Buenos Aires, La Plata, Bahía Blanca and Avellaneda. The objective of the Universidad Obrera was to guide it towards productive engineering with free study regimes and to facilitate access for young workers. The main measures of his government were unrestricted admission, free admission and scholarships, in order to open the University to the people, which represented a whole socio-cultural revolution for the time. The gratuity was received in decree 29337 of 1949 (Broches, 2009). During Perón's first government, the study plans were coordinated, the conditions for admission to the University were unified, 14 new universities were created, and the budget was raised from 48 million (1946) to 256 million (1950). The university free of charge allowed 49,000 students in 1946 to reach 96,000 in 1950. Exclusive dedication was established to allow professionals to investigate. In addition, for the first time, a system of scholarships for low-income students was established based on a 2% tax on salaries established in articles 87 and 107 of Law No. 13,013. This made it possible for the year 1956, Argentina to be the country with the largest number of university students in all of Latin America.
In 1949, he decreed free public university education (Decree 29.337/1949); by 1955 the number of university students tripled.
When announcing the decree, Perón declared:
The current university tariffs have been abolished since today in such a way that education is absolutely free of charge and is available to all young Argentines who wish to instruct for the good of the country.Juan Domingo Perón
During his tenure, the building for the new Faculty of Law was also built and the Faculty of Architecture and Dentistry were created, always at the University of Buenos Aires. Already in his second presidency, Perón created the National Council for Technical and Scientific Research (CONITYC), the immediate predecessor of the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET), and a new regional headquarters of the Universidad Obrera was opened in Tucumán. The creation of the Institute of Mining and Geology of the UNT in the Province of Jujuy, which would be followed by the creation of institutes in the field of arts, law, economics and scientific research. In this way, he also planned the construction of the University City in the Sierra de San Javier, whose works began in 1949. In the north, he expanded the University in the region, creating the Institute of Geology and Mining, the Institute of High Biology and the Institute of Popular Medicine, in Jujuy; the Vespucci Technical School and the Humanities Institute, in Salta; the School of Agriculture in El Zanjón, in Santiago del Estero, for example. He incorporated the Salesian Labor University into the UNT and created the University Medical Service.
After 15 years of restricted democracies and military interventions on civilian governments, in 1946 Congress enacted a new Higher Education Law that placed universities under the rules of a democracy without proscription. For this, and marking a milestone in the history of higher education legislation, Peronism issued Law No. 13 031 in 1947, called the Guardo Law, in honor of the justicialist deputy creator of its articles. This legislation put an end to the long validity of the four articles of the reduced Law No. 1597 of 1885, "Avellaneda Law", which served as the legal framework until then.
In 1949, with the intention of addressing some of the proposals of university students and incorporating advances in the law enacted in 1947 and laying the foundations for a new Law, an article was incorporated into the Argentine Constitution of 1949. In 1954, the sanctions a new Law, 14,297. It incorporates some other postulates of the University Reform, such as the definition of extension and direct student participation, this law deepens student participation in the government of the Faculties, granting them the right to vote. The National University of Tucumán underwent a profound transformation, through multiple creations and a vast regional expansion, such as the construction of the Ciudad Universitaria, on San Javier hill; the foundation of the University Gymnasium, in 1948. The creation in 194 of the Institute of Mining and Geology of the UNT in the Province of Jujuy. The construction of the University City in the Sierra de San Javier was planned, whose works began in 1949. He expanded the University in the region, creating the Institute of Geology and Mining, the Institute of High Biology and the Institute of Popular Medicine, in Jujuy; the Vespucci Technical School and the Humanities Institute, in Salta; the School of Agriculture in El Zanjón, in Santiago del Estero, for example. The Salesian University of Labor was incorporated into the UNT and created the Medical Service. In 1946, under the presidency of Perón, and due to the growing industrialization of Argentina during World War II, the National Commission for Professional Learning and Orientation (CNAOP) was created and factory-schools for the training of operators were founded. In this way, by means of Law 13,229 of the year 1948, the National Workers University (UON) was created. By 1955 it already had institutes in the federal capital, Córdoba, Mendoza, Santa Fe, Rosario, Bahía Blanca, La Plata and Tucumán. The study plans privileged specialties such as mechanical constructions, automobiles, the textile industry, and electrical installations.
Health policy
In 1946 Ramón Carrillo was appointed Secretary of Public Health and in 1949, when new ministries were created, he became minister of the area. From his position, he tried to carry out a health program that was directed towards the creation of a unified system of preventive, curative health and universal social assistance in which the State would play a leading role. Regarding health policy, he is characterized by the expansion of hospital centers and the implementation of health strategies at the national level led by the Ministry of Public Health. Carrillo decided to dedicate himself to attacking the causes of diseases from the public power within his reach. Under an ideological conception that privileged the social over individual profit, it allowed progress on levels such as infant mortality, which fell from 90 per thousand in 1943 to 56 per thousand in 1955. While tuberculosis from 130 per hundred thousand in 1946 to 36 per one hundred thousand in 1951. From the management began to comply with sanitary regulations incorporated in Argentine society such as massive vaccination campaigns and the compulsory nature of the certificate for school and to carry out procedures. Massive nationwide campaigns against yellow fever, venereal disease and other scourges were implemented. At the head of the Ministry of Health, he carried out a successful campaign to eradicate malaria, directed by doctors Carlos Alberto Alvarado and Héctor Argentino Coll; the creation of EMESTA, the first national medicine factory; and support for national laboratories through economic incentives so that the remedies are available to the entire population. During his management, almost five hundred new health establishments and hospitals were inaugurated.
The government action led to a substantial improvement in public health conditions. The period was also characterized by the constitution or consolidation of the social works of the unions, especially those with the largest number of affiliates such as the railway and banking. The number of hospital beds, which was 66,300 in 1946 (4 per 1,000 inhabitants), rose in 1954 to 131,440 (7 per 1,000 inhabitants). Campaigns were carried out to combat endemic diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and syphilis, using on a large scale the resources of DDT for the former and penicillin for the latter, and the health policy in schools was accentuated by making vaccination compulsory in their area.. It increased the number of existing beds in the country, from 66,300 in 1946 to 132,000 in 1954. It eradicated, in only two years, endemic diseases such as malaria, with extremely aggressive campaigns. It made syphilis and venereal diseases virtually disappear. He created 234 free hospitals or polyclinics. It decreased the tuberculosis death rate from 130 per 100,000 to 36 per 100,000. It ended with epidemics like typhus and brucellosis. Drastically reduced the infant mortality rate from 90 per thousand to 56 per thousand.
In 1942 some 6.5 million inhabitants had running water supply and 4 million, sewage services, and in 1955 the beneficiaries were 10 million and 5.5 million respectively. Infant mortality, which was 80.1 per thousand in 1943, dropped to 66.5 per thousand in 1953, and life expectancy, which was 61.7 years in 1947, rose to 66.5 years in 1953.
Sports policy
During his government, sport reached a high degree of development, the Evita National Tournaments were launched, the unification in 1947 of the Argentine Sports Confederation (CAD) with the Argentine Olympic Committee (COA), the presence of hundreds of athletes abroad competing in different disciplines, the promotion of non-traditional sports, the organization of the 1950 World Cup, the 1951 Pan American Games, the state sponsorship of Juan Manuel Fangio, were the first links in a national sports policy. The pilot Juan Manuel Fangio won five world championships in Formula 1. The Argentine men's basketball team won the first World Championship and the boxer Pascual Pérez became the first Argentine world champion, beginning a long saga of champions, who would make Argentina a power in professional boxing. At the same time, Argentine pelota pelota won the two gold medals in this specialty at the first Basque Pelota World Championship, dominating the discipline from then until today. The 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games marked the greatest period of splendor of the Olympic Games for Argentina, after these games Argentina would not win so many gold medals again until the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, for 1956 the delegation presented only 28 athletes, the smallest number in the country's history and were the first games that Argentina did not win a gold medal.
Communication policy
The Perón government was the first to carry out a policy regarding the media.
In the opinion of Sergio Arribas, the State formed an information monopoly and a media monopoly to consolidate its influence in the masses, it favored an oligopolistic conformation of the broadcasting media system founded on an articulated set of norms and restricted three basic liberties of the individual: a) freedom of expression and its two variants, freedom of thought and freedom of opinion. b) freedom of the press. c) freedom of the press. And on the other hand, the government enabled the oligopolistic formation of the broadcasting media system based on an articulated set of norms" This process occurred in a context of manipulation and distortion of information used by both government-affiliated media and by the media condemning Perón. Between January 27 and March 19, Evita gave six speeches on the radio demanding the enactment of the women's vote law; with the exception of the Clarín newspaper, these speeches were silenced by the main newspapers of then, like La Prensa and La Nación, both with an anti-Peronist tendency.
Cinematography benefited from the implementation of three measures: the compulsory exhibition of Argentine films throughout the country (Law 1299/47), the regulation of the law for the protection of the film industry (Decree 16688 /50) and the protection of the film industry (Decree 11731/52). achieving as a result that in 1950 58 films were produced; a production record, expanding to other Spanish-speaking countries God pays you, which broke audience records in much of the planet. In the period 1946-1955, popular cultural traditions are reformulated, influences from European realism are integrated, but basically the proposals of classic Hollywood cinema are modalized. These policies benefited the film industry in different ways, the process further favored by the distributionist measures that guaranteed an increase in the flow of viewers and positioned the cinema as one of the popular entertainments with the greatest impact. This legitimization of the sector had also been accentuated with the holding, in Mar del Plata, of the first Argentine Film Festival in March 1948.
The graphic press was favored with the ratification of the law of the Professional Journalist Statute declared in 1946.
As for television, the first transmission was made from Channel 7 on October 17, 1951 with the broadcast of a political act, “Loyalty Day”, held in Plaza de Mayo.
The country's first Broadcasting Law (14241/53) was enacted in 1953, which defines the service as of "public interest", creates the Ministry of Communications, establishes the need for 70% national capital for licensees, decrees licenses for 20 years with the possibility of extension subject to the approval of the Ministry of Communications, obliges the promotion of government action, education and national culture, and does not restrict advertising. Article 24 of the law established that the call must be made within 45 days of its promulgation.
In June 1954, through Decree 9967/54, the tender for the licenses of the three radio stations that existed in the country (LR1 and "Red Azul y Blanca", LR3 and & #34;First Argentine Broadcasting Chain" and LR4 and "Red Argentina de Emisoras Splendid") and the license for Channel 7 and two other licenses for television channels. The awarding of the licenses, through Decree 17959/54, was made "to licensees who met an implicit condition in the call: to correspond to a state/family political structure that was unconditional to Perón": LR1 was awarded to Editorial Haynes, chaired by Oscar Maroglio (former president of the State-owned Banco de Crédito Industrial), LR3 to the Association of Broadcasting Promoters, managed by Jorge Antonio, a personal friend of Perón, and LR4 to La Razón, chaired by Miguel Miranda, former president of the Economic and Social Council.
