 | Part 2 |
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| Part 2 |
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Steven J. Hirsch
University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg
At first glance early 20th century Peru would seem an unlikely setting for anarcho-syndicalism to flourish. A predominantly agrarian society with a large and economically marginal indigenous population, Peru scarcely resembled a nation in the second stage of industrial manufacturing. Despite significant capitalist growth in Peru’s export sectors (chiefly mining, sugar, cotton, wool), vast areas of the nation were largely unaffected by capitalist change. With the exception of Lima-Callao, Peru’s capital and adjacent port city, which served as the nation’s administrative, commercial, and financial center, sizable urban economies were conspicuously absent. Not surprisingly, given this context, the massive influx of European immigrants that catalyzed the anarcho-syndicalist labor movements in Argentina and Brazil bypassed Peru.
Yet Peru was not entirely isolated from anarchist currents. Anarchist ideas and publications circulated widely in Peru by the first decade of the 20th century. Manuel González Prada, a Peruvian aristocrat and social gadfly, and a handful of radical immigrant intellectuals based in Lima facilitated the dissemination of anarchist thought. Simultaneously, a nucleus of self-taught craftsmen and machine-tenders inspired by the writings of Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Malatesta, spearheaded a movement to organize workers in Lima-Callao based on anarchosyndicalist doctrine. By dint of their efforts anarcho-syndicalism would become the dominant radical ideology of Peru’s fledgling labor movement. Although the influence of anarcho-syndicalism was strongest in Lima-Callao, it also spread to working-class elements along Peru’s northern coast, and central and southern highland regions.[839] The ideals and practice of anarcho-syndicalism appealed to a diverse spectrum of urban craftsmen, factory and transport workers, stevedores, and rural proletarians.[840] Adherents of anarcho-syndicalism however would constitute a minority of Peru’s urban and rural working-classes. Nevertheless, because of their tremendous determination and activism, anarcho-syndicalism would profoundly influence working-class struggles, organization, and culture in Peru during the first three decades of the 20th century.
This chapter examines how anarcho-syndicalist ideas were adapted to Peruvian contexts, primarily in Lima-Callao and the southern region of Arequipa, Cuzco, and Puno during the 1910s and 1920s, the heyday of Peruvian anarcho-syndicalism. It analyzes the ways anarchosyndicalism challenged the combination of oligarchic rule by Peru’s creole planter class (sugar and cotton) and British and US imperialism in the form of economic control over the lucrative export sectors (copper, silver, oil) and domestic manufacturing (e.g. textiles).[841] This challenge mainly consisted of organizing labor unions and cultural associations, fostering a radical proletarian counterculture, and promoting class struggles.
The formation of a working-class in Lima-Callao can be traced to the 1890s and the early 1900s when an export boom stimulated unprecedented growth in the urban economy. Native and foreign capitalists involved in the export sectors channeled a portion of their profits into new financial institutions, infrastructure projects, utility companies, and consumer goods industries.
Accompanying this economic expansion was a dramatic increase in the urban laboring population. In Lima the number of manual workers had risen from roughly 9,000 in 1876 to nearly 24,000 in 1908. By the latter date, artisan and factory workers accounted for 17 percent of Lima’s estimated 140,000 inhabitants.[842] In Callao the labor force expanded less rapidly. Yet between 1905 and 1920 it would double in size to approximately 8,000 out of a total population of 52,000.[843] The composition of this incipient working class was extraordinarily heterogeneous; workers were divided by origins, sex, race, ethnicity, age, and skill.[844] Irrespective of these differences however, they tended to work long hours (12–16 hour days) under harsh conditions, and earn miserable wages that scarcely covered their subsistence needs.
To ameliorate their dismal working and living conditions workers began to embrace anarchism. The turn toward anarchism was in part a response to the failure of mutualism and workers’ inability to obtain satisfaction from Peru’s elite-controlled political party system. It was also strongly encouraged by dissident elites.
Foremost among them was Manuel González Prada, an upper-class intellectual, who became an anarchist as a result of his contacts with French and Spanish anarchists during a self-imposed European exile (1891–1898). González Prada lent his considerable talents to persuading workers to reject mutualism in favor of anarchist practices. He also founded Los Parias (“The Pariahs”), the first anarchist publication in 1904. Other anarchist papers soon appeared: La Simiente Roja (“The Red Seed”, 1905–1907), El Hambriento (“The Hungry”, 1905– 1910), Humanidad (“Humanity”, 1906–1907), and El Oprimido (“The Oppressed”, 1907–1909).
Staffed mainly by radical intellectuals like Gliserio Tassara, Angel Origgi Galli, Carlos del Barzo, and Inocencio Lombarozzi (Chilean), these papers exposed workers to the writings by European anarchists and anarchist perspectives on the state, the bourgeoisie, the Church, property, and class relations. Anarchists slogans like Kropotkin’s “Liberties are not bestowed, they’re seized” were also prominently displayed on the papers’ mastheads.[845]
The indoctrination of workers in anarchist thought was further assisted by anarchist study circles. Jointly operated by workers and radical intellectuals, The Center of Socialist Studies First of May (1906– 1908) in Lima and the group Love and Light (1911–1919) in Callao provided a forum for workers to discuss anarchist precepts. Like the anarchist press, the study circles emphasized the ideal of workers’ selfemancipation and workers’ cultural advancement. In addition, they inculcated workers in an internationalist outlook. On October 17, 1909, the Center of Socialist Studies First of May organized a public protest in response to the Spanish government’s execution of the anarchist and educational innovator, Francesco Ferrer i Guàrdia.[846]
The year before an anarchist musical group associated with the center held a performance to commemorate a massacre of Chilean mine workers in 1907.[847] Annual May Day commemorations in honor of the Chicago martyrs were also supported by the study circles and the anarchist press. The first May Day celebration, organized mainly by the Federation of Bakery Workers—Star of Peru (Federación de Obreros Panaderos “Estrella del Perú”) in Lima took place in 1905. The celebration not only underscored international working-class solidarity in the struggle for the 8 hour day but it honored Peru’s first worker martyr in the cause.[848]
Anarcho-syndicalism firmly began to take hold in Lima-Callao in 1911. In the course of that year the urban working class mounted its first general strike and succeeded in organizing the first class-based resistance societies. The general strike originated with a strike led by anarcho-syndicalists and backed by five hundred workers at the U.S.owed Vitarte Cotton Mill in March 1911. The strikers demanded a wage increase, a reduction of the work day from 13 to 10 hours, and the abolition of the night shift. The strike would endure for 29 days and eventually erupted into a general strike on April 10, bringing Lima’s business and transport to a standstill. The following day President Leguía intervened in the conflict and forced management to accept the workers’ demands.[849] The general strike underscored the effectiveness of direct action tactics and working-class solidarity. It also revealed the limits of workers’ power inasmuch as the outcome was ultimately decided by state intervention. In order to preserve their hard won gains and to offset the growing power of capital, textile workers in Vitarte founded the Textile Workers’ Unification of Vitarte, a resistance society in May 1911. The Unification dedicated itself “to serve and defend the rights of the proletariat in general and the textile workers in particular”.[850] Following Vitarte’s example, textile workers at Lima’s major mills organized resistance societies.
Anarcho-syndicalist organization and practice in Lima-Callao gained momentum in 1912 and 1913. In October 1912 workers affiliated with the anarcho-syndicalist oriented La Protesta group (1911–1926) succeeded in organizing the first Workers’ Regional Federation of Peru (FORP). It colligated the textile, bakery, and electrical workers’ resistance societies, among others, in Lima-Callao. FORP modeled itself after Argentina’s Workers’ Regional Federation (Federación obrera regional argentina, FORA). And like FORA, it espoused the principles and goals of anarchism and syndicalism and was committed to both short term improvements and social revolution. In 1913 FORA sent two delegates to Lima-Callao to promote solidarity between the two organizations and to encourage Peruvian workers to begin laying the foundations for a national labor confederation. Conditions however were not conducive to achieving this lofty goal. In fact, FORP disbanded in 1916 owing to the fragility of Lima-Callao’s working-class organizations in the context of economic instability related to World War I and state anti-labor hostility.[851]
FORP’s dissolution proved to be a temporary setback. Between 1916 and 1919 anarcho-syndicalist workers redoubled their efforts to organize Lima’s workers including rural wage earners on nearby sugar and cotton estates.[852] To aid in their organizing activities, they encouraged existing labor organizations to establish their own presses and to disseminate anarcho-syndicalist ideas. By 1919, shortly after the death of Manuel González Prada, worker-run union presses had replaced the anarchist papers once directed by non-worker intellectuals like González Prada.[853] Among the new union presses were El Sindicalista (“The Syndicalist”, shoemakers’ union), El Obrero Textil (“The Textile Worker”, textile workers’ federation), La voz del panadero (“The Voice of the Baker”, bakers’ union), and El Electricista (“The Electrician”, electrical workers’ union). As a result of the stepped up labor organizing and propaganda activity, the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement in Lima-Callao significantly improved its organizational strength and disruptive capabilities. Between 1918 and 1919 several new labor federations were established (e.g. Textile Workers’ Federation of Peru, or FTTP; the Print Workers Federation; the Federation of Masons) and FORP was resuscitated.
In the immediate postwar period a fertile climate existed for the resurgence of Lima-Callao’s anarcho-syndicalist labor movement. Workers’ living and working conditions had deteriorated during the war years. Real wages had steadily eroded as the cost of living had risen by 100 percent since 1913. This intolerable situation prompted a spate of strikes in 1918 by organized textile, railway, bakery, dock, and leather workers. Although in some cases these strikes were settled with wage concessions, labor militancy continued unabated.
The most significant strike occurred in December 1918 when approximately 2900 textile workers employed in Lima’s 9 largest textile factories walked off the job demanding the 8 hour workday. One month earlier President Pardo had issued a decree granting women and minors an 8 hour workday in an attempt to placate workers. This proved to be a miscalculation. Unwilling to accept the state’s restricted application of the 8 hour workday, anarcho-syndicalist workers prepared to organize a general strike. In January 1919 the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement backed by broad sectors of Lima-Callao’s working class, and university students engaged in a mass general strike. Although key anarchosyndicalist strike leaders were arrested and tortured, the general strike persisted.[854] After three days of street clashes and business inactivity, President Pardo, on January 15 acceded to what Delfín Lévano, the anarcho-syndicalist union leader, called “the inalienable right” of workers to the 8 hour workday.”[855] The conquest of the eight hour day constituted a milestone in the development of the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement and it validated the prodigious efforts to promote workingclass consciousness, solidarity, and union organization.[856]
A few months after the January general strike, anarcho-syndicalist workers organized another mass protest to address the cost of living crisis. In April, Adalberto Fonkén, a descendant of Asian coolie laborers and a former leader of the Vitarte textile union, Carlos Barba, a founder and general secretary of the Union of Shoemakers and Associates (1914), and Nicolás Gutarra, a cabinetmaker and former secretary general of FORP (1915), among other prominent anarcho-syndicalist leaders established a Committee for the Cheapening of Prime Necessities (Comité Pro-Abaratamiento de las Subsistencias). The committee soon established chapters throughout Lima-Callao with ties to 30,000 workers. To press its demands for price reductions of basic food-stuffs, the committee staged a series of street demonstrations and marches involving thousands of workers and their families.
President Pardo and the business community refused to bow to the committee’s demands. Troops and mounted police were deployed to break up the demonstrations. On May 27 the committee declared a general strike that paralyzed economic activity in Lima-Callao. The general strike lasted for five days. “The net result of the five days of disorder”, according to a U.S. observer, “was a death list that may be conservatively placed at one hundred, several hundred wounded, from 300 to 500 prisoners in the Lima jails, property loss and damage that will reach at least two million soles, all business demoralized for a week and a severe lesson imposed upon the anarchistic Maximalist elements of Lima and Callao and their misguided followers”.[857]
This assessment is accurate to a point. The general strike failed to win concessions but it did not weaken the organizers’ resolve. Indeed, on the day Gutarra and Barba were released from jail where they were held until July 7, they confronted President Leguía who appeared on the balcony of the national palace. Before a multitude of supporters, Gutarra defiantly informed Leguía that “the populace of today was not the tame one of yesterday which had silently borne all tyrannies”. After condemning the police actions and reciting a list of demands, he declared, “the social problem is not solved by a full stomach—the mind also needs feeding so that education may reach all—we want justice, liberty, and equality”. He concluded his peroration with the threat that the proletariat was tired of promises and would take to the barricades to defend their liberties and rights.[858] Two days later anarcho-syndicalist workers re-activated FORP and proclaimed its mission was to “do away with capitalism” and to create a new society in which “everyone works and produces according to their abilities and receives according to their needs”.[859]
Gutarra was right. The anarcho-syndicalist labor movement through its propaganda and praxis had dissolved any lingering passivity, deference, and fatalism on the part of organized workers in Lima-Callao.[860] Indeed, this would be further reflected in its aggressive response to new threats from the state and employers. Leguía’s promulgation of a new constitution in 1920 with strict provisions to regulate strikes and to subject labor conflicts to compulsory arbitration elicited condemnation and street protests from workers. The Local Workers’ Federation (FOL) which replaced FORP in 1921 lashed out at the government’s “legal ruse” and vowed to ignore it.[861]
A few months later, in September 1921 textile workers seized El Inca mill in response to management’s plans to close the factory due to the adverse business environment. Ultimately, workers were dislodged from the factory by troops acting on orders of the local prefect. The following day Lima’s business paper, El Comercio ran an editorial admonishing workers against imitating factory takeovers in Italy and pointing out workers inability to effectively manage complex enterprises.[862]
Did the emphasis on union organization, working-class solidarity, and the pursuit of short-term material interests cause FOL and its affiliates to neglect workers’ cultural emancipation? To what extent did their anarcho-syndicalist project entail the development of an autonomous and oppositional working-class culture? What follows is an examination of the discourse and practice of Lima-Callao’s anarcho-syndicalist labor movement in the 1920s as it relates to these questions. The evidence strongly indicates that anarcho-syndicalists prioritized forging a counter-hegemonic working-class culture capable of contesting and supplanting the dominant culture of Peru’s ruling elites. In short, they opted for a “war of position” attacking the legitimacy and moral authority of bourgeois rule. This strategy involved undermining dominant social conventions and ‘naturalized’ values by inculcating workers in an oppositional ethos through an alternative network of autonomous social and cultural structures.[863]
At FOL’s first congress in 1921 worker representatives from 23 labor organizations reaffirmed the necessity of elevating working-class morality and culture. In recognition of the inseparability of cultural emancipation and social revolution, they approved FOL’s “exclusive dedication to the economic, moral and intellectual improvement of the working-class”.[864] By simultaneously asserting its commitment to both an economic and a cultural agenda, FOL unambiguously signaled the importance it assigned to workers’ socio-cultural development. To underscore this point, it authorized the establishment of an official “workers’ daily” and a “popular worker library”.[865] Two months later, under the direction of Adalberto Fonkén, the popular worker library opened on Trujillo Street in central Lima to male and female workers of all races. Here workers were informed they would have access to rational books capable of “breaking the darkness of popular consciousness”, which in turn would empower them to act against “despotic bourgeois social edifice” {sic}.[866]
Even if FOL had not endorsed the need to promote workers’ moral and cultural edification doubtless its affiliates would have done so anyway. An influential minority of highly motivated anarcho-syndicalist worker-intellectuals within FOL’s labor organizations were determined to free workers from the social constraints and cultural marginalization imposed by Peru’s aristocratic order. For example, as early as 1919, union workers at Santa Catalina woolen mill established their own press, El Nudito (“The Little Link”), which published local labor news and social commentary. The paper proudly boasted “it is not edited by intellectuals but is written by workers and for workers”.[867] Ultimately, El Nudito would be superseded in 1920 by the FTTP’s official organ, El Obrero Textil. Arguably the most important union paper in Lima during the 1920s, El Obrero Textil, readily embraced FOL’s cultural mission insisting that “the more culturized [sic.] the people are, the sooner they conquer their liberty”.[868] This view resonated with print, carpenter, and construction workers’ federations, who in turn published presses and extolled the virtue of workers’ self-expression. Under the editorial direction of anarcho-syndicalist worker-intellectuals, these and other union presses provided a forum for workers to publish poetry, discuss moral issues, address female workers’ emancipation and the ‘Indian question”, debate ideological points, and analyze capital-labor relations.[869] To further advance the socio-cultural and political education of workers the union presses also utilized drawings and graphic images. El Constructor (The Builder), the official organ of the Construction Workers’ Union, for example, published an instructive cartoon depicting a workman breaking the chains of militarism, politics, the clergy, and the State, with the caption that “an offense against one worker, is an offense against all”.[870]
In addition to the proliferation of union presses, concern for workers’ ‘moral and intellectual improvement’ prompted FOL and its affiliates to sponsor a panoply of cultural and recreational associations. This included workers’ libraries, theater and art associations, musical groups, and sports clubs. Taken together these autonomous worker associations constituted a concerted effort to remake working class social practices and culture in Lima-Callao. The involvement of workers, their families and communities, in these associations allowed for the assimilation of an anarcho-syndicalist discourse about self-improvement, moral codes of behavior (e.g. abstention from gambling and alcohol), working-class dignity and solidarity, and social justice.
Illustrative of this point is the Workers’ Musical Center (Centro Musical Obrero de Lima, or CMO). Founded in 1922 under the direction of Delfín Lévano and with the strong backing of FOL, the CMO provided a musical and a political education for its working class audience. Performing in Lima’s working class zones of El Cercado, La Victoria, Barrios Altos, and Rimac, the CMO exposed workers to a variety of musical forms and to songs centered on workers’ emancipation, rights, liberty, triumphs, and passions.[871] Among the repertoire of songs performed by the CMO were “La Internacional” (The International), “Anarco”, “El Paria” (“The Pariah”), “Canto del Pueblo” (“Song of the People”), “Lira rebelde proletaria” (“Rebellious Proletariat Lyre”), and “Canto del Trabajo” (“Song of Work”).[872] This last song typifies the social criticism and spirit of rebellion propagated by the CMO:[873]
To ensure that workers assimilated the lyrics of these protest songs, individual unions printed and distributed revolutionary songbooks. The Santa Catalina textile union, for example, in honor of May Day in 1927, published a collection of “Universal Proletarian Hymns and Proletarian Songs of Today”. The union claimed it published the songbook to engender a “new social ethic” and to contribute to “the beautiful labor of removing popular prejudices”.[874]
Anarcho-syndicalists also utilized an array of new social practices, rituals, and celebrations to inculcate workers in oppositional values and to transform their worldviews. In the textile mill town of Vitarte on the outskirts of Lima, a group of anarcho-syndicalist textile workers organized an annual tree planting festival that became a celebration of working class culture and solidarity.
The first fiesta de la planta (festival of the plant) occurred on December 25, 1921.[875] Organizers intentionally chose this date for their secular festival to compete with the Christian religious holiday. The day-long celebration involved workers and union organizations from the surrounding region, and consisted of class-inflected speeches, tributes to “fallen comrades in the social struggle”, tree planting rites, picnics, soccer matches, and musical and dance performances. All these events were free of alcohol consumption in keeping with anarchist moral strictures.[876]
Similarly, on a smaller scale, unions affiliated with FOL ritually held soirées in celebration of the establishment of labor unions or to raise funds for strikes and other union expenses.[877] In addition to these social functions, the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement continued to hold May Day celebrations throughout the 1920s. Significantly, all of these events allowed workers to assert their power in public spaces.
Another important institution embraced by anarcho-syndicalists to advance working-class culture was the popular university. Organized by reform-minded students from San Marcos University, the popular university was conceived as an outreach program to broadly educate and train workers who in turn would serve as pedagogues dedicated to the cultural emancipation of all workers and peasants.[878]
Despite the dominant role of students as administrators and teachers, the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement endorsed worker enrollment in the Popular Universities (UPs) established in Lima and Vitarte in 1921. This imprimatur stemmed largely from the fact that the UPs were expressly committed to workers’ integral education and the cause of social justice. It didn’t hurt the UPs’ appeal that they were named after Manuel González Prada, the anarchist intellectual. Nevertheless, some workers, according to El Obrero Textil, were reluctant to participate in the UPs because of their “tendency to view with distrust anything that does not originate from the working-class”.[879]
For the most part, however, anarcho-syndicalist workers were eager to join the UPs as both students and teachers, and to infuse them with an anarcho-syndicalist sensibility. For example, in Vitarte, workers hung red banners from the walls of the UP broadcasting slogans like “Truth, Justice, Liberty”, “Culture Liberates Man”, and “The drunk is a being without will”. A sign marked with three eights painted in red and white was placed in the middle of the proscenium to underscore the UP’s support for eight hours of work, eight hours of study, and eight hours of rest—a position in accord with the First International.[880]
For the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement the UPs formed part of its extensive network of cultural associations which could be harnessed in support of its project and class struggles. A case in point was the mass protest against Leguía and the Catholic Church’s attempt to officially consecrate Peru to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in May 1923. Threatened by the possibility of expanding Church influence and the suppression of freedom of thought, FOL joined with the university students in mobilizing its union members, cultural groups, and the UPs in mass street demonstrations against the consecration. After a pitched street battle between security forces and protesters, resulting in the death of a worker and a student, the Leguía government deemed it prudent to cancel the consecration.[881] Leguía also exacted revenge on “the centers of popular agitation”, his derisive appellation for the UPs.[882] In the wake of the protest students and workers linked to the UPs were arrested and many were deported.
Leguía not only viewed the UPs as subversive but the anarchosyndicalist cultural infrastructure in toto. Acting frequently at the behest of the Church, employers, and elite politicians, Leguía ordered the suppression of workers’ libraries and union presses. In 1921 police razed the workers’ Popular Library Ricardo Palma in Neptune Park and seized the holdings of the workers’ library in Rimac the following year.[883]
The publication of union papers was often interrupted or extinguished altogether by state repression. After two years of circulation, Solidaridad, one of the official organs of FOL, was forcibly closed in 1927. State repression was also accompanied by bourgeois censorship. In 1924 M.A. Arcelles, the secretary general of FOL, complained that the bourgeois press refused to publish union denunciations of inhumane treatment by capitalist enterprises.[884] In addition to worker libraries and union presses, Leguía also targeted the CMO for repression on the pretext that its members participated in the 1923 anti-consecration protest. FOL denounced the Leguía regime in 1924 for its “abominable campaign to impede the redemption of the working-class by cultural empowerment”. This vehement condemnation was triggered by the government’s arrest of a Chilean student in Vitarte for having delivered a presentation on the Mexican Revolution to union workers.[885]
Any account of anarcho-syndicalism in Lima-Callao must address not only the emphasis on class-based unionism and workers’ countercultural politics, but the multiple meanings of revolutionary syndicalism. In 1921 FOL formally declared its adherence to revolutionary syndicalist doctrine. Six years later it would reaffirm this ideological and political orientation at the Second Local Workers’ Congress. At the First Local Workers’ Congress, general secretary Delfin Lévano, defined revolutionary syndicalism as “not only achieving through worker organization and direct action, immediate improvements but also the intellectual and moral elevation of the worker”. He added “ ... it goes against whatever constitutes an error, obstacle, falsehood that impedes the effective solidarity of all the exploited of the earth and it marches toward the future, toward the goal of the medium program of syndicalism: the suppression of the employer and the wage earner, implanting on the free earth, a society of free producers”.[886]
Although interpretations of revolutionary syndicalism would vary among FOL’s members, most shared Lévano’s stress on the practical goals of worker organization, solidarity, and cultural uplift. The libertarian social revolution was a long way off. Arturo Sabroso, a textile union leader, elaborated on this outlook in an article entitled “For Revolutionary Syndicalism”. Writing in El Obrero Textil shortly after the first congress, Sabroso endorsed the idea that Peruvian workers ‘should be revolutionaries’ but with the caveat that syndicalist organization, working class unity, and “forming CONSCIOUSNESS in our comrades” must come first. He also cautioned against impulsiveness and urged careful, well-considered syndical action.[887]
Espousing a pragmatic brand of revolutionary syndicalism made sense in the Peruvian context. As one observer of Lima’s labor movement noted in 1921 it suffered from the ongoing influence of conservative artisan organizations, the lack of class awareness and union organization among sectors of the urban labor force, and the persistent hostility of the state and employers.[888]
Peruvian anarcho-syndicalists interchangeably referred to themselves as revolutionary syndicalists and syndicalists in the 1920s. Their understanding of the principles and practices of revolutionary syndicalism were derived mainly from the First International, the French General Confederation of Labor (Confédération Général du Travail, CGT, 1902–1914), and the Argentine FORA.[889] In essence they subscribed to workers’ self-reliance and the primacy of class-based unions in the struggle to achieve short-term economic improvements and comprehensive emancipation through the destruction of capitalism and the bourgeois state. They also embraced the repudiation of party politics and electoralism in favor of direct action tactics, especially the general strike. Within these broad parameters Peruvian anarchosyndicalists like their counterparts in Europe and elsewhere tended to adapt revolutionary syndicalist doctrine to fit local conditions and power relations.[890]
In response to unfavorable economic and political conditions, anarcho-syndicalists moderated their goals and pursued a pragmatic form of class struggle. Increasing competition in the urban labor market owing to weak economic growth and an influx of rural migrants undermined organized labor’s bargaining power and challenged its ability to represent the broad working-class. Between 1920 and 1931 Lima’s population grew by 68 percent, from 223,807 to 376,097 inhabitants.[891] Over this same period the percentage of workers employed in manual trades and manufacturing climbed by just 1 percent.[892] Most of this increase occurred in the difficult to organize building trades and construction industry. Given this inauspicious economic environment and a regime determined to protect the interests of national and foreign capital, anarcho-syndicalists opted for a practical syndicalism commensurate with organized labor’s limited strength.
Deferring revolutionary aims and actions, they focused instead on defending workers’ rights and on improving workplace and living conditions. To these ends they employed both direct and indirect actions. Despite proclaiming “the strike” to be workers’ weapon par excellence, FOL and its member unions often resorted to bargaining with employers and negotiating with state officials.[893] A combination of direct and indirect action could prove effective as when the union at El Inca cotton mill succeeded in thwarting a wage reduction after management had installed new automatic looms in 1928. The union staged a work stoppage and pressed the government’s Labor Section to intervene.[894]
In general the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement sought to eschew high risk actions like general strikes. With the exception of 1923, when 3 general strikes were implemented, these were rare occurrences. FOL and its constituent federations reserved the use of general strikes and mass street demonstrations for extraordinary circumstances such as to seek the release of imprisoned labor leaders, to defend the right to unionize, and to overturn anti-labor decrees like the Road Conscription Act (discussed in detail in the next section). This tendency to avoid potentially costly direct confrontations with the state left one anarcho-syndicalist worker with the impression that revolutionary syndicalism was essentially “the conquest of workers’ rights without going to extremes”.[895]
Peruvian revolutionary syndicalism as incarnated by Lima-Callao’s union movement had two additional prominent features. First, it displayed a keen interest in the emancipation of women and indigenous workers. Female workers were the targets of unionization efforts and considerable anarcho-syndicalist propaganda. Carrying a message of equal pay for equal work, anarcho-syndicalist sought to organize female workers in the textile and light consumer goods industries. FOL and the FTTP also sought to launch a campaign to organize Lima’s 23,000 female domestic workers.[896]
The organization and cultural emancipation of indigenous peasants was also major concern of the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement. This was reflected in union collaboration with the Tahuantinsuyo ProIndian Rights Central Committee (see next section) and the “indigenous liberation” agenda adopted by the Second Workers’ Congress.[897] The second feature refers to its internationalist outlook. Lima’s union presses maintained contact with anarcho-syndicalist organizations in the Americas and Europe and reported on labor news from around the world.[898] Anarcho-syndicalist unions also mobilized in response to external events. For example, despite a government imposed news blackout on the execution of the anarchists Nicola and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in 1927, word spread quickly and organized labor responded with protest strikes.[899] Two days before the execution Callao’s dockworkers expressed their condemnation by walking off the job. Railway workers followed suit. The FTTP also urged textile workers to strike and denounced those who didn’t as “workers without consciousness”.[900]
Revolutionary syndicalism as practiced by Lima-Callao’s union movement was not without its critics. Indeed, criticism emerged within its own ranks and from groups sympathetic to anarcho-syndicalism. The Union of Workers in Civil Construction complained about FOL’s bureaucracy and its penchant for “referring to revolutionary syndicalism every minute, at every critical juncture wanting to go with requests to the State”.[901] The Federation of Carpenters and Similar Branches disapproved of conceding too much influence to non-workers like the university students.[902] The Anarchist Worker group criticized FOL for permitting Marxist politics and “false redemptive theories” to gain traction.[903]
This criticism was quickly dismissed in Solidaridad with the rejoinder that not a single union affiliate had embraced communist principles.[904] Revolutionary syndicalists had previously rejected this same allegation by anti-Bolshevik anarchists in La Protesta group.[905] Like the French CGT, FOL embraced all workers regardless of political orientation provided they accepted apolitical class-based unionism. FOL’s apolitical stance however had its detractors and they would forcibly present their case at the Second Workers’ Congress in 1927.
Pro-socialist workers and intellectuals at the Second Workers’ Congress criticized FOL’s abstention from politics and its ideological ‘neutrality.’ They called for workers’ ideological indoctrination and the formation of a national labor confederation committed to seizure of the state and the redistribution of wealth.[906] Arturo Sabroso, who served as general secretary of the congress, was among those who swayed the worker delegates representing 27 unions to renew their adherence to revolutionary syndicalism.[907] He refuted the accusation that FOL had ignored political questions. He noted FOL had struggled against “oppressive laws”, a point grudgingly acknowledged by socialists.[908] Ultimately, his argument on the need to maintain revolutionary syndicalism in order to avoid ideological sectarianism and to preserve working class unity carried the day.[909]
Ideological tensions within the union movement were temporarily put on hold, when, in June 1927 the Leguía regime arrested scores of labor leaders and activists of all political stripes and ideological orientations. Conflicts over ideology, party politics, and union autonomy would resurface with a vengeance in the early 1930s when the newly established Peruvian Communist Party and the social democratic, Peruvian Aprista Party vied for control of the labor movement.
In the southern highland region of Peru, comprising the Andean departments of Arequipa, Cuzco, and Puno, a loose but significant network of anarcho-syndicalist movements emerged in the late 1910s and 1920s. This network coincided with the expansion of Peru’s wool export economy. The growth of the woolen trade between 1902 and 1924 fostered commercial links between the three departments and stimulated hacienda expansion, infrastructural improvements, and the development of urban economies in Arequipa and Cuzco. Contact between anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists in southern Peru was facilitated by the completion of the Southern railway line in 1908 which connected the wool producing areas in Puno and Cuzco, with Mollendo, Arequipa’s principal port. As the capital of the eponymous department and commercial center of the southern regional economy, Arequipa became the focal point of the anarcho-syndicalist network in southern Peru.
The development of anarcho-syndicalism in Arequipa can be traced to the influence of four factors: 1) a radical liberal press 2) Lima’s labor movement 3) immigrant anarchists and 4) cross-border ties with Chilean anarcho-syndicalists. Each of these factors will be taken up in turn. First, middle class intellectuals and artisans in the 1890s and early 1900s promoted a radical liberal discourse that offered a trenchant critique of Arequipa’s aristocratic, conservative, and churchdominated society.
Inspired by Manuel González Prada, prominent Arequipeño liberal intellectuals and newspaper editors like Mariano Lino Urieta, Manuel Mostajo, Modesto Málaga, and Armando Quiroz Perea regularly denounced the oppressive and exploitative influence of oligarchic rule, religion, and capitalism.[910] Under their supervision radical newspapers like El Ariete (“The Battering Ram”), Bandera Roja (“Red Flag”), El Volcán (“The Volcano”), Defensa Obrera (“Worker Defense”), and La Federación (“The Federation”) articulated local political issues and themes that would be taken up by Arequipa’s anarcho-syndicalists.
Editorials and letters decrying “the tragedy of centralist tyranny” and demanding decentralization frequently appeared in these publications.[911] Calls for human redemption, workers’ rights and dignity, and Indian emancipation were likewise de rigueur.[912] In addition, Arequipa’s radical liberal press encouraged artisan and worker organization in defense of their interests. In this way it served to engender a popular oppositional movement which was reflected in Arequipa’s first major strikes in 1902, its first May Day celebration in 1906, and the formation of the Worker Social Center of Arequipa (Centro Social Obrero de Arequipa, f.1905), the anarchist Cooperative and Savings Bank (Cooperativa y Caja de Ahorros de Arequipa, f.1912), and the class-based Worker Coalition of the Neighborhoods, (La Coalición Obrera de los Barrios, f.1918) and Red Assistance (Socorros Rojos, f.1919).[913]
A second significant factor in catalyzing anarcho-syndicalist organization and praxis in Arequipa was the influence of Lima’s labor movement and to a lesser extent the labor movements in Argentina and Chili. The principles, goals, class struggles, and organizational structures of these relatively advanced movements served as a reference point for Arequipa’s workers.
In December 1918, for example, artisans and workers cited news reports of an upsurge in proletarian struggles in Argentina, Chili, and Lima as the inspiration for organizing the Society of Workers and Mutual Assistance (Sociedad de Obreros y Socorros Mutuos, SOSM), a class-oriented resistance society committed to a rejection of formal politics and adherence to the principle ‘That the emancipation of workers should be the task of workers themselves.’[914] Two months later, taking its cue from Lima’s anarcho-syndicalist labor movement, the SOSM launched a propaganda campaign to rally workers to enforce the eight hour day in Arequipa.
On July 21, 1919, Arequipa’s principal labor organizations again followed Lima’s led by forming a Comité Pro-Abaratamiento de las Subsistencias to reduce the rising cost of food staples, rent, and utilities. Like Lima’s Comité it presented local authorities with a list of demands and when these were ignored workers responded with a mass-based general strike. Arequipa’s first general strike lasted eight days in early October and involved organized shoemakers, textile, mechanics, and transport workers affiliated with the Comité and commercial employes and railway workers of the British-owned Peruvian Corporation. Although the strike received tremendous popular support it yielded mixed results. Wage and benefit demands by Peruvian Corporation workers were granted but the Comité’s call for price reductions went unheeded. In the months following the general strike the Comité would hold mass demonstrations and continue to promote an anarcho-syndicalist agenda.[915]
In the wake of the 1919 general strike Arequipa’s artisans and workers moved swiftly to build working-class organizations and labor federations. Ably assisted by anarcho-syndicalists linked to the Socorros Rojos, they founded Arequipa’s first local labor federation, the Arequipa Worker Federation (Federación Obrera Arequipeña, or FOA), in 1921.[916] Dedicated to the expressed purpose of “looking out for the true interests of the working class”, FOA counted among its affiliates organized railway workers and employes, transport workers, barbers, bakers, and other artisans.[917] Between 1919 and 1926 an array of resistance societies and labor unions were organized among bakers, tanners, shoemakers, printers, wood workers, railwaymen, and construction workers. These in turn were rapidly organized into sectoral and local labor federations.[918]
This upsurge in labor organization corresponded to FORP’s 1919 call for Peruvian workers to form unions and federations in order to enhance their capacity for direct action against capitalists and the State.[919] With the establishment of a regional federation, the Local Worker Federation of Arequipa (Federación Obrera Local de Arequipa, FOLA), modeled after FOL-Lima in 1926, a clear symmetry emerged between the Arequipa and Lima anarcho-syndicalist oriented labor movements. Indeed, FOLA’s stated priority to achieve the “integral unification of all workers” in the pursuit of “liberty and justice” reflected the orientation of FOL-Lima.[920]
Like its counterpart in Lima, Arequipa’s anarcho-syndicalist labor movement utilized direct and indirect action in the pursuit of immediate and long range goals. For example, in October 1923, labor organizations in Arequipa staged protests and work stoppages against a hike in passenger and freight tariffs on railways owned by the British-owned Peruvian Corporation. SOSM and the Tailors’ Union (Unión de Sastres) pointed to the imperialist character of the Peruvian Corporation and denounced it for “sucking the blood of the people”. At the same time, they sought to enlist the support of Arequipa’s Chamber of Commerce. Ultimately, sufficient pressure was brought to bear to compel the Peruvian government to intervene to suspend the price hike.[921]
Two years later the labor movement launched a general strike, the anarcho-syndicalist weapon par excellence, to demand the Peruvian government repeal the despised Ley Conscripción Vial (Road Conscription Law), which required adult males to register and to work on State infrastructure projects for upwards of twelve days per year.[922] This strike is examined in more detail below. Suffice it to say, the general strike was spearheaded by the Popular Worker Assembly (Asamblea Obrera-Popular) an ad hoc umbrella organization comprising the major anarcho-syndicalist organizations in Arequipa and coordinated with FOL-Lima.[923] The government viewed the Popular Worker Assembly as a subversive organization of “agitators”. Its ties to FOL-Lima and Chilean IWW elements undoubtedly reinforced this perception.[924] Following the December 1925 general strike the government sought to arrest affiliated labor leaders even though it could not readily identify assembly leaders because it “had no active president but conforms to an anarchist regime”.[925]
The combativeness and manifest class consciousness of Arequipa’s labor movement belied its relatively small size and incipient character. Arequipa had only 45,000 inhabitants in 1925 and lacked a dynamic industrial sector. Nevertheless, the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement extended its reach beyond workers employed in the dozens of artisan workshops, 19 commercial enterprises, and 15 industrial establishments.[926]
Emulating Lima’s labor movement, Arequipa’s resistance societies and labor unions cultivated organic links to the broad popular sectors. By sponsoring grass-roots level worker libraries, theater groups, and sports clubs, they sought to achieve two primary objectives: 1) the promotion of worker solidarity and 2) workers’ socio-cultural emancipation.[927] A case in point was the streetcar conductor and employes’ union and its patronage of the Tranelec soccer club. As an extension of the union, which was affiliated with the Popular Worker Assembly, Tranelec would be enlisted to join direct actions in defense of working-class interests such as the protests against the Ley Conscripción Vial.[928]
The promotion of a ritual calendar of events by Arequipa’s anarchosyndicalist labor movement likewise paralleled developments in Lima. In addition to May Day festivities, celebrations were held to commemorate the foundation of workers’ organizations. Tributes to fallen working-class martyrs were also organized. On January 30 annual tributes in honor of the “memory of the immolated victims of the 30 of January 1915” were sponsored by the Workers’ Societies of Arequipa.[929] This well-attended event recalled the mass protest against economic austerity measures in Arequipa’s main plaza and the brutal massacre of 13 workers by gendarmes and police. Ritual events like this reminded workers of the class bias and repressive character of the State and fostered working-class solidarity.
The influence of immigrant anarchists constituted a third factor in the spread of anarcho-syndicalist ideology and organization in Arequipa. Foremost among these immigrants was Ramón Rusiñol, a Spanish architect and self-proclaimed anarcho-syndicalist, who arrived in Arequipa in 1919. A dedicated and indefatigable promoter of anarchosyndicalist doctrine, Rusiñol instructed workers from his office in Barrio Antiquilla in central Arequipa. By dint of his prodigious proselytizing activity, Rusiñol transformed Barrio Antiquilla into a libertarian space where militant worker groups and anarcho-syndicalist labor leaders gathered, socialized, and were trained.[930]
Jacinto Liendo and Francisco Ramos, two of his devoted students, emerged as prominent anarcho-syndicalist labor leaders in the mid1920s. Liendo, a typographer, served as leader of the combative Popular Worker Assembly. Ramos, a tailor, served as the secretary of actas for FOLA. Rusiñol also mentored a coterie of university students in anarchism who in turn were anointed to carry “the light of knowledge” to Arequipa’s worker and artisan organizations.[931] Before his arrest for alleged subversive activities and deportation to the island of Taquila in 1927, he founded a Popular University. Staffed by anarchist students associated with Humanidad, a weekly organ of “free students”, the Popular University sought to foster workers’ integral education. Both Rusiñol and the anarchist students advocated workers’ self-improvement and utilized the locals of the Sociedad Obrera I Socorros Mutuos, Coalición Obrera de los Barrios, and Sociedad de Panaderos I Constructores (Society of Bakers & Builders) to hold their Popular University classes.[932]
European immigrants were not the only foreigners to promote anarcho-syndicalism in Arequipa. For example, Manuel B. Rodas, a Bolivian textile worker, actively sought to organize Arequipeño factory workers along anarcho-syndicalist lines. Between 1916 and 1922 Rodas worked in the La Industrial Huaico, a relatively large textile factory with over 200 workers in Arequipa’s fledgling manufacturing sector. Apparently with some assistance from Rusiñol, Rodas encouraged workers at La Industrial Huaico to organize a union and to pursue direct action tactics to improve wages and work conditions. It wasn’t long before Rodas’s propaganda and labor organizing activities stirred the M. Forga and Sons, the factory owners, to action. In the wake of a strike by Huaico workers on October 20, 1922, M. Forga and Sons implemented a company lockout, denied recognition of the workers’ union organization, and petitioned the prefect of Arequipa to expel Rodas. The owners cannily played on xenophobic prejudices and the threat of subversion in their appeal to the prefect: “[Rodas] is one of the principal promoters of the strike. This individual is of Bolivian nationality and consequently his expulsion as a dangerous element to public order is prescribed by the law.” The prefect sided with the owners despite the pleas by Huaico worker delegates that Rodas was unjustly severed from his job and was merely the treasurer of their mutualist organization.[933]
Rodas’s expulsion in 1922 however did not prevent textile workers at Huaico from establishing an anarcho-syndicalist union. In 1926 the Huaico Textile Union (Unión Textil del Huaico) adopted the IWWinspired slogan, “One for All and All for One” and warned workers against “living in isolation and resignedly suffering [sic] capitalist oppression”.[934] Living up to its creed, the Huaico Textile Union pursued worker solidarity and pressed for improvements in wages and work conditions throughout the 1920s.
Cross-border contacts with Chilean workers affiliated with the IWW constituted another key factor in the spread of anarcho-syndicalism in Arequipa. Initially Chilean IWW activists sought to develop close ties with Lima’s anarcho-syndicalist movement. This largely took the form of infrequent communiqués and the distribution of propaganda. In 1922, for example, Luis Armando Triviño, a prominent Chilean IWW leader published a series of articles in La Protesta extolling the virtues of IWW organization and methods and issued a call for “solidarity with an international reach”.[935]
Though some individual workers were undoubtedly influenced by this appeal, there is little evidence that Lima’s labor movement was meaningfully affected.[936] In contrast, Arequipa’s labor movement, especially employes and port workers in Mollendo, were profoundly influenced by their interactions with Chilean Wobblies. Unlike their counterparts in Lima, workers in Arequipa had more direct and substantive contacts with Chilean IWW activists during the 1920s.
It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when, given the fragmentary evidence, the Chilean IWW maritime workers made their first contact with Peruvian port workers in Mollendo. Certainly by early 1925 close ties were established. Chilean IWW crews abroad the steamships Mapocho and Cachapoal, which were owned and operated by the South American Steamship Company, reportedly held secret meetings under the cover of darkness with Peruvian workers in an abandoned house on Islay Street.[937] On March 24, 1925, the Voz del Mar, (Voice of the Sea), an IWW organ based in Valparaiso, hailed the formation “in Mollendo of a local of the IWW”.
The establishment of an IWW presence in Mollendo appears to have taken place in the aftermath of a triumphant general strike by maritime workers and railwaymen between February 18 and 25. According to Peruvian delegates of the “Associations of the Sea” (the Agrupaciones del Mar) in Mollendo the strike was sparked by the capricious and unjustified dismissal of three storage workers by managers of the British-owned Peruvian Corporation. In a communiqué dated March 8, the delegates expressed their gratitude to the “distinguished comrades of Mapocho and Cachapoal and the labor “Central of Valparaiso” and “all the brothers of the coast of Chili” for their solidarity. They characterized Peru as a “country in which the [Anglo] Saxons dominate and seek to silence the voice of the worker with terror”. The communiqué concluded with an affirmation of their support for the IWW: “the unification of workers is our primary desire, because the one who lives by sweat and the fatigue of labor, shouldn’t recognize boundaries or flags, and for this, we will not separate ourselves from the I.W.W. which we consider the greatest tree in the world”.[938]
Peruvian security forces often noted with alarm working-class internationalism and the rejection of national divisions by southern workers. In a report entitled “About the Bolshevik International Society Y.W.W”. [sic.], one security agent warned the prefect of Arequipa of a seditious “theory” propounded by Octavio Manrique, president of the Confederation of Railway Workers of the South. He observed that Manrique had called on workers to recognize that “in terms of workers’ home, there exists neither country nor class rivalry”.[939] That many Arequipeñan workers shared this view marked an extraordinary advance in class consciousness.[940] All the more so, given Peru’s longstanding border dispute with Chili and the concerted efforts by both national governments to whip up patriotic fervor.[941]
For Peruvian authorities the “Bolshevik” influence of the IWW in the strategic port of Mollendo was intolerable. Senator Bedoya of Arequipa demanded that stern measures be taken in a fiery speech to the Peruvian congress. He insisted that “Chileans and other foreigners had implanted the virus of Bolshevism in Mollendo, and that the government ought to exterminate them in order to assure national tranquility”.[942] No sooner had he uttered those sentiments than on May 4, security forces deported Octavio Manrique and another radical leader of the railway workers, and forced several known IWW propagandists to escape to Chili.[943]
Despite these actions, the subprefect of the province of Islay warned of the persistence of “subversive” leaders and ideas within Mollendo’s Maritime Workers’ Union.[944] This warning proved prophetic. In January and early February 1926 four to five hundred stevedores staged a series of protests and work stoppages over wages and the use of nonunion workers to unload cargo.[945] Rising tensions between the port’s Customs Authority and dock workers prompted one worker to physically assault the head of the Mollendo Agencies & Co., who was responsible for unloading regulations.[946] Prior to this incident, on January 14, Raúl Alejando Nuñez Gómez and his brother Julio Fernando, radical lawyers and directors of La Escoba (“The Broom”), an anarchist paper, were said to have instigated a mass protest against the municipal government.
According to the subprefect, the aim of the movement was to discredit city officials and to undermine their authority by causing workers’ councils to break off relations with the government.[947] Against this backdrop, on February 8, the Peruvian government sent two naval warships to Mollendo to restore order. Still, worker unrest continued. The captain of the port reported another work stoppage by stevedores on February 23 and called for “the Bolsheviks that sustain the terror in Mollendo to be deported”.[948] In early March the prefect of Arequipa had La Escoba suppressed and twelve known subversives including the Nuñez Gómez brothers, a customs official, and nine dock workers arrested and transferred to Lima.[949]
State repression aimed at disarticulating the Mollendo labor movement and neutralizing IWW, anarchist, and communist influence among Arequipeñan workers intensified in the late 1920s. In September 1927, a presidential supreme resolution instructed all prefects to “impede undesirable elements from distributing propaganda based on dissociative doctrines”. It also ordered prefects to establish registers for both national and foreign propagandists and troublemakers. These and other repressive measures seem to have severed ties between Chilean Wobblies and Arequipeñan workers. Nevertheless, anarchist and IWW doctrines continued to inform the labor movements in Mollendo and Arequipa. The use of direct action, demands for social justice, expressions of working-class solidarity, and denunciations of bourgeois capitalism would remain staples of Mollendo and Arequipa worker organizations into the early 1930s and beyond.[950]
As noted earlier the spread of anarcho-syndicalism to Arequipa formed part of a broader regional pattern that encompassed Peru’s southern highland departments of Cuzco and Puno. Anarchist ideas began to circulate in Cuzco in the first decade of the 20th century. Lima’s anarchist press and the writings of Manuel González Prada penetrated Cuzco, the remote former capital of the Inca Empire.[951]
By all accounts anarchist thought initially resonated with Cuzco’s dissident intellectuals. Luis Velasco Aragón, Julio Luna Pacheco, Humberto Pacheco, Edmundo Delgado Vivanco, Roberto Latorre, Luis Yábar Palacios, Manuel Jesús Urbina, and Angel Gasco were the leading exponents of anarchism in Cuzco. Perhaps the most influential intellectual of this group was Velasco Aragón. A disciple of Manuel González Prada, Velasco Aragón founded and directed the Centro Manuel González Prada and the anarchist literary and artistic society, Capa y Espada (Cape and Sword) in the early 1920s.[952] Inspired by European anarchist publications and anarchist pamphlets from Buenos Aires, he also disseminated handbills endorsing workers’ economic demands and social revolution.[953] He gained national notoriety in April 1923 for a blistering speech entitled “La verdad sobre el Fango” (“The Truth of the Shameful Mire”), denouncing political and judicial corruption, militarism, and landlord abuses under Leguía’s dictatorship before cheering throngs of Cuzqueños. For this public incitement and his anarchist activities, Velasco Aragón would be arrested and imprisoned for one year.[954]
Roberto Latorre, the owner and editor of Kosko, a countercultural magazine, would see to it that anarchist ideas remained a part of Cuzco’s public discourse during the mid-1920s. Kosko routinely reprinted articles by González Prada and offered tributes in his honor.[955] Latorre himself published editorials in praise of anarchism and publicly praised the works of Kropotkin and Malatesta.[956] He and Velasco Aragón would also publish articles in Kuntur, a radical polemical and literary magazine that appeared in 1927.[957] The previous year, Pututo, a short-lived experimental magazine was launched by a group of radical cuzqueno intellectuals and it too offered tributes to González Prada.[958] An offshoot of these publishing endeavors was the formation of a radical study group known as “El Falansterio”. The group took its name from the French libertarian socialist, Charles Fourier’s concept of a Phalanx, a small voluntary community based on communal property. The group held meetings at the home of Rafael Tupayachi, an Indian intellectual, who served as the first general secretary and instructor in Cuzco’s Popular University of González Prada in May 1924.[959] An outgrowth of the 1920 university reform movement, Cuzco’s Popular University provided another forum for workers to become exposed to anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist thought. Many university instructors were openly sympathetic to anarchism. These included intellectuals such as Humberto Pacheco, Erasmo Delgado Vivanco, Luis Villa, and Genaro Baca, and Ricardo Santos from a working-class background.[960] The latter, a carpenter, was an outspoken proponent of anarcho-syndicalism. Adopting the slogan “Truth, Justice, Liberty” and committed to fostering solidarity between intellectuals and workers, Cuzco’s Popular University received the enthusiastic support of the city’s artisan guilds and workers’ organizations. From its inception the university enrolled “no less than 100 students”.[961]
Despite the activism of pro-anarchist intellectuals and groups, Cuzco’s laboring class only gradually and rather fitfully adopted anarchosyndicalist organization and methods. Undoubtedly the slow growth of Cuzco’s consumer industries, which were based mainly on artisanal production until the establishment of textile and beer factories in 1918 and the early 1920s, and the small size of the urban proletariat were inhibiting factors.[962] Nevertheless, in October 1919, textile and railway workers undertook strike actions signaling the emergence of a new class outlook and a commitment to direct action.[963]
Concurrently, Cuzco’s major artisan societies and worker organizations founded a Local Workers’ Federation of Cuzco (FOLC) modeled after FORP.[964] FOLC established formal ties with FORP and later FOL-Lima but only survived until 1923.[965] Notwithstanding its short duration, FOLC’s influence should not be dismissed.[966] By 1922 it had succeeded in organizing a May Day celebration based on the ideals of the First International. The May Day program announced in the daily newspaper El Sol reminded workers that “The conquest of the legitimate rights that correspond to workers and their welfare ... must come from the efforts and the direct action of worker organization, the emancipation of workers must be the task of the workers themselves”. It also rejected formal politics declaring that “in each election campaign the worker is victim of deception and fraud”.[967]
To strengthen working class unity and organization in Cuzco, FOLC’s publication, Obrero Andino (“The Andean Worker”), called for a Worker Congress to be held at the departmental level. It indicated the stated goal of the congress would be to “provide the basis for the resurgence of the Peruvian proletariat and defend its forces, prerogatives, its rights and privileges”. The congress never took place.[968] But FOLC’s anarchosyndicalist message did not go unheeded. In 1924 Ricardo Santos, Martín Pareja, and Manuel Castro founded an anarchist organization for fellow artisan workers.[969] By the mid-1920s Cuzco’s labor movement had irreversibly shifted away from mutualist and guild organization toward resistance societies and class-oriented unions.[970]
In addition to urban labor the influence of anarcho-syndicalism extended to the indigenous peasantry in the rural areas of Cuzco and Puno. The principle porters of anarcho-syndicalism in these areas were provincial migrants. During the 1910s and 1920s internal migration intensified in Peru with a steady flow of migrants traveling back and forth between Puno, Cuzco, and Lima as well as between Puno, Cuzco, and Arequipa.[971]
For many southern provincial migrants, contact with Lima’s anarchists and anarcho-syndicalist labor movement profoundly shaped their political thinking and activism. Carlos Condorena (a.k.a. Carlos Condori Yujra), an indigenous peasant from Puno, for example, developed close ties with anarcho-syndicalist leaders and read European and Peruvian publications on anarcho-syndicalism while in Lima in the early 1910s.[972] Soon after, he became a leader within the Tahuantinsuyo Pro-Indian Rights Central Committee (Comité Central Pro-Derecho Indigena Tahuantinsuyo, or CPIT) which was founded in 1919 by provincial émigrés residing in Lima and supported by anarcho-syndicalists.[973] Before his imprisonment in Puno in 1925, he championed indigenous labor organization and the struggle for the eight-hour day.[974]
Provincial migrants played vital roles as both interlocutors for the CPIT and indigenous peasants and as intermediaries between them and the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement. Notable figures in this regard were Ezequiel Urviola, Hipólito Salazar, and Francisco Chuquiwanka Ayulo. Urviola, a quechua speaking “Indian-Mestizo” from Azángaro, Puno, epitomized the synthesis of an indigenous and anarcho-syndicalist sensibility.[975] Driven from Puno by gamonales (rural bosses) for organizing indigenous self-defense organizations, Urviola would ultimately wind up in Lima in 1920 where he collaborated with the CPIT, the union movement, and the Popular University González Prada.[976]
Urviola’s heterodox views were evident in all three areas of collaboration. To textile workers and students in the Popular University he expressed an anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist outlook; one student recalled how he repeated slogans like “get back bourgeois pigs” and “down with Yankee imperialism”.[977] Another issue he addressed with workers was the importance of taking pride in the indigenous race and the Inca past.[978] Along with his fellow puneños, Salazar and Ayulo, both leaders in the CPIT, he opposed the influence of the Catholic Church and advocated rationalist education and schools for Indians.[979]
He also insisted on indigenous peasants and workers’ self-emancipation and rejected state paternalism, an anarchist conviction he sought to imprint on the CPIT and the Peruvian Regional Indian Worker Federation (Federación Indígena Obrera Regional Peruana, FIORP), an indigenous labor federation founded in 1923. Urviola clearly bridged the divide between provincial indigenous peasants and the urban-based anarcho-syndicalist labor movement. On the occasion of his death in 1925, he was lionized by anarchist labor unions, the CPIT, and indigenous groups.[980]
Under the leadership of Urviola, Salazar, and Ayulo, the CPIT and the FIORP, while not anarcho-syndicalist organizations per se, fostered anarcho-syndicalist ideology, organization, and tactics among the indigenous peasantry.[981] Indeed, a dramatic upsurge in peasant revolts in Puno and Cuzco in the early 1920s was viewed by landowners, gamonales, and the government as the work of the CPIT and FIORP, which never sought to conceal their aim to educate, organize, and emancipate the indigenous peasants.[982] That these organizations promoted a class and internationalist outlook, peasant-worker solidarity, direct action, and ethnic pride, was not lost on their adversaries. Official tolerance for FIORP and the CPIT ended in 1924 and 1927 respectively. Both organizations would suffer repression. Francisco Gamarra Navarro and Paulino Aguilar, anarcho-syndicalist leaders of the FIORP, would be deported to Bolivia where they would assist in the formation of Bolivia’s anarcho-syndicalist labor movement.[983]
Government attempts to repress anarchist networks in the south and to sever their ties with Lima’s anarcho-syndicalist labor movement were never entirely successful. This was due in large part to the loose, flexible, and decentralized nature of these networks. It also was a result of state policies that galvanized anarchist-inspired worker, peasant, and indigenous opposition throughout the southern highlands and in the nation’s capital. Leguía’s decision to enact the Ley Conscripción Vial in 1920 and to insist on its application for the duration of his presidency aroused anarchist passions against state oppression and coerced labor.[984] The Road Construction Act as it was euphemistically called had the effect of inspiring a permanent anarchist-coordinated anti-Conscription movement in the 1920s.
Overt resistance to the Ley Conscripción Vial erupted in 1923. Leaders of the CPIT in the southern provinces encouraged indigenous peasant uprisings. In a thinly veiled reference to the CPIT, Pedro José Rada y Gama, the Minister of Government and Police, attributed the revolts in Pomabama, Huanta, Pampas, Aganares, Chiquián, Anta y La Mar, to “known agitators that make them [Indians] believe that the laws of the Road Conscription and other acts of the municipalities profoundly discriminate against their interests”.[985]
Since the first National Indian Congress at Tahuantinsuyo in 1921, Lima’s anarchist press and anarcho-syndicalist delegates had admonished Indians not to accept State impositions such as obligatory military service and labor exactions.[986] By 1923 it did not require much convincing as local authorities and gamonales routinely abused the Conscripción Vial employing Indians 24 days or more, in violation of the prescribed 6 day obligation.[987] That same year, the Third National Indian Congress of the CPIT, under the leadership of the indigenous anarcho-syndicalist, Ezequiel Urviola, who served as general secretary, called for the abolition of the Conscripción Vial.[988] Even as the Congress was in session uprisings flashed across Cuzco and Puno. District authorities had to suspend the Conscripción Vial in several Cuzco provinces in 1924 because of Indian resistance.[989] FIORP, though debilitated by state repression, continued to urge Cusqueño Indians in 1925 to organize and to combat injustices in the name of “indigenous proletarian redemption”.[990]
Anarchists and anarcho-syndicalist organizations in Arequipa also led a campaign to repeal the Conscripción Vial. In December 1925 Factor Lama, Francisco Ramos, and Miguel Aguilar of the Popular Assembly organized a three day general strike to this end. To break the strike and attendant mass demonstrations in central Arequipa, the prefect deployed police and gendarmes resulting in many wounded protesters and the death of at least one worker. The excessive brutality by security forces prompted the city mayor and the municipal council to send protests to President Leguía and to call for the suspension of the Conscripción Vial.[991] In effect, this acknowledged the de facto situation in Arequipa. In order to end the general strike and protests, the prefect had agreed to suspend the law in Arequipa until July 1926.[992] Leguía’s extraordinary decision to dismiss the mayor and city alderman and to maintain the Conscripción Vial in Arequipa reignited the anarchist-led opposition movement. In February 1926 the Popular Assembly sent delegates to Lima to organize a nation-wide campaign with the anarcho-syndicalist labor movement to abolish the Conscripción Vial. Their subsequent arrest led to protests in Arequipa and Lima.[993]
Despite increasing state repression in the late 1920s, anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists continued to make resistance to the Conscripción Vial a top priority. Both in Arequipa and Lima this took the form of coordinated propaganda campaigns and protests. Among the anarchosyndicalist unions that spearheaded this campaign were the Print Workers’ Federation-Lima (Federación Gráfica), the Union of Various Trades of Lima (Sindicato de Oficios Varios de Lima), and the Construction Workers’ Federation-Arequipa (Federación de Constructores).[994] In Arequipa the campaign took propaganda by the word to new level by issuing direct threats to the parties responsible for the implementation of the Conscripción Vial. The Popular Worker Assembly and the Assembly of Workers’ Neighborhoods informed local authorities that “it had taken note of the home addresses of the conscripción vial council ... and had made them known to the people ... the assembly is not responsible for the consequences that may result if it [the council] insists on implementing the law”.[995]
The Conscripción Vial was a burning issue for the Peru’s workingclasses and indigenous peasantry in the 1920s. Anarchists and anarchosyndicalists in the southern highlands and in Lima were responsive to this popular concern. The valor they displayed combating this state imposition earned them the gratitude and support of significant sectors of urban and rural labor force.
The spread of anarcho-syndicalism in Peru during the first three decades of the 20th century was the result of a confluence of factors: The wide circulation of anarchist and syndicalist publications, the influence of a small group of radical immigrants and Peruvian intellectuals, and contacts between Peruvian workers and anarcho-syndicalist organizations in Argentina and Chili.
However, the most important factor was influence of self-constructed worker-intellectuals in Lima-Callao. Homegrown anarcho-syndicalists like Manuel Lévano, Delfín Lévano, Nicolás Gutarra, Adalberto Fonkén, Arturo Sabroso, José Sandoval, and Samuel Rios adapted anarchosyndicalist doctrine and praxis to fit Peruvian realities. The pervasive reality they confronted was a system of domination that politically excluded and socially and culturally marginalized Peru’s working classes.
Power over the state and civil society was decidedly under the control of Peru’s agro-export creole elite. In contrast to the power and relative cohesion of Peru’s ruling elite, workers in the modern sectors lacked independent bases of power, were divided by ethnicity, race, sex, and skill, and were widely dispersed among the coastal cities and rural estates, and provincial towns and mining centers in the sierra. Cognizant of this imbalance of power, Peru’s anarcho-syndicalists adopted a gradualist approach to social revolution. Indeed, they articulated a revolutionary project predicated on the incremental accumulation of power in workers’ union organizations and class struggle. They also emphasized the inseparability of workers’ cultural emancipation from social revolution. As a result, they developed an integrated network of union structures and cultural associations that inculcated workers in counter-hegemonic beliefs and values.
Although Peru’s anarcho-syndicalist labor movement began to rapidly decline by 1929, it laid the groundwork for subsequent labor politics and working-class struggles in the 1930s and 1940s. Many former anarcho-syndicalist workers would join the Peruvian Communist Party (PCP, f.1930) and the social democratic Peruvian Aprista Party (PAP, f.1930).
In so doing, they transferred to these pro-labor parties elements of their discourse and notions of social justice, cultural emancipation, working-class solidarity, practical syndicalism, and union autonomy. Not infrequently this produced tensions and conflicts between the parties and their supporters within the union movement. For example, workers often resisted subordinating their union organizations and interests to these rival, highly dogmatic, and hierarchical Left parties. Aprista and communist workers in defiance of their respective parties would eschew partizanship and prioritize class solidarity and union autonomy. Old anarchist slogans would also be revived and invoked as when PAP espoused “Neither Liberty Without Bread, Nor Bread Without Liberty” in 1946. Anarcho-syndicalist ideas related to cooperativism and worker control over centers of production continued to influence workers struggles under the PCP and PAP into the 1940s.
