A-Infos (en) Italy, FDCA, Cantiere #44 - Spain 1936: Between War and Revolution - Mario Salvadori (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Ninety. Many years separate us from the events of July 1936 in Spain, 
which sparked one of the greatest "assaults on heaven" in the history of 
the working class. Yet, despite the passage of time and the great 
transformations that occurred in every sphere, this event continues to 
retain its importance for the vast social revolution achieved by a 
working class organized to a large extent in the anarchist movement. 
---- The Spanish movement has a unique history because the workers' 
associations that joined the International Workingmen's Association (the 
so-called "First International") in 1868 also simultaneously adopted the 
program of the specific Alliance of Socialist Democracy founded by 
Mikhail Bakunin. This created an organization that, along with demands 
for improved working conditions, pursued a collectivist, federalist, and 
anarchist agenda. This resulted in the fusion of syndicalism and 
anarchism that emerged in the Spanish libertarian movement of the late 
nineteenth century, and then in 1910 with the founding of the 
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT): a characteristic that 
constituted the movement's strength but, at the same time, also its 
political limitation.

The CNT was expected to go through difficult years: its initial 
development was followed by outlawing and repression, the assassination 
of its leaders by the police and hired killers, and clandestinity during 
the dictatorship of General De Rivera. But these were also years that 
selected and trained a group of unrivalled militants who, in 1931, 
delivered a CNT with hundreds of thousands of members to the political 
scene of the new republic, born after the collapse of De Rivera's 
dictatorship and the monarchy. The anarcho-syndicalist CNT faced the 
following years divided between a line that prioritised workers' gains 
and the strengthening of the organisation, and the one that gravitated 
around the FAI[1]which aimed at immediate revolution; with the 
prevalence of the latter, the Confederation had to suffer harsh 
repression both under the government of republicans and socialists, and 
with the right in power. Finally, in February 1936, the Popular Front, 
made up of the parties of the center and the parliamentary left, won the 
elections, which the working class welcomed in its own way by freeing 
thousands of political prisoners from jail.

The most reactionary sectors of the bourgeoisie, opposed to the new 
government and feeling threatened by the proletariat's class struggle, 
supported by the landowners, the Falangists, and the Church, openly 
organized for a military coup. Thus, on July 18, 1936, the vast majority 
of generals rebelled, but while the government attempted to negotiate 
with the rebels while simultaneously denying the proletariat weapons, 
workers in Madrid, Barcelona, and many other cities managed to defeat 
the military. Where this failed to happen, the price paid was extremely 
high, with thousands of workers and political and union activists being 
shot. Furthermore, the government's hesitation ultimately facilitated 
the territorial consolidation of the rebel generals, who, aided by the 
Italian fascist air force, transported elite troops from Morocco and 
quickly occupied approximately half of Spanish territory, subsequently 
organizing themselves into a state entity headed by General Francisco 
Franco.

On the Republican side, the proletariat that had defeated the military 
did not intend to stop at simply defending the bourgeois Republic, but 
wanted to proceed with a true social revolution. In Barcelona, the 
working class, organized with the CNT-FAI, had won a major victory, 
which was followed by the establishment of the Central Committee of 
Anti-Fascist Militias, composed of representatives of all political 
parties and unions. This was the true government of Catalonia, 
superseding the official government of the Generalitat, which for the 
time being remained in the background, ratifying decisions made 
elsewhere. Thus, the CNT-FAI, despite the Revolutionary Committees 
holding effective power in the region, decided to accept the 
anti-fascist and inter-class front and to set aside (at least 
temporarily, in their intentions) the social revolution.

It was then that the political limits of the Spanish libertarian 
movement emerged, which, despite previous debates and resolutions, 
showed a certain confusion of ideas regarding the role of the 
revolutionary grassroots organizations and their defense. In fact, there 
was a refusal to "take power" when this - with the dissolution of the 
state organizations - was already in the hands of the revolutionary 
committees in the countryside, in the neighborhoods, in the factories, 
with the militias and revolutionary tribunals, and to proceed with the 
transformation of society through these working class structures. It 
seems clear to us, in any case, that a strong and cohesive anarchist 
communist organization would also have been necessary, an active 
minority and a driving force, which Bakunin had already outlined in his 
time, telling his comrades that "isolated, each acting on his own, you 
will certainly be impotent; united, organizing your forces - however 
small they may be at the beginning - in a single collective action, 
inspired by the same thought, the same aim, the same position, you will 
be invincible."[2]

This also highlighted an organizational, as well as political, 
deficiency that the FAI had not overcome up to that point.

Meanwhile, workers, without waiting for directives, had gone beyond the 
anti-fascist response by directly assuming responsibility for the 
operation of industries, businesses, services, and agricultural 
businesses. In Catalonia, Spain's most industrialized region, much of 
the economy was now under worker control. In Barcelona, urban 
transportation (trams, buses, and the subway) was collectivized, 
organized and coordinated by Works Committees, as was the case with the 
region's railway lines. Self-management extended to other services, from 
restaurants, hotels, and department stores to hairdressers, cinemas, 
theaters, and bakeries, but it was even more profound throughout the 
textile, chemical, mechanical, wood, and construction industries.

