Peron, Juan Domingo

Peron, Juan Domingo
Juan Peron was born in Lobos, in the province of southern Buenos Aires.

He joined the army in 1913 and took a leading part in the army revolt of 1943 which toppled the pro Axis president, Ramon Castillo.

He was well read, a hypnotic public speaker and a close student of Benito Mussolini, he developed a broad base of popular support, augmenting his rule with force.

He used his position as Secretary of Labor to gain union support while using his other position as Under Secretary of War to cultivate junior officers.

He organized the descamisados, a civilian paramilitary organization which, like both Hitler’s Brownshirts and Mussolini’s Blackshirts, was drawn from the lower classes.

Their affections were secured by his political astute wife, Eva Peron, and when she died in 1952 they greatly mourned her.

In 1945, senior army and navy officer, alarmed at Peron’s mobilizations of the masses, imprisoned Peron, but released him after thousands gathered in the public squares demanding his return.

In 1946, after a populist campaign laced with strong nationalist and anti-American rhetoric, “El Lider” was elected president and set about a corporatist state.

He reduced a the legislature and the judiciary to rubber stamps, tried to crush all opposition by any means including torture and sought to modernize and industrialize the economy through large scale government intervention and by nationalizing foreign owned enterprise.

In 1955, with the economy in a shambles and having alienated the church, the military, the middle class and some of the labor movement, he was deposed by the army and fled to Spain.

But his movement lived on. Failing to crush the Peronists, the military returned the government to civilian rule until 1966, when it again took over to prevent a Peronist party electoral victory.

It again failed to destroy the Peronists by force and again allowed elections, which were won by the Peronists candidate, who resigned in favor of “El Lider”.

Peron died a year after his triumph return in 1973, leaving his office to the voice president, his third wife, Isabella Peron.
Peron, Juan Domingo