Foreign Policy
In 1946, a few months after the end of World War II, which elevated the United States to the highest world power. Among the causes of the confrontation between the United States and Argentina during the Perón government are the historical priority that Argentina gave to relations with Great Britain, the traditional policy of neutrality that Argentina maintained for almost the entire Second World War, and the competitive economies of both countries, to which were added the nationalist policy and the strong union incidence in the Peronist government. As a consequence of these signs by the Argentine government of compliance with inter-American commitments, the United States, in July 1946, released the Argentine gold and funds from Banco Nación and Banco Provincia blocked since 1944. In addition, the call to Argentina to Participating in the Rio de Janeiro Conference held in 1947 was accompanied by a change of diplomatic actors related to US foreign policy towards our country. Truman announced the resignation of Braden, to approach positions with Argentina.
On the other hand, bilateral relations improved thanks to a new cabinet change in the United States government, where President Truman appointed General Marshall Secretary of State. With Marshall, the consolidation in the US bureaucracy of officials in favor of cooperation and military balance throughout the continent was achieved.
Regarding the definition of the security zone, the Argentine delegate, Pascual La Rosa, asked that the Malvinas Islands and Antarctica be included within this zone, perhaps yielding to pressure from nationalist civil and military. The special military committee formed by Argentina, Chile and the United States, accepted the Argentine proposal to include the Malvinas Islands and Antarctica within the security zone of the TIAR treaty.
Diplomatic relations between Argentina and the Soviet Union were interrupted for more than thirty years since the Russian Revolution of 1917. Already during the year 1945, when Perón was vice president, and as President, diplomatic, consular and commercial relations were officially established between Argentina and the Soviet Union.
The first Minister of Foreign Relations appointed by Perón was the socialist union lawyer Juan Atilio Bramuglia, one of the founders of Peronism. In this context, the third Justicialist position developed, a philosophical position, political and international that distanced itself from both the capitalist world and the communist world. Perón himself outlined for the first time the content of the third justicialist position in a Message to All the Peoples of the World delivered on July 16, 1947, when Argentina had to preside over the Security Council during the first crisis of the Cold War (Berlin Blockade). Perón's message was broadcast by more than a thousand radio stations around the world, including the BBC in London:
The work to achieve international peace must be done on the basis of the abandonment of antagonistic ideologies and the creation of a global awareness that man is on systems and ideologies, and it is not therefore acceptable that humanity be destroyed in holocaust of right-wing or left-wing hegemonies.Juan Domingo Perón
Later, in the Message for the opening of sessions of the National Congress pronounced on May 1, 1952, he would expand the concept:
Until we proclaimed our doctrine, in front of us capitalist individualism and communist collectivism triumphed over the shadow of their imperial wings on all the paths of humanity. None of them had realized or could realize the happiness of man. On the one hand, capitalist individualism subjected men, peoples and nations to the omnipotent, cold and selfish will of money. On the other hand the collectivism, behind a curtain of silence, subjected men, peoples and nations to power overwhelming and totalitarian state... Our own people had been subjected for several years by the forces of capitalism enthroned in the government of the oligarchy and had been schilled by international capitalism... The dilemma that was presented to us was final and apparently definitive: either we followed under the shadow of Western individualism or advanced through the new collective path. But none of the two solutions should lead us to the conquest of the happiness our people deserved. That is why we decided to create the new bases of a third position that would allow us to offer our people another way that would not lead to exploitation and misery... Thus was born Justice under the supreme aspiration of a high ideal. The Justiceism created by us and our children, as a third ideological position to free us from capitalism without falling into the oppressive claws of collectivism.Juan Domingo Perón, May 1, 1952
Argentina's third position was carried out first by Bramuglia and later foreign ministers with a pragmatic sense, which avoided confronting the United States.
In 1946 Argentina refused to support the independence of Indonesia and condemn the Dutch intervention, it did not support the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, although it would do so on February 14, 1949, and immediately established diplomatic relations. Argentina repeatedly refused to vote on India's motion on South African racism (1st, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 8th sessions); voted against all the resolutions censuring the annexation of the territory of South West Africa by South Africa (second, fourth and seventh sessions), voted against the motion to investigate the action of French colonialism in Morocco (ninth period); he abstained from investigating the action of French colonialism in Morocco (ninth period); abstained (until fifth period); vote in favor of Chiang-Kai-Shek (since then) when dealing with the Chinese problem; I vote on all US bills relating to the Korean War (5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th terms); abstained on the motions in favor of Puerto Rico (eighth period); he abstained when the independence of some Dutch colonies was claimed (tenth period). On the other hand, at the tenth Pan-American conference held in Caracas, he abstained from voting to condemn the Jacobo Arbenz regime that governed Guatemala: on that point.
Shortly after taking office, Perón sent to Congress for ratification the Act of Chapultepec (Pan-American alliance, direct antecedent of the OAS) and the treaty creating the United Nations Organization. The Chamber of Senators Senate approved the ratification unanimously, but in the Chamber of Deputies the radical opposition proposed to reject both treaties, abstaining from the vote as did seven deputies from the ruling party, being strongly criticized by Ernesto Sanmartino, Luis Dellepiane and Arturo Frondizi.
In the United Nations, Argentina came to present 28 reservations in defense of its sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands. Likewise, the declarations in favor of sovereignty over the Malvinas, South Georgia, South Sandwich Islands and the lands of the Antarctic sector were repeated in the framework of the Inter-American Conferences in Rio de Janeiro in 1947 and Bogotá in 1948. In this last, the American Commission on Dependent Territories was created. It distinguished between territories “under colonial guardianship” —Greenland, the Antilles, Bahamas, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, among others— and “occupied” territories. Among the latter were the Malvinas Islands, the South Sandwich Islands, the South Georgia Islands, the American zone of Antarctica and Belize (Lanús, 1984 (b): 190).
In 1950 Argentina formally declared its sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands. Meanwhile, the British crown expanded the limits of its sovereignty over the islands, by including that same year under its domain the submarine platform, the seabed and the subsoil contiguous to the islands.
Especially after 1953, Argentina sought and managed to sign numerous South American integration agreements. First, in February 1953, Perón visited Chilean President Ibáñez and signed the Santiago Act. Both countries established, on this occasion, the foundations of economic complementarity. They promised to expand trade, gradually eliminate customs duties, and promote the industrialization of the two nations, among other things. Four months later, Ibáñez returned Perón's visit, and both signed the Chilean-Argentine Economic Union treaty, later Perón invited Brazil to participate in the economic union.
Argentina would quickly sign other economic union agreements with Chile, Paraguay, Ecuador and Bolivia, in which the opening of the borders was proposed. In 1946, agreements were signed with Brazil for the use of the Uruguay River, with Chile on economic, financial, and cultural cooperation, and with Bolivia on commercial and financial issues. Later this trend was reinforced with various complementary initiatives, such as the signing of an Act of Union with Chile, in February 1953, in order to coordinate the development policy of both countries; the proposals for Latin American integration made by the Argentine delegation at the V meeting of ECLAC in April 1953; the Economic Union Treaty signed with Paraguay in August 1953; d) the Complementation Agreement with Nicaragua, in December of the same year; the Argentine-Ecuadorian Union Act, agreed on the same date as the previous one; the Economic Union Agreement with Bolivia signed in September 1954; the agreements on commercial exchange and payment system reached with Colombia and Brazil.
In 1947 Argentina signed the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR). In 1947, Argentina achieved international success when it was elected to serve for two years on the UN Security Council, even reaching the presidency of the UN in 1948 to deal with the conflict generated by the Berlin Blockade, management that was left in charge of Bramuglia, who adopted an active mediation management between the two sides. On June 3, 1947, in an unprecedented gesture, President Truman invited Argentine ambassador Oscar Ivanissevich to come to the White House, where he conversed kindly with the conspicuous absence of Braden, who resigned two days later. Argentina immediately established diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and then began trade talks and closed trade agreements with Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary.
Latin America played a very important role in Perón's foreign policy, because it was seen as a negotiating card before the world. It was necessary to improve and perfect the ties in the subcontinent in order to have a better negotiating position. Perón contributed to improve and consolidate relations with neighboring countries.
Despite all this, the United States continued to act to the detriment of Argentina, even prohibiting the use of Marshall Plan currency to buy Argentine grains and meat. The US ambassador to Argentina Bruc sent President Truman a letter where he revealed part of this plan against the country...: "Fitzgerald... declared that he was going to use the ECA to "put Argentines out of knees'… Fitzgerald instructed the army to buy meat in any country, except Argentina, no matter how much higher the price.
The third position adopted by Argentina was considered "unfavorable" for the interests of the United States. A United States Department of State memo from March 21, 1950 reads:
There is a dimension of Argentine policy called the "third position" that is unfavourable to the interests of the United States. When it was first published in mid 1947, this concept seemed to be an indication that, in world affairs, Argentina did not wish to follow the capitalists of the United States or communist Russia, but chose an independent course. Other nations were invited to join with Argentina in a third group that would work for peace and counter the trend towards war between the two blocs. Subsequently, however, President Perón has assured us that the "third position" is a policy of times of peace and a "political resource" that will have no effect if the United States and the Soviet Union entered into war, in which case Argentina would declare the war immediately on the side of the United States. Whatever Perón's intentions are, the Argentine propagandists of the "third position" have damaged the US-Argentine relations and to a lesser extent have been cause of pregnancy for the United States in their relations with other American republics. In Argentina and abroad, they have vilified Moscow and its international influence, but with equal and perhaps greater severity they have attacked "U.S. imperialism" and "Wall Street" for various and supposed activities in the Western Hemisphere. It is our policy to counter this propaganda whenever possible. Through diplomatic channels we point out to Perón and his representatives that if the Argentine Government is sincere in its professed desire to collaborate with the United States against communism, it must refrain from weakening the cause of democracy through attacks on the United States.
Another controversy was the entry into Argentina and other South American countries of numerous fugitive Nazis during and after World War II, including Adolf Eichmann, Joseph Mengele, Erich Priebke, Dinko Sakic, Josef Schwammberger, Gerhard Bohne, Walter Kutschmann, Ante Pavelic.
The Jewish Virtual Library wrote that "Perón also expressed sympathy for Jewish rights and established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1949. Since then, more than 45,000 Jews immigrated to Israel from Argentina."
During this period, Argentina welcomed several political exiles from Bolivia after the overthrow of Colonel Gualberto Villarroel in July 1946, such as Víctor Paz Estenssoro, Augusto Céspedes, Carlos Montenegro and General Alfredo Pacheco Iturri.
Through the Eva Perón Foundation, the country also provided assistance to other countries, such as bolivian, Chili, Croatia, Egypt, Spain, France, Honduras, Israel, Japan, Paraguayan and Uruguay,
Equal rights between men and women
During Perón's first government, a historic change took place in regards to the recognition of women's rights. The new social rights were incorporated into the maximum legal text, as well as the female vote, which had been approved in 1947, and which vindicated women until then marginalized from Argentine political life.
Perón was the first Argentine head of state to put the issue of women on the table. Perón and Evita paved the way for women's political participation. Advances were rapid. In the 1950s, no country had the number of women in Congress that Argentina had.
