Ryan Caplan - The Anarcho-Statists of Spain

7/29/2019 Ryan Caplan - The Anarcho-Statists of Spain

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The hypertext version of this essay is available at:http://www.princeton.edu/~bdcaplan.-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Anarcho-Statists of Spain:

An Historical, Economic, and Philosophical Analysis of Spanish Anarchism

by

Bryan Caplan

In the spirit of F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom , I dedicate this essayto anarcho-socialists of all factions.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------Preface

In "Looking Back on the Spanish War," George Orwell writes, "I have littledirect evidence about the atrocities in the Spanish civil war. I know thatsome were committed by the Republicans, and far more (they are stillcontinuing) by the Fascists. But what impressed me then, and has impressed

me ever since, is that atrocities are believed in or disbelieved in solelyon grounds of political predilection. Everyone believes in the atrocitiesof the enemy and disbelieves in those of his own side, without everbothering to examine the evidence." The same remark applies with equalforce to much of the recent debate about the behavior of the SpanishAnarchists during the Spanish Civil War. Seeing that it was very difficultto unravel the truth behind the conflicting accounts and citations, Idecided to look at the evidence for myself. The following essay is theproduct of my investigations. Quotations may sometimes seem overlong,because I avoided cutting them whenever possible to eliminate any suspicionof creative editing. --Bryan Caplan---------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Suffer no man and no cause to escape the undying penalty whichhistory has the power to inflict on wrong."

--Lord Acton, "The Study of History"

1. Introduction

The Spanish fascists used barbaric methods throughout the Spanish Civil Warin order to establish a brutal dictatorship.[1] The Spanish Communists usedsimilar wartime measures in their failed effort to give birth to an evenmore totalitarian regime.[2] But many discussions of the Spanish Civil War

overlook, minimize, or apologize for the atrocious behavior and tyrannicalaspirations of perhaps the most powerful faction of the SpanishRepublicans: the Anarchist movement.

The present essay aims to redress the balance. It first summarizes thehistorical details of the Anarchists' behavior during the Spanish CivilWar, scrutinizing both the behavior of the upper echelons of the Anarchistmovement as well as the rank-and-file militants. The essay then examinesthe economics of Anarchist-controlled Spain, focusing on both the policiesadopted, their aims, and the results. I conclude with a philosophical



dissection of the Spanish Anarchist movement, showing that their horrificbehavior was largely the result of their incoherent view of human freedom,their unsuccessful attempt to synthesize socialism and liberty, and theiruncritical and emotional way of thinking.

2. History and the Spanish Anarchists

Many recent discussions of the Spanish Anarchists center around RonaldFraser's Blood of Spain [3]. While the present essay uses Fraser as asource, there is always a concern in a work of oral history that theexperiences of the (necessarily small) number of people interviewed may notbe representative. Instead, my primary reference source for the history ofthe Spanish Anarchists is Burnett Bolloten's The Spanish Civil War [4].Bolloten's objectivity and clarity enjoy widespread approbation, even bymany informed individuals highly sympathetic to the Spanish Anarchists.Noam Chomsky praises Bolloten's work in "Objectivity and LiberalScholarship," and relies heavily upon Bolloten's earlier, less developedwork throughout that essay.[5] Bolloten was moreover the key historian whodocumented the Communists' atrocities against the Spanish Anarchists, andone of the first historians to demonstrate that contrary to the propagandaof the Republican government, the Spanish Anarchists experimented withradical social changes on a vast scale during the war. Finally, Bolloten's

objectivity speaks for itself, for he takes painstaking effort to confirmevery fact and carefully note the existence of any conflicting evidence.

A. The Militants and Terror

In July of 1936, officers throughout Spain tried to orchestrate a coupdetat against the Republican government.[6] In Catalonia, Aragon, and otherareas, Anarchist militants defeated the military uprisings. Findingthemselves more powerful than the regional governments and possibly thecentral government, the Spanish Anarchists seized the moment to implementsome radical changes in those regions of Spain where they had a largefollowing.

One of these radical changes was the beginning of large-scale murders ofpeople believed to be supporters of the Nationalists. In most cases, thesesupporters had taken no specific action to assist the Nationalistrebellion; they were singled out for their beliefs, or what people guessedtheir beliefs were. As Bolloten explains:

"The courts of law were supplanted by revolutionary tribunals, whichdispensed justice in their own way. 'Everybody created his own justice andadministered it himself,' declared Juan Garcia Oliver, a leading Anarchistwho became minister of justice in November 1936. 'Some used to call this"taking a person for a ride," [paseo] but I maintain that it was justiceadministered directly by the people in the complete absence of regularjudicial bodies.'"[7] This distinction no doubt escaped the thousands of

people who were murdered because they happened to have political orreligious beliefs that the Anarchists did not agree with. "'We do not wishto deny,' avowed Diego Abad de Santillan, a prominent Anarchist in theregion of Catalonia, 'that the nineteenth of July brought with it anoverflowing of passions and abuses, a natural phenomenon of the transfer ofpower from the hands of privileged to the hands of the people. It ispossible that our victory resulted in the death by violence of four or fivethousand inhabitants of Catalonia who were listed as rightists and werelinked to political or ecclesiastical reaction.'"[8] De Santillan's commenttypifies the Spanish Anarchists' attitude toward his movement's act of



murder of several thousand people for their political views: it is a mere"natural phenomenon," nothing to feel guilty over.

Bolloten's account of the Anarchist militants' wave of murders is well-corroborated by other sources. Thus, Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War (awork which Bolloten takes issue with on a number of points) explains that:"All who could conceivably be suspected of sympathy for the nationalistrising were in danger. As among the nationalists, the irrationalcircumstances of a civil war made it impossible to lay down what was or wasnot treason. The worthy died, the unworthy often lived. In East Andalusia,lorries manned by the CNT drove into villages and ordered mayors to handover their fascists. The mayors had often to say that they had all fled butthe terrorists would often hear from informers which of the better offpeople were still there, arrest them and shoot them in a nearby ravine."[9]Thomas adds that, "In the vast majority of cases, the murders were of therank and file of the Right. Often members of the working class would bekilled by their own acquaintances for hypocrisy, for having kow-towed toooften to their social superiors, even simply for untruthfulness. In Altea,near Alicante, for example, a cafe proprietor was killed with a hatchet byan anarchist for having overcharged for stamps and for the glass of winethat buyers of stamps were forced to take while waiting."[10]

Political belief was not the only kind of heterodoxy which the Spanish

Anarchists refused to tolerate. Mere acceptance of theism, typically in itsCatholic variant, provoked many of the Anarchist militants to violence. Theburning of religious buildings, from cathedrals and churches to conventsand monasteries was widespread, as was the murder of priests and nuns. Thismight puzzle the naive observer; after all, is not the Catholic church aperfect example of a communal, non-profit organization? Is not churchproperty "held in common" by its adherents? At least in theory, theclergy's vow of poverty obliges them to hand over all of their personalproperty to the Church, which then provides for their needs out of thecommunal stockpile. The Catholic church seems to satisfy many of the socialpostulates that the Spanish Anarchists embraced. This did not save thelives of the unfortunate clergy, since militant atheism had been a featureof European anarchism at least since the time of Bakunin, and because the

Catholic church had historically allied itself politically withconservative monarchism.

As Bolloten states, "Hundreds of churches and convents were burned or putto secular uses. 'Catholic dens no longer exist,' declared theAnarchosyndicalist organ, Solidaridad Obrera . 'The torches of the peoplehave reduced them to ashes.'...'For the Revolution to be a fact,' ran anAnarchist youth manifesto, 'we must demolish the three pillars of reaction:the church, the army, and capitalism. The church has already been broughtto account. The temples have been destroyed by fire and the ecclesiasticalcrows who were unable to escape have been taken care of by thepeople.'"[11] As Bolloten sums matters up: "Thousands of members of theclergy and religious orders as well as of the propertied classes were

killed, but others, fearing arrest or execution, fled abroad, includingmany prominent liberal or moderate Republicans."

Thomas amply confirms Bolloten's description of the Anarchists' religiouspersecution and intolerance. "'Do you still believe in this God who neverspeaks and who does not defend himself even when his images and temples areburned? Admit that God does not exist and that you priests are all so manyhypocrites who deceive the people': such questions were put in countlesstowns and villages of republican Spain. At no time in the history ofEurope, or even perhaps of the world, has so passionate a hatred of



religion and all its works been shown. Yet one priest who, while 1,215monks, nuns, and priests died in the province of Barcelona, managed toescape to France through the help of President Companys, was generousenough to admit that 'the reds have destroyed our churches, but we firsthad destroyed the church.'"[12]

Fraser documents many other instances of the Anarchists' religiousintolerance, but also brings out an interesting case in which the Anarchistleader Carod forbade violence against religious buildings and personnel."'You are burning the churches without thinking of the grief you arecausing your mothers, sisters, daughters, parents, in whose veins flowsChristian, Catholic blood. Do not believe that by burning churches you aregoing to change that blood and that tomorrow everyone will feel himself,herself an atheist. On the contrary! The more you violate theirconsciences, the more they will side with the church. Moreover, the immensemajority of you are believers at heart.' He demanded that all lives and allproperty - not only religious - be respected."[13] Note that Carod merelyappeals to the strategic folly of persecuting religious believers, since itleads people to "side with the church" (and presumably to side with theNationalists as well). Carod's argument typifies the Spanish Anarchists'half-hearted self- criticism. One waits in vain for an Anarchist to defendfreedom of thought, the individual's right to believe what he chooses; tosay, in short, that mere belief is not a crime, but killing someone for hisbeliefs is.

None of this implies, of course, that similar atrocities were not committedby the Nationalists and by non-Anarchist forces on the Republican side. Itis to be expected that Communists, fascists, and the other bloodthirstyzealots of the 20th century would brutally murder people for their beliefs.One would be surprised if moderate Republicans, moderate Socialists, andmoderate monarchists restrained themselves from widespread murder in themidst of a fratricidal civil war. But one would hope that a movementcondemning the state for its age-old brutality, and advocating an end toall human domination, would have behaved differently. Instead, it is clearthat Anarchist militants were at the vanguard of the murder squads on theRepublican side.[14]

Apologists for the Spanish Anarchist movement often claim that theaforementioned killings simply represent the individual decisions ofunorganized groups of Anarchist militants, rather than any sort of aparty-line policy organized and desired by the Anarchist leadership.Stanley Payne finds the facts of the Republican repression to be rathermore complex: "A common distinction between the Red and White terrors inSpain that has sometimes been made by partisans of the left is that theformer was disorganized and spontaneous, while the latter was centralizedand systematic, continuing throughout the war and long afterward. Thisdistinction is at best only partially accurate. In the early months theNationalist repression was not at all centrally organized, whereas that inthe Popular Front zone had more planning and organization than it is givencredit for. This is indicated by the many executions in areas where social

conflict was not particularly intense, and by the fact that many of thekillings were done by revolutionary militia coming in from other districts.Nor did the political executions in the Republican zone end after the closeof 1936, though they did diminish in volume."[15]

In any case, whether the murders were centrally ordered, completelydecentralized, or (as is most likely) somewhere in between, what differencedoes it make? Does it matter if the widespread Nazi attacks on Jews knownas the Kristallnacht were centrally organized or "spontaneous"? No; if anideology categorizes many people as sub-human, urging ever greater



brutality, and recommending restraint only when it is tacticallyconvenient, it is perfectly reasonable to castigate the entire movementcentering around that ideology, whether that movement be Nazism or SpanishAnarchism. It is quite clear that the rhetoric of the Spanish Anarchistsfocused on crushing the enemies of the workers by any means necessary;safeguarding the rights of innocent people who happened to despiseeverything Anarchism stood for was simply not on their agenda. Fraser'sinterview of Juan Moreno, a CNT day-laborer, merits notice: "'We hated thebourgeoisie, they treated us like animals. They were our worst enemies.When we looked at them we thought we were looking at the devil himself. Andthey thought the same of us.'"[16] Bolloten similarly notes, "According toPerez-Baro [a former member of the CNT who played a prominent role in thecollectivization movement in Catalonia], thirty to forty years ofrevolutionary propaganda had made employers appear in the eyes of theworkers not as 'class enemies,' but as 'personal enemies,' which resultedin a series of abuses against them."[17] In short, it is perfectly just toimpugn the Anarchist movement as a whole for the numerous atrocities of itsmembers, because these actions flowed logically from the central ideas ofthe movement rather than their misinterpretation by extreme fringe groups.

B. The Leaders and Collaboration

The complicity of the Spanish Anarchist leadership in the aforementionedatrocities is sometimes hard to untangle; obviously, most of the murder

orders were not publicly recorded. However, public records concerning theAnarchist leadership's record of collaboration with the central andregional governments throughout Spain provides ample documentation of along series of abuses and betrayals of whatever good principles theAnarchist movement held dear.

At the outset it is necessary to give some background on the pre-warorganization of the Anarchists, which its supporters frequently claim wasextraordinarily democratic. From at least 1927 on, the democraticprocedures of the CNT were frequently compromised by a special factionknown as the FAI, which Bolloten describes as the CNT's "ideological guide,whose mission was to protect the CNT from deviationist tendencies and tolead the trade-union federation to the Anarchist goal of libertarian

communism."[18] Bolloten properly notes that many of the Spanish Anarchistswould violently dispute this claim, but insists that the facts do notsupport them. "The FAI attempted to accomplish its directive mission byvirtue of the fact that its members, with few exceptions, belonged to theCNT and held many positions of trust. It was an established principle thatany person belonging to a political party should not occupy any officialposition in the trade-union organization. The FAI, moreover, kept a closeand constant supervision over the unions of the CNT, often threatening touse force to prevent deviationist trends when argument failed. To be sure,this domination - or at least attempted domination - by the FAI was notalways openly acknowledged by the CNT and FAI and indeed was at timesemphatically denied, but it was frankly admitted after the Civil War byother leaders of the CNT."[19] Fraser corroborates Bolloten's remarks.

Josep Costa, a CNT textile worker explains, "'The FAI was acting like apolitical group within the CNT, talking of liberty and acting likedictators...'"[20] Sebastia Clara, a dissident treintista CNT member, adds,"'Before the 1920's, the CNT was an organization in which the masses couldexpress themselves democratically. Afterwards, this was no longer the case.Things changed with the creation of the FAI in 1927. It was they who nowimposed their decisions...'"[21] While this burgeoning authoritarianism inthe guise of democracy makes it easy to understand how the Anarchistleadership often deviated from the viewpoint of the rank-and-file, the factthat the FAI was noted for its ideological purism makes its numerous



deviations all the more puzzling.

While the CNT and especially the FAI repeatedly condemned politicalparticipation before the Civil War, it was simple to induce CNT leaders toaccept ministerial positions in the central government. Initially, PrimeMinister Caballero offered the CNT a single seat, which the CNT nationalplenum rejected. This was no principled rejection, however; the Anarchistput forward a compromise resolution according to which "'auxiliarycommissions' were to be set up in each ministry comprising tworepresentatives of the CNT, two of the UGT, two of the Popular Frontparties, and one government delegate. This project would have spared theCNT the embarrassment of direct participation in the cabinet, but wouldnonetheless have given it representation in every branch ofgovernment."[22] This proposal failed; the next Anarchist initiative was toadvocate "that the government should be replaced by a national council ofdefense composed of five members of their organization, five of the UGT,and four members of the Republican parties."[23] Bolloten cites oneAnarchist's acerbic critique of this Orwellian attempt to avoid joining thegovernment by calling it something different: "'The purpose of this purelynominal change was to reconcile their fervent desire to enter thegovernment with their antistate doctrine. What childishness! A movementthat had cured itself of all prejudices and had always scoffed at mereappearances tried to conceal its abjuration of fundamental principles bychanging a name... This behavior is as childish as than of an unfortunate

woman, who, having entered a house of ill fame and wishing to preserve aveneer of morality, asks to be called a hetera instead of a whore.'"[24]

The Anarchists tried this tactic for about a month until CNT nationalsecretary Horacio Prieto, who favored direct participation in the PopularFront government, prevailed. "Horacio Prieto decided to 'put an end to thelast elements of opposition,' within the CNT and convoked a plenary sessionof the regional federations for 18 October. This time his argumentsprevailed. The plenum accorded him full powers to conduct negotiations 'inhis own way' in order to bring the CNT into the government. 'I wasconvinced,' he wrote after the war, 'of the necessity of collaboration, andI smothered my own ideological and conscientious scruples.'"[25] The endresult of Prieto's dealings with the government was that the CNT won

control of the ministries of justice, industry, commerce, and health.Bolloten notes and amply documents his remark that, "Not only did thisdecision represent a complete negation of the basic tenets of Anarchism,shaking the whole structure of libertarian theory to the core, but, inviolation of democratic principle, it had been taken without consulting therank and file."[26] This violation would not be the last one, as shall beseen.

