Part Four: Rebellion in Patagonia: When the Rural Argentinian Labor Movement Took Over Half the Country

logged down on the cool Zone account. I was like a whoop, sorry, just just just I got him his own account and he's never used it, not once. Anybody surprised. No. Also part of cool Zone Media is Ian our audio engineer, Hey Ian I and distinct from cool Zone Media. But our friend is unwoman who wrote our theme song and also distinct from cool Zone Media. But our friend is the worker's struggle of nineteen nineteen to nineteen twenty two

in southern Argentina. God, it's so dry when you phrase it that way, like oh yes, like I used to like be like I want a history book, and then it would be like the Worker's Council of the following country from nineteen twenty two to nineteen twenty two and a half, and I'm like, I mean, fortunately, this book is actually called Rebellion in Patagonian and it's actually like really readable and amazing spiles Valdo Beyer. He had to

flee the country for writing a history book. We'll talk about that at the end, because this is part four of a four parterer, which means it's the end, which

unfortunately usually doesn't mean it's the peak of everyone's lives. However, I promise you there's so much more interesting shit to come, including literally my favorite assassin in history, which is saying something because I do a podcast that includes a lot of anarchiststory and we do a lot of other stuff, but that is one thing that we are known for.

this piece right where we last left our heroes. They just successfully want to strike by being all kinds of wild and using diversity of tactics, including taking hostages and also striking in boycotts in order to get the bunk beds taken out and people to be treated vaguely decently on these sheep farms, and so Verella's like, Okay, I worked out a peaceful solution. The workers are satisfied too,

they won the owners. They're not so satisfied they wanted to drown the country in an ocean of blood or should not give people cots? Yeah, I know, it's really I don't.

right back up again? And Verrella's quote about it is, if it starts up again, I'll come back down and shoot the lot. The anarchists immediately look for the next struggle. They like won, right, but they're like, well, we got to keep this going. The meat packing plants in the city, the workers there have a contract in which they are shipped in and paid very very little. And what little they're paid, they're only paid at the completion of the contract. If they are fired for any reason, oh like for

labor organizing. Let's say, they lose everything they've earned, right, so you're completely at the whims of your employer. So the anarchists are like, all right, we're going to organize this. The strike only lasts a week and it fails. And it fails for two reasons. First because the workers are new to the area and they're not as embedded in the radical culture of the area, so they don't have

as strong of a culture of solidarity. I'm not sureing to blame them, it's just you know, they're not practiced right. And second, because there's a split within the labor movement, the Neutra syndicalists have finally sort of succeeded at their goal of fucking everything up, and so they split off from the larger anarchists union. And this neutral syndicalists union

is heavily celebrated by the conservative press. But like all of the right wing papers like hooray, we have good workers now who aren't evil anarchists, you know, And the new union is it gets a little blurry because there's also this right wing union that happens. And I think that the tour conflated a little bit. I actually think

that they're separate. But they an actual right wing union also starts at this time, and it's called the Drivers and Mechanics Union, and they are an anti anarchist union. That's like their thing. But there's an interesting thing about this union. It's not there's no drivers or mechanics in it. Oh my god, it's a Joe the Plumber thing again. It is started by, at least according to their detractors, it is started by various pimp, strike breakers, Patriotic League guys,

and other enemies of the working class. None of them. Oh, and then these like nine guys, the nine people in the union, they try to occupy the Workers' League offices, but Antonio Soto just shows up and personally throws them out. I'm assuming this is very literal too. Yeah, yeah, no, totally like imagine the bar saloon, only he's probably careful not to break his own window, you know. Yeah, he tells about the door because he's being polite. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And I have a feeling you have help doing this. But and so the anarchists call for a meeting of all the drivers and mechanics because they're like, oh, fuck, are you like, guys not happy? Like what's going on? And all the drivers and mechanics are like, what, no, we're with you. Those are literally just nine assholes pretending to be us. And the workers do get a win. They lose this meat packing strike, but they do get a win. Every store they've boycotted gives in rehiring the

workers and pays fines to the unions. And the reason that this tactic works so well is it pits the business class against itself. I actually recently saw this. Meaning there's like a poster going around being like, well, the rich of class solidarity, why don't you or whatever? You know, they don't always right by boycotting certain businesses. Other businesses boomed, so those businesses started supporting the workers because the class

solidarity the bourgeoisie was broken by the anarchists. Meanwhile, the anarchists right around ranch to ranch, and they're getting the workers ready for another strike if the bosses don't comply this coming spring September. This time, though, they're preaching pacifist resistance, and the right wing, the Union of Owners, is running around telling the bosses, don't comply. I know we signed a trade agreement. I know it was ratified by the government,

and a lieutenant colonel oversaw the whole thing. Well, we could just not do what we promised. That's how we got this land in the first place. Probably actually, I don't know about the whatever. It's all bullshit anyway. And the owners, they are not preaching pacifism. They're like, also, we can just kill all the workers if we want.

