The influence of Italian immigration on the Argentine anarchist movement - Osvaldo Bayer Osvaldo Bayer's essay examining Italian influence on the Argentine anarchist movement, specifically emphasizing the roles of Malatesta and Gori Scholars of the Argentine working class movement have always been preoccupied by two main questions: why was anarchism so successful in Argentina and, by comparison, why did it decline after three decades, rapidly disappear after 1930 and get almost completely absorbed by peronism after 1943? In other words, how do we explain the change from a decentralized antiauthoritarian movement to a centralized authoritarian movement? This isn’t the place to debate these questions but I mention them because it was precisely the influence of Italian immigration in Argentina that played a direct role as much during the peak as in the decline of the working class anarchist movement in Argentina. (1) Undoubtedly, two figures of Italian anarchism: Errico Malatesta and Pietro Gori, had a definitive influence in the formation and consolidation of organized Argentine anarchism. Without the long stays of Malatesta (1885-1889) and Pietro Gori (1898-1902) in Argentina it’s quite possible that the movement would not have grown so quickly nor would it have coalesced as it did; instead, more likely it would have fallen into the divisive and destructive arguments typical of libertarian socialist movements worldwide. With Malatesta’s arrival, Argentina acquired a great propagandist and a talented organizer. His important work was marked by three essential characteristics: internationalism (for example, upon his arrival to Buenos Aires his contact with Spanish and Argentine anarchists was immediate); a predisposition to see in the workers and their organizations the best means for preaching his ideology, and his combative organizing capacity. These three characteristics in particular outlined the future course of Argentine anarchism, which would thus remain rooted in the working class movement. (2) It is with good reason that Diego Abad de Santillán (3) says that Malatesta’s arrival contributed greatly to the delayed formation and development of socialism in Argentina. (4) In this respect, the founding of the baker’s union was fundamental. Malatesta, upon drawing up the charter for that organization, established the norm for all other aggressive working class organizations. Similarly, and as always in reference to the organized wing of the movement, the presence of the Italian lawyer Pietro Gori in Buenos Aires would also be fundamental in the founding of the Federación Obrera Argentina (FOA), the first national labor union, whose inaugural congress took place in Ligure Hall, 676 Suárez Street in the predominantly Genovese neighborhood of La Boca. Of the 47 delegates there, more than half (26) had Italian last names: Colombo, Magrassi, Ponti, Montale, Moglia, Larrossi, Cúneo, Garfagnini, Ferraroti, Cavallieri, Barsanti, Berri, Di Tulio, Rizzo, Negri, Oldani, Mosca, Bernasconi, Lozza, Barbarossa, Grivioti, Patroni, Basalo, Mattei, Bribbio and Pietro Gori. (5) It should be emphasized that the importance of Malatesta and Gori lies specifically in the fact that they belonged to the organizationalist tendency of anarchism and not the individualist tendency. (6) If this last tendency had had the help of personalities like that of these two travelers, it’s possible that libertarian socialism would not have played such a role in the roots of the working class movement. However, it was not mere theory to which anarchism’s success in Argentina was owed, but action: in fact the first event to catapult anarchist ideology to the fore of the workers’ movement was the success of the first bakers’ strike in January 1888. The founders of the bakers’ union were Ettore Mattei and Francesco Momo (7), two Italians from Livorno (Novara), and the man that drew up the charter and program for the organization was Errico Malatesta. His and Mattei’s roles in the union were fundamental; they fought so that the union would be an authentic society of resistance, an organization that moreover could be labeled as “cosmopolitan”, instead of yet another mere mutualist society One year after its foundation this trade union held its first strike, which drew attention for its combativeness in spite of severe police repression. Its success would serve as an example for other movements of the same character, like that of the shoemakers, for example (also guided by Malatesta), and would continue defining the lines of conduct for all reliable anarchists in the orientation of the working class movement of that epoch. Of course the pugnacious spirit of the strikes and the impact that the unions had were due to the social and economic circumstances of Argentina during a period of growth. If the worker in Argentina at the end of the century received a wage 32% lower than that of the American worker, 12% lower than that of the French worker, 9% than that of the English worker and 3% than that of the German worker, it was greater in every way than