The Anarchists were even more eager to assume governmental powers inCatalonia, where they were strong enough to overshadow the regionalCatalonian government, the Generalitat. Rather than officially enter theCatalonian government, the Anarchists chose to retain the Generalitat as alegal cover; but real power shifted into the hands of the

Anarchist-controlled Central Anti-Fascist Militia Committee. Bollotenindicates that for all practical purposes this Committee was the governmentof Catalonia under a new name: "the committee immediately became the defacto executive body in the region. Its power rested not on the shatteredmachinery of the state but on the revolutionary militia and police squadsand upon the multitudinous committees that sprang up in the region duringthe first days of the Revolution. The work of the militia committee,attests Abad de Santillan, himself a member, included the establishment ofrevolutionary order in the rear, the creation of militia units for thefront, the organization of the economy, and legislative and judicial



action."[27] After a few months the Anarchists formally entered theGeneralitat, mainly because the central government seemed unwilling toprovide weapons to any other Catalonian organization.

It should be further noted that these Anarchist-run councils and committeeswere not mild-mannered minimal states, maintaining order while allowing theworkers to organize themselves as they pleased. They were "modern" states,concerning themselves with the economy, education, propaganda,transportation, and virtually everything else.

The Anarchists' position in both the central government and in Cataloniaslowly but surely declined after they entered into coalition governmentswith the other anti-Franco factions. A common pattern was for the non-Anarchists to push for some measure that the Anarchists opposed; theAnarchists would resist for a brief period; and finally, the Anarchistswould agree to the original measure after changing some of the labels andminor details. By May of 1937, after a mere ten months in power, theAnarchists found themselves out-maneuvered on the national and regionallevels by the Communists and other political enemies.

There were a series of cabinet crises in the regional Cataloniangovernment; the resentment of the non-Anarchists, especially theCommunists, against the continued de facto Anarchist control of Barcelonaburnt ever brighter. While the members of the CNT who held positions in the

Catalonian government kept trying to reach an understanding with theirfellow ministers, the rank and file Anarchists seem to have becomeincreasingly alienated from their leaders.

A raid on the Anarchist-controlled telephone company brought these feelingsto the surface. (The non-Anarchists objected to the Anarchists' use ofwiretaps to listen in on important conversations.) The CNT ministers merelydemanded the removal of the main people responsible for the raid; buthundreds of the rank-and-file Anarchists responded with rage, setting upbarricades. As Bolloten describes matters, "That same night [May 3 -B.C.]the executive committee of the POUM met with the regional committees of theCNT, FAI, and the Libertarian Youth. Julian Gorkin, a member of theexecutive [of the POUM -B.C.], recalls: 'We stated the problem in these

precise terms: 'Neither of us has urged the masses of Barcelona to takethis action. This is a spontaneous response to Stalinist aggression...[Theregional committees] made no decision. Their maximal demand was the removalof the [police] commissioner who had provoked the movement. As though itwere not the various forces behind him that had to be destroyed! Always theform instead of the substance!"[28]

The Anarchist leadership was, as this quote indicates, out of step with therank-and-file; they urged the militants to stop the fighting. Theirrequests were not heeded, as Bolloten notes: "[T]here were forces intent onstoking the conflict. Not only were Rodriguez Salas's men initiating newoffensive actions, but the tiny Trotskyist group of Bolshevik Leninists andthe dissident Anarchist Friends of Durruti, joined by some of the more

militant members of the POUM, were extremely active. While the activistsignored the Anarchist leadership, the CNT ministers desperately tried tohammer out a deal with their fellow ministers in the Generalitat, who wereby this point willing to endanger Catalonian autonomy by allowing the armedforces of the central government to re- establish order. All the Anarchistsmanaged to do was to obtain a few delays and haggle over the formation of anew government, while they cajoled the rank-and-file to fall into line."CNT secretary Mariano Vasquez again begged workers to leave the streets.'We tell you that this situation must end... We do not want this stigma tofall upon the Spanish Anarchists... This is not the moment, in front of



piled-up corpses, to discuss who is right. It is essential that youdisappear with your weapons from the streets... We must not wait for othersto do so. We must do so ourselves. Afterward we shall talk. If you decide,when you discuss our conduct at our next assembly, that we deserve to beshot, then you may shoot us, but now you must obey our slogans.'"[29]

The end result was that the reinforcements from the central governmentarrived and firmly placed power into the hands of the Generalitat. Thepower of the Communists was greatly enhanced at both the regional andnational levels. A new central government was formed with Juan Negrin asPrime Minister. Bolloten amply documents that Negrin was a willing tool ofthe Communists, so it should be no surprise that the Anarchists lost all oftheir positions in the central government. One might think that by thispoint they would be thoroughly disillusioned with power, but the Anarchistsnow assumed the degrading role of the political beggar they held for therest of the war. While condemning Negrin's government ascounterrevolutionary, the CNT leadership tried to strike a new deal. WhenNegrin formed his second government, he threw the CNT a bone by giving themthe ministry of education and health. This was enough to retain the CNT'scollaboration until the Republic's defeat.

Soon after Negrin's appointment, the CNT lost all its seats in theCatalonian regional government. Making a virtue out of necessity, Bollotennotes Tierra and Libertad announced that, "'The CNT, with more than a

million affiliates in Catalonia, is no longer with the government. This isbecause Anarchosyndicalism cannot get involved with professionalpoliticians and cannot humble itself before anyone...[I]t refuses to defileitself with this kind of dirty politics.'"[30] In reality, the hangers-onof the CNT tried repeatedly to regain some role in the Cataloniangovernment even as Franco's forces prepared to capture Barcelona.

Once the CNT left the government, the Communists intensified theirpersecution and terrorization of the Anarchists. Moreover, while theAnarchists made up a very large percentage of the Republic's soldiery, theCommunists had a vastly disproportionate representation in the officercorps. Thus, the Anarchists allowed themselves to become cannon fodder forthe Communists at the front, while the Communist secret police unleashed

its hatred against the Anarchists in the rear. As Bolloten describes it,"The spontaneous, undirected terror of the CNT and FAI during the height ofthe Revolution had now given way to the more sophisticated, centrallydirected, and, hence, more fearful terror of the Communists."[31]

Of course, one might wonder how it was possible for Anarchists to havejoined forces with the Communists to begin with. How could the avowedopponents of the very existence of the state join forces with the pawns ofthe most murderous, totalitarian dictatorship that the world had everknown? Even if moral principle did not deter them, at least the Bolsheviks'propensity to exterminate their Anarchist allies might have given thempause. Even though many Anarchists eventually realized that the defeat ofFranco would lead to the establishment of a Soviet satellite state, they

kept fighting. Clearly the Anarchists' opposition to the Nationalistsdwarfed their distaste for Leninist totalitarianism.

Then again, perhaps the CNT yearned so strongly for power that they werewilling to sacrifice many principles for limited authority. After May 1937,they endured considerable humiliation in exchange for a paltry role in theRepublican government. Were there any limits to what principles theAnarchists would sacrifice in order to be minor political players?Apparently not. Stanley Payne indicates that the CNT leadership actuallytried to strike a deal with the fascists in 1945 and 1946. As Payne



explains, a Falangist leader "began negotiations that summer with the newclandestine secretary general of the CNT, Jose Leiva, in Madrid. His goalwas to rescue the Falange by gaining the support of oppositionanarchosyndicalists for a broader, stronger, and more popular nationalsyndicalism. Franco eventually rejected the CNT's demands, and thenegotiations foundered the following year. Suppression of the CNTleadership was renewed."[32] What was the nature of the deal that the CNTsought with the Falange? "According to a report presented to Franco in May1946, the CNT leadership offered a policy of cooperation, proposing towithdraw from the Giral Republican government- in-exile and accept threeFalangists on their national committee, but in return insisted on freedomto proselytize."[33]

This was the Anarchism of the CNT: an Anarchism which not only allied withthe Communist totalitarians, but attempted to strike a power- sharing dealwith the fascist totalitarians six years after the end of the civil war.

C. The Urban Collectives

Burnett Bolloten was the first mainstream historian to document the radicalsocial changes that occurred in Republican Spain; most earlier historianstook the disclaimers of the Republican government at face value, in spiteof the fact that the Republicans had every reason to conceal thisradicalism in order to win military assistance from Britain and France.

Bolloten explains that the CNT and to a lesser extent the UGT tookadvantage of the chaos to seize control of the means of production:

"In Valencia, a city of over 350,000 inhabitants, nearly allplants, both large and small, were sequestered by the CNT andUGT, as were those in the province of Alicante, while in theregion of Catalonia, where the Anarchosyndicalists were in almostunchecked ascendancy during the first months of the Revolution,collectivization in many towns was carried out so thoroughly thatit embraced not only the large factories but the least importantbranches of handicraft. The collectivization movement alsoinfringed upon another preserve of the middle classes. InBarcelona, the capital of Catalonia, with a population of nearly

1.2 million, the Anarchosyndicalist workers collectivized thewholesale business in eggs and fish and set up a controlcommittee in the slaughterhouse, from which they excluded allintermediaries; they also collectivized the principal market forfruit and vegetables and suppressed all dealers and commissionagents as such, permitting them, however, to join the collectiveas wage earners. The milk trade in Barcelona was likewisecollectivized. The Anarchosyndicalists eliminated as unhygenicover forty pasteurizing plants, pasteurized all milk in theremaining nine, and proceeded to displace all dealers byestablishing their own retail outlets."[34]

In fact, this policy of shutting down factories seems to have been as

important to the CNT program as collectivizing the remainder. These factoryclosures were justified by several arguments: they were unhealthy forworkers, or unhealthy for consumers, or just plain "inefficient." AsBolloten explains, "after the first few weeks of widespread anduncoordinated seizures, some of the unions began a systematicreorganization of entire trades, closing down hundreds of small plants andconcentrating production in those with the best equipment."[35] It is worthnoting that Spain was still in the midst of the Great Depression, withoverall Spanish industrial production in 1935 about 13% below the 1929level. Production in July of 1936 was itself about 18% below the January



1936 level, so the existence of unused capacity is no surprise.[36] What isodd is that in the midst of massive unemployment the Anarchists closed downa large percentage of the remaining firms instead of inviting unemployedworkers to join them.

Initially, the workers (rather than an Anarchist nomenklatura) usuallyassumed control over their places of employment. Quoting Fraser, "one thingdominated the libertarian revolution: the practice of self- management -the workers' administration of their factories and industries."[37] Yetgovernment control quickly followed, or at least tried to. In October, thegovernment of Anarchist-dominated Catalonia passed the Collectivization andWorkers' Control Decree, which legally recognized many of the de factocollectivizations.

With government recognition came government regulation, as Fraserindicates: "Works councils, elected by an assembly decision of the workersand representing all sectors of the enterprise, were to administer thecollectivized factory, 'assuming the functions and responsibilities of theformer board of directors.' A Generalitat representative was chosen, inagreement with the workers, to sit on each council. Collectivizedenterprises (and private firms under workers' control) in each sector ofindustry would be represented in an Economic Federation, in turn topped bya general industrial council which would closely control the wholeindustry. Fifty percent of a collectivized firm's profit would go to an

industrial and commercial credit fund which would have to finance allCatalan industry; 20 per cent was to be put to the collective's reserve anddepreciation fund; 15 per cent to the collective's social needs, and theremaining 15 per cent to be allocated by the workers as they decided in ageneral assembly."[38] Bolloten reports that this measure was "sponsored bythe CNT and signed by its representative in the government, Juan P.Fabregas, the councilor of the economy."[39] Thus, the principle of genuineworker control was quickly cast aside in favor of something much moresimilar to state-socialism; a mere 15% of the profits were, under the law,under the discretionary control of the workers.

There was some internal opposition to these measures; Fabregas' successorde Santillan indicated hostility to some features, and did not strictly

enforce the law. More importantly, there was a huge loophole - firms had topay a percentage of their profits . To eliminate the exaction, one merelyneed eliminate the profits. With worker control, there is a simple way todo this: keep raising wages until the "profits" disappear. Taxes on profits- which is what the Decree amounted to - will raise revenue if the workersand the owners are different people; but with worker control such taxes aresimple to evade. Witness after witness reports the abolition of piece-work,improvement of working conditions, lavish non-wage compensation, and so on.This is initially surprising; if the workers run the factory, don't theypay the price of hampering production? Not if the government taxes awaymost of the workers' profits. As Thomas states, "[T]he industrialsyndicalism of Barcelona kept, unlike the rural anarchists, to individualwages, and did not experiment with family wages. These wages probably

increased, it is true, in late 1936 by about a third over July. But theeffect was ruined by the inflation, due to a fall in production, shortageof credit, as well as an influx of refugees from Castille and Aragon."[40]

Thus, due to the weak enforcement and easy evasion of governmentregulations and taxes, it appears that some workers found themselves thenew co-owners of their former employers' property. This created vagueapprehension among many Anarchists, and experience soon enabled them toarticulate their concerns. The Anarchist Jose Peirats aptly described theiressential worry: "Fortified in their respective collectives, the industries



would merely have replaced the old watertight compartments of capitalismand would inevitably lapse into bureaucracy, the first step in a newsociety of unequals. The collectives would end up waging the samecommercial war against each other with the same combination of zeal andmediocrity that characterized the old bourgeois businesses. And so theyattempted to expand the notion of collectivism to include, in a structuraland permanent way, all industries in one harmonious and disinterestedbody."[41] Joan Ferrer, secretary of the CNT commercial employees' union,was able to confirm Peirats' fear up close. "'It came as a psychologicalshock to some workers to find themselves suddenly freed from capitalisttutelage. Exchanging one individualism for another, they frequentlybelieved that, now that the owners were gone, they were the new owners.Though affecting white-collar workers in this instance, the problem was byno means confined to them...'"[42]

In short, after being told that the workers now owned the means ofproduction, the workers often took the statement literally. What is thepoint of owning the means of production if you can't get rich using them?But of course if some workers get rich, they are unlikely to voluntarilydonate their profits to the other members of their class. This seemselementary upon reflection, but only practical experience was able toreveal this to the economic reformers of the Spanish Revolution.

Fraser explains that at a joint CNT-UGT textile union conference, "The

woodworkers' union weighed in with its criticism of the state of affairs,alleging that, while small, insolvent workshops were left to struggle asbest they could, the collectivization of profitable enterprises was leadingto 'nothing other than the creation of two classes; the new rich and theeternal poor. We refuse the idea that there should be rich and poorcollectives. And that is the real problem of collectivization.'"[43]Bolloten repeats a remark of CNT militia leader Ricardo Sanz: "'[T]hingsare not going as well as they did in the early days of the [revolutionary]movement... The workers no longer think of workings long hours to help thefront. They only think of working as little as possible and getting thehighest possible wages.'"[44] Bolloten attributes this decline inenthusiasm to Communist repression, but it is at least as consistent withthe simple observation that people often prefer improving their own lot in

life to nourishing revolution.

In short, practical experience gradually revealed a basic truth ofeconomics for which theoretical reflection would have sufficed: if theworkers take over a factory, they will run it to benefit themselves. Aworker-run firm is essentially identical to a capitalist firm in which theworkers also happen to be the stockholders. Once they came to thisrealization, however dimly, the Spanish Anarchists had to either embracecapitalism as the corollary of worker control, or else denounce workercontrol as the corollary of capitalism. For the most part, they chose thelatter course.

As Bolloten writes, "[T]he Anarchosyndicalists, contrary to common belief,

were not without their own plans for the nationwide control andrationalization of production. Rootedly opposed to state control ornationalization, they advocated centralization - or socialization, as theycalled it - under trade-union management of entire branches of production.'If nationalization were carried out in Spain as the Socialists andCommunists desire,' said one Anarchist newspaper, 'we should be on the wayto a dictatorship, because by nationalizing everything the government wouldbecome the master, the chief, the absolute boss of everyone andeverything.'"[45] The Anarchist solution for this danger of absolutedictatorship was to call absolute dictatorship by a different name. "In the



opinion of the Anarchosyndicalists," explains Bolloten, "socializationwould eliminate the dangers of government control by placing production inthe hands of the unions. This was the libertarian conception ofsocialization, without state intervention, that was to eliminate the wastesof competition and duplication, render possible industrywide planning forboth civilian and military needs, and halt the growth of selfish actionsamong the workers of the more prosperous collectives by using their profitsto raise the standard of living in the less favored enterprises."[46] Ofcourse, one could refuse to call a union with such fearsome powers a"state," but it would need all of the enforcement apparatus and authorityof a state to execute its objectives. The "more prosperous collectives,"for example, would be unlikely to submit voluntarily to industrywideplanning funded by their profits.

The Nationalists conquered Catalonia before the government made anyconcerted, official effort to nationalize the workers' factories. But it isdoubtful that the government would have met much resistance from the CNT ifand when the nationalization occurred.

