anarchism in action: the spanish civil war

8/14/2019 Anarchism in Action: The Spanish Civil War

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In the 1930s Europe w as expe riencing on e of i ts worst eve r

s lumps. The Wall Street crash came in 1929 and its repercus-

s ions we re fe lt far and w ide . Spain was no ex ception

By 1936 un employment ha d gone over 30% in ma ny of the t owns a nd

cities Out of a t otal workforce of thr ee million, one m illion were out of

work. Ther e was n o dole and as pr ices rose by 80% in th e five years up

to 1936, many encountered severe ha rdship.

Land

By European standards Spain was a particularly backward country.

There had been little industrial development and 70% of the people

still lived on the land. 52% of the workforce was employed in agricul-

tu re wh ich accounted for between one h alf and two thirds of Spains

Anarchism in ActionThe Spanish Civil War

Workers SolidarityMovement

June 2001PDF edition

www.struggle.ws/wsm

1st published 1986

2nd edition 1993

e-m ail add ition 1994

HTM L Markup 1995

PDF version June 2001

by Eddie Conlon

M u c h h a s b e e n w r i t t e n a b o u t t h e

Spanish Civi l War but the contribu-

t ion of the Anarchis ts has bee n e i ther

to ta l l y i gn or e d or r e d u c e d to a f e w

footnotes wh ich were often composed

of blatant l ies or general ised slander

r e f e r r i n g t o ' w r e c k e r s ' . T o s e t t h e

record straight this pamphlet was pro-

duce d. It is not a history of the Civi l

War , that would require many hun-

dreds of pages to do just ice to the sub-

ject. It is an un cov erin g of the "hidd en

history"of the Anarch ist participation

in Sp ain's an ti-fascist strug gle.

It has n ot been written becau se of some aca-

demic interest but because Anar chism is

still as relevant n ow as th en. We ha ve seen

th e resu lts of social democra cy an d it's La-

bour Pa r t i e s , we have seen wha t t he

Sta linists ha ve done in Russia , China , Al-

bania and their satellites, we have seenhow their left critics in t he Trotsk yist move-

ment have been unable to come to grips

with th e real problem. And t ha t r eal prob-

lem is the a uth oritarian idea tha t t he world

can be cha nged over t he h eads of th e work -

ers. It can, but it won't be much better.

Only Anar chism wit h it s concept 'of social-

ism based on individual freedom a nd t he

power of workers' councils stands apart

from a ll this. Tha t is wh y, despite four dec-

ades of repr ession, th e CNT rea ppear ed as

a r eal union after th e death of Fran co. We

believe tha t Anar chism is not just another

choice for th ose who wan t a bett er world,

th e his tory of all oth er left movemen ts

shows t hat Ana rchism is a n ecessity.

Glossary a nd Chronology at end

Chapter 1 -Rebellion and Resistance


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exports.

The division of land was the worst in

Eur ope. A ma ssive 67% was in t he ha nds

of just 2% of all landowners. In 1936,

10,000 proprietors owned half of the na-

tional territory. The rema ining land was

owned by middle owners and pea sant s.

The middle owners were more nu mer-

ous th an the big landowners but th ey also

had large estates worked by sharecrop-

pers and landless labourer s.

The rest of th e land wa s owned by peas-

ants, of whom there were five million

Because most of them had insufficient

land they hired themselves out as day

labourer s. Others took t o sharecropping.

Boom

Spains boom per iod ha d been du ring

World War I when it had rem ained neu-

tra l. Agriculture th rived due to the large

foreign markets for its exports. At the

same time some industrialisation took

place. After the war, though, this boomcame to an end, especially when tariff

barriers were thrown u p by Britain a nd

France against Spanish exports.

While the boom lasted the landowners

reaped the benefits but when the slump

arr ived it was th e peasan ts who suffered.

conditions in th e Spa in of the 1930s were

comparable with the Orient. Starvation

was _norma l_ between the h arvests. The

press of th e time car ried rep orts of whole

districts living on r oots a nd boiled greens.

The indus t r i a li s a t ion t ha t had t aken

place was ma inly confined to one a rea-Catalonia. Situat ed in the Northeast bor-

dering on F ran ce, Cata lonia, especially

its capital Barcelona , becam e the indu s-

trial centre of Spain, with 70% of all in-

dustry and 50% of industrial workers.

Many peasan ts left th e land to seek work

in Barcelona, which added t o the alrea dy

existing un employment .

Other forces at t he time were th e Catho-

lic church an d the a rmy. While ther e were

25,000 parish priests there were a fur-

ther 70,000 in r eligious orders. The J esu-

its alone owned 30% of the countryswealth. The number s in the orders actu-

ally outn umber ed the t otal of seconda ry

school studen ts. While millions were k ept

il l i terate (40% could neither read nor

write) the chur ch preached superstitious

reports of incredible incidents such as

stat ues seen weeping and cru cifixes ex-

udin g blood.

The Chur ch was ren owned for siding with

the bosses and wh ile the priests were liv-

ing in luxury the peasant s around them

often s tarved. I t i s l i t t le wonder the

Church was hated.

The ar my was famous for its n um ber of

officers. Th ere was one for every six sol-

diers! This officer caste had been devel-

oped under the monarchy (which was

ended in 1931) and was responsible for

the whole colonial a dministra tion along

with much of that in the country itself.

Drawn from the u pper classes th ey were

tied by kinsh ip, frien dship a nd social po-

sition to the indu strialists an d reaction-

ary landowners.

The Republic

The Span ish Republic was born in 1931.

The workers and peasants, having gone

through years of dictatorship, believedthat maybe now the country would be

modernised and their l iving standards

would begin to impr ove.

It wa s not to be so. One exa mple will suf-

fice. The repu blican governm ent set u p

the Institu te for Agraria n Reform to look

into th e redistr ibution of land . By its own

admission its programme would have

tak en a whole centu ry to implement .

The republican/social-democratic coali-

tion which came t o power in 1931 did lit-

tle to improve living conditions for the

vast m ajority of workers. Un employmentrema ined high an d the working class or-

ganisa tions, especially the CNT, suffered

repression with many members being

imprisoned. By June 1933 there were

9,000 political prisoner s.

The government refused to take on the

industrialists, landowners, army officers

and bishops. It would not stand up to tha t

minority which owned all the wealth an d

had all the r eal power. In t he election of

1933 th ey fell and a r ight-wing coalition

came to power.

This marked the beginning of what be-

came known as the bienno negro the

two black years. The right went on the

offensive. The coalition of the wealthy

and powerful now had state power and

were determined to use it to smash work-

ing class and peasant resistance. Their

privileges were to be maintained at the

expense of the workers.

Asturia

Of course th is was not t aken lightly. The

CNT organised as best it could against

the government. A rising took place inCata lonia in December, shortly after t he

change of government. It was crushed

after ten days. The following year the

workers of th e CNT joined with th eir fel-

low workers in t he U GT (General U nion

of Workers, controlled by the Socialist

Par ty) in a revolt in th e Asturias region.

The workplaces were taken over and t he

union members took up arm s against the

state. Unfortunately they were isolated

from th e rest of the count ry. The massa -

cre tha t followed their d efeat was u npr ec-

edented with at least 3,000 being ex-

ecuted.

By the t ime th is governmen t wa s forced

to resign an d call elections for Februa ry

I 936 there were 30,000 political prison-

ers. The election was won by t he P opular

Front, a coalition of republicans, social-

democrat s and the St alinists of the Com-

munist Party. Their victory was mainly

due to the CNT not runn ing a camp aign

calling on the workers to abstain from

voting. In previous elections they had

done so because they believed that the

ballot box was a con as you could only

choose who would rule over you, not

whether you wanted to be ruled or not.

Instea d th ey said workers should rely ontheir indu strial mu scle to chan ge things.

This tim e th e CNT took no position, leav-

ing it to individual mem bers to decide The

results m ade it obvious they ha d voted,

mainly because the Popular Front had

promised an am nesty for th e prisoners.

The workers, though, did not wait for the

governmen t t o act. They opened t he pr is-

ons themselves and released their com-

rades. It did not st op there. The election

result was seen as an impetus to go on

th e offensive. They h ad voted for cha nge

and if the government was not going todel iver they would get resul ts them-

selves.

Strikes

Between th e election in F ebruary a nd t he

fascist revolt in J uly ther e were 113 gen-

eral strikes, 228 partial general str ikes,

145 bomb explosions, 269 deaths, 1287

wounded, 215 assau lts an d 160 chu rches

burn ed. Of course a ll this was not pa rt of

the Popular Fr ont pr ogram me which was

watery and essentially aimed at main-

taining ant i - fascis t uni ty . I t was not

aimed at smashing capitalism and the

power of th e Span ish elite. Sections of the

Socialist Pa rty, however, went beyond t he

Popular F ront programm e and many of

them in the UGT aga in joined with th eir

comra des in th e CNT to fight th e passiv-

ity of the governmen t.