Women's Suffrage
In 1947, the law was passed recognizing all women over 18 years of age the right to vote and be voted for (women's suffrage), only then existing universal suffrage in Argentina. The right had already been recognized in San Juan by the constitutional reform of 1927. At the national level, the right to vote had been claimed by women since 1907, when Alicia Moreau and other women founded the Committee for Women's Suffrage. However, neither the Radical Civic Union nor the conservatives institutionally supported the claim and the projects presented were systematically rejected. In 1945 Juan Domingo Perón promoted the women's vote and spread the version that it would be authorized by decree, but the initiative was rejected by various groups and finally it did not happen. During the campaign for the 1946 elections, the Peronist coalition included in its platforms the recognition of women's suffrage.
Eva Perón (Evita) played an important role. After October 17, 1945, at Evita's proposal, Perón ―from his position as vice president―, tried to sanction the Women's Vote Law. However, the resistance both within the Armed Forces in the government, and from the opposition, which claimed electoral intentions, frustrated the attempt. Also playing a role was the fact that Evita's influence within Peronism was relatively weak before February 24, 1946. Between January 27 and March 19, Evita gave six speeches on the radio demanding the enactment of the women's vote law, which, with the exception of the Clarín newspaper, were silenced by the main newspapers of the time, such as La Prensa and La Nación, both of which were anti-Peronist.
After the 1946 elections, Evita began to openly campaign for the female vote, through women's rallies and radio speeches, at the same time that her influence within Peronism grew. The bill was presented immediately after the constitutional government took office (May 1, 1946). Despite the fact that it was a very brief text in three articles, which practically could not give rise to discussions, the Senate approved the bill on August 21, 1946, and it was finally approved by the Chamber of Deputies on September 9, 1947. Law 13,010, establishing equal political rights between men and women. The Feminine Peronist Party managed to obtain 23 deputies, three delegates from national territories and 6 senators ―the only women present in the National Congress―, and 80 provincial legislators.
Legal equality in marriage and parental authority
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The political equality of men and women was complemented by the shared "legal equality of spouses and parental authority" guaranteed by article 37 (II.1) of the 1949 Constitution.
In 1955 the Constitution was repealed, and with it the guarantee of legal equality between men and women in marriage and against parental authority, reappearing the priority of men over women.
The 1957 constitutional reform did not reincorporate this constitutional guarantee either, and Argentine women remained legally discriminated against until the shared parental authority law was enacted in 1985, during the government of Raúl Alfonsín. The Constitution was a constitution included in the current of social constitutionalism that incorporated the rights of workers (decalogue of the worker), the rights of the family, the elderly, education and culture; state protection for science and art; compulsory and free primary education. In addition to the equality of men and women in family relationships; university autonomy; The social function of the property; the election by direct vote for deputies, senators and president; and the immediate re-election of the president.
Social Policy
Among other social and political reforms, during his first government Perón repealed the law that established discrimination between legitimate and illegitimate children and developed a comprehensive housing plan for workers. In 1951 he began to broadcast LR3 Televisión Radio Belgrano , currently called Canal 7.
Worker politics
During the first Peronist government, the wage component of national income exceeded, for the first time in history, the remuneration obtained by way of profits, interest and land rent; in 1948, the former amounted to 53% against the latter's 47%, which compared favorably with the prevailing situation just five years ago, when workers received 44.4% and businessmen, capitalists and rentiers received 55.6%». The retirement system was expanded, benefiting independent workers, businessmen and professionals. In 1948, the pension fund for people without resources not included in the retirement system was established, and legislation was passed on the pension for widows. In 1946, with Law 12,921, the decrees of the dictatorship of the previous year were ratified, which incorporated the payment of the Christmas bonus as a right, created and put into operation the first labor courts, established the Statute of the Rural Laborer, the regime of collective agreements of work and the National Institute of Remunerations that was never launched.
In the 1950s, independence and autonomy in the management of resources made growth possible and placed the unions in a privileged position. The OSS (union social works) represented a majority of the economically active population (between 70 and 80% of the total). Health insurance was born in Argentina with contributions from salary, voluntarily, by branch of activity and with equity and solidarity criteria. In this way, the best wages collaborated with their contributions with those with the lowest income in a solidarity fund administered by the workers through their own organizations.
In 1947, he proclaimed the 10 basic rights of workers and managed to get the National Congress to sanction them with the force of law: the right to work, to a fair distribution, to training, to decent working and living conditions, to health, well-being, social security, family protection, economic improvement and the defense of professional interests. These rights were formalized through a decree of the National Executive Power, under number 4865, and were later incorporated into article 37 of the Constitution of the Argentine Nation, sanctioned by the Constituent Convention, on 11 March 1949.
On November 15, 1950, a railway strike began in Argentina over wage claims. It ended eight days later with a "gentleman's agreement" between the strikers and Juan Francisco Castro (Minister of Labour), according to which it was decided that they would return to work the following day. They would be granted a salary increase and the sanctions applied to the strikers would be annulled.
In the first week of December 1950, the government annulled the agreement reached. On January 16, 1951, Perón made Minister Castro resign. He then began a new strike to demand the release of the imprisoned leaders; the government declared the conflict illegal. In a speech delivered on January 24, 1951, Perón stated, referring to the railway workers: "Whoever goes to work will be mobilized, and whoever does not go will be prosecuted and will go to the barracks to be tried by military justice, according to the code of military justice”. Nearly two thousand workers were arrested and some three hundred were imprisoned, with the strikers returning to work three days later. On June 20, 1951, Perón pardoned 611 prosecuted workers, leaving around 24 in prison.
Between 1945 and 1948, the real wages of public employees rose 35%, and those of industrial workers rose by an average of 50%. In the same period, consumption ―both in the public and private sectors― rose by around 20%. The retirement funds went from having 300,000 affiliates in 1944 to 3,500,000 in 1949. A fund was established by law to grant pensions to all low-income people over 60 years of age, not covered by any retirement system.
To this reality were added the benefits of indirect salary:
- housing plans;
- free distribution of student clothing;
- free distribution of school text;
- free holiday colonies;
- personalized attention to individual and family needs, by the Eva Perón Foundation.
Energy Policy
Juan Domingo Perón resumed the nationalist energy policy that Yrigoyen had promoted with the creation of YPF, through the nationalization of hydrocarbons that was supported thanks to article 40 of the 1949 Constitution. In six years of government, oil production was increased by 50%, reaching 84% of total crude oil extraction, with a policy of consumer subsidies. However, it did not reach self-sufficiency. The ANSEC, which had the exploitation of the electrical service in most of the interior of the country, was nationalized. He created the state company Agua y Energía Eléctrica and promoted the development of popular cooperative plants. The energy plan approved by Perón also included rural electrification ―abandoned by international trusts―, and the prohibition of new energy and gas concessions, which would remain in charge of the State, except for exceptional reasons. Since January 1, 1946, the mechanism of the National Energy Directorate had been structured, giving birth to four entities: State Gas, Solid Fuels and Minerals; State Power Plants and Vegetable Fuels and Derivatives. In 1943, the country had an installed power in hydroelectric plants of 45,000 kW; by 1952, the national company Agua y Energía had seven times as much: 350,000 kW. To this must be added a portfolio of studies and projects worth 6 million kilowatts. In this way, the government consolidated an integrated energy system that, together with the production of fuels by YPF, was strategically articulated. In this model, the State companies were the spearhead of an integrated and centralized energy system, in which the production of energy and water were consolidated as a "public good" and the production of oil and steel strategic goods to supply the industrial framework. In the fifties the CNEA (National Atomic Energy Commission) was also created.
During Perón's government, major infrastructure works were carried out throughout the country within the framework of the First Five-Year Plan (1947-1952): the Puerto Nuevo (CADE) and Nuevo Puerto (CIADE) power plants were interconnected with what that an interconnected generation system was achieved in the area of the Federal Capital and Greater Buenos Aires, to which 14 provinces would be added. In addition, through the First Five-Year Plan, a set of important public works were carried out, in the energy area and the heavy and mining industries, accompanying them with an improvement in the infrastructure, that is to say, in transportation, roads and hydroelectric works, destined to modernize the country's infrastructure, necessary for the accelerated industrialization process that its developmentalist government promoted. The production of electrical energy between 1946 and 1955 (in million kWh and considering self-production) went from 3.84 in 1946 to 7.20 million in 1952.
The First Five-Year Plan (1947-1952) had resulted in the initiation of works on 41 hydroelectric power plants throughout the country. The most important for their installed power were:
- Condarco and Nihuil I and II (in Mendoza),
- Escaba (in Tucumán),
- Ameghino (in Chubut) and
- Cassaffousth, Molinos I and San Roque (in Cordoba).
Regarding the transmission lines, important sections had been completed such as Río Tercero-Córdoba (100 km), Escaba-Tucumán (100 km) and Concepción del Uruguay-Rosario (92 km), and there were various lines under construction in various parts of Argentina.
There was also a dizzying increase in the production of accumulators, electric lamps, electric motors, batteries, batteries and phonograph records. The sale of refrigerators between 1950 and 1955 increased more than 4 times and sewing machines in the same years grew 50 times.
For the Second Five-Year Plan (1952-1957), the construction of 11 thermal power plants and 45 more hydroelectric plants began. Also for the distribution of water for irrigation, the construction of 29 reservoirs, 59 dams and other works began. (In 1955, the dictatorship of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu ―the Liberating Revolution― discontinued all public works of the Second Five-Year Plan, which had only been in existence for three years.)
Perón also promoted energy diversification. In 1948, the Peronist government projected the development of biofuels. This innovative vision in energy matters would be completed in 1950 with the creation of the National Atomic Energy Commission (CNEA). The Puerto Nuevo (CADE) and Nuevo Puerto (CIAE) power plants were interconnected.
41 hydroelectric power stations were built throughout the country, increasing the installed hydroelectric power from 45,000 kW (kilowatts) in 1943, to 350,000 kW in 1952. He signed a contract on December 11, 1947 between YPF and the American oil company Drilexco, for the exploration of forty oil wells, since the resources that the State had were not enough to achieve self-sufficiency by itself. The president sent Congress a law for investments in the oil industry. The law was successfully enacted in 1953.
When Perón's second term began in 1952, Argentina found itself in an acute energy crisis: YPF was far from self-sufficient in fuel for the country, it imported 60% and in 1954 it had its first crisis in the balance of payments. Faced with this situation, Perón decides to go all-in with the objective of self-sufficiency and proposes the signing of the contract with Standard Oil of California, acknowledging the operational impossibility of YPF to achieve this objective, the company would exploit an extensive area of southern Argentina with deposits. The contract established a mixed exploitation (joint venture), through which California would jointly produce with YPF the 9,000,000 cubic meters that Argentina imported, canceling an extra expense of almost 300 million dollars for imports. made out of fuel. Through this agreement, Perón sought to increase oil production in the following years in order to maintain domestic supply and even start the export of oil and its derivatives, in order to increase the availability of foreign currency.
