Cycles of Class Struggle and the Making of the Working Class in Argentina, 1890-1920

Author(s): Ronaldo Munck

Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1 (May, 1987), pp. 19-39
Published by: Cambridge University Press
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J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 19, 19-39 Printed in Great Britain I9

Cycles of class struggle and the making of

the working class in Argentina, 1890-I920
by RONALDO MUNCK

There is currently a renewed interest in the relationship between economic

fluctations and strike movements which refers back to an article by Eric
Hobsbawm' and an even earlier polemical piece by Leon Trotsky.2 This
article offers a contribution to the growing literature, focusing, unlike
most other studies, on a Third World country. It also reflects the increasing
influence of social history in Latin American research on the making of
the working class.
The historical account which follows is framed by a number of
hypotheses derived from the above-mentioned literature:
(i) 'The making of the working class is a fact of political and cultural,
as much as economic, history' (E. P. Thompson).3
(2) 'Long-term depression factors ... helped to accumulate inflammable
material rather than to set it alight' (E. Hobsbawm).4
(3) 'The impetus to the strike wave was the upturn in the economic
conjuncture with a simultaneous rise in the cost of living' (L.
Trotsky).5
(4) 'Workers' militancy depends on two conflicting factors: achieve-
ments and frustration' (E. Screpanti).6

Eric Hobsbawm, 'Economic Fluctuations and some Social Movement', LabouringMen

(London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984).
2 Leon
Trotsky, 'The "Third Period" of the Comintern's Errors', Writings of Leon
Trotsky (New York, Pathfinder Press, I930).
3 E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, Penguin, I970),
p. 213.
4 Eric
Hobsbawm, op. cit., p. I41.
5 Leon
Trotsky, op. cit., p. 45.
6 Ernesto
Screpanti, 'Long Economic Cycles and Recurring Proletarian Insurgencies',
Review, vol. VII, no. 2 (winter, I984), pp. 509-48.

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20 Ronaldo Munck

(5) 'With each upturn of a long wave come not only new machines and
rising prices, but the recreation of the working class and much of
the social environment' (J. Cronin).7
These, in brief, are the main ideas which the following account is designed
to illuminate through a case study of Argentina between I890 and i920.

I. Theformativeperiod
From the 850osonwards capital strengthened its economic and political
domination over the territory of Argentina, which had gained its inde-
pendence from Spain in 181 0. A long period of civil wars concluded with
the battle of Caseros in 852 and the adoption of a national constitution
the following year. This political-military process coincided with the
gradual incorporation of the fertile pampa region into the international
circuit of capital accumulation. Argentina was primarily an agricultural
country: the I853 municipal census for Buenos Aires indicated the
presence of 700 workshops and Ioo 'factories' employing some 2,000
workers. During the i88os there was a significant increase in the level of
industrialisation: Buenos Aires could now boast a dozen meat-packing
plants employing nearly 8,000 people and 7 flour mills with 500 workers.
Yet there were on average only ten workers per industrial establishment,
which testifies to the semi-artisanal level of production at this period. A
further characteristic of early industry was the predominant role of
immigrant enterprise and labour: the i887 census found that 92% of
industrial workshops and factories were owned by foreigners, and that
84 % of the workers were immigrants. Between I 887 and I895 the number
of industrial establishments rose from 6, 28 to 8,439 and the number of
wage earners doubled. The I88os had brought to power an organised
section of the ruling classes which was to launch a coherent capitalist
growth project and lead to Argentina's 'golden era' between i890 and
1930.
If capital produces the labour-power it requires, then the working class
is not simply a passive element in the machine of capital accumulation.
In 857, the Buenos Aires printworkers formed the first recorded mutual
aid society, the SociedadTipograficaBonaerense.By I876 the printworkers
had formed the first genuine trade union, followed by the bakers,
carpenters and other trades. In 1887 the railworkers' union La Fraternidad
became the first national organisation. Strike statistics for this period are

7 James Cronin, 'Stages, Cycles and Insurgencies:The Economics of Unrest', in T. K.

Hopkins and I. Wallerstein(eds.), The PoliticalEconomyof the WorldSystem,vol. III
(California, Sage, I980), p. I2.

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 Class Struggle in Argentina, I890-I920 2

unreliable but Julio Godio has estimated that some 48 strikes took place
during the i88os, of which an equal number were won and lost by the
workers.8 Most of these strikes occurred in the capital city, Buenos Aires,
and they were mainly concerned with wage demands. The i88os saw the
beginning of a fundamental shift from artisan labour to manufacturing.
Unlike the worker-artisans in the metal or textile workshops, the workers
in the meat-packing plants were mainly native born. The working class
of Argentina was thus taking shape in the melting pot of the class struggle,
a permanent feature from I890. On the one hand, were the descendants
of the gauchosand the internal migration following the collapse of the
provincial rebellions in the i88os; on the other, the overseas migrants,
many of whom, such as those who fled the collapse of the Paris Commune
of 1871, brought with them the political traditions of socialism and
anarchism. At first the overseas immigrants saw real prospects of upward
social mobility, but these hopes were to be dashed in the I89os.