On June 13th, 30,000 Asturian miners

s t ruck ; on June 19 th 90 ,000 miner s

throughout the country were on strike.

Every city of importan ce had a t least one

genera l strike. Over one million were out

in the first days of July. Strikers were

not only fightin g for economic dema nds ,political demands were also made. On

Ju ly 14th th ere was a large demonstra-

tion outside a ball at the Brazilian em-

bassy. The workers carried placards say-

ing Republican Ministers a muse t hem-

selves while worker s die.

While th e Republican governm ent did all

it could to get the situation under con-

trol, the Communist Party condemned

th e strik es for brin ging work ers int o col-

lision with the governmen t. The govern-

men t du ly filled th e jails and closed down

th e offices of th e CNT.

Coup

As with all ruling classes that become

desperate, they decided that parliamen-

ta ry democracy was to be disposed of and


3/14

t h e worker s o rgan i sa t ion sma shed .

Bosses dont alwa ys oppose fascism be-

cause they know they sometimes ha ve to

resort to it. Their wealth a nd pr ivileges

come before all oth er considera tions. As

in Germany and Italy they decided the

organised working class had to be put

down so they cou ld hang on to the i r

weal th and cont inue to make prof i ts .

While some will initia lly oppose fascism,

and in Spain some did, it is neverthelessa call of last resort an d th ey will go along

with it if they see it as n ecessary to ma in-

tain t heir power. In the Basque Country

the nat ionalists initially opposed th e fas-

cists. But when the choice of fascism or

social revolution became clear, they of-

fered little r esistance to Fr an co.

The coup was to be launched on July I

7th. The ini t ial s tep was taken when

Fr an co seized Morocco an d issued a rad i-

cal manifesto. This was picked up by a

loyal ra dio operat or who passed it on to

the Minister for the Navy. The news ofthe coup was kept secret until 7pm on

the 18th. The government assured the

coun try it was in control. By this it mean t

it was trying to come to terms with the

fascists. The cabinet r esigned on the 18th

an d Borr ios, a right wing repu blican , was

made prime m inister.

Masses

This plan to come to a deal was only

smash ed by th e activity of the organised

working class. The fascists made some

headway in parts of the country where

little opposition was offered as a resultof governmen t h esitation. But in Cata lo-

nia, and especial ly in Barcelona, the

workers of the CNT sh owed how to fight.

They declared a general str ike and took

to the st reets looking for a rms which t he

governmen t refused to give them. In t he

end they stormed th e barra cks, an d took

what they needed. They were aided by

soldiers who had remained loyal, some

of whom tu rned th eir guns on th eir offic-

ers.

The workers immediately set up barri-

cades and within hours the ris ing hadbeen defeated. Arms were siezed and

given to groups of worker s who were dis-

patched to other a reas to prevent risings

occurring. Madrid was a lso saved becau se

of the heroism an d initiat ive of the work-

ers. Hearing of what had happened in

Barcelona they had stormed the Montana

Barra cks, the ma in army base in the city.

In Valencia they surrounded the bar-

racks, a situation which lasted for two

weeks. Still the government refused to

arm the workers and it was only after

arm s were sent from Barcelona and Ma-

drid that the barracks was successfully

taken . In Asturias t he rebels were beaten

after pr olonged fighting leading to ma ny

death s. Then the m iners outfitted a col-

umn of 5,000 dynamiters who marched

to Madrid.

Throughout the country the initiative

tak en by workers and peasan ts was stop-

ping the fascists in t heir tr acks. This was

the story in three quarters of the coun-

try. Elsewhere valuable time was lost due

to th e indecision of govern men t officials.

In Saragossa the workers failed to put

down the rising. Juan Iopez, a leading

CNT militan t, put t his down t o the fact

tha t t hey lost t oo mu ch time ha ving in-

ter views with t he civil govern or, we evenbelieved in his p romises.

Thus by the action of the rank and file

was the Spa nish Republic saved. Not

just the CNT but members of the UGT

and the P OUM (Workers Par ty of Marx-

ist Un ity) joined in t he fighting. For th ese

workers t his was not just a wa r to defeat

the fascists but the beginnin g of a r evo-

lution. Worker s militias were esta blished

independently of the state. Workplaces

which h ad been a bandoned by the former

bosses were taken over and in the rural

areas t he peasant s seized the land. Forthe an archists this was the chance to put

their ideas into pra ctice.

More information on anarchism and the Spanish revolutionhttp://struggle.ws/spaindx.html

This web page includes hundreds of documents and imagesincluding translations of many Spanish anarchist articles

from the period

Anarchism is a most m isunderst ood set of ideas. It is constant ly portr ayed as m ean-

ing chaos and violence. Nothing could be furt her from t he t rut h. Anarchists believe

in creating a classless society. They oppose capitalism as a system that puts the

profits of a small minority of bosses before the needs of the vast majority. It is a

system based on the exploitat ion of workers, a system t ha t inevitably causes poverty

star vation an d war. Anar chists oppose auth ority in t he sense of opposing th e right

of an y small minority to ha ve power over everyone else. They oppose the St at e (mea n-

ing government, army, police, courts) as an institution whose purpose is to enforce

the will of a minority on th e ma jority.

Chapter 2 - Anarchism in Action

Anarchists believe in class str uggle, tha t

the bosses an d workers h ave no comm on

interest and that the workers must or-

ganise to ta ke over the r unn ing of soci-

ety Ordinary workers are quite capable

of running society. I t would be done

th rough a system of workers coun cils

with m ass dem ocra cy which would be far

more rational democratic and efficient

than the ex i s t ing s e t -up . Anarch i s t s

sta nd u p for th e freedom of th e individual

an d oppose all oppression on the ba sis of

race, sex or sexua l orientat ion. The only

limit on individual freedom should be

that it does not interfere with the free-

dom of other s.

From early on the a nar chists opposed the

building of burea ucrat ic Sta te Capita lism

in Russia. Initially they supported the

revolution but were against t he att empts

of th e Bolsheviks to tak e power into their

own hands and create the seeds of the

dictatorship of the party. Anarchists

hold that how you organise will reflect

the type of society you want. Small mi-

nor i t ies can not l iberate the working

class , the working class wi l l have to

emancipate i tself . Democracy and ac-

coun tability are th e corner stone of anar -

chist organisation. Direct action is the

method. Rather than relying on small

groups they say workers do have the

power and strength to change society.

That strength lies in their ability to or-

ganise at the place of work, a strength

tha t sh ould be used not only to win im-

mediate reforms f rom the bosses but

eventually to overthrow the whole sys-

tem of capitalism. This belief is central

to ana rchism Anarchists do not only want

workers cont rol of indu str y, they wan t a

society wher e a ll relationships of auth or-

ity are abolished and people do not look

to oth ers to run their lives.

Bakunin

Anarchism had, an d still has, a long tra -

dition in Spa in. In th e middle of the last

centu ry ana rchist ideas were brought to

Spain by Fan elli, an It alian supp orter of

Michael Bakunin who was one of the

founders of modern ana rchism. A Span-

ish section of the First In tern ational was

set up an d the ma jority within it took thes ide of the anarchis ts in the Interna-

tional.

Anarchism developed ra pidly due to the

har sh economic conditions t ha t workers

and peasants had to suffer. Workers in-

creasingly took up the ideas of syndical-


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ism or ana rcho- syndicalism, which were

developed at the t ur n of th e cent ur y. 1911

saw t he formation of the CNT. Syndical-

i sm deve loped as a r esponse to the

reformism of the existing trade unions

and to the growing isolation of an archist

revolutionaries from th e ma ss of work-

ers. This had happened as a result of a

small number of anarchists turning to

terr orism and propaganda by the deed,

the be l i e f tha t they cou ld inc i t e themasses to revolution by committ ing out-

rages.

Syndicalism was an at tempt to provide a

link between the anarchist movement

and the workers on the sh opfloor. Its ba-

sic ideas revolved around all the work-

ers being in one big union. All the em-

ployees in a workplace would join. Th ey

would link u p with those in other jobs in

the same area and an area federat ion

would be formed. Delegates from these

would go forwa rd t o regiona l federa tions

who were united in a nat ional federation.A l l t h e d e l e g a t e s w e r e e l e c t e d a n d

recallable. They were given a clear man -

date and if they broke it they could be

replaced with new delegates.

Bureaucracy

Every effort was made to prevent the

growth of a bu reau cracy of unaccoun table

full-tim e officials. Th ere was only one full-

tim e official in all of th e CNT. Un ion work

was done during working hours where

possible, otherwise after work. This en-

sur ed th e officials of th e un ion stayed in

contact with the shopfloor. The fear ofbureaucracy was such that Indus tr ial

Federations that would have linked to-

gether all the workplaces of particular

indust ries were h otly opposed. They were

eventually conceded in 1931 but never

fully built.