There were fears of abusive concessions to foreign oil companies under the new regulations, legislator John William Cooke was a notable opponent of it, and it was left without effect after the coup that overthrew Perón in 1955. the future president Frondizi would also be strongly opposed.
The Gas del Estado distribution company was created to distribute that resource. The first gas pipeline that connected the city of Comodoro Rivadavia with the City of Buenos Aires was launched, with a length of 1,600 km. It was inaugurated on December 29, 1949, Being the first of its kind in South America and the longest in the world at that time, it was also built without external financing. But after the 1955 coup, the valves and terminals were not built so that the pipeline was capable of transporting gas to homes. In turn, the constitutional reform nationalized the oil fields, thus making YPF a state monopoly.
During his years in exile, Perón said about YPF:
I believe YPF has neither organizational capacity nor technical capacity nor financial capacity for such an effort. The systems used in Argentina are far from the new methods of exploration, prospecting, catheterization and rational exploration of modern deposits. YPF production costs are absolutely uneconomic. Making this a question of self-love is dangerous and stupid... These opera nationalists have done so badly to the country with their stupidities and colonialists with their lives. Negatives and others overly positivist represent two scourges for the country's economy.Juan Domingo Perón.
In this sense, by 1946, YPF's refining capacity was 2,435,000 m³ per year, while towards the end of the second Peronist government, this had increased to 6,083,054 m³: the drilling of wells would multiply for three. During the years of the Peronist government, the important sites of Campo Durán and Madrejones were discovered, as well as others in Mendoza, Plaza Huincul, Río Gallegos and Tierra del Fuego.
Acts of violence
Perón's first two presidencies were characterized by increasing political violence. The Peronists questioned the racist, classist, coup and terrorist actions of the anti-Peronists, materialized in murders, massacres and coups d'état, while they questioned the police torture, the arbitrary arrests, the violation of freedom of the press and expression, and the political assassinations produced by the action or omission of the government.
Among the acts of violence most questioned by the government are: the arrest and conviction of trade unionist Cipriano Reyes accused of being part of a coup plot; the torture inflicted by the Federal Police on Ernesto Mario Bravo, Luis Vila Ayres, Juan Ovidio Zavala, Roque Carranza, Yolanda J.V. de Uzal, the brothers María Teresa and Jorge Alfredo González Dogliotti; the resignation and dismissal of a large number of university teachers; the arrest of opposition deputies such as Ricardo Balbín, Ernesto Sanmartino and Alfredo Palacios; restrictions on freedom of expression and of the press; the expropriation of the newspapers La Prensa and La Nueva Provincia; the court sentence for contempt and imprisonment of Michel Torino, owner of the daily El Intransigente of Salta; the burning of the central premises and library of the Socialist Party and other premises of non-Peronist parties and the Jockey Club; the burning of churches on June 16, 1955; the torture, murder and disappearance of the doctor Juan Ingallinella, At the same time, he took control of all the radio stations and promoted the creation of Peronist media.
Among the acts of violence most questioned by anti-Peronists are: the arrest and assassination plan of Perón in October 1945; the coup plan of February 1946; the generalization of public expressions of hate and discrimination such as "zoo flood", "fat", "little black heads", "populist measles", "Long live cancer!" when Eva Perón was dying of that disease; the creation of civilian terrorist commandos; the coup d'état of September 28, 1951, the terrorist attack of April 15, 1953 in Plaza de Mayo; the bombing and machine-gunning of Plaza de Mayo on June 16, 1955, which caused more than 350 deaths and 800 injuries; the coup d'état of September 16, 1955 that overthrew Perón; the vexation, kidnapping and disappearance of the corpse of Eva Perón; the executions and murders of Peronists in 1956 that caused the death of Lieutenant Colonel José Albino Yrigoyen, Captain Jorge Miguel Costales, Dante Hipólito Lugo, Clemente Braulio Ros, Norberto Ros, Osvaldo Alberto Albedro, Carlos Lizaso, Nicolás Carranza, Francisco Garibotti, Vicente Rodríguez, Mario Brión, Carlos Irigoyen, Ramón R. Videla, Rolando Zanetta, Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Lorenzo Cogorno, Reserve Second Lieutenant Alberto Abadie, Colonel Eduardo Alcibíades Cortines, Captain Néstor Dardo Cano, Colonel Ricardo Salomón Ibazeta, Captain Eloy Luis Caro, First Lieutenant Jorge Leopoldo Noriega, Petty Officer Néstor Marcelo Videla, Chief Petty Officer Ernesto Gareca; chief petty officer Miguel Ángel Paolini; Corporal musician José Miguel Rodríguez; Sergeant Hugo Eladio Quiroga, Miguel Ángel Maurino, Assistant Sergeant Isauro Costa, Carpenter Sergeant Luis Pugnetti, Musician Sergeant Luciano Isaías Rojas, Division General Juan José Valle and Aldo Emil Jofré; the outlawing of Peronism in 1956 and the thousands of arrests and dismissals of militants, artists, athletes, public employees and teachers sympathetic to Peronism; the military intervention of the unions in 1956; the repeal by military proclamation of the 1949 Constitution; restrictions on freedom of expression and of the press; the annulment of the 1962 elections; the disappearance and cover-up of the murder of trade unionist Felipe Vallese in 1962; the arrest of the plane in which Perón intended to return to Argentina in 1964 by the Brazilian military dictatorship at the request of the Argentine government of Arturo Illia; the proscription of the Peronist Party between 1955 and 1972 and of Perón until 1973.
The mutual hatred between Peronists and anti-Peronists would last for many years. In 1973 Perón and the radical leader Ricardo Balbín embraced publicly in order to convey to the population the need to cease this hatred, with limited results. Among many other people involved, the Peronist Antonio Cafiero - who was Perón's Minister of Economy - and the historian and radical politician Félix Luna, have reflected on the mutual political violence between Peronists and anti-Peronists:
Felix Luna (1993): It was an atmosphere where the opposition was taken as if it were a negative shadow in the country, a sector that, not sharing the ideals of the majority, should be marginalized from the political process.
Antonio Cafiero (2003): The terrorist attacks of that infausta afternoon marked the beginning of a stage of violence, pain and death to be extended for thirty years of Argentine history. Those winds sown in the afternoon of April 15 brought these subsequent storms. I must say, it was the Peronists who paid the highest tribute to this ordaly. Because violence had two faces. The one of Peronism, during the period of proscription and exile (1955-1973), was characterized by a kind of verbal boasting and the attack on symbolic physical goods, indeed very valuable and respectable. On the other hand, anti-peronism was characterized by brutal terrorism and contempt for the value of human life. The Peronists were insolete. But anti-peronism shook hatred. The Peronists boasted: the anti-peronists shot. We had to wait for twenty years to achieve the reconciliation of Peronists and anti-peronists who read us Perón and Balbín.
The military dictatorship installed in 1976, with an anti-Peronist ideology, brought political violence to the paroxysm of genocide and systematic state terrorism. After democracy was restored on December 10, 1983, political violence between Peronists and anti-Peronists was substantially reduced.
Constitutional reform
In 1949, during the first government of Perón, the National Constitution was reformed, incorporating labor and social rights (Art. 37) that characterized social constitutionalism and the legal bases to expropriate large monopoly companies (Art. 40). At the same time, indefinite presidential re-election was established (Art. 78). This Constitution would be repealed by a proclamation of the military regime that overthrew the Peronist government.
Political rights of the inhabitants of national territories
Perón would initiate during his first presidency a policy of recognition of political rights in the national territories ―Chaco, Chubut, Formosa, La Pampa, Misiones, Neuquén, Río Negro, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and Islands of the South Atlantic―, whose inhabitants could not choose their own authorities, nor choose the national authorities. At that time, only the citizens who inhabited the fourteen existing provinces -Buenos Aires, Catamarca, Córdoba, Corrientes, Entre Ríos, Jujuy, La Rioja, Mendoza, Salta, San Juan, San Luis, Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero and Tucumán- had political rights. ― and the Federal Capital.
Article 82 of the 1949 Constitution had established that the elections of the president and vice president should be carried out by direct vote of all the citizens who inhabited the provinces, the Federal Capital and the federal territories. Until then, the election was carried out by the provincial electoral colleges, which could only be elected by those who inhabited the provinces and the Federal Capital. In order to regulate this right, Perón issued Decree n.º 17 821 of September 10, 1951, enabling for the first time the participation of the inhabitants of the national territories in the 1951 presidential elections, in which women also voted for the first time.
In the same decree, Perón established the position of delegate of each national territory before the Chamber of Deputies of the Nation, elected by the citizens of each one of the territories. Delegates had a voice and a vote in the commissions, but in plenary sessions they only had a voice and did not make up the quorum. He finally established that from 1951 the authorities of the municipalities located in the national territories would be elected by popular vote.
The policy of expanding political rights was completed with the process of provincializing them, so that their authorities were elected by the inhabitants of the national territories. By Law 14,037 of August 8, 1951, the first two provincialized territories were provincialized: Chaco and La Pampa. The new provinces were constituted a few months later by means of separate constituent assemblies, democratically elected, which sanctioned their respective constitutions and the name they would bear, deciding to call them Juan Perón and Eva Perón, respectively. During his second presidency, the laws were passed provincializing all the other national territories, although the dictatorship that overthrew him would partially reverse the decision, reestablishing the national territory of Tierra del Fuego. The reinstatement of indirect voting prevented the inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego from voting in the presidential elections until 1973.
Cabinet
 Juan Domingo Perón | ||
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | Owner | Period |
| Ministry of the Interior | Angel Gabriel Borlenghi | 4 June 1946 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship | Juan Atilio Bramuglia Hippolyte Jesus Peace Jerónimo Remorino | 4 June 1946 - 13 August 1949 13 August 1949 - 28 June 1951 28 June 1951 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Finance | Ramón Antonio Cereijo | 4 June 1946 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Justice and Public Instruction | Belisario Gache Pirán | 4 June 1946 - 11 March 1949 |
| Ministry of Agriculture | Juan Carlos Picazo Elordy Carlos Alberto Emery | 4 June 1946 - 19 August 1947 19 August 1947 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Public Works | Juan Pistarini | 4 June 1946 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of War | Humberto Sosa Molina | 4 June 1946 - 11 March 1949 |
| Ministerio de Marina | Fidel Anadón Enrique B. García Aníbal Olivieri | 4 June 1946 - 25 September 1948 25 September 1948 - 29 September 1951 29 September 1951 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Political Affairs | Román Subiza | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Education | Oscar Ivanissevich Armando Méndez San Martín | 11 March 1949 - 11 May 1950 21 June 1950 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Justice | Belisario Gache Pirán | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Public Health | Ramón Carrillo | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Industry and Trade | Joseph Constantine Barro | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Transport | Juan Francisco Castro Juan Eugenio Maggi | 11 March 1949 - 20 January 1951 20 January 1951 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Communications | Oscar Nicolini | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Labour and Security | José María Freire | 7 June 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of Technical Affairs | Raúl Mendé | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Ministry of National Defence | Humberto Sosa Molina | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Army Minister | Franklin Lucero | 11 March 1949 - 4 June 1952 |
| Minister of Aeronautics | César Ojeda Juan Ignacio San Martín | 11 March 1949 - 2 October 1951 2 October 1951 - 4 June 1952 |
| Aeronautics Secretariat | Bartolome de la Colina | since June 4, 1946 |
| Industry and Trade Secretariat | Rolando Lagomarsino | since June 4, 1946 |
| Ministry of Labour and Security | José María Freire | since June 4, 1946 |
| Ministry of Public Health | Ramón Carrillo | 4 June 1946- 11 March 1949 |
| Military Secretariat | Oscar R. Silva | since June 4, 1946 |
| Political Secretariat | Román Subiza | since June 4, 1946 |
| Technical Secretariat | José Miguel Francisco Luis Figuerola | since June 4, 1946 |
| Private Secretariat | Juan Ramón Duarte | since June 4, 1946 |
Second presidency (1952-1955)
The reform of the Argentine National Constitution allowed the re-election of the president; Perón ran again as a candidate ―in the first national elections in which women voted― and was victorious with 62% of the votes.