II. Economicdepressionand labourquiescence,1893-1902

The year i890 was an important turning point in the economic and
political history of Argentina. For Di Tella and Zymelman 'the crisis of
I 890 is one of the most important in Argentine economic history, by virtue
of its magnitude and because of the political, social and economic
repercussions which accompanied it'.9 The Baring crisis in London and
the subsequent financial and trade dislocations proved a real boost to
industrialisatic in Argentina.
After the 1890 crash there was a generally recessive phase, punctuated
only by the upturn of I896. During this cycle, the level of investment
dropped significantly and immigration fell off, being overtaken even by
emigration for a while (see Graph 3). There was a labour surplus and the
economy showed little capacity for absorbing further labour. From this
date on the labour movement in Argentina was to express its opposition
to 'artificially fomented' emigration from Europe, which it saw as an
uncontrollable factor liable to increase the size of the reserve army of labour
and thus depress wages and make strikes more difficult to maintain. The
high immigration rates in I 896, for example, can be seen as a contributing
factor to the large proportion of working-class defeats in strike movements
that year. Indeed, such is the importance of immigration during these years
8
Julio Godio, Historiadel movimiento
obrerolatinoamericano:
r. Anarquistas
y Socialistas
I80o-IIr8 (Mexico; Editorial Nueva Imagen, i980), p. I65.
9 Guido Di Tella and Manuel
Zymelman,Los cicloseconomicos (Buenos Aires,
argentinos
Paid6s, I973), p. 32.

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22 RonaldoMunck

that it must be considered as a substantial variable in our analysis of

economic cycles and labour insurgency.
Between i887 and I895 the number of industrial establishments rose
from 6,128 to 8,439 and the number of wage-earners doubled. As
mechanisation progressed, so too did the concentration of workers in
bigger plants. This changing rhythm of capital accumulation led to an
important shift in the configuration of the working class. Trades such as
the carpenters', bakers' and bricklayers', remained the main pole of
attraction for the incipient labour movement, though they were no longer
the leading sector in economic terms. The highly concentrated groups of
workers servicing the agro-export economy, such as the railway-workers
and the dockers, were now playing a strategic role in the trade union
world, leading the first nationwide strikes. It was in 1896 that the rail
workers led the first industry-wide strike which went beyond local limits.
A third, as yet minor, sector was represented by the workers in the large
meat-packing plants (frigorificos),who were subject to the real as opposed
to the formal subordination of labour.
It was during the course of this cycle that the labour movement went
beyond the early appeals to 'justice' and articulated the first working-class
programmes. Class solidarity, as exemplified in the first sympathy strikes,
was a clear sign that the language of class was beginning to gain ground
in the labour movement. In I897, for the first time there was also a
significant movement built around the question of unemployment. As Jose
Ratzer notes,' the proletarian protests are no longer relatively spontaneous
and isolated outbreaks. The resistance movement was raised to a higher
plane, it was generalized ... New unions were formed and others were
transformed ... The class as a whole was beginning to act'. ? In I 890 May
Day had already been celebrated in Argentina in an internationalist rally
addressed in several languages, in keeping with the diverse national origins
of the proletariat. In 1892, the first socialist organisation in Latin America
was formed when a group of German immigrants formed the Vorwirts
club. One of its leaders, German Ave Lallemant, had launched the
influential journal El Obrero(The Worker) in I890, which carried out a
pioneering analysis of the problems facing Argentina's fledgling labour
movement. The dominant tendency in the labour movement was, how-
ever, represented by the anarchists of various persuasions. The Italian
anarchist Errico Malatesta visited Argentina between I885 and 1889 and
encouraged anarchist involvement in the trade unions. After his departure
the individualists or 'anti-organisers' gained the upper hand, and this in
10 Jose Ratzer,Los marxistasargentinos
del90 (C6rdoba,Pasadoy Presente, 1969), p. 62.

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 Class Strugglein Argentina, 1890-1920 23

part accounts for the decline of labour agitation until 895. After that year,
the anarchists, and in particular the newspaper La Protesta Humana
(Human Protest) launched in 1897, turned their attention again towards
the unions and came to the forefront of labour organisation. Capital had
created a labour force and the anarchists and socialists were creating a
labour movement.
The labour movement was not born overnight, however. Indeed, the
industrialisation of the I 88os did not bear fruit in terms of a response from
labour until the i89os. This is because, as Hobsbawm writes, 'the habits
of industrial solidarity must be learned, like that of working a regular
week. So must the common sense of demanding concessions when
conditions are favourable, not when hunger suggests. There is a natural
time-lag, before new workers become an "effective" labour movement'."1
This learning period advanced considerably in the first cycle under
consideration here: I896-I 902. The factories and the workshops were not
the only arena of struggle during this period. In fact, as one popular labour
history argues, it was the overcrowded tenement buildings known as
conventilloswhich were 'the bitter site of a new cultural synthesis' between
the gringo and criollo workers.l2 These overcrowded, insanitary and
expensive living quarters brought the immigrant's aspirations into sharp
conflict with reality. Arguably it was not the capitalist factory which
unified the diverse proletarian strata-immigrants, craftworkers, established
local workers, internal rural migrants and others into a class, but the
conventillo.A number of rent strikes solidified the strong community
element in Argentina's working-class consciousness, and allowed the large
number of home-workers (mainly women textile outworkers) to engage
in struggle with the factory-based proletariat.
In terms of our correlation of economic indicators with the labour
struggles during this cycle several conclusions can be drawn. From the
data in the appendix we can observe that, although economic conditions
for capital were generally poor, wages increased steadily, albeit with ups
and downs (Table I and Graph I). The data we have available on strikes
are as yet incomplete, but we may note a significant increase in I896,
precisely the year of an upturn in the economic situation. After a lull of
nearly three years, when unemployment reached 40,000 in Buenos Aires
alone, strikes picked up again in I 900 and I 901, signalling a great upsurge
in labour militancy in the years to come. In November i902 the first
general strike took place in Argentina, preceded by a series of partial
11 Hobsbawm, 'Economic Fluctuations...', p. I44.
12
Guillermo Gutierrez, La clase trabajadoraracional(Buenos Aires, Crisis, 1978), p. 35.

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24 Ronaldo Munck

Table I. Economicconditions,wages,strikes, strikers, 189o0-190

Year Economic conditions Wages Strikes Strikers
1890 Downturn 120 4
I891 Poor I67 2
1892 Poor I90 7
1893 Poor 209 3
1894 Poor 174 9
I895 Poor 158 I9
1896 Upturn 145 26
1897 Downturn 162 0
1898 Poor 237 0
1899 Poor 288 0
1900 Poor 203
1901 Poor 223 100
1902 Poor 223 o00
1903 Upturn 220 o00
1904 Prosperous 252 I0oo
1905 Prosperous 250 o00
1906 Prosperous 233 I70 70,743
1907 Downturn 227 231 169,017
1908 Upturn 231 iI8 II,56I
1909 Prosperous 223 138 4,762
1910 Prosperous 240 298 i8,8o6
1911 Prosperous 240 102 27,992
1912 Prosperous 285 99 8,992
I913 Downturn New series 95 23,698
I9I4 Poor 68 64 14,I37
1915 Poor 6i 65 I2,077
I9I6 Poor 57 80 24,321
I9I7 Poor 49 I38 136,062
I918 Upturn 42 196 I33,042
1919 Prosperous 57 367 308,967
1920 Prosperous 59 206 I34,0I5
1921 Prosperous 73 86 I39,75
1922 Prosperous 84 II6 4I,737
I923 Prosperous 86 93 19,190
1924 Prosperous 85 77 277,078
1925 Downturn 89 89 39,142
1926 Upturn 90 67 15,880
I927 Prosperous 95 58 38,236
1928 Prosperous ioI 135 28,170
I929 Prosperous Ioo 113 28,27I
1930 Downturn 91 I25 29,33I
Sources:Economics conditions - Gilbert Merkx, 'Recessions and Rebellions in Argen-
tina, 1870-1930', Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 53, no. 2 (I973), p. 288.
Wages to I9I2 - Roberto Cort6s Conde, Elprogreso argentino,1880--914 (Buenos Aires,
Editorial, Sudamericana, I979), p. 227.
From 191 4 - David Tamarin, The Argentine Labour Movement in an Age of Transition,
1930-1945 (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington, I977), p. 51.
Strikes/strikers to 1906: Godio, El MovimientoObreroy la cuestibn..., passim.
From I907: Jose Panettieri, Los Trabajadores(Buenos Aires, Editorial Jorge Alvarez,
1967), p. 201.

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 Class Strugglein Argentina, I890-1920 25

350-

280 -

140- I I
1\ I l/
/ '/

9- l / I

1898 1906 1914 1922 1930

Graph i. Wages ( ) and strikes (--), 890-1930. Sources as for Table i.

strikes and a general climate of heightened class struggle. The trade unions
were consolidated by the formation of the first confederation in I901: the
FederacibnObreraArgentina (Argentine Workers' Federation) (see Graph
2). However, trade union membership was no more than Io,ooo at this

stage. Immigration during this period tailed off after a peak in the late
I88os, although it is worth recalling that between i880 and 1900 1.5
million workers landed in Argentina, of whom nearly i million remained
in the country. The process of proletarianisation described by Marx was
taking place at one remove, as it were, as peasants and artisans from
Europe crossed the ocean to 'Fare 1'America'. As many readers' letters
to the newspaper El Obrerotestify, the immigrants' dreams rapidly faded
as they gradually came under the sway of capitalism and began forging
a new national working class. Significantly, the immigrants were integrated
into society first as workers and only much later as citizens.

III. Economic upturn and labour explosion, 1902-1908

The I902-8 cycle is characterised by a strong process of agrarian
development which accelerated the overall process of capital accumulation.
There was a strong boost to foreign and internal investment - fixed capital
investment increased by 38 % during this cycle. Predictably, immigration

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26 RonaldoMunck

I I I I I I I I I I I I 1
1900 1901 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926

Graph 2. Trade-union membership, 1900-26. Source adapted

from De Shazo (I973: I3).

1890 1900 1910 19:

Graph 3. Migration patterns in Argentina, I880-I930.

Source: Bourd6 (1974: i6o).

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 Class Strugglein Argentina, 1890-1920 27

also began to increase steadily as small farmers and artisans in Europe, not
to mention the landless and unemployed, were attracted to Argentina by
tales of fabulous wealth. During this period one person in every two in
Buenos Aires was foreign-born, and of every ten foreigners there would
be five Italians, three Spaniards, one person from north-western Europe
and one from the Balkans or eastern Europe.13 Compared with the earlier
wave of immigration in the i88os this one moved predominantly into
industry rather than agriculture, thus effectively 'remaking' the working
class. These largely prosperous years for capital were also when labour's
first 'explosion' began. As Hobsbawm writes, 'all social movements
expand in jerks; the history of all contains periods of abnormality, often
fantastically rapid and easy mobilisations of hitherto untouched masses'.14
Political propagandists and labour organisers continued their work during
this period, moving into new areas to agitate, educate and organise.
This economic cycle begins with the general strike of 1902, which
marked a big step forward for labour and led to a shift in the strategy of
the employers and the state. Hitherto, governments had been relatively
noninterventionist with regard to worker-employee relations, restricting
themselves to sharp 'punctual' bouts of repression. From now on labour
struggles would meet a systematic state repression on the one hand, while
on the other, the various governments strove, unsystematically at first, to
introduce labour legislation. Sunday was established as a day of rest, the
work of women and minors was regulated and in 1907 the Departamento
Nacional de Trabajo(National Labour Department) was established. This
body was charged with enforcing of the new labour legislation and the
arbitration of industrial disputes, but at first its only effective function was
to collect statistics on strikes (greatly improving our data for the post- 907
period). The other aspect of the state's new policy was represented by the
Law of Residence, approved in 1902, which provided for the deportation
of 'foreign agitators', a measure which led to the expulsion of hundreds
of anarchist workers, including many who were born locally. Henceforth
repression against labour organisations became systematic and widespread,
with police and army attacks on strikers and demonstrators leaving a heavy
toll of dead and injured. In fact, many of the general strikes in the first
decade of the twentieth century were in response to this wave of
repression.
As a historian of Argentine anarchism, Iaacov Oveed, recounts, 'the
13 et AmeriqueLatine:Buenos
et immigration Aires(xix etxx siecles)
Guy Bourde, Urbanisation
(Paris, Aubier, 1974), p. 213.
14
Eric Hobsbawm, PrimitiveRebels(Manchester University Press, 1959), p. 105.

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28 Ronaldo Munck

Argentine working class was in action without respite during 1902, and
its radical-combative spirit was strengthened by a series of big strikes and
through the use of methods new to the workers' struggle'.15 There were
major strikes in the ports of Buenos Aires, Rosario and Bahia Blanca, and
a general strike against the Law of Residence, which was thwarted only
by the government's declaration of a state of siege (a frequent device in
the decade to come). The early revolutionary socialists were displaced by
the reformist social democrats after the Socialist Party was formed in I 896.
In 1902 the socialists condemned the call for a general strike as 'an absurd
and crazy act' by the 'propagandists of violence'. It was the anarchists
who for the moment held the upper hand in the labour movement. In 1904
they led a general strike in Rosario, which was then dubbed the 'Barcelona
of Latin America'. The high point of anarchist influence was undoubtedly
the 1905 general strike in Buenos Aires. Another, as yet subordinate, trend
was emerging in the labour movement, however, and would eventually
eclipse these massive showdowns between labour and the state. The
printers who had formed the first union in I876 and led the first strike
in 1878, were now, in I906, pioneering the first collective agreement with
the employers and setting up the first comisionesparitarias (parity
commissios) to regulate the wage-bargaining process. However, the tide
had not yet fully turned towards order and regularity in industrial
relations.
During I903 and 1904, around one half of all strikes occurred outside
Buenos Aires, whereas the trend was reversed towards I907-09, when
strikes in the capital accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total.
Spalding concludes that 'this trend probably reflects a second wave of
organizational activity that began in the capital and then spread to other
areas'.16 This confirms a general tendency for 'explosions' of the labour
movement to extend organisation to hitherto disorganised social layers
and geographical areas. Another general shift took place around I907,
when there were more factory stoppages than 'political' strikes as
repression intensified, and also as a reflection of changed attitudes. The
statistics on strikes mask the fact that, in I907, two-thirds of all strikes
were lost by the workers, whereas by I910 this proportion was reversed
as the working class strove successfully to defend its organizations and
living standards. The defeats of the working class in the big confrontations
15
Iaacov Oveed, El anarquismoy el movimientoobreroen Argentina (Mexico, Siglo XXI,
I978), p. 246.
16 Hobart Spalding, OrganigedLabor in Latin America (New York, Harper and Row, I977),
p. 25.

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 Class Strugglein Argentina,1890-1920 29

of the general strikes did not preclude a steady advance on the factory floor.
It was precisely during this period that the syndicalists split away from
the Socialist movement, articulating first a revolutionary syndicalism along
Sorelian lines, but developing into an apolitical trade unionism in years
to come. Ultimately, the rise of syndicalism within the labour movement
was due to the unresolved conflict between anarchist idealism and socialist
reformism.
Turning to the general trends of this economic cycle, we note that the
economic conditions for capital were decidedly prosperous and wages
remained stable. There was a steady rhythm of strikes between 1902 and
1906 with a remarkable upsurge in 1907, a year of notable economic
downturn. Clearly workers were resisting the tendency of employers to
cut wages and felt sufficiently confident after several years of good
conditions to do so. This hypothesis is supported by the data on
trade-union membership (Graph 2), which show a steady increase in the
membership of the anarchist confederation F.O.R.A. (FederacibnObrera
Regional Argentina: Argentine Regional Workers' Federation), which
reached a peak of 3o,ooo members in i906. The more stable and reformist
socialist-led confederation, the U.G.T. (Union General de Trabajadores:
General Workers Union) also advanced steadily, if less dramatically,
during this phase to attain a membership of around 0o,ooo workers.
Finally, overseas immigration went through a tremendous boom (Graph
3), with the first decade of the zoth century showing a net number of
immigrants (centres minus exits) of over i million. Not surprisingly,
phases of economic expansion coincide with periods of massive influxes
of immigrants (1880-9, 1903-13 and 1919-29), whereas cyclical crises
(I890-96, 1901, 1913) and prolonged recessions (1890-1902, 1929-39 and
the First World War) led to a reduction or even interruption of the flow
of immigrants.17

IV. Economicupturnand labourmilitancy, o908-Ir14

During the 1908-14 cycle, agriculture completed its expansive phase as the
bulk of the land was brought under the sway of capital. Foreign investment
continued to flow into Argentina, and before 1913 conditions were
generally prosperous. The approaching world war led to a brusque
deterioration of economic conditions as foreign investment froze and
foreign trade began to dry up. Until then industrialisation had followed
the relatively easy path of servicing the agricultural economy, -frigorificos
and flour mills, for example. Yet by I 914 the structure of the working class
17
Bourde, op. cit., p. 6I.