Syndicalists distinguished themselves

from th e other u nions by their belief that

th e un ions could be used not only to gain

reforms from th e bosses but also to over-

throw the capitalis t system. They be-

lieved the Syndicalist union would be-

come the battering ram that would bringcapitalism to its knees. They believed

that the reason most workers were not

revolut ionar ies was that their unions

were reformist and dominated by a bu-

reaucracy that took the initiative away

from the rank and file members. Their

alternative was to organise all workers

into one u nion in prepar ation for t he revo-

lutionary general strike.

The CNT experienced rapid growth from

the t ime of its forma tion and by th e out -

break of the civil war it ha d almost two

million mem bers. Its str ongholds were in

Catalonia and Andulucia. I t a lso had

large followings in Galicia, Astur ias, Le-

vant, Saragossa and Madrid. I ts main

strength was am ong textile, building an d

wood workers as well as amongst agri-

cultural labourer s. As it pr eached social

revolution it was su bject to vicious repr es-

sion not only under the semi- dictator-

ship which ru led until 1931 but also the

re form ing govern me nt s which followed.

The Popular Front, with its social demo-

cratic and Stalinist supporters, joined

th is list by showing it n o mercy.

A-Politicism

The CNT wa s not a revolutionar y politi-

cal organisation. I t was an industrialunion. Indeed it consta ntly played up its

a-politicism and ar gued tha t all that wa s

necessary to ma ke a revolution was for

the workers to seize the factories and

land. After th at the Sta te and all other

political institu tions would come t oppling

down. It did n ot believe th e working class

must take political power for them all

power h ad to be immediat ely abolished.

Because it was a union it organised all

worker s regar dless of th eir politics. Many

joined, not becau se they were an ar chists,

but because it was t he most militant un-ion a nd a ctually got results. In fact dur-

ing the civil war its membership more

tha n doubled (this ha ppened to the UGT

too) at least p art ly due to workers being

obliged to join one or oth er u nion.

So obviously th e CNT was open t o those

who were not anarchis ts . There were

many internal disputes, and tendencies

did arise th at were reformist. Because of

this th e Federat ion of Iberian Anarchists

(FAI) was set up in 1927. It was based on

local affinity groups a nd wa s not a politi-

cal organ isation as such. It was ther e to

ensur e tha t t he CNT rem ained pure in

anarchist (FAI) terms. It succeeded in

this and man y of its members became the

leading lights of tile CNT. Other anar-

chist organisations th at existed when t he

civil war broke out were th e Iberian Fed-

erat ion of Liberta rian Youth (FIJ L) an d

Mujeres Libres (Free Women).

There is absolutely no doubt t ha t t he ini-

tial res ponse to Fra ncos coup wa s deter -

mined by the fact that the CNT and its

anarchist ideas held sway among large

sections of th e working class. There wa s

no waiting around for governm ent m in-isters to act, the workers took control.

Anarchist influence could be seen in the

format ion of the militias, the expropria-

tion and r eorgan isation of the land, and

the seizures in indust ry.

Militias

The government found itself in a pecu-

liar s ituation when the dust had settled

after July I 9th. While it remained the

governmen t it h ad no way of exercising

i t s au thor i ty . Mos t o f the a rmy had

openly rebelled against it. Where the r e-

bellion ha d been defeated t he ar my was

disbanded and the workers now had the

arm s. The tra de unions an d left-wing or-

ganisat ions immediat ely set about organ-

ising th ese arm ed workers. Militias were

formed and t hese became t he un its of the

revolutionary army. Ten days after the

coup t here were I 8,000 workers organ-

ised in the m ilitias of Cat alonia. The vast

majority of these were members of the

CNT. Overall there were 150,000 volun-

teers willing t o fight when ever th ey were

needed.

This was no ordinar y arm y. There were

no uniforms (neck scarves usually indi-

cated what organisation a militia mem-

ber belonged to) or officers who enjoyed

privileges over t he ordinary soldiers. This

was a revolutionary army and reflected

the revolutionary principles of those in

its ranks. Democracy was control. The

basic unit wa s th e group, composed gen-

erally of ten, which elected a delegate.

Ten groups formed a centu ry which also

elected a delegate. Any nu mber of centu -

ries formed a column, which had a war

comm itt ee responsible for th e overa ll ac-

tivities of the column. This was elected

an d accounta ble to the workers. Column sgenerally had ex-officers and artillery

experts to advise them - but th ese were

not given an y power.

Worker s joined th e colum ns because th ey

want ed to. They underst ood the need to

f ight and the necess i ty of creat ing a

popular ar my. They a ccepted discipline

not because th ey were told to but because

they un derstood th e need to act in a co-

ordinated manner. Members accepted

orders because they trusted those who

gave them . They ha d been elected from

their own ranks. Militias were aligned

with different organisations and often

had their own newspapers. These were

political organisations that understood

the link between revolutionary politics

and t he war . The militias formed in Ba r-

ce lona los t no t ime in march ing on

Aragon wher e the capital, Sara gossa, had

been taken by the fascists. The Durruti

Column, n am ed after one of the leading

CNT militants, led this march an d gradu-

ally liberated village after village. The

aim wa s to free Saragossa which linked

Cata lonia with t he second indust rial re-

gion - th e Basque Count ry, which a s wellas being a source of raw materials had

heavy industries and ar ms man ufactur-

ing plants.

The Dur rut i column showed how to fight

fascism. They un derst ood th at a civil war

is a political battle, not just a military

conflict. As t hey ga ined victory a fter vic-

tory they encouraged peasants to take

over the land and collectivise. The Col-

umn provided the defence that allowed

this to be done. The peasants rallied to

them . They fed th e worker- soldiers and

man y of them joined. Indeed Duru tti ha d

to plead with some of th em n ot to join so

that the land would not be depopulated

and the task of collectivisation could be

carried through.

As the anarchist militias achieved suc-


5/14

cess after success ground was being lost

on oth er fronts. Sara gossa, th ough, was

not ta ken a nd a long front developed. The

militia system was blam ed for t his. The

Stalinists said the workers were undis-

ciplined a nd would n ot obey order s. They

accused the anarchists of being unwill-

ing to work with others to defeat th e fas-

cists.

Of course this was nonsense. The anar-

chists continu ally called for a un ited war

effort and even for a single command.

What th ey did demand, though, was that

contr ol of the a rmy st ayed with t he work-

ing class. They did not believe that es-

tablishing a united command necessi-

tated re-establishing the old militarist

regime t he officer cast e.

The major problem facing the militias

was a lack of arms. The mu nitions indus-

try been cut off and th e workers in Ba r-

celona went to great len gths t o impr ovise.

Arms were made an d tra nsported to the

front but there were still not enough ofth em. George Orwell (who fough t in one

of the P OUM militias) described the a rms

situat ion on t he Aragon front. The infan-

try were far worse armed th an a n En g-

lish pu blic school Officers Tr ain ing Corps,

with worn out Mau ser rifles which u su-

ally jammed after five shots; approxi-

ma tely one ma chine gun to fifty men (sic)

and one pistol or revolver to about t hirty

men (sic). These weapons, so necessary

in tren ch warfare, were not issued by the

government . . . . A government which

sends boys of fifteen t o the front wit h r i-

fles fort y years old an d keeps it s biggest

men an d newest weapons In the rear is

manifestly more afraid of the revolution

th e fascists.

And how right he was. An arms emba rgo

was imposed by Britain preventing the

sale of arms t o either side, but n ot unt il

mid-August. The government which had

600,000,000 dollars in gold, could have

brought ar ms. Eventu ally this gold was

sent to Moscow in excha nge for a rm s but

when they arr ived there was a system-

atic refusal to supply th e an ar chist-con-

trolled Aragon front. The arm s tha t didar rive were sent only to Stalinist-cont rol-

led centr es. A member of the war minis-

try referring to the arms which arrived

in September commen ted I noticed th at

these were n ot being given out in equa l

quantit ies, but th ere was a m arked pref-

erence for the units which made up the

Fifth Regiment. This was controlled by

the Stalinists . The Catalan munitions

plants, which depended on the central

government for finance were compelled

to surrend er th eir product to such desti-

nations as the government chose. This

withholding of arm s was funda ment al to

the strategy of the Stalinists and their

allies in governmen t for br eaking down

the power an d prestige of th e CNT. The

communists wanted to undermine the

militias in their efforts to have th e regu-

lar ar my restart ed. But more of this later.

This lack of arms did not only affect the

Aragon front. Irun fell because of the

shortage of weapons. One reporter de-

scribed it. They fought to the last car-

tridge (the workers of Irun. When they

had no more am munit ion t hey hur led

packs of dynamite. When the dynamite

was gone they rushed fo rward bare-

handed while the sixty times stronger

enemy butchered them with their bayo-

nets. In Astur ia th e workers were bogged

down t rying to take Oviedo arm ed with

little more than rifles and crude dyna-

mite bombs. Although a few planes a nd

art illery pieces were begged for, the work-

ers were tu rned down. Again th e govern-

men ts fear of revolut iona ry worker s t ook

precedence over defeating the fascists.