Finally, it should be noted that while anarcho-syndicalism went into a steep decline by 1929, it did not disappear completely. As late as the 1940s anarcho-syndicalist workers maintained a presence within the union movement and the anarcho-syndicalist paper, La Protesta, reappeared.[996]
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Kirk Shaffer
Penn State University-Berks College
Beginning in the late 1800s and continuing—often sporadically— for three decades, anarchist movements operated in Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Puerto Rico and Spanish-speaking migrant zones in the southern United States. Because anarchists always saw themselves as part of a larger working-class internationalist movement fighting against the forces of bourgeois internationalism, these men and women developed linkages throughout the Caribbean, Mexico and southern US. In so doing, they created two, often overlapping, transnational networks in ‘tropical’ North America.
Three particular historical developments linked the emergence and development of the Caribbean network. First, in Latin America Spanish immigration into Cuba was surpassed only by Spanish immigration to Argentina in the early 20th century. Many of these working-class migrants were either committed anarchists or had been exposed to a long tradition of anarchist activity in Spain. Spanish anarchists sometimes dominated the embryonic anarchist movements (as in Panama) and sometimes supplemented Caribbean-born anarchists as in Cuba, Florida and Puerto Rico.
Second, this network spread at the same time as US military and economic influence stretched throughout the Caribbean Basin beginning in the 1890s. In this context, anarchists represented a transnational movement shaped by and in response to the growing interconnectedness of transnational capital flows and expanding US foreign policy. In fact, one should note that the anarchist network linking Cuba, Puerto Rico and Panama developed in countries whose recent ‘independence’ was linked to US foreign policy: Cuban independence came as a result of US intervention (1898) and then military occupation (1898–1902 and 1906–09) as US-based industrial concerns poured onto the island; Puerto Rican independence from Spain resulted in the island becoming increasingly linked to the US, which would grant US citizenship to Puerto Ricans in 1917; and, Panama’s independence in late 1903 was directly linked to US designs to build a canal across the isthmus.
Third, development of a strong anarchist presence in Cuba facilitated the network’s emergence. Havana was not just a stopping off point for Spanish anarchists but more importantly a hub that linked the spokes of the network. Key to Havana’s central role as the network hub was the anarchist weekly newspaper ¡Tierra! (“Land!”), the longest-running (1903–1914) and most widely circulated organ for communication and fundraising. Other anarchist papers in Havana played brief roles coordinating the network, and small newspapers in Florida, Puerto Rico and Panama helped organize the movements in those locales. In addition, anarchists sometimes utilized American Federation of Labor (AFL)-linked papers in Florida and Puerto Rico. Yet, ¡Tierra! was the most vital newspaper to link these geographically dispersed movements that stretched from the southern US to the northern edge of South America.
The other important Latin American anarchist network in the northern half of the Western Hemisphere existed in Mexico and the US Southwest. Anarchist traditions could be found in parts of Mexico from the mid-1800s, but the first sustained transnational anarchist movement originated with Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón and the Mexican Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Mexicano, or PLM). After being forced into exile to Texas in 1904, the Magonistas eventually migrated to Los Angeles, California where they published the longrunning newspaper Regeneración (“Regeneration”), a paper that continued to function with the aid of their comrades even when the PLM’s main leadership faced mounting legal problems and jail time in the US. The PLM maintained links to anarchists in Mexico and around the United States. In particular, Regeneración facilitated communication between the California anarchists, the US-based Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, or Wobblies) who developed Spanish-speaking unions on both sides of the border, and Spanish-speaking anarchists in Florida and Cuba where anarchists celebrated the PLM and both closely followed and funded the Mexican Revolution.[997]
Geography, work opportunities, and language bound together both networks. First, the Caribbean network extended from the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico to Caribbean Basin mainland in Panama, stretching across the isthmus to the Pacific Ocean and back north to Florida cities along the Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida. The Mexican network was bound by the natural land bridge dissected by the US-Mexico border, reaching north into the central plains of the United States (Missouri), west to Los Angeles, and south to the urban landscape of Mexico City.
Second, these geographical boundaries were themselves intimately linked to labor opportunities as the networks tended to establish nodes along the network routes in places where large numbers of workers and activists could find work. For the Caribbean, that meant the tobacco centers of Florida, Cuba and Puerto Rico, the sugar zones of Cuba and Puerto Rico, the artisan shops of a large city like Havana, and the construction sites of the Panama Canal Zone. Similar nodes developed along the Mexican network, especially in communities along both sides of the Texas-Arizona-Mexico border, the oil fields of the Mexican Gulf Coast and the urban hubs of Los Angeles and Mexico City.
Third, within the labor nodes of these geographically bound networks, language facilitated network connections. These were, first and foremost, Spanish-speaking anarchists, many of whom—though by no means most—were recent immigrants from Spain. While some nonSpanish speaking anarchists moved within these networks, they were few but sometimes played important cross-lingual and thus crosscultural roles in the development of anarchist internationalism along these networks. For instance, Italian anarchists played roles in Florida; English-speaking members of the IWW ran with their Mexican anarchist counterparts on both sides of the US-Mexico border; and, the English anarchist W.C. Owen worked intimately with the PLM in southern California. Despite the presence of this non-Spanish speaking element, these were mainly Spanish-speaking networks with close ties to Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Spain.[998]
This chapter examines how anarchists of different nationalities but linked by language, geography and politics developed movements in these specific locales and then functioned as part of regional networks that sometimes overlapped. The Caribbean and Mexican networks allowed anarchists throughout this vast area the ability to communicate, fund and understand their pursuits for anarchist-defined freedom in a comparative context. By exploring these linkages, we can better see how international anarchism was localized from place-to-place, how the social compositions of different locales impacted the international messages transmitted along these networks, and compare how anarchists in each site carved out spaces to reflect important issues within the global anarchist struggle, against their own locale’s elite, and within the context of an economically and militarily expanding United States.
Cuba’s anarchist movement arose in the 1870s when cigar makers Enrique Roig de San Martín and Enrique Messonier established a worker’s school and newspaper on the outskirts of Havana. By the 1880s, anarchists centered in Cuba’s tobacco industry dominated leadership positions in the incipient labor movement. They launched El Productor (“The Producer”), a weekly newspaper that ran from 1887– 90. By the 1890s, Cubans of all classes and ideologies began organizing and campaigning for independence from Spain.
Anarchists did not uniformly support the independence struggle, though. Some Spanish-speaking anarchists in Cuba, New York City and Spain urged anarchists to avoid becoming involved in what they saw as largely a bourgeois war for independence that would substitute one repressive government for another. For these reasons, the predominantly Spanish anarchists in New York who published El Despertar (“The Awakening”) openly rejected the independence movement, as did a few Havana-based anarchists like Cristóbal Fuente. Beyond the fear of replacing one government for another, these anti-independence anarchists suspected that any overt anarchist support for the Cuban cause could result in a new wave of repression against anarchists in Cuba and Spain since they were already targets of such state-sanctioned violence. In addition, some anarchists in Cuba especially feared that rejecting neutrality in the conflict could open individual anarchists to counter-measures from Cuban and Spanish workers. In other words, if they openly aided the cause for independence, then Spanish workers seeking to remain loyal to the homeland could attack them; likewise, if anarchists in Cuba opposed independence, then they faced potential retribution from pro-independence Cuban workers.[999]
Despite these concerns, the majority of anarchists in Cuba, along with anarchists in Spain and Florida, worked to support the island’s independence. The outbreak of war in 1895 found most anarchists in Cuba supporting the liberation struggle, seeing the conflict beyond ‘nationalist’ terms and instead viewing the conflict as an anti-colonial struggle for freedom against Spanish imperialism. They hoped to push the independence movement away from its bourgeois leadership based in New York City and, upon freeing the island from colonial rule, initiate a revolutionary transformation of the island along anarchist principles.
In Spain, anarchists urged workers to resist their own government’s calls for war and not go to Cuba to fight. Others asked why only the children of workers were sent to Cuba when the elite—who were the ones truly wanting war to suppress the rebels—did not send their own children to die on Cuban soil. Ultimately, Spanish anarchists largely viewed the war as did their pro-independence comrades in Cuba and Florida: a fight to liberate a people from tyranny. As such no selfrespecting anarchist could oppose a people’s desire to be free despite the potential dangers of a post-independence government arising to thwart independence goals of freedom and equality.[1000]
On the island and in Florida, Cuban anarchists joined José Martí’s Cuban Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Cubano, or PRC). They agitated among workers and even Spanish troops. One such agitator was José García, who years after the war recalled how he and a colleague had traveled throughout eastern Cuba during the war, seeking to convert Spanish soldiers to the independence cause.[1001] Beyond propaganda, anarchists across Cuba provided supplies and soldiers to the rebels, as well as coordinated activities among migrant workers in the Florida cigar factories who themselves would send men and supplies to the island.[1002]
Following Spain’s defeat in 1898, the United States briefly controlled the island through a military occupation, eventually giving Cubans significant control of the country in 1902 but retaining important political, military and economic influence. Anarchists emerged during this post-independence era to offer their own agenda for what an independent and internationalist Cuba should look like. This movement—made of men and women, old and young, black and white, Cuban- and foreign-born, skilled and unskilled workers, poets, shopkeepers, playwrights and librarians—dealt with more than bread and butter concerns. They attacked the government for ignoring deteriorating labor conditions, encouraging immigration when unemployment existed, organizing schools that did not teach freedom, and being subservient to US political and economic agendas for the island. Through their initiatives, they condemned the political system, party politics, and governmental reforms, and debated the meaning of independence. They also critiqued social issues like health, education, gender, and living and working conditions.
Anarchists like José García, Rafael Serra, Alfredo López, Antonio Penichet, and Adrián del Valle were among the most visible proponents of anarchist internationalism in Cuba. But anarchist internationalism did not mean an abandonment of Cuban reality for the implementation of some foreign-defined concept. Rather, to many anarchists, especially those following the reasoning of Russian revolutionary Mikhail Bakunin, one should support all local struggles trying to break free from outside domination. The local customs, language and history were important features of local and regional autonomy that needed to be respected. This “nationality”, as Bakunin referred to it, had to be preserved.[1003] To destroy it in the name of an outside notion of “internationalism” would be to impose another outer system of control and deny local autonomy. The key was to “Cubanize” international anarchism, i.e., to blend internationalism and nationality.
This interplay between internationalism and nationality took many forms within the island’s anarchist movement. First, following independence, anarchists challenged both nationalists and those allied with US neo-colonial agents on the island. To the anarchists Cuba’s political and economic elite had abandoned the social goals of jobs and land redistribution promised the fighting masses during the war. Anarchist challenges went to the heart of what they saw as the meaning of independence and thus the meaning of a new Cuban nation. When Cuban leaders arrested or deported anarchists as “pernicious foreigners” in the three decades following the war, anarchists charged that they were the true representatives of the ideals of independence, having fought and died during the war while continuing to struggle to implement those ideals in the midst of practices that sold off Cuba to international capitalism. This unchecked sell-off ran throughout Cuba’s economy so that by the 1920s anarchists referred to Cuba as a feudal outpost of the US that undermined Cubans’ original goals for autonomy and reform.[1004]
Second, anarchist internationalism and Cuban nationality revolved around the image of independence leader José Martí. Within a decade of his 1895 death, Martí had become a national symbol in Cuba. Anarchists early had a love-hate relationship with Martí. His work in the Florida cigar factories in the early 1890s helped to bring the anarchistinfluenced working class into the PRC, thus solidifying working-class support for the struggle versus Spain. His stated goals of social revolution were goals that anarchists saw as their own. In the early 1900s Cuba’s elite moved away from fulfilling any social revolutionary goals, yet the elite-controlled Cuban government began celebrating Martí as a ‘national’ hero. Over time, anarchists also latched on to Martían symbolism, concluding that rather than allow the elite to adopt the war’s symbolism for the purpose of the state, that anarchists would “liberate” these symbols from state exploitation. After all, anarchists argued, Martí’s liberation goals were more in accord with anarchist goals than with the policies of hierarchy, use of spies, and government attacks on workers that the government was waging in Martí’s name.[1005]
Third, anarchist internationalism in Cuba had to confront the intertwined issues of labor and immigration. In the first three decades of the 20th century, over 780,000 Spaniards legally migrated to the island.[1006] While many Cuban-born workers resented employers’ preferences to import and hire foreign (especially Spanish) workers, anarchists urged caution. They noted that Spanish workers were like workers in most countries: generally powerless and doing what they could to put bread on the table.
Anarchists urged Cuban workers to refrain from attacking Spanish migrant workers for taking “Cuban” jobs. Instead, Cuban workers needed to focus their anger first on the Cuban government, which encouraged labor immigration and second on businessmen, who hired desperate foreign workers. Ultimately, anarchists charged the real threat to workers came from the elite in Cuba who fostered intraworking class conflict around false notions of “nationalism” (i.e., Cuban vs. foreign workers) and thus undermined the social goals of better working conditions and equality. Nevertheless, anarchists understood that immigration was a key stumbling block in forging any working-class unity on the island, and to that end actually wrote columns to the anarchist press in Spain. These columns encouraged Spanish workers not to be misled by labor recruiters who promised easy work and high wages on the island. Rather, Spanish workers could do more for the cause of anarchism and the social revolution by agitating in Spain.[1007]
Still, Cuba’s anarchists found themselves caught in a dilemma. On one hand, many of them were Spanish immigrants. On the other hand, their anti-statist positions discouraged them from supporting any legal restrictions on the free movement of workers, thus, by default, tacitly supporting unrestricted immigration. Yet, such unrestricted immigration was also what most employers sought because it continually increased labor pools and kept wages low, while helping to undermine working-class unity. Consequently, anarchists found themselves supporting unrestricted immigration (especially from Spain) because it reflected an individual’s desires for freedom and free movement, while introducing fresh members to the cause from anarchist zones in Spain. Yet, this free movement also threatened to undermine anarchist organization efforts in the newly freed Cuba, hampering implementation of anarchist internationalism there.
Fourth, just as anarchists on the island faced dilemmas concerning labor and immigration, so too did they encounter sometimes volatile racial issues. In 1886, chattel slavery ended in Cuba—a very late date by world standards. In fact, only Brazil abolished slavery later than Cuba. Thus, just as the anarchist movement emerged on the island, hundreds of thousands of new wage laborers entered the labor pool. Anarchist leaders like Enrique Roig de San Martín, via his newspaper El Productor, urged anarchists to condemn racism and unite workers of all colors against Spanish capital and the Spanish state. The 1892 anarchist-led Workers Conference declared its opposition to “every act or decision that results in the detriment of blacks because of their color”.[1008]
After independence, Afro-Cubans found success within the island’s labor movement, but success often was matched by political and cultural persecution. Black activists were involved in post-independence labor strikes beginning with the 1899 Masons Strike and continuing into the 1920s when Afro-Cubans and black sugar workers from the Caribbean played key roles in organized labor. By 1933, eight blacks had even served as president of the Stevedores Union in Santiago de Cuba.13 Yet, Afro-Cubans faced political and cultural discrimination, including higher illiteracy than whites, discrimination in employment, and an inability to vote due to illiteracy and lack of property qualifications. When Afro-Cubans mobilized to form their own political party in 1907 (the Independent Party of Color, Partido Independiente de Color or PIC), the Cuban government passed a law prohibiting ‘racebased’ political parties. When in May 1912 this now-outlawed party held meetings around the island on Cuban Independence Day, the government attacked them, then encouraged white militias and vigilantes to attack party supporters—and even unaffiliated blacks. This “race war” of 1912 killed as many as 6000 Afro-Cubans, and resulted in another 900 thrown in jail and charged with rebellion.[1009]
The anarchist record on racial animosity in Cuba is anything but stellar here, as anarchists responded weakly to the events of 1912. In their newspapers, they attacked the PIC for forming a political party and engaging in bourgeois elections. They suggested that black politicians were no better than any other politician and that Afro-Cubans would be better served uniting against both capital and the state within the anarchist movement. Yet anarchists accompanied this nonracial political critique with praises for Afro-Cuban culture and the contributions of Afro-Cubans in the liberation struggles of the 1890s.[1010]
In response to the race war, anarchists generally felt impotent. As targets of state repression themselves, they recognized they could do little to stop this most egregious attack of racism. Writers like Adrián del Valle and Eugenio Leante urged readers to consider the importance of education and the good upbringing of children to root out racist attitudes that led to the massacre. For example, in the first issue of his new free-thinking journal El Audaz, Del Valle addressed the massacre and racism, arguing that the massacre resulted from the legacy of slavery—by that time only having been abolished for one generation—and that continued racism that fed into the massacre rested squarely on whites’ shoulders.[1011] This weak response reflected the anarchist inability to gain much support from Afro-Cubans, who sometimes saw anarchists as “whites” or as “foreigners” or as both— white foreigners who took their jobs. Still, several Afro-Cubans did rise to important leadership positions in the movement from the 1910s to 1920s, including Rafael Serra (who remained active into the 1940s), the printer Pablo Guerra, and Margarito Iglesias (the black anarchist leader of the Manufacturers Union in the 1920s).[1012]
Ultimately, anarchist agitators, writers and union leaders had to confront concerns of how to interpret the war, the role of anarchists in the liberation struggles, and the anarchist positions on immigration and race within a Cuban context. By focusing on Cuban “nationality”, they framed anarchist internationalism to fit specific Cuban contexts in efforts to attract more followers by creating an anarchist-defined sense of Cubanness. To them, Cuba was a new site for revolutionary conflict—a site that had to be respected for its own ways and culture (its nationality) but which could also be a place for the international working class to come, if necessary, to continue the fight for a social revolution against bourgeois internationalists and their Cuban allies in the new government.
Besides these internationalist-nationality concerns, anarchist idealism was always tempered by an understanding of current social issues that impacted workers on a daily basis. For that reason, social concerns surrounding health, education and gender also went to the core of anarchist pursuits in Cuba. The first US occupation of the island witnessed remarkable improvements in health and sanitation. Yet anarchists believed that “real” health reforms had to focus on eliminating poor working conditions and destitute living environments. Consequently, health was a prominent issue in framing the struggles that anarchists waged against Cuba’s leaders. Anarchists condemned what they saw as negligence in fixing the unhealthy working conditions in the factories, cafés, restaurants, and the expanding sugar complexes because owners refused to spend the money necessary to improve lighting, airflow, and sanitation. In the same vein, they argued that politicians and state agency functionaries were either powerless or unwilling to force owners to make such improvements, implying that the social revolution promised by the war had been hijacked by native and foreign capitalists.
Anarchists often critiqued Cuba’s health situation by describing the suffering of women and children. For instance, they lamented how Spanish owners of restaurants and cafés often hired children to work long hours in smoky, unclean conditions with little fresh air or sunlight. The blatant link to Spanish owners was designed to illustrate a recurring anarchist argument: little had changed since the era of Spanish rule. When they also charged that state health departments refused to play a more active role in regulating the health and sanitary standards of these establishments, they sought to show how the current Cuban government was little better than the previous colonial regime.
Finally, women played important roles in the island’s tobacco industry where they dominated the position of despalilladora (tobacco leaf strippers). Anarchists used health critiques here as well, claiming that conditions forced young women to bend over barrels of leaf all day, ‘knotting up’ their insides, and leading to later problems bringing pregnancies to term. Because anarchists stressed the importance of family, they portrayed owner and state negligence as harmful not only to male workers, but also female and child laborers who would give rise to new generations of unhealthy Cubans.[1013]
While anarchists linked child victimization to health concerns, they also portrayed it within the evolving Cuban educational system. After independence, US military occupations stimulated public school reforms, religious schools expanded, and the Cuban state took an active role in public education. Yet, anarchists rejected these systems on a number of fronts. They attacked religious schools, portraying Catholic schools as embodying mysticism and as the institution that most frequently attacked rational, scientific-based education. As a result, they saw such schools as holdovers from the pre-independence era that would reinforce an earlier form of educational tyranny. Anarchists likewise despised public schools. They portrayed the Cuban state as using public education to indoctrinate students in a form of patriotic nationalism that reinforced the rule of capitalist elites, preserved social hierarchies inherited from Spanish colonialism, and fashioned in students an elite-defined sense of Cubanness symbolically reinforced by saying a pledge of allegiance and singing the national anthem.
Anarchists went beyond these critiques to create their own schools. Building on the worker-initiated schools from before independence and the educational experiments of Francesco Ferrer i Guàrdia in Spain, rationalist schools went through two phases—the first a haphazard affair loosely organized by anarcho-communist groups from 1905–1912. The second was more coordinated and better financed by the anarcho-syndicalist influenced labor unions of the 1920s. However, the schools always struggled due to a lack of funding and difficulties finding trained teachers. Ultimately, while schools arose for short periods around the island, they did not attract large numbers of children.[1014]
Consequently, anarchists staged (literally) alternative educational mediums to reach larger audiences. This revolutionary culture of novels, plays, poetry recitals, short stories, and songs put forth the movement’s ideals, critiqued larger social forces that impacted people’s daily lives, and offered people the opportunity to perform. In a sense, the actual stage became a means for people to “perform” as rebels while simultaneously “teaching” their audiences.
Because women played a key role in the anarchist imagination, authors explicitly targeted them with their literary and performance culture. Authors portrayed women as victims and victimizers, depending on the particular message of a piece. Most importantly, authors held up women as “revolutionary mothers” who protected and guided the family toward freedom. Though their portrayals of women reflected a patriarchal bias of women primarily as care-givers, they sought to portray working mothers who could function equally with men both inside and outside the home where they served as symbols of an emancipated humanity.[1015]
While the anarchist movement in Cuba, born in the mid-19th century, spread throughout Havana and parts of western Cuba by the 1910s, it always struggled to maintain financial solvency and relevance within the working class. However, with the beginning of World War I and the US desire to secure Cuban exports, a wave of repression that included closings of newspapers and deportations undermined the anarchist movement. By the late 1910s, though, a new, mostly anarcho-syndicalist movement emerged. Led by printers like Antonio Penichet and Alfredo López, syndicalists proved instrumental in creating the Havana Federation of Labor (Federación Obrera de La Habana, or FOH) and the National Confederation of Cuban Workers (Confederación Nacional de Obreros Cubanos, CNOC) in the early 1920s.
The CNOC became the first island-wide labor organization in Cuba and anarchists held leadership roles, along with Marxists like Carlos Baliño (a former anarchist) and Julio Antonio Mella (soon to be a founder of the Cuban Communist Party). Beyond organizing labor actions like boycotts and strikes, the anarchist-led CNOC and FOH organized a new wave of rationalist schools that spread across the island. Unlike the first wave of schools that relied on the unreliable donations from individual workers, this wave of schools counted on the more regular contributions from labor organizations.
However, the emerging anarcho-syndicalist successes in cross-sectarian alliance building, labor mobilization and educational development faced internal and external challenges. Some anarcho-communist groups opposed working with Marxists, and rejected the syndicalists’ frequent praise for the Bolshevik revolution. More threatening, though, was the election in 1925 of President Gerardo Machado. By the mid-1920s, the Cuban economy was solidly controlled by US-based companies that dominated the sugar, construction and transportation industries.
The rise of an energized anarchist-inspired labor militancy threatened US economic interests. Because the 1902 Cuban Constitution allowed the United States to militarily intervene in Cuban affairs when the US felt that Cuba was becoming unstable, there were solid fears that in fact US military action was imminent. Presidential candidate Machado—a solid ally of the US and US-based corporations—ran on a ‘nationalist’ campaign, promising that if he were elected that he would clamp down on labor militancy, thwart a US invasion of the country, and thus preserve Cuban independence. Shortly after his assumption of power, the repression against anarchists and Marxists ensued. The government labeled both as “pernicious foreigners” and jailed, disappeared, assassinated, deported, or forced dozens of anarchists and other radicals into exile. The ‘machadato,’ as the era of Machado’s rule is remembered, marked the end of the anarchist movement as an effective element for radical social change in Cuba. However, like Mexico (as discussed below), elements of anarchist organizing would remain alive into the 1930s and beyond, with workers utilizing anarcho-syndicalist direct action and sugar mill occupations in the 1933 Revolution, organizing against fascism and for the Spanish Republican cause in the 1930s and 40s, and supporting anti-government efforts via propaganda, sabotage and rebel support during the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s.[1016]
The first anarchists arrived in Florida from Cuba during Cuba’s first war for independence from 1868–1878 when political exiles fled to Key West. By 1873 Key West was “the leading manufacturing city of Florida”, producing 25 million cigars per year with largely Cuban migrant labor.[1017] The real growth of industrial Florida, though, began in 1886 when cigar factory owner Vicente Martínez Ybor relocated his factories from Havana and Key West to the outskirts of Tampa, hoping to escape the labor movement that was increasingly influenced by Havana-based anarchists like Enrique Roig de San Martín. He soon negotiated a land deal with the Tampa Board of Trade, creating the company town of Ybor City.
Anarchists from Spain and Cuba immediately organized activities and institutions in Tampa so that the movement’s rise mirrored its rise in Havana. Circular migration developed between the two cities— migration of not only workers but also anarchists and anarchist publications. The Havana-based El Productor, El Obrero (“The Worker”), and Archivo Social (“Social Archive”) commented on issues central to these workers, and El Productor relied on correspondents in Florida.[1018] For those who could not read or purchase the papers, they could hear the lector (reader) in the cigar factory read aloud articles while stripping, sorting or rolling leaf into cigars. An anarchist press emerged in Tampa when El Esclavo (“The Slave”) began an almost weekly run from June 1894 to March 1898. The paper proved important to the anarchist network between Havana and Florida. Besides covering Florida and Cuba issues, it also offered early and continuous anarchist support for Cuba’s independence struggle.
While some Tampa anarchists were reluctant to wage war, J. Raices offered his unqualified support. In his four-part article “La revolución social avanza” (“The Social Revolution Advances”) that concluded on February 6, 1895, just weeks before war began, Raices argued that Cuban workers had to fight for the revolution against Spain. By doing so, workers “can win from this a powerful moral influence that will give us at the same time all of the material force that we need in order to establish there [in Cuba] the true revolutionary socialism”.[1019]
As Florida anarchists joined Martí’s PRC, El Esclavo provided unwavering support for independence. Secundino Delgado, one of the paper’s editors, illustrates how anarchist internationalism in support of the war worked on the ground. Born in 1871, Delgado grew up on the Spanish island of Tenerife. In 1885 the 14-year-old crossed the Atlantic to find work in Cuba. Later that year, after becoming exposed to anarchist influences in Havana’s tobacco trades, Delgado migrated to Tampa and began a ten-year stint in the city advocating anarchism and Cuban independence. With the outbreak of war, Delgado went to Havana but soon fled, returning to the Canary Islands. He traveled to Venezuela when Spanish General Valeriano Weyler accused him of being a Florida-based radical who orchestrated an assassination attempt in Havana. Eventually, this Canary Islands native returned to Spain where he became an outspoken proponent of Canary nationalism and independence.[1020]
In December 1894, El Esclavo published two columns linking anarchist support for violent struggle with the creation of a socialistic Cuba. The lead column welcomed war because “Cuban workers, we are going to be the first to raise the red flag and show the entire world by example and soon it will be inclined to follow our lead”. This celebratory call for Cuba to be a beacon for global revolution echoed through the adjoining column—Bakunin’s “Civil War”. Bakunin championed the benefits of civil war, which is what events in Cuba reflected, i.e., Spanish citizens fighting each other. To Bakunin, civil war could be beneficial because conflict brought forth popular initiatives and awoke bored, passive peoples to feelings of rebellion in order to acquire true freedom from the state.[1021]
In August 1895 El Esclavo continued to praise the level of rebel violence unleashed throughout Cuba. “Hurrah for dynamite! Let the spirit of destruction guide the revolutionaries’ paths”, proclaimed one front page.[1022] To this end, anarchists blew up bridges and gas lines throughout Havana. The most celebrated bombing occurred in 1896 against the quintessential symbol of Spanish rule: the Palace of the CaptainsGeneral near Havana harbor. Planned in Florida with poor-quality dynamite, the explosion succeeded merely in destroying the latrines.[1023] Yet, Tampa celebrated the bombing for its symbolism and further encouraged “those producing similar explosions!”[1024]
While bombings relied on anarchist networks and cells already existent in Cuba, Florida also served as a staging ground from which to launch armed expeditions to Cuba. Some anarchists joined these expeditions. For instance, Enrique Creci, a Cuban cigar roller and anarchist who had published Archivo Social, moved to Tampa in the summer of 1895.[1025] He soon became a captain in the rebel forces and led an assault from Key West in 1896. Shortly afterwards, though, Spanish forces captured and executed him.[1026] Tampa’s anarchists honored his death in May 1897. While Spaniards and Cubans dominated the Florida anarchist ranks, a few Italians could be found in their midst. One of these, Orestes Ferrara, invaded Cuba from Florida, stayed in Cuba after the war, renounced anarchism, and became a prominent politician.[1027]
As the war progressed, new anarchist groups emerged in Tampa. By February 1896 at least five separate anarchist groups operated in the city, raising funds to support the fight, launching fundraisers to support deported anarchists’ families left behind in Cuba, and organizing supplies for rebel forces.[1028] Yet, the ability to raise funds for the war effort quickly became a problem when the key economic engine of Cuba and Florida—tobacco—was disrupted. Both sides’ scorched earth policies destroyed fields, meaning less leaf arrived in Florida and demand for labor slowed. Since anarchists relied on workers to support their activities and the war effort, the intensification of conflict ironically meant less money was available to finance that conflict.
The decade preceding Cuba’s independence from Spain witnessed a prominent and influential anarchist movement on both sides of the Florida Straits. The two cities of Tampa and Havana—and their anarchist movements too—were interdependent. Before 1898, both cities had thriving anarchist presses that fed off one another and solidified a key link in the emerging regional anarchist network that would soon expand into new areas as US military and economic interests spread throughout the Caribbean. Yet, the height of anarchism in Tampa was about to end as the new century began. With the US intervention and ultimately Cuba’s liberation from Spanish rule in 1898, Tampa’s anarchists redirected their energies to labor and political struggles in Florida where most tobacco workers—even in Ybor City—remained unorganized.[1029] In August 1899, at the end of a general strike, tobacco workers formed the anarchist-dominated Society of Tampa Cigar Rollers (La Sociedad de Torcedores de Tampa, or simply La Resistencia, “The Resistance”) with its own newspaper La Federación (“The Federation”).[1030] Reflecting the union’s by-laws “to resist the exploitation of labor by capital”, the union incorporated non-cigar workers, including bakers, restaurant workers, porters, and laundry workers.[1031]
A peaceful coexistence between anarchists and the International—a rival union affiliated with the AFL—collapsed in the fall of 1900 as the two unions fought over turf and members. A second anarchist newspaper, La Voz del Esclavo (“The Voice of the Slave”), emerged to lend support to La Resistencia. But such an open, foreign-dominated anarchist movement (with two newspapers, no less), plus anarchist calls for cross-national and cross-racial unity that made appeals to people of color, unnerved Tampa’s white elite just as efforts to enforce racial segregation gained speed in Tampa in the early 1900s.[1032]
Nativist agendas found expression in legal and physical assaults against La Resistencia. In August 1901, the all-white Citizens Committee kidnapped thirteen union leaders, including prominent anarchist Luis Barcia, put them aboard a ship at night, and deserted them on the coast of Honduras. This, coupled with sabotaging the anarchist press, closing soup kitchens and attacking strikers undermined anarchist efforts in Tampa. With the assassination of US President William McKinley in September, repression of anarchists across the US ensued and La Resistencia died in 1902.[1033]
The decimation of La Resistencia, La Federación and La Voz del Esclavo crippled anarchist agitation and activity in Florida for years. Some anarchists aligned themselves with the International, attempting to operate on the margins of that organization and publishing in the union’s newspaper El Internacional. Beginning in 1903, though, Tampa’s anarchists found a new, if distant, communication outlet in the surging anarchist movement in Havana. In that year, the Cuban group ¡Tierra! began publishing a weekly newspaper by the same name. Until it folded in 1914, ¡Tierra! collected money, published correspondent columns from Florida, and in effect became the voice of Florida’s anarchists. The linkage between Florida and the new anarchist newspaper in Havana cannot be overstated. With no organ of their own, anarchists in Tampa, Key West and St. Augustine became major financial backers of the paper. From 1903 to 1906, the majority of the funds came from Tampa, with frequent large contributions from Key West and St. Augustine. The St. Augustine funds were always collected and sent by Luis Barcia, who had relocated there by February 1904. During this three-and-a-half year span, Florida’s contributions frequently represented the majority of income received by the paper during any given issue.[1034]
In Tampa, though, anarchists continued to confront a passive labor force and a violent political establishment. Citizens groups continued to look at anarchists as representatives of a dangerous, foreign, unAmerican ideology. One anarchist correspondent to ¡Tierra! in August 1903 listed a series of recent actions perpetrated by the Citizens Committee that included a new wave of deportations, executions, and the grisly castration of two black workers found cavorting with two white women, their testicles hung on display in local taverns.
Yet, apathetic workers did nothing, perplexing anarchists.[1035] While a few workers were sympathetic to anarchist ideas, workers proved to be even more interested in a solid wage, which the AFL-linked International—as an ‘American’ union—could in their eyes best achieve.
Also, one can assume that many workers simply disliked anarchists’ puritanical social agendas: no beer or rum, no cards, no pool, no paidfor female companionship. One should also not discount the influence of “nativism” in Tampa as workers often faced a choice of aligning with a “pro-American” union linked to a larger white- and Americanled leadership versus a “foreign” movement increasingly portrayed as dangerous and targeted for repression. In short, the average worker— guided by materialistic interests or fearful of coming into the Citizens Committees’ cross hairs—moved away from anarchism by 1905.
While 1906–12 were years of growth and expansion of the movement in Cuba, Florida-based activists struggled to be heard, having lost much of the influence they waged in the labor movement and as a counter-cultural Latin presence during the previous decade. Still, they fought to keep lectores reading ¡Tierra!, labored to open a rationalist school, continued to agitate in favor of ‘true internationalism,’ created a small branch of the IWW in 1911, listened to Puerto Rican anarchist and feminist Luisa Capetillo in the city in 1913, and maintained as best they could linkages with the Cuban radicals. However, by World War I, ¡Tierra! folded and the AFL controlled the labor movement. Anarchists would occasionally make speeches or be arrested in Florida after this point, but their movement effectively ceased to be of consequence.
Anarchist ideas emerged in Puerto Rico in the late 19th century, flowing from Spain and merging with local realities to take on specific Puerto Rican dimensions. Anarchism combined with a longer tradition of parejería, i.e., “disrespect for hierarchy and pride of self,” that consumed the island’s artisans.[1036] Like their comrades in Cuba and elsewhere, shapers of Puerto Rican anarchism also understood their island’s condition within a global context. By the 1890s, they developed a “strong sense of internationalism, which they incorporated into their struggles and their traditions”.[1037]
In 1899, men sympathetic to anarchism formed the Free Federation of Workers (Federación Libre de Trabajadores, or FLT). One of these men, Santiago Iglesias Pantín, migrated from Spain to Cuba, worked with that island’s anarchists in the 1890s, and then migrated to Puerto Rico as an anarchist.
Yet, following US occupation and control of the island, Iglesias soon abandoned anarchism and adopted more parliamentary ways. He became the FLT’s main representative to the AFL after leading the FLT away from its early sympathy for anarchism toward a bread-andbutter, pro-Americanization stance that fit the AFL agenda.[1038] Former anarchist FLT leaders like Iglesias and Ramón Romero Rosa linked the FLT with the AFL, believing that Puerto Rican workers would materially benefit by associating with an “American” union. Most of the FLT’s rank-and-file supported this approach. Yet, many mid-level FLT members continued to push an anarchist agenda.[1039]
Because the FLT was the largest labor organization on the island, anarchists had to be a part of it or risk being marginalized. However, this anarchist presence in the FLT often created internal conflicts. For instance, anarchists distrusted politics but the FLT often cooperated with political parties and even linked itself to the Socialist Party in 1915. Anarchists also questioned the Americanization of the island’s workers. With the linkage to the AFL, its flirtation with US socialist parties, and the celebration of the US Labor Day instead of May Day by 1907, anarchists asked if the FLT truly had the island’s workers in its best interests.[1040]
Puerto Rican anarchists were on shaky ground as the island’s larger labor movement became involved in the postwar political situation. In Cuba anarchists had largely supported that island’s fight for independence, seeing the conflict as a way for a people to be free from colonial rule. After independence, Cuban anarchists repeatedly challenged political leaders who expropriated the images of the war and ‘national’ symbols for their own political agendas. Puerto Rican anarchists’ dilemma was different. First, there had never been much of an independence movement on Puerto Rico. Then, Puerto Rican anarchists rejected nationalism, but this put them in the same camp as the FLT leaders, who likewise rejected political independence from the US. Yet, unlike the FLT leadership, anarchists rejected Americanization. In essence, anarchists belonged to the Americanist FLT, but were an antinationalist wing that rejected the FLT’s pro-American stance.
In 1905 anarchists began to make their presence heard as a distinct voice in the FLT. In the central-eastern town of Caguas, anarchists led by José Ferrer y Ferrer and Pablo Vega Santos dominated the FLT local. Juan Vilar and other Caguas-based tobacco-workers organized Grupo “Solidaridad” (the Solidarity Group). This organization held meetings, wrote columns to their comrades in Cuba, founded a Social Studies Center (Centro de Estudios Sociales) for educational work, and began publishing their own newspaper, Voz Humana (the “Human Voice”).[1041]
“Solidaridad” set the stage for future anarchists like Angel M. Dieppa, Luisa Capetillo and others who pushed a pro-labor agenda while challenging the political situation in Puerto Rico. For instance, in the midst of widespread labor unrest in 1905, anarchists used labor disputes to challenge the island’s political reality. In a pointed attack against the island’s establishment, Vega Santos noted how the elite criticized labor actions by calling strikers uneducated bamboozlers who were led by destructive anarchist doctrines. Such attacks were published in the newspaper La Democracia (“Democracy”)—a point, according to Vega Santos, that reflected how the press (even with such a word as “democracy” in its title) “had been placed on the side of the capitalists and the government” and away from the island’s democratic masses. Vega Santos asked how officials on an island now ruled by the ‘democratic’ United States could break up peaceful public meetings and ban demonstrations. What did democracy mean in Puerto Rico?[1042]
Anarchists repeated this critique of democracy and the United States from 1905 to 1910, challenging the US impact on the island, the role of elections and the threats posed by US-based unions. Puerto Rican anarchists repeatedly expressed anti-American sentiments. For instance, as police abuses mounted against striking workers in 1905, the Caguas anarchists asked how such events could occur in a ‘democratic’ land. As one anonymous writer put it, the island’s police were no better than Russian Cossacks and San Juan was no different than Moscow, Odessa or St. Petersburg where the police and military butchered workers during the 1905 Revolution.[1043] Writing from the western city of Mayagüez, the female anarchist Paca Escabí echoed the Cuban anarchists: what had changed since the 1898 US invasion and end of Spanish rule? For Escabí, the only real change was that North Americans, who led people to dream of a better life, had actually crushed peoples’ hopes. “The American invasion of Puerto Rico only means division among workers, scandals in the administration, moral disorder, and hunger, exodus and grief for the people”.[1044]
During election time, the uniqueness of Puerto Rico’s larger political status as linked to the United States placed anarchists in the position of attacking both Puerto Rican and US politics. Thus, while anarchists in Cuba may have periodically challenged the military occupation governments and lamented the threat of US intervention, Cuba was, at least technically, an independent country. Puerto Rico’s status was clouded by US refusal to incorporate the island as a state or grant Puerto Rican independence. Since the governor was a US presidential appointee, anarchists blurred the line between anti-politics rhetoric and anti-imperialist attacks. Alfonso Torres in San Juan addressed this specifically: “Here in Puerto Rico, where we cannot count on our own government ... here where no power exists other than that of the North Americans, here where the governor and the executive council are the same rulers, what they order, oppresses the people, so that the struggles of the [Puerto Rican] political parties are not really about power because power is in foreign hands”.[1045]
A central issue surrounding US impact on the island revolved around the influence of the AFL, its leader Samuel Gompers, and Santiago Iglesias (Gompers’ key representative in Puerto Rico). Anarchists were alienated by the Iglesias-Gompers connection, Iglesias working for and being paid by the AFL, and both men’s support for Americanization. This pro-American stance was coupled, in anarchist views, with an AFL bias in favor of workers on the US mainland over workers on the island. For instance, in 1906 and 1907 anarchists challenged the AFL’s International Tobacco Workers Union which sought to organize the industry in Florida and Puerto Rico. The union collected the same dues regardless of location. Thus, worse-paid workers on the island paid the same as better-paid workers in Tampa. One anarchist suggested that the so-called “international” union was more interested in mainland workers and should be known as the “Internal Union”, not the International Union.[1046] In the northwest community of Arecibo, Venancio Cruz further charged that such practices undermined labor on the island. Were AFL unions “internationalist” or simply manipulating internationalism for their own domestic agendas?[1047]
The conflictive nature of this relationship between the AFL/FLT and
Puerto Rican anarchists can be seen in a three-month span in mid1909. In April, Iglesias called anarchists “rogues” for their frequent criticism. In response, an anarchist called Iglesias a sellout: “you were one of them [an anarchist, which he’d been in the 1890s], with the difference that you lost your old work shoes while we, with dignity, kept ours”. The charge of Iglesias having sold out and become part of the labor aristocracy was reinforced in the same column when the writer, noting Iglesias’ history of meetings with Washington politicians, accused Iglesias of “aspiring to suck the Washington dairy from [President] Taft’s tit”.[1048]
Yet, while animosity could flourish, anarchists still worked among the FLT rank-and-file. For instance, just months after the charges against Iglesias, anarchists worked intimately with the FLT’s Cruzada del Ideal (“Crusade for the Ideal”), a propaganda campaign where working-class intellectuals spoke at public demonstrations. In Mayagüez, for instance, the anarchist and feminist Luisa Capetillo ran into Alfonso Torres and other anarchists—suitcases in hand—heading out to mobilize workers in July 1909.[1049] In addition, anarchists continued to play key deliberative roles during island-wide meetings, such as the 1910 FLT congress.[1050]
The departure of anarchists like Dieppa and Capetillo to the United States in 1911 and 1912 respectively, coupled with the imprisonment of Vilar for a year at the same time for his supposed links to a convicted murderer, contributed to the weakening of the small anarchist movement in Puerto Rico. Gradually, some long-time anarchists accepted reformist positions and leadership roles in the FLT, including Pablo Vega Santos. The movement’s small size in the 1910s undermined efforts to create an anarchist periodical that might be used to organize workers. In conjunction with the collapse of ¡Tierra! in late 1914 and the creation of the Socialist Party in 1915, anarchists found themselves struggling to communicate with both the wider world and potential island followers. By the spring of 1915, anarchists turned to the New York-based Cultura Obrera (“Worker’s Culture”) to communicate with the international movement and the handful of Puerto Rican anarchists and other radicals making their way to New York. For example, Basilio Marcial in Bayamón wrote to this IWW organ edited by Spanish anarchist Pedro Esteve. However, by then the quest to create an anarchist-defined Puerto Rico was slipping away.[1051]
Nevertheless, diehard anarchists continued to agitate when and where they could. Anarcho-communists Marcial, Ventura Mijón, Antonio Palau and Emiliano Ramos published the weekly El Comunista (“The Communist”) from May Day 1920 to February 1921 out of Bayamón and sold it around the island. Two dozen writers from across Puerto Rico sent money and columns attacking the AFL/FLT, working conditions, creation of the Puerto Rican National Guard, former anarchists Vega Santos and Iglesias, and US interventions in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua.[1052]
In the heady revolutionary years following 1917, some anarchists around the world openly supported the Russian Revolution. In Cuba, anarcho-syndicalists tended to take such a stance, while anarcho-communists were more cautious of or opposed the Bolsehviks. In Puerto Rico, the opposite occurred as the El Comunista group supported the Russian Revolution. This support also spelled a new dimension in how some Puerto Rican anarchists spoke of the island’s independence. They applauded the Russian Revolution, adding that “All countries have the right to their own destiny, including P.R. [sic]”.[1053]
While anarchists had long rejected a straight-forward political independence for the island, by 1920, the growing Unionist Party called for that very goal. Anarchists challenged the Unionists, asking what would happen if the US flag were actually lowered and the island became independent. Would exploitation of workers end? Would people have enough to eat instead of food being exported? If the answer was ‘no,’ then independence alone was just political deception of the people. Rather, real independence had to include a restructuring of society based on the egalitarian principles of anarcho-communism with decentralized decision-making and local autonomy from a centralized state bureaucracy.[1054]
In addition, international solidarity remained important to the group, including aligning with Communists and the IWW in the US and anarchist comrades in Cuba like Antonio Penichet and Marcial Salinas—the latter recently arrived in Havana from Tampa.[1055] These international linkages found expression financially as well. By the time the anarchist movement collapsed for good and this last Puerto Rican anarchist newspaper shut down in 1921 due to work slowdowns in the tobacco industry, significant amounts of money were arriving from elsewhere in the network, especially Tampa. Contributions from the latter included the old Florida anarchist Luis Barcia.[1056]
In 1903, the US chose to construct a trans-isthmian canal through Colombia’s northern province of Panama. To that end the Roosevelt
Administration aided the province’s liberation from Colombia in November. Panama then ceded to the United States a ten-mile wide stretch of land in the heart of the new country to build the canal. Between 1904 and 1914, tens of thousands of laborers from around the world made their way to this slice of North American territory in the heart of the tropics. From 1906–08, 8,298 contracted workers migrated from Spain and 500 came from Cuba. Besides thousands arriving by contract from the West Indies, unknown thousands of non-contracted workers poured into the zone, driving down wages.[1057]
One historian has asserted that it was the thousands of Spanishspeaking workers who brought to Panama “the seed of class consciousness and anarcho-syndicalism”.[1058] US officials, in fact, feared that very scenario. In 1904, upon taking control of the canal zone, the US tried to prohibit anarchists migrating to Panama by passing an immigration law forbidding known anarchists.[1059] Despite the anti-anarchism law, though, Spanish-speaking anarchists had arrived by 1906. They spread throughout the region in small groups, agitating against the US and for improved conditions.[1060]
Labor and working conditions in the Canal Zone were notoriously dangerous, disease-ridden, and exacerbated by poor food. The majority of laborers (most Spaniards and Cubans as well as almost all workers from the West Indies) were paid on the “silver roll”, a euphemism in which “nonwhite” and non-Anglo workers received poorer pay and conditions than white North American workers while doing the most dangerous tasks. In early 1907, Spaniards, including anarchists, began to agitate. Besides condemning the poor quality of food they received, they also began to question the utility of black West Indians in their midst. Some believed that employers brought in large numbers of mostly English-Creole speaking black workers to undermine labor unity and militancy as well as to drive down wage rates.[1061]
While anarchists in the Canal Zone have been accused of being racist for making such accusations, one should be cautious in that assessment.[1062] Anarchists were hostile not only to black workers, and not because they were black. West Indians tended to stay within their communities. Language differences obviously played a role in this, but these Antillean workers also tended to be more religious and conservative than their Spanish, and particularly anarchist, counterparts.[1063]
Anarchists saw a number of inter-related issues here. First, they saw the arrival of ever-increasing numbers of workers as a plot by canal managers to undermine working-class unity and lower wages. Second, anarchists, who despised all organized religion, saw the Anglican, Episcopalian, Baptist and Catholic churches—all encouraged by the supervisory Isthmian Canal Commission (ICC) and widely attended by Antilleans—as corrupting influences. Anarchists would have criticized workers regardless of color for attending them. Thus, workers organizations were undermined by cross-national problems, language divisions, black conservatism, and the elitism of North American workers who enjoyed better pay and conditions on the “gold roll”. ICC repression, including deportation, further undermined working-class unity in the Canal Zone.[1064] This was the environment that anarchists found themselves in as they attempted to form a movement.
In the wake of the 1907 strikes, anarchists began sending money to Havana to receive copies of ¡Tierra!. With the contributions came correspondence outlining labor issues in Panama. The first communiqué from Panama to Havana described a recent meeting urging workers to demand the eight-hour, ten dollar day, with $16 for work on holidays. The author then denounced US canal labor recruiters who deliberately lied to workers in Spain by painting false scenarios of excellent working conditions. He then described police abuses directed at workers and US foremen who expelled workers from the job simply for smoking a cigar. Signed by 37 men, the letter urged ¡Tierra!’s editors to notify Spanish anarchist papers and warn those “still in Spain with illusions of coming” to Panama that they could expect little but misery and abuse from Americans.[1065]
From 1907 to 1911, Canal Zone anarchists had little organizational strength and the larger regional network was extremely tenuous, but that soon changed. In 1911, Aquilino López, a rising figure in Havana, left Cuba and went to Panama just as labor militancy again surged in the canal. That July, workers in the infamous Culebra Cut section of the canal—a particularly harrowing area of the construction project due to its susceptibility to sudden massive rock and mud slides—began protesting conditions and their American overseers. Sympathy strikes emerged elsewhere, especially among Spaniards who became targets of increased anarchist propaganda from a growing number of anarchist clubs that arose across the zone. López stepped into this mix, linking himself with the emerging clubs and especially Bernardo Pérez, the editor of the Colón-based anarchist newspaper, El Único (“The Only One”).[1066] While Pérez was a key agitator in the zone, López played the central role of reconnecting the regional anarchist network by utilizing his Havana connections to link the two locales’ movements.
In Cuba, the movement had begun to diversify as anarchists in Havana published three newspapers. But it also fractured due to a series of personality and ideological disputes pitting groups linked to either ¡Tierra! or La Voz del Dependiente (“The Assistant’s Voice”), the anarcho-syndicalist paper of Havana’s restaurant and café workers. Yet, the internal divisions in Havana had shifted this network. While ¡Tierra! was the early recipient of Panamanian money and correspondence, López was one of those Cubans who deserted ¡Tierra!. Those who split with ¡Tierra! but stayed in Cuba began to publish Vía Libre (“Freedom’s Way”), for which López wrote and sent columns from Panama.[1067]
By August 1911, anarchist militancy had spread to such an extent throughout the Canal Zone that anarchists organized the Panamanian Isthmus Federation of Free Associations and Individuals (Federación de Agrupaciones e Individuos Libres del Istmo de Panamá). The federation claimed groups in Gatún, Punta del Toro, Corozal, Culebra, and Balboa, including nearly 120 individuals willing to sign a communiqué to be published in Havana. Meanwhile, López collected money for Havana’s anarchist causes and Vía Libre. In fact, Panamanian-based anarchists were crucial financial backers of Vía Libre. For instance, in August canal workers sent four times more money than Cubans to this Havana paper. López’s transnational intermediacy explains this linkage.[1068]
While links between Panama and ¡Tierra! were nonexistent in the summer of 1911, by 1912 internal conflicts within Cuba were resolved, anarchists representing different groups reunited, and ¡Tierra! reemerged as the voice of the circum-Caribbean network and an important venue for Panama’s anarchists.[1069] In 1912 some 4000 Spaniards remained in the Canal Zone, and anarchist activity continued at relatively high rates until early 1914 when construction concluded. From 1912–1913, anarchist activities centered around the Grupo “Los Nada” in Pedro Miguel and Grupo “Libre Pensamiento” (“Free Thought Group”) in Gatún.[1070]
While these groups continued to finance movement efforts in Cuba, anarchists were turning their attention to political and social issues in the Panamanian Republic itself. Braulio Hurtado critiqued Panamanian politics and the presidential election of Belisario Porras in 1912. For instance, just before Porras’ inauguration in October 1912, Hurtado asked what the Panamanian government had done with the ten million dollars received from the US in exchange for the Canal Zone territory. The government had promised agricultural colonies, roads, and communication systems, but they were practically non-existent almost ten years after independence.[1071] Porras’ inauguration in October once again brought out Hurtado’s bitter pen. The decline in canal jobs meant increased hardship for workers and families. Just as bad was the fate of workers who saw their wages cut from 16 to 13 cents an hour. In this light, Hurtado lamented the mass of people who had come to witness Porras’ costly inauguration. As he walked to the event, he passed by doorways full of poor mothers and “anemic” children, while “those who cause such misery pass by in their automobiles and coaches”.[1072]
In the midst of this political critique, José Carrasco urged anarchists across the isthmus to organize workers centers. He saw a rise in the “spirit of rebellion” around him, thanks to the rise of new anarchist groups; it was time “that all of us, not a group of twenty or thirty compañeros [comrades] like we’ve had in the Canal Zone before, but a Workers Center, that is, a resistance society ... that guides man to be free and to have good health to combat the many evils that continually threaten their existence”. In fact, a new Workers Center in Gatún emerged by late 1912, contributing money to the cause, ordering newspapers from Havana, and offering funds for anarchist causes in Cuba and the US.[1073] To Carrasco, this did more than just help workers. It showed “those barbaric misters of the North” that canal workers would stand up to North American despotism.
Smaller anarchist groups continued to operate in Ancón, Pedro Miguel, Culebra and Balboa throughout 1914, sending small sums of money but no correspondence to Cuba. On August 15, 1914, navigation on the Panama Canal formally commenced. In May, just three months before this historic date, the 39-year-old, Spanish anarchist author José María Blázquez de Pedro arrived in Panama at the invitation of one of the few remaining anarchist groups.[1074] In July, he began communicating with Havana. His first ¡Tierra! columns sewed the seeds for later years of Panamanian activism when he attacked the political process. “Without the patriotic, the religious, the governmental and the providers of alcohol, how few ballots would be cast into the ballot boxes in every country!”[1075] These columns marked the beginning of an eleven-year stint in which Blázquez de Pedro commented on Panamanian political and social reality from an anarchist perspective, while fruitlessly struggling to create a labor federation and anarchocommunist movement. In 1925, his efforts earned him deportation to Cuba. Within two years, both Blázquez de Pedro and Panamanian anarchism were dead.[1076]
Anarchist traditions both originated in and were imported to Mexico. Ricardo Flores Magón was a Oaxacan-born anarcho-communist who, with the aid of several comrades like Práxedis Guerrero, Librado Rivera, Anselmo Figueroa, and Ricardo’s brother Enrique, comprised the revolutionary core of the PLM that published the long-running newspaper Regeneración from US locations in Texas, Missouri and finally California. The PLM’s anarchism blended with traditional political liberalism until 1911 when it published a new manifesto declaring war against political authority, property and religion, while proclaiming “Land and Liberty”.[1077]
Anarcho-syndicalism also prospered in Mexico’s industrial urban centers and oil fields along the Gulf of Mexico. Spanish immigrants introduced this line of thought in the late 1800s. By 1912, Mexico’s House of the Workers of the World (Casa del Obrero Mundial, COM or Casa) began organizing industrial workers around the country. The IWW worked closely with the Casa to organize workers in the Gulf cities of Tampico and Veracruz. Throughout the 1910s and early 1920s, the IWW organized Mexican workers in the mining centers of Northern Mexico and the US Southwest, especially Arizona.[1078] Meanwhile, the IWW worked with the PLM, serving as a transnational organization linking radicals across North America.[1079]
Ricardo Flores Magón grew up in a peasant community, witnessing communal work and distribution patterns. By 1900, he had studied law, been a school teacher, lost his teaching job for criticizing Dictator Porfirio Díaz, and begun reading Kropotkin, Bakunin and Malatesta. The Flores Magón brothers began publishing Regeneración in Mexico City. The paper facilitated the rise of anti-dictatorial, anti-clerical Liberal clubs, which Díaz widely suppressed. In January 1904, the brothers, their wives, and a handful of comrades fled to San Antonio, Texas, and began to re-publish Regeneración. They soon moved the paper to St. Louis and ultimately to Los Angeles in the summer 1907.[1080]
From St. Louis and Los Angeles, the PLM leadership coordinated armed operations throughout Mexico and the US Southwest between 1905 and 1911, including labor uprisings in the Cananea copper mines of Sonora, Mexico and along the Texas-Mexico border in 1906, as well as strike activities and armed raids throughout Mexico from 1907–08.[1081] By November 1910, PLM forces were fighting throughout Mexico. With the formal outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, but against Ricardo Flores Magón’s wishes, Guerrero led twenty two men into Mexico. To distinguish themselves from revolutionary leader Francisco Madero’s army, Guerrero marched with a red flag emblazoned with the words “Land and Liberty”. He was killed in December.[1082]
By early 1911, the PLM joined with members of the IWW to invade and control part of the western Mexican state of Baja California. When Madero assumed the Mexican presidency in May, he considered the revolution over. Ricardo Flores Magón and the PLM, however, refused to recognize Madero. Such defiance saw Regeneración’s circulation soar to 27,000 in May. In response to the PLM refusal to lay down arms, Madero’s forces attacked anarchists throughout Mexico, capturing, jailing and killing many. The PLM faced other hurdles in Baja California as well. Because the Flores Magóns were not in Baja, they could not easily coordinate actions nor find enough money to entice settlers to organize agricultural coops. The existence of such a settlement plan raised concerns from Madero that the PLM wanted to separate Baja California from Mexico, prompting Madero to respond with more force. By July, Madero’s men had driven the PLM from the state.
Besides the Madero government’s actions, other factors undermined PLM-IWW efforts in northern Mexico. Ethnic tensions emerged between the mostly white Wobblies and the PLM Mexicans—a situation that reflected how fragile the theory of anarchist internationalism could be when put in place on the ground among different ethnic groups who had only limited understanding of each other’s culture and language.[1083]
Ricardo Flores Magón’s actions in Mexico clearly illustrated that he had moved beyond simple liberalism. In September 1911, he issued a new manifesto explicitly laying out his anarcho-communist principles and the PLM’s opposition to all authority and private property. Before this time, Flores Magón and Regeneración had been key sources of information about Mexico for the US Left. As a result, the broad spectrum of the Left had come to his aid, even helping to raise money for his bail and court appearances. With the PLM now explicitly supporting armed revolution, rejecting politics, and promoting anarcho-communism, US socialists such as the editors of The New York Call and Socialist Party leader Eugene Debs abandoned their support. Emma Goldman and the IWW remained solid backers, though, even as the US government began concerted efforts against anarchists around the country. From 1912 until his death in November 1922 in the US federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, Ricardo Flores Magón felt the full weight of US law enforcement, spending long stretches of time in local jails and federal facilities.
With the PLM leadership on trial or in jail off and on over this time, new editors continued to publish Regeneración, dedicating each issue to extensive coverage of the Mexican Revolution and critiquing US socialist and governmental assaults against the PLM. During this time, the editor of the paper’s English-language page four suggested to US socialists that Mexicans needed socialist support. W.C. Owen urged socialists to recognize the latent radicalism inherent in the Mexicans’ condition. As he put it, “until you recognize that the Mexicans have in their veins approximately three-fourths of Indian to one-fourth of Spanish blood; and until you remind yourself that even the United States failed to subdue the Indian to industrial slavery”, Mexicans would continue to fight on their own and against huge odds for their freedom.[1084] In January 1912 he published a pamphlet on the Mexican Revolution where he again re-emphasized this point, praising the Yaqui for having “waged bitter war for the return of their lands under the Díaz regime”.[1085] He further emphasized the anarchist qualities of Mexicans, who “true to the promptings of his Indian blood, loathes centralized authority, detests the soldier, regards the rent collector and the tax-gatherer as robbers, and looks with profound suspicion on all who appear to be making a living without occupying themselves in productive labor”.[1086]
Owen’s use of “Indianness” as a synonym for rebelliousness deserves some consideration in terms of the relationship between ethnicity and anarchist internationalism. Owen seems to have been drawing on the history of indigenous rebellions against Anglo, Hispanic and Mexican colonizers, especially in the late 19th century. During that time Yaqui and Apache indigenous resistance on both sides of the US-Mexico border resulted in accurate perceptions that these were indeed fiercely independent peoples, whose “inclination”—along with those of Mexicans of mixed race (Indian and white)—“is naturally and strongly toward the free communistic life to which the full-blooded Indians are wedded”.[1087]
Or put another way and in anarchist terms resembling Bakunin’s ideas, they embodied nationalities seeking to be free and self-governing, willing to use violence to preserve their autonomy. In a sense, just as different social actors could claim that indigenous peoples were blood thirsty, or satanic, or backward, Owen claimed these peoples’ identities for the larger anarchist project of federalism and internationalism; that is, ‘Indians’ rebelled against colonization in order to be a free people in the larger international project to free all peoples from tyranny.
Such anarchist optimism in California was buttressed, at least initially, by the arrival in Los Angeles of Juan Francisco Moncaleano and his wife Blanca in 1913. He had been a teacher in Colombia before arriving in Havana. Both taught in Havana’s anarchist schools, but the attraction of the Mexican Revolution led him to leave Cuba in 1912 and travel to Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula to help establish a rationalist school there. He soon proceeded to Mexico City where he briefly influenced the radical bent of the Casa.[1088] Husband and wife reunited in early 1913 in Los Angeles, where they helped to open a rationalist school in the new House of the International Worker (Casa del Obrero Internacional).[1089]
But this reunion, and the resumption of their anarchist activities on the US west coast, sparked controversy. Juan Francisco Moncaleano proved a divisive force among Los Angeles-based anarchists. In May 1913, Regeneración’s editors accused the Moncaleanos and others of trying to take over the paper and make it the official publication of the Casa, not the PLM.[1090] The editors leveled a series of charges against J.F. Moncaleano, including embezzling Casa funds and of molesting young girls. The international movement soon became involved. In July, ¡Tierra! criticized Regeneración’s editors for resorting to personal attacks that sullied the anarchist cause. The Cuban paper then suspended its activities collecting money for Regeneración.
The Los Angeles paper responded that Havana readers could continue to submit money for the PLM by sending it to the Havana-based José Pujal, a regular contributor of pro-PLM columns from Cuba.[1091] Then, a letter from Havana anarchist Santiago Sánchez said he was convinced that Moncaleano never truly believed in rationalist education and charged that Moncaleano had behaved inappropriately with children in Havana’s schools too.[1092] In their defense, the Moncaleanos denounced the PLM, accusing the Magonistas of passivity, not doing enough to lead workers to liberty, and squandering $500,000 in international donations destined for the PLM. When the Flores Magón brothers were arrested, the local IWW Spanish-language paper El Rebelde (“The Rebel”) ignored their plight and offered no support because the Moncaleanos had gained important editorial influence over that paper.[1093]
Other controversies hampered the movement. For instance, in 1911 Rafael Romero Palacios lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he collected money for the PLM. As such, Romero Palacios played a role that other anarchist sympathizers around the various networks also played: collecting donations from local activists and mailing the money in weekly.[1094] In July 1911, he arrived in Los Angeles to help run Regeneración after a series of arrests landed PLM leaders in jail.[1095] However, by 1913, Romero Palacios earned the PLM’s scorn when it accused him of stealing money from the paper.[1096] When he moved to New York and became involved with that city’s Cerebro y Fuerza (“Brains and Brawn”), the PLM openly criticized both. When he moved to Tampa, Regeneración announced this to its readers, especially to those readers in Tampa, warning them to watch out for Romero Palacios.[1097]
While the PLM in both Mexico and Los Angeles began fracturing in the 1910s, even though Regeneración continued irregular publication until 1918, other Mexican and Spanish-language anarchist activities emerged along the US-Mexico border. The most notable was also the most ignored by the Flores Magóns: the Plan of San Diego (PSD) in southern Texas in 1915. By 1914, Mexicans and Texans of Mexican descent had organized 165 Magonista clubs in the two southern-most counties of Texas (Cameron and Hidalgo counties). Talk of a plan emanated from the small community of San Diego, Texas where a PLM group had existed for five years among the 2500 mostly Mexicandescended, anti-American residents.
