Anarchists in the Spanish
Civil War

Geoff Bailey

2002
Contents

Anarchism and the rise of the Spanish working class
‘The birth of the Republic

Reaction and revolt

From Popular Front to revolution

War and revolution

‘The failure to seize power

From contempt to collaboration

‘The defense of Madrid and the rise of the Communists
Conclusion

5
10
16
19
2
27
32
35
a1
For workers around the world, the Spanish Civil War was a
beacon of hope against the tide of reaction then sweeping Eu-
rope. As the promise of workers' revolution was being dashed
by the rise of fascism in Germany and the rise of Stalinism in
the Soviet Union, the workers of Spain led a heroic fight against
the 1936 uprising of General Francisco Franco. In the process,
they led not only a struggle against fascism, but also a work-
exs' rebellion that gave the world an inspiring glimpse of what
workers’ power could look like.

‘The Spanish Civil War was also the high point of anarchist
influence in the international workers’ movement. On the
eve of the civil war, the anarchosyndicalist Confederacion
Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) claimed more than a million mem-
bers and had as its stated aim the revolutionary overthrow
of capitalism. Yet the Spanish anarchist movement failed the
test that supposedly formed the heart of its program: the
destruction of the state.

‘The ideas and theories of revolutionaries must ultimately be
tested by events. During the war, anarchism’s ideological ab-
horrence of state power-whether that state was a capitalist or
a workers” state-led them, in practice, away from the revolu-
tionary overthrow of capitalism and toward collaboration with
the very government they opposed. As Russian revolutionary
Leon Trotsky wrote at the time, “In opposing the goal, the con-
quest of power, the Anarchists could not in the end fail to op-
pose the means, the revolution™

Anarchism and the rise of the Spanish
working class

Spain entered the 20% century as one of the most backward

countries in Europe. An aged, decrepit monarchy ruled the

TLeon Trotsky. The Spanish Revoluton, 19511939 (New York:
Patbfinder Press, 1975),p. 316
country, propped up by the twin pillars of the Catholic
church and an aristocratic officer corps. Throughout the 19™
century, peasant rebellions and military coups had broken out
regularly, but none had shaken the hold of the aristocracy.
‘The Spanish bourgeoisie, from its inception, was incapable
of leading a determined struggle against the monarchy. As
Trotsky wrote

Now even less than in the 19% century can the Spanish
bourgeoisie lay claim to that historic role which the British
and French bourgeoisie once played. Appearing too late,
dependent on foreign capital, the big industrial bourgeoisie of
Spain, which has dug like a leech into the body of the people,
is incapable of coming forward as the leader of the people,
is incapable of coming forward as the leader of the “nation”
against the old estates, even for a brief period. The magnates
of Spanish industry face the people hostilely, forming 2 most
reactionary bloc of bankers, industrialists, large landowners,
the monarchy, and its generals and officials, all devouring
each other in internal antagonisms.?

Lacking reliable support from the propertied classes, the
‘monarchy turned time and again to the military. The succes-
sion of juntas and palace coups that dotted Spanish history
was but an expression of the inability of the Spanish bour-
geoisie to lead the struggle for even the most basic democratic
rights.

But a new class was emerging in Spain that began to change
this equation. Spain experienced a period of rapid industrializa-
tion during the First World War that led to the growth of a pow-
exful and highly concentrated urban working class. Although
Spain remained a predominantly rural country, the working
class doubled in size between 1910 and 1930. “The question of
whether the present revolutionary convulsions can produce a
genuine revolution, capable of reconstructing the very basis of

FTrotsky p. 21
national life” Trotsky continued, s consequently reduced to
whether the Spanish proletariat is capable of taking the leader-
ship of national life into its own hands™*

