J. Lat. Amer. Stud.

3 5, 311-339 © 2003 Cambridge University Press 311

DOI: 10.1017 / S00222126X03006734 Printed in the United Kingdom

From Peron’s 1946 election victory to the present the hostility between supporters and
5 opponents of Perón has been a recurrent feature of recent Argentine political history.
Numerous attempts have been made to explain Peronism, a phenomenon that appeared
to change all the previously established rules of politics in the country, provoking many
intellectual battles regarding its origins and the characteristics which facilitated its
subsequent consolidation in power1. In recent years new readings of Peronism have
10 given rise to an ongoing and lively historiographic debate2. However, the almost ten
years during which Perón was in power cannot be defined with reference only to means
of exercising power and new relationships between the state and certain sectors of
society, but must also be understood in terms of the ideas, actions and conflicts of
those who opposed him. Peronism generated political opposition and redefined the
15 adversary for the parties that had traditionally competed on the Argentine political
stage. We cannot speak of Peronism and anti-Peronism as the irreconcilable political
dichotomy in Argentina without knowing how and why anti-Peronism arose or under-
standing the political strategies and behavior that identified it as an opposition.
20 This article focuses on what happened to Radicals and socialists during the Peronist
period, and presents a political history of opposition to the government. The extremist
accusations leveled by anti-Peronists immediately after the civilian and military
movement that overthrew Perón in 1955 should be treated with caution. These
accusations, which were designed to discredit each and every government action and
25 political leader in the Peronist decade, became the foundation of many historical
interpretations since refuted. They also defined subsequent critical arguments which
explained the polarization of Argentine political life exclusively in terms of Peronism
and anti-Peronism. Following Peron’s downfall, anti-Peronist intellectuals pointed to
the restrictions he placed on dissidence as evidence for the regime's supposed
30 totalitarian aspirations. However, such an interpretation allows little space for
examination of the political opposition of the period. I n fact, the successive
governments headed by Perón attempted to preserve, in one way or another, certain

Marcela García Sebastian is a Research Fellow in the Department of Historia del Pensamiento
y de los Movimientos Sociales y Políticas II, Facultad de Ciencias Políticas y Sociología,
Universidad Complutense de Madrid.
1
For a bibliography of Peronism see L. Horvath (ed.), A Half Century of Peronism, 19 43-1993: An
International Bibliography (Stanford, 1993). For the different interpretations of Peronism from its
overthrow in 1955 until the end of 1980s, see Mariano Plotkin, 'Perón y el peronismo: un ensayo
bibliográfico, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe, vol. 2, no. 1 (199I), pp 113-35.
2
Among the most interesting studies in the last decade are: J. C. Torre, La vieja guardia sindical y Perón
sobre los orígenes del peronismo (Buenos Aires, 1990); J. Horowitz, Argentine Unions, The
 J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 3 5, 311-339 © 2003 Cambridge University Press 311
DOI: 10.1017 / S00222126X03006734 Printed in the United Kingdom

legitimizing facets of political pluralism. The country's republican institutions were

maintained: Congress and the Judiciary continued to function, elections were held at
35 national, provincial and (despite an initial delay) municipal levels. Perón himself won
two consecutive free elections in which opposition parties also participated, despite
rules of representation which placed them at a disadvantage. Although Peron’s margins
of victory in national elections gradually increased following his narrow victory in
1946, the opposition vote never fell below 30 per cent during this period. This clearly
40 indicates not only that the opposition represented a real alternative, but also that the
political and social life of Argentina between 1946 and 1955 cannot be reduced simply
to the emergence and consolidation of Peronism. Moreover, Peronism did not reduce
its opponents' political space in the same way as did those totalitarian regimes with
which it has often been compared. Government and opposition enjoyed sufficient
45 legitimacy to enable political competition. Moreover, while political opposition may be
worthy of attention in itself, examination of the type of relationship that exists between
government and opposition is central to analysis of any political regime. Although it
accounts for only a relatively short period of Argentine political history, Peronism did
not remain unchanged throughout the decade. The opposition's relationship with the
50 government and the former's room for maneuver shifted between 1946 and 1948 and
1949-1952, and again between 1952 and 1955. It is true that limitations were placed
on dissident opinion throughout this period, but this does not mean they were always
of the same intensity, or that Peronism did not attempt to observe certain democratic
rules which commanded increased international support after the fall of fascism.