Describing the CNT conferences of September 1937 and January 1938, Thomasstates: "Although suggestions for reform were canvassed, most ideas putforward sought the improvement of the existing state of affairs; themillenarian aspect of anarchism had almost vanished. What was left seemedno more than a federalist movement, without effective national

organization, which gave general, if grudging, support to the government.Under the influence of the realistic ex-secretary-general of the CNT,Horacio Prieto, anarchists were persuaded to accept the idea ofnationalization of large industries and banks in exchange forcollectivization of small ones, and on the land, as well as the'municipalization' of local services."[47]

While the formal expropriation of the workers did not occur, the governmentfrequently used its control over the Spanish money and banking system toquietly nationalize the means of production. For ideological reasons,Anarchists had always avoided working in the banking industry, so insofaras workers did control banks, they were members of the Socialist UGT ratherthan the Anarchist CNT. To obtain credit, Anarchists either had to get a

loan from the Socialist- controlled banks, or else receive a bail-out fromthe central government. Bolloten explains the dilemma of the workers'collectives:

"Another obstacle to the integration of industry into alibertarian economy lay in the fact that a large number of firmscontrolled by the CNT were in a state of insolvency orsemi-insolvency and were compelled to seek governmentintervention to secure financial aid... Both in Catalonia and inthe rest of Republican Spain, this situation created graveeconomic problems for the CNT collectives. So desperately didsome of them require funds that Juan Peiro, theAnarchosyndicalist minister of industry, openly recommended

intervention by the central government, having received in hisdepartment eleven thousand requests for funds in January 1937alone."[48]

Fraser and Thomas corroborate Bolloten's analysis. "[T]here were thecommittees," explains Fraser, "which... simply continued to present theirweekly wage list to the Generalitat, which went on paying them, instead ofseeking to get their businesses going."[49] In the footnote, Fraser adds,"This later became institutionalized as the 'pawn bank,' through which theworkers of the deficitary enterprises received their wages in return for



'pawning' their company's capital equipment and inventory to theGeneralitat - a measure which resulted in giving the latter virtual controlof the enterprise."[50] Along similar lines, Thomas writes that, "In alllarge industries, and in industries important for the war, a staterepresentative sat on the committee. He would be responsible forcontrolling credit, and sometimes raw materials. His role became more andmore important, so that, in some enterprises (particularly the munitionsfactories), something close to nationalization would soon be achieved."[51]"Outside of Catalonia, the central government... sought to bring all majorfactories under state supervision, whether nationalized or privatelymanaged. To ensure this, credit was made difficult for anarchist factories,and many other difficulties were put in their way by the government... Thisoccurred even though an anarchist, Peiro, was nominally at the ministry ofindustry."[52]

Peiro initially tried to push through a decree collectivizing all industry,but Prime Minister Caballero squelched the idea since it would alienateforeign capitalists and their governments. Next, Bolloten explains, "Peirothen redrafted his decree... From the cabinet the decree went to aministerial commission that, according to Peirats, converted it into askeleton. 'But the calvary is not over. To put the decree into effect moneyis necessary, that is, credit must be granted by the minister of finance[Juan Negrin]. He haggles like a usurer and finally grants an insignificantsum... Finally, the Industrial Bank intervenes, which reduces the amount

still further.'"[53]

The simplest way that the collectives could have avoided dependence on thegovernment would have been to issue debt; in short, to borrow from thegeneral public rather than the government. But undoubtedly the fear ofrevealing surplus wealth to lend would make such a scheme impossible. Evenif their physical safety were not their concern, investors could hardlyexpect to ever get their money back. The insecurity of property rights thusmade it very difficult to borrow from the public, so the collectivesmortgaged themselves piece by piece to the government until finally thegovernment rather than the workers owned the means of production.

Fraser argues that, "These difficulties might have been palliated if the

industrial and commercial fund foreseen by the decree had been rapidly setup, for one of its purposes was to channel funds from the wealthier to thepoorer collectives. It was to be financed by a levy of 50 per cent of acollective's profits."[54] Even if enforced, though, almost all sourcesindicate that profits were almost non-existence; possibly, as I haveindicated, because workers were smart enough to realize that raising theirwages and improving working conditions was an easy route to avoid anyprofits tax. Even if this could have prevented the collectives frombecoming dependent on the central government, the end result would havebeen to make them dependent on a union so powerful that it would be a statein everything but name.

Fraser quotes Albert Perez-Baro, a civil servant and a former CNT member:

"'This truly revolutionary measure [the 50 per cent profits tax] - thoughrarely, if ever, applied - wasn't well received by large numbers ofworkers, proving, unfortunately, that their understanding of the scope ofcollectivization was very limited. Only a minority understood thatcollectivization meant the return to society of what, historically, hadbeen appropriated by the capitalists...'"[55] In other words, most workersassumed that worker control meant that the workers would actually becomethe true owners of their workplaces, with all the rights and privilegesthereof. Only the elite realized that worker control was merely a euphemismfor "social control" which in turn can only mean control by the state (or



an Anarchist "council," "committee," or "union," satisfying the standardWeberian definition of the state).

D. Militarization

In the early stages of the war, the militant members of various left- wingparties and unions often did battle with members of the rebel Nationalistarmy. There is no doubt that the CNT's militants stifled military coups inseveral regions, and were initially the vanguard of the anti-Franco forces."[T]here was no central military body that could review the situation onall the battlefronts, formulate a common plan of action, and decide on theallocation of available supplies of men, munitions, arms, and motorvehicles in such a way as to produce the best results on the most promisingfront," explains Bolloten. "Nor could such central control be expected inthe early days of spontaneous activity and individual initiative. 'We allremember,' writes a Republican sympathizer, 'how we began to wage the war.A few friends got together, jumped into a truck or car that they owned orconfiscated, one with a rifle, another with a revolver and a few cartridgesand took to the highway to look for fascists. When we reached a point wherewe encountered resistance, we fought, and, when the munitions wereexhausted, we generally retreated not to a defensive position... but to ourpoint of departure.'"[56] Bolloten adds the observation that, "To makematters worse, each party and labor union had its own military headquartersthat, in most cases, attended to the requirements of its own militia

without any knowledge of or regard to the needs or military plans of otherunits on the same or neighboring sector, least of all distantfronts..."[57]

While all of the militias resisted military discipline to some degree,Bolloten affirms that at first the Anarchist militias resisted itvigorously because they took their ideals seriously: "The CNT-FAI militiareflected the ideals of equality, individual liberty, and freedom fromobligatory discipline integral to the Anarchist doctrine. There was noofficers' hierarchy, no saluting, no regimentation."[58] Unfortunately forthe Anarchists, this lack of discipline made their militia ratherineffective in spite of their frequent numerical superiority. It did not

take long for the Anarchist leadership to decide that military success wasmore important than the voluntaristic notions of the rank-and-file.Solidaridad Obrera soon wrote in favor of the strictest discipline: "'Toaccept discipline means that the decisions made by comrades assigned to anyparticular task, whether administrative or military, should be executedwithout any obstruction in the name of liberty, a liberty that in manycases degenerates into wantonness.'"[59] While many of the rank-and-fileresisted, military discipline swiftly became common in the Anarchistmilitias.

It soon became clear that the Republican government intended to form itsown national army. The Anarchist ministers objected; Bolloten notes that inaddition to ideological scruples, the Anarchists wanted to keep military

dominance in their own hands, and out of the hands of the Communists. Tocounter this move towards a national army, explains Bolloten, "The CNT-FAIleaders had proposed in September 1936 that a 'war militia' be created onthe basis of compulsory service and under the joint control of the CNT andthe UGT..."[60] It thus took scarcely two months for the Anarchists toopenly advocate conscription - enslaving young men to kill or be killed -so long as the conscripts were forced to risk their lives for the cause ofthe CNT. (Since the UGT held the loyalty of a far smaller proportion of theworking class at this stage, the joint control of the CNT and UGT clearlywould have amounted to a junior role for the UGT at best.)



In spite of their presence in the national government, explains Bolloten,"the libertarian movement was unable to use its participation in thegovernment to increase its say in the military field or even curb theprogress of the Communists, but rather was obliged in the end tocircumscribe its efforts to maintaining control of its own militia unitsand securing arms from the war ministry."[61] The war ministry had manylevers to secure compliance from the Anarchist militias. Not only couldthey give or deny weapons, supplies, and so on. The government also put theAnarchist militias on the government payroll, and could then threaten towithhold money from any unit that resisted the government's decisions.

The most important decision the government made was to "militarize" themilitias: in short, to absorb them into the government's army and subjectthem to standard military rule. Most of the militia columns swiftly fellinto line, although it is unclear to what extent this was because they werefollowing the orders of the Anarchist leadership, or enticed by the centralgovernment's money and weapons. One notable exception was the so-calledIron Column. "No column," explains Bolloten, "was more thoroughlyrepresentative of the spirit of Anarchism, no column dissented morevehemently from the libertarian movement's inconsistencies of theory andpractice and exhibited a more glowing enmity for the state than the IronColumn..."[62] Bolloten quotes one of the members of the Iron Column, inwhose words there is clearly a strong undertone of criticism of the

Anarchists working with the government: "'We accept nothing that runscounter to our Anarchist ideas, ideas that must become a reality, becauseyou cannot preach one thing and practice another.'"[63]

Lest one praise their idealism too highly, it should be noted that the IronColumn apparently saw no contradiction between Anarchism and terrorism androbbery. "In the early months of the war," states Bolloten, "it had beenable to rely upon its own recruiting campaigns and upon confiscationscarried out with the aid of Anarchist-controlled committees in villages andtowns behind the lines. '[During] our stay in Valencia,' ran a manifestoissued by the column, 'we noticed that, whereas our negotiations for thepurchase of arms had failed, because of the lack of hard cash, in manyshops there was a large quantity of gold and other precious metals, and it

was this consideration that induced us to seize the gold, silver, andplatinum in several jewelers' shops.' 'Around October [1936],' recounts onehistorian [Rafael Abella -B.C.], 'the column abandoned the front... andwent on an expedition in Valencia [which was under Republican control-B.C.] spreading panic in its path. Its goal was to "cleanse the rear ofall parasitic elements that endangered the interests of the revolution." InValencia, it stormed hotels and restaurants, terrifying the city. In a raidon jewelry stores, it seized all the gold and silver it could find.'"[64]

As the central government re-affirmed its authority, such raids onRepublican towns became too dangerous; but because the Iron Columncontinued to lambast Anarchist collaboration with the Popular Frontgovernment, the Iron Column found itself unable to obtain resources legally

either. The Iron Column continued to refuse militarization, but the centralgovernment intensified its pressure on dissenting militias.

"[T]he war ministry had not only decided to withhold arms fromall militia units declining to reorganized themselves along theprescribed lines, but had decreed, although in carefully selectedlanguage, that the pay of all combatants - which in the case ofthe militia had previously been handed to each column in a lumpsum without supervision and irrespective of structure - wouldhenceforth be distributed through regular paymasters stationed



only in battalions. As the decree made no mention of paymastersin units that had not adopted a military framework, it was clearthat if the Iron Column were to hold fast to its militiastructure the time would soon arrive when all pay would besuspended."[65]

In the end, some members of the Iron Column deserted rather than facemilitarization (ninety-seven men were denounced as deserters by theirfellow Anarchists), while the others caved in and joined the regular army.

To be more precise, most of the Iron Column joined units which, whilenominally part of the army of the central government, were actually part ofthe private fiefdom of the CNT. While the Communists did their best toestablish ideologically "mixed" units (hopefully with Communist officers),the Anarchists tried very hard to keep Anarchist soldiers together. Soeager was the Anarchist leadership to build up armed forces under its defacto control, that the CNT national congress freely gave its approval toconscription - on one condition:

"Although a CNT national congress decided to agree to themobilization of the two classes announced by the government, itdid so on the understanding that all men with Anarchosyndicalistmembership cards should be drafted by the CNT for service in itsown militia units. In Catalonia, the regional committee of the

CNT stated with reference to this decision: 'As it would be verychildish to hand over our forces to the absolute control of thegovernment... the national congress has decided that all personsin the [two mobilized] classes who belong to our trade-unionorganization should present themselves immediately to the CNTbarracks or, in the absence thereof, to the trade-union or [CNT]defense committees [of their locality], which will take note oftheir affiliation, their age, their employment, the class towhich they belong, their address, and all the necessary facts...This committee will issue militia cards that will be sent to theinscribed comrades, who, of course, will henceforth be at thedisposal of the Regional Committee, which will assign them to thecolumn or front selected.'"[66]

In this manner, the Spanish Anarchist abandoned even the pretense ofvoluntary service in the armed forces. Rather than defend the right of theindividual to choose whether or not he wished to join the army at all, theCNT merely did its best to get its fair share of the hapless conscripts.

As the remarks about the Iron Column make clear, the CNT made no attempt tosubsist merely on voluntary donations of time and resources. It readilyaccepted government hand-outs. More importantly, the Spanish Anarchistsmissed no opportunity to seize needed resources. In most cases, theAnarchists did so in areas where they were the dominant power; the chaoticlooting of the Iron Column was dwarfed by the official looting of the

various Anarchist committees and councils. Eventually, though, there islittle precious metal and hard currency left to steal, at least in plainsight; the real source of wealth is human beings. As the next sectionreveals, when the Anarchists realized that food and valuable agriculturalcommodities could be extorted from forced collectives of terrorizedpeasants, they saw an opportunity that was simply too good to refuse.

E. The Rural Collectives

In August of 1937, Prime Minister Juan Negrin secretly ordered government



forces under the direction of the Communists to dissolve the Council ofAragon, the Anarchist body which exercised de facto rule overRepublican-controlled Aragon. One of the primary actions of thisCommunist-led operation was to break up the Anarchist-controlled ruralcollectives. To justify their action, the Communists accused the Anarchistsof imposing forced collectivization on a hostile peasantry. ConsideringStalin's forced collectivization and terror-famine in the Soviet Union onlya few years before, this was a curious accusation to make.[67] But make itthey did, while the beaten Anarchist movement denounced the Communists fortheir brutality in the service of counterrevolution. As Bolloten writes:

"'The population of Aragon, especially the peasants,' recountsthe official Communist history of the Civil War, 'acclaimed thedissolution of the council with indescribable enthusiasm,' butRicardo Sanz, the Anarchosyndicalist commander of theTwenty-sixth Division, paints a less radiant picture. TheEleventh Division, he claims, took by assault the officialcenters in Caspe and arrested the majority of the office workers,dissolving the Council of Aragon by force. 'It took harshmeasures against all the villages, attacking the peasantcollectives. It despoiled them of everything - work animals,foods, agricultural implements, and buildings - and initiated afierce repression and persecution of the members of thecollective.'"[68]

One would have to be a fool to take Communists at their word. Still, thefact that an accusation originated with the Communists is no reason to barobjective research from verifying the truth of their claims. The Communistswere often the originators of reports of German atrocities during World WarII; does this mean that any historical study of Nazi concentration camps issuspect? Of course not. It merely means that one must take extra care tofind independent sources untainted by the Communists' propaganda machine.(Thus, since Thomas' evidence for the involuntary nature of the collectivescomes almost entirely from Communist sources, I omit it.)

With this in mind, I now review the history of the Anarchists and rural

collectivization. As before, Burnett Bolloten's The Spanish Civil War ,widely acclaimed for its objectivity and comprehensiveness, is my mostfrequent reference. On this particular issue, Bolloten's words carry ifpossible even greater weight, for it was Bolloten, more than any otherhistorian, who documented the deceptive propaganda and drive for totalpower of the Spanish Communist movement.

After the attempted military coup in July 1936, there was a revolution inmany rural areas somewhat similar to that in urban areas. It should benoted, however, that the power of the CNT was centered in the cities ratherthan the countryside, so it would be extremely surprising if the ruralrevolution were as "spontaneous" as the urban revolution. "Very rapidlycollectives, in which not only the means of production but also of

consumption were socialized, began to spring up," explains Fraser. "It didnot happen on instructions from the CNT leadership - no more than had thecollectives in Barcelona. Here, as there, the initiative came from CNTmilitants; here, as there, the 'climate' for social revolution in therearguard was created by CNT armed strength: the anarcho-syndicalists'domination of the streets of Barcelona was re- enacted in Aragon as the CNTmilitia columns, manned mainly by Catalan anarcho-syndicalist workers,poured in. Where a nucleus of anarchosyndicalists existed in a village,it seized the moment to carry out the long-awaited revolution andcollectivized spontaneously. Where there was none, villagers could find



themselves under considerable pressure from the militias tocollectivize..."[69] Note well Fraser's point that the anarchists in ruralAragon relied heavily on urban Catalonian anarchists to get off the ground.However over-stated the Anarchists' claim to represent "the people," was inBarcelona, in rural Aragon such a claim was absurd.