It is a common lie tha t th e militias, sup-

posedly un disciplined an d un cont rollable,

were r esponsible for Fr an cos adva nce.

All who saw the militias in action had

nothing but praise for the heroism theywitnessed. The government made a de-

liberat e choice. It chose to star ve the r evo-

lutionar y worker s of ar ms, it decided th at

defeating th e revolution was more impor-

tant than defeating fascism.

The Land

The peasan ts did not ha ve to be told by

Durruti t o take over the land. They had

been at tempt ing to do so since the foun-

dation of the Republic. Indeed the first

government of the Republic had sent

troops to murder peasant s who had taken

lan d. In t he Repu blics first two years , 109peasants were murdered. I t was in the

coun tryside that the Spa nish revolution

was most far reaching. The anarchist

philosophy had been absorbed by large

layers of the downtr odden peasa nt s. In-

deed at its 1936 Congress th e CNT had

gone into great det ail as to how the an -

archist society of the future would look.

The peasan try took the opportun ity to put

these ideas into practice. Their efforts

showed what could be done by working

people (many of whom were illiterate)

given t he r ight conditions. They made a

nonsense of the a rgument t hat ana rchismis not possible because s ociety would col-

lapse without bosses ,government and

authority.

Collectivisation of th e land wa s extensive.

Close on two third s of all lan d in th e Re-

publican zone (tha t a rea controlled by th e

an ti-fascist forces) was t ak en over. In all

between five and seven million peasan ts

were involved. The major areas were

Aragon wher e th ere wer e 450 collectives,

the Levant ( the area around Valencia)

with 900 collectives an d Cast ille (the a rea

sur roun ding Madr id) with 300 collectives.

Not only was the land collectivised but

in the villages workshops were set up

where the local tradespeople could pro-duce tools, furn iture, et c. Baker s, butch-

ers, bar bers a nd so on also decided to col-

lectivise.

Collectivisation was volun tar y an d th us

quit e differe nt from th e forced collectivi-

sation presided over by Sta lin in Russia.

Usua lly a m eeting was called in t he vil-

lage, most collectives were centred on a

part icular village, and a ll present would

agree to pool together whatever land,

tools and a nima ls they had . This would

be added to what h ad already been taken

from the big landowners. The land wasdivided into rat iona l units a nd groups of

workers were assigned to work them.

Each group had its delegate who repre-

sented t heir views at meetings of the col-

lective. A management committee was

also elected and was responsible for the

overall running of the collective. They

would look a fter th e buying of mater ials,

exchan ges with other ar eas, distributing

the produce and n ecessary pu blic works

such a s th e building of schools. Ea ch col-

lective held regular general m eetings of

all its par ticipant s.

If you d idnt wa nt to join th e collective

you were given some land but only as

much as you could work yourself. You

were n ot allowed to employ worker s. Not

only production was affected, distr ibut ion

was on t he ba sis of what people needed.

In ma ny area s money was abolished. Peo-

ple come to the collective store (often

churches which had been turned into

warehouses) and got wha t was available.

If there were sh ortages rat ioning would

be introduced to ensure th at everyone got

their fair share. But it was usually the

case that increased production un der th enew system eliminat ed shortages.

In agricultural terms the revolution oc-

curr ed at a good time. Harvests tha t were

gathered in and being sold off to make

big profits for a few lan downers wer e in-

stead distributed t o those in need. Doc-

tors, bakers, barbers, etc. were given

what t hey needed in ret urn for their serv-

ices. Where money was not abolished a

family wage was intr oduced so tha t p ay-

ment was on the basis of need and not

the n umber of hours worked.

Production greatly increased. Techni-cians and agronomists helped the peas-

ant s to make bett er use of the lan d. Mod-

ern scientific methods were introduced

and in some area s yields increased by as

much a s 50%. There was en ough to feed


6/14

the collectivists an d th e militias in t heir

areas. Often there was enough for ex-

change with other collectives in the cit-

ies for machinery. In addition food was

handed over to the supply committees

who looked after distribution in the ur-

ban areas.

As with the militias, slander was also

thr own at the collectives. It wa s claimed

tha t ea ch one only looked a fter itself and

did not care about the others. This was

rubbish as in many areas equalisation

fun ds were set up to redistribute wealth

from the better off areas to the poorer

ones. I t was ensured that machinery and

expertise were shifted to th e area s most

in need of it. Indeed one indicator of the

feeling of solidar ity is the fact t ha t 1,000

collectivists from th e Levant , which was

quite a dvan ced, moved to Castille to help

out.

Federations of collectives were estab-

l ished, the most successful being in

Aragon. In June 1937 a plenum of Re-gional F ederat ions of Peasa nts was held.

Its aim was the formation of a national

federat ion for t he co-ordina tion an d ex-

ten sion of th e collectivist movemen t a nd

also to ensur e an equitable distribution

of the produce of the land, not only be-

tween the collectives but for the whole

coun tr y. Un fort un at ely man y collectives

were smash ed, not be Fran cos ar my but

by the soldiers of the Stalinist General

Lister, before this could be done.

The collectivists were not only concern ed

with th eir mat erial well being. They hada deep commitment to education and as

a result of their efforts many children

received an education for t he first t ime.

This was not th e usua l schooling either .

The methods of Francisco Ferrer, the

world famous anarchist educationalist,

were employed. Children were given ba -

sic literacy skills and after th at inquisi-

tive skills were encouraged. Old people

were also looked after an d where neces-

sary special homes for them were built.

Refugees from the fascist controlled ar-

eas wer e looked after t oo.

Industry

Alth ough t he r evolut ion didnt go as far

in the cities as it did in the country, man y

achievements are worth noting. It was in

Catalonia, the industrial heartland a nd

stronghold of the CNT, that most was

gained. In Barcelona over 3,000 enter-

prises were collectivised. All the public

s e r v i c e s , n o t o n l y i n C a t a l o n i a b u t

throughout the Republican zone, were

taken over and run by commit tees of

workers.

To give some idea of the exten t of the col-lectivisation h ere is a list provided by one

observer (Burnett Bolloten, The Grand

Camouflage by no means an anarchist

book). He sa ys railways, tra incars a nd

buses, taxicabs and shipping, electric

light an d power compa nies, gasworks a nd

waterworks, engineering and aut omobile

as sembly p lan t s , mines and cement

works, t extile m ills an d pa per factories,

electrical and chemical concerns, glass

bottle factories and perfumeries, food

processing plants and breweries were

confiscated a nd contr olled by work men ss

(sic) committees, either term possessing

for th e owners almost equal significan ce.

He goes on motion pictur e th eatr es an dleg i t imate thea t r es , newspaper s and

printing, shops, department stores and

hotels, de-lux restaur ant s and bars were

likewise sequestered.

This shows clearly tha t t he portra yal of

ana rchism as being someth ing to do with

quaint sm all worksh ops is untr ue. Large

factories, some of them employing thou-

sands of workers, were taken over and

ru n by workers comm itt ees.

Often the workplaces were siezed because

the owners ha d fled or had st opped pro-

duction to sabotage t he r evolution. Butthe worker s d id no t s top wi th these

workplaces all m ajor places of work were

tak en over. Some were run an d contr ol-

led by the workers. In others control

committ ees were esta blished t o ensure

that production was maintained (these

existed t o exercise a p ower of veto on th e

decisions of the boss in cases where the

workers h ad n ot taken over th e power of

management).

In each workpla ce th e assem bly of all the

workers was the basic unit. Within the

factory workers would elect delegates torepresent them on day- to-day issues .

Anythin g of overa ll import an ce had to go

to the a ssembly. This would elect a com-

mitt ee of between five and fifteen worker,

which would elect a m ana ger to oversee

the day-to-day run ning of the workplace

- Within each industry there was an In-

dustrial Council which had representa-

tives of the two main unions (CNT and

UGT) and represent atives from th e com-

mittees. Technicians were also on these

committees to provide technical advice.

The job of the Indust rial Council was t o

set out an overall plan for th e industr y.

Within workplaces wages were equalised

and conditions great ly improved. Let us

see how collectivisation actually made

things better. Take for example the t ram -

ways. Out of the 7,000 workers, 6,500

were mem bers of the CNT. Becau se of th e

s t r ee t ba t t l es a l l t r anspor t had been

brought to a halt. The transport syndi-

cate (as un ions of the CNT were kn own)

appointed a commission of seven to oc-

cupy the adm inistra tive offices while oth -

ers inspected the tracks and drew up a

plan of repair work that needed to bedone. Five days after t he fight ing stopped

700 tramcars, instead of the usual 600,

all painted in t he black and red colours

of the CNT, were operating on th e streets

of Bar celona .