There's always more, and so they start getting even more guns that winter l sixty eight, and some of the bandits disappear into Chilian out of history, but some of the others, including El Tuscano, the Tuscan he's been here since the beginning. I just didn't include his name because there's when you got a guy named L. Sixty eight around, you pick him as the person of it. Yeah, El Toscano and his crew they stick around and there's still

being anarchist bandits. They call themselves the Red Council, and there isn't a way that's I know, I know they're kind of cool. They wear red band armbands as they like run around and like rob owners and shit, and I think they mean it. I think they are socialist anarchists,

but like that. Because there's not a strike anymore, the like moderate anarchists in the cities are like, look, we got to kind of distance ourselves from you, you know, like we're not with you on this right And I like to think L. Sixty eight he was like, all right, well, we can't band it anymore. The strike is over, and he went to go retire in Chile. That's what I like to think happened L. Sixty eight. Or he's a vampire and I met him in Tucson in two thousand

and three and he had a sword. I mean, there's no one's ever seen them at the same time. So yeah, you can't rule it out. I absolutely cannot rule it out. And I don't remember what number that guy went by. So and so the rest of the union distanced themselves from El Tascono and his crew, but they're trying not to be total shits about They're like, hey, we're not with you, but we're not like against you, right, that's

what they try to do. But a few union members snitch out the bandits, oh no, and the rest of the union, the rest of the union is like, what the Yes, because we don't affiliate with them, doesn't mean you can fucking snitch them out. Yeah, And that's the end of the Red Council. They get arrested because they get betrayed by these people who are in the fucking

anarchist union. That's so sad. I know, I think they have a higher survival rate than the rest of the workers, because no, everything keeps boiling over all across the region like they're supposedly in peacetime rate, but not really. In one smaller town, a local businessman he fires into the air trying to disperse a worker's rally. He's like, get back to work, you rabble, you know, And so then he's tackled and disarmed by the workers, so he fires all of his workers. So all of the other workers

boycott him. Like the rest of the city, no one will deliver him supplies anything. Right, All of those boycotting workers are then fired by their own companies. Antonio Soto's quo about it as they decided to general strike. Of course they're going to general strike in response to this, there's no doubt. Right. No one was like, I wonder if we're gonna general strike. His quote about it is we may die of hunger, but so will they. You know,

that's an incredibly hard lie. Yeah. Yeah. Shopkeepers have to work their own counters and unload their own ships. More and more federal troops keep rolling in. Everything is waiting on sheep sharing season. They're like, I wonder if the owners are gonna honor their word, Like, is this gonna calm down or is this gonna go wild At the start of October, it's working a little bit. Some bosses

are honoring the agreement. Those that refuse face strikes. This is all too much for the cops, who, of course start beating and arresting organizers and strikers because they're cops. Say they do it like it's their job. And I'm like, God, Yeah, that's their job. Yeah, it all could have gone fine, but once again, the police break the hell out of the law, you know, running around beating people up just for striking and shit like that. So the anarchists do

the thing they always do. They call for a general strike, workers on furl the red and black flag over ranches and they go on horsebacks spreading the word. I think they use the red flag too, but I like the red and black more so I'm including that one because

they use both. And President Irgoshin he sends Lieutenant Colonel Virella, who negotiated the last deal, I think, even with the same like you're the like thing they told him is go do your duty just a month or so prior Argentina, because it's now held by the liberals, right, the radicals, Argentina abolished the death penalty. The first fucking thing that our germaniphile lieutenant does when he shows up is he

announces he's forming firing squads. Ah ah, I love the rule of law and incredible things.

the right wings base. Either way they they caved. So Strike number two starts. This time around, the strike doesn't have as much support. The anarchist union unionists have distanced themselves from the anarchist bandits and even snitched them out, so there's no longer a guerrilla force. Right. The neutral syndicalists are siding with the establishment, so a large minor, a large minority of the urban working class sits aside

and sits they sit this one out. The middle class was citing the estab with the established to this time more and more because the propaganda against the lawless strikers was starting to take hold, and the anarchists, who are mostly immigrants and indigenous workers, were left alone. They're still the majority of the working class, but they're no longer like a supermajority, and they're no longer so well armed

or supported by other groups. They do it anyway. In only a week, they mobilize the entire southeast of the province. Soon work on every ranch in the south has stopped. Wow, and they did it like this, to quote Oswaldo Bayer quote, the delegates approach a ranch, speak with the peons, commandeer weapons, and take food as needed in exchange for vouchers signed by Soto. If the owners or administrators are present, they

are taken hostage. They also try to take all of the ranch's horses with them if possible to avoid being hunted down, but no police detachments are attacked. They also only take men hostage. Women and children are left at home, and a few workers stay in each place attend to the needs of the women and children who've been left the ranches.

they're leaving signed receipts. They're like, we're not bandits. They're like, we took four guns and four loaves of bread or whatever signed Antonio Soto or whoever is the guy in charge, you know, And the hostages are treated well and they're given the same food as everyone else. And we know this because they said this when they were released. They were like, no, we were treated well. The workers they

only have one demand where they have two demands. One is that they the government released their prisoners, right the people who have been arrested for organizing the strike.

and taking hostages over abide by the contract. Yeah yeah, yeah, So like like this stuff is just like I don't know, this is this is just the state of class warfare.