Bolloten gives more details about the initial stages of the ruralrevolution. "Although no hard and fast rules were observed in establishinglibertarian communism, the procedure was more or less the same everywhere.A CNT-FAI committee was set up in each locality where the new regime wasinstituted. This committee not only exercised legislative and executivepowers, but also administered justice. One of its first acts was to abolishprivate trade and to collectivize the soil of the rich, and often that ofthe poor, as well as farm buildings, machinery, livestock, and transport.Except in rare cases, barbers, bakers, carpenters, sandalmakers, doctors,dentists, teachers, blacksmiths, and tailors also came under the collectivesystem. Stocks of food and clothing and other necessities were concentratedin a communal depot under the control of the local committee, and thechurch, if not rendered useless by fire, was converted into a storehouse,dining hall, cafe, workshop, school, garage, or barracks. In manycommunities money for internal use was abolished..."[70]

It barely took a month for Anarchists to set themselves up as thegovernment of those parts of Aragon under their control, euphemistically

dubbing themselves the "Regional Defense Council of Aragon." As Thomasexplains, "The collectives established in Aragon - the CNT later claimedthat there were 450 of them - held a conference in late September... Theyset up a regional 'Council of Defense,' composed of CNT members, andpresided over by Joaquin Ascaso, a cousin of the famous anarchist killed inJuly. This had its seat at Fraga, and thence exercised supreme power overthe whole of revolutionary Aragon."[71] The Anarchists angered the otherRepublican factions by excluding them from the Council of Aragon, but therewas little they could do. Thus, while the behavior of the government ofCatalonia was a compromise between the Anarchists and other parties, theactions of the government of Aragon reveal the proclivities of undividedAnarchist rule.

Many people fled for fear of their lives. Their land was seized almostimmediately. After all, who but a "fascist" would flee? The expropriationof land from anyone too terrified of the new regime to even wait to seewhat their new life would be like provided the nucleus for the collectives.Bolloten quotes one authority, who explains that, "'[A]pproximatelyone-third of all lands and (since collectivization occurred mainly onarable land) between half and two-thirds of all cultivated land inRepublican Spain were seized. By a cruel irony, the victims werepredominantly small and medium holders, since most of the latifundiodistricts had fallen to the Nationalists...'"[72] While the Anarchistsoccasionally spoke of overthrowing feudalism, they did no such thing;feudalism had been largely abolished in Spain by the late 19th-century, as

Fraser points out. "In the course of a century, the bourgeoisie continuedto extend its holdings until, by the 1930's, approximately 90 per cent ofSpain's farm land was in its hands, the rest being owned by the uppernobility."[73]

Farmers who fled for their lives were obviously not voluntary participantsin the Anarchists' collectivization experiment. What about the remainder?One of the persistent claims of defenders of the Anarchists' collectiveswas that the farmers were usually "free to choose": they could either jointhe collective, or continue to farm individually so long as they hired no



wage labor.

The overwhelming majority of the evidence reveals that the collectives'defenders are simply wrong. Bolloten tells us that:

"Although CNT-FAI publications cited numerous cases of peasant proprietorsand tenant farmers who had adhered voluntarily to the collective system,there can be no doubt that an incomparably larger number doggedly opposedit or accepted it only under extreme duress."[74]

Bolloten goes on to explain that it was the presence of the Anarchistmilitia which made collectivization possible. The Anarchist militants,convinced of their superior wisdom, arrived carrying a plan for a new wayof life for the farmers:

"'We militiamen must awaken in these persons the spirit that has beennumbed by political tyranny,' said an article in a CNT newspaper, referringto the villagers of Farlete. 'We must direct them along the path of thetrue life, and for that it is not sufficient to make an appearance in thevillage; we must proceed with the ideological conversion of these simplefolk.'"[75] The arrogance and paternalism of these remarks is clear; isthere no possibility that the farmers might be right and the Anarchistsmight be wrong?

Bolloten gives further details; due to the presence of the Anarchist armedforces, "[T]he fate of the peasant owner and tenant farmer in thecommunities occupied by the CNT-FAI militia was determined from the outset;for although a meeting of the population was generally held to decide onthe establishment of the collective system, the vote was always taken byacclamation, and the presence of armed militiamen never failed to imposerespect and fear on all opponents."[76]

In answer to the Anarchists' claims that they respected the right not tojoin the collective, Bolloten answers that, "The fact is that many smallholders and tenant farmers were forced to join the collective farms beforethey had an opportunity to decide freely. Although the libertarian movementtended to minimize the factor of coercion in the development of

collectivized agriculture or even to deny it altogether, it was, onoccasions, frankly admitted. 'During the first few weeks of theRevolution,' wrote Higinio Noja Ruiz, a prominent member of the CNT, 'thepartisans of collectivization acted according to their own revolutionaryopinions. They respected neither property nor persons. In some villagescollectivization was only possible by imposing it on the minority.'"[77]

Fraser amply confirms Bolloten's allegations. "There was no need to dragoonthem at pistol point: the coercive climate, in which 'fascists' were beingshot, was sufficient. 'Spontaneous' and 'forced' collectives existed, asdid willing and unwilling collectivists within them."[78] Fraser goes on toexplain that rural collectivization was very different from urbancollectivization; while the latter was indeed typically carried out by the

workers, the former was not. "The collectivization, carried out under thegeneral cover, if not necessarily the direct agency, of CNT militiacolumns, represented a revolutionary minority's attempt to control not onlyproduction but consumption for egalitarian purposes and the needs of thewar. In this, agrarian collectives differed radically from the industrialcollectives which regulated production only."[79]

Bolloten makes a few statements about the voluntary character of theAnarchist collectives which can be taken out of context to make it appearthat Bolloten accepts the apologists' view that rural collectivization was



"voluntary." "While rural collectivization in Aragon embraced more than 70percent of the population in the area under left-wing control, and many ofthe 450 collectives of the region were largely voluntary, it must beemphasized that this singular development was in some measure due to thepresence of militiamen from the neighboring region of Catalonia, theimmense majority of whom were members of the CNT and FAI."[80] It isimportant to realize that Bolloten rightly regards the "voluntary"collectives to have been nearly as coercive as the "forced" collectives:

"However, although neither the UGT nor the CNT permitted the smallRepublican farmer to hold more land than he could cultivate without the aidof hired labor, and in many instances he was unable to dispose freely ofhis surplus crops because he was compelled to deliver them to the localcommittee on the latter's terms, he was often driven under various forms ofpressure, as will be shown latter in this chapter, to attach himself to thecollective system. This was true particularly in villages where theAnarchosyndicalists were in the ascendant."[81] While the illegality ofhiring wage labor seemed perfectly fair to the Anarchist militants, thisfact plainly demonstrates that the mere existence of collectives cannotensure that no one will voluntarily contract to work for a wage-payingcapitalist.

Fraser provides evidence that the prohibition against hiring wage labor wasoften even stricter than it seems. As he summarizes the testimony of one

farmer, "But it was the republicans and socialists who did not join thecollective whom he pitied most. As long as they worked their land on theirown they had no problems, but if they as much as got their brother or aneighbor to lend them a hand, then the trouble started. The'individualists' were supposed to have only as much land as they could workon their own, and any infringement by calling on outside labour was leapton."[82] Plainly it is possible to preserve a nominal right to be an"individualist," while in practice imposing so many unreasonablerestrictions on them that the independent farmers break down and join thecollective.

What were the "various forms of pressure" to which Bolloten alludes?

"Even if the peasant proprietor and tenant farmer were notcompelled to adhere to the collective system, life was madedifficult for recalcitrants; not only were they prevented fromemploying hired labor and disposing freely of their crops, as hasalready been seen, but they were often denied all benefitsenjoyed by members. In practice, this meant that in the villageswhere libertarian communism had been established they were notallowed to receive the services of the collectivized barbershops, to use the ovens of the communal bakery and the means oftransport and agricultural equipment of the collective farms, orto obtain supplies of food from the communal warehouse andcollectivized stores. Moreover, the tenant farmer, who hadbelieved himself freed from the payment of rent by the execution

or flight of the landowner or of his steward, was often compelledto continue such payment to the village committee. All thesefactors combined to exert pressure almost as powerful as the buttof the rifle and eventually forced the small owners and tenantfarmers in many villages to relinquish their land and otherpossessions to the collective farms."[83]

It is especially strange that anarcho-socialists, who frequently claim thatsuperficially voluntary interaction (such as the capitalist-workerrelationship) is really coercive, so credulously accept the voluntarist



rationalist principles of work and human fraternity.'"[88] The despotism ofthe Anarchists sometimes even extended to the pettiness of prohibiting notonly alcohol but coffee and tobacco. "In the libertarian village ofMagdalena de Pulpis, for example, the abolition of alcohol and tobacco washailed as a triumph. In the village of Azuara, the collectivists closed thecafe because they regarded it as a 'frivolous institution.'"[89] Bollotenquotes Franz Borkenau, an eyewitness. "'I tried in vain to get a drink,either of coffee or wine or lemonade. The village bar had been closed asnefarious commerce. I had a look at the stores. They were so low as toforetell approaching starvation. But the inhabitants seemed to be proud ofthis state of things. They were pleased, they told us, that coffee drinkinghad come to an end; they seemed to regard this abolition of useless thingsas a moral improvement.'"[90] As one peasant put it, "'[T]here is no moneyfor vice.'"[91] Thus, the freedom of the Aragonese peasantry was theOrwellian freedom to live precisely as the Anarchist militia deemed right.

The typical objective of forced agricultural collectivization, in bothCommunist and Third World countries, has been to fund centrally plannedindustrialization. The ugly secret of the Anarchists is that the underlyingobjective of forced collectivization was to fund their military and cementthe power of their councils and committees. Part of the seized agriculturalproduct was used to feed the troops; the rest was sold on internationalmarkets for gold and hard currency, which in turn could buy armaments. Foronce in the literal sense, the peasants were "exploited," deliberately cut

off from competing purchasers, left with no choice but to sell to the CNTfor a pittance, which could in turn either use the product itself orre-sell at normal world prices.

Graham Kelsey, a fervent admirer of the Spanish Anarchists, tries his bestto portray this naked exploitation favorably. "To organize the provisioningof the front-line volunteers as rapidly and as equitably as possibly was tobe more than merely an aim in itself. One of the most common corollaries ofwar in a capitalist system is the development of such social and economicevils as black-marketeering, profiteering, and, as a consequence,arbitrarily imposed shortages and serious inflation. The villages fromwhich large numbers of volunteers had joined the columns had immediatelyorganized the despatch of supplies to the front. These villages, however,

were but a handful, chiefly those with strong anarchosyndicalisttraditions. Evidently the situation had to be regularized, particularly asthe initial insurrection had begun to assume all the characteristics of aprolonged military confrontation. Agricultural collectivisation, therefore,became both a way of ensuring the equal contribution of all villages to theburden posed by the conflict and also a way of making it impossible forthose who possessed the means or the inclination to profit from theexigencies placed upon the regional economy by the presence of civil war.It was not just a libertarian theory; it was also the only way to ensurethe maximum agricultural production with the minimum economiccorruption."[92]

Kelsey is virtually the only academic historian who attempts to affirm the

voluntary character of the Anarchist collectives. Among his many puzzlingstatements, one that stands out is his attempt to prove that thecollectives must have been voluntary because everyone supported them,regardless of party. "Another sign of the acceptance of agriculturalcollectivisation was the adherence of the members of other trade-union andpolitical groups all of which, nationally, maintained a hostile stancetowards collectivisation."[93] Normal people see an unnatural degree ofunanimity and infer that such agreement could only be the result of extremecoercion. Kelsey sees an unnatural degree of unanimity and infers that suchagreement could only be the result of the extraordinary goodness of the



collectives. (Similarly, a band of well- armed conquistadors couldattribute the sudden conversion of pagans to the inescapable truth of theCatholic faith, and deny that their firearms had anything to do with thepagans' decision.)

Fraser, relying on the testimony of CNT leader Macario Royo, confirms thisseldom-mentioned motive. "[Royo] believed that collectives were the mostappropriate organization for controlling production and consumption, andensuring that a surplus was made available for the front. 'Everything wasdisorganized. The columns depended on the villages, they had no othersource of supply. If there had been no collectives, if each peasant hadkept what he produced and disposed of it as he wished, it would have madethe matter of supplies much more difficult...'"[94] Indeed it would have;if there had been a free market, the farmers would be paid the value oftheir labor. There is much irony in Royo's tacit admission that the"problem" with the free market is that it prevents exploitation, ensuringthat everyone gets paid for the product of their labor. "By abolishing afree market and in effect rationing consumer goods, mainly food, thecollectives controlled the local economy. Feeding the columns withoutpayment became a source of pride or resentment, depending on the villager'sideological commitment. But for Royo, as for most Aragonese libertarians,the matter did not end there. The fundamental purpose of founding thecollectives was social equality. 'That each should produce according to hisability, each consume according to his need. Equality in production,

equality in consumption. To supply everyone equally in the collective aswell as the columns at the front - this was the principle and usefulness ofthe collectives.'"[95] Presumably the poor workers of the villages did notrealized that "equality" would also guarantee an equal share for Anarchistsoldiers who never set a foot in the village.

The necessities went to feed the troops; the agricultural luxuries weretaken to be sold on international markets. "A more genuine grievanceagainst the CNT by its opponents was its control of the main ports and theFranco-Spanish border, a control that enabled it to ship abroad through itsown export entities valuable agricultural products that yielded largequantities of foreign exchange. Whereas the Anarchosyndicalists regardedthis control as an inalienable conquest of the Revolution, the central

government viewed it as an impingement on the indefeasible power of thestate... Julian Zugazagoitia, the moderate Socialist, who became interiorminister under Negrin in May 1937, claims that the premier and financeminister 'preferred not to have Anarchists in the government' because hewished 'to dismantle all the export organizations created by the CNT,' and'to end once and for all' the loss of foreign exchange resulting from theshipment abroad of almonds, oranges, and saffron.'"[96]

In July of 1937, the Aragonese Anarchists were desperately trying to avoidthe fate of their Catalonian comrades. The Communists had replaced theAnarchists as the dominant force in Catalonia. Was Aragon next? JosePeirats, the Anarchist historian, provides the setting. "In his

commemorative speech on July 19, 1937, the President of the Council ofAragon was extremely pessimistic... 'it would be regrettable if anyonetried to make trouble for [the Council of Aragon], for that would force[the Council] to unsheathe its claws of iron and teeth of steel.'"[97] InDecember of 1936, the Council agreed to share some of its power withmembers of other Republican parties, but the dominant position of theAnarchists remained. "Subsequently the President reported on theaccomplishments made over the first year: speculation and usury had beensuppressed; roads and highways had been constructed with the disinterestedhelp of the militia...; and the Aragonese collectives, in spite of their



deficiencies, were the wonder the revolution."[98] Clearly in aconciliatory mood, the President emphasized that the right to farmindividually would be protected (thus implicitly admitting widespreadviolation of this right). Moreover, the President could point to anagreement signed by all of the Republican factions of Aragon, which read inpart: "'The Council of Aragon, which will collaborate enthusiastically withthe legitimate government of the Republic, will increase production in therearguard, mobilize all the region's resources for the war effort, arousethe antifascist spirit of the masses... and undertake an intense purge inthe liberated zones; it will impose unrelenting order and hunt down hiddenfascists, defeatists and speculators.'"[99] The totalitarian tone of thesewords is hard to overlook.

The Council's protestations of its loyalty and ecumenical spirit did notsave it from an invasion of Communist-led forces under the orders of thecentral government. The Communists broke up many collectives, evenvoluntary ones (although as noted the "voluntarism" of the collectives wasuniversally questionable). Bolloten summarizes a report of the Aragon CNT:"the land, farm implements, horses, and cattle confiscated from right-wingsupporters were returned to their former owners or to their families; newbuildings erected by the collectives, such as stables and hen coops, weredestroyed, and in some villages the farms were deprived even of seed forsowing, while six hundred members of the CNT were arrested."[100] Aftertheir initial onslaught, the Communists backed off somewhat; so long as the

Anarchists were out of power, the Communists were generally willing toaccept a milder form of collectivization.

Apologists for the Anarchists frequently point to the fact that manycollectives persisted even after the Communist-led forces destroyed theCouncil of Aragon. For example, Peirats tells us that "The Penalbacollective which, at the beginning of the revolution, was composed of theentire village of 1500 people was reduced to 500 members. It is verypossible that in this second phase the collectivization better reflects thesincere convictions of the members. They had undergone a severe test andthose who had withstood it were proven collectivists. Yet it would befacile to label as anticollectivists those who abandoned the collectives inthis second phase. Fear, official coercion and insecurity weighed heavily

in the decisions of much of the Aragonese peasantry."[101] Peirats'double-standard is worth contemplating. While he is extraordinarilysensitive to hidden coercion undermining the voluntariness of thede-collectivizations, the enormous economic bludgeon used to form thecollectives in the first place barely bothers him. Even after thedestruction of the Council of Aragon, might not some farmers have remainedwithin the collectives out of fear of later persecution if the CNT regainedpower? The interview of Juan Martinez (a "medium-holding peasant... who hadthought the collectives were not a bad idea") with Fraser confirms thatsuch was indeed the case. "'Most of the people left, and were happy to doso. Those who remained - about a quarter of the original number - wereunder no pressure to do so; nobody bothered them, nobody tried to break uptheir collective. In fact, one or two of the peasants with bigger holdings

left their land in because they were frightened the situation might changeagain...'"[102]

Bolloten aptly sums up the ironclad case against the Anarchist ruralcollectives, a case which need not rely on Communist-tainted testimony orsources:

"If, theoretically, during the Spanish Revolution, the CNT and FAI wereopposed to the state dictatorship established by the Marxists, theynevertheless established a form of parochial dictatorship in many



localities, with the aid of vigilance groups and revolutionary tribunals.While these fell far short of the 'scientific concept' of totalitariandictatorship defined by Lenin, the CNT and FAI exercised their power in anaked form not only against priests and landowners, moneylenders andmerchants, but in many cases against small tradesmen and farmers."[103]This dictatorship would undoubtedly have become even more egregious if theAnarchists had ever become the dominant power in Spain; Bolloten citesnumerous Anarchist publications explaining that the concessions tovoluntarism and individualism were merely temporary expedients which wouldbe withdrawn as soon as the Anarchists were too powerful to be challenged.

3. Economics and the Spanish Anarchists

A. Background for the Civil War: The Great Depression and the Labor Market

It is impossible to understand the economics of the Spanish Civil Warwithout realizing that in 1936, Spain remained in the midst of theinternational Great Depression. If Spanish industrial production in 1929 isset equal to 100, then in 1935 it remained at a stagnant 86.9 in spite ofsix years' worth of population growth. In Catalonia, if one indexesindustrial production in January 1936 at 100, one finds that by July of1936 output was lower still at 82. In short, production at the start of the

revolution was an additional 18% below the depression-level output ofJanuary 1936. Unemployment by all accounts was correspondingly high.[104]

What was the reason for the pre-war depression anyway? A large consensus ofeconomic historians argues, persuasively in my view, that the essentialcause of the Great Depression was the international monetary contraction ofthe late 20's and early 30's. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz's AMonetary History of the United States [105] was the seminal academic workwhich established the magnitude and importance of the monetary contractionin the United States. Barry Eichengreen's Golden Fetters [106] largelyextends Friedman and Schwartz's argument to the international economy,showing how the gold standard re-established after World War I was veryshaky and wound up yielding an international monetary contraction. Spain

was not itself on the gold standard, but bank notes had to be backed by afractional reserve of gold so many of the same forces would be atwork.[107]

Monetary contraction is thus the first symptom to look for; but by anymeasure, it did not occur. Spain devalued the peseta (a move which makes itmuch easier to avoid deflation) to 79.5% of parity in 1930, and continuedto devalue it until by 1935 the gold content of the peseta was a mere 55.3%of par. Looking at combined savings bank deposits (a standard component inmost measures of money supply provided by Thomas), it can be seen that thepeseta quantity of deposits constantly increased over the period for whichdata is available: from 1847 million pesetas in 1928, to 4116 millionpesetas in 1934. Similarly, the number of pesetas it took to buy one

British pound (N.B. The Bank of London was noted for its swiftdevaluation.) increased from 25.22 in January of 1930 to 36.00 in Januaryof 1936. In short, there was a large decline in the international value ofthe peseta, reflecting large money supply increases uncharacteristic ofother countries during this era. A final clue which confirms the fact ofhigh money supply growth in Spain is that Madrid in 1936 was estimated tohave one of the largest gold reserves in the world - precisely what onewould expect in a nation which had repeatedly cut the gold content of thepeseta in order to remove any institutional constraints on rapid moneysupply growth.[108]



If the standard monetary explanation fails to explain the Spanishdepression, what other factors might be involved? The preponderance of theevidence indicates that the Spanish labor unions, of which the CNT wasforemost, through their intransigent militancy and activism, succeeded inraising real wages approximately 20% from 1929 to 1936.[109] Tortella andPalafox's calculations reveal a 20.5% real wage increase in mining, a 17.6%increase in metallurgy, a 19.9% increase in textiles (22.3% for women), anda 23.7% increase in agriculture (35% increase for women) over the 1929-1936period. In their ignorance of and emotional hostility to classical economictheory, the tradeunionists probably did not realize that the necessaryconsequence of pushing real wages so far above the market level would bemassive unemployment; but massive unemployment was indeed the result. Themounting hostility to employers, sabotage, and so on undoubtedly decreasedthe expected marginal productivity of labor, leaving the prevailing unionwage scale even farther above the market-clearing level.

The unions enjoyed ample assistance from the government. Paul Preston sumsup Caballero's labor decrees, many of which greatly improved the laborunions' bargaining position. "The so-called 'decree of municipalboundaries' prevented the hiring of outside labor while local workers in agiven municipality remained unemployed. It struck at the landowners' mostpotent weapon, the power to break strikes and keep down wages by the importof cheap blackleg labor."[110] Thus even the trade unions realized on some

level, however rudimentary, that raising the price of labor would reducethe quantity demanded. Moreover, on some level the unionists realized thatunions benefit their members at the expense of other (preferably non-union)workers priced out of a job. Preston continues, "Largo Caballero didsomething that Primo de Rivera had not been able to do: he introducedarbitration committees for rural wages and working conditions, which hadpreviously been subject only to the whim of the owners. One of the rightsnow to be protected was the newly introduced eight-hour day. Given that,previously, the braceros had been expected to work from sunup to sundown,this meant that owners would either have to pay overtime or else employmore men to do the same work. [Or produce less output, which was probablythe most important response. -B.C.] Finally, in order to prevent the ownersfrom sabotaging these measures by lock-outs, a decree of obligatory

cultivation prevented them from taking their land out of operation."[111]

Thus, while it avoided the monetary contraction which plagued other nationsin the early 30's, Spain enjoyed a depression courtesy of its militantlabor unions, assisted by the labor laws of the Republican government.Disturbed by the plight of the workers, the unions and the governmentsimple-mindedly tried to make matters better by pushing up wages andimproving working conditions. The necessary and empirically observed resultwas massive unemployment; many workers were simply not worth the higherprice, and so no one chose to hire them. Rather than blame the unions andthe "pro-labor" government, many unemployed workers turned to ever greatermilitancy and hatred of the capitalist system.[112]

Perhaps the most plausible criticism of capitalist economies is that theysometimes allow useful labor and capital to go to waste. Under thecircumstances, one might expect that the workers' revolutionary takeover oftheir employers' property in 1936 would have to make matters better. Withall these idle workers seizing the empty factories, wouldn't productionhave to increase? It did not; after the establishment of worker control,unemployment became even more severe despite the wartime economy's massivemonetary growth and conscription. The next section investigates this puzzlein detail.



B. The Economics of the Civil War: Collectivization, Inflation, and theBlack Market

The puzzle of urban collectivization begins at the outset. With massiveunemployment still prevailing, the CNT began closing plants andconcentrating workers in the most "modern" firms. The obvious measure wouldhave been to open the doors of every collective to the mass of unemployedworkers and invite them to select their new workplace. But the unionsinsisted that in some sense the older plants were not "efficient." Noeffort was made to analyze the coherence of this view; in particular, theunions showed no understanding of the difference between average andmarginal productivity. (The superiority of the average productivity of themodern plants in no way shows that marginal productivity was greater, andit is marginal productivity that matters for "efficiency" decisions.)Bolloten describes this massive shut down decision at length: "'Those smallemployers of labor who are a little enlightened,' declared SolidaridadObrera , the principal Anarchosyndicalist organ in Spain, 'will easilyunderstand that the system of producing goods in small plants is notefficient. Divided effort holds back production. Operating a tiny workshopwith handicraft methods is not the same as operating a large plant thatutilizes all the advances of technology. If our aim is to do away with thecontingencies and insecurities of the capitalist regime, then we mustdirect production in a way that ensures the well-being of society.'"[113]Apparently the well-being of unemployed workers was of no concern; in spite

of its high levels, the issue never even arises. Bolloten gives the detailsof the wave of business closings. "In accordance with this outlook, the CNTworkers, sweeping along with them those of the UGT, closed down more thanseventy foundries in the region of Catalonia and concentrated theirequipment and personnel in twenty-four... In Barcelona, the CNT and UGTwoodworkers' unions - which had already set up control committees in everyshop and factory and used the former employers as technical managers at thestandard wage for workers - reorganized the entire industry by closing downhundreds of small workshops and concentrating production in the largestplants. In the same city the CNT carried out equally radical changes in thetanning trade, reducing 71 plants to 40, while in the glass industry, 100plants and warehouses were cut down to 30."[114] Similar measures wereapplied to the barber shops and beauty parlors; in the dressmaking,

tailoring, metal, carpentry, and leather goods trades; in candy,shoemaking, metal and textiles, lumber, bricklaying, tanning, baking,cabinetmaking, and on and on.

While this program did nothing to alleviate massive unemployment, it didhave other advantages from the point of view of the employed tradeunionists. It helped to curtail production, protect themselves againstcompetition, and thus keep prices high. Moreover, it helped centralize eachindustry, making it somewhat easier to run them top-down, to securecompliance with the orders of the Anarchist leadership. Bolloten quotes thesympathetic observer Leval. "'The machinery was gathered together inseveral workshops, sometimes in a single workshop. In this way, theregulation of production was simplified and coordination of effort was more

effective.'"[115]

By all accounts, the workers swiftly raised their own wages, cut their ownhours, and improved working conditions. One obvious motive, as mentionedearlier, was to eliminate accounting profits by simply increasing wagesuntil no taxable profits remained. As Fraser writes, "[The collectives]generated little or no apparent surplus, and even less so if they werepaying 'unproductive' wages. This in turn meant that the money due to go tothe credit fund to finance, and eliminate disparities between, collectiveswas impaired."[116] Fraser sums up the experience of the collective of CNT



who had jobs in marginal plants found their condition was basically thesame as before, only now they had to worry about bankruptcy instead oftheir boss. Unemployed workers who were previously priced out of the labormarket by Catalonia's powerful unions probably found life even harder.Whether capitalists or the workers ran the factories, the redistributionfrom unemployed and non-union workers to employed and union workersremained constant.

The rural agricultural workers' plight was very different. Theredistribution was not normally from one rural worker to another; rather,the mass of rural workers were exploited by the Anarchist military elite intheir struggle to win the war. Thus, people frequently linkedcollectivization with the so-called "war effort"; the collectives wouldtoil, receive their rations, and see the rest taken from them. Frasersummarizes the observation of Juan Zafon, propaganda delegate of theCouncil of Aragon. "The free, independent municipality, the collectivewhich abolished the exploitation of man by man, the federal structure whichlinked each village at district and regional level and, after supplying theneeds of the villages and fronts, channeled what surplus was produced tothe council, which in turn could sell or exchange it with other regions orabroad; 'all this had been talked and written about, but it had been nomore than a slogan until then.'"[120] Strip aside the propaganda delegate'smisleading remarks about the "freedom" and "independence" of themunicipality, and the harsh truth reveals itself: the Anarchists took the

surplus of the farmers, gave them little or nothing in return, and used itto fight the war. Fraser's interview with CNT militant Ernesto Margelifurther supports my contention that the Anarchists collectivized in orderto better exploit the peasantry. "[A]s militia forces continued to arrive,as the problem of supplying them became more acute, and as thedisorganization of the initial period did not give way to anything better,several CNT members, including Margeli, realized that something had to bedone. 'We were living through a revolutionary moment; it had fallen intoour hands. Even if the people weren't prepared, we had to make therevolution now...'"[121] While Margeli tried to convince the farmers thatcollectivization would be more efficient, he clearly indicates that theimpetus for his decision was the need to supply the voracious Anarchistmilitary.

Bolloten once again provides voluminous evidence untainted by Communistsources proving that collectivization was imposed under duress; moreover,he confirms that the Anarchists were over-eager to collectivize becausethey were desperate for supplies and intended to extort what they neededout of the peasantry. "By October 1936, the uncontrolled requisitioning offood and animals by the militia columns, the majority libertarian, hadbecome so serious as to threaten, according to Joaquin Ascaso, theAnarchist president of the council, the 'total ruin' of the region. This,he said, impelled the council to prohibit the heads of the columns frommaking requisitions without its prior approval. 'We hope that everyone,without exception, will abide by this order, thus avoiding the lamentableand paradoxical circumstance of a free people hating its liberty and its

liberators, and the no less sad situation of a people totally ruined by theRevolution for which it has always yearned.'"[122]

If statistics can be believed, there were striking differences between theurban and the rural sectors in the Anarchist-controlled regions. Bothsectors, it should be recalled, started the war under extremely depressedconditions; but from this similar starting point, their progress was quitedifferent.

The urban sector simply went from bad to worse. Thomas indexes Catalonian



industrial production to equal 100 in January 1936. Production fluctuatedbetween 100 and 94 until July 1936 when the revolution broke out.Production plummeted to 82, but in the midst of chaos, transfer of control,and fighting with Nationalists, this is understandable. What is notunderstandable is that production never rose above the July 1936 level foras long as the war lasted. It fell to 64 in August, recovered slightly to73 in September, and then fluctuated between 71 and 53 until April of 1938.In the last months of Republican control in Catalonia, facing imminentNationalist invasion, production dropped even more, fluctuating between 41and 31 until the collection of economic statistics ceased.

The rural sector, in contrast, had much more mixed performance. Theagricultural statistics, which Thomas states were gathered under aCommunist agriculture ministry, indicate that 1937 output was 21 percentbelow 1936 output in Catalonia; 20 percent greater Aragon, 16 percentgreater in the Central Zone, and 8 percent lower in Levante. (The figureswere adjusted to account for the capture of farmland by the Nationalists.)Collectivization was most widespread in Aragon, but existed everywhere tosome extent. Apologists for the Anarchist collectives find the 20 percentoutput increase in Aragon to be stunning evidence for the value of theirinstitutions. (The equally drastic decline in Catalonia is often discountedbecause collectivization was less complete there than in Aragon.) In fact,due to the prior depressed conditions, any system which made use of idleland and workers, however inefficient, could have made great strides

forward. Moreover, as Thomas explains, "Alas, the trouble was that, even ifthere were indeed an increase of wheat, as these figures suggest, theincreased consumption at the place of production, the decay of systems oftransport and distribution, the increase of refugees and the greater demandfor food made inevitable by the nationalist blockade, caused a shortage offood in all the cities of the republic except Valencia."[123]

Of course, one may doubt the veracity of the numbers. Urban collectives nodoubt wished to understate their production in order to sell more on theblack market. The reports made to the ministry of agriculture may haveoverstated true production in order to win favor for the Anarchists'collectivization experiment.

Yet if we entertain the notion that the numbers are accurate, there isindeed an interesting pattern. When the workers actually had control,output declined 30 to 40 percent below its previous depressed level. Whenthe workers' control was largely fictitious, production sometimes increasedby 20 percent - albeit 20 percent above the level of the depression. Theurban workers who actually had control had no incentive to tap into thevast unemployed resources; doing so would merely dilute the value of eachworker's share. In contrast, the Anarchist militants who ran theagricultural collectives had no reason to keep resources idle; they weren'treally paying the peasants anyway, so why not make use of as many of themas possible? Slavery is often economically inefficient, but this is not anecessary truth; slaves may work with less energy than free workers, butthe slave-owner may opt to force the slave to work so many additional hours

that his overall output rises.

Kelsey notes that women and even elderly farmers toiled in the fields underAnarchist rule. "Throughout the collectives many people were working harderand longer than before. The large number of men who had gone to man thefront-lines meant that others, including women and older people, wereneeded to assist with much of the work. Many writers found that contrary tothis being resented people were ready and willing to work extra hours andthat, as at Graus, pensions were actually looked upon as something of aninsult, older workers demanding the right to give their labour as everyone



else."[124] An alternative explanation for the same facts is that theAnarchist leaders terrorized as many people as possible to work in thefields, and that the victims were too frightened to inform Anarchistjournalists of the real story.

There was one form of exploitation inflicted upon the workers for which thecentral government, rather than the Anarchists, was directly to blame. TheSpanish government had long held essentially unlimited control over themoney supply; the peseta was a fiat currency, which means that all thegovernment had to do to get more money was to turn on the printing press.During the war, the Spanish government found the temptation to fund itselfwith the printing press irresistible. This can easily be seen by looking atthe exchange rate with the pound: in January of 1936, it only took 36pesetas to buy 1 pound; by January of 1937, it took 115; by January of1938, 219, and by January of 1939, it took a full 488 pesetas to buy asingle pound. (In 1938 the Republic also issued a new kind of note whichdepreciated in valued even more swiftly.) The inevitable result of this wasmassive inflation. When this inflation set in, the central government didwhat governments always do: blame the free market and impose pricecontrols. The natural result is a massive shortage of goods, rationing, andcorruption. When desperate people break the law by buying or selling goodsabove the legal price, the government labels their action "black marketactivity" and declares it a crime.