With the profit motive gone, safety be-

came more importan t an d the n umber of

accidents wa s redu ced. Far es were low-

ered and services improved. In I 936,

183,543, 516 passen gers were carr ied. In

1937 th is had gone u p by 50 million. The

tra ms were run ning so efficiently tha t th e

workers wer e able to give money to oth er

sections of urban tra nsport. Wages were

equalised for all workers an d increased

over the previous r ates. For th e first t imefree medical care was provided for the

work force.

As well as giving a more efficient ser vice

the workers found time t o produce rock-

ets an d howitzers for th e war effort . They

worked overtime an d Sun days to do their

sha re for t he a nt i-fascist st ru ggle. To fur-

ther u nderline th e fact t hat getting rid

of th e bosses an d ru lers would not lead

to a br eakdown of order it can be pointed

out that in the two years of collectivisa-

tion th ere wer e only six cases of work ers

stealing from the worksh ops.Extensive reorganisation took place to

mak e industr y more efficient. Man y un-

economic small plant s, which were usu -

ally unhealthy, were closed down and

production was concentrated in those

plants with the best equipment. In Cata-

lonia 70 foun dries wer e closed down. The

number of tanning plants was reduced

from 71 to 40 an d th e whole wood indus-

try was reorganised by the CNT Wood-

workers Union.

In 1937 the central government admit-

ted that the war industry of Cataloniaproduced ten times more tha n th e rest of

Spanish industry put together and t hat

this output could have been quadr upled

if Cata lonia h ad t he a ccess to necessar y

mean s of purcha sing raw mat erials.

It was n ot only production t hat was ta ken

over. Ma ny pa ra sitic middlem en were

cut out of distribution. The wholesale

business in fish a nd eggs was ta ken over

as were th e principal fruit and vegetable

markets. The milk trade in Barcelona

was collectivised which saw over 70 u n-

hygienic past eurising plan ts closed down.Every where supply committ ees were set

up. All of this made the middle classes

very unhappy. To them, with their no-

tions of becoming bigger bosses , th e revo-

lution was a step ba ck.

Again equalisation funds were estab-

lished to help out the poorer collectives

Indeed there were m any problems. Many

mar kets were cut off in t he fascist zone

and some foreign mar kets were a lso tem-

porarily lost. Raw m ater ials were short

as sources of supply were cut off. and

when t hey could be obtained funds were

held back by the central government.

This wa s one sh ort-comin g of th e collec-

tivisation.

The banks ha d not been seized and the

gold reserve already referred to stayed


7/14

in the hands of the government. (The

CNT did hatch a plan to seize i t but

backed down at t he last moment ).

Despite all this production was increased

and living standards for many working

class people improved. In October 1936

the government was forced to recognise

the collectivisation by passing a decree

tha t r ecognised th e fait accompli. It was

also an at tempt to cont rol futu re collec-

tivisation.

Social Revolut ion

This is only a very brief look at the col-

lectivisation that happened. In keeping

with a nar chist beliefs th e revolution did

not stop there. For th e first t ime in Spain

man y workers h ad th e benefit of a h ealth

service - organ ised by the CNT Federa -

tion of Health Workers. Th e Federa tion

cons is ted of 40,000 heal th workers -

nurses, doctors, administrators and or-

derlies. Once again t he m ajor success was

in Catalonia where it ensur ed tha t all ofthe 2.5 million inha bitant s had adequa te

health care.

Not only were traditional services pro-

vided but victims of the Civil War were

also treat ed. A program me of preventive

medicine was also established based on

local community h ealth cent res. At their

1937 Congress these workers developed

a hea lth plan for a futu re ana rchist Spain

which could have been implement ed if th e

revolution had been successful.

The role of women also changed. Many

gains were made by them. In relat ion totheir role during th e Civil war observers

have pointed out that they played a full

part in th e ant i- fascist resistance. They

were present everywhere - on commit-

tees, in the m ilitias, in th e front line. In

th e early batt les of th e war women fought

alongside the m en as a mat ter of course.

It wa s not m erely a case of women filling

in for men who were away at the front.

(Which is usually the case in wartime.

When the wa r is over and women ar e no

longer needed in the labour force, they

are pu shed back into the home).

They were in the milit ias and fought

alongside the m en as equ als. They were

organising the collectives and ta king up

the fight against the sexist attitudes of

the pa st which have no place in an y real

revolution.

The Anar chist womens organ isation,

Mujeres L ibres (F ree Women) , had

30,000 members. It had been active be-

fore the Civil War organising women

workers and distributing informa tion on

contraception. During the war abortion

was legalised in the republican zone.

Centres were opened for women, includ-

ing unmar ried mothers a nd prostitutes.

F r o m a l l a c c o u n t s t h e r e t r u l y w e r e

changes in a t t i tudes to women. One

woma n par ticipan t in the Civil War h as

said it was like being brothers a nd sis-

ters . I t had a lways annoyed me th at m en

in th is count ry didnt consider women a s

beings with h uma n rights. But now there

was this big change. I believe it arose

spontaneously out of the revolutionary

movement ... Margorita Ba laguer qu oted

in Blood of Spain ed. Ronald Fr aser , page

287.

Everywhere change was apparent. The

whole character of Barcelona changed.

Posh resta ura nts no longer existed. Col-

lective eating houses took their place. A

spirit of comra deship was in t he air.

Everywhere councils of worker s an d pea s-

ants had t aken over a dministrat ion. The

Defence Council of Aragon wa s one of th e

highest expressions of this . I t ran the

province an d co-ordina ted t he work of the

collectives an d militia s. All th e an ti-fas-

cist forces were represent ed on it but th e

ana rchists were in th e majority. In Cata -

lonia a Cent ra l Committ ee of Anti-Fas-

cist Militias wa s set u p on J uly 21st. Ofits fifteen members five were an ar chists,

three were UGT, POUM had one, the

Commu nist Part y had one and the repub-

lican s had four. Although the an ar chists

were supr eme in th is province they hoped

by sharing power that similar commit-

tees would be formed wher e the CNT wa s

weaker.

This was th e situa tion in 1936. Although

the Popular Front government still ex-

isted it ha d no power. It was shorn of the

repressive organs of the stat e. Power was

split int o countless fragmen ts a nd scat-tered in a thousand towns and villages

am ong th e revolutionary commit tees tha t

had tak en contr ol of the lan d an d facto-

ries, means of transport and communi-cation, th e police an d th e ar my. The mili-

ta ry, economic an d political str uggle was

proceeding independently of the govern-

ment , and, indeed, in spite of it.

Such a situa tion is known as one of dua l

power. The power of th e govern men t was

too weak to challenge the power of the

workers and peasants. And that power

was not conscious enough of the need to

dispense with the existence of the gov-

ernm ent. Fa ilure to do this a llowed it to

restore its auth ority and become ma ster

of th e situ ation. In trying to under stan d

how this h appened it is n ecessary t o look

at the role of the Communist Party and

tha t of the CNT leadership.

Chapter 3 - The Counter RevolutionThe behaviour of the Spanish Communist Pa rty and the United Social is t

Party of a Catalonia (PSUC) had more to do with what was in the best

interests of Stal in than w hat was in the best interests of the Spanish w ork-

ing c lass . They w ent out of their way to deny that a revolut ion had taken

place . Then they did al l they could to repress this revolut ion they pretended

had no t happen ed. As far as they w ere concerned the Civi l War was on ly

about restor ing democracy to Spain. To see why they took this att i tude w e

have to look outs ide Spain.

Stalin

Sta lin believed t ha t a bove all else social-

ism in th e USSR ha d to be defended. The

interests of the E uropean (and indeed the

world) working class had to take second

place to the stra tegic interests of the r ul-

ing burea ucracy in Russia. And they felt

very threat ened in the 1930s. Hitler ha d

come to power in 1933 and despite thefact that Stalin was seeking no quarrel

with Germany (three months after the

nazi take-over Stalin had signed an ex-

tension to the 1926 Germa n-Soviet P act)

relations between the two count ries soon

cooled.

Stalins fear was t hat the British an d

Fren ch would do a deal with H itler and

thu s leave Russia open to atta ck. He be-

lieved they would be content to sit back

and watch Germany and Russia slog it

out . When both had exhaus ted them-

selves Britain a nd F ran ce would move in

as ma sters of Eur ope.

Because of this Stalin signed a Mutual

Assistance Pact with France in 1935.

There was no commitment to mutual

m i l i t a r y a s s i s t a n c e i n t h i s . F o r t h e


8/14

Fren ch it was a way of removing any re-

maining l inks between Germany and

Russia while at the sa me time getting the

Fren ch Comm unist P art y to drop its op-

position t o their governm ent s defence

programme.

