Daniel James, The Peronist Left 1955-1975

The Peronist Left, 1955-1975
Author(s): Daniel James

Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Nov., 1976), pp. 273-296
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 8, 2, 273-296 Printed in Great Britain 273
The Peronist Left, 1955-I975
by DANIEL JAMES*
The ' PeronistLeft' has becomeone of the chief actorsin the often violent
dramaof Argentinepoliticstoday.It is the objectof this articleto placethe
eventsof the morerecentpast,at leastsincethe returnof Peronismto power
in 1973,within the frameworkof the developmentof the 'Peronist Left'
since the fall of Peronin I955. Obviouslythe articlemakesno claim to be a
comprehensivetreatmentof the subject.Such a treatmentcouldonly be part
of a much more extensivestudy of the Argentine working class and the
Peronistmovement.In particular,the articleconcentrateson an analysisof
the political ideology of the different currents that have made up the
' PeronistLeft' since i955, whilstrecognizingthatthisideologymustultima-
tely be seenin the far wider contextof the socialand economicdevelopment
of Argentinesociety.The first part will highlight the main featuresof this
Left in the I955-73 periodand analyzethe main currentswithin it. In the
second part of the paper the events of the last two to three years will be
lookedat withinthiscontext.
I955-I973
Severalmain featuresneed emphasizingin this periodif we are to arrive
of the ' PeronistLeft'. Firstly,in a veryrealsense
at a valid characterization
a 'left' currentonly emergedwithin Peronismas a 'reflex' action, when
therewas a growingacceptanceby othersectorsof the movementof a modus
vivendi with a system that excluded Peronismfrom political power and
which continuallyattackedthe gains of the workingclass.A 'left' emerged
within this contextas the defenderof the workingclass,anti-capitalist strain
of Peronism,lookingbackto the euphoriaof October1945and the organiza-
tion and advancesof the workingclassin the firstPeronistgovernmentrather
than to the Per6n of I954-5. It drew constantlyon the moral capital,the
symbolismof the yearsof the Resistance,1 its arrests,its martyrs,the experi-
* The author wishes to thank the Foreign Area Fellowships Programme and the Social Science
Research Council for financial assistance which made possible his research.
The Resistance is the name generally given by Peronists to the opposition to the military
government that followed the overthrow of Peron in I955. The forms of resistance varied,

274 Daniel James
ence of 'those who struggled'. It was when the dominant forces within the
Peronist leadership, particularlythe trade union bureaucracy,moved towards
agreement with the ' status quo', with governments and with employers and
betrayed what the Left considered to be the true essence of Peronism that a
strongly definable 'left' current emerged. In 1959-6o with the growing
agreement with Frondizi, and the attraction of integracionismo 2 for large
sectors of the movement there was the development of the linea dura 3 centred
on the militant trade unions who demanded absolute intransigence vis-a-vis
Frondizi, no participation in elections, and no compromise on the labour
front. Again in 1965-6, with the consolidation of the growing vandorista4
domination of Peronism and the threat to turn Peronism into a union-based
party within the traditional system, the Left emerged from relative obscurity
to join in a rival Peronist union organisation, the 62 Organizaciones de Pie
junto a Peron 5 to oppose the domination of Vandor. In I968-9, with the
ranging from individual terrorism, through organised opposition in the unions, to attemp-
ted military risings. It continued throughout the government of Frondizi, although it be-
came increasingly centred on youth and student sectors as the large union battalions reached
agreement on a miodus vivendi with Frondizi. For those who participated actively in the
Resistance - and they were mainly rank and file workers - it was a time of repression,
imprisonment and torture, and throughout the following decade and even now, almost 20
years after, it has continued to be a dominant reference point in Peronist political culture.
2
Integracionisnmo was the dominant concept behind the political strategy of Frondizi. It re-
ferred to the hope of integrating the Peronist working class, mainly through its trade
unions, into the social and political structure of the country through a judicious policy of
concessions and promises. Specifically it was aimed at the union leaders who, in return
for concessions such as the Law of Professional Association, would play their part by hold-
ing the workers in line and gradually, but surely, loosen the ties with Peron. It was con-
sidered by some sectors of that dominant political group to be a far more subtle and modern
strategy for dealing with Peronism than the outright repression of the Aramburu
government.
3 The linea dura was the name given to those unions which completely rejected Frondizi's
overtures. It was centred mainly on the Textile Workers Union, the Telephone Workers,
Health Workers and Rubber Workers, and many of the union branches in the interior. Its
leading figure was the Textile Workers' leader, Andr6s Framini.
4
Augusto Vandor was the leader of the Metalworkers Union and the dominant Peronist
union figure throughout the I96os. His growing power and his contacts and negotiations
with governments and army were considered a real threat to Per6n's control of his move-
ment. He was killed in July I969.
5 The 62 Organisations was the name given to the organisation of Peronist unions within
the General Confederation of Labour. They were the original number of unions under
Peronist control after the failed CGT congress of 1957. The number no longer bore any
relevance to the actual number of Peronist unions. When Peron moved against the power
of Vandor in I965, those unions loyal to him set up a rival organisation 62 de pie junto a
Peron, leaving the original set-up in Vandor's hands. It was an extremely heterogeneous
organisation with little other than loyalty to Peron and opposition to Vandor to sustain it.
It took in the extreme right of Peronist unionism, led by Jose Alonso, and the old linea dura
unions, as well as a sizeable middle sector, who were not prepared to appear to challenge
Peron. The fact that in the linea dura unions, the left re-emerged to unite with the right

The Peronist Left, I955-I975 275
capitulation of an important sector of the union leadership into participation

with the government of General Ongania, the Left once more came into
prominence to lead a separate union central, the Confederacion General del
Trabajo de los Agentinos, based on total opposition to the military govern-
ment. It is only from this period onward that the Left managed to maintain,
to varying degrees, a relatively separate existence and importance within the
movement independent of the need to react to the domination of the Right.
Secondly, if the existence of a Left as a clearly defined tendency within
Peronism depended on the development of a growing Right so it equally
depended on Per6n and his tactical manoeuvrings. The Left in this period
usually appeared in the space provided for it by Per6n's decision to move
against a dominant current that was threatening his control of the movement
- it was traditionally Per6n's weapon against potential usurpers. It was,
therefore,in general, as strong and clearlydefined as Per6n needed and wanted
it to be, and when there was relative harmony between the leadership in
Argentina and Per6n in exile the Left was marginalised as an important
and distinctive current within the movement and confined to a few small
groupings and unions.
Thirdly, and arising from the first two points - the important thing to note
about the emergence of this reflex leftism is that politically it developed very
little alternativeideology, very little separateexistence. Politically, it remained
firmly rooted within the Per6n-anti-Per6n dichotomy that was the chief
defining characteristicof Argentine politics in this period. This meant that
the distinguishing characteristicof the Left, the duros, could only be defined
objectively as loyalty to Per6n and his orders. As their chief slogan said,
Peron o Muerte - and this was more than a conventional emotional slogan,
though it was that too. It also expressed precisely the effect in political terms
of the continuing dichotomy Per6n-anti-Per6n on the possibilitiesfor develop-
ing coherent, independent left-wing politics within Peronism.
To explain the point better, the following factors should be noted. In the
eighteen years from I955 to 1973, Argentina experienced military rule, i955-
8, indirect military rule, 1962-3, and direct intervention again, I966-73;
military interventions in the first period to overthrow Per6n and to prepare
the way for an acceptable non-Peronist government and in the second two
cases interventions precisely to prevent the possibility of a return of Peronism
to power. All this was against the background of fairly consistent proscrip-
purely and simply on the basis of loyalty to Per6n emphasizes my description of them as
an essentially ' reflex ' tendency. The 62 Organisacionesde pie disappeared after the mili-
tary coup of June 1966 and after Peron's quarrel with Vandor had been patched up. The
right under Alonso were to be leading figures in the collaborationistwing of Peronist unions
under the government of Ongania.

