Ángel Borda

Argentinian anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, trades union organiser, popular library founder, autodidact, sculptor, story and song (chamarritas and coplas) writer.

A leader of Entre Ríos trade unionism and the Federation of Shipbuilding Workers (FOCN), striker in La Forestal and prominent anarchist militant. A native of Diamante, at a very young age he acquired the trades of brickmaker and stevedore, at the same time that he approached anarchism. In 1921 he participated in the great lumber strike of the Forestal, in the Santa Fe Chaco, being part of the occupation of the town of Barrancas (Santa Fe) to prevent the passage of the railway with trains loaded with gendarmes, ready to repress strikers further north. This earned him prison, being locked up for a time in the Santa Fe prison of Las Flores, where his facet as a sculptor and worker poet was surely born. In 1926 he participated in the founding of the Provincial Workers' Union (UOP) of Diamante, along with port references of the stature of Juan Sánchez, Ramón Marcé and Fortunato Medina. At that time Borda participated in the anarchist group "Brazo y Cerebro".

In 1936 he was appointed General Secretary of the Regional Workers' Federation of the province of Entre Ríos, which brought together dozens of unions including dockworkers, dockworkers and rural labourers, among others. Around 1940 he joined the Federation of Shipbuilding Workers (FOCN), being a member of its Federal Council, and protagonist of the shipyard strike of 1950. He died in Buenos Aires in 1980 at the age of 78, leaving behind a whole life committed to the struggles of the workers' movement. It is worth reviving one of his poems that said: "Today I insulted the foreman. At last I am a man and I have won the cowardly shyness that crushed me! I sent it to hell and crushed his nose [...] Understand well, rich gentlemen: Give thanks to your gods, you goats and pray for the salvation of the necks their heads, their bellies and their millions".

www.estelnegre.org/documents/borda/borda.html

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