Antonio Soto Canalejo - General Megathread for the 7th of October 2021

Also known as "El Gallego Soto", was one of the principal anarcho-syndicalist leaders in the rural strikes in Patagonia of Argentina in 1921.

Antonio Soto was born on 8 October 1897 in the Galician village of Ferrol (A Coruña) to Antonio Soto and Concepción Canalejo. He arrived in Buenos Aires when he was 13 years old. Fatherless, he began a life of misery and privation in Argentina. Soto was unable to complete much of primary school. He worked in a diverse variety of jobs, suffering exploitation and punishments. Ever since he was a boy, he was attracted to anarchist ideas, particularly those of the syndicalists. In 1914, when Soto was 17 years old, Soto refused to join the Spanish militia to go and fight Morocco. In 1919 he embarked with the theater company Serrano-Mendoza, which visited the different Patagonic ports in Argentina and Chile.

In January 1920, a popular rebellion broke out in Trelew, Chubut. It began with a strike by commercial employees which grew in support by most of the population against the governor, the police, and the large traders. Soto arrived and began to agitate and support the striking workers, which lead to his arrest and expulsion from Chubut. Soon after he arrived in Río Gallegos, where the militant labor climate that reigned in the city attracted him.

Before and after the theatrical performances, Soto attended meetings of la Sociedad Obrera de Río Gallegos (Workers Society of Río Gallegos). Soto abandoned the theater company and settled in Patagonia, where he enrolled as a longshoreman to work in the port.

On 24 May 1920 he was chosen as Secretary General of the Workers Society of Río Gallegos. In July of that year the Workers Society, in agreement with all of the unions in the rest of the province of Santa Cruz, declared a strike of all hotel personnel and dockworkers, demanding improved wages.

The situation at the beginning of 1921 was as follows: the strike in Río Gallegos and Puerto Deseado was a general strike. On 16 January, the marine Malerba, under orders of the governor Edelmiro Correa Falcón began a suppression of the striking workers. The advisor of the Workers Society, José María Borrero, is detained, along with other members, but Soto was able to avoid arrest.

Soto traveled clandestinely to Buenos Aires to discuss the situation in the union congress. The Organización Obrera, the official newspaper of the syndicalist FORA, published news of his arrival. He participated in the national congress as a delegate of the Workers Society of Río Gallegos, where he sought support and solidarity for the conflict in Santa Cruz.

The Radical government of Hipólito Yrigoyen, allied with the big landowners, sent the army to Patagonia, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Benigno Varela to evaluate the developing situation. Varela obligated both sides to lay down their arms and for the landowners to comply with the workers' demands.

The landowners refused to comply with the agreement and continued with the layoffs, held the back pay, and maintained the poor working conditions. Soto led the Workers Society to strike for an indefinite period of time. On 25 March 1921, a general strike was declared. The landowners and the outgoing governor Correa agitated for the return of Lieutenant Colonel Varela to Santa Cruz, whereupon he began to repress and massacre the striking workers.

On 15 September 1921, Soto and his comrades depart, heading towards the farms of the cordillera of the Andes in a long journey with cars and horses. On 31 October, he had managed to incorporate into the movement the rural workers of several large farms, driving the southeast of Santa Cruz into an uprising. Workers took control of the roads, moving in columns of 60, 100, and 200 men who marched under the black and red flag.

The movement was divided into two parts: the column of Antonio Soto and the column of José Font (better known as Facón Grande). Until the beginning of December, Soto had dominated all the area south of Argentino Lake and of the Viedma Lake, and his contingent was the biggest (with around 600 workers). They operated from the estancia La Anita.

When the army arrived at estancia La Anita and demanded the unconditional surrender of all of the striking workers. The leaders of the strike met in an assembly, where Soto gave a dramatic speech but was ultimately ignored by a majority of the assembly, who eventually decided to surrender and end the strike. Upon their surrender, Varela's troops executed a large number of the workers. Soto and twelve men escaped on horseback to Chile and was never captured by the authorities.

he would died of old age in exile in Southern Chile

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