So to prevent the British an d Fren ch set-

tling their differences with Hitler at the

expense of the Soviets, in order to guar-

ant ee tha t th e Fra nco-Soviet Pa ct would

not fall by the wayside and in order to

conclude similar pacts with the govern-

ment s of other coun tries, notably Britain,

it was essential that governments hos-

ti le to German aims in Eastern Europe

should be brought t o power. It was t o this

end tha t the Popular F ron t l ine was

adopted at the 7t h World Congress of the

Comintern in August 1935. This body,

also known as the Third International,

collected together all the Communist

Part ies un der Russian leadership.

Popu lar Fronts

The immediat e aim of this p olicy was t o

bring th e middle classes a nd sections of

the bosses into a wide anti-fascist peo-

ples front. To do this Commu nist P art ies

were to play down revolutiona ry politics.

This was to be a struggle to preserve

bourgeois democracy; an d to attr act mid-

dle class republican and liberal parties

extreme positions were never a dopted.

The Popular Front policy was quite su c-

cessful. Ear ly in 1936 Popular Fr ont gov-

ernments were elected in France and

Spain. The pr ogram mes of these govern-

ments were very moderate. In Spain a

socialist proposal tha t th e land be nat ion-

alised was dr opped becau se of repu blican

opposition. There the Popular Front con-

sisted of the Republican Party, the Re-

publican Union, the Socialist Par ty, the

POUM, the Syndicalist Party, Basque

and Cat alan n ationalists (who saw their

autonomy under threat from the right)

and of course t he Commu nist Pa rty.

When t he Civil War broke out St alins

instructions were clear. All of the Com-

mu nists effort s were to be directed to one

end - winnin g the support of Britain a ndFran ce and persuading them to drop their

neut rality. A non-int ervention agreement

had been signed in August 1936 with t he

hope of preventing t he exten sion of the

conflict. Stalin believed that if Britain

and Fra nce were to drop this policy the

Civil War could ultimately develop into

a much larger conflict (Germany and

Italy were already giving military aid t o

the fascists). This conflict, from which

Russia would remain aloof would bring

the warring parties to the point of mu-

tual exhaustion and the Russian bosses

would then emerge as th e new masters

of Eur ope. Thus t he revolutiona ry aspects

of the Civil War were to be denied and,

the str uggle was to be portrayed (and was

to become), a st ruggle tha t- went n o fur-

ther tha n basic democratic deman ds. Ini-

tially the St alinists had felt a need to talk

of mak ing a revolution after t he fascists

were defeated. Even this empt y talk soon

stopped.

Of course the Stalinist (and Leninist)

Conception of socialism, is quite differ-

ent from tha t of the a nar chists. It is cen-

tral to anarchism that the masses take

contr ol and run society through a system

of councils. For the Stalinists socialism

enta i l s na t iona l i s ing every th ing a nd

tur ning over t he ru nning of society to the

State, which will be dominated by the

Party. Control passes into the hands of

professionals, technicians and bureau-

crats who begin t o develop their own class

interests. Even if the Stalinists had de-

cided to fight for socialism they would

stil l have had to undermine the anar-

chists.

This policy of wooing the British and

French ruling classes was from the be-

ginning doomed to failure - not only be-

cause of their military unpreparednessbut because of their belief that if they

became involved at this stage in a war

with Hit ler , both they and the Nazis

would be weakened a nd t hus the position

of Russia would be enh an ced. At all times

right up to the outbreak of W.W.II the

British sought to come t o terms with Hit-

ler which would leave him free t o atta ck

Russia in the E ast.

Navy

The activities of the Navy, which h ad r e-

mained loyal to the Republic, were se-

verely curt ailed so as n ot to upset Anglo-

Fren ch inter ests in the Str aight of Gibral-

tar. The navy had been very successful

in ha ra ssing Fr an cos base in Morocco but

their activities were halted to keep the

two foreign powers happy. In line with

this th e Republican governmen t refused

to give Morocco its independence and

thus deprive Franco of his base - To do

this would have upset British an d Fren ch

colonial interests in North Africa. The

exam ple of Spanish Morocco could ha ve

given other subject n ations ideas. Indeed

at one stage the government offered tog ive Br i t a in and France in te res t s in

Spanish Morocco in exchange for their

intervention.

The revolution that had broken out was

of supreme embarrassment to the Com-

munists. Whatever chance they had of

winning over Britain and France was

lessened by th e fact t hat a social revolu-

tion h ad sta rted. There was no way the

British and French governments would

intervene on th e side of revolutionaries.

Thus th e revolution was to be hidden and

eventua lly suppressed. The power of the

c o l l e c t i v e s a n d m i l i t i a s w a s t o b e

smashed.

At the outbreak of the Civil War there

were 40,000 members of the Spanish

Communist Party. The question natu-

rally arises as to how such a small or-

ganisation could so decisively influence

the course of events an d in t ime become

the dominant group in the Popular Front

camp.

In building their P arty t he Communists

placed a lot of emphasis on Cata lonia a s

this was th e hear tland of the r evolution.

The collectivisat ion m ovemen t ser iously

upset the middle classes. Small busi-

nesses wer e closed and ever ywher e mid-

dle-men foun d th eir role abolished a s th e

workers committ ees took over distribu-

t ion. The middle classes would have

turned to their traditional parties but

viewed them as incapable of stemming

th e collectivisat ion m ovement. The Com-

munist P arty seemed the only party se-

rious about protecting their pr operty or

getting it back from the workers. One

f o r m e r C o m m u n i s t c o m m e n t e d I n

Murcia and elsewhere I saw th at our plac-

ards and leaflets appealed for shopkeep-

ers membersh ip with the promise of ab-solute support for private property.

Leaps and Bounds

Membership of the Communis t Par ty

grew in leaps an d bounds. Within a few

months of the outbreak of the war 76,700

peasant proprietors and tenan t farmers

along with 15,485 members of the ur ban

middle classes h ad joined u p. Its influ-

ence among these layers went far beyond

these figures as thousands of members

of th e interm ediate classes, without ac-

tually joining the Party, placed them-

selves un der its wing. As a mean s of pro-tecting the interests of the u rban middle

classes in Cat alonia the Commun ists or-

g a n i s e d 1 8 , 0 0 0 t r a d e s m e n ,

handicraftmen an d sma ll manufacturers

into an organisation called th e C.E.P.C.I

Solidaridad Obrero (Workers Solidarity)

the paper of the CNT commented that

some of those in this body were intran-

sigent employers, ferociously anti- la-

bour. By March 1937 the Communist

Par ty had 250,000 members.

Other measures were also taken to ex-

tend its influence - Only four days afterthe military uprising, the Communists

merged with the Catalan Socialists to

form the PSUC. The local UGT came

under PSUC dominion. Leading mem-

bers of both the Socialist Party and the

UGT in other a reas defected to th e Com-

mun ists, some secretly. Many mem bers

of th e Socialist P ar ty could see little dif-

ference between th eir line an d th at of the

Communists winning the war came be-

fore t he r evolution, conciliat ory att itud es

towar ds foreign powers , etc. - But beca use

the Commun ists had the stronger Party

appa rat us (reinforced as it was by Mos-cow) it wa s able to recruit a t t he expense

of th e Socialists. Ma ny joined because of

its proselytising zeal, imm ensely sk illful

propaganda, i ts vigour, i ts organising

capacity an d th e prestige it derived from


9/14

Soviet arms.

The Communists gained control of the

J SU (Unit ed Socialist Yout h). This group-

ing resulted from a m erger of the Com-

munists and Socialist youth organisa-

tions. It had 50,000 members and was

formed shortly before the war began.

Most of the leading members of the So-

cialist Yout h defected to th e Comm un ists

with t he merger and t hus ensured Com-

mun ist contr ol of the n ew organisation.

It would be wrong to suggest that the

counter- revolution that came was only

as a result of the line and activities of

the Communists. The Republicans and

Socialists agreed with t hem. The Repub-

lican s, who lacked any r eal base a mong

the masses, retired to the background

and ceded to the Communists the deli-

cate job of opposing the social revolution

and defending th e middle classes. Even

Largo Caballero, who became Pr ime Min-

ister in August, the one time left wing

Socialist an d leader of the UGT, declaredon forming the government that it was

necessar y to sacrifice revolut iona ry lan -

guage to win t he friendship of the demo-

cratic powers and the Span ish govern-

men t is n ot fightin g for socialism bu t for

democracy and constitutional rule. Al-

though Ca ballero did not go all the way

with t he Commun ists there were many

in his party, even his closest allies, who

worked for the Communist line against

th e social revolution.

It must also be stated tha t th e participa-

tion of members of the CNT in the gov-ernment helped the growing counter-

revolution. They ent ered th e Cata lan gov-

ernment in September (i t must be re-

membered that Catalonia was semi- au-

tonomous) and th e nat ional governm ent

in November 1936. This will be dealt with

in more detail in the final chapter, suf-

fice to say their participation lent the

government a certa in credibility with t he

masses. The key element in proving to

the world that t he fight in Spain was sim-

ply to restore democracy, to rebuild the

shattered state ma chine and return to the

government t he au thority and power tha twas in the hands of the armed workers.

