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of his political projects and granted them major concessions. A new
decree resurrected the eight-hour workday and other rules won by labor
prior to the depression. The owners gave up their efforts to rationalize
the operations of the railways solely by requiring the workers to bear the
costs. The Argentine railway workers, with Perón's assistance, had suc-
cessfully resisted these plans. “Decrees are being issued forcing the rail-
ways to grant concessions which we have stood out against in the past,”
remarked one British manager. “We are in for a spell of strict totalitarian
government in this country” (Brown 1997, 146).
Subsequent to becoming labor minister, Perón was appointed vice
president of the junta and emerged as the most visible figure in the mili-
tary government. He also became the target of a growing middle-class
opposition movement. By 1945, middle-class demands for replacing the
junta with an elected government and supporting the Allied forces in
World War II increasingly divided Argentine society. The military junta
was notoriously sympathetic to Germany during the war.
As the opposition movement gained momentum, its street demon-
strations and rallies implicitly carried an increasingly antilabor content.
In September 1945, more than 200,000 Argentines marched from the
wealthy Barrio Norte district to central Buenos Aires, demanding a
return to constitutional government. Many carried banners denouncing
the
chusma,
a pejorative term referring to the working-class “mob.” Early
in October, a coalition of military officers forced the junta to arrest and
imprison Perón, seemingly ending his mercurial rise to prominence.
Argentine workers feared that Perón's arrest would annul the social
reforms and reverse the material gains they had just won. Sensing the inevi-
tability of a large-scale popular mobilization, the General Confederation of
Labor (CGT) called a general strike for October 18, but Argentine workers
took to the streets a day early in Avellaneda, an industrial suburb just south
of Buenos Aires. At the same time, sugar workers were converging on down-
town Tucumán; likewise, protesters emerged from suburban industrial zones
and congregated in Córdoba, Rosario, and La Plata. They demanded Perón's
release and attacked sites symbolic of elite culture: the Jockey Club, univer-
sity buildings (and students), banks, and newspaper offices.
In Buenos Aires, hundreds of thousands of working-class men,
women, and children converged on the Plaza de Mayo, the political
hub of the nation. The military junta debated its options, ultimately
deciding to release Perón from custody. The 300,000 workers at the
Casa Rosada greeted the news with victorious chants of “Pay-ROHN,
Pay-ROHN!” It was nearly midnight when Perón himself climbed to
the balcony of the Casa Rosada to address his supporters. The workers'
