Argentine Regional Workers' Federation
Encyclopedia
The Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (Spanish
: Federación Obrera Regional Argentina; abbreviated FORA), founded in 1901, was Argentina
's first national
labor confederation
. It split into two wings in 1915, the larger of which merged into the Argentine Syndicates' Union (USA) in 1922, while the smaller slowly disappeared in the 1930s.
In 1876, the country's first trade union was founded, and in 1887, the first national labor organization. In 1879 an anarchist organisation, the International Socialist Circle
, was founded in Buenos Aires
. Both the industrialization of the country and its labor movement were centered on the capital Buenos Aires
and by 1896, there were more thirty trade unions in the city alone. From 1896, the labor movement started developing a clear working-class program and the first sympathy strikes began taking place.
The extent of anarchism
's influence is disputed: Ronaldo Munck claims that the "dominant tendency in the labour movement was [...] represented by the anarchists of various persuasions", while Ruth Thompson holds that "a closer examination of Argentine trade unions around the turn of the century suggests that the importance of anarchism has been exaggerated", and Roberto P. Korzeniewicz contends "that anarchism was not as prevalent within the labour movement in Argentina around the turn of the century as studies of the period have generally maintained", although he concedes that "anarchism achieved greater labour support during the early 1900s". In any case, there was considerable anarchist union activity in the 1890s. Most of the immigration to South America as a whole came from Spain and Italy, the two European countries in which anarchism was most influential. These immigrants included anarchists forced to flee their native countries for political reasons. During his 1885–1889 visit to Argentina, the anarchist Errico Malatesta
encouraged anarchist involvement in the labor movement. The working class was hardly integrated into the political system at the time, with 70% of the adult males in Buenos Aires disenfranchised as foreigners in 1912.
and Antonio Pellicer Paraire. Working class solidarity was seen as the only means of liberating the workers, with the general strike
being their ultimate weapon in their fight against capital. Accordingly, they rejected party politics including socialist parties.
A wave of successful strikes soon followed. A 1902 strike by the stevedore
s in Rosario
turned into a general strike. In November of the same year, the Buenos Aires dock workers gained the nine-hour-day. The most important strike of this year, that of the fruit handlers, was about to involve the whole membership of the FOA at the height of the harvest, but the government passed the Residence Law—which allowed the expulsion of subversive aliens—to break it.
In 1903, the General Workers' Union
(UGT) was established as a more moderate, less anarchist, yet more or less syndicalist rival union. Its founding coincided with a further radicalization of the FOA, which would culminate in 1905. The infighting between the moderate and anarchist factions of the FOA was a contributory factor. In 1903 and 1904, Argentina saw no less than twelve general strikes and many more at individual plants, with the FOA being involved in many of them. At the 1903 FOA May Day
demonstration, a clash with police left two dead and twenty-four wounded. At a bakers' strike in Rosario, one worker was shot by police. By 1904, the FOA had around 11,000 members (although this figure is unreliable).
. It also passed a resolution declaring "[t]hat it advises and recommends the widest possible study and propaganda to all its adherents with the object of teaching the workers the economic and philosophical principles of anarchist communism
" becoming the programmatic basis of the union for the following years and reflecting the radicalization of the preceding. Anarchism became the sole doctrine in the FORA, causing socialists to leave the union.
The FORA continued to grow quite rapidly, reaching a peak at 30,000 members in 1906. In 1909, however, its moderate wing left the organization to found the Argentine Regional Workers' Confederation (CORA) with syndicalists from the UGT.
At the First International Syndicalist Congress
in London
in 1913, both the FORA and the CORA were represented. Because the FORA could not afford the long trip and because of a lack of time, it did not send a delegate of its own, but gave its mandate to the Italian Alceste De Ambris
. The FORA considered the congress a great success and was confident it would lead to the founding of a "purely worker and anti-statist" international.
The FORA V, whose membership peaked at 10,000, was strongest in the interior of the country, where it retained considerable economic power well into the 1920s.
With its cautious and pragmatic approach, the FORA IX grew rapidly. Though figures are generally unreliable, it claimed a membership of 100,000 to 120,000 by 1919. In a time of economic recession and falling wages, as the result of World War I, it was more intent on defending past achievements, rather than starting risky struggles. During a railway strike in 1917, the FORA V decided to go on the offensive by calling for a general strike, but it was quickly defeated as very few unions participated.
On January 7, 1919, a strike by an anarchist union with tenuous links to the FORA V in Nueva Pompeya
led to a shootout between workers and police, troops, and firemen, killing five. Two days later, the police ambushed the 200,000 workers on their way to La Chacarita Cemetery
leading to the death of another 39 men. The FORA V had called a general strike after the events on January 7, the FORA IX followed on January 9. On January 11, the FORA IX reached an agreement with the Nueva Pompeya industrialists, who were pressured by the Interior Ministry. In turn, the government agreed to release all prisoners taken during the strikes. As a reaction to the workers' actions, business and military leaders formed the vigilante
Argentine Patriotic League
. Unimpeded by the government, it attacked labor organizations and militants. In all, between 100 and 700 people died during what became known as the Tragic Week
or la Semana Trágica in Spanish.
The outrage over this event caused another peak in strike activity in 1919 with 397 strikes involving over 300,000 workers in Buenos Aires alone. While the FORA IX claimed to have learned its lesson from the Tragic Week and the failed railworkers' strike in 1917, the FORA V experienced short revival in strength during this year.
In August 1910, the FORA IX was able to defeat a proposal for a new labor law, which would have undermined the improvements in working conditions the labor movement had achieved over the past years, with a huge demonstration in Buenos Aires. Although the organization had previously passed a resolution to bar any individuals holding posts in political parties from doing so in the union federation as well, it now collaborated with socialist party politicians.
Following lengthy negotiations between the FORA IX and a number of hitherto independent trade unions, the Argentine Syndicates' Union (USA) was founded in March 1922. The pro-Bolshevists from the FORA V also joined. Having the support of socialists, communists, and syndicalists, the USA was more radical than the FORA IX and therefore did neither join the social democratic International Federation of Trade Unions
nor the RILU.
Meanwhile, the anarchist FORA V was in steady decline. It was dissolved shortly before the installation of José Félix Uriburu
's military dictatorship. This FORA still exists and groups Dutch workers, workshops workers, artisans and small property owners, intellectuals, and some young activists, and is federated to the International Workers Association
(the anarcho-syndicalist international).
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
: Federación Obrera Regional Argentina; abbreviated FORA), founded in 1901, was Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
's first national
National trade union center
A national trade union center is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a single country. Nearly every country in the world has a national trade union center, and many have more than one. When there is more than one national center, it is often because of ideological differences—in some...
labor confederation
Trade unions in Argentina
Trade unions in Argentina have traditionally played a strong role in the politics of the nation. The largest trade union association, the Confederación General del Trabajo has been a force since the 1930s, and approximately 40% of workers in the formal economy are unionized.- The FORA :The...
. It split into two wings in 1915, the larger of which merged into the Argentine Syndicates' Union (USA) in 1922, while the smaller slowly disappeared in the 1930s.
Background
From the second half of the 19th century up to around 1920, Argentina experienced rapid economic growth and industrial expansion, thereby becoming a world economic power. Foreign capital was the driving force for this development, with 92% of the workshops and factories in 1887 being owned by non-Argentinians, according to a census. Similarly, most of the workers in this period were immigrants; 84% according to the same census.In 1876, the country's first trade union was founded, and in 1887, the first national labor organization. In 1879 an anarchist organisation, the International Socialist Circle
International Socialist Circle
The International Socialist Circle was an anarchist political organisation in Argentina, founded 1879 in Buenos Aires. After several permutations, the movement emerged into the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation in 1901....
, was founded in Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
. Both the industrialization of the country and its labor movement were centered on the capital Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
and by 1896, there were more thirty trade unions in the city alone. From 1896, the labor movement started developing a clear working-class program and the first sympathy strikes began taking place.
The extent of anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
's influence is disputed: Ronaldo Munck claims that the "dominant tendency in the labour movement was [...] represented by the anarchists of various persuasions", while Ruth Thompson holds that "a closer examination of Argentine trade unions around the turn of the century suggests that the importance of anarchism has been exaggerated", and Roberto P. Korzeniewicz contends "that anarchism was not as prevalent within the labour movement in Argentina around the turn of the century as studies of the period have generally maintained", although he concedes that "anarchism achieved greater labour support during the early 1900s". In any case, there was considerable anarchist union activity in the 1890s. Most of the immigration to South America as a whole came from Spain and Italy, the two European countries in which anarchism was most influential. These immigrants included anarchists forced to flee their native countries for political reasons. During his 1885–1889 visit to Argentina, the anarchist Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta
Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarcho-communist. He was an insurrectionary anarchist early in his life. He spent much of his life exiled from his homeland of Italy and in total spent more than ten years in prison. He wrote and edited a number of radical newspapers and was also a friend of...
encouraged anarchist involvement in the labor movement. The working class was hardly integrated into the political system at the time, with 70% of the adult males in Buenos Aires disenfranchised as foreigners in 1912.
