The phenomena of Perón and peronismo have intrigued Argentines and foreigners alike. Since 1943 they have tried to examine, analyze, and interpret, as well as eulogize or condemn both. Too few of them have examined the data scientifically, but scholars are beginning to attempt more dispassionate studies. The books reviewed here show the older and newer trends.
Le péronisme deals with the entire Peronist period. The author first examines the historical currents that facilitated Perón’s rise to power and summarizes the immediate events leading to his election as president in 1946. Six chapters then discuss domestic policy, social legislation, economics, foreign relations, constitutional reforms, and Peronist doctrine. The final ones sketch the 1955 revolution and events to 1962. This potentially fine political study, however, appears to have been overly influenced by the anti-Peronist myth which is fully as inaccurate as the pro-Peronist one which Lux-Wurm debunks. Peronism is typed as a fascistoid derivitive and Perón as the classic dictator. Throughout the work the author’s attempts to expose the inconsistencies of Perón and Peronism detract from his presentation.
Aside from this apparent bias, other details weaken the arguments presented. Despite numerous quotations, footnotes are lacking, as are statistics to illustrate assertions in the text. While correctly assessing Perón’s attitude toward the working class as fundamentally anti-labor, no figures are included to buttress statements concerning the worker’s changing economic position. Factual errors and misleading information also mar the work. Virgilio Filippo, for example, was not the first cleric elected to the Argentine congress (p. 120); the adverse trade balance of 1949 was not Argentina’s first (p. 181); the free exchange rate for the dollar in 1948 averaged 6.98 not 4 pesos, the official rate, and the figures for 1955 were 30.28 and 9.25 pesos respectively (p. 179). Equally disturbing is the omission of Perón’s efforts to influence other Latin American nations, Argentina’s economic aid to friendly regimes, and the Peronist attempt to infiltrate Latin American trade unions, all vital to an understanding of Perón’s foreign policy.
La naturaleza del peronismo contains three parts. The first, a report of an investigation conducted by a team from the National University, examines the genesis of Peronism to 1946. It makes use of three hypotheses : that Peronism was Perón, that it represented an Argentine Model of Italian fascism, and that it was the product of a historical process begun in 1930 which created new social groups using Peronism as their vehicle of expression in the fight for political and economic power. The author analyzes the military as the key institution behind Peronism, the social and economic situation in the 1930s and in the years immediately prior to 1946, and finally the individual organizations through which Peronism exercized power. For this analysis he has drawn on contemporary newspapers, documents, and recent publications, as well as oral testimony. (Future investigators will be pleased to learn that the tapes are preserved in the Archives of the Centro Argentino por la Libertad de la Cultura.) In his summation Fayt concludes mainly that Peronism was in reality a blend of the three initial hypotheses. Unfortunately his statement is often too general.
The second part of his book is an anthology of opinions on Peronism extracted from published sources and round-table discussions. The list of participants includes both supporters and detractors of Peronism. The last part is documentary. The preliminary study and the appendix include many documents difficult to locate today. One of these, the Bases of the G.O.U., may help to resolve a controversy concerning that group, which is called the Grupo Obra de Unificación rather than as the more widely accepted Grupo de Officiales Unidos.
Although this book fails at times to provide a convincing explanation of Peronist success and describes events and organizations more than analyzing them, it is a valuable contribution to the future study of Peronism. Let us hope that its hypotheses and assertions will be verified or modified by further documentation and more empirical evidence.
