Party and State in Peronist Argentina, 1945-1955

Abstract

NE OF THE MOST SINGULAR ASPECTS of the Peronist movement has always been its lack of an effective political party. It is true that at election time the usual paraphemalia of party activity-local congresses, registration drives, discussion groups and the like-is in evidence, but despite pressure from militants within the movement, activity of this sort has always been ephemeral. One reason for this has been the unusually important role of the Peronist labor unions, who have arrogated to themselves many of the functions normally performed by political parties. However, as well as being in this sense syndicalist, the political organization of Peronism has always been thoroughly personalist, and it is especially in terms of the latter that its failures to evolve an effective party can best be understood. This personalism was established between 1946 and 1955 and was achieved in two stages. The first consisted of the failure of the working class representatives in the initial coalition to withstand pressure from the Peronist loyalists and maintain intact their embryonic party structure. The second consisted of the failure of Peron himself to transcend the vulgar personalism achieved by his victory over t-he working class representatives and create an effective mass party. The first stage which ran from 1946 through 1948 was dominated by ideological conflict between the autonomously-inclined syndicalist wing of Peronism and a variety of nationalist and opportunist factions and ended in the ouster of the former from the coalition and in the subsequent elimination of all vestiges of opposition by the Peronist bureaucracy. The second stage which ran from 1949 through 1955 saw the organization of the Peronist Party on an authoritarian and etatiste basis and its destruction as a productive element within the Peronist movement. The failures involved in these stages are separately outlined below and