With each defeat of the revolutionary camp, and faced with the supposed disorganization and ineffectiveness of the anarchists, analyses emerge to explain the causes of the movement's failure. New theoretical proposals are then formulated, aiming at the creation of a common program as well as the ideological, strategic, and tactical unity of the anarchists, and even of all revolutionaries. One can think, in particular, of the Organizational Platform of Archinov and Makhno, written in 1926 following the annihilation of the libertarian movement by the Bolsheviks in Russia and Ukraine, but also of the proposals developed by Spanish comrades during the decline of the revolutionary movement in Spain, especially in Catalonia. Published in 2019 in its French version by La Roue, Mr. Amorós's book, entitled Homage to the Spanish Revolution , traces the journey of the group "The Friends of Durruti", officially formed on March 15, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), through their leaflets, manifestos, writings in the newspaper "El Amigo del Pueblo" and their correspondence.
Dissenting voices within Spanish anarchism
Contrary to the positions defended by the leadership of the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), the Friends of Durruti emerged as a dissident and radical voice within the libertarian camp itself, from which the majority of their members originated. The group chose its name in homage to Buenaventura Durruti, a symbol of direct action, revolutionary intransigence, and the refusal of any compromise with the State.
Faced with the setback of the social revolution, the Friends of Durruti formulated a lucid and virulent critique of the role played by the CNT-FAI, and in particular by its leaders (to name a few: Federica Montseny, Juan García Oliver, Diego Abad de Santillán, etc.), whose immense responsibility they emphasized in this lost historical revolutionary opportunity. According to them, in the aftermath of July 19 and 20, 1936, after the defeat of the nationalist military uprising by the armed proletariat in a large part of Spain, the CNT possessed sufficient social, military, and popular force to simultaneously wage war against fascism and the social revolution. This implied the immediate destruction of the state and the capitalist economy, as well as the establishment of libertarian communism. The Friends of Durruti fiercely opposed the participation of CNT and FAI members in government bodies, first in the Generalitat of Catalonia, then in the Republican government. They denounced the collaboration with bourgeois parties and the Stalinists of the PCE-PSUC, justified by the anarcho-syndicalist leadership in the name of a supposed anti-fascist unity, which only served to relegate the revolution to the background, even stifling it. They also rejected the militarization of the workers' militias, seen as an instrument for restoring discipline, hierarchy, and state authority. For the Friends of Durruti, the CNT should have-and still should-take back control of the revolutionary process: "The CNT should have risen to the leadership of the country and given a solemn kick to everything archaic and outdated. In this way, we would have won the war and saved the revolution." But the exact opposite happened. We collaborated with the bourgeoisie in state circles at the very moment the state was collapsing[...]We held the streets, why did we surrender them so foolishly?[...]When things are done halfway, what we're talking about happens: the July disaster." In his book, Mr. Amorós clearly sides with the group and argues, like them, that it was the anarchist leadership that sabotaged the possibility of waging war and revolution simultaneously, and thus of defeating the Francoist rebels and the vast local and international coalition that supported them. He states: "The shift of Spanish anarchism toward the state, patriotism, and militarism was the most important political event of the Civil War."
The answer to the drift of the CNT-FAI: a revolutionary program
Criticizing the lack of a revolutionary theory within the CNT-FAI and convinced that the revolution could still be saved, the Friends of Durruti developed a political program summarized in a few points:
1) The formation of a revolutionary junta, which they themselves considered a variant within anarchism. This junta would be composed of delegates democratically elected from within the trade unions and workers' militias. Marked by the repeated betrayals of the CNT-FAI leadership, they insisted on the imperative, revocable, and strictly controlled nature of the mandates by the assemblies. This junta would be tasked with directing the revolutionary process and ensuring revolutionary order against counter-revolution.
2) All power to the trade union soviets: the non-capitalist, collectivized, and proletarian economy must be entirely in the hands of the trade unions.
3) Free Municipalities: Communes take over social functions that fall outside the purview of trade unions. This decentralization aims to prevent the reconstitution of a state apparatus, through a federation of municipalities at the local, regional, and peninsular levels.
This program was doomed by the failure of the May 1937 uprising. Once again, the leaders of the CNT-FAI called on the insurgents to lay down their arms and return to work. May 1937 is considered the last revolutionary gasp and represents the emblematic date of the counter-revolution, as well as the definitive break between the CNT-FAI and its militant base.