The original plan called for an armed uprising against the United States in order to reclaim Mexican lands lost to the US in the 1840s. No white members were allowed to take part as the rebels were to enact a race war against Yankee Anglos. However, the plan lacked followers among Texans themselves until it was modified to reflect larger anarcho-communist goals along the lines of those promoted by the PLM, including proclamation of a “social revolution” embracing all exploited peoples, promotion of workers’ dignity, land redistribution, communal sharing of the tools of production without racial or nationalist distinction, and creation of Modern Schools.[1098] On July 4, 1915 (US Independence Day), PSD violence erupted when forty Mexicans crossed the international border and killed two Anglos.
The violence escalated over much of the next year, with railroad bridges burned to the ground, passenger trains derailed, people of all ethnicities killed, Anglo vigilante violence erupting across southern Texas, and as much as 40 percent of the Mexican population of these counties fleeing the region.[1099] By the summer of 1916, anarchist violence on both sides of the border presented real problems to the presidencies of Venustiano Carranza in Mexico and Woodrow Wilson in Washington. In the following two years, both Mexico and the US unleashed the full weight of government repression against anarchists within their borders, effectively crushing the PSD.[1100] Oddly enough, this PLM-inspired rebellion occurred without the support of Ricardo Flores Magón, who seems to have paid virtually no attention to the PSD movement in Mexico and Texas that rebelled in his name.[1101]
At the same time, the IWW made transnational linkages within USbased Mexican communities and across the US-Mexico border. Since 1911, the IWW had commissioned Spanish-language newspapers, including El Obrero Industrial (“The Industrial Worker”) (Tampa), Cultura Obrera (“Workers’ Culture”, New York), La Unión Industrial (“The Industrial Union, Phenix), and Huelga General (”General Strike”, Los Angeles). In 1911, as the PLM and IWW engaged in cross-border actions into Mexico, the presses exchanged columns. For instance, following Guerrero’s death at the end of 1910, the Phenix paper published Ricardo Flores Magón’s tribute to Guerrero that urged readers “to take the flag of the dispossessed from our dead hero’s hands ... and continue the fight against the capitalist oppressor and the hated political despotism”.[1102]
Wobblies also worked closely with the anarcho-syndicalist Casa in Mexico City and beyond. Begun in the summer of 1912, the anarchosyndicalist Casa reflected a growing trend toward radicalism among much of the capital’s working class. The Casa functioned in the same spirit as most anarchist centers in Latin America by holding weekly public meetings, operating night schools, opening a library, and reaching out to non-anarchist intellectuals. However, the Casa early on refrained from openly criticizing Madero’s new revolutionary government, fearing that such public hostility would lead to government repression—as had been the case when Moncaleano criticized Madero and found himself deported.[1103] In 1913, the Casa’s organizational successes in the capital led to the creation of new anarchist groups around the country. These groups in places like the northern city of Monterrey, the western city of Guadalajara, and the Gulf Coast city of Tampico would be self-governing locals with national representation in Mexico City. By using anarcho-syndicalist direct action tactics, the Casa quickly grew into the main labor organization in revolutionary Mexico.[1104]
While the influence of the Casa reached out to industrial pockets of Mexico like the factories of Monterrey or the oil fields of the Gulf Coast, the Casa also made connections with the IWW. The Casa’s newspaper Ariete (“Battering Ram”) reprinted IWW articles, and the two joined efforts to organize oil workers in Tampico, even sharing the same building. In 1916, IWW organizer Pedro Coria traveled from the recently organized mines of Arizona to the Mexican port city of Tampico, where he helped found IWW Local 100. Since the AFL generally refused to organize foreign-born workers in the US Southwest, this left union efforts open to the IWW. By 1917, 5,000 Mexicans working in the US belonged to IWW locals.[1105]
The years between 1913 and 1916 were particularly difficult for the Mexican anarchists. First, they had to confront US military intervention along the Gulf Coast in 1914. Following the assassination of Madero, the Casa subtly and then more openly attacked the successor government of Victoriano Huerta. Angered by Huerta’s actions against the US and his purchase of arms from Germany, the US proceeded to occupy the port of Veracruz from April to July. While the Casa remained politically neutral and spoke little officially about the US occupation, Ricardo Flores Magón and the PLM refused to be silent. Regeneración railed against US imperialism and the Mexican revolutionary forces of Venustiano Carranza and Pancho Villa who stood the most to gain from the US further destabilizing Huerta.
The paper urged Mexicans to resist the invaders, fearing that the occupation of Veracruz was but the first step in a larger Wilsonian design to crush the Mexican Revolution. Flores Magón further urged the international anarchist community to condemn the invasion and offer international assistance to Mexican anarchists. Unfortunately, his appeal fell on near deaf ears. In June 1914, by the time the International Anarchist Congress met in London to consider the Mexican request, another international crisis appeared: the assassination in Sarajevo of an Austrian prince. The international anarchist movement now had to deal with the outbreak of continental war and the impact of nationalism. Mexico fell out of focus.[1106]
A second and related dilemma confronting Mexican anarchists lay in the last months of Huerta’s rule. Huerta had found himself fighting off revolutionaries in the north and south of Mexico as well as responding to an increasingly radicalized urban working class, especially in the capital. Through arrests, deportations, and destruction of Casa facilities, Huerta suppressed the Casa during the summer of 1914 until he himself was forced to flee power with the arrival of a new president, Venustiano Carranza.[1107]
Carranza’s arrival then created a third dilemma for anarchists: whether to go against their first principles of entirely avoiding politics or join forces with Carranza. They joined Carranza, who allowed the Casa to organize labor along anarcho-syndicalist lines and even offered resources if the Casa would fill the ranks of the army to fight the revolutionaries of Emiliano Zapata in the south and Pancho Villa in the north. Casa leaders agreed, seeing the Zapatistas as weak, isolated and religiously superstitious on one hand and the Villistas as too associated with their strongman leader who anarchists viewed as a political despot. Thus, on February 20, 1915—the date the PSD was revised to become more anarchistic—the anarcho-syndicalist Casa joined the government by forming six Red Battalions.[1108] The move infuriated the Magonistas, who urged Mexicans to continue fighting the social revolution, support the rural peasantry, and turn their weapons against Carranza. The Casa in turn denounced the PLM as out of touch and refused to make official contact between the two groups.[1109]
Yet, unofficial connections did exist between PLM and Casa-affiliated groups, especially along the US-Mexico border. By late 1915, little armed conflict remained in central Mexico; the Red Battalions had done their job against Carranza’s foes. As a result, the government gradually disbanded anarchist soldiers. Some former soldiers soon arrived at the Casa in Monterrey, talking with other demobilized soldiers and peasants, as well as industrial and railroad workers while looking for work themselves.
At this time, PSD-related violence and Anglo revenge killings of Mexicans had spread along the US side of the border, angering many in the Casa. In response, the Monterrey Casa became a recruiting ground for those looking for volunteers to fight for the PSD. Anarcho-communist followers of the PSD joined former Casa anarcho-syndicalists in raids targeting mainly white Americans while aligning Mexicans with Mexican-Americans. In this sense, anarchist internationalism did span the political border of the US and Mexico, but this “internationalism” was infused with an emerging sense of “Mexican” national identity that was being forged by the Mexican Revolution as well as growing ethnic hatred for North American whites in Texas. Fearful of the Casa’s growing strength throughout Mexico, Carranza eventually crushed the Casa by August 1916. Tellingly, the first Casa branch closed by the government was in Monterrey in October 1915 as Carranza struggled to get the upper hand against anarchists by depriving PSD supporters of a government-backed labor organization.[1110]
Soon after, anarchist groups in Mexico City regrouped their efforts. In late 1918, large contingents of Mexico City workers still embraced facets of libertarian thought. These workers from urban trades like bakers, telephone employes, chauffeurs, and tram workers joined forces with elements of Mexico’s Marxist movements to create the Great Central Body of Workers (Gran Cuerpo Central de Trabajadores) as a way to counter the Confederación Regional de Obreros Mexicanos (the Regional Confederation of Mexican Workers or CROM), the new official union of the Mexican state.
At the same time, the IWW in Mexico struggled to stay alive by allying with Mexican anarcho-syndicalists from the Great Central Body of Workers to form the General Confederation of Workers (Confederación General de Trabajadores, or CGT) in 1921.[1111] In part, the creation of the CGT was prompted by another transnational labor development: the AFL had allied with the CROM—seeking to create a reformist-oriented Pan-American labor federation. The Spanishspeaking leader of the AFL push was none other than the Puerto Rican former anarchist Santiago Iglesias, who had caused that island’s anarchists so much grief.
By 1918, though, authorities were crushing transnational anarchism in the US and Mexico. US government Red Scare tactics suppressed IWW activities in the US Southwest and led to the closing of Regeneración. Meanwhile, Ricardo Flores Magón languished in prison, and the Mexican Casa had been closed for two years. Soon, even Mexican president Alvaro Obregón launched his own Red Scare against radicals by invoking an article of the constitution allowing for the deportation of dangerous foreigners. While scattered anarchists tried to agitate around the country by the mid-1920s, the Mexican government had effectively undermined anarchist momentum.[1112]
While anarchist organs declined during the 1920s, libertarian impulses continued to emerge, especially within the Mexican Communist Party (PCM). Here, radical workers in the party battled Marxists on the direction of the party. For instance, Marxists were inclined to work in a United Front strategy with the CROM, following directions from the Communist International (Comintern). In addition, Marxists within the party were likely to support engaging in parliamentary politics. Radical workers, building off of libertarian principles, challenged Marxists on both principles, thus keeping alive an anarchist spirit within the early PCM into the early 1930s.[1113]
The previous sections address key issues surrounding the development of Spanish-speaking anarchist movements throughout the Caribbean, southern US and Mexico as well as how relationships between the movements facilitated their rise and operation. By way of conclusion, it is useful to compare some of these transnational linkages to illustrate how those believing in and framing the struggle of international anarchism actually put in place their ideals by forming transnational networks. Just as important is to understand the important dilemmas that internationalists encountered in the face of nationalist concerns— conflicts that arose even within some anarchist groups.
What emerges is a reevaluation of anarchism in the northern hemisphere of the Americas. “National” and “local” movements arose to challenge specific national and local issues. Yet, each movement found itself an active part of a larger regional network that frequently depended on links in the network for people, information, and money. The Caribbean network saw anarchists, their correspondence, and their finances moving back and forth between Cuba and Panama, Cuba and Florida, Puerto Rico and Cuba, and Puerto Rico and Florida. Meanwhile, trans-border organizations in the US and Mexico established a Mexican network. In addition, anarchist newspapers and fundraising activities moved between these two networks, as did anarchists themselves, including people like Romero Polacios from the Mexican network to the Caribbean and J.F. and Blanca Moncaleano from the Caribbean to the Mexican.
In Cuba and Puerto Rico, the US military and political presence provided an anti-imperialist foil for anarchists. Likewise, the expansion of AFL-linked labor unions and the proletarianization of the cigar and sugar industries of Cuba, Puerto Rico and Florida by US-dominated entities were points around which anarchists collectively lamented and rallied against. The US creation of the Panama Canal Zone in 1904 and the subsequent ten-year construction project to build the canal provided a new venue for anarchists to migrate and in which to agitate, critiquing working conditions, immigration issues and US oversight, while organizing a workers center and a short-lived newspaper.
Anarchists in the US Southwest likewise encountered US government attempts to rein in radical activity, especially as US-based anarchists joined cross-border raids into Mexico and Mexican-based anarchists raided Texas during the Mexican Revolution. Not a few anarchists fell victim to US “neutrality laws” for involving themselves in Mexican affairs. US government surveillance monitored anarchist activity in all of these locales too. In the US, Latin American and Spanish anarchists within the networks faced the added hurdle of being labeled “dangerous foreigners”—non-English-speaking and often nonwhite radicals—at a time in US history when racial segregation in the southern US enjoyed constitutional protection and anarchism was increasingly viewed as an imported, un-American ideology. Actions of Tampa’s white Citizens Committee against foreign anarchists as well as perceived racial abuses by Anglos against Mexicans in Texas became important racial concerns that found expression in the international anarchist press. As these papers circulated throughout the networks, anarchists elsewhere became aware of and compared US social, political and racial attitudes—portrayals and analyzes that became important information for potential future migrants to these areas.
In fact, the networks’ primary features must be seen in how they facilitated communication and financial flows as well as how these networks contributed to organizing efforts within each link of the network. During this period, dozens of anarchist periodicals arose in these various locales, but only two had the longevity and reach necessary to provide long-term linkages. Havana’s ¡Tierra! and the PLM’s Los Angeles-based Regeneración were the key communication vehicles within and between these two networks. This is not to say that anarchists did not operate independently or outside of the influence of these two periodicals. They did. However, these two newspapers remained central cohesive organs to unite, link and coordinate—as much as possible—small anarchist groups spread across vast reaches of tropical North America.
First, international correspondents kept Havana and Los Angeles informed of events around the networks, helping anarchists in Cuba and within the PLM to gain an international consciousness of the movement and the issues it faced elsewhere. In this way, for instance, Cuban anarchists followed the Mexican Revolution, devoting issue after issue in 1910 and 1911 to correspondence from the PLM and raising money to be sent to anarchist groups fighting the revolution. This actually had at least one debilitating effect when Cuban anarchists began to raise more money to be sent to the Mexicans rather than use the money to build and finance anarchist schools from 1910–1913—a financial factor in the collapse of the Cuban school movement. Second, because most of the networks’ nodes were small, there was rarely enough stability or money to publish local anarchist papers. As a result, anarchists in Florida, Puerto Rico, Arizona, Panama and elsewhere often communicated with their own movements and potential followers by sending columns to ¡Tierra! and Regeneración. These papers published the columns and sent the papers to the locales from which the columns originated—often with a one to two-week turnaround. In this way, Canal Zone anarchists communicated with followers in the Canal Zone, Puerto Rico’s anarchists with Puerto Ricans, Arizonan anarchists with Arizonans.
Third, the newspapers became central financial hubs of the networks. Money flowed from throughout the Caribbean to Havana just as money flowed from the US-Mexico borderlands into Los Angeles. However, after the creation of the Casa in 1912, Mexican money was increasingly diverted to Mexico City. Financial flows not only were crucial to sustain the papers but often those who sent money dedicated extra funds to support specific international anarchist causes. For instance, network money arrived in Havana where it was collected and sent to Mexican groups fighting the revolution or to families of anarchists left behind after a father was deported or jailed.
Ultimately, it remains important to understand the rise of anarchist movements and the nuances of each locale in shaping those movements. Plus, because anarchists considered themselves ‘internationalists,’ one must consider how anarchists operated internationally and how local movements arose with support of and links to these networks. The key is to trace the networks that anarchists developed and maintained for the flow of people, ideas and money that were essential in the organizational efforts to create local movements. As international capitalism and an expanding US penetrated tropical North America in the first decades of the 1900s, anarchists found themselves following international capital flows and engaging in transnational libertarian struggles in Florida, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Panama, Mexico and the US Southwest.
While anarchists labored to implement their internationalist ideals, they nevertheless faced certain hurdles, not the least of which involved conflicts between “foreign” idealism and “nationalistic” apprehension. To be sure, many anarchists crossed political borders to organize new groups, spread the word of anarchy, raise money, and start newspapers. They met with other anarchists who migrated to an area and intermixed with anarchists native to that locale. Movements benefited from the infusion of these “pernicious foreigners” as well as the communiqués, correspondence and funds that arrived from throughout the networks.
However, despite the rhetoric of internationalism, anarchists nevertheless could be stifled by lingering nationalist and ethnic tensions within the broader society and even within the developing movements. For instance, tensions between Spaniards and Cubans in both Florida and Cuba lingered after Cuba’s independence war. In Florida alone, anarchists confronted the stigma of being labeled “Spaniards”, “anarchists” and “dangerous foreigners” by white citizens groups and even more mainstream labor groups affiliated with the ‘American’ AFL. In Panama, Spanish anarchists failed to bring black Antillean workers into their groups and seemed to have little success in attracting Panamanians who lived and worked outside of the Canal Zone in Panama proper. Finally, Anglo-Mexican tensions could flare between the PLM and IWW as they did in Baja California in 1911 or with the “Mexican” anarchists uniting against Texas exploiters along the border in 1915 during the PSD.
To some extent, those anarchists who followed Bakunin’s reasoning could not escape this tension. The idea of freeing nationalities as part of a global anarchist revolution to allow all peoples to live autonomously meant that when outsiders arrived to help with that revolutionary experiment, they faced the challenge of being seen as just that: outsiders who knew neither the people nor culture, or who perhaps were viewed as taking jobs from the very people they came to organize. Such tensions existed throughout the networks, though Puerto Rico seems to have been mostly immune to this; instead, anarchists there found themselves battling AFL “internationalism”.
These tensions were amplified by severe restrictions and constant surveillance by US postal inspectors, private security agents in the US, US and Cuban military intelligence and Mexican consuls. All of these institutions shared information and worked together across borders to battle the spread of anarchist internationalism. If one believes that governments have limited resources and thus must choose where to spend those resources, then an understanding of this international— especially US—surveillance underscores that elements in the respective power structures were sufficiently fearful of these movements and networks to spend precious time and money to track and suppress them. Thus, anarchist internationalism faced the twin hurdles of fighting lingering nationalism of workers as well as national and international law enforcement efforts of the US and its regional allies. That anarchist networks functioned as long as they did and reached with such breadth across vast geographical regions is testimony to those hundreds of activists who lived their internationalist ideals.
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Geoffroy de Laforcade
Norfolk State University
Under anarcho-syndicalist influence, Argentine waterfront unionism in early 20th century weathered fierce repression, confronted modern forms of industrial organization and State bureaucratization with an ongoing predilection for union democracy and autonomy, and contributed to the integration of foreign and native-born workers into class-based expressions of social citizenship.[1114] The historiography of organized labor in Argentina has generally assumed the decline if anarchism’s relevance following 1910, and noted the ascendancy of syndicalist forms of organization, particularly among railway and maritime workers, prior to the emergence, first of socialist and communist industrial unions in the mid-1930s, then of state-sponsored collective bargaining under the hegemony of Peronist politics during industrialization in the 1940s and 1950s.[1115]
The case of longshoremen and mariners in the coastwise merchant marine, however, suggests that anarchist traditions continued for decades to make their mark. Indeed, I will argue that they permeated syndicalist practices in the country’s ports, particularly in Buenos Aires; even when craft-based resistance societies and industrial unions clashed, sometimes violently, over ideology and tactics. Among these workers the discourse of Argentine labor nationalism was forged in an environment of fierce anarchist-inspired opposition to nativist and ethnically divisive projections of working-class identity. Throughout the entire period leading up to the Second World War, waterfront unions articulated class-based expressions of unity in the context of recurrent strike movements that tested the resilience of hallmark anarchist themes such as autonomy from the State, federalist networking, direct action, cross-national solidarity, and counter-cultural community activism.
While writers such as David Viñas[1116] and José Arico[1117] have criticized the tendency of left-wing and populist traditions to discount the fluid articulation of anarchist ideas with creole discourses and aspirations, many historians continue to dismiss the ideology as an import maladjusted to the realities of the American continent. The most sophisticated social historian of Argentine anarchism to date, whose narrative of its cultural dimensions is solidly based in archival research, concludes that it was an impoverished and ideologically incoherent ideology centered on spectacular protest and the short-term satisfaction of working-class demands, one that fueled the flames of disillusionment, frustration, and resentment among disenfranchized European immigrants in America.[1118]
It was a “militancy of urgency”, a “manichean system of thought”, that held “national specificities” in disdain, privileged action over analysis, substituted ethics and sentimentalism for a program, rejected “the native”, and failed to rally workers massively because of its elitist approach to popular culture.[1119] Suriano’s unsurpassed work does not focus on a particular group of workers, nor is it restricted to manifestations of anarchism within organized labor; indeed, it examines a broad slice of porteña (port) society and ends intentionally in 1910.
The present overview of the longshoremen’s and maritime workers’ movements during the first three decades of the century, however, casts doubt on the often reiterated thesis that the European currents of thought associated with anarcho-syndicalism failed to durably establish themselves as meaningful national movements in Argentina; it belies their depiction as extraneous and ineffective.
By the time that the anarchist American Continental Workers’ Association (Asociación continental Americana de trabajadores, part of the syndicalist International Workers Association) met in Buenos Aires in 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression and the 1930 military coup, delegates from Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Chili, Mexico, Peru, Central America, and the Andes had developed a nuanced analysis of Latin American societies. They acknowledged political, economic and cultural differences between nations, calling for the study of indigenous and migratory antecedents, local and historical particularities, and working-class diversity. Their emphasis was on the preserving autonomy of local organizations as an antidote to the centralizing institutions of modern polities.
They encouraged anarchists to develop “national movements” among the “peoples of America”, to coordinate rural and urban protests, to seek regionalist solutions to the “agrarian question”, and to combat foreign imperialism in all of its forms.[1120] María Laura Moreno Sainz has argued in her “mythanalysis” of Argentine anarchism that it nourished its promethean discourse of emancipation with references to the heroic “gaucho” of the hinterland and to federalist campaigns against the centralization of the State, setting the oneiric stage for the Peronism of the 1940s by channeling immigrant working-class dreams and native popular traditions, through an integrative practice of direct action and trans-regional coordination of resistance societies.[1121]
Much as Jacy Alves de Seixas demonstrated in the Brazilian case, anarchist and syndicalist labor movements in Argentina played an assimilating, integrative and unifying role among heterogeneous and geographically dispersed nuclei of workers whom national political institutions and partisan ideological appeals excluded from power and representation.[1122] Because of their unparalleled ability to upset the fluidity of commerce and frontally challenge the nation’s largest agroexport concerns, and given the international resonance of their movements, organized longshoremen and mariners played a critical role in articulating this continental anarchist agenda. The experience of their unions, forged in struggle and tested over time, is of interest not just as curiosity of pre-industrial activism, but as a meaningful chapter in the development of modern forms of Argentine labor organization and social radicalism.
Argentine longshoremen were the largest working-class movement within the anarcho-syndicalist Regional Workers’ Federation of Argentina (Federación obrera regional argentina, or FORA),[1123] despite ebbs and flows in their organizational continuity, ability to withstand repression, and influence on the broader labor movement.
Several factors contributed to this steadfastness, always consequential yet never unchallenged, of anarchism among dockworkers during the first three decades of the century: their casual and informal labor practices, immersion in seasonal rural-to-urban migration and in immigrant neighborhoods, “federative networking”[1124] among local coalitions of autonomous craft-base unions along the littoral, political economic ties to larger industrial unions of mariners and seamen, and employers’ inability to enforce industrial discipline, as well as their unwillingness, prior to the rise of the modern Peronist State in the 1940s, to embrace protective legislation. Insofar as the FORA perceived itself as a regional and supra-national coordinating body with continental projections and a federalist agenda of grass-roots empowerment,[1125] the anarchist dockworkers’ resistance societies were its only component with the means to influence anarchist trade unionism in Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, and beyond.
The “liberation of economics from capitalism” and “liberation of society from the State”[1126] envisioned by the ideal of federalism—the voluntary elaboration of local covenants across national, ethnic and class boundaries—found resonance in the hinterland of Buenos Aires, a vast urban concentration of power and capital that epitomized the failure of post-colonial nation-building to realize regional and democratic development.[1127] It served as a rallying cry in the capital city port for overcoming chauvinism and marginality among the ethnically diverse, socially outcast, and politically disenfranchized laboring poor.
The structure of dependent agrarian capitalism in its lopsided urbanindustrial topography concentrated economic activity in Buenos Aires, on the maritime coast, and along the small river ports of the interior Paraná estuary,[1128] facilitating the growth of anarchist and syndicalist trade unionism in the shipping industry and is regional nodes of communication. Revolutionary ideas and news of their international implications “traveled well” in Argentina; in addition to the longshoremen and their allies within the FORA, the syndicalist Maritime Workers’ Federation (Federación obrera maritima, FOM), which began as an anarchist resistance society, federated a far-flung and culturally diverse array of urban and rural labor movements.
Thus small-scale, craft-based organizations coalesced in cargo handling and shipyard operations coexisted and competed with larger industrial-scale unions in the riverine and maritime shipping industries, with major seasonal strike movements soliciting their solidarity and cooperation, and contrasting labor processes dividing them ideologically. Both retained federalist, deliberative structures, tended to oppose decasualization and State tutelage, and promoted an oppositional culture of revolt and anti-capitalist resistance. Whereas both were stigmatized by their enemies as “foreign” in their constituencies and ideological inspiration, the maritime workers elicited overtures from national shipping concerns and government agencies.
Anarchist longshoremen, in contrast, shunned State mediation and, because their contracting agencies provided labor for trans-Atlantic lines, generally vied for control over labor markets that remained out of the maritime workers’ reach. Nationalism and internationalism were at the heart of the controversies generated by these workers. Social Catholic unionism competed with anarchism among casual longshoremen, and Radical Civic Union electoral committees appealed to skilled sectors of maritime workers; in both cases, however, suspicion of politics prevailed and work-based conflicts generated alliances across ideological lines.[1129] Inevitably, the “national” question, which permeated labor controversies in the first half of the century, inserted itself into the controversies of these outwardly internationalist movements and influenced their response to the emergent Argentine State.
Argentina was historically the main “port of entry” of anarchist ideas and activists in late 19th century South America. Italian immigrants and French refugees of the Paris Commune created early nuclei of agitation in the capital as well as the interior, and a section of the International Workingmen’s Association appeared in Buenos Aires in 1870s. In the 1880s Italian émigré Ettore Mattei promoted the anarcho-communist ideas of Errico Malatesta and Piotr Kropotkin in the pages of El Socialista, Feliciano Rey and other Spaniards organized collectives inspired by Bakuninism, and Malatesta himself launched a bakers’ union during a four-year stint of intense propaganda and organization among workers in the capital. Fortunato Serantoni’s La Questione Sociale (“The Social Question”), El Oprimido (“The Oppressed”) published by the Irish activist John Craeghe, and La Protesta Humana (“The Human Protest”) founded by the Catalan cabinetmaker Gregorio Inglán Lafarga, spread pro-trade unionist platforms on the heals of major strike waves in the mid-1890s, while in the upriver port of Rosario Virginia Bolten promoted women’s liberation through one of the world’s earliest anarchist feminist publications, La Voz de la Mujer (“The Voice of the Woman”). Finally, the Italian criminologist Pietro Gori founded a “Libertarian Federation of Socialist and Anarchist Groups” and published journals that attracted Argentine intellectuals, poets, and essayists to anarchist ideas.
By 1905 a federalist, anti-authoritarian anarcho-communist tradition, unique in its organizational contours,[1130] was firmly rooted among craft-based resistance societies from Buenos Aires to the northern reaches of the Paraná River, weaving a web of trans-regional and cross-national communication and allegiances that their competitors of the syndicalist persuasion would seek to emulate and absorb. This federative networking was not only critical to the recurrent effectiveness of direct action tactics in ports throughout the country; it also contributed to the creative appropriation, by “creole” workers and the Argentine-born descendants of immigrants, of libertarian socialist ideas and cultural repertoires that originated in the trans-Atlantic migrations of the late 19th century.
Anarchist-inspired labor organization among dockworkers and mariners proved powerful and resilient over several decades, in part because of the effectiveness of direct action in the ports, but also its immersion in local civic and counter-hegemonic movements and cultivation of trans-regional ties. Its proponents generated an alternative discourse of modernity that served as an antidote to popular disempowerment, and an inclusive language of class as a counterpoint to the fragmentation of ethnicity and atavistic nativism. In the spirit of Spanish anarchist Antonio Pellicer Paraire’s essays on organization, published in La Protesta Humana at the turn of the century, the resistance society was viewed as a “receptacle of the innate anti-capitalist consciousness of exploited workers”, an “embryo of collective institutions” and “basis for the future anarchist society”.[1131]
However idealistic and fanciful these claims may appear, they were offered as explanation for very real strikes and solidarity movements organized by highly mobile agitators and propagandists in areas as remote as the Argentine Chaco, where the FORA circulated, in the early 1920s, a newspaper in Guaraní called Aña Membuy.[1132] And while workers in the capital were of overwhelmingly European origin, the palimpsest of nationalities and cultures they represented interacted with creole idioms and traditions, and with native seasonal casuals, in performances of protest and routines of work. With mixed but tangible results, the integrative and cosmopolitan praxis of anarcho-syndicalist movements, for whom all workers were equal, and the State, the great divider, took root in the nation’s ports to an extent never equaled in any other sector of the economy.
Militant organizations of longshoremen and merchant seamen in Buenos Aires were steadfast vehicles, albeit in discontinuous and changing ways, for the resonance of these ideas in the labor movement. They interacted, sometimes oppositionally, sometimes cooperatively, with forces from virtually every other ideology of labor on the Argentine political and discursive spectrum. Their strength and legitimacy were rooted locally in the spatial segmentation of the port and in the tight-knit cosmopolitan quayside community of La Boca del Riachuelo, a colonial-era township located on the southern edges of the capital city. Recurrent rebirths of these unions in the wake of fierce repression and organizational fragmentation were facilitated by the seasonal flow of people and goods throughout the rivers of the Argentine interior—movements which these workers were uniquely empowered to enable or disrupt in their recurring showdowns with export firms, contractors and government agencies throughout the first half of the 20th century.
Their “repertoires of performances”, to paraphrase historian Charles Tilly,[1133] ranged from ordinary incidences of popular sociability such as picnics, tavern talk and cultural events to informal work practices, harangues, assemblies and strikes, ritualized demonstrations, marches and commemorations, and violent, sometimes riotous confrontations with rivals and enemies. It was an ongoing theatralization of resistance that sedimented memories and meanings of labor conflict through generations in La Boca, where local history was continuously spotlighted on the national stage.
The microcosm of the city’s south end had been the industrious nerve of Buenos Aires in the age of sail before becoming a focal point of labor unrest and oppositional politics throughout the first half of the 20th century. The stage for the organization of both capital and labor in the port was set in 1900, when the young longshoremen’s resistance societies in La Boca, formed by anarchists in the mid-1890s, began the practice of staging quasi-annual strike movements during the high export season.
A unified longshoremens’ union led by the Spanish anarchist Francisco Rós, the Resistance Society of the Portworkers of the Capital (Sociedad de resistencia obreros del puerto de la capital, or SROPC), was created in 1901, swiftly extending its power beyond the local quays, overseeing the organization of related trades, and forming a Federation of Longshoremen and Related Trades (Federación de estibadores y afines) to coordinate with the provinces. It rapidly burgeoned into one of the most powerful resistance societies in the country, feared by the Argentine Chamber of Commerce and by foreign consignees throughout the country’s ports.[1134]
The government responded decisively to the growing momentum of anarchist activism: a Residency Law was passed in 1902 to authorize the deportation of foreign agitators (among them Francisco Rós). The labor press and union halls were closed down, resistance societies went underground, the cavalry and infantry occupied the Riachuelo district and all public forms of agitation were effectively suppressed.
By the following year, however, Rós’ comrade, naturalized Argentine Constante Carballo, had reconstituted the SROPC. The resistance society could still claim control over 5,000 dockworkers in Buenos Aires and wield influence in at least ten other ports of the Argentine littoral, convening a national congress of the Federation of Port Workers (Federación de obreros portuarios) in July with the participation of delegates from Uruguay. The role of the SROPC in fomenting oppositional working-class activities among the quayside community, including theater presentations and open-air poetry readings, had survived the brutal repression of organized labor and anarchist agitation the year before.[1135] It was also in the headquarters of the SROPC that Italian-born sailor Sinforiano Corvetto established, in June 1903, the anarchist Resistance Society of Mariners and Firemen (Sociedad de resistencia de marineros y foguistas, or SRMF) on the ruins of a mutualist, Christian Democratic-leaning sailors’ and firemen’s union that was persuaded by the effectiveness of direct action to shed its clerical an political ties in favor of an anarchist platform.
The official endorsement of a nativist discourse by the authorities in the Residency Law, the mostly foreign-born membership of waterfront unions at the time, and the abundance of native seasonal migrants and unemployed casuals provided fertile terrain for competing loyalties to develop in the port, and for the national question to emerge as the key ideological battleground among unions. In the summer of 1903 social Catholics launched a campaign to establish a hiring preference for native Argentine port workers. The Argentine Society of Longshoremen (Sociedad argentina de estibadores del puerto de Buenos Aires, or SAEP), led by Liborio Vaudagnotto, was launched with active support from the conservative Workers’ Circles and a network of Radical Civic Union political clubs, all of them interested in developing protective legislation and preempting socialist and anarchist influence in the larger labor movement.[1136]
Whereas the Catholic union sought to promote temperance, job security and political loyalty among uprooted creole and naturalized workers, the anarchist resistance society fostered inter-ethnic solidarity and anti-clerical activism among overwhelmingly disenfranchized men and women of the crowded dockland tenements in La Boca. For all the precariousness and instability of family and residency patterns in the quayside community, the presence of a powerful oppositional subculture among dockworkers provided substantial protection from chronic labor market insecurity and male licentiousness.
In a social environment prone to widespread alcoholism, violence, petty crime and cheap sex, both Catholics and anarchists sought to “dignify” the longshoremen’s condition through ethical and moralistic discourses of responsibility. The SROPC glorified the masculine qualities and virtuous toil of manual quayside work, discouraged its sympathizers from engaging in prostitution and gambling, and derided what it perceived as a hostile campaign to manipulate the ignorance of illiterate creole day laborers toward political ends.[1137] At the same time, anarchists, derided by their socialist adversaries as “desperate proletarians and dilettante bourgeois”[1138] embraced the popular culture of the tenements, projecting themselves as adversaries of discipline and domesticity; in the caustic tradition of late 19th century libertarians, as “the vagrants, the malefactors, the rabble, the scum of society, the sublimate corrosive of the present social order”.[1139]
The organization of cultural activities by the anarchist resistance societies, added to their advocacy of rationalist education and other labor-initiated social campaigns, served both as platforms for ideological proselytizing and bridges between migrant dockside workers, who were the targets of social Catholic reform. The SROPC was a vehicle for an oppositional working-class culture of revolt and transgression of authority, which it attempted to channel into a discourse of solidarity, direct action and workplace insubordination. Insofar as this culture enabled unsettled workers to evade the stigmas of nationality and ethnicity within which existing institutions—governmental, religious, capitalist or mutualist—framed their rhetorics of inclusion and exclusion, it legitimated the emancipatory representation of individual freedom and collective force offered by anarchist propagandists linked to the FORA.
Government authorities, the church and elite observers of the social question in the port were prompt to evaluate a worker’s sobriety, honesty and accountability according to the criteria of his affinities with the Catholic union; membership in the vilified resistance society drew instant suspicions of immorality. Church groups also lamented male socializing in the canteens and taverns, female loitering in the patios of the tenements, and the frequent transitory relationships between them. Conversely, in the casual working community of dockside laborers, bohemian freethinkers and anarchist intellectuals could find substance for their idealized predicament of free love. The conservatizing impact, real or imagined, of settled family ties on working men is reflected in the Catholic union’s rhetoric of responsible breadwinning, domesticity and protection of mothers, whereas anarchist writings directed at port workers depicted marriage as a form of subservience for both man and woman. These tensions would resurface over the course of the next three decades, as the successors of both movements on the docks continued to confront each other—in new contexts, but on the same street corners—over the direction and goals of working-class action.
In workplace conflicts, anarchists and Catholics were not perpetual antagonists, their fiery rhetoric and ideological differences notwithstanding. The authority commanded by the SROPC among certain foremen, small contractors and skippers in the Vuelta de Rocha area rested in large part on the familiarity incurred by clientelistic hiring networks, shared living spaces and the common patronizing of taverns. Large numbers of uprooted casual workers, as well as Paraguayan and provincial Argentine deckhands employed by the coastal Mihánovich fleet, typically flooded the pensions, canteens and hiring halls of La Boca during the high season, and many of them relied on the informal ties of resistance societies with the dockside hiring authorities (ship captains, lighter skippers, stevedore and shed foremen, cart owners, etc.) to obtain work.[1140]
Throughout the first decades of the century, the degree to which competing organizations succeeded in wresting influence from the anarchists depended not only on support from employers and police authorities, but also on their ability to spatially circumscribe these informal networks to the Riachuelo area, where anarchist loyalties were deeply entrenched. Ethnic antagonisms between native and foreign workers were always fueled by the unions’ enemies. Insofar as they existed, however, they were not the only source of violence that rocked the port community the summer of 1903–1904; nor would they prevent close cooperation, based on class-based affinities, workrelated issues, and a shared revulsion for State-sponsored military crackdowns, between the anarchist and Catholic societies in the movement’s aftermath.
In 1903 the high export season witnessed a recrudescence of labor activism in La Boca, where the newly organized tramway workers’ union paralyzed transportation throughout the southern fringes of the city and quickly subsumed other trades. Corvetto launched the young mariners’ resistance society in a strike movement that escalated the conflict on the docks and sparked further violence and repression. With over 12,000 workers on strike in the port district, the State attempted to intervene in the turf wars between unions, and prevent a general strike, by imposing a measure of job preference (60 percent) for members of the Catholic SAEP, effectively locking out the SROPC from the newly inaugurated facilities of the modern Puerto Madero waterfront.[1141]
Anarchists concentrated their efforts on reorganizing the defunct Federación de estibadores with the support of the larger labor movement. In the winter of 1904, during the congress that replaced the socialist and anarchist Argentine Workers’ Federation (Federación obrera argentina, the FOA) with the FORA, a nation-wide solidarity pact organized existing resistance societies into local and provincial federations that sought to establish connections with workers in Uruguay and Brazil.[1142] In 1905, with the port of Buenos Aires under constant police vigilance and military guard, a consortium of importexport firms, shipping and railway companies responded with the United Society for the Protection of Free Labor (Sociedad unión protectora del trabajo libre, or “Protectora”), a classic “yellow” union presided over by the British-sponsored president of the ocean liner shipping lobby, Pedro Christopherson.
Despite being left with a range of action largely circumscribed to the old Riachuelo quays, the anarchist resistance society still claimed the allegiance of 75 percent of all dockworkers in the port.30 The radicalization of the FORA and of the SROPC under the leadership of a charismatic creole organizer, Estebán Almada’s, was exemplified by the adoption, during the federation’s Fifth Congress, of the collectivist precepts of “anarcho-communism”, and durably splintered the organized labor movement nationally. At the local level, a core of anarchist longshoremen continued to harangue crowds in marketplaces and on street corners, to place work teams with foremen from taverns and tenements, to canvass the quayside with revolutionary propaganda and to boycott employers who failed to abide by the informal rules established in past strike settlements.
The mariners’ resistance society also preserved the power to obtain pledges from stevedore foremen and ship captains that Protectora affiliates would be banned from shape-ups in the Riachuelo area.[1143] There was unanimity, in the ranks of the FORA, on the question of the need for craft unity to be supplemented by working-class solidarity. The outbreak of another dockworkers’ strike in the upriver port of Rosario in the winter of 1905 gave the resistance societies the opportunity to activate nation-wide solidarity pacts and mobilize port workers in general against the intromissions of the Protectora.
In the course of the ensuing conflict, even a renegade Christian Democratic leader such as Ángel Capurro could share a tribune with anarchist orator Serafín Romero (who was soon to succeed Almada as leader of the SROPC), to denounce the Protectora for “violating individual freedom”. He then looked on as Romero, following a ritual incantation of libertarian ideals, presided over the formation of commissions, composed of both anarchist and Catholic workers, to patrol the port for propaganda and the intimidation of strike-breakers.[1144] Thus attempts by nationalists to divide workers along ethnic lines proved ineffective in the face of the cosmopolitan anarchists’ leadership’s success at incorporating native-born workers into the internationalist and anti-Statist ranks of the FORA.
When President Manuel Quintana declared a three-month state of siege, the port strike in Buenos Aires continued for weeks. Police investigators complained of numerous informal assemblies of the Catholic union throughout La Boca and San Telmo, in which notorious anarchist leaders emerged from hiding and were allowed to speak. Almada, whose popularity in La Boca and among the 8,000-odd striking dockworkers had soared during the conflict, was able to strike an informal deal with a majority of foremen that they refrain from hiring Protectora affiliates, transforming, much to the astonishment of the authorities, a forced resumption of work on October 18 into a quiet victory for the SROPC. The resistance society continued its obstruction of business-as-usual by supporting an ongoing coal heavers’ strike against British interests in the port, which brought refueling operations to a virtual standstill.
Finally, the workers of the nearby Isla Maciel shipyards boycotted Mihánovich throughout the state of siege, and numerous anarchist deportees were reported to be reentering the country through Montevideo and Salto Oriental (Uruguay) with help from the shipyard braziers’ resistance society. As the date of expiration approached and the unions prepared for a lifting of the state of siege, police informants, stevedore contractors, ship captains and patrons of the Protectora expected nothing less than a full-scale renewal of anarchist disruption in the port.[1145] Once again, neither the ship owners’ and contractors’ offensive against resistance societies, nor police repression, had succeeded in undermining the effectiveness of direct action tactics or dismembering anarchist unionism in the port, despite the organizational weakness of the broader FORA and the lack of formal channels for collective bargaining between capital and labor.
Anarchists staged numerous social and political events in La Boca during the following months, and frequent police reports deplored the popularity of educational events held in the headquarters of resistance societies, as well as the presence of SROPC orators in the marketplaces and tenements of the quayside district. Almada took advantage of the calm winter months to organize an anarchist library in the union’s headquarters. His popular nightly conferences were attended, according to police informants, by bohemian freethinkers and workers from a variety of different trades and backgrounds.
Despite the downswing in seasonal in-migration, SROPC orators described as “dark-skinned” and with provincial accents routinely addressed crowds of gringos (a generic term for foreigners), tanos (Italians) and gallegos (Spaniards) in canteens run by immigrant concessionaires in La Boca. In June, the sawmill workers’ union organized a fundraiser for the anarchist newspaper La Protesta in the José Verdi theater of La Boca, during which 700 men, women and children watched the Caballeros del Ideal enact revolutionary dramas portraying heroic striking longshoremen. SROPC activist Francisco López openly announced a climatic general strike for the forthcoming high season; the evening ended, typically, with chants of “Long live anarchy” and “Long live the social revolution”.[1146]
Local Catholic politicians, who lost the ship owners’ favor in the aftermath of an attempted 1905 Radical Civic Union coup, ceased to oppose confrontational tactics in the pursuit of social reform for the laboring poor. The appearance of the pro-business Protectora lessened their reliance on nativist appeals and law-and-order slogans. Indeed, the threat to informal mechanisms of clientelism, labor market control and workplace protection was equally felt by the rival Catholic and anarchist unions, which shared—despite their ideological opposition, history of violence and mutual distrust—an interest in defending workers. During the 1905 strike, which mobilized an estimated 18,000 workers along the Argentine littoral, the “directory committee” charged with coordinating the movement was made up of fifteen workers from each society, and presided over by Almada and Vaudagnotto, the respective leaders of the anti-clerical SROPC and Catholic SAEP. Although the two unions eventually became divided over the issue of accepting arbitration under the state of siege, their language never recovered the degree of quasi-racial slurs and mutual condemnation that had characterized the intense rivalry of the 1903–1904 period.[1147]
In the winter of 1906, it was the turn of the mariners to alter the course of organized labor on the waterfront, and to usher in new revolutionary syndicalist strategies that were somewhat at odds with the anarcho-communist precepts of the FORA, but still deeply influenced by them. The sailors’ and firemen’s resistance society launched a strike for improved hygiene and safety on coastal ships, so destabilizing in both Buenos Aires and the interior that that the Prefecture referred to it as an “insurrection”.
The involvement of a State agency, the National Labor Department (Departamento nacional del trabajo, DNT), in implementing the subsequent accords responded to the need for institutionalized bargaining channels capable of offsetting future disruptions of the highseason export trade. As such, it represented a major breakthrough for the mariners’ unions, notwithstanding their direct action rhetoric and ongoing affiliation with the anarchist federation. Their strength and prerogatives were informally recognized by the ruling establishment, their legitimacy among workers reinforced by practical results, and their potentially controllable labor market in constant expansion.
These victories resulted in the formal creation of a federalist trade union with more revolutionary syndicalist than pure anarchist contours.[1148] The new Argentine Maritime Workers’ League (Liga obrera naval argentina, or LONA), an alliance between sailors, firemen and stewards, was to organize and unify all sections of seafaring labor (excluding ship captains and officers, still regarded as management) in Buenos Aires, Rosario and other ports of the Argentine littoral from Santa Fé to Posadas. Based in familiar union halls of La Boca, on Olavarría 363 and Suárez 44, the LONA remained committed to preexisting organizational bonds between mariners, longshoremen, cartmen and other port workers’ unions of the Riachuelo district, but its drive for the federation of maritime craft unions nationwide brought it into frequent conflict with anarchist labor organizers.
At the first pro-unification congress held in 1907 by the rival anarchist FORA and syndicalist General Union of Labor (Unión general de trabajadores, or UGT), representatives of the LONA argued that local federations should be replaced by nation-wide federations, allowing for various unions of one locality to establish solidarity pledges between one another, but unifying—in opposition to the anarchocommunist advocacy of loose cross-craft alliances—all workers within a single industry. The mariners also proposed that the labor movement circumscribe ideological quarrels to areas outside the union halls, and suggested that propaganda be centered exclusively on economic demands.[1149]
The anarchist dockworkers begged to differ. Their next move was, in 1907, to trigger a nationwide strike “for the dignifying of work” in which waterfront workers throughout the Paraná River system and the Atlantic coast played a prominent role, an expression of sheer solidarity across trades that was entirely devoid of economic demands.[1150] In its wake, however, mariners, reluctant to risk their prior gains obtained through DNT arbitration, retreated from a boycott declared against a major foreign-owned cereal export concern. Interestingly, the neocorporatist rhetoric employed by LONA representatives tended to portray landed casuals employed in cargo handling as individualists and outcasts, whereas seafarers were likened to the more conventional working-class ideal of proud and self-sacrificing heads of family.[1151] The implicit message was that mariners’ unions were unprepared to renounce, for the sake of pure solidarity, certain organizational and economic achievements rendered lucrative by the seasonal expansion of the export trade.
When anarchist orators denounced such tactical considerations in their respective speeches before a LONA assembly, they invoked the submission of mariners to hierarchical authority on board the ships as a source of opportunism and “absence of dignity”.[1152] Anarchocommunists viewed resistance societies as loosely federated tools of propaganda in the larger society, one of many loci of opposition to State control and capitalist exploitation. Revolutionary syndicalists, on the other hand, extolled trade unions as barricaded unifiers of working-class struggle, preferring industrial to craft-based organizational forms. In practice, anarchists remained influential among sailors and firemen within the LONA, and officers, who were “management”, would soon find their way into syndicalist organizations.
Notwithstanding the gradual decline of its nationwide resonance after 1907, anarchist labor activism among longshoremen and their counterparts in related shipping and cargo handling trades had proven extraordinarily resilient during the five years which followed the promulgation of the Residency Law in 1902. By the time Romero replaced Almada as secretary of the SROPC, however, the once-powerful resistance society had entered into conflict with many of its own sections and with the leadership of the LONA. Undercover monitoring of the resistance societies had reinforced the vigilance of the police, open-air anarchist proselytizing was tolerated but circumscribed to La Boca, and the numerous boycotts and other partial movements launched in 1906 and 1907 had proven less decisive than in the past.
In the fall of 1907, Romero’s insistence on pursuing a general strike movement beyond the period of intense export activity, seasonal migration and high demand durably crippled the mobilizing capacity of resistance societies in the port; it ended in a public admission of disaster. The SROPC undertook a process of reorganization through which it hoped to overcome the infighting caused by geographic sectionalism. After having claimed ascendancy over some 15,000 workers (of a total of 18,000) at the beginning of the year, the resistance society exposed itself to renewed Protectora assaults, faced a preventive police crackdown in the spring and ended 1907 in a state of disarray, its most respected leaders once again forced into hiding. An indication of the level of acrimony which reigned among anarchist longshoremen is that the SROPC was twice dissolved by clandestine assembly votes. Yet it would be mistaken to assume that as a result of this decline, anarchism as an ideology of protest had faded from the scene.
During the tenement dwellers’ rent strike in August–December 1907, SROPC activists were present in the Committee of La Boca which functioned in the headquarters of the LONA (Olavarría 363), and the movement’s central committee met in Montes de Oca 972, headquarters of the FORA. The inability of embattled quayside resistance societies to fully exert their power at the level of the workplace did not entail their disappearance, as organizers and agitators, from the community scene.
By the end of the decade the nativist SAEP had been absorbed by the Protectora and its small union fund appropriated by two dissenters who joined in the reorganization of the embattled SROPC.[1153] This simultaneous weakening of the organized social Catholic and anarchist dockworkers’ unions paved the way for widespread workplace impunity on the docks, but the respite for employers was short-lived. Direct action resurfaced as the anarchist resistance society again showed its strength in 1912, before emerging, in 1915, as a stronghold of the “anarchist” union federation (the FORA identifying with the fifth congress of 1905, the FORA-V) opposed to the pragmatic “syndicalist” orientation of the larger FORA-IX (identifying with the ninth congress of 1915, FORA-IX).
The latter drew its first elected president, Francisco García, and many of its shock troops from the successor of the LONA, the FOM, a key component of organized labor’s revival in the wake of the European war. As syndicalist themes of industry-wide coordination, trade union apoliticism, workplace autonomy and internationalism were tested by rapid modernization, nascent electoral politics and escalating class conflict on the ships, a new dockworkers’ union, the Longshoremen’s Section of Dikes and Docks (Sección estibadores diques y dársenas, also known as Diques y dársenas), evicted the Protectora from the Puerto Madero docks and allied itself with the FOM against the anarchist SROPC and its allies in La Boca. Their rivalry endured for over twenty years, and crystallized into a fierce ideological battle over the role of nationalism, which anarcho-syndicalist tradition abhorred, and its treatment in the struggles of organized labor.
As labor legislation was promulgated in the late 1920s under the second administration of Radical Civil Union leader Hipólito Yrigoyen, and especially under the conservative regime of Roberto Ortiz two decades later, the syndicalist maritime workers’ and longshoremen’s unions would become increasingly entangled with national merchant marine development; whereas anarchist resistance societies on the docks, by their repudiation of nationalism, would come under fire for resisting State intervention, thereby allegedly serving the interests of foreign shipping concerns.
Following the war, the SROPC played a key role in the revival of craftbased anarchism as enshrined by the historic FORA, and the syndicalist FOM spearheaded an unprecedented wave of industrial labor agitation nationwide. Both unions claimed La Boca as their birthplace and bastion, and both were effective in reviving past networks of influence and job placement in the community and along the littoral. The latter benefited from a new interest of the State in mediating between capital labor, a policy tested in the 1912 dock strike and enforced when Radical Civic Union leader Hipólito Yrigoyen won the presidency by universal male suffrage in 1916.
At the community level, the renewal of massive work stoppages, one winter high season after another, awakened webs of solidarity woven by the anarchists of old. Canvasing for donations was carried out by a Popular Committee of La Boca; daily assemblies were held in the Verdi Theater; makeshift dining halls were set up by the FOM, staffed by maritime stewards and supplied with foodstuffs donated by vendors from the local Garibaldi and Solís markets; wandering strike commissions informed incoming seamen, and discouraged landed dockworkers from replacing sailors in stevedoring tasks; local resistance societies provided assistance in the form of printing materials or financial contributions; and grievances voiced by the families of striking men were addressed by the unions through a special relief committee.[1154]
But police repression was not as forthcoming, and for the first time, ship owners were held by the President’s authority to respect the ensuing accords, a shift welcomed by the syndicalist leadership of FOM. The professed neutrality of the first Yrigoyen government, an its treatment of the owners’ and the workers’ organizations as equal belligerents in the conflict, enhanced the effectiveness and legitimacy of syndicalist practices grounded in a binary vision of class struggle, and exposed the shipping industry, deprived of systematic support from the State, to the broadening of hitherto informal and dispersed expressions of workers’ control.
In early 1917, a new version of the old Protectora, the Maritime Workers’ Society for the Protection of Free Labor (Sociedad obrera maritima protectora del trabajo libre) was established by the Mihánovich company in the heart of La Boca to wage an open-shop drive. Its dissolution instantly became a rallying cry for the FOM and its allies, for whom union control over hiring guaranteed safety, skill and fairness on the ships; it was achieved through a resounding boycott of the firm in April during which ship captains, traditionally viewed as management, began to warm to the idea of trade unions as worthy allies in the smooth functioning of the labor process.
Hence the meteoric rise of the revolutionary syndicalist FOM was accompanied by a more tactical approach to strikes, as well as a seemingly paradoxical “institutionalization” of workplace cooperation between mariners and the highest authorities on board. Officers accepted direct action under the auspices of their “subaltern” brethren and tacitly recognized union control on the ships. While many were politically associated with the Radical Civic Union, they guarded their organizational autonomy and interests by embracing “apolitical” syndicalist doctrine, according to which the weakening of capitalist control over the labor process required breaking craft barriers and consolidating federalist ties between salaried professions.[1155] The informal and decentralized structure of the labor process in the expanding merchant marine, combined with the mutual interest of managers and workers in an efficient and consensual chain of command, led workers’ and officers’ organizations to assert a degree of control in everyday affairs which was unimaginable in a factory setting.
A statement by the syndicalist FORA-IX praised the outcome of the strike as a textbook triumph of solidarity in which differences in hierarchy and category of employment were undermined by a mutual recognition of the preeminence of “class struggle”.[1156] Union membership surged. FOM delegates and inspectors became symbols of its tentacular presence in the most remote areas of the country. Workingclass solidarity became a tangibly realizable endeavor, and mariners proved their commitment to it by affording agricultural, meatpacking and railway workers logistical support for their strikes, and plantation workers in the Upper Paraná protection against unspeakable exploitation; even unions in Uruguay and Paraguay had the full backing of their Argentine allies.
The anarchist FORA-V rode the wave of these movements, exerting an indirect power of nuisance among sailors’ and firemen’s sections of the FOM and prospering from the weight of the anarchist dockworkers’ union in its own ranks. Between 1915 and 1920 its membership expanded from 21 craft-based societies to well over 200.[1157] In an era of unprecedented labor movement growth and trade union militancy, the waterfront workers of Buenos Aires continued to assert the locational strength which had made the early organizational achievements of the anarchist heyday possible. Alarmed, representatives of the meat-packing plants and railway companies, shipping firms, exporters and importers, the industrialists’ Argentine Industrial Union (Unión industrial argentina, or UIA) and the oligarchic Rural Society (Sociedad rural) coalesced in 1918 behind the creation of a new organization, the National Labor Association (Asociación nacional del trabajo, ANT).
Its emergence reflected a perception among elites that in order to undermine the spectacular growth of organized labor, workers’ interests had to be taken into account, as Joaquín Anchorena later put it, “with loving care”. Wage-earners needed “guidance and assistance” in defending their just claims to moral betterment and material progress. “Unemployed workers” would be freed by the Association from the “tyranny of trade unions and federations”, and given work as part of a policy of “social prophylaxis” against the disease of protest. The ANT announced its determination to protect “free labor” and organize the defense of “the rights and interests of commerce and industry insofar as they may be affected by illegal and abusive procedures on the part of employes or workmen”.[1158]
Another weapon of nativist and nationalist sectors, the Argentine Patriotic League (Liga patriotica argentina) emerged the following year the wake of the January 1919 “tragic week” during which many of the city’s neighborhoods and environs were engulfed in fierce repression against striking metallurgical workers. Hundreds of workers in the port were killed and over a thousand wounded in a major show of force by the police, military and paramilitary groups, during which FOM headquarters in La Boca, revolutionary banners dawning from the windows, became a focal point of civil disobedience; sailors and longshoremen crowded the front of the building and nearby street corners, often, in defiance of the police, exchanging information about the uprising in Guaraní or in Italian dialects rather than in Spanish.[1159]
In the context of fierce nativist rhetoric and anti-union drives, which both served the interest of foreign ship owners’ lobbies and consignees, anarchists and syndicalists denounced imperialism in unison by championing the cosmopolitan and immigrant heritage of their respective movements. Working-class resistance was framed in a rhetoric of universal rights and anti-capitalist struggle, whereas State and employer-supported open shop drives stigmatized ethnic markers of cultural diversity as “foreign” impediments to social peace, disruptive of international commerce, anathema to the national interest, and—amid rising sirens of postwar nationalism—at odds with the “Argentine” temperament.
The Patriotic League became the chief nemesis of mariners’ and port workers’ unions during the 1920s. It aimed, in the words of its president, Manuel Carlés, to fight “anarchism, revolutionary syndicalism, maximalist socialism” and their supporters, an “immoral lot of human riff-raff without God, fatherland nor law”.[1160] When its militia joined the shipping establishment in a full-scale attack on the FOM, however, resistance in La Boca flared up once again. In strike time, the FOM and SROPC threw their weight behind campaigns to provide idle seamen with emergency housing. The maritime cooks’ and stewards’ union staffed an emergency makeshift restaurant in which food supplies were rationed out to idle seamen and their families.
The syndicalist labor press elevated such solidarity to the rank of “experiment in working-class empowerment”, describing the selfmanaged cafeteria as lesson in the “rights and duties of the struggle for freed and unsubjugated labor”. The barbers’ union in La Boca offered free hair-cuts. Anarchist resistance societies and syndicalist trade unions offered their strike funds. Others, such as the flour mill workers, voted to contribute a full day’s pay to the seamen’s cause.
A Pro-Seafarers Committee (Comité pro-gente del mar) canvased throughout working-class neighborhood to raise strike funds. Local grocers donated comestibles. Assemblies, too numerous to be held in the Verdi Theater, were held in the popular Boca juniors soccer stadium, lent for free by the club’s board of executives. Seldom in the history of organized labor had channels of community outreach, rehearsed by anarcho-syndicalist resistance societies in the early years of the century, been so successfully put to task. The mobilization of boquense society in favor of solidarity with idle port workers, and the public manifestation of support for workers locked out by their industry, seemed to support revolutionary syndicalist claims that a social awakening could only result from the “emancipatory breakthroughs of sustained class struggle”.[1161]
The outwardly nationalist Radical Civic Union government’s response was to decree the “oficialización” or decasualization of work in the port, empowering the customs authority to recruit, register and remunerate workers on the ships and on the docks. The FOM agreed to resume work on its own terms, preserving its discretionary control over the labor process. Despite the apparent loss of autonomy and ideological concession to State meddling, however, in practice the authority solicited workers from the union through the ship captain and guaranteed the enforcement of rules and commitments by employers, while reducing the owners’ effective control over work operations. The ship captains collaborated with the FOM as they had before, and wages were channeled through a central bank account managed by the customs authority.
This modus vivendi allowed seamen to preserve an informal margin of control as long as the administration of Hipólito Yrigoyen recognized its grievances against the arbitrary labor practices of private hiring agencies in general, and the foreign-controlled ANT in particular. When the project was initially discussed, the anarchist newspaper was right in stating that “without the collaboration of the FOM, oficialización is meaningless”. From a position of strength, then, the union accepted it as a first step toward the confection of a genuine labor statute for mariners and seamen, while proclaiming its right to enforce its union monopoly by all means necessary, including strikes and boycotts.[1162] Once again, a conflict pitting the mariners’ union against the powerful economic establishment of export interests ended in a resounding victory for the workers.
Coming on the heels of the “tragic week”, the good fortune of the syndicalist FOM stood in sharp contrast with the renewed mass arrests and deportations which befell upon other sectors of organized labor. The longshoremen’s resistance society, which had consolidated its influence in La Boca and spearheaded the revival of the anarchist FORA in 1919, opposed the decasualization on the grounds that it represented direct State intervention in the port and required dockworkers to submit to a formal registration procedure to be eligible for work. The combination of repression against its leadership, division between sections and the comparative institutional weakness of the resistance society with respect to the FOM, made dockworkers more vulnerable to the recruitment of non-unionized workers by contractors via the customs authority.
The rivals of the anarchists in Puerto Madero, Diques y dársenas, and two autonomous unions including the coal heavers, established a formal solidarity pact with the mariners to shield themselves from ANT competition and benefit from the FOM’s authority in the hiring process, all in the name of “revolutionary trade-union struggle”.[1163] The SROPC dedicated itself instead to rebuilding the national authority of its pre-war heyday, struggling in particular to prevent the extension of FOM power to the craft-based resistance societies still active in the ports of the littoral.
In early December, a congress of dockworkers was convened in Buenos Aires to establish the Regional Federation of Port Workers and Related Trades (Federación regional portuaria y anexos, FRPA), which was affiliated with the FORA-V and responsible for the implementation of local solidarity pacts between anarchist unions. As an alternative to decasualization, the congress proposed a system of revolving work shifts administered by the union, designed to distribute work fairly among casual laborers while rationalizing the supply of labor to suit the contractors’ needs. It also called a 48-hour strike in Buenos Aires, to which some 3,000 dockworkers responded, to demand that police restrictions on public assemblies in La Boca be lifted. Finally, the SROPC used the platform to promote reunification between the various sections of dockworkers, with the exception of Diques y dársenas—perceived as collaborating with employers to exclude the anarchist union from the Puerto Madero zone.[1164]
This was a period marked by a high degree of hostility within organized labor between anarchists and syndicalists. The FOM had acquired national status and extended its model of industrial unionism to key sectors of workers in the port, including railwaymen, flour mill workers and longshoremen themselves. Its inspectors worked hand in hand with prefecture patrols in the enforcement of a rationalized and bureaucratized hiring process, white-collar officers were considered partners in the everyday business of managing and supervising work operations, and the possession of a union identification card bearing one’s photograph and employment record became a requirement for attending workers’ assemblies, catching a ship or simply using such facilities as union dining halls. Worse still, from the perspective of veteran anarchists, the salaried leadership of the FOM gradually lost its renegade status in shipping and trading circles, bringing immunity from arrest and social ostracism to a previously persecuted group of seasoned revolutionaries, most of whom had experienced exile or illegality in a not-so-distant past.[1165]
In the port of Buenos Aires, the ideological rivalry between anarchist and syndicalist trade union federations, exacerbated by turf wars between the longshoremen’s and mariners’ organizations, spawned periodic outbreaks of violence. When it came to workplace activism, however, the tacit solidarity pacts of the past tended to revive cooperation between different sectors of dockside labor, in spite of the ideological and organizational quarrels which plagued their unions.
