The Return of the Sphinx: State Fetishism and Political Discourse in Peronist Argentina

Peron’s return to Argentina in 1973 was staged as a masterpiece of political rhetoric. This was the point of departure for a new Argentina built on myths of the past, but Peron was going to become the victim of his own rhetorical success. His virtuosity of the 50s in managing and hiding contradictions behind personal cult is not there anymore. A characterization of the political and rhetorical content of that event is used as the threshold for a study of the political uses of fetishism in Peronist discourse and different “texts” related to it.