Collectivizations also took place outside Catalonia, and their scale 
increased the more deeply rooted the CNT's presence was. However, it is 
important to note that the working class of the UGT, linked to the 
Socialist Party, which instead advocated for the nationalization of 
businesses, was often also an active participant in this social 
revolution. The number of workers involved in industrial and service 
collectivizations is estimated at over a million. Organizational forms 
varied, ranging from a council system that controlled various aspects of 
production, effectively abolishing private property, to control 
committees in foreign-owned companies or where the owners remained in 
place. The social impact of this self-management system was a particular 
focus on limiting wage differences, increasing workplace safety, 
reducing unemployment, and ensuring equal treatment for men and women. 
All this, of course, occurred in a situation of great difficulty 
dictated by the state of war and the country's territorial division, 
which reduced and distorted the previous internal market. The supply of 
raw materials was problematic due to the difficulties of the war and 
access to credit was in the hands of the central bodies of the Republic, 
which, while fighting against fascism, nevertheless defended the class 
interests of the bourgeoisie (which, unable at the time to oppose 
collectivization, sought to limit it and slow its development). In 
Catalonia, the de facto situation was sanctioned in October 1936 with 
the Decree on Collectivization and Workers' Control, a compromise 
between the working class and the bourgeoisie that legalized 
self-management but limited it and which, however, was consistently 
hindered and sabotaged by the Republican parties and the Stalinists, who 
pushed for respect for private property and the sole nationalization of 
companies left without their owners.

In the countryside, collectivization was practiced throughout the 
Republican era: large landowners were expropriated everywhere, and their 
self-managed lands, those of tenant farmers and peasants, were pooled in 
collectives joined voluntarily. Indeed, the right of small landowners to 
produce their own produce was generally respected, provided they did not 
employ dependents or cause harm to the community. Collectivization data 
are conflicting and incomplete given the period Spain was in. According 
to historian Frank Mintz, a minimum of 758,000 collectivists were 
involved in the countryside, while others cite much higher figures; in 
1938, official data gave a total of 2,213 agricultural collectives, 
despite the war and the obstacles and repression posed by the central 
government. Collectivities also coordinated at the regional level: in 
February 1937, in Aragon, 450 villages with 300,000 collectivists 
decided to federate. Self-management in the countryside achieved good 
results, and especially on expropriated large estates, it saw an 
increase in cultivated land and production, thus making a significant 
contribution to the sustenance of the cities and the fighters. Socially, 
the marked improvement in the conditions of the rural population is 
recognized. In addition to finally achieving adequate food, free medical 
and hospital care was introduced, schools were opened or reorganized 
with modern methods, and workers were involved in all decisions. It is 
noteworthy that the smaller the communities, the more deeply involved 
trade and crafts were in the self-management system. Very often, 
remuneration for labor was familial rather than individual, in an effort 
to implement the principle "from each according to his ability, to each 
according to his needs," but there were also many experiments with the 
complete pooling of products and the abolition of money. Contradictions 
were not lacking, however, as in those agricultural communities where 
women's wages continued to be lower than men's. When this system was 
projected over a larger area of territory, the communities merged with 
the municipal administration, ensuring the entire economic, social and 
cultural life of the municipality.

It must also be said that the social revolution that affected Republican 
Spain was not limited to important achievements in the economic field, 
but extended to many other aspects, such as teaching (there was a great 
libertarian experience in the education sector which was also seen as a 
pedagogical revolution), social relations, while a different role for 
women was emerging which shook up traditional family and gender 
relations.[3]

Strong bourgeois opposition to all the revolutionary achievements soon 
began, more timidly in Catalonia. This opposition focused primarily on 
denouncing the alleged inefficiency of the collectives and the need to 
disband the workers' militias and incorporate them into the regular army 
to win the war. The ideological offensive was so insistent that even the 
CNT and the FAI eventually bowed to the "necessity" of militarizing the 
militias. Ultimately, this only served to disarm the revolution and 
dampened the enthusiasm of the masses without achieving any significant 
operational military advantages. Indeed, it was deployed on terrain 
where the coup leaders were strongest, both in terms of preparation and 
international support (consider the military aid provided to Franco by 
Italy and Germany, while the Republic was blocked by the 
Non-Intervention Committee formed by the great powers), and thus faced 
the situation without the necessary flexibility. Nothing was attempted, 
for example, to try to bring confusion to the fascist rear with 
fighting, sabotage, guerrilla actions, or by proclaiming the 
independence of Spanish Morocco from where elite troops of Maghrebian 
ethnicity came.[4]Finally, the CNT and the FAI, accepting the logic of 
the anti-fascist struggle alone, decided to enter the Catalan government 
in September 1936 and the central government on 4 November of the same 
year. This grave decision, which although mistaken could have had a 
tactical sense for the defence of the collectivisations, was pursued 
without clarity and determination; thus every revolutionary project was 
sacrificed without considering that this would have also led to defeat 
on the military level. As the anarchist Diego Abad de Santillan later wrote:

We knew that it was not possible to make the revolution triumph if the 
war was not won, and we sacrificed everything to the war. We sacrificed 
the revolution itself, without realizing that this sacrifice also 
entailed the sacrifice of the objectives of the war.[5]

The attack on revolutionary achievements, if it had the bourgeoisie as 
its social base, found indispensable political support in the Communist 
Party of Spain (PCE). In just a few months, the PCE had grown enormously 
through its skillful infiltration of the leadership of the Socialist 
Party, the army, and the police. It also leveraged the propaganda power 
of the anti-fascist volunteers of the International Brigades and the aid 
provided by Stalin (paid for by transferring most of the Bank of Spain's 
gold reserves to the USSR). Stalin, in reality, was concerned about any 
revolutionary outcome and viewed the ongoing war as a means of securing 
new international alliances. In the spring of 1937, the bourgeois 
sectors, strengthened by the reconstituted state apparatus of the 
Republic and autonomous Catalonia, decided that the time had come to 
settle scores with the revolutionary forces; this could only happen in 
Barcelona, where the proletariat was at its strongest. On May 3, 1937, 
police units under the command of Rodríguez Salas of the Partit 
Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (PSUC), the Catalan counterpart of the 
PCE, attacked the telephone exchange, which was legally run by the 
sector's workers. Soon, all the factories went on strike, defense 
committees mobilized in the working-class neighborhoods, and clashes 
erupted with the police, supported by armed units of the PSUC and 
Catalan nationalists. This resulted in hundreds of deaths (including the 
Italian anarchists Camillo Berneri and Francesco Barbieri, kidnapped and 
later killed by the Stalinists) and a thousand injuries. The city was 
largely in the hands of the Revolutionary Committees and the 
proletarians affiliated with the CNT-FAI, while units composed of 
confederate militants who were preparing to march on Barcelona were 
blocked by anarchist representatives who worked to reach an agreement. 
Thus, the workers, disoriented by the instructions given by their 
leaders, abandoned the barricades but immediately perceived the 
political significance of the defeat. In fact, despite government 
promises, the workers were disarmed, hundreds were imprisoned, while the 
POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), which had sided with the 
workers, was outlawed and its secretary, Andreu Nin, kidnapped and 
eliminated. This was impossible with the CNT-FAI, which nevertheless 
emerged from these events politically weakened. A case in point is 
Aragon, where the Regional Council chaired by the anarchist Joaquin 
Ascaso was dissolved in August 1945.37 by the new government of Negrín; 
immediately afterwards the collectives were suppressed by force of arms 
by some divisions under the command of the communist Lister, who 
unleashed terror in the rear while the confederal divisions were engaged 
at the front against the Francoist army. The group of the Friends of 
Durruti, named after the prestigious anarchist militant who died in the 
defence of Madrid, had courageously tried to give a response to this 
state of affairs. They had urged the workers not to abandon the 
barricades, demanding «a revolutionary Junta. Execution of the guilty. 
Disarmament of the armed corps. Socialisation of the economy. 
Dissolution of the parties that have attacked the working class»;[6]but 
the lucid action of these comrades could hardly have had a chance of 
success due to the negative situation that had been created and which 
involved the entire libertarian movement.

We have focused on the days of May 1937 in Barcelona because they 
constituted a watershed that definitively separated the duality of "war 
and revolution," even though collectivization continued to survive, 
despite many difficulties. The rest, despite the growing militarization 
of the Republic, was a slow parable that charted the unfolding of the 
civil war and concluded with Franco's military victory. On April 1, 
1939, the conflict ended, but not the sacrifice of thousands of men and 
women through mass executions and imprisonment, or through internment in 
French camps for those who managed to escape. Yet, despite this 
epilogue, the magnificent lesson of the social and economic 
transformations that the Spanish working class achieved in those years 
after decades of struggle remains intact. This achievement remains a 
valid point of reference today, even considering the great changes that 
have occurred since then economically, socially, culturally, as well as 
in class composition. Furthermore, all the theoretical and strategic 
problems raised by the Spanish events remain a lesson for the anarchist 
movement; from these shortcomings and errors, but not only from these, 
we anarchist communists have drawn the political and organizational 
insights to continue the struggle for a communist and libertarian society.

Note

[1]The FAI was founded in 1927 as a federation of groups formed on the 
basis of affinity and to counter reformist tendencies in the CNT.

[2]Mikhail Bakunin, Socialism and Mazzini. A Letter to My Friends in 
Italy , in Complete Works , vol. II, Edizioni Anarchismo, Catania, 1976, 
p. 72.

[3]The social and political activity of the Muieres Libres association, 
which organised thousands of libertarian women, was emblematic.

[4]Camillo Berneri expressed himself in this sense in issue no. 3 of 
«Guerra di classe» of 24 October 1936.

[5]José Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution , Edizioni Antistato, 
Milan, 1977, vol. I, p. 274.

[6]Friends of Durruti Group, Verso una nuova rivoluzione , Quaderni di 
Alternativa Libertaria, 2006.

https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en