When the 1949 constitutional reform was sanctioned, the main opposition party, the Unión Cívica Radical, debated whether its representatives in Congress should swear on the 1949 Constitution, or refuse to do so; the unionist sector, headed by Miguel Ángel Zavala Ortiz, with a coup position, maintained that the UCR should ignore the legitimacy of the 1949 Constitution; The head of the radical caucus, Ricardo Balbín, spoke out against it, maintaining that the UCR should swear by the 1949 Constitution; Balbín's position was in the majority and the radical caucus swore by the 1949 Constitution. Some contemporary opposition deputies [who?] considered the reform, and therefore the reelection, illegitimate, but they were not allowed to challenge the candidacy; To this day, historians and specialists in law, maintain this same illegitimacy, while other historians and jurists maintain its full legitimacy, and precisely, the constitutional reform of 1949 never it was applied again, after it was abolished in 1956 by the dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu. After Peronism had replaced four of the five members of the Supreme Court in 1947, it considered the Constitution of 1853 legitimate; when the 1949 constitutional reform was sanctioned, it upheld its legitimacy and applied it in various rulings, even preparing a jurisprudence organically interpreting the precepts of the 1949 reform. Years later, that Court was deposed by the dictatorship that it usurped power in 1955, and the reform was delegitimized the following year by a proclamation by the dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu. Never again would this reform be legitimized by the Supreme Court, in its validity after the moment it was abolished by the dictatorship.
In the Constituent Convention of 1957 (in which Peronism was outlawed), the Labor Party and the Workers' Party demanded respect for the validity of the 1949 Constitution,. The dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu had abolished the constitutional reform through the proclamation of April 27, 1956, arguing that article 30 of the Constitution, since, at the time of voting on the need for constitutional reform, this law was approved without complying with two thirds of the members of the Chamber of Deputies; The abolition was carried out by a de facto government without complying with the requirements of the Constitution. The changes made during this type of management are later approved or reversed in democracy (as, for example, happened with the 1945 Christmas bonus decree approved by Edelmiro Julián Farrell, and later legitimized in democracy), something that did not happen with the constitutional reform of 1949, which continues not to be applied to this day. In 1994, the Peronists and the Radicals made a pact to carry out a new constitutional reform in which both parties made their historical constitutional proposals compatible, including the possibility of a presidential re-election and direct voting.
Political rights of the inhabitants of national territories
In his second presidency, Perón continued his plan to expand the political rights of the inhabitants of the national territories, promoting the provincialization of all the territories that still remained: Chubut, Formosa, Misiones, Neuquén, Río Negro, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego ―these last two merged into a single province. These measures were partially annulled by the dictatorship that overthrew Perón in 1955, reestablishing the national territory of Tierra del Fuego, whose inhabitants would thus lose the rights granted by provincialization.
On December 21, 1953, an act of economic union was signed between Argentina and Ecuador, and on September 9, 1954, another act of economic union was signed with Bolivia. The Gas del Estado distribution company was created for the distribution of that resource. The first gas pipeline that connected the city of Comodoro Rivadavia with the City of Buenos Aires was launched, with a length of 1,600 km. It was inaugurated on December 29, 1949, being the first of its kind in South America and the longest in the world at that time, it was also built without external financing. Also from 1953 to 1955 the Justicialist cars were built. In his second term, Perón continued his plan to expand the industry. In 1955 the government founded the Balseiro Institute that trains professionals in Physics, Nuclear Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering and postgraduates in Physics, Medical Physics and Engineering.
Economy
The IAPI once again began to subsidize the agricultural sector and an "Economic Plan of the Conjuncture" was carried out, in addition to beginning the search for foreign capital investments in the oil sector with the purpose of developing heavy industry. It was controversial and drew criticism from opponents, including Frondizi. Argentine products had been deliberately excluded from European markets that participated in the Marshall Plan due to political differences between the United States and the Perón government.; leading to a crisis in 1952. This would harm the Argentine agrarian sector, dependent on Europe for its agrarian exports, and would help precipitate the deterioration of the country's economy, the source of genuine income for the Argentine State was cut off in to a great extent that became evident from the end of Perón's first presidency. Salaries, which had risen considerably up to that point, were frozen—as were prices—through biannual contracts. The government responded with an increase in interest rates on bank loans, reducing inflationary pressure but slowing down the rapid growth of the share of wages in total production.
In 1952 the Peronist government decided to fully settle the foreign debt, the country that was a debtor of m$n 12,500 million became a creditor for more than m$n 5,000 million. The tasks of selling the exportable balances of national production and purchasing fuels, raw materials and capital goods required for the country's agricultural, industrial and mining development were left in charge of the State.
Regional trade: the State had to face negotiations with Latin American nations taking into account the need for complementarity between national economies and joint defense of their interests. Likewise, in the set of commercial relations with countries of the same region and others and before international economic organizations, the State had to defend the following principles: international economic relations could only be fully carried out between free nations; international trade should contribute to economic independence within the framework of cooperation. The development of the economically less developed countries had to be achieved through progressive industrialization, in equitable terms of trade and conditions of lesser external vulnerability; international trade had to be carried out through the widespread acceptance of parity between the prices of manufactured items and raw materials; the adoption of a universal and permanent anti-cyclical policy would preserve the less developed nations from the depressive tendencies that could be generated in the developed economies; discriminatory measures that threatened the stability, development and economic independence of countries should be condemned; It was necessary to aim for the purposes, structure and decisions of international economic organizations to be adapted to the fundamental principles and objectives set forth in the plan.
The privileged industrial branches in this second stage of the import substitution process, of the Second Five-Year Plan (1952-1957) were the automotive industry, oil and petrochemicals, chemicals, metallurgy, and electrical and non-electrical machinery, aimed at being base industries for the country. Investments were oriented towards taking advantage of the possibilities offered by a protected internal market. The agricultural sector was modernized: from the development of the steel and petrochemical industry, modernization and the provision of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery were promoted, in a which increased agricultural production and productivity.
The electric diesel locomotive no. 1, CM1 Justicialista, was built since 1952 and began operating during the summer of 1952-1953, covering the 400-kilometer route between Constitución and Mar del Plata in 3 hours and 45 minutes. In the following year he made regular trips to Bariloche and Mendoza, with an average speed of 150 km/h.
In 1953, Law No. 14,122 was enacted, which tried to grant legal guarantees to the owners; Its main objective was to attract companies to metal-mechanical production in Córdoba in association with the Military Aircraft Factory. Also in Córdoba, an automobile factory called Industrias Kaiser Argentina was installed. Both companies obtained generous credits from Banco Industrial, reserve guarantees from the internal market and installations, equipment and qualified personnel, thus achieving benefits from the first year of activity. These were the greatest fruits of industrial expansion associated with foreign capital, creating the first and largest metal-mechanic pole in the country to date. Large factories for the production of engines, automobiles, locomotives and airplanes were installed, in addition to creating the Military Aircraft Factory at IAME (State Aeronautical and Mechanical Industries) and later at DINFIA (National Directorate of Aeronautical Manufacturing and Research). The privileged industrial branches in this second stage of the import substitution process, of the Second Five-Year Plan (1952-1957) were the automotive, oil and petrochemical, chemical, metallurgical and electrical and non-electrical machinery sectors, oriented to be base industries for the country. Investments were oriented towards taking advantage of the possibilities offered by a protected internal market. The agricultural sector was modernized: from the development of the steel and petrochemical industry, modernization and the provision of fertilizers, pesticides and machinery were promoted. From 1953 there was a rapprochement between the United States and Argentina, the incorporation of foreign capital into the national economy was encouraged.
He achieved a series of important economic agreements with Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua and finally with Brazil, the Economic Union. These agreements stipulated the reduction of customs barriers, exemption from taxes on certain products and the opening of a line of credit between the signatory countries.
By 1953 the inflationary process was controlled, and the economy returned to grow rapidly since the beginning of 1955.
Social crisis and conflict with the Church
On July 26, 1952, the first lady Eva Perón died, which caused a crisis in Perón that began to take certain measures that deteriorated the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Peronist government that worsened over time.
Eva was designated since then as "spiritual leader of the nation", an honorary title that she had received days before. From then on, every day at 8:25 p.m. all the radio stations had to report that at that time Evita "passed into immortality".
During this period, the irritation of groups that until then had supported the government converged with that of the opposition, which considered Peronism a type of populism based on the social resentment of the popular classes against what it generically called « the oligarchy», which includes the Argentine upper-middle and upper class, attributing to them a position that promotes social inequality.
At the end of 1954, a complex escalation of confrontations began between the government and the Catholic Church, which until that year had actively supported Peronism. Based on relatively modest opposition gestures by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, the government reacted by enacting Law No. 14,394, whose article 31 includes divorce. Shortly after, the municipality of Buenos Aires, then directly controlled by the president, prohibited merchants from displaying nativity scenes or other religious figures in commemoration of Christmas. In an escalation of a few months, the government abolished the character of non-working days to certain Catholic religious festivities, allowed the opening of establishments to engage in prostitution, prohibited religious demonstrations in public places, and expelled two bishops ―Manuel Tato and Ramón Novoa― from the country.
The Overthrow (1955)
Since 1951, anti-Peronist civic-military sectors had been carrying out terrorist acts through the so-called civil commandos.
On June 16, 1955, the civilian commandos, made up of conservatives, radicals and socialists, together with the Navy and sectors of the Catholic Church, attempted a coup that included the bombing of the Plaza de Mayo and the center of the city of Buenos Aires with more than 364 deaths and hundreds of wounded. The attack occurred with about twenty Naval Aviation planes over the crowd that was in a demonstration. The attacks continued until 6:00 p.m. The Army installed tanks and anti-aircraft batteries to protect the president, so the insurgents were ordered to attack members of the Army and civilians who supported Perón. Finally, the attackers requested political asylum in Uruguay.
