Organizing souls... Until We Are All Peronists - Analysis of Perón's Discourse on Politics between 1944 and 1955-

Abstract

In this paper, the author tries to clarify the meaning of politics in the peronist ideology, specially analyzing the speeches of his leader, Juan Domingo Perón, between 1944 and 1955, considering that this is one of the subjects less analyzed in the works about peronism and that the concept of politics is essential to understand the others excerpts of the ideology. The repudiation of the politics of the past, the politics ofthe oligarchy and the political parties connected with it, allows Perón to recognize a physical politics -the politics of conflict and division-, and he rebuilds this kind ofpolitics from the peronist movement point of view, understood as a new struggle between peronist andanti-peronist, patriots and anti-patriots. Perón detests anarchy and that's why he hates diversity and refuses pluralism; identifying peronism with Nation, he tries to put into the citizens' consciousness the idea of the people unity. The establishment of the doctrinaire unity is his next step, transferring the doctrine from the Peronist Movement to the all Nation: with the help of the Five Year Second Plan, the peronism became the national doctrine which was imposed as the argentine essence to the whole body of citizens. Assimilating peronism and Patria (homeland), Perón converts the peronist doctrine in the womb that gives rise twin souls, peronist souls. Concluding his project, Perón appeals to a technical concept of politics -politics as organization of the Nation and the citizens' souls-, guided by the special virtues of the leader; organization by the means of the State, conceived as an efficient machine that only had compassion for the poor. In the conclusion the author suggests the importance of studying peronism as an ideology that supports a politics of homogeneous consciousness, a civic or political religion.