Page 23 - Social Science.docx

Future of Argentina
jumped 25 percent in 1947 and 24 percent in 1948, all at the expense of landowners because the government monopoly bought products at low fixed prices.11
He appealed to nationalist sentiments by reducing foreign influences. In 1948, the British railways were nationalized as were the US owned telephone company and French owned dock facilities. By 1947, Argentina’s entire foreign debt was paid off. By 1948, social justice was being accomplished, the political opposition was demoralized and humiliated; it seemed that the “New Argentina” he promised was accomplished.12
Another crucial factor which allowed Peron to maintain his political dominion over Argentina for so long was his marriage to Eva Peron. Being born in poverty, and moving into the city with the waves of members of the lower class looking for jobs, Eva Peron was a member of the exact group that her future husband was pooling support for, one of the native born, impoverished, who had moved to the capital. Marysa Navarro, Eva Peron began listening and understanding the politics of the time, and she grew to defend the policies that Juan Peron was fighting for as well.13 She became an image to the country, and an image to the working class, that through the support of Peron’s policies, they could achieve a sense of social-economical stability, like “Evita” had done.14 After amending the constitution to allow a second term, he proposed Evita to be his vice presidential candidate. Evita was diagnosed with cancer and, in 1953, died.15 Even in death she remained the inspiration for Peron’s followers.
11 Skidmore, Smith, and Green, Modern Latin America, p. 259
12Skidmore, Smith, and Green, Modern Latin America, p. 260
13Peter Smith, "Social Mobilization, Political Participation, and the Rise of Juan Peron," Political Science Quarterly 84, no. 1 (March 1969), p. 35
14 Marysa Navarro, "The Case of Eva Perón," Women and National Development: The Complexities of Change 3, no. 1 (Fall 1977), p. 232,
15 Skidmore, Smith, Green, Modern Latin America, p. 262
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