Juan Peron

Introduction

The most influential and controversial political leader of twentieth-century Argentina, Juan Domingo Peron, sharply divided Argentines during and after his lifetime over the issues of distribution of income and political power. In historical retrospect, he may be seen as a leader who wanted to extend to the lower classes the standard of living and the political enfranchisement that Hipolito Yrigoyen and the Union Cívica Radical had brought to the Argentine middle classes earlier in the century. One of the few South American leaders to be known throughout the world, Peron championed a “Third Force” in world politics and encouraged wider political participation by Argentine women. Peron was a brilliant orator, individually persuasive and politically astute. But he was also intellectually overambitious and unnecessarily intolerant of opposition. The paper will highlight the major contributions of Juan Peron as a great leader.

Discussion

Early Career and First Presidency

The son of a small rancher, Peron entered the Military Academy in 1911. An army officer, Peron was the leader of a group of colonels that rose to prominence after the overthrow of the government of Ramón Castillo in 1943, a group which supported the fascist and Nazi movements in Italy and Germany. As secretary of labor and social welfare, and later as minister of war and vice president, Peron was the real power behind the administration of Edelmiro Farrell (Frederick, 118). By backing the labor unions and decreeing extensive welfare legislation, he won the allegiance of Argentine workers, who became the backbone of his support. Imprisoned in 1945 after a coup, he was released following mass demonstrations of workers, and was elected president by a huge majority in 1946. In 1946, Peron was elected to the Argentine presidency in one of the freest elections in Argentine history; he was elected to a second term in 1951. A military coup in 1955 deposed him, sending him into exile first in Paraguay and ultimately in Madrid. For many years, historians and political leaders in Argentina tried to write Peron off as a has-been, but this ultimately proved impossible. In 1973, he returned triumphantly to Argentina and to the presidency after eighteen years in exile (Robert, 239).

Military Life

For the first five decades of his life, Peron showed little indication of his future accomplishments. Instead, he followed a rather typical military career. Born to a middle-class family in 1895, he graduated in 1913 from the Colegio Militar. After rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, he studied mountain warfare techniques with the Italian Alpine troops in 1939 and 1940, having an opportunity personally to evaluate Italian, German, and Spanish fascism while in Europe. He later served as an instructor at the War Academy and in 1939, in Mussolini's Italy, visiting Germany and Spain en route. These years of study and witness were the source of his later corporatist vision of politics (Robert, 446). In 1943, as a colonel, Peron worked with a group of officers to depose the incumbent government and share in collective power for two years. He headed ...