that of the worker in Spain or Italy. This fact, which in some ways might have satisfied the immigrants from these two countries, coexisted with other negative spiritual and social aspects of immigrant existence, such as the insecurity of a new country, the almost total lack of labor laws, the great economic crises in the short term and the disappointed hopes of the masses that had made the sacrifice of leaving their homes and families only to find their expectations largely unfulfilled. In the period lasting from the final decade of the nineteenth century to the first few years of the twentieth, a period in which the organizational forms of the Argentine workers’ movement were definitively accepted, the abovementioned emotional aspect of the working immigrant masses in a country that experienced a tremendously rapid transformation should be kept in mind. It is here that we will find the first answers to why anarchism’s diffusion in Argentina was much greater than that of socialism. Socialism proposed to the immigrant masses that they obtain their Argentine citizenship in order to be able to vote and elect their representatives; instead, anarchism preached direct action, the smashing of the State (a State reserved for elected officials, based on fraud and parochial dictators), and the defense of their interests in direct struggle with the boss armed with the three classic weapons of the working class: the strike, sabotage and the boycott. The Socialist Party offered the working class a scientific and deterministic interpretation of society; anarchism did not accept dialogue with the State but it did with the boss that exploited them. Because the State had not yet developed sufficiently to the point where it could take part in labor relations, the anarchist solution seemed like the ideal one for the uncertain masses hurrying to obtain the fruits of their labor. These workers without the ability to vote couldn’t hope to achieve anything by the long road through the institutions and parliament (proposed by the socialists) in a country governed by the oligarchy. Even though the socialists in 1904 would obtain the first seat in Congress by a socialist in the Americas (who represented the abovementioned Genovese neighborhood of La Boca), the workers were quickly disappointed: what could this lone representative do against an entire apparatus that existed to serve the interests of the upper class? Another aspect of Argentine anarchism during those years was its popular content: the proletariat (and of this, its lowest stratums) understood its direct language. Various socialist authors that lived during this era have detailed, almost with disgust, the appearance of the anarchist masses that attended the May Day demonstrations or labor assemblies. This phenomenon will be reproduced later with peronism: the socialists will again employ the same words of arrogant condemnation to judge the behavior of the new Argentine proletariat that arose in 1946. (8) It is with good reason that the origin of socialism in Argentina is due mostly to the German Social Democrats exiled because of Bismarck’s anti-socialist law. They were the first to teach Marxist theory, to organize on a local basis and to edit their own paper, Vorwarts (Forward!). In this respect there is a notable difference between them and the anarchists: while the Italian anarchist newspapers (9), even though there were few, already contained pages in Spanish, and for its part, La Protesta Humana, the organ of the local organizationalist anarchists, had a page in Italian, demonstrating clearly the spirit of integration and understanding between the different peoples of that Babel on the Río de la Plata that was then Buenos Aires; the German Social Democrats continued for many years to publish their paper exclusively in German. This isn’t to say that the Germans didn’t seek discussion and exchange of ideas; they did that very patiently, but they never stopped being more than academic conferences, a little bit too erudite for the working classes that were hectically pushing forward their demands in the here and now, for a more just world. (It is worth noting that one could read in Vorwarts repeated complaints about the lack of discipline of the “Romanic peoples,” words that designated as a common denominator the Italians, Portuguese, and the Argentine descendents of southern Europeans.) They attributed to them a mentality incapable of understanding organized social change. The desperate German Social Democrats fell more than once into unintentional racism during repeated incidents with the Italian, Spanish, and Argentine anarchists. However, it wasn’t just the German Social Democrats, but also the first Argentine socialists, like Juan B. Justo, who looked with nostalgia upon the development models of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, that had mostly Anglo-Saxon and not Romanic immigration. In contrast, anarchism seemed to be, for its spontaneity and negation of authority, more in line with the idiosyncrasies of the so-called “Romanic peoples”.