WORLD WORLDWIDE SPAIN News Journal Update - (en) Spain, CNT CIT/AIT: New break in Spanish anarcho-syndicalism BY LIBERTEOUVRIEREDANS (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 Spanish anarcho-syndicalism has experienced a new rupture. The crisis

had been brewing for a long time. Its outcome occurred between 2015 and
2017. From now on the CNT-AIT and the CNT-CIT (or CNT©1) are two
distinct organizations. In the international libertarian movement, this
conflict is little known, or it is observed with irony and
condescension: a ridiculous battle for the acronyms CNT, when there are
many other more urgent battles to wage... ---- The matter is not so
simple. The CNT-CIT, which registered the acronym CNT as a commercial
trademark, hence the ©, engaged in a legal battle of rare violence
against the CNT-AIT. As we write these lines, the CNT© is taking
eighteen CNT-AIT unions to court, demanding from each of them the sum of
50,000 euros in damages for the use of the acronym CNT; premises and
other resources of these unions could be seized (even if they changed
their name) because they are "property" of the CNT; several members of
the CNT-AIT could be imprisoned following these trials.

The enterprise of capturing the heritage of the CNT-AIT is the result of
long-standing maneuvers to which we will have the opportunity to return.
What you need to know at first glance is that the operation took on an
international dimension with the process which led to the creation of
the International Confederation of Labor (CIT) founded in Parma (Italy)
in May 2018.

Let's go back a little. In December 2015, in Zaragoza, on the occasion
of the CNT Congress (called the Congress of Empty Chairs, because many
delegates did not participate), those who were going to take the lead of
the future CNT © promoted the idea that the AIT had to be refounded.
What they displeased in the Anarcho-Syndicalist International was the
too large number of small sections, particularly those from the former
Eastern bloc.

Due to the federalism reigning in the International: one organization =
one vote, they felt that the Spanish section was at a disadvantage. In
their eyes, the CNT, which paid participation for several thousand
members, should have had more weight and power than sections with only a
few dozen members. Without a mandate from its unions, the Confederal
Committee of the Spanish CNT stopped paying its contributions to the AIT
(while each member, by paying their contribution to the organization,
pays a part for the International) and took the he initiative to create
another international to suit him with sections that were favorable to
him such as the German FAU and the Italian USI, as well as a few other
organizations.

At that time, the Spanish promoters of the future CIT were convinced
that it would be possible for them to make the AIT disappear just by
ceasing to contribute financially to it. Their calculation was as
follows: on photocopies alone, the AIT secretariat spent at least
EUR1,000 per year; the Spanish CNT was going to deprive him of some
EUR30,000; if to this were added the withdrawal of the FAU and the USI,
the International would be deprived of 90% of its contributors. Thus,
without sources of financing for its propaganda and its activities "it
would transform into a purely testimonial and completely inoperative
organization"2, by the way, this was already what they accused it of.

This tyranny of numbers is a constant among the promoters of the
CNT-CIT. In Spain, they had already excluded unions from their own
organization that did not "communicate" with them. One of the criteria
for these purges was the size of the groups. An example: two Andalusian
unions had been expelled for having organized joint actions with other
CNT unions previously excluded. In fact, there were four unions which
had committed this "mistake", but only the two smallest were kicked out.
Getting rid of disgruntled people: yes, but without losing too many
contributors.

 From December 2 to 4, 2016, the twenty-sixth AIT Congress was held in
Warsaw. On this occasion, the delegates decided to disaffiliate the
Spanish, German and Italian sections (CNT, FAU and USI) due to
non-compliance with the statutes and refusal to pay their contributions.
In its final declaration, the AIT congress also noted that it had
received from Spain declarations of support from nearly forty local
unions (members or former members of the CNT) and that several members
of these unions had attended the Congress as observers.

At this time, two meetings took place in Spain. The first in November
2016 and the second in April 2017. It was a "restructuring congress of
the CNT-AIT" carried out in two stages and which brought together unions
which had left the CNT, others which had expelled and still others who
were still part of it, while having a critical point of view.

The participants in these sessions denounced scandalous situations:
breakdown of federalism; lack of solidarity; lack of transparency -
regarding a theft of 20,000 euros committed by a national secretary -
but also authoritarianism on the part of the committees and even
attacks. The delegates noted that this drift had led to a weakening of
the organization. The absence of activists justifying the remuneration
of permanent staff. In their sights, a legal firm (also called
technical-confederal) set up by the managers - instead of occasional
recourse to lawyers - which absorbed the majority of resources: not only
the sums which should have been paid to the AIT, but also the part of
the "pro-presos" contributions which goes to the imprisoned comrades
assumed by the CNT.

