Orthodox Peronism
Orthodox Peronism, Peronist Orthodoxy, 'National Justicialism', was a faction within Peronism, a political movement in Argentina that adheres to the ideology and legacy of Juan Perón. Orthodox Peronists claim to represent the original policies of Perón, and reject any association with Marxism or any other left-wing ideologies. Some of them were aligned with far-right elements. Orthodox Peronism also referred to the Peronist trade union faction that split from the “62 organizations" and that opposed the “legalists", who were more moderate and pragmatic. They were also known as “the hardliners", “the 62 standing with Perón" and they maintained an orthodox and verticalist stance. Orthodox Peronism had been in several conflicts with the Tendencia Revolucionaria, for example during the Ezeiza massacre.
Origin of the denomination
The term "orthodox Peronism" emerged during the Peronist resistance following the 1955 coup, a period when historical revisionism took hold, deepening the connection between Peronism and nationalism. While the Peronist government had some ties with nationalists, it had not embraced a revisionist historical view, and the nationalists did not play a dominant role in government policy. American historian Michael A. Burdick wrote that despite the nationalist support for Perón, he did not embrace their ideology, sidelined them in favor of the trade unions and dissident socialists; the Peronist administration even dissolved some of the nationalist organizations. According to Burdick, "Nationalism of the Right died with the rise of Perón." It was only after 1955, amidst the context of resistance and under the influence of nationalist thought, that orthodox Peronism began to take shape, in which nationalists reappropriated and redefined key elements of Perón’s original discourse.This convergence was fraught with tensions. The most intransigent and uncompromising sectors of Peronism emerged during this time, rejecting any form of negotiation with the government. These groups distanced themselves from the more conciliatory tendencies that arose within Peronism in the 1960s, including the neoperonist and vandorist factions. When referring to the traditional orthodox current, it is important to recognize a coalition of unions and organizations that, despite their loyalty to Peronist verticality, initially opposed leaders like Rodolfo Ponce and right-wing unionism. Many of these union leaders gained their influence during the labor conflicts of the early 1960s, such as the "Plan de Huerta Grande" and the "Plan de Lucha" in 1964. This orthodox faction was largely represented by the Secretaries of the AEC and the UOM, supported by unions with large memberships, though they wielded limited political influence at the time.
Peronism underwent a profound transformation during the campaign "Luche y Vuelve", which culminated in Perón's return to power in 1973. Tensions between the union sectors and the Peronist left, which had backed Cámpora’s government, escalated when Perón took office. The far-left faction of Peronism represented by the Montoneros entered a conflict with the Peronist trade unions, which forced Perón to give concessions to labour bureaucracy and act against the left-wing Peronists, given the threat of trade unions turning against Perón. According to Ronaldo Munck, Perón did not differ from Tendencia Revolucionaria in terms of economic ideology, but rather mass mobilisation: "The purely anti-imperialist and anti-oligarchic political programme of the Montoneros was not incompatible with Peron's economic project of "national reconstruction", but their power of mass mobilisation was."
According to Donald C. Hodges, "three forces contended for Peron's ear during his third government and for his mantle after he died: montonerismo on the Left, lopezreguismo on the Right, and vandorismo in the Center." Montoneros refused to ally themselves with the vandorist trade unions in order to isolate López, seeing their relationship with the labor bureaucracy as antagonistic instead. This led to López faction successfully aligning itself with the Peronist trade unions. The traditional Peronist sectors—union orthodoxy and right-wing Peronists—formed a verticalist alliance that established a new Peronist orthodoxy. This group sought to marginalize and suppress the left-wing faction of the movement, which held onto its revolutionary ideals.
Orthodox Peronism from this point onward came to represent the factions that, in the name of verticalism, opposed any alignment with Marxism or the Peronist left. Those loyal to Perón's wife, Isabel Martínez de Perón, began to identify themselves as orthodox Peronists, defending the "Peronist homeland" against the "socialist homeland" advocated by the left-wing Revolutionary Tendency. During Raúl Lastiri’s interim presidency and after Perón’s death, this new orthodox coalition used both institutional and extralegal means to push out and marginalize the left-wing heterodoxy, which included leftist Peronists and their aligned governors and officials. Hodges argues that while López's influence over Isabel's government is often exaggerated, the left-wing and centrist factions of Peronism often fought each other, and pursued "a policy of armed confrontation with Isabel Peron, whereas the correct strategy would have been to focus on their common enemy, the Lopezreguist conspiracy. This led to increased political violence within the Peronist movement, further aggravated by armed guerrilla activities, marking one of the most violent periods in Argentina’s history.
Other Peronist factions - left-wing Peronists, trade unions, and even previously pro-López groups, started opposing Isabel's government. This prompted Isabel to declare a "state of siege" against the protests and clashes, though she did not outlaw the Montoneros or ban the trade union militias. Isabel-López administration clashed not only with Peronist-socialist guerillas, but also with "students, left-leaning intellectuals
and artists, trade union leaders, journalists, lawyers". Peronist trade unions became a focal point of the opposition to the Isabel government - as López's efforts to control trade unions faltered, the CGT organized mass demonstrations the national, general strike in July 1975. The union militancy led to the dismissal of López, but by then Isabel found herself isolated and unpopular, and the military plotted and executed a coup against her to prevent the victorious Peronist trade unions from taking power.
Ideology
Until 1973
Initially, orthodox Peronism encompassed those Peronist sectors that followed the Peronist ideals to the letter and opposed the neo-Peronist sectors of the time, as Perón expressed in his speeches:It was mainly organized under the orthodox union leadership. This traditional orthodoxy was part of the National Transference Table.
Since 1973
With the return of Perón, Orthodox Peronism positioned itself against the revolutionary youth sectors of Peronism and the "Homeland Socialist", which it considered alien to the movement; and the reaffirmation of its position in the Third World, distancing itself from both United States and the Soviet Union. It also opposed Perón's ideological declaration from the 1970s, such as his Peronism "is one form of socialism", and that "Marxism is not only not in contradiction with the Peronist Movement, but complements it".Perón himself did not consider right-wing Peronists as "orthodox" or the most loyal faction; up to 1973, Perón supported the left-wing "special formations" of Peronism and denigrated several men who would later claim the label of Orthodox Peronism. Juan Luis Besoky writes that in fact many Orthodox Peronists were either newcomers to the Peronist movement, or were reluctant to follow Perón's directives, contrary to their label. Even following Perón's conflict with the Montoneros between 1973 and 1974, he did not desire to abandon the Peronist left and sought to restore his trust in his last speech from June 1974, where he denounced "the oligarchy and the pressures exerted by imperialism upon his government", considered an implication that he was being manipulated by the Peronist right.
The term of right-wing Peronism is included within the parameter of the orthodoxy, but not only, since the term could denote old Justicialists or centrists/centre-rightists who simply wanted to distance themselves from the postulates of the tendency. The distinction of the orthodox organizations of "far right" obeys to that these last ones assumed the fight against the Marxist advance within the Peronist movement through the armed violence, with a marked antisemitic, anticommunist and antisynarchist bias. According to Lourdes Murri, right-wing Peronism asserted itself against the "Marxist infiltration" of the revolutionary tendency, although right-wing Peronists did not necessarily consider themselves orthodox Peronists. It was another significant expression that designated all those actors located in the so-called Peronist right; but that, ultimately, went beyond it since it could also include the centrist or moderate sectors of Peronism. It was neither more nor less than his quintessential opponent: the Peronist Orthodoxy. Fascism was also a qualification that some groups were seen as adhering to, such as the Nationalist Liberation Alliance and the Tacuara Nationalist Movement. Both Isabel Perón and José López Rega were accused of having shown tuning for fascism or falangism; López was also part of the Masonic lodge Propaganda Due, led by the fascist Licio Gelli. Isabel Perón was seen performing the roman salute, characteristic of the movements akin to fascism.
Others scholars dispute the fascist nature of Orthodox Peronism - Hodges argues that unlike military regimes in Chile or Brazil, Orthodox Peronism continued to favor a policy of aligning with the Third World, represented a social pact of nationalist sectors with organized labor rather than being "intent on destroying the labor movement through an alliance with imperialism", and had more in common with the "Mexican model of authoritative democracy than with the military repressive regimes in Latin America". This led Hodges to argue that rather than being a form of fascism, it was "an alternative to a fascist model". Likewise, Goran Petrovic Lotina and Théo Aiolfi wrote that "Peronism was never a form of fascism during Juan Perón's first presidencies. Nor was Peronism fascistic in its subsequent incarnations over the past seventy-five years from the 1970s revolutionary leftist Montonero guerilla organization to the neoliberal centre-right presidency of Carlos Menem."
Economically, the López faction of Orthodox Peronism showed neoliberal profiles and appointed as minister of economy Celestino Rodrigo, who applied an ultra-liberal economic program vulgarly known as "Rodrigazo".