CNT part icipation served to put a check

on the masses and make them believe

they had a stake in the government an d

should defend it .

Russian Arms

The point about th e Commu nist Pa rty is

th at t hey directed th e counter -revolution.

They called the shots. They were th e only

people who were clear about th e neces-

sity for th e coun ter -revolut ion a nd h ad

the determination to carry it through.

Their a bility to do th is was der ived from

the prestige that came with th e fact that

Russia was the only country supplying

major quantities of arms to the Repub-

lic. (Mexico was the only other country

to help, supplying a sma ll quant ity). The

Russians not only supplied arm s but a lso

military advisors and technicians who

gradually took over the running of the

war.

Stalinists will tell you that Russia pro-

vided arms r ight from th e beginn ing. This

is a lie - Stalin a t first agreed to th e non-

intervention pact for fear of antagonis-

ing the West. The first ar ms did not ar-

rive until October and t hen it wa s out of

fear tha t German a nd Italian arm s would

give a decisive edge to the fascists. Aid

was given covertly an d in order to limit

the possibility of involving Russia in a

war (Krivitsk y In Sta lins Secret Ser v-

ice p. 81 - Krivitsky wa s St alins Ch ief of

Int elligence in Western Eu rope). Becau se

of this fear of involvement in war with

Germany and Italy, aid was limited to

bolstering the resistan ce unt il such time

as Britain an d Fra nce might intervene.

This aid ha d to be paid for - the Sp anish

gold r eserve wa s m oved to Moscow.

The Commun ists knew tha t if a far reach-ing coun ter -revolution wa s t o be enforced

the Sta te, with t heir support, would have

to regain cont rol of the ar my an d th e po-

lice. There was no point in telling work-

ers to drop collectivisation and give up

their a rms if this order could not be im-

posed. All Sta tes r est on t his u se of force

and that is why a successful revolution

can only be made when the people are

armed.

Because of Soviet a id it was ea sy for th e

Commu nists t o gain contr ol of the a rmed

forces. It was not because of the am ountof arm s sent but t he fact th at t he Soviets

were the m ajor pur veyors of war mat eri-

als. The Navy an d Air Minister, Pr ieto,

often ma de fun of his office declarin g th at

he was neither a Minister or anything

else because he received no obedience

from the a ir force. The rea l Air Minister

was th e Russian Genera l Duglas.

Militarisation

Because of th is contr ol of ar ms t he Com-

munists , supported by the others, en-

forced militarisation. The militia system

was broken up. A regular army was re-built with officers, regiment at ion, sa lut-

ing and different ial rat es of pay. The mi-

litias who refused to come under th e com-

mand of the War Ministry (and many

CNT and P OUM militias did refuse) were

star ved of arms. They were left with no

choice.

The new army was built under Commu-

nist cont rol. They knew th at with out con-

trol of the army they could not hope to

contr ol th e an ti-fascist camp. Becau se th e

Fifth Regiment (the ma jor St alinist con-

trolled unit) took a lead in disbanding,th e Commu nist s gained cont rol of five of

the six brigades of the new army. They

also gained control of the General Com-

missariat of War which was set up for

th e pu rpose of exercising political control

of the army through the medium of po-

litical commissar s. As most of these wer eSta linists t hey contr olled th e flow of po-

litical paper s to the front. Invar iably the

anarchist papers were held up. All the

soldiers read were the lies of the Com-

munist Party.

Not only the army was rebuilt but also

the police, especially the hated Civil

Guards who had been a bulwark of re-

pression a gainst t he CNT. They were now

to be called the National Republican

Guar d. The Assault Gu ards were r e- es-

tablished an d had 28,000 recruits by th e

beginn ing of December. Th e Car abiner os,

who were the border police in charge of

customs and un der th e contr ol of Minis-

ter of Finance Negrin (a kn own Commu-

nist sympathiser) grew to 40,000 mem-

bers. Before the War there were only

16000 of them and tha t was in t he whole

of Spa in. Negrins un der- secret ar y made

it clear wh at th eir role was You are th e

guardia ns of the st at e and t hose vision-

aries who believe that a cha otic situat ion

of social indiscipline and licentiousness

is permissible are utterly mistaken be-

cause th e ar my of the people, as well as

you Carabineros, will know how to pre-vent it .

The st at e was giving itself a monopoly of

force. The worker s pat rols which ha d

sprung u p in J uly were disbanded. Work-

ers were ordered to hand in their arm s

an d th ose who declined to do so were con-

sidered fascists. It was sa id tha t t hese

arm s were needed at t he front. While it

is true that arm s were needed at the front

this ar gument was only put forwar d as a

mean s of disarming r evolutionary work-

ers. There were plenty of ar ms un der th e

control of the police. George Orwell ob-

served after th e May Days in Bar celona

the Anarchists were well aware that

even if they surr endered their ar ms, the

PSUC would retain t heirs, and t his is in

fact what happened a fter t he fighting was

over. Meanwhile actually visible on the


10/14

streets , there were quantit ies of arms

which would have been very welcome at

the front, but which were being reta ined

for th e non -political police forces in th e

rear. (Homage to Catalonia p.151).

T h e c o u n t e r - r e v o l u t i o n n o w m o v e d

against t he Collectives. On J an uar y 7th

1937 the d issolution of the workers sup-

ply committees wa s declared. Distribu-

t ion of food was handed over to the

G.E.P.C.I . This led to shor tages and

hoarding to inflate prices. For the first

time in the war Barcelona experienced

hun ger yet th ere was plenty of food. The

collectives were blamed but it was well

known th at if you joined th e PSUC you

could be guaranteed food.

Nationalisat ion

C r e d i t w a s w i t h h e l d f r o m t h o s e

workplaces who refused to come under

governmen t contr ol. As said earlier t he

banks had not been taken over so the

government had a h uge lever against theworkers. N at ionalisation of major indus-

tries was declared thus bringing them

under governmen t control. They claimed

this was necessary for the war effort .

They claimed th e collectives wer e ineffi-

cient a nd th at each workplace was only

concern ed with its own pr ofits. It cann ot

be denied ther e were problems with some

better off collectives. But the CNT was

a i m i n g a t c o - o r d i n a t i o n t h r o u g h

socialisation under the control of the

workers. To do this all private owner ship

of th e mea ns of produ ction would ha ve to

end. Of course th e Commun ists would notallow this as it th reat ened their cherished

middle classes.

On th e land collectivisation was a llowed

only for the lands of fascists, the estates

of th ose who supported t he Repu blic were

to be handed ba ck. How far the Commu -

nists were prepa red to go was illustrat ed

by the invasion of Aragon. The Defence

Council of Ara gon was declared illegal in

August 1937. This declaration was fol-

lowed by the invasion led by General

Listers (a PSU C mem ber) 11th Division.

According to th e CNT th e land, farm im-plements, cattle and horses which had

been confiscated from supporters of the

right wing were retur ned to their former

owners.

In some villages farms were deprived of

the seed needed for sowing while 600

CNT members were ar rested. In all, 30%

of th e collectives were dest royed an d th e

sowing of crops wa s disru pted . As can be

imagined nothing but ha tred, resentment

and disillusionment resulted from this

invasion a nd t he repr ession t hat followed.

The peasant s began t o wonder wha t they

were fighting for. The resulta nt disillu-

sionmen t n o doubt contr ibuted to t he col-

lapse of the front a few months later.

Similar at tacks were m ade on th e collec-

tives in Levant an d Castille.

This sh owed how far t he socialist s of th e

Commu nist Pa rty were prepar ed to go to

follow St alins inst ru ctions. A more sin-

ister aspect of this was t he existence in

Spa in of prisons belonging to th e Soviet

secret police, th e GPU (forerun ner s of th e

KGB). Their existence has been estab-

lished beyond all doubt. In December

1936 Pra vda declared As for, Cat alonia,

the purging of the Trotskyists and the

Anarcho-Syndicalists has begun, it willbe conducted with th e same en ergy with

which it was conducted in th e USSR.

Here is what Krivitsky ha d to say about

the activities of the GPU in Spain, the

decision to esta blish it having been t aken

at an emergency conference in Moscow

on September 14th. The GPU had its

own special prisons. Its units carried out

assassinations an d kidnappings. It killed

in hidden dungeons and made f lying

raids. The Ministry of Justice had no

aut hority over the GPU . It was a power

before which even some of the highestofficers in the Cabellero government

trembled. The Soviet Union seemed to

have a grip on loyalist Spa in, as if it was

alrea dy a Soviet possession. (In Sta lins

Secret Service p. 102).

The aim was to eliminate revolutionar-

ies. Anybody who dared to speak out

against what they were doing could be

the n ext to suffer. Nin, the leader of th e

POUM, was mu rdered by the GPU as was

Camillo Berneri, an Italian anarchist

who was critical of th e CNT leader ship.