as the largest one I've ever read about anywhere. So with a sympathy strike being like we are striking in solidarity with this other thing or these prisoners and stuff, you know, there's armed columns of hundreds of workers with red and black flags and red flags that control all the rural roads in Patagonia. At this point and for years after this, the official record claimed that anarchists went around murdering owners. There is no evidence of a single

owner being killed except one. He was the hostage of workers and then the army shot him because the army ignored the hostages and attacked the workers. The workers when he was shot tried to save his life and failed. That's a real classic RB thing too. Of Okay, so we murdered this guy and we're gonna blame everyone else for doing this. Yeah, this has no This certainly hasn't happened anywhere in the modern world currently. But you know

what is in the modern world currently? Stuff? Products and services. Yeah, there's so many products and services you could have. What's a good product and service? You could pay someone to tell you how many geese are in a pond. You could be like, I don't have time to go geese watching, and you could just find someone and pay them to go watch geese for you and then just pay them. Well, otherwise you have the geese watchers on strike and then it really badly, and then they could break into your

house kidnap you. They'll probably treat you fine, but it's all because you didn't pay your geese watchers. Well this show sponsored by the geese watchers union, which is totally a sense of thing. And then whatever these other ads are and we're back. So then the army comes right, and at first the workers are relieved. They want an arbiter because the bosses are going back on their word end mass. They broke their employment agreements and they were

killing people for striking. So they're like, yeah, thank god, Virella is back. He's the guy who made this all work last time. He was a little bit you know, he's like not totally on our side, but like whatever, there's a problem. Rella is there to murder everyone. Yeah, I don't know. It's like something broken him, but go ahead.

and they're like, cool, we give up, you know. But most, for the most part, they're like very specifically, they're like, the army is not our enemy. Like the only time that there's like a real engagement between the two it's when the anarchists think that the army is the cops. Ah,

And that happens once later. So these small bands of workers they see the army and they surrender their weapons because this is the man who negotiated their contract, and then Virella and his officers kill almost half the people who surrender each and every time.

this in war either. Yeah, it's well to say, you very there's a whole thing like the extent to what you're not allowed to shoot your prisoners. I'm pretty sure you're legally not allowed to shoot a prisoner if they're trying to even if they're trying to escape, I think you have to chase them. I'm pretty sure that is actually how But well, again, like the cops, cops do not abide by the laws of war. Neither do most armies, to be fair, but cops especially do not.

I always wondered and not to be like, I just like always wondered why people dig their own graves, right and so, and now I got to read a first hand account, and he's like, because I was hoping something magical would come and save me in any like last few moments, I could have a live I wanted to have and for this random guy, it worked. Others are burned at the stake. They're tied to the posts of barbed wire fences and burned alive after being robbed at valuables.

They are all robbed. We're gonna keep talking about this. Others are forced to carry the gasoline that would be used to rudely cremate their bodies in the hills. And Virella is like when he's reporting, he reports about battles where he's like, ah, yes, my thirty one soldiers bested four hundred and thirty strikers without taking a single casualty.

That's that's not a battle. That has never happened. Two armed forces shooting at each other with more than ten to one odds where the smaller side takes not a single casualty. That was not a battle. No one shot at those people. Yeah, that was a fire. That was a massacre of surrendering workers, and it was not an army. Also, the army would show up with white flags to negotiate

and then just kill everyone. Meanwhile, the media presents this strike as if it's two different things that are somehow contradictory, and no one cares. One is that it's a it's all bandits, right, And the other is that it's an invasion of brown people from Chile and these word Chilotes for them, and the indigenous workers are not invading. They categorically cannot anyway. Yeah, and like maybe some of that

maybe they're from they probably came from Chile, right whatever. Anyway, people probably know where I stand about that sort of thing. So it is also it's not discussed much in the histories, but I have little doubt that it is the racial is a of these workers that allows this large scale massacre of them. The European immigrants among them absolutely died too, but you know, it doesn't matter. They're all getting murdered, and there's absolutely racialization to the fact that this wild,

this large scale murder can happen. And then all of the workers, the ones who are spared and the ones who are killed, are robbed by the soldiers just like everything they own. And these are largely a group of people who have no homes and go from job to job, but they're not like broke, right, so they carry all of their wealth with them, So there's actually a lot that is being stolen from them, and survivors are also being forced to burn their identity papers. One Chilean worker

who survived wrote about it. All is an anonymous guy for some weird reason didn't want to put his name on this. Yeah, I wonder why we didn't fight, because that was never our intention. We had resolved to avoid any confrontations with the arms and to avoid bloodshed because

our quarrel wasn't with the soldiers. We wanted to carry out simple actions that would prevent the ranchers from finishing the season's tasks shearing and branding, so that the scale of their losses would frighten them and we would be able to secure the release of our imprisoned comrades. But we were very mistaken. The ranches had to create our total extermination and these orders had to be carried out

no matter what. And this guy, the guy who wrote that, who didn't want his name in it, he actually was executed too. He survived being executed. He was shot in the elbow, in the chest, and then he played dead. He spent a day in a pile of corpses and then dragged himself miles come nightfall to caves in the hills and bandaged his wounds. The army outlawed all labor unions. All workers had to carry special papers to allow them to exist in public or to move about on roads

or get hired. Right, So this is where like the literal surfdom stuff comes in.