Then Perón called for calm to the population, in a public speech on the radio, but several churches were burned ―attributed to the Peronists or the communists― while the police did not act and the firefighters limited themselves to preventing the fire from spreading spread to neighboring buildings.
Perón then ended the so-called Peronist revolution, and called on the opposition political parties to establish a process of dialogue that would avoid civil war. On July 15, Perón in a speech insisted on the call for pacification; the opposition political parties again requested the use of the radio and this time it was granted. For the first time in ten years the opposition was able to use the state media. In his speech on July 27, 1955, Arturo Frondizi accepted pacification in exchange for a specific plan that ranged from the restoration of constitutional guarantees to the industrialization of the country. The speech had to be delivered previously and when it was read it was recorded and recorded. It was transmitted on the air with a delay of 10 seconds, during which time an Information Service colonel checked that it did not deviate from the previously sent text. On August 9 and 22, the leaders of the Democratic Party and the Progressive Democratic Party spoke on the radio.
The news about the assassination of the communist leader Ingallinella, had a tremendous impact and was spread in the Catholic press. Perón replaced Alberto Teisaire as president of the Peronist Party with Alejandro Leloir. On August 31, 1955, Perón concluded the talks in the famous five-for-one speech.
Finally, on September 16, 1955, the coup began that would overthrow the constitutional president Juan Domingo Perón, the National Congress and the provincial governors. It began in Córdoba, was led by General Eduardo Lonardi and lasted until September 23. On September 16, 1955, after entering the Artillery School in Córdoba, Lonardi went to the bedroom of the head of the unit, and before a threat of resistance from the latter, he fired a bullet at him. His slogan was: you have to be brutal and proceed with maximum energy. An investigation into the number of people killed in the coup, documenting at least 156 fatalities. Faced with this, sectors of Peronism and even opposition sectors went to demand weapons to prevent the seizure of power by the military, but the president denied them and went into temporary exile in Paraguay, delegating power to a Military Junta that would later surrender to the insurgents..
Presidential Cabinet
Juan Domingo Perón | ||
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | Owner | Period |
| Ministry of the Interior | Angel Borlenghi Oscar Albrieu | 4 June 1952 - 29 June 1955 30 June 1955 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship | Jerónimo Remorino Ildefonso Cavagna Martínez | 4 June 1952 - 25 August 1955 25 August 1955 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Finance | Pedro José Bonanni | 4 June 1952 - 20 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Finance | Miguel Revested | 4 June 1952 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Economic Affairs | Alfredo Gómez Morales | 4 June 1952 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Foreign Trade | Antonio Francisco Cafiero Julio Manuel Palarea | 4 June 1952 - 15 April 1955 15 April 1955 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Agriculture | Carlos A. Hogan José María Castiglione | 4 June 1952 - 29 June 1955 30 June 1955 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Public Works | Roberto M. Dupeyron | 4 June 1952 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Political Affairs | Román Subiza | 4 June 1952 - 24 July 1954 |
| Ministry of Education | Armando Méndez San Martín Francisco Marcos Anglada | 4 June 1952 - 29 June 1955 1 July 1955 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Justice | Natalio Carvajal Palacios | 4 June 1952 - 24 July 1954 |
| Ministry of Public Health | Ramón Carrillo Raúl Conrado Bevacqua | 4 June 1952 - 27 July 1954 27 July 1954 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Industry | Rafael Amundarain Orlando Leonardo Santos | 4 June 1952 - 27 July 1954 27 July 1954 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Transport | Juan Eugenio Maggi Alberto J. Iturbe | 4 June 1952 - 29 June 1955 30 June 1955 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Communications | Oscar Nicolini | 4 June 1952 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Labour and Security | José María Freire Alejandro B. Giavarini | 4 June 1952 - 6 April 1953 6 April 1953 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministry of Technical Affairs | Raúl Mendé | 4 June 1952 - 22 August 1954 |
| Ministry of National Defence | Humberto Sosa Molina | 4 June 1952 - 21 September 1955 |
| Army Minister | Franklin Lucero | 4 June 1952 - 21 September 1955 |
| Ministerio de Marina | Aníbal Olivieri Luis J. Cornés | 4 June 1952 - 17 June 1955 17 June 1955 - 21 September 1955 |
| Minister of Aeronautics | Juan Ignacio San Martín | 4 June 1952 - 21 September 1955 |
Exile
1955 to 1966
After the Liberating Revolution that overthrew Perón in 1955, the de facto president Eduardo Lonardi kept the Constitution unchanged and tried to achieve “national reconciliation”, without “winners or losers”, maintaining the changes political and social that had been gestated previously. Shortly after he was forced to resign by the hardest sectors of the Army and Navy, and General Pedro Eugenio Aramburu took office, who outlawed Peronism and Perón himself, whose mere mention was considered a crime. The proscription of Peronism would last ―with short exceptions, which never included allowing Perón to act― until the early 1970s.
On October 12, 1955, a court of honor was formed in the Army, chaired by General Carlos von der Becke, and also made up of Generals Juan Carlos Bassi, Víctor Jaime Majó, Juan Carlos Sanguinetti and Basilio Pertiné, to judge the conduct of Perón, some of whose members had served loyally to him. Days later, the Court ruled that Perón had committed a wide range of crimes that included inciting violence, burning the national flag, attacks on the Catholic religion, and rape ―accusing him of having a relationship with Nelly Rivas, at the time minor—and recommended that he be demoted and banned from wearing a uniform. General Lonardi later signed a decree approving and implementing those recommendations.
After leaving for Paraguay, President Alfredo Stroessner advised him to leave the country, since he could not guarantee his safety in the event of possible attempts on his life. Stroessner gave him a safe-conduct to go to Nicaragua, but while on the way he decided to take refuge in Panama; He stayed at the Hotel Washington, in the city of Colón ―at the Caribbean end of the Canal― where he concluded the book that he had begun to write in Asunción: Strength is the right of beasts . The book could not be published in Argentina, since everything related to Perón was prohibited, even mentioning his name. He had to leave Panama, because a Pan-American conference was going to be held with the assistance of US President Dwight D. Eisenhower, so he spent a few days in Nicaragua, where he was received by President Anastasio Somoza, and in August 1956 he decided with his entourage go to Venezuela, which was ruled by the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez; During his stay in Caracas, he enjoyed official protection from the National Security Directorate, although the Venezuelan dictator never received the former Argentine president, who he did not like due to political differences. However, after the overthrow of Pérez Jiménez on January 23, 1958, Perón had to take refuge in the embassy of the Dominican Republic. and from there he left for that country, where he was received by the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo.
He moved from the Dominican Republic to Spain, arriving in Seville on January 26, 1960. He settled in Madrid, where he married the dancer María Estela Martínez de Perón, Isabelita, whom he had met in Panama in 1956. After living for some time in two rented houses, he settled in the residential area of Puerta de Hierro, where he built a house known as "Quinta 17 de Octubre", at number 6 of Navalmanzano street. According to the freemason leader Licio Gelli, Perón was also initiated into his Propaganda Due (P2) lodge by Gelli himself, in a ceremony at Puerta de Hierro.
During the Liberation Revolution, groups of trade unionists and Peronist militants carried out acts of sabotage in factories and public offices, detonated explosives on railway tracks and blocked streets and avenues, among other acts. These actions, known as the Peronist Resistance, were organized by former congressman John William Cooke, whom Perón designated as his personal delegate in Argentina and to whom he delegated the leadership of Peronism. The former president supported these actions, and even supported Cooke's intention to turn Peronism into a left or center-left revolutionary movement.
There were also some military conspiracies, among which the military uprising of June 9, 1956, under the command of General Juan José Valle, stood out: a group of soldiers and Peronist militants attempted an uprising against the de facto government. The attempt failed and both Valle and several of his military and civilian followers were shot. The repression extended to non-Peronist sectors of the working class. However, the union leaders retained their enormous influence over the industrial and service unions. In a letter that Perón sent to Cooke ―the same day as Valle's uprising― he did not show the slightest sympathy for the rebel military: the driver criticized their haste and lack of prudence, and assured that only his anger for having had to suffer the withdrawal had inadvertently motivated them to act.
During his years in exile, Perón published several books: Los vendepatrias (1956), Force is the right of beasts (1958), La hora of the peoples (1968), etc.
In 1958, before the imminence of the presidential elections, it is presumed that Perón agreed with Arturo Frondizi, UCRI candidate, the support of the Peronists for his presidential candidacy, in exchange for the return of his trade union status to the unions and the end of the electoral proscription of the general and his movement. Frondizi obtained the presidency, but fulfilled the agreement only in part. Most of the unions returned to be controlled by Peronism. The circumstances in which the pact was carried out, as well as its existence, is a matter of debate by historians. On the one hand, Enrique Escobar Cello in his book Arturo Frondizi the myth of the pact with Perón denies said pact, arguing that until today there are no copies or true records where Frondizi's signature appears, it is possible It should be noted that Frondizi himself always denied the pact. The historian Félix Luna has also questioned the pact for the same reasons as Cello. At the same time, Albino Gómez in his book Arturo Frondizi, the last statesman, also questions the existence of the pact, in addition, he suggests that the Peronist support for Frondizi could be the product of the coincidence of ideas between Perón and Frondizi about the measures that had to be adopted in the country, it should be noted that the General was a reader of the magazine Qué!, directed by Rogelio Frigerio. In 2015 Juan Bautista Yofre stated in the book Puerta de Hierro that Perón received half a million dollars for making the pact with Frondizi. Against, the historian Felipe Pigna, who says that his followers denied that he had accepted money for it.
Between March 17 and April 17, 1964, Perón would have met Che Guevara at his home in Madrid. The meeting was kept in the greatest of secrets and has been made known thanks to the journalist Rogelio García Lupo. Che gave Perón funds to support the return operation to Argentina that he was preparing. In said meeting, Perón would have promised to support the guerrilla initiatives against the Latin American dictatorships, which he actually did until 1973.
In December 1964, during the government of Arturo Illia, Perón tried to return to Argentina by plane. But the government ratified the decision taken by the 1955 dictatorship to prohibit his establishment in the country and asked the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil to stop him when he made a technical stopover in that country and send him back to Spain.
1966-1972
In Argentina, the 1950s and 1960s were marked by frequent changes of government, almost always the result of coups. These governments were marked by continuous social and labor demands. The Peronists alternated frontal opposition with negotiation to participate in politics through neo-Peronist parties.
After the dictatorship installed in 1955 and especially after the dictatorship installed in 1966, which abolished political parties, several armed groups appeared in Argentina whose objective was to combat the dictatorship and insurrectionary towns took place in various parts of the country, of which the best known was the Cordobazo. Most of these armed groups adhered to Peronism, such as the Montoneros, the Marxist-Peronist FAR (Revolutionary Armed Forces), the FAP (Peronist Armed Forces) and the FAL (Argentine Liberation Forces).
