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Title: Anarchism in Argentina Author: Chuck Morse Date: 2009 Language: en Topics: Argentina, history Source: Morse, Chuck. “Anarchism, Argentina.” In The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present, edited by Immanuel Ness, 101–105. Vol. 1. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Gale eBooks (accessed June 22, 2021).
Argentine anarchists built one of the largest, most dynamic anarchist
movements in the world and played a pivotal role in that country’s
history from the 1890s to the 1930s. Though their numbers are greatly
reduced today, traces of the movement’s heyday are evident in the
Argentine state’s corporatist commitments and in a highly egalitarian
counterculture.
The first anarchist groups formed in Argentina in the 1870s, galvanized
by refugees from the Paris Commune and the arrival of anarchist
literature from Spain, Italy, France, and other countries. French
immigrants founded a section of the First International in Buenos Aires
in 1872, and Italian and Spanish sections appeared shortly thereafter.
Reflecting factional struggles that would split the organization
internationally, the French section embraced Marx’s views, whereas the
Spaniards and Italians identified with Bakunin; the latter dominated
among Argentine anarchists after 1876.
Anarchist ranks soon experienced substantial growth, thanks to the waves
of European immigrants who began landing on Argentine soil in the 1880s
and did not stop for nearly three decades. The majority were Italian,
the second largest group was Spanish (from Galicia, in particular), and
the third was French. Some had experience in the European anarchist
movement and virtually all came to escape political repression and
poverty. Instead of finding prosperity and liberty, most encountered
crushing economic deprivations and a government that responded to them
primarily through repression. This, in the context of a society
undergoing massive economic and industrial growth, provided fertile
ground for anarchists’ revolutionary aspirations.
Initially, anarchist groups focused on discussion and education and
stood aloof from larger social struggles; however, this countercultural
posture grew increasingly untenable as a debate unfolded among
anarchists about the relative merits of intervention in the labor
movement. Some believed that such a course would dilute anarchist aims,
whereas others saw it as the most effective path to revolution.
Advocates of the latter perspective were triumphant, thanks especially
to three Italian anarchists: Errico Malatesta, HĂ©ctor Mattei, and Pietro
Gori. This victory set the stage for the emergence of a mass anarchist
movement.
Anarchists were instrumental in creating Argentina’s earliest workers’
organizations. In 1901 a coalition of anarchists and socialists founded
Argentina’s first labor federation, the Argentine Workers’ Federation
(FederaciĂłn Obrera Argentina) (FOA). The socialists departed soon after,
and founded the General Workers Union (UniĂłn General de Trabajadores),
leaving the FOA in anarchist hands. The FOA was an explicitly
revolutionary body committed to direct action, boycott, sabotage, and
class warfare in general. In 1904 the FOA changed its name to the
Regional Worker’s Federation of Argentina (Federación Obrera Regional
Argentina) (FORA). At the FORA’s 5^(th) congress in 1905 it made a
commitment to anarchocommunism part of organizational statutes.
Anarchists had greater penetration among workers than militants from any
other tendency, and their unions won many important victories, such as
wage increases, reductions in the length of the working day, and various
rights of association. They led the port workers, ground transport
workers, and seamen’s unions, and were also heavily represented among
bakers, metal workers, construction workers, and ship workers. Control
of these unions, particularly those operating on the ports and in the
ground transport industry, put them in a position to paralyze
Argentina’s economy. Anarchists did, in fact, disrupt economic normalcy
on numerous occasions and in some cases brought the country to a
standstill. They led six general strikes in the first decade of the
century and many more that were partial, though still significant. Their
goal was to organize a revolutionary general strike that would cause the
capitalist economy and the political structure to collapse, leading
ultimately to complete workers’ self-management; however, anarchists
believed that confronting and defeating capitalism required more than
just battles on the shop floor and along the picket line: it also
demanded that workers feel a strong sense of class solidarity and have
an enlightened, progressive perspective on social affairs.
Anarchists set out to nurture this through myriad cultural activities.
They were extremely active publishers, putting out two dozen periodicals
between 1890 and 1904, sometimes as many as twenty at one time,
including eight in Italian and three in French. La Protesta Humana,
which was founded in 1897, became a daily, and sometimes twice daily,
publication after 1904. A general-interest anarchist newspaper, it
reached a very wide audience. For example, more than 10,000 copies were
circulated weekly in 1907, even though it was banned at the time.
Another anarchist daily, La Batalla (The Battle), was founded in 1910.
It published a morning as well as evening edition. Additional
publications of note were La Liberté, La Questione Sociale, El Oprimido,
El Perseguido, L’Avvenire, and El Rebelde.
Theater and poetry were also important. Influential wordsmiths included
poet and playwright Alberto Ghiraldo, Uruguayan-born dramatist Florencio
Sánchez, and the novelist Roberto Arlt; as well as Félix Basterra,
González Pacheco, Armando Discépolo, Alejandro Sux, and José de
Maturana. Drawn to forms that seemed amenable to mainstream literary
circles, they scarcely wrote philosophy and never produced anarchist
theory of consequence.