The congressmen adopted new statutes, removing articles allowing
authoritarian practices and decided to rejoin the AIT, from an
internationalist and not a "colonialist" perspective (in the service of
the Spanish CNT) as those had wanted. and those who had caused the split.

A remake of the process which gave birth to the CGT?

For their part, the artisans of the CNT-CIT affirmed at the same time
(end of 2016) that their split had nothing to do with that which
occurred between 1979 and 1983 and which gave birth to the CGT Spanish.
Here is their explanation: "the CGT bet on a model which renounced
anarcho-syndicalism, while today we are faced with a situation of
paralysis which prevents the practical development of a model of
establishment and growth truly anarcho-syndicalist. It is not a problem
of ideological differences, but of attitude and state of mind"3. Should
we believe them? Certainly, unlike the CGT, the CNT©, like the CNT-AIT,
does not participate in union elections. However, we are entitled to
imagine that the CNT© has embarked on a slope which leads to reformism
and integration. Otherwise, why would there be a question of unity and a
probable unification of the CNT© with the CGT and the Solidaridad Obrera
(SO)4 union? In the press release announcing this convergence, made
public during a press conference on April 10, 2023, the CNT©, the CGT
and SO present themselves as "three organizations which recognize
themselves as the heirs of the anarcho-syndicalist worker tradition" 5.
Thus the CGT, which was not anarcho-syndicalist in 2016, would have
(re)become one in 2023! This is surprising...

An element that goes in the same direction is the current media interest
in the CNT-CIT, obviously presented as "CNT" for short, and the
invisibility of the CNT-AIT in the media. In a January 2022 article
published by the newspaper Publico on trade unionism in Spain6, the
space devoted to the CNT© is as important as that devoted to the
majority unions CCOO and UGT which each claim nearly a million members.
or that attributed to the CGT which claims to have more than 100,000
members. Why give so much space to an organization that claims... 8,000
members? Why give him such publicity? As for the expert consulted by
Publico: Beltrán Roca (professor at the University of Cádiz) is a member
or ex-member of the CNT©. We have never been so well served...

Yet another clue: the argumentation used by the spokespersons of the
CNT-CIT to denigrate the activists of the CNT-AIT and the AIT is very
similar to that already used at the time of the birth of the CGT. They
are accused of being "ideological purists", without "their own union
achievements", their existence would be "virtual" due to their refusal
of the "new strategic approach to union action[of the CNT-CIT]"7 . On
one side there would be the "immobilists": the CNT-AIT, on the other the
promoters of a "new unionism"8: the CNT-CIT. Let us remember that before
becoming the CGT, this organization was called "CNT-rénovée", what a
coincidence! The comparison with what happened forty years ago is
therefore worth making.

At the time, to defend the CNT-AIT, we were called "ayatollahs" and
"inquisitors"!9 But despite all the anathemas, uncompromising
anarcho-syndicalism refuses to disappear and even seems to be reborn
from his ashes on several continents!

Ariane Miéville and José Luis García González
Summer, 2023

1. We will use the acronyms CNT-CIT and CNT© interchangeably to
designate this organization.

    2. Amor y Rabia, "Más allá de la AIT", 1ª parte, December 25, 2016.

https://noticiasayr.blogspot.com/2016/12/mas-alla-de-la-ait-1-parte.html
(accessed 07/31/2023)

3. Ibid.

4. Union resulting from a
split from the CGT, mainly active in the Madrid metro.

5.
https://www.cnt.es/noticias/a-la-clase-trabajadora-por-la-movilizacion-y-la-confluencia/

In French, an article by Christian Mahieux entitled "Agreement between
the anarcho-syndicalist organizations of the Spanish State, CGT, CNT,
Solidaridad Obrera: history?» which presents the press release and the
press conference appeared in La Révolution prolétarienne, June 2023.

6.
https://www.publico.es/economia/paradoja-sindicalismo-espanol-siglo-xxi-fuerte-fracturado.html#analytics-fecha:listado
(accessed 06.08.2023)

   7. According to the terms used by the members of the CNT© secretariat
in the interview conducted by Amor y Rabia, "Más allá de la AIT", 1ª
parte, art. cit., and 2ª parte
https://noticiasayr.blogspot.com/2016/12/mas-alla-de-la-ait-2-parte.html
(accessed 06.08.2023)

8. "Building the new unionism" was the motto of the CNT© Congress in
Canovelles, in December 2022.
https://www.cnt.es/noticias/construyendo-el-nuevo-sindicalismo/
(accessed 06.08.2023 )

9. Frank Mintz, "Against Anarchist Theology", IRL n°82, summer 1989.

https://cedasasced.wordpress.com/2023/09/21/nouvelle-rupture-de-lanarcho-syndicalisme-espagnol/
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