Argentina;From the 1890,s an Anarchist movement,"among the largest and most influential in the world,"(D.Rock.Cambridge University press.Politics in Argentina,1890-1930.)Significant propagandists Pedro Gori and Dr Creaghe who founded La Protesta.Anarchists enjoyed solid support amongst dock workers, shop mechanics,bricklayers,bakers and coachbuilders.Despite deportations and prison sentences the anarchist movement grew to the extent that it created the major syndicalist movement,the F.O.R.A.(Workers federation of the Argentine Region.)The rulers offered a terrible repression and the bitter struggle may be seen in the film,"Patagonia Rebelde." Following strikes in 1919 a police edict against,"all known anarchists,"led to a brutal spate of mass arrests and deportations. It is sometimes alleged the anarchists in Argentina employed ,"terrorist tactics,"The dual standard of reporting that persists today is responsible for this.The workers were faced with the most terrible repression.State violence was not correctly described as terrorist itself for being Govt. financed and directed toward working class and vulnerable groups.The right is allowed murder gangs and the secret police lend a hand yet any attempt to even the odds is regarded by the press as shock,horror,terrorist anarchy. To look back on past heroic struggles and find invariably they were under libertarian banners not authoritarian is inspiring for the future.Its clear that where workers have yielded to middle class leadership that it has always proved authoritarian.Workers left to their own ideals and principles come up with anarchist struggles and solutions,authoritarian ideas are always imposed by outside intervention.The rise and fall of radicalism is not written by an anarchist and has all the more credibility for that.Extracted and modified from an Albert Meltzer review in the cienfuegos press anarchist review,1977.
