After the Second World War, unions gained great prominence in Western society. Some, related to the Soviet Union, continued to promote the revolution, supporting the communist parties of France and Italy. Others followed the path that Lenin contemptuously called trade unionism, they dedicated themselves to fighting for the rights of workers, without trying to destroy “bourgeois democracy” or capitalism. That was the difference between communism and social democracy in Europe. In Latin America, parties that had nothing to do with the Third International, such as the PRI in Mexico, APRA in Peru, AD in Venezuela, and Argentine Peronism, had the labor movement as their backbone.
The struggle of the unions achieved the recognition of workers’ rights, which were very meager until the mid-20th century. In 1950, ranches that included workers in their inventory were still being sold. In the interior of Argentina there were encomiendas in which they were paid with coupons to be exchanged for food in the company’s own stores. All that ended with Peronism.
The post-war communist rise scared many. The third International, founded in 1919, divided the left, the socialist international gained new life. From another perspective, the Catholic Church promoted its “social doctrine” as a third way alien to communism and savage capitalism. Peronism was born within that current, it never encouraged class struggle. The “fight against capital” was just a slip in the lyrics of the Peronist march. Perón wanted to achieve harmony between capital and work to develop the country. In the 50s their motto was “produce, produce and produce.” Far from the idea of “dictatorship of the proletariat,” he said that he wanted a country of owners, not of proletarians. He tried to overcome the agro-export stage by promoting industrialization and the use of national manufactures. Peronism resonated with the population, because it promoted the rights of workers, and gave them back the pride of being “workers.” In no other country in the region does this concept have as much prestige as in Argentina.
The communists were sexist, Peronism enshrined the vote for women and was a party that opened a stellar space for women like Eva Perón, Isabel Martinez, and Cristina Kirchner. This is not the time to list other of its achievements, but let us point out that it has been the most important political party in the country in the last 80 years and the only one with a union base that has survived for so many years in the region.
Perón was an authoritarian military man who brooked no criticism; he formed a vertical party. He did not believe in freedom of the press, he even expropriated the newspaper “La Prensa”, the most important of those years.
Peronism was exclusive, it wanted to monopolize “Argentinity.” For them, all Argentines should be Peronists, the rest were gorillas, enemies of the Nation. The lyrics of the Peronist Boys’ March express the deification of Perón, one of the few presidents in the world who in 1973 took his wife as a pair on the Perón-Perón ticket.
After the 1955 coup d’état, Perón did not go into exile in the USSR, nor in the United States, he sought the protection of other anti-communist generals such as Stroessner in Paraguay, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic and Franco in Spain.
When Perón won the 1973 elections, it seemed that the left was inevitably advancing on the world. The USSR occupied part of Europe, generated “national socialism” in Islamic and African countries, the Vietnam War mobilized many young people against imperialism. In Latin America some tried to fulfill Che Guevara’s slogan of creating another Vietnam in the Andes mountain range. With Cuban-Soviet support, armed movements appeared in almost the entire continent. In Argentina, a Trotskyist guerrilla group, the ERP, and the Montoneros acted, mixing Marxism with Peronism and religion. They fought for the return of Perón and then confronted his government. There are indications that they organized the assassination of the CGT leader, José Ignacio Rucci, a close friend of Perón. The General definitively broke with them on May 1, 1974, blaming them for this fact and expelling them from the Plaza de Mayo. Montoneros maintained his armed activity against the democratically elected government of Perón and his wife, and later against the military dictatorship.
The May Revolution convinced Marxist intellectuals that they knew where history was going. They infiltrated progressive Latin American organizations that, according to them, had votes but no ideas. “Entrism” was born that attempted to co-opt some parties. There are still Kirchnerist leaders who come from that Marxist side.
With the triumph of Néstor Kirchner in 2003, a transition from historical Peronism to Kirchnerism began. The new president inherited a country stabilized during the government of Eduardo Duhalde. He was a good administrator. During his government, Argentina grew close to 8% annually, the primary surplus was 3%, and it had a positive balance in the balance of payments of close to 5%, among other economic achievements achieved by Roberto Lavagna, Minister of Economy of both governments.
The principles of historical Peronism were lost in the confusion caused by the “leftism” of Cristina de Kirchner, typical of the intellectual disorder of our time. The Kirchner couple, made up of two lawyers, never defended the thousands of left-wing Peronists who were persecuted by the dictatorship, they did not participate in the Peronist Youth of the Regionals that supported Montoneros, they were not “left” until they came to power.
