on our side: a force that triumphs over all obstacles. Our enemies will fall from the weight of their own crimes, just as rotten fruit falls from the tree that nurtured it.
The campaign is a complete success: all of the detainees are released by November 1st.
The finale of this turbulent prelude to the Spartakiad launched by the Workers’ Society is an attempt on the life of the organization’s secretary-general, Antonio Soto. It occurs on November 3rd, 1920. Soto is walking in the direction of Antwerp House to speak with a workers’ delegate when a suspicious figure lunges from a doorway and rapidly stabs him in the chest. The knife pierces his clothing but strikes the pocket watch that Soto carries in his left coat pocket. Soto collapses from the blow and pretends to reach for a gun. His attacker flees at full speed. Soto has received some cuts to the chest, but he is alive.
Those who sent the assassin thought well. By eliminating Soto, they would have decapitated the Santa Cruz labor movement.
The Workers’ Society has won a battle by securing the release of its prisoners, but now it’s time to make demands. Its workers have shown discipline, a spirit of sacrifice and clear class consciousness. This can be taken advantage of, as could the fact that many farmworkers came into town during the strike.
The labor organization prepares two campaigns: better pay for retail workers and a full list of demands for farmworkers. Here Antonio Soto proves himself to be a very gifted organizer. He sends emissaries to the countryside, holds meetings around the clock, rallies the new recruits, and instructs activists on the ABCs of unionism. When their demands are rejected, a strike breaks out across the territory.
In November 1920, Governor Correa Falcón sees control slip from his fingers. The rural strike extends across Santa Cruz. Work has completely stopped in Río Gallegos and the ports are paralyzed. There’s a growing sense of unease among the landowners. The work stoppage threatens the sheep breeding season, but a solution remains elusive. The tougher Correa Falcón gets, the more rebellious the workers become. La Unión reports that, “In the early days of the strike, there were over two hundred strange men wandering the streets confusedly, staring at people without understanding what was going on.” These men are none other than the farmworkers who have answered the call of the Workers’ Society.
The bosses, their children, and high-ranking employees decide to form a volunteer militia whose first action is to offer their services to the local jail “for the sake of order and as a guardian of morality,” as the aforementioned newspaper will put it.
But neither the Patriotic League nor the Rural Society nor the Commerce and Industry League nor the volunteer militia will be able to bring the strike to an end. They find themselves forced to seek out the union leaders and open negotiations.
On November 6th, three leading ranchers—Ibón Noya, Miguel Grigera, and Rodolgo Suárez—announce that they have been unable to reach an agreement with the strike committee. They then issue the following manifesto:
To the people of Río Gallegos and the farmworkers:
We the undersigned, owners of haciendas to the south of the Río Santa Cruz, have resolved, in spite of the difficult times we are experiencing as a result of the crisis in the international beef and wool markets, to:
1. Negotiate directly with our workers on our own ranches.
2. Pay our workers a minimum salary of 100 pesos per month, to be paid in Argentine currency, plus meals.
3. Negotiate salaries in excess of this amount with individual workers in accordance with their duties.
4. Work to gradually improve the food and hygienic conditions in the workers’ quarters.
The first point is entirely out of question for the workers. The bosses have decided not to recognize their labor organizations. The situation becomes tenser still. Soto is unfamiliar with the countryside and so he puts his trust in questionable individuals with unquestionable energy. During this first strike, the two de facto leaders of the rural movement had little union experience. The first, El 68, is a former inmate at Ushuaia, where 68 was his inmate number. It became his nickname after his release. The other, El Toscano, is an irrepressible daredevil who has also had his share of run-ins with the law. They are both Italians. El 68, whose real name is José Aicardi, is an accomplished rider, as is El Toscano, the alias of Alfredo Fonte, a thirty-three-year-old cart driver who came to Argentina when he was only three. They both come across more as genuine gauchos than as Italian immigrants.
They are aided by two Argentines: Bartolo Díaz (known as El Paisano Díaz) and Florentino Cuello (nicknamed Gaucho Cuello). They’re both brawlers, always on hand when there are blows to be delivered. But they’re also the ones who recruit the most chilotes to the union, charging them 12 pesos in yearly dues and handing out union cards. Both men are extremely popular on the ranches and know the countryside like the backs of their hands.
Gaucho Cuello is from Diamante, Entre Ríos, where he was born in 1884. In 1912, he stabbed someone back home—it seems their wounds were quite serious—earning him five years in the Río Gallegos prison. He stayed in town after his release in 1917 and was working on the Tapi-Aike ranch when the strike broke out.
These four men are largely responsible for the complete work stoppage on the ranches of southern Santa Cruz. The ringleader is undoubtedly the mysterious El 68. They are also joined by a Chilean named Lorenzo Cárdenas: a brave, determined, cold-blooded man. This group of organizers is rounded out with the German anarchist Franz Lorenz; the Paraguayan Francisco Aguilera; Federico Villard Peyré, a French anarchist and the delegate representing the Menéndez Behety’s La Anita ranch; the Americans Carlos Hantke (who also goes by the name of Charles Manning), Charles Middleton (easily identified by his gold teeth) and Frank Cross; the Scots Alex McLeod and Jack Gunn; an Afro-Portuguese by the name of Cantrill; a handsome Uruguayan cart driver nicknamed Palomilla; John Johnston, another American; a Spaniard named José Graña, etc.
They make up the active minority that goes from ranch to ranch to organize occupations. They take the landowners, administrators, and foremen hostage and swell their ranks with the peons.
All of the ranches south of the Río Santa Cruz are paralyzed.
On November 18th, La Unión runs an article that captures the tense atmosphere:
With work stoppages on every ranch and the intransigence of the landowners, a new, more fundamental problem arises. The economic interests of the territory and its population depend on a rapid solution. What will become of Río Gallegos if the meatpacking plants don’t reopen? What will ranches do with almost half a million heads of unsellable livestock? And Puerto Natales, in Chile, will also be unable to dispose of its livestock. Ranchers have already suffered heavy losses from the strike launched by their peons during the breeding season.
It is the ranchers who will take the first step towards reaching an agreement. They make a new offer to the workers on November 17th. This time, they include the following clause:
The Río Gallegos Workers’ Society will be acknowledged as the sole representative of the workers and its delegates will be authorized to visit our ranches once per month. At this time, they will be permitted to discuss any grievances with the ranch owner or foreman as well as to meet with union members.
The following day, expectations run high in Río Gallegos. There isn’t enough space in the Workers’ Society headquarters for everyone. The offer is gone over point by point, only to be rejected. The agreement must be clear, its clauses must leave no room for doubt and points that contain little more than generalities cannot be endorsed. The workers draft a counter-offer, signed by Antonio Soto:
