Anarchism in Paraguay has held influence among the urban and rural working classes since the end of the 19th century. Its main figure was the writer and journalist Rafael Barrett. Beginnings The anarchists were active in the graphic, railway and baker's unions as early as 1889, organizing the fight for the 8-hour workday. On March 1 of that year, the railway workers declared a strike of significant proportions, other guilds soon followed. On May 21, 1892, the first libertarian manifesto was published, edited by the group "Los Hijos del Chaco": they declared themselves anarcho-communist and intended to abolish private property, the clergy, the State and the armed forces. At the same time, several libertarian unions were organized, particularly among carpenters. In 1900, the Italian anarchist Pietro Gori, temporarily based in Argentina, drafted the statute of the bricklayers union. The carpenters eventually achieved the 8-hour day in 1901, after a week on strike.Cappelletti, Angel & Rama, Carlos. El anarquismo en América Latina , Edit. Ayacucho, Caracas, 1990, pg. LXXVII. During this time, Spanish and Argentine immigrants played an important role in spreading the anarchist ideal in Paraguay. 20th century The Paraguayan Regional Workers Federation was founded on April 22, 1906, organized under the anarcho-syndicalist model of the FORA. It declared itself opposed to all political parties, proposing to fight for the "Federation of Associates and Free Producers" as its objective. Its mouthpiece was the newspaper El Despertar. The anarchists in Paraguay were particularly influential among the peasants, even organizing "Societies in Armed Resistance" to confront landowners. Rafael Barret was the outstanding figure of the movement; From his magazine Germinal "he described the social tragedy of the Paraguayan worker, denounced the inhuman exploitation which the peasants were subjected to, practicing a form of investigative journalism that was advanced for his time. His articles included: "What are the grasslands", "The Argentine terror", "My anarchism", "Eloquence", "The Paraguayan pain", etc. He arrived in Paraguay in 1904 from Argentina, as a correspondent for the newspaper El Tiempo. In 1908 he was forced into exile in Montevideo and died of tuberculosis in 1910. Another renowned Paraguayan cultural figure was Ignacio Núñez Soler, a prominent Paraguayan anarchist and visual artist. In 1916 he founded, together with Leopoldo Ramos Giménez, Modesto Amarilla, Manuel Núñez and others, a working-class entity called May Day, whose social insignia was a black flag. Based on this organization, the Centro Obrero Regional del