Conlon E., The Spanish Civil War, Anarchism in Action

7/25/2019 Conlon E., The Spanish Civil War, Anarchism in Action

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In the 1930s Europe was experiencing one of its worst everslumps. The Wall Street crash came in 1929 and its repercus-sions were felt far and wide. Spain was no exception

B y 1936 unemployment ha d gone over 30%in ma ny of the town s a nd

cities Out of a tota l workforce of th ree million, one million w ere out of

work. There wa s no dole a nd a s prices rose by 80%in the five years up

to 1936, man y encountered severe har dship.

Land

By European s tanda rds Spain wa s a par t icular ly backward country .

There ha d been little indust ria l development a nd 70% of the peoplestill lived on t he lan d. 52%of the w orkforce wa s employed in a gricul-

ture which accounted for between one half and two thirds of Spains

Anarchism in ActionThe Spanish Civil War

Workers SolidarityMovement

June 2001PDF edition

www.struggle.ws/wsm

1st publi shed 1986

2nd editi on 1993

e-mai l addi t ion 1994

HTM L M arkup 1995

PDF version J une 2001

by Eddie Conlon

Much has been written about theSpanish Civil War but the contribu-tion of the Anarchists has been eithertotally ignored or reduced to a fewfootnotes which were often composedof blatant lies or generalised slanderreferring to 'wreckers'. To set therecord straight this pamphlet was pro-duced. It is not a history of the CivilWar, that would require many hun-

dreds of pages to do justice to the sub-ject. It is an uncovering of the "hiddenhistory" of the Anarchist participationin Spain's anti-fascist struggle.

It ha s not been writ ten beca use of some aca-

demic interest but because Anarchism is

still as r eleva nt now a s then. We have seen

th e results of socia l democracy a nd it 's La -

b o u r P a r t i e s , w e h a v e s e e n w h a t t h e

St a linists ha ve done in Russia, China , Al-

bania and their satellites , we have seenhow t heir left critics in t he Trotskyist move-

ment have been unable to come to grips

with the real problem. And t ha t r eal prob-

lem is the authoritarian idea tha t t he world

can be changed over the head s of the w ork-

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

Only Ana rchism w ith its concept 'of social-

ism based on individual freedom a nd t he

power of workers' councils stands apart

from all t his. Tha t is w hy, despite four dec-

a des of repression, t he CNT rea ppea red a s

a real union aft er the deat h of Fra nco. We

believe th a t Anar chism is not just a nother

choice for those who want a better world,

the history of all other left movements

shows t ha t Anarchism is a n ecessity.

Glossa r y and Ch r onol og y a t 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%wa s in the ha nds

of just 2% of al l landow ners. In 1936,

10,000 proprietors owned h a lf of the na -tional terr i tory. The remaining land wa s

owned by middle owners a nd peasa nts.

The middle owners were m ore numer-

ous tha n the big lan downers but they also

had large estat es worked by sha recrop-

pers a nd la ndless labourers.

The rest of the land w as owned by peas-

ants, of whom there were f ive mill ion

Because most of them had insufficient

land they hired themselves out as day

labourers. Oth ers took to shar ecropping.

Boom

Spains boom period had been during

World Wa r I w hen it ha d rema ined neu-

tra l. Agriculture thrived due to the lar ge

foreign markets for its exports. At the

same time some industr ial isation took

place. After the war, though, this boomcame to an end, especial ly when tar i f f

barr iers were thrown up by Bri ta in and

Fra nce aga inst Span ish exports.

While the boom lasted the landowners

reaped the benefi ts but w hen the slumparrived i t wa s the peasan ts w ho suffered.

condit ions in the S pain of th e 1930s wer e

compara ble with t he Orient. Sta rvat ion

wa s _norma l_ betw een the ha rvests. The

press of the time ca rried reports of wh ole

distr icts living on roots an d boiled greens.

T h e i n du s t r i a l i s a t i on th a t h ad t aken

place was mainly confined to one area-Ca ta lonia. Si tua ted in the Northeast bor-

dering on France, Catalonia, especially

i ts capital B arcelona , becam e the indus-

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

dustry a nd 50% of industr ia l workers.

Many peasa nts lef t the land t o seek workin Ba rcelona, w hich a dded to the already

existing unemployment .

Other forces a t t he t ime were the Ca tho-

lic church and the a rmy. While there were

25,000 parish priests there were a fur-

th er 70,000 in religious orders. The J esu-

its a lone owned 30% of the count ryswea lth. The numbers in the orders actu-

ally outnumbered the total of secondary

school st udent s. While millions w ere kept

i l l itera te (40% could neither rea d nor

wr ite) the church preached superstit ious

reports of incredible incidents such asstatues seen weeping and crucifixes ex-

uding blood.

The Church w as renowned for siding w ith

the bosses and w hile the priests w ere liv-

ing in luxury the peasant s around them

of ten s t a r v ed . I t i s l i t t l e won der th eChurch wa s hated.

The army was famous for its number of

officers. There was one for every six sol-

diers! This officer cas te h a d been d evel-

oped under the monarchy (which wasended in 1931) and w as responsible for

the whole colonial administration along

with much of tha t in t he country i tself.Dra wn from the upper classes they w ere

tied by kinship, friendship a nd social po-

sit ion t o the industr ial ists a nd rea ction-

ary landowners.

The Republic

The S panish Republic wa s born in 1931.

The workers and peasant s, ha ving gone

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

modernised and their l iving standardswould begin to improve.

It w a s not to be so. One exam ple will suf-

fice. The republica n g overnment set u p

the In stit ute for Agra ria n Reform to look

into the redistribution of land. B y its own

admission i t s programme would haveta ken a whole century t o implement.

The r epublica n/social-democra tic coa li-

tion w hich came t o power in 1931 did lit-

tle to improve living conditions for the

vast ma jority of workers. Unemploymentremained high an d the w orking class or-

gan isat ions, especially the CNT, suffered

repression wi th many members being

imprisoned. By J une 1933 there w ere

9,000 politica l prisoners.

The government refused to take on theindustr ialist s, lan downers, arm y officers

an d bishops. It w ould not stan d up to tha t

minority wh ich owned al l the wea lth a nd

ha d a ll the real power. In t he election of

1933 they fell and a right -wing coa lition

came to power.

This marked the beginning of what be-

came known as the bienno negro the

tw o black years. The r ight w ent on the

offensive. The coalition of the wealthy

and powerful now had state power and

were determined to use it to smash w ork-

ing class and peasant resistance. Theirprivi leges w ere to be mainta ined at the

expense of the workers.

Asturia

Of course this wa s not ta ken lightly. TheCNT organised as best it could against

the government. A rising took place inCa ta lonia in D ecember, shortly af ter the

change of government. I t was crushed

af ter ten days. The fol lowing year the

workers of the C NT joined w ith t heir fel-

low w orkers in the U G T (G eneral U nionof Workers, controlled by the Socialist

Pa rty) in a revolt in t he Asturias region.

The workplaces were ta ken over a nd th e

union members took up arms aga inst the

state. Unfortunately they were isolated

from the rest of the count ry. The ma ssa -

cre tha t followed their defeat wa s unprec-edented wi th a t leas t 3 ,000 being ex-

ecuted.

By the t ime this government w as forced

to resign an d call elections for Februa ry

I 936 there were 30,000 political prison-

ers. The election w a s w on by the P opular

Front, a coa lition of republica ns, social-

democrats a nd the St al inists of the Com-

munist P art y. Their victory w as mainlydue to the CNT not running a campaign

call ing 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 w an ted to be ruled or not .

Instea d th ey said w orkers should rely ontheir industr ial m uscle to change things.

This t ime th e CNT took no position, leav-

ing it t o individual members to decide The

results m ade i t obvious they ha d voted,mainly because the Popular Front had

promised an amnesty for the prisoners.

The workers, though, did not w a it for the

government to a ct. They opened the pris-

ons themselves and released their com-

ra des. It did not stop there. The electionresult w as seen a s a n impetus to go on

the offensive. They ha d voted for chang e

and i f the government w as not going todel iver they would get resul ts them-

selves.

Strikes

Bet ween the election in February a nd the

fascist revolt in J uly there w ere 113 gen-

eral strikes, 228 partial general strikes,

145 bomb explosions, 269 deaths, 1287

wounded, 215 a ssa ults a nd 160 churchesburned. Of course all this wa s not part of

the P opular Front programme w hich w as

watery and essent ia l ly a imed a t main-

t a i n i n g an t i - f a sc i s t u n i t y . I t was n o t

a imed at smashing capi ta l i sm and the

power of th e Spa nish elite. Sections of the

Socialist P art y, however, went beyond thePopular Front programme and many of

them in the U GT again joined with t heir

comra des in the CNT to fight th e passiv-

ity of the government .

On J une 13th, 30,000 Asturian miners

s t r u ck ; on J u n e 19 th 90 ,000 m i n er sthroughout the country were on strike.

Every city of importance had a t least one

general strike. Over one million w ere out

in the f irst days of J uly. Str ikers were

not only fightin g for economic deman ds,poli t ical demands were also made. On

J uly 14th there wa s a large demonstra -tion outside a bal l at the Brazi l ian em-

bassy. The w orkers carr ied placards sa y-

ing Republican Ministers amuse them-

selves while w orkers die.

While the Republican government did a ll

it could to get the situation under con-trol , the Communist Party condemned

the st rikes for bringing workers int o col-

lision w ith t he government. The govern-

ment d uly filled th e ja ils and closed down

th e offices of the C NT.

Coup

As with al l ruling classes that become

desperate, they decided tha t pa rl iamen-

ta ry democra cy wa s to be disposed of an d


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t h e w o r k e r s o r g a n i s a t i o n s m a s h e d .Bosses dont always oppose fascism be-

cause they know th ey sometimes have t o

resort to it. Their wealth and privileges

come before all other considerations. As

in Germany and Italy they decided the

organised working class had to be put

down so th ey cou l d h an g on to th e i rweal th and cont inue to make prof i t s .

While some will initially oppose fascism,

a nd in Spa in some did, it is neverthelessa cal l of last resort a nd th ey wil l go along

with i t i f they see i t a s necessary to ma in-

ta in their power. In the B asq ue Country

the na tionalist s initially opposed the fas-cists. But when the choice of fascism or

social revolution became clear, they of-

fered litt le resista nce to Fra nco.

The coup wa s to be laun ched on J uly I

7th . The in i t i a l s tep was taken whenFra nco seized Morocco a nd issued a ra di-

cal ma nifesto. This w a s picked up by a

loyal radio operator 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

country it w as in control. By th is it meanti t was trying to come to terms with the

fas cists. The cabinet r esigned on the 18th

and Borrios, a r ight wing republican, w as

made prime minister.

Masses

This plan to come to a deal was only

smashed by the a ctivi ty of the organised

working class. The fascists made some

headway in parts of the country where

little opposition was offered as a resultof government hesitat ion. But in Ca ta lo-n i a , an d esp ec i a l l y i n B ar ce l on a , th e

workers of the CNT showed how to fight.

They declared a genera l strike an d took

to the streets looking for a rms w hich the

government refused to give them. I n th e

end they stormed the barra cks, and took

what they needed. They were aided by

soldiers who had remained loyal, someof whom turn ed their gun s on their offic-

ers.

The workers immediately set up barri-

cades and within hours the r ising hadbeen defeated. Arms were s iezed andgiven to groups of workers w ho were dis-

patched to other area s to prevent r isings

occurring. Ma drid w as also saved because

of the heroism a nd initia tive of th e work-

ers. Hearing of what had happened in

Ba rcelona t hey had stormed the Montana

Ba rracks, the main army ba se in the city.

In Valencia they surrounded the bar-

racks, a si tuation which lasted for two

weeks. Still the government refused to

arm the workers and i t was only a f ter

arm s were sent from B arcelona a nd Ma-

drid that the barracks was successfullyta ken. In Asturia s the rebels were beaten

a fter prolonged fighting leading to man y

deaths. Then the miners outfitted a col-

umn of 5,000 dynamiters who marched

to Madrid.

Throughout the country the init iat iveta ken by workers and peasa nts w as st op-

ping the fascists in their tra cks. This wa s

the story in three quarters of the coun-

try. Elsewhere valua ble time wa s lost due

to t he indecision of government officials.

In Saragossa the workers fai led to put

down the r ising. Jua n Iopez, a leadingCNT milita nt , put t his down to the fa ct

tha t t hey lost t oo much time having in-

terviews w ith t he civil governor, we evenbelieved in his promises.

Thus by the action of the rank and file

was the Spanish Republic saved . Notjust the CNT but members of the UGT

and the P OUM (Workers Pa rty of Marx-

ist U nity) joined in the fighting. F or these

workers this wa s not just a wa r to defeat

the fascists but the beginning of a revo-

lution. Workers militias were esta blished

independently of the state. Workplaceswh ich ha d been aba ndoned by the former

bosses were taken over a nd in the rura l

areas the peasants seized the land. Forthe an archists this wa s the chance to put

their idea s into practice.

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

Ana rchism is a most misunderstood set of ideas. I t is consta ntly portrayed a s mean-ing chaos a nd violence. Noth ing could be further from th e trut 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 ba sed on the exploitat ion of workers, a system t ha t inevitably causes poverty

starvation and war. Anarchists oppose authority in the sense of opposing the right

of any s ma ll minority to ha ve power over everyone else. They oppose the St a te (mean-

ing government, a rmy, police, courts) as a n inst itut ion whose purpose is to enforcethe w ill of a minority on th e majority.

Chapter 2 - Anarchism in Action

Ana rchists believe in class str uggle, tha t

the bosses and w orkers have no common

interest and that the workers must or-ganise to take over the running of soci-

ety Ordinary w orkers are quite capable

of running society . I t would be done

through a system of workers councils

with ma ss democracy which would be far

more rational democratic and ef f icient

th an th e ex i s t i n g se t - u p . An ar ch i s t ssta nd up for the freedom of the individual

a nd oppose a ll oppression on t he ba sis of

ra ce, sex or sexual orienta tion. The only

l imit on individual freedom should be

tha t i t does not interfere with the free-

dom of others.

From early on the a na rchists opposed the

building of bureaucratic Sta te Ca pitalism

in Russia. Ini t ial ly they supported the

revolution but w ere against the a ttempts

of the Bolsheviks to ta ke power int o their

own hands and create the seeds of the

dictatorship of the party . Anarchists

hold that how you organise will reflectthe ty pe of society you wa nt. S mall mi-

nor i t ies can not l iberate the working

c l ass , th e wor k i n g c l ass w i l l h av e to

emancipate i t sel f . Democracy and ac-

counta bili ty a re the cornerstone of a na r-

chist organisation. Direct action is the

method. Rather than rely ing on smal l

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

that should 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 wa ntworkers contr ol of indust ry, th ey wa nt a

society wh ere all relationships of a uth or-

ity a re a bolished a nd people do not look

to others to run t heir lives.

Bakunin

Ana rchism ha d, and st i l l has, a long tra -

dition in Spain. In t he middle of the last

century a na rchist ideas w ere brought t o

Spain by F an ell i , an Ita l ian supporter of

Michael Bakunin who was one of the

founders of modern anarchism. A Span-ish section of the First In terna tional wa s

set up and the ma jority w ithin i t took theside o f the anarchis ts in the In terna-

tional .

Ana rchism developed rapidly due t o the

harsh economic conditions that workersand peasa nts ha d t o suffer . Workers in-

creasingly t ook up the ideas of syndical-


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ism or ana rcho- synd ica lism, which weredeveloped at the t urn of the century. 1911

saw the formation of the CNT. Syndical-

i s m d e v e l o p e d a s a r e s p o n s e t o t h e

reformism of the existing trade unions

and to the growing isolation of ana rchist

revolutionaries from the mass of work-

ers. This had happened as a result of asmall number of anarchists turning to

terrorism and propaganda by the deed,

th e be l i e f th a t th ey cou l d i n c i t e th ema sses to revolution by committ ing out-

rages.

Syndical ism wa s an a ttempt to provide a

l ink between the anarchist movement

an d the w orkers on the shopfloor. Its ba -

sic ideas revolved around all the work-

ers being in one big union. All the em-

ployees in a workplace would join. They

would link up wit h th ose in other jobs inthe same area and an area federat ion

would be formed. Delegates from these

would go forwa rd to 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 w ere given a clea r ma n-

date and if they broke it they could bereplaced with new delegates.

Bureaucracy

Every ef for t was made to prevent the

growth of a bureaucracy of unaccountablefull-tim e officials. There wa s only one full-

time official in a ll of the C NT. U nion work

was done during working hours where

possible, oth erwise a fter w ork. This en-

sured th e officials of the union st a yed in

contact with the shopfloor. The fear ofbu r eau cr acy was su ch th a t In du s t r i a lFederations that would have l inked to-

gether al l the workplaces of particular

indust ries were hotly opposed. They w ere

eventually conceded in 1931 but never

fully built.

Syndical i s ts d is t inguished themselvesfrom the other unions by their belief tha t

the un ions could be used not only to gain

reforms from t he bosses but a lso to over-

throw the capi ta l i s t sys tem. They be-

lieved the Syndical ist union would be-

come the batt ering ram tha t w ould bringcapital ism to i ts knees. They believedthat the reason most workers were not

revolut ionar ies was that thei r unions

were reformist and dominated by a bu-

reaucracy that took the init iat ive away

from the rank and file members. Their

al ternative was to organise al l workers

into one union in prepar a tion for the revo-lutionar y general str ike.

The CN T experienced ra pid grow th from

the t ime of its formation and by the out-

break of the civil wa r i t ha d almost tw o

million members. Its strongholds w ere in

Ca t a l on i a an d An du l u c i a . I t a l so h adlarg e following s in Ga licia, Asturia s, Le-

v an t , Sa r a gossa a n d Madr i d . I t s m a i n

strength w as among texti le, building and

wood workers as well as amongst agri-

cultura l labourers. As it prea ched social

revolution it wa s subject to vicious repres-sion not only under the semi- dictator-

ship which ruled unt il 1931 but a lso the

reforming government s wh ich followed.

The P opula r Front , wit h its social demo-

cratic and Stal inist supporters, joined

this list by sh owing it no mercy.

A-Politicism

The CNT wa s not a revolutiona ry politi-

c a l o r gan i sa t i on . I t was an i n du s t r i a lunion. Indeed i t consta ntly played up i tsa-poli t icism and argued tha t al l tha t wa s

necessary to make a revolution was for

the workers to seize the factories and

land. After that the State and al l other

political ins tit utions w ould come toppling

down. It did not believe the w orking class

must take poli t ical power for them all

power had to be immediately abolished.

Because i t was a union i t organised al l

workers rega rdless of th eir politics. Many

joined, not beca use they w ere ana rchists,

but because i t wa s the most mil i tant 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 UG T

too) at least partly due to workers being

obliged to join one or other union.

So obviously t he CNT wa s open t o those

who were not anarchis ts . There wereman y interna l disputes, and tendencies

did ar ise tha t were reformist . B ecause of

this th e Federation of Iberian Anarchists

(FAI) wa s set up in 1927. It w a s ba sed on

local af f ini ty groups a nd w as not a poli t i-

cal organ isation as such. It w as t here to

ensure tha t t he CNT rema ined pure inanarchist (FAI) terms. It succeeded in

this a nd ma ny of its members became the

leading lights of tile CNT. Other anar-

chist organisations that existed when the

civil wa r broke out were the Iberia n Fed-

eration of Liberta r ian Youth (FIJ L) an d

Mujeres Lib res (Free Women).

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

tia l response to Fra ncos coup wa s deter-

mined by the fact that the CNT and i ts

anarchist ideas held sway among large

sections of the w orking cla ss. There wa s

no wa it ing a round for government min-isters to act, the workers took control.

Ana rchist influence could be seen in the

forma tion of the militia s, the expropria-

tion and reorganisat ion of the land, and

the seizures in industry.

Militias

The government found itself in a pecu-

liar si tua tion when the dust had sett led

af ter J uly I 9th. While i t remained the

government it had no way of exercising

i t s a u t h o r i t y . M o s t o f t h e a r m y h a dopenly rebelled a ga inst it . Where the re-

bell ion ha d been defeated the a rmy w as

disbanded and the w orkers now ha d the

ar ms. The tra de unions and left-wing or-

gan isat ions immediat ely set about orga n-

ising these a rmed workers. Militias w ere

formed a nd th ese became th e units of the

revolutionary army. Ten days af ter thecoup there were I 8,000 workers organ-

ised in the militias of Cat a lonia. The vast

majority of these were members of the

CNT. Overall there were 150,000 volun-

teers willing to fight w henever they were

needed.

This was no ordinary army. There were

no uniforms (neck scarves usually indi-

cated what organisation a mil i t ia mem-ber belonged to) or officers who enjoyed

privileges over th e ordina ry s oldiers. This

was a revolutionary army and ref lectedthe revolutionary principles of those in

its ranks. Democracy was control. The

bas ic unit wa s the group, composed gen-

erally of ten, which elected a delegate.

Ten groups formed a century w hich also

elected a delegat e. Any nu mber of centu-

ries formed a column, which had a wa rcommitt ee responsible for the overa ll ac-

tivities of th e column. This w a s elected

an d a ccounta ble to the w orkers. Columnsgenerally had ex-off icers and art i l lery

experts to advise them - but these were

not given any power.

Workers joined t he column s becaus e th ey

wanted to. They understood the need to

f i gh t an d th e n ecess i t y o f c r ea t i n g a

popular a rmy . They a ccepted discipline

not becaus e they w ere told to but because

they understood the need to act in a co-

ordinated manner . Members acceptedorders because they trusted those who

gave them. They had been elected from

their own ranks. Mili t ias were al igned

with dif ferent organisations and of tenhad their own newspapers. These were

poli t ical organisations that understood

the link between revolutionary politicsand the w ar . The mili t ias formed in B ar-

c e l o n a l o s t n o t i m e i n m a r c h i n g o n

Ara gon where the capita l, Sa ra gossa , had

been taken by the fascists. The Durruti

Column, named after one of the leading

CNT militant s, led this march and gra du-

ally liberated village after village. The

aim w as t o free Sara gossa which l inkedCa ta lonia w ith the second industr ia l re-

gion - the B asq ue Country, which as wellas being a source of raw materials had

heavy industr ies and arms manufactur-

ing plan ts.

The Dur rut i column show ed how t o fight

fascism. They understood tha t a civil wa r

is a poli t ical batt le, not just a mil i tary

conflict. As they ga ined victory a fter vic-

tory they encouraged peasants to take

over t he la nd a nd collectivise. The C ol-

umn provided the defence that allowed

this to be done. The peasants rallied tothem. They fed t he w orker- soldiers a nd

many of them joined. Indeed Durut ti ha d

to plead w ith some of them not t o join so

tha t t he land w ould not be depopulated

and the task of collectivisation could be

carried through.

As the anarchist militias achieved suc-


5/14

cess a fter success ground w a s being loston other fronts. Sara gossa, t hough, wa s

not ta ken a nd a long front developed. The

milit ia system w as blamed for this. The

Stal inists said the workers were undis-

ciplined a nd w ould not obey orders. They

accused the anarchists of being unwill-

ing to work with others to defeat the fas-cists.

Of course this was nonsense. The anar-

chists continually cal led for a united wa ref fort and even for a single command.

What they did dema nd, though, wa s tha tcontr ol of the a rmy sta yed with t he work-

ing class. They did not believe that es-

ta bl ish ing a uni ted comma nd necessi-

tated re-establishing the old mili tar ist

regime th e officer caste.

The major problem facing the militias

wa s a la ck of arm s. The munitions indus-

try been cut of f and t he workers in B ar-

celona went to great lengths t o improvise.

Arms were made a nd tra nsported to the

front but there were still not enough ofthem. G eorge Orw ell (wh o fought in oneof the POU M militias) described the a rms

situa tion on the Ara gon front. The infan-

try were far w orse armed than a n Eng-

lish public school Officers Tra ining C orps,

with worn out Ma user r i f les which usu-

ally jammed af ter f ive shots; approxi-

ma tely one machine gun t o fifty m en (sic)

a nd one pistol or revolver to a bout th irtymen (sic). These weapons, so necessary

in trench warfa re, were not issued by the

gov er n m en t . . . . A gov er n m en t wh i ch

sends boys of fifteen to the front wit h ri-

fles forty yea rs old and keeps its biggestmen and newest weapons In the rear is

ma nifestly more afra id of the revolutionthe fa scists .

And how right he wa s. An a rms embargo

was imposed by Bri tain preventing the

sale of arms to either side, but not until

mid-August . The government w hich ha d

600,000,000 dollars in gold, could havebrought a rms. Eventually this gold wa s

sent t o Moscow in exchan ge for a rms but

when they arr ived there was a system-

atic refusal to supply the anarchist-con-

trolled Aragon front. The arms that didar rive were sent only t o Sta linist-control-

led centres. A member of the w a r minis-try referr ing to the arms which arr ived

in September comment ed I noticed tha t

these were not being given out in equal

qua nti t ies, but there wa s a ma rked pref-

erence for the units which made up the

Fifth R egiment. This w a s contr olled by

the Sta l in is ts . The Cata lan muni t ionsplants, which depended on the central

government for fina nce were compelled

to surrender t heir product t o such desti-

nations as the government chose. This

withholding of arm s wa s fundamenta l to

the strategy of the Stal inists and their

allies in government for breaking downthe power a nd prest ige of the CNT. The

communists wanted to undermine the

militias in t heir efforts to have the regu-

lar a rmy resta rted. But more of this lat er.

This lack of arms did not only a ffect t he

Aragon front. Irun fel l because of the

shortage of weapons. One reporter de-

scribed it. They fought to the last car-

tridge (the workers of Irun. When theyhad no more ammuni t ion they hur led

packs of dyna mite. When the dy na mite

w a s g o n e t h e y r u s h e d f o r w a r d b a r e -

handed while the sixty t imes stronger

enemy butchered them with their bayo-nets. In Asturia t he w orkers w ere bogged

down trying to ta ke Oviedo arm ed withli t t le more than r i f les and crude dyna-

mite bombs. Although a few planes a nd

a rtillery pieces were begged for, the work-

ers were turn ed down. Aga in the govern-

ments fear of revolutionary workers t ook

precedence over defeat ing th e fascists.

It is a common l ie tha t t he milit ias, sup-

posedly und isciplined an d un cont rolla ble,

were responsible for Francos advance.

All who saw the mili t ias in action had

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

liberat e choice. It chose to sta rve the revo-lutiona ry w orkers of arms, it decided tha t

defeat ing th e revolution wa s more impor-

tant than defeat ing f ascism.

The Land

The peasants did not have to be told byDurruti t o take over th e land. They ha d

been at tempting t o do so since the foun-

dation of the Republic. Indeed the first

government o f the Republ ic had sent

troops to murder pea san ts w ho had ta ken

lan d. In t he Republics first tw o years, 109peasants were murdered. It was in the

countryside tha t the S panish revolutionwas most f ar reaching. The anarchis t

philosophy had been absorbed by large

layers of the downt rodden peasan ts. In-

deed at its 1936 Congress the CNT had

gone into great detai l as t o how t he an-

a rchist society of the fut ure w ould look.

The peasa nt ry t ook the opportu nity t o putthese ideas into practice. Their efforts

showed what could be done by working

people (many of whom were illiterate)

given the right conditions. They ma de a

nonsense of the argument tha t a na rchismis not possible becaus e society w ould col-

lapse without bosses ,government andauthority.

Collectivisa tion of the land w a s extensive.

Close on tw o thirds of a ll land in th e Re-

publican zone (tha t a rea controlled by the

a nti-fascist forces) wa s ta ken over. In a llbetw een five and seven million peasa nts

were involved. The major areas were

Aragon w here th ere wer e 450 collectives,

the Levant (the area around Valencia)

wit h 900 collectives and C a stille (th e area

surrounding Ma drid) wit h 300 collectives.

Not only was the land collectivised butin the vi l lages workshops were set up

wh ere the loca l tr a despeople could pro-duce tools, furniture, etc. Ba kers, butch-

ers, ba rbers a nd so on a lso decided to col-

lectivise.

Collectivisation wa s volunta ry a nd th us

quit e different from t he forced collectivi-

sat ion presided over by S ta l in in Russia.

Usua lly a meeting wa s cal led in the vi l-

lage, m ost collectives w ere centred on a

particular vi l lage, a nd a l l present w ould

agree to pool together whatever l and,tools and an imals th ey had . This would

be added to wha t ha d already been taken

from th e big landowners. The land wa sdivided int o ra tiona l units an d groups of

workers were ass igned to work them.

Ea ch group had i ts delegat e who repre-

sented th eir views a t meetings of the col-lective. A management committee was

a lso elected a nd w a s responsible for th e

overall running of the collective. They

would look a fter the buying of ma teria ls,

exchan ges with other a reas, distr ibuting

the produce and n ecessar y public works

such a s th e building of schools. Ea ch col-lective held regular general m eetings ofal l i ts participant s.

If you didnt want to join the collectiveyou were given some land but only as

much as you could work yourself. You

were not a llowed t o employ workers. Notonly production wa s affected, distribut ion

wa s on the ba sis of wha t people needed.

In ma ny a reas money w as abolished. Peo-

ple come to the collective store (often

churches which had been turned in to

wa rehouses) an d got wha t wa s ava ilable.

If there w ere shorta ges rat ioning wouldbe introduced to ensure th a t everyone got

their f a i r share . But i t w as usual ly the

case tha t increased production under thenew syst em eliminated shorta ges.

In agricultural terms the revolution oc-

curred at a good t ime. Harvests that weregathered in and being sold of f to make

big profits for a few la ndown ers were in-

stead distributed to those in need. Doc-

tors , bakers , barbers , e tc . were given

wha t th ey needed in return for their serv-

ices. Where money was not abolished a

family wa ge wa s introduced so that pay-ment was on the basis of need and not

the num ber of hours w orked.

Production greatly increased. Techni-cians and agronomists h elped the peas-

ant s to make better use of the land. Mod-

ern scientific methods were introducedand in some ar eas yields increased by a s

much a s 50%. There w a s enough t o feed


6/14

the collectivists a nd th e militia s in theirareas. 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 wi th the mi l i t i as , s lander was a lso

thrown a t t he collectives. I t w as claimed

tha t ea ch one only looked after its elf a nd

did not care about the others. This wasrubbish as in many areas equal isa t ion

funds were set up to redistr ibute w ealthfrom the better off areas to the poorer

ones. I t wa s ensured that m achinery and

expertise were shifted to the areas most

in need of it. I ndeed one indica tor of the

feeling of solida rity is t he fact t ha t 1,000

collectivists from the Leva nt, w hich wa s

quite a dva nced, moved to Ca stille to helpout.

Federations of collectives were estab-

l i sh ed , th e m os t su ccess f u l be i n g i n

Ara gon. In J une 1937 a plenum of Re-gional Federat ions of P easa nts w as held.Its aim was the formation of a national

federat ion for t he co-ordinat ion and ex-

tension of the collectivist movement a nd

also to ensure a n equita ble distr ibution

of the produce of the land, not only be-

tween the collectives but for the whole

country . U nfortuna tely ma ny collectives

were smash ed, not be Fra ncos a rmy butby the soldiers of the Stal inist General

Lister, before this could be done.

The collectivist s w ere not only concerned

with their ma terial w ell being. They ha da deep commitment t o education and a sa result of their ef forts many children

received an education for the first time.

This w a s not th e usua l schooling either.

The methods of Francisco Ferrer , the

world famous anarchist educationalist ,

were employed. Children w ere given ba -

sic l i teracy skil ls and a f ter tha t inquisi-

tive skills w ere encoura ged. Old peoplewere a lso looked aft er an d wh ere neces-

sary special homes for them were built.

Refugees from the fascist controlled ar-

eas w ere looked a fter t oo.

Industry

Although the revolution didnt go as far

in the cities a s it did in the country , man y

achievements a re worth noting. I t wa s in

Cat a lonia , the industr ia l hear t l and 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 o f

workers.

To give some idea of t he exten t of th e col-lectivisat ion h ere is a list provided by one

observer (Burnett Bolloten, The Grand

Camouflage by no means an anarchist

book). He says rai lways, traincars and

buses , t ax icabs and shipping, e lec tr ic

light an d power companies, gasw orks and

wa terw orks, engineering and a utomobilea s s e m b l y p l a n t s , m i n e s a n d c e m e n t

works, textile mills and paper factories,

electrical and chemical concerns, glass

bott le factories and perfumeries, food

processing p lants and brewer ies were

confiscat ed an d cont rolled by workmen ss

(sic) committees, either term possessingfor t he owners a lmost equal significance.

He goes on motion picture thea tres a ndl eg i t i m a te th ea t r es , n ewsp ap er s an d

printing, shops, depar tment stores and

hotels, de-lux resta urant s a nd ba rs w ere

likewise sequ estered.

This shows clearly tha t t he portra yal of

ana rchism a s being something to do with

qua int sma ll workshops is untrue. Large

factories, some of th em employing t hou-

sands of workers, were taken over and

run by workers committees.

Often th e workplaces were siezed because

the owners h a d fled or ha d stopped pro-

duction to sabotage the revolution. Butth e wor ker s d i d n o t s top w i th th ese

workplaces all ma jor places of work w eretaken over. Some were run and control-

led by the workers. In others control

committees were established to ensure

that production was maintained (these

existed to exercise a power of veto on t he

decisions of the boss in cases where the

workers ha d not ta ken over the power of

management).

In ea ch workpla ce the a ssembly of all th e

workers wa s the ba sic unit . Within the

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

Anyt hing of overall importa nce had t o goto the a ssembly. This w ould elect a com-

mittee of between five an d fifteen worker,

which would elect a manager to oversee

the da y-to-da y runnin g of the w orkpla ce

- Within each industry th ere was an In-

dustr ial C ouncil which had representa-

tives of the two main unions (CNT and

UG T) a nd representa tives from the com-mitt ees. Technicians were a lso on t hese

committ ees to provide technical a dvice.

The job of the I ndust rial C ouncil wa s to

set out an overal l plan for the industry.

Within w orkplaces wa ges were equa lisedand conditions greatly improved. Let us

see how collectivisation actually made

things bett er. Take for example the tra m-

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

were member s of the CNT. Beca use of th e

s t r ee t ba t t l es a l l t r an sp or t h ad been

brought to a halt . The transport syndi-cate (as un ions of the CN T were known )

appointed a commission of seven to oc-

cupy t he a dministra tive offices wh ile oth-

ers inspected the t racks and drew up a

plan of repair work that needed to bedone. Five day s a fter the fighting stopped

700 tramcars, instead of the usual 600,

all painted in the black and red coloursof the CNT, were operating on the st reets

of Barcelona.

With the profit motive gone, safety be-

came more importa nt a nd t he number ofaccidents w as reduced. Fares w ere low-

ered and services improved. In I 936,

183,543, 516 passen gers w ere ca rried. I n

1937 th is ha d gone up by 50 million. The

tra ms were running so efficiently tha t t he

workers w ere able to give money to other

sections of urba n tra nsport. Wa ges wereequalised for all workers and increased

over th e previous rat es. For the first t imefree medical care was provided for the

work force.

As w ell as giving a more efficient s ervicethe w orkers found time t o produce rock-

ets a nd howit zers for the w ar effort. They

worked overtime and S unda ys to do their

sha re for the a nti-fascist st ruggle. To fur-

ther underline the fact that gett ing r id

of the bosses and rulers would not lead

to a brea kdown of order it can be pointedout tha t in the t wo years of collectivisa-

tion th ere were only six cases of workers

stealing from the workshops.Extensive reorganisation took place to

make industry more ef f icient . Ma ny un -

economic small plants, which were usu-ally unhealthy, were closed down and

product ion was concentra ted in those

plan ts with t he best equipment. In Ca ta -

lonia 70 foundries w ere closed dow n. The

number of tanning plants was reduced

from 71 to 40 and t he w hole wood indus-

try was reorganised by the CNT Wood-workers U nion.

In 1937 the central government admit-

ted that the war industry o f Cata loniaproduced ten times more tha n the rest of

Spanish industry put together and that

this output could have been quadrupledif Cat alonia ha d the a ccess to necessary

means of purchasing ra w ma terials.

It w as not only production tha t w as ta ken

over. Many parasitic middlemen were

cut out of distr ibution. The wholesalebusiness in f ish and eggs wa s ta ken over

as were the principal fruit a nd vegetable

markets. The milk trade in Barcelona

wa s collectivised w hich saw over 70 un-

hygienic pa steurising pla nt s closed down.Every w here 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, t he revo-

lution wa s a st ep back.

Again equal i sa t ion funds were estab-

lished to help out the poorer collectives

Indeed there were man y problems. Ma nymarkets were cut off in the fascist zone

an d some foreign ma rkets w ere also tem-

porari ly lost . Raw ma terials were short

as sources of supply were cut of f . and

wh en they could be obta ined funds were

held back by the centra l government .

This w a s one sh ort-coming of t he collec-

tivisation.

The banks had not been seized and the

gold reserve already referred to stayed


7/14

in the hands of the government. (TheCNT did hatch a p lan to seize i t but

backed down a t t he last moment).

Despite all this production wa s increa sed

and l iving standards for many workingclass people improved. In October 1936

the government was forced to recognise

the collectivisation by passing a decree

tha t recognised the fai t a ccompli . I t wa s

also an attempt to control future collec-

tivisation.

Social Revolution

This is only a very brief look at the col-

lectivisation that happened. In keeping

with anarchist beliefs the revolution did

not stop there. For the first t ime in Spain

man y workers had th e benefit of a healthservice - organised by the CNT Federa-

tion of Hea lth Workers. The Federa tion

consis ted o f 40,000 heal th workers -

nurses, doctors, administrators and or-

derlies. Once aga in the m ajor success w as

in Cat alonia where i t ensured that al l ofthe 2.5 mill ion inha bitant s had a dequat ehealth care.

Not only were traditional services pro-

vided but victims of the Civil War were

a lso treat ed. A programm e of preventive

medicine wa s a lso esta blished ba sed onlocal communit y hea lth centres. At their

1937 Congress these workers developed

a health plan for a future anarchist S pain

wh ich could ha ve been implemented if th e

revolution h a d been su ccessful.

The role of women also changed. Many

gains w ere made by them. In relat ion totheir role during the Civil wa r observers

have pointed out t ha t t hey played a full

part in the a nt i- fascist resista nce. They

were present everywhere - on commit-

tees, in the militias, in the front line. In

the early ba tt les of the wa r women foughtalongside the men a s a mat ter of course.

It w a s not merely 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 w omen a re no

longer needed in the labour force, they

a re pushed back into th e home).

They were in the mi l i t i as and fought

alongside the men as equals. They were

organising the collectives and taking up

the f ight against the sexist at t i tudes of

the past which have no place in any rea l

revolution.

The Anarchis t womens organisat ion ,

Mu j er es L i br es (Fr ee Wom en ) , h ad

30,000 members. It had been active be-

fore the Civ i l War organis ing women

workers and distr ibuting informa tion on

contra ception. During the w ar abortionwas legalised in the republican zone .

Cent res w ere opened for women, includ-

ing unma rried mothers a nd prosti tutes.

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

ch an ges i n a t t i tu des to wom en . O n ewoman participan t in the C ivil War ha s

said i t w as l ike being brothers and sis-

ters . I t ha d a lwa ys annoyed me that menin this country didnt consider w omen as

beings with huma n r ights. But now t here

was this big change. I believe i t arose

spontaneously out of the revolutionary

movement... Mar gorita Ba laguer quoted

in Blood of Spa in ed. Rona ld Fra ser, page

287.

Everywhere change was apparent. The

whole character of Barcelona changed.Posh resta urant s no longer existed. Col-

lective eat ing houses took their pla ce. A

spir i t of comradeship was in the a ir .

Everyw here councils of workers an d peas-

ant s had ta ken over administrat ion. The

Defence Council of Aragon w a s one of the

highest expressions of this. I t ran the

province a nd co-ordina ted t he work of thecollectives a nd militia s. All the a nt i-fas-

cist forces were represented on it but th e

ana rchists were in the majori ty. In Cat a-

lonia a Centra l Committee of Anti-Fa s-

cist Mili t ias w as set up on J uly 21st . Ofits fifteen members five were a na rchists,

three were UGT, POUM had one, theCommunist P arty had one and the repub-

lican s ha d four . Although the a nar chists

were supreme in t his province they h oped

by sharing power that similar commit-

tees would be formed w here the CNT wa s

weaker.

This w a s t he situa tion in 1936. Although

the Popular Front government still ex-

isted i t had no power. I t w as shorn of the

repressive orga ns of the sta te. Power wa s

spli t into countless fragments a nd scat -tered in a thousand towns and vil lages

am ong the revolutiona ry committees tha thad ta ken control of the land an d facto-

ries, means of transport a nd communi-cation, th e police an d t he a rmy. The mili-

ta ry, economic a nd political strugg le wa s

proceeding independently of the govern-

ment, a nd, indeed, in spite of it.

Such a si tuat ion is known a s one of dual

pow er. The power of the government wa s

too weak to challenge the power of the

workers and peasants. And that power

wa s not conscious enough of the need to

dispense with the existence of the gov-

ernment. Failure to do this al lowed i t to

restore i ts a uthority a nd become ma sterof the si tua tion. In t rying to understand

how t his ha ppened it is necessary to look

at the role of the Communist P art y a nd

that of the CNT leadership.

Chapter 3 - The Counter RevolutionThe behaviour of the Spanish Communist Party and the United SocialistParty of a Catalonia (PSUC) had more to do with what was in the bestinterests of Stalin than what was in the best interests of the Spanish work-ing class. They went out of their way to deny that a revolution had takenplace. Then they did all they could to repress this revolution they pretendedhad not happened. As far as they were concerned the Civil War was onlyabout restoring democracy to Spain. To see why they took this attitude wehave to look outside Spain.

Stalin

St a lin believed th a t a bove a ll else socia l-

ism in the U SS R ha d to be defended. Theinterests of the European (and indeed the

world) working class had to take second

place to the str a tegic interest s of the rul-

ing bureaucra cy in Russia . And th ey felt

very threa tened in the 1930s. Hitler ha d

come to power in 1933 and despite thefact that Stal in was seeking no quarrelwith Germany (three months af ter the

nazi t ake-over Sta l in had signed a n ex-

tension to the 1926 G erma n-Soviet Pa ct)

relat ions betw een the tw o countries soon

cooled.

S t a l i n s f ea r was th a t th e B r i t i sh an d

French would do a deal w ith Hitler andthus leave Russia open to at t ack. He be-

lieved they would be content to sit back

and w at ch Germany a nd Russia s log i t

out . When both had exhausted them-

selves Bri ta in an d Fra nce would move in

as ma sters of Europe.

Because of this Stal in signed a Mutual

Assis tance Pac t wi th France in 1935.

There was no commitment to mutual

m i li 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

French i t w as a wa y of removing any re-m ai n i n g l i n ks be tween G er m an y an d

Russia while at the sa me time gett ing the

French Communist P art y to drop its op-

position to their governments defence

programme.

So to prevent the B ri t ish and French set-

tl ing their dif ferences with Hitler at the

expense of the Soviets, in order to guar -

ant ee that the Fra nco-Soviet P act w ould

not fal l by the wayside and in order toconclude similar pacts with the govern-

ments of other countries, notably B rita in,i t was essential that governments hos-

ti le to German aims in Eastern Europe

should be brought to power. It w a s to this

e n d t h a t t h e P o p u l a r F r o n t l i n e w a s

ad opted at t he 7th World Congress of the

Comintern in August 1935. This body,

also known as the Third International ,co l lec ted together a l l the Communist

Pa rties under Russian leadership.

Popular Fronts

The immediat e aim of this policy wa s tobring the middle classes and sections of

the bosses into a wide anti-fascist peo-

ples front. To do this C ommunist P a rties

were to play d own revolutionary politics.

This was to be a struggle to preserve

bourgeois democracy; and to at tra ct mid-

dle class republican and liberal partiesextreme positions w ere never adopted.

The P opular Front policy w a s quit e suc-

cessful. Ea rly in 1936 Popular F ront gov-

ernments were elec ted in France and

Spa in. The program mes of these govern-

ments were very moderate. In Spain asocialist proposal tha t th e land be na tion-

alised w as dropped beca use of republican

opposition. There t he P opular Front con-

sisted of the Republican Party, the Re-

publican Union, the Social ist P ar ty, the

P O U M, th e Syn d i ca l i s t P a r t y , B asqu e

and C ata lan na t ional i s ts (who saw theirautonomy under threat from the r ight)

and of course the Communist Pa rty.

When the Civil War broke out Stalins

instructions were clear. All of the Com-

munist s efforts w ere to be directed t o one

end - winning t he support of Bri ta in a ndFra nce and persuading them t o drop their

neutra lity. A non-intervent ion a greement

ha d been signed in August 1936 wit h th e

hope of preventing the extension of the

confl ict . Stal in believed that i f Bri tain

and France were to drop this policy the

Civil War could ultimately develop intoa much larger conf l ic t (Germany and

Ita ly were already giving mili tary a id to

the fascists). This conflict, from which

Russia would remain aloof would bring

the warring parties to the point of mu-

tua l exhaust ion a nd the Russian bosses

would then emerge as the new mastersof Europe. Thus t he revolutiona ry a spects

of the Civil War were to be denied and,

the struggle was t o be portra yed (and wa s

to become), a s trug gle tha t- went no fur-

ther tha n ba sic democratic deman ds. Ini-

t ial ly the Sta l inists had fel t a need to ta lkof making a revolution a f ter the fa scists

were defeated. Even th is empty ta lk soon

stopped.

Of course the Stal inist (and Leninist)

Conception of socialism, is quite differ-ent from tha t of the ana rchists. I t is cen-

tra l to ana rchism that t he masses take

contr ol a nd run society th rough a syst em

of councils. For the Stalinists socialism

en ta i l s n a t i on a l i s i n g ev er y th i n g an dturn ing over th e running of society t o the

State, which wil l be dominated by theParty. Control passes into the hands of

professionals, technicians and bureau-

crat s wh o begin to develop their own class

interests. Even i f the Sta l inists ha d de-

cided t o fight for socialism th ey w ould

st i l l have had to undermine the anar-

chists.

This policy of wooing the Bri t ish and

French ruling classes wa s from the be-

ginning d oomed t o failure - not only be-

cause of their military unpreparednessbut because of their belief that i f they

became involved at this stage in a warw i th H i t l e r , bo th th ey an d th e Naz i s

would be weakened a nd th us the position

of Russia would be enhanced. At a ll times

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

Brit ish sought t o come to terms with H it-

ler which would lea ve him free to a tt a ck

Russia in the East .

Navy

The activities of the Navy, w hich had r e-

mained loyal to the Republic, were se-

verely curt a iled so a s not t o upset Anglo-French interests in the St raight of Gibra l-

tar. The navy had been very successful

in ha ra ssing Fr a ncos ba se in Morocco but

their activi t ies w ere halted t o keep the

two foreign powers happy. In line with

this t he Republican government r efused

to give Morocco i ts independence andthus deprive Franco of his base - To do

this would have upset B ritish and F rench

colonial interests in North Africa. The

example of Spa nish M orocco could ha ve

given other subject na tions ideas. I ndeed

at one stage the government offered tog i v e B r i t a i n an d Fr an ce i n te r es t s i n

Spanish Morocco in exchange for theirintervention.

The revolution that had broken out was

of supreme embarra ssment t o the Com-

munists. Whatever chance they had of

w i n n i n g ov er B r i t a i n an d Fr an ce waslessened by the fact that a social revolu-

tion had star ted. There was no way the

Brit ish and French governments would

intervene on th e side of revolutionar ies.

Thus th e revolution wa s to be hidden an d

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 Par ty . The quest ion natu-

ral ly ar ises as to how such a small or-

ga nisa tion could so decisively influencethe course of events a nd in t ime become

the dominant group in the P opular F ront

camp.

In building their Pa rty th e Communists

placed a lot of emphasis on Ca ta lonia a sthis wa s the hear tland of the revolution.

The collectivisation movement seriously

upset the middle c lasses . Smal l busi-

nesses were closed a nd everyw here mid-dle-men found t heir role abolished a s th e

workers committees took over distribu-

t ion . The middle c lasses would haveturned to thei r t r adi t ional par t ies but

viewed them as incapable of stemming

th e collectivisa tion movement . The Com-

munist P art y seemed the only party se-

rious about protecting their property or

gett ing i t 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 nMurcia a nd elsewhere I saw tha t our plac-

a rds a nd leaflets a ppea led for shopkeep-

ers membership wit h th e promise of a b-solute support for priva te property.

Leaps and Bounds

Membership of the Communist Par ty

grew in leaps and bounds. Within a few

months of the outbrea k of the w a r 76,700

peasa nt proprietors and t enant farmers

a long w ith 15,485 members of the urba n

middle classes had joined up. Its influ-

ence am ong these lay ers went far beyondthese f igures a s t housands of members

of the intermediat e classes, w ithout a c-

tual ly jo in ing the Par ty , p laced them-

selves under its wing. As a m eans of pro-tecting the interests of the urban middle

classes in Ca ta lonia t he Communists or-

g a n i s e d 1 8 , 0 0 0 t r a d e s m e n ,handicraf tmen and sma ll man ufacturers

into an organisat ion cal led the C.E.P .C.I

Solidarida d Obrero (Workers Solidarity )

the paper of the CNT commented that

some of those in this body were intra n-

sigent employers, ferociously anti- la-

bour . By March 1937 the CommunistParty had 250,000 members.

Other measures were also taken to ex-

tend it s influence - Only four day s a fterthe mili tary uprising, the Communists

merged wi th the Cata lan Socia l i s ts to

form the PSUC. The local UGT cameunder PS UC dominion . Leading mem-

bers of both the Social ist Party and the

UG T in other area s defected to the Com-

munists, some secretly. Many members

of th e Socialist P a rty could see litt le dif-

ference betw een their line and t ha t of the

Communists winning the war came be-fore th e revolution, conciliat ory a tt itudes

towa rds foreign powers, etc. - B ut because

the Communists ha d the stronger Pa rty

appara tus (reinforced a s i t w as by Mos-cow) it wa s able to recruit a t t he expense

of the Socia lists. Ma ny joined because of

its proselytising zea l, immensely skillfulpropaganda, i t s v igour , i t s organis ing

capa city and t he prestige it derived from


9/14

Soviet a rms .

The Communists gained control of the

J SU (U nited S ocialist Youth). This group-

ing resulted from a merger of the Com-

munists and Socia l i s t youth organisa-tions. I t had 50,000 members and was

formed shor t ly before the war began .

Most of the leading members of the So-

cialist Youth defected t o the Communist s

with t he merger a nd thus ensured Com-

munist control of the new organisation.

I t would be wrong to suggest that the

counter- revolution that came was only

as a result of the l ine and activi t ies of

the Communists. The Republicans and

Socialists a greed with t hem. The Repub-

lican s, who lacked a ny real ba se among

the masses, retired to the backgroundand ceded to the Communists the deli-

cat e job of opposing t he social revolut ion

and defending the middle classes. Even

La rgo Caba llero, who became Pr ime Min-

ister in August, the one time left wing

Socia list a nd leader of the U GT, decla redon forming the government that i t wasnecessa ry to sa crifice revolutiona ry la n-

gua ge to win th e friendship of the demo-

cratic powers a nd t he Spanish govern-

ment is n ot fighting for socialism but for

democracy and constitutional rule. Al-

though Ca ballero did not go al l the wa y

with the Communists there were many

in his party, even his closest allies, whoworked for t he Communist l ine aga inst

the social revolution.

It must a lso be sta ted tha t the participa-

tion of members of the C NT in t he gov-ernment helped the growing counter-revolution. They entered the Ca ta lan gov-

ernment in September (i t must be re-

membered that Ca ta lonia w as semi- au-

tonomous) and the national government

in November 1936. This w ill be dealt w ith

in more detail in the final chapter, suf-

f ice to say their participation lent the

government a certa in credibility wit h themasses. The key element in proving to

the world tha t the f ight in Spain w as sim-

ply to restore democracy, to rebuild the

shattered state ma chine and return to the

government the auth ority a nd power tha twa s in the hands of the armed workers.

CNT part icipat ion served t o put a checkon the masses and make them believe

they ha d a sta ke in the government and

should defend it.

Russian Arms

The point a bout t he Communist P art y is

th a t th ey directed th e counter-revolution.

They ca lled the shot s. They w ere the only

people who w ere clear a bout th e neces-

sity for the counter-revolution and had

the determination to carry i t through.

Their ability to do this wa s derived fromthe prestige tha t came with the fact that

Russia was the only country supplying

major quant i t ies of arm s to the Repub-

lic. (Mexico was the only other country

to help, supplying a sma ll qua ntit y). The

Russia ns not only supplied arms but a lsomili tary advisors a nd t echnicians w ho

gradually took over the running of the

w a r .

Stal inists wil l tel l you that Russia pro-

vided ar ms right from the beginning. Thisis a l ie - Sta l in at f irst agreed to the non-

intervention pact for fear of antagonis-

ing the West. The first arms did not ar-

r ive unti l October and then i t w as out of

fear t hat German and I t a l i an arms wouldgive a decisive edge to the fascists. Aid

wa s given covertly a nd in order to limitthe possibility of involving Russia in a

wa r (Krivitsky In S ta l ins Secret S erv-

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

Int elligence in Western E urope). B ecause

of this fear of involvement in war with

Germany and I ta ly , a id was l imi ted to

bolstering t he resista nce until such timeas Bri tain and France might intervene.

This a id ha d to be paid for - the S pan ish

gold reserve wa s moved to Moscow.

The Communists knew tha t if a fa r reach-ing counter-revolution w a s t o be enforced

the St at e, with their support , would ha veto regain cont rol of the a rmy a nd th e po-

lice. There w a s no point in t elling w ork-

ers to drop collectivisation and give up

their a rms if this order could not be im-

posed. All St a tes rest on this use of force

and tha t is why a successful revolution

can only be made when the people arearmed.

Because of Soviet a id i t wa s easy for the

Communist s to gain contr ol of the a rmed

forces. It w a s not beca use of the am ountof arm s sent but the fact tha t th e Soviets

were the ma jor purveyors of wa r ma teri-als. The Navy and Air Minister, Prieto,

often m ad e fun of his office declaring tha t

he was neither a Minister or anything

else because he received no obedience

from th e a ir force. The rea l Air Minist er

wa s the Russian General Duglas .

Militarisation

B eca use of this control of arm s the Com-

munists, supported by the others, en-

forced milita risa tion. The militia sy stem

was broken up. A regular army was re-built with officers, regimentation, salut-

ing a nd differentia l rat es of pay. The mi-

litias w ho refused t o come under the com-

mand of the War Minis t ry (and many

CNT an d P OUM militias d id refuse) were

starved of arms. They were left with no

choice.

The new a rmy w as built under C ommu-

nist control. They knew t ha t w ithout con-

trol of the army they could not hope to

control the a nti-fascist camp. B ecause the

Fifth Regiment (the ma jor St a linist con-

trolled unit) took a lead in disbanding,the C ommunists ga ined 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 purpose of exercising political contr ol

of the army through the medium of po-

litica l commissa rs. As most of these wereSt a linists th ey contr olled the flow of po-

li t ical pa pers to th e front. In varia bly theanarchist papers were held up. All the

soldiers read were the lies of the Com-

munist Pa r ty .

Not only the army was rebuil t but also

the pol ice , especia l ly the hated Civ i lGuards who had been a bulwark of re-

pression a ga inst t he CNT. They w ere now

to be cal led the Nat ional Republ ican

Gua rd. The Assault Gua rds w ere re- es-

ta blished a nd ha d 28,000 recruits by the

beginning of December. The Ca ra bineros,

wh o were t he border police in cha rge of

customs an d under t he 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 a nd tha t w as in the whole

of Spain. Negrins under- secreta ry ma de

it clear w hat their role was You are the

guardia ns of the sta te an d those vision-aries w ho believe tha t a chaotic si tuat ion

of social indiscipline a nd licentiousness

is permissible are utterly mistaken be-

cause the army of the people, as well as

you Carabineros, will know how to pre-vent i t .

The sta te w a s giving itself a monopoly of

force. The workers patrols which had

sprung up in J uly were disba nded. Work-

ers were ordered to hand in t heir arms

an d t hose who declined to do so were con-

sidered fascists . I t was said that these

arms were needed at the front. While itis true that ar ms were needed at t he front

this argument w as only put forwa rd as a

means of disar ming revolutionar y w ork-

ers. There were plenty of arms u nder th e

control of the police. George Orwell ob-

served af ter the Ma y Da ys in Ba rcelona

the Anarchis ts were wel l aware thateven i f they surrendered t heir arms, t he

PS UC would reta in theirs, an d this is in

fact wha t ha ppened a f ter the f ighting wa s

over. Meanwhile actually visible on the


10/14

st reets , there were quant i t ies o f armswh ich would have been very welcome at

the front, but w hich w ere being retained

for th e non-political police forces in t he

rear . (Homa ge to Cat a lonia p.151).

T h e cou n ter - r ev o l u t i on n ow m ov ed

aga inst the Collectives. On J an uary 7th

1937 the dissolution of the workers s up-

ply committees was declared. Distribu-

t i on o f f ood was h an ded ov er to th e

G .E .P .C . I . T h i s l ed to sh or t ages an dhoarding to inflate prices. For the first

time in the war Barcelona experiencedhunger y et th ere wa s plenty of food. The

collectives were blamed but it was well

known tha t i f you joined the P SU C you

could be gua ra nteed food.

Nationalisation

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

government control. As said earlier the

banks had not been taken over so the

government ha d a h uge lever aga inst theworkers. Nat ionalisa tion of major indus-tr ies was declared thus bringing them

under government contr ol. They cla imed

this was necessary for the war ef for t .

They claimed the collectives were ineffi-

cient a nd tha t each workplace wa s only

concerned with it s own profits. It cann ot

be denied there w ere problems with somebetter 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

socia l i sa t ion under the contro l o f the

workers. To do this all priva te ownersh ip

of the mean s of production w ould have t o

end. Of course the Commun ists w ould notallow this a s it th reatened their cherishedmiddle cla sses.

On the land collectivisation wa s allowed

only for the lands of fascists, the estates

of those who supported th e Republic w ere

to be ha nded back. How fa r the Commu-

nists were prepar ed to go wa s i l lustra tedby t he inva sion of Ara gon. The D efence

Council of Ara gon wa s declared illegal in

August 1937. This declaration was fol-

lowed by the invasion led by General

Listers (a P SU C member) 11th D ivision.

According to th e CNT the la nd, fa rm im-plements, catt le and horses which hadbeen confiscat ed from supporters of the

right w ing were returned t o their former

owners.

In some villages far ms w ere deprived of

the seed needed for sowing while 600

CNT members w ere arrest ed. In a ll, 30%of the collectives w ere destroyed an d th e

sowing of crops wa s disrupted. As ca n be

imagined nothing but hat red, resentment

and disi l lusionment resulted from this

invas ion a nd the repression tha t followed.

The peasa nts began to wonder w hat they

were fighting for. The resultant disillu-sionment no doubt contributed t o the col-

lapse of the front a few months later .

Similar a t ta cks w ere made on th e collec-

tives in Levant a nd Ca sti l le.

This show ed how fa r th e socia lists of th eCommunist Pa rty w ere prepar ed to go to

follow St a lins inst ructions. A more sin-

ister aspect of this was the existence in

Spa in of prisons belonging to th e Soviet

secret police, the G P U (forerunners of the

KGB). Their existence has been estab-

lished beyond al l doubt. In December1936 Pra vda declared As for , Ca ta lonia,

the purging of the Trotskyists and the

Anarcho-Syndicalists has begun, it willbe conducted w ith t he sam e energy w ith

which i t wa s conducted in the US SR.

Here is wha t Krivitsky had to say a bout

the activi t ies of the GPU in Spain, the

decision to esta blish it ha ving been taken

at an emergency conference in Moscow

on September 14th. The GPU had i ts

own specia l prisons. It s units ca rried out

assa ssinat ions and kidnappings. It killedi n h i dden du n geon s an d m ade f l y i n g

raids . The Minis t ry o f J ust ice had no

author ity over the GP U. I t wa s a power

before which even some of the highestof f icers in the Cabel lero government

trembled. The Soviet Union seemed to

have a grip on loyalist Spain, as i f i t wa s

alrea dy a S oviet possession. (In S ta linsSecret Ser vice p. 102).

The aim was to eliminate revolutionar-

ies . Anybody who dared to speak out

against what they were doing could be

the next t o suffer. Nin, the leader of th ePOUM, wa s murdered by the GPU as wa s

Cam i l l o B er n er i, an I t a l ian an a r ch i s t

who was critical of the CNT leadership.

He published a paper, Guerra di Classe,

which argued for a revolut ionary waraga inst fascism. He wa s murdered by so

called socialists for his principled revo-

lutionar y position. In J uly 1937 60 mem-bers of the CNT `disappeared, a term

used then a s now for those killed by the

secret police, though today it applies to

the dictatorships of Latin America.

Two Roads

Thus two mutual ly exclusive ways o f

f ight ing f asc ism emerged. Fi rs t ly you

could view i t a s the St al inists a nd their

supporters did. G o out of your wa y to pla-cate the bosses in England and France

and hope aga inst hope they w ould inter-vene. So f ight i t as a Civil War a wa r over

who w ere the legit ima te rulers of Spain.

Relegat e politics to a seconda ry role. Put

revolutionar y politics on th e back burner.

Tie up thousa nds of arms in t he rear re-

pressing the workers movement. Sma sh

collectivisa tion a nd sa crifice the gain s ofthe workers and peasa nts to the interna-

tional interests of Sta l in.

Opposed to this wa s the view tha t a revo-

lutionary war should be fought. Make

r e v ol u t i o n a r y p ol i t i cs y o u r c en t r a l

weapon. Give the land and factories tothose who work them. Make propaga nda

behind the fascist lines. Give the peas-

ant s a rea l reason to f ight Fra nco. Make

it clear that collectivisation would ben-

efi t th em. As i t w as ma ny l ived in fear of

the St a linists sma shing their collectives.Giving the land t o the peasa nts a nd mak-

ing tha t a centra l plank of the fight w ould

have deprived Franco of many soldiers

who were the sons and da ughters of peas-

an t s .

G ive freedom to Morocco. Orga nising a n

uprising there aga inst Fra nco would have

deprived him of a centr a l source of sup-

plies and arms. Appeal directly to theEuropean working class (whose govern-

ments had no interests in supporting -

the Spanish Revolution. Appeal to theFrench workers, who in 1937 were en-

ter ing the second year o f an upsurge

which had begun with mass str ikes the

previous year. Their action could have

prevented intervent ion aga inst the revo-

lution by Fra nce, and indeed B rita in.

Seize the gold reserves and expropriate

the banks. Use this money to buy arms

and make sure arms went to the fronts

wh ere they w ere needed. These were thesort of things tha t sh ould ha ve been done.

They were no guarantee of victory butcould have lit a spark which could have

ignited right th roughout E urope and br o-

ken the isolation of the S panish Revolu-

tion. It could ha ve marked a turning point

for the whole of Europe. Instead Spain

wa s to be yet a nother victim of fascism -

and the Civil War a prelude to a bloody

world w a r. The P opular Front could notha ve ca rried out these actions beca use it

was based on an alliance of classes. The

workers needed t o ta ke complete contr ol.

This was possible, especially in Catalo-nia w here a regional congress of workers

councils should have been called to es-

ta blish a Workers Republic. This exa m-ple would ha ve been followed thr oughout

Spa in and a revolutiona ry wa r could then

have been fought. Not a war to put the

Communist s, Socialists a nd Republicans

back in government but a wa r to l iberate

the t oil ing masses.

Bu t th e working class did not ta ke power.

The CNT, which was in a central posi-

tion to do t his, refused. It opted for col-

laboration and supported decree af terdecree undermining the r evolution. Ob-

jectively t he leaders of the CNT and F AT

beca me count er-revolutiona ry. In a dua lpower sit ua tion either the w orkers over-

throw t he ruling class and ta ke power or

the r uling class rega ins control. There is

no middle way. The CNT in collaborat-

ing could go only one way. Revolutions

cannot be half made. The working class

must assert i tself or the revolution isdoomed. So why didn t the anarchis ts

ta ke power? We will now tur n t o this.

Download and print out extra

copies of this pamphlet from

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11/14

Often t hese councils spring up spont an e-

ously or as orga ns of defence like the So-

viets during the Russia n revolution. Ini-

t ial ly they sta r ted out as str ike commit-

tees but quickly developed into bodies on

wh ich the new society could be built. This

idea is centra l to an a rchism. A free soci-ety can not be built on the old stru ctures,

new ones ha ve to be built th rough wh ich

the producers ca n be directly represented.

Revolutions do not happen th rough par-l iaments or governments, or trying to

ta ke over the already existing sta te ma-

chine.

The councils a nd collectives th a t em erged

during t he Civil Wa r, were the organ s on

which the revolution could have been

built. But they needed to be brought to-

gether at a r egional and n at ional level so

the power of the workers and peasantscould a ssert i tself and push the regional

and centra l governments as ide . This

wou l d h av e m ean t r e f u s i n g to sh ar e

power w ith th e remaining elements of the

ruling class, it would have been a major

step in ma king th e revolution complete.

C.N.T.

The CN T refused to do th is. After J uly

9th i ts leaders in Cat alonia w ere cal led

into the office of Companys, the Prime

Minister of Cat alonia. B asical ly he toldthem they were in control of the region

and he would be their fai thful servant i f

they took over . They refused. Instead

they ca lled for th e forma tion of the C en-

tra l Committee of Anti- Fa scist Militia s.

This was the first step in collaboration.All parties including Republicans wererepresented on this body. It existed side

by s ide wi th the Cata lan government .

The Centra l Committee wa s displaced in

September I 936 when t he CNT entered

th a t gov er n m en t . In Nov em ber f ou r

members of the C NT entered the na tional

government in Ma drid. Two of them w ere

a lso in the FAI.

This is a far cry from wh at wa s sta ted in

the CNT-FAI In format ion Bul le t in o f

September 1936. In an ar t icle enti t led

The Futi l i ty of Government i t sa id tha t

the expropriat ions tha t w ere taking placewould lead ipso facto to the liquidation

of the bourgeois sta te w hich would die of

a sphyxiat ion. Their members w ere now

joining the government of this very sa me

sta te .

A number of reasons were put forward

for t h is . Essent ia l ly t hey a mounted to

swallowing the argument about Bri tain

and Fra nce. I t w as sa id that i f a socia l

revolution wa s ma de it would be crusheda nd no ar ms w ould be forth coming from

the western powers ( they never came

an yw ay !). They had decided tha t winn ing

the wa r a nd ma king the revolution were

two dif ferent t hings and tha t w inning thewar came f irst . That meant collaborat-

ing in the broad anti-fascist front . . . inorder to w in the w ar and save our people

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

collaborate with anyone in a directive

organ , whether th is organ be cal led a

council or a govern ment (CN T, paper of

the CNT in the Madrid region, October

23rd 1936.)

Another reason put forwa rd wa s tha t by

entering t he government t hey could con-

solidate the gains that had been made.

They could regulate the political life ofSpa in by giving lega l validity t o the revo-

lutionar y committ ees (J ua n Lopez, An-archist Minister of Commerce). There

wa s even an a rgument put around that

entry into government was only for in-

ternational consumption, the revolution

would still go on under the veil of legal

government.

For these reasons a nti-fascist unity w as

m ai n t a i n ed an d an y th i n g th a t th r ea t -

ened to spli t this unity was repressed.

The government knew it w as very useful

to have CNT representation, i t was ana d d i t i o n a l m e a n s o f c o n t r o l l i n g t h e

ma sses. However it must be pointed outtha t t he decision to enter th e government

was taken by the Nat ional Commit tee

without any consultat ion with the rank

and f i le membership . This was a real

break from tra dition, the necessity of act-

ing with a minimum of delay wa s the rea-

son given by the leadersh ip.

May Days

The role of the CN T pla yed in g overnmen t

was clearly i l lustrated by what became

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

Sta l inist S ala s, Commissar of Public Or-

der, at tempted t o take over the telephone

exchange in Barcelona which had been

controlled by a joint CNT-UGT commit-

tee since th e outbr eak of the wa r. The aim

of this was to wrest control of the build-

ing from the w orkers and t o remove con-trol of the telephone system from them.

The telephonists had been able to keeptabs on what was going on by l istening

in on the calls of government m inisters.

It w as also the beginning of an ef fort by

the government to occupy stra tegic points

in the city in preparation for an all-out

at tack .

The police capt ured t he first floor because

of the surprise nature of their at ta ck but

go t n o f u r th er . F i r i n g s t a r t ed . Wor d

spread l ike wildf ire an d w ithin hours the

loca l defence committ ees of th e CN T-FAIwent int o action a rming themselves and

bui lding barr icades . The POUM sup-ported t hem a nd soon t he workers were

in contr ol of most of the city . The govern-

ment ha d control of only the centr a l area ,

wh ich could very easily ha ve been ta ken.

I

Conlon E., The Spanish Civil War, Anarchism in Action

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