For some years now, Social and Organized Anarchism has been growing in the Iberian Peninsula. Both for its specificist and platformist references, it advocates double militancy as a fundamental principle. However, differently from these two aspects, in this peninsula there has already existed, historically, a specific organizational experience that advocates double militancy: the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) and its antecedents in the National Federation of Anarchist Groups (FNGA) and, even earlier, the Alliance for Socialist Democracy (ADS).
Table of Contents
From the FTRE to the CNT
The anarchist insertion in the CNT in the era of gun violence
The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera
Foundation of the FAI
Conclusions for the present
One of the differential fets between the specific organizational-platformist streams and the stream in which the FAI is active is that in the former the double militancy is carried out in diverse social movements and unions, while in the latter the double militancy is carried out in an ideologically anarchist union. For this reason, the basic purposes are the following: double militancy, the defense of the processes and principles of internal militancy, the strengthening of union militancy and the generation of a self-sacrificing and referential militant profile from the specific organization.
In order to investigate this difference, we will address the structure of this differential trend: the anarquització of the anarcosindicat CNT. Aquesta es dona en una temporalitat molt curta, del 1910 al 1918, com es veurà a l'article. In this case, the specifically organized anarchist groups will intervene, the influence of which will be decisive through the double militancy of the CNT. Since the anarchy of the CNT, anarchist groups have become more and more general organizations, ending with the founding of the FAI in 1929, which is reflected in the article.
The CNT's anarchist process can indirectly reveal the role of specific anarchism in the grassroots organization, which is extremely relevant to our day-to-day militant life.
This study will focus on the relationship between the union and the anarchist groups at the time of the Bourbon Restoration, ahead of the time of pistolerism, the revolutionary fervor after the First World War and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, culminating in the founding of the FAI. These are the previous periods that give shape to the FAI in its actions, with predecessors and memory that bears the role of anarchist militància.
As a precursor, the idea of specific organization closely linked to union organization was a legacy of the already dissolved International Alliance of Socialist Democracy. This gave the specific organization the quality of clandestine nucli since it could reform the workers' organization. During the repression and illegalization of the International Workers' Association in the 1870s, ADS militants joined the Spanish Regional Workers' Federation (FTRE), giving faith to that principle[1].
From the FTRE to the CNT
From 1888, from the dissolution of the FTRE, to the end of 1910, the founding of the CNT, the specific organization and the workers supported a great deal of repression, especially after the failed Vaga General of 1902. The first would maintain its influence through the propaganda work of the extensive range of magazines i anarchist publications, while the second work would be reorganized at the national level on different occasions.
At this historical moment, the position of French revolutionary unionism penetrated the peninsula, expressed in the Amiens Charter, which transformed the key workers' societies into workers' unions. The notion of the Revolutionary Union (SR) would mark the debates on the form of the CNT in the historical period studied in this article. In summary, the Carta d'Amiens[2]postulates:
The union brings together workers aware of the need for social economic transformation, independent of the political school. Separates the concepts of economics and politics.
The union has a double unitary task: the protest work for the majority of workers' conditions, which prepares the workers' forces for comprehensive capitalist expropriation through general laziness. The union also promotes social transformation.
The union is independent of the groups and political parties, it is not concerned with these and allows its members to participate in these freely, as long as it does not introduce the ideas of the political group to the union.
In 1906, the federation of workers' societies Solidaritat Obrera de Barcelona was founded, which in 1908 grew to become Solidaritat Obrera Regional de Catalunya, and in 1910 it created a Congress at the Saló de Belles Arts of Barcelona for the formation of a national level organization, the CNT.
The Congress avoided proclaiming grand theoretical definitions, but was concrete on the essentials: trade unionism was not defined as an end in itself but as a means of struggle and resistance against class antagonisms. The goal, as soon as trade unionism, that is, the workers' association, was considered numerically strong enough and intellectually capable enough, would be the expropriation of the powerful classes and the consequent management of production by the workers.[3]
Juan Gómez Casas indicates that three currents will participate in the Congress: the revolutionary and anarchist unionist groups, a socialist current and a Republican-Lerrouxist current, the latter two being more important than the first. The will to include different currents will lead to this definition being very characteristic of the SR. Això also expressed it to the Congress of Sants of 1918:
"Although nineteen-twentieths of the Assembly were anarchists, the congress did not decide on a frank declaration of libertarian principles, although many spoke out against the State"[4]
The CNT will immediately go underground due to the general vagueness against the Moroccan war of 1911, but not until the end of 1914. Juan Gómez Casas said that the clandestinity represented an ideological radicalization based on the predominance of libertarian elements in positions of greatest responsibility , eliminating the moderate elements. The effect of anarchist propaganda and this radicalization aniria installed in the CNT its differential tret: l'anarcho-syndicalistism.