Anarchists did not limit their radicalism to the written word. They were
pivotal in the development of the tango, the quintessential expression
of Argentine working-class culture before World War II. Anarchist
dissidence even impacted language: lunfardo, the Argntine argot (slang)
born of the prisons and ghetto streets, was closely linked to the tango
and was part of the anarchist counterculture. Pageantry, in the form of
parades and marches, was an integral component of their cultural
apparatus. Their annual May Day marches often drew tens of thousands,
demonstrating anarchist strength and, by forcing a revolutionary holiday
upon the public, punctuating their assertion of a counternarrative to
Argentina’s historical development. Anarchists also created their own
pantheon of heros and martyrs, often foreign-born (as well as Argentine)
revolutionary militants. Anarchists institutionalized their cultural
interventions in social centers, theaters, adult and children’s schools,
popular libraries, and discussion circles. Linked to the unions and
seeded throughout proletarian districts, these bodies were a vital
dimension of the revolutionary movement, and easily mobilized during
times of crisis.
Anarchists’ commitment to leveling social hierarchies prompted them to
advance a generous social radicalism. For instance, challenges to
patriarchy and support for women’s self-organization were common
elements of anarchist discourse. There was a higher percentage of female
activists among anarchists than among other radical tendencies, and an
anarcha-feminist paper appeared as early as 1896 (La Voz de la Mujer),
under the slogan “No god, no boss, no husband.” One prominent anarchist,
Virgina Bolten, led what was probably the first strike by women in
Argentina. Anarchists also participated in many actions that involved
large numbers of females by necessity, such as rent strikes and consumer
boycotts.
The government understood that anarchists had the potential to shatter
the economic, political, and cultural foundations upon which Argentina
lay, and responded with a wide spectrum of measures designed to raise
the cost of revolutionary activism. Petty police harassment –
humiliating and inconvenient searches and gratuitous demands for
identification – was a familiar experience for militants. The outlawing
of radical publications, the suppression of the right to public
assembly, and mass arrests were also common; martial law was declared
for a total of 18 months between 1902 and 1910. There were also
legislative attempts to undermine the anarchist movement, specifically
the Ley de Residencia (1902) and the Ley de Defensa Social (1910). The
former granted the government the right to deport foreigners that it
deemed undesirable, whereas the latter levied a series of penalties
against anarchist activity specifically.
The state resorted to outright violence as well, which it exercised
through the police, the army, and other formal forces, in addition to
thugs, acting on its behalf. For instance, police opened fire on the
anarchists’ May Day march in 1909, killing several people as a result.
There was also mass police repression in 1910 during events surrounding
the centenary of Argentine national independence. Nine years later,
anarchists would be scarred by incidents that took place during the
semana trágica (tragic week) that transpired between January 7 and
January 14, 1919. The turmoil began when several workers were killed
during a conflict between striking metal workers and strike breakers.
This led to a general strike that crippled the entire country and pushed
Buenos Aires into a state of chaos for several days. It took the
combined efforts of the police and gangs of hooligans to finally subdue
the rebellion. Historians estimate that 700 were killed and 4,000 were
injured during the confrontations.
Not all the repression occurred in urban areas. Beginning in 1920,
anarchists led a year-long rebellion by agricultural workers in the
Patagonia region. The army responded with a crackdown that sent 1,500 to
their death before firing squads. A German anarchist named Kurt Wilkens
later responded to these aggressions by assassinating Colonel HĂ©ctor
Varela, who had directed the army’s actions.
Anarchists were also subject to pressure from elements within the
workers’ movement that wanted them to adulterate their revolutionary
convictions. This achieved its most decisive result in 1915, at the
FORA’s 9^(th) congress, when there was a split between syndicalists, who
sought to rescind the federation’s commitment to anarcho-communism, and
anarchists, who defended it. Both tendencies departed from the congress
claiming the FORA’s name: syndicalists came to be known as the FORA of
the 9^(th) Congress and anarchists as the FORA of the 5^(th) Congress.
Changes in the state (prompted in part by anarchist efforts) also
rendered anarchists’ anti-statism more tenuous. For instance, the Saenz
Peña Law (1912) made (male) voting secret and obligatory. This helped
clean up the electoral process, thus enhancing its legitimacy, while
alsomaking anarchist abstentionism illegal, thus narrowing the space
available to anti-statist social action.
The accumulated impact of government repression, sectarian battles, and
social changes meant that the 1920s would be a decade of retreat and
internecine conflict for anarchists. Robberies and bombings carried out
by Severino di Giovanni (1901–31), an Italian immigrant, propagandist,
and partisan of revolutionary violence, were a central catalyst. In
addition to other actions, he bombed the American embassy to protest the
execution of Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Italian consulate to protest
Italian Fascism (killing 9 and injuring 34). His actions specifically,
and the issue of “anarcho-banditry” generally, ignited a passionate
debate among anarchists. This played out in the pages of the anarchist
press, particularly in La Anthorcha (which defended di Giovanni) and in
La Protesta (which attacked him). Historians now attribute the
assassination of Emilio López Arango (1894–1929), a La Protesta editor
and one of di Giovanni’s fiercest critics, to di Giovanni himself, who
was arrested and executed in 1931.