Repression is winning
According to the Friends of Durruti, this latest betrayal by the CNT leadership was the primary cause of the defeat. Following the May Days uprising, members of the Friends of Durruti-most of whom were affiliated with the CNT and the FAI-were arbitrarily expelled for their participation in the insurrection, their anti-government stances, and their refusal to obey the leadership's orders. Prior to this, the CNT and the FAI had waged a widespread smear campaign against the group through their respective media outlets. State repression also fell upon them: their offices were closed by the police, their newspaper was censored, and numerous activists were imprisoned, including Jaime Balius, the newspaper's main organizer and editor. Nevertheless, the group continued its activities clandestinely, defending its revolutionary program and organizing a campaign for the release of comrades imprisoned by the Republican government.
Far from learning the lessons of the first ten months of the war, and despite their non-participation in the new reactionary, counter-revolutionary government dominated by Negrín's Stalinists, the CNT-FAI bureaucrats clung to the defense of the bourgeois state in the name of republican order and the continuation of the war, and were intent on restoring their authority. After doing everything possible to rejoin the government, their efforts were rewarded in April 1938. They then waged war on the "incontrolados" both at the front (militiamen refusing militarization) and at home (Friends of Durruti or workers reluctant to accept the return of discipline, hierarchy, authority, and wage inequality in factories and workshops).
A lucid critique of the situation and the failure of the CNT-FAI strategy
In the midst of civil war, surrounded by fascist armies and undermined by internal betrayals, the Friends of Durruti attempted to analyze the failures of the libertarian movement and propose a new theory and a new revolutionary organization. Their main merit lies in having dared to name what many refused to see: the bureaucratic drift of some libertarian leaders, transformed into a self-proclaimed, authoritarian vanguard, increasingly detached from the rank and file and the workers. We fully identify with this critique. It arises at a time when revolution is both still possible and already threatened, when every decision commits the future of the proletariat.
The refusal to embrace a clear revolutionary break ("revolution without transition") led the libertarian movement into a deadly spiral of compromises, always justified by the imperative of "winning the war": militarization of the militias, forced increase in industrial and agricultural productivity, disarmament of groups deemed "uncontrolled," subjugation of insubordinate elements, and so on. These measures, seen as reasonable by the CNT leadership, only widened the gap with a militant base that remained deeply revolutionary. Worse still, these concessions did not strengthen their position vis-à-vis the other political forces of the republican camp; on the contrary, they weakened the libertarian camp on all fronts.
We also join the Friends of Durruti in their criticism of the CNT-FAI's blatant unpreparedness for the military putsch of July 1936, which had been anticipated for at least two years. The powerful and deeply rooted libertarian organization seems to have been caught off guard at the very moment when it should have been addressing the most crucial questions, including the organization of armed struggle. On this subject, in a 2019 text, F. Roux poses a series of unanswered questions: "[...]how is it that the CNT militants never decided what they would do concretely in the aftermath of their victory?[...]While the CNT had officially chosen libertarian communism as its societal model, how would its implementation be carried out in a country at war and a society largely hostile to the abolition of property?" These pertinent questions expose a profound strategic flaw.
The Spanish libertarian movement-particularly in Catalonia where it held a majority-thus faced a twofold problem that it had never truly resolved: the problem of power and the problem of war. Neither classical anarchist theories, nor the lessons of past experiences (the Paris Commune, Makhnovshchina, etc.), nor even the internal debates within the CNT during the years of preparation for the confrontation had led to the development of a strategy reconciling anarchist principles with revolutionary effectiveness. It is precisely this strategic void that the Friends of Durruti denounce. However, they somewhat too readily and almost exclusively blame the betrayal of the anarchist leaders.
A historical look back at the divisions within the Spanish anarchist movement
The analysis by the Friends of Durruti, sometimes psychologizing the leaders of the CNT-FAI - paralyzed by fear of power and betraying the revolution - seems less convincing here. The work of Myrtille, of the Giménologues, has shown that a fracture in the libertarian movement existed well before July 1936. Indeed, the socio-economic-cultural specificity of early 20th-century Spain favored the emergence of two antagonistic currents: (1) Collectivist anarchism, heir to Bakunin ("to each according to his work"), mainly rooted in the nascent Barcelona proletariat, and evolving towards an "industrialist" anarcho-syndicalism for which the union constitutes the organizational basis of libertarian communism and (2) anarchist communism or ruralist communalism, inspired by Malatesta and Kropotkin ("to each according to his needs"), majority in the Andalusian peasant masses, deeply distrustful of the union, perceived as a product of the industrial society that they reject.
This long-standing theoretical debate, which had stirred the libertarian movement for decades, seemed to come to a surprising close at the 4th CNT Congress in Zaragoza in May 1936, in favor of the rural anarchist communists (who were, however, a minority). The famous motion on the "confederal conception of libertarian communism" was adopted there. As Myrtille5 points out, this resolution appeared to be a deceptive victory, as it immediately met with hostility from the CNT leadership, who deemed it inopportune on the eve of the anticipated confrontation with the fascists. It was therefore quite natural that a split occurred after a CNT-FAI-FIJL6 plenum on July 23, 1936, when the anarchist leaders - ignoring the votes of the Zaragoza congress - renounced calling for the implementation of libertarian communism and opted for an alliance with the other forces of the republican camp within the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias (CCMA), while the more radical militant base committed itself wholeheartedly to the revolutionary process, culminating in particular with the Aragonese agricultural communities.
The Friends of Durruti clearly belonged to the anarcho-syndicalist movement, sharing certain aspects of it, notably the praise of work and industry.7 However, they broke radically with the so-called "circumstantialist" or "collaborationist" strategy advocated by the CNT-FAI, which was based on an alliance at all costs with other anti-fascist forces. Furthermore, in their program, they attempted a compromise between rural communalism and syndicalism, granting equal weight to the free commune and the trade union. This attempt strongly resembled Isaac Puente's 1933 manifesto, "The Purpose of the CNT-WAIT: Libertarian Communism," whose theoretical fragility had already been highlighted. Drawing on statements by Abad de Santillán (before his about-face), Myrtille recalls the profound incompatibility between communalism and syndicalism: "for him, the union was only a means of defense adapted to the capitalist organization of production, it could not be an element for the reconstruction of the future society."
The revolutionary junta: an authoritarian slide?
Let us now turn to the most problematic part of the Friends of Durruti's program: the revolutionary junta. Fontenis, in a 1983 text on this group, emphasizes the proximity of this concept to that of the Russian anarchists of the Platform, while noting that the Friends of Durruti never explicitly refer to it. Here, we echo the criticisms leveled by Voline and Sébastien Faure against the Platform: the danger of a small group arrogate to itself the right to lead the masses in the name of military and revolutionary efficiency. The revolutionary junta risks becoming a disguised state, even a transitional one, concentrating the monopoly on "revolutionary" violence and gradually becoming autonomous from the proletariat. We are dealing with a reconstitution of political power in a supposedly libertarian form, close to Leninist conceptions. Within this framework, with a centralized governing body and imposed discipline, how could popular initiatives and the self-organization of the proletariat be expressed? When would this junta be dissolved? Nothing is clearly established.
We understand the bitterness and rage of the members of the Friends of Durruti: they saw the revolution within their grasp, before it was snatched away from them. From the lessons learned from defeat, they developed a fascination with revolutionary effectiveness. From their desire to correct the errors of the CNT-FAI emerged a conception far removed from anarchist ideals, one that could have opened the door to another dead end: that of a revolutionary power separated from the masses, in the very name of their emancipation.
August
Notes
1. On November 4, 1936, the union decided to participate in the Madrid government. The confederation was represented by four ministers: Juan García Oliver at Justice, Joan Peiró at Industry, Juan López Sánchez at Commerce, and Federica Montseny at Health. They remained in these positions until May 1937 and the fall of Largo Caballero's government. It had three representatives on the Council of the Generalitat of Catalonia since September 27.
2. The decree was issued in October 1936 and took many months to be fully implemented. Its aim was to disarm the proletariat.
3. In Barcelona, the proletarians took up arms against the police and the assault guards who were attempting to seize the telephone exchange, which they perceived as a provocation too far. Without any directives from the CNT, barricades went up in the neighborhoods of Barcelona, defended by armed workers (members of the Defense Committees and some of the Control Patrols), by FAI affinity groups, militiamen from the front (or on leave), the Libertarian Youth, and Trotskyist militants from the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM). The Friends of Durruti also actively participated. The clashes then spread to several locations in Catalonia.
<sup>4</sup> Roux F. (2019). <sup>War and Revolution in Spain</sup>.[http://acontretemps.org/spip.php?ar...].
<sup>5</sup> Myrtille, giménologue (2019). The paths of libertarian communism in Spain, 1868 - 1937 Lessons from the Spanish revolution, July 1936-September 1937. Volume 3, Paris, Éditions Divergences, 260 p.
6. Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth
7. The Friends of Durruti demanded "more work, sacrifices, the end of wage increases, and even compulsory work" and deplored the lack of "morality on the home front" (Seidman, 2010, Workers against work. Barcelona and Paris during the popular fronts, Marseille, Éditions Senonevero, 134 p.).
http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4638
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Link: (en) France, OCL CA #357 - What to do? The theoretical contribution of the Friends of Durruti (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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