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30 RonaldoMunck

had changed somewhat since the I895 census was taken. The number of
manual workers had increased from 78,000 to 195,ooo over this period,
but their proportion of the working population remained consistent at
around 3 %. The number of artisans and small merchants also increased
in number but their proportion of the working population decreased from
40% to 35 % representing a decline of the petty commodity mode of
production. Conversely the number of employees increased from 30,000
to 102,000 but also their proportion in the working population from I %
to 18 %. Trade union organisation was to spread in this period from the
manual workers into this category of white-collar employees, who were
the product of the development of capitalism, particularly in the capital
city of Buenos Aires.
The labour struggles continued space during this cycle. A government
survey of 1908 reported 23,438 due-paying members in Buenos Aires out
of 214,370 workers in the various branches of industry. However,
although unionisation levels were low, strikes usually brought into action
much larger numbers. For example, the general strike of I907 mobilised
93,000 workers of whom only io,ooo were paid-up union members. This
pattern of activity continued with the general strike of 1909, called after
police repression of the annual May Day commemoration. The strike
achieved the freedom of the imprisoned workers and ensured the re-
opening of the union offices. In 1910 a general strike called to disrupt the
region's independence centenary celebrations was controlled by a state of
siege which left Buenos Aires looking like an armed camp and the jails
full of workers. The labour movement was now forced onto the defensive,
although strikes continued in various sectors of industry throughout the
period. Taking a broad view of the strikes which occurred between 1907
and 1913, we find that, of I,ooo strikes, 600 were lost by the workers, 300
were won and o00 were considered a 'draw'. Labour had continued the
impetus of its earlier struggles, but a fundamental change had occurred
in the course of this economic cycle.
Before 910o the labour movement was able to organise and press
forward its demands in conditions of relative disorganisation within the
ruling classes. Spalding exaggerates somewhat, but correctly grasps the
essential point: 'the agrarian elements did not react harshly to organization
by industrial workers so long as it did not threaten them directly. A
relatively strong urban movement thus could form without constant
harassment from the state'.18 Through its employers' association, the
Union Industrial Argentina (Argentine Industrial Union), the incipient
18
Spalding, op. cit., p. 32.

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 Class Struggle in Argentina, I890o-I92 3

industrial bourgeoisie began to play a far more aggressive role and

obtained the systematic aid of the state in repressing and co-opting the
working class. This last element is also important because around this
period there was a fundamental reform of the oligarchic state, drawing the
middle class and the top layers of the working class into the political arena.
In 1912 an electoral reform law was approved by Congress which
enfranchised the native male workers but not women or foreign-born
workers. This law was designed to incorporate the growing middle layers
represented by the Radical Party, and allow the Socialist Party to become
the voice of the 'respectable' working class, which could thus be weaned
away from anarchism. This strategy of 'preventive co-optation' bore fruit
with the victory of the Radicals in the I 9 I 6 elections, although the Socialist
Party never became a mass working class party in spite of its electoral gains
(48,000 votes in 1913).
There were also causes internal to the labour movement which help
explain the apparent decline of militancy after 9 0. The big general strikes
of 1902, 1905 and I909 found their natural limits in 19I0 - workers are
not 'naturally' inclined towards these dramatic displays of'revolutionary
gymnastics', each of which left a heavy toll of militants jailed, deported
or simply dismissed from work. Above all, it was the very success of the
economic struggles which blunted the political consciousness of the
working class. The anarchists, or anarcho-syndicalists as they had now
become, were also at least partly responsible for this. Anarchism had
effectively corresponded to the real conditions and aspirations of a
heterogeneous mass of independent workers only just emerging into
industrial capitalism. Their political perspective also accorded with the
reality of a bourgeois state impervious to workers' demands, but with the
possibility of gaining real victories through 'direct action' owing to a
certain degree of employer disorganisation. Now the bourgeois state had
come of age, and it intelligently blended repression with co-option. In the
new conditions the anarchists were being replaced in the leadership of the
labour movement by the syndicalists who, as Rock describes, 'stressed
continuously the value of tactics, and the virtues of co-ordination, timing
and planning [which] quickly overshadowed the lip service the movement
paid to the goals of class revolution'.19 The anarchists had contributed
greatly to the 'political education' of the working class, but were unable
to adapt to the new situation and provide a rounded political alternative
for labour.
19 David
Rock, Politics in Argentina, I89o-190o: The rise andfall of Radicalism (Cambridge
University Press, I975), p. 85.

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32 Ronaldo Munck

Taking an overall view of this cycle we find that it was generally

prosperous until 9 3 when a recession set in. Wages showed a steady and
significant upward trend with a steady rhythm of strikes involving
significant layers of the working class. Trade-union membership remained
stable, with a significant degree of unity being achieved in 1914 when the
syndicalist confederation C.O.R.A. Confederacion ObreraRegionalArgentina
(Argentine Regional Workers' Confederation) merged with the anarchist
F.O.R.A. Immigration reached its highest peak ever in 1912, declining
dramatically when the World War started shortly afterwards. From 1907
onwards there was a marked labour surplus in Argentina but immigrants
continued to pour into the country. Significantly, this did not curtail the
high degree of self-activity which labour maintained during the period.
This phase confirms the hypothesis advanced by Hobsbawm that labour
'explosions' tend to occur in the cyclical upswing and less at the bottom
of slumps.20 There was also a sharp increase in the cost of living during
this period, as Spalding notes: 'from I906 or I907 there was a marked
rise in prices and rent, accelerating up to I914, helped by the crisis of
91 1-1912 and the economic insecurity caused by the First World War.
This rise annulled the improvements achieved by the working class in the
preceding years'.21 This conforms exactly to the conditions outlined by
Trotsky to account for upsurges in strike activity.

