A discourse of love and hate: Eva Peron and the labour movement (1940s-1950s)

Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Volumn 24, Issue 48, 1999, Pages 153-175

  Patroni, Viviana ^a  

^a WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 27844444118     PISSN: 08263663     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/08263663.1999.10816781     Document Type: Review

References (49)

1. In this article I will refer to Eva Perón primarily by her first name rather by her political nickname "Evita."
2. Miguel Murmis and Juan Carlos Portantiero, Estudios sobre los orígenes del Peronismo (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 1971).
3. In general, the significance of rural migrants as a proportion of the working class by 1943 has been overestimated. When some refinement is introduced to the concept of rural migrants, the picture that we obtain is very different. There are three qualitative variables that seem particularly important. First, most newcomers to the city of Buenos Aires did not come from the most backward regions of the country but from the areas quite close to it. Second, at the time of their arrival in Buenos Aires, many of these internal migrants had already had an urban experience in one of the many towns and cities that in Argentina had constituted most of the population since 1914. Third, if we take 10 years of residence in Buenos Aires to represent a meaningful period of adjustment to the new conditions, then the proportion of recent rural to urban migrants represented approximately 20% of the population in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. Assuming that all these internal migrants were incorporated into industrial work, this would have represented no more than a third of the total working class in Buenos Aires. But this was not very likely the case since many recent entrants to the working force of the metropolitan area entered low-skill occupations in the tertiary sector. It is unlikely, then, that they could have determined the response of the working class to Perón's political appeal. See Juan Carlos Torre, La vieja guardia sindical y Perón. Sobre los orígenes del peronismo (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1990), pp. 53-54;
4. Eldon Kenworthy, "The Function of the Little-Known Case in Theory Formation of What Peronism Wasn't," Comparative Politics 6, 1 (October 1973): 33-34.
5. The divisions within the CGT had deep political roots. However, it was the election of a socialist, José Domenech, as secretary of the centrally powerful rail workers union (Unión Ferroviaria) that shifted the balance of forces against syndicalism. See Ronaldo Munck with Ricardo Falcon and Bernardo Galitelli, Argentina: From Anarchism to Peronism. Workers, Unions and Politics, 1855-1985 (London: Zed Books, 1987), pp. 109-111.
6. Julio Godio, El movimiento obrero argentino (1943-1955). Nacimiento y consolidación de una hegemonía nacional-laboralista (Buenos Aires: Legasa, 1990), p. 31.
7. In June 1943, a new military coup brought to an end the period of conservative rule initiated after the overthrow of Yrigoyen in 1930 and continued by means of fraudulent electoral victories for over a decade. Although the military was divided over the most appropriate course of action, its more nationalist faction, organized under a group known as GOU, was to become very influential and gained the upper hand within a few months of the military takeover. Colonel Perón was one of the leaders of the group and from his initially obscure position within the regime, in a very short period of time he would gain prominence
8. Torre, La vieja guardia sindical, pp. 67-68.
9. In October 1945 Peron introduced the new Law of Professional Associations. In a typical corporatist fashion, the state acquired the power to grant the legal right (personeria gremial) to only one union per sector to negotiate collective agreements and to guarantee monopoly to the union thus constituted within its industry or economic sector (sindicato único).
10. Perón held the positions of Minister of War, Secretary of Labour and later Vice-President.
11. The role of the CGT in the events of 17 October has been highly debated. Although we cannot expand on the problem here it is important to note that while there was an important element of spontaneity in the uprising of that day, insofar as it had been a demand emerging from the grassroots and had actually happened a day before the general strike called by the CGT for the 18th, the leadership of the labour movement did not remain at the margins of the process. Moreover, as Juan Carlos Torre has argued, the uprising happened only after the general strike had been declared, and the sheer scope of the mobilization presupposed some degree of co-ordination that was certainly facilitated by the unions and CGT. See Juan Carlos Torre, "La CGT y el 17 de octubre," in Juan Carlos Torre, ed., La formación del sindicalismo peronista (Buenos Aires: Legasa, 1988), p. 137.
12. This myth has been nourished by the views of both Peronists and anti-Peronists alike. For obviously very different reasons, both have portrayed Eva as a key figure in the events of October. For a discussion see Marysa Navarro, Evita (Buenos Aires: Planeta, 1994), pp. 117-137.
13. Marysa Navarro, Evita ( Ibid., p. 82.
14. Murmis y Portantiero, Estudios, pp. 95-96.
15. The process of creation of the Labour Party is also superbly analyzed in the text of Juan Carlos Torre, La vieja guardia sindical.
