ABSTRACT
Middle-class secondary mobilization took a very different course. It was not absorbed by preexisting mechanisms of integration and could therefore exercise its full impact. The Argentine case presents a number of similarities and certain crucial differences which explain the repeated failures to establish a classic fascist regime, and the success of Peronism. Fascism and national populism, while remaining essentially distinct phenomena with regard to the position of the lower classes, especially when one considers their function or main objective, emerge together from socio-historical backgrounds that have many similarities and thus endow them with shared elements. One of the aspects of middle-class behavior which has especially drawn the attention of scholars is its "irrationality" with regard to fascism and nazism, particularly in the petite bourgeoisie. The political policy of the regimes which followed early Peronism was based on the possibility of a de-Peronization of the popular masses, similar to the denazification that the allies had planned for Germany.