V. Economic transformation and labour recomposition, 1914-I917

The 1914-17 cycle is, of course, a depressive one: investment slumps,
immigration collapses and strikes decline dramatically. This is an extremely
important transition phase, marking, as Di Tella and Zymelman write,
'the change from an agrarian economy on horizontal expansion, towards
an economy which can only expand by changing its structure, sectoral
distribution and productivity'.22 This restructuring led to more than the
simple collapse of small semi-artisanal firms cut off by the war from their
source of raw material and fuel. Indeed, it marked a global shift in class
relations and a substantial recomposition of the working class. The
de-facto protectionism resulting from the disruption of trade during the
war gave an important boost to small and medium-sized national industry,
particularly in the textile sector, where the import substitution process
accelerated. This process of industrial expansion and concentration was

20
Hobsbawm, 'Economic Fluctuations...', p. 132.
21 Hobart (Buenos Aires, EditorialGalerna,1970),
Spalding,La clasetrabajadora
argentina
p. 42.
22 Di Tella and Zymelman, op. cit., p. 134.

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 Class Strugglein Argentina, I890-I920 33
reflected in the fact that more industrial establishments were set up
between 9 o and I9 9 than in the whole period 85o0-I909. Alongside
the small workshops there was now a significant number of large industrial
plants: there were several textile firms employing between 5oo and 1,5oo
workers and over ioo metallurgical plants in Buenos Aires alone employ-
ing an average of I 5o workers each, as well as the big sugar mills (ingenios)
of the north west which employed an average of ,000o workers each. There
was effectively a 'new' working class in the making.
During the war, strike activity declined significantly as compared with
the pre-war period. The economic recession led to an increase in the rate
of unemployment from 14 % in 19I4 to 20 % in 19I7. The cost of living
rose steadily and wages declined by one third over the same period. By
19 7, however, as the economic situation began to improve, strike actions
increased again. The strikes of that year differed significantly from those
in the explosion of 1907, in that whereas then the most affected sector was
small-scale industry, in I917 three-quarters of the strikers were involved
in transport activities. Of particular importance were the strikes organised
by the powerful maritime union the FederacibnObreraMaritima (Maritime
Workers' Federation) in 9 6 and I917. Under the Radical Party govern-
ment of Hipolito Yrigoyen, which came to power in 1916, these key
workers were able to negotiate a favourable settlement. On the other hand,
when the refuse collectors of Buenos Aires came out on strike in 1917 the
government did not hesitate to use repression against a sector which was
neither economically nor politically strategic. There were other significant
strikes in the course of 1917, including a general strike on the railways
and by the frigorifico workers who were to be a leading sector in the
trade-union movement after 1930. Significantly, around one-third of all
strikes during this cycle were carried out in defence of trade-union rights
to organise.
The tendency towards a system of arbitration and conciliation in
industrial relations intensified during this phase. In 19I6 the conciliation
mechanisms of the National Labour Department were actually put into
practice, and this agency also began to oversee the implementation of
labour legislation through its labour inspectors. Presidential arbitration
settled a number of disputes, although in some cases this was simply
designed to curry favour with key sectors of workers who might defect
to the Socialist Party in elections. Nevertheless, in spite of its inconsist-
encies and hesitations, the state was beginning to recognise the limitations
of its earlier stances that 'the labour question is a matter for the police'.
Through its policy of negotiations and compromise the government had
2 LAS 19

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34 RonaldoMunck

effectively accorded de-facto recognition to the trade-union organisations.

This naturally encouraged the numerical expansion of the trade unions,
after the briefly united labour confederation split in 9I 5 (Graph 3). The
syndicalist F.O.R.A. IX grew from 20,000 members in I915 to nearly
70,000 in 1920. The anarchist-led F.O.R.A. V, on the other hand, suffered
a sharp decline in numbers as this tendency lost its hegemony within the
broader labour movement, although its membership picked up signifi-
cantly after the dramatic events of 9 9, examined in the following section.
The syndicalist heyday lasted approximately from 1916 to 1920, during
which period they helped consolidate a stable system of industrial relations
amongst key sections of the working class such as the maritime and rail
workers. Significantly, they paid less attention to the meat packers in the
frigorificosand the metallurgical workers, two areas where Peron was to
gather widespread support in the 1940s. The Radical government fostered
good relations with the syndicalist labour confederation F.O.R.A. IX as
a means to establish a 'moderate' counterweight to the anarchists, and
using the 'anti-party' tendencies of this current to block socialist pene-
tration of the trade unions. During this period the service-sector workers
linked to the dynamic agro-export economy were the effective vanguard
of the trade-union movement, with industrial workers playing an as yet
subordinate role. One political current which began actively to promote
the industrial unions was the 'internationalist' or Bolshevik faction within
the Socialist Party, which eventually established itself as an independent
party in I9I8. These forerunners of the Communist Party rejected the
electoralism of the Socialist Party and declared that trade-union work was
equivalent to political activity as a means of struggle. The ideas of the
Russian Revolution in 19I7 also had a significant impact on the anarchists,
with a clearly defined anarcho-Bolshevik current playing an important role
in the next economic cycle.
The overall trends of the 1914-1 7 cycle should now be clear. Economic
conditions were poor until I 97 when investment began to pick up again
and employment patterns stabilised. Though unemployment was high it
was declining, and the abrupt cutting of the flow of immigration meant
that the reserve army of labour did not grow further. This set the scene
for a renewed bout of labour militancy after 1917 as workers strove to
make up wages to their pre-war level. During this phase the transition
from the petty commodity production stage of capitalism to that of
manufacture was completed, and the systematic extension of the division
of labour was accomplished. This of course had serious implications for
labour. As Ian Roxborough points out:

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 Class Struggle in Argentina, I890-I920 35
as the leading sector shifts over time from one industry to another, there will
be a breakin the institutionalpatternof class relations ... The older pattern [of
class conflict] will almost certainlybe substantiallymodified in the process, and
labour organizationswill be restructured.23
As capital restructured, so did the labour movement - once the artisan
typesetter was the vanguard, then the bakers and dockers, the rail workers,
and finally the frigorificoworkers and those in textiles were poised to take
over the leadership of the movement. In the 1940s it would be the turn
of the metallurgical workers as the transition to 'big industry' was
consolidated.

VI. Economic upturn and labour recovery, 1917-I922

The cycle which followed the world war - 1917-1922 - was decidedly
prosperous as the country's primary goods were exported to war-torn
Europe. Investment now picked up again, and so did immigration.
Industry progressed steadily after initial fears that the renewal of compe-
tition would destroy the sectors built up under the de-facto protectionism
of the war period. Labour went through another 'explosion', seemingly
confirming a hypothesis mentioned by Hobsbawm that 'the great "leaps"
occur after exceptionally severe slumps, which impress workers with the
value of organization'.24 This was, indeed, a period in which previously
unorganised layers were brought into action, especially after 1919.
Furthermore, it confirms the view that a rising cost of living is a key
element in labour upsurges: it rose from o00 in 1914, to I35 in 1917 to
i86 in 1919.
Throughout this phase the level of labour activity remained at an
exceptionally high level. By I9I9 unemployment had declined to 8%
although real wages had dropped by about 30 % since 1965, as the post-war
inflation reduced the earning capacity of the working class. The scene was
set for some of the most dramatic confrontations between labour and the
state since the labour movement's formation. The anarchists appeared to
be in terminal decline as their failure to impose a call for a general strike
in 1918 testified. The now openly reformist syndicalists appeared to hold
the upper hand in the labour movement particularly given their
'understanding' with the Radical Government. No one therefore expected
an explosion of class conflict when the workers of a large metallurgical
plant on the outskirts of Buenos Aires walked out in December 1918,
23 Ian Roxborough, 'The Analysis of Labour Movements in Latin America: Typologies
and Theories', Bulletin of Latin American Research,vol. I., no. i ( 98 ), p. 91.
24
Hobsbawm, 'Economic Fluctuations...' p. 128.
2-2

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36 RonaldoMunck

shortly after having formed a union. Clashes between strikers and the
police led to several deaths and a general strike was called by the anarchist
F.O.R.A. V, a call later backed by the larger syndicalist confederation, the
F.O.R.A. IX.
In the week that followed, a semi-insurrectionary general strike para-
lysed the city of Buenos Aires, and the state, aided by armed elements of
the middle class, unleashed terror on the workers' quarters, leaving 700
dead and 4,000 injured in its wake. The syndicalist F.O.R.A. IX decided
to lift the general strike, to which the socialists and communists agreed,
with only the reduced anarchist current remaining on the streets. The
army's intervention had allowed the government to negotiate with the
syndicalists who had established themselves as the interlocutorvalidoof the
working class. Of course, at another level the events of 9 9 represented
the eruption of a deep social crisis, the failure to integrate the immigrant
and the continued political marginality of the working class. One effect
of 1919 was to draw into the trade union movement wide layers of
hitherto unorganised workers, and to re-establish anarchism as a credible
force in the wider labour movement.
In his assessment of the SemanaTragica(Tragic Week), Rock concludes:
'in broad terms the general strike of 1919 was more a series of inarticulated
riots than a genuine working class rebellion'.25 Certainly, the strike was
ephemeral, limited geographically and in terms of its support; nor did it
receive any realistic revolutionary leadership. However, it was not simply
a 'chaotic outburst of mass emotion' as Rock suggests.26 A historical
conjuncture has greater social meaning than its discrete 'ordinary'
elements. The long-run view can sometimes obscure the symbolic sig-
nificance of key episodes in working-class history. The SemanaTragicawas
one such key conjuncture for the labour movement: it marked the last gasp
of the revolutionary anarchist tendency and, in the mode of its resolution,
a harbinger of a new, more stable, period of industrial relations.
In 1921 the rural equivalent of the SemanaTragicaleft a tragic toll when
the rural labourers on the estanciasof the southern province of Patagonia
launched a strike for improvements in their conditions. Over I,500
workers were killed by the army in a one-sided campaign, although in
1923 symbolic retribution was exacted by an anarchist immigrant who
threw a bomb at the colonel responsible for the massacre. However, this
was not the highpoint of I909, but the beginning of a new era, in which
the relations between labour, capital and the state were to be placed on
a more stable basis.
25 Rock, op. cit., p. I68. 26 Ibid.