276 Daniel James
tion and repressionof Peronist militants. Peronism, then, was truly the hecho
maldito of the Argentine ruling class. The resistance and repression that
followed I955 and continued until 1962 thus pre-empted, at least for the vast
majority of the ' Peronist Left', the need to develop anything like a critique,
an analysis of what Peronism had been, what it was, what forces there were
within it - in a word the development of anything like a distinctively leftist
Peronist ideology. Peronism, within the Per6n-anti-Per6n dichotomy that
dominated the political and social context, was per se leftist, anti-establish-
ment, and revolutionary, and loyalty to the exiled and vilified leader was
enough of a definition of a political strategy. This continued to be the case
after 1962 and in many ways the military government after 1966 reinforced
this feature: hence, the consistency of the terminology in which the Peronist
Left defined its enemies, defined its own distinctiveness since I955 - its
political vocabulary was essentially a moral one. The Right were those who
'betrayed' the hard struggle against anti-Peronist governments, those who
were corrupted and betrayed the essence of Peronism - ultimately in fact
those who betrayed Per6n. Concepts like leales, traidores, duros, fe, lealtad
have been the traditional stuff of the terminology of the ' Peronist Left'.
Fourthly, it needs to be pointed out that the picture presented up to this
point is inevitably one-sided. Dario Cant6n has described the left wing of
the Radical Party as left only in so far as it opposed the right and that it was
more properly the centre.6 The same is not true of Peronism for what also
needs to be emphasized is the ambiguity of the development of the Peronist
Left. It was not simply a tool of Peron, nor merely a 'reflex' reaction to the
Right. Programmatically left wing Peronism enunciated a series of pro-
grammes of a radical anti-imperialist nature. The first of these, the Pro-
gramme of Huerta Grande put forward by the 62 Organisations in 1962, set
out a list of ten demands calling for such things as the nationalization of the
banks, state control of foreign commerce, protective tariffs, expropriation of
large landowners without compensation and the nationalization of key areas
of the economy. In addition state planning of production through the fixing
of production priorities was demanded.7 Subsequent programmes such as
the Declaration of Tucuman, 19668 and that issued by the CGT de los
Argentinos in I968 differed little in content. In the last years of the military
6 Dario Canton, Elecciones
y partidos politicos en la Argentina (Buenos Aires, Siglo Veintiuno,
I973), P- 237.
7 For a full statement of the of Huerto Grande and for much else of interest on
programme
left Peronism see 'Peronism: El Exilio (1955-1973)', Cuadernos de Marcha, No. 71,
Montevideo, I973.
8 The Declaration of Tucuman was drawn up by the founding conference of the 62 Organi-
zaciones de pie junto a Peron. For text see Cuadernosde Marcha, op. cit.

government the Left started to define such programmes as being blueprints

for Socialismo Nacional.9
Nevertheless, these radicalnationalist programmesput forward as a response
to the attacks on working class conditions, as a response to economic crisis
and as a general response to military government repressionof Peronist mili-
tants, contained virtually no concrete political strategy of any sort that would
distinguish them from other sectors of Peronism. In fact, the Programme of
Huerta Grande contained no specifically political demands. In general, the
political demands of other programmes of the Peronist Left were limited to
vague calls for respect of the popular will in free elections and the return of
Per6n. Yet this was logical since if Peronism was per se revolutionary and
its leader was the quintessential expression of this revolution, then all that
was needed was his return to power for the programmes put forward to be
implemented.
A survey of the main divisions within the Peronist Left up to I973 will give
a better idea of the ambiguity mentioned above and give a more genuine
picture of the process involved. There have been essentially three main divi-
sions, (i) the Combative Unions, (ii) Revolutionary Peronism; (iii) the Youth
section of the movement and the guerrilla groups.
(i) The Combative Unions

In many ways this is the most traditional 'left' current within Peronism
with its roots in the linea dura unions of the Frondizi period. It had been the
majority section of the union sector (and by extension of the movement in
general) during the Resistance period and for most of the Frondizi govern-
ment. In response to the political proscription of Peronism and attacks on
trade union organization and workers' living standards, the need for a
detailed strategy and political programme was hardly felt. The return of
Peron, the regaining of the unions for Peronism through free elections were
the essential aims to be achieved through the maintenance of what they
vaguely called intransigencia in the labour and political arenas.
It was not until 1962 and the Programme of Huerta Grande that anything
9 The literal translation is, of course, national socialism, but it would

give totally the wrong
impression to the English speaking reader with its explicit Nazi connotations. Socialismo
nacional represents for the Peronist left an adaptation of the international principles of
socialism to the national peculiaritiesof Argentina. It has an evident connection with Peron's
concept of the Third Position between U.S. capitalism and Soviet Communism, although
most of the Peronist left, apart from the most traditional sectors, criticize this concept and
simply regard their socialism as an independent Argentine application of traditional socialist
principles. The national emphasis also stems from their conception of the first stage of the
transformationprocess of Argentine society being the anti-imperialist, national liberation of
the country, which will lay the basis for a future socialism.
L.A.S.-7

278 Daniel James
like a detailed set of demands was systematized. With its leading figures
formed in the Resistance and its chief hall-mark being opposition to the union
bureaucracy and unquestioning loyalty to Peron, this sector most closely
approximatesto the 'reflex' leftism described above. With the eclipse of the
Resistance in the early i96os, the strength of this tendency came to lie essen-
tially in a few small unions such as the Telephone Workers, the Naval Con-
struction Union and the Printworkers. In addition, from the late I96os,
combativos 10 came to dominate many of the union branches in the interior
of the country and to control the majority of regional CGTs. It was they who
formed the basis for Peron's challenge to Vandor in i965-6 and formed the
rival 62 Organizaciones de Pie junto a Peron, they again who responded to
Per6n's move against the participationistsin 1968 and went into the CGT de
los Argentinos and who followed Peron's instructions to retire from that body
in 1969 and unify the movement.ll When the CGT was handed back to an
alliance of Vandor's heirs and participationistsin 1970, the Combative Unions
respected Per6n's plea to stay within such a body and later to give their
backing to the electoralfront formed in 1972.
Since they were the sector who had most clearly stuck to loyalty and
obedience to Per6n as their defining characteristic and who most clearly
equated the return of Per6n with the solution to the economic and social
problems of the working class, they had the least problems in adapting to the
successive changes of direction forced on them by Per6n's decision to accept
the electoralopening offeredby President Lanusse in 1972.
Despite the fact that they, like other sectors of the Left, had originally
denounced the Gran Acuerdo,Nacional 12 of Lanusse as 'just another trick ',
by late I97I Julio Guillan, the leader of the Telephone Workers, was justify-
ing participation by combativos in the electoral front by saying 'Per6n has
10 Combativos was the name
given to those unions who consistently opposed the mili-
tary governmentsbetween I966 and I973.
11 Evidently the problem of specifying why certain Peronist unions adopted 'combative'
stances and why others opted for compromiseand greater moderation becomes relevant here.
To deal with the question adequately would be far beyond the scope of this paper. Suffice
it to say that there is no simple correlationbetween, for example, the economic fortunes of
an economic sector a particular union operated in and the political attitudes which that
union adopted. Thus, to take one example, the attempt to explain the moderate, concilia-
tionist attitude adopted by some Peronist unions by their position in the most advanced, high
'
salary areas of industry - a type of aristocracyof labour ' theory in fact - is not bolrneout
by empirical investigation. Conversely, there were many unions representingthe more crisis-
ridden sections of the Argentine economy that were not to be found amongst the Peronist
left. Factors such as the ideology of particular union leaders have to be taken into account
This question will be the subjectof a future article.
12 The Gran Acuerdo Nacional was the name given to the rapprochementbetween the political
parties, including Peronism, and the armed forces which formed the basis of the process
leading to free elections in I973.