Cristina became radicalized and encouraged the formation of a youth organization, “La Cámpora”, chaired by her son Máximo. Its members, happily, did not use the money they got to buy weapons as the former guerrillas did, but to buy high-end cars and live better. Left-wing militants from other countries did the same, appearing when the world revolution had become impossible with the fall of real socialism in 1990.
Kirchnerism’s adherence to 21st Century Socialism contributed to confusing the values of Peronism. Instead of promoting work, production and industrialization, Kirchnerism promoted ease, poverty, subsidies, crony capitalism. Like other leaders of that movement on the continent, some leaders accused, whether justly or unjustly, of corruption ended up in prison or on the run. It was a movement that governed during the economic boom produced by the good prices of commodities. Its leaders managed to create a floor of popularity, and also a ceiling that prevents them from returning to power.
What remains of entryism in Peronism is having a bad time. Communism expired, its ideas were obsolete, they do not exist in the minds of new voters who did not live through the Cold War and are the majority of the population. Those who still defend statism do not realize that it is no longer an option compared to private enterprise, not even in communist China.
Peronism lost the ideological coherence of another era, the remains of a disorderly party that mixed tacuaras with hammers and sickles remain. He was not able to generate a group of leaders capable of facing the new times, as happened in 1983, when Raúl Alfonsín won the elections over Ítalo Luder, the Justicialist presidential candidate chosen by the union leaders. Peronism recovered thanks to the Renovation headed by a group of first-line politicians, unequivocally Peronist, led by Antonio Cafiero, and made up of leaders of the stature of Carlos Menem, Carlos Grosso, Carlos Corach, who gave it new breath. José Luis Manzano from Mendoza, José Manuel De la Sota from Córdoba, Oraldo Britos from San Luis and the union leader Roberto García later joined the Renovación.
The unified Peronism that faced Javier Milei in the last election was a fragile, heterogeneous coalition that has problems. On the one hand there is Kirchnerism, led by a Cristina who has lost strength, and has tried to crown her son Máximo as successor, who has neither the capacity nor the preparation to assume that role. He suffers the trauma of other children of presidents, who end up psychologically crushed by the strength of their father, which in this case is doubled: Máximo is the son of two former presidents of the Republic.
Axel Kiciloff is a survivor of entryism. He maintains coherence with his Marxist ideas, which are obsolete. He has the image of an honest leader, but to lead a new stage of Peronism he would have to travel intellectually for a few decades.
The third leader of the unit is Sergio Massa who, as Jorge Asís said, is one of the most experienced professional politicians. He was two points away from winning the first round in the last presidential elections, he is young, barely older than Máximo Kirchner. Massa has played on the frontier of Peronism, leading a Renewal Movement that was never absorbed by Kirchnerism.
The leaders of the interior have little room to lead a Peronist reconstruction, especially after the defeat of Juan Schiaretti that weakened their possible national leadership. Cordoban anti-Kirchnerist Peronism has always been a more local than national movement.
The governors league had a poor result. None of them have a national image and power is generated centrally in the City of Buenos Aires and the provinces of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe and Córdoba, which have more than 28 million inhabitants.
The union movement faces great challenges. He starred in the fight for workers’ rights but, if he wants to remain valid, he must set new goals, face the challenges of robotics, artificial intelligence, and the inevitable labor instability of the liquid society, which is already among us.
Whatever the laws say, the technological revolution is advancing, and it is doing so with increasing speed. Within ten years, most of the occupations that exist today will have disappeared; it is necessary to think of a legal system that promotes the rights of everyone in an unstable world, in which the majority will constantly change their occupation. Just as Argentine unions currently provide services to their members in areas such as health, recreation and others, their new great challenge is to set up an education apparatus that allows workers to update themselves to face the permanent changes inherent to the digital society.
It is easy to simplify things by saying that Peronism is the cause of all current evils, but in that case, we would have to admit that it is also the author of the transformations that have built this Argentina of which we are proud. It also makes no sense to say that Peronism is communist. He never identified with that ideological current, he encouraged a reformist unionism that sought the greatest possible well-being for its members.
It is difficult to foresee what will become of Peronism in a decade. Other similar huge parties disappeared in the world. The technological revolution leads us to a society in which the majority of manual workers will be replaced by machines.
Cristina Kirchner wanted to build a left-wing Peronism, which would return to the communism of the 20th century, but preserving institutions that allow the members of crony capitalism to enrich themselves. That expired.
Latin America needs a more complex transformation than returning to import substitution. Peronism will be valid if it looks to the future and proposes how to take advantage of technological advances, if it adapts to an inclusive society, made up of people with a horizontal mentality, who need freedom to progress.
