My friends, Argentina isn’t having its best moment.
Mauricio Macri’s government has had to ask for a bailout from the International Monetary
Fund, and the truth is that, in the last few decades, crises, devaluations, inflation and
payment suspensions have been commonplace in Argentina's politics and economy.
Well, throughout this entire process… one political movement has had almost absolute
influence: Peronism.
But, ok…
What exactly is this political stream known as Peronism?
How did it come about?
What impact has it really had and how has it influenced Argentina?
My friends, we’ll see it here on VisualPolitik in two videos.
And in the first one, we’ll focus on its origins and identity.
Listen up.
Who was Juan Domingo Perón?
And, most importantly, how did he manage to gain power and influence Argentine politics
for the following 7 decades?
Dear viewers, to begin this story, we have to go back to the 30s.
At that time, Argentine nationalism was in its golden age.
Argentina was, undoubtedly, Latin America’s great power: despite the 1929 crisis it was
still one of the 10 richest countries in the world and wages were much, much higher than
in old Europe.
However...
just a moment, because in spite of this, the 29 crisis had taken its toll, hitting the
country hard...
This tension led to the first military coup in 1930, a coup supported by many political,
economic and social sectors, especially the conservative side.
And under this militaristic, authoritarian and nationalist panorama, it became customary
for many officers of the Argentine army to be sent to Germany and Italy to take advanced
courses.
And, my friends, do you know who one of these officers was?
Exactly, Juan Domingo Perón, who was sent to Italy, a country where he met and studied
first-hand how Benito Mussolini’s government was organized.
And, you know what?
Soon after, he’d get the chance to put this knowledge into practice.
See, at the beginning of the 1940s, Argentina was under the control of a corrupt and authoritarian
government, a government that had perpetrated electoral fraud and attempted to stay in power
at all costs.
Under these circumstances, on June 4th, 1943, a group of young officers in the Argentine
army, held a coup d'etat, supposedly to restore a transparent electoral system.
One of these officers was, precisely, our protagonist, the Lieutenant Colonel, Juan
Domingo Perón.
By the way, this was Argentina’s second coup d'état after the 1930’s one… but
don’t you think it was its last, not at all.
During the next 30 years the country suffered...
4 more coups!!!
The case is, dear VisualPolitik viewers, that it was this 1943 coup... which opened the
doors to politics and power for Lieutenant Colonel Juan Domingo Perón.
We can practically say that this is where Argentina’s modern history began.
Listen up
(THE MASTER PLAY)
During the two and a half years that the military government lasted, Perón's career was meteoric...
Even though he’d held a very low rank until then.
Positions such as Head of the Department of Labor, a position that in principle was, how
do I say it, not very shiny, very bureaucratic.
However, just a moment, because thanks to his political intelligence, Perón managed
to use this position as a springboard for his rise to power.
See, from the very beginning, Juan Domingo Perón used everything he’d learned under
Benito Mussolini in Italy, starting by winning some of the unions’ support.
That way, each time the Labor Department had to intervene in a conflict between employers
and unions related to Perón... the former (the employers) would almost always lose.
As you can imagine, this meant that this military man’s popularity didn’t stop growing.
In fact, shortly after, Perón was appointed Minister of War and then...
Vice President...
All without forgetting the labor policy and the unions...
Because if something was very, very clear to this Lieutenant Colonel, it was that that
would be his political springboard.
But...he wasn’t the only one aspiring to power... and so much prominence led to a lot
of jealousy… so much that the military leaders asked him to move away from the government
in 1945...
So we could expect this to be the end of this military man’s political career....
Right?
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Perón, had learned how much influence the media could have in Europe...
so he asked his superiors if he could say goodbye through the national radio network.
They naively accepted and Perón took full advantage of the opportunity.
In his "farewell" message, he thanked the working classes for their support and questioned
the continuity of the social benefits he’d promoted.
It had a
huge effect…
the following days, the unions mobilized in his favor... and on October 17th thousands
of workers occupied the Plaza de Mayo, the nerve center of Argentine politics.
The government, disoriented by the way events unfolded, asked the Lieutenant Colonel himself
to appease the masses,
Which he did… but only after agreeing that he’d be a candidate in the next elections
with the army leaders, and that he’d have, let’s say, the privileged support of the
public powers.
Listen up.
(AN ASSAULT TO THE HEAVENS)
Juan Domingo Perón had managed to become a candidate...
now he needed to win the elections.