Throughout the year 1920, for example, the warehouse and Central Produce Market workers carried out a strike which the FOM and all four dockworkers’ sections supported by boycotting designated consignees. A full-fledged three-week longshoremen’s strike, which mobilized over 8,000 workers, received the support of the autonomous cartmen’s union in the form of solidarity strikes. On numerous occasions, the various sections of dockworkers concluded informal agreements to thwart the customs’ authority’s attempts to place ANT work teams. It is the existence of common strategic objectives at the level of everyday class conflict, rather than the simple fact of doctrinal compromise, that explains why in mid-November of 1920, the two most antagonistic branches of dockworkers’ unionism formed a Pro-Unification Committee (Comité pro-unificación) during a massive anarchist assembly in La Boca. Initially created by the SROPC and Diques y dársenas to coordinate activities in La Boca and Puerto Madero, the committee soon proposed a full merger between them, on the condition that the SROPC declare itself autonomous from the national anarchist federation.
When Diques y dársenas and the coal heavers’ union accepted the deal, an SROPC assembly, in defiance of ideologically-motivated FORA-V directives, voted to follow suit. United against the ANT’s drive for a full open shop, warring factions of organized longshoremen shed their doctrinal rivalries while claiming a common heritage of militancy—much as they had in the days of anarchist/Catholic unity against the Protectora in 1905–07. The unified dockworkers’ union temporarily dropped its “resistance society” denomination, but preserved such anarchist trademarks as the refusal of compulsory arbitration, the defense of informality in the formation and placement of work gangs, the commitment to strikes and boycotts, and solidarity with other trades across ethnic, regional and national boundaries. Accordingly, its appearance was viewed by the authorities as a major threat to the stability of labor relations in the port and along the littoral.[1166]
While seemingly “pro-labor”, the government’s policies and their acceptance by nominally revolutionary unions reflected a shared recognition, in view of past work conflicts and job market insecurity, of the comparative economic advantages of social peace. In circumstances when the FOM declared a partial boycott rather than a general paralyzation of trade, the Yrigoyen administration found it more effective to lean on the union’s authority and competence than to risk a general strike by protecting the interests of a private firm. A 13-monthlong mariners’ strike against Mihánovich, which severely marred the coastal shipping industry and produced a decisive outcome in 1921, provides a good example of how the perception of national interest weighed decisively on the State’s determination to uphold a commitment to impartiality which, at crucial moments, served the proclaimed objectives of syndicalist trade unionism.
In 1920 the Mihánovich line, which owned 70 percent of the country’s coastal fleet, began hoisting the Uruguayan banner as a means of circumventing this situation. The union’s ability to wage a prolonged battle against the “tiburón” (the “shark”, as its founder was known among workers) rested on a vast network of sections and solidarity pacts with provincial, Uruguayan and Paraguayan labor movements, coordinated by highly mobile union commissions formed by active mariners who possessed extraordinary capabilities for propaganda and agitation.
Over the course of the conflicts, which dragged on for over a year, FOM strike commissions and placement teams developed tight working arrangements with the smaller firms eager to gain shares of the business lost by Mihánovich, thereby reinforcing the union’s authority in littoral ports and setting a durable precedent for future alliances between federalist trade unions and small private capital. Large ship owners, railway companies and agro-export lobbies were fully united, on the other hand, in the battle against the FOM and dockworkers’ unions, in conjunction with political forces opposed to the personalist reign of Hipólito Yrigoyen.
On March 8, 1921, a euphoric assembly vote in La Boca’s Verdi Theater brought the epic standoff with Mihánovich to an end. The FOM obtained guarantees that the company would accept union control over its hiring practices and switch the banners on ships displaying Uruguayan colors, as well as a commitment to enforce union standards on fleets belonging to its Paraguayan and Uruguayan branches.[1167] The magnitude of the federation’s victory over the most powerful shipping concern in Latin America, an unmistakable demonstration both of trade union power and of the feasibility of syndicalist aspirations, comforted the leaderships of both mariners’ and officers’ unions in their efforts to achieve the full unification of categories throughout the industry.
This outcome infuriated the ANT, which immediately unleashed a full-scale campaign against what it perceived as the imposition of a “soviet” by the FOM and longshoremen’s unions, decried as “the allpowerful masters of the port”.[1168] And while the government also felt the burden of the Association’s wrath, it activated all the administrative mechanisms in its power to restrain the everyday belligerence of organized labor. In response, the joint leadership of the unified longshoremen’s unions, Diques y dársenas and the SROPC “Boca y Barracas”, ordered that all cartmen working in the port would have to be affiliated with a resistance society, signaling a return of the SROPC, which had left the FORA-V as a condition for unification, to anarchist criteria, even as it remained allied with its rival. Just as the anarchist and Catholic dockworkers’ societies had joined ranks in 1905 to offset an open-shop drive, two ideologically opposed and historically antagonistic unions braced for a showdown with the advocates of “free labor” in the port.
Relying on the “entente” between the anarchist and syndicalist FORAs decreed by the eleventh congress of the FORA-IX, and on the enthusiasm provoked by the mariners’ triumph, the longshoremen’s unions called for a general strike that unleashed the full weight of State repression against them. Military forces were brought in to patrol the docks, the ANT took control of hiring, and the Patriotic League terrorized union members as well as uncooperative employers, staving off strikers at gunpoint. Several members of the FOM leadership, so often perceived as the beneficiaries of government benevolence, were detained by the police as they improvised harangues on Plaza Solis in La Boca.[1169]
Despite conditions of economic depression and scarcity of hire, the strike mobilized an estimated 10,000 mariners, 6,000 shipyard workers, 2,000 flour mill workers, 10,000 longshoremen, 5,000 cartmen and 3,000 additional port workers in Buenos Aires alone.[1170] Officers’ unions in the merchant marine, however, many of whose members leaned politically toward the Radical Civic Union, precipitated defeat by deserting the movement in June and resuming work on blacklegmanned ships.
Days later the two FORAs, in a state of organizational disarray, put an end to the general strike. The alliance between syndicalists and anarchists collapsed, a resounding defeat reminiscent of the worst State crackdowns of the first decade of the century. Ship captains and other white-collar personnel would return to syndicalist trade unionism, briefly in the late 1920s and more markedly in the early Peronist era two decades later; but their desertion of the FOM in 1921 spelled the end of Yrigoyen’s ability to influence maritime workers’ unions, and the end of their dominance within the larger labor movement.
It was a radicalized, revolutionary syndicalist FOM, joined by the Shipyard Workers’ Federation (Federación obrera en construcciones navales, or FOCN) and by Diques y dársenas on the Puerto Madero docks that brought organized labor on the waterfront back from the brink of extinction. They dominated the assembly in La Boca that gave birth in 1923 to the Argentine Syndicalist Union (Unión sindical argentina, or USA) in replacement of the decimated FORA-IX, and together set out to reassert control while reviving the solidarity pacts of old between Buenos Aires and the interior.
And while the SROPC promptly reorganized itself in La Boca with loose ties to the anarchist FORA-V,[1171] a new anarchist organization, the Argentine Libertarian Alliance (Alianza libertaria argentina, ALA), emerged on the scene with a very different agenda. It federated a loose alliance of small craft societies, radical ethnic associations and political groups associated with “anarcho-bolshevism”, among them a group of dissident anarchist labor activists led by Rodolfo Gonzalez Pacheco.
A prominent labor figure in the ALA was Italian shipyard brazier Atilio Biondi, who led many of the Alliance’s members into the USA. Within the FOM, the ALA was active in sailors’ and firemen’s’ sections, and would exert tangible influence in mariners’ assemblies from 1924 onward, accompanying the ascendancy to leadership rank of one of its most well-remembered activists, Juan Antonio Morán.
On the docks, an agitational group calling itself the AnarchoCommunist Port Workers’ Group (Agrupación comunista anárquica de los obreros del Puerto), critical of the SROPC for having erred from its original doctrine, appeared during the 1921 general strike and issued frequent statements in El Libertario, organ of the ALA, as well as in Gonzalez Pacheco’s La Antorcha (“The Torch”). The most visible impact of these groups in the port was the resurgence of the economic sabotage—“propaganda by the deed”—practiced by early resistance societies, particularly in the shipyard braziers’ union, where the use of direct action tactics never wavered throughout the first half of the century. The creation of the ALA coincided with the assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Varela, author of the Patagonia massacres in 1921 and 1922, by a young German anarchist named Kurt Wilckens. His murder on June 16 provoked a nationwide general strike called by the USA and FORA-V, during which the ALA lobbied intensively among waterfront unions for the adoption of revolutionary violence as a mode of action.[1172]
The influence of the Russian Revolution made itself felt in other ways as well. The maritime cooks’ and stewards’ section, formed in 1916 by the socialist Trade Union Propaganda Committee (Comité de propaganda gremial), represented a decisive organized force among mariners due to the combination of its affinities with the community of landed workers and its strategic location of the catering department in the work process on board. During the congress of the FOM which followed the creation of the USA, its representatives, Ramón Suarez and Marcelino Lage, made a strong bid to substitute communist for syndicalist criteria in the new statutes, to centralize the union’s federalist structure and to obtain its affiliation with the red international of trade unions based in Moscow. The vote on these motions resulted in their defeat by only a narrow margin, which testifies to an unprecedented incursion of political debate into trade union life. While they failed to undermine the federation’s revolutionary syndicalist principles, the presence of Suárez and Lage in the elected leadership body proves that communist labor activists were not treated with ostracism, even in the traditional anarcho-syndicalist organizational culture of waterfront unionism.[1173]
Finally, the Radical Civic Union’s local structure of political patronage, with its custom of performing petty favors and sponsoring charity ventures, grew in importance during the early 1920s. One of its “sub-committees” in La Boca, “La Marina”, aimed to “unite all the sailors and ancillary groups ... so that their needs can be listened to ... and action taken to transmit or obtain from congressional representatives, and then from the national government, every improvement and regulation which may be necessary to allow them to improve their standards of living and the right to live modestly but decently”.[1174] The UCR, already influential among the officers’ unions, would use this newfound social legitimacy in the quayside community to lure portions of the male working-class electorate away from the Socialist Party, much to the benefit of welfare reform insofar as locally familiar political forces rivaled in their eagerness to draft protective legislation. With respect to their direct incidence on everyday matters of waterfront work, however, during the presidency of Marcelo Alvear these committees quickly burgeoned into the feared instruments of State-sponsored gangsterism on the docks.
Ultimately, the USA was crippled by the desertion of key allies during a successful 1924 strike against the adoption of a State-administered retirement pension system. The syndicalist federation proved unable to replace the FORA-IX nationally as a strong rear guard for the FOM. Later that year a nation-wide general strike against the increasingly powerful trans-Atlantic shipping lobby, the ocean liner ship captains union, the ANT and the Alvearist government, ended in defeat, prompting the entire Federal Council of the FOM to resign under criticism from the rank-and-file.[1175]
For the first time since the pre-war era, sections of the maritime workers’ federation in Buenos Aires and the river ports operated without a coordinating body. Opposition to a decentralized, federalist system which empowered rank-and-file workers to determine the national policies of the trade union movement was now total among officers, who had lost the benefits of retirement pensions and had been beached for much of the year. They would, with the backing of socialist reformers in La Boca, Alvearist maritime prefect Ricardo Hermelo, disgruntled ex-FOM leader Francisco García, the Mihánovich line and the coastal shipping lobby, support an effort to centralize waterfront unionism and enforce a new labor code for the merchant marine that would legally curb the workers’ right to strike.
The Maritime Workers’ Union (Unión obrera maritima, or UOM), created in December 1924 with a prominent ex-FOM activist, the socialist Vicente Tadich, at its helm, became the instrument of this ambition.[1176] In the late 1930s and early 1940s, however, this conservative organization—which became the company union of the Dodero (ex-Mihánovich) fleet—would continue to face stiff competition from the FOM, and syndicalist traditions would subsume it in 1946 when the two merged into an independent federation of all maritime workers to resist the inroads of the Peronist State.
Denunciations of abuses by unchecked ship-owning firms, of job discrimination against seasoned mariners with a trade union past, of poor compliance with safety regulations, and of direct involvement of the prefecture in job allocation and deskilling became commonplace in the aftermath of the FOM’s defeat in 1924. The UOM was successful only in controlling small vessels in the port of Buenos Aires, and the tacit support of Mihánovich earned the union the derogatory label by which workers designated the ANT: “la patronal”—“the bosses’ union”.
Before long the UOM’s centralized organizational scheme, which thwarted the syndicalist, assembly-based deliberative tradition of both officers and mariners’ unions, came under fire. It undermined informal arrangements which had hitherto ensured the practical and consensual enforcement of rules, regulations and standards on board the ships. In mid-1927, a newly created federation of officers’ unions, the Federation of Officers of the Merchant Marine (Federación de oficiales de la marina mercante, FOMM) consulted Francisco García on his thoughts about the path which marine unionism should take. Significantly, the secretary of the new entity, José Segade, was also president of the ocean liner captain’s union which had initiated the subversion of FOM control over Atlantic coast crews in 1924.
The socialist leadership of the UOM took vociferous exception to García’s return in any capacity, and, in unison with the Alvearist authorities, accused Segade of plotting labor conflicts to rally electoral support for Hipolito Yrigoyen’s presidential election campaign.[1177] In reality, the officers had simply assessed the damage incurred by the disappearance of effective workplace cooperation between strong seamen’s and officers’ unions. Their negotiations with García resulted in the creation of the Maritime Relations Council (Consejo de relaciones maritime), a transitional leadership body which unified the FOM and FOMM against the policies of the State and the ANT.
On November 23, nearly 3,000 mariners and seamen attended an assembly in la Boca’s Verdi Theater during which FOM secretary Antonio Morán, Segade and García renewed with syndicalist federalism and sealed a formal solidarity pact. The FOM was reorganized into five sections (sailors and deck foremen, skippers, conductors and machinists, firemen, stewards, and cooks) and reactivated its interior branches. During 1927 and 1928, the picture of the quayside community was one of relative openness and political pluralism, and environment in which the syndicalist FOM was poised to renew with the organization and proselytism of its glorious past.[1178]
The SROPC also resurfaced with some 2,000 affiliates, the backing of the anarchist FORA and solidarity pacts with the five other resistance societies in the port. It resorted to boycotts and periodic 24-hour walkouts to impose its authority over hiring, and succeeded in paralyzing the entire port in a general strike against the imposition of a government-issued identification card on longshoremen seeking work. A popular rallying cry during this protest was the demand that foremen be given full sovereignty in shape-ups, and all representatives of “authority” be chased from the docks.[1179] Police crackdowns ensued and SROPC leaders were jailed in the early months of 1928; the syndicalist FOM continued to prefer Geronimo Schizzi’s Diques y dársenas union to José Damonte’s revived anarcho-communist movement.[1180]
When the FOM struck against Mihánovich in the winter of 1928, however, reactivating nation-wide solidarity movements and attracting international support from Paraguayan and Uruguayan unions, the anarchist resistance societies, emboldened by the victory of a general strike in the port of Rosario, rallied the cause. Even the South American secretariat of the Communist International, which printed a manifesto urging trade unions throughout the continent to form “friends’ groups” in support of the Argentine seamen, joined the movement. Communist mariners grouped in the Communist Maritime Group (Agrupación comunista maritima) were instrumental in recruiting Paraguayan and Yugoslav sailors, whom the company sought to hire as blacklegs, into the FOM, which was still led by a jailed former anarchist of the ALA, Antonio Morán.[1181] The strike achieved significant wage gains and resulted, the following year, in the abolition of the ANT and the Patriotic League, a welcome and hard-earned respite ahead of more State-sponsored crackdowns and, ultimately, the 1930 military coup.
Because of the wholesale deportation of activists under the 1902 Residency Law and 1910 Law of National Defense, the core of leaders of SROPC from 1904 onward were of Argentine nationality despite the overwhelmingly foreign constituency of the working class. And whereas historians are correct to indicate the growing importance of suffrage and national political incorporation following the 1912 Sáenz Peña Law, the FOM, which incorporated members of Radical Civic Union, socialist and later communist obedience, continued, throughout the first half of the century, to advocate anarcho-syndicalist precepts of regionalism, federalism and organizational autonomy from the State, principles that were rooted in the peculiar nature of the labor process of the industry.
The anarchist longshoremen and their allies in related trades and crafts recruited migrant and rural workers of Argentine descent, opposing nativist and nationalist enemies with appeals to internationalism and cosmopolitanism, and carving a space for themselves in the labor market and community institutions that was still apparent in the 1940s. The syndicalist maritime workers, on the other hand, who became increasingly drawn to nationalism and sovereignty in the era of import-substitution industrialization and merchant marine development, played a crucial role in incorporating linguistically and ethnically diverse sectors of the immigrant working class, in particular Yugoslav and Paraguayan associations, well into the Peronist era.
The stigmatization of both anarchist and syndicalist unions as “foreign” and “anti-national”, a mainstay of elite campaigns against them since 1900, gained momentum as a result of their historic embeddedness in the cosmopolitan quayside district of La Boca del Riachuelo, a bastion of immigrant traditions and sociability in Buenos Aires, and the crucible of the nationwide federative networking described here. The neighborhood, and its labor movements, became more ominously viewed as dangerously undisciplined in the 1940s and 1950s, in part because it continued to be associated with anarcho-syndicalist resistance, ethnic diversity and socialist cultural activism.[1182]
The FORA-affiliated SROPC and syndicalist FOM both remained relevant to the maritime transport industry in the inter-war period despite their strategic national decline; the former by controlling localized labor markets and resisting decasualization, and the latter as a core component of the revived USA, which after 1936 led the opposition to the centralized industrial unionism of the socialist and communist-driven National Confederation of Labor (Confederación general del trabajo, or CGT).[1183]
Their embrace of anarchist-inspired federalism as “a condition of social liberation through the free association of decentralized polities” was predicated on “their diversity and the maintenance of differences between them”. The idea was to uphold the sovereignty of each federated entity, “not by achieving harmony and reconciliation, but rather by maintaining a vital balance between conflicting interests and aspirations, and an awareness of cultural community that remained open to dialogue with the outside”.[1184]
In the port of Buenos Aires and its radius of influence along the littoral, anarchists, even when circumstances of struggle caused them to compromise with social Catholic and syndicalist adversaries, had struggled for decades for the convergence of European and Americanborn workers behind an ideal of anti-capitalist resistance through direct action unionism, developing cross-national solidarities and provoking far-flung insurgencies. They responded to atavistic nativism and ethnic stigmatization with federalism, preserving, in the classic tradition of Proudhon, “local spontaneities” through “respect of their diversity”,[1185] ritually invoking social revolution and class emancipation, formulating a hierarchy of events and representations designed to inscribe the experience of struggle in the social memory of localities throughout the littoral.
The contours of their actions were rooted in concrete labor processes, specific spatial and cultural settings, and a practice of federative networking rendered possible by the constant flow of workers, activists and vessels in and out of Buenos Aires, where their power to hold the agro-export economy hostage was enormous. Casual port workers and craftsmen’s trades dominated the movement; but even when specialized hierarchies and strong institutions attracted mariners to a more structured syndicalist model of trade unionism, the mark of libertarian traditions of assembly, direct action and propaganda made itself felt on their performance of protest. Solidly embedded in a local community of immigrant origin, La Boca, and among a highly mobile workforce infused with both “foreign” and “native” elements, anarchists and syndicalists projected their promethean, modernist emancipatory discourse onto a labor movement which they conceived, absent meaningful political and social rights, as performing on a transregional and supra-national stage.
Finally, the importance in these professions of informal relations at work and in the community shielded them, prior to the rise of the welfare State, from the discipline of rationalized management and the trappings of bureaucratic governance. In the 1930s and 1940s, strategies of resistance strikingly similar to those chronicled here delayed their submission to an orderly model of nationalized citizenship under the auspices of the State. Vilified by nationalists as agents of “foreign ideas”, by government agencies as “instruments of private capital”, and by modern industrial labor movements as “utopian”, anarcho-syndicalists produced a heritage on the ports and on the rivers of Argentina that is of singular relevance to national history; one that would be relegated, after the war, to the dustbin of an imagined disorderly, cosmopolitan and decidedly pre-national past.
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Edilene Toledo and Luigi Biondi
Universidade Federal de São Paulo
Anarchism, revolutionary syndicalism, and socialism were important elements in the making of the working class in late 19th and early 20th century Brazil, as elsewhere. Anarchism was an important chapter in the history of political thought and action in Brazil and—with syndicalism and socialism—shaped the workers’ movement in a number of ways, and also influenced a range of workers’ social, recreational and cultural activities. The circulation of anarchist, syndicalist, and socialist ideas through campaigns, demonstrations, newspapers and other publications (as well as through recreational activities and autonomous forms of popular and proletarian organization, drawing on various religious and cultural traditions) demonstrates the numerous channels and tools that were involved in this politicization of social relationships.
These movements transmitted values and behavior that questioned and challenged established social hierarchies, and the traditional mentality that served to exclude most workers to stay out of politics, institutional or not. In the late 19th century, Brazil underwent important transformations, with the abolition of slavery (1888) and the establishment of the republican regime (1889); however, these did not affect the extremely unequal social structure. Although the end of the monarchy resulted from quite a heterogeneous movement, with some popular participation, the victorious republican project was quick to eliminate the more radical proposals. It was closely linked to the interests of coffee planters living in São Paulo, who drew from liberal thought only what they needed, rejecting any expansion of the republican project that would open up broad political participation.
The spread of republican ideas was accompanied by accelerating modernization, involving secularization, industrial development, urbanization, and immigration. These historical processes occurred most intensely in some regions, particularly the southeast, between the years 1880 and 1920. They changed traditional ways of life, and led to the development of new social actors, especially in the cities: the industrial bourgeoisie, and the proletarian and middle classes.[1186] However, slavery left an imprint, decisively influencing the very process of becoming a citizen; older power relations and behavior continued in the new context. In a society long dominated by the patriarchal family, the predominance of private power and with a weak distinction between public and private, there was a marked imbalance between the vast rural areas and the increasingly influential cities, which had profound social effects.[1187]
Those who turned to anarchism in different parts of the world were part of a common international project, but in each country workers used the language and methods of anarchism to provide answers to concrete local problems and concerns. The franchise rules in the Republic established a restricted citizenship based on a franchise qualified by economic and literacy criteria. Since liberal democracy was then a sort of farce, those excluded from citizenship sought other means of political action. Thus, anarchism and syndicalism—mainly the latter—appeared as effective and concrete forms of political action, as Sheldon Maram, Angelo Trento and Michael Hall, among others, have stressed.[1188]
It was precisely growing disillusionment with the First Republic (1889–1930) that led many to embrace the radical ideology of anarchism. This is clear, for instance, from the trajectory of two important libertarian militants in São Paulo, the lawyer Benjamín Mota[1189] and the worker-typographer Edgard Leuenroth.[1190] Both had once placed their hopes for social transformation in a change of the government. A similar route was followed by republican Italian immigrants, who in Brazil began to question even radical Mazzinian republicanism, and come embrace anarchism. Among this group was Giulio Sorelli (see below).
In the context of Brazil of the First Republic, labor struggles and claims—influenced partly by anarchism—were thus, in a sense, also an effort to democratize society. These were not only about improving wages and reducing work days, but also an effort to achieve democratic conditions and civil rights, so that the workers’ movement could be recognized as a legitimate part of society. The State and entrepreneurs, of course, feared the actions of these anarchist and syndicalist groups, often considered a police matter, repressing them severely.
Associations of workers, usually organized by trade, had existed in Brazil since the 19th century, mainly in the cities, where there was a continuous presence of craftsmen, as well as workers in the building, port and railroad sectors. These sectors grew from 1860, with the urbanization that followed Brazil’s increasing integration into international markets, particularly through an explosive expansion of coffee and rubber exports. At the end of the 19th century, Rio de Janeiro, then capital of the country, had about 700,000 inhabitants. Industrialization began slowly with textile production, especially in Bahia, which was then transferred to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo during the 1870s. Following a steady industrial growth during the first three decades of the 20th century, including an extraordinary acceleration during World War I, São Paulo became the largest industrial center in the country.
Until the last decade of the 19th century, urban workers’ associations took, almost exclusively, the form of mutual aid societies, which best expressed a work environment in which craftsmen prevailed; besides, the constitution of the Empire had forbidden the formation of unions. Only with the Republic did trade union organizations begin to emerge, expanding significantly in the early years of the 20th century—especially in São Paulo, which experienced a demographic explosion at the turn of the century. Along with the big industries, especially the production of food and clothing, and the building sector, São Paulo, had a constellation of medium and small workshops, overlapping with domestic production. Thus, its evolving labor movement involved, besides factory workers, a wide variety of masons, carpenters, laborers, tailors, haters, waiters, sandmen, smiths and so on.
Union statutes—such as the one we present below from the Resistance League of Male and Female Workers of the Textile Factories of São Paulo—clearly show the trade union character of the new labor associations:[1191]
Everyone who works in those factories can join the League, including workers in weaving and in spinning, dyeing, machinery, and so on. Of any age, irrespective of color and nationality ... The aim of the League is that the workers of both sexes have—through unity—the necessary strength to deal with their employers, to reduce the hours of work and to increase their wages gradually ...
This Society is governed by an Administrative Commission and an Executive Committee: the Administrative Committee is composed of four men and four women, delegates for each factory commission belonging to the League. The delegates will be elected separately by workers of the factory to which they belong and have the following tasks: 1) to direct the administration of the Society; 2) to collect monthly membership dues from the members and to pass them to the treasurer (...).
The funds raised with the amounts deposited serve: a) as grants to members in the case of a strike, when this has been decided by the general assembly; b) to assist members, victims of unfair persecution by the employers; c) for all the expenses necessary for the proper functioning of the Society.
The usual basis of this labor organizing, from the end of the 19th century, was the union by occupation, which prevailed until the twenties.
The unions operated in varying situations, and, while though many had an irregular life, were involved in local federations, usually organized by state or by city. Examples include the Local Federation of Workers of Santos (FOLS), the main union center in the harbor city from which coffee was exported, and which received the majority of immigrants; the Workers’ Federation of Rio de Janeiro (FORJ); the Workers’ Federation of the State of Rio Grande do Sul (FORGS); and the Workers’ Federation of São Paulo (FOSP), which included the unions in São Paulo city and São Paulo state (except for Santos). The FOSP was the main local labor federation in the country between 1905 and 1912.
All of these local federations—which were in São Paulo, Santos and Porto Alegre the main, and leading, unions—were connected to the Brazilian Workers Confederation (COB). The COB was created at a national labor congress of 1906, and operated until 1909, and then again from 1913 and 1915. It should be noted, however, that the COB did not have the national character to which it aspired. What prevailed was the orientation of union activity to the local level, although the COB and its newspaper A Voz do Trabalhador (“The Voice of the Worker”) enabled a minimum exchange of information between the movements in various parts of the country.[1192] The local union federations preceded the COB, and survived its temporary, and then its permanent, disappearance.
In 1906, the Italian revolutionary syndicalist leader Alceste De Ambris described the activity of the FOSP with great enthusiasm:[1193]
The federation is working and it’s assuming an ever more international character, although the mass of organized workers consists mostly of Italians. The printers, the lithographers, the hatters, the bricklayers, railroad workers, etc., had now their own leagues. The Workers’ Federation of São Paulo had its first hard test in the great railway strike this year, which was followed by a general strike in the city of São Paulo. Despite the errors, the deficiency, the weakness—of course, unavoidable when you try something new that had not been tried before—the railway strike, judged objectively as a social phenomenon, is a precious and unexpected indication of the relative maturity and strength within the bosom of the working class living in the State of São Paulo.
In 1907, when the first great general strike in the city of São Paulo for the eight hour day took place, the FOSP had more than 3,000 members in twenty different trade unions.[1194] That year, according to the national industrial census, there were almost 25,000 manufacturing workers in São Paulo city, out of a total of nearly 300,000 inhabitants—though other records and studies clearly suggest that we ought to duplicate this figure.[1195] A few years later (1912), almost 10,000 workers in São Paulo city had joined the FOSP, which was then part of the COB.[1196] The unions—which only rarely arose from a transformation of the mutual associations—coexisted with other types of worker organizations, which drew on a large range of identities: mutual aid associations, theater, football, dancing, educational, cultural and political groups like the socialist and anarchist groups.
The growth and consolidation of industries, and urban labor, during the first decade of the 20th century involved, then, a labor movement in which most unions followed the revolutionary syndicalist tendency. However, the unions were supported by different ideological currents, including socialists of various leanings, positivists, and republicans, as well as pragmatic trade unionists who used the mediation of lawyers and authorities.
Moreover, reformists, who did not reject institutional political participation by presenting candidates for elections, never entirely disappeared.[1197] In some cities, such as Rio de Janeiro, reformism was a consistent theme, especially among the port workers.[1198] There was a more or less clear division by general trends at the national level, so that while the orientation of the labor movement in São Paulo state was almost exclusively that of syndicalist direct action, in Rio this approach represented only a minority.
This difference was linked to the different processes of working class formation in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In the former, foreign immigrants prevailed; in Rio, Brazilian workers, usually former slaves and their descendants, were the majority. The latter group of workers had a different tradition of urban struggle, often effective, which used important channels of political communication between the working population and the progressive middle class; moreover, these workers were potentially voters, unlike the immigrants who always resisted naturalization and, therefore, were therefore excluded from possible participation in elections.[1199]
Without immigration, the diffusion of anarchist and syndicalist ideas, as well as those of socialism, and the practices and experiences linked to these currents, would not have taken place in the same way, nor indeed set down roots, in parts of Brazil. With the start of the great migrations to Brazil, radical associations and workers’ unions sprung up like mushrooms in the areas—urban enclaves as well as rural ones—where the foreign immigrants’ presence reshaped the demographic situation.
The geography of the diffusion and establishment of political and labor militancy in Brazil, along the lines of the main European tendencies, corresponds directly to the regions and urban areas that received between 1885–1925 the largest number of European immigrants: the states of southern Brazil, the southern region of Minas Gerais, and, above all, São Paulo state, as well as centers like the federal capital of Rio de Janeiro and the new Minas capital, Belo Horizonte. In cities like Recife and Salvador, and in distant places like Belém and Manaus, and in the urban centers of the northeast, skilled Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and German workers brought traditions of political militancy— anarchist, socialist, or at least, radical republican—that made an important imprint on local associational and social movement traditions. These local traditions were perhaps less intense than those of southern Europe and Germany, but they could not ignored.[1200]
It is incorrect to conclude that the making of the workers’ organizations—political, unionist, and mutualist—was simply a result of immigration. Brazil had a long history of struggle experiences, and labor and popular associations. The thesis that maintains that the labor movement was of foreign origin—diffused in crude readings of the labor history in Brazil throughout the 20th century—is rooted in the “black legend” that labor was an exotic plant.
This “black legend” was devised by the Brazilian ruling class in the first three decades of the 20th century, mainly for policing purposes. Ignoring centuries of slave and popular revolts, it maintained that European immigrants, alone, spread the seeds of subversion in a Brazil whose population was traditionally orderly, cordial and peaceful. This justified repression by state governments and by the federal government, underpinning the “Adolpho Gordo” law of 1907, which authorized the deportation of activists.[1201] Revolt was a dangerous activity in the deeply exclusionary Brazilian society of the time.
However, the deportation law—promoted by a deputy federal representative from São Paulo—did show that strikes, mutinies and working-class movements were more frequent in the states where most workers were immigrants (like São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul) or where (as in Rio de Janeiro and in Minas) immigrant militants were active, prominent participants in labor associations and radical political groups. The fact that left-wing political and labor groups in São Paulo state largely comprised immigrants was due to the simple fact that the immigrants were the majority of workers there.
More than 3,600,000 foreign immigrants arrived in Brazil between 1880 and 1925: more than 1,200,000 during the last decade of the 19th century alone, with the largest concentration in the period 1887–1902, when about 1,600,000 immigrants arrived. While this does not compare to contemporary mass immigration to United States and Argentina, it is important to note that the immigrants to Brazil settled, above all, in regions and cities with a small population (with the exception of Rio de Janeiro city), and were highly concentrated in the southern and south-eastern states, with about 57 percent of immigrants entering São Paulo state from 1880–1925.[1202]
In this period, the Italians stood out clearly in the total immigration, at over 1,370,000, or 38 percent; the Portuguese and Spanish comprised, respectively, 1,100,000 and 600,000 (this is for the period 1890–1930). Other immigrants came from Germany, the Russian Empire (Lithuanians, Polish, Ukrainians, and Armenians), the Ottoman Empire (Lebanese), the Austro-Hungarian empire (Polish, Italian and German-speaking), as well as from Japan (although only after 1907).
The Italians arrival en masse before the other groups, particularly from 1885 to 1905, and settled across São Paulo state, in the countryside as well as the cities. Between 1888 and 1920, about 45 percent of the immigrants in this state were from Italy—the north and south were more or less equally represented, and a substantial minority, important for left-wing militancy, were from Tuscany. A further 20 percent were from Spain, with 16 percent from Portugal. The Portuguese settled, above all, in Rio de Janeiro and in Santos in São Paulo state, where they constituted, with the Spaniards, the majority of the working class. Spanish immigrants, like Italians, settled primarily in São Paulo state, and together, the two groups constituted almost the entire working class.
A municipal census for 1893 showed that São Paulo capital’s, with nearly 130,000 inhabitants, was already a city of 70,000 immigrants. These constituted moreover almost 85 percent of the workers—the city was a “little Chicago” in Brazil, with the Italians playing the same role in the labor movement as the Germans in the big Illinois city.[1203] In the city of Rio, that same year, the percentage of immigrant workers ranged from 39 percent to 54 percent, depending on the sectors examined.[1204] In 1900, nearly 90 percent of the workers in the state of São Paulo—both in the coffee and sugar cane plantations (fazendas), and in the cities—were immigrants, with the Italians almost 70 percent of the total (and 80 percent in São Paulo city).[1205] Twelve years later in the same state, almost 80 percent of workers in textiles (the main Brazilian industry) were foreigners, of whom 65 percent were born in Italy.[1206] In São Paulo city, during the first decades of the 20th century, almost 80 percent of workers in the building trades were from Italy, too.[1207]
The presence of organized European militants was already evident during the transition from the empire to the republic. This was particularly true of São Paulo state, and above all of São Paulo city. São Paulo did not have a tradition of popular urban struggles like Rio de Janeiro, because the arrival of immigrants coincided with urban and population growth, industrialization and economic diversification, and the resultant demand for jobs. At the end of the 19th century, Italians accounted for 45 percent of the population of the city, while those of African descent were only 6 percent.[1208] In São Paulo, the blacks had organized in traditionally religious brotherhoods the past two centuries—some authors consider these to be precursors of mutual aid resistance societies, but their influence on later workers organizations is not clear.
We reject the argument that sees the Brazilian labor movement as characterized by division based on internecine ethnic and racial conflicts along the lines of United States’ labor, applied by Maram to São Paulo state and Rio de Janeiro city.[1209] This approach suggests that the great obstacle facing the labor movement were divisions within the class: in São Paulo primarily divisions between the various immigrant groups, in Rio mainly between Brazilians (blacks, above all), and immigrants (especially the Portuguese).
The unions, in general, did not discriminate against blacks, calling on the workers “of all races and all colors” to join their ranks, and struggles.[1210] It was also very unusual to find in the labor movement press articles that identified ethnic or racial conflicts as a serious problem, weakening the movement. Nor can widespread ethnic and racial conflict be observed in São Paulo—at least until the migrations from the north-east in the 1950s—for a range of reasons. A crucial factor was demography, since the Italian (and Spanish) sections tended to predominate in quantitative terms. The diffusion of internationalist sentiment due to the great presence of anarchist and socialist groups was also of some importance.
Nonetheless, the national and cultural pluralism that characterized São Paulo city certainly posed difficulties for the construction of a joint national movement of all workers, going beyond the Italian and Spanish majority. First, there was a linguistic difficulty. Many of the newspapers of left-wing political groups, or unions, were produced by immigrant groups. Of course, the Italian-language labor press predominated, but even the German social-democratic workers wrote their newspapers in their own tongue. Meetings commonly saw speakers use several languages, again predominantly Italian, but including German and French as well, considering the numerically important minority groups.
Some groups sought to overcome this by using the local language, Portuguese, but they ended sometimes by returning to their original language. The resolutions of the national labor congresses were always presented in Portuguese, but were generally full of phrases and words badly translated from Italian. This suggests that ethnic and racial divisions in São Paulo would be mainly between the Italian and Spanish majority of workers, who were mostly unionized or sympathetic to unions and left-wing political groups, and the Brazilian and the Portuguese workers.
However, disputes arising from diversity in São Paulo were more common among Italians of different regional origins—especially between Italians from the north and south of Italy—than among the immigrants as a whole, or between them and the Brazilians. These intra-Italian conflicts were embedded in the different political and religious cultural values of Italians from the north and south, with the latter more susceptible to the nationalist propaganda and monarchist patriotism promoted by the Italian Consulate and by the city’s Italian elite, composed of industrialists and bankers. Other problems confronting the unions were the mobility of the immigrants (near the half of the Italian immigrants, for instance, went back to Italy between 1898 and 1930), the pronounced cyclical crises of the unbalanced Brazilian industrial sector (and the economy as a whole), and repression.
Anarchist ideas penetrated Brazil by several means. Books, pamphlets and newspapers arrived by ship from Europe in ports like Rio de Janeiro, or Santos in São Paulo state, and from there circulated across the country, eventually reaching the small towns. Anarchist literature passed freely from country to country, and works like those of the Russian anarchists Mikhail Bakunin and Piotr Kropotkin, and the Italian Errico Malatesta, into many languages, making possible a great exchange of ideas and propaganda. Kropotkin and Malatesta had great influence among the anarchists in Brazil of the First Republic, as did French anarchists like Elisée Reclus, Sebastian Faure and Jean Grave.
Above all, the circulation of libertarian practices and ideas was due—as already indicated—to the great circulation of experiences by the men and women who migrated. In 1892, a group of Italian anarchists founded in São Paulo the first libertarian newspaper in the country, Gli Schiavi Bianchi (“The White Slaves”). The editor of the newspaper was the Italian Galileo Botti, the owner of a coffee bar in the city of São Paulo who had arrived in Brazil two years earlier, after migrating first to Argentina.[1211] The name of the newspaper was a clear reference to the hard living conditions of the thousands of immigrant workers in Brazil, particularly in the coffee plantations of São Paulo. The founding of the newspaper was followed by the May Day demonstrations that year, organized by the anarchist group.[1212]
This was the start of a long history of struggles, violence and repression. The police soon began to pursue the propagandists, and a bomb found in the city (the origin of which was never verified) led to all the militants (around eighteen) being jailed for nine months, without trial. Many arbitrary imprisonments happened in São Paulo in 1898 on the occasions of May Day and the November commemorations of the Martyrs of Chicago. That year, the first anarchist militant was killed in Brazil during a demonstration: the Italian Polinice Mattei. From that period the First of May became a day of workers’ protest in Brazil as well.[1213]
From the late 19th century to the beginning of the 20th, a series of other newspapers in Italian were published in São Paulo by anarchist groups, among them La Bestia Umana (“The Human Beast”), L’Avvenire (“The Future”), Il Risveglio (“The Awakening”), La Nuova Gente (“The New People”), and La Battaglia (“The Battle”). Newspapers in Portuguese (if frequently written by Italians) included Germinal, O Amigo do Povo (“The People’s Friend”), A Terra Livre (“The Free Land”, which also drew in Portuguese, Brazilian and Spanish anarchists), among others.
The first São Paulo anarchist newspaper in Portuguese that was published regularly was O Amigo do Povo, founded in 1902. It was sold on the city streets, and also distributed for free. It was maintained by “comrades and sympathizers”, with signatures and subscriptions.[1214] Many militants wrote for it, including the Brazilian lawyer Mota, the Italians Alessandro Cerchiai, Oreste Ristori, Giulio Sorelli, Tobia Boni, Angelo Bandoni, Luigi “Gigi” Damiani and Augusto Donati, and the Portuguese lawyer Neno Vasco (of whom more below), and the Spaniard Juan Bautista Perez.[1215] It had collaborators in Rio de Janeiro, including Motta Assumpção, Manuel Moscoso, Matilde and Luigi Magrassi (mother and son), Elísio de Carvalho and Fábio Luz, and was distributed in some coffee and corner shops in that city.
In creating newspapers, the anarchists in Brazil followed the habitual steps of militants elsewhere: creating alternative information in the face of the mainstream press, and often, in direct opposition to it. The anarchist newspapers served, however, not only as propaganda vehicles, but as served mobilizing and coordinating centers for the various groups at the local, state and sometimes even the national levels.
In 1904, Ristori established La Battaglia, later called La Barricata (“The Barricade”), which had a large circulation in São Paulo of 5,000 copies per week—a considerable figure not only for an anarchist newspaper, but for any newspaper in the Brazil of the time.[1216] This newspaper helped worked as a coordinating center for the vast São Paulo anarchist world, and the great majority of militant libertarians—not only the Italians—were influenced by its positions. It drew on the support of a network of anarchist groups in the principal São Paulo urban centers. Publication was interrupted in 1912, but the same editorial group (with some defections) continued the work with the weekly newspapers La Propaganda Libertaria, followed by A Guerra Sociale (“Social War”), until 1917.
In Brazil, as elsewhere, anarchists had a variety of orientations. The issue that led to the most intense conflict was whether to work within the unions—and, if so, for what purpose. Starting in the first years of the 20th century, the key conflict was thus over revolutionary syndicalism. The core of syndicalism, as doctrine and practice, was the view that unions were the necessary (some even said sufficient) workers’ organization not only for immediate gains but for the revolutionary transformation of society via “one big union”.[1217] Syndicalism spread internationally from the 1890s, inspiring important bodies like the French General Confederation of Labor (CGT) in France, and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the United States. In every country, syndicalism developed in response to specific circumstances. In Italy and Argentina, for instance, it emerged above all as a rejection of the socialists, while in France and Brazil it arose as a union practice that could unify a range of militants.
One anarchist position on syndicalism was identified with La Battaglia’s editor, Ristori. This was critical of unions of all types, even syndicalist unions, considering them hopelessly reformist, mired in immediate material concerns. By contrast, a second approach, centered on A Terra Livre and Germinal and identified with Cerchiai, viewed the unions as perhaps the most important space for anarchist propaganda—but stopped short of embracing syndicalism. This was influenced by Malatesta, who argued that anarchists must strive for a social transformation that achieved “the full development of material, moral and intellectual freedom, not for the isolated individual, not for members of some class or a certain party, but for all human beings”.[1218] Since this could not be imposed by force, it had to arise from “the enlightened conscience of each” person “the free consent of all”. It followed that the first task should “be to persuade people”.
The “Malatestian” current argued that union struggles conscientised workers about the repressive conditions under which they lived and the conflict between their needs and those of the employers, and trained workers in collective struggle and solidarity. However, it rejected the view, held by many syndicalists, that unions should be politically neutral on the grounds that workers should unite, first and foremost, as workers, leaving national, political, religious and other differences outside.
One problem was, said Malatesta, that “there is no clear division, absolute, between individuals or between classes”, and besides, there were infinite gradations of material conditions within classes. If classes were not homogenous, then it was an illusion to build a movement on economic solidarity rather than moral solidarity. Anarchism was not about the struggle of one class only—it thought in terms of the broad masses of poor and exploited people, and not only the industrial proletariat. Class struggle (in Marxist terms) was seen by the anarchists as one part—an important part, but only a part—of a larger human struggle between the exploited of all types and the exploiters, of all types. The Church and the State played as central a role here as the bourgeoisie, not just a super-structural one.[1219] These anarchists also therefore tended to reject the syndicalist thesis of the revolutionary union as the embryo of the new society.
Thus, the “Malatestian” anarchists defended the need for strictly anarchist organizations that could struggle inside as much as outside, the unions in order to achieve anarchism through individual conversions.[1220] Besides the points above, this was because of the perceived limitations of unionism: as movements based on immediate, material interests, open as well to all workers—even those uninterested in political ideas and radical struggles—unions tended to degenerate into moderate reformism, dissipating energies and extending capitalism’s life. Damiani expressed this position very well, in our view:[1221]
In the union there’s room for everybody: who pays the dues and strikes when ordered, is always a good fellow, no matter if he is a nationalist or Catholic. In the union, the idealistic propaganda is an offense, a violation of the rights of the stomach, and the freedom of those that couldn’t care less about the abolition of the State and of capitalist property. Everything that doesn’t refer to eight hours and to ten cents increases is rejected.
Thus, the anarchists should enter the unions primarily to disseminate anarchist principles among the workers, not to seek daily material conquests; at the same time, they should join general strikes mainly in order to transform them into armed insurrections—possibly the first step to revolution. This was very different to revolutionary syndicalism, which combined a revolutionary perspective with day-by-day struggles for better wages, working hours and living conditions, using with partial as well as general strikes.
Finally, a third anarchist current adopted revolutionary syndicalism in practice, without worrying overly about doctrinal coherence. The distance between the anarchist vision of an alternative social order, negating the ideas, values and institutions of the bourgeois world of the oligarchical republic, and the Brazilian reality, led these anarchists to not only join the unions, but to actively embrace syndicalism. Syndicalism linked immediate daily struggles for improvements through partial changes in the existing framework with a long-term perspective of broader social transformation into a new socialist society based on organized labor, not on communities or parties. These anarchists argued that the revolution was not so close that anarchists could ignore immediate struggles to ameliorate the workers’ lives, and therefore rejected the notion that strikes should be used only as exercises in revolutionary struggle.
Giulio Sorelli was a prime example of this current.[1222] An anarchist carpenter, he helped found the syndicalist FOSP in 1905, serving as its president for many years. He wrote in O Amigo do Povo—responding to the “Malatestians” of Germinal—that the “labor union was without doubt one of the weapon that, with effectiveness, could be used by the workers so as to attain self-emancipation”.[1223] Some of the prosyndicalist anarchists also argued that that revolutionary syndicalism was really part of the great anarchist ideological family, and that 20th century anarchism should identify with syndicalism, or at least with an “anarchist conception of the syndicalism”, as Neno Vasco wrote in a famous work.[1224] (Until the start of the 1920s, however, the term “anarcho-syndicalism” that this suggested did not appear in the São Paulo anarchist press, although it would become common subsequently).
These debates dominated the anarchist “community” and the labor movement in São Paulo from the beginning of the 20th century to the 1920s, as well as in Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Recife and Porto Alegre. Anarchists, syndicalists and socialists from across Brazil were present at the first Brazilian Labor Congress, held in Rio de Janeiro in 1906. This was the first great attempt to form “one big union”, and the anarchists participated thoroughly in the debates. However, revolutionary syndicalism was the key influence at the congress, since it prevailed in the São Paulo labor organizations, and greatly influenced those of Rio de Janeiro.
The very first theme discussed was the political neutrality of the workers’ resistance bodies and unions. This was approved, in the participants’ own words, because “the working class was extremely divided by its political and religious opinions; that the only solid base of agreement and of action that exist are the economic interests common to the whole working class”.[1225] Thus, the congress decided “to put out of the union the rivalries that would result from the adoption, by the resistance associations, of a political or religious doctrine”.[1226] The COB created at that meeting only admitted unions whose essential base was “economic” resistance. Still, it did not adopt classical pragmatic trade-unionism, because it stressed the revolutionary union and the general strike as important parts of its program.[1227] The Second Labor Congress of 1913, also held in the capital, Rio de Janeiro, reaffirmed the principles of the revolutionary syndicalism when it revived the COB.
It is not, then, strictly accurate to call the labor movement in São Paulo at this time “anarchist”, or to conflate anarchism and syndicalism. Workers’ militancy was influenced by a number of factors and currents, of which anarchism was only one. An analysis of the principal union resolutions, newspapers and documents makes it evident that the unions were often revolutionary syndicalist rather than anarchist, although the constant union presence of anarchists has tended to confuse matters. Many union activists and leaders—leaving aside the majority of ordinary members—did not call themselves anarchists, or perhaps only identified with one or more anarchist principles like direct action, the general strike, and rejection of political parties and elections.
Besides the predominant syndicalist influence, socialism was also a factor in the unions. Recent studies have shown that the socialist groups in São Paulo, explicitly linked to the Italian Socialist Party, were more active and important during the First Republic than has previously been supposed. The São Paulo state labor movement brought together anarchists, syndicalists, socialists and radical republicans in newspapers, demonstrations and conferences, in various groups, leagues, unions, cooperatives, in union federations, and in strikes and other initiatives. Mutual aid societies also remained an important form of worker organization.
The lack of a party organization that demanded ideological uniformity favored heterogeneity among the anarchists. In the Brazilian experience, moreover, the libertarian press had a loose approach to doctrinal coherence, and to considerations of the general theoretical implications of private statements. But despite the heterogeneity of opinions among the anarchists, there was a definite unanimity on certain points, which united anarchists all over the world: the need for the abolition of the State, the rejection of electoral and parliamentary tactics, opposition to centralized organization, the defense of the direct action, and the value placed upon individuality.
Although anarchists were not the only influences on the workers, the libertarians were clearly present in key areas and moments in workers’ history in Brazil. Even today, it is difficult to quantify exactly the degree of anarchist penetration among the workers in São Paulo, but there was definitely diffuse sympathy for one or another aspect of anarchism. If conscious anarchists were a minority among the workers, they were quite visible—so much so that for a long time the adjective “anarchist” was synonymous with “subversive”, as would later be the case with “communist”. The state and the proprietors feared their actions and the effects of their propaganda enough to repress them with imprisonment and deportations, and to cooperated closely with one another to suppress direct actions promoted by anarchists and others—this, of course, happened not only in Brazil, but across the world.
It is important to highlight, again, that anarchist, revolutionary syndicalist and socialist ideas, in São Paulo in the first decades of the 20th century, were not simply alien political ideologies. These were not ideas out of place, as some historians have suggested: the workers used the language, the ideas and the practices of these movements in order to engage with their concrete problems and concerns. In the Brazilian context of the end 19th century and the first decades of the 20th, the state was experienced by the working class almost entirely as a source of oppression. The anarchist (and syndicalist) view that it was a source of oppression, obnoxious and unnecessary, and that voluntary social organization provided a viable alternative—where free experimentation, freedom, solidarity and fraternity would prevail—had considerable attraction.
During the First Republic, workers in Brazil faced enormous difficulties in using institutional politics to conquer, or guarantee, rights and improvements. The Republic, with its political exclusion of wide sections of the population, provided an incentive to adopt anarchism, a fertile field for the growth of anarchist ideas. Many workers demonstrated receptivity to the ideas and practices that could contribute to the improvement of their daily life, and that also appeared to lead to future emancipation. Besides, the limited reforms obtained by reformist socialism in other countries disappointed a section of the workers.
This state of mind was radicalized by the anarchist rejection of the whole political process through the supposedly democratic mechanisms of liberal states. The anarchists considered participation of the oppressed in institutional politics to be unimportant, and proposed other forms of agency. They constantly denounced the class-based character of the Brazilian republic, and the fraudulent character of every official electoral process.[1228]
Anarchists and syndicalists condemned the Brazilian oligarchy, which ruled the country through its monopoly of economic wealth and political influence, in the strongest terms. They considered it a parasite that obstructed the flourishing of a civilized life. Unsurprisingly, the industrialists were especially criticized—whether Brazilian or foreign. In São Paulo, many entrepreneurs were from Italy, and therefore often called for ‘national loyalty’ during strikes and other movements, but this had little impact on the thousands of Italian immigrant workers.
The spread of anarchism in São Paulo was, as we have already suggested, strongly favored by migration. The anarchist emphasis on the masses certainly had resonance among the workers in São Paulo, and contributed greatly to the spread of anarchism and syndicalism. A number of scholars have explained the strength of anarchism here as linked to the migrant character of the workforce, which was drawn to the anarchist view that all workers were part of a universal class waging an international struggle against exploitation.
Many immigrants carried anarchist ideas, especially Italians from the northern and central regions, influenced by the doctrines of Bakunin and Malatesta. A number of immigrant workers were veterans of struggles in their home countries, including in their number militants fleeing repression. There was continual communication among the anarchists internationally because a revolutionary’s life frequently forced her or him into exile temporarily, or even permanently. Malatesta, for instance, was active not only in Italy but also in France, England, Spain, the United States and Argentina, while Luigi Fabbri, another leading Italian anarchist, died in Uruguay.
Many important anarchists went to Brazil as exiles. Gregório de Vasconcelos—better known as Neno Vasco—was a Portuguese lawyer who was already a convinced anarchist when he arrived in Brazil in 1900. He played an important role in the São Paulo labor movement until his return to Portugal in 1911, where he became the principal propagandist for Malatesta’s ideas, and continued to send articles to Brazil. The Italian Ristori came to Brazil with a reputation an important anarchist, after several adventures across the world. The shoemaker Antonio Martínez, the first victim of the São Paulo police during the 1917 general strike in São Paulo city—the most intense and wide-reaching strike in Brazil until the twenties—was a young Spanish anarchist.
So, anarchist groups in Brazil had continual opportunities to host foreign militants, and hear their opinions, creating ties of friendship and shared experiences. Anarchism was, therefore, not just international in theory, but very much international in practice as well. The circulation of people and ideas characterized this period of history, and this was true not just of the anarchists, but of the labor movement, and other left-wing groups, as well.
The key anarchist organization was the propaganda group. In fact, the foundation of anarchist political life in Brazil was voluntary cooperation among various small groups, spontaneously constituted, without a fixed structure. The sources indicate that these groups were composed, above all, by manual workers: typographers, garbage men, shoemakers, workers at brickworks, bricklayers, carpenters, hatters, railway workers, and skilled factory workers.
The propaganda groups acted as discussion centers, but some specialized in concrete activities, including among other things, the creation of schools, the publication of books and pamphlets, correspondence with the anarchist and labor press in other countries, the production of newspapers, theatrical activities, and the organization of conferences, debates, picnics, and propaganda tours. Frequently, the same militant participated in several groups.
These groups’ propaganda was typically anti-electoral, anti-militarist, anti-clerical, and anti-bourgeois, and it campaigned in favor of arrested militants. They also organized numerous demonstrations against war and obligatory military service, and in support of the Russian workers revolt of 1905, the Mexicans’ rising in 1910, and the Russians, again, in 1917; they commemorated the Martyrs of Chicago through May Day. In 1927, anarchists in Brazil organized countless solidarity demonstrations for the Italian anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who had received the death sentence in the United States.
As in other parts of the world, anarchists in Brazil in that period believed strongly in education as an essential means of creating a new person that could build a new world. Thus, they believed it was necessary to build a new morality, an anarchist morality, opposed to bourgeois morality, and an anarchist culture in the broadest sense, opposed to the culture of the capitalist world the anarchists wanted to destroy. Essential to this project was the creation of Modern (or Rationalist) Schools, inspired above all in Francesco Ferrer i Guàrdia’s pedagogy. These operated in São Paulo from 1902 until 1919, when they were closed by the police in the repression that followed the great struggles of 1917–1919.
The effort to create a new culture, and promote the vision of a new world, was also manifested in the production what was termed “useful literature”: novels and stories containing anarchist propaganda (often published in chapters in the pages of newspapers), as well as libertarian plays (run in little workers theaters in São Paulo city). One of the most popular plays was Il Giutiziere, written by Sorelli. It was an apologia for Gaetano Bresci, the anarchist who assassinated the King of Italy in 1900 in retaliation for the bloody repression of protests against famine and rising prices in 1898.
The labor movement was another important area of anarchist activity. In São Paulo the anarchists operated in the unions, which were largely evolutionary syndicalist in orientation. Very often, the anarchists’ entrance into the unions more a tactical than a doctrinal issue: the union was one more place (even if for some, a privileged place) to diffuse the anarchist idea; there were also tactical considerations like halting the progress of rival political tendencies in the unions; prosyndicalist anarchists saw the unions, however, as the most important area of anarchist activity. For a number of anarchists, the results of participation were somewhat disappointing:[1229]
The labor associations proceed with the methods suggested by practice. To claim that our unions correspond to libertarians theories is madness, because the membership that composes these associations are attached to quite different ideas and methods.
Likewise:[1230]
The most intelligent workers, usually, are anarchists. But the great majority of the workers think only of saving money to face strikes.
After his expulsion in 1919, Damiani wrote that the Brazilian unions never really had “a program that could be tolerated or accepted by anarchists”.[1231]
Anarchist groups played an important role in the key the workers’ struggles of the First Republic, such as the campaign for the eight-hour day, and the struggles of 1912–1913 and 1917–19. They participated above all through their newspapers, but also through meetings, demonstrations, and strike action.
The year 1907 was characterized by countless strikes in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Santos and Recife against the very long workday to which workers of many categories—employed in both big and small workplaces—were subject. The wave of demands for the eight-hour day was largely due to a call by the national labor congress of 1906. These strikes were launched by meetings of the workers’ associations, aided by the labor federations, but were supported by many anarchist and syndicalist militants, as well as socialist.
The struggle for the eight-hour day grew in scope. The São Paulo workers who built vehicles initiated the transformation of the movement into a general strike. Their struggle lasted about a month, and their victory was sanctioned at a meeting of the employers and the workers, in which Sorelli, the anarchist and syndicalist leader of the FOSP, was central. After that, the general strike spread across all trades, being notably strong among the bricklayers, stonemasons, painters, marble workers, plumbers, typographers, hat makers, metal workers, textile workers, carpenters, and the workers of the pasta mills.
Almost every sector held their meetings at the FOSP headquarters.[1232] Many workers won the eight hours working-day, although others only secured a small reduction of the lengthy work day.
The repression against the FOSP was brutal. Armed policemen invaded its offices, and arrested Sorelli (who was jailed for thirteen days), and more than twenty others. Furniture, and books from the FOSP library, were also seized, and not returned despite countless appeals to the police, which also requested the right of assembly. Such repression certainly affected the movement. Nonetheless, a new executive committee was formed, which began meeting privately in friends’ houses; the strikers meanwhile held their meetings in the forests surrounding the city, and in parks.[1233]
Many of the strikers were not, of course, anarchists. However, the police attributed all the workers’ actions to the activities of a few anarchist leaders—or those defined as such by the police for their own purposes. This promoted the equation anarchism=terrorism, which was very pervasive during the first decades of the 20th century, and justified the repression that took place against the strike leaders—not all of whom were anarchists. Following the strikes, the deportation of 132 foreign workers was ordered.[1234]
The great strikes of the period 1917–1919 were the result of the workers’ own organization and mobilization, but relied on the participation of many anarchist, syndicalist and socialist leaders and militants, most of whom had labor movement experience in Italy. The movement in 1917 started with crowds coming out into the streets to protest, and raise demands. Demonstrations against the high cost of living, women’s and children working conditions, and the many problems that afflicted the workers’ life, took place almost daily.
The workers’ claims, as voiced by the Proletarian Defense Committee in São Paulo, were the eight-hour day and a working week of five-and-a-half days, the abolition of child labor, restrictions on the employment of women and youths, safety at work, the punctual payment of wages, wage increases, reductions in the price of rent and basic consumer goods, the right to unionize, and the release of arrested workers and reemployment of dismissed strikers.[1235] These demands required action from the state as much as from the employers.
While the strike movement was driven by the unions, as well as by spontaneous working class action, the socialists, anarchists, and above all, syndicalists, played a leading role. The principal speakers at demonstrations and meetings during the strikes were two Italian socialists, Teodoro Monicelli and Giuseppe Sgai, labor movement veterans in both Italy and Brazil, and two anarchists, Leuenroth and Antônio Candeias Duarte. The revolutionary syndicalists, however, prevailed in the union leadership. The anarchists were deeply involved, actively aiding the workers, and participating in negotiations with the employers and the government through the Proletarian Defense Committee, along with socialist leaders and several journalists.[1236]
In São Paulo, anarchist groups and newspapers, such as A Plebe (“The Plebeians”, edited by Leuenroth) and A Guerra Sociale (edited by Damiani and Cerchiai), were involved in the strikes and demonstrations. Some of the labor groups in São Paulo held their meetings at the headquarters of the Centro Libertário, the main anarchist club. Most of the organized workers preferred to meet at neighborhood union offices, or at socialist venues like the International Socialist Center, which drew in many FOSP syndicalists.[1237]
There were confrontations and clashes between strikers and the police and the Força Pública—the armed forces of São Paulo state- which extended over several weeks and produced many deaths. The repression of the demonstrations was brutal: the prisons filled with workers, allegedly or genuinely anarchists, labor organizations were forbidden from operating, homes were invaded, and meetings were violently dispersed. The Brazilian state and the capitalists saw repression, rather than reform, as the solution to the social question. The efforts of the public authorities were focused on pressurizing the growing labor movement: there were innumerable arrests, many foreigners, including anarchists and socialists were deported, and a great deal of state violence, particularly in São Paulo, where perhaps two hundred workers were killed, according to some contemporary sources.[1238]
Despite this situation, the struggle continued, mobilizing workers on an unprecedented scale, peaking in July 1917, with general strikes in the key cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. In São Paulo, the Proletarian Defense Committee managed to reach a relatively favorable settlement, with a similar settlement reached in Rio a bit later, although the FORJ was dissolved by the authorities. In October 1917, Brazil entered World War I, providing a pretext for further repression of the anarchists and the labor movement. However, prices continued to increase, older organizations sometimes emerged under new names (like the General Union of Labor, or UGT, which succeeded the FORJ), and strikes and mutinies broke out again in 1918. Soon after the war ended on the 11th November 1918, there was an insurrectionary strike in Rio de Janeiro state: this involved an (unsuccessful) anarchist plan to seize government buildings and arms, split the army, and set up a soviet republic, which was met with heavy repression, including the dissolution of the UGT.
In 1919, the labor movement in Brazil—and primarily, in São Paulo—entered its most intense phase, with an enormous wave of strikes. Many of the demands were the same as those of 1917, and the general characteristics of the strike movement were similar. Union power had grown due to the struggles of the previous years. Even the ferocious repression of the movement, starting from 1917 and going into the 1920s, failed to stop the workers organizing in leagues, unions and political groups.
While there were other important demonstrations and rebellions during the First Republic, the greatest strikes were those of 1917–1919,[1239] and many scholars consider the strikes of 1919 as closing an era in the history of labor. Many factors account for the high levels of workers’ struggle in this period: worsening living and working conditions due to the effects of World War I, the propaganda of anarchists, syndicalists and socialists, concrete efforts to organize the working class through unions and union federations, and the revolutionary era marked by the Russian Revolution and the uprisings across Europe.
While anarchist and syndicalist influence continued throughout the first half of the 1920s, the second half of the decade saw the start of decline in Brazil. That was partly due to increasing debates in the labor movement over the rise of the Soviet Union, and a growing division between anarchists and communists split the unions.
A number of anarchists, including some leading figures, broke with libertarian conceptions: the official Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) was founded in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, by former anarchists. Censorship and repression also played an important role. The propaganda of the anarchists, and the left in general, suffered a severe blow with a new law controlling the press promulgated in 1921. The law sought to restrict subversive propaganda, whether written or verbal.[1240] In 1924, a wave of repression swept over the labor movement, and a number of militants, including anarchists, were sent to the concentration camp of Clevelândia in the terrible northern equatorial region of Oiapoque, where many would die in the years that followed.
However, in spite of the rise of communism, state repression and increasing state control of society, revolutionary syndicalism—supported by a section of the anarchists—continued playing an important role in the São Paulo labor movement into the 1930s. It defended working class unity and autonomy against the repression of the last conservative governments as well as the subsequent corporatist regime of Getúlio Dornelles Vargas. In 1931, for example, a police report characterized the FOSP—still the most important union center in São Paulo state—as syndicalist.[1241] Groups properly called anarchist decreased in number and importance, as happened elsewhere in the world. In 1931, Ristori left anarchism to associate with intellectuals, artists and students linked to the PCB.[1242] This decline also explains why, in 1940s São Paulo, Leuenroth—still faithful to his anarchist convictions—was sufficiently isolated to celebrate May Day with the socialists.[1243]
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Biondi, Luigi, “La stampa anarchica italiana in Brasile: 1904–1915”, Honors dis., Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, 1995.
——, “Anarquistas italianos em São Paulo. O grupo do jornal socialista La Battaglia e a sua visão da sociedade brasileira: o embate entre imaginários libertários e etnocêntricos”, Cadernos AEL, 8/9, 1998: 117–147.
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——, “Na construção de uma biografia anarquista: os últimos anos de Gigi Damiani no Brazil”, in Filho, Daniel Aarão Reis and Rafael Borges Deminicis (eds.), História do Anarquismo no Brazil, vol. 1, Niterói/ Rio de Janeiro: EdUFF/ Mauad, 2006: 59–179.
——, “Desenraizados e integrados. Classe, etnicidade e nação na atuação dos socialistas italianos em São Paulo (1890–1930)”, Nuevo Mundo—Mundos Novos—Mondes Nouveaux, 7, Paris: École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2007.
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Steven J. Hirsch
University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg
Lucien van der Walt
University of the Witwatersrand
Since the early 1990s the world has witnessed a remarkable resurgence of anarchist and syndicalist ideology, organization, and methods of struggle. This resurgence is generally explained as a response to the imposition of neoliberal economic policies, the impact of increasingly globalized capital, the restructuring of state-society relations, the advent of new forms of authoritarianism and social control, and the collapse of world communism.[1244]
Rather than signal “the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution,” the post-Soviet period has been characterized by experimentation, reinvention and rediscovery on the part of progressive movements.[1245] Anarchism and syndicalism have been part of this process of renewal. New movements have emerged in areas with little in the way of a revolutionary, libertarian socialist tradition; existing movements in areas of historic influence have revived, and a more diffuse anarchistic influence permeates a number of important social movements.
The last two decades have seen new anarchist groups emerge in countries as diverse as Indonesia, Nigeria and Syria. In 1997, for example, several hundred gold miners registered a branch of the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW) with the Sierra Leone Ministry of Labor—the first syndicalist movement in the country.[1246] Older movements in Europe and the former Soviet bloc have experienced revitalization. In Spain, the anarcho-syndicalist General Confederation of Workers (Confederación General de Trabajadores, or CGT) currently represents nearly two million workers in the industrial relations system.[1247] It is affiliated with the European Federation of Alternative Syndicalism (FESAL), formed in 2003, which includes a section of the Italian union movement (the COBAS, from Comitati di Base, or “committees of the base”), representing hundreds of thousands of workers. A revolutionary syndicalist union summit organized in Paris, France, 2007, drew 250 delegates worldwide, with the African unions constituting the largest single continental presence.[1248] The summit of the syndicalist International Workers Association (IWA, f. 1922) in Manchester, England, the same year was attended by most of the international’s 16 affiliates, as well as other groups. The IWA includes the Siberian Confederation of Labor (SKT), which has a substantial presence among factory workers, miners and teachers.
The influence of anarchism on the international counter-globalization movement is well-established. Self-identified anarchists played a key role in the disruption of a series of major economic summits associated with neo-liberal globalization, most notably the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle in the United States. In the postcolonial world, anarchist influences are discernible in movements like the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, the indigenous rights and anti-privatization movements in Bolivia, and the Indian Karnataka farmers’ movement.
The Zapatistas, composed mainly of ethnic Maya in Chiapas, rebelled against the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by the Mexican state in 1994. Rather than pursuing state power, the Zapatistas have sought to secure village autonomy, control over communal lands and resources, and to defend their cultural traditions.[1249] In Cochabamba and El Alto, Bolivia, indigenous and workingclass movements organized mass protests in 2000 and 2003 against the privatization of water and gas. They also engaged in grassroots mobilizations to obtain access to land and community autonomy.[1250] The Indian Karnataka farmers’ movement (KRRS) similarly stresses independent, democratic village communities and opposition to neoliberalism and capitalism, and forms part of La Via Campesina (The Peasant Way), which coordinates peasant and indigenous activism in Asia, Latin America, Africa, the U.S., and Europe.[1251]
The resurgent anarchist and syndicalist movement is a diverse, fractured and contested one. It ranges from classical, mass syndicalist unions like the CGT and SKT, with clear programs and permanent structures, to an experiential wing, centered on small groups that tend to eschew theory and strategy in favor of a focus on democratic practice, direct action and lifestyle experimentation.
Contemporary analysts, considering the relationship between the contemporary global anarchist and syndicalist movement, and its predecessor, examined in this volume, have acknowledged the continuities between the two. It is generally conceded that late 19th century and early 20th century anarchism still serves to inspire, and to provide the basic principles—anti-statism, anti-capitalism, pro-direct action and pro-direct democracy—for contemporary anarchists.
However, a number of writers have gone further, to suggest the current period is characterized by a “New Anarchism” that differs significantly from the historic movement. Jonathan Purkis, James Bowen, and Dave Morland claim the “new” anarchism is associated with new “critiques of power” along the lines, inter alia, of gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ecology, and technology.[1252] They also stress “lifestyle anarchism” and the “politics of consumption” as essentially new concerns. In short, the new global anarchism is distinguished by its “complexity.”[1253] Barbara Epstein speaks of contemporary anarchism as “as an anarchist sensibility than as anarchism per se”, “a politics decidedly in the moment” marked by “intellectual fuzziness” and a broad anti-authoritarianism.[1254] “Unlike the Marxist radicals of the sixties, who devoured the writings of Lenin and Mao, today’s anarchist activists are unlikely to pore over the works of Bakunin”.[1255]
The contrast established in these works seems overdrawn. At one level, arguments for the emergence of a “New Anarchism” tend to rest on generalizations derived from a focus on the experiential wing of the contemporary movement—only one part of a complicated and contradictory movement and one, moreover, largely evident in the West. The argument that, for instance, “today’s anarchist activists” largely ignore anarchist theory and history certainly does not hold for the movement as a whole; it reflects only one of many trends and by no means the predominant one.
At another level, it is difficult to agree that contemporary anarchist “critiques of power” are either “new” or a sign of a growing “complexity” in anarchist sensibilities. Granted late 20th century and early 21st century global capitalism, state apparatuses, and social and cultural formations are decidedly more complex, imbricated, and more mutable than in the early 20th century.
Yet the historic anarchist and syndicalist movements in the colonial and postcolonial world examined in this volume, self-consciously and systematically addressed both matters of production and social reproduction. In addition, they also took up issues pertaining to consumption, including access to, and the costs of, basic necessities and environmental issues, manifest in celebrations of nature and struggles against pollution. They also contested the dominant culture through the elaboration of a multifaceted counter-cultural project. Race, ethnic, and gender equality were central to their emancipatory project, as clearly reflected in the South African, Peruvian, Brazilian, Egyptian, and Cuban cases.
Another apparent point of divergence, according to those who suggest a break between historical and “New” anarchism, is the method of struggle adopted by the new anarchist movements and global networks. Direct action at the point of production linked to the “old” anarchism and syndicalism is said to have given way to symbolic opposition, civil disobedience and nonviolent protests aimed at ridiculing “the conventions of bureaucracy and repressive society,” disrupting the routine of capital, and temporarily reclaiming space.[1256] Such “carnivals” of struggle are, such analysts suggest, expressions of a new approach to solidarity work, resting upon the activation of loose global networks that enable the circulation of ideas and models across borders.
Were these tactics absent from repertoire of struggles of early global anarchism? Here again, evidence from the colonial and post-colonial world would suggest otherwise. Symbolically contesting and mocking the legitimacy and moral authority of state officials, the bourgeoisie, the Church, and established social conventions were not uncommon. Ritual celebrations and festive events with international and local content such as May Day, and tributes to local martyrs, unions, and popular culture were standard fare. These grassroots level practices and performances often entailed the appropriation of public and urban spaces. This was particularly true in the case of nonviolent street demonstrations and mass protests in the main squares and central plazas of national capitals and urban centers. The underserved reputation of late 19th and early 20th century anarchism and syndicalism for violence has obscured the largely pacific (if forceful) character of the direct action it propounded.
David Graeber, in a seminal article on “The New Anarchists,” claims that organizational models and resistance techniques developed in the postcolonial world are profoundly shaping contemporary western movements, in marked contrast to the converse flow of influence during the initial era of anarchist internationalism.[1257]
This is not a fair historical judgment of the classical anarchist and syndicalist movements in the colonial and postcolonial world. Although more research is needed, studies point to a more complex, multidirectional and multivocal explanation for the early development of anarchism in the global North.[1258] Similarly, the papers in this volume effectively refute the notion of a simple adoption of a western anarchist blueprint. Indeed, they demonstrate the ingenuity of anarchists and syndicalists in fashioning distinctive, polymorphist organizations and repertoires of struggle to fit the colonial and post-colonial contexts.
In several key respects, classical anarchism and syndicalism provides the foundation for current global anarchist and syndicalist activism. First and foremost, as the studies in this volume demonstrate, anarchists and syndicalists in the colonial and post-colonial world selfconsciously established transnational and cross-continental networks. These networks were based on formal and informal connections involving labor unions, study groups, newspapers, migrant communities, and personal relationships. Second, by formulating and promoting a universal discourse that was anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, anti-statist, pro-human dignity and liberty, these anarchists and syndicalists consciously and effectively fostered an internationalist sensibility and outlook.
A third contribution to the contemporary movement was the classical movement’s universalism. Opposed not only to economic exploitation but to all forms of oppression, classical anarchism and syndicalism did not focus exclusively on the industrial proletariat. The revolutionary libertarian socialists envisaged the working class in the broadest terms, and in the colonial and postcolonial world as elsewhere, reached out to peasants, indigenous groups, sub-proletarians, artisans, and radical intellectuals. They recognized the social and political weight of these diverse groups and the potential for forging revolutionary alliances.
Among the most important legacies of classical anarchism and syndicalism was its commitment to holistic individual and collective emancipation. Both Mikhail Bakunin and Piotr Kropotkin stressed the importance, for instance, of “integral education” as essential for human self-realization and dignity. By “integral education” they meant not only instruction in manual and intellectual work, but a process of socialization based on “respect for labor, reason, equality, and freedom.”[1259] For this education and socialization process to be effective it required an egalitarian and democratic environment, preferably in an autonomous, decentralized, cooperative community.[1260]
This prescription for human fulfillment and vision of a libertarian society resonated with anarchists and syndicalists in the colonial and post-colonial world. In societies where access to education and culture were the preserves of elites and strict divisions existed between manual workers and intellectuals, the concept of integral education had popular appeal. To break the elite monopoly on education and culture and to foster self-emancipation and human dignity, anarchists and syndicalists created a dense web of educational and cultural associations. Study circles, popular libraries and universities, independent presses, theater and art groups, and recreational organizations were founded. Typically these associations were established in or near the neighborhoods and communities of the popular classes. As a result, they transformed the living environments of the socially and politically excluded into liberated counter-communities.
It is also important to note that there is, in many instances, a direct connection—by ideas, by organizations, and even by individual militants—between classical and contemporary anarchism and syndicalism. Although declining in influence from the late 1920s onwards, anarchism and syndicalism remained a potent force in the 1930s and well beyond. Most obviously, the National Confederation of Labor in Spain (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, or CNT, f. 1910) peaked in that era but there are other examples. In Poland, for instance, the anarchists and syndicalists came to play the leading role in Union of Trade Unions (ZZZ, f. 1931), which had 170,000 members at its height.[1261]George Woodcock famously claimed that the defeat of the Spanish Revolution in 1939 “marks the real death ... of the anarchist movement which Bakunin founded”.[1262] It had, that is, died out as a mass peasant and proletarian movement, although an adulterated, eclectic, and counter-cultural “neo-anarchism” persisted, “essentially” a movement of privileged, middle class, youth. For Joll, the events in Spain were the last of anarchism’s “repeated failures” as a movement of “poor people”; its future, if any, lay outside the modern world, or on its margins, among bohemians and rebellious “students, largely middle class ones at that”.[1263]
This generalization—partly because of its narrow, yet incomplete, Western European focus—is simply incorrect. Anarchism and syndicalism remained important working class and peasant currents in many contexts after 1939—not least in Spain itself, where a large underground persisted throughout the Francoist era. Polish syndicalists played a central role in the anti-Nazi resistance, and operated distinct units in 1944 Warsaw Uprising.[1264] The Women Workers’ Federation of the syndicalist Local Workers’ Federation in Bolivia (f. 1927) and the Culinary Workers’ Union in La Paz, hewed to an anarcho-syndicalist line until 1953 and 1958 respectively.[1265] Chu Chapei led anarchist guerrillas in southern Yunan, China, in the 1950s.[1266] Ukrainian anarchists, including Makhnovists, were prominent in the Karaganda gulag uprising in Kazakhstan in 1953.[1267]
In Bulgaria, anarchism survived the dictatorships of the 1930s and undertook clandestine work and guerrilla operations during the Second World War, followed by a brief, dramatic postwar upsurge, only to be savagely repressed.[1268] In Argentina, Brazil, Chili and Cuba, anarchists and syndicalists played an important role in a number of unions into the 1960s.[1269] Anarchism remained an important influence on peasant, worker, and student movements and guerrilla organizations in Mexico from the 1930s to the 1970s.[1270] In Korea, a section of the anarchists formed the (electoral) Independent Workers’ and Farmers’ Party (IWFP) in 1946, and played a central role in the New Democratic Party in the 1960s, and the Democratic Unification Party in the 1970s.[1271] The global protests of the late 1960s spurred an important revival, as Woodcock belatedly admitted.[1272] While the Spanish CNT grew to 300,000 members in 1978, the Uruguayan Anarchist Federation (FAU, f. 1956) waged armed struggle via the Revolutionary Popular Organization-33 (Organización Popular Revolucionaria 33 Orientales, OPR-33), also working within the unions and student movements.[1273]
This revolutionary continuity helped lay the basis for the big upsurge of the 1990s, and refutes the claim that 1939 marked a break in anarchist and syndicalist history, either in terms of its ideology or its class composition. This is not, however, to deny a more general pattern of anarchists and syndicalists being displaced from their previously leading roles in working class and peasant movements from the late 1920s onwards, accelerating from the 1940s.
Several factors help explain this relative decline, as well as the 1990s resurgence. The anarchist and syndicalist movements of the 1870s to the 1930s were, above all, mass, popular movements and, as such, profoundly shaped by evolving class relations and state systems. Massive and sustained repression by western, Soviet and nationalist regimes undeniably weakened anarchist and syndicalist movements. Examples include V.I. Lenin’s crushing of the Makhnovists from the late 1910s, Gerardo Machado’s actions against the Cuban movement in the 1920s, the Japanese regime in Korea in the 1920s and 1930s, Getúlio Vargas’s Brazil in the 1930s, fascism and the Red Army in Eastern Europe in the 1940s, and Mao Zedong’s regime in 1950s China. In Western Europe, only Adolph Hitler’s Germany matched Francisco Franco’s
Spain as executioner of its own civilians.[1274] This repression, leveled far more heavily at the anarchists and the syndicalists than at their reformist counterparts, reflected the very real fear their progress, and deep popular roots, engendered among employers and the state.[1275]
However, repression was not the only factor in the fading of anarchism and syndicalism. Powerful anarchist and syndicalist movements operated in adverse conditions, including colonialism, dictatorships and civil wars, as papers in this volume, and examples cited in this chapter, have indicated. Nor can repression explain the failure of movements to retain or regain their central role in relatively open contexts: examples would be the movement’s decline in the open (for Latin America in this period) presidential era of Chili (1925–1973), and the failure of the Spanish CNT to reestablish itself as a leading force in 1970s, post-Franco, Spain.
Addressing this issue with reference to western contexts, Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe have suggested that improving living conditions linked to consumerism and state welfare, and structured collective bargaining, helped “integrate” working classes. This generated the decline of western working class radicalism generally— including of syndicalism.[1276]
This structuralist explanation can be usefully extended to the colonial and postcolonial world, although (as we argue later) it also has some important limitations. If, as Benedict Anderson’s foreword and our introductory essay have suggested, the era of the first modern globalization and empire was particularly conducive to anarchist and syndicalist activity, the epoch that followed was not. The cataclysmic events of World War I marked the start of a period of deglobalisation. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, German, Ottoman and Russian empires in the late 1910s was followed by the establishment of nation-states across Eastern Europe. The same period saw the rise of the closed, centrally planned, economy in the new Soviet Union, and the rise of economic nationalism in the 1920s and 1930s across the postcolonial world, including East Europe, Latin America, Ireland and even colonial South Africa.[1277]
Import-substitution industrialization was only one component of a massive extension of state control over society in these countries: the incorporation of union leaders into the state (or the establishment of state-run unions), a rapid expansion of passport controls, welfare reforms and mass schooling, and sustained surveillance, bureaucratization and repression. From the 1930s, the great powers also shifted away from laissez-faire under the blows of the Great Depression, adopting Keynesian demand-management policies. The 1940s and 1950s saw the remaining empires collapse (with the important exception of the Soviets’), and the application of either Soviet-style planning or importsubstitution industrialization by the new nation-states.
The new world of globalization was in place by the 1930s, and was one in which the expansive nation-state (rather than the empire) was the norm, fracturing the peasantry and working class along “national” lines. States had always been viewed as vehicles of class as well as national liberation by sections of the union and other popular movements. This perception was now reinforced by nation-states’ growing role in managing and planning society, welfare, employment, and labor markets, in socializing people into national identities and loyalties, and in managing class conflict at a national level. Where the vote existed, it strengthened the image of the enabling, developmental, state.
Nationalism enjoyed a place of unprecedented hegemony globally, with fascist, populist, and even Communist parties adopting a nationalist outlook.[1278] On the Left, nationalist, national-populist and Communist parties proved to be powerful competitors with anarchist and syndicalist movements. Not infrequently, they co-opted anarchist and syndicalist discourses and demands. The Guomindang in China garnered some anarchist and mass support because of its commitment to revolution, and to wresting control from warlords and imperialism.[1279] In Latin America populist governments and parties appealed to workers precisely because they espoused an anti-oligarchical and anti-imperialist line while simultaneously calling for workers’ dignity, moral and cultural uplift, union organization, and vowing to satisfy workers’ material needs. The populist discourses of Juan Perón’s government (1946–1955) in Argentina and the APRA party in Peru (1930–1948) are prime examples of the appropriation of anarchist and syndicalist discursive elements.[1280]
The Communist Parties—the dominant anti-capitalist current in many contexts—likewise often absorbed anarchists and syndicalists’s political discourses. For example, in Latin America, they took their cue from anarchist and syndicalist movements to advocate a workerpeasant alliance and women’s emancipation. The centralization of the Communists has often been seen as playing a central role in their rise, but that factor should not be overstated: their rise was also integrally linked to the very fact of a Soviet Union and a People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Communist Parties held a distinct advantage in their competition with anarchists and syndicalists inasmuch as the Soviet Union, the PRC, and their satellites, appeared to be conclusive proof of the virtues of the statist “dictatorship of the proletariat” over anarchist-communism. Besides benefiting from the Soviet Union’s prestige, which grew especially rapidly in the 1940s, Communist Parties benefited from direct aid, including cash subsidies, political training, weapons, diplomatic aid, and a vast, unprecedented, outpouring of Marxist publications. “Moscow gold” was not a myth; the Communist Parties were qualitatively different entities to the independent left, including the anarchists and syndicalists. Vigorous critiques of Soviet regimes as “state-capitalist” or as “authoritarian socialist” certainly provided moral ammunition, but were no substitute for ready cash.
The deglobalised period was, clearly, not one conducive to anarchism and syndicalism. States repressed more efficiently, yet commanded a new degree of loyalty; class struggles were managed from above; migration slowed; the “nation” was often a far more immediate reality than the international proletariat; the anarchists and syndicalists’ key rivals, the Communists, received state subsidies; the bureaucracies of the international union federations formed from 1945, the World Federation of Trade Unions, and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, were deeply embroiled in the activities of the rival state blocs of the Cold War. Meanwhile, levels of class struggle declined from their peak in the 1910s and early 1920s, weakening all working class and peasant movements—at least until the upsurge of the late 1960s.[1281]
Structural factors certainly help explain the retreat of anarchism and syndicalism starting in the 1920s; concomitantly, the change in these conditions, including a new phase of globalization, starting from the 1970s, the rise of neo-liberalism and the associated decline of welfare as well as of national-level state-brokered class compromises, and the collapse of the Eastern bloc, is integrally linked to the anarchist and syndicalist resurgence of the 1990s.
However, structuralist explanations, in locating the decline of anarchism and syndicalism in factors entirely external to the movement, provide an incomplete picture. The Communist Parties were undoubtedly shaped by their relationship with Moscow (or Beijing), but were never simply the tools of Soviet (or Maoist) foreign policy. The very existence of mass Communist Parties (all with a demonstrably deep working class roots) base, in both the great powers (notably Italy and France) and in the less industrialized countries (like Brazil, Egypt and South Africa) demonstrates that significant, popular, radical currents continued to exist despite growing state power and largesse, including “Moscow gold.” The global revolt of “1968” further demonstrated that the working class was very far from being “integrated” in the West, East or South.
It is necessary then to examine some of the internal problems in anarchist and syndicalist movements. The movement was always a diverse and contested one, and there were weaknesses in some of its wings that had adverse consequences for its durability. One of these was the excessive heterogeneity that characterized many contexts. In China, for instance, there were 92 different groups formed between 1919 and 1925, but no national federation or common program,[1282] creating space for the rapid growth of the more efficient (but initially far smaller) Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The tendency to schism was arguably accelerated by the rise of Bolshevism.[1283]
Nestor Makhno, reflecting on the weakness of the Russian anarchist movement (outside the Ukraine, that is), saw it as lying precisely in a state of “chronic general disorganization”—a state, he stressed, that was at odds with Bakunin’s approach.[1284] Bakunin had formed the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy (f. 1868), to work within the International Workingmen’s Association, or First International (f. 1864). This was “a secret organization with a well-determined program—atheist, socialist, anarchist, revolutionary”.[1285] Without a homogenous program and a unitary organization, Bakunin, Makhno and many others argued, the movement was bound to dissipate its forces unnecessarily. This advice was not, however, always heeded.
Another weakness—again, not universal—was the replacement of a clear program for decisive action for revolutionary transition by a naïve faith in “a miraculous solution to the problem”.[1286] This led, at times, to alliances that contradicted basic principles and undermined movement autonomy, power and politics.
Papers in this volume have noted Mexico’s House of the World Worker’s (Casa del Obrero Mundial, COM or Casa) ill-considered alliance with Venustiano Carranza’s regime against the peasant Zapatistas, and the uncritical involvement of a section of Chinese and Korean anarchists in formations like the Guomindang, the Korean Provisional Government, and the IWFP. More famously, the Spanish CNT joined the Popular Front Government in 1936 precisely because (argued the dissident CNT faction, the Friends of Durruti) “the leadership had no idea which course of action to pursue”, despite “lyricism aplenty”.[1287]
The problem did not arise from anarchists and syndicalists entering into alliances with a wide range of forces: as this volume has shown, alliances were beneficial to movements in contexts like Argentina, China, Cuba, Egypt, Korea, Peru and the Ukraine). Rather, it arose when alliances substituted for, and contradicted, revolution itself.
Again, this was not a flaw inherent in anarchism or syndicalism—as the writings of Bakunin, and the activities of the Makhnovischna and the Korean People’s Association in Manchuria, discussed in this volume, indicate.[1288] Indeed, the CNT itself had resolved at its May 1936 congress at Zaragoza on the necessity of complete expropriation, coordinated and defended by a coordinated national military using modern military techniques. As Makhno reaffirmed Bakunin’s insistence on ideological and organizational unity, so the Friends of Durruti reaffirmed his stress on the necessity of a “National Defense Council”, elected by and accountable to the unions and mass movements, and the forcible destruction of state power.[1289]
In a very practical, non-utopian sense, classical anarchism and syndicalism, especially as it was manifest in the colonial and post-colonial world, bequeathed a legacy of struggles for holistic human emancipation and dignity. Playing a key role in popular and emancipatory struggles in the colonial and postcolonial world from the 1870s to the 1930s and beyond, anarchism and syndicalism must be given its due weight in the larger story of struggles against imperialism, national oppression and racial domination. Likewise, the history of anarchism and syndicalism must be recognized as a global one, where large-scale movements like the one in Spain, played a key role but were neither exceptional nor isolated; rather, they were part of an interconnected subaltern resistance movement that spanned the continents in a struggle to remake the world and that, in its most advanced forms, faced the question of power seriously.
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[1] See Joan Ungersma Halperin, The Artist and Social Reform: France and Belgium, 1885–1898, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961, 12.
[2] Quoted in Guy Aldred (ed.), Bakunin’s Writings, Indore/Bombay: Modern Publishers/Libertarian Book House, 1947, 92, 99.
[3] Today we usually think of the Ukraine as part of ‘Europe,’ but it was long regarded as part of the half-Asiatic empire of the czars.
[4] Edgar Rodrigues, Os Anarquistas: Trabalhadores italianos no Brazil, São Paulo, Global editora e distribuidora, 1984.
[5] Apichai Shipper, Fighting for Foreigners: Immigration and Its Impact on Japanese Democracy, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008.
[6] J. Marko Bocjun, “The Working Class and the National Question in the Ukraine: 1880–1920”, Ph.D., York University, 1985, 132.
[7] Martin van Creveld, The Rise and Decline of the State, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 318; M. Lang, “Review Article: Globalization and Its History”, The Journal of Modern History, 78, 2006, 913–918.
[8] See, inter alia, Ajiz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, London: Verso, 1992, chapter 3; Mark T. Berger, “After the Third World? history, destiny and the fate of Third Worldism”, Third World Quarterly, 25: 1, 2004, 9–39; Bill Warren, Imperialism: pioneer of capitalism, London: Verso, 1980; Heloise Weber, “Reconstituting the ‘Third World’? poverty reduction and territoriality in the global politics of development”, Third World Quarterly, 25: 1, 2004, 187–206.
[9] Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Capital, 1848–1875, Abacus, London, 1977, 66 et seq.; Lang, 924.
[10] See Paul Hirst, “The Global Economy: myths and realities”, International Affairs, 73: 3, 1997, 411.
[11] Anderson, 3.
[12] Jack London, 1900, “The Shrinkage of the Planet”, from his Revolution and Other Essays, 1910, Macmillan, online at http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/Writings/Revolution/shrinkage.html, accessed 15 January 1997.
[13] Van Creveld, 317.
[14] Ben Crow, Alan Thomas, Paul Frenz, Tom Hewitt, Sabrina Kassam and Steven Treagust, 1994, Third World Atlas, second ed. Buckingham/Milton Keynes: Open University, 31.
[15] See, inter alia, Ephraim Nimni, “Great Historical Failure: Marxist theories of nationalism”, Capital and Class, 25, 1985, 58–82; Sanjay Seth, “Lenin’s Reformulation of Marxism: the colonial question as a national question”, History of Political Thought, XIII: 1, 1992, 99–128; Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, Black Flame: the revolutionary class politics of anarchism and syndicalism, San Francisco, Edinburgh: AK Press, 2009, 92–98.
[16] Mikhail Bakunin, “Letter to La Liberté”, in Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism, London: George Allen and Unwin, [1872] 1971, 284.
[17] David Miller, Anarchism, London, Melbourne: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1984, 4, 45; George Woodcock, Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements, new edition with postscript, Penguin, 1975, 136, 170.
[18] Piotr Kropotkin, “Anarchism”, in Roger N. Baldwin (ed.), Kropotkin’s Revolutionary Pamphlets: a collection of writings by Peter Kropotkin, New York: Dover Publications, [1905] 1970, 295; Piotr Kropotkin, The Place of Anarchism in Socialistic Evolution, Cyrmu: Practical Parasite Publications, [1886] 1990, 5–6.
[19] Van der Walt and Schmidt, 33–81.
[20] Ralph Darlington, Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism: an international comparative analysis, Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008, 4–7.
[21] Rudolph Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism, London: Pluto Press, [1938] 1989, 86.
[22] Wayne Thorpe, ‘The Workers Themselves’: revolutionary syndicalism and international labor 1913–23, Dordrecht, Boston, London/Amsterdam: Kulwer Academic Publishers/International Institute of Social History, 1989, xiii–xiv.
[23] Louis Levine, Syndicalism in France, second ed., New York: Columbia University Press, 1914, 160–161; L. Lorwin, “Syndicalism”, in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1959, 497.
[24] Karl Marx, “Letter to Paul Lafargue in Paris”, In Marx, Engels, Lenin: anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, N.Y. Kolpinsky (ed.), Moscow: Progress Publishers, [19 April 1870] 1972, 46; Friedrich Engels, “The Bakuninists at Work: an account of the Spanish Revolt in the summer of 1873”, in N.Y. Kolpinsky (ed.), Marx, Engels, Lenin: anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, Moscow: Progress Publishers, (1873) 1972, 132–133.
[25] Van der Walt and Schmidt, 20–22, 133–144, 149–170.
[26] Benedict Anderson, Under Three Flags: anarchism and the anti-colonial imagination, Verso, 2006, 2,54.
[27] Eric Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries, London: Abacus, 1993, 72–3. The odd spelling of “marxism” appears in Hobsbawm’s text.
[28] Robert Graham, “[Review essay] Alan Ritter, Anarchism: a theoretical analysis/ Michael Taylor, Community, Anarchy, and Liberty/David Miller, Anarchism”, Telos, 60, 1985, 197.
[29] David Howell, “Taking Syndicalism Seriously”, Socialist History, 16, 2000, 30.
[30] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1991, 3–4, also see 7–8.
[31] Woodcock, Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements, 401–403.
[32] James Joll, The Anarchists, London: Methuen and Co., 1964, 175, 184–188, 217, 221–223, 239.
[33] Daniel Guérin, Anarchism: from theory to practice, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970, 98–101; Roderick Kedward, The Anarchists: the men who shocked an era, London/New York: Library of the Twentieth Century, 1971, 81–83.
[34] Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: a history of anarchism, London: Fontana Press, 1994, 473–475, 504–535.
[35] The Portuguese movement, which dominated that country’s labor movement, is also strikingly absent. See Bernhard Bayerlein and Marcel van der Linden, “Revolutionary Syndicalism in Portugal”, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds.), Revolutionary Syndicalism: an international perspective, Otterup/Aldershot: Scolar/Gower Publishing Company, 1990, 160–164. Likewise, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Scotland are routinely ignored. Contra. “Spanish exceptionalism,” the case can also be made that anarchism and syndicalism were “adopted extensively as revolutionary theories and practices” and a real “mass movement” in France and the Netherlands (in both, the main labor centers were, for a time, revolutionary syndicalist) and Britain, Germany and above all, Italy (in all three anarchism and syndicalism were a powerful minority tradition with mass support): see van der Walt and Schmidt, pp. 271–295.
[36] Joll, 224.
[37] M.M. Breitbart, “Spanish Anarchism: an introductory essay”, Antipode: a radical journal of geography 10/11: 3/1, 1979, 1. Also see Marshall, 453.
[38] John Crump, “Anarchism and Nationalism in East Asia”, Anarchist Studies, 4:1, 1996, 45–64, 60–61.
[39] See Jason Adams, Non-Western Anarchisms: Rethinking the Global Context, Johannesburg: Zabalaza Books, n.d. [2003], 2–4.
[40] A point previously made in Lucien van der Walt, 2007, “Anarchism and Syndicalism in South Africa, 1904–1921: rethinking the history of labor and the left”, Ph.D., University of the Witwatersrand, Ch. 2; van der Walt and Schmidt, Chs. 1, 9.
[41] Yaacov Oved, “The Uniqueness of Anarchism in Argentina”, Estudios Interdisciplinarois de America Latina y el Caribe, 8: 1, 1997, 63–76, 69.
[42] For data, see inter alia, Thorpe, 313 note 13 and Ruth Thompson, “Argentine Syndicalism: reformism before revolution”, in van der Linden and Thorpe (eds.), 173–174.
[43] For example, Ruth Thompson, “The Limitations of Ideology in the early Argentinean Labor Movement: anarchism in the trade unions, 1890–1920”, Journal of Latin American Studies, 16, 1984, 81–99.
[44] On the party, see inter alia G.D.H. Cole, The Second International, 1889–1914. London/New York: Macmillan/St Martin’s Press, 1956, 825–833; Jeremy Adelman, “Socialism and Democracy in Argentina in the Age of the Second International”, Hispanic American Historical Review, 1992, 72: 2, 211–238.
[45] See Frank Fernandez, Cuban Anarchism: the history of a movement, Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 2001, 39–59; Kirk Shaffer, “Purifying the Environment for the Coming New Dawn: anarchism and counter-cultural politics in Cuba, 1898–1925”, Ph.D. dis., University of Kansas, 1998.
[46] Shaffer, vii, 2.
[47] Manuel Caballero, Latin America and the Comintern, 1919–1943, Cambridge, London, New York, New Rochelle, Melbourne, Sydney: Cambridge University Press, 1986, 8–9; Julio Godio, El movimiento obrero de américa latina, 1850–1918, Bogotá: Ediciones Tercer Mundo, 1978; Ricardo Melgar Bao, El movimiento obrero latinoamericano: historia de una clase subaltern, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1988.
[48] John Hart, “Revolutionary Syndicalism in Mexico”, in van der Linden and Thorpe (eds.), 194, 197.
[49] John Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860–1931, Austin: Texas University Press, 1978, 156; Hart, “Revolutionary Syndicalism in Mexico”, 200–201.
[50] See Peter Deshazo, Urban Workers and Labor Unions in Chili 1902–1927, Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1983, and Sergio Grez Toso, Los anarquistas y el movimiento obrero: La alborada de “la idea” en Chili, 1893–1915, Santiago de Chili: LOM Ediciones, 2007.
[51] See Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, “Levantine Trajectories: the formulation and dissemination of radical ideas in and between Beirut, Cairo and Alexandria, 1860–1914”, Ph.D. dis., Harvard University, 2003; Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, London: Freedom Press, (1934) 1996, ch. 16; Mece Tunçaye and Erik Jan Zürcher (eds.), Socialism and Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, 1876–1923, London, New York/Amsterdam: British Academic Press imprint of I.B. Tauris Publishers/International Institute of Social History, 1994.
[52] On India/Pakistan, see Harish K. Puri, Ghadar Movement: ideology, organization and strategy, Amritsar: Guru Nanak Dev University Press, 1983, esp. ch. 2, and Jitendra Nath Sengal, Bhagat Singh: a biography, Gurgaon: Hope India Publications, [1931] 2006, esp. ch. 11.
[53] On Vietnam, see Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992, esp. ch. 2. On the Philippines, see Anderson.
[54] Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 15, 27, 128, 170, 290; Arif Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, 214–215
[55] Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 15, 27, 170; Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, 214–215.
[56] Contra. Kedward, 5.
[57] Van der Walt and Schmidt, 164–169.
[58] Fintan Lane, “The Emergence of Modern Irish Socialism 1885–1887”, in Red and Black Revolution: a magazine of libertarian communism, 3, 1997, 20–21.
[59] Van der Walt and Schmidt, 165, 274–275.
[60] Van der Walt and Schmidt, 291.
[61] See, for example, G.M. Stekloff, History of the First International, revised ed., London: Martin Lawrence, 1928, 312; E. Yaroslavsky, History of Anarchism in Russia, London: Lawrence and Wishart, [? 1937], 26, 28, 41, 68–69; Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels: studies in archaic forms of social movement in the 19th and 20th centuries, third ed., Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1971; Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries; Kedward, 24–26; also see Woodcock, 444–445.
[62] Stekloff, 312; also see Nikolai Bukharin, The ABC of Communism. Michigan/ Toronto: University of Michigan Press/Ambassador Books, [1922] 1966, 77–78; Yaroslavsky, 26, 28, 41, 68–69.
[63] Astrogilda Pereira, quoted in E.A. Gordon, “Anarchism in Brazil: theory and practice, 1890–1920”, Ph.D., Tulane University, 1978, 33; Maurice Zeitlin, Revolutionary Politics and the Cuban Working Class, New York: Harper & Row, 1970, 160–163.
[64] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, [1848] 1954, 34, 39–40.
[65] Larry Peterson, “The One Big Union in International Perspective: revolutionary industrial unionism, 1900–1925”, in J.E. Cronin and C. Sirianni (eds.), Work, Community and Power: the experience of labor in Europe and America, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1983, 68–75; Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, 1990, “The Rise and Fall of Revolutionary Syndicalism”, in van der Linden and Thorpe (eds.), 7–12; van der Walt and Schmidt, ch. 9.
[66] This is in line with previous research, such as Joseph White, 1990, “Syndicalism in a Mature Industrial Setting: the case of Britain”, in van der Linden and Thorpe (eds.), 105–108.
[67] Steven J. Hirsch, “The Anarcho-Syndicalist Roots of a Multi-Class Alliance: organized labor and the Peruvian Aprista Party, 1900–1933”, Ph.D. dis., George Washington University, 1997, 13, 15, 27, 30, 34, 47, 59, 169.
[68] Hart, “Revolutionary Syndicalism in Mexico”, 192–198.
[69] The claim that anarchism and syndicalism represented atavistic craft workers in Brazil has long detracted from due recognition of their impact in the factories: see Sheldon Leslie Maram, “Anarchists, Immigrants and the Brazilian Labor Movement, 1890–1920”, Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, 1972, 98–100.
[70] Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860–1931, 29, 32–42, 70–71, 47, 54, 81–82.
[71] See Serge Cipko, “Mikhail Bakunin and the National Question”, The Raven, 3: 1, 1990, 3–14; J.P. Himka, “Young Radicals and Independent Statehood: the idea of a Ukrainian nation-state, 1890–1895”, Slavic Review, 41: 2, 1982, 219–221, 223–224, 227–229.
[72] Alexandre Skirda, Nestor Makhno: Anarchy’s Cossack: the struggle for free soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921, Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press, (1982) 2003, 35–36.
[73] Colin M. Darch, “The Makhnovischna, 1917–1921: ideology, nationalism, and peasant insurgency in early twentieth century Ukraine”, Ph.D., University of Bradford, 1994, 136, 138–139.
[74] See Ha Ki Rak, A History of Korean Anarchist Movement [sic.]. Tegu: Anarchist Publishing Committee, 1986, 69–96.
[75] Davide Turcato, “Italian Anarchism as a Transnational Movement, 1885–1915”, International Review of Social History, 52: 3, 2007, 412–416; For an analysis of the impact of mass immigration, itinerant anarchist militants, and the transnational anarchist press on the development of Argentine anarchism, see, José C. Moya, Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1998, especially 307–317.
[76] On Cuba, see Jane Mee Wong, “Pingshe: retrieving an Asian American anarchist tradition”, Amerasia Journal, 34: 1, 2008, 143, 148–149; On Malaya, see C.F. Yong, “Origins and Development of the Malayan Communist Movement, 1919–1930”, Modern Asian Studies, 25: 4, 1991, 625–648.
[77] For instance, see Wong, 135–139.
[78] Datuk Khoo Kay Kim and Ranjit Singh Malhl, “Malaysia: Chinese anarchists started trade unions”, The Sunday Star, 12 September 1993.
[79] Turcato, 416; See also Donna R. Gabaccia and Fraser M. Ottanelli (eds.), Italian Workers of the World: Labor Migration and the Formation of Multiethnic States, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001, chs. 3, 5, 7.
[80] For more on this, see also Dongyoun Hwang, “Beyond Independence: the Korean anarchist press in China and Japan in the 1920s and 1930s”, Asian Studies Review, 31: 1, 2007, 3–23.
[81] Constance Bantman points to this process when she notes that many of the key themes in “French” syndicalism were derived from informal international collaborations from the First International onwards, and inspired by developments in US, Australian and British unions: Constance Bantman, “Internationalism without an International? Cross-channel anarchist networks, 1880–1914”, Revue Belge de Philologie et D’Histoire, 84: 4, 2006, 961–981, 974–979.
[82] van der Walt and Schmidt, 16, 153–158.
[83] We refer here to the “European diffusion” model of history, as noted in Barbara Weinstein, “History without a Cause? Grand narratives, world history, and the postcolonial dilemma”, International Review of Social History, 50: 1, 71–93.
[84] For instance, Joll, 184–188.
[85] Guérin, 67–69, 98–101.
[86] Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: a history of anarchism, 561–598.
[87] Murray Bookchin argued that historical anarchism rejected nationalism, regionalism and ‘nationality’ as inherently authoritarian and parochial, advising contemporaries to look askance at national liberation struggles: Murray Bookchin, “Nationalism and the National Question”, Society and Nature, 2: 2, 1994, 8–36.
[88] Christopher Day, The Historical Failure of Anarchism: implications for the future of the revolutionary project, Chicago: Kasama Essays for Discussion, [1996] 2009, 5; also see Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin, Anarchism and the Black Revolution and Other Essays, Philadelphia: Monkeywrench Press and the Worker Self-Education Foundation of the Industrial Workers of the World, 1994, 3–6, 21, 23 (but cf. 123).
[89] This literature dealing specifically with this issue is very limited and often schematic (certainly by contrast with the extensive work on Marxism and the national question), and almost entirely focused on western Europe: key works include Jean Caroline Cahm, “Bakunin”, in Eric Cahm and Vladimir Claude Fišera (eds.), Socialism and Nationalism, Nottingham: Spokesman, 1978; Jean Caroline Cahm, “Kropotkin and the Anarchist Movement”, in Cahm and Fišera (eds.); Michael Forman, Nationalism and the International Labor Movement: the idea of the nation in socialist and anarchist theory. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998; M. Grauer, “Anarcho-Nationalism: anarchist attitudes towards Jewish nationalism and Zionism”, Modern Judaism, 14: 1, 1994, 1–19; Rob Knowles, “Anarchist Notions of Nationalism and Patriotism”, in edited by J. Zizek and C. Leitz (eds.), Writing Europe’s Pasts: proceedings of the thirteenth biennial conference of the Australasian Association for European History, Auckland, New Zealand: Australian Humanities Press, Unley, 2001; Carl Levy, 2004, “Anarchism, Internationalism and Nationalism in Europe, 1860–1939”, Australian Journal of Politics and History, 50: 3, 330–342. Also see Cipko, 3–14. For a more global approach, see van der Walt and Schmidt, ch. 10.
[90] Mikhail Bakunin, “Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism”, in Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism, London: George Allen and Unwin, [1867] 1971, 147.
[91] Bakunin, “The Program of the International Brotherhood”, in Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism, London: George Allen and Unwin, [1872] 1971, 174, emphasis in the original; Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy: Cambridge University Press, (1873) 1990, 45.
[92] Bantman, 961, 964.
[93] Marcel van der Linden, “Second Thoughts on Revolutionary Syndicalism”, key-note address at Syndicalism: Swedish and International Historical Experiences, Stockholm University, Sweden, March 13–14, 1998, 15
[94] For a summary, see van der Walt and Schmidt, ch. 10.
[95] Joan Casanovas, “Labor and Colonialism in Cuba in the Second Half of the Nineteenth-Century”, Ph.D., State University of New York, 1994, 8, 302–303.
[96] Joan Casanovas, “Labor and Colonialism in Cuba”, 366, 367, 381, 393–4; Joan Casanovas, 1995, “Slavery, the Labor Movement and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850–1890”, International Review of Social History, 40:3, 381–382.
[97] George Reid Andrews, “Black and White Workers: São Paulo, Brazil, 1888–1928”, Hispanic American Historical Review, 68: 3, 1988, 497–500, 511.
[98] Steven Hirsch, “Anarchist Trails in the Andes: Transnational Influences and Counter-Hegemonic Practices in Peru’s Southern Highlands, 1905–1928.” Paper presented at the European Social Science History Conference, Ghent, Belgium, 13–16 April 2010.
[99] On anarchism and its relationship to the Indian question in Peru, see, inter alia, Piedad Pareja, “El anarquismo en el perú y el problema indígena”, Revista Proceso, 6, 1977, 109–119; Gerardo Leibner, “La Protesta y la andinización del anarquismo en el Perú, 1912–1915”, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe, 5:1, 1994, 83–102; Wilfredo Kapsoli, Ayllus del Sol: Anarquismo y Utopia Andina, Lima: TAREA, 1984. On the movement’s problematic relationship with Asian immigrants see Peter Blanchard, The Origins of the Peruvian Labor Movement, 1883–1919, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982, 123–125, 165–166.
[100] Norman Caulfield, “Wobblies and Mexican Workers in Petroleum, 1905–1924”, International Review of Social History, 40:1, 1995, 52, 54, 56, 64–5, 67–8, 70–2.
[101] Quoted in David Poole, “The Anarchists in the Mexican Revolution part 2: Praxedis G. Geurerro 1882–1910”, The Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review, 4, 1978, 71.
[102] Colin M. MacLachlan, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: the political trials of Ricardo Flores Magón in the United States, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Oxford: University of California Press, 1991, 109.
[103] Seo Dong-shin, 2007, “Korean Anarchists Pursuing Third Way”, Korea Times, 26 January 2007; Hongseong Portal, “Commemorative Festival for Admiral Kim JwaJin’s Victory” online at http://hongseong.go.kr/english/festival/festival_05_01.html, accessed on 6 June 2008.
[104] Sergey Shevchenko, 12 January 1999, “ ‘Makhno is our Czar, Makhno is our God’ ”, online at http://www.hartford-hwcom/archives/63/354.html, accessed on 10 December 2007.
[105] 1916 Rebellion Walking Tour, “The History: Statue of James Connolly”, http:// www.1916rising.com/pic_connollystatue.html, accessed on 15 September 2008.
[106] Resolutions of the 2006 congress of the Congress of South African Trade Unions, online at http://www.cosatu.org.za/cong2006/congress06/resolu.pdf, section 1.12, accessed 15 September 2008.
[107] Bocjun, 132–133.
[108] Erez Manela, The Wilsonian Moment: self-determination and the international origins of anti-colonial nationalism. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 5–6
[109] Quoted in Paul Eltzbacher, Anarchism: exponents of the anarchist philosophy, London: Freedom Press, [1900] 1960, 81.
[110] Mikhail Bakunin, “The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State”, in Dolgoff (ed.), [1871] 1971, 270.
[111] This draws on ideas that previously appeared in Lucien van der Walt, “Pour Une Histoire De L’anti-Impérialisme Anarchiste: ‘Dans Cette Lutte, Seuls Les Ouvriers Et Les Paysans Iront Jusqu’au Bout’ ”, Refractions, 8, 2002: 27–37, and van der Walt and Schmidt, 297–321.
[112] Also see Casanovas, “Labor and Colonialism in Cuba”, 309–321.
[113] Casanovas, “Labor and Colonialism in Cuba”, 361–363.
[114] Crump, 46.
[115] Quoted in Ha, 144.
[116] Crump, 47–48; Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, Ch. 11.
[117] Fernandez, 15–38; also see Casanovas, “Labor and Colonialism in Cuba”, 413– 423, 433–442.
[118] Casanovas, “Labor and Colonialism in Cuba”, 424.
[119] Shin Chaeho, “Declaration of the Korean Revolution”, in Robert Graham (ed.), Anarchism: a documentary history of libertarian ideas, volume 1: from anarchy to anarchism, 300 CE to 1939, Montréal: Black Rose, [1923] 2005, 373–376.
[120] Bakunin, quoted in Guérin, 68.
[121] Bakunin, “Federalism, Socialism, Anti-Theologism”, 99.
[122] Mikhail Bakunin, “Statism and Anarchy”, in Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism, London: George Allen and Unwin, (1873) 1971, 343.
[123] Athanase G. Politis, L’Hellénisme et L’Egypte Moderne, Paris: Félix Alcan, 1930, vol. 2, 82–85.
[124] Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, “Levantine Trajectories: The Formulation and Dissemination of Radical Ideas in and between Beirut, Cairo, and Alexandria, 1860–1914”, Ph.D. dis., Harvard University, 2003, 318–326.
[125] Ersilio Michel, Esuli Italiani in Egitto (1815–1861), Pisa, 1958. It should be noted that contemporary sources usually refer to ‘internationalists’ although the subsequent development of the movement makes clear that the majority of these were anarchists with some legalitarian socialists (Marxists).
[126] Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) was a prominent Italian political figure associated with the First International who held democratic, republican and, for a time, radical views.
[127] Leonardo Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, Florence: Editrice, 1976, vol. 2, 282n. Bettini’s short essay, ‘Appunti per una storia dell’anarchismo italiano in Egitto’, 281–288 stands out as a pioneering work on Italian anarchism in Egypt.
[128] James Guillaume, L’Internationale, Documents et Souvenirs, 1864–1878, Paris: Gerard Lebovici, 1985, vol. IV, 258, 262. The Anti-Authoritarian wing of the International had been set up by Mikhail Bakunin and his allies following the split with Karl Marx at the Hague Congress of the First International in 1872.
[129] Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, 281n; see also Guillaume, L’Internationale, vol. IV, 259, 261. All translations are mine.
[130] C. Masini, Storia degli anarchici italiani da Bakunin a Malatesta, Milan: Rizzoli, 204. Malatesta (1853–1932) led a tireless life of militancy in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East over the next fifty years.
[131] Nunzio Pernicone, Italian Anarchism 1864–1892, Princeton University Press, 1993, 255–257; Ambasciata d’Italia in Egitto, Archivio Storico Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome, Italy b. 142 (1914) Ministry of Interior memo, 22 March 1914, hereafter AIE.
[132] Emilio Falco, Armando Borghi e gli anarchici italiani 1900–1922, Urbino: QuattroVenti, 1992, 211n.
[133] Cipriani (1844–1918) was present at both the foundation of the International in London in 1864 and the Paris Commune in 1871. On his second visit to Egypt in September 1867, he was involved in the death of three men, an affair for which he was condemned to 20 years’ transportation in New Caledonia in 1881, Masini, Storia degli anarchici italiana, 196–197; Dizionario Biografico degli Anarchici Italiani s.v. Cipriani, Amilcare.
[134] Henriette Chardak, Élisée Reclus, une vie: l’homme qui aimait la terre, Paris: Stock, 1997, 403–407. Reclus (1830–1905) stands in the highest rank of 19th century anarchist thinkers and was an important influence on educational thought in the movement.
[135] Galleani (1861–1931) had escaped imprisonment on the island of Pantelleria and taken refuge in Egypt at the end of 1900. In November 1901 he left for the United States to assume the editorship of the anarchist newspaper La Cronaca Sovversiva: Ugo Fedeli, Luigi Galleani, Quarant’anni di lotte rivoluzione (1891–1931), Cesena: L’Antistato, 1956, 106–107.
[136] Carlo Molaschi, Pietro Gori, Il Pensiero: Milano, 1959, 13.
[137] On Anderson’s thesis of the role of print capitalism in creating the ‘imagined’ national community see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1981.
[138] Among the newspapers read by anarchists in Egypt were Il Libertario (La Spezia), Il Grido della Folla (Milan), Sosialistis (Athens), La Rivoluzione Sociale (London), Le Réveil (Geneva), L’Operaio (Tunis), La Libertà (New York), La Protesta Humana (San Francisco), and La Nuova Civiltà (Buenos Aires).
[139] Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, 282, 305.
[140] On Italian workers, see Tareq Y. Ismael and Rifa’at El-Sa’id, The Communist Movement in Egypt, 1920–1988, Syracuse UP, 13; on anarchists, see below.
[141] Ugo Parrini’s own account of a movement riven by personal and ideological differences, republished in Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, 303–307, while no doubt generally self-serving, is probably reliable on this point.
[142] On Greek anarchists, see my forthcoming article.
[143] For example, see Enrico Pea, La vita in Egitto, Milan: Mondadori, 1949.
[144] See, for example, Egyptian concerns, Zachary Lockman, ‘Imagining the Working Class: Culture, Nationalism, and Class Formation in Egypt, 1899–1914’, Poetics Today, 15 (1994) 176n; for British concerns regarding young native Egyptians returning from studies abroad, FO Foreign Office, National Archives, UK, 371/1115/ 46990, Lord Kitchener to Sir Edward Gray, 14 Nov. 1911, hereafter FO.
[145] Pernicone, Italian Anarchism, 78–79.
[146] Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, 282n. A list of 53 anarchists, which contains the names of 6 or 7 women, may provide a representative sample of the movement in Alexandria in the early 1880s: Polizia Internazionale, Archivio Storico Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Rome, Italy, b. 41 Rome to Alex, 7 April 1881, hereafter PI. It should also be noted that the ‘anarchist couple’ was a regular feature of the movement.
[147] For the following, see Enrico Insabato, ‘Le Idee Avanzate in Egitto (II)’, Lux! Vol. 1 no. 3 (16 July 1903), 37–38.
[148] Insabato, ‘Le Idee Avanzate in Egitto (II)’, 37.
[149] Quote from a 1906 May Day poster, AIE, b. 107 (1904–1906) Anarchici.
[150] Anthony Gorman, “Anarchists in Education: The Free Popular University in Egypt (1901)”, Middle Eastern Studies, 41: 3, 2005, 308.
[151] Enrico Insabato, ‘Le Idee Avanzate in Egitto’, Lux! Vol. 1 no. 2 (15 June 1903) 7.
[152] AIE b. 120 (1909–1910) Stampa sovversiva, ‘Perche siamo anarchici—Che cosa vogliamo’.
[153] Dated 1906 and signed ‘Gli Anarchici’ (The Anarchists), AIE b. 107 (1904–1906) Anarchici.
[154] A full history of political violence in Egypt has yet to be written. Existing studies take the assassination of Prime Minister Butrus Ghali in 1910, an action possibly inspired by anarchist tactics but carried out by a nationalist, as their starting point. See Donald M. Reid, “Political Assassination in Egypt, 1910–1954”, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 15: 4, 1982, 625–651; Malak Badrawi, Political Violence in Egypt 1910–1925: Secret Societies, Plots and Assassinations, Richmond: Curzon, 2000.
[155] AIE no. 86 (1900–1904) Anarchici, 1899 Processo in Alessandria d’Egitto contro diverti anarchici.
[156] See, for example, Lord Cromer’s telegram which refers to alleged rumors of Italian anarchists discussing the assassination of the Khedive (FO 78/5090, 7 Oct. 1900, no. 10). For various Italian concerns, see AIE b. 86 (1900–1904) Anarchici.
[157] Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, 282.
[158] AIE b. 85 (1900–1904) Parrini Ugo Ucilio.
[159] AIE b. 107 (1904–1906) Stampa Anarchica, Ministry of Interior memos, 6 June, 3 Sept. 1907.
[160] AIE b. 120 (1909–1910) Circolo Ateo.
[161] In February 1877 the newly-established Alexandria section of the International had published a newspaper, Il Lavoratore, that was quickly closed down by the authorities. For this and a useful but incomplete listing of anarchist newspapers published in Egypt, see Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, 81–88.
[162] La Tribuna Libera 20 Oct. 1901.
[163] This is probably the same as the weekly Risveglio Egiziano mentioned in a Ministry of Interior memo, AIE b. 111 (1907–1908), Anarchici, Min of Interior memo, 16 Feb. 1908.
[164] AIE b. 120 (1909–1910) Stampa sovversiva, ‘Perche siamo anarchici—Che cosa vogliamo’.
[165] Some short Arabic language texts, mostly advertisements, appeared in L’Operaio.
[166] See, for example, ‘al-Ishtirakiyyun wa al-fawdawiyyun’, al-Muqtataf 18 no. 11 (Aug. 1894), 721–729 and 18 no. 12 (Sept. 1894) 801–807 (a short series on socialists and anarchists).
[167] For a fuller discussion, see Donald M. Reid, “The Syrian Christians and Early Socialism in the Arab World”, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 5, 1974, 177–193.
[168] Quoted in Robert Tignor, State, Private Enterprise, and Economic Change in Egypt, 1918–1952, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984, Tables A.1–2 and Donald M. Reid, Cairo University and the Making of Modern Egypt, Cairo: AUC Press, 1991, 113. The figures are taken from the 1917 census (for Italians and Greeks) and the 1907 census (for Egyptians) on the basis of number of literate persons per 1,000 persons over five years. The rate for Jews, a group that included both Egyptians and non-Egyptians, was almost forty-four per cent (1907).
[169] Joel Beinin and Zachary Lockman, Workers on the Nile: Nationalism, Communism, Islam, and the Egyptian Working Class, 1882–1954, London: I.B. Tauris, 1988, 39.
[170] AIE b. 87 (1900–1904) Anarchici, La Tribuna Libera, Memo 16 Nov. 1901.
[171] PI b. 41, 1890 Alessandria, Alexandria to Rome, 13 May–April 1890. The 14 July had served as the occasion of a public conference and march in 1881: Bettini, Bibliografia dell’anarchismo, 305.
[172] The earliest attested celebration of 1 May is PI b. 41, 1891 Alessandria, Alexandria to Rome, 18 April 1891.
[173] AIE b. 86 (1900–1904) Anarchici, 25 Sept. 1904.
[174] Egyptian Gazette 19 Jan., 21 Jan. 1907; al-Ahram 19 Jan., 26 Jan. 1907.
[175] For a hostile report, see ‘A Ferrer Fiasco’, Egyptian Gazette, 18 Oct. 1909.
[176] AIE b. 126 (1911) Anarchici, Ministry of Interior Memo, 9 Dec. 1909 (plaque); AIE b. 120 (1909–1910), Ministry of Interior Memo, 4 May 1910 (May Day). The Ferrer affair would be taken up in the local Greek and Arabic language press, as well as the theater: see Ilham Makdisi, “Theater and Radical Politics in Beirut, Cairo and Alexandria”, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Georgetown University, 2006.
[177] For a more detailed discussion, see Anthony Gorman, “Anarchists in Education”, 303–320. A similar project planned in Cairo was quickly targeted by the authorities and abandoned at the end of 1901.
[178] ‘Università Popolare Libera’, L’Imparziale 17–18 Nov. 1901.
[179] ‘al-Kulliya al-hurra’, al-Ahram 13 July 1901.
[180] Egyptian nationalist interest in the UPL is attested by the considerable coverage given to it in the pages of al-Liwa’, and by the participation of its correspondent, Muhammad Kalza, in the official opening. On the Higher School Club, see Anthony Gorman, Historians, State and Politics in Twentieth Century Egypt: Contesting the Nation, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003, 82; ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Rafi‘i, Mustafa Kamil, Ba‘th al-haraka al-wataniyya. Cairo, 1939, 192–195.
[181] For a short, useful discussion, see Joel Beinin, Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East, Cambridge University Press, 2001, 16–19. For a more detailed analysis on guilds in Egypt during this period, see Juan Cole, Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East, Princeton University Press, 1993, 164–189, and John T. Chalcraft, The Striking Cabbies of Cairo: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt, 1863–1914, Albany NY: State University of New York, 2005.
[182] For some discussion on developments in finance during this period, see Roger Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800–1914, Methuen: London and New York, 1981, 233–243.
[183] Lockman, ‘Imagining the Working Class’, 186.
[184] The Capitulations were a series of agreements made between the Ottoman Empire and many European states that granted certain economic and legal privileges to foreign nationals, principally exemption from certain customs duties and the right to be subject to their own national law administered by consular authorities.
[185] Zachary Lockman (ed.), Workers and Working Classes in the Middle East: Struggles, Histories, Historiographies. State University of New York Press, 1994, 72.
[186] For a fuller discussion, see Anthony Gorman, “Foreign Workers in Egypt 1882– 1914: Subaltern or labor elite?”, 237–259 in Stephanie Cronin (ed.), Subalterns and Social Protest: History from Below in the Middle East and North Africa, London and New York: Routledge, 2008.
[187] Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 54 (tailors); Phos 7 July, 14 July 1909; al-Muqattam 12 July 1909 (IUWE). In other sources, this union is known as the Association Internationale de coopération pour l’amélioration des classes ouvrières, AIE b. 120, Ministry of Interior Memo, 4 July, 11 July 1909
[188] Tilegraphos 26 Dec. 1901
[189] AIE b. 88 (1900–1904) 29 May 1902.
[190] AIE b. 126 (1911) Anarchici, ‘Movimento anarchico in genere’, Memo 8 Aug. 1910’
[191] For a fuller discussion of these events, see Gorman, ‘Foreign Workers in Egypt’, 245–249. Among the strike leadership Kordatos identifies the Vourzonides brothers as anarchists and Solomon Goldenberg (known from other sources to be an anarchist), Yiannis Kordatos, Istoria tou ellinikou ergatikou kinimatos, Athens: Boukoumani, 1972, 174n.
[192] Phos 11 March 1909.
[193] The socialist movement in Egypt before 1921 awaits its own study. After the breakup of the First International in the 1870s it probably maintained a continuous if uneven existence in the ensuing decades. Under the Second International established in 1889 socialists promoted social democratic politics and were a significant force among Italian and possibly other workers in the decade or so before the outbreak of the First World War.
[194] Anthony Gorman, “Foreign Workers in Egypt 1882–1914”, 254.
[195] Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 55.
[196] For the nationalist ‘discovery’ of the working class, see Lockman, “Imagining the Working Class”, 157–190.
[197] Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 67–72.
[198] ‘La Coscienza Indigena’ L’Operaio 11 April 1903.
[199] L’Unione 13 July 1913.
[200] L’Idea 1 May 1909.