Thus, throughout the wartime period, the Republican government used thepower of the printing press to fund itself. Ordinary people wanted to buythings to make their life better; frequently, they just wanted to buy thebare necessities of life. This did not accord with the government's plan,which was to bleed the people of Spain dry in order to defend itsauthority. As Fraser explains, "The cost of living quadrupled in just overtwo years; wages (as far as can be ascertained) only doubled. Inevitably,the working class bore the brunt of the civil war."[125] Thomas' numbersindicate that if wholesale prices are indexed to equal 100 in 1913, thenthey stood at 168.8 in January of 1936, 174.7 in July of 1936 when the warstarted, 209.6 in December 1936, 389.1 in December of 1937, and 564.7 inDecember of 1938. This understates the suffering of Spanish consumers,because very often the existence of price controls meant that no goods were

even available to buy (except at much higher black market prices).

While the Anarchists did not control the Spanish money supply, they didnothing to hinder the government's grand act of legalized counterfeiting,and played a supporting role by demonizing the so-called "black market"instead of the true culprit: the Spanish central bank. The Council ofAragon's multi-party agreement, as previously noted, pledged to "imposeunrelenting order and hunt down hidden fascists, defeatists, andspeculators."[126] Fraser describes the situation in Barcelona in thespring of 1937: "Food was in short supply and there were long bread queues.In April, women demonstrated in the streets against the cost of living,which had just risen a further 13 per cent on top of the increases that hadalready added nearly two thirds to the index since the start of the

war."[127] Rather than place the blame on the central government's printingpress where it belonged, the former CNT supplies minister Joan Domenechcriticized "the PSUC [Communist] leader for abolishing the controls he hadset up and establishing a free market in food. 'I knew that if suppliesweren't controlled a black market would spring up. I practised a sort ofdictatorship over supplies and prices... By saying there were shortages,Comorera created them because people rushed in to buy whatever theycould...'"[128]

The central government controlled the money supply, not the CNT, so it must



bear the primary blame.[129] But it is interesting to note that the CNTstood quietly by and scapegoated the so-called "black market" rather thanstanding up for the economic interests of the workers they claimed torepresent. By the end of the war, a large percentage of the Spanish workersmust have found themselves destitute, their hard-earned pesetas not worththe paper they were printed on.

C. The Dilemma, Part I: Capitalist Anarchism

Suppose that there were a standard capitalist economy in which a class ofwealthy capitalists owned the means of production and hired the rest of thepopulation as wage laborers. Through extraordinary effort, the workers ineach factory save enough money to buy out their employers. The capitalists'shares of stock change hands, so that the workers of each firm now own andcontrol their workplace. Question: Is this still a "capitalist society"? Ofcourse; there is still private property in the means of production, itsimply has different owners than before. The economy functions the same asit always did: the workers at each firm do their best to enrich themselvesby selling desired products to consumers; there is inequality due to bothability and luck; firms compete for customers. Nothing changes but therecipient of the dividends.

This simple thought experiment reveals the dilemma of the anarcho-socialist. If the workers seize control of their plants and run them as

they wish, capitalism remains. The only way to suppress what socialistsmost despise about capitalism - greed, inequality, and competition - is toforce the worker-owners to do something they are unlikely to dovoluntarily. To do so requires a state, an organization with sufficientfirepower to impose unselfishness, equality, and coordination uponrecalcitrant workers. One can call the state a council, a committee, aunion, or by any other euphemism, but the simple truth remains: socialismrequires a state.

A priori reasoning alone establishes this, but empiricists may beskeptical. Surely there is some "middle way" which is both anarchist andsocialist? To the contrary; the experience of Spanish Anarchism could giveno clearer proof that insofar as collectivization was anarchist, it was

capitalist, and insofar as collectivization was socialist, it was statist.The only solution to this dilemma, if solution it may be called, is toretain the all-powerful state, but use a new word to designate it.

An overwhelming body of evidence from a wide variety of sources confirmsthat when the workers really controlled their factories, capitalism merelychanged it form; it did not cease to exist. Summarizing a CNT- UGT textileconference, Fraser explains that, "experience had already demonstrated thatit was necessary to proceed rapidly towards a total socialization of theindustry if ownership of the means of production was not once more to leadto man's exploitation of man. The works councils did not in practice knowwhat to do with the means of production and lacked a plan for the wholeindustry; as far as the market was concerned, the decree had changed none

of the basic capitalist defects 'except that whereas before it was theowners who competed amongst themselves it is now the workers.'"[130]Bolloten records that, "According to Daniel Guerin, an authority on theSpanish Anarchist movement, 'it appeared... that workers' self-managementmight lead to a kind of egotistical particularlism, each enterprise beingconcerned solely with its own interests... As a result, the excess revenuesof the bus company were used to support the street cars, which were lessprofitable.' But, in actuality, there were many cases of inequality thatcould not be so easily resolved."[131]



Thomas confirms this picture. "Anarchists were willing to admit that therevolution had brought problems they had not dreamt of: the FAI leader,Abad de Santillan (then economic councillor in the Generalidad) wrotecandidly: 'We had seen in the private ownership of the means of production,of factories, of means of transport, in the capitalist apparatus ofdistribution, the main cause of misery and injustice. We wished thesocialization of all wealth so that not a single individual would be leftout of the banquet of life. We have now done something, but we have notdone it well. In place of the old owner, we have substituted a half-dozennew ones who consider the factory, the means of transport which theycontrol, as their own property, with the inconvenience that they do notalways know how to organize... as well as the old.'"[132] Fraser quotesJosep Costa, a CNT foreman outside of Barcelona, explaining why his uniondecided not to collectivize. "'Individual collectivized mills acted therefrom the beginning as though they were completely autonomous units,marketing their own products as they could and paying little heed to thegeneral situation. It was a sort of popular capitalism...'"[133] How, onemight wonder, could avowed socialists act so contrary to their principles?The workers' behavior was not particularly different from that of wealthyMarxist professors who live in luxury while denouncing the refusal of theWest to share its wealth with the Third World. Talk is cheap. When theworker-owners had the option to enrich themselves, they seized it with fewregrets.

The orthodox state-socialists, even the CNT's would-be allies such as thePOUM, bitterly attacked the capitalist nature of worker-control. Fraserrelays the opinion of POUM executive Juan Andrade. "The anarcho-syndicalist workers had made themselves the owners of everything theycollectivized; the collectives were treated as private, not social,property. Socialization, as practised by CNT unions, was no more than tradeunion capitalism. 'Although it wasn't immediately apparent, the economy asrun by the CNT was disaster. Had it gone on like that, there would havebeen enormous problems later, with great disparities of wages and newsocial classes being formed. We also wanted to collectivize, but quitedifferently, so that the country's resources were administered socially,not as individual property. The sort of mentality which believes that therevolution is for the immediate benefit of a particular sector of the

working class, and not for the proletariat as a whole, always surfaces in arevolution, as I realized in the first days of the war in Madrid.'"[134]

Andrade tells Fraser a striking story about the funeral of a POUM militant."[T]he CNT undertakers' union presented the POUM with its bill. The youngerPOUM militants took the bill to Andrade in amazement. He called in theundertakers' representatives. '"What's this? You want to collect a bill foryour services while men are dying at the front, eh?" I looked at the bill."Moreover, you've raised your prices, this is very expensive." "Yes," theman agreed, "we want to make improvements - " I refused to pay and when,later, two members of the union's committee turned up to press their case,we threw them out. But the example made me reflect on a particularworking-class attitude to the revolution.'"[135]

The "particular working-class attitude" to which Andrade refers is just theview that the revolution is supposed to make the workers their own bosses.Many workers took the slogans about worker-control literally. Theyoverlooked the possibility that these slogans were intended to win theirsupport for a revolution to replace capitalists with party bureaucrats.Albert Perez-Baro, a former member of the CNT who played a prominent rolein the collectivization movement in Catalonia, gave a speech seven monthsafter the revolution which gives a good picture of the aspiringbureaucrats' hidden agenda:



"'...the immense majority of workers have sinned by theirindiscipline; production has fallen in an alarming manner and inmany instances has plummeted; the distance from the front hasmeant that the workers have not experienced the war with thenecessary intensity. The former discipline, born of managerialcoercion, is missing, and has not been replaced, owing to thelack of class-consciousness, by a self-imposed discipline inbenefit of the collectivity. In an infantile manner the workershave come to believe that everything was already won... when inreality the real social revolution begins precisely in the periodof constructing the Economy...'"[136]

While Perez-Baro berates the workers as "infantile," he does not considerthe possibility that the workers' attitude was perfectly sensible. It iseasy to see why workers expect to benefit by becoming their own bosses. Whythey should believe that replacing their employers with the state or anOrwellian Anarchist council is good for them is quite a different matter.

Inequality existed within collectives as well as between them. Invariably,the participants attribute the tolerance of inequality to the fact that itwas impossible for one collective to impose equal wages unless the othercollectives did the same. As Fraser summarizes the testimony of CNTmilitant Luis Santacana, "But the 'single' wage could not be introduced in

his plant because it was not made general throughout the industry. Women inthe factory continued to receive wages between 15 per cent and 20 per centlower than men, and manual workers less than technicians."[137] In otherwords, it was impossible to impose equality so long as there wascompetition for workers. If one firm refused to pay extra to skilledworkers, they would quit and find a job where egalitarian norms were not sostrictly observed.

Perhaps the most fascinating incident in Fraser's account of worker-control involves the Tivoli opera theatre. CNT militant Juan Sana relaysthe details:

"Almost the only problem Sana had not had to deal with was the

'single' wage introduced in the theatre. It came to a rapid endin dramatic circumstances one day when the famous tenor, HipolitoLazaro, arrived at the Tivoli theatre where the union wasorganizing a cycle of operas at popular prices. He was to singthe lead. Before the audience arrived, he got up on stage andaddressed the company. '"We're all equal now," he said, "and toprove it, we all get the same wage. Fine, since we're equal,today I am going to collect the tickets at the door and one ofyou can come up here and sing the lead." That did it, of course.There had been several previous protests. That night several ofus union leaders met and decided at the very start that wecouldn't leave until we had come up with a worthy solution.' Itdidn't take long. Top actors and singers, like Lazaro and Marcos

Redondo, were to be paid 750 pesetas a performance - a 5,000 percent increase over their previous 15 pesetas a day. Second- andthird-category artists received large, but differentialincreases, while even ushers were given a raise."[138]

If Sana had reflected further, he might have drawn a more general lessonfrom this incident: If there is competition, exploitation is virtuallyimpossible. This principle holds whether the competing bidders arecapitalists or worker collectives. This can be proved with a simple thoughtexperiment. Imagine that a worker is able to perform a task which increases



D. The Dilemma, Part II: Socialist Statism

In spite of the harsh exploitation of the farmers by the Anarchistmilitary, even the limited freedom that the milder collectives allowedbegan to show a capitalist face. As Felix Carrasquer, a FAI schoolteacher,describes his role at the February 1937 CNT congress, "'Then I got up. The'cantonalism' of the collectives spelt the ruin of the movement, I said. Arich collective could live well, a poor collective would have difficultyfeedings its members. "Is that communism? No, it's the very opposite. Whosefault is it if one village has good land and the next has poor?"'"[141]Similarly, Thomas notes, "Wages differed from collective to collective, thecriterion really being the richer the collective, the better paid theworkers. This was an ironic, if doubtless inescapable, conclusion to thelibertarian dream."[142] Finally, Bolloten observes that, "The fear that anew class of wealthy landed proprietors would eventually rise on the ruinsof the old if individual tillage were encouraged was no doubt partlyresponsible for the determination of the more zealous collectivizers tosecure the adherence of the small cultivator, whether willing or forced, tothe collective system."[143]

Overall, however, the socialist ideologue had nothing to fear from therural collectives. For the most part, capitalism had been stamped out bythe only means possible: the state. The Anarchist military was the backbone

of a new monopoly on the means of coercion which was a government ineverything but name. It then became possible to use the peasantry likecattle, to make them work, feed them their subsistence, and seize the"surplus." Bolloten approvingly quotes Kaminsky's account of Alcora.

"'The community is represented by the committee... All the moneyof Alcora, about 100,000 pesetas, is in its hands. The committeeexchanges the products of the community for others goods that arelacking, but what it cannot secure by exchange it purchases.Money, however, is retained only as a makeshift and will be validas long as other communities have not followed Alcora's example.

"'The committee is paterfamilias. It owns everything; it directs

everything; it attends to everything. Every special desire mustbe submitted to it for consideration; it alone has say.

"'One may object that the members of the committee are in dangerof becoming bureaucrats or even dictators. That possibility hasnot escaped the attention of the villagers. They have seen to itthat the committee shall be renewed at short intervals so thateach inhabitant will serve on it for a certain length oftime.'"[144]

What is to be done with someone who says that he neither wishes to serve onthe committee, nor consent to its rulings? Who says that he intends to workhis own land, get rich, and refuse to share a peseta with anyone else? This

person would receive the same treatment that any tax resister in any modernstate would receive - increasingly severe threats and sanctions until heeither submits or perishes.

Fraser's interview with the farmer Navarro clearly indicates that theAnarchist "committees" were governments in the standard sense of the word."Once the decision was taken, it was formally left to the peasants tovolunteer to join. Mariano Franco came from the front to hold a meeting,saying that militiamen were threatening to take the livestock of all those



who remained outside the collective. As in Mas de las Matas, all privatelyowned stocks of food had to be turned it." Martinez, another farmer, addsfurther details. "He shared, however, the generalized dislike for having tohand over all the produce to 'the pile' and to get nothing except hisrations in return. Another bad things was the way the militia columnsrequisitioned livestock from the collective, issuing vouchers in return.Having been appointed livestock delegate, he went on a couple of occasionsto Caspe to try to 'cash in' the vouchers unsuccessfully. As elsewhere, theabolition of money soon led to the 'coining' of local money - a task theblacksmith carried out by punching holes in tin disks until paper notescould be printed. The 'money' - 1.50 pesetas a day - was distributed, asthe local schoolmaster recalled, to collectivists to spend on their 'vices'- 'the latter being anything superfluous to the basic requirements ofkeeping alive.'"[145] (For comparison, one farmer states that pre-war heearned 250 pesetas per month.) Even Greek and Roman slavery oftenrecognized the slave's right to call something his own (his "peculium");the one- and-a-half pesetas of "superfluous" compensation the peasantsreceived would probably have even struck many ancient slaves as somewhatstingy.

Still, initially rural collectivization was indeed fairly "cantonalist,"and it is conceivable that eventually peasant mobility would have forcedlocal committees to relax the harshness of their regimes. The Anarchistleadership sensed this almost instinctively; soon voices urged regional and

even national "federations." At a February 1937 congress, Fraser notes,"Among the major agreements reached at the congress were those to abolishall money, including local currency, and to substitute a standard rationbook; to permit smallholders to remain non-collectivized as long as theydid not 'interfere with the interests of the collective' from which theycould expect no benefits; to organize the collectives at the districtrather than local level; and to refuse the Council of Aragon the monopolyof foreign trade."[146] The self-limiting measures were clearly intended toshield the Council of Aragon from the anger of the central government andthe Communists; the rest of the agreement reveals an intent to permit evenmore severe exploitation of the peasantry.

Anarchist historian Peirats describes a later conference in June 1937,

which made the CNT's long-term intentions even plainer.

"[T]he National Committee of the CNT convened a National Meetingof Peasants with the express purpose of creating a NationalFederation of Peasants attached to the confederal organization.The primary objective defined in its statutes was the nationalintegration of the agricultural economies of all the zones undercultivation, embracing both collectives and small proprietors.The Federation would accept UGT collectives and be responsiblefor technical consultation of all kinds through its regionalbranches. Small landholders, individual cultivators andcollectives attached to the Federation would have full freedom toinitiate agricultural development in their respective zones, but

they would not be subject to national plans designed to ensurethe best crop yields, the transformation or substitution of somecrops for others of greater economic value and the combating ofcrop and livestock diseases.

"The federated cultivators were obliged to supply statisticaldata to the National Federation about current and projectedproduction and whatever else necessary for general planning. TheFederation was the sole distributor and exporter of produce.



