Carlos Altamirano Peronismo y Cultura de Izquierda (2001)

Introduction

Altamiranos book analyzes the struggle for the meaning of the

hecho peronista.
Cultura de izquierda: the meanings put together under the
concept of political culture (Sirinelli). Of course, this left culture
imported and adapted meanings coming from other zones
(syncretism). Of course, there is not a coherent, and free of

contradictions structure.
Political parties x political cults (El partido es inclusive, la secta

es exclusive, Coser, 1978).

The thesis concerning the relationships between esperanza
escatolgica and esperanza revolucionaria (16). Montoneros and
the radical catolicism: the same millenarist impulses and the
same feeling of debt to the people. La verdad que una parte
de la izquierda ideological buscar y solicitar del peronismo en
los sesenta y los primeros setenta no ser otra que la verdad de
esa clase salvadora (17).

Chapter 1 Una, dos, tres izquierdas ante el hecho peronista (19461955)

Peronism, in general, was on a first interpretation, seen by the

left as un movimiento tumultuario, associated with chaos,
political confusion and within the realm of the irrational;
parecan colocar el hecho social que estaba a la vista bajo el

signo de lo inclasificable (21).

Even if the economic policies were also constant contested, the
main attacks were concentrated on the political, cultural and
moral

realms

dictatorship,

clericalism,

demagogy,

adventurism, and corruption.

As Pern was governing for more time than those leftish groups
initially conceived he would, the expectations of recomposing
the relations between the minority of the left and the masses

Carlos Altamirano Peronismo y Cultura de Izquierda (2001)

was progressively moved to a post-Peronist future. Jos Luis
Romero (1956): Peronismo as a circumstantial (ephemeral)
political phenomenon. The important was in fact what was

under the surface, the social process of the masses.

The conundrum of the radical left: how to react to the popular

adhesion to the Peronist project?

Differences between the socialists and the communists in how

they interpreted the peronist phenomenon (25).

The elimination of the nazi-peronismo label, although this
change didnt impede the left militants and intellectuals of
pointing out fascist elements on Pers government. The
Communist

decided

to

support

the

politices

that

they

understood as positive, and to criticize the negative actions.

How to act politically at the immediate present without fall in
deviations either a sectary one, that leads to a systematic
opposition, or an opportunistic one, that leads to the peronist

assimilation (29).
clula ferroviaria; Clase Obrera; Rodolfo Puiggrs. Move the
dichotomy from peronismo y antiperonismo to el campo
antiimperialista y el proimperialista. This new generation of
intellectuals advocated that Perns needed them to complete el
rbol de la doctrina justicialista; that group of intellectuals
seemed to be developing what Altamirano conceptualized as
nacionalismo marxista, and that would be more crystallized in
the 60s and 70s (32). Lucha simblica, cada representacin del
peronismo iba asociada a prescripciones polticas que podan
reducirse, en el lmite, a los terminus de una disyuntiva: o se
apostaba a la desperonizacin ms o menos prxima de
las masas o haba que unirse al peronismo, donde estaban
las

masas.

Como

si

voluntad

representacin

fueran

indisociables, para socialistas y comunistas (que, con variantes,

se identifi caron con la primera alternativa), el peronismo deba

Carlos Altamirano Peronismo y Cultura de Izquierda (2001)

verse como un hecho circunstancial; para quienes haran la
segunda

apuesta,

el

hecho

peronista

era

(o

deba

ser

interpretado como) una etapa de la revolucin nacional que

llevaba al socialism (33). Peronismo would be a stage in the

national revolution that would eventually lead to socialism.

Another similar variation of this interpretation was the trotskits
bonapartismo.

Chapter 4 Peronismo y cultura de izquierda en la Argentina (19551965)

The

Revolucin

Libertadora

didnt impede that

peronism

became in the main actor in the ten years following 1955,

attracting

discourses

from

several

different

and

distant

ideological types that tried to define its nature.

