Patagonian labor movement. The two delegates, Martínez and Ruiz, also maintain contact with the Maritime Workers’ Federation, which owes its importance to its presence in every port along the coast of Patagonia. Both men launch a furious campaign against Soto for opposing the agreement.
In the meantime, an important change is about to occur in the world of politics. Captain Yza—the new governor of Santa Cruz, appointed by Yrigoyen and ratified by Congress—has announced in Buenos Aires that all of the government functionaries who served under Correa Falcón will be replaced, including Commissioner Ritchie, who will be replaced by Oscar Schweitzer.
This news is greeted as a victory by Borrero and Judge Viñas, as it represents the total defeat of Correa Falcón. And it actively encourages the continuation of the strike.
Antonio Soto goes for broke and gathers all the workers together. The conflict between the two tendencies in the union—syndicalist and anarchist—comes to a head in that December 4th assembly. The majority backs Soto’s decision to continue the strike. But Soto is well aware that he can only pull this off if the union’s entire leadership supports the strike. So the union also elects new leaders, almost all of them Spaniards holding libertarian ideas. Soto is re-elected as secretary-general.
From this moment on, the workers will have new enemies in the syndicalists and the Gaceta del Sur newspaper, which, as we have said, came out in favor of accepting the ranchers’ offer.
The newspaper is unsparing in its attacks on Soto. For example, the article “Unionism? Anti-Unionism!” reads as follows:
The workers of Río Gallegos, who have the idiosyncrasy of paying homage to the absurd, have set an awful, terrible precedent. Led by their personal feelings, the workers have let themselves be steered towards disorganization and a grotesque authoritarianism imposed by an inept union leadership. Although the reverence shown to shameless demagogues has always been the greatest threat to the Workers’ Society, Antonio Soto stands out for his mental obtuseness and his practical ignorance of unionism even among those who make up the union’s unreasonable and idiotic leadership, claiming that their shrewdness elevates them above neophyte workers. More than anyone else, he bears the responsibility for the union’s unraveling. His disciples have embarrassingly hoisted him up on a pedestal and worship him as if they have seen the Messiah.
Further along, they criticize the “illogical frequency of the union’s strikes and its absurd boycotts.” It’s important to note that the “syndicalists” aren’t just attacking Soto but also the strikes and boycotts organized by the Workers’ Society—and that they are doing so in the middle of a general strike, a life or death struggle for the union’s future.
When this issue of Gaceta del Sur appears on the newsstands, Correa Falcón wastes no time in sending a copy to the interior minister. He also takes the opportunity to attack Judge Viñas for good measure, arguing that his defense of Soto and the labor organization was responsible for everything that followed.
But the strike keeps going despite all these setbacks, and with ever greater intensity. El 68 and El Toscano continue stirring up the peons and cutting fences. The ranchers are afraid and begin preparing their exodus to Río Gallegos.
What position should they take? They are at a loss. At first, they had no interest in reaching a settlement because the wool market was in crisis and so the strike represented an opportunity for them not to pay their workers. But now the very existence of their ranches is at stake, as is the private property system as a whole. The days slip by and the strikers remain unstoppable. Correa Falcón is seemingly impotent, with too few police at his disposal to teach the subversives a proper lesson. There has to be another way: putting pressure on the government, for example.
The ranchers—led by Alejandro Menéndez Behety—send desperate messages to Yrigoyen. The press in Buenos Aires speaks of predations and has begun using the word “bandits” to refer to striking peons. But the strike advances. First it spreads to Puerto Santa Cruz, then San Julián, where something happens without precedent in those latitudes: somebody bombs the home of the “prominent citizen” Juan J. Albornoz, local president of the Argentine Patriotic League. But it’s in Puerto Deseado where the truly unexpected will occur, with blood spilled and gunshots exchanged.
CHAPTER FOUR: HAPPY ENDING: A GOOD PRELUDE TO DEATH
“He who is not for the fatherland is an
enemy of the fatherland.”
Río Gallegos Rural Society,
May 27th, 1921
“Workers of the world, unite!
In one solid block, in the close embrace of our exploited brethren, we shall march down the path that leads to the emancipation of the slaves of capital.”
Río Gallegos Workers’ Society
May 18th, 1921
The movement in Puerto Deseado was unique. Far from being a simple confrontation between workers and their bosses, the conflict pitted the majority of the town’s population against the “Argentine Circle,” an organization of far-right notables that had the full support of the police and treated the town’s politicians like their playthings. And it’s striking that here is where the battle between the left and the right was at its purest. The left was made up of small shopkeepers, immigrant artisans, and the entirety of the working class—including the unionized workers of the Puerto Deseado-Pico Truncado railway line—while the right consisted of professionals, ranchers, and high-ranking employees of the Braun-Menéndez and Argensud companies. It all started when the immigrants asked the interior minister to officially recognize Puerto Deseado as a municipality. This would not only give immigrants the right to vote but also control of the local government, as they were the majority of the town’s population. And so power would slip from the hands of the Argentine Circle’s highly exclusive membership. As the latter were neither stupid nor lazy, they were well aware that they were about to lose their truly oligarchic power through a simple legal maneuver. So they sent Yrigoyen an unusual telegram: “The Argentine Circle of Puerto Deseado is against giving the town municipal status, as it would put the local government into the hands of the immigrant majority. No country in the world would allow its political process to be controlled by foreigners.”
The animosity between the two groups increases; there’s open hatred for the police and the powerful. On December 2nd, the workers at La Anónima go on strike, as do the railway workers. The police respond by locking up the secretary-general of the Workers’ Society. One week later, the strike has not only held up but even managed to spread. Despite the communication difficulties involved, local union leaders are in close contact with Antonio Soto in Río Gallegos. Hotel, bar, and café employees have all gone on strike by December 9th. Businesses that hire scabs are boycotted. There are violent incidents across town: blows are exchanged at the Spanish Society—which serves as the headquarters for the strike committee and the pro-municipality activists—and the Colón Bar. Nothing moves. The police patrol the streets in twos, while hotel owners personally serve their guests. Puerto Deseado seems to be on the verge of a civil war. An arbitration committee made up of doctors and bank managers fails in its attempts to reach an agreement with the strikers. From Río Gallegos, Correa Falcón calls for an end to insubordination. The police don’t take their time. They lock up the organizers San Emeterio and Christiansen. But the workers stand firm: they call for a general strike, beginning on December 10th at 8 a.m. They don’t have access to a printing press to make their flyers and so they write them by hand on Canson paper. It pays off. The streets are empty.
The patriots of the Argentine Circle realize that their days are numbered. The numbers don’t lie: Puerto Deseado has a population of 1,570 and
