Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
coalition finally eclipsed the last vestiges of oligarchic power. Perón also
combined political strategies that had been developing since World War I.
They included economic nationalism, national industrialization, a
civil-military alliance, and state negotiation with labor as a method
of controlling the masses. Perón received the support of many of his
fellow military officers. He pledged that the military would receive an
enlarged role in industrialization and that a future Perón presidency
would modernize the military and fortify national security. A grateful
army promoted Perón to the rank of general just before he resigned his
commission in order to run for the presidency.
Perón's project also appealed to the middle class. His support of
national industrialization catered to the educated youths who antici-
pated the managerial and political appointments that would accompany
the expansion of the state into economic affairs. His nationalism always
hinted strongly of antiforeign sentiment. The antioligarchic rantings of
the Peronists may have caused some middle-class misgivings but not
much, since historically the elite landowners had always conspired to
keep the urban bourgeoisie from power.
Moreover, the oligarchy had traditionally kept the Catholic Church
from intervening in political affairs. President Roca had presided over
a series of anticlerical laws that removed religious instruction from
public schools as early as 1884. Many urbanites of the middle class
had rallied to the new Catholic Action organization that had grown in
the 1930s as a counterweight to the Conservatives' return to political
prominence. When Perón, in 1943, endorsed the military government's
reinstatement of Catholic religious instruction in public schools, he
gained support among members of Catholic Action. Indeed, Catholic
priests attended all Peronist labor rallies up to 1950.
Perón ultimately ran for the presidency as a candidate of the Labor
Party. This party had been formed and led by union bosses who came
to support Perón during his tenure as labor minister. Workers also
viewed Perón as the man who recognized their valuable contribu-
tions to industrialization. He praised rather than demeaned their
physical labor. Perón had removed the pejorative connotations from
the term
losdescamisados
(the shirtless ones). Whereas the word was
once used dismissively by the well-attired elite and middle class in
reference to workers, it now became a symbol of honor and citizen-
ship. As Perón would say as he removed his suitcoat, “Now we are all
descamisados!
”
But it was the United States that added the last brick to the populist
edifice Perón was constructing during his first presidential campaign.