16. Marysa Navarro, "Evita's Charismatic Leadership," in Michael L. Conniff, ed., Latin American Populism in Comparative Perspective (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982), p. 54.
17. Marysa Navarro, "Evita and Peronism," in Frederick C. Turner and José Enrique Miguens, eds., Juan Perón and the Reshaping of Argentina (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1983), p. 21.
18. Susana Bianchi and Norma Sanchis, El partido peronista femenino (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1988), pp. 18-19.
19. The term descamisado literally means "shirtless one," but its idiomatic meaning is "coatless." See Marysa Navarro, "Evita's Charismatic Leadership," pp. 50-52.
20. Daniel James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946-1976 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 18.
21. Navarro, "Evita's Charismatic Leadership," pp. 60-61.
22. This was particularly true during the first years of Peronism in power. Moreover, while later on some of her initiatives might demonstrate a greater sphere of influence - as for instance her nomination to the vice presidency in the elections of 1952 or the power she managed to accumulate through her Fundacion Eva Perón - the will or the ability to go beyond the limits established by Perón was never part of her plan. See Navarro, Evita, pp. 282, 292-293.
23. There are several examples of Eva's own understanding of this role. In 1949, she described it in these terms: "... my intervention has only consisted in interpreting the desire of [labour] leaders in order to transmit their aspirations to General Perón, who is the only author of this reform.... I have only been the bridge that I desire to be between the workers and the General." Eva Perón, Discursos completos, vol. 2 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Megafón, 1985), p. 14. All citations from Discursos completos have been translated by the author.
24. Navarro, Evita, p. 147.
25. On the importance of radio in the development of mass culture in Argentina see Jesús Martín-Barbero, Communication, Culture and Hegemony (London: Sage Publications, 1993), pp. 168- 171. As the author suggests, Eva had become popular through her participation in a radio theatre company.
26. Daniel James, "Poetry, Factory Labour and Female Sexuality in Peronist Argentina," Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 6, 2 (1997): 138.
27. James, Resistance and Integration, p. 36.
28. Eva Perón, My Mission in Life (New York: Vantage Press, 1953), pp. 87-88. "Justicialism" was the name given to the political ideology upon which Perón articulated his reform programme.
29. Perón, Discursos completos, vol. 1 (Buenos Aires: Editorial Megafón), pp. 212-213. The original expression in Spanish "Cueste lo que cueste y caiga quien caiga" (translated in the text as "whatever its costs and against all opponents) conveys an unambiguously violent and threatening tone that is difficult to capture in English.
30. Perón, Discursos completos, vol 2, p. 137.
31. Louise Doyon, "El crecimiento sindical bajo el peronismo," in Torre, ed., La formación del sindicalismo peronista, pp. 177-178.
32. Ruth Berins Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena: Critical Junctures, the Labor Movement, and Regime Dynamics in Latin America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 341.
33. James, "Poetry, Factory Labour and Female Sexuality," pp. 139-140.
34. Bianchi and Sanchis, El partido peronista femenino, p. 45.
35. James cites in this respect Juan Perón's address to the people gathered in the Plaza de Mayo on 17 October 1945. Perón ended his address reminding those in the Plaza that "among you there are many women workers who have to be protected here and in life by you same workers" James, Resistance and Integration, p. 23.
36. Perón, Discursos completos, vol 2, p. 83.
37. Eva dedicated a whole section of her My Mission in Life to discuss in some detail the tension between the traditional role of women and their new experience as political subjects and as workers. See pp. 181-206.
38. This is in fact Eva's explanation in her memoir My Mission in Life, pp. 59-61.
39. Navarro, "Evita's Charismatic Leadership," pp. 56-57.
40. Navarro, "Evita and Peronism," p. 21.
41. David Rock, Argentina 1516-1987: From Spanish Colonization to Alfonsín (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), p. 287.
42. Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro, Evita: The Real Lives of Eva Perón (London: Andre Deutsch, 1996), p. 143.
43. Nicholas Fraser and Marysa Navarro, Evita: Ibid., p. 147.
44. The sectarianism expressed by Eva in her speeches included callings to denounce those Argentines who were not political supporters and justifying firings from public companies on the basis of lack of political allegiance. See for example her address to the Federation of Telephone Workers, 18 March 1959.
45. James, Resistance and Integration, p. 34.
46. See Alberto Ciria, "Flesh and Fantasy: The Many Faces of Evita (and Juan Perón)," Latin American Research Review 23, 2 (1983): 158.
47. A solid study of the several myths that surround Eva, including the revolutionary myth, is offered by J. M. Taylor, Eva Perón: The Myths of a Woman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979).
48. Ciria illustrates this point clearly through one of Eva's celebrated slogans, "Peronism begins with Perón, continues with Perón and it ends in Perón." Alberto Ciria, Perón y el justicialismo (Buenos Aires: Siglo Veintiuno, 1971), p. 116.
49. Tomás Eloy Martínez, Santa Evita (New York: Vintage, 1997).