I think he's closer to the coast. I'm not certain. Soto and his group Rated Ranches took men hostage, left behind promissory notes for all captured goods and Also he like outlawed drinking and it kind of worked, you know. He was like, oh, what if we're all sober, and he would like when they would like raid places, he'd set the alcohol fire, which honestly makes a lot of sense. If you are running around marauding, you probably should do it sober so that you're not doing a bunch of

real bad stuff. You know. Yeah, it's not a terrible idea. Yeah, soon they're alone in the hills. But also it's like that had to get passed by a vote because I what I know about their command structure is what's about to come up or they're voting on shit, So I assume that they no drinking anyway. Whatever. Soon they're alone in the hills. They have captives, and they have dwindling support. Soto wants to stay on the run. He's like, we just got to keep doing what we're doing until we win.

Others are like, man, fuck it, we're all about to die anyway, let's just turn and fight. Fuck them, you know. Others, most of them, they want to negotiate. They're like, ah, it's a virella. It's gonna work, you know, because there's no not really a good way to like totally know what's happening, you know. Yeah, And so they vote and the negotia, the pro negotiation people win, and so they send two negotiators who are promptly marched into the river

and shot. The anarchists vote again, and they vote for surrender. Soto says his final piece. He says, I am not meet to be thrown to the dogs. If my comrades are staying to fight, then I will stay. But my comrades don't want to fight. So he and a dozen others ride off into the darkness. And he's the last connection between the rural striking the worker society. So with

his departure, so ends the worker society. He also, by being the guy who in the end was like fuck this, I'm leaving, winds up the only organizer of note who survives. Oh wow, Yeah, I mean I guess it makes sense given that there's you know, d Army's just decided to just st just straight up to an extermination campaign. Yeah, and I'll talk about how they pick them now. When so the surrendering workers, surrendering workers are about one hundred and fifty of them, which I think is probably about

a third of them. Maybe a quarter of them, or just execute on the spot. One is a fifteen year old boy who they pick up shortly after, who might have been running messages for the strikers. He shouted murderer as the firing squad ended his life. A German Man Otto whose last name is lost to history. He said in Spanish, this is not how you kill people. Not even in the European War, where I fought for four years,

did they ever execute unarmed prisoners. Not entirely truth, that's true, but fair enough, but it's not a lack.

together in the south of Argentina. I'm glad you lived your lives. I'm glad you loved each other, and I'm glad I don't know. I believe them when they said that this was all worth it, you know. And before they were burned or buried, each of the workers was robbed one last time by the ruling class, which is this really thing of like who was actually the bandits here? Like oh yeah, it's no question. Really, Like it's like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, yeah, the sober people,

the sober people who are leaving promissory notes. Sorry, I borrowed your guns, you know. Yeah. However, okay, there's there's eight Chileans who escape by being clever as fuck, and like songs were sung about them fifty years later. They were like, hey, hey, Brella, we know where Antonio Soto is. Give us horses and we'll go get him and we'll drag his ass back here. Fuck that guy. And the army is like, oh, we're not very smart. So here's

a bunch of horses. Incredible, and the Chilean's ride out into the darkness and out of history and into mythology. They good for them. I hope, I hope they're just like in the mountains having a good time or something. Yeah, And the only workers who are spared are the ones whose bosses vouch for them as good hard workers in the most glowing terms, which is like wild because some of the owners aren't even that mad during all of this, and so they're kind of in this weird position too.

Some of them, most of them are like fuck, yeah, kill all these motherfuckers, right, but some of them are like put in this position where they are like begging to have their workers live spared by the army a few weeks later, so there's like one group left. Fassan Grande big knives and he is a cart driver who never went to school. He surrenders to once more. He's convinced that Verrella will treat with him because once again the army isn't the enemy. Fassan offers Verrella his hand.

The lieutenant colonel refuses it, and Fasan is robbed and taken out back. They steal the sash he uses as a belt, and he is shot while trying to hold up his pants. He's left half buried and forced to watch his comrades executed. By all accounts, Fassan was generous and humble. He gave away what little money he had. He was always doing favors for everyone. When one of his friends was on the run from the law, he brought the guy groceries in the hills. Every single day.

There's like times he gives like literally all of his money to random families. And he's just a fucking cart driver, you know. And with that final surrender, the strike is over. A few stray anarchists are killed over the next month,

but this isn't where our story ends, you know. Sometimes we have to stop in the middle of what we're saying because this strange thing interferes with our capacity to speak, and our voices change tenor and we start talking about ads as if we are possessed in some sort of seance. I've experienced this. It is, it's about to happening, feeling here it goes and we're back. So wages drop by a third as the bosses ignore the agreement they'd signed

that have been ratified by the National Labor Board. And on January first, nineteen twenty two, there's this huge banquet thrown by the landowners for their hero down in Patagonia, and this is the you know, the sensible radical is having this banquet throne for him by all the conservatives. The Argentinian owners stood up and they sang the national anthem for him, and the British owners, yeah, and the British owners stood up and they sang for he's a jolly good fellow. How are the Brits?