The Peronist Left, I955-1975 279
convoked this National Liberation Front in which we the Peronist workers

have to fight for the triumph of the ideas of socialismo nacional '.1
In other words, they were now seeing the electoral front as a balance of
forces where the Left had to fight for their position - which, of course, was
assumed to be Peron's too. A variant of this rationale was to be found in the
statement of Peronismo Combativo in March 1972 on the occasion of the
official formation of the JusticialistLiberation Front (FREJULI). They were
entering the Front, they said: 'to put those who are disloyal, as Per6n says,
in a position where it is no longer convenient for them to be disloyal so that
the unity, solidarity and organization ordered by our leader can fulfil their
tacticalpurposeof gaining power '.4
After this limited objective had been achieved, unity with the Right, the
trade union bureaucracy, would be discarded and the path of socialismo
nacional embarked on. The implementation of the programe of socialismo
nacional was premised entirely on 'the fundamental condition which cannot
be renounced: the return of Juan Domingo Peron .15
Revolutionary Peronism
This tendency largely took its inspiration from John William Cooke who
had been Per6n's chief representativein Argentina in the 1955-9 period. It
drew its chief support from many who, like Cooke, had lived through the
experience of the Resistance, the failure of the linea dura opposition to
Frondizi and the gradual demise of the movement into conciliation with the
status quo on the union and political plane. Out of this they began to reassess
the nature of Peronism, to analyze the contradictions within it and to look
for the reasons for the dead end arrived at after so much heroism.
Cooke in his letters to Peron very clearly denounced what he called the
fetishism of el lider 16 -- the substituting of hard concrete analysis by what he
called ' tribalfanaticisms '.1 In one of his lettershe said:
Insteadof concretepositionsin the face of an equallyconcreterealitywe are given
generalformulas- we all want to be free, sovereignand that thereshouldbe social
13 Interview in Panorama, 28 March I972.
14 Quoted in AvanzadaSocialista, I March 1972.
15 El
programade los gremios combativos, Jan. 1972. See El Combativo, No. I, Nov. I972.
16 Peron-Cooke
Correspondencia,In (Buenos Aires, June 1973), I89. Cooke himself had been
P6ron's chief personal representativein Argentina from 1956 until I959, after which he lived
in exile from Argentina, spending much of the early i96os in Cuba, where he fought in the
Cuban militia at the Bay of Pigs. He returned to Argentina in the mid-I96os and died in
I968. His correspondencewith Peron is an invaluable source for any study of post-I955
Peronism, though it also accurately charts the growing isolation of the extreme left of the
movement from the early I96os onwards. Per6n's letters become increasinglyless informative
as Cooke moves further to the left.
17 Ibid.,
p. I89.

280 Daniel James
justice but this is pure rhetoric if it is not translatedinto concrete strategic

proposals.18
Cooke, too, was one of the first to attempt a real analysis of the political-
union bureaucracy that dominated Peronism - to move away from the
moralism of traidoresand leales and to recognise that the roots of the bureau-
cracy lay in the very nature of Peronism as a polyclass alliance and that it
needed to be fought politically and ideologically. This could only be done,
he maintained, not by a retreat into a reassertion of the traditional values of
Peronism, nor into the rhetoric of loyalty, but by actually changing a hetero-
geneous movement into a revolutionary party. Cooke thus very directly con-
fronted the problem of the seizure of political power. In an article written in
I966, he developed this point:
While Peronismdoes not structureitself on the lines of a politicalparty- i.e. with
a revolutionarypoliticsunderstoodas the unity of theory,actionand organisational
method - it will continue being subjectto spontaneism,to the juxtapositionof
tacticsthat are not integratedinto a strategy,into dead-endsthat successivebureau-
crats lead it into; leaders who can conceive of no other solution save electoral
frontsor armycoups.Yet both golpismoand electoralfrontsimply renouncingthe
seizureof power.1'
Thus the problem of the bureaucracywas a political one, not a moral one.
Cooke defined the task of Revolutionary Peronism as the creation of a van-
guard that sought to reconcile the politics of Peronism with the role that
objectively the confrontation of social forces in the everyday life of workers
gave to it. As he expressedit: ' Peronism, as a mass movement, is and always
has been superior to Peronism as a structurefor these masses; for this reason
spontaneism has always dominated the planned action of the masses '.0 And
this was the core of Cooke's analysis. Peronism for him was by its very social
composition revolutionary in essence - it was the expression of the integral
crisis of the Argentine bourgeois regime. As such, any meaningful institu-
tionalization of a democraticbourgeois regime was ruled out - since Peronism
would win elections and gain power and this by the very nature of Peronism
would not be tolerablefor the ruling class. Proscription, the antinomy Peron-
anti-Per6n were manifestations of the 'irreducible incompatibility between
the regime and Peronism '.2 Given the impossibility of any peaceful accession
to power of Peronism, Cooke's concrete strategy for the seizure of power by a
18 Ibid.,
p. I90.
19 See Cristianismo y Revolucion (Buenos Aires, Nos. 2-3, Oct.-Nov. I966), pp. 14-15. Also to
be found in Cuadernosde Marcha, loc. cit., pp. I8-20.
20 See letter of Cooke's A los companeros revolucionariosde la carne, Agrupacion 'Blanca y
Negra ' de Rosario (I965), in mimeo. Pamphlet in the author's files.
21 Cristianismoy Revolucion, loc. cit., p. I5.

The Peronist Left, 1955-1975 28I
Peronism constructed as a revolutionary party was guerrilla warfare -

focismo.22
Revolutionary Peronism remained throughout the g960sconfined to small
marginalised groups such as the Revolutionary Peronist Youth led by
Gustavo Rearte, the RevolutionaryPeronist Movement, and the Revolutionary
Peronist Action group of Cooke himself. After the Cordobazo 23 of I969 and
the radicalisation process of the early I970S, more opportunities presented
themselves for Revolutionary Peronism to insert itself into the rank and file
of the Peronist movement, and groups like Peronismo de Base, formed in the
post-Cordobazo period, gained a not inconsiderable influence, particularly in
the interior. The differences between them and the Combative Unions were
clearly evidenced in this period - especially in I97I when, at the Plenario of
Combative Unions and Groups held in Cordoba, Peronismo de Base sided
with the clasista 24 groups in calling for the enunciation of a revolutionary
political programme and the formation of a revolutionary party. The Comba-
tive Unions maintained that the Peronist movement as it existed was suffi-
cient, its ideology revolutionary, and that what was mainly needed was the
return of Per6n.
For a long time Revolutionary Peronism refused to admit the possibility of
a genuine electoral opening for the movement. One of their leaders explained
their point of view:
the climax is therefore approaching where all known variants, including elections,
have been tried . . the regime cannot allow an electoral solution because one of
two things will happen - either Peronism will win with a huge majority or they
will have to resort to proscription which will make a farce of the elections.25
22 The influence of Cooke's Cuban experiencesis evident here. After an initial

hostility to the
Cuban Revolution, due mainly to their identification of it with the anti-Peronist left in
Argentina, and also to the lack of. definition of the Cubans themselves in the early years,
the Peronist left was to become increasingly influenced by the Cuban experience - thanks in
no small measure to Cooke himself. Indeed, it was under Cooke's overall guidance that the
setting up of the first Peronist joco was attempted in I960 - the Uturuncu guerrilla in the
far north of the country. See Peron-Cooke Correspondencia,II, 372-3. It would appear
that contact between Cuba and the extreme left of Peronism continued throughout the I96os
and that the Cubans provided training for some of the guerrilla groups that sprang up in
the early I970s.
23 The Cordobazo refers to the general strike and near insurrection in the city of C6rdoba in
I969. It marked a decisive turning point for the military government and the beginning of
the return to traditional politics.
24 The clasista
groups were those non-Peronist Marxist groups that appeared in the wake of
the Cordobazo,rejecting what they consideredthe bourgeois nationalistemphasis of Peronism
and emphasising the primacy of the class struggle in the factories. Their strongest base was
in the SITRAM-SITRACUnions in the Fiat plants in C6rdoba.
25 Interview with Raimundo
Ongaro, Extra, Feb. 1970, No. 55. Ongaro was the leader of the
Buenos Aires printworkers and head of the CGT de los Argentinos. Although not strictly
within the RevolutionaryPeronist current, he was far closer to them than to tihe conbati-

282 Daniel James
Peronism by its social composition was revolutionary, inassimilable within

the traditional system as Cooke had said. Therefore, the ultimate political
solution could only be an armed one - for this, Revolutionary Peronism con-
sidered it essential to prepare. The basis for the revolutionary party which
would lead this armed struggle had to be preparedin the bases of the unions,
in the working class neighbourhoods, and in the shanty towns. The structure
for the armed party had to be formed in this way - attempts to take over the
structure of Peronism institutionally were useless since in the coming civil
war such a structurewould be irrelevant.
The Peronist Youth and Guerrilla Groups

With the radicalization of large sections of middle class youth during the
military government and in particular after I969, there was a rapid influx of
new recruits into the different youth and student organizations of Peronism.
In fact, many were created for the first time during this period. The youth
sector of Peronism had always been very weakly organized and, until the
various factions that had sprung up in the early 70s united into one body, the
Juventud Peronista, in I972, there was really little co-ordination between
them. At about the same time the Juventud Universitaria Peronist was
created. The largest group prior to 1972 - based almost entirely on the uni-
versities - was the Juventud Argentina por la Emancipacion Nacional. The
leader of JAEN, Rodolfo Galimberti, was to become the leader of the united
JP in 1972, the feted guest of Per6n in Madrid and the bete noire of the anti-
Peronist forces in the lead-up to the elections of March 1973. It was, in fact,
the JP who createdmost of the mobilisation in the Peronist election campaign.
Parallel with this development there was the growth of a number of
guerrilla groups. Such groups were not new to Peronism: during the early
i96os several bands had tried to secure a base in the far north of the country.
With the general radicalisationprocessof the late I96os, a whole new impetus
was given to the formation of such groups. A number were formed and
operated to varying degrees of effectiveness - the Fuerzas Armadas Revolu-
cionarias, Fuerzas Armadas Peronistas, and the Montoneros.2 The most
vos as witness his continued mobilization of his union on wage issues during tIe governments
of both General Peron and his widow. He was, until very recently, in prison for precisely
this. Certainly the view expressed in this interview was that of RevolutionaryPeronism.
25 One should
distinguish between the groups in that they came from different backgrounds.
The FAR were mainly composed originally of independent marxists who had split from
various traditional left parties in the early, mid-9I60s and moved towards Peronism. The
FAP were very closely tied to RevolutionaryPeronism and can basically be considered as the
armed expression of Peronismo de Base. The Montoneros came largely from a third world
Catholic background- some even from the far right of catholic nationalism. The FAR and
Montonerosunited in one organization after March 1973.

The Peronist Left, 1955-1975 283
important of these groups in terms of size and influence was the Montoneros,
and for our purposeshere we will concentrateon them.
To all intents and purposes, the political thought of the Montoneros
coincided with that of the Juventud Peronista. They had their origins in the
same process and their members had similar backgrounds. Many had entered
the ambit of Peronism through the student struggles centred around the
CGT de los Argentinos against the repression and crudity of the military
government of Ongania. The point emphasized previously about the anti-
Peronist left is most clearly evidenced by analysing the JP and the Montoneros
development of an independent, coherent left wing politics within the
Peronist left is most clearlyevidenced by analyzing the JP and the Montoneros
in the pre-I973 stage. Having no previous experience or history in the Peronist
movement, they had an idealised vision of the Peronist past, of the movement
and, of course, of Per6n himself.
They were ignorant of the experience of many of those who had been
through the Resistance and had attempted to draw lessons from it. Although
they claimed Cooke as one of their heroes in a pantheon of figures stretching
from Guevara and Mao to Per6n and Nasser, they in fact ignored the really
significant aspects of his thought and took merely his tactical conclusions as
their guidelines - his focismo. As one of their number has since written:
'the reality of a dictatorshipagainst which a response was desperatelysought
facilitated the development of focista conceptions '.7 And, one may add, it
also prevented the development of a really coherent analysis of Peronism.
Three features of the ideology of the JP and 'theMontoneros need emphasis:
(i) Ignoring Cooke's insistence on a political/ideological understanding of
the union bureaucracy,they reverted to the moralizing level of traidores and
lealtad. From this they developed a crucial underestimation of the nature
and strength of the trade union bureaucracy.While Cooke had maintained
that the fight against the right wing of the movement and particularly the
union leadership was basically a class struggle reflecting the polyclass origin
of Peronism, the JP and the Montoneros tended to translate this into a
generational conflict. The bureaucracy represented for them a previous
generation that through personal corruption had betrayed the ideals of
Peronism; it could either be eliminated physically through assassination or
more generally it would be surpassed by what Per6n called trasvasamiento
generacional.28Taking Per6n's assurances that the youth would inherit the
movement at face value, they assumed in this period that the bureaucracy
would either wither away or would be discarded by Per6n once it had served
27 En lucha, Organo del Movimiento Revolucionario17 de Octubre, No. 13, Dec. 1973.
28
Literally meaning generational transference/transfusion,the concept implied the injection
of new blood into the movement which would mature into the future leadership.

284 Daniel James
its tactical use to him. (ii) The emphasis of Revolutionary Peronism on the
need to give Peronism a revolutionary party structure was totally missing.
In its stead was substituted an idealised Peronist movement virtually as it
existed already - only minus the superfluous strata of bureaucrats.The vital
relationship Leader-Masses would find its political expression in themselves,
the Montoneros and IP. This not only involved the assumption that their
political and social goals were those of Peron; it also on the practical level
involved the ignoring of the Peronist working class. Whereas for all their
tactical focismo, Cooke and Peronismo Revolucionario had firmly rooted
their idea of armed struggle in the need to organize in the working class, to
create the structure of the armed party through the everyday struggles of the
workers, for the Montoneros and the JP the working class remained a
rhetorical expression. Once the bureaucraticcaste was discarded, the existing
structureand ideology of the Peronist movement and working class would be
quite sufficient to re-establish the necessary link between the revolutionary
leader and the masses and thus form the basis for the seizure of power
through 'Revolutionary Warfare'. Thus it was not until April 1973, after
the election victory, that they considered it necessary to set up a distinctive
working class organization to compete inside the unions with the union
leaderships. The organization created was the Juventud TrabajadoraPeron-
ista. (iii) They assumed an identity between their objectives and those of
Per6n. Starting, as they did, from the a priori assumption that the working
class was the dominant force within Peronism, that, therefore, it was intrinsi-
cally revolutionary, it was logical that Per6n as the sole leader and head of
that movement should be considered the sole and authentic leader of the
revolution. Per6n himself encouraged this and it must again be stressed that
in the situation of military dictatorshipit hardly seemed necessaryto challenge
the assumption. Nor indeed should one underestimate the degree to which
the JP and Montoneros provided a mobilising force that badly frightened the
military and the traditional anti-Peronist forces. Programmatically, they
championed a radical nationalism that they defined as socialism - practically
they developed a high level of efficiency in guerrilla actions and a high
capacityfor mass mobilizations. Indeed, the situation since I973 is inexplicable
if one does not take into account the depth of the convictions held by the JP
and Montoneros, the radical nature of those convictions and the fact that they
found a certain echo in the population. The point that needs to be made
however - perhaps to labour the point - is that with the institutional break-
down of the Argentine traditional democratic system, with the seemingly
inevitable incompatibility between Peronism and the status quo, the constant
military repression and the constant militant response, anything seemed pos-

The Peronist Left, I955-1975 285
sible. The need was for action, resistance,militancy against the all too obvious
enemy. The need for detailed analysis or questioned assumptions was hardly
felt; the contradictions, the mystifications of their ideology were certainly
neither very noticeable nor crucial, though they were certainly there.
The Montoneros and JP, for example, like other left tendencies, dismissed
the possibility of Peronism taking part in elections. Popular Revolutionary
Warfare with themselves as the vanguard was their chosen strategy. They
assumed that at the most the electoral front was a tactical manoeuvre of
Per6n's.29 Per6n, while never contradicting this outright, had at least im-
plicitly modified it by his concept of the Montoneros as a ' special formation'
within Peronism. But this was only implicit and certainly Per6n's own words
and the situation in Argentina together with the pride of place given to the
JP in the organization of the election campaign of Campora 30 did not give
cause for them to question the ultimate goal of Peronism and of Peron - the
creation of a socialistArgentina.
I973-I975
The developments of two and a half years since the election of Hector
Campora as President represent, taken as a whole, a series of cumulative
blows for the ' Peronist Left'; the shattering of illusions, the running up
against contradictions inherent in their development and ideology. Before
going on to chart the reaction of the Left to this process, a brief chronology
of the main events on this road to disenchantment needs to be outlined.
(i) June I973. The massacreat Ezeiza Airport. A massive crowd, gathered
to welcome Per6n back to Argentina, was fired upon by those surrounding
the main platform where Per6n was due to speak. The event was never
clarified, but most of the evidence points to it being a warning given to!the
Left by the union bureaucracy.In his speech afterwards Peron attacked the
infiltrados: 'We Peronists have to win back the leadership of our own
movement.' 3
(ii) July I973. Any doubts as to whom Per6n considered the infiltrados
who had taken over the movement were soon dispelled. After repeated press
29 See, for instance, the letters exchanged between Per6n and the montoneros after they had
killed Aramburu in Feb. I97I, published in La Causa Peronista, No. 9, 3 Sept. I974. In
reply to their affirmationthat the electoral struggle could be no more than a tactic to harass
the enemy, Peron stated, ' Concerning the electoral option, I don't believe in it either '.
30 Most observers of the Peronist election
campaign of March i973 commented on the weight
and importance of the youth sectors of the movement in mobilising support for Hector
Csmpora. Both in terms of mass rallies and in terms of the general tone and emphasis of
the campaign, they seemed to have a greater influence within the movement than the union
leadership - who had in any case opposed the original choice of Campora as candidate.
31 La Nacion, 25 June 1973.

286 Daniel James
reports of his dissatisfaction with Campora for allowing his government to

drift too far to the left, the formula Peron Presidente was put forward by a
combination of the union bureaucracyand the party right wing.32 Later in
the same month the candidature for the vice-presidency of Per6n's wife,
Maria Estella, 'Isabelita', was announced. The JP had supported Campora
for this position.
(iii) August 1973. Per6n began a series of lectures to union leaders in the
CGT generally praising their conduct. He confirmed a series of changes in
the Justicialist Party hierarchy giving almost total control to the right wing.
(iv) September 1973. Jose Rucci, head of the CGT, was killed. Almost
immediately the existence of a' reserveddocument' was made known. Drawn
up by the Superior Council of the Justicialist Party and approved by Per6n,
it called for 'ideological purification against marxist infiltration'."
(v) January 1974. Per6n summoned a meeting of all factions of the youth
sector, both right and left. The JP refused to attend. At the meeting, attended
solely by the extreme right wing groups, Peron attacked the JP.
(vi) January 1974. The attack by the Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo
(ERP) 34 on the army base at Azul in the province of Buenos Aires was used
as the pretext to depose the governor of the province, Oscar Bidegain, who
was considered to be on the left of Peronism and whom the JP considered an
ally. Per6n in a speech immediately after the attack implied that Bidegain was
partly responsible. He was replaced by Victorio Calabr6, a leading figure in
the tradeunion bureaucracy.
(vii) March I974. Police rebelled against the left Peronist governor and
vice-governor of C6rdoba, Obregon Cano and Attilio Lopez. Peron con-
firmed the action and blamed the Left for troubles in the province.
(viii) May I974. At a May Day rally in the Plaza de Mayo, Per6n, angered
32 Despite the Peronist left's claim that the handing over of the presidency to Peron represen-
ted the fulfilment of the natural wishes of the people and that the process was only spoiled
'
by the ambition of four madmen ' (El Descamisado, No. 9, 17 July I973), in fact, the re-
placement of Campora had all the hallmarks of a well-timed coup by the Peronist right.
However, it should also be noted that despite the undoubted liberalisation in matters of
human rights that took place during Campora's presidency, there was nothing in his past
record to justify the faith placed in him by the Montoneros and JP, and the euphoria that
surrounded his brief stay in office and his transformationin left Peronist language into el
Tio had a distinct air of unreality about it. What he did have in common with the Peronist
left was an absolutepersonalloyalty to Peron.
33 For the full
text, see La Opinion, 2 Oct. 1973.
34 ERP, Ejercito Revolucionario del Pueblo, a guerrilla group of Trotskyist origin who had
refused to lay down their arms with the accession of Peronism to the government. They had
maintained that the new government was just a continuation of the old system under a
different guise. The attack against the army at the Azul barrackswas their first major action
against the Peronist government.

at the IP and Montoneros marching under their own banners calling for
socialism, launched a violent attack on them. They turned and marched out
of the square as he continued.
(ix) July I974. Peron died and Isabelita became president. The extreme
right of the movement was now in complete control centred around the figure
of Jose L6pez Rega, Minister of Social Welfare and Peron's former private
secretary.
(x) September I974. The Montoneros announced a total break with the
government and resumed guerrilla activities.
(xi) November I974. A State of Siege was declared, giving the Army and
Police Force greaterpowers to deal with the Left.
These events have been accompanied by a series of legislative measures of
an equally right wing nature; these included a new Law of Professional
Associations which gives the union hierarchy carte blanche for strengthening
their control over the unions, a new security law which was in many ways
tougher than that in being under the military government, and a wage freeze
which was accompanied by the virtual outlawing of strikes. All of this has
been within the context of a mounting series of attacks by police and para-
police groups on JP and JTP offices and a growing list of murdered and
imprisoned militants. The response to this move away from the sort of
measures and the kind of emphasis that the ' Peronist Left' considered to
be the true programme of Peronism has varied in the three main groups
discussedearlier.
Combative Unions
In these unions the response has been very muted. They have seen their
main task as explaining the control on wage increases to their members. As
they had developed very little critique of the nature of Peronism and had
always defined themselves by their absolute loyalty to Per6n, this was to be
expected. Former duros, now deputies in Congress, loyally voted for the new
Law of Professional Associations which was to strengthen immeasurably the
union bureaucracythey had spent their lives fighting.
In addition to obeying Per6n, there was, of course, the additional factor
that any overt opposition to government measures would bring down the
wrath of the all-powerful Minister of Labour and the CGT apparatus, and
lose the Combative Unions what precarious power bases they still had. In
fact, the caution of many combativo leaders availed them little, since many
were displaced by the CGT, armed with the powers granted it in the new
Law of ProfessionalAssociations.

288 Daniel James
Revolutionary Peronism
Since they had always considered the elections a mere diversion before the
coming war and as they had a more realistic and coherent analysis of the
power of the union bureaucracy in Peronism and the contradictions within
the movement, they were better prepared for the denouenent when it came.
They considered it vital to use the breathing space given by Per6n and the
reconstruction of a bourgeois democratic system to work in the bases, to
create groupings of militants and form cadres. They aimed to begin the task
of forging an authentic, independent working class ideology and organisation
to act as the basis for the future armed party that would fight the civil war.
They felt that it was useless to try and defend positions gained within the
structure of Peronism or try to dislodge the bureaucracy of the structure of
the movement. This they dubbed movimientismo and they attacked the
JP and Montoneros for it. Peronism as a meaningful anti-capitalist, work-
ing class movement - the peronismo de abajo as they called it - existed in
the barrios, the shanty towns and the factories, and it was there that it had
to be won for a revolutionary party not in an ultimately meaningless bureau-
cratic structure.
In this context they were far less loth to criticize Per6n. After the forced
resignation of Obreg6n Cano from C6rdoba, Peronismo de Base issued a
statement criticising those behind the action, including Per6n:
It is not a case of General Per6n being hemmed in or prevented from doing what
he would really like, here it is simply a case that we are seeing that Per6n is far
from being what we thought we were voting for in September ... not even
Peron can say who should be our representatives and who not; only we have the
right to say if they stay or not.35
By May I974, in an Assembly to celebrate May Day, Peronismo de Base

was in a sense ready for a definitive break and for a drawing up of accounts.
One militant who spoke summed up his experience from the Resistance until
that time in these words:
Faith was one of our biggest mistakes. When we were bearing the brunt of the
struggle, when we were striking, when the working class was paying with torture
we had faith in our leaders. What faith can we have now? After it has been abused
on II March and 23 September ... that was the vital point of departure and from
there we started to realize that the only faith we could have was in the working
class, the faith of the exploited... we have to understand that we must turn our
struggles into our own independent organisation.36
35 El Mundo,
3 March, I974.
36 En
Lucha, No. i6, June 1974.

Peronist Youth and Montoneros

The JP and the Montoneros were the most disillusioned by the process and
they responded by a series of ideological improvisations, tactical manoeuvres
that often seemed to defy any co.herentanalysis. However, it can be shown
that there was a certain rationale behind their actions since I973. The best
way to approach this is to analyse briefly the changes in their political thought
since I973 as they appearedin a talk given by a leader of the Montoneros to
cadres of the /P,37 and to highlight the essentials of their modified concep-
tions.
Three main features of this modification can be discerned. (i) First, an
autocritique. Peron, they now said, understood far better than they the need
for a front of classes opposed to imperialism, the possibility of this coming to
power by elections and carrying out an anti-imperialistprogramme. They had
remained until the elections convinced that guerrilla war was the only way
of winning power. Per6n rightly saw that the principal contradiction in
Argentine society was that between imperialism and national sovereignty,
and that this took precedence over the contradiction between capitalist and
worker. The logical political conclusion to draw from this was, therefore,
the need to create an anti-imperialist, multi-class front, such as FREJULI.
This they called Peron's strategic project, which, they said, they fully shared.
(ii) However, the contradiction between Per6n and themselves was now seen
as coming essentially on the ideological level. What for Per6n was the ulti-
mate goal of this anti-imperialistfront - the Organized Community, a sort
of beneficent state capitalism - for them was the mere transitional stage
towards a proper socialism. Therefore, while there was a political strategic
coincidence between them, there was also an ideological contradiction. And
what had happened was that Peron has opted for emphasising the ideological
contradiction; hence his attacks for deviating ideologically on the JP and
Montoneros. (iii) The political strategy to be drawn from all this was, in the
words of Mario Firmenich, the leader of the Montoneros, the following:
We have an ideological contradictionwith Per6n, but we also have a strategic
coincidence. Per6n is objectivelyan anti-imperialistrevolutionaryleader. It is
stupid for us to fight with Peron over ideology. We will fight to the utmost for
our conceptionsbut if we lose we are not going to leave Peronism- it wouldn't
have the least sense since we sharethe strategicprojectof Per6n.38
Therefore, according to the JP and Montoneros, what had to be done was to
defend the space they had won within the movement. This, according to
Firmenich, could be done by 'negotiating frontiers '3 with the main enemy
"' The talk, given by Mario Firmenich, and transcribed,is in mimeo form.
38
Ibid., p. I7.
39 Ibid.,
p. I6. The whole document is extremely interesting as an example of the militariza-

290 Daniel James
within the movement - the union bureaucracy which Per6n was using to
attack them at the ideological level. It was important to maintain the hold
gained within the movement's structurebecause ultimately Peron would find
that the Union bureaucracy, being totally opportunistic, did not share his
strategicaim of an anti-imperialist,worker-basednational state. In fact, when
the crunch came it would prove to be totally useless to him.
And it was at this stage of the scenario that the Mo,ntonerosand JP would
enter, from the left. Per6n, it was maintained, would find it impossible to
stop the anti-imperialist project at the stage where, ideologically, he would
like to, because, practically,it would inevitably lead to socialism. But until this
happened they must stay within the movement at all costs.
When Per6n sayson a concreteissue, ' I will do this ', we will also say 'Well we'll
do that then ', althoughreallywe disagree.Becausewhat reallyinterestsus is the
internal transformationof Peronism through the displacement of the union
bureaucracy."1
In the light of this analysis, the reasons why the JP and the Montoneros
reacted as they did to the consistent blows they suffered becomes clear. To
stay in the movement was the important thing and, therefore, almost any
amount of abuse and attack could be absorbed. The zig-zags and contradic-
tions inherent in this strategy were numerous and bewildering - but under-
standable in the light of their analysis. The whole issue of ' verticality', i.e.,
the unquestioning respect for the orders issuing from Per6n and going down
through the vertical chain of command of the Justicialist Movement to the
rank and file militants at the bottom, which became dominant after the
reserved document of September 1973, was seen by them in the context of
this strategy. Unlike Revolutionary Peronism which rejected the concept out-
right, the Montoneros and JP considered respect for Per6n's orders vital to
enable them to stay in the movement.
The Juventud TrabajadoraPeronista found itself beset by the same contra-
dictions as its parent body. Although it saw its main purpose as attacking the
union bureaucracy, this often had to be subordinated to the tactical restric-
tions implicit in the dominant analysis of the JP and the Montoneros. This
meant that despite a considerable following, with thirty-seven agrupaciones
represented at the founding conference, the practical implementation of its
pledge to defend wages and attack the union bureaucracywas hindered by
the over-riding need to stay in the movement, maintain the leader-masses
tion of political concepts and shows the deep influence a guerrilla training has on the
guerrilla leader turned politician. Firmenich, for example, quotes with approval Clause-
witz: ' Nobody can have a political ambition that is greater than their military power'.
40 Ibid., p. x8.

The Peronist Left, I955-1975 29I
relationship. It found itself, for example, in the position of admitting that the
Social Pact, signed by employers and unions in I973 and which instituted
a wage freeze in return for promised price control, was an anti-working class
measure, but opposing any explicit attack on it as such. To demand an increase
in wages was legitimate - to demand this and explicitly repudiate the Social
Pact was not, since it involved an attack on Peron. The nearest they came
to open criticism of Per6n was to describethe wages policy of the government
as a' mistake '.41
Ultimately they were able to justify anything - sometimes by denying that
what had happened had really happened.42Sometimes they did so by intro-
ducing the fiction of the evil advisers who were cutting Peron off from his
people.43 As a last resort, they had to say that on certain issues Peron was
wrong.44
If we look at the three basic assumptions of their position as described
above, it is interesting to see how they survived basically intact, though
modified in some aspects, in the I973-5 period.
First, they underestimated the strength of the union bureaucracy. While
they had to recognise its logistical strength, its powerful apparatus, they still
had no real analysis of its ideological or political basis. It was still for them
an unnatural growth on the basically healthy body of Peronism. They
assumed that it had no project of its own, that what it did have had very
little coherence and certainly nothing to do with Peronism, and that Peron
41 La Justa, Organo de la juventud TrabajadoraPeronista, No. i, Feb.

1974.
42 This occurred with the 'reserved document' which
despite all signs to the contrary El
Descamisado refused to believe existed. See El Descamisado, No. 21, 9 Oct. I973.
43 The fantasy about el cerco that was cutting Peron off from his people first surfaced after the
events of Ezeiza; see El Descamisado, No. 6, 26 June I973. In Firmenich's talk op. cit. he
denounces the infantilism of this analysis, but as late as April I974 it reappearsin the semi-
official organ of the IP and montoneros as an explanation for the consistent failure of the
much-hoped-for dialogue between Leader and people to take place, El Peronista, 19 April
1974.
44 It should, of course, be borne in mind that the acceptance of the need to stay in the move-
ment at any cost and the resultant cost of this in terms of swallowing unpalatable measures
was an extremely contradictoryprocess which became progressivelymore difficult to accom-
plish. At times the strain was evident publicly. After Peron's speech of February 1974, ad-
vising all those who advocated socialismo nacional to get out of Peronism and join a socia-
list party, Dardo Cabo, the editor of El Descamisado responded with what was the nearest
thing to a direct attack on Per6n from within the movement. ' Why didn't they tell us
before when we were fighting Lanusse that we ought to join another party? Nobody has
the right to throw us out, nobody can now just bid us farewell! ' El Descamisado, No. 39,
12 Feb. I974. However, to appreciate the near schizophrenia involved, it should also be
borne in mind that this was the same Dardo Cabo who six months earlier had been telling
his readersthat although they might disagree with some of Per6n's tactics, they must always
accept them since at the end of the day Aqui manda Peron, El Descamisado, No. 26, 13
Nov. I973.

292 Daniel James
backed this bureaucracy because it was easier to control than the IP and
Montoneros. That Per6n might find more in common with the union leader-
ship's aims was never considered. The bureaucracy remained something it
was necessaryto bargainwith militarily.45
Secondly, the identity of Per6n's aims with theirs. Obviously this assump-
tion had had to be modified. But by creating the concept of the ideological
conflict and the political, strategic agreement, and confining their difference
with Per6n to the former, they preserved the essentials of this assumption.
Peron remained in essence the revolutionary leader of the masses and as
such it was necessary to maintain contact with him at all costs.
Thirdly, the predominant attitude to the working class basically persisted.
The working class remained for them an idealized concept - the passive
spectator of much of the Montoneros' and JP's thought and action while
they struggled with the union bureaucracyover its fate.
The trait had gone back a long way - consistently' left' Peronism in general
had failed to analyze precisely the real level of consciousness of the working
class. Its struggles against military governments and against employers,
particularly in the I955-62 period, were taken as proof of its revolutionary
consciousness.What were not taken into account were its defeats, its demobil-
isation for most of the i96os - a demobilisation on which the union leadership
has concretely built its power. Some sections, particularly of Revolutionary
Peronism, did take some account of this fact - but the Youth and guerrilla
sections coming into Peronism, mostly for the first time, in the early Ig70s
took the fact of fifteen years of anti-Peronistgovernments, and the high points
of working class response to this and created the a priori assumption of the
revolutionariness' of the workers, and by extension of Peronism.
This is intimately connected with their analysis, or rather lack of one, of
the union bureaucracy. For, having assumed that the working class had
consistently had a revolutionary consciousness, then the only explanation for
the hold of the bureaucracymust be in terms of its physically imposing itself
on the workers. It could have no real basis in the consciousness of the work-
ing class, nor any real right to exist in Peronism. Conversely the union
bureaucracybecame a convenient way of avoiding looking at the actual state
of the consciousness of the Peronist workers a deus ex machina that allowed
the avoidance of facing unpleasant reality. The ' masses' were revolutionary
and all that really needed to be decided was who was to lead them.
45 Exactly how military this could be can be seen from Firmenich's reply to a questioner who
asked him what they could offer the union bureaucracyby way of a bargain 'We can
promise not to kill them '. Firmenich, op. cit., p. 2I.

The Peronist Left, 1955-1975 293
ConcludingRemarks
The characterisation of the PeronistLeft so far in this paperhas largely
emphasisedcontradictory,negative features- the 'reflex' nature of the
Peronistleft, its dependenceon Peron,its failurein generalin the I955-73
period to develop coherent,independentleft-wing politics. And yet what
were the alternatives?I have alreadyemphasisedthe effectof the continued
enforceddichotomyPeron-anti-Per6non the developmentof the 'Peronist
Left'. There were evidentlyalso otherfactorsat work which would require
detailedstudyin themselves.The whole question,for example,of the tactics
and strategyof Per6nhimself,how he viewed the natureof the movement,
hada greatinfluenceon the optionsopento theleft wing.
Without going into the questionin great detail,it would seem correctto
say that Per6n'svery conceptionof the type of movementPeronismoughtto
be militatedagainstthe developmentof any strong,independent,dominant
left-wing.He saw one of the movement'sessentialstrengthsas being its all-
embracing,umbrellanature,and indeed his often reiterateddefinitionof a
Peronistas being simplyanyonewho workedin the movementemphasised
this heterogeneity.Evidently,any attemptto turn this heterogeneityinto a
class-basedpoliticalpartywould be to weakenwhat he consideredto be one
of its strongestpoints.
And thisleadson to anotheraspect.Peronismwasneveran institutionalised
movementin any meaningfulsensein the periodI955-73,far less an institu-
tionalisedpartywithin which left and right couldfight for dominationin a
formalisedpoliticalmanner over specificand concretepoliticalissues and
programmes.The movement,in fact, was essentiallyno more than a con-
glomerationof differentgroups loyal to Peron. This enabled Per6n, of
course,to manipulateboth left and right whilst allowinga certainautonomy
to each- ' I have a rightand left hand,and I use themboth' was a favourite
saying. It also meant that in meaningfultermsthe whole paraphernalia of
Peronistpolitical organisationalstructure,ComandosTacticos, Comandos
Superiores,Ramas Masculinas,etc., were comparativelyirrelevant.In this
respect,it is interestingto note that it was preciselywhen the 'left', the
duros,dominatedthe officialstructureof Peronistunionism,the 62 Organisa-
tions, under Frondizi (and, therefore,had a predominantweight in the
movement as a whole), the series of retreatsand accommodationsthey
consideredbetrayalstook place,despitetheirformalcontrolof the apparatus
of the dominantsectorof Peronism.While the left in generaltreatedthis lack
of formalised,democraticpoliticalstructureas a virtue,since it made easier
the maintenanceof the essentiallink betweenthe leaderand his people,it
was, nevertheless,true that it also helped preventa genuine independent

