Was Juan Peron a dictator?

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Buenos Aires Guide

Read the history of Argentina at:
http://www.buenosairesstay.com/bastay/generico.php?carpeta=ing&fuente=history_buenos_aires.htm

Juan Perón was a boy soldier (16) who rose quickly through the officer ranks becoming the military attaché to Chile and then Italy, where he witnessed Nazi Germany’s expansionism and the distasteful grip of fascism in Europe. Eva Perón’s influence and the latter period of his military career are thought to have changed Perón’s conservative politics.

Juan Perón returned to Argentina in 1941, during the next two years he made full colonel, and joined the United Officers Group (Grupo de Oficiales Unidos, GOU, P2), a secret military lodge that engineered the 1943 coup to overthrow an ineffective and corrupt civilian government.

The military regimes of the following three years came increasingly under the influence of Perón. Perón was a shrewd political operator and initially took the minor post of secretary of labour and social welfare, but could see that this role would be pivotal in him influencing policy that would affect the masses and win him popular appeal. Perón won the support of the underprivileged labourers (the descamisados, or “shirtless ones” as they would later be known).

In 1944, however, as a protégé of Pres. Gen. Edelmiro J. Farrell (1944–46), Perón became minister of war and then vice president.

However, the direction of government and Perón’s ‘socialism’ had few fans in the ultra-conservative armed forces. The tide of socialism sweeping Europe and the America’s was of great concern and Argentina’s pending free elections worried both the military and business leaders. Not least those who saw communist bogeymen under every American bed. Now it is Muslims.

In October 1945, Perón was ousted from his position by rival army and navy officers in Argentina’s shortest coup, which resulted in the labour unions rallying the workers of greater Buenos Aires - Perón was released from custody on 17 October 1945. That night, from the balcony of the presidential palace (Casa Rosada), he addressed 300,000 people. He promised social justice and reform, and to lead the Argentine people to victory in the pending presidential election.

A few days later, Perón, who was a widower, married Eva Duarte, who had been an undistinguished stage and radio actress. Perón’s politics and his meteoric rise have often been attributed to this powerful lady. Eva Duarte de Perón participated in her husband's 1945–46 presidential campaign, winning the adulation of the working-class masses, which she addressed as los descamisados.

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