Ninety. Many years separate us from the events of July 1936 in Spain, which sparked one of the greatest "assaults on heaven" in the history of the working class. Yet, despite the passage of time and the great transformations that occurred in every sphere, this event continues to retain its importance for the vast social revolution achieved by a working class organized to a large extent in the anarchist movement. ---- The Spanish movement has a unique history because the workers' associations that joined the International Workingmen's Association (the so-called "First International") in 1868 also simultaneously adopted the program of the specific Alliance of Socialist Democracy founded by Mikhail Bakunin. This created an organization that, along with demands for improved working conditions, pursued a collectivist, federalist, and anarchist agenda. This resulted in the fusion of syndicalism and anarchism that emerged in the Spanish libertarian movement of the late nineteenth century, and then in 1910 with the founding of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT): a characteristic that constituted the movement's strength but, at the same time, also its political limitation.
The CNT was expected to go through difficult years: its initial development was followed by outlawing and repression, the assassination of its leaders by the police and hired killers, and clandestinity during the dictatorship of General De Rivera. But these were also years that selected and trained a group of unrivalled militants who, in 1931, delivered a CNT with hundreds of thousands of members to the political scene of the new republic, born after the collapse of De Rivera's dictatorship and the monarchy. The anarcho-syndicalist CNT faced the following years divided between a line that prioritised workers' gains and the strengthening of the organisation, and the one that gravitated around the FAI[1]which aimed at immediate revolution; with the prevalence of the latter, the Confederation had to suffer harsh repression both under the government of republicans and socialists, and with the right in power. Finally, in February 1936, the Popular Front, made up of the parties of the center and the parliamentary left, won the elections, which the working class welcomed in its own way by freeing thousands of political prisoners from jail.
The most reactionary sectors of the bourgeoisie, opposed to the new government and feeling threatened by the proletariat's class struggle, supported by the landowners, the Falangists, and the Church, openly organized for a military coup. Thus, on July 18, 1936, the vast majority of generals rebelled, but while the government attempted to negotiate with the rebels while simultaneously denying the proletariat weapons, workers in Madrid, Barcelona, and many other cities managed to defeat the military. Where this failed to happen, the price paid was extremely high, with thousands of workers and political and union activists being shot. Furthermore, the government's hesitation ultimately facilitated the territorial consolidation of the rebel generals, who, aided by the Italian fascist air force, transported elite troops from Morocco and quickly occupied approximately half of Spanish territory, subsequently organizing themselves into a state entity headed by General Francisco Franco.
On the Republican side, the proletariat that had defeated the military did not intend to stop at simply defending the bourgeois Republic, but wanted to proceed with a true social revolution. In Barcelona, the working class, organized with the CNT-FAI, had won a major victory, which was followed by the establishment of the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, composed of representatives of all political parties and unions. This was the true government of Catalonia, superseding the official government of the Generalitat, which for the time being remained in the background, ratifying decisions made elsewhere. Thus, the CNT-FAI, despite the Revolutionary Committees holding effective power in the region, decided to accept the anti-fascist and inter-class front and to set aside (at least temporarily, in their intentions) the social revolution.
It was then that the political limits of the Spanish libertarian movement emerged, which, despite previous debates and resolutions, showed a certain confusion of ideas regarding the role of the revolutionary grassroots organizations and their defense. In fact, there was a refusal to "take power" when this - with the dissolution of the state organizations - was already in the hands of the revolutionary committees in the countryside, in the neighborhoods, in the factories, with the militias and revolutionary tribunals, and to proceed with the transformation of society through these working class structures. It seems clear to us, in any case, that a strong and cohesive anarchist communist organization would also have been necessary, an active minority and a driving force, which Bakunin had already outlined in his time, telling his comrades that "isolated, each acting on his own, you will certainly be impotent; united, organizing your forces - however small they may be at the beginning - in a single collective action, inspired by the same thought, the same aim, the same position, you will be invincible."[2]
This also highlighted an organizational, as well as political, deficiency that the FAI had not overcome up to that point.
Meanwhile, workers, without waiting for directives, had gone beyond the anti-fascist response by directly assuming responsibility for the operation of industries, businesses, services, and agricultural businesses. In Catalonia, Spain's most industrialized region, much of the economy was now under worker control. In Barcelona, urban transportation (trams, buses, and the subway) was collectivized, organized and coordinated by Works Committees, as was the case with the region's railway lines. Self-management extended to other services, from restaurants, hotels, and department stores to hairdressers, cinemas, theaters, and bakeries, but it was even more profound throughout the textile, chemical, mechanical, wood, and construction industries.