Anarchism took hold in Spain beginning in the late 19% cen-
tury among middle-class republican students and professionals
who were distrustful of the powerful and corrupt central gov-
ernment; artisan workers who were being displaced by more
modemn production methods; and southern peasants who had
a strong tradition of communalism and a distrust of both gov-
erment and urban society.* By the turn of the last century,
hundreds of anarchist affinity groups-small groups of 10 to 12
people with similar political ideas-dotted the countryside

Politically these groups covered @ wide spectrum. Some
groups sought to escape from the existing capitalist system
by forming alternative lifestyle communes in the countryside
Some adopted an emphasis on action as a form of propaganda
meant to spark wider revolt-"propaganda of the deed” as it
was called. This could mean anything from individual acts of
terrorism to organizing small, local insurrections. The purpose

of these actions was to offer “a sort of revolutionary ‘educa-
tion' of the masses through acts of revolt”® And still others
helped to form militant trade unions, particularly among the
peasants of Andalusia and later Aragén.

Spanish anarchism emerged as an awkward combination of
peasant communalism, petty-bourgeois individualism, direct
action against the state, and radical trade unionism. Yet they
shared in common the basic principles of anarchism: opposi-
tion to elections and parliamentary activity, and opposition to
all forms of hierarchy and centralism.

Trotsky. . 21,
Mureay Bookchis, The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1565
1936 (San Francisco: AK Press, 1998), pp. 61-63; Juan Géme: Casas, Anar-
chistOrganization: e Hisory ofthe FAI (Montreal: Blck Rose Bocks, 1956,
pp. 26-21
* Max Nomad, quotedin Bookekin, p. 116
Many workers, even at the time of the civil war, were at most
one generation removed from the countryside. These young
workers brought with them a peasant anarchist tradition, and
the grueling work and living conditions of urban life proved a
fertile ground for the growth of a radical labor movement

Individualist and terrorist currents remained part of the
Spanish anarchist movement. Aslate as 1936, the CNT devoted
an entire discussion at its national congress to the place of
vegetarians, nudists, naturists, and “opponents of industrial
technology” in a libertarian communist society. But the grow-
ing ferment among Spanish workers greatly strengthened the
position of the anarchosyndicalists, who, like other anarchists,
rejected all forms of authority and political action, but who
looked to the power of the working class, organized through
trade unions, as the force capable of overthrowing capitalism.

In November 1910, representatives from anarchosyndicalist
unions across Spain met in Barcelona to found the CNT, a na-
tional union. As Vernon Richards describes:

By its constitution the CNT was independent of
all the political parties in Spain, and abstained
from taking part in parliamentary and other
elections. Its objectives were to bring together the
exploited masses in the struggle for day-to-day
improvements of working and economic condi-
tions and for the revolutionary destruction of
capitalism and the state. Its ends were Libertarian
Communism, a social system based on the free
commune federated at local, regional and national
levels. Complete autonomy was the basis of this
federation, the only ties with the whole being
the agreements of a general nature adopted by
Ordinary or Extraordinary National Congresses.*

“Vernon Richards, The Lessonsofth Spanish Revoluton (Londors Fece
dom Bress, 1995),p-17.

8
While the militant élan of the CNT led to successful strikes,
this penchant for loose organization and lack of centralized
coordination, in the words of Murray Bookchin, a sympathetic
chronicler, often led to “sporadic, ill-time outbursts, easily
crushed by the government™”

‘The anarchist revolutionaries in the CNT formed the Fed-
eracion Anarquista bérica (FAI) in 1927, to guard against re-
formism within the CNT, as well as to maintain its opposition
to any “infiltration” by other political forces. FAI militants, for
example, were instrumental in winning the expulsion in 1931
of a group of 30 CNT leaders, the treintistas, who sought to
make the CNT more syndicalist and less anarchist, eriticizing
the CNT for allowing small groups of militants to substitute
their own armed actions for mass struggle. “The revolution,”
the treintistas wrote, “does not trust exclusively in the audac-
ity of amore or less courageous minority, but instead it seeks to

be a movement of the whole working class marