IS PERSON'S STAR SETTING?
Porter, David
Is Peron's Star Setting? Only a War Can Save His Discredited Dictatorship By David Porter MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay. PERON SEES THE WORLD through war-tinted glasses. He hopes for war, he counts on...
...But he may have paid too high a price, in the sense that social forces have been unleashed which in the end he may not be able to control...
...Very few trouble themselves to make this verification...
...Peron often had this two-page paper imitated so successfully that it is difficult to determine whether one is in possession of the real thing or not...
...His strength lies in the working class...
...or by the propertied classes, who find h,lm too expensive...
...Else the elimination of Peron will be accomplished not by them, but by the army, which finds him too personally ambitious...
...We wear ties...
...Peron's favorite technique is to spread confusion...
...not a penny remains...
...The legitimate needs and aspirations of the workers have been met, often at the expense of the economy as a whole...
...David Porta* i* tha ptaudonrm of an Amarlcaa Journaliat piaaanllf tevaJing through South America...
...So he also publishes papers that in type and format look exactly like the genuine organs of the Socialist party...
...They have demonstrated repeatedly their ability to elicit almost unanimous "ayes" from grumbling workers...
...but the description, unfortunately, is all too accurate...
...But having said this, the speakers continued with angry tirades against conditions, prices, government red-tape and thievery, the army, the secret police...
...The meeting went without interference...
...In Argentina, where industrialization did not come until the 1920's...
...There are many ways in which votes can be forced in an election, despite the new Constitution's formal guarantees...
...FOR THE PRESENT it would not be true to state that should there be another election Peron would be defeated, The people may be awakening, but howv many it is difficult to judge...
...But once the p*1neh comes,which may be quite soon, the workers may elect to fight rather than sit back and watch their benefits being taken from them...
...In them actual socialist doctrine is voiced—and then the rapier thrust: a howling down of the United States, a denunciation of the UN,and aboveall.a gutter-language abuse (ostensibly from- the Socialist' party) of the leaders of centrist and liberal parties...
...Peron literally bought the support of the workers...
...Argentina's industrial plant, a little more than twenty years old, is already antiquated...
...To the big question—"Why did you vote for Peron...
...What sets him apart, however, is his clever adaptation of the methods of fascism to the social and political climate of the pampas...
...The pound sterling balance was even greater...
...Imports are totally, stopped...
...ARGENTINA IB NOT YET the Italy of Mussolini...
...The dollars and pounds that should have gone to modernize it have been expended on army planes, trucks, guns . . . and graft—after agriculture and industry, one of Argentina's major occupations...
...True, he praters the rapier thrust to the leaded blackjack...
...Blessed by nature, the Argentine people still eat the world's richest diet...
...Peron'e apparatus has a strong grip on the country...
...more than openly complain or stubbornly resist: they are object lessons...
...but their doors have been closed...
...The Socialists publish a clandestine newspaper, La Vanguardia, which is sent through the mails, always with another false return address...
...The Brazilian cruzeiro, and the Chilean and Uruguayan peso were held in Argentina's favor, for these countries are natural markets for Argentine beef and manufactured goods...
...Thus the Socialists, the authentic, principled opposition to Peron, even held an open air mass rally the night before May Day in front of their imposing headquarters...
...He has little to fear from the Socialists in the matter of mass support...
...Its teeth have been pulled, its thunder stolen, its program distorted and demagogically applied, its mass base seduced and prostituted...
...Peronismo has levied tribute on the classes,it rose to protect—the agricultural barons and the industrial princes -—to pay the bill...
...In thu respect Peron differs little from tha traditional Hispano-American militarist type of ruler...
...Inflation is siphoning off the new-found prosperity of the working and lower middle classes...
...He hopes for war, he counts on war...
...thek criticism of Peron was sharp and biting...
...Last May Day Peron spoke before nearly 500,000...
...To keep the lid down...
...Peron's hand is- forced...
...But the workers will have to move fast...
...The army produced Colonel, later General, and now President Juan Peron...
...The fact remains that the masses put Peron into power, though now—at least in enlightened Buenos Aires — th« people are bitter, disillusioned and if raid...
...The reasons are two-fold: Peronismo has failed.as an export commodity...
...The blunt fact is that'the "New Argentina" is broke, though her granaries, warehouses and abbatoirs bulge with food...
...Public opinion in Argentina is not ready to accept to open a flouting of democratic procedures...
...These are the men who voted for Peron, seduced by his demagoguery, although several tartly reminded me that in the December 1948 elections 40 per cent of the people voted against Peron—each claimed he belonged to the 40 per cent...
...not prominent leaders but rather obscureworkers who had done no...
...In any case, no more than 4,000 people attended the Socialist rally...
...I spoke to factory workers, dock workers and packing-plant workers...
...Two years ago it enjoyed a war-swollen balance of well over $1 billion...
...If wages are high and the paper peso plentiful, prices are much higher...
...INFLATION SETTLED on the economy almost a year ago and the end is not yet...
...The metaphors are mixed...
...the struggle for control of the economy between the old agricultural dynasty and the industrial community has never had a chance to come to a head...
...The internal flooding, however, still gives off the illusory luster of national well-being...
...Straddling both camps, but favoring industrialization, is the army, wich considers itself above the state...
...there was almost always the same sheepish answer...
...only war can save Argentina from disaster...
...The "third position" between the United States and Russia that constituted Juan Peron's "big thought," and that he hoped to establish under the aegis of Argentina among the weaker and poorer nations of Hispano-America, simply has not materialized...
...Meanwhile the economy starves for lack of basic machinery...
...It seems that before Peron the word, trabajador, (in the language of the Argentine, Iter ally, laborer) was an uncomplimentary expression, but now .. . "You see," I was told, "now we have dignity...
...Which it will actually be, remains to be seen...
...neither side is yet powerful enough to impose its will on the other...
...He has his own party papers, but they are little read...
...But clearly hard times are ahead...
...On this issue Peron must go slow...
...Here and there, outspoken or troublesome oppositionists have disappeared, never to be heard from again...
...In short,* he gives the Socialists rope the better to hang his other opponents...
...Only by presenting a given copy at Socialist headquarters can one be certain...
...I heard all the prominent Socialists speak...
...most of that has vanished...
...The Socialist party today is a skeleton party...
...True, many thousands were afraid to come, since the secret, police attend such affairs en masse...
...We can afford to ride in taxis...
...But a decade or so ago the Socialist May Day celebration in Buenos Aires attracted over 100,000 workers...
...exports are a mere trickle...
...Gpods of almost every description are disappearing from the market and cannot be replaced...
...Peron is simply the product of Argentina's unresolved social and economic conflict—a conflict that in the United States was settled by our Civil War...
...The result is serious political quarreling and atomization of the opposition before the trick is uncovered...
...I SPOKE TO WAITERS in several of Buenos Aites' innumerable cafes...
...For, while Peron balances off 4he power of the agricultural dynasts against that of the industrialists, and exacts tribute from-both, he has based himself on neither...
...From such situations social revolutions develop (unlikely) or fascist terror deepens (very likely...
...Not until the working class has had a few more rude shocks, as Argentina's economic crisis deepens, can Peron's star be expected to Bet...
...Peronisino, as a political phenomenon, is not difficult to grasp if one glances back at recent Argentine history...
...On the trade union level, Peronista strong-arm gangs are in tight control of the CGT...
...It is no longer easy to conceal the mounting discontent of the people...
...The third and most important reason why Peron leaves the Socialists alone (relatively speaking), is that he needs them to prove that his regimo is democratic, not fascist...
...But more and more he is beginning to use small dosea of force and terrorism, even though the source must still remain hidden...
...The prominent . £io thus far protected by that very fact...
...They realize that they have an old-man-of-the-sea on their shoulders end that they cannot dislodge him...
...What's more, he is vicious and cunning, capable of hurting them...
...A social revolution is gathering steam in Argentina...
...it is a worse failure at home...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 25