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 ClassStrugglein Argentina,1890-1920 37
From I 890 to 1920 the labour movement of Argentina made remarkable
progress, with the formation and consolidation of the trade unions, the
election of political representatives to the parliamentary system, and the
gaining of significant social improvements for the working class. The
anarchists had, however, failed to translate their pre- 91o combativity into
a rounded political strategy for labour. On the other hand, the socialist
current split into 'apolitical' syndicalists and the parliamentary-oriented
mainstream, thus perpetuating a false divide between economic and
political labour struggles. There was also a failure to mobilise the rural
working population behind the industrial working class, and to articulate
the anti-imperialist perspective called for in a dependent nation. Indeed,
anarchists and socialists alike opposed protectionist measures for Argen-
tina's industrial sector, on the basis of an abstract internationalism. This,
indeed, was the factor which allowed Peron and nationalist historians to
describe the pre-i93o labour movement as a minority 'foreign' implant.
This entails denying the very real advances made by labour during this
period and its not inconsiderable impact on national history. We fully agree
with Godio's conclusion that during this period 'the successes in the trade
union and parliamentary fields were so notable that they made the
Argentine labour movement, in spite of its limitations, into the most
developed and prestigious throughout Latin America'.27
An overview of the 1917-22 period must stress the consistently
prosperous conditions for capital accumulation and the steady rise of
wages, which doubled during this cycle (Table i). Strike activity is
remarkable not so such in terms of the number of strikes but in the volume
of strikers: over oo00,000 workers were on strike nearly every year of this
cycle, with the figure for I9I9 topping the 300,000 mark. The level of
overseas immigration remained low until 1920 when it began to pick up,
but it was still well below the pre-war level (Graph 3). Trade union
membership peaked during this cycle, with the syndicalist F.O.R.A. IX
leading the way, but, paradoxically, it began to decline dramatically
towards the end of this phase (Graph 2). Both the anarchist F.O.R.A.
and the new revolutionary syndicalist confederation formed in 1922,
the Union Sindical Argentina (Argentine Trades Union), lost members
steadily in the following cycle. The explanation for this lies outside our
period but, essentially, economic prosperity and a political radicalisation
caused by the Russian Revolution tended to marginalise the trade unions.
When the new movement was eventually unified in 1930 to form the
CGT - Central Generalde Trabajadores(General Labour Confederation) -
27
Julio Godio, Historiadelmovimiento
obrero,p. 2I9.

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38 RonaldoMunck

it organised far fewer workers than the anarchists and syndicalists did
around 1920. The political hegemony of the anarchists (i902-9) and later
the syndicalists (I9'6-zo) had been followed by a period of realignment,
confusion and demoralisation which paved the way for Peron 's 'capture'
of the labour movement in I943-6.

VII. Conclusion
Without wishing to fall into the trap of sociological formalism, we can
say in conclusion that the working hypotheses we began with have been
largely borne out. The formation of the working class in Argentina, was,
indeed, the result of a broad and complex process of political and social
history, and not the simple result of mechanisation. As to the cycles of
class struggle, our findings bear out Hobsbawm's conclusion that
depressive phases accumulate 'inflammable material' but do not set it
alight. Thus the depression of the I89os accumulated grievances and
injustices which burst out in the strike wave of the early i9oos; likewise
the period of the First World War created the conditions for the postwar
upsurge of labour militancy. Later, as Trotsky and other observers/par-
ticipants in the class struggle have suggested, we found that strike waves
broke out in the economic upturn, usually accompanied by a rise in the
cost of living. This was the case in the 1906-7 strike wave, and likewise
in the period following the World War. Taken overall, we find that
Screpanti's hypothesis of two main variables - achievements and frus-
tration - helps explain the pattern of labour insurgency in Argentina.
Achievements, in terms of economic and social gains which may lead to
a decrease in workers' militancy, but may also accumulate social tension
as frustration results when economic growth slackens and capitalists
unload the cost in terms of higher prices and lower wages. In short, strike
patterns are more complex than those theories which relate them either
to poverty or the economic upturn.
It is important to bear in mind Trotsky's warning that while strike
movements are closely bound up with the conjunctural cycle, 'this must
not be considered mechanically'.28 This is precisely where Cronin's advice
is relevant, when he reminds us that economic cycles do not simply
produce economic growth, but restructure the working class and 'redraw
the lines of class cleavage throughout society and the parameters of
collective action'.29 The economic cycle associated with the World War led
28 Leon
Trotsky. 'The "Third Period" of the Comintern's Errors', Writings of Leon
Trotsky, p. 46.
29
Cronin, op. cit., p. 112.

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 Class Struggle in Argentina, 180-I192 39

to precisely such a transformation in Argentina. The restructuring of

capital led to a global recomposition of the working class, which involved
both objective and subjective elements (the political dimension, in short).
Finally, we must recall that our analysis has been restricted to the
business cycle and not the Kondratief type of long cycles. The whole
phase of 1890 to 1930 could be seen as a long wave in Argentine terms;
but there would be many problems in applying this approach to an open
and agrarian economy such as Argentina's. Furthermore, even though
some authors such as Mandel recognise that 'extraeconomic factors play
key roles'30 in long waves, most works play down the element of political
agency. We cannot, in short, understand the social and economic history
of Argentina during the early zoth century without considering the active
role of anarchist and socialist militants. Though strike patterns were
affected by economic cycles, the working class did in a very real sense
'make' itself in the process of class struggle.
30
Ernest Mandel, Long Waves of Capitalist Development - The Marxist Interpretation
(Cambridge University Press, I980), p. 20.

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