Like that's that's a bit much. Yeah, Like that's even by like like right, that's not We just wanted to be in charge of everyone, not murder everyone. Everyone else was fine with it, but at least two people, you know, had they drew a line somewhere, and I commend them for that. And there's another group of people, another group of workers, who've been left out of the story so far,

and they're not fucking happy about this either. On February seventeenth, twenty not twenty twenty two, nineteen twenty two, despite what I wrote in my script, because I'm incapable of writing dates accurately, which funny, I usually actually write eighteen instead of nineteen or twenty, like when I write the modern dates, I always this is the side. I'm so used to doing shit that happens in the eighteen hundreds, that like if something happens, and like, you know, like being like, ah,

I was born in the eighteen eighties. No, I was born in the nineteen eighties. No, that's any way the point of this. February seventeenth, nineteen twenty two, the soldiers show up to a brothel called La Catalana, and they are run out by the workers who are wielding beliefs yeah yeah, and they shout murderers, pigs. We don't sleep with murderers. And all five of the workers, they had one hundred percent of the workplace, they refuse their services

to the workers. So the cops come and arrest all the sex workers as well as the musicians in the brothel literally for not sleeping with people, which is bad.

hear the sheer scale of it. There's about fifteen hundred workers, mostly rural anarchists, most of them quote unquote Chileans, with a few immigrants from Europe among them, and they'd been executed by the liberal government that had just abolished the death penalty. So even the radical Civic Union Verrilla's own party was like, oh, come now, that's a little bit much,

isn't it. You did what? Yeah? And I mean they set them up for this, right, They were like, oh, do your duty, wink wink, nudge nudge, and then we're like, what you did your duty? How dare you? You know, I don't really have any sympathy for the man, but that is as best as I can tell what happened.

He leaves Patagonia hero right, but he gets to Buenos Aires and no one will come to greet him from his own party or from the city except the fucking right wing militia, the Patriotic League, and even they, like, I don't think they're there with like flowers and fanfare. I think that they're like waiting to jump anyone who fucks with them. Socialist politicians to cry the massacre. The radicals block any investigation and quietly demote Virella to teacher

at cavalry school. They don't actually demote any stays a lieutenant colonel, but like you know, they don't let him be in the field day. They gave him a desk job, like.

the remaining workers. There's a fuck town of people still in prison, right, everyone who didn't get murdered or trick the fucking Yeah, it's giving them horses so that they can be like, oh, yeah, we're totally gonna go get Soto, give us your horses. And he goes down there. Vignask goes down there and he takes statement after statement of the murder and the theft that all of these prisoners

suffered at the hands of the army. And the statements are filed away, and they're soon to be locked up by a military dictatorship and they're not gotten for a very long time. Those men never see any justice. They are, however, released. So that's better to have been robbed successfully than murdered. That's what I always say. Yeah, I get the the world's tiniest Yay, yeah, totally. I mean I guess that is like you know, like when you get mugged, you're like, well,

that sucked. I guess I'm alive, you know, like, yeah, I.

Hurt Wilkins is a German anarchist, a Tolstoyan anarchist, which is to say he is a pacifist Christian anarchist, and not to bring up anything that's gotten you on trouble on the internet, there's this thing where people try to pretend like there were no Christian anarchists or religious anarchists in history, and so they are always like a tolstoyan anarchist, which is true. That means he was a pacifist Christian anarchist, which there were a lot of. To be fair, He's

about to do some really on pacifist shit, so very funny. Yeah. Also, I had no comment anyone who does a deep cut from back when Twitter was Twitter. Oh god, men were men and Twitter was Twitter anyway. Kurt Wilkins was born in eighteen eighty six, the year of the hay Market affair, but in Germany, not in Chicago. He wasn't like born from the aftermath of the bombing or whatever. Anyway.

back and listen to the very first episode. Just keep scrolling till there's no more scrolling and you will find me talking to Robert Evans about the hay market affair. Kurt is blonde haired and blue eyed, and he is raised in a working class family as a miner in Germany. When he's twenty four, he emigrated to the US because he didn't have any money, because it sucks being a minor anywhere. There's nowhere in history that being a miner besides like maybe being the owner of a mine, who

calls yourself a minor has ever been good. When he's twenty four, he emigrates to the United States and he becomes a hobo, which is a better job. Unfortunately at the time it involves a lot of mining. He also becomes an anarchist, pacifist, and a wobbly. Apparently he like came a little bit of a Marxist and he showed up and was like, oh no, I figured out what's up. Like, I'm into Tolstoy, anarchy and the industrial workers of the world.

So if you had Margaret reference as the industrial workers of the world on the cool people bingo card, go ahead and mark that square. What about tolls? So I feel like Tolstoy gets brought up constantly I know he's not a Quaker. It's like a slow shift. The things that come up, like no one's died from tuberculosis in like weeks on this show. Wow, weird, wow stunning. Yeah, I guess. And this is the time period where people would huh, anyway.

anyone to break the law. So he talks to all the workers and they start canning all the worst parts of the fish as though they are the finest cuts, and put them into and then put all the finest cuts of fish into all the cheap cans like the so that broke people get the good stuff and rich people take the gross stuff. But you know that those are rich people didn't know the difference. They were like, oh nah, yes, you can tell that this fish was killed hand filleted by a ceramic knife because of the

hints of and like motherfucker. That's the guts. I put the guts in there. Anyway, he winds up in Arizona as a miner, going back to his old job, and he winds up getting caught up in something that I'm sure will be an episode. But do you ever hear about how more than a thousand workers, mostly wobblies, were forced into a concentration camp in New Mexico for a while.