The 1930 coup led by General José Félix Uriburu dealt the final blow to
anarchism’s existence as a mass movement, due primarily to the
imposition of martial law and the assertion of a strong corporatist
perspective within the state. Although anarchists continued to organize
and disseminate their views, they slowly returned to the
counter-cultural posture that was characteristic of their efforts in the
1880s.
Anarchists founded the Argentine Anarcho-Communist Federation
(FederaciĂłn Anarco Comunista Argentina) in 1935, which became the
Argentine Libertarian Federation (FederaciĂłn Libertaria Argentina) in
1955. This group, however, never acquired a mass base. Also in 1935, a
coalition of socialists and anarchists started the Biblioteca Popular
José Ingenieros, a library and social center. The socialists departed
shortly after its founding, leaving the project in anarchist control.
Anarchists led the solidarity campaigns organized to aid anti-fascists
in the Spanish Civil War, and many traveled to Europe to fight among
anarchist forces there.
The rise of Argentine President Juan Domingo PerĂłn was paradoxical for
anarchists. Although his populism was strongly linked to working-class
mobilization and his government provided unprecedented benefits to
workers, anarchists rejected Peronism as a jingoistic state-centered
project that operated through networks of caciques instead of genuine
proletarian democracy.
A portion of the many Argentine youth radicalized during the 1960s and
1970s turned to anarchism, although they were largely unable to work
cooperatively with the older generation of anarchists. This was a
consequence of cultural as well as political differences, particularly
the younger militants’ identification with the anti-imperialist currents
that were then sweeping the globe. This divide caused a bitter wound in
Argentina’s multi-generational anarchist legacy, although it also
prompted the more youthful militants to define their views with a degree
of specificity not found among anarchists in countries that avoided such
intramural conflicts.
Resistencia Libertaria (RL) was the most significant anarchist group to
emerge during this period. Clandestine and cellular in structure, it
aimed to spark mass resistance and, ultimately, a prolonged popular war.
It agitated in the neighborhood, labor, and student movements, and also
had a small armed wing, which it used for the purposes of defense and
expropriation. Though formally a national organization, it operated
primarily in La Plata, CĂłrdoba, and Buenos Aires. A significant
percentage of RL activists were disappeared in the mid-1970s, and many
more after the 1976 military coup, as Argentine society grew
increasingly polarized. RL continued to be active under the dictatorship
until 1978, when police conducted simultaneous raids throughout the
country and seized most of its remaining members. Approximately 80
percent of RL militants spent time in the dictatorship’s concentration
camps, where all were tortured and most were executed.
Novel and relatively anti-authoritarian social actors emerged during the
final years of the dictatorship and immediately after the 1983
reinstallation of civil government. The Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, a
group of mothers organizing on behalf of people disappeared under the
military government, are the best known, although there were also
ecologists, feminists, and others. This reflected a turn away from the
state as the focus of the left’s efforts, and an inclination toward a
more decentralist politics. This phenomenon encouraged a renewed
interest in anarchism, but not a significant increase in the ranks of
the old anarchist groups. Punk rock also played an important role in
cultivating interest in anarchism.
Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis prompted the appearance of even more
confrontational and more anarchistic social actors, such as militant
neighborhood assemblies, factory occupations, and aggressive street
protests. Their actions, combined with generalized public anger at the
government, threw the country into a state of disorder and led
successive Argentine presidents to resign. Though anarchists
participated actively in these movements, they did not play a central
role in defining their goals, and the size and number of anarchist
groups did not expand dramatically.
SEE ALSO: Anarchism and Culture, 1840–1939 ; Argentina, Armed Struggle
and Guerilla Organizations, 1960s–1970s ; Argentina, General Strike
(Semana Trágica), 1919 ; Argentina, Social and Political Protest,
2001–2007 ; Argentina, Worker Strikes in Patagonia, 1920–1921
Alexander, R. (2003) A History of Organized Labor in Argentina.
Westport, CT: Praeger.
Bayer, O. (1986) Anarchism and Violence: Severino di Giovanni in
Argentina, 1923–1931. London: Elephant Editions.
Lopez, F. & Diz, V. (2007) Resistencia Libertaria. Buenos Aires:
Madreselva.
Munck, R. (1987) Argentina: From Anarchism to Peronism: Workers, Unions
and Poltics, 1855–1985. London: Zed Books.
Oved, I. (1978) El anarquismo y el movimiento obrero en Argentina.
Mexico: Siglo Veintiuno.
Suriano, J. (2001) Anarquistas: cultura y polĂtica libertaria en Buenos
Aires, 1890–1910. Buenos Aires: Manantial.
Zibechi, R. (2003) GenealogĂa de la revuelta: Argentina, la sociedad en
movimiento. Montevideo: Nordan Comunidad.