The strike upsets the government of Santa Cruz. The police are on the move. Groups of workers are broken up, even when doing nothing more than walking down the street, with the nightstick encouraging the reluctant. All suspicious-looking Chileans are run out of town. Upon receiving news of a group of Chileans gathered at the Hotel Castilla,3 they carry out a raid, pulling no punches, and identify all those present. Taverns are raided if they offer haven to Chileans coming in from the countryside or allow them to hold meetings. Their owners are often subpoenaed or “delayed” at the police station. This produces solidarity between workers and small business owners, uniting them in open conflict with large companies such as La Anónima.
Correa Falcón has arrested twenty-seven people. But he knows that he can’t get greedy and so he tactically decides to set some of them free—but holds on to those whom Viñas ordered him to release.
This is celebrated by the Workers’ Society as a partial triumph. They issue a manifesto that, despite the best efforts of the police, is passed from hand to hand among the peons and the poor:
To the workers
Comrades: We are approaching victory with giant steps. Fifteen of our imprisoned comrades have already been set free. There are still twelve left in jail. Our interim governor, the secretary of the Rural Society, has rebelled against the law and refused to obey the binding orders of the federal government to release eight of them. But his time will come and justice will triumph over caprice. The strike continues, as does the boycott, and neither will be lifted until all of our comrades are free. They are trying to turn our righteous stand into a question of nationality. Reject this nonsense, comrades—workers don’t see an enemy in a man who doesn’t share his nationality, but instead a fellow victim of capital, which corrupts and dominates everything. Men are all equals, no matter where they were born, and we therefore cannot let differences of nationality come between us. Forward, then, until we achieve our hard-won victory. If we remain united, we will defeat all the difficulties created by our enemies.
—The Strike Committee
But Correa Falcón continues with his tactical blows. The next will target the El Antártico printing press, where the workers print their flyers. The police will claim that they were provoked—that they were fired upon from the direction of the printing press—and then they will break into the shop, arrest those present, and destroy all the propaganda they find.
A group of Spanish nationals send a complaint to the Interior Ministry stating that “the police are beating people in the street.” This claim is backed by the Puerto Deseado newspaper El Orden, which reports that “the police commit outrages and abuses against the workers, provoking unrest in the population at large.”
After a great deal of back and forth, the federal government sides with Judge Viñas and orders Correa Falcón to release all the detained union members. They all go free on October 29th—except for two.
The Workers’ Society celebrates this development but orders the general strike to continue:
Our comrades Muñoz and Traba remain imprisoned. Both of them have been beaten and deliberately wounded by the police. Their tormentors have kept them locked up in foul dungeons to hide this brutal and unspeakable abuse. Well then—as long as these comrades remain imprisoned, the strike will continue and we will not lose heart. Comrades, we therefore beg you to help us bring work to a standstill by circulating these resolutions on the ranches. Victory will be ours because we have reason on our side: a force that triumphs over all obstacles. Our enemies will fall from the weight of their own crimes, just as rotten fruit falls from the tree that nurtured it.
The campaign is a complete success: all of the detainees are released by November 1st.
The finale of this turbulent prelude to the Spartakiad launched by the Workers’ Society is an attempt on the life of the organization’s secretary-general, Antonio Soto. It occurs on November 3rd, 1920. Soto is walking in the direction of Antwerp House to speak with a workers’ delegate when a suspicious figure lunges from a doorway and rapidly stabs him in the chest. The knife pierces his clothing but strikes the pocket watch that Soto carries in his left coat pocket. Soto collapses from the blow and pretends to reach for a gun. His attacker flees at full speed. Soto has received some cuts to the chest, but he is alive.
Those who sent the assassin thought well. By eliminating Soto, they would have decapitated the Santa Cruz labor movement.
The Workers’ Society has won a battle by securing the release of its prisoners, but now it’s time to make demands. Its workers have shown discipline, a spirit of sacrifice and clear class consciousness. This can be taken advantage of, as could the fact that many farmworkers came into town during the strike.
The labor organization prepares two campaigns: better pay for retail workers and a full list of demands for farmworkers. Here Antonio Soto proves himself to be a very gifted organizer. He sends emissaries to the countryside, holds meetings around the clock, rallies the new recruits, and instructs activists on the ABCs of unionism. When their demands are rejected, a strike breaks out across the territory.
In November 1920, Governor Correa Falcón sees control slip from his fingers. The rural strike extends across Santa Cruz. Work has completely stopped in Río Gallegos and the ports are paralyzed. There’s a growing sense of unease among the landowners. The work stoppage threatens the sheep breeding season, but a solution remains elusive. The tougher Correa Falcón gets, the more rebellious the workers become. La Unión reports that, “In the early days of the strike, there were over two hundred strange men wandering the streets confusedly, staring at people without understanding what was going on.” These men are none other than the farmworkers who have answered the call of the Workers’ Society.
The bosses, their children, and high-ranking employees decide to form a volunteer militia whose first action is to offer their services to the local jail “for the sake of order and as a guardian of morality,” as the aforementioned newspaper will put it.
But neither the Patriotic League nor the Rural Society nor the Commerce and Industry League nor the volunteer militia will be able to bring the strike to an end. They find themselves forced to seek out the union leaders and open negotiations.
On November 6th, three leading ranchers—Ibón Noya, Miguel Grigera, and Rodolgo Suárez—announce that they have been unable to reach an agreement with the strike committee. They then issue the following manifesto:
To the people of Río Gallegos and the farmworkers:
We the undersigned, owners of haciendas to the south of the Río Santa Cruz, have resolved, in spite of the difficult times we are experiencing as a result of the crisis in the international beef and wool markets, to:
1. Negotiate directly with our workers on our own ranches.
2. Pay our workers a minimum salary of 100 pesos per month, to be paid in Argentine currency, plus meals.
3. Negotiate salaries in excess of this amount with individual workers in accordance with their duties.
4. Work to gradually improve the food and hygienic conditions in the workers’ quarters.
The first point is entirely out of question for the workers. The bosses have decided not to recognize their labor organizations. The situation becomes tenser still. Soto is unfamiliar with the countryside and so he puts his trust in questionable individuals with unquestionable energy. During this first strike, the two de facto leaders of the rural movement had little union experience. The first, El 68, is a former inmate at Ushuaia, where 68 was his inmate number. It became his nickname after his release. The other, El Toscano, is an irrepressible daredevil who has also had his share of run-ins with the law. They are both Italians. El 68, whose real name is José Aicardi, is an accomplished rider, as is El Toscano, the alias of Alfredo Fonte, a thirty-three-year-old cart driver who came to Argentina when he was only three. They both come across more as genuine gauchos than as Italian immigrants.
They are aided by two Argentines: Bartolo Díaz (known as El Paisano Díaz) and Florentino Cuello (nicknamed Gaucho Cuello). They’re both brawlers, always on hand when there are blows