Founding and early years
On March 25 and 26, 1901, thirty-five delegates from fifty unions met at a congress in the capital to found the syndicalist Argentine Workers' Federation (FOA), with fewer than 10,000 member initially. Its founding principles were greatly influenced by anarchists, most notably Pietro GoriPietro Gori
Pietro Gori was an Italian lawyer, journalist, intellectual and anarchist poet. He is known for his political activities, and as author of some of the most famous anarchist songs of the late 19th century, including Addio a Lugano , Stornelli d'esilio , Ballata per Sante Caserio Pietro Gori (14...
and Antonio Pellicer Paraire. Working class solidarity was seen as the only means of liberating the workers, with the general strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
being their ultimate weapon in their fight against capital. Accordingly, they rejected party politics including socialist parties.
A wave of successful strikes soon followed. A 1902 strike by the stevedore
Stevedore
Stevedore, dockworker, docker, dock labourer, wharfie and longshoreman can have various waterfront-related meanings concerning loading and unloading ships, according to place and country....
s in Rosario
Rosario
Rosario is the largest city in the province of Santa Fe, Argentina. It is located northwest of Buenos Aires, on the western shore of the Paraná River and has 1,159,004 residents as of the ....
turned into a general strike. In November of the same year, the Buenos Aires dock workers gained the nine-hour-day. The most important strike of this year, that of the fruit handlers, was about to involve the whole membership of the FOA at the height of the harvest, but the government passed the Residence Law—which allowed the expulsion of subversive aliens—to break it.
In 1903, the General Workers' Union
General Workers' Union (Argentina)
The General Workers' Union was an Argentine national labor confederation from 1903 to 1909.It was founded in 1903 as a rival to the country's first national labor confederation, the Argentine Workers' Federation , known as the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation from 1905...
(UGT) was established as a more moderate, less anarchist, yet more or less syndicalist rival union. Its founding coincided with a further radicalization of the FOA, which would culminate in 1905. The infighting between the moderate and anarchist factions of the FOA was a contributory factor. In 1903 and 1904, Argentina saw no less than twelve general strikes and many more at individual plants, with the FOA being involved in many of them. At the 1903 FOA May Day
May Day
May Day on May 1 is an ancient northern hemisphere spring festival and usually a public holiday; it is also a traditional spring holiday in many cultures....
demonstration, a clash with police left two dead and twenty-four wounded. At a bakers' strike in Rosario, one worker was shot by police. By 1904, the FOA had around 11,000 members (although this figure is unreliable).
1905 congress and further radicalization
At the FOA's fifth congress in 1905, it renamed itself FORA, the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation, to express its internationalismProletarian internationalism
Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is a Marxist social class concept based on the view that capitalism is now a global system, and therefore the working class must act as a global class if it is to defeat it...
. It also passed a resolution declaring "[t]hat it advises and recommends the widest possible study and propaganda to all its adherents with the object of teaching the workers the economic and philosophical principles of anarchist communism
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
" becoming the programmatic basis of the union for the following years and reflecting the radicalization of the preceding. Anarchism became the sole doctrine in the FORA, causing socialists to leave the union.
The FORA continued to grow quite rapidly, reaching a peak at 30,000 members in 1906. In 1909, however, its moderate wing left the organization to found the Argentine Regional Workers' Confederation (CORA) with syndicalists from the UGT.
At the First International Syndicalist Congress
First International Syndicalist Congress
The First International Syndicalist Congress was a meeting of European and Latin American syndicalist organizations at Holborn Town Hall in London from September 27 to October 2, 1913...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
in 1913, both the FORA and the CORA were represented. Because the FORA could not afford the long trip and because of a lack of time, it did not send a delegate of its own, but gave its mandate to the Italian Alceste De Ambris
Alceste De Ambris
Alceste De Ambris , was an Italian syndicalist, the brother of Amilcare De Ambris. De Ambris had a major part to play in the agrarian strike actions of 1908.-Life:De Ambris was born in Licciana Nardi, province of Massa-Carrara....
. The FORA considered the congress a great success and was confident it would lead to the founding of a "purely worker and anti-statist" international.