As we’ve seen, at that time, Argentina was under military control, so government authorization
was required to hold meetings... and electoral acts were no exception.
Of course, Perón's campaign actions were almost automatically authorized...
while his opponents’… well let's say the process was much slower.
And not only that, Perón also had almost complete access to the most important means
of communication at the time: the national radio station, which was owned by the government.
But that's not all, under Peron’s insistence, the government approved paid vacations for
all workers, as well as an additional salary at the end of the year.
Don’t tell me those aren’t good electoral claims.
And there was still a move this genius of political strategies managed to use very well.
See, the State Department of the United States itself intervened in Peron’s rivals’ campaigns,
publishing a report known as the "blue book" where, Peron’s activities, and those of
his military allies, were shown to support the Nazi regime.
However, my friends, Perón managed to turn this around and morph it into something like
a struggle between himself, who represented Argentine sovereignty, and the United States.
In the end, all these tactics, copied years later by populist governments throughout Latin
America, won the elections for Peron.
The victory wasn’t overwhelming, but he won and that was enough.
(THE PERONIST GOVERNMENT)
A very important fact: when Juan Domingo Perón came to the government, Argentina was one
of the 10 most prosperous and richest economies in the world.
The country was even an international creditor.
Countries like the United Kingdom owed it money.
Thanks to all this, the new president had more than enough resources to launch his political
program, a program based on 3 pillars:
Political sovereignty, economic independence and social justice.
In practice, he transformed Argentina into a kind of army under the command of a single
leader, its president.
Thus, Perón managed to nationalize a lot of companies, especially those related to
public services such as transport, energy and communications.
He also placed banking under governmental control and approved a lot of foreign trade
restrictions.
And so, he achieved an important amount of popular support, how?
By maintaining utility rates even below their cost and hiring a lot of employees for the
government and for governmental companies...
What a coincidence...
the Kirchners, 60 years later, did practically the same
Of course...
all that involved a lot of public spending... and how do you think he financed it?
1, 2,3...
Right!
By running the bill printing machine…
Yes, now we know where the addiction of Argentine politicians began for printing bills.
The fact is that during the first years of this entire process, and thanks to all the
money that he injected into the economy, things seemed to be sailing smoothly...
The problem?
It simply wasn’t sustainable... as the government overspent… the country's competitiveness
began to sink faster than the Titanic.
Within a few years, their positive balance vanished; Private investment collapsed and
suddenly, some prices started to skyrocket.
By the way, what do you think happened then?
Do you think that, given that his "revolution" didn’t seem to be on the right track, Perón
took a bit of the blame?
Nope... not at all... he blamed alleged “speculators” of attacking the national economy.
And to remedy it, of course, he multiplied the government controls, the regulated prices
and implemented all kinds of measures that would even affect bread distribution...
in Argentina!
In the world’s barn!
But, my friends, the crisis wasn’t Peron’s only problem…
the 1853 Constitution didn’t allow for a politician to stay in power, preventing an
immediate re-election.
So under this scenario, what do you think he did?
Listen up.
(THE POLITICAL REFORM)
Along with the bill printing machine, Latin American politicians’ second favorite toy
is constituent reforms.
And, of course, Perón was no exception.
In 1949, since the previous Constitution imposed too many obstacles...
Perón launched a complete constitutional reform.
The new Constitution placed the state as the fundamental pillar of Argentine society.
Even in the Constitution’s own preamble, the three pillars of Juan Domingo Perón's
political theses were included.
This was supposed to be a Constitution for all...
But let’s take a look at these changes’ results:
Investments had disappeared, the macro data just got worse, the country was in crisis
and public companies in Argentina underwent what the PDVSA -Venezuelan state-owned oil
and natural gas company- underwent…
they weren’t invested in, so they suffered from all kinds of influences and in the end...
they were very unproductive and inefficient... to the detriment of all Argentines.
In other words...
the new model Juan Domingo Perón had implemented became a poverty-making machine...
Of course, this all happened under an enormous cult to the leader...
The case, my friends, is that the Argentine society was in crisis and so fragmented that
under these circumstances in September 1955 there was a new coup d'etat.
This time against Juan Domingo Perón.
Now, do you think this was Peron’s end?
Well, if you do… you are highly mistaken… but we’ll talk about all of that in a future
video.
I really hope you enjoyed this video, please hit like if you did and don’t forget to
subscribe to our channel for brand new videos..
Also, don’t forget to check out our friends at the Reconsider Media Podcast - they provided
the vocals in this episode that were not mine!
And as always, thanks for watching!