On New Year’s Day, to mark the opening of the “Year of St. Martin the Liberator,” President Perón made a speech in which he offered “the peoples of the world the benefits of a doctrine that has solved our problems.” He spoke of the new Argentine system as “socially just, economically free, politically sovereign” and presented it as the third position, “neither capitalism nor Communism,” that could bring peace to mankind.

As a proof of the purity of his intentions the recently constituted Commission for Investigating Anti-Argentine Activities has recently published a list of forty-five newspapers closed through its efforts. The two greatest papers in Argentina – La Prensa and La Nación – are being sued for libel by the President for carrying in their columns reports of an attack on the President’s integrity by an Opposition deputy. Both have long been under pressure from the Government, which controls all supplies of newsprint and is using its power to compel subservience.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Juan Perón, and his wife, Eva Perón saluting a demonstration in their honour at Buenos Aires, 1951. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images

At the same time Perón has been violently attacking the Opposition “oligarchy” in speeches to the workers on whose votes he depends. He claims it is supported by “foreign imperialism.” This would be more convincing if he did not include Conservatives, Radicals, Socialists, and Communists under the one heading.

The truth is that though Perón is still firmly in power his position has deteriorated in the last year. There has been labour unrest due to the rising cost of living; the farmers, who have been neglected by the government are dissatisfied; and even the exporters are finding profits less easy to make than they were. Within the party, encouraged by these difficulties, the extreme nationalists seem to be gaining strength and with them the military clique. They may have gathered the President to them. The growing raucousness of the regime is not, therefore, altogether surprising. It is when things begin to go wrong that a demagogic dictatorship becomes obviously the evil it is.