Industrial Workers of the World. They are a multiracial labor organization. So he tries to escape from this concentration camp, which is a very natural thing for someone to choose to do. He's captured, and he winds up getting escalated up to a prisoner of war camp because he's a foreign national,

right Geese. There he did escape and he escaped and he lived free for two years, but he was still just a hoboe and he was just like hoboing around working, right, Because that's the problem with like being like broken escaping from jail. I feel like you're rich and escape from jail. I feel like he can kind of just like it's easier to like lay low maybe, you know. So he gets arrested again and he gets deported back to Germany, but he didn't stick around Germany because he liked nature

and he hated cities. So Hamburg wasn't going to do it for him. Yeah, And I mean I think like one of the arcs of world histories, everyone who lives in Germany being like this sucks and then leaving.

like dangerous, scary anarchism. He's a fucking pacifist. The main thing he's done at this point is not want to be in prison and put fish parts into differently labeled canisters. And there was a crime imaginable. Yeah. The other hemisphere is like, we got to get this guy. He's the fishmonger. Yeah, that's right, beware the fishmonger. And I mean to be fair, well, we'll get to it. He gets out and he works constantly and he goes hungry so that he can send

money to a comrades who are still in prison. And he was a writer too, and he was sending articles to two different anarchist papers in Germany, I think one in Hamburg and one in Berlin covering what's going on in Argentina because we used to have foreign correspondence. I guess we actually still do. Hell, there's foreign correspondence school Zone Media. So anyway, at some point along the way he goes XVX, which is to say he's straight edged vegan, which is probably a bunch of labels he would not

identify with directly because they didn't exist. But he doesn't eat meat or drink alcohol. There's a very common thing for radicals back in the day. For all of his pacifism and theology, he constantly argues against anarchist infighting. He defends the violent insurrectionists and the bomb makers, as well as the peaceful labor organizers and the mass movement builders that I mentioned. I really like him. Yeah, he's just

like the anti in fighting peace guy. He's fine with the people who aren't into peace as long as they're on the right side. Anyway, he sees fifteen hundred comrades die horribly, and he realizes what he has to do. So nine or ten months before he does what he does. We'll get to that. I mean whatever I called him in an assass and people probably figure out what he does. He realizes what he has to do, so he stops

hanging out with his friends. He doesn't want anyone to get caught up as his accomplice, so he just like ghosts his entire social scene. His friends assume he's gone back to the US. That's how completely he's avoiding every wow. He goes underground, he's living under another name. To be fair, he has like seven names that he goes by. There's

like newspaper articles about the scary fishmonger. You know. He only meets up with other underground anarchists, the expropriators, future friends of the Pod, theer a bank robbers that are becoming more and more of a thing in Argentina. And they help supply him with a gun and a bomb. They might have given him the bomb making supplies rather than a bomb. Not not certain the details there. So it's January nineteen twenty three, it's a year since the massacres,

and he's like, all right, I'm ready. I'm going to take this guy out. But he's a pacifist, so he has to do it well. He was a pacifist, so he has to do it real carefully. He every morning he like reads the daily paper and on like the tram or whatever on his way to go wait outside this guy's house, right, oh my god. And every day he leaves without doing anything because Verrella always walks out escorted by his daughter. And Verrella is like, I'm not

a murderer. I cannot put her at risk for you know, the crimes of her father. Yeah. But on January twenty fifth, nineteen twenty three, after a week of waiting, Verrella comes out and his daughter's feeling sick, so he escorts her back inside, and then he comes out again alone. Kurt waits for Verrella to pass by, and then like or like we're about about to pass and then like steps out in front of him, when all the fucking sudden, a little girl crosses the street like into harm's way.

So Kurt grabs the girl's arm and is like run, a car is coming, and she takes off and he stands where his body is going to shield the little girl from what he's about to do, and he throws a bomb at Verrella's feet. They're both hit and they're both injured. Both of Kurt's legs are broken, and he knows at this point he's not getting away, right, he sacrificed that option when he chose to save the girl.

He pulls out his revolver empties it into Verrella, killing him while the officer tried and failed to draw his saber, and Kurt limps away, dragging one leg. Two cops rush up. He hands them the gun like handle first and says, I have avenged my brothers. Oh my god. Yeah. And this, this whole bloody struggle in Patagonia now Buenos Aires, actually helps cause the division between the government and the military

that unfortunately leads to military dictatorship. Not Wilkins, but and not even necessarily this assassination, but the fact that the government doesn't stand behind the army, right.

his Spanish is passable. He speaks a fuck ton of languages, right, and so they're like, who are you and he's like, you know, I'm Kurt whatever.

crutches forever. Anyway. Here's a really really long list of books I once sent to me immediately, most anarchist prisoner, Yeah, yeah, prison escape and oh shit, I can't break out of prison because my legs are broken, said to books. Yeah, exactly, exactly, and also in his letters he writes some of my favorite things that anyone's ever written. I'm gonna this is something he wrote. He's writing a friend about his upcoming trial. He says, quote, let's not speak of revenge. It wasn't revenge.