The anarchist insertion in the CNT in the era of pistolerism
In this period (1910-1918), in parallel with the meteoric rise of the CNT, there was great anarchist organizational activity. Let us remember that, at the end of the day, the greatest performance has been in propaganda and the dissemination of anarchist ideas through the seven well-known publications, exhibiting a remarkable productive capacity. This is, at the end of the day, dispersed, each group feeling autonomous and trusting in the ideological affinity with a cohesive principle.
At the end of the Sants Congress of the CNT (1918), a National Committee of five militants was selected, among them Manuel Buenacasa, who stated[5]that these five militants were going to form the Anarchist Group. The mateix winter is calling for a National Anarchist Conference with Manuel Buenacasa intervening with a delegate of the National Council of the CNT, where anarchist intervention in the workers movement is proposed.
It is seen in the assistance of the National Committee of the CNT, which is also constituted as the Anarchist Group, the deep interrelation between the two organizational groups. Regarding the resolution of this Conference and for its purposes, we quote Matt. Manuel Buenacasa, as it appears in the History of the FAI.
"And the assembly, having heard the explanations and wishes of the Confederation, decided to recommend to all libertarian workers in Spain their immediate and direct membership and participation in workers' organizations. Until then, many anarchists had been on the margins of workers' organizations, and many others, despite belonging to them, were absent from boards and positions of responsibility." Buenacasa continues, stating that the results of the Barcelona Conference were decidedly favorable. "Months later, all the CNT organizations were perfectly aligned with the anarchist spirit and ideology. With this spirit and ideology, voluntarily embraced by hundreds of thousands of workers, the workers' unions fought with a dignity and fortitude unmatched until then, and never surpassed."
At this historical moment, after the Vaga de la Canadenca and the Congress of the Teatre de la Comèdia arriving in 1919, the anarchy of the CNT is complete[6], where in this Congress it is resolved that the finality of the CNT is the Libertarian Communism[7]. It is a really short process, undoubtedly accelerated by the revolutionary fervor that was experienced in those moments and the situation of political persecution. Tot i això, the fet that accelerates the end of the seva finalització in this process is the militant work of insertion of the anarchists in the union cos, fruit of the previous propaganda, and which is really effective in the general insertion of the anarchist militancy in the union. Salvador Seguí recounts the following process in a speech to the Prisoner of La Mola de Maó[8]:
The mission of the anarchists is in the Unions to ensure good life and guide them.
Do not disengage union action from the more influence they will exercise; the more freedom the organizations will have; abans apressaran l'adveniment d'una societat nova. Anarchists must adhere to the practice of the anarchist concept within the Unions. The death of anarchists from professional groups is a suicide. Tot pot i cal que es faci dins els Sindicats.
In any case, I will not say that they dissolved the groups that they constituted. No; in a cap way. On the contrary, they can join the Unions. The more influence exerted, the more Anarchism and anarchists faran. Avui no espanta, com en altre temps, l'anarquisme, i això es deu als treballs de convincing realizations. Thanks to the influence exerted by anarchists, it will be possible to donate the case that the unionist organization accepts, in the Regional and National Congresses of Catalonia of the years 1918 and 1919 respectively, the concloent declaration that is directed to the conquest of libertarian communism, something that may have been rebutted l'any 1914 per l'allunyament dels anarquistes de les organizations.
This fragment expresses the concept of militant dualism of the time: anarchist groups that, militantly, through their own and proportional work and personalitat, exert influence on the union.
Immediately after the Congress of Comedy, the bosses' repression in the form of pistolerism, from 1919 to 1923, was terrorized. As it was, the repression was radicalized by the organization, and the anarchist militants were part of the mass of the confederal defense groups, forming anarchist groups of few militants but of high capacity for action, which the bosses' gunmen fight.
It is in the context of pistolerism and the fight against the Lliure Union[9]that these groups are going to seek to federate into a general entity, the National Federation of Anarchist Groups (FNGA), since 1923:
"These militants met with a threefold purpose: to confront 'gunmen's terrorism', to maintain the CNT's trade union structures, and to establish an anarchist federation that would bring together all ideologically aligned groups scattered throughout the peninsula."
