Technically Perón was more like a Fascist than a Socialist, modeling his dictatorship fairly closely on that of his friend Mussolini, but especially in later years Peronism adopted Socialist political positions to an even greater extent than the earlier Fascist parties had. Still, the right-wing death squads hunting down and killing Socialists in Perón's later years were Peronists. So were their victims, but Perón ultimately backed the former rather than the latter.

Kirchner-era Peronism, though just as thoroughly based on social-justice rhetoric as Perón ever was, never approached its level of state enterprises like the Justicialist car and IAPI; despite renationalization of Aerolíneas, YPF, and the pension system, there was no Kirchnerist equivalent of Airbus, Ariane, or Systembolaget. So recent Peronism is far less Socialist in practice even than current France and Sweden, much less Bolshevik Russia.