A-Infos (en) France, Alternative Libertair #222 - 110 years ago: The emergence of the Argentine working class (fr) [machine translation]

When capitalism developed there in the late nineteenth century, Argentina is still far 
from having a social structure similar to Western European countries. The formation of a 
working class to rapidly develop its own organizations will nevertheless disrupt the 
progress of local oligarchies towards building a nation fully oriented capitalism. The 
general strike of 1902 is an example.
Argentina is a country with capitalist development itself was late. If the break with the 
colonial order was very early (declared independence July 9, 1816), the passage of formal 
independence to the construction of a coherent national space has, meanwhile, been a 
complex process that s' over several decades.

The reasons for this inability to build an independent nation are numerous and related to 
the characteristics of the social structure even Argentina. The country was not an 
economic coherent and articulate, but consisted of different economic regions whose common 
was their dependence vis-à-vis the Spanish metropolis. In the beginnings of the colonial 
system, the interaction created between the countries of South America and Spain is 
extremely strong. But the regional oligarchies reinforcing choosing their trading partners 
do not see the value of a common market structure and disrupting the model and exporter of 
raw materials, mainly precious metals.

In the nineteenth century, the development of productive forces in titanic Europe driven 
by the industrial revolution increased the interest of cities to remove non-industrialized 
countries raw materials that Europe is unable to provide in the volumes necessary to meet 
the ever increasing demand of production.

The construction of a space Argentine political
Different post-independence political avatars that grow in Argentina are related, in fact, 
the lack of a consistent internal market.

Different regional oligarchies fought with weapons in their hands to decide which impose 
its national project to another. This conflict is resolved in favor of the bourgeoisie 
landowners coast, especially in the province of Buenos Aires, which will impose a 
development model based on the creation of conditions for the exploitation of agriculture 
and the breeding.

It will also put in place a legal and political instrument to stimulate the accumulation 
of capital and the arrival of outside capital. One of the steps for this was the creation 
of a labor market governed by the social relation of wage labor. This process takes 
several forms: on the one hand, it is to discipline the labor force Creole by, for 
example, wearing a workbook to the campaign on the other hand, to move the border area 
with non-capitalist weapons conducting military campaigns against successive indigenous 
peoples. It is finally importing European populations to use an already skilled workforce 
and develop rapidly and capital.

But the power of the bourgeoisie of the coastline begins to be played by two political 
actors from different classes, but, in general, require the Argentine State to adopt a 
relative autonomy vis-à-vis the dominant class. These two players are the Radical Civic 
Union (UCR) and the labor movement.

The first represents the interests of the middle classes of the national bourgeoisie, and 
the struggle for the opening of the State to its class interests, occupying positions of 
political representation, and integrating the emerging bureaucratic apparatus of the state.

UCR strategy is to put pressure on the regime, first through coup attempts (1890-1905), 
then denouncing electoral fraud and making constant lobbying to reform electoral laws. The 
CRU has not sought to create links with the labor movement did not participate either in 
his struggles; it addressed the workers as citizens.

The labor movement meanwhile, struggled in its early years, against capitalist 
exploitation and wild in this fight he saw an opportunity to fight for a better world, 
without exploiters or exploited. He placed the battle on the crucial issue of the 
bourgeoisie: the production. He never claimed to change the system from an audacious coup 
against the state and its repressive forces. He did not attempt to solve its problems 
through parliamentary means and legislation, but he fought against the savage exploitation 
in the production area.

In Argentina, agriculture, communication and transportation had a similar level of 
development in Western countries, which was not the case in the rest of the social structure.

Thus only the branches related to agriculture and marketing are strategic in the formation 
of a social structure. Except the sphere of production in the countryside, where there is 
a multiplicity of patterns, these branches are those that occupy the quotas of the most 
important subject to a small number of employers. Another aspect is that Argentina has few 
seaports, the most important being that of Buenos Aires, Rosario and then those of Bahia 
Blanca. Transport thus became the Achilles heel of capitalism Argentina, and thus central 
positions for the organized proletariat. Any of these ports support a strike very well 
attended, could stop the flow of supplies to western countries by disrupting the process 
of valorisation of capital. The possibility that the majority of workers' organizations, 
companies called resistance fissent a strike at the same time was a nightmare for the 
capitalists.

This fear becomes reality for the first time in November 1902.

The beginnings of a labor organization
Working conditions in Argentina are so appalling. Working days from sunrise to sunset, 
fourteen or sixteen hours a day, are commonplace. Living conditions that require miserable 
wages are unworthy of so-called capitalist development which the Argentine bourgeoisie and 
its various newspapers boast.

While the proletariat crowded into the old houses of the old colonial oligarchy, entire 
families occupying rooms without ventilation or running water, the bourgeoisie who built 
palaces become public buildings for the purposes of government or private homes.