The left and the association of peronism with fascism. Only after
February 24, 1946 and their electoral defeat, that the Socialists
and Communists understood they had been pushed to the

periphery of the mundo obrero (64).

Again, the difference between socialists and communists, with
the last pursuing a broad democratic coalition. At first, the
revisionismo was built in tension with the two biggest left
parties, the PS and the PC; however, inside and outside the left
there was a growing understanding that peronismo had built a
substantial something in the national reality, and thus, it was
important to question its historical formation, both its recent
and its more remote history. PS and PC as secondary forces in
the political game; the left was more relevant ideologically and
culturally (middle class/urban sectors); ideological questioning
about their legitimacy to represent the working class. The
discursive production of the revisionist pole of the leftish
culture; la resignificacin del peronismo se encaden a una

Carlos Altamirano Peronismo y Cultura de Izquierda (2001)

actividad de resignificacin ms general, que se imprimira en el
campo de la izquierda corroyendo, y finalmente desplazando
hacia el pasado o hacia el reino del error, representaciones

durante mucho tiempo dominantes en ese campo (68).

The generational factor (73).
vision retrospective: it didnt inspire a program, but it
reinforced an identity, and a model of reference; the identity of
peronismo, both to the radical left and to the peronista
union laborers, was located always in the past, where it

was its positivity (78).

The interpretation and investigation of the past became a key
element in politics. The revisionistas were more inspired by

some marxisms: Leninism; trotskism; bonapartism.

The difference between the traditional left and this new
generation: peronismo now seen as a moment in a long road. In
addition to this more influent revisionism based on stronger
marxisms, there was the influence of neomarxism (Sartre,
Merleau-Ponty,
political

Gramsci),

philosophy.

Puiggrs.
The common

facts,

Jorge

antimechanicist/more
Abelardo

themes

and

Ramos

key

based

and

arguments

on

Rodolfo
of

the

revisionists: the discussion about the industrialization and the

changes in the socioeconomic structures (how to reconcile the
image of decaying of the dcada infame with the image of
socioeconomic modernization, which would have brought the
industrial

Argentina

and

new

classes

that

didnt

find

representation spaces in the traditional established order?); the

military

nationalism

(now

seen

as

the

manifestation

of

industrialist and anti-imperialist trends in the realm of the army;

there, the right-wing nationalism would have only a transitory
and partial presence; Pern would have transformed the elitist

Carlos Altamirano Peronismo y Cultura de Izquierda (2001)

inclinations of that movement, pursuing the support of the

working class masses to towards social justice (89).

The October 17, 1945 and the new interpretation about it. The
Unin Democrtica action and choices now seen as historical

mistakes that made the left distant from the masses.

The old quarrel about peronism and fascism; En fin, el
peronismo se inscriba as de otro modo en el cuadro del gran
relato marxista: no como un retroceso, ni como una desviacin
del camino que llevaba a la clase obrera a la realizacin de su
ser,

sino

como

un

tramo

del

camino,

el

tramo

de

la

nacionalizacin de la conciencia obrera (95).

Ya indicamos al pasar que, al fijar las claves para la
interpretacin adecuada del peronismo, se resituaban, en
concomitancia, por decirlo as, otras significaciones: la del
liberalismo inscripto en el sistema de dominacin semicolonial
del pas y la del nacionalismo al que se desagregaba en
nacionalismos de diferentes valencias. Ms an: el "hecho
peronista" slo poda ser verdaderamente comprendido sobre el
fondo de la dependencia y el problema nacional, claves que, a su
vez, iluminaban una historia ms larga, la del pueblo-nacin y la

de las elites polticas e intelectuales (96).

En suma: a partir de 1955 el peronismo comenzara a operar
como un reordenador de las significaciones de la cultura de
izquierda, y una parte creciente de ella se orientar a la
bsquedadel encuentro de socialismo y nacin o, dicho de otro
modo, de un nacionalismo de izquierda (97).

Other points

Similarly to the later Hecho Maldito by Acha and Quiroga,

Altamirano focus his work on a epistemological analysis about
peronismo.