Finally, if repression and pistolerism form one side of the coin of this historical moment of the CNT, the attempt to replace the CNT's contingencies with communist principles is the other side of the coin. Proposal for future militants of the POUM (Joaquín Maurín and Andreu Nin) and the PCE (Óscar Perez Solís), who seek to give the CNT access to the "nuvolences of anarchist philosophy", which are anti-scientific and petit-bourgeois, to bring the CNT to the Red Trade Union International founded after the Russian Revolution, al·legant that unionism It was the harmony of Marxism and anarchism.
Two great factors will play in this series of trends. First, the triumph of the Russian Revolution and the spread of Bolshevik ideas, which have been established among the European working class. On the other hand, while the anarchist militants fight the gun reaction in mà, some of the communists who seek the ideological conquest of the CNT did not have prior militant action and were disconnected from the authorities, which allowed them to meet in representative bodies of the CNT where the anarchist militants, at least of the repression, it was difficult to access. In this situation, for example, is a communication against anarchism issued by the Sant Feliu de Guíxols union, or is a Plenary held in Lleida in 1921 that brought together, among others, Joaquín Maurín and Andreu Nin, future militants of the POUM, to represent the CNT in the Soviet Union, which is later disauthorize
It is this context, and the need to position itself with respect to the international organizations that oppose Moscow within the Soviet Revolution, which ends up being the last motive for the declaration of the end of Libertarian Communism mentioned above.
The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera
In 1923, recently founded the FNGA, it was donated by the Cop d'Estat of Primo de Rivera. Almost immediately the CNT in Barcelona reacted to the Vaga General, which failed. In the first year of the Dictatorship, the collaboration of the UGT with the regime and the mixed bodies for resolving union conflicts that it generates is given, while the CNT is forced to go underground[10].
In the clandestinitat the theoretical debates are deepened and emerge, as in other moments of repression, radicalism. At this moment the dispute between the syndicalist conception of Àngel Pestanya and anarcho-syndicalistism begins. In parallel, it is debated whether the CNT is adequate to the demands of the regime or goes underground, and the collaboration with other political forces in the case of the fight against the Dictatorship.
Parallel to this, the exiled anarchists founded the Federació de Grups Anarquistes de Llengua Española at a Congress in Lyon in 1925, which formed, together with the Spanish and Portuguese federations, the constituents of the FAI in 1927.
Arriving in 1927, we entered a CNT that was practically extinct, clandestine, and afflicted by theoretical debates, which Joaquín Maurín and Andreu Nin referred to as "ghostly", which had undergone various revolutionary attempts to protect the Dictatorship. The rival seva, the UGT, collaborates with the union system of the Dictatorship. Anarchists in specific organizations continue to spread anarchist propaganda, where they see the power of the people to achieve the revolutionary situation. At the Marseille Congress of 1926, these anarchists saw the need to promote the constitution of an Iberian anarchist organization, together with the Portuguese Anarchist Union and the Federation of Spanish-Language Anarchist Groups of the Exile. On July 25 and 26, 1927, the Conference of Anarchist Groups was donated to Valencia, and the FAI was founded.
Fundació de la FAI
By the time of the founding of the Iberian Anarchist Federation, the history of the anarchy of the CNT is already complete in writing. As we see, the anarchist elements intervene in the series of tendencies against the political unionism of Pestaña, on the one hand, and against the attempt to viratge cap on communism of the pro-Soviet militants, on the other hand, the groups on the anarchists are victorious. Now, the minutes of the FAI Founding Conference contain some elements that are very interesting to study, not for this article, but for anarchist militancy in general.
Exhibits section 3B of the Conference, which directly relates the relationship with the CNT that is organically approved by the FAI:
Should the organization of trade unions, as a means of anarchism, be linked to the organization of groups, each maintaining its autonomy and its federations and general councils within the anarchist movement? It is understood that class unity is not possible. That trade unionism, by dividing itself, has failed, and that therefore anarchist unity must be sought. That workers' organization is not only for the improvement of the class that must achieve emancipation, and since this is possible in anarchism, it must also become a means of anarchism. That workers' organization must return to anarchism , as it was before the dissolution of the Spanish Regional Federation and the creation of separate anarchist group organizations, with both organizations then coming together through the anarchist movement. It is resolved to propagate it and that the groups, their federations and the CN invite the trade union organization and the CNT Committee to the holding of plenary sessions and local, district and regional assemblies of both organizations, proposing the organization of trade unions in the anarchist movement and a link to the organization of groups without becoming confused or losing their characteristics, forming general federations that are the expression of this broad anarchist movement, with their general councils, made up of representatives of the trade unions and the groups, whose councils are divided into Commissions of Education, Propaganda, Agitation and the other problems that are of equal interest to both organizations.[11]
Keep in mind that it is acting on a clandestine and damaged CNT, practically dissolved, but it is believed in the capacity to recompose it from the specific organization, as is volia fer from the times of the ADS.