He published a paper , Guerra di Classe,

which argued for a revolutionary war

against fascism. He was mur dered by so

called socialist s for h is pr incipled revo-

lutionary position. In J uly 1937 60 mem-

bers of th e CNT `disappear ed, a t erm

used th en a s now for those killed by the

secret police, though today it applies to

the dictat orships of Latin America.

Two Roads

Thus two mutually exclusive ways of

f ighting fascism emerged. Firstly you

could view it a s th e Stalinists a nd t heir

support ers did. Go out of your way to pla-cate the bosses in England and France

and h ope against hope they would inter-

vene. So fight it as a Civil War a war over

who were the legitimate r ulers of Spain.

Relegate politics to a seconda ry role. Put

revolut iona ry politics on the ba ck burn er.

Tie up t housands of arms in th e rear re-

pressing th e workers movement. Sma sh

collectivisat ion an d sa crifice th e gain s of

the workers and peasants to the interna-

tional interests of Stalin.

Opposed to this was t he view that a r evo-

lutionary war should be fought. Make

r e v o l u t i o n a r y p o l i t i c s y o u r c e n t r a l

weapon. Give the land and factories to

those who work them. Make pr opaganda

behind the fascist lines. Give the peas-

ant s a real rea son to fight Fra nco. Make

it clear that collectivisation would ben-

efit th em. As it was m any lived in fear of

the Sta linists sm ashing t heir collectives.

Giving the land to the peasan ts and ma k-

ing tha t a centr al plank of the fight would

have deprived Franco of many soldiers

who were the sons and daught ers of peas-

ants .

Give freedom to Morocco. Organ ising a n

uprising there again st Fra nco would ha ve

deprived him of a central source of sup-

plies and arms. Appeal directly to the

European working class (whose govern-

ments had no interests in supporting -

the Spanish Revolution. Appeal to the

French workers, who in 1937 were en-

ter ing the second year of an upsurge

which h ad begun with mass str ikes the

previous year. Their action could have

prevented intervent ion against t he revo-

lution by Fra nce, and indeed Britain.

Seize th e gold reserves an d expropriate

the banks. Use this money to buy arms

and ma ke sure arms went to the fronts

where th ey were needed. These were thesort of th ings tha t should ha ve been done.

They were no guarantee of victory but

could ha ve lit a spark which could have

ignited right t hroughout Eu rope and bro-

ken t he isolation of the Span ish Revolu-

tion. It could ha ve mark ed a tu rning point

for the whole of Europe. Instead Spain

was t o be yet an other victim of fascism -

and the Civil War a pr elude to a bloody

world war . The Popular F ront could not

have carr ied out th ese actions because it

was based on an alliance of classes. The

workers n eeded to tak e complet e contr ol.

This was possible, especially in Catalo-

nia wh ere a r egiona l congress of workers

councils should have been called to es-

tablish a Workers Republic. This exam-

ple would have been followed th roughout

Spain an d a revolutionar y war could then

have been fought. Not a war to put the

Commu nists, Socialists an d Republicans

back in governm ent but a war t o liberat e

the t oiling masses.

But t he working class did not ta ke power.

The CNT, which was in a central posi-

tion to do this, refused. It opted for col-

laboration and supported decree afterdecree un dermining t he r evolution. Ob-

jectively th e leader s of th e CNT an d FAT

becam e count er-revolutionary. In a dua l

power situa tion either t he workers over-

thr ow the ruling class a nd ta ke power or

the ruling class regains contr ol. There is

no middle way. The CNT in collaborat-

ing could go only one way. Revolutions

cannot be ha lf made. The working class

must assert i tself or the revolution is

doomed. So why didnt the an archists

tak e power? We will now turn to this.

Download and print out extra

copies of this pamphlet from

http://struggle.ws/wsm/pdf.html


11/14

Often t hese councils spring up spontan e-

ously or a s organ s of defence like t he So-

viets du ring th e Russian revolution. Ini-

tially they start ed out a s strike commit-

tees bu t qu ickly developed into bodies on

which th e new society could be built. This

idea is centr al to an ar chism. A free soci-

ety cannot be built on th e old stru ctures,

new ones have to be built thr ough which

the pr oducers can be directly represent ed.

Revolutions do not ha ppen th rough par -liaments or governments, or trying to

take over the already existing state ma-

chine.

The councils an d collectives th at emerged

during t he Civil War, were th e organs on

which the revolution could have been

built. But th ey needed to be brought to-

gether a t a r egional and n ational level so

the power of the workers and peasants

could assert itself an d push the r egional

and central governments as ide. This

would have meant r e fus ing to share

power with th e rema ining element s of th e

ruling class, it would ha ve been a m ajor

step in m aking t he r evolution complete.

C.N.T.

The CNT refused to do this. After July

9th its leaders in Catalonia were called

into the office of Companys, the Prime

Minister of Catalonia. Basically he told

them they were in control of the region

and h e would be their faithful servant if

they took over. They refused. Instead

th ey called for th e form at ion of the Cen-

tr al Committ ee of Anti- Fascist Militias.

This was t he first step in collaborat ion.All parties including Republicans were

represent ed on this body. It existed side

by side with the Catalan government.

The Centr al Committee was displaced in

September I 936 when t he CNT entered

tha t government . In November four

members of the CNT entered the n ational

governm ent in Madr id. Two of them were

also in t he FAI.

This is a far cry from wha t was st ated in

the CNT-FAI Information Bulletin of

September 1936. In an article entitled

The Futility of Government it said that

the expropriations t hat were taking place

would lead ipso facto to th e liquidat ion

of th e bourgeois stat e which would die of

asphyxiation. Their m embers were now

joining t he governm ent of th is very same

state.

A number of reasons were put forward

for this . Essentially they amounted to

swallowing the argument about Britain

and France. It was said that if a social

revolution was ma de it would be crush ed

and no ar ms would be forthcoming from

the western powers (they never came

an yway!). They had decided tha t winn ing

the war and making the revolution were

two different t hings and t hat winning thewar came first. That meant collaborat-

ing in the broad anti-fascist front ... in

order to win t he war and save our people

and the world, it (the CNT) is ready to

collaborate with anyone in a directive

organ, whether this organ be called a

coun cil or a governm ent (CNT, paper of

the CNT in t he Madr id region, October

23rd 1936.)

Another r eason put forwar d was tha t by

enterin g the governm ent they could con-

solidate th e gains that had been ma de.

They could regula te t he political life ofSpain by giving legal validity to th e revo-

lutionary committees (Juan Lopez, An-

archist Minister of Commerce). There

was even an argument put around that

entry into government was only for in-

tern at iona l consum ption, the revolution

would still go on under the veil of legal

government.

For these rea sons anti-fascist unity was

maintained and anything that threat-

ened to split this unity was repressed.

The governmen t kn ew it was very useful

to have CNT representation, it was anaddi t iona l means o f con t ro l l ing the

masses. However it m ust be point ed out

tha t t he decision t o enter the government

was taken by the National Committee

without any consultation with the rank

and file membership. This was a real

break from tr adit ion, th e necessity of act-

ing with a m inimum of delay was the r ea-

son given by the leadership.

May Days

The role of the CNT played in governmen t

was clearly illustrated by what became

known as the May Days. On May 3rd1937, thr ee lorry loads of police led by t he

Stalinist Sa las, Comm issar of Public Or-

der, attempt ed to take over th e telephone

exchange in Barcelona which had been

cont rolled by a joint CNT-UGT comm it-

tee since the outbreak of the war. The aim

of this was to wrest control of the build-

ing from th e workers an d to rem ove con-trol of the t elephone system from t hem.

The telephonists had been able to keep

tabs on what was going on by listening

in on th e calls of governmen t m inisters.

It was also the beginning of an effort by

the governmen t t o occupy str at egic points

in the city in preparation for an all-out

attack.

The police captu red the first floor becau se

of the sur prise nat ure of their a tta ck but

got no fur ther . Fir ing s tar ted. Word

spread like wildfire an d within h ours the

local defence comm ittees of the CN T-FAIwent into action ar ming them selves and

bui lding barr icades . The POUM sup-

ported them and soon the workers were

in contr ol of most of th e city. The govern -

ment had contr ol of only the centra l area,

which could very easily have been ta ken.

In other areas of Catalonia action was

also taken. Civil Guards were disarm ed

an d offices of the PS UC were seized a s a

preventive measure. There was no fir-

ing on t he first night a nd by th e second

day the workers were spreading the bar-

ricades further into the suburbs. Alsoinvolved were the Liber tar ian Youth

(FIJ L). Being in cont rol the work ers could

have ta ken over but an order from Casa

CNT (the H.Q.) forbade all action and

ordered workers t o leave the ba rricades

anarchism in action: the spanish civil war

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