A-Infos (en) Italy, Sicilia Libertaria #470 - SPAIN AND REVOLUTION - The economic organism of the revolution (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Ninety years after the outbreak of the Spanish Revolution on July 19, 
1936, what remains of the most important and widespread anarchist 
experiment ever? We reflect on this by offering two articles. With the 
first, published by Pippo Gurrieri in the July-August 2016 Special (With 
Spain in the Heart) for the 80th anniversary of the revolution, we begin 
to celebrate this newspaper's 50th anniversary. In the second, by Natale 
Musarra, we will attempt a brief excursus on the "founding" ideas of the 
Spanish revolution through Diego Abad de Santillán's major theoretical 
text, El organismo economico de la revolución, published in 1936 and 
updated over the following two years, which has remained unpublished in 
Italian.

The Economic Organism of the Revolution

Diego Abad de Santillán, alias Sinesio Baudillo García (1897-1983), is 
probably, along with Isaac Puente Amestoy (1896-1936) and Joan Peirò i 
Belis (1887-1942), among the principal theorists of the Spanish 
Revolution. That their writings have received so little attention thus 
far speaks volumes about a historiographical tradition, persistent even 
among libertarian historians, which presents historical facts as a 
sequence of events or experiential reports, almost never relating them 
to the ideas of those who provoked those events and fostered those 
experiences.
Puente's theses on libertarian communism were taken up in the resolution 
on the "confederal concept of libertarian communism," adopted by the CNT 
congress in Saragossa in May 1936-on the eve of the revolution-and 
reported in Italian in Jean Peirats's "summa" (The CNT in the Spanish 
Revolution, I, pp. 173-184). In 2006, they were fully translated for the 
"Quaderni di Alternativa Libertaria" (see them online). In sketching a 
post-revolutionary society, they blended communism, collectivism, and 
councilism, combining the classical idea of the Commune, which would 
"administer" daily life using popular assemblies and an executive body 
composed of "representatives of the Cultivation, Health, Culture, 
Distribution and Production, and Statistics Councils," with that of the 
anarchist trade union, which would delegate responsibility for 
production, services, and product distribution.
The entire system would have been supported by federal pacts established 
between various social entities and at different territorial levels.
Juan Peirò, in his writings, still unpublished in Italian, instead 
connected to the broader debate underway in European anarchism, 
proposing the establishment, after the war, of a Federal Social Republic 
where various communist and collectivist options could be experimented 
with (Perill a la retaguardia). He later revised this hypothesis, 
allowing, provided the war was won, the reconstitution of a "minimal" 
state, counterbalanced by strong municipal autonomy, which would 
nationalize and manage the country's main industries with the 
collaboration and control of trade unions (Problemas y cintarazos).
Halfway between these two was Abad de Santillán's programmatic work, 
also unpublished, entitled El organismo economico de la revolución (The 
Economic Organism of the Revolution), published in 1936 in support of 
the first revolutionary experiments in self-organization and factory 
self-management.
He reiterated some theses that had already caused a stir in the Spanish 
anarchist press and had also been picked up, due to their novelty, by 
the Montevideo "Studi Sociali," accompanying them with an original plan 
for the economic reconstruction of society. In these theses, he 
distinguished between political revolution, which tended to be 
oppressive, and social revolution, "a blossoming of economic and 
political solutions" for which he hoped "a possible coexistence and 
collaboration," thus rejecting "the solution of exclusivism and uniformity."
For de Santillán, "anarchy, that is, freedom, is compatible with the 
most diverse economic conditions, provided that such conditions do not 
imply, as happens with capitalist monopoly, its negation." Indeed, "the 
negation of the principle of man's authority over man is not tied to the 
achievement of a certain economic level, contrary to Marxism, which 
claims this is achieved as a corollary of capitalist evolution." This 
leads to an original critique of the communist system, even in its 
libertarian version: "If in economics we generally prefer communism, it 
is not because this system is consubstantial with anarchy. It can be 
achieved in many different ways, economic, individual, and collective 
(and yet) if the anarchists' anarchy can be achieved in both abundance 
and poverty, communism can only be practiced in abundance; in scarcity 
it always runs the risk of foundering." It should therefore be 
considered "the natural fruit of abundance" to be achieved in the near 
future. In the hour of revolution, however, "in every locality, in every 
environment, and wherever there are products considered abundant, the 
degree of communism or collectivism or mutualism required must be 
established by free agreements, understandings, will, and ability. Why 
would we want to determine it in advance? We, who make freedom our 
banner, cannot deny it in economics[...]We, who advocate the abolition 
of private ownership of land, factories, and tools of labor, would not 
want another owner, hidden under a municipal or national system, to 
emerge in place of the former owner. Land, factories, mines, means of 
transportation, schools, belong to everyone, must belong to everyone: 
the product of labor must be distributed equitably, as must labor 
effort[...]Anarchy can be achieved here and there, but true well-being 
will only exist under a regime of perfect economic cohesion and intense 
application of all the technical and scientific knowledge at our disposal."
This new economic regime, based on free experimentation, the acquisition 
of "concrete, ponderable, and measurable" data, calculation, known 