Society is so brutal in which the rich live with ease, few workers luckiest can achieve 
relatively decent standard of living, and the vast majority of workers lives a miserable, 
squalid and brief. Some improvements that can get exploited, they should do that 
themselves. Thanks to the experience of many European activist between them, mutual aid 
societies, ethnic or corporate, are created, as well as companies of resistance. In the 
decade of 1890, attempts to establish a trade union fail because of political disputes 
between the two ideological tendencies at work within the proletariat at that time: 
anarchism and socialism. The first attempts socialist unions are influenced by the German 
Social Democracy or Guesdism French, ie, the construction of workers' organizations under 
the umbrella policy of the Socialist Party. This strategy is unacceptable for both 
anarchists for many companies without political coloration resistance and that is why 
these organizations have never prospered. It is only by working 1901que Argentine 
Federation is constituted through negotiations between anarchists and socialists. And 
while they leave the plant the following year to form a Committee corporatist propaganda, 
both groups reach sufficient growth to lead separate lives.

The great proletarian strike
In September 1902, the company strength working port of the Federal Capital believes it is 
time to impose on employers a list of demands prioritized by its members, particularly 
regarding the maximum weight of goods.

The loading is a seasonal activity, which occupies only four months of the year during the 
loading of the harvest. To begin their movement, workers choose this date therefore the 
need for labor is stronger, thus in a difficult position that employers keep commitments 
in terms of time. Faced with the threat patterns port form a common front to oppose the 
mobilization of workers. The refusal of employers entails acceptance movement dockers 
other ports within the country: Zárate, Baradero, San Nicolas, Rosario, Campana and Villa 
Constitucion. Facing the discipline and organization shown by the workers, the front gives 
employers by offering a wage increase daily and asking for a delay to allow them to adapt 
the packaging to the weight of goods demanded by the workers. Meanwhile, workers should 
continue to load existing packages before. Union leadership, socialist supports at the 
meeting acceptance of this proposal, however, unanimously rejected by the strikers. The 
strike continues so until the 8th November, this time is reduced to only four days.

But the Agreement is terminated as a result of enforcement actions occurred in two 
localities of the province of Buenos Aires, Campana and Zárate, where workers continue 
strike for their own demands to which the authorities respond by closing the local union 
in suspending the meeting and mobilizing soldiers to monitor refrigerated warehouses River 
Plate and protect strikebreakers. This entails escalating repression solidarity dockers 
other cities resume strike Monday, November 17.

Given the magnitude of the strike and the huge mess created throughout the productive 
apparatus of the country, the government, which then observe the movement carefully, 
concludes that it is the result of outside agitators and the most effective fight is to 
attack these agitators. Argentine political leaders refuse to believe that European 
problems achieve their latitudes. They are following the analysis of the Chief of Police 
of the Federal Capital in 1895 considered that "no [strike] the participation of the 
national labor element made itself felt. The strikers are in their entirety foreign 
workers, imbued with the spirit Communist imported from Europe. " The State decides to 
deal with the agitation by the immediate application of the law of residence, giving the 
executive the opportunity to emigrate "any alien whose conduct endangers national security 
or disturb public order ". Then the government requires police to extradite a list of 
political and union leaders. These extraditions implement expeditiously and without any 
humanitarian gently.

The application of this law is not sufficient to achieve the movement, and rumors of a 
general strike became reality when the FOA, once legalized, launches the watchword. Given 
the impossibility of breaking the strike, a few days later, on November 24, the government 
will retry the challenge of repression in declaring a state of siege, bringing the army 
into the city, arresting hundreds of workers and closing the local union. Without clashes 
such as those that take place during the Red Week of 1909 for the Suppression of the 
centenary in 1910 or during the Tragic Week of 1919, the general strike in 1902 was 
defeated a few days later, on 26 November 1902.

Movement rich teaching
If the general strike of 1902 was a crushing defeat for the proletariat Argentine, his 
teachings were multiple. On the one hand, it became clear that the Argentine government 
could not be neutral in the conflict between capital and labor, as claimed by the law. On 
the other hand, it showed that workers organizing themselves they had the power to compel 
employers to discuss the conditions of their use, and the social system of combat.

On the other hand, it has also enabled more informed fractions of the dominant class to 
understand that the "labor problem" was not the fact that a minority of outside agitators, 
but it was an inexorable reality the capitalist system. And from this period, will succeed 
initiatives that lead to piecemeal reforms of the system for the sole purpose of taming 
the working class. Among these initiatives, the draft Labour Code in 1904 was a clumsy 
first attempt, followed by the creation of the National Department of Labour in 1907 and 
the enactment of laws protecting working women and children and the Sabbath. Add to this 
the political opening through the electoral law promoted by President Sáenz Peña in 1912, 
a law that allows the UCR access to senior levels of government and increased electoral 
representation of a portion of Argentine proletariat has chosen reformism within the 
Socialist Party. Anarchists, in their majority, maintain a firm opposition to reform 
"social" promoted by the state, which affected his hearing consistently in the proletariat 
who did not look favorably total rejection of these reforms improved and yet his daily lives.

Martín Manuli (Centre for libertarians red and black, Argentina)
Translation and formatting

Guillermo (AL Angers) and
CM (AL Girlfriend 49)
_________________________________________
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