Eva Peron

[Tovarisch]

Can we get a left-wing interpretation of Eva Peron?

I saw the movie recently (which was crappy, BTW), but out of curiosity, I googled her. It seems as if she contributed to the feminist's cause a lot, and established a welfare system in Argentina, which sounds fantastic. She had working-class roots, and was very popular with the public. On the other hand, her husband was authoritarian. Was she good for Argentina, or bad?

[GoddessCleoLover]

Peronism at best has been a reformist phenomena in Argentina, and in his old age Juan Domingo Peron revealed himself to be completely reactionary. The best one can say about Evita is that she seems have been a sincere feminist, although again of a reformist sort. There are also some extremely ugly facets to the careers of the Perons that involved corruption, and specifically allowing Nazi fugitives to settle in Argentina in exchange for bribes. On balance, bad not good.

[Os Cangaceiros]

They benefited from the revolutionary syndicalist movement (which in Argentina was very powerful for a time) being violently smashed. It wasn't smashed during their tenure, but that was definitely the backdrop against which they rose to power, a defeated worker's movement. In place of the battered worker's movement they introduced class collaboration and nationalism.