[201] Amin ‘Izz al-Din, al-Tabaqa al-‘amila al-misriyya mundhu nashatiha hatta thawrat 1919, Cairo: Dar al-sha‘b, 1967, 123.
[202] Kordatos, Istoria tou Ellinikou Ergatikou Kinimatos, 175–176.
[203] FO 407/185, no. 155 Allenby to Curzon, Ramleh 31 Aug. 1919.
[204] Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 111–113, 139. The names of both of these organizations owed a clear debt to French anarcho-syndicalism.
[205] FO 141/779/9065 Cairo 1919–1921 Bolshevism, Report on Rosenthal and Edward Zaidman.
[206] Ismael and Rifa’at El-Sa’id, Communist Movement in Egypt, 21–22. Salama Musa’s comment that the party was first called the Anarchist Party (al-hizb al-ibahi) also suggests a strong debt to the anarchist tradition, Salama Musa, Tarbiyya Salama Musa, Dar al-Mustaqbal, 1958, 203.
[207] Ismael and Rifa’at El-Sa’id, Communist Movement in Egypt, 15, 17.
[208] Though certainly Jewish, Rosenthal’s geographic origins are unclear. Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 130 assert he was born in Palestine but he has variously been described as Russian and Austrian.
[209] Ismael and El-Sa’id, Communist Movement in Egypt, 21–22.
[210] The Italian and Greek governments were concerned about the activities of Egyptian anarchists both at home and abroad. See, for example, the list of antifascists, anarchists and socialists in Marta Petricioli, Oltre il Mito, L’Egitto degli Italiani (1917– 1947), Milan: Mondadori, 486–489.
[211] Interview with Yusuf Darwish, a communist lawyer and activist from the 1940s who attended these associations in the mid-1930s.
[212] Enrico Insabato, ‘Le Idee Avanzate in Egitto (II)’, Lux!, 37.
[213] The action was later recalled with pride, Il Processo degli Anarchici, Alexandria, Cairo 1899, 55. For anarchists at Tel al-Kabir, see PI b. 41, 6 and 20 Oct. 1882.
[214] Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 71 (quoting al-Liwa’).
[215] Beinin and Lockman, Workers on the Nile, 111–112.
[216] For example, in September 1910, leading Watanist ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Jawish was reported to be promoting Italian anarchist literature, FO 371/1114, 6–7.
[217] The International, 5 May 1916, “What’s Wrong with Ireland”, hereafter Int.
[218] Int., 21 January 1916, “The Most Effective Means”.
[219] Int., 22 February 1918, “Industrial Unionism in South Africa”.
[220] Now independent Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe, respectively.
[221] Jeremy Cronin, 1991, “Origins and ‘Native Republic’ ”, in Colin Bundy (ed.), The History of the South African Communist Party, Cape Town: Department of Adult Education and Extra-Mural Studies, University of Cape Town, 12.
[222] Jack Simons and Ray Simons, Class and Color in South Africa, 1850–1950, London: International Defense and Aid Fund, [1969] 1983, 192–4, 212.
[223] Besides the work of this writer, there is some material in Jonathan Hyslop, The Notorious Syndicalist: J.T. Bain, a Scottish rebel in colonial South Africa, Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 2004 (Bain briefly embraced syndicalism in the early 1910s), and Allison Drew, Discordant Comrades: identities and loyalties on the South African left, Pretoria: University of South Africa Press, 2002, especially 20–40. Also of importance are sections of Elaine Katz, A Trade Union Aristocracy: a history of white workers in the Transvaal and the general strike of 1913, Johannesburg: Institute for African Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, 1976, and Evangelos Mantzaris, Labor Struggles in South Africa: the forgotten pages, 1903–1921, Windhoek and Durban: Collective Resources Publications, 1995.
[224] Thus, the view remains widespread that the CPSA, under pressure from the Comintern, was the first socialist organization to “put South Africa’s pressing social problems, the national, democratic and land questions, at the top of their political program”: Allison Drew (ed.) South Africa’s Radical Tradition: a documentary history, volume one, 1907–1950, Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press/Buchu Books/ Mayibuye Books, University of the Western Cape, 1996, 22, also 16.
[225] Riva Krut, “The Making of a South African Jewish Community”, in Belinda Bozzoli (ed.), Class, Community and Conflict: South African Perspectives, edited by Belinda Bozzoli. Braamfontein, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1988, 135–6. By 1990, South Africa had produced nearly 40 percent of all gold ever mined.
[226] Martin Legassick, “South Africa: capital accumulation and violence”, Economy and Society, 3: 3, 1974, 253–291, 260.
[227] Bill Freund, “The Social Character of Secondary Industry in South Africa: 1915– 1945”, in Alan Mabin (ed.), Organization and Economic Change, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1989, 81.
[228] Known as South West Africa, its white population had representation in parliament from 1924. It is today independent Namibia.
[229] Now Lesotho and Mozambique, respectively. The total population in 1911 comprised 4,000,000 Africans (67 percent), 1,276,000 Whites (21 percent), 525,000 Coloreds (9 percent), and 150,000 Indians (2,5 percent), although whites formed half of the urban population in major centers. Ten years later, the urban population was only 1,733,000 out of 6,928,000. See D.J. Kotzé, “Die Kommunistiese Beweging in Suid-Afrika tot die Stigting van die Kommunistiese Party van Suid-Afrika in 1921”, Institute for the Study of Marxism, University of Stellenbosch, 1987, 73–4; Lis Lange, White, Poor and Angry: white working class families in Johannesburg, Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003, 12, 39, 84; Peter van Duin, “South Africa”, Marcel van der Linden and Jürgen Rojahn (eds.), The Formation of Labor Movements, 1870–1914, Leiden, New York, Kobenhavn, Koln: Brill, 1990, 640 note 38.
[230] David Yudelman and Alan Jeeves, “New Labor Frontiers for Old: black migrants to the South African gold mines, 1920–85”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 13: 1, 1986, 123–4; also see Peter Alexander, “Oscillating Migrants, ‘Detribalized Families,’ and Militancy: Mozambicans on Witbank collieries, 1918–1921”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 27: 3, 2001, 505–525, 508.
[231] In 1916, sixty Witwatersrand mine compounds housed an average of four thousand men each: Patrick Harries, Work, Culture and Identity: migrant laborers in Mozambique and South Africa c. 1860–1910, Johannesburg/Portsmouth NH/London: Witwatersrand University Press/Heinemann/James Currey, 1994, 195–196.
[232] 85 percent of skilled miners in the 1890 were immigrants; in 1921, more than half of all typesetters, fitters and barbers, and over 40 percent of carpenters and electricians were foreign-born: Elaine Katz, The White Death: silicosis on the Witwatersrand gold mines, 1886–1910, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1994, 65; Freund, “The Social Character of Secondary Industry”, 83.
[233] D. Hobart Houghton, The South African Economy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964, 141.
[234] See, for example, Jeff Guy and Motlatsi Thabane, “Technology, Ethnicity and Ideology: Basotho miners and shaft-sinking on the South African gold mines”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 14: 2, 1988, 257–278; Harries, 121–124; John McCracken, Politics and Christianity in Malawi, 1875–1940: the impact of the Livingstonia Mission in the Northern Province, Blantyre: Christian Literature Association in Malawi, 2000, Chs. 5 and 6.
[235] Sandra Swart, “ ‘Desperate Men’: the 1914 Rebellion and the politics of poverty”, South African Historical Journal, 2000, 42: 161–175, 172.
[236] Harries, 199; in 1931, over 90 percent of newly arrived African labor on the Witwatersrand, not employed in the mines, was from the Natal and Transvaal provinces: Freund, “The Social Character of Secondary Industry”, 83.
[237] Maureen Swan, Gandhi: the South African experience, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1985, 12.
[238] Colin Bundy, “ ‘Left, Right, Left, Right’: the CPSA in the 1930s and 1940s”, in Colin Bundy (ed.), The History of the South African Communist Party, Cape Town: Department of Adult Education and Extra-Mural Studies, University of Cape Town, 1991, 32.
[239] David Ticktin, “The Origins of the South African Labor Party, 1888–1910”, Ph.D. dis., University of Cape Town, 1973, 42; see also Mohamed Adhikari, ‘Let us Live for Our Children’: the Teachers’ League of South Africa, 1913–1940, Cape Town/ Rondebosch: Buchu Books/UCT Press, 1993, 48. The total rose to over 21 percent in 1921. While people of color could not sit in parliament, they could sit in local and provincial governments in the Cape.
[240] South African Labor Party, “Program of Principles”, in D.W. Krűger (ed.), South African Parties and Policies, 1910–1960: a select source book, Cape Town: Human and Rousseau, [1910] 1960, 73.
[241] Bernard Hessian, “An Investigation into the Causes of the Labor Agitation on the Witwatersrand, January to March, 1922”, MA dis., University of the Witwatersrand, 1957, 6.
[242] Communist Party of South Africa, “Program of the Communist Party of South Africa adopted at the seventh annual congress of the Party on 1 January, 1929”, in Brian Bunting (ed.), South African Communists Speak: documents from the history of the South African Communist Party, 1915–1980, London: Inkululeko Publishers, [1929] 1981, 104. For the Comintern resolution itself, see Executive Committee of the Communist International, “Resolution on ‘The South African Question’”, in Bunting (ed.), South African Communists Speak.
[243] See, for example, Marc Becker, “Mariátegui, the Comintern, and the Indigenous Question in Latin America”, Science and Society, 70: 4, 2006, 450–479.
[244] Drew, South Africa’s Radical Tradition, 108.
[245] See Mao Zedong, “On the People’s Democratic Dictatorship: in commemoration of the twenty-eighth anniversary of the Communist Party of China”, in Editorial Committee for Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung (ed.), Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, [1949] 1971.
[246] A revealing debate took place in the Cape-based CPSA theoretical review, Freedom/Vryheid, in the 1940s: see, inter alia, Harry Snichter, January 1941, “A People’s Program”, Freedom/Vryheid; “G”, March 1941, “Short-Term Program: a critique on comrade Snichter’s ‘Peoples Program”, Freedom/Vryheid; Cape District Committee, March 1941, “The Cape District Committee and the People’s Program”, in ibid.; East London Group, March 1941, “Comments on ‘A People’s Program”, in ibid.
[247] South African Communist Party, “The Road to South African Freedom”, in Bunting (ed.), South African Communists Speak, 311, 313–20. See also David Everatt, “Alliance Politics of a Special Type: the roots of the ANC/SACP alliance, 1950–54”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 18: 1, 1991, 19–39.
[248] Dedication on frontispiece of Michael Harmel [writing as “A. Lerumo”], Fifty Fighting Years: the Communist Party of South Africa 1921–71. London: Inkululeko Publications, 1987 [1971].
[249] Yusuf Dadoo, 1981, “Introduction by Dr Yusuf Dadoo, National Chairman of the South African Communist Party”, in Bunting (ed.), South African Communists Speak, xv.
[250] Brian Bunting, Moses Kotane: South African revolutionary, London: Inkululeko Publications, 1975, 20; Bunting (ed.), South African Communists Speak, 48; Harmel, 33–37.
[251] Eddie Roux, Time Longer than Rope: a history of the black man’s struggle for freedom in South Africa, second ed. Madison: Wisconsin University Press, [1964] 1978, 129.
[252] Harmel, 42.
[253] Cronin, “Origins and ‘Native Republic’”, 12.
[254] Eddie Roux, S.P. Bunting: a political biography, University of the Western Cape, Bellville: Mayibuye Books, [1944] 1993, 74–7; see also Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 129–135; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 139–141, 144–145, 154.
[255] Bunting, Moses Kotane, 191–192 .
[256] Bunting, Moses Kotane, 20.
[257] Cronin, “Origins and ‘Native Republic’”, 14; Harmel, 42.
[258] Bunting, Moses Kotane, 186; Jeremy Cronin, “Rediscovering our Socialist History”, South African Labor Bulletin, 15: 3, 1990, 99–100; Forman, 3 July 1958, quoted in Sadie Forman and Andre Odendaal, “Introduction”, in Sadie Forman and Andre Odendaal (eds.)., Lionel Forman: a trumpet from the rooftops, London/Cape Town, Johannesburg/Athens, Ohio: Zed Books/David Philips/Ohio University Press, 1992, xxiv; Harmel, 86, 87–9, 93–4, 96–7; Jack Simon, “Lectures on Marxism-Leninism, Novo Catengue 1977–1979”, in edited by Marion Sparg, Jenny Schreiner and Gwen Ansell (eds.), Comrade Jack: the political lectures and diary of Jack Simons, Novo Catengue, New Doornfontein/Johannesburg STE publishers/African National Congress, [1977–1979] 2001, 183, also 153.
[259] Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, London: Freedom Press, (1934) 1996, 382; H. Oliver, The International Anarchist Movement in Late Victorian London, London/New Jersey,: Croom Helm/Rowman and Littlefield, 1983, 4–5, 7, 46, 70, 145–146, 149; John Quail, The Slow Burning Fuze: the lost history of the British anarchists, London, Toronto, Sydney, New York: Paladin, Grenade Press, 1978, 8–9.
[260] Alan Mabin, “The Rise and Decline of Port Elizabeth, 1850–1900”, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 19: 2, 1986, 288–289, 295–298; also see Vivian Bickford-Smith, Ethnic Pride and Racial Prejudice in Victorian Cape Town, Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press, 1995, 11–13, 16–17, 43–6, 129–130.
[261] Henry Glasse, 1901, Socialism the Remedy: being a lecture delivered in the Mechanics’ Institute, Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony, by Henry Glasse, Freedom Press, London, International Institute of Social History library holdings, catalog no. AN 90/65; Henry Glasse, 6 October 1905, “To Work! To Work! A reply to Brutus”, The Cape Workers Vanguard (hereafter CWV.) and Henry Glasse, 13 October 1905, “To Work! To Work! A reply to Brutus (Concluded)”, CWV.; [Henry Glasse], NovemberDecember 1905, “International Notes: South Africa”, Freedom (kindly provided by Marrianne Enckell of the Center for International Research on Anarchism, Switzerland); Nettlau, 262, 382; Oliver, 70 note 34, 46, 70, 145–6, 149.
[262] Cf. the profile of immigrant English, German and Italian radicals developed in Sheridan W. Johns, Raising the Red Flag: the International Socialist League and the Communist Party of South Africa, 1914–32, Bellville: Mayibuye Books, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, 1995, 24–30.
[263] Henry Glasse, 6 September 1896, letter to C.M. Wilson, and H. Glasse, 12 Decem-ber 1900, letter to J. Turner, manager of Freedom, both in Alfred Marsh Papers, International Institute of Social History; [Henry Glasse], “International Notes”. On Kleb i Volya, see Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967, 54, 61, 63, 84, 107.
[264] Henry Glasse, 1901, Socialism the Remedy.
[265] Peter Kropotkin/Henry Glasse, 1902, Organized Vengeance, Called “Justice”/The Superstition of Government, Freedom Press, London, International Institute of Social History library holdings, catalog no. AN 29/1202A.
[266] Henry Glasse, 12 December 1900, letter to J. Turner.
[267] Henry Glasse, 13 October 1905, “To Work! To Work! A reply to Brutus (Concluded)”, CWV.
[268] Glasse, 1901, Socialism the Remedy, 11.
[269] [Glasse], “International Notes”.
[270] Wilfred Harrison, 1 July 1910, “Anarchy”, The Voice of Labor, hereafter VOL.
[271] See, for example, VOL., 26 January 1912, letter from Glasse.
[272] Jack Erasmus, 8 June 1905, “Social Democratic Federation: annual report”, South African News, press clipping, Max Nettlau Collection, International Institute of Social History; Ticktin, 330.
[273] Bickford-Smith, 11, table 1.
[274] Bickford-Smith, 130–131.
[275] Bickford-Smith, 130; Bill Freund, Insiders and Outsiders: the Indian working class of Durban, 1910–1990, Portsmouth/Pietermaritzburg/London: Heinemann/University of Natal Press/James Currey, 1995, 29–31; also see Martin Nicol, “A History of Garment and Tailoring Workers in Cape Town, 1900–1939”, Ph.D. dis., University of Cape Town, 70–71.
[276] Debbie Budlender, “A History of Stevedores in Cape Town Docks”, Honors dis., University of Cape Town, 1976, 6 table IV.
[277] Nicol, 75.
[278] Ian Goldin, “The Reconstitution of Colored Identity in the Western Cape”, in Shula Marks and Stanley Trapido (eds.), The Politics of Race, Class and Nationalism in Twentieth Century South Africa, London: Longman, 1987, 159; Gavin Lewis, Between the Wire and the Wall: a history of South African ‘Colored’ politics, Cape Town, Johannesburg David Philips, 1987, 12, 65–66; Nicol, 19–21.
[279] R.C. Stuart, August 1950, “I Look Back”, Trade Union Bulletin, 3–4. Also see Bickford-Smith, 164–185; Lewis, 16–17; also see Pieter van Duin, “Artisans and Trade Unions in the Cape Town Building Industry”, in Wilmot G. James and Mary Simons (eds.), The Angry Divide: social and economic history of the Western Cape, Cape Town, Johannesburg: David Philips, 1989; Duin, “South Africa”.
[280] Lewis, 94–95; Nicol, 93–95.
[281] See G. Giffard, “ ‘Cutting the Current’: Cape Town tramway workers and the 1932 strike”, Department of Economic History, University of Cape Town, 1984, 10.
[282] Duin, “Artisans and Trade Unions”, 98.
[283] Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 139–140, 142–143.
[284] R.K. Cope, Comrade Bill: the life and times of W.H. Andrews, workers’ leader, Cape Town: Stewart Printing, [? 1943], 96.
[285] Jack Erasmus, 8 June 1905, “Social Democratic Federation: annual report”, South African News, press clipping, Max Nettlau Collection; also see Special Correspondent, 6 February 1905, “Capetown’s Meeting of Sympathy”, Cape Daily Telegraph, press clipping in ibid., and James Kier Hardie, 5 May 1908, “In Cape Colony”, The Labor Leader and James Kier Hardie, 22 May 1908, “South Africa: Conclusions”, The Labor Leader; Social Democratic Federation, [1904] 1973, “The Cape Town Social Democratic Federation’s Fighting Platform, 1904”, available as appendix B, I, 2 in Ticktin, 497, Cf. the British SDF: Social Democratic Federation, 1904, Program and Rules, as revised at the annual congresses held at Shoreditch Town Hall, London, Easter, 1903, and at St. James’s Hall, Burnley, Easter, 1904, London: Twentieth Century Press, International Institute of Social History library holdings, catalog no. E 1600/260. 70 Johns, 31.
[286] Wilfred Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist in South Africa 1903–47, foreword by Tommy Boydell, Cape Town: Stewart Printing, [? 1947], 16, 118– 119.
[287] For example, The Cape Socialist Vanguard, July 1905, includes a lengthy Kropotkin translation by Glasse.
[288] Contra. Cope, 96–7; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 76; Ticktin, 339; Hyslop, The Notorious Syndicalist, 194.
[289] Cope, 96–7.
[290] Harrison, Memoirs, 32, 38, 119–120; Wilfred Harrison, 1 July 1910, “Anarchy”, VOL.
[291] Wessel Visser, “Die Geskiedenis en Rol van Persorgane in the Politieke en Ekonomiese Mobilisasie van die Georganiseerde Arbeiderbeweging in Suid-Afrika, 1908– 1924”, Ph.D., University of Stellenbosch, 2001, 217.
[292] Tommy Boydell, “My Luck was In”: with spotlights on General Smuts, Cape Town: Stewart Printing, n.d., 41.
[293] Tommy Boydell, [? 1947] n.d., “Foreword”, to Harrison, Memoirs, viii, ix.
[294] The sole surviving issue, named as The Cape Socialist Vanguard: official organ of the Social Democratic Federation—Cape District, is in the folder “The Cape Socialist Vanguard: organ of the Forward Labor Movement”, mixed up with the CWV., in the serials collection, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam. On the paper, see Harrison, Memoirs, 5–6, 9–10.
[295] Erasmus, 1905, “Social Democratic Federation”; Harrison, Memoirs, 13. On the “Stone” and Tobin, see Lewis, 18–19, 26–27, 45, 56–57.
[296] Harrison, Memoirs, 50–62.
[297] Union resentment of SDF rates (and noise from SDF events) eventually led to the rooms being provided free, a generous subsidy to the unions: CWV., May 1906, “Trades and Labor Council: Friday, April 27”.
[298] Harrison, Memoirs, 6.
[299] Harrison, Memoirs, 16.
[300] Harrison, Memoirs, 36, 143.
[301] See James Kier Hardie, 17 April 1908, “South Africa: in Natal”, The Labor Leader; Jonathan Hyslop, “The World Voyage of James Keir Hardie: Indian nationalism, Zulu insurgency and the British labor diaspora 1907–1908”, Journal of Global History, 1, 2006, 343–362.
[302] Harrison, Memoirs, 19–22; Hardie, “South Africa: Conclusions”.
[303] Quoted in Lionel Forman, [1959] 1992, “Chapters in the History of the March for Freedom”, in Forman and Odendaal (eds.), Lionel Forman, 43; also see John Philips, “The South African Wobblies: the origins of industrial unions in South Africa”, Ufuhama, 8: 3, 1978, 122–138, 123.
[304] Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 139–140; van Duin, “South Africa”, 649.
[305] Harrison, Memoirs, 105.
[306] Quoted in Ticktin, 340; VOL., 21 August 1909. The Transvaal Labor Party, a forerunner of the SA Labor Party, sent a secret counter-appeal to British Labor, opposing any amendments: Lewis, 53.
[307] Abdullah Abdurahman, “The 1909 Presidential Address, Cape Town, 13 April 1909”, in edited by R.E. van der Ross (ed.), Say it Loud: the APO presidential addresses and other major speeches, 1906–1940, of Dr Abdullah Abdurahman, Bellville: The Western Cape Institute for Historical Research, University of the Western Cape, (1909) 1990, 48.
[308] Cope, 112.
[309] Visser, “Die Geskiedenis en Rol”, 18.
[310] Drew, Discordant Comrades, 23; Forman, “Chapters”, 42–4; Harrison, Memoirs, 13; A.W. Noon, 22 April 1910, “Cape Notes”, VOL.
[311] Harrison, Memoirs, 24.
[312] Cope, 143; Drew, Discordant Comrades, 23; Forman, “Chapters”, 35, 42–44 ; Harmel, 29–30; Harrison, Memoirs, 13; Lewis, 54–55, 78–79, 98 ; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 76–77, 122, 125–128; van Duin, “Artisans and Trade Unions”, 104–105.
[313] See A.W. Noon, 22 April 1910, “Cape Notes”, VOL.; also see Lewis, 54–55; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 113.
[314] Forman, “Chapters”, 42–4; Harrison, Memoirs, 17–18, 22–26; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 139.
[315] CWV., 27 October 1905, 2; also Bickford-Smith, 174.
[316] CWV., March 1906, “Tramway Guards and Motormen”; Bickford-Smith, 174; Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 1995, 32–39; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 74; Visser, “Die Geskiedenis en Rol”, 10.
[317] Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 32–40, quote from 38; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 74; also see Lewis, 19.
[318] Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 36–37, 56–61; CWV., June 1906, “Men versus Money: the Lock Out”; Harrison, Memoirs, 10; Evangelos Mantzaris, “From the History of Bundist Activity in South Africa”, Bulletin of the Bund Archives of the Jewish Labor Movement, 3: 31, 1981/82, 3; Ivan L. Walker and Ben Weinbren, 2,000 Casualties: a history of the trade unions and the labor movement in the history of South Africa, Johannesburg: South African Trade Union Council, 1961, 18–19.
[319] Harrison, Memoirs, 9.
[320] Cape Times, 7 August 1906, “[Editorial] Hooligans and Unemployed”; Cape Times, 8 August 1906, “[Editorial] Leaders and Led”; Harrison, Memoirs, 8–9.
[321] Quoted in R. Hallet, “The Hooligan Riots: Cape Town: August 1906”, University of Cape Town, mimeo, 1978, 15.
[322] Harrison, Memoirs, 8–9; also see Cape Times, 7 August 1906, “Hooligans and Unemployed: disgraceful scenes”, Hallet, 15–27.
[323] Cape Times, 7 August 1906, “Hooligans and Unemployed: disgraceful scenes”; Cape Times, 8 August 1906, “Mob and Police”; South African Times, 7 August 1906, “Unemployed Raids in City”; South African Times, 8 August 1907, “Hooligans Renew Raids”.
[324] Forman, “Chapters”, 42–44.
[325] Hallet, 27–31.
[326] Harrison, Memoirs, 36.
[327] Archie Crawford, 14 August 1909, “A Socialist Party”, VOL.
[328] For example, it could carry W.H. Pritchard, 14 August 1909, “Good Government: a noble legacy”, VOL., alongside Henry Glasse, 15 September 1910, “My Notion of Anarchism”, VOL., and Wilfred Harrison, 1 July 1910, “Anarchy”, VOL.
[329] Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 141, 144–145, 154.
[330] Archie Crawford, 31 July 1909, “Irrespective ... of Color”, VOL.
[331] Archie Crawford, 8 March 1910, “From the Watch Tower”, VOL.; Archie Crawford, 4 December 1909, “Economic Considerations”, VOL.; VOL., 13 March 1909, “In Defense of the Indians”.
[332] See Ticktin, 420–424.
[333] VOL., 16 September 1910; VOL., 20 November 1909, “Notes of the Week: no compromise!”; Contra. the Communist school version, expressed in Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 141, 154, and replicated in the work of Katz, A Trade Union Aristocracy, 273.
[334] Cope, 108–110.
[335] Tom Mann, Tom Mann’s Memoirs, London, Reading and Fakenham: MacGibbon and Kee, (1923) 1967, 245, 247.
[336] “Socialist Labor Party of South Africa—Incorporation”, Department of Law, file LD 1806–AG677/10, National Archives, Pretoria.
[337] For example, Eddie Roux and Win Roux, Rebel Pity: the life of Eddie Roux, London: Rex Collings, 1970, 7.
[338] Naan Milton, “Introduction”, in Naan Milton (ed.), John MacLean: in the rapids of revolution: essays, articles and letters, London: Allison and Busby, 1978, 13.
[339] Walker and Weinbren, 319.
[340] Mantzaris, “From the History”; Evangelos Mantzaris, “Radical Community: the Yiddish-speaking branch of the International Socialist League, 1918–20”, in Bozzoli (ed.), Class, Community and Conflict, 161, 163; F.J. Grobler, “Die Invloed Van Geskoolde Blanke Arbeid Op Die Suid-Afrikaanse Politiek Van 1886 Tot 1924”, PhD dis., University of Potchefstroom, 1968, 51, 57, 60; Ticktin, 182–183, 185, 229, also 518 appendix B, IV, 6; Visser, “Die Geskiedenis en Rol”, 15–16; Harmel, 31; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 102.
[341] Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 299.
[342] Tom Glynn, 15 July 1910, “The Movement: present and future”, VOL.
[343] Archie Crawford, August 1911, “The Class War in South Africa: the growth and outcome of industrial unionism”, International Socialist Review, vol.. XI, 82–83; Andrew Dunbar, 24 November 1911, “IWW Propaganda Notes”, VOL.; Solidarity, 1 October 1910, “Industrial Unionism in South Africa”. Also see Cope, 111.
[344] Solidarity, “Industrial Unionism”; Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 301; Philips, 123.
[345] See W.H. Andrews, 23 July 1937, “Natal Railway Strike”, The Guardian, folder 8.1, W.H. Andrews Papers, Mayibuye Center, University of the Western Cape; Boydell, “My Luck was In”, 35; Cope, 103–107; Walker and Weinbren, 26–28.
[346] Andrew Dunbar, 21 July 1911, “IWW Notes”, VOL.; Andrew Dunbar, 29 September 1911, “IWW Notes”, VOL.
[347] Andrew Dunbar, 24 November 1911, “IWW Propaganda Notes”, VOL.; The Socialist, June 1912, “South African S.L.P”; Roux, Rebel Pity, 7; also The Socialist, October 1910, “The ‘Socialist’ May be Obtained at the Following Newsagents” and The Socialist, January 1912, “The I.W.W. in the United States”.
[348] Tom Glynn, 24 November 1911, “ ‘Recognition’ ”, VOL.; Andrew Dunbar, 24 November 1911, “I.W.W. Propaganda Notes”, VOL.; 1 December 1911, “The ‘Sherman’ Agitation”, VOL.
[349] VOL., 14 June 1912, “Heard and Said”.
[350] Boydell, “Foreword”, xii; VOL., 14 June 1912, “Heard and Said”.
[351] Freund, Insiders and Outsiders, 29.
[352] Bickford-Smith, 130; Freund, “The Social Character of Secondary Industry”, 80–82; Freund, Insiders and Outsiders, 29–31; also see Nicol, 70–71.
[353] Freund, Insiders and Outsiders, 29.
[354] John Lambert and Robert Morrell, “Domination and Subordination in Natal, 1890 –1920”, in Robert Morrell. (ed.), Political Economy and Identities in KwaZuluNatal: historical and social perspectives, Pietermaritzburg/Johannesburg: University of Natal Press/Indicator Press, 1996, 66.
[355] Extrapolated from figures in the late 1920s, from Freund, “The Social Character of Secondary Industry”, 33.
[356] In the Umlazi district of Durban at this time, among Indian men there were 3,474 farm laborers, 127 laborers, 77 railway laborers, as well as 256 skilled manual workers, 107 waiters and 53 clerks, in addition to 1634 market gardeners, 176 storekeepers, 169 small cultivators, and 38 grocers: see Freund, Insiders and Outsiders, 44–45, table 3.5. “Skilled manual workers” includes bakers and confectioners, barbers and their assistants, basket makers, bricklayers, carpenters and their assistants, jewelers, painters, and printers. On the bourgeoisie, see Lambert and Morrell, 66. See also Vishnu Padayachee and Robert Morrell, “Indian Merchants and Dukawallahs in the Natal Economy, c1875–1914”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 17: 1, 1991, 71–102.
[357] The Star, “Tram Strike: scenes in the city”, undated press clipping, in “Tramway Strike Johannesburg. Report by Inspector White Labor on above dated 24 January 1911”, Mines and Works, MNW 44/01, M331/11, National Archives, Pretoria; W.H. Andrews, 6 August 1937, “Tram and Typo Strikers 1911”, The Guardian, folder 8.1, W.H. Andrews Papers, Mayibuye Center, University of the Western Cape; Archibald Crawford, “The Class War in South Africa”, International Socialist Review, vol. XI, 82; Walker and Weinbren, 28–9; VOL., 9 February 1912, “IWW (S.A. Section): Annual General Meeting: New Officers Elected”.
[358] “‘Industrial Workers of the World’ Union expresses contempt for the ‘Industrial Disputes Prevention Act’. Inspector’s comments”, a letter to Acting Secretary for Mines by Inspector of White Labor (R. Shanks), Department of Mines and Works, MNW National Archives, Pretoria.
[359] Industrial Solidarity, “Industrial Unionism in South Africa”, 1 October 1910.
[360] Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 176, 252.
[361] Letter to Acting Secretary for the Mines, 12 May 1911, Inspector of White Labor (R. Shanks), in “Johannesburg Tramway Employes Strike. Special Report on by Inspector of White Labor”, MM331/11, National Archives, Pretoria; Crawford, August 1911, op cit. 82–3; Archibald Crawford, February 1912, “The Pick Handle Brigade: fun and fight on the Golden Rand”, International Socialist Review, vol. XII, 494–495; Solidarity, 24 June 1911, “South Africa IWW”; The Transvaal Leader, 12 May 1911, “Tramway Crisis”, press clipping, both in “Johannesburg Tramway Employes Strike. Special Report on by Inspector of White Labor”, MM331/11, National Archives, Pretoria; Rand Daily Mail, 12 May 1911, “Trams Today” tramway men on strike”, press clipping in ibid.; W.H. Andrews, “Tram and Typo Strikers 1911”.
[362] Appendix in “Johannesburg Tramway Employes Strike. Special Report on by Inspector of White Labor”, op cit. Also see Walker and Weinbren, 30.
[363] VOL., 12 January 1912, “Whittaker-Morant Case: a short history”.
[364] Tom Glynn, 24 November 1911, “Recognition”, VOL.
[365] Cope, 119.
[366] Tom Glynn, “Recognition”; Andrew Dunbar, 24 November 1911, “IWW Propaganda Notes”, VOL.; VOL., 1 December 1911, “The ‘Sherman’ Agitation”. Also see VOL., 1 December 1911, “The Story of John Lafayette Sherman: working class traitor and spy”.
[367] Andrew Dunbar, 16 June 1911, “Things You Should Know”, VOL.; Andrew Dunbar, 15 September 1911, “Industrial Union Propaganda”, VOL.
[368] See Crawford, “The Pick Handle Brigade”, Andrew Dunbar, 27 October 1911, “Revolutionary Methods”, VOL.; T. Morant, 15 September 1911, “Hooliganism”, VOL.
[369] Verity Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism: the IWW in Australia, Cambridge, New York, Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1995, 36, 77, 88, 115, 207; also see Tom Barker, Tom Barker and the I.W.W., recorded, edited and with an introduction by E.C. Fry, Australian Society for the Study of Labor History, Canberra, 1965, Ch. 3.
[370] For example, Vincent St. John, 27 October 1911, “History of the Industrial Workers of the World”, VOL.; Philip R. Roux, 29 March 1912, “An Open Letter to Socialists”, VOL.; Philip R. Roux, 12 July 1912, “Patriotism”, VOL.; Philip R. Roux, 11 October 1912, “The Truth about the Defense Act: straight talk to workers”, VOL.
[371] Jim Davidson, 4 August 1911, “Can We Save the ‘Voice’”, VOL.
[372] Cope, 108–110; Wessel Visser, “Suid-Afrikaanse Koerantberriggewing en- Kommentaar ten opsigte van Arbeiderspartye, Socialistiese Partye en ander Radikale Grope en Bewegings, 1908–1915”, MA dis., University of Stellenbosch, 1987, 247–8.
[373] Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 273, 299, 320, citing Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 139–140.
[374] Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 273, 320.
[375] Van Duin, “South Africa”, 648–649.
[376] Marcel van der Linden, 1998, “Second Thoughts on Revolutionary Syndicalism: keynote address”, presented at the Syndicalism: Swedish and international historical experiences, Stockholm University, 13–14 March 1998, 14–15; also cf. Drew, South Africa’s Radical Tradition, 16.
[377] VOL., 19 May 1911.
[378] On the speaker, see Rand Daily Mail, 12 May 1911, “Trams Today: tramway men on strike”, press clipping in “Johannesburg Tramway Employes Strike. Special Report on by Inspector of White Labor”, MM331/11, National Archives, Pretoria.
[379] VOL., 25 November 1910.
[380] Cope, 93; Johns, 32.
[381] Cope, 110; Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 271.
[382] Tom Mann, July 1910, “Diamond Mining in South Africa”, International Socialist Review, vol. XI, 3–6.
[383] VOL., 27 October 1911, “The Problem of Colored Labor”, emphasis in original.
[384] VOL., 1 December 1911, “Sundry Jottings from the Cape: a rebel’s review”.
[385] Int., 1 October 1915, “Branch Notes”.
[386] Cited in Brian Kennedy, A Tale of Two Mining Cities: Johannesburg and Broken Hill, 1885–1925, Johannesburg A.D. Donker, 1984, 88.
[387] See Lucien van der Walt, “Reflections on Race and Anarchism in South Africa, 1904–2004”, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, 1, 2004.
[388] Boydell, “My Luck was In”, 66.
[389] The Strike Herald, 2 August 1913, “Use of Troops”; The Strike Herald, 2 August 1913, “British Labor Party and the Imperial Troops”. Also see the American IWW paper, Industrial Solidarity, 1 November 1913, “The Rand Slaughter”.
[390] Contemporary report, cited in Kennedy, 85. Also see Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 418.
[391] Philip Bonner, “The 1920 Black Mineworkers’ Strike: a preliminary account”, in Belinda Bozzoli (ed.), Labor, Townships and Protest, edited by Belinda Bozzoli. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1979, 274.
[392] Swan, 246–256; also see Shamim Marie, Divide and Profit: Indian workers in Natal, Durban: Worker Resistance and Culture Publications, Department of Industrial Sociology, University of Natal-Durban, 1986, 29–31.
[393] Swart, 161, 165, 169–171, 173–5.
[394] See Jan Smuts, 1914, The Syndicalist Conspiracy in South Africa: a scathing indictment, Government Printers, Pretoria, Smuts Papers, University of Cape Town Libraries, folder D10.10; also see TSH., 25 June 1913, “Who are the Inciters”.
[395] Drew, Discordant Comrades, 30.
[396] Harrison, Memoirs, 36; VOL., 24 May 1912, “U.S. Notes”; 31 May 1912, “U.S. Notes”; 13 September 1912, “U.S. Notes”.
[397] Andrew Dunbar, 21 July 1911, “IWW Notes”, VOL.; Andrew Dunbar, 21 July 1911, “IWW Notes”, VOL.; Andrew Dunbar, 29 September 1911, “IWW Notes”, VOL.; Andrew Dunbar, 24 November 1911, “IWW Propaganda Notes”, VOL.; The Socialist, April 1912, “Down with Sabotage and other Forms of Physical Force”.
[398] VOL., 8 November 1912, “U.S. Notes”.
[399] See Roux, Rebel Pity, 8.
[400] Archie Crawford, 24 May 1912, “The ‘Voice’”, VOL.; VOL., 7 June 1912, “Our Changed Form”; 19 July 1912, “U.S. Notes”, VOL.; 16 August 1912, “Editorial Notes”, VOL; 13 September 1912, “U.S. Notes”, VOL; 13 September 1912, “Voice Press Fund, 1912”, VOL; 15 November 1912, “Press Fund, 1912”, VOL.
[401] Hyslop, The Notorious Syndicalist, 200.
[402] See Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 466–467; Jan Smuts, 4 February and 5 February 1914, “Indemnity and Undesirables Special Deportation Bill: second reading”, Union of South Africa: House of Assembly, 1914, Government Printers, Pretoria, column 101; TSH., 25 June 1913, “Mr. Madeley’s Speech”.
[403] Campbell, John and J. Raeburn Munro, 1913, The Great Rand Strike: July, 1913, published by the authors in Johannesburg, printed by E.H. Adlington and Co., 3.
[404] Ernest Gitsham and James F. Trembath, A First Account of Labor Organization in South Africa. Durban: E. and Commercial Printing, 1926, 171; Katz, Trade Union Aristocracy, 425; Smuts, “Indemnity and Undesirables”, column 67; Int., 7 April 1916, “Call to the Native Workers”; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 159.
[405] Wilfred Harrison, 1914, “WAR!”, issued by War on War League in Cape Town, Simons Papers, Manuscript and Archives section, African Studies Center, University of Cape Town, fragile papers section.
[406] Quoted in Roux, S.P. Bunting, 66.
[407] Cope, 200; H.R. Pike, A History of Communism in South Africa, second ed. Germiston: Christian Mission International, 1988, 103–105; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 333; Duin, “South Africa”, 640 note 39.
[408] For example, Cronin, “Origins and ‘Native Republic’”, 9; Govan Mbeki, The Struggle For Liberation in South Africa: a short history, Cape Town/Bellville: David Philips/Mayibuye Books, University of the Western Cape, 1992, 27; Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 134; Jeremy Cronin [writing as “South African Communist Party”], The Red Flag in South Africa: a popular history of the Communist Party, Johannesburg: Jet Printers, 1991, 6. For an example of how these claims have been reproduced in more scholarly work, consider Mantzaris, “Radical Community”, 161.
[409] Cope, 206; Forman, “Chapters”, 74; Harmel, 39; Cronin, The Red Flag, 6; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 215, also see 245.
[410] See Int., 7 January 1916, “League Conference”; Int., 14 January 1916, “The First Conference of the League”.
[411] Int., 3 December 1915, “The Wrath to Come”.
[412] Int., 22 September 1916, “League Notes”; also see Int., 4 August 1916, “More Craft Scabbery”.
[413] See Int., 15 September 1916, “Liberty Sold for 6/3d”; 22 September 1916, “Liberty: Price 6/3”; 2 March 1917, “The Mineworkers to be Made a Scab Union”; 25 May 1917, “Is the White Miner a Miner?”.
[414] Int., 9 August 1918, “Craft Unions Obsolete”; Int., 3 March 1916, “The War After the War”.
[415] Int., 22 September 1916, “Disunity of Labor”.
[416] Int., 18 February 1916, “Workers of the World Unite”.
[417] Int., 7 December 1917, “International Socialism and the Native: no labor movement without the black proletariat”.
[418] Int., 2 June 1916, “Anti-Segregation”.
[419] Int., 16 February 1917, “ ‘The Poor Whites’ and a Page From History”.
[420] Ibid.
[421] Int., 3 December 1915, “The Wrath to Come”.
[422] Int., 14 January 1916, “The First Conference of the League”.
[423] Int., 7 December 1917, “International Socialism and the Native: no labor movement without the black proletariat”.
[424] Roux, S.P. Bunting, 74–77; see also Bunting, Moses Kotane, 18–19; Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 84, 129–135; Cronin, “Origins and ‘Native Republic’”, 12.
[425] Int., 5 May 1916, “What’s Wrong With Ireland”.
[426] Int., 7 April 1916, “Call to the Native Workers”.
[427] Int., 19 October 1917, “The Pass Laws: organize for their abolition”, emphasis added.
[428] Contra. Cronin, “Origins and ‘Native Republic’ ”, 12.
[429] Contra. Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 191–192, 210.
[430] Int., 22 September 1916, “Disunity of Labor”.
[431] Int., 16 March 1917, “Notes on Natives no. 1”; 23 March 1917, “Notes on Natives no. 2”; also see 2 June 1916, S.G. Rich, “Anti-Segregation”; Int., 9 February 1917, “The Great Unskilled”; also see Int., 23 February 1916, “Race Prejudice”.
[432] VOL., 27 October 1911, “The Problem of Colored Labor”.
[433] Int., 5 April 1918; Int., 19 October 1917, “The Pass Laws: organize for their abolition”; Int., 19 October 1917, “Beware of Labor Cranks”.
[434] Int., 5 April 1918.
[435] Int., 2 February 1917, “Those 32 Votes”.
[436] David Ivon Jones, “Communism in South Africa”, Searchlight South Africa, 1: 1, [9 June 1921] 1988, 119–122.
[437] Johns, 64–69.
[438] Quoted in Gitsham and Trembath, 71.
[439] C.B. Tyler, 14 July 1916, “Union of all Building Workers”, Int.; Walker and Weinbren, 191.
[440] Int., 9 June 1916, “Trade Unions Reforming”.
[441] This account draws heavily on Johns, 66–68.
[442] Int., 22 February 1918, “Industrial Unionism in South Africa”, described as the “manifesto of the Solidarity Committee, reprinted here by order of the I.S.L. Management Committee”.
[443] Johns, 67–8.
[444] James Hinton, The First Shop Stewards Movement. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973, 119.
[445] The Workers’ Dreadnought, 9 March 1918, “The Workers’ Committee”, hereafter WD. Also see Cope, 191–2; Johns, 68–9.
[446] J.T. Murphy, The Workers’ Committee: an outline of its principles and structure, Sheffield Workers’ Committee, Sheffield, 1918, 4, 15.
[447] Ferd Thompson and Patrick Murfin, The IWW: its first seventy years 1905–1975, Chicago: IWW, 1976, 135.
[448] Cope, 192.
[449] Cope, 191–192; Johns, 68–69.
[450] Johns, 100–101; Int., 28 November 1919; Int., 12 December 1919; 19 November 1920, “S.A. Railways and the Shop Steward Movement”; and Cope, 200; Johns, 69. 100–102; F.A. Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold: a study of class relations and racial discrimination in South Africa, London, Henley and Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976, 114–118; Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 99–105; Int., 2 August 1918, “Revolution in Britain”; 23 August 1918, “Our ‘Great Push’ ”.
[451] Jones, “Communism in South Africa”, 122.
[452] Johns, 75–76.
[453] Mantzaris, “Radical Community”, see also Taffy Adler, “History of the Jewish Workers’ Clubs”, in Papers presented at the African Studies Seminar at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, during 1977, Johannesburg: African Studies Institute, 1977, 7–11, 36.
[454] Adler, 10.
[455] “E.S. Sachs”, Forward, 11 October 1935, Simons Papers, Manuscript and Archives section, African Studies Center, University of Cape Town, section 7; Bernard Sachs, Mist of Memory, London: Valentine, Mitchell and Co., 1973, 74–5, 126–127, 163.
[456] Int., 1 October 1995, “The Parting of the Ways”.
[457] Forman, “Chapters”, 56.
[458] On Thibedi, see Drew, South Africa’s Radical Tradition, 72 note 19; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 108; Umsebenzi: the voice of the South African Communist Party, May 1991, “Party Pioneers: T.W. Thibedi: the first African Communist”, 7: 2, new series; T.W. Thibedi, 10 August 1932, letter to Leon Trotsky, Trotsky Papers, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, folder 1217.
[459] Roux, S.P. Bunting, 108.
[460] Int., 18 February 1916, “Workers of the World Unite”.
[461] Forman, “Chapters”, 54.
[462] Int., 9 June 1916, “Another Blow to Color Prejudice”.
[463] Int., 28 July 1916, “Branch Notes”.
[464] Int., 16 March 1917, “Workers of the World Uniting”.
[465] Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 198; also see Johns, 71.
[466] Int., 4 May 1917, “Mob Law on Mayday” and “Hooliganism: the Last Ditch”.
[467] Forman, “Chapters”, 65–66.
[468] Int., 7 April 1916, “Call to the Native Workers”; Int., 3 August 1917, “A Forward Move in Durban”.
[469] Gordon Lee, 26 October 1917, “Indian Workers Waking Up”, Int.
[470] Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 84.
[471] Int., 10 August 1917, “Durban Notes”; Int., 26 October 1917, “Indian Workers Union”.
[472] Int., 3 August 1917, “A Forward Move in Durban”.
[473] Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 84.
[474] On Sigamoney, see Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 84; Ashwin Desai, Vishnu Padayachee, Krish Reddy and Goolam Vahed, Blacks in Whites: a century of cricket struggles in KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press, 2002, 38, 42, 45–51, 57, 59–61, 69–70.
[475] Int., 9 November 1917, “A Socialist Conference in Durban”; 11 January 1918, “Our Annual Gathering”; Alex Mouton, “Van Matroos tot Senator: the kleurryke and stormagtige politieke loopbaan van S.M. Pettersen”, Klio 19, 1987, 32.
[476] Department of Justice, “The ISL and Colored Workers”, JD 3/527/17, National Archives, Pretoria, hereafter Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[477] Membership list in “The ISL and Colored Workers”, Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[478] Wilfrid Jali, report on meeting of 19 July 1917, Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[479] R. Moroosi, report on meeting of 11 October 1917, in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[480] Wilfrid Jali, report on meeting of 26 July 1917, in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[481] T.D.M. Skota, The African Yearly Register: being an illustrated biographical dictionary (who’s who) of black folks in Africa. Johannesburg: R.l. Esson, [?1932] n.d., 137; Int., 13 September 1918.
[482] Unlabeled report, May 1918 (full date illegible), in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[483] Skota, 167; Int., 13 September 1918.
[484] Also see Baruch Hirson and Gwyn A. Williams, The Delegate for Africa: David Ivon Jones, 1883–1924, London: Core Publications, 1995, 173; F.A. Johnstone, 1979, “The IWA on the Rand: socialist organizing among black workers on the Rand 1917–18”, in Belinda Bozzoli (ed.), Labor, Townships and Protest, 258–260.
[485] Copies may be found on the 1918 microfilm of The International at the Johannesburg Public Library, and in Department of Justice, “International Socialist League, reports on the activities of ”, JUS 526, 3/527/17, National Archives, Pretoria.
[486] Int., 4 January 1918, “A Unique Meeting”; also see Johnstone, “The IWA on the Rand”, 260.
[487] See Philip Bonner, “The Transvaal Native Congress, 1917–1920: the radicalization of the black petty bourgeoisie on the Rand”, in Shula Marks and Richard Rathbone (eds.), Industrialization and Social Change in South Africa: African Class Formation, Culture and Consciousness 1870–1930, Harlow: Longman, 1982.
[488] Sol Plaatje, “Letter to the General Secretary, De Beers, 3 August 1918”, in Brian Willan (ed.), Sol Plaatje: selected writings, Johannesburg/Athens: Witwatersrand University Press/Ohio University Press, [3 August 1918] 1996, 237.
[489] D.D.T. Jabavu, “Native Unrest”, in Thomas Karis and Gwendolyn M. Carter, editors, 1972, From Protest to Challenge: a documentary history of African politics in South Africa, 1882–1964, [July 1920] 1972, volume one, 124.
[490] Report on meeting of Transvaal Native Congress and Industrial Workers of Africa, 19 June 1918 by unknown detective, in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[491] Ibid.
[492] Int., 2 August 1918, “The Geweld Case”.
[493] See Int., 5 July 1918, “Capital and Labor”.
[494] Roux, S.P. Bunting, 78.
[495] Like, for example, Luli Callinicos, Working Life: townships and popular culture on the Rand, 1886–1940, Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 1987, 90; Forman, “Chapters”, 69; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 78; Peter Walshe, The Rise of African Nationalism in South Africa: the African National Congress 1912–1952, London/Berkeley and Los Angeles: C. Hurst Company/University of California Press, 1970, 72.
[496] Skota, 171. There were, in fact, precedents in the 19th century, such as the trial that followed the 1808 anti-slavery rebellion in the Cape: see for example Nicole Ulrich, “‘There are no Slaves in their Country and Consequently there Ought to be None Here’: the 1808 slave rebellion in the Cape of Good Hope and popular solidarity across the ocean”, paper presented at ‘Labor Crossings: World, Work and History’, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 5–8 September 2008.
[497] Int., 26 July 1918, “No Socialism for Natives: the case of ‘Luke Messina his mark’ ”; Int., 13 September 1918. It did not “collapse”, as suggested by some sources, like Johns, 76; Roux, S.P. Bunting, 132; Alex La Guma, Jimmy La Guma, edited by Mohamed Adhikari, Cape Town: Friends of the South African Library, [1964] 1997, 84.
[498] Int., 13 September 1918; Int., 28 February 1919.
[499] Report on meeting of Transvaal Native Congress and Industrial Workers of Africa, 23 May 1918 by Wilfrid Jali, in Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[500] Roux, S.P. Bunting, 82–83.
[501] Int., 20 December 1919, “Kimberley Tailors’ Strike”; Doreen Musson, Johnny Gomas: voice of the working-class: a political biography, Cape Town: Buchu Books, 1989, 16–17, 21.
[502] Musson, 19.
[503] Ray Simons, “Review: Johnny Gomas as I knew him”, South African Labor Bulletin, 15: 5, 1991; Musson, 11–16; also see Grassroots, September 1982, “Johnny Gomas: a lifetime of struggle”.
[504] Int., 20 December 1919, “Kimberley Tailors’ Strike”; Int., 27 June 1919; Int., 4 July 1919; also see Johns, 98 and Musson, 17–18.
[505] Musson, 18.
[506] Also see Roux, Time Longer than Rope, 155, see Int., 2 January 1920, “Kimberley Strikes: more white scabbing”; Minutes of the City Council, Kimberley, 9 December 1919, 501, 23 December 1919, 511–512, and 1 January 1920, 550–551, 3/KIM 1/1/1/16, Cape Archives.
[507] Int., 25 July 1919; F.V. Pickard, “Report of meeting of Native Workers held at Winter Gardens hall, Ayre Street, Capetown, July 10th, 1919”, Department of Justice, JD 3/527/17.
[508] Harrison, Memoirs, 64.
[509] Harrison, Memoirs, 56–7, 64–70; Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 7–10.
[510] The Bolshevik, February 1920, “What WE Stand For”, hereafter Bols.
[511] Contra. Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 1–2.
[512] Bols., April 1920, “The War of the Classes”.
[513] “Communist”, January 1920, “On Political Action”, Bols.; Bols., March 1920, “Trades Union Notes”; Bols., March 1920, “The Case Against Parliamentarism”.
[514] WD., 7 August 1920, letter from Manuel Lopes.
[515] Bols., January 1920, “The Strongest Weapon of Capitalism I”; also see “Searchlight”, November 1919, “Trade Union Notes”, Bols.; “Searchlight”, January 1920, “Trade Union Notes”, Bols.; Bols., November 1919, “The Bankruptcy of Trades’ Unionism”; Bols., February 1920, “The Strongest Weapon of Capitalism II”; Bols., March 1920, “Trades Union Notes”; Manuel Lopes, April 1920, “Socialism and the Labor Party”, Bols.
[516] Isaac Vermont, March 1920, “Socialism and the Colored Folk”, Bols.
[517] Bols., March 1920, “Trades Union Notes”.
[518] Int., 21 December 1918, “Cape Notes”.
[519] Commissioner of Police, 29 July 1919, letter to Secretary of Justice, in Jus-tice Department, “Bolshevism in SA, Reports on”, volume 267, 3/1064/18, National Archives, Pretoria, 86; the file is hereafter Justice Department, 3/1064/18.
[520] Manuel Lopes, 24 January 1919, “Cape Notes”, Int.
[521] Manuel Lopes, 24 January 1919, “Cape Notes”, Int.; also see Harrison, Memoirs, 68 and Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 4.
[522] “Secret: Bolshevism”, January 1919, in Justice Department, 3/1064/18, 207. Davidoff seems to have previously championed “propaganda by the deed” in Pretoria: see Harrison, Memoirs, 38. Gamiet was an IndSL sympathizer, and head of the Tailors’ and Tailoress’ Union; Brown was an IndSL member: Commissioner of Police, 1 June 1920, “Report on Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa”, in Justice Department, 3/1064/18, 104. B. Kies was almost certainly an IndSL member.
[523] Commissioner of Police, 27 August 1920, letter to Secretary of Justice, in Justice Department, 3/1064/18, 73
[524] Bols., February 1920, “League Notes”.
[525] WD., 7 August 1920, letter from Manuel Lopes.
[526] Bols., November 1919; Bols., December 1919; Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 13.
[527] Manuel Lopes, 27 September 1918, “Cape Notes”, Int.; Minutes of the Fifth Meeting of the Industrial Union of the Combined Sweet and Jam Workers Union of the Cape Peninsula, held at the Industrial Socialist League Hall, 3 December 1918, S.A. Rochlin Collection of South African Political and Trade Union Organizations, Concordia University Library Special Collection, B3A F12 I5; also see Johns, 89; Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 13.
[528] First meeting, 10 September 1918, in Minutes of the First, Second and Third Meetings of the Industrial Union of the Combined Sweet and Jam Workers, held in the Industrial Socialist League Hall, 1918, S.A. Rochlin Collection, B3A F12 I4.
[529] Manuel Lopes, 27 September 1918, “Cape Notes”, Int.; Int., 21 December 1918, “Cape Notes”; also see Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 13.
[530] Second meeting, 17 September 1918, in Minutes of the First, Second and Third Meetings.
[531] L. Turok, 24 January 1919, “Cape Notes”, Int.
[532] Bols., May 1920, “Trade Union Notes”; Commissioner of Police, 1 June 1920, “Report on Bolshevism in the Union of South Africa”, to Secretary for Justice, in Justice Department, 3/1064/18, 103; Mantzaris, Labor Struggles, 25, note 106.
[533] Peter L. Wickens, “The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa”, Ph.D. dis., University of Cape Town, 1973, 67.
[534] Ferd Cetiwe, 21 December 1919, “To the Mayor of the City of Cape Town”, in “Strike of Natives in Docks”, 3/CT, 4/1/4/286, F31/4, Cape Archives. This was more than double the minimum wage of 4 shillings established the previous year: Barry Kinkead-Weekes, “Africans in Cape Town: the origins and development of state policy and popular resistance to 1936”, MA dis., University of Cape Town, 1985, 205. All mention of the Industrial Workers of Africa is absent from Kadalie’s autobiography.
[535] Clements Kadalie, 42; Wickens, 69–74.
[536] Kadalie, 43; Wickens, 73–79, 82–83.
[537] Wickens, 84.
[538] Quoted in Wickens, 145–146.
[539] For instance, Divisional Criminal Investigations Officer, Witwatersrand Division, 1 May 1926, Confidential Report to Deputy Commissioner, South African Police, Witwatersrand Division, Johannesburg, in Department of Justice file, JUS 915 1/18/26 part 2. Pretoria: National Archives.
[540] Industrial and Commercial Workers Union of Africa, “Revised Constitution of the ICU”, in Karis and Carter, From Protest to Challenge, [1925] 1972, 325–326.
[541] Alfred Nzula, [1935] 1979, “The Struggles of the Negro Toilers in South Africa”, appendix to Alfred Nzula, I.I. Potekhin and A. Zusmanovich, [1933] 1979, Forced Labor in Colonial Africa, Zed Books, London, edited and introduced by Robin Cohen, 206.
[542] See Lucien van der Walt, 2007, “The First Globalization and Transnational Labor Activism in Southern Africa: White Laborism, the IWW and the ICU, 1904– 1934”, African Studies, 66: 2/3, 2007, 237–243.
[543] Harmel, 40.
[544] Boydell, “My Luck was In”, 196.
[545] F.W. Pate and A. McDermid, 18 February 1922, “Manifesto of the Mineworkers”, WD.
[546] The author is grateful to Arif Dirlik for reading an earlier version of it and offering some suggestions, and to Steven Hirsch and Lucien van der Walt for their productive comments and suggestions. The preparation of this article was funded, in part, by Summer Research Grant from the Pacific Basin Research Center at Soka University of America.
[547] See Alifu Delike (Arif Dirlik), “Dongyade xiandaixing yu geming: quyu shiye zhongde Zhongguo shehui zhuyi” (“Eastern Asian Modernity and Revolution: Chinese Socialism in Regional Perspective”), Makesi zhuyi yu xianshi (“Marxism and Reality”) 3, 2005, 8–16 and Rebecca E. Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. See for a Vietnamese case, Christopher E. Goscha, Thailand and the Southeast Asian Networks of the Vietnamese Revolution, 1885–1954, London: Curzon Publishers, 1999.
[548] See Dongyoun Hwang, “Beyond Independence: The Korean Anarchist Press in China and Japan in the 1920s–1930s”, Asian Studies Review, 31: 1, 2007, 3–23 for the publication activities of Korean anarchists in China and Japan. Some of my discussions below draw from this article unless indicated. I want to note here that sources for the study of Korean anarchism are very fragmentary and limited, as the activities of Korean anarchists had mostly been conducted in secret. Even the prominent anarchist Yi Jeonggyu lamented that he was not able to locate information and materials on his own anarchist life and activities. See Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon (“Collection of the Works of Yi Jeonggyu”), Seoul: Samhwa insoe, 1974, 23. The discussion below, therefore, relies on the limited, fragmented sources available, both primary and secondary.
[549] See John Crump, “Anarchism and Nationalism in East Asia” Anarchist Studies, 4: 1, 1996, 46, 47, 49.
[550] For a detailed description of Korean anarchist movements within Korea, see Mujeongbu juui undongsa pyeonchan wiweonhoe (ed.), Han’guk anakijeum undongsa (“A History of the Korean Anarchist Movement”), Seoul: Hyeongseol chulpansa, 1989, 189–274, 394–400. This text is hereafter abbreviated as HAU. Also see Gu Seunghoe (ed.), Han’guk anakijeum 100nyeon (“One Hundred Years of Korean Anarchism”), Seoul: Yihaksa, 2003, 155–206.
[551] See, for example, Kim Changsun and Kim Junyeob, Han’guk gongsanjuui undongsa (“A History of the Korean Communist Movement”) 5, Seoul: Cheonggye yeon’guso, 1986, new edition, 139–146, 265–274 and the special issue of Han’guksa simin gangjwa (“The Citizens’ Forum on Korean History”) on “20 segi han’guk eul umjigin 10dae sasang” (“Ten Thoughts that Moved Korea in the Twentieth Century”) no. 25, August 1999. Citations are from Lee Key-Baik’s short introduction to ibid., iii–v.
[552] See Hwang, “Beyond Independence”.
[553] Robert Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse: Ideology, and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment and European Socialism, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989, 9, 15.
[554] Nym Wales and Kim San, Song of Ariran: A Korean Communist in the Chinese Revolution, San Francisco: Ramparts Press, 1941, 89, 107, 118.
[555] Oh Janghwan also mentions in passing the possible linkage between pre- and postwar Korean anarchism. See his “Yi Jeonggyu (1897–1984) ui mujeongbujuui undong (Yi Jeonggyu’s Anarchist Movement)”, Sahak yeon’gu (“Studies on History”) no. 49, March 1995, 198–199. For a full description of the postwar Korean anarchist activities led by the Institute of People’s Culture (Gungmin munhwa yeon’guso), founded by Yi Jeonggyu, see Gungmin munhwa yeon’guso, Gungmin munhwa yeonguso 50 nyeonsa (“A Fifty-Year History of the Institute of People’s Culture”), Seoul: Gungmin munhwa yeon’guso, 1998, especially Chs. 2, 3.
[556] Yi Horyong, Han’guk ui anakijeum—sasang pyeon (“Anarchism in Korea: Its Ideas”), Seoul: Jisik saneobsa, 2001, 137–166.
[557] See Hwang, “Beyond Independence” and Bak Hwan, Sikminji sidae hanin anakijeum undoongsa (“A History of Korean Anarchism during the Colonial Period”), Seoul: Seonin, 2005, 15–44.
[558] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, 82.
[559] Wales and Kim, Song of Ariran, 139.
[560] Kim Hakjun (ed.), with interviews by Lee Chong-sik, Hyeongmyeonggadeul ui hang’il hoesang: Kim Seongsuk, Jang Geonsang, Jeong Hwaam, and Yi Ganghun ui dongnib tujaeng (“Revolutionaries’ Recollections of Anti-Japanese Struggles: Struggles for Independence by Kim Seongsuk, Jang Geonsang, Jeong Hwaam, and Yi Ganghun”), Seoul: Mineumsa, 1988, 40–41. This text is hereafter abbreviated as HEHH.
[561] Choi Gabryong, Eoneu hyeongmyeongga ui ilsaeng (“A Revolutionary’s Life”), Seoul: Imun chulpansa, 1995, 157–158.
[562] Quoted in Yi Horyong, Han’guk, 166.
[563] HEHH, 46, 49.
[564] HAU, 296–297.
[565] Arif Dirlik, “Anarchism in East Asia”, Encyclopedia Britannica from Encyclopedia Britannica Online (accessed January 10, 2005).
[566] Shin Chaeho, “Nanggaek ui sinnyeon manpil” (“A Miscellaneous Writing by a Man of Nonsense and Emptiness on the Occasion of a New Year”), in An Byeongjik (ed.), Shin Chaeho, Seoul: Han’gilsa, 1979, 180.
[567] HAU, 378, 380.
