Juan Perón's Rise To Power In Argentina

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Juan Perón was a charismatic and inviting ex-military politician. He was the smiling face and sharp brain Argentina had been searching for. His involvement with the labor unions was the reason for his rise to power. Juan Perón’s leadership from 1943 to 1955 greatly affected labor unions in Argentina by granting the unions power in the political world, giving the unions someone they could trust, and by implementing complete control over the unions and the rest of Argentina during his presidency.
Before his presidency, Perón’s appetite for power and sympathy for the unions drew him to give the unions more political power in exchange for support for his presidential campaign. Perón grew up on a ranch and knew quite a bit about the lower-class way of life. This upbringing and knowledge of the working class helped give him a leg up against other politicians (DeChancie 20) . During the first years of his military and political career, he talked and went to bars with the lower- and working-class peoples (Madsen 46) . Perón made it very clear to the workers that he could be trusted because he was one of them (Madsen 46) . However, Perón's rise "wouldn't be possible without a radical political movement that advocate[d] bringing industry and government under the control of labor unions" (Duarte de Perón 81) .
Juan Perón created his own political party, the Peronist Party, which followed his political movement, Peronism. Perón never clearly defined what Peronism was because he was constantly changing details about what Peronism was really about, so no one could truly define Peronism. Generally, Peronism targeted its views somewhere between communism and capitalism (DeChancie 58) . Once Perón was more powerful, it was considered "illega...

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...pected (Page 181) . Soon, unproved allegations emerged accusing Perón and Evita of using money reserved for the workers to enrich themselves (Poneman 71) .
Perón began to control the media to keep up his good image for both the people of Argentina, and the rest of the world (DeChancie 62) . Perón ordered officers to shut down any anti-Peronist newspapers and radio shows; it also became a crime to speak poorly of Perón and the Argentine government. Perón called anti-Peronists “unpatriotic” and thought it should be illegal to be against Peronism (DeChancie 58) .
The government under Perón was highly biased toward Perón. Perón won over two-thirds of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies for the Peronist machine (Goldwert 93) . The Senate was completely Peronist except for two seats (Goldwert 93) . Perón continued to call the anti- Peronist side unpatriotic.

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