294 Daniel James
political development and maintained the personalistic loyalty syndrome of

much of the Peronist left.
There is also a further point arising from this which it is necessary to
mention. From the beginning of the Peronist experience in 1946, Peron had
ensured that he himself should embody the political desires of Argentine
workers. With the crushing of the Partido Laborista in 1946, Per6n stamped
on the possibility of any incipient political organisation of the workers, while
at the same time ratifying their union organisation - thus reinforcing the
fact that the political expression of the working class should pass through him.
This not only meant that the political reflection of the social and economic
gains of the workers should be embodied in himself, thus helping perpetuate
the paternalistic and personalistic nature of Peronism; it also meant that any
left, potentially radical elements within Peronism were largely restricted
from the beginning to the union field. This, of course, was only reinforced
after 1955 by the very nature of events - with the formal proscription of
political Peronism, the union sector became unquestioningly the dominant
part of the movement. What this implied for the mainstream element of the
union leadership in terms of the compromise forced on their political beliefs
has often been emphasised.46 Yet it also needs to be emphasised that it
profoundly affected the nature of the Peronist left.
The fact that left Peronism was centred on the trade unions and had firm
roots in the union rank and file was, of course, in one sense a great advantage.
It meant that the Peronist left, unlike the non-Peronist left, did not operate
in a vacuum cut off from its natural constituency and degenerate into the
ultra-left vanguardism of many left-wing sects. But it did have other effects.
One was that 'leftism', a seemingly radical political stance, could be seen
by some union leaders, particularly in times of economic crisis, as more a
response to a concrete union problem than a reflection of a coherent, indepen-
dent political viewpoint.47To this, one should also add the fact that the left
Peronist trade unionist was also susceptible to the corrupting influence of
everyday compromises with employers and government. Indeed, a combina-
46 See Roberto Carri, Sindicatos Poder
y (Buenos Aires, Editorial Sudestada, 1967) and Miguel
Gazzera, Nosotros los dirigentes, in Miguel Gazzera and Norberto Ceresole, Peronismo:
Autocriticay Perspectivas(Buenos Aires, Descartes, I970).
47 E. J. Hobsbawm has emphasised the effect of the ' practicalities' inherent in day to day
trade union practice on the 'spontaneous ' labour militant in Britain. ' Trends in the
British Labour Movement', Labouring Men (London, 1964), pp. 339 et seq. There is also
much else of interest in the essay by comparison with the Argentina case. For example,
Hobsbawm's description of the political-union itinerary of Ernest Bevin is very relevant for
an understandingof the course taken by many former militant Peronist Labour leaders - in
termnof the logic it represented, if not of the exact details of political allegiance.

tion of these factors was at the root of the ' phenomenon of numerous duros,
leftists of yesteryear,becoming the traidoresof today.
Moreover, even for the more consistent left the difficulties of leading a
coherent left from within a union structure became increasingly obvious
throughout the I96os. It was dissatisfactionwith what they saw as a left that
could never ultimately espouse more than a sort of militant sindicalism that
underlay the attempts of those like Cooke to rethink the needs and strategy
of the Peronist left. And it was a tension that existed increasingly within the
left and underlay the differences between Revolutionary Peronism and the
Combative Unions and also the JP and Montoneros.
Yet, having said this, it also needs to be said that the Peronist left of I973-5
was a very different creature from that of a decade earlier, with far more
potential for separate development. The very nature of the context within
which the left has operatedsince I973 has inevitably led to greater independent
development, on an organisational, practical level at least. The bypassing of
the Per6n-anti-Peron dichotomy with the election victory of I973, the grow-
ing disillusion with the post-I973 process, and, indeed, the fact of Per6n's
death itself and the consequent de facto splitting of the movement have
radically altered the situation within which the Peronist left has had to work.
Indeed, it is scarcely realistic any longer to talk of the left Peronists as the
left wing of a single movement; rather there are now two Peronisms - a
right and a left.
An obvious illustration of the effect of this radically changed situation was
the fact that after Per6n's death most sections of ' Left Peronism' were
overtly at war with his chosen successor. The capacity of the Montoneros to
function efficiently in their campaign against the government of Maria
Estella Peron was evident. Needless to say, it is impossible to assess at this
moment in time the extent to which they can continue to operate as efficiently
under the new military government. The JP's and JTP's continued effective-
ness in the new situation is, of course, even more problematic, given the
difficulties of illegality and repression, and it is certainly impossible to ascer-
tain from outside the country.
Nevertheless, for all its functional, organisationalindependence, I think it
fair to say that there are clear indications that the nature of this left Peronism
will essentially be that of a revitalised version of a populist left with socialist
trimmings, rather than the development of a more coherent Marxist-oriented
left along the lines advocatedby Revolutionary Peronism. The decision of the
Montoneros and JP to attack the government of Isabel Per6n did not represent
a complete reappraisalof strategy. Indeed, it was never adequately explained
why a government they had supported two months earlier should suddenly

296 Daniel James
become so totally unacceptable.Except, of course, that it was no longer led by

Peron himself. This was the crux of the matter for them. Per6n had been the
guarantee of the anti-imperialist liberation project in spite of all their dis-
agreements with him. With his death, and the official inheritance in the
hands of the right, they saw their main task as the re-creation of Peron's
'strategic project', the anti-imperialist front as it had existed in I973. Only
this time they would be better preparedmilitarily. In this, they coincided with
the mainstream 'combative' left - as witness of their joint support for
Peronismo Autentico created in early 1975, which as its name implies, and
its leading figures personify, is essentially a reassertionof a traditional,' true
Peronist essence.48It would seem that the growing repression and, at best,
semi-clandestinity of much of the Peronist left has once again, as in the
1955-73 period, had the effect of freezing political development whilst
emphasising the urgency of a militant, and military, response to repression.
The direct take over of the government by the armed forces on March 24,
I976, can only reinforce this trend.
48 The list of main figures behind PeronismnoAutentico reads like a Who's Who of the Peronist
left since 1955 - with the exception of the RevolutionaryPeronism current. It also includes
many figures who have in the past been strongly criticised by the left. The movement was
officially proscribedin Jan. 1976.


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Daniel James, The Peronist Left 1955-1975

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The Peronist Left, 1955-1975

Author(s): Daniel James

This content downloaded from 181.95.0.122 on Sat, 6 Apr 2013 13:12:56 PM

The Peronist Left, 1955-I975

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capitulation of an important sector of the union leadership into participation

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government the Left started to define such programmes as being blueprints

(i) The Combative Unions

9 The literal translation is, of course, national socialism, but it would

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convoked this National Liberation Front in which we the Peronist workers

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justice but this is pure rhetoric if it is not translatedinto concrete strategic

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Peronism constructed as a revolutionary party was guerrilla warfare -

22 The influence of Cooke's Cuban experiencesis evident here. After an initial

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Peronism by its social composition was revolutionary, inassimilable within

The Peronist Youth and Guerrilla Groups

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reports of his dissatisfaction with Campora for allowing his government to

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By May I974, in an Assembly to celebrate May Day, Peronismo de Base

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Peronist Youth and Montoneros

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41 La Justa, Organo de la juventud TrabajadoraPeronista, No. i, Feb.

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political development and maintained the personalistic loyalty syndrome of

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become so totally unacceptable.Except, of course, that it was no longer led by

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