[568] Edward S. Krebs, Shifu: Soul of Chinese Anarchism, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998.
[569] Shin testified to this at his trial later in 1929: see HAU, 141–142, 315.
[570] Thomas A. Stanley, Ōsugi Sakae, Anarchist in Taisho Japan: The Creativity of the Ego, Cambridge, MA: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1982, ix.
[571] HAU, 284–285.
[572] Choi Gabryong, Eneu hyeongmyeongga, 19, 157.
[573] Kim Samung, Bak Yeol pyeongjeon (“A Commentary Biography of Bak Yeol”), Seoul: Garam gihoek, 1996, 55.
[574] Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon, 11. Also see the translation of Kropotkin’s An Appeal to the Young into Korean by Maegwan (Yi Eulgyu), carried in Talhwan (“The Conquest”), 1 (June 1, 1928): 5–8.
[575] For a detailed discussion of Chinese “Paris” and “Tokyo” anarchists, see Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, chapter 3.
[576] John Crump, Hatta Shūzō and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993, 33–35 and Peter Duus and Irwin Schneider, “Socialism, Liberalism, and Marxism, 1901–1931” in Peter Duus (ed.), The Cambridge History of Japan, volume 6, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 696–697.
[577] Kim Samung, Bak Yeol, 89, 99, 102. Bak was arrested by the Japanese police with Kaneko in the aftermath of the Kantō Great Earthquake of 1923 for their alleged plot to assassinate the Japanese Emperor. Kaneko died in prison, while Bak was later released.
[578] Crump, Hatta Shūzō, 82.
[579] Yi Horyong, Han’guk, 233–246; Kim Taeyeob, Tujaeng gwa jeung’eon (“Struggle and Testimony”), Seoul: Pulbit, 1981, Ch. 3.
[580] Hankyoreh sinmunsa (ed.), Balgul: Han’guk hyeondaesa inmul (“Excavations: Persons in Modern Korean History”), Seoul: Hankyoreh simunsa, 1992, 42.
[581] HAU, 137.
[582] HAU, 137; HEHH, 277.
[583] HEHH, 50, 371–372.
[584] HEHH, 267. Jeong does not mention what the objectives were.
[585] Jeong Hwaam, Yi joguk eodiro gal geosinga: na ui hoegorok (“Where Will This Motherland Head? My Memoirs”), Seoul: Jayu mun’go, 1982, 65–66, 69–70.
[586] Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon, 50.
[587] Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon, 56.
[588] Sim Yongcheol, “Na ui hoego” (“My Memoirs”) in Sim Yonghae and Sim Yongcheol, 20 segi jungguk joseon jok yeoksa jaryojip (“Historical Materials on the Koreans in China in the Twentieth Century”), Seoul: Jungguk joseon minjok munhwa yesul chulpansa, 2002, 300, 511.
[589] Kim Gwangju, “Sanghae sijeol hoesanggi” (“Recollections of My Days in Shanghai”), Sedae (“Generation”) 3: 11, December 1965, 267.
[590] Hwang, “Beyond Independence”, 16–17.
[591] Quoted in Oh Janghwan, “Yi Jeonggyu”, 178.
[592] Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon, 11.
[593] Hwang, “Beyond Independence”, 12.
[594] Yi Horyong, Han’guk, 70 fn. 117, 114–116.
[595] Kim Taeyeob, Tujaeng, 47, 50–51, 53, 62, 74, 86 and 159; Nihon anakzumu undo jinmei jiden hensan iinkai ed., Nihon anakizumu undō jinmei jiden (“Biographical Dictionary of the Japanese Anarchist Movement”), Tokyo: Poru shuppan, 2004, 219.
This text is hereafter abbreviated as NAUJJ.
[596] Yi Horyong, Han’guk, 126; Oh Janghwan, Han’guk anakijeum undongsa (“A History of the Korean Anarchist Movement”), Seoul: Gukak jaryoweon, 1998, 94.
[597] Kaneko Fumiko (trans. by Jean Inglis), The Prison Memoirs of a Japanese Woman, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1991, 217, 242–243 and Hwang, “Beyond Independence”, 12, 13.
[598] Oh Janghwan, Han’guk anakijeum, 105.
[599] For more on this, see Hwang, “Beyond Independence” and NAUJJ, 775, 777.
[600] Ibid., 106; Komatsu Ryūji, Nihon anakizumu undōshi (“A History of the Japanese Anarchist Movement”), Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1972, 198.
[601] Kim Taeyeob, Tujaeng, 151–153.
[602] Zhongguo dier lishi dang’anguan ed., Zhongguo wuzhengfu zhuyi he Zhongguo shehuidang (“Chinese anarchism and the Chinese Socialist Party”), n.p.: Jiangsu renmin chubanshe, 1981, 160–161. This text is herafter abbreviated to ZWZHZS.
[603] Jo Sehyun, “1920 nyeondae jeonbangi jae jungguk han’in anakijeum undong— hanjung anakiseuteu ui gyoryu reul jungsim euro” (“The Korean Anarchist Movement in the Early 1920s—Focusing on the Interactions between Korean and Chinese Anarchists”), in Han’guk geunhyeondaesa yeongu (“Studies on Korean Modern and Contemporary History”) 25, 2003, 367.
[604] “Fangwen Fan Tianjun xiansheng de jilu” (“Records of a visit to Mr. Fan Tianjun”) in Ge Maochun, Jiang Jun and Li Xingzhi (eds.), Wuzhengfu zhuyi sixiang ziliao xuan (“Collected Materials on Anarchist Ideas”), 2 vols., Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 1984, 1043, 1066; NAUJJ, 712, 772. The debate was over the question of whose literary writings, Marxist or anarchist, could represent the masses in China. The Ge Maochun et al text is hereafter referred to as WZSX
[605] Yang Bichuan, Riju shidai Taiwan fankang shi (“A History of Taiwanese Resistance against Japanese Occupation”), Taipei: Daoxiang chubanshe, 1988: 172–173. Taiwanese anarchists also seemed to reject any “political” movement in favor of social revolution. See ibid., 161–174.
[606] NAUJJ, 335.
[607] For Eroshenko’s activities in China, see Xiaoqun Xu, “Cosmopolitanism, Nationalism, and Transnational Networks: The Chenbao Fujuan, 1921–1928”, The China Review, 4: 1, 2004, 154–161.
[608] Bak Hwan, Sikminji, 19, 26.
[609] Quoted in Oh Janghwan, “Yi Jeonggyu”, 184–185.
[610] HEHH, 292.
[611] Sim Yongcheol, “Na ui hoego”, 93.
[612] HAU, 308, 312. Fan was a student at Meiji University in Japan, where he became an anarchist under Ōsugi Sakae’s influence. He organized the New Taiwanese Anarchist Society (Xin taiwan anshe) in Beijing, which published Xin Taiwan (“New Taiwan”) in December 1924. For Fan’s activities, see Yang Bichuan, Riji, 161–174; NAUJJ, 525. Lin’s name, along with those of Korean anarchists, appears in the brief English article “Information about Korean Anarchist Activities”, carried on the last page of the first issue (June 1, 1928) of Talhwan (“The Conquest”), a Korean anarchist journal published in China.
[613] Sim Yongcheol, “Na ui hoego”, 133, 202–203.
[614] Ming K. Chan and Arif Dirlik, Schools into Fields and Factories: Anarchists, the Guomindang, and the National Labor University in Shanghai, 1927–1932, Durham: Duke University Press, 1991, 42, 43. Unlike the National Labor University, (see below) however, Lida College was an independent educational institution, free of Guomindang influence. In fact, its curriculum was radically different, as criticism of Sun Yat-sen’s Three People’s Principles (Sanmin zhuyi), for example, was allowed; therefore, there was no worship of Sun at the college. See Tamagawa Nobuaki, Chūgoku anakizumu no kage (“Shades of Chinese Anarchism), Tokyo: Sanichi Shobō, 1974, 104 and Zheng Peigang, “Wuxhengfu zhuyi zaizhongguo de ruogan shishi” (“Some Facts about Anarchist Movements in China”) in WZSX, 969.
[615] Yu Jamyeong, Yu Jamyeong sugi: han hyeogmyeong ja ui hoeeokrok (“Yu Jamyeong’s Memoirs: A Revolutionary’s Memoirs”), Cheon’an: Dongnib ginyeomgwan han’guk dongnip undongsa yeon’guso, 1999, 205–208.
[616] Gukka bohuncheo (ed.), Dongnib yugongja jeung’eon jaryojib (“A Collection of the Testimonies of Men of Merit for Independence”) 1, Seoul: Gukka bohuncheo, 2002, 154, 157.
[617] HEHH, 350–351.
[618] HEHH, 295, 296; Yu Jamyeong, Yu Jamyeong sugi, 208, 291–292; NAUJJ, 5, 333; HAU, 309. Deng at Huaguang Hospital was the first person Yamaga Taiji contacted when he arrived in Shanghai on a mission to get a passport for Ōsugi Sakae, who was then planning on a trip to Europe to attend a conference of anarchists. Also, when Ōsugi came to Shanghai, he was only able to find and rent a room in the French Concession with Deng’s help. See Tamagawa, Chūgoku, 98 and Kondō Kenji, Ichi museifu shugisha no kaisō (“Memoirs of an Anarchist”), Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1966, 28. 73 Chan and Dirlik, Schools into Fields, 3–4.
[619] Ibid., 4.
[620] Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon, 130–137.
[621] HEHH, 295.
[622] Tamagawa, Chūgoku, 100–102; Bi Xiushao, “Wo xinyang wuzhengfu zhuyi de qianqian houhou” (“Before and After I had Faith in Anarchism”), in WZSX, 1032; Kondō, Ichi Museifu, 276.
[623] HAU, 298.
[624] Jiang Kang, “Quanzhou mujeongbu juui e daehan chobojeok yeon’gu” (“A Preliminary Examination of the Anarchist Movement in Quanzhou”) in Han’guk minjok undongsa yeon’guhoe (ed.), Han’guk dongnib undong gwa jungguk-1930 nyeondae reul jungsimeuro (“The Korean Independence Movement and China: the 1930s”), Seoul: Gukak jaryoweon, 1997, 324–325; Yu Jamyeong, Yu Jamyeong sugi, 198–201; NAUJJ, 336. Not much information is available now about the two schools, including data like the number of students enrolled, their respective curriculum, etc. Cai Xiaoqian was one of the leading figures in the establishment of the Taihan tongzhi hui (“The Society of Taiwanese and Korean Comrades”) in June 1924, which advocated “an idea to adopt mutual aid between Taiwan and Korea and realize national liberation”. See Yang Bichuan, Riji, 166.
[625] Qin Wangshan, “Annaqi zhuyi zhe zai fujian de yixie huodong” (“Various Activities of Anarchists in Fujian”), in Fujian wenshi ziliao (“Literary and Historical Materials in Fujian”) no. 24, 1990, 181; Qin Wangshan, “Chaoxian he riben annaqi zhuyi zhe zai quan binan yinqi de shijian” (“An Incident caused by Korean and Japanese Anarchists who took Refuge in Quanzhou”), Fujian wenshi ziliao, no. 24, 1990, 203.
[626] Jiang Kang, “Quanzhou mujeongbu”, 312. Note that the aforementioned two schools were located in the area.
[627] Tamagawa, Chūgoku, 106.
[628] Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 95.
[629] HAU, 287–288; HEHH, 279; Oh Janghwan, “Yi Jeonggyu”, 187–188.
[630] Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon, 133–136.
[631] Jeong Hwaam, Yi joguk, 85.
[632] Yi Jeonggyu, Ugwan munjon, 146–148.
[633] The Guomindang’s National Government (Guomin zhengfu) in Nanjing was afraid of having two different chains of military command in Fujian, because the Agency for Training People’s Militias was under the control of “civilians” (i.e. anarchists). See Tamagawa, Chūgoku, 110.
[634] Jeong Hwaam, Yi joguk, 86.
[635] Jiang Kang, “Quanzhou Mujeongbu”, 317–318; Qin Wangshan, “Chaoxian he riben”, 203; “Fangwen Fan Tianjun”, 1041.
[636] Yu Seo, “Zhuzhang zuzhi dongya wuzhengfu zhuyizhe datongmeng (jielu)” (“Proposing to Organize the Greater Alliance of East Asian Anarchists” (excerpts)), in Minzhong (“People’s Tocsin”) 16 (December 15, 1926) in WZSX, 716–720.
[637] HEHH, 278–281; HAU, 312–319.
[638] United in the Federation were Chinese anarchists Wang Yachu (1997–1936) and Hua Junshi, and several Japanese anarchists such as Sano Ichirō and Yatabe Yuji. Although Wang is often described by his contemporaries as a terror-minded “gangster” or a “bandit” (yumin), he was in fact an anarchist who worked closely with Korean anarchists in the 1920s and 30s, and was in charge of the “military force section” (junshibu) of the Chinese Anarchists Alliance in Shanghai, secretly formed at Huaguang Hospital in 1922. See Zheng Peigang, “Wuzhengfu zhuyi”, 965–966; Guo Zhao, “Shenmi de Wang Yachu” (“The Mysterious Wang Yachu)”, Wenshi ziliao xuanji (“Collected Materials on Literature and History”) 19, May 1989, 114–130; Shen Meijuan, “‘Ansha dawang’ Wang Yachu” (“Wang Yachu, The Great Master of Assassinations”), Zhuanji wenxue (“Biographical Literature”) 56: 4, April 1990, 120–132; Guan Dexin, “Guan yu ‘Ansha dawang Wang Yachu’ buzheng (“Supplementary Additions to ‘Wang Yachu, The Great Master of Assassinations’ ”), Zhaunji wenxue (“Biographical Literature”), 56:4, April 1990, 119; HEHH, 319.
[639] “Seoneon” (Declaration), online at http://www.woodang.or.kr/life/youth.htm, accessed 15 November 2007; Bak Hwan, Sikminji, 161–168.
[640] For the Chinese anarchists’ ideas, see Chan and Dirlik, Schools into Fields.
[641] Gungmin munhwa yeon’guso, Gungmin munhwa yeonguso, especially Ch. 3.
[642] Kim Junyeop and Kim Changsuk, Han’guk gongsanjuui, 124; Jo Sehyun, “1920 nyeondae”, 370.
[643] Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 270–271.
[644] Oh Janghwan, Han’guk anakijeum, 124.
[645] Crump, Hatta Shūzō, 28.
[646] Yi Horyong, Han’guk, 294–314.
[647] I am grateful to Roxann Prazniak for reading, and commenting on, this article.
[648] Rebecca Karl, Staging the World: Chinese Nationalism at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
[649] For the development of an Islamic “pan-Asianism”, see Selcuk Esenbel, “Japan’s Global Claim to Asia and the World of Islam: Transnational Nationalism and World Power, 1900–1945”, American Historical Review, 109:4, 2004, 1140–1170.
[650] By the 1920s, when reaction in Japan led increasingly to the suppression of radical activity, Shanghai and Guangzhou would seem to have replaced Tokyo as a gathering place for radicals. See the discussion of anarchism and Marxism below.
[651] “Letter to Albert Johnson”, quoted in F. Notehelfer, Kōtoku Shūsui: Portrait of a Japanese Radical, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1971, 113.
[652] The summary below of anarchism in China draws on three recent studies: Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981; Edward Krebs, Shifu: Soul of Chinese Anarchism, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998; and Peter Zarrow, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture, NY: Columbia University Press, 1990.
[653] Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Radicalism and the Origins of the Vietnamese Revolution, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992, 61.
[654] John Crump, Hatta Shūzō and Pure Anarchism in Interwar Japan, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993, 30.
[655] There was also, throughout this period, a fledgling anarchist labor movement in Japan. For a survey, see Hagiwara Shintaro, Nihon Anakizumu rōdō undō shi, Tokyo: Gendai shochosha, 1969.
[656] Tai, 60.
[657] I am grateful to Dongyoun Hwang for sharing this information with me. Hwang will elaborate further on these connections in a forthcoming article on anarchism in Korea. According to Hwang, Yu, associated with a terror-oriented group of Korean anarchists, was close to Bajin, and taught for a while in the 1920s in the Lida College in Shanghai, which offered a home to anarchists. Sim, who was also close to Bajin, worked for a while for the Guofeng ribao (“National Customs Daily”) in Shanghai. He had a brother, Sim Geukchu (Shen Keqiu in Chinese) who also participated in these activities. The two also worked closely with Japanese anarchists, surnamed Sano and Matsumoto, who were also active in Shanghai during these years. Personal communication.
[658] Nancy Tsou and Len Tsou, Ganlan guiguande zhaohuan: Canjia Xibanya neizhande Zhongguo ern (1936–1939) (“The Call of the Olive Laurel: Chinese in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939”—the English title on the cover is given as “The Call of Spain”), Taipei: Renjian Publishers, 2001.
[659] For a discussion, see, Hon Tze-ki, “Revolution as Restoration: The Meanings of ‘National Essence’ and ‘National Learning’ in the Guocui xuebao (“National Essence Journal”), 1905–1911), paper presented at “The Writing of History in 20th Century East Asia: Between Linear Time and the Reproduction of National Consciousness”, Leiden, 4–7 June 2007. I am grateful to Prof. Hon for sharing this paper with me.
[660] See the report, “Shehui zhuyi jiangxihui diyici kaihui jishi” (“Record of the Inaugural Meeting of the Society for the Study of Socialism”), Xin Shiji (“New Era”), Nos. 22, 25, 26. This in no. 22 (16 November 1907): 4.
[661] Shenshu (Liu Shipei), “Renlei junli shuo” (“On the Equal Ability of Human Beings”), Tianyi bao (“Natural Justice”), No.3 (10 July 1907): 24–36.
[662] Shenshu, “Dushu zaji” (“Random Notes on Books Read”), Tianyi bao, nos 11–12 (30 November 1907): 416–417.
[663] It is noteworthy that Liu was also among the first critics of imperialism, and an advocate of Asia for Asians.
[664] This paper, commissioned for this volume, was translated from the Russian by Sally Laird, with the support of the International Institute for Social History and the University of the Witwatersrand. It is drawn primarily from Russian language sources. The reader seeking secondary literature in English and in German may wish to consult A.E. Adams, Bolsheviks in the Ukraine: the Second Campaign, 1918–1919, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1963; Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1967; Dittmar Dahlmann, Land und Freiheit: Machnovščina und Zapatismo als Beispiele agrarrevolutionärer Bewegungen, Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1986; Michael Malet, Nestor Makhno in the Russian Civil War, London: Macmillan, 1982; Michael Palij, The Anarchism of Nestor Makhno, 1918–1921: an aspect of the Ukrainian Revolution, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1976; Victor Peters, Nestor Makhno: the life of an anarchist, Winnipeg: Echo Books, 1970; and Alexandre Skirda, Nestor Makhno: anarchy’s Cossack: the struggle for free soviets in the Ukraine 1917–1921, Edinburgh, San Francisco: AK Press, (1982) 2003. Also of interest is J. Himka, “Young Radicals and Independent Statehood: the idea of a Ukrainian nation-state, 1890–1895”, Slavic Review, 4: 2, 1982, 219–235.
[665] Iu. Iu. Kondufor (ed.) Istoriya Ukrainskoi SSR, vol. 6, Kiev, Nauk: Dumka, 1983, 16.
[666] Or 10 desyatins in terms of the pre-1924 imperial measurements. See M. Kubanin, Makhnovshchina, Leningrad: n.p., 1927, 19.
[667] Yu. K. Strizhakov, Prodotryady v gody grazhdanskoi voiny i inostrannoi interventsii 1917–1921 gg., Moscow, 1973, 225.
[668] See, for example, S. Kobytov, V.A. Kozlov and B.G. Litvak, Russkoe krest’yanstvo. Etapy dukhovnogo osvobozhdeniya, Moscow, 1988, 74.
[669] Colin M. Darch, “The Makhnovischna, 1917–1921: ideology, nationalism, and peasant insurgency in early twentieth century Ukraine”, Ph.D. dis., University of Bradford, 1994, 136, 138–139.
[670] 109,806 pudi in terms of the pre-1924 imperial measurements.
[671] 52,757 pudi: Vsya Ekaterinoslavskaya guberniya, Ekaterinoslav: n.p., 1913, 3.
[672] M. Kubanin, Ukaz. soch. (“Selected Works”), 18–19.
[673] Vsya Ekaterinoslavskaya guberniya, 9–10.
[674] Kubanin, Ukaz. soch., 11.
[675] Vsya Ekaterinoslavskaya guberniya, 42.
[676] All dates up to 14 February 1918 are given according to the Julian calendar used at that time in Russia.
[677] Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, Vospominanija, Moscow: n.p., 1991, 132–133.
[678] Makhno, Vospominanija, 134.
[679] Quoted in V.N. Volkovinskii, Makhno i ego krakh, Moscow: Vsesoiuznyi zaochnyi politekhnicheskii institut Moskva, 1991, 24.
[680] V. Danilov and T. Shanin (eds.), Nestor Makhno, Krest’yanskoe dvizhenie na Ukraine. 1918–1921, Dokumenty i materialy, Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006, 38–39.
[681] Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, Rossiiskaya revolyutsiya na Ukraine, Paris: n.p., 1929, 12–57.
[682] Danilov and Shanin, Nestor Makhno, 38.
[683] Makhno, Kres’yanskoe dvizhenie, 37.
[684] Makhno, Kres’yanskoe dvizhenie, 70–71.
[685] Makhno, Kres’yanskoe dvizhenie, 77.
[686] Narodne zhittya, 17 Sepetember 1917.
[687] V. Savchenko, Avantyuristy grazhdanskoi voiny, Kharkov/Moscow: Izd-vo Folio/ AST, 2000, 71.
[688] V. Belash V., “Makhnovshchina”, in Letopis’ revolyutsii, No.3, 1928, 194–195.
[689] Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, Ukaz. soch. (“Selected Works”), 77.
[690] The Rada issued four Universals from 1917–1918, regarded as the founding documents of the nationalist Ukrainian People’s Republic.
[691] V.N. Volkovinskii, Ukaz. soch. (“Selected Works”), 34.
[692] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 110.
[693] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 155.
[694] I. Teper (Gordeev), Makhno: ot “edinogo anarkhizma” k stopam rumynskogo korolya, Khar’kov, 1924, 26.
[695] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 182–191.
[696] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 148–149.
[697] M. Goncharok, Vek voli. Russkii anarkhizm i evrei XIX–XX vv., Jerusalem: Mishmeret Shalom, 1996, 36.
[698] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 206.
[699] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 149.
[700] Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, Pod udarami kontrrevolyutsii, Paris: n.p., 1936, 11.
[701] Makhno, Vospominanija, 47.
[702] Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, Ukrainskaya revolyutsiya, Paris, 1937, 112.
[703] Makhno, Ukrainskaya revolyutsiya, 112; Central State Archive of the Civil Organizations of Ukraine, D.153, L.27. This archive is hereafter abbreviated as TsDAGOU.
[704] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 74.
[705] Makhno, Ukaz. soch., 106.
[706] TsDAGOU, F. 5, O 1, D. 274, L. 12.
[707] Aleksandr Shubin, Makhno i Makhnovskoe dvizhenie, Moscow: Izd-vo “MIK”, 1998, 53–55.
[708] Protokoly II s’ezda frontovnikov, povstancheskikh, rabochikh i krest’yanskhikh Sovetov, otdelov i podotdelov, Gulyai-pole, 1919, 25.
[709] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D.153, L.137–138.
[710] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D.351, L.2.
[711] “Ekspeditsiya L. V. Kameneva v 1919 g.: poezdka na Ukrainu”, Proletarskaya revolyutsiya, 1925, No. 6, 139.
[712] I. Teper, Ukaz. soch. (“Selected Works”), 32.
[713] Makhno, Pod udarami kontrrevolyutsii, 130.
[714] Anarkhicheskii vestnik, Berlin, 1923, No.1, 28.
[715] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D.153, L.29.
[716] TsDAGOU, L. 115.
[717] Quoted in Piotr Arshinov, History of the Makhnovist Movement, 1918–1921, London: Freedom Press, [1923] 1987, 210.
[718] V. Verstyuk, Kombrig Nestor Makhno: Iz istorii pervogo soiuza makhnovtt͡ssev s Sovetskoĭ vlastiu, Khark’kov: Nabat, 1990, 6.
[719] Or 90,00 pudi.
[720] V.A. Antonov Ovseenko, Zapiski o Grazhdanskoi voine, Moscow-Leningrad, 1932, vol. 3, 191.
[721] V.A. Antonov Ovseenko, Zapiski o Grazhdanskoi voine, Moscow-Leningrad, 1932, vol. 4, 268.
[722] Oktyabr’skaya revolyutsiya, 1–2 pyatiletie, Khar’kov, 1922, 520–521.
[723] See M. Goncharok, Ukaz. soch. (“Selected Works”), 53–54.
[724] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D. 274, L.36.
[725] V. Sul’gin, Dni. 1920 g., Moscow: Moskva Sovremennik, 1990, 291, 292, 295–296, 298.
[726] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D. 351, L.36.
[727] TsDAGOU, D.274, L.12, 25–26.
[728] Makhno, Pod udarami kontrrevolyutsii, 87.
[729] Grigorev had been, by turns, a Russian officer, a supporter of the Central Rada, the Hetmanate, and the Directory, and aligned with the Red Army in February 1919.
[730] Volkovinskii, Ukaz. soch., 89–90.
[731] V. Savchenko, Ukaz. soch. (“Selected Works”), 113.
[732] Savchenko, Ukaz. soch. 119.
[733] Piotr Arshinov, Ukaz. soch. (“Selected Works”), 107.
[734] Arshinov, Ukaz. soch., 109.
[735] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D.274, L.21.
[736] TsDAGOU D.351, L.31.
[737] Arshinov, Ukaz. soch., 113.
[738] Arshinov, Ukaz. soch., 114.
[739] Nabat, No. 16, 26 May 1919.
[740] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D.153, L.116–117.
[741] Antonov-Ovseenko, Zapiski о Grazhdanskoi voine, vol. .4, 331.
[742] Cf. Aleksandr Shubin, Anarkhiya—mat’ poryadka. Nestor Makhno kak zerkalo Rossiiskoi revolyutsii, Moscow: Eksmo, 2005, 202–212.
[743] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1., D. 351, L.77.
[744] TsDAGOU, L.81.
[745] TsDAGOU, D.330, L.14.
[746] TsDAGOU, D.274, L.40.
[747] TsDAGOU, L.41–42.
[748] TsDAGOU, L.42–43.
[749] TsDAGOU, L.46–47.
[750] Kubanin, Ukaz. soch., 83.
[751] Quoted in Goncharok, Ukaz. soch., 59.
[752] Makhno, Vospominanija, 154–155.
[753] Makhno, Vospominanija, 72–76.
[754] Quoted in Volkovinskii, Ukaz. soch., 133.
[755] Pyataya godovshchina Oktyabr’skoi revolyutsii, Ekaterinoslav, 1933, 227.
[756] Kubanin, Ukaz. soch., 162.
[757] Kubanin, Ukaz. soch., 186.
[758] TsDAGOU, F.5, О1, D.330, L.116.
[759] Nestor Ivanovich Makhno, Makhnovshchina i ee byvshie soyuzniki bol’sheviki, Paris: n.p., 1929, 44–45.
[760] Makhno, Vospominanija, 99.
[761] Russian State Archive of Social-Political History (RGASPI), F.5, О1, D.2475, L.10.
[762] Or 80 versts.
[763] Sbornik trudov voenno-nauchnogo obshchestva pri Voennoi akademii, Moscow 1921, 219.
[764] Arshinov, History.
[765] Makhno, Vospominanija, 129.
[766] Cf. Aleksandr Shubin, Anarkhistskii sotsial’nyi eksperiment. Ukraina i Ispaniya. 1917–1939, Moscow: Institut vseobshchei istorii RAN, 1998, 106–133.
[767] Nashe Slovo, 4 July 1916, quoted in D.R. O’Connor Lysaght, (ed.), The Communists and the Irish Revolution, Dublin: LiterÉire, 1993, 59–60.
[768] There have been relatively few studies of Larkin. See Emmet Larkin, James Larkin: Irish Labor Leader, 1874–1947, Routledge: London, 1965; Donal Nevin (ed.), James Larkin: Lion of the Fold, Gill and Macmillan: Dublin, 1998; and Emmet O’Connor, James Larkin, Cork University Press, 2002.
[769] “The autobiography of Seán McKeown”, 23. I am obliged to Neal Garnham for a copy of this unpublished memoir. Larkin appointed McKeown’s father, Michael, as secretary of the National Union of Dock Laborers (NUDL) in Belfast in 1907.
[770] The family tradition is discussed in Jim Larkin, In The Footsteps of Big Jim: A Family Biography, Dublin: Blackwater Press, 1995, 3–11.
[771] See Fintan Lane, “James Connolly’s 1901 census return”, Saothar, 25, 2000, 103– 106. Connollyology grows apace. There were some 200 publications on Connolly in 1980, and 350 in 2007. The most recent and comprehensive biography is Donal Nevin, James Connolly: ‘A Full Life’, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2005.
[772] See Emmet O’Connor, “Red Jim was a green man”, Irish Democrat, March–April, 2002.
[773] To distinguish them from the mass of labor, activists in trade unions, trades councils, or Labor political groups will be referred to as “Labor” or “Laborites”. Similarly, to distinguish them from trade unionists, the usual convention is adopted here of referring to supporters of the Union with Britain with a capital ‘U’, whether members of the Unionist Party or not.
[774] The one substantial biography is Thomas J. Morrissey, William O’Brien, 1881– 1968: Socialist, Republican, Dáil Deputy, Editor and Trade Union Leader, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007.
[775] Nor were there many overtly anarchist organizations, nor much of a conscious anarchist influence on Irish syndicalism. Anarchism had a slight impact on the small socialist groups in Ireland in the late 19th century, but Irish anarchists generally made their reputation abroad. See Fintan Lane, The Origins of Modern Irish Socialism, 1881–1896, Cork University Press, 1997, passim; and Máirtín Ó Catháin, “The only thing worth fighting for’: Irish anarchist activism, 1871–1945” (unpublished paper).
[776] For an overview, see Emmet O’Connor, A Labor History of Ireland, 1824–1960, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992.
[777] Mary Daly, Industrial Development and Irish National Identity, 1922−39, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1992, 15.
[778] Donal Nevin (ed.), Trade Union Century, Cork: Mercier Press, 1994, 433−4.
[779] National Archives, UK, Ministry of Labor reports on strikes and lockouts, 1907– 12, LAB 34/7−12, LAB 34/25−30; hereafter this archive is referred to as NAUK; British Parliamentary Papers, Reports on Strikes and Lockouts, 1907−12, Cd 4254, Cd 4680, Cd 5325, Cd 5850, Cd 6472, Cd 7089; hereafter this archive is referred to as BPP. Figures for 1913 have been excluded as statistics for the lockout were not broken down by sector.
[780] See Henry Pelling, A History of British Trade Unionism, London: Penguin Books, 1974, 93–122.
[781] Larkin is treated en passant or anecdotally in a vast range of work. Nevin, James Larkin, while uneven in quality, is nevertheless a great compendium and includes a bibliography of some 500 books and articles referring to Larkin.
[782] For the NUDL see Eric Taplin, The Dockers’ Union: A Study of the National Union of Dock Laborers, 1889–1 922, Leicester University Press, 1986.
[783] B.J. Ripley and J. McHugh, John Maclean, Manchester University Press, 1989, 30.
[784] John Gray, City in Revolt: James Larkin and the Belfast Dock Strike of 1907, Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 1985, is an excellent study of Larkin in Belfast.
[785] For studies of the paper see Donal Nevin, “The Irish Worker, 1911−1914”, in Nevin, James Larkin, 152−8, and John Newsinger, “‘A lamp to guide your feet’: Jim Larkin, the Irish Worker, and the Dublin working class”, European History Quarterly, 20, 1990, 63−99.
[786] Daily Herald, 16 July 1914.
[787] Quoted in Bob Holton, British Syndicalism,1900–1914, Pluto Press, London, 1976, 188.
[788] O’Connor, James Larkin, 19–22. For Sexton’s view of events, see James Sexton, Sir James Sexton, Agitator: The Life of the Dockers’ MP, An Autobiography, London: Faber and Faber, 1936.
[789] John W. Boyle, The Irish Labor Movement in the Nineteenth Century, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1988, 12, 5 6.
[790] O’Connor, James Larkin, 25.
[791] See “Seán O’Casey on Jim Larkin”, in Nevin, James Larkin, 412–23; on Plunkett see D.R. O’Connor Lysaght, “Would it have been like this? James Plunkett and Strumpet City”, History Ireland, winter 2004, 9.
[792] Industrial Syndicalist, December 1910, 30.
[793] O’Connor, James Larkin, 38.
[794] The name was changed again in 1918 to the Irish Labor Party and TUC. To minimize the alphabet soup, it will be referred to here throughout as the ITUC or Congress.
[795] See for example T.V. Murphy and W.K. Roche, Irish Industrial Relations in Practice, Dublin: Oak Tree Press, 1994; and Patrick Gunnigle, Gerard McMahon, and Gerard Fitzgerald, Industrial Relations in Ireland: Theory and Practice, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1999.
[796] See Boyd Black, “Re-assessing Irish Industrial Relations and Labor History: the north -east of Ireland up to 1921”, Historical Studies in Industrial Relations, 14, 2002, 45−85.
[797] Gray, City in Revolt, 59.
[798] Michael Enright, Men of Iron: Wexford Foundry Disputes, 1890 and 1911, Wexford: Wexford Council of Trade Unions, 1987, 18−19.
[799] Thomas J. Morrissey, William Martin Murphy, Dundalk: History Association of Ireland, 1997, 44−6.
[800] Irish Railway Record Society Archive, Dublin, Great Southern and Western Railway, files 1019, 1069. I am obliged to Conor McCabe for these references.
[801] Arnold Wright, Disturbed Dublin: The Story of the Great Strike of 1913−14, With a Description of the Industries of the Irish Capital, London: Longmans, Green, and Co, 1914, 94.
[802] Morrissey, William Martin Murphy, 56−7.
[803] O’Connor, James Larkin, 42.
[804] For example, Curriculum Development Unit, Dublin 1913: A Divided City, O’Brien Educational, Dublin, 1984, a text for secondary schools, said little about trade u nionism and much about the city’s social divisions. The best history of the lockout is Pádraig Yeates, Lockout: Dublin 1913, Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 2000, 221.
[805] W. Ce, “The Economic History of the Engineering Industry in the North of Ireland”, Ph.D. dis., Queen’s University, Belfast, 1961, 325–62. This is not to deny that Belfast had its poor housing and serious public health problems. According to the Northern Whig, 26 January 1907, the Public Health Committee estimated that 3,000 dwellings in the city had no water closets.
[806] Quoted in John Newsinger, Rebel City: Larkin, Connolly, and the Dublin Labor Movement, London: Merlin Press, 2004, 16.
[807] Wright, 29, 94.
[808] W. Ryan, “The struggle of 1913”, in Workers’ Union of Ireland, 1913: Jim Larkin and the Dublin Lock Out, Dublin: Workers’ Union of Ireland, 1964, 7.
[809] J.D. Clarkson, Labor and Nationalism in Ireland, Ams Press, New York, first ed. New York, 1926, 241−4.
[810] Yeates, 221.
[811] See Donal Nevin, “The Irish Citizen Army, 1913–16”, in Nevin, James Larkin, 257–65.
[812] Arthur Mitchell, Labor in Irish Politics, 1890–1930: The Irish Labor Movement in an Age of Revolution, Dublin: Irish University Press, 1974, 45.
[813] Black, 60.
[814] Nevin, “The Irish Citizen Army”, 260; Ferd Bower, Rolling Stonemason: An Autobiography, Jonathon Cape, London, 1936, 182.
[815] C. Desmond Greaves, The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union: The Formative Years, 1909–23, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 1982, 157–67.
[816] O’Connor, A Labor History of Ireland, 93.
[817] See L.M. Cullen, An Economic History of Ireland Since 1660, London: B.T. Batsford, Ltd, 1987, 171–72; David Johnson, The Interwar Economy in Ireland, Dublin: Irish Economic and Social History Society, 1985, 3–5.
[818] University of Ulster, Magee College (UUMC), ITUC, Annual Reports, 1916–21.
[819] For a more detailed account of the wages movement, see Emmet O’Connor, Syndicalism in Ireland, 1917–23, Cork University Press, 1988, 20–53.
[820] NAUK, Ministry of Labor annual reports on strikes and lockouts 1914–21, LAB 34/14–20, 34/32–39. See also David Fitzpatrick, “Strikes in Ireland, 1914–21”, Saothar, 6, 1980, 26–39, for a fine statistical analysis.
[821] See Brendan Mark Browne, “Trade Boards in Northern Ireland, 1909–45”, Ph.D. dis., Queen’s University Belfast, 1989, 146–57, 340.
[822] A further 8,000 or so Irish worked in munitions in Britain. See Imperial War Museum, London, French MSS, memorandum from Sir Thomas Stafford and Sir Frank Brooke to the Viceroy’s advisory council, 20 November 1918, 75/46/12; Fitzpatrick, 29–34.
[823] Philip Bagwell, The Railwaymen: The History of the National Union of Railwaymen, London: Allen and Unwin, 1963, 356–7.
[824] For ITGWU activities see especially Greaves, 168ff.
[825] See D.R. O’Connor Lysaght, “The Munster soviet creameries”, Saotharlann Staire Éireann, 1, 1981, 36–9.
[826] Emmet O’Connor, “ ‘True Bolsheviks?’: The rise and fall of the Socialist Party of Ireland, 1917–21”, in D. George Boyce and Alan O’Day (eds.), Ireland in Transition, 1867–1921, London: Routledge, London, 2004, 213.
[827] O’Connor, Syndicalism in Ireland, 62–3.
[828] See Conor McCabe, The Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants and the National Union of Railwaymen in Ireland, 1911–1923”, Ph.D. dis., University of Ulster, 2006.
[829] UUMC, ITUC, Annual Reports, 1918–19.
[830] The most detailed account of Labor involvement in the anti-conscription campaign is J. Anthony Gaughan, Thomas Johnson, Dublin: Kingdom Books, 1980, 86–122.
[831] See Liam Cahill, Forgotten Revolution: The Limerick Soviet, 1919, A Threat to British Power in Ireland, Dublin: O’Brien Press, 1990.
[832] Charles Townshend, “The Irish Railway Strike of 1920: industrial action and civil resistance in the struggle for independence”, Irish Historical Studies, XXI, 1979, 83.
[833] For class conflict, 1921–3, see O’Connor, Syndicalism in Ireland, 96–139.
[834] For Larkin’s motivation in splitting the ITGWU and his subsequent career see Emmet O’Connor, Reds and the Green: Ireland, Russia, and the Communist Internationals, 1919–43, University College, Dublin Press, 2004, 76–139.
[835] O’Connor, ‘True Bolsheviks?’
[836] The only biography of Roddy Connolly is Charlie McGuire, Roddy Connolly and the Struggle for Socialism in Ireland, Cork University Press, 2008.
[837] See Dick Geary (ed.), Labor and Socialist Movements in Europe Before 1914, Oxford: Berg, 1989; P.F. Brissenden, The IWW: A Study of American Syndicalism, New York: Columbia University Press, New York, 1920. The importance of marginal workers in the culture of the Wobblies is captured vividly in Joyce L. Kornbluh (ed.), Rebel Voices: an IWW Anthology, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964.
[838] I am obliged to Lucien van der Walt for this point, and for comments on the text generally.
[839] There are no national level studies of anarcho-syndicalism in Peru. The extant historiography focuses almost exclusively on Lima-Callao. Evidence of the influence of anarcho-syndicalism among workers along Peru’s northern coast and in the central sierra can be found in Demetrio Ramos Rao, Mensaje de Trujillo del anarquismo al aprismo, Trujillo: TAREA, 1987, and Fiona Wilson, “Género y clase en un pueblo de los Andes”, in Mujeres Latinoamericanas: Diez Ensayos y una historia colectiva, Lima: Flora Tristán Centro de la Mujer Peruana, 1988, 95–138.
[840] Carl Levy has pointed out the futility of “identifying a natural constituency” for syndicalism. Carl Levy, “Currents of Italian Syndicalism before 1926”, International Review of Social History, 45:2, 2000, 209–250.
[841] Foreign firms dominated Peru’s mineral extraction industries by 1910. See, Rose-mary Thorp and Geoffrey Bertram, Peru 1890–1977: Growth & Policy in an Open Economy, New York: Columbia University, 1979, 40 and Ch.5.
[842] Resumen del censo de las Provincias de Lima y Callao 17 de diciembre de 1920, Lima: Im Americana—Plz. del Teatro, 1927, 49–52, 166–174. The author is responsible for all translations.
[843] Censo de la Provincia Constitucional del Callao 20 de junio de 1905, Lima: Im y Libreria de San Pedro, 1906, 189; Resumen del censo de las Provincias de Lima y Callao, 3–5, 49–53, 55.
[844] Demographic data for this period is incomplete and necessarily imprecise. Lima’s working class was undoubtedly more diverse than in other cities and regions of the country. For example, according to a 1920 census the province of Lima had 224,000 inhabitants comprised of 208,000 Peruvian nationals, 16,000 foreigners, 85,000 whites, 31,000 Indians, 10,000 Blacks, 8,000 “Yellows”, and 89,000 mestizos. The Indian population, which as late as 1940 constituted at least 40 percent of the total population, was concentrated in 9 out of Peru’s 23 departments, mainly in the central and southern highland departments. See, Resumen del censo de las Provincias de Lima y Callao, 118–123; Thomas M. Davies, Jr., Indian Integration in Peru, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 3.
[845] El Hambriento, no. 21, February 1907, 1.
[846] Emilio Costilla Larrea, Apuntes para la historia de la lucha social en el perú, Lima; Ediciones Peru Nuevo, 1944, 31.
[847] The massacre of nitrate mine workers in Chili took place in Iquique on December 21, 1907: Costilla Larrea, 33.
[848] For an analysis of how Peruvian workers appropriated and ritualized May Day, see, Ricardo Melgar Bao, “The Dual Identity of May Day in Peru”, in Andrea Panaccione (ed.), The Memory of May Day, Venezia: Marsilio Editoria, 1989, 673–675.
[849] “La Huelga de Vitarte I el Paro General”, La Protesta, no.3, abril de 1911, 1; “El Paro General”, Variedades, no.163, 15 April 1911, 437–441.
[850] The founding document of the Textile Workers’ Unification of Vitarte can be found in Julio Portocarrero, Sindicalismo peruano: primera etapa 1911–1930, Lima: Editorial Gráfica Labor S.A., 1987, 35.
[851] Government persecution of the Vitarte textile union intensified between 1915 and 1917. The arrest of its principal leaders brought about its temporary disintergration in 1918. However, it would be re-activated that same year. See Portocarrero, sindicalismo peruano, 39–43.
[852] Carolina Carlessi, Mujeres en el origen del movimiento sindical: crónica de una lucha, Huacho 1916–1917, Lima: Ediciones Lilith y TAREA, 1984, 59–71.
[853] González Prada died in July 1918. La Protesta was the only significant anarchosyndicalist paper that was not sponsored by a particular labor union. It was, however, edited and published by workers.
[854] Many anarcho-syndicalist workers who played prominent roles in the 8 hour day struggle were arrested and tortured by the police. José Sandoval Morales, Arturo Sabroso Montoya, Manuel Cabana, and Aurelio Reyes were left physically (and likely psychologically) scarred as a result of police torture. See, José Sandoval Morales, “Cómo se gesto la jornada maxima de ocho horas en el perú”, unpublished manuscript, 1972 and Interview with Arturo Sabroso, conducted by Steve Stein, Lima, Peru, January 1974, 5. The transcribed interview is housed in The Arturo Sabroso Collection, A.I. 98 (1/28).
[855] Quoted in Ricardo Martínez de la Torre, Apuntes para una interpretación marxista de historia social del peru, vol.1, Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1975, 427. The general strike for the 8 hour day in Lima-Callao took place from January 13–15, 1919, but it should be noted that strikes by textile, bakery, and port workers had been underway since December and early January.
[856] The 1918–1919 struggle for the eight hour workday has justifiably received a great deal of scholarly attention. It is also the subject of some controversy. David Parker, in a recent revisionist study, has called into question the impact of workers’ collective actions. He contends elite acceptance of the 8 hour workday rather than working-class solidarity was mainly responsible for the success of the strike. See David Parker, “Peruvian Politics and the Eight-Hour Day: Rethinking the 1919 General Strike,” Canadian Journal of History, December 1995, 417–438. For a balanced analysis of this struggle see, Peter Blanchard, The Origins of the Peruvian Labor Movement, 1883–1919, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1982, ch.9.
[857] “General Strike in Lima & Callao”, The West Coast Leader, May 31, 1919, 1.
[858] “Yesterday’s Demonstration”, La Prensa, 8 July 1919.
[859] Cited in Martínez de la Torre, Apuntes, vol I, 49–50.
[860] Steve Stein has argued that Lima’s workers had internalized a deferential, resigned, and fatalistic outlook. See, Steve Stein, “Cultura popular y politica popular en los comienzos del siglo xx en Lima”, in Stein, ed., Lima Obrera, 1900–1930, vol. I, Lima: Ediciones El Virrey, 1986, 73 and chapter 3.
[861] Wilfredo Kapsoli, Mariátegui y los congresos obreros, Lima: Empresa Editora Amauta S.A., 1980, 16–17, 21.
[862] “El movimiento obrera de esta mañana”, El Comercio 13 de 1921; “En las fábricas de tejidos”, El Comercio, 14 September 1921.
[863] Antonio Gramsci’s delineation of the “war of position” aptly describes the strategy adopted by Peruvian anarcho-syndicalists. This is not to suggest however, that Peruvian anarcho-syndicalists were influenced directly by Gramsci or embraced his ideas regarding a revolutionary vanguard and seizure of the state. For an explication of Gramsci’s strategy of the “war of position” see, Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith (eds.), Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, New York: International Publishers, 1989, 229–239, and Joseph V. Femia, Gramsci’s Political Thought, Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press, 1987, 50–55, 205–209.
[864] The declaration of principles adopted at FOL’s First Congress were printed in Claridad, no.1, primera quincena de May 1923, 29.
[865] Ibid., 30.
[866] “Por la cultura del pueblo”, El Obrero Textil, no.25, primera quincena August 1921, 8.
[867] El Nudito, 29 June 1919, 6.
[868] “Por la cultura del pueblo” El Obrero Textil, no.25, primera quincena August 1921, 8.
[869] For a content and thematic analysis of the anarcho-syndicalist and union presses for this period, see, Guillermo Sánchez Ortíz, La prensa obrera 1900–1930 (analisis de El Obrero Textil), Lima: n., 1987, and Garbiela Machuca Castillo, La tinta, el pensamiento y las manos: la prensa popular anarquista, anarcosindicalista y obrera-sindical en Lima 1900–1930, Lima: Universidad de San Martin de Porres, 2006.
[870] El Constructor, no.11, May 1925, 1.
[871] Edmundo Lévano La Rosa, “Un cancionero Escondido: Historia y Música del Centro Musical Obrero de Lima: 1922–1924”, in I Convocatoria Nacional ‘José Maria Arguedas’ Avances de Investigación—Música, Lima: Biblioteca Nacional del Perú, 13–37.
[872] Ibid., 19, 24–25.
[873] For all 11 stanzas of Canto del Trabajo see, Ibid., 34.
[874] Cancionero Revolucionario, Imprenta Editorial Minerva, 1927.
[875] The first festival of the plant which involved the participation of pro-labor university students is described in detail in, “El exito de la fiesta de la planta”, La Crónica, 26 December 1921, 2–5.
[876] For an insightful analysis of the cultural and class implications of the fiesta de la planta, see, Rafael Tapia, “La fiesta de la planta de Vitarte”, Pretextos, 3:4, 1992, 187–205.
[877] For example, on May 31, 1924 the print workers’ federation organized a series of poetry readings, comedy shows, and movies to raise money for the federation. See Historia de la Federación Gráfica del Perú, Lima: Federación Gráfica, 1985, 151.
[878] See, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, “Defensa de la Universidad Popular”, El Tiempo, 23 September 1921, 1; Jeffrey Klaiber, S.J., “The Popular Universities and the Origins of Aprismo, 1921–24”, Hispanic American Historical Review, 55:4, 1975, 693–715.
[879] Cited in Piedad Pareja, Anarquismo y sindicalismo en el peru, Lima: Ediciones Rikchay Peru No.3, 1978, 89.
[880] Josefa Yarleque de Marquina, El Maestro ó Democracia en Miniatura, Vitarte, Peru: n.p., 1963, 33 and 43.
[881] “Political Religious Disorders”, The West Coast Leader, May 23, 1923. See also, Portocarrero, sindicalismo peruano, 110–114.
[882] Luis F. Barrientos Casós, Los tres sindicalismos, Lima: Ediciones Continente, 1958,165.
[883] “Destrucción de la biblioteca popular Ricardo Palma”, Variedades, 26 de febrero de 1921, 452; Walter Huamani, “La Biblioteca Obrera de “Abajo del Puente”, Revista del Archivo General de la Nación, 11, May 1995, 136.
[884] “Denuncia que se negaron a publicar los periódicos burgueses”, Claridad, no.7, primera quincena November 1924, 17.
[885] Claridad, segunda quincena de September 1924, 12.
[886] Quoted in Guillermo Sánchez Ortiz, Delfín Lévano: Biografía de un lider syndical (1895–1941), Lima: UNMSM, 1985, 112.
[887] “Por el Sindicalismo Revolucionario”, El Obrero Textil, no.24, July 1921, 2–3.
[888] “Breve sinopsis del año obrero”, El Tiempo, 16 January 1923, 1.
[889] See, for example, Arturo Sabroso Montoya, “Episodios de una época del sindicalismo autonoma”, n.d., passim. The Arturo Sabroso Montoya Collection, AIV 924 (1/43), Lima, Peru.
[890] Revolutionary syndicalism assumed various organizational forms and practices depending on the national and regional context. For an international comparative analysis of revolutionary syndicalism see, Ralph Darlington, Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism: An International Comparative Analysis, Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2008; Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, (eds.), Revolutionary Syndicalism: An International Perspective, Hants, England: Scolar Press, 1990.
[891] Steve Stein, Populism in Peru: The Emergence of Mass Politics and the Politics of Social Control, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980, 51.
[892] Wilma Derpich, José Luis Huiza, and Cecilia Israel, Lima años 30: salaries y costo de vida de la clase trabajadora, Lima: Fundación Friedrich Ebert, 1985, 20.
[893] “La Huelga”, Solidaridad, no.3, November 1925, 4.
[894] Martínez de la Torre, Apuntes, vol.. I, 109.
[895] Interview with Juan Alvarez, Lima, June 13, 1989.
[896] It appears the campaign was never fully realized. It is discussed in La Antorcha, 9 October 1933.
[897] Kapsoli, Mariátegui, 33–34.
[898] The Federation of Print Workers’ press had direct links to the Argentine Syndical Union and its organ “The Proletarian Banner” and the Spanish Anarchist Federation, and the FTTP maintained contacted with the Argentine anarcho-syndicalist paper, Argentina Obrero Textil. See, Historia de la Federación Gráfica del Perú, VOL.1, 165– 168 and El Obrero Textil, primera quincena de August 1921, 4.
[899] Pierre de L Boal, Chargé d’ Affaires, ad interim to Secretary of State, September 1, 1927, U.S. Department of State Records, 823.00/539. This archive is herafter abbreviated to D.S.
[900] Subprefecto Pablo Palmo a Prefecto del Departamento, 16 de agosto de 1927, Ministerio del Interior Direccion del Gobierno. This archive is hereafter referred to as MI/DG.
[901] El Constructor, no.12, August 1925.
[902] El Obrero en Madera, no.5, June 1923, 3.
[903] El Obrero Anarquista, no.1, May 1926, 1.
[904] Solidaridad, quincena de October 1926, 1.
[905] Anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists in Lima-Callao were initially enthusiastic about the 1917 Russian Revolution. However, they became increasingly disillusioned, especially those associated with the La Protesta group, as news of Bolshevik persecution of Russian anarchists and the establishment of the New Soviet Political Economy became known. See, La Protesta, mayo de 1921, 1–2. On the initial rejection of this allegation, see, “Lamentable Error del Elemento Anarquista”, El Obrero Textil, quincena de April 1924, 1.
[906] Kapsoli, Mariátegui, 35–36.
[907] Acta de la Cuarta Asamblea del Congreso Obrero Local”, Solidaridad, primera quincena de febrero de 1927, no.15, 2. See also, Piedad Pareja, “Biografía de Arturo Sabroso Montoya”, Lima: unpublished manuscript, n.d., 18.
[908] Kapsoli, Mariátegui, 114. The socialist intellectual, Ricardo Martínez de la Torre, a fierce critic of Sabroso and revolutionary syndicalism, acknowledged that FOL had fought against the Road Conscription and Vagrancy Laws. Martínez de la Torre, Apuntes, VOL. I, 251.
[909] Sabroso’s position was not altogether different from José Carlos Mariátegui, the founder of Peru’s Socialist Party (1928), who also stressed the need to preserve proletarian unity. See, “Mensaje al Congreso Obrero”, Amauta, no.5, January 1927, 35.
[910] David O. Wise, “La Consagración de González Prada: Maestro y Epigones, 1918– 1931”, Cuadernos Americanos, 5, 1983, 145; Miguel Angel Urquieta, “González Prada y Urquieta”, Amauta, no.5, 1927, 5.
[911] El Volcán, 22 July 1911; La Federación, 8 May 1915.
[912] See, for example, La Bandera Roja, 18 May and 28 July 1907; La Defensa Obrera, 21 November, El Volcán, 31 May, 1 July 1911; La Federación, 2 May 1916.
[913] Raúl Fernández Llerena, Los origenes del movimiento obrero en Arequipa: el partido liberal y el 1 de mayo de 1906: Lima: Amauta/Tarea, 1984; Idem, Arequipa: La jornada de las 8 horas, la primera huelga general, Arequipa: 1983, 5 and 70; Víctor Colque Valladares, Dinamica del movimiento syndical en Arequipa, 1900–1968, Lima: PUCP, Estudios Sindicales #4, 1976.
[914] Fernández Llerena, Arequipa: La jornada de las 8 horas, viii–x; Héctor Ballón Lozada, Cien años de vida política de Arequipa, 1890–1990, tomo II, Arequipa, Perú: UNSA, Talleres Gráficos Flores Villalba, 1992, 29.
[915] Fernández Llerena, La jornada de las 8 horas, 70 and passim.
[916] Ibid., 75.
[917] Archivo Departmental de Arequipa Prefectura, Vicente Salas, secretaria de correspondencia, Federación Obrera Arequipeña, to Prefecto del Depto., 4 de mayo de 1921. This archive is hereafter referred to as ADA/PFT.
[918] Among the most important new labor organizations were: Confederación Ferrocarrilera Obrera del Sur (1919), Federación de Zapateros (1919), Federación de Trabajadores en el Ramo de Construcción (1923), Confederación de Tranviarios y Electricistas (1924), Sindicato de Trabajadores en Madera (1925?), Federación de Empleados de Comercio y la Industria (1926).
[919] Martínez de la Torre, Apuntes, VOL. I, 59.
[920] ADA/PFT, Francisco Ramos, secretaria de actas F.O.L.A. a Presidente de la Sociedad de Unión Empleados, 8 de abril de 1926.
[921] La Voz del Sur, 6 de octubre de 1923. See, also, José Luis Rénique, El movimiento descentralista arequipeño y la crisis del ’30. Lima: Taller de Estudios Políticos, CCSS, Universidad Católica del Perú, 1979, 10.
[922] President August B. Leguía signed Law 4113 on May 10, 1920 authorizing The Road Conscription Act. It obligated adult males, ages 18–60, to repair and construct roads, bridges, aqueducts, irrigation ditches, and railway lines for a prescribed number of days annually in accordance with one’s age. Workers were to be paid a daily wage determined by each region.
[923] ADA/PFT, Enrique Lozada, jefe de la sección de investigaciónes a Prefectura e Intendencia de Arequipa, 30 de diciembre de 1925.
[924] ADA/PFT, Coronel Prefecto de Arequipa a Ministerio de Gobierno y Guerra, 27 de diciembre 1925; Fernández Llerena, La jornada de 8 horas, x and 75.
[925] ADA/PFT, Teniente Comandante Accidental del Cuerpo de Seguridad a Prefecto del Depto., 28 de diciembre de 1925.
[926] Ramón Gutiérrez, Evolución Histórica Urbana de Arequipa (1540–1990), Lima: Epígrafe S.A., 1992, 175 and 209. Manuel Zevallos Vera, Arequipa Historia de su Modernidad, 1540–2002, Lima: Fondo Editorial Universidad Alas Peruanas, 2002, 25–28.
[927] The Coalición Obrera de los Barrios founded a workers’ library to promote workers’ self-education. See, La Voz del Sur, 21 January 1922.
[928] ADA/PFT, Nicanor F. Ordoñez, secretaria general de Asamblea Popular a Presidente Taneles {sic} Foot-ball y Socorros Mutuos, 28 de diciembre, 1925.
[929] ADA/PFT, Carlos Gómez Sánchez a Prefecto de Depto., 20 de enero de 1922.
[930] Antero Peralta Vásquez, La Faz Oculta de Arequipa, Arequipa: Impreso de Talleres Gráficos de la Cooperativa de Producción y Trabajo Universitaria, 1977, 212–214 and Ricardo Temoche Benites, Cofradías, Gremios, Mutuales y Sindicatos en el Perú, Lima: Editorial Escuela Nueva S.A., 1988, 429–433.
[931] Peralta Vásquez, La Faz, 214.
[932] Ibid., 215 and La Voz del Sur, 23 June 1923.
[933] ADA/PFT, Luque, et al. to Prefecto del Departmento, 23 de octubre de 1922; ADA/PFT, M. Forga é Hijos a Prefecto del Departmento, 3 de noviembre de 1922.
[934] Reglamento de la Unión Textil del Huaico, 15 de setiembre de 1926.
[935] La Protesta, March 1922, 8.
[936] There is some evidence for IWW influence on Callao’s dockworkers. And, in Lima, at least one worker clearly identified with the IWW, V. Racchumi, a baker. He disseminated IWW doctrine. For example, see his editorial “Reflexión” published in the Mexican labor press, El Proletario, Nogales, Sonora, 30 September 1922. Thanks to David Struthers for drawing my attention to this document.
[937] ADA/PFT, Subprefecto de la Provincia Islay a General Prefecto de Depto., 1 de junio de 1925.
[938] ADA/PFT, De la “Voz del Mar” 24 de Marzo de 1925.
[939] ADA/PFT, Cuerpo de Seguridad 12a Compañía Comandancia al General Prefecto, 19 de mayo de 1925.
[940] Ballón Lozada cites a letter to El Deber, an Arequipa daily, on 20 April 1925, in which the Federación Local de Sociedades Obreras repudiated the paper’s allegations that railway workers were anti-patriotic by boldly asserting, “If capitalists engage in solidarity without taking account of borders or flags, how strange is it that workers from both sides, with a superior morality, engage in solidarity and unite?”. Ballón Lozada, Cien años de vida, tomo II, 32.
[941] Following the War of the Pacific (1879–1883) Peru and Chili disputed ownership of the former Peruvian provinces of Tacna and Arica. The territorial conflict was not resolved until 1929. See, William E. Skuban, Lines in the Sand: Nationalism and Identity on the Peruvian-Chilean Frontier, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007.
[942] Miles Poindexter to Secretary of State, May 4, 1925, 832.0/508; ADA/PFT, Subprefecto de la Provincia Islay a General Prefecto del Depto., 1 de junio de 1925.
[943] ADA/PFT, Cuerpo de Seguridad 12a Compania Comandancia al General Prefecto, 19 de mayo de 1925.
[944] ADA/PFT, Subprefecto de la Provincia Islay a General Prefecto del Depto., 1 de junio de 1925.
[945] Miles Poindexter to Secretary of State, February 8, 1926, D.S., 823.50545/46,.
[946] ADA/PFT, Centro Social Obrero de la Confederación Coaligada de la Provincia de Islay a Subprefecto, 28 de enero de 1926.
[947] ADA/PFT, Subprefectura de Islay/Mollendo a Prefecto del Depto., 16 de marzo de 1926.
[948] ADA/PFT, Capitan del Puerto al Coronel Prefecto de Arequipa, 23 de febrero de 1926.
[949] ADA/PFT, Capitan del Puerto al Subprefecto de Islay, 2 de marzo de 1926.
[950] See, for example, ADA/PFT, Subprefecto de Islay a Prefecto de Depto., 15 de diciembre 1930. Evidence of the persistence of anarchist influence can be seen in the library holdings of the Sociedad de Obreros y Socorros Mutuos which were cataloged by police after a raid on its headquarters in June 17, 1931. The library included scores of anarchist writings by Malatesta, Kropotkin, Arreta, Reclus, and others. See, ADA/ PFT, Cuerpo de Investigación y Vigilancia Sección Arequipa a Prefecto del Depto., 17 de junio de 1931.
[951] José Deustua and José Luis Rénique, Intelectuales, indigenismo y descentralismo en el Perú 1897–1931, Cusco: Debates Andinos 4, Centro de Estudios Rurales Anindos “Bartolome de Las Casas, 1984, 42.
[952] “En Homenaje a La Memoria de Gonzales Prada”, El Sol, 24 July 1923. See also, Ferdinand Cuadros Villena, La vertiente cusqueña del comunismo peruano, Lima: Editorial Horizonte, 1990, 64.
[953] Velasco Aragón accumulated a vast collection of anarchist tracts and publications from Europe and Argentina. His collection housed at the Universidad Nacional, contains titles from Kropotkin, Proudhon, et al.
[954] Luis Velasco Aragón, La verdad sobre el fango, 22 de abril de 1923, Cuzco: Imprenta H.G. Rozas, 1923. On the popular approbation of his speech and his subsequent arrest for promoting social revolution, see, Sergio Caller, Rostros y rastros, Un caminante cusqueño en el siglo xx, Lima: Fondo Editorial del Congreso del Perú, 2006, 64–65, and Julio Guiterrez, Así Nació Cuzco Rojo: Contribución a su historia política: 1924–1934, Lima: Empresa Humboldt Nicolás Dueñas, 1988, 21.
[955] José Tamayo Herrera, El Cusco del Oncenio: Un ensayo de historia regional a través de la fuente de la Revista “Kosko”, Lima: Universidad de Lima, Cuadernos de Historia VIII, 1989, 28.
[956] Ibid., 110.
[957] José Carlos Gutiérrez Samanez, La Generación Cusqueña de 1927, Lima: Editorial Horizonte, 2007, 65.
[958] Gutiérrez, Así Nació, 25.