Collectivizations also took place outside Catalonia, and their scale increased the more deeply rooted the CNT's presence was. However, it is important to note that the working class of the UGT, linked to the Socialist Party, which instead advocated for the nationalization of businesses, was often also an active participant in this social revolution. The number of workers involved in industrial and service collectivizations is estimated at over a million. Organizational forms varied, ranging from a council system that controlled various aspects of production, effectively abolishing private property, to control committees in foreign-owned companies or where the owners remained in place. The social impact of this self-management system was a particular focus on limiting wage differences, increasing workplace safety, reducing unemployment, and ensuring equal treatment for men and women. All this, of course, occurred in a situation of great difficulty dictated by the state of war and the country's territorial division, which reduced and distorted the previous internal market. The supply of raw materials was problematic due to the difficulties of the war and access to credit was in the hands of the central bodies of the Republic, which, while fighting against fascism, nevertheless defended the class interests of the bourgeoisie (which, unable at the time to oppose collectivization, sought to limit it and slow its development). In Catalonia, the de facto situation was sanctioned in October 1936 with the Decree on Collectivization and Workers' Control, a compromise between the working class and the bourgeoisie that legalized self-management but limited it and which, however, was consistently hindered and sabotaged by the Republican parties and the Stalinists, who pushed for respect for private property and the sole nationalization of companies left without their owners.
In the countryside, collectivization was practiced throughout the Republican era: large landowners were expropriated everywhere, and their self-managed lands, those of tenant farmers and peasants, were pooled in collectives joined voluntarily. Indeed, the right of small landowners to produce their own produce was generally respected, provided they did not employ dependents or cause harm to the community. Collectivization data are conflicting and incomplete given the period Spain was in. According to historian Frank Mintz, a minimum of 758,000 collectivists were involved in the countryside, while others cite much higher figures; in 1938, official data gave a total of 2,213 agricultural collectives, despite the war and the obstacles and repression posed by the central government. Collectivities also coordinated at the regional level: in February 1937, in Aragon, 450 villages with 300,000 collectivists decided to federate. Self-management in the countryside achieved good results, and especially on expropriated large estates, it saw an increase in cultivated land and production, thus making a significant contribution to the sustenance of the cities and the fighters. Socially, the marked improvement in the conditions of the rural population is recognized. In addition to finally achieving adequate food, free medical and hospital care was introduced, schools were opened or reorganized with modern methods, and workers were involved in all decisions. It is noteworthy that the smaller the communities, the more deeply involved trade and crafts were in the self-management system. Very often, remuneration for labor was familial rather than individual, in an effort to implement the principle "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," but there were also many experiments with the complete pooling of products and the abolition of money. Contradictions were not lacking, however, as in those agricultural communities where women's wages continued to be lower than men's. When this system was projected over a larger area of territory, the communities merged with the municipal administration, ensuring the entire economic, social and cultural life of the municipality.
It must also be said that the social revolution that affected Republican Spain was not limited to important achievements in the economic field, but extended to many other aspects, such as teaching (there was a great libertarian experience in the education sector which was also seen as a pedagogical revolution), social relations, while a different role for women was emerging which shook up traditional family and gender relations.[3]
Strong bourgeois opposition to all the revolutionary achievements soon began, more timidly in Catalonia. This opposition focused primarily on denouncing the alleged inefficiency of the collectives and the need to disband the workers' militias and incorporate them into the regular army to win the war. The ideological offensive was so insistent that even the CNT and the FAI eventually bowed to the "necessity" of militarizing the militias. Ultimately, this only served to disarm the revolution and dampened the enthusiasm of the masses without achieving any significant operational military advantages. Indeed, it was deployed on terrain where the coup leaders were strongest, both in terms of preparation and international support (consider the military aid provided to Franco by Italy and Germany, while the Republic was blocked by the Non-Intervention Committee formed by the great powers), and thus faced the situation without the necessary flexibility. Nothing was attempted, for example, to try to bring confusion to the fascist rear with fighting, sabotage, guerrilla actions, or by proclaiming the independence of Spanish Morocco from where elite troops of Maghrebian ethnicity came.[4]Finally, the CNT and the FAI, accepting the logic of the anti-fascist struggle alone, decided to enter the Catalan government in September 1936 and the central government on 4 November of the same year. This grave decision, which although mistaken could have had a tactical sense for the defence of the collectivisations, was pursued without clarity and determination; thus every revolutionary project was sacrificed without considering that this would have also led to defeat on the military level. As the anarchist Diego Abad de Santillan later wrote:
We knew that it was not possible to make the revolution triumph if the war was not won, and we sacrificed everything to the war. We sacrificed the revolution itself, without realizing that this sacrifice also entailed the sacrifice of the objectives of the war.[5]
The attack on revolutionary achievements, if it had the bourgeoisie as its social base, found indispensable political support in the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). In just a few months, the PCE had grown enormously through its skillful infiltration of the leadership of the Socialist Party, the army, and the police. It also leveraged the propaganda power of the anti-fascist volunteers of the International Brigades and the aid provided by Stalin (paid for by transferring most of the Bank of Spain's gold reserves to the USSR). Stalin, in reality, was concerned about any revolutionary outcome and viewed the ongoing war as a means of securing new international alliances. In the spring of 1937, the bourgeois sectors, strengthened by the reconstituted state apparatus of the Republic and autonomous Catalonia, decided that the time had come to settle scores with the revolutionary forces; this could only happen in Barcelona, where the proletariat was at its strongest. On May 3, 1937, police units under the command of Rodríguez Salas of the Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (PSUC), the Catalan counterpart of the PCE, attacked the telephone exchange, which was legally run by the sector's workers. Soon, all the factories went on strike, defense committees mobilized in the working-class neighborhoods, and clashes erupted with the police, supported by armed units of the PSUC and Catalan nationalists. This resulted in hundreds of deaths (including the Italian anarchists Camillo Berneri and Francesco Barbieri, kidnapped and later killed by the Stalinists) and a thousand injuries. The city was largely in the hands of the Revolutionary Committees and the proletarians affiliated with the CNT-FAI, while units composed of confederate militants who were preparing to march on Barcelona were blocked by anarchist representatives who worked to reach an agreement. Thus, the workers, disoriented by the instructions given by their leaders, abandoned the barricades but immediately perceived the political significance of the defeat. In fact, despite government promises, the workers were disarmed, hundreds were imprisoned, while the POUM (Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista), which had sided with the workers, was outlawed and its secretary, Andreu Nin, kidnapped and eliminated. This was impossible with the CNT-FAI, which nevertheless emerged from these events politically weakened. A case in point is Aragon, where the Regional Council chaired by the anarchist Joaquin Ascaso was dissolved in August 1945.37 by the new government of Negrín; immediately afterwards the collectives were suppressed by force of arms by some divisions under the command of the communist Lister, who unleashed terror in the rear while the confederal divisions were engaged at the front against the Francoist army. The group of the Friends of Durruti, named after the prestigious anarchist militant who died in the defence of Madrid, had courageously tried to give a response to this state of affairs. They had urged the workers not to abandon the barricades, demanding «a revolutionary Junta. Execution of the guilty. Disarmament of the armed corps. Socialisation of the economy. Dissolution of the parties that have attacked the working class»;[6]but the lucid action of these comrades could hardly have had a chance of success due to the negative situation that had been created and which involved the entire libertarian movement.
We have focused on the days of May 1937 in Barcelona because they constituted a watershed that definitively separated the duality of "war and revolution," even though collectivization continued to survive, despite many difficulties. The rest, despite the growing militarization of the Republic, was a slow parable that charted the unfolding of the civil war and concluded with Franco's military victory. On April 1, 1939, the conflict ended, but not the sacrifice of thousands of men and women through mass executions and imprisonment, or through internment in French camps for those who managed to escape. Yet, despite this epilogue, the magnificent lesson of the social and economic transformations that the Spanish working class achieved in those years after decades of struggle remains intact. This achievement remains a valid point of reference today, even considering the great changes that have occurred since then economically, socially, culturally, as well as in class composition. Furthermore, all the theoretical and strategic problems raised by the Spanish events remain a lesson for the anarchist movement; from these shortcomings and errors, but not only from these, we anarchist communists have drawn the political and organizational insights to continue the struggle for a communist and libertarian society.
Note
[1]The FAI was founded in 1927 as a federation of groups formed on the basis of affinity and to counter reformist tendencies in the CNT.
[2]Mikhail Bakunin, Socialism and Mazzini. A Letter to My Friends in Italy , in Complete Works , vol. II, Edizioni Anarchismo, Catania, 1976, p. 72.
[3]The social and political activity of the Muieres Libres association, which organised thousands of libertarian women, was emblematic.
[4]Camillo Berneri expressed himself in this sense in issue no. 3 of «Guerra di classe» of 24 October 1936.
[5]José Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution , Edizioni Antistato, Milan, 1977, vol. I, p. 274.
[6]Friends of Durruti Group, Verso una nuova rivoluzione , Quaderni di Alternativa Libertaria, 2006.
https://alternativalibertaria.fdca.it/wpAL/
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Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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