1915 congress and split
The FORA's ninth congress, in April 1915, reversed the avowal to anarcho-communism of the fifth. It did not "pronounce itself officially favorable to, nor advise the adoption of, philosophical systems or determined ideologies", effectively renouncing anarchist communism. The move was complemented by the unification of the CORA and the FORA. However, not all agreed on this new set of principles. A minority left the FORA and founded the FORA V, as it stuck to the resolution from the fifth congress. The majority FORA became known as the FORA IX, as it was founded at the ninth congress.The FORA V, whose membership peaked at 10,000, was strongest in the interior of the country, where it retained considerable economic power well into the 1920s.
With its cautious and pragmatic approach, the FORA IX grew rapidly. Though figures are generally unreliable, it claimed a membership of 100,000 to 120,000 by 1919. In a time of economic recession and falling wages, as the result of World War I, it was more intent on defending past achievements, rather than starting risky struggles. During a railway strike in 1917, the FORA V decided to go on the offensive by calling for a general strike, but it was quickly defeated as very few unions participated.
On January 7, 1919, a strike by an anarchist union with tenuous links to the FORA V in Nueva Pompeya
Nueva Pompeya
Nueva Pompeya is a neighbourhood in the city of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Located in the South side, it has long been one of the city's proletarian districts steeped in the tradition of tango and one where many of the first tangos were written and performed....
led to a shootout between workers and police, troops, and firemen, killing five. Two days later, the police ambushed the 200,000 workers on their way to La Chacarita Cemetery
La Chacarita Cemetery
Cementerio de la Chacarita in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is known as the National Cemetery and is the largest in Argentina.-Location:The cemetery is in the barrio or district of Chacarita, in the northern part of Buenos Aires...
leading to the death of another 39 men. The FORA V had called a general strike after the events on January 7, the FORA IX followed on January 9. On January 11, the FORA IX reached an agreement with the Nueva Pompeya industrialists, who were pressured by the Interior Ministry. In turn, the government agreed to release all prisoners taken during the strikes. As a reaction to the workers' actions, business and military leaders formed the vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
Argentine Patriotic League
Argentine Patriotic League
The Argentine Patriotic League was a Nacionalista paramilitary group, officially created in Buenos Aires on January 16, 1919, during the Tragic week events. Presided over by Manuel Carlés, a professor at the Military College and the Escuela Superior de Guerra, it also counted among its members the...
. Unimpeded by the government, it attacked labor organizations and militants. In all, between 100 and 700 people died during what became known as the Tragic Week
Tragic Week (Argentina)
Tragic Week was a series of riots and massacres that took place in Buenos Aires, during the week of January 7, 1919. The riot was led by anarchists and communists, and was fought by both the police and the army...
or la Semana Trágica in Spanish.
The outrage over this event caused another peak in strike activity in 1919 with 397 strikes involving over 300,000 workers in Buenos Aires alone. While the FORA IX claimed to have learned its lesson from the Tragic Week and the failed railworkers' strike in 1917, the FORA V experienced short revival in strength during this year.
In August 1910, the FORA IX was able to defeat a proposal for a new labor law, which would have undermined the improvements in working conditions the labor movement had achieved over the past years, with a huge demonstration in Buenos Aires. Although the organization had previously passed a resolution to bar any individuals holding posts in political parties from doing so in the union federation as well, it now collaborated with socialist party politicians.
Final years
The founding of the Bolshevist Red International of Labor Unions (RILU) in 1920 caused serious discussions within both FORA organizations. Five out of fifteen committee members quit their positions after the FORA IX refused to join the RILU at its January 1921 conference, and the FORA V was split between a pro- and an anti-Bolshevik wing before the latter faction was expelled from the union in 1921.Following lengthy negotiations between the FORA IX and a number of hitherto independent trade unions, the Argentine Syndicates' Union (USA) was founded in March 1922. The pro-Bolshevists from the FORA V also joined. Having the support of socialists, communists, and syndicalists, the USA was more radical than the FORA IX and therefore did neither join the social democratic International Federation of Trade Unions
International Federation of Trade Unions
The International Federation of Trade Unions was an international organization of trade unions, existing between 1919 and 1945. IFTU had its roots in the pre-war IFTU....
nor the RILU.
Meanwhile, the anarchist FORA V was in steady decline. It was dissolved shortly before the installation of José Félix Uriburu
José Félix Uriburu
General José Félix Benito Uriburu y Uriburu was the first de facto President of Argentina, achieved through a military coup, from September 6, 1930 to February 20, 1932.-Biography:...
's military dictatorship. This FORA still exists and groups Dutch workers, workshops workers, artisans and small property owners, intellectuals, and some young activists, and is federated to the International Workers Association
International Workers Association
The International Workers' Association is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labour unions and initiatives based primarily in Europe and Latin America....
(the anarcho-syndicalist international).