This resolution is a ratification of the actions of specific groups until the moment; generally, union issues predominated in the activities of the groups; that is, the group was organized rather to intervene in the unions through its anarchist influence[12]. The specific Iberian anarchism, the anarchist groups, are inseparable from the double militancy of the unions, and this has continued throughout its existence the most important reason to be: anarchist propaganda is going to radicalize the anarchism of the CNT, they are going to defend the CNT during the pistolerism, they are going spread the armed insurrection to the Andalusian countryside to organize the peasants of the National Federation of Farmers of the CNT, organize the revolutionary attempts during the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera together with the call for General Vaga of the CNT. In various historical moments of the CNT, the argument of "the CNT is for itself", an idea of the Revolutionary Union, has been mentioned, but the analysis shows that specific anarchism has always existed and has always accompanied the union organization, and that the most correct statement would be "Anarchism is not the responsibility of the union."
More and more, the anarchist militancy sees the class unit as impossible, betting on the anarchist unit within a single union, the CNT. It is donated by rebutjades the proposals of the union unit, like the "Congrés Pro-Unitat Sindical" proposed by communists[13], also with the proposals of the CNT-UGT union, and it is committed against by an anarchist-syndicalist force (ie, anarcho-syndicalist) itself in which the totality of anarchist militancy. Anarchism must return to the workers' organization, and, consequently, the workers' organization must return to anarchism.
Conclusions pel present
The process of anarchy of the CNT, apart from the time line of the previous unions and founders of the CNT, followed from its founding in 1910 to the final resolution of Libertarian Communism in 1919, to the Congrés del Teatre de la Comèdia. The previous influences of the ADS within the FRE must be taken into account, and, evidently, the anarchist insertion in the different forms of the Solidaridad Obrera union. To make the process clearer as we have seen the sources consulted, I elaborate this "recipe" of anarchy of the CNT, which lists the following "ingredients" in chronological order:
-Previous influence of the International Alliance for Socialist Democracy, found in the Spanish Regional Federation, precursor of the CNT, which imprints on the latter the importance of the militant in organic activity.
-Constant state of repression and employer-government opposition, which radicalizes the positions of the union and favors the small number of theoretical lines. According to the sources, the CNT went underground from 1911 to 1914 (in that period).
- Effective and constant propaganda of the names of anarchist magazines and publications.
- Full insertion of the militancy of the Anarchist Groups into the CNT following the resolution of the Barcelona Conference of 1918.
- It is necessary to position oneself as an anarcho-sindicat in front of the union organizations coming from the Soviet Revolution, in the context of the attempt to integrate the CNT in the interests of communist militants who in the future would integrate the POUM and the PCE. At the other end, Ángel Pestaña's little wave of tendencies against political unionism.
This recipe is missing a key ingredient: a federation of anarchists at the general level. In this entire process neither the FAI nor the National Federation of Anarchist Groups exists. However, anarchist groups meet in conferences and congresses to make binding agreements regarding the world of literature; Notably, the anarchist insertion of the CNT into the Barcelona Conference.
For the anarchist organization in the present, this fet demonstrates the predominance of the contingut over the form of the revolutionary tendency: the anarchist militants have consensual agreements, binding and respecting the length of the Peninsula (contingut) independent of the existence of a federation or organization at the peninsular level that they structure these decisions (form). The anarchists inserted in the Social Anarchism and Organization realize this principle: to not exist, at the moment, in a single organic federation, we recognize common tactical and strategic principles from the freedom of each organization, and adopt a federalist form and only the principle of the associative pact unes forms d'actar that allow us to reconèixer-nos with current anarchist politics.
The anarchists of that moment were going to prioritize growth through propaganda, this being constant and multiplicative, both inside and outside the unions. Only after a long propaganda process they decided to bet on the integration of the union, as well as the process of anarchy, from which point it will be strengthened in an extraordinary way. It is after approving the connection between anarcho-sindicat and specific organization that the latter is at the service of the former, acting in the anarcos-indicat to combat the tendencies that fan the anarchist hegemony in the union, participating in the defense committees during the pistolerisme, and convening and being responsible for general vagues and revolutionary intentions (compared to 1933) to safeguard the anarcho-syndicate. The relationship between the two groups will mainly be one of control or domination, but of collaboration according to the abilities of each organization, being the center of seriousness of this relationship with the anarcho-syndicate at all times.
