The Argentine anarchist movement was one of the strongest such movements in South America. It saw great support between 1890 and the start of a series of military governments in 1930. During this period, it was dominated by anarchist communists and anarcho-syndicalists. The movement's theories were a hybrid of European anarchist thought and local elements, just as it consisted demographically of both European immigrant workers and native Argentines.

The first Argentine anarchist groups appeared in the 1870s. A section of the First International was founded in the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires in either 1871 or 1872, but at first it was explicitly part of neither the International's anarchist nor its Marxist wing. By 1879, there were several sections in Argentina, with anarchists in control of all of them. In 1876, adherents of Bakunin's ideals founded the Center for Workers' Propaganda. In 1879, El Descamisado became the first anarchist newspaper in the country. The well-known Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta was in Argentina from 1885 to 1889. With his help, the first anarchist trade union was started in 1887: Sociedad Cosmopolita de Resistencia y Colocación de Obreros Panaderos. In 1890, another anarchist organ El perseguido started its publication.

During this time the Argentine anarchist movement was split over the question of organization. There was a, mostly communist anarchist, wing advocating workers' organizations, deeming them the natural weapon for the anarchist struggle. The opponents of organizations, both communist and individualist anarchists, in turn claimed organizations forced those working within them to become reformists and give up their revolutionary stance. Until his departure in 1889, Malatesta helped bridge this gap and minimize the tensions and rivalries between the two wings, but after he left, they broke out once again. The pro-organizers were strengthened in 1891 by the arrivals of the Spanish anarchist Antoni Pellicer in 1891 and the Italian Pietro Gori in 1898. In 1897, the proponents of trade unions also founded the weekly newspaper La Protesta Humana. In 1900, Paraire published a series of articles in La Protesta Humana under the title "Labor Organization" advocating a dual organization concept: a militant labor federation for economic, and a genuinely anarchist organization for political matters. Other works of writing regarding anarchist activities were also published around this time. La Voz de la Mujer was an anarcha-feminist newspaper founded in Argentina in 1896 that was the first of its kind. It was dedicated to defending anarchist communism from a feminist perspective. Early figures of the anarchist movement, such as Virginia Bolten, were said to have contributed to the newspaper. Her acclaimed skills as a speaker helped to push the ideas of anarcha-feminism and anarchist communism to the frontline of the anarchist movement in the early years.

In 1901, Argentina's first national labor confederation, the Argentine Workers' Federation (FOA), was founded. Although its founding principles were influenced by Paraire and Gori, it was at first a joint project with the socialists. In 1902, the first general strike in Argentine history took place. It led to the passing of the Residence Law, which gave the government the power to deport "subversive foreigners". This law was used to expel hundreds of anarchists, while a great number of them fled to Montevideo in Uruguay only to reenter the country afterwards. In 1903, La Protesta Humana was renamed as La Protesta, the name under it which exists to this day. In the same year, the moderate wing of the FOA left the federation to form the General Workers' Union (UGT), thus leaving the hegemony in the FOA to the anarchists. They renamed the union as Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA) as a sign of the organization's internationalism in 1904. In 1905, at the FORA's fifth congress, its adherence to anarchism was formalized. In a resolution, it declared that it should "inculcate in the workers the economic and philosophical principles of anarchocommunism". This resolution became the basic policy for the following years. The FORA disagreed with the revolutionary syndicalists over the question of the unions' role after a revolution. While the anarcho-communists viewed labor unions as a by-product of capitalist society, which would have to be dissolved with the establishment of an anarchist society, the syndicalists viewed their unions' democratic structure as a model for the society they envisioned and wanted the unions to be the basis of such a new society. A series of strikes, many of them instigated by the anarchists, followed in 1905.

During this period the anarchist movement experienced rapid growth. 50 to 70% of the males in the working class were disenfranchised, because they were not native Argentines. Hence the legal political framework was not an option for them and anarchism gained appeal. The movement's strength and its relationship to the state is demonstrated by the events on May 1, 1904. 70,000 anarchist workers marched in the streets of La Boca (Buenos Aires' total population was of 900,000). Proscribed by Roca's government, the demonstration ended in the death of Juan Ocampo, a teenager.

In 1909, police fired on a May Day demonstration in the Plaza Lorea in Buenos Aires organized by FORA. Several workers were killed. The anarchists responded by declaring a general strike leading the government to shut down the workers' centers and arrest 2,000 people. This strike lasted nine days. As the Chief of Police Ramón Falcón was widely blamed for the killing, the young Jewish anarchist Simón Radowitzky killed him and his secretary by throwing a bomb at the car they were in on November 13. An unprecedented repression against the anarchist movement ensued. Martial law was declared and remained in place until January 1910. The offices of La Protesta were raided and its machinery destroyed, as were the workers' centers. Within 48 hours thousands were arrested, many sent to Ushuaia prison in Tierra del Fuego. Non-Argentine activists were generally deported.

Although martial law was lifted in January 1910, this year also saw the next major clash between the government and the anarchists. 1910 was the hundredth anniversary of the May Revolution of 1810, which led to Argentine independence. Anarchist agitation was on the rise, a new anarchist daily newspaper, La Batalla, was founded in March, and the FORA planned protests against the Residence Law, but was somewhat hesitant as it scented a lack of militancy among workers. The moderate syndicalist Argentine Regional Workers' Confederation (CORA), the successor of the General Workers' Union, however, pushed for confrontation and the anarchists were forced to follow suit. They threatened to call for a general strike on May 25, the day of the anniversary festivities. Therefore, the government once again declared martial law on May 13. Police arrested the editors of La Protesta and La Batalla and FORA leaders. Meanwhile, right-wing militant youths attacked union offices and workers' clubs while the police ignored or even encouraged them. Because of this, the general strike was moved to May 18, but it was suppressed by the police and the right-wing militants. 1910 also saw the sentencing of Simón Radowitzky. As a minor, he could not be sentenced to death, so he was condemned to life in Ushuaia. He would be pardoned and released from prison in 1930.

Argentine anarchist historian Ángel Cappelletti reports that in Argentina "Among the workers that came from Europe in the 2 first decades of the century, there was curiously some stirnerian individualists influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche, that saw syndicalism as a potential enemy of anarchist ideology. They established...affinity groups that in 1912 came to, according to Max Nettlau, to the number of 20. In 1911 there appeared, in Colón, the periodical El Único, that defined itself as 'Publicación individualista'".