[959] Caller, Rostros y Rastros, 162; “La Universidad Popular”, El Sol, 14 de mayo de 1924.
[960] José Carlos Gutiérrez Samanez, personal communication, August 25, 2008. See, also Tamayo Herrera, El Cuzco del Oncenio, 65–66, 68.
[961] “La Universidad Popular y la Solidaridad Estudiantil Obrera”, El Sol, 9 de abril de 1924; “La Universidad Popular”, El Sol, 14 May 1924; “La Universidad Popular Gonzales Prada”, El Sol, 2 June 1924.
[962] Reliable statistics on Cuzco’s working-class for the period are unavailable. Given that the provincial population numbered approximately 37,000 in 1920, it is fair to say the size of the urban working class was quite small. The bulk of the wage labor force was employed in small printing, leather, wood, shoe, bakery, beverage, and mechanic shops and plants. Construction and transport workers also were important segments of wage labor force.
[963] Rossano Calvo C., El Sol 100 años: Periodismo e Historia Local El Diario “El Sol” de Cusco (1900–1950), Cuzco: Instituto Nacional de Cultura, 2002, 69.
[964] For FORP’s influence on Cuzco’s labor movement see, Augusto Sarmiento, Eduardo Garcia, Ladislau Valdiesu, interview by Robert J. Alexander, Cuzco, June 8, 1947.
[965] “El próximo congreso obrero departmental”, El Sol, 22 de marzo de 1922; José Carlos Gutiérrez Samanez, personal communication, August 25, 2008.
[966] Krϋeggler stresses FOLC’s transitory character and minimizes its influence. See, Thomas Krϋeggler, “Indians, Workers, and the Arrival of ‘Modernity’: Cuzco, Peru (1895–1924)”, The Americas, 56:22, October 1999, 185.
[967] “En homenaje a los Trabajadores del Cuzco”, El Sol, 1 May 1922.
[968] It’s unknown why the congress failed to materialize. However, it’s important to note that FOLC explicitly proscribed artisan capitalists from participation in the congress. See, “El Próximo Congreso Obrero Departamental”, El Sol, 22 March 1922.
[969] Cuadros, La vertiente cusqueña, 64–65.
[970] Class-oriented unions were founded by textile workers, chauffeurs, and carpenters. Shoemakers withdrew from the Artisan Society and adopted a classist line.
[971] On the intensity of provincial migration to Lima between 1920 and 1940, see, Roque García Frías, “Intensidad absoluta y relative de la emigración provinciana aldepartamento de Lima”, Estadística Peruana, VOL.3, no.5, (July 1947), 57.
[972] José Luis Ayala, Yo Fui Canillita de José Carlos Mariátegui (Auto) Biografía de Mariano Larico Yujra, Lima: Kollao, Editorial Periodistica, 1990, 87, 119, 137–138; Carlos Arroyo, “La experiencia del Comité Central Pro-Derecho Indígena Tahuantinsuyo”, E.I.A.L., 15:1, (January–June 2004), 188.
[973] Tahuantinsuyo refers to the Inca Empire and is a Quechua term meaning ‘land of the four quarters.’
[974] Ayala, Yo Fui Canillita, 137.
[975] Urviola was a mestizo but self-identified as an Indian. He adopted their language, dress, and culture. The term“el indio-mestizo” to describe Urviola is used by José Luis Rénique, La batalla por Puno: conflicto agrario y nación en los andes peruanos, Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2004, 93.
[976] Urviola initially took up refuge in Arequipa and studied at the National University of San Agustín. Eventually he established contact with Rusiñol and other anarchist sympathizers. See Ballón Lozada, Cien años de vida política, 29.
[977] Ayala, Yo Fui Canillita, 140–141.
[978] Wilfredo Kapsoli, Ayllus del sol: anarquismo y utopia andina, Lima: TAREA, 1984, 152.
[979] Of the three Ayulo was the most outspoken advocate of autonomous rationalist schools for Indians. See, Ricardo Melgar Bao, Sindicalismo y milenarismo en la region andina del perú (1920–1931), Cuernavaca, México: Ediciones Cuicuilco, Escuela Nacional de Antropologia e Historia, 1988, 36.
[980] Kapsoli, Ayllus, 138–139.
[981] Between the CPIT and FIORP, the latter more clearly reflected an anarchosyndicalist structure and orientation. Indeed, José Carlos Mariátegui, the founder of the Peruvian Socialist Party (1928) observed that FIORP was committed to organizing Indians according to ‘anarcho-syndicalist principles and methods’ in order to achieve a social revolution. See José Carlos Mariátegui, Ideologia y Política, Lima: Biblioteca Amauta, 1987, 41–42.
[982] For an analysis of the Indian-peasant uprisings in Puno see, Augusto Ramos Zambrano, Tormenta Antiplanica (Rebeliones Indígenas de la Provincia de Lampa, Puno, 1920–1924), Lima: n., 1990, and Melgar Bao, Sindicalismo, 45–47. César Levano points out that FIORP had links to the peasant revolt in Lauramarca hacienda in Cuzco in 1924, see, Caller, Rostros y Rastros, 34; See also, Arturo Aranda Arrieta and Maria Escalante, Lucha de clases en el movimiento syndical cusqueño, 1927–1965, Lima: G. Herrera Editores, 1978, 65.
[983] See, Zulema Lehm A. and Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Los artesanos libertarios y la ética del trabajo, La Paz, Bolivia: THOA, 1988, 108, footnote 39.
[984] See footnote 13.
[985] Memoria del Ministro de Gobierno y Policía, Dr. Pedro José Rada y Gama al Congreso Ordinario de 1923, Lima: Imprenta del Estado, 1923, x.
[986] See, for example, “La Raza Indígena y el Centenario”, La Protesta, September 1921.
[987] In 1922 Senator Miguel González reported to the Senate that abuses of the Conscripcion Vial were directly responsible for riots and revolts. See, Thomas M. Davies Jr., Indian Integration in Peru: A Half Century of Experience, 1900–1948, Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1974, 84.
[988] Agustín Barcelli S., Historia del Sindicalismo Peruano, Tomo I, Lima: Editorial Jatun-Runa, 1971, 172–179.
[989] José Luis Rénique, Los sueños de la sierra: cuzco en el siglo xx, Lima: CEPES, 1991, 95–96.
[990] FIORP also insisted on the need to establishment autonomous Indian schools to overcome ignorance and submissiveness. See, ADA/PFT, Teofilo S. de la Cruz, secretario geneal de turno, Federación Indígena Obrera Regional Peruana a secretaria general de provincial de Espenar (sic), Cuzco, 26 de enero de 1925.
[991] Miles Poindexter to Secretary of State, December 15, 1925, D.S., 823.0/508.
[992] Miles Poindexter to Secretary of State, December 29, 1925, D.S., 823.00/509.
[993] Humanidad, 21 February 1926.
[994] Craig W. Wadsworth charge d’ affaires, ad interim to Secretary of State, March 8, 1926, D.S., 823.00/514; ADA/PFT, Antonio Neuman, Capitan Comisario a ContraAlmirante Prefecto de Departmento, 13 de enero de 1927; AGN/MI, Pablo Palmo a Prefectura de Departmento, 4 de mayo de 1928.
[995] ADA/PFT Tatto Cano B. secretaria general de Asamblea Popular a Federico G.L. Emmel, 13 de enero de 1927.
[996] Steven Hirsch, “Ideological Transfers and Traces of Anarchist Praxis: Rethinking the Influence of Anarchism on Peru’s APRA Party, 1920–1948”, paper presented at the 53rd International Congress of Americanists, Mexico City, Mexico, 22 July 2009.
[997] This chapter explores two occasionally interlocking networks: one radiated out of Havana, Cuba and connected the broader Caribbean Basin. The other created a circuit stretching from Los Angeles, California in the United States to Mexico City and the borderlands between the United States and Mexico. Not explored is a third network that linked Spanish-speaking anarchists throughout the United States with important nodes in Los Angeles, San Francisco, southern Florida and the metropolitan New York City region. At times, New York City became an important destination for migrating anarchists, especially out of Cuba and Florida, while anarchist newspapers in New York City became important communication linkages for the other two networks. All translations in the text are by the author.
[998] While this chapter brackets these two networks to be examined individually and in relation to each other, it is important to remember that they were also linked to other overlapping networks that spanned the United States and that linked the Caribbean Basin with the Iberian Peninsula—broader linkages that cannot be explored here due to space limitations.
[999] Joan Casanovas, Bread, or Bullets! Urban Labor and Spanish Colonialism in Cuba, 1850–1898, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998, 223–226; Kirwin Shaffer, Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005, 43.
[1000] Casanovas, 227; Shaffer, 44.
[1001] Casanovas, 226; Shaffer, 44.
[1002] Shaffer, 55.
[1003] Mikhail Bakunin, “On Nationality, the State, and Federalism” in Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchism ed., Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1990, 401–2.
[1004] Shaffer, 39–61.
[1005] Shaffer, 62–71.
[1006] Shaffer, 73; Fe Iglesias García, “Características de la inmigración española en Cuba (1904–1930)” Economía y Desarrollo, March-April 1988, 87; Consuelo Naranjo Orovio, “Trabajo libre e inmigración española en Cuba, 1880–1930”, Revista de Indias, 52: 195/196, 1992, 770.
[1007] Shaffer, 72–89.
[1008] Shaffer, 91; Casanovas, 193–95; El movimiento obrero cubano: documentos y artículos, vol. 1 (1865–1925). Havana: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1975, 69 and 82. 13 Shaffer, 91.
[1009] Shaffer, 92–93; Align Helg, Our Rightful Share: The Afro-Cuban Struggle for Equality, 1886–1912, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995, 117–16.
[1010] ¡Tierra!, June 4, 1910, 3; Rebelión, April 10, 1910, 3.
[1011] Shaffer, 96–97; El Audaz, July 5, 1912, 2.
[1012] Shaffer, 100.
[1013] Shaffer, 107–25.
[1014] Shaffer, 165–94.
[1015] Shaffer, 195–207.
[1016] Shaffer, 230–32; Barry Carr, “Mill Occupations and Soviets: The Mobilization of Sugar Workers in Cuba 1917–1933”, Journal of Latin American Studies, 28, 1996, 156–57; Sam Dolgoff, The Cuban Revolution: A Critical Perspective, Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1977, 55–117; Frank Fernández, El anarquismo en Cuba, Madrid: Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo, 2000, 82–122.
[1017] Gary R. Mormino and George E. Pozzetta, “Spanish Anarchism in Tampa, Florida, 1886–1931” in Dirk Hoerder (ed.), “Struggle a Hard Battle”: Essays on Working-Class Immigrants, Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1986, 175.
[1018] Gerald Poyo, “The Anarchist Challenge to the Cuban Independence Movement, 1885–1890” Cuban Studies, 15: 1, 1985, 35.
[1019] El Esclavo, February 6, 1895, 1–2.
[1020] Juan José Cruz, “You Can’t Go Home, Yankee: Teaching U.S. History to Canary Islands Students”, The History Teacher, 35: 3, 2002, 362–3; Casanovas, 227.
[1021] El Esclavo, December 19, 1894, 1.
[1022] El Esclavo, August 28, 1895, 1–2.
[1023] Casanovas, 227.
[1024] El Esclavo, May 19, 1896, 3.
[1025] Olga Cabrera, “Enrique Creci: un patriota obrero”, Santiago, 36, December 1979, 146.
[1026] Shaffer, 43–44; Casanovas, 227.
[1027] El Esclavo, June 5, 1897, 4.
[1028] El Esclavo, January 22, 1896, 1 and 4; February 20, 1896, 4; January 13, 1897, 2; February 24, 1897, 4.
[1029] Durward Long, “ ‘La Resistencia’: Tampa’s Immigrant Labor Union”, Labor History, 6, 1965, 195; Mormino and Pozzetta, 188.
[1030] Long, 195–96; Mormino and Pozzetta, 189.
[1031] Nancy A. Hewitt, Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s–1920s, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2001, 115.
[1032] For a brilliant and insightful look at conflicting issues of race, class, gender and ethnicity in Tampa, one should consult Hewitt’s Southern Discomfort.
[1033] La Federación, “Suplemento a La Federación de Tampa, Fla.”, September 10, 1901.
[1034] The author conducted this calculation by examining the published contribution lists on page four of ¡Tierra! from 1903 to 1906.
[1035] ¡Tierra!, August 29, 1903, 3–4.
[1036] A.G. Quintero-Rivera, “Socialist and Cigarmaker: Artisans’ Proletarianization in the Making of the Puerto Rican Working Class”, Latin American Perspectives, 10: 2–3, 1983, 21–24.
[1037] Quintero-Rivera, 28. See also Norma Valle Ferrer, Luisa Capetillo: Historia de una mujer proscrita, San Juan, Puerto Rico: Editorial Cultural, 1990, 34–36.
[1038] Miles Gavin, “The Early Development of the Organized Labor Movement in Puerto Rico”, Latin American Perspectives, 3:3, 1976): 28–30.
[1039] Rubén Dávila Santiago, “El pensimiento social obrero a comienzas del siglo XX en Puerto Rico”, Revista Historia, 1:2, 1985, 164.
[1040] Gavin, 27–28.
[1041] ¡Tierra!, June 24, 1905, 3 and Cultura Obrera (New York), May 22, 1915. The latter includes an obituary of Juan Vilar, who wrote and organized on the island until he died on May Day 1915.
[1042] ¡Tierra!, May 20, 1905, 2–3.
[1043] ¡Tierra!, September 2, 1905, 2.
[1044] ¡Tierra!, October 7, 1905, 2.
[1045] ¡Tierra!, August 4, 1906, 2.
[1046] Voz Humana, October 22, 1906, 3.
[1047] ¡Tierra!, June 12, 1907, 3.
[1048] ¡Tierra!, April 14, 1909, 2.
[1049] Julio Ramos (ed.), Amor y anarquía: Los escritos de Luisa Capetillo, San Juan, Puerto Rico: Ediciones Huracán, 1992, 34–35, 75–78.
[1050] Procedimientos del sexto congreso obrero de la Federación Libre de los Trabajadores de Puerto Rico. Celebrado del 18 al 24 de marzo de 1910, en la ciudad de Juncos, R., San Juan, Puerto Rico: Tipografía de M. Burillo & Co., 1910.
[1051] Cultura Obrera, February 13, 1915, 2 and March 13, 1915, 4.
[1052] El Comunista, May 15, 1920, 3; July 10, 1920, 2; July 31, 1920, 2; and, August 14, 1920, 4.
[1053] El Comunista, June 26, 1920, 6.
[1054] El Comunista, July 17, 1920, pgs. 2 and 4.
[1055] El Comunista, May 29, 1920, 3 and September 25, 1920, pgs. 1 and 4.
[1056] El Comunista, February 19, 1921, 4. “Significant” in terms of importance to El Comunista since, as was previously noted, the anarchist movement in Tampa by the 1920s had lost most of its previous influence in that city.
[1057] Luis Navas, El movimiento obrero en Panamá (1880–1914), San José, Costa Rica: Editorial Universitaria Centroamericana, 1979, 120–125; Julie Greene, “Spaniards on the Silver Roll: Labor Troubles and Liminality in the Panama Canal Zone, 1904– 1914”, International Labor and Working Class History, 66, 2004, 82.
[1058] Angel Cappelletti, Hechos y figuras del anarquismo hispanoamericano, Madrid: Ediciones Madre Tierra, 1990, 41–42. Ironically, Bakunin saw Panama in his 1861 trip from Asia to London.
[1059] Davíd Viñas, Anarquistas en América Latina, México, D.F.: Editorial Katun, 1983, 99.
[1060] Greene, 92.
[1061] Greene, 86.
[1062] Greene, 92.
[1063] Navas, 146–47; Michael Conniff, Black Labor on a White Canal: Panama, 1904– 1981, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1985, 38.
[1064] Navas, 160–161.
[1065] ¡Tierra!, September 7, 1907, 3.
[1066] Greene, 90–92.
[1067] Vía Libre, July 1, 1911, 3.
[1068] Vía Libre, August 5, 1911, 4.
[1069] For the overall history of these Cuban divisions and the end of the divide, see the author’s Anarchism and Countercultural Politics in Early Twentieth-Century Cuba, 178–83.
[1070] Greene concludes, based on ICC records, that anarchism disappeared by 1912. Greene, 93–94.
[1071] ¡Tierra!, September 7, 1912, 4.
[1072] ¡Tierra!, October 19, 1912, 2.
[1073] ¡Tierra!, October 19, 1912, 4; November 23, 1912, 3.
[1074] Hernando Franco Múñoz, Blázquez de Pedro y los orígenes del sindicalismo panameño, online at bdigital.binal.ac.pa/bdp/tomos/XXIX/Tomo_XXIX_P2.pdf, accessed April 3, 2007, 173.
[1075] ¡Tierra!, July 16, 1914, 2 and July 23, 1914, 2 (quote from the latter).
[1076] Franco Múñoz, 199.
[1077] Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism, London: Harper Collins, 1992, 510; Donald Hodges, Mexican Anarchism after the Revolution, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995, 11; Juan Gómez-Quiñones, Sembradores. Ricardo Flores Magón y el Partido Liberal Mexicano: A Eulogy and Critique, Monograph No. 5, Los Angeles: Aztlan Publications, Chicano Studies Center, UCLA, 1973, 120–124.
[1078] Norman Caulfield, Mexican Workers and the State: From the Porfiriato to NAFTA, Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1998, 20–43.
[1079] W. Dirk Raat, Revoltosos: Mexico’s Rebels in the United States, 1903–1923, College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1981, 40–62.
[1080] Ward Albro, Always a Rebel: Ricardo Flores Magón and the Mexican Revolution, Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1992, 7–80. See also David Poole (ed.), Land and Liberty: Anarchist Influences in the Mexican Revolution: Ricardo Flores Magón, Montréal: Black Rose Books, 1977, 8–16; Marshall, 510–11; Salvador Hernández Padilla, El magonismo: Historia de una pasión libertaria, 1900–1922, Mexico City: Ediciones Era, 1984/1988, 13–135; and Ricardo Cuahtémoc Esparza Valdiva, El fenómeno magonista en México y en Estados Unidos, 1905–1908, Universidad Autónoma de Zacatecas, 2000.
[1081] Ratt, 17–18.
[1082] Ward Albro, To Die on Your Feet: The Life, Times, and Writings of Práxedis G. Guerrero, Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1996, 38–64; Eugenio Martínez Núñez, Perfiles Revolucionarios: La vida heróica de Práxedis G. Guerrero, Mexico City: Talleres Gráficos de la Nación, 1960, 222–37.
[1083] Poole, 20–23 and 136; Hernández Padilla, 136–65.
[1084] Regeneración, August 5, 1911, 4.
[1085] W.C. Owen, “The Mexican Revolution: Its Progress, Causes, Purpose and Probable Results”, Los Angeles: Regeneración, 1912, 3.
[1086] Owen, 5.
[1087] Owen, 5.
[1088] Shaffer, 176–84; James Sandos, Rebellion in the Borderlands: Anarchism and the Plan de San Diego, 1904–1923, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992, 135; John Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860–1931(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1978), 111–14.
[1089] Regeneración, Feb. 15, 1913, 1.
[1090] Regeneración, May 10, 1913, 3; June 7, 1913, 3; June 21, 1913, 3.
[1091] Regeneración August 2, 1913, 2.
[1092] Regeneración, August 9, 1913, 2. Blanca mostly escaped this controversy and began publishing a short-lived anarcho-feminist paper in Los Angeles. See, for instance, Pluma Roja, November 5, 1913.
[1093] Sandos, 135–37.
[1094] Regeneración, March 18, 1911, 3.
[1095] Regeneración, July 8, 1911, 3.
[1096] Regeneración, August 16, 1913, 3.
[1097] Regeneración, February 21, 1914, 3. In 1920, Palacios remained in Tampa and was a regular contributor of money to Puerto Rico’s El Comunista.
[1098] Sandos, 77–83.
[1099] Sandos, 87–110.
[1100] Sandos, 154–71.
[1101] Sandos, 100.
[1102] La Unión Industrial, January 14, 1911, pgs. 1–2.
[1103] Sandos, 112; Hart, 114–15.
[1104] Hart, 116–18, 127.
[1105] Caulfield, 20–32.
[1106] Sandos, 51–52.
[1107] Hart, 118–25.
[1108] Sandos, 112–13; Hart, 127–33.
[1109] Hernández Padilla, 198–99; Sandos, 113; Hart, 129.
[1110] Sandos, 132–33; Hart, 136–55.
[1111] Barry Carr, “Marxism and Anarchism in the Formation of the Mexican Communist Party, 1910–19”, Hispanic American Historical Review, 63: 2, 1983, 288–89.
[1112] Caulfield, 36–52. This is not the same as saying that anarchist tendencies disappeared from Mexico after the mid-1920s. Anarchists and anarchist tendencies would influence the development of the Mexican Communist Party in the 1920s, and Enrique Flores Magón played a role in this development.
[1113] Carr, 300–05.
[1114] A general overview of the larger anarchist and syndicalist movement in Argentina is provided in the introductory chapter—the editors.
[1115] Rubén Eduardo Bittloch, La théorie de la violence dans l’anarchisme argentin, 1890–1910, Mémoire de Diplôme, Paris: École des Hautes Études de Sciences Sociales, 1982; Guy Bordé, La Classe ouvrière argentine (3 vols.) Paris: L’Harmattan, 1987; Martín Casaretto, Historia del movimiento obrero argentino (2 vols.), Buenos Aires: Imprenta Lorenzo, 1947; Sebastián Marotta, El movimiento sindical argentino. Sugénesis y desarrollo, 1857–1907 (3 vols.), Buenos Aires: El Lacio, 1960–70; Hiroshi Matsushita, Movimiento obrero argentino, 1930–1945. sus proyecciones en los orígenes del peronismo, Buenos Aires: Siglo Veinte, 1983; Jacinto Oddone, Gremialismo proletario argentino, Buenos Aires: Ediciones Libera, 1949; Marcelo Segall, “Europeos en la iniciación del sindicalismo latinoamericano”, in Magnus Morner et al. (eds.), Capitales, empresarios y obreros europeos en América latina, vol. 1, Stockholm: Instituto de Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de Estocolmo, 1983; Jorge Solomonoff, Ideologías del movimiento obrero y conflicto social: de la organisación nacional a la primera guerra mundial, Buenos Aires: Editorial Proyección, 1971; David Tamarin, The Argentine Labor Movement, 1930–1945: A Study in the Origins of Peronism, Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press, 1985; Juan Carlos Torre, Le role du syndicalisme dans les origines du Péronisme, Thèse de 3ème Cycle, Paris: École des Hautes Études de Sciences Sociales, 1982; Gonzalo Zaragoza Rivera, Orígen del anarquismo en Buenos Aires, 1886–1901, Ph.D. dis., Universidad de València, 1972, and Zaragoza Rivera, Anarquismo argentino (1876–1902), Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre, 1996.
[1116] David Viñas, Anarquistas en América Latina, Mexico: Editorial Katún, 1983.
[1117] José Aricó, La hipótesis de Justo. Escritos sobre el socialismo en América, Latina Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1999.
[1118] The assumptions underlying this thesis are common in the literature on immigra-tion and organized labor in Argentina. An early English-language articulation of it can be found in David Rock, Politics in Argentina, 1890–1930: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975.
[1119] Juan Suriano, Anarquistas. Cultura política libertarian en Buenos Aires, 1890– 1910, Buenos Aires: Manatial, 2001, 80–83, 87, 167.
[1120] La Protesta, 17 May 1929, and 12 June 1929.
[1121] Cf. María Laura Moreno Sainz, Anarchisme argentin, 1890–1930. Contribution à une mythanalyse, Lille: Atelier national de reproduction des theses, 2004.
[1122] Jacy Alves de Seixas, Mémoire et oubli. Anarchisme et syndicalisme révolutionnaire au Brésil, Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1992, 159.
[1123] Cf. Edgardo Bilsky, La FORA y el movimiento obrero (1900–1910), Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1985; Diego Abad de Santillán, La F.O.R.A., ideología y trayectoria, Buenos Aires: Editorial Proyección, 1971; José Elías Niklison, “La Federación Obrera Regional Argentina”, Boletín del Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, April 1919.
[1124] The term is borrowed from Martha A. Ackelsberg, Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women, Bloomington: Indiana Press, 1991; 33–34.
[1125] Diego Abad de Santillán, 26–32.
[1126] Rudolf Rocker, Nationalism and Culture, transl. Ray E. Chase, Los Angeles: Rocker Publications Committee, 1937, 535.
[1127] Cf. Juan Lazarte, Federalismo y descentralización en la cultura argentina, Buenos Aires: Cátedra Lisandro de la Torre, 1957. Federalism is described by Lazarte as preceding the history of the Argentine republic, rooted in local popular movements against the Spanish monarchy across colonial regions (130–140). It was also defended by popular rebellions usurped by federalist caudillos in the 19th century, and would be realized by popular struggles against the centralized state which undermined economic federalism by fostering capitalism.
[1128] Cf. Martine Guibert & Sebastien Velut, “Retour au rivage: Le littoral argentin dans les années 1990”, in Alain Musset (ed.), Les Littoraux latino-américains. Terres à découvrir, Paris: Éditions de l’Institut des Hautes Etudes d’Amérique Latine, 1998; Clifton B. Kroeber, The Growth of the Shipping Industry in the Rio de la Plata Region, 1794–1860, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1957; Silvia B. Lazzaro, Estado, capital extranjero y sistema portuario argentino, 1880–1914 (2 vols.), Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1992; Norberto Aurelio López, “Antecedentes y organisación de las sociedades de resistencia. Los trabajadores portuarios y marítimos”, in Junta de Estudios Históricos del Puerto Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre, Primer congreso iberoamericano de historia de los puertos, vol. 1, Buenos Aires: 1991; Ricardo Ortiz, Valor económico de los puertos argentinos, Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1943.
[1129] Argentine social Catholicism and political radicalism both grew out of late 19th century efforts to create spaces of political and social citizenship for Argentine-born working and middle-class men, prior to the promulgation of universal male suffrage in 1914. Both were central actors in the formulation an early nationalist discourse in the 1910s and 1920s, and both battled relentlessly for the loyalty of longshoremen and mariners in the face of anarchist and revolutionary syndicalist labor militancy. Cf. Nestor Auza, Aciertos y fracasos del catolicismo argentino (3 vols.), Buenos Aires: Docencia Don Bosco-Guadalupe, 1987; Héctor Recalde, La Iglesia y la cuestión social (1874–1910), Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1985; Rock, Politics in Argentina; Juan Guillermo Torres, Labor Politics of Radicalism in Argentina, 1916– 1930, Ph.D. dis., University of California at San Diego, 1982.
[1130] Iaácov Oved, El anarquismo y el movimineto obrero en Argentina, Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1978, 423. The libertarian ethics and “propaganda by the deed” of the European anarcho-communist tradition represented by Malatesta and Piotr Kropotkin was combined in Argentina with the anarcho-syndicalist precepts advocated by Antonio Pellicer Paraire, promoting federated resistance societies among workers and an open alliance with other autonomous social and cultural organizations.
[1131] Antonio Pellicer Paraire, “Organisación obrera”, La Protesta Humana, 17 November 1900–1 June 1901.
[1132] Diego Abad de Santillán, Memorias, 1897–1936, Barcelona: Planeta, 1977, 63.
[1133] Charles Tilly, “Contention and the Urban Poor in Eighteenth and NineteenthCentury Latin America” in Silvia M. Arrom and Servando Ortoli (eds.), Riots in the Cities: Popular Politics and the Urban Poor in Latin America, 1765–1910, Washington, D.C.: Scholarly Resources, 1996, 230.
[1134] After the departure of ten unions from the second congress of the Federacion obrera gremial argentina in 1902, the SROPC alone provided 3,200 affiliates, or 42 percent, of the 7,630 workers still represented by 31 unions; Diego Abad de Santillan, El movimiento anarquista en la Argentina (desde sus comienzos hasta 1910), Buenos Aires: Editorial Argonauta, 1930, 80–84.
[1135] El Reporter del Puerto, 1 September 1903; La Protesta Humana, 5 September 1903.
[1136] La Vanguardia, 14 November 1903; El Reporter del Puerto, 23 November 1903; El Progreso de La Boca, 13 December 1903.
[1137] La Protesta, 14 November 1903.
[1138] Enrique Dickman in La Vanguardia, 26 April 1902.
[1139] El Perseguido, 18 May 1890, cited in José Moya, “The Positive Side of Stereotypes: Jewish Anarchists in Early Twentieth-Century Buenos Aires”, Jewish History 18, 2004, 19–48.
[1140] Prefectura General de Puertos, Sociedades gremiales en el puerto, Buenos Aires: 1904.
[1141] La Organisación Obrera, 15/25/1904.
[1142] Diego Abad de Santillan, 148–154; El Diario, 11 November 1904 and 22–23 November 1904; La Organisación Obrera, 25 November 1904; La Prensa, 15 November 1904; Hobart Spalding, La Clase trabajadora argentina. Documentos para su historia, 1890/1912, Buenos Aires: Editorial Galerna, 1970, 440–442. 30 La Vanguardia, 5 August 1905 and 7 September 1905.
[1143] Prefectura General de Puertos, División de Investigaciones, Copiador interno n. 6 (1905/1906), 60–67, 12/01/1905; Policía Federal, División Orden Social, Copiador de investigaciones n.21 (1905/1906), 59, 09/25/1905.
[1144] La Vanguardia, 3 October 1905 and 4 October 1905; Policía Federal, División Orden Social, Copiador de investigaciones n. 21, 1905/1906, 197–199, 10/04/1905.
[1145] Policía Federal, División Orden Social, Copiador de investigaciones n. 21, 1905/1906, 263–264, 267, 377–379, 392–393 & 436; 10/18/1905, 10/20/1905,12/04/1905, 12/15/1905 & 01/03/1906; Copiador de investigaciones n. 24, 1906, 503–504, 09/28/1906; Boletín del Comité Ejecutivo del Partido Socialista, 18 November 1905; La Vanguardia, 26 January 1906; La Protesta, 1 February 1906.
[1146] Policía Federal, Division Orden Social, Copiador de Investigaciones n. 23, 1906, 227–229, 302–303, 424–425 & 466–470, 06/10/1906, 06/13/1906, 06/22/1906 & 06/25/1906.
[1147] Ibid., 224–225.
[1148] In 1905, syndicalist proponents of a unified federalist labor movement unsuccessfully attempted to reconcile the anarchist FORA and the socialist-leaning UGT, which had adopted revolutionary syndicalist precepts in August of the same year. In 1906 the socialist party expelled its syndicalist faction, leading to the creation of an Syndicalist Socialist Group (Agrupación socialista sindicalista) and the increasing influence of syndicalist propagandists on the fringes of the labor movement, both within and beyond the sphere of anarchist influence. Efforts to transcend the existing loose federation of local inter-craft anarchist alliances and consolidate a parallel national federation of mariners’ unions began after a failed 1905 machinists’ strike, and culminated in the creation of the syndicalist Maritime Workers’ Federation (Federación obrera maritime, FOM) in 1910. See, in particular, Edgardo Bilsky, “Campo politico y representaciones sociales: Estudio sobre el sindicalismo revolucionario en Argentina”, mimeo, n.d., and “La diffusion de la pensée de Sorel et le syndicalisme revolutionnaire en Argentine”, Estudos, No. 5, November 1986; and various issues of La Acción socialista and La Aurora del marino, 1905–1906.
[1149] Por la unidad del proletariado, viva la Liga obrera naval! Flier dated April 1907; CGT, 6 July 1934. The increasingly militant reporting on seamen’s unionism in the socialist newspaper La Vanguardia, and revolutionary syndicalist organ La Acción socialista, reflected a growing confluence of views between the leadership of the SRMF and the syndicalist doctrine propagated by the UGT. At the same time, the anarchist FORA also increased its activism in favor of the mariners’ cause. On January 18th, a cartmen’s assembly, responding to an appeal by the FORA, voted to send a financial contribution to Genoese seamen on strike in Italy; cf. Policía Federal, División Orden Social, Copiador de investigaciones n. 27, 1906/1907, 323–325, 01/19/1907; La Protesta, 01/25/1907, 01/27/1907 and 01/29/1907.
[1150] La Protesta, 25 January 1907, 27 January 1907, 29 January 1907.
[1151] La Protesta, 15 February 1907; Policía Federal, División Orden Social, Copiador de investigaciones n. 27, 1906/1907, 472–473 & 477–480, 02/09/1907 & 02/12/1907; Copiador de investigaciones n. 29, 1907, 124–125 & 135–137, 05/21/1907 & 05/22/1907; Prefectura General de Puertos, División de Investigaciones, Copiador interno n. 7 (1906/1907), 220, 225–231 & 355–356, 02/11/1907, 02/14/1907 & 05/22/1907.
[1152] Policía Federal, División Orden Social, Copiador de investigaciones n. 27, 1906/1907, 475–476, 02/11/1907; “El boycott de la casa Dreyfus”, SROPC flier dated 02.14.1907. The flier also quotes Serafín Romero as referring to the “suspect morality” of LONA officials.
[1153] Policía Federal, División Orden Social, Copiador de investigaciones n. 35, 1908, 229–230, 03/25/1908; La Protesta, 6 December 1908.
[1154] La Prensa, 13 December 1916; La Epoca, 6 December 1908; 15–16 December 1916, 17 December 1916; Solidaridad con la huelga maritima, FORA flier dated 1 January 1917.
[1155] La Organisación Obrera 15/13/1918.
[1156] José Elías Niklison “La Federacion obrera maritima”, Boletín del Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, n. 40, Feb. 1919, 72–74.
[1157] José Elías Niklison, “La Federacion obrera regional argentina”, Boletín del Departamento Nacional del Trabajo, n. 41, April 1920, 37; Edgardo Bilsky, La semána trágica, Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1984, 27–28; Policía Federal, Sección Orden Social, Memoria de investigaciones, 1918, Buenos Aires, 1919.
[1158] La Concordia, 3 August 1919, 2 October 1919, 17 July 1920, 21 February 1922.
[1159] Policía de la Capital, División de Investigaciones, sec.22, Copiador de notas n.195, 1918–1919, 475–478; La Organisación Obrera, 20 January 1919.
[1160] Cf. Manuel Carlés, Definición de la Liga Patriótica Argentina (Guia del buen sentido social), Buenos Aires: n.ed., 1920.
[1161] La Organisación Obrera, 15 February 1919, 1 March 1919 and 8 March 1919; La Vanguardia, 6 April 1920, 15 April 1920; La Organisación Obrera, 1 March 1919; Federación obrera maritima, “Los trabajadores del mar no se resignan”, flier dated 20 February 1919.
[1162] La Organisación Obrera, 22 February 1919 and 22 March 1919; Prefectura General de Puertos, Memoria del año 1919, Buenos Aires, 1919; 45–48. The ship-owners’ and contractors’ lobby affiliated with the ANT actively resisted the decree; cf. La Oficialización de los trabajos portuarios, Buenos Aires: Oficina de Publicaciones de la Asocación Nacional del Trabajo, 1921; Federación Obrera Marítima, Memoria 1918– 1919, Buenos Aires, 1920, 59–62. A long list of individual shipping and contracting concerns which had bowed to the decree by April 7 was published in La Vanguardia 7 April 1919. Arguments in opposition to the decree can be consulted in various issues of the ANT newspaper La Concordia throughout the winter of 1919.
[1163] La Unión del Marino, August 1919.
[1164] Tribuna Proletaria, 27 November 1919 and 28 November 1919; Policía Federal, Sección Orden Social, Memoria de investigaciones 1919, 49.
[1165] Prefectura General de Puertos, Copiador de Notas n. 19, 11/15/1919. Policía de la Capital, sección 24, Copiador n. 216, 03/03/1920 & 03/05/1920; 57–65 & 69–72.
[1166] La Vanguardia, 15 December 1920; Prefectura General de Puertos, Copiador de Notas n. 3, 01/12/1921.
[1167] On the 1921 strike see Cf. Jeremy Adelman, “State and Labor in Argentina: The Portworkers of Buenos Aires, 1910–1921”, Journal of Latin American Studies, 25, 1993: 73–102.
[1168] La Concordia, 5 May 1921.
[1169] La Vanguardia, 20 April 1921, 8 May 1921 and 3 June 1921; La Concordia, 24 May 1921 and 26 May 1921; La Prensa, 12 May 1921, 13 May 1921, and 14 May 1921; Asociación Nacional del Trabajo, Memoria y Balance 1920–1921, Buenos Aires, 1921, 57; Boletín de Servicios de la Asociación Nacional del Trabajo, 20 May 1921 and 5 June 1921; Sandra McGee Deutch, Counterrevolution in Argentina, 1900–1932: The Argentine Patriotic League, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986, 120–121.
[1170] La Organisación Obrera, 4 June 1921 and 18 June 1921; La Vanguardia, 31 May 1921 and 1 June 1921.
[1171] Boletín de servicios de la Asociación Nacional del Trabajo, 5 March 1922; Policía de la Capital, sección 24, Copiador de Notas n. 233, 02/24/1922.
[1172] La Antorcha, 1 February 1924, 6 May 1924, 25 September 1925, 9 September 1925 and 16 October 1925.
[1173] La Unión del Marino, June 1923and September 1923; Bandera Proletaria, 26 May 1923 and 9 June 1923.
[1174] La Epoca, 26 March 1922.
[1175] La Vanguardia, 24 November 1924.
[1176] La Internacional, 24 September 1925; Prefectura General Marítima, Memoria 1925, 69–71; La Vanguardia, 9 August 1925, 16 August 1925, 1 September 1925 and 3 September 1927.
[1177] La Vanguardia, 5 April 1927, 24 June 1927 and 2 September 1927; La Unión del Marino, August 1927.
[1178] Bandera Proletaria, 8 October 1927, 14 October 1927 and 26 November 1927; La Vanguardia, 1 December 1927; La Protesta, 24 October 1926 and 10 April 1927; La Prensa, January 1927–June 1927; Libertad, 9 January 1928; Prefectura General Marítima, Memoria 1927, 54.
[1179] La Protesta, 29 November 1927, 21 December 1927, 29 December 1927, 31 December 1927 and 21 January 1928; Prefectura General Maritima, Memoria 1927, 60.
[1180] Bandera Proletaria, 2 June 1928; Libertad, 6 June 1928; El Obrero Portuario, 1 June 1928.
[1181] Bandera Proletaria, 09/27/1928; La Internacional 26 March 1927, 20 October 1928, 27 October 1928 and 20 April 1929; El Marino Rojo, 15 October 1928 and 13 November 1928; La Voz del Marino, 21 October 1928; Boletín de Servicios de la Asociación del Trabajo, 20 October 1928.
[1182] Cf. Geoffroy de Laforcade, “Solidarity, Stigma, and Repertoires of Memory: The Foreigner and the Nation in La Boca del Riachuelo, Buenos Aires, mid-19th to mid20th Century”, Latin American Essays, MACLAS, vol. XIX, 2006.
[1183] Cf. Geoffroy de Laforcade, “A Laboratory of Argentine Labor Movements: Men’s Work, Trade Unions and Social Identities on the Buenos Aires Waterfront, 1900–1950”, Ph.D. dis., Yale University, 2001.
[1184] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, “Du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution” (1863), cited by Pierre Ansart, Marx et l’anarchisme, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1969, 266–267.
[1185] Ibid., 266.
[1186] Marco Pamplona, Revoltas, repúblicas e cidadania. Nova York e Rio de Janeiro na consolidação da ordem republicana, Rio de Janeiro: Record, 2003.
[1187] Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Raízes do Brazil, São Paulo: Companhia. das Letras, 1997, 1048.
[1188] Sheldon Leslie Maram, Anarquistas, imigrantes e o movimento operário brasileiro. 1890–1920, Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1979; Angelo Trento, Là dov’è la raccolta del caffè. L’emigrazione italiana in Brasile, 1875–1940. Padova, Antenore, 1984; Michael M. Hall and Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, A classe operária no Brazil, 1889–1930. Documentos, vol. 1: O movimento operário, São Paulo, 1979.
[1189] Benjamín Mota, a young republican lawyer from São Paulo, formed a revolutionary group on his return from a trip to Paris, and from 1897 adhered to anarchism. The following year, he wrote one of the first books by a Brazilian author on anarchist ideas, Rebeldias (“Rebelliousness”). He edited the newspaper O Rebate (“The Reply”) and the anticlerical journal A Lanterna (“The Lantern”), and collaborated on several other newspapers. As a lawyer, he defended many anarchists, syndicalists and socialists who were arrested and threatened with expulsion.
[1190] Edgard Leuenroth was born in São Paulo state in 1881, and grew up in São Paulo city. His father was from Trentino-Alto Adige, Italy, at that time a province of the Austrian-Hungary Empire; his mother was Brazilian. A typesetter, he was a member of the Circulo Socialista—which followed the principles of the Labor and Socialist International—until 1903 when he shifted to anarchism. A prominent writer and speaker, he helped found the print workers’ union in 1904, in which his brother, João, also played an important role. Edgard succeeded Mota as editor of A Lanterna, and was also centrally involved in editing Luta Operária (“Workers’ Struggle”), which was the organ of the Worker Federation of São Paulo (FOSP), A Folha do Povo (“Leaf of the People”, later a daily), A Guerra Social, Ecléctica, A Plebe (“The Plebians”, later a daily), and Ação Directa (“Direct Action”, a daily). In 1917, he was prosecuted as alleged mastermind of that year’s general strike. He died in 1968.
[1191] “Estatutos da Liga de Resistência dos Operários e Operárias das Fábricas de Tecidos de São Paulo”, Gazeta Operária (“Workers Gazette”), 30 November 1902. The Italian socialist newspaper Avanti! (“Forward!”) of São Paulo, a weekly in that period, published the official newsletter and notices of this textile union. Named after Avanti! In Italy, it was founded in 1900, and served as important reference point for São Paulo workers during the twelve years it was published (1900–1908; 1914–1917; 1919). It was written in Italian, with a few rare exceptions, like the manifesto of May 1907.
[1192] Cláudio Batalha, Movimento operário na Primeira República, Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2000, 14–21.
[1193] Alceste De Ambris, “Il movimento operaio nello Stato di São Paulo”, Il Brasile e gli italiani, Florence, 1906, 845. De Ambris, who lived in Brazil between 1898 and 1903, and again in the period 1908–1911, was one of the main labor leaders in the first trade-unions in São Paulo at the beginning of the 20th century; he remained in correspondence with the Paulista labor movement while he was in Italy.
[1194] There were trade unions for vehicle workers; metal and steel workers; textile workers; carpenters and workers in ebony; masons; decorators; plumbers and tinsmiths; shoemakers; bakers; workers in pasta mills; glassmakers; marble workers; printers; hatters; waiters; goldsmiths; garment workers; brick carriers; and two plantbased unions, one uniting the different trades at the Matarazzo mill (the biggest of this industrial sector in the city), and that one uniting the women workers of the great Paulista Laundry. See “Movimento Operaio”, “Movimento Sindacale”, “La conquista delle otto ore”, Avanti! from n. 1683, May 2, 1907 to n. 1706, May 29, 1907. Also see A Lucta Proletaria, the official journal of the FOSP, in 1907, and La Battaglia, of the same year. See also the Repatriation Trial against Giulio Sorelli, Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (ANRJ), MJNI, IJJ7 nr. 179.
[1195] Warren Dean, “A industrialização durante a República Velha”, in Boris Fausto (ed.), História geral da civilização brasileira, tomo III, vol. 1, Rio de Janeiro—São Paulo: Difel, 1978, 258; Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, “O proletariado industrial na Primeira República”, in Boris Fausto (ed.), História geral da civilização brasileira. tomo III, vol. 2, Rio de Janeiro—São Paulo: DIFEL, 1978, 141.
[1196] According to the daily newspaper A Noite, November 19, 1912, and Maram, 56.
[1197] Cláudio Batalha, Movimento operário, 31–33.
[1198] Cláudio Batalha, “Cultura associativa no Rio de Janeiro da Primeira República”, in Cláudio Batalha, Fernando Teixeira da Silva, Alexandre Fortes (eds.), Culturas de classe, Campinas: Editora da Unicamp, 2004, 95–119.
[1199] See Antonio Luigi Negro and Flávio Gomes, “Além de Senzalas e Fábricas uma história social do trabalho”, Tempo Social: Revista de Sociologia da USP, 18: 1, 2006, 217–240. See also Batalha, Movimento operário, 2000.
[1200] A case worth mentioning, as an example of this type of connection, is that of Carlos Marighella, born in Salvador, Bahía, in 1911, and a famous Brazilian communist leader between 1932 and 1969 (when he was killed in São Paulo in an ambush). The father of Marighella, Augusto, was a mechanical worker and anarchist from Ferrara in northern Italy, while his mother, Maria Rita de Nascimento, was the black daughter of slaves of haussá origins.
[1201] According to this law—which was inspired by the 1902 Ley de Residencia of Argentina—all foreigners involved in crimes like homicide, the organization of prostitution, and participation in strikes and mutinies, could be expelled. It was only applicable to the immigrants who had lived in Brazil for less than two years. In 1913, the limitation based on years of residence was removed, and the Gordo Law allowed an extension without limits: all immigrants were susceptible to expulsion. Between 1907 and 1921, 556 immigrants were expelled, according to the Anuário Estatístico do Brazil, Ano V, (1939–40), 1428.
[1202] Data from Trento, 23; Michael Hall, “The Origins of Mass Immigration in Brazil”, Ph.D. dis., Columbia University, 1971; Maria Thereza Schorer Petrone, “Imigração”, in Boris Fausto (ed.), História geral da civilização brasiliera., tomo III, vol. 2, Rio de Janeiro—São Paulo: DIFEL, 1978.
[1203] Oscar Monteiro, Almanak historico-litterario do Estado de São Paulo para o anno de 1896, São Paulo: Oscar Monteiro, n.d., 264–265.
[1204] Boris Fausto, Trabalho urbano e conflito social, Rio de Janeiro, Paz e Terra, 1977, 31.
[1205] Antônio Francisco Bandeira Júnior, A indústria no Estado de São Paulo em 1901, São Paulo, Tipographia do Diário Oficial, 1901.
[1206] Boletim do Departamento Estadual do Trabalho (“Bullettin of the State Department of Labor”), São Paulo, 1912.
[1207] Maram, 16.
[1208] Monteiro, 264–265.
[1209] See Maram.
[1210] The opposite occurred in the cross-class artistic and recreational associations of immigrants, since some had statutes that prohibited black membership.
[1211] Luigi Biondi, “La stampa anarchica italiana in Brasile: 1904–1915”, Honors dis., Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”, 1995.
[1212] Claudia Feierabend Baêta Leal, “Pensiero e Dinamite—Anarquismo e repressão em São Paulo nos anos 1890”, Ph.D. dis., IFCH, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, 2006.
[1213] Benjamim Mota, “Notas para a História—Violências Policiais contra o Proletariado—Ontem e Hoje”, A Plebe, May 31 1919, 3–4, in Pinheiro and Hall, 23–4.
[1214] About this newspaper see Edilene Toledo, “O Amigo do Povo: grupos de afinidade e a propanda anarquista em São Paulo no início do século XX”, MA dis., IFCH, Unicamp, 1992.
[1215] Carlo Romani, Oreste Ristori: uma aventura anarquista, São Paulo: Annablume, Fapesp, 2002; Edilene Toledo, Anarquismo e Sindicalismo Revolucionário. Trabalhadores e militantes em São Paulo na Primeira República, São Paulo: Editora Fundação Perseu Abramo, 2004.
[1216] Luigi Biondi, “La stampa anarchica italiana”.
[1217] Fascism presented itself as heir to the revolutionary syndicalist tradition when created its corporatist project. This issue is quite complex, especially if we consider the disconcerting movement of several revolutionary syndicalists to the fascists. It is clear, however, that the fascism exploited the ideas of syndicalism, transforming them in something very different from the original. See Edilene Toledo, Travessias Revolucionárias: idéias e militantes sindicalistas em São Paulo e na Itália (1890–1945), Campinas, SP: Editora da Unicamp, 2004.
[1218] Errico Malatesta, “Programa Anarquista”, 1903, online at http://www.ainfos. ca/03/aug/ainfos00406.html, accessed 10 October 2007.
[1219] This idea is present in most anarchist thinkers, including Bakunin and Malatesta, and was shared by their followers, explaining anarchism’s historical record of attracting many adherents in countries where peasants and craftsmen constituted the great majority of workers even in the industrial era, such as Italy, Spain and Russia.
[1220] Besides spreading the anarchist idea among workers, and denouncing exploitation in the plantations and the factories, they also spoke to the whole of society, since they wanted to ultimately transform all of humanity. From 1905–1906, for instance, the poet Ricardo Gonçalves was able to promote anarchism in the columns of the O Comércio de São Paulo, bringing previously unheard opinions and critiques of the daily struggle for survival to the readers of the conventional press: Antonio Arnoni Prado, “O Cenário para um Retrato: Ricardo Gonçalves”, in Antonio Arnoni Prado (ed.), Libertários no Brazil, São Paulo: Brasiliense, 1986.
[1221] Luigi Damiani, “Deviazioni e specializzazioni”, La Barricata, November 17, 1912, 2. Damiani was probably the most influential anarchist in São Paulo—and perhaps in all Brazil. He was born in Rome, and embraced anarchism when very young. When he went to Brazil in 1897 he had already known prison, and had associated with many other anarchist militants. He worked as a painter, ran several newspapers and collaborated with other militants, always defending the idea that the anarchists should use the unions as a space for libertarian propaganda. In 1919, he was expelled to Italy. See Luigi Biondi, “Na Construção de uma Biografia Anarquista: os Últimos Anos de Gigi Damiani no Brazil”, in Rafael Borges Deminicis and Daniel Aarão Reis Filho (eds.), Historia do Anarquismo no Brazil, vol. 1, Niterói/ Rio de Janeiro: EdUFF/ Mauad, 2006.
[1222] Sorelli was born in 1877 and arrived in São Paulo in 1892. His conversion to anarchism took effect about 1902–3 (after a brief association with Italian socialists in 1901), following an internal conflict in an Italian mutual aid society, the Fratellanza Italiana (“Italian brotherhood”) between monarchists and radical republicans, during which he was expelled as an “anarcho-terrorist”. Sorelli concluded that ethnic origin could never supersede political and class identities. Italian republican craftsmen could not be in the same labor societies as monarchists, but even republican mutual aid could never provide the organizational nucleus of the class struggle.
[1223] O Amigo do Povo, São Paulo, no. 8, 19 July, 1902.
[1224] Neno Vasco, Concepção anarquista do sindicalismo, Porto: Afrontamento, 1984.
[1225] Resoluções do Primerio Congresso Operário Brasileiro (“Resolutions of the First Brazilian Labor Congress”), in Pinheiro and Hall, 46–47.
[1226] Ibid.
[1227] Ibid., 49.
[1228] After the Republic was established, state power was nominally subject to electoral control. However, vote-rigging was the general practice, taking place in all phases of the electoral process. In addition, elections in the first four decades of the Republic were characterized by low levels of participation. Only the 1930 presidential election saw more than 5 percent of the population go to the polls. Registration and voting were not compulsory, and besides, women and the illiterate were excluded: even in 1930 these groups represented 60 percent of the population. See Jairo Nicolau, História do voto no Brazil, Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar Ed., 2002.
[1229] Il Libertario (“The Libertarian”), 1 December, 1906, 1–2.
[1230] M.V., “Brésil”, Bulletin de Internationale Anarchiste, vol. 1, n. 4, 1 May 1908, 3–4 in Pinheiro and Hall, 108.
[1231] Luigi Damiani, “Il movimento sindacalista nel Brazil” in I paesi nei quali non si deve emigrare. La questione sociale nel Brasile, Milano: Edizioni Umanità Nova, 1920, 31–36.
[1232] Repatriation Trial of Giulio Sorelli. Arquivo Nacional, Rio de Janeiro (ANRJ), Ministério da Justiça, IJJ7, nr. 179.
[1233] The strikes and repression were described thoroughly by the socialist newspaper Avanti! See, especially, Avanti! May 15, 1907, 1; May 16, 1907, 1; “Agli operai, ai compagni, agli amici” Avanti! May 27, 1907, 2.
[1234] “Federação Operária de São Paulo. Aos Trabalhadores”, Avanti! May 24, 1907.
[1235] Maram, 133.
[1236] On this strike see the different interpretations of Joel Wolfe, “Anarchist Ideology, Worker Practice: the 1917 General Strike and the Formation of São Paulo’s Working Class”, Hispanic American Historical Review, 71: 4, 1991, 809–846; Christina Roquette Lopreato, “O Espírito da Revolta. A Greve Geral Anarquista de 1917”, Ph.D. dis., IFCH, Unicamp, Campinas, 1996 (republished in 1997 as A semana trágica: a greve geral de 1917, São Paulo: Museu da Imigração); Luigi Biondi, “Entre associações étnicas e de classe. Os processos de organisação política e sindical dos trabalhadores italianos na cidade de São Paulo (1890–1920)”, Ph.D. dis., IFCH, Unicamp, 2002.
[1237] Usually known by its Italian name Centro Socialista Internazionale, for most members were Italian immigrants. See Luigi Biondi, “A greve geral de 1917: considerações sobre o seu desenvolvimento”, in Biondi, “Entre associações étnicas e de classe”, 279–294.
[1238] According to an investigation by the Italian newspaper Fanfulla of São Paulo, July 1917.
[1239] Pinheiro and Hall, 238.
[1240] Decreto nr. 4269, January 17, 1921, Collecção das Leis da Republica dos Estados Unidos do Brazil de 1921 (vol. I—Atos do Poder Legislativo). Rio de Janeiro: Imprensa Nacional, 1922 apud Cláudia F. Baeta Leal. Propaganda e Combate: a imprensa anarquista na Primeira República. Mimeo.
[1241] Report of Antonio Ghioffi to Dr. Ignacio Costa Ferreira (chief constable of political police of São Paulo state), São Paulo, 10th of June 1931. Federação Operária de São Paulo (FOSP), Prontuário n. 716, vol. 2, Arquivo do Estado de São Paulo, Delegacia de Ordem Política e Social (AESP, DEOPS).
[1242] Romani, 267.
[1243] Prado, 16.
[1244] See, inter alia, Barbara Epstein, “Anarchism and the Anti-Globalization Movement,” Monthly Review, 53: 4, 2001, 1–14; David Graeber, “The New Anarchists,” New Left Review (second series), 13, 2002, 61–73; Uri Gordon, “Anarchism Reloaded,” Journal of Political Ideologies, 12:1, 2007, 29–48; Gerald Meyer, “Anarchism, Marxism and the Collapse of the Soviet Union,” Science and Society, 67: 2, 2003, 218–221; Laibman, David. “Anarchism, Marxism, and the Cunning of Capitalism”, Science and Society, 66: 4, 2001–2002, 421–27; Lucien van der Walt and Michael Schmidt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism, San Francisco, Edinburgh: AK Press, 2009, 5–30.
[1245] Frances Fukuyama, “The End of History?,” The National Interest Summer 1989, pp. 3, 4, 12.
[1246] Michael Hargis, “IWW Chronology (1996–1997)”, online at http://www.iww.org/ culture/chronology/chronology11.shtml, accessed 15 November 2008.
[1247] In terms of the 2004 union election process in the public and private sector, the CGT was Spain’s third largest union federation: Alternative Libertaire, “Spain: CGT Is Now the Third Biggest Union,” Alternative Libertaire, November 2004.
[1248] “i07: Consolidate international solidarity,” http://www.cnt-f.org/spip.php?article 345, accessed 15 November 2008; “Conférences Internationales Syndicales—I07,” http://www.anarkismo.net/article/5434, accessed 15 November 2008.
[1249] The literature on the Zapatista movement is voluminous. For a discussion of its anarchist inspired features, See, Staughton Lynd and Andrej Grubacic, Wobblies and Zapatistas: conversations on Anarchism, Marxism, and Radical History, Oakland: PM Press, 2008, 3–15.
[1250] For a list of studies that characterize recent indigenous and working-class movements’’ struggles for local self-government, communal lands, and the abrogation of neoliberal economic policies, see, Forrest Hylton and Sinclair Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics, New York: Verso Press, 2007, 25, fn. 9.
[1251] Karen Goaman, “The Anarchist Traveling Circus: Reflections on Contemporary Anarchism, Anti-Capitalism and the International Scene” in Jonathan Purkis and James Bowen (eds.), Changing anarchism: Anarchist Theory and Practice in a Global Age, Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2004, 173–174. On the trope of a “New Anarchism” versus the classical anarchist and syndicalist movement, besides Graeber, 61–73, see Ruth Kinna, Anarchism: A Beginner’s Guide, Oxford, UK: Oneworldpublications, 2005.
[1252] For Purkis and Bowen the cumulative effect of these critiques amounts to a “paradigm shift” in the anarchist model. See Purkis and Bowen, 5 and 7.
[1253] Purkis and Bowen, 15.
[1254] Epstein, 1, 11.
[1255] Ibid., 1.
[1256] Goaman, 169, 171, 179.
[1257] Graeber, 65–66; See also Goaman, 173.
[1258] Besides the chapters in thus study, which demonstrate this trend, see particularly Davide Turcato, “Italian Anarchism as a Transnational Movement 1885–1915”, International Review of Social History, 52:3, 2007, 407–444.
[1259] Mikhail Bakunin, “Integral Education”, in Robert Graham (ed.), Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, vol. one, Montréal, Canada: Black Rose Books, (1869) 2005, 220–223; Piotr Kropotkin, “Fields, Factories and Workshops”, in Graham (ed.), [1898] 2005, 117–119.
[1260] Bakunin, 223–24.
[1261] Rafał Chwedoruk, “Polish Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism in the 20th Century”, Paper presented at the 1st Anarchist Studies Network (ASN, Political Studies Association UK) conference, 4–6 September 2008, Loughborough University, 5–12.
[1262] George Woodcock, Anarchism: a history of libertarian ideas and movements, new edition with postscript: Penguin, 1975, 443,456– 463.
[1263] James Joll, The Anarchists, London: Methuen and Co., 1964, 275–280; James Joll, “Anarchism: a living tradition”, in David Apter and James Joll (eds.), Anarchism Today, London and Basingtoke: Macmillan, 1971.
[1264] Chwedoruk, 12–14.
[1265] Robert J. Alexander and Eldon M. Parker, History of Organized Labor in Bolivia, Westford: Greenwood Press, 2005, 5–75; Ana Cecilia Wadsworth and Ineke Dibbits, Agitadores de Buen Gusto: Historia del Sindicato de Culinarias (1935–1958), La Paz: tahipamu-hisbol, 1989.
[1266] Interview with H.L. Wei in Paul Avrich, Anarchist Portraits, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1988, 214 et seq.
[1267] Philip Ruff, “Introduction”, in Philip Ruff (ed.), Anarchy in the USSR: a New Beginning, London: ASP, 1991, 8–10.
[1268] Michael Schmidt with Jack Grancharoff, The Anarchist-Communist Mass Line: Bulgarian Anarchism Armed, Johannesburg: Zabalaza Books, 2008, 7–10.
[1269] See, for example, Sam Dolgoff, The Cuban Revolution: a Critical Perspective, Montréal: Black Rose, 1976, 51–61. Geoffroy de Laforcade, “A Laboratory of Argentine Labor Movements: Dockworkers, Mariners, and the Contours of Class Identity in the Port of Buenos Aires, 1900–1950.” Yale University, 2001, 12–17, 311–354; Augustin Souchy, Beware! Anarchist! A Life for Freedom: the autobiography of Augustin Souchy, translated by T. Waldinger, Chicago: Charles H. Kerr, 1992, pp. 142–150, 154.
[1270] Donald C. Hodges, Mexican Anarchism after the Revolution, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.
[1271] John Crump, “Anarchism and Nationalism in East Asia”, Anarchist Studies, 4: 1, (1996), 55–57.
[1272] Woodcock, 456, 460–462.
[1273] Lester Golden, “The Libertarian Movement in Contemporary Spanish Politics”, Antipode: a radical journal of geography, 10:3 / 11: 1, (1979), 116 footnote 3; María Eugenia Jung and Universindo Rodríguez Díaz, Juan Carlos Mechoso: anarquista, Montevideo: Ediciones Trilce, 2006, 7, 30, 50, 64–67, 75–79, 89, 99, 110–115, 132.
[1274] Julius Ruiz, “A Spanish Genocide? Reflections on the Francoist Repression after the Spanish Civil War”, Contemporary European History, 14: 2 (2005), 171–172.
[1275] Ralph Darlington. Syndicalism and the Transition to Communism: an International Comparative Analysis, Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008, 166–167.
[1276] Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, “The Rise and Fall of Revolutionary Syndicalism”, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds.), Revolutionary Syndicalism: an International Perspective, Otterup/ Aldershot: Scolar / Gower Publishing Company, 1990, 17–19.
[1277] This section draws upon Philip Bonner, Jonathan Hyslop and Lucien van der Walt (with the assistance of Andries Bezuidenhout and Nicole Ulrich), “Workers’ Movements”, in Akira Iriye and Pierre-Yves Saunier (eds.), The Palgrave Dictionary of Transnational History, London, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, 1121–28.
[1278] On fascism and populism see, Ernesto Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism-Fascism-Populism, Manchester: Verso Editions, 1982. On communism, see, for example, Michael Forman, Nationalism and the International Labor Movement: the idea of the nation in socialist and anarchist theory, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998, 115–166.
[1279] Arif Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991, esp. 23–24, 252–256.
[1280] This is point is implicit in the study by Daniel James, Resistance and Integration: Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946–1976, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, esp. 28–40. On APRA, see, Luis Tejada, “La influencia anarquista en el APRA,” Socialismo y Participación, no.29, 1985, 97–109.
[1281] Darlington, 147–151.
[1282] Dirlik, 11–13.
[1283] Darlington, 167–177.
[1284] Nestor Makhno, Piotr Archinov, Ida Mett, Valevsky, Linsky, The Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists, Dublin: Workers Solidarity Movement, [1926] 2001, 4.
[1285] Errico Malatesta, quoted in Max Nettlau, A Short History of Anarchism, London: Freedom Press, (1934) 1996, 130.
[1286] José Peirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, London: Freedom Press, [1964] 1990, 13–14.
[1287] The Friends of Durruti, Towards a Fresh Revolution, Durban: Zabalaza Books, [1938, 1978] no date given, 12, 24.
[1288] Bakunin, “The Program of the International Brotherhood”, in Sam Dolgoff (ed.), Bakunin on Anarchy: Selected Works by the Activist-Founder of World Anarchism, London: George Allen and Unwin, [1872] 1971, 152–154.
[1289] The Friends of Durruti, 25. For more on the debates on these issues, see van der Walt and Schmidt, 190–209.
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