General Confederation of Labour

The General Confederation of Labour is portrayed as both a mass-mobilizing force and a pillar of Juan Perón’s government. It helps turn the workers’ demand for Perón’s release into a decisive public demonstration, then becomes part of the state apparatus he builds. Its changing role connects the popular support behind Peronism with the regime’s growing control of public institutions and media.

Mobilization and Perón’s Return

In September 1945, conservative opposition and divisions within the military culminate in Perón’s forced resignation and arrest. The General Confederation of Labour leads his supporters—workers, unionists, and the underprivileged—in a march to May Square in Buenos Aires. In front of the presidential palace, they demand his release and return to power. The account places the union at the center of this collective intervention: it gives organized form to a constituency whose action challenges the military decision to remove Perón. Perón marries Eva Perón and wins the presidency a few months later, following the mobilization.

Incorporation into the Peronist State

Once Perón is president, the General Confederation of Labour supports the government’s effort to alter Argentina’s colonial agricultural society. Perón strengthens public services with its support and integrates the national union into the state apparatus. The union’s position therefore changes from leading a street mobilization against Perón’s arrest to helping sustain a governing project that promises growth, self-sufficiency, pride, and dignity. The book presents this partnership as a central mechanism of Peronist rule, linking organized labor to the administration’s program of nationalization and expanded public provision.

Social Outreach and Political Visibility

The union also appears within the broad network of Peronist public activity surrounding Eva Perón. She receives trade union delegates, visits hospitals and factories, and distributes practical assistance through her foundation, whose stated beneficiaries include the poor and other underprivileged people. These activities place labor representatives alongside the regime’s highly visible appeals to popular welfare. The General Confederation of Labour is not described as the sole organizer of this outreach; rather, its presence among the delegates shows its connection to the political relationship the Peróns cultivate with workers and their communities.

Political Instrument and Contradictions

The account also associates the union with the consolidation of an authoritarian order. As the regime intensifies propaganda and suppresses dissent, the newspaper La Prensa is closed and expropriated, then transformed into an instrument for the General Confederation of Labour. This episode sets its institutional influence beside the government’s censorship and political repression. The union thus occupies a dual place in the narrative: it is the organized labor force that helps bring Perón back to power and a state-connected institution whose name and reach become part of the regime’s political machinery.