France, Alternative Libertaire AL #237 - Classic subversion: Gaston Leval, "Libertarian Spain, 1936-1939" (fr, pt)

Gaston Leval (Pierre Robert Piller), was born in 1895. Libertarian activist, he was a 
manual laborer, teacher, photographer, journalist in France, Spain and Latin America. ---- 
Fervent participant in the Spanish Revolution, it is very early aware of the unfavorable 
balance of power antifascist camp. He then began to "collect for the future results of 
this unique experience" , examines "on the spot, in collectivized villages, in the 
factories and socialized factories, the constructive work of the Spanish Revolution" , 
based on the self-management and direct democracy. ---- The achievements of the era are 
not only the result of spontaneous collective tendencies. They were also encouraged by the 
popular appropriation of anarchist theories, by building a libertarian movement in 1870: 
local groups, newspapers, schools, support, revolts. The million members of the CNT in 
1936 demonstrates the strength of the Spanish libertarian milieu, from which the French 
anarchist of the time seems indecisive and little concrete in the eyes of the author.

So at the time of Franco's coup, when institutions falter, it is the libertarian workers, 
accustomed to act without instructions, which are able to effectively reorganize society 
in an emergency.

This is both under the pressure of necessity - supply the war effort, and popular 
aspirations - equal sharing of wealth-that occurs takeover of the production and trade. 
Can evoke the agrarian communities in Aragon, the textile industry in Alcoy, management of 
water, gas, electricity, transport in Catalonia, "socialization" in which the unions took 
a large share. The author recalls attention to training, focuses particularly on the 
reorganization of the health system. "plants turned, workshops, factories produced without 
bosses, without capitalists, without shareholders, without top managerial staff".

The experience is not provided free of errors. Thus, in communities where the money was 
kept, sometimes attended more to the construction of a "self capitalism" than to a true 
egalitarian society. And acting principles and tactics, Gaston Leval deplores the 
participation of anarchists governments, and regrets that the links between union the CNT 
and UGT were not closer. He also notes that when the state system and self-management 
system coexist, the first tends to engulf the second.

Patrick (AL Montpellier)

Gaston Leval, Spain libertarian 1936-1939 , Tops Trinquier Eds H., 2013, 406 p., 23 euros.