values, technical application, and mutual agreement and understanding 
among all, is the book's primary focus. The author advocates the need 
for planning, coordination, and regulation that better respond to the 
complexity of economic life.
If it is true that in a socialized economy, "owner's income, capital 
interest, entrepreneurial benefits, and state defense of property, which 
are the center and driving force of the capitalist economy," will 
disappear, along with all those parasitic factors (the repressive and 
government apparatuses, the judiciary and the army, etc.) that drain 
wealth; that land, factories, housing, and transportation will cease to 
be private monopolies and belong to communities, workers, and 
technicians "who will have no other motive, purpose, or objective than 
to satisfy the needs of the population"; that, in short, we will move 
toward what de Santillán calls "the economy of common sense"; It is also 
true that we must immediately guarantee populations "what is socially 
necessary" and essential for their survival (for example, "food, 
clothing, housing, healthcare, movement from one place to another, 
communication with distant friends and relatives..."), separating it 
"from what is socially free, that is, what belongs to spontaneous 
creation, without social control and, therefore, without the social 
regulation that is instead indispensable for what is socially necessary."
Here, pragmatism and experimentation reemerge: "Needs are not imaginary 
but real, and we can verify to what extent we will satisfy them, and how 
they could be satisfied with another economic and social order, 
eliminating this or that factor, drawing on this or that source of 
energy, reconstituting the productive apparatus in this or that form." 
These are things that cannot be left to chance or improvisation.
Therefore, in the first part of his book, he proposes the creation of a 
new economic structure in which the producers themselves own and manage 
social wealth, and which is always subject to verification, 
modification, and revision, "because no one is infallible." "In place of 
the owner," he writes, "we will have a company or factory council, of 
any specialty, made up of workers, employees, and technicians who 
represent the staff, appointed by the council, and revocable and 
modifiable at any time." The factory council or committee will 
independently coordinate its work with other production groups or 
similar councils, with which it will liaise to form the Sections or 
Unions of producers of similar products, "representative bodies in a 
particular branch of local production."
These, in turn, will gather in Councils that, within their respective 
branches, will deal with production and distribution, possibly making 
use of cooperatives. De Santillán lists seventeen of these Branch 
Councils "with which to organize the entire economy of a country": 
Councils for food, housing, clothing (basic necessities), agricultural 
production, livestock farming, forestry, mining, fishing (raw 
materials), transportation, communications, printing and publishing, 
credit and trade (connections), the metallurgical industry, the chemical 
industry (processing industries), electricity, motive power, and water; 
health and hygiene; and culture.
In cities, the Branch Councils will merge into the local Economic 
Council, and in rural areas, into the Municipal or District Council 
("the center where all the threads of production, consumption, and the 
relations of a locality with other localities will converge"), called to 
"replace the current political bodies, the town halls, the deputations, 
etc." and, in the event of a counterrevolutionary emergency, to arm 
volunteer corps. Through delegates, they will establish the Regional 
Economic Councils, "with the same functions, but on a broader scale, as 
the Local Councils," which will maintain complete administrative 
autonomy, "without prejudice to functional constraints, even for the 
Branch Councils." Finally, the Regional Councils will establish, again 
by delegation, the Federal Economic Council, "the country's highest 
economic coordination body," an economic and administrative regulator, 
without political power, which receives directives from the bottom, 
takes action to implement them, and liaises with foreign countries.
All these Councils will hold periodic conferences, carry out public 
works on a large scale, and oversee worker education and training.
The Branch Councils will also be able to group together vertically to 
form National Branch Councils, "with the mission of regulating 
production and everything related to its functioning at the national 
level." The Credit and Exchange Council will house the "statistical 
function," essential to the new organization.
In the second part of Santillán's book, the branch councils receive a 
specific treatment, rich in statistical data, concluding with the 
drafting of internal regulations for each. These drafts can be 
considered organizational models of a technical nature, not political or 
class-based, which could be used by libertarians and authoritarians 
alike to demonstrate the effectiveness of their economic recipes.
The program developed by Santillán would compete with the libertarian 
communist program of the CNT for hegemony over the revolution's economic 
achievements.
Its "experimental line" eventually gained traction in the regions 
conquered by anarchy. Several regional Catalan CNT unions (Food, 
Textile, Clothing, and Related Industries, Agricultural, Fishing, and 
Food Industries, Health and Hygiene) and national unions (Construction, 
Wood, and Decoration Industries, Chemical Industry) adopted its 
principles. Regional Economic Councils were established in each region, 
which merged into a Confederal Economic Council.
At the CNT's Expanded National Economic Conference, held in Valencia 
from January 15 to 23, 1938, the National Industrial Federations, 
equivalent to the National Branch Councils, were finally created.

Natale Musarra

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