I didn't see Vrella as an insignificant officer. No, he was everything in Patagonia, judge, jury, and executioner. I aim to strike at the naked idol of a criminal system. But vengeance is unbecoming of an anarchist. Tomorrow or tomorrow does not promise quarrels and crime and lies. It promises life, love and science, and we must work to hasten the coming of that day. That's really beautiful, I know, Like

I honestly, I use this a lot. I talk about like vengeances on becoming of an anarchist is something that I talk about a lot that, Like, anarchists are interested in, well, people, everyone's different. Some anarchists do this, some anarchists, some non anarchists, whatever, you know. I'm not interested in vengeance. I'm interested in

solving problems, and sometimes solving problems means uh, physically stopping people. Right. Yeah, but the same as I'm not like, oh, I don't actually want the billionaires dead, I just want them to not be billionaires anymore, like, and if we can come up with a better way to do that, I'm fucking fine with it, you know. Anyway. Also, the other thing he writes in this letter that I love, he talks

shit on the endless infighting and discourse among the anarchists. Quote, we must not act like the enemies of La Protesta, which is that mainstream anarchist newspaper, and pick apart everything that seems wrong about an action or phrase that seems unclear to us. He who goes looking for evil is generally incapable of generous thought, Perhaps unconsciously, hate turns supposed revolutionaries into enemies of revolution. Only those who fight lies can love truth. So yeah, it's a it's a.

talk okay. So after hours in the infirmary, Kurt Gustav Wilkins, my favorite assassin of all time, goes through the door that each of us will one day go. And this is where we get to bring this story full circle. Critica, the most popular daily newspaper in the city, the one that on Rubia ran you know, or helped run Yeah, runs the headline. Wilkins was cravenly attacked today in the Federal prison and La Protesta wants to call for a

general strike. Of course they do, but they don't get a chance because someone else makes it happen first, the fucking bakers. Since since the first couple parts of this came out, more than one baker has reached out to me talking about how cool these episodes are because of the history of radical baking. I should get a po box so people can send me bake goods. Anyway, No, I actually wouldn't trust them. Damn it, never mind, Okay, anyway, I'm so sad the day that Kurt Wilkins is attacked.

He's not dead yet, raising he's in the infirmary. No pastries are made, no suites offered to the bourgeoisie. The rest of the year, unions run to catch up, even the syndicalists for a nine sign onto the strike. It spreads across the country. Stores won't open their doors. Not on the day that Kurt Wilkins, the avenging Angel the working class, was fucking murdered. So the police lay siege

to the Baker's union hall. So for a I think, for I think, the Anarchists for A calls for a demonstration right next to the police lines that sketchy at all, and the cops open fire and the bakers and their supporters shoot right back. In the end, there are three deaths. A baker was shot multiple times, a street vendor was trampled by police forrces, and a cop got shot three times in the belly. But the workers are weary, and one by one the unions call off the strike until

only the anarchists remain. Five days later, the anarchists lift the strike too, and there are gatherings for Kurt Wilkins. In Germany and Chile. Christian anarchists published pamphlets with lines that go hard like this, the people sing their song of death and amidst the tears of mothers, Yeah, yeah, no, right, oh my God, and admits the tears of mothers, the illusions of brides, and the portentous yearnings of the young.

I have no idea what that part means. The world embraces the heart of Jesus and the bomb of Wilkins. Hail anarchy. The people embrace the heart of Jesus and the bob of Wilkins. Maybe the greatest line I've ever heard. Yeah, such a twenties anarchist thing, I know. As for the murderer, the murderer, murderer, murderer, you know, to be fair, this is why people are past this. These cycles of violence

are motherfuckers. So Perez Milan Meon. Perez Meon is the far assassin who killed Kurt, and he was an archetype that we're all familiar with today from mass shooters. He was the troubled child of a privileged home who was obsessed with guns and collected gun magazines from around the world. He was a devout. Has ever been a like a third type of person? It's like, are we just cursed to have the same type of person doing the same thing on all sides? For every though, I know it's

the XBX zealot who does the I mean whatever. If I was a right wing person, I'd probably be like, this is the cool guy whatever, But I'm not because this guy sucks. He's a devout Catholic. He joined a far right group and signed up to do security, which is like, you join a far right group and you want to be the security guy. That's like two strikes.

You know. He fought in the militias in Patagonia and he had briefly been held hostage by Al Tuscano, one of the anarchist bandits that we talked about earlier, and so he'd been Freerella, so he had some skin in the game, right and so but as soon as he's out, he's like, man, I want to be a man in a uniform. I really like authority, you know. So he joins the Coast Guard, which is the only authority uniform job that'll have him, and then he gets kicked out

for being too unhinged. How did you get kicked out of the Coast Guard. It's like, I don't know. I used to have this stalker who got kicked out of the Navy for being too violent. So anyway, he likes to say that not the guy, not my stalker, but presme on. He liked to say that he resigned, but he was absolutely kicked out because there's only one type of human, only one type of far right human. Yeah. He also gave a lot of warning signs about what

he was going to do. Specifically, he kept telling everyone loudly over and over again, I am going to avenge Verrella's death. Some higher ups, some higher up force helps his plan, gets him a job in the prisons. He kills Kurt Wilkins, and since it's all a conspiracy, he's given a light sentence and sent to a low security mental institution. But the thing about the cycle of violence

and anarchists both are everywhere. So he's now in this low security mental institution and two inmates in the asylum conspire to kill him. Oh my god. One is an old Russian I think Belarusian sociologist, an aristocrat who had become an anarchist, moved to Argentina, gave everything he had to the movement, and then during the tragic week, realized he needed to write propaganda against the pogroms, so he did a robbery and that's how he ended up in jail, right,