There was a very clear awareness at that time of this separation between grassroots organization and specific anarchist organization. Different performances are expected from each cradle, according to their size and character. The CNT was the "sea" but the FAI was nothing like a "peix" in freedom, but eventually the FAI was required to help the anarchist sector of the CNT in the ideological combat against the other tendencies towards the confederal cos. Keep in mind that the CNT will always be located at a higher level than the specific organization: in 1933 the FAI had 10,173 members compared to the more than a thousand members of the CNT, that is, one FAI member for every 50 CNT members[14], generally speaking, a ratio that According to the calculations of Juan Gómez Casas, it decreased to 1 faista per 120 cenetistes in 1936[15], leading to repression. Manegant these names are highlighted as especially valid the decisions of the FAI to take responsibility for insurrections and revolutionary movements, centralizing the police forces to repress the militant followers.
In these organizational forms, two different roles are expected. From the CNT, union action is expected on all fronts, which as it advances in time shows more and more forms of political action to discredit institutions and combat the dictatorial government, enllaçant la luita obrera amb el futur libertaria. The FAI expected a completely integrated action with the CNT, acting at home against the internal currents that campaign against anarchist hegemony, defending it from the gunman reaction, and sending propaganda of anarchist ideas to the population, which attracted militants through both organizations.
In the context of the dual CNT-FAI militancy, great tasks are expected of a minuscule FAI with respect to the CNT. To achieve this, the FAI will act in accordance with the anarchist revolutionary principles: the seven militants do not follow authority, subterfuge and deception, but rather exercise their influence through example and charisma, with respect and proportional voting, accepting the representative roles of the CNT. According to its regulations and representativeness, there are always CNT militants more than FAI militants. This is the guideline of action in the social insertion that we inherit and recollim with the militants of Social Anarchism and Organization.
Finally, unlike in other European countries, the Iberian anarchist movement was linked to the workers' movement, existing as a broad and influential anarcho-syndical movement, a factor that will be decisive in its relative success with respect to the anarchist movements of other nations. This link must be the plan that addresses double militancy as a differential and enhancing anarchism today. It is only from these coordinates that it is possible to generate a force aimed at the assistance of libertarian communism.
Malfainer, activist from Batzac - Joventuts Llibertàries
[1]Most of the references in this article come from "History of the FAI", by Juan Gómez Casas, an exhaustive study of the anarchist organization. Use the digitized version of the Open Library.
[2]https://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Carta_de_Amiens
[3]Juan Gomez Casas, History of the FAI, page 48
[4]Juan Gomez Casas, History of the FAI, page 55
[5]The Spanish Workers' Movement. 1888-1926 (1928)
[6]Juan Gomez Casas, History of the FAI, page 58
[7]«To Congress:
The undersigned delegates, taking into account that the majority trend most strongly manifested within workers' organizations in all countries is that which moves towards the complete, total and absolute liberation of humanity in the moral, economic and political order, and considering that this objective cannot be achieved until the land and the instruments of labor, production and exchange are socialized and the absorbing power of the State disappears, propose to the Congress that, in accordance with the essence of the postulates of the First International of Workers, it declare that the aim pursued by the National Confederation of Labor is Anarchist Communism.
[8]Llibertat.Cat. (s.f.). Anarchism and unionism . Llibertat.cat. https://www.llibertat.cat/2025/01/anarquisme-i-sindicalisme-57576
[9]Founded the Legitimist Ateneu Obrer of the Tapineria street by Carlist militants, with the support of the employers, the Catalan Somatent and the Spanish dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.
[10]The Public Order of the Dictatorship obliges all unions to report the names of their jobs, heights and baixes, professions and domiciles of their affiliates, on a periodic basis. Simultaneously, the CNT was prevented from recapturing quotes, typified as a crime of fraud. The Confederation, divided, ends up accepting that the clandestinity is the only way that allows it to survive.
[11]Negretes pròpies
[12]Testimony of J. Llop, cited by Juan Gómez Casas.
[13]Juan Gómez Casas, History of the FAI, page 97.
[14]Juan Gómez Casas, History of the FAI, page 150
[15]Juan Gómez Casas, History of the FAI, Page 209
https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/05/21/la-transformacio-de-la-cnt-en-anarcosindicat-1898-1929/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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