PERSON'S GAUCHO FASCISM
ALBA, VICTOR
Peron's Gaucho Fascism By Victor Alba New Leader Correspondent in Latin America MEXICO CITY. RUNNING DOWN the long ridges of the Andes, we find practically everywhere in Latin America signs...
...Now he represents nothing more than personal ' government...
...Like other ambitious dictators, Peron understood how to attract the support of the gauchos of the pampas and of the "descamisados," the sansculottes of the cities...
...To counteract his growing unpopularity he has demoted Miguel Miranda, his economic adviser, and is preparing to rid himself of Evita...
...They go through series of countless motions to prevent movement...
...spectacular claims with regard to the Falkland Islands and Antarctica...
...The goings-on of Evita, the wife of the dictator, have roused the hypocritical prudery of army circles, which are after all the only aristocracy which the country has tver had...
...ej This last wave of strikes (printers, seamen, longshoremen) shows that the workers are at last getting fed up with the demagoguery of the Perons and that they would rather have money to buy shirts than have monuments erected along the parkways...
...ALL OF THIS HAS FORCED the Pink House (the White House of Argentina) to speed up its projects for spectacular activity in the field of foreign relations...
...Keeping .themselves far back in the shadows, and hoping that Peron—with their hypocritical aid—will be successful in keeping the continent neutral in case of war, they modestly avert their gaze from his faacistic enterprises, greedily grabbing, however, whatever profits they can garner froin his performance...
...The first act of the new government was to proclaim a five-year plan for the industrialization of the Argentine...
...Even republics which seemed solidly established on democratic foundations —such as Cuba, Mexico and Brazilhave been gradually abandoning their old social reforms and are veering toward-the right...
...PERON CONTROLLED...
...The military leaders had the country well in hand...
...These include: a plan for mutual aid among Latin American countries...
...But at the end of three years Peron's government is forced to exhibit constant victories in the foreign field in order to distract attention from its humiliating failures at home...
...In Costa Rica the democratic government is forced to take precautions to prevent its overthrow by rightist refugees from Panama...
...As this article is being written it is impossible to foresee which general will come to power...
...Active members of the Aprista Party are imprisoned in concentration camps, and the Communists, who act as political advisers to Colonel Odrida, regard with indifference the disappearance of various agrarian reforms decreed by the previous government...
...Their poor showing may be due to the number of irresponsible strikes and useless protest demonstrations which they called...
...At present the only persons who enjoy any ameliorization of their situation are the soldiers and some 700,000 employees of the state...
...This monopoly buys agricultural products at low prices from the producers, and resells them at what are practically black market prices in Europe...
...But now the army officers are discovering reasons for discontent with the Peron regime...
...Under the impulse of Peron's "gauchofascist" movement, Latin America runs the risk of reverting to the bad habits of militarism, venality and jingoistic demagogy...
...e e e The irritating maneuver* and counter-manauvars of Israel...
...This way of doing business is profitable to the Argentinian government, but it rouses against the Peron regime both the farmers of the Argentine and the consumers of the old world...
...economic control over Bolivia' and Paraguay...
...Morris B. Chapman...
...It took a live rat to rout S00 women at a Communist rally at Milan...
...It would have been a greater tribute to democracy if they had dispersed merely by smelling one...
...This situation, in addition to the lack of dollar credits, has made it impossible to go on with the program demagogically promised to the workers...
...The Bogota Insurrection in Colombia last year—which proved advantageous to the Communists—has been followed by guerrilla warfare between liberals and conservatives in the provinces...
...opposition to the Marshall Plan...
...In all this the Communists play a shameful part...
...intervention in political plots in Chile, Bolivia and Brazil...
...schemes for the formation of the ABC bloc (Argentine, Brazil, Chile) with a customs union...
...As a result of the black market prices at which Argentina was able to furnish supplies during the war, prosperity was at its height...
...ONLY ONE OPTIMISTIC NOTE can be recorded...
...In Chile the four parties of the left have emerged victorious in the elections...
...Recently Father J. M. Dunphy was removed from his parish because of his addresses against the Peron regime...
...It is hoped that this strip-tease will end without police action...
...a a a The conduct of the defense in the trial of ihe eleven US Communists shows how adept they are in retarding progress...
...In Peru the government of colonels refuses to grant safe conduct to the APRA chief, Raul Haya de la Torre, now a refugee in the Colombian embassy...
...Efforts to establish democratic, progressive governments have failed nearly everywhere...
...In Venezuela the military "government," which expelled Romulo Gallegos, has dispersed alUunions excepting those controlled by the Communists and has arrested hundreds of labor leaders (meanwhile, the Communist leaders Quintero and Miquelena collaborate with the government to break strikes conducted by underground unions...
...and finally, participation in the plan for the invasion of Costa Rica...
...Even the church is showing signs of turning away...
...RUNNING DOWN the long ridges of the Andes, we find practically everywhere in Latin America signs of the political decomposition of a continent...
...In Nicaragua an enemy of dictator Somoza—but a man with equally dictatorial ambitions—has offered 10,000 cordobas for the head of his rival...
...Pen Points The boredom that has settled over the Indian and Pakistani troops in the inactive Kashmir war points to a military truism...
...Their defeat was so decisive that in the region of Antofagasta, where they were previously all-powerful, their candidate obtained only 147 votes out el 17,000...
...In Salvador the deposed President, Castaneda Castro, is in prison charged with homicide...
...But it soon became evident that this ambitious "plan" was limited to the repurchase of the railways from England and France and the telephones from the Americans...
...And now we arrive finally at the cause of this retrogression of a continent—Buenos Aires...
...In Paraguay the coup d'etats follow 'one another every fortnight since the bloody civil war...
...The Conservative forces stood up well in some sections, but the Communists lost all along the line...
...To fceep from being bored yourself, you must drill the enemy with lead...
...Due to the enthusiasm generated by such external activities, Peron dared propose a revision of the constitution which would permit his re-election...
...Conditions were favorable to anti-Semitic and anti-gringo propaganda...
...The only thing which remains which may be represented as a plan, is the monopoly of foreign commerce by the government...
...THEN, an unbeatable combination: the cowboys of the plains, the workers of the towns, and the soldiers in the barracks...
...In Bolivia the partisans of Colonel Villarroel the pro-Axis military leader who was hanged three years ago as the result of a popular uprising, are laboring, with the help of Peru and Argentina, to overthrow the very moderate government of President Hertzog...
...support and even control of militaristic coup d'etats in Peru, Venezuela and Salvador...
...He utilized the results of forty years of anti-imperialist agitation by the forces of the left to attract the masses...
...This turning of the common people to the dictator was facilitated by the clustering of the liberals about the United States embassy...
...When Peron won the Argentine elections in February, 1946, by 1,474,000 votes to 1,207,000, the country had been subjected to a more or less disguised military dictatorship since 1930...
...TransJordan and England for • strip of land near Aqaba are giving the UN torn* bad momenta...
...As adroit as Franco, and like him owing his initial standing only to his alliance with reactionary forces, he finds himself obliged to throw overboard persons or ideas which embarrass him...
Vol. 32 • May 1949 • No. 19