Oh my god. He's like, actually the guy who kind of started the Argentinian expropriation thing. I think there's another book, huh actually also by Octavia, not Octavia, Butler Oswalda called the anarchistics Appropriators that I'm going to do an episode about one other. This guy will come back into our history. He's interesting, Hell yeah, but he's old and sick. At

this point. He's like not doing well in prison in the asylum, and he he didn't have access to Perez and he might not have had access to pull the trigger, but he had enough charisma to pull some strings. The other inmate is more prominently a lunatic, but a scene as like a good lunatic. This it gets all gets air quotes. You know, he's an inmate in the asylum health issues, and his name is Lusig. And he's either a little person or has cayphosis, which is what people

call a hunchback. I don't know which. I've read both either way. And the aging frail anarchist gets smuggled a gun from the outside and slips it into Lucis's pocket because Lusis has more freedom of movement around the asylum because everyone trusts him, right, But he's an anarchist too. Well actually there's like arguments in history, but I'm like whatever, whatever, I'm going to just to tell you what he did.

You know, he walks up to Perez, he says this is from Wilkins, and then comes up rules yeah, hell yeah, And I mean Wilkins probably would have been mad about this, to be honest, I probably, but you know whatever, he can't make any more decisions. He's dead. So a police investigator unravels the entire plot and arrests the three anarchists who smuggled in the gun. Like all five of the anarchists involved are found out, but friend of the pod shut the fuck up, comes in a No one talks,

everyone walks, None of the five anarchists say shit. All potential witnesses are untrustworthy. They're inmates of an asylum. Oh my god. No one is convicted, I think, not even loosing, since he's clearly proved is already unfit to stand trial. That's so good, I know. And that's that's what I've got. That's the story. After all of this, Argentina does the dictatorship it's more famous for, and the Historian on Earth.

All this in the seventies, as VOLDA Beyer. He has to flee the country for writing the book about what I just read to you. So did a bunch of the people who start in the movie about it. I think the governor who let it be filmed was arrested for letting this movie be made. Yes, Oh god, Nationalism is a hell of a drug. Yeah. This is a story that scared the shit out of the right wing of Argentina because for decades the official version was the

only version that people knew. The official version was this weird thing where they both put down bandits who are also somehow an invading army from Chile. Oswolda Bayer wasn't allowed to go back until he is out of the country for about eleven until nineteen eighty three when democracy returned, and then he stayed radical right and he was involved in anti colonialism and pro indigenous struggle. And so he

has the following. First, he gets declared an illustrious citizen of Buenos Eiras by the mayor, and then fifteen days later the Senate declared him persona non grata for trying to tonite Argentinian and Chile and Patagonia, being like, well, fuck this, Why are any of these things fucking Argentina. That's bullshit. That's incredible. Yeah, that's the story. That's the story. That there's a reason that this podcast exists is because

there are so many pieces. There's sixty eight, and there's Don Rubia, and there's Wilkins, and there's Radowitski, and there's so many things, and there's two how many at least two different groups of anarchists literally ride horses into the sunset. Yeah, they get away with murder. Yeah, this is three groups crossing the Chile, never to be heard from his Well, Okay, so Soto actually does come back in history about ten years later. He like shows back up and he opens

a hotel and he stays radical. He he doesn't like keep shooting guns and rabbit while he was never really into the gun. So if he was a more of an organizer, he like he's a little bit settled down in his old age, which I don't blame him for, but he like runs a hotel and less radicals meet there and he lives a you know, but yeah, everyone

else rides off into this on Saturday times. So yeah, anyway, what I got, Yeah, I mean this is like, this is definitely one of those because I think I think the one of the the thing about the way that.

there was a thing in Korea. Yeah, and so that was like number three and then and it's it's like every every sort of like every time you put more of the pieces together, it's like wait, no, hold on, these people were like anarchists were the majority of socialists in most of the world for a long time, and obviously they were two a.

what is the criteria here? I once asked I once asked Ursula La Gwynn if she was an anarchist and she said no, because I'm not enough of an activist. I haven't done enough. And I was like, can we claim you? And she was like I'd be honored, so so fuck all the gatekeeping, you know, yeah, And I'm

like if she doesn't think she could count. I'm like, there's not a lot of people I would count higher than her, you know, like like like a quarter of them diet of this story, so like you know, yeah, totally all right, Well that's the end of the story that nothing else ever happened. Uh, that's the end of history. But if people want to know about current events, what should podcast that you run? Should they? This is the plug transition. It's really long time. Yeah.

It's not great. It's really I was like, oh, I'm gonna do a lighthearted episode about chocolate that I was I was like, okay, So there was a slavery perd that I knew about. And then as I was researching it, there was the second slavery part house like I love that.

You were like, I'm going to do an about candy, but if you dig into the history of fucking anything, just fine depressed misery and yeah yeah, So so now everyone else is gonna experience it, but it's going to be good, I promise, all right, all right, yeah, well, folks should check that out and they should also check out on this feed and it could happen. Here's feed. Every Sunday we have book club and it's naturally spooky because I wrote a horror novella and that's what you

all are going to hear this. You're going to hear the final part, four of four parts, much like this was four parts. It's just a coincidence. Stopped thinking about everything in terms of numbers. That's what you can listen to on Sunday. It's called The Lammel Slaughter of the Lion. And next week we have our own spooky week. But I'm not going to tell you what it's about yet. You're gonna have to wait. I've always wanted to do that, sohe what do you got to plug?