"Cultivators could reserve enough of their production to meettheir own consumption needs but had to observe restrictions whichmight be called for at a given time 'to ensure the equal right ofall consumers without discrimination.' Surpluses were to beturned over to the Federation, which would pay for them'according to local values' or as determined by a national priceregulating board... The Federation would facilitate the moves ofpeasants from zones short of cultivable lands to zones needingworkers. It would establish relations with all the economicorganizations of the CNT and other groups, national orinternational. It created an auxiliary service to even outpayments across diverse zones, national and foreign. Solidarityand mutual aid, including compensation for fires, accidents,pestilence, sickness, retirement, orphans, would be availableeven to individualists not participating in thecollectives."[147]

In short, the CNT intended to create an all-powerful state to rule therural population under its control; to seize all "surplus" from them andpay them token compensation as it saw fit; to relocate farmers to "zonesneeding workers." Given the fact that the CNT assured the peasants'subsistence but seized their surplus, it seems unlikely that any peasantwould want to move. The CNT thought about this eventuality no more than afarmer ponders whether his herd of cows wants to be led to a new field.

In January 1938 the CNT unveiled its plans to suppress the freedom of theurban collectives as well. As Fraser explains, "[T]he CNT at its EnlargedEconomic Plenum in Valencia revised many of its previous postures. Itagreed to differential salaries, a corps of factory inspectors who couldsanction workers' and works councils; the administrative centralization ofall industries and agrarian collectives controlled by the CNT, andeffective general planning by a CNT Economics Council; the creation of asyndical bank; the development of consumer cooperatives. The followingmonth, in a pact with the UGT, it called for the nationalization of mines,railways, heavy industry, the banks, telecommunications and airlines. (CNTinterpretation of nationalization meant that the state took over anindustry and handed it to its workers to manage; the socialists interpreted

it as meaning that the state ran the industry.)"[148]

Bolloten gives additional information about the CNT-UGT pact. It should beremembered that the UGT was comprised of both Socialist and a Communistwing. "Although the pact affirmed that workers' control was one of the mostvaluable of the workers' conquests and called for the legalization of thecollectives, it was a complete negation of Anarchist doctrine, for itrecognized the ultimate power and authority of the state not only in thesetwo issues but in such important matters as the nationalization of industryand the regular army. Nevertheless, the pact was enthusiastically receivedby the CNT press, even by some groups of the FAI, such as the regionalcommittee of the center, but in the long run neither workers' control nor

the collectives were even granted legal status. Hence, in retrospect, thepact appears to have served the ends only of the Communists and theirallies..."[149]

For some Anarchists, these pacts represented compromises. But then again,the CNT's initial programs were themselves a compromise between theAnarchists who wanted total power for the CNT from the outset. As Bollotendocuments, from the earliest days of the revolution many Anarchists andAnarchist journals cried out for an Anarchist dictatorship. These remarksoften make it clear that even the Anarchist opponents of seizing total



power often agreed that once the Nationalists were defeated, the Anarchistdictatorship would swiftly follow.

"[E]ven when the Anarchosyndicalists respected the small man'sproperty, some among them made it clear that this was only atemporary indulgence while the war lasted. 'Once the war hasended and the battle against fascism has been won,' warned aprominent Anarchosyndicalist [Tomas Cano Ruiz - B.C.] inValencia, 'we shall suppress every form of small property and inthe way that suits us. We shall intensify collectivization andsocialization, and make them complete.'"[150]

Total rural collectivization, like total urban collectivization, was alsoan ultimate (if not immediate) Anarchist goal. "'Those peasants who areendowed with an understanding of the advantages of collectivization or witha clear revolutionary conscience and who have already begun to introduce[collective farming] should endeavor by all convincing means to prod thelaggards,' said Tierra y Libertad , the mouthpiece of the FAI, whichexercised strong ideological influence over the unions of the CNT. 'Wecannot consent to small holdings... because private property in land alwayscreates a bourgeois mentality, calculating and egotistical, that we wish touproot forever. We want to reconstruct Spain materially and morally. Ourrevolution will be economic and ethical.'"[151] It is evident that many ofthe Spanish Anarchists had such a revolution in mind; a revolution which,

like other modern totalitarian revolutions, would not only enslave thebody, but enslave the mind. In this light, the Anarchists' much-praisedfocus on education seems far more malevolent.

An overwhelming amount of evidence indicates that worker control nevereliminated the greed, inequality, and competition for which theAnarchosyndicalists denounced the capitalist system. The classicalanarchists repeatedly claimed that once the state was destroyed, capitalismwould automatically collapse. They were wholly in error. Insofar as thestate was destroyed, capitalism merely changed its form; it did not ceaseto exist. Genuine worker control essentially changed the recipients of thedividends, nothing more. The only feasible route for the elimination ofcapitalism was to create a new state (often given a new name, such as

"council" or "committee") and coerce obedience by any means necessary.

4. Philosophy and the Spanish Anarchists

Some of the blameworthy choices of the Spanish Anarchists occurred due tounwanted compromises with powerful allies. Of course, many of the evilsfrom which the Anarchists refrained were also unwanted compromises. Manyobservers blame the war for "abuses", which made violation of Anarchistprinciples especially rewarding. Even here, it should be pointed out thatunpleasant allies and wartime conditions never make any action "necessary."They simply make actions more attractive , more convenient . Killing people

suspected of Fascist sympathies was not "necessary,"; it was (perhaps)convenient. This convenience makes such murders no less culpable.

Still, it is interesting to ask: To what extent did the tyrannies andatrocities of the Spanish Anarchists flow from their ideas? Could theirideas ever be the basis for a free and just society, given propitiouscircumstances? The sequel argues that that the ideas of the SpanishAnarchists were utterly in error. The Spanish Anarchists faced numerousdilemmas largely because they endorsed an incoherent set of principles; andalmost invariably, when they had the power, they acted on their most



totalitarian impulses. These failings were on the most fundamental levelepistemological; namely, the Spanish Anarchists were emotional, dogmaticzealots whose failure to theorize objectively and rigorously led millionsto struggle to achieve a viciously evil goal.

A. What is Freedom?

The writings and words of the Spanish Anarchists, even the titles of theirperiodicals, proclaim their love of freedom, their desire for liberty. Theclassical anarchists such as Bakunin indicated that they opposedstate-socialism because they rightly saw that a socialist state wasinconsistent with human freedom. But what exactly did the SpanishAnarchists mean by "freedom"?

Freedom of conscience, the freedom to believe what one likes without legalpenalty, was plainly not an aspect of freedom as they saw it. Theyruthlessly suppressed the Catholic religion, killing many church officials,burning churches, and forbidding religious education. While Bollotencarefully noted the internal Anarchist opposition to perceived"compromises," he never indicates that Anarchist ideologues saw religiousintolerance as inconsistent with their ideals. Rather, the militantsdeclared that because the Catholic religion was false, it should be snuffedout. " CNT , the leading libertarian organ in Madrid, declared editorially:'Catholicism must be swept away implacably. We demand not that every church

be destroyed, but that no vestige of religion should remain in any of themand that the black spider of fanaticism should not be allowed to spin theviscous and dusty web in which our moral and material values have until nowbeen caught like flies. In Spain, more than any other country, the Catholicchurch has been at the head of every retrograde aim, of every measure takenagainst the people, of every attack on liberty.'"[152] No Anarchist citedshows the slightest appreciation of the principle that ideas should betolerated even if they are false, reactionary, or retrograde.

Similarly, no Anarchist expresses any principled objection to killingpeople for their political beliefs. The Anarchist critics frequently arguethat killing people hurts the revolution, or frightens the simple peasants,or alienates the middle classes. They do not argue that Falangists,

monarchists, and Catholic corporatists have an inalienable right to theiropinion, so long as they refrain from acting upon it. The idea does noteven occur to them.

Nor did the "freedom" so acclaimed by the Anarchist militants include thefreedom to use alcohol, tobacco, or sometimes even coffee. As Bollotenexplains, "Puritanism was a characteristic of the libertarian movement.According to George Esenwein, an authority on Spanish Anarchism, puritanismwas 'one of the several strands of anarchist ideology that can be tracedfrom the beginning of the movement in 1868 up to the Civil War. Thistendency, which sprang from the recognition of a moral dichotomy betweenthe proletariat and the middle classes, advocated above all a lifestyleunfettered by materialistic values. Thus excessive drinking, smoking and

other practices that were perceived as middle-class attributes were nearlyalways censured."[153] While prohibition of hated substances appears tohave occurred in only some of the rural collectives, it was the Anarchistprohibitionists who felt themselves to be the purists, rather than theirmore tolerant comrades. The Spanish Anarchists not only denied theiropponents the right to their beliefs; they also denied their presumedsupporters the right to control their own bodies. For the Anarchists, it isenough to say that allowing this or that has bad consequences, hence itmust be stopped; they never consider the possibility that people have theright to do many things regardless of their bad consequences.



In spite of their advocacy of "free love," the Spanish Anarchists were nottolerant on sexual matters either. The purists crusaded againstprostitution, once again revealing their paternalism and intolerance. "Myown personal recollection," writes Bolloten, "is that middle-classSpaniards scoffed at the Anarchists who closed down the brothels in thecities and put the prostitutes to useful work. But for Anarchist puriststhe cleaning up of society was an article of faith. In his oral history,Ronald Fraser tells of the young Eduardo Pons Prades who... heard the mendiscussing what had to be done: '"Listen, what about all the people whowork in these dens of iniquity?" "We've got to redeem them, educate them sothey can have the chance of doing something more worthy." "Have you askedthem if they want to be redeemed?" "How can you be so stupid? Would youlike to be exploited in that sort of den?" "No, of course not. But afteryears at the same place, it's hard to change." "Well, they'll have to. Therevolution's first duty is to clean up the place, clean up the people'sconsciousness."'"[154] The important fact to notice is that the puristswant to force everyone to live as the see fit, while the pragmatists findthe purists' behavior impolitic. One might think that if the purists valued"freedom" above all else, they would insist that women cannot be forced torefrain from having sex for money.

I would never presume to tell people how they may or may not use words; Ido however reserve the right to re-translates non-standard usages back into

plain English. The Spanish Anarchists had no love of "freedom" in theordinary sense of the word. The "freedom" of the Spanish Anarchists was the"freedom" to live exactly as the Spanish Anarchists thought right.

Many of the Spanish Anarchists were genuinely anti-statist in the standardsense of the word. But since European anarchism was essentially an offshootof European state-socialism, the Spanish anarchists had almost noanti-state tradition upon which to build. Like the state-socialists, theSpanish anarchists were barely even aware of the long-standing anti-statistliberal tradition, which might have at least stirred them to think aboutwhat it is to be free.[155] Ludwig von Mises' Liberalism , published a merenine years before the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, states:

"Liberalism demands tolerance as a matter of principle, not fromopportunism. It demands toleration even of obviously nonsensicalteachings, absurd forms of heterodoxy, and childishly sillysuperstitions. It demands toleration for doctrines and opinionsthat it deems detrimental and ruinous to society and even formovements that it indefatigably combats... Against what isstupid, nonsensical, erroneous, and evil, liberalism fights withthe weapons of the mind, and not with brute force andrepression."[156]

Insofar as the European anarchists were (and are) acquianted with classicalliberalism, they frequently derided the "narrowness" of the classicalliberal view of freedom. Liberals insist merely upon the right to be free

of physical coercion against person and property, while ignoring the manyother kinds of domination in society. Thus, the liberals ignore theideological domination of the church, the sexual domination of women, thecapitalists' domination of workers, the domination of the mind by drug andalcohol addiction.

The theoretical problem that the Spanish Anarchists did not confront isstraightforward. Once you declare unpleasant but non-violent acts to be"domination," you implicitly justify using violence to stop them. IfCatholicism is "domination," then surely killing priests is a form of



self-defense. If prostitution is "domination," then closing the brothelsand making prostitutes take up another line of work is actually a form ofliberation. If wage-labor is "domination," then forbidding a person to hirean eager worker (even a worker with the option of working for a largecollective farm) actually saves the worker from victimization. What is thepattern here? By expanding the meaning of "domination" to include almosteverything, you actually leave people with no freedom at all. All thatremains is the Orwellian freedom to live precisely as the Anarchist councilthinks right.

If "freedom" means anything at all, it must leave open the freedom toperform many immoral actions without punishment. Words can hurt otherpeople's feelings, or humiliate them, or convince them to devote theirlives to follies. But if anything is not "domination" or "coercion," it isspeaking your mind to the world.

Likewise, if a person must devote their life to a cause, or else facepunishment, they are not free. If a person must join the war againstFranco, or care for the needy, or make the collective successful - or faceprison or execution - they are not free. They are not free even if thecause to which they must dedicate their life is noble, just, and right.

The Spanish Anarchists loved the words "liberty" and "freedom," but theydid not love them enough to think deeply about them. They assumed that

their application was obvious; there was no need to make a list of whatpeople should and should not be free to do. Instead, the Spanish Anarchistsfocused upon what they thought free people ought to do. They did not spenda great deal of time thinking about how to treat people who planned onusing their freedom differently. Either they assumed that a bizarre degreeof unanimity would prevail once the state was abolished; or they planned tokill all dissenters until unanimity was achieved; or, most likely of all,they were too emotional to think about the issue.

B. Socialism, Liberty, and the State

Some modern admirers of the Spanish Anarchists argue that abolition of thestate in Max Weber's sense of the word was not really their aim. On this

view, the Spanish Anarchists defined "state" narrowly to refer only to somelegitimated geographical monopolies of the use of coercion. Thus, in acritical note in my Anarchist Theory FAQ , Tom Wetzel states that:

"[I]f you look at the concept of 'state' in the very abstract wayit often is in the social sciences, as in Weber's definition,then what the anarcho-syndicalists were proposing is notelimination of the state or government, but its radicaldemocratization. That was not how anarchists themselves spokeabout it, but it can be plausibly argued that this is a logicalconsequence of a certain major stream of left-anarchistthought."[157]

My own reading of the internal debate among the Spanish Anarchistsindicates that the view Wetzel describes was at most a minority view heldby such figures as Horacio Prieto. Bolloten's writings are filled withAnarchists' laments about the conflict between theory and practice. AsBolloten states, "In subsequent months, as the friction between the'collaborationist' and 'abstentionist' tendencies in the libertarianmovement increased, some supporters of government collaboration argued thatthe entry of the CNT into the cabinet had marked no recantation ofAnarchist ideals and tactics, while others frankly acknowledged theviolation of doctrine and contended that it should yield to reality. '[The]



philosophicosocial conceptions of Anarchism are excellent, wonderful, intheory,' wrote Manuel Mascarell, a member of the national committee of theCNT, 'but they are impractical when confronted with the tragic reality of awar like ours.'"[158]

Bolloten also quotes Federica Montseny, an Anarchist purist who ultimatelyentered the central government: "'Other parties, other organizations, othersectors cannot appreciate the struggle inside the movement and in the veryconsciences of its members, both then and now, as a result of the CNT'sparticipation in the government. They cannot appreciate it, but the peoplecan, and if they cannot then they should be informed. They should be toldthat for us - who had fought incessantly against the State, who had alwaysaffirmed that through the State nothing at all could be achieved, that thewords 'government' and 'authority' signified the negation of everypossibility of freedom for men and for nations - our intervention in thegovernment as an organization and as individuals signified either an act ofhistorical audacity of fundamental importance, or a rectification of awhole work, of a whole past, in the field of theory and tactics. We do notknow what it signified. We only knew that we were caught in adilemma...'"[159]

Similarly, Fraser's description of the Anarchists' pre-war views hardlycoheres with the view that they merely wanted to "radically democratize"the state rather than utterly abolish it. Fraser notes that there were two

tendencies in Spanish Anarchist thought.

The first tendency "was based on rural life, rural revolution." "Thistendency, with its virulent a-politicism, a-parliamentarianism, anti-militarism, anti-clericalism, its deep hostility to all government andpolitical parties - including (especially) working-class parties - saw asits fundamental methods of action the insurrectional strike, sabotage,boycott, and mutiny. The popular dimension of the ideology could beexpressed in a series of equations: politics = 'the art of cheating thepeople'; parties = 'no difference between any of them'; elections ='swindle'; parliament = 'the place of corruption'; the army = 'theorganization of collective crime'; the police = 'paid assassins of thebourgeoisie.'"[160]

The second tendency Fraser links with the more urban, industrializedAnarchists. On their view, "National Industrial Federations would be neededto link local industrial unions, each of the latter being responsible fororganizing relations between each factory within its local industry - thefactory or workplace having been taken over by its union committee whichwould administer it."[161]

Finally, Fraser adds that, "Common to both tendencies was the idea that theworking class 'simply' took over factories and workplaces and ran themcollectively but otherwise as before... The taking over of factories andworkplaces, however violently carried out, was not the beginning of therevolution to create a new order but its final goal. This view, in turn,

was conditioned by a particular view of the state. Any state (bourgeois orworking class) was considered an oppressive power... The state did not haveto be taken, crushed, and a new - revolutionary - power established. No. Itif could be swept aside, abolished, everything else, including oppression,disappeared."[162] At least on Fraser's account, then, both tendenciesdesired to abolish the state in the broad Weberian sense of the word.

Thus, an overwhelming volume of evidence indicates that the SpanishAnarchists repeatedly stated, as a matter of principle, that they intendedto abolish the state; and context indicates that they used the word in the



standard sense, for they repeatedly specified their opposition to aworking-class state, parliamentary democracy, or the establishment of anysort of revolutionary power. The view that Wetzel outlines is similar tothat a few Anarchist leaders like Horacio Prieto, but virtually everyaccount indicates that Prieto's heterodox views were widely detested by hisAnarchist comrades.

In spite of this fervent belief, the Anarchists either formed or joinedgovernments whenever they had the power to do so. The reason is that theSpanish Anarchists were completely wrong to assume that capitalism woulddisappear as soon as the capitalists had been "displaced." Displacing thecapitalists simply meant that the workers were transformed intoworker-capitalists. The result was anarchist, but not socialist. Toregulate the urban collectives or collectivize the rural farmers,displacement of the capitalists was not enough; only a state could do thejob.

Herein lies the Anarchists' dilemma: capitalist anarchism or socialiststatism. When they chose capitalist anarchism, they were outraged by theconsequent re-emergence of greed, inequality, and competition. This wasvery hard to bear. Moreover, if they simply accepted greed, inequality, andcompetition as a price they must be paid to avoid the creation of anall-powerful state, the Spanish Anarchists would have undercut thefoundation of their original revolution. If inequality between collectives

and within collectives is morally acceptable, what was so immoral about thepre-war inequality between capitalists and workers?

Capitalist anarchism was so unpalatable to many of the Spanish Anarchiststhat they often created or participated in states to enforce socialism;moreover, the evidence from the later period of the war is that they becameever more eager for socialism and less fearful of the state. The maindifficulty here is that many of European Anarchism's greatest theorists hadproclaimed that state-socialism meant tyranny. As Bakunin stated, "'Butthis minority, the Marxists argue, would consist of workers. Yes, I daresay, of former workers, but as soon as they become rulers andrepresentatives of the people they would cease to be proletarians and wouldlook down upon all workers from their political summit. They would no

longer represent the people; they would represent only themselves... He whodoubts this must be absolutely ignorant of human nature.'"[163] Moreover,by 1936 Stalin's totalitarian socialist dictatorship had confirmedBakunin's prediction more thoroughly and perfectly than any of hiscontemporaries could even have imagined.

The dramatic proof of Bakunin's prediction in the USSR should have led theSpanish Anarchists to make this superb insight their central doctrine. Itshould have led the Spanish Anarchists to spurn any association of any kindwith the Communist Party. Instead, the Anarchists preferred to becomeanother predictive success of Bakunin's theory; they collaborated with somegovernments, established others on their own, and in each case provedthemselves to be at least as oppressive as other governing classes

throughout history. This is why I call the Spanish Anarchists"anarcho-statists."[164] They were avowed advocates of the abolition of thestate who suddenly determined that there was nothing wrong with the stateif they ran it themselves.

C. Thought and Action

The Spanish Anarchists demanded the abolition of all government in the nameof human freedom; but once they had the power to do so, they bothparticipated in and established governments which were no less oppressive



than any other. The proximate cause, I have argued, was that theirunderlying theories of freedom, capitalism, and socialism were uniformly inerror. There was however a deeper cause: The Spanish Anarchists theorizedemotionally and dogmatically, insofar as they theorized at all. For themost part, they accepted their confused theories as obvious, and insteadfocused their attention on "action."

What the Spanish Anarchists failed to realize is that clear, rigorousthinking is the most important form of "action" that any critic of thestatus quo can perform. It does no good to seize the initiative and try tochange the world unless you can reasonably expect your changes to begenuine improvements. History is filled with examples of deluded zealotswho marched forth to save the world, defeated their enemies, and proceededto make the world even worse. The example of the Russian Communists shouldhave been omnipresent in the Spanish Anarchists' minds; or they might havelooked back to Spain's conquest of Latin America; or to any number of otherexamples. Historians usually label such conquerors "misguided idealists,"but it would be far more accurate to label them "willfully self-deludedmurderers": "murderers" because they killed many innocent people;"self-deluded" because they were convinced they had the truth in spite ofthe limited time and effort they put into thinking about fundamentalphilosophical and political issues; "willfully" because they did not chooseto devote the necessary time and effort to informing themselves about suchfundamental issues.

There is overwhelming historical evidence that the Spanish Anarchists infact devoted very little time to pure theory. Fraser relays the words ofdissident CNT member Sebastia Clara. "'It had to be remembered, hestressed, that the level of revolutionary culture was very low. Militantshad, at best, read one or two pamphlets, and Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread. They hadn't read Marx, Engels, let alone Hegel.'"[165]

Peirats explains that due to widespread illiteracy, most peasants could notread even the most elementary writings. Instead, "There were also itinerantspeakers, some of them peasants, who traveled the countryside, addressingthe villagers in simple words about understandable topics. The efficacy ofthis type of propaganda can easily be understood if we remember that the

illiterate is not necessarily a brute and that lack of learning often hidesa perfectly good intellect."[166] Quite possibly so; but it does no good tohave a "perfectly good intellect" if you don't use it. The CNT speakerswere not giving a balanced presentation of a number of differentviewpoints; they were relying on the peasants' ignorance of the existenceof other points of view, hoping to win them over while keeping themessentially ignorant.

In his interview with Fraser, Royo admits that he and his fellow CNTmilitants had not spent a great deal of time thinking about what exactlythey wanted to do. "'We were attempting to put into practice a libertariancommunism about which, it's sad to say, none of us really knewanything.'"[167] Why would such admittedly ignorant people be so eager to

impose their half-baked ideas on others? Abad de Santillan, another CNTmember interviewed by Fraser, confirms the general picture of theoreticallaziness. "'There's talk of the family, delinquency, jealousy, nudism, andmany other things [the resolution had gone into all of these as part of thefuture life under libertarian communism] but you hardly find a word aboutwork, workplaces, or the organization of production.' It was in thiscondition that the CNT found itself two months later when faced with thetask of establishing a revolutionary economic order in Catalonia."[168]

In sum, theory was so poorly developed that many came to regard it as a



luxury rather than a valuable guide to action. Bolloten quotes MiguelGonzalez Inestal, a member of the FAI peninsular committee. "'In thelibertarian camp every single militant had his share of scruples toconquer, of convictions to be adapted - and why not admit it? - ofillusions to be buried.'"[169] Along similar lines Peirats quotes the CNTSecretary-General at the October 1938 conference. "'We have to abandon ourliterary and philosophical baggage, which has become an impediment to oureventual assumption of power.'"[170] The desirability of gaining power isobvious, requiring no justificatory theory; what need is there is have anyclear ideas about what you ought to do once you have the power?

It is hard to resolve moral dilemmas sensibly when you must decide swiftly.That is why it is important to consider hypothetical issues in advance ,when there is time to think about them. The Spanish Anarchists were toointellectually lazy to do so, and then blamed their poor choices on badluck. The questions they should have asked themselves were simple, yetturned out to have profound implications. To take a few examples... Whatshould we do if we have a chance to join the government?... What should wedo if worker-controlled firms act like capitalist-controlled firms?... Whatlimits are there to how we may treat people who disagree with us?... How isa national Economic Council different from a state, if at all?... Whatshould be done if some workers don't want to join our Economic Council?...What should we do if some farmers don't want to join a collective?

Before the war, there were plenty of other questions they could have spenttheir free waking hours contemplating... If the exploitation theory ofprofit is correct, why have wages risen above the subsistence level?...What effect does worker sabotage and vandalism have on unemployedworkers?... What effect do higher union wages-scales have on unemployedworkers?... What effect does worker militancy have on internationalinvestment, and how does international investment affect the welfare ofworkers?

No doubt constantly thinking about such questions would have bored manyAnarchist militants. They would have particularly resented imposing minimalintellectual self-discipline upon themselves. For starters, they might havetried to construct arguments which would be convincing to people who did

not initially agree with them. They might have tried familiarizingthemselves with the best arguments of other points of view. They might haveconsidered that the more intensely one feels something - such as theyemployers are evil and treat workers unjustly - the more important it is toput one's feelings aside and consider the issue unemotionally. Instead,they took the easy way out of so many earlier movements throughout history:Violent revolution first; afterwards, we'll solve theoretical problems asthey arise. Or as Lenin stated, "The point of the uprising is the seizureof power; afterwards we will see what we can do with it."[171]

After so many failures of this approach, it would have been refreshing ifthe Spanish Anarchists had tried to do precisely the opposite. Instead ofproclaiming their empty devotion to "freedom," they should have enumerated

precisely what they thought people should and should not be free to do.They should have tested the clarity and completeness of their principleswith the aid of thought experiments in which the right answer is notimmediately obvious. They should have deliberately searched fordisconfirming evidence which could throw their entire paradigm in doubt.Victory is worthless if you have been wrong all along.

5. Conclusion



In any war, historians tend to look for the heroes. They rarely considerthe possibility that there were no heroes, that all of the sides werefighting for tyranny. Thus, many historians of the Russian Civil War singleout the Mensheviks, even though detailed investigation reveals that theirdifferences with the Bolsheviks were relatively slight.[172] In the sameway, historians of the Spanish Civil War who rightly regard the Fascistsand Communists as totalitarians often try to cast the Spanish Anarchists asthe heroes of the struggle. In fact, the Spanish Anarchists were ultimatelyjust a third faction of totalitarians.

The classical European anarchists deserve credit for their prescientprediction that state-socialism would merely be a new form of oppression.This insight still elicits the appreciation of thoughtful idealists in thetradition of George Orwell, who recognize the horrors of state- socialism,but remain skeptical of the morality and efficiency of the free-marketeconomy. Intelligent and intellectually honest, they eagerly investigateany report of alternatives which escape the pitfalls of both socialsystems.

If they investigate the history of Anarchism during the Spanish Civil War,they will be tremendously disappointed. The experience of the SpanishAnarchists does not reveal any "third way"; to the contrary, theirexperience eloquently affirms that state-socialism and free-market

anarchism are the two theoretical poles between which all actual societieslie. The choice cannot be evaded. The only alternative is to take yetanother look at the endpoints of the political spectrum and see if one hasbeen rejected too hastily.[173] Or as the 19th-century Belgian economistGustave de Molinari argues:

"In reality, we have a choice of two things:"Either communistic production is superior to free production, orit is not."If it is, then it must be for all things, not just for security.

"If not, progress requires that it be replaced by freeproduction.

"Complete communism or complete liberty: that is thealternative!"[174]

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"I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and Kingunlike other men, with a favorable presumption that they did nowrong. If there is any presumption it is against the holders ofpower, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibilityhas to make up for want of legal responsibility. Power tends tocorrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men arealmost always bad men..."

--Lord Acton, "Acton-Creighton Correspondence"

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Notes



[1] See generally Stanley G. Payne, The Franco Regime: 1946-1975 (Madison,WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987).

[2] See generally Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution andCounterrevolution (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press,1991).

[3] Ronald Fraser, Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War(NY: Pantheon Books, 1986).

[4] Bolloten, op. cit.

[5] Noam Chomsky, "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship," in American Powerand the New Mandarins (NY: Pantheon Books, 1969), esp. pp.79- 124. Thepraise occurs in the footnote on p.140: "This book [Bolloten's The GrandCamouflage], by a UP correspondent in Spain during the Civil War, containsa great deal of important documentary evidence bearing on the questionsconsidered here."

[6] For the background of the military rebellion, see esp. Payne, op. cit.,pp.34-45,87-106. While many studies of the Spanish Civil War simplisticallydescribe it as a struggle between "the people" who supported "democracy,"and a small minority who supported "fascism," the reality is far morecomplex: the support of the population for the Nationalist and Republican

forces was approximately balanced. The last election before the civil warin February 1936 election gives some indication of the actual division ofopinion: as Payne (op. cit., pp.44- 45) explains, "For the elections of1936, therefore, the left was united, with even an undetermined degree ofvoting support from the anarchists. Rightist parties, led by the CEDA,formed an electoral bloc of their own. Center forces, in contrast, foundthemselves isolated between left and right...In the 1936 elections, 73percent of the eligible Spanish electorate cast ballots. According to themost thorough study, the Popular Front drew 34.3 percent, the rightistcoalition 33.2 percent, and the shrunken center only 5.4 percent. Thoughthe plurality in the popular vote was rather narrow, the Spanish electoralsystem, derived in part from Italy in 1924, disproportionately rewardedcoalitions with pluralities. After the new parliament met in March and

disqualified a few of the rightist deputies elected earlier, the leftistparties held about two-thirds of the seats."

[7] Bolloten, op. cit., p.50.

[8] ibid, p.53.

[9] Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986),pp.273-274. It is worth pointing out that in spite of the popular practiceof calling all of the Nationalist forces "fascists," the Spanish fascistparty, the Falange, was part of a coalition which included conservativemembers of the Spanish military, the Carlists, Alphonsine monarchists,Catholic corporatists, and other factions. As Payne (op. cit., p.62) points

out, "Up until the spring of 1936, the Falange probably never had more thanten thousand regular members." Thus, it should be realized that violenceagainst "fascists," actually refers to violence against a vastly widerpolitical spectrum than might be supposed.

[10] Thomas, op. cit., pp.275-276.


[12] Thomas, op. cit., p.273.



[13] Fraser, op. cit., pp.132-133.

[14] For an objective survey of various quantitative investigations intoNationalist and Republican murders and repression, see Payne, op. cit.,209-228.

[15] ibid, p.211.

[16] Fraser, op. cit., p.96.

[17] Bolloten, op. cit., pp.59-60.

[18] ibid, p.191.

[19] ibid, p.192.


[21] ibid, p.547.


[23] ibid, p.200-201.

[24] ibid, p.201.

[25] ibid, p.202.

[26] ibid, p.207.

[27] ibid, p.393.

[28] ibid, pp.433-434.

[29] ibid, pp.451-452.

[30] ibid, pp.495-496.

[31] ibid, p.498.

[32] Payne, op. cit., pp.354-355.

[33] ibid, p.355 n34.


[35] ibid, p.58.

[36] Thomas, op. cit., pp.966,973.


[38] ibid, pp.210-211.



[41] Jose Peirats, op. cit., p.125.





[73] Fraser, op. cit., pp.36-37.


[75] ibid, pp.74-75.

[76] ibid, p.75.

[77] ibid, p.76.


[79] ibid, pp.370-371.


[81] Bolloten, op. cit., pp.64-65.



[84] Graham Kelsey, Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian Communism and theState: The CNT in Zaragoza and Aragon, 1930-1937 (Amsterdam: InternationalInstitute of Social History, 1991), p.164.


[86] ibid, p.368.

[87] ibid, p.368 n1.



[90] ibid, p.68.

[91] ibid.

[92] Kelsey, op. cit., p.163.

[93] ibid, p.167.


[95] ibid.


[97] Peirats, op. cit., p.251.

[98] ibid, p.252.

[99] ibid.




[101] Peirats, op. cit., p.258.

[102] Fraser, op. cit., pp.392-393.


[104] For economic statistics, see Thomas, op. cit., pp.962-973, andFraser, op. cit., p.235.

[105] Milton Friedman and Anna Jacobson Schwartz, A Monetary History of theUnited States, 1867-1960 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963).Why would a monetary contraction cause unemployment or a loss of output?The short answer is that if the money supply declines, but money wages aredownwardly rigid, this implies that given the new money supply the price oflabor is set too high. The result is a "labor surplus" - in short,(involuntary) unemployment.

[106] Barry Eichengreen, Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the GreatDepression, 1919-1939 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).

[107] For more on the Spanish monetary system, see William Adams Brown,

Jr., The International Gold Standard Reinterpreted, 1914-1934 (NY: NationalBureau of Economic Research, 1940), and Gabriel Tortella and Jordi Palafox,"Banking and Industry in Spain, 1918-1936," in Pablo Martin-Acena and JamesSimpson, eds., The Economic Development of Spain since 1870 (Aldershot, UK:Edward Elgar Publishing, 1995), pp.490-520.

[108] Bolloten, op. cit., p.143 states that Spain had the world's thirdlargest gold reserve. Eichengreen, op. cit., pp.352-353, indicates thatBolloten is mistaken; in fact, in 1936 Spain had the world's fifth largestgold reserve. (A slight complication is the fact that numbers cease to beavailable on the gold reserves of the USSR after 1935; but unless there wasa large change between 1935 and 1936, the United States, France, Britain,and the USSR would all have had larger gold reserves than Spain did.)

[109] See Tortella and Palafox, loc. cit., p.511.

[110] Paul Preston, The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (London: Weidenfeldand Nicolson, 1986), p.21.

[111] ibid.

[112] Kelsey, op. cit., documents the growth of militant CNT and othertrade unionism during the 1931-1936 period.


[114] ibid.

[115] ibid, p.59.


[117] ibid, p.221.

[118] ibid, p.229.

Ryan Caplan - The Anarcho-Statists of Spain

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