A few months after the Onganía dictatorship was installed, between September and October 1966, Perón met for the second time in Madrid with Che Guevara, who asked for Peronist support for his guerrilla project in Bolivia. Perón promised not to prevent those Peronists who wanted to accompany Guevara from doing so, but he did not agree to involve the Peronist movement as such in a guerrilla action in Bolivia, although he did commit the support of Peronism when Che's guerrillas transferred their action to the territory. Argentine.
Perón publicly supported revolutionary Peronism and its guerrilla organizations ―which he called "special formations"― and justified the armed struggle against the dictatorship. Even without having pronounced it verbatim, one of the best-known phrases attributed to Perón is "Violence from above engenders violence from below". He also developed a "political and doctrinal update" of Peronism, adapting it to the Third World revolutionary struggles that were taking place at the time, defining Peronism in the 1970s as "national socialism." To express the socialist content that Peronism assumed in the 1970s, the Tendency would adopt the slogan «Perón, Evita, the socialist homeland». In 1970 Perón exposed his adherence to socialism in these terms:
My position regarding the foreign influence on the Argentine problem is well known: the country is liberated from imperialism that neo-colonizes it or can never solve its economic problem... The current world marches towards a socialist ideology, as far away from capitalism already perceived as dogmatic international Marxism... Justice is a Christian national socialism.Juan Domingo Perón
Among the most notable actions of the Peronist guerrillas during the dictatorship that calls itself the Argentine Revolution, are the assassinations of former dictator Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, a key figure in the coup against Perón in 1955, of the trade unionists Augusto Timoteo Vandor and Jose Alonso, the taking of La Calera, and the escape from the Rawson prison.
A week after the assassination of Aramburu by Montoneros ―June 1, 1970―, the dictator Onganía was forced to resign, collapsing the project to install a permanent corporate dictatorship. The military regime was then forced to start a process of exit towards an elected government, which included Peronism, but which was led and controlled by the military. The ideologue of that project was the dictator General Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, who called the plan the Great National Agreement (GAN).
Perón then made contact with the leader of the anti-Peronist wing of radicalism, Ricardo Balbín, who had been removed from law as a deputy and arrested during his presidency. Perón and Balbín began a relationship of historical reconciliation, expressed in La Hora del Pueblo and the appointment as personal delegate of Héctor J. Cámpora, which would disrupt the plans of the dictatorship to impose a government of "national agreement" under military tutelage.
In 1971 and especially in 1972, Perón would support his actions in four fields:
- In the political arena and from his alliance with Balbín, Perón sought to reconcile Peronism with the political currents that had been anti-peronists during his government: the radicalism of the people, the smear, the Christian democracy and the popular sector of conservativeism.
- In the trade union field, Perón sought to neutralize neovandorist trade unionism, a supporter of Peronism without Perón and to reach an agreement with the dictator Lanusse, supporting José Ignacio Rucci in the General Confederation of Labour, a man with little power of his own but in favour of achieving the return of Perón, as a priority objective of the workers' movement.
- In the business field, Perón established an alliance with the group of national entrepreneurs led by José Ber Gelbard, a secret affiliate to the Communist Party and president of the Economic General Confederation.
- Finally, Perón gave priority at that time to the youth camp, linked to the grassroots militancy, the insurrectional populace and the guerrilla struggles. To this end he appointed Rodolfo Galimberti, the leader of JAEN, a guerrilla organization that would integrate Montoneros.
"Perón returns"
In the second half of 1972, the center of the political situation was occupied by a frontal contest between Perón and the dictator Alejandro Agustín Lanusse, head of the Great National Agreement, who had the expectation of being elected president with the support of Peronism and the radicalism. In July, Lanusse delivered a public message to the country, in which he treated Perón as a coward - "he doesn't give him the skin" - and challenged him to return to Argentina in a month, if he wanted to run as a candidate in the elections. On August 22, the most anti-Peronist sector of the Navy, opposed to holding elections, assassinated 16 detained guerrillas in what is known as the Trelew Massacre, a crime that several historians consider as one of the antecedents of State terrorism that it would be deployed in Argentina in the following years.
Perón surprised public opinion by announcing his return on November 17, 1972. The Return Operation was led by the recently appointed general secretary of the Peronist Movement, Juan Manuel Abal Medina and strongly supported by revolutionary Peronism under the slogan of "Fight and Return", on which the organizational weight fell. Perón returned on an Alitalia plane that landed in Ezeiza accompanied by dozens of personalities from the most diverse areas. That day hundreds of thousands of people mobilized to receive Perón, despite the repression carried out by the dictatorship to prevent it, which is why November 17 is considered by Peronism as Militancy Day.
Perón settled in the house at Avenida Gaspar Campos 1075, in Vicente López and stayed in Argentina for almost a month, until December 14. In that period he completely disrupted the Lanusse project and the dictatorship of holding elections supervised by military power. His first gesture was to meet with Balbín, his most bitter adversary, and embrace publicly as a symbol of "national unity" that both proposed as the axis of his political proposals. Perón and Balbín examined at that moment the possibility of creating a Perónist-radical front that would raise the candidacy of Perón-Balbín, but the internal fights within their own parties prevented it. In any case, Perón completed in those days the organization of a broad political coalition, called the Justicialista Liberation Front (Frejuli), made up of various sectors that had historically been anti-Peronists: the Frondi regime, the Christian democracy of José Antonio Allende and the Conservative Party. Popular of Vicente Solano Lima, who would be the candidate for vice president of the Front.
During that period, Perón made another agreement of great importance: the Programmatic Coincidences of the Plenary of Social Organizations and Political Parties, signed or endorsed on December 7 by almost all the political parties, the labor movement through the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) and the national business community through the General Economic Confederation (CGE) and the Argentine Agrarian Federation (FAA). This agreement would be the basis of the Social Pact of 1973, which would be the axis of democratic government until Perón's death in 1974.
Despite the fact that Perón evidently appeared as one of the political figures with the greatest popular support in the country, the dictatorship made the decision not to allow him to run in the elections set for March 11, 1973, because he did not He was domiciled in Argentina when the elections were called. Despite the alliances established, Perón found himself without sufficient strength to force the dictatorship to reverse his ban, which is why he had to choose a person who represented his political significance, to head the presidential ticket. Perón's last act, before leaving again for Madrid - first passing through Paraguay and Peru - was to secretly appoint Héctor J. Cámpora, a man close to revolutionary Peronism and Peronist guerrilla organizations, a fact that was announced at the Congress of the Justicialista Party on December 16 and resisted for several hours by the neo-vandorista unionism led by Rogelio Coria, until receiving the direct order from Perón, via telephone. The electoral campaign would adopt as its motto: "Cámpora to the government, Perón to power."
The third Peronism
On March 11, 1973, Argentina held general elections. Héctor José Cámpora, with the approval of Perón in exile, won the elections with 49.5% of the votes, the radical leader, Ricardo Balbín, had come second with 21.3%, and, since FreJuLi did not had obtained more than 50% of the votes, a ballotage had to be held between the first and second forces. However, Balbín recognized Cámpora's victory and resigned from the ballotage. Perón's delegate took office on May 25, 1973, thus ending the dictatorial period of the self-proclaimed Argentine Revolution.
Perón returned to the country on June 20, 1973. That day, during the act prepared to receive him, there was a shootout involving sectors of the "orthodox" Peronism located in the box ―among which was a large part of the trade unionism― and youth sectors linked to Montoneros. The event is known as the Ezeiza Massacre and resulted in 13 deaths and 365 injuries. The circumstances of the massacre vary according to the different testimonies: Miguel Bonasso, who belonged to the Montoneros, maintains that there was no confrontation and there was only one massacre. The historian Felipe Pigna maintains that the youth columns were attacked from the box. Horacio Verbitsky maintains that it was an ambush carried out from the box by the "old union and political apparatus of Peronism". In the trial that is investigating Triple A, two investigations carried out by Marcelo Larraquy (López Rega: the biography) and Juan Gasparini (La fuga del Brujo) have been added, which They coincide in pointing out ultra-right sectors as the perpetrators of the massacre.
Cámpora resigned on July 13, 1973, leaving the way clear for Perón to run in the new elections.
Third presidency (1973-1974)
In the elections of September 23, Perón won with 62% of the votes against the radical candidate Ricardo Balbín. He became president for the third time on October 12, 1973 with his wife María Estela Martínez de Perón as vice president. General Perón together with Jorge Abelardo Ramos agreed that the Popular Left Front (FIP) should carry the same formula together with the Justicialista Liberation Front (FREJULI): Perón - Perón. This option from the national left added a million votes to the popular triumph. Several prominent figures publicly stated that they voted for this alternative, such as Arturo Jauretche or Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Perón assumed his third presidency in a very complicated international situation. Shortly before, on August 23, 1973, the oil crisis had begun worldwide, which completely changed the conditions in which capitalism and the welfare state had been developing since the 1930s. Almost simultaneously, on August 11, In September, a US CIA-backed military coup had overthrown socialist President Salvador Allende in Chile, worsening the chances of establishing democratic governments in Latin America. At the time, only Argentina had a democratically elected government in the Southern Cone, while Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay were under US-backed military dictatorships, within the broader framework of the Cold War.
In October 1973, a parapolice group known as Triple A ―Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance― began to operate, assassinating left-wing militants, Peronists and non-Peronists. The group was financed by the government and led by the Minister of Social Welfare José López Rega. In the following two years he would murder 683 people, about 1,100 according to other sources. Perón's knowledge of Triple A activities is a matter of debate among investigators. According to the historian Marina Franco, from that moment began to take shape "a state of growing legal exceptionality linked to a political-repressive logic focused on the elimination of the internal enemy".
On January 19, 1974, the guerrilla organization ERP attacked the military garrison of Azul, the best armed military unit in the country. The assault attempt, led by Enrique Gorriarán Merlo, failed and during it the ERP killed conscript Daniel González, Colonel Camilo Gay and his wife, and took Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Ibarzábal prisoner, who would be assassinated ten months later. For its part, the ERP had three casualties while two guerrillas captured by the military disappeared.
Perón responded by strongly condemning "terrorism" on national television and blamed, without mentioning it, the governor of the province of Buenos Aires, Oscar Bidegain, one of the five governors allied to revolutionary Peronism. He also ordered a reform to the Criminal Code to be rushed through the National Congress to toughen the crimes committed by guerrilla groups, aggravating the norms of the deposed dictatorship. The thirteen deputies that the revolutionary Peronism had were opposed to the reform: Armando Croatto, Santiago Díaz Ortiz, Nilda Garré, Nicolás Giménez, Jorge Glellel, Aníbal Iturrieta, Carlos Kunkel, Diego Muñiz Barreto, Juan Manual Ramírez, Juana Romero, Enrique Svrsek, Roberto Vidaña and Rodolfo Vittar, all of them linked to Montoneros and the JP.
On January 22, Bidegain resigned, being replaced by Victorio Calabró, a UOM trade unionist belonging to the orthodox sector. On January 25, Perón summoned the dissident deputies to a meeting that he had broadcast directly on television. The tension was maximum and Perón maintained that if they did not agree they had to leave Peronism:
All this discussion must be done in the block. And when he decides by a vote what it is, it must be a holy word for all who are part of it; otherwise they leave the block. And if the majority has to, you have to accept or leave. The one who's not happy... is leaving. For losing a vote we're not going to get sad... We want to continue to act within the law and not get out of it we need the law to be as strong as to prevent those evils. Now: if we don't take into account the law, in a week all this is over, because I build a sufficient force, I'm going to look for you and kill you, which is what they do. That way, we go to the law of the jungle and into the law of the jungle, I would have to allow all Argentines to carry weapons. We need that law, because the Republic is defenseless.Juan Domingo Perón
That same day, January 25, the penal reform was approved and eight representatives of revolutionary Peronism resigned from their seats. Four days later, Perón appointed commissioner Alberto Villar, one of the heads of Triple A, as deputy chief of the Federal Police.
On February 28, a police coup known as the Navarrazo would overthrow the governor of the province of Córdoba Ricardo Obregón Cano, the second of the five governors close to revolutionary Peronism to be displaced. Perón would intervene in the province without replacing his charges with the constitutional authorities.
On May 1, 1974, a large demonstration was held in Plaza de Mayo on the occasion of International Workers' Day, during which Perón would speak. Sectors of revolutionary Peronism attended in large numbers, questioning the government with the slogan "What's up General, the popular government is full of gorillas?" Perón responded by calling them "imberbes", "stupid" and "infiltrators", and immediately after, in the middle of the speech, a huge sector of protesters withdrew from the square in open rupture.
On June 6, the governor of Mendoza Alberto Martínez Baca, third of the five governors close to the revolutionary Peronism deposed that year, would be deposed by impeachment. In the six months after Perón's death, the remaining two would be deposed, Miguel Ragone from Salta and Jorge Cepernic from Santa Cruz.
On June 12, a new act was held in the Plaza de Mayo convened by the CGT. It was the last time that Perón spoke in a massive act. By then his health was seriously threatened and his doctors had recommended that he resign in order to be treated properly. He had refused saying "I'd rather die with my boots on". Aware of his condition, Perón took advantage of that day to say goodbye in public. He asked the protesters to take care of the labor conquests because difficult times were coming and ended with the following words:
I carry in my ears the most wonderful music that is for me the word of the Argentine people.Juan Domingo Perón, 12 June 1974
Four days later, on June 16, Perón fell ill with an infectious bronchopathy that complicated his underlying chronic circulatory disease.
He passed away on July 1, 1974 and was succeeded by his wife, as Vice President. The then technical secretary of the presidency of the Nation, Gustavo Caraballo, affirms that Perón had asked him to modify the Ley de Acefalía, to allow the radical leader Ricardo Balbín to take over as his successor. but the legal procedure to carry out this reform never began. In the midst of increasing political violence, María Estela Martínez was overthrown by the coup d'état of March 24, 1976, which began the dictatorship that called itself the National Reorganization Process.
Cabinet of Ministers
Juan Domingo Perón | ||
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | Owner | Period |
| Ministry of the Interior | Benito Llambí | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
| Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship | Alberto Juan Vignes | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
| Ministry of Economy | José Ber Gelbard | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
| Ministry of Education | Jorge Alberto Taiana | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
| Ministry of Social Welfare | José López Rega | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
| Ministry of National Defence | Angel Federico Robledo | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
| Ministry of Justice | Antonio Juan Benítez | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
| Ministry of Labour and Security | Ricardo Otero | 12 October 1973 - 1 July 1974 |
Death, burial and posterity
Juan Domingo Perón died on July 1, 1974, in the Quinta Presidencial de Olivos, due to a cardiac arrest resulting from the aggravation of the chronic ischemic heart disease that he suffered. The announcement to the country was made by his widow, Vice President María Estela Martínez, who shortly after assumed the presidency.
Funeral
After several days of national mourning, in which the body was veiled in the National Congress by hundreds of thousands of people, the remains were transferred to a crypt in the Quinta Presidencial de Olivos. On November 17, 1974, Evita's remains, which had remained in Spain, were transferred by the government of María Estela Martínez de Perón and deposited in the same crypt. Meanwhile, the government began planning the Altar de la Patria, a gigantic mausoleum that would house the remains of Juan Perón, Eva Duarte de Perón, and all the heroes of Argentina.
While the body was in Congress, 135,000 people filed past the coffin; Outside, more than a million Argentines were left without saying their last goodbye to their leader. Two thousand foreign journalists reported all the details of the funeral.
With the flight of López Rega from the country and the fall of Isabel's government, the works on the Altar de la Patria were suspended and the remains were transferred to the Chacarita Cemetery, in Buenos Aires.
On October 17, 2006, his remains were transferred to the Quinta de San Vicente, which belonged to him during his lifetime and later became a museum in his honor. During the transfer there were disturbances between sectors of the union movement.
Desecration of his remains
On June 10, 1987, the coffin was desecrated, when the hands were removed from the corpse. His fate or the reason for said desecration is unknown, but there are various hypotheses about why. In the first place, it could be revenge: the desecration would have been an act of the famous Masonic lodge Propaganda Due (P2), in response to a breach by Perón, who had asked for his "help" before assuming his third term. The operation would have been carried out in complicity with members of the Army, within the framework of the destabilization plan against Argentine democracy. The second hypothesis pointed to the existence of a Swiss account: his fingerprints would be used to open his own safe deposit boxes in Swiss banks, where he would have kept several million dollars. This version was discarded because at that time in Switzerland there were no accounts with this system. The desecration has also been attributed to the Armed Forces: there were false informants related to that institution, many witnesses or dead informants suspiciously related to it, as well as threats with indications of coming from military jurisdictions. And finally, the opposition has been pointed out: anti-Peronist sectors, alluding to a statement by Perón where he said that he would cut off his hands before borrowing money from the International Monetary Fund, would have carried out the hand cutting.
Peronism after Perón
After the death of its founder, the government of his widow and successor, María Estela Martínez, continued the confrontation -increasingly violent- between the two sectors that claimed to represent Peronism, the right-wing ―directed by the minister López Rega and supported by sectors of the trade unionism― and the left, identified mainly with the armed organizations of that tendency, while the economic situation worsened rapidly and ministerial changes followed one another. The violent struggle and lack of leadership were used as excuses by the Armed Forces, which overthrew the president.
The military dictatorship that followed, known as the National Reorganization Process, was sustained in the practice of State terrorism; all political parties were prohibited, and the Justicialist militancy - as well as that of the leftist parties - was severely punished by the repression. This allowed the implementation of a very burdensome liberal economic plan for the national industry.
Argentina's defeat in the Falklands War in 1982 forced the dictatorship to call free elections in 1983, in which Raúl Alfonsín of the Radical Civic Union defeated Peronism, with a campaign that highlighted the rejection and commitment to its repeal of the self-amnesty law for the military whose validity was accepted by the presidential candidate of the Justicialista Party, Ítalo Argentino Lúder and the denunciation of an alleged union-military pact. A gradual recovery allowed the Justicialism to return to power in 1989, with the Peronist government of Carlos Saúl Menem as president, with a marked neoliberal orientation.
Thanks to the application of the Ley de Acefalía, the Justicialist Eduardo Duhalde became president in 2002 and remained until 2003. Duhalde decided to support another Justicialist, Néstor Kirchner in the 2003 elections. Upon accessing the national government Néstor Kirchner, Peronism divided, giving rise to the so-called Federal Peronism, in opposition to the pro-government Kirchnerism. Kirchner's Peronism ruled uninterrupted for twelve years by adding two terms of President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner to that of her husband Néstor Kirchner.
Books and articles
Perón wrote texts of various genres, but especially on politics and military strategy.
- 1915 approx.: Silvino AbrojoTheatrical comedy, under the pseudonym of José M. Casais.
- 1915 approx.: The black mask detective (ca. 1915), theatrical comedy.
- 1923: German gymnastics regulations for the army and the navy, body exercise test, illustrated by Perón.
- 1925: MilitaryRehearsal.
- 1928: Campaigns in Upper Peru (1810-1814)Rehearsal.
- 1930: What I saw of the preparation and realization of the revolution of September 6, 1930.
- 1931: The Eastern Front of the World War in 1914History book.
- 1932: Notes of military historyHistory book. Full online version of the 3rd edition
- 1933: The Russian-Japanese war from 1904 to 1905History book.
- 1934: Synthetic geographical memory of the national territory of NeuquénRehearsal.
- 1935-1936: Patagonian toponymy of Araucan etymology (1935-1936), series of trials for deliveries.
- 1938: The strategic idea and the operational idea of San Martín in the Andes campaignsubmission to the II International Congress of History of Americaheld in Buenos Aires in July 1936.
- 1939: Operations in 1870, history book written in collaboration with Colonel Enrique Rottjer.
- 1941-1943: Mountain Infantry, series of trials for deliveries published in the Military Journal of the Argentine Army between 1941 and 1943.
- 1943: Background to the Libertadora Campaign of General San Martín from 1814 to 1817 (ca. 1943), unfinished essay first published in 2007.
"San Martín y Bolívar seen by Perón", book that includes part of the original publication
- 1949: The organized community (facsimile edition: Buenos Aires, Cuadernos del Instituto Nacional Juan Domingo Perón, 2006). Official online version
- 1952: Descartes, politics and strategy (No attack, critic), series of articles appeared in the official journal Democracy from January 1951 signed with the pseudonym Descartes and published in 1952 by the Office of the Under-Secretary for Information of the Presidency. Full version online
- 1952: Political drivingcompilation of classes since March 1951 in the Escuela Superior Peronista located in San Martín 655, Buenos Aires City, and published by the editor Peronist world(Facsimil Edition: Buenos Aires, Freeland, 1971) Official online version (partial) Full version online
- 1956: Force is the right of beasts, book written in Panama, with reissues in Chile, Peru and Spain. Full version online
- 1957: Los vendepatria, book published in Caracas (Venezuela). (Edición facsimile: Buenos Aires, Síntesis, 1976.
- 1958: From power to exile. Who defeated me, series of articles published in Italy by the magazine Earlyin Venezuela for the magazine Eliteand in the diary People of Madrid. (Edición facsimile: Buenos Aires, Ediciones Argentinas, 1974) Online version (partial sample)
- 1963: Three military revolutions, compilation of testimonies published in Spain. Full version online
- 1967: Latin America, now or never, compilation of testimonies published in Montevideo. (Facsimil Edition: Buenos Aires, Pleamar, 1976) Online version (partial sample)
- 1968: The time of the peoples, edited in Spain and composed by the texts published in Latin America, now or never(Facsimil Edition: Buenos Aires, Pleamar, 1973) Full version online
- 1974: Argentine model for the national project, unfinished book published after his death in different editions that differ substantially with each other. Official online version (partial) Full version online
Documentaries
During his exile in Madrid, Perón was interviewed in two feature films produced between June and October 1971 by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, in which Perón talks about the history, doctrine, and practice of the justicialist movement in Argentina:
- 1971: Perón, The Justice Revolution
- 1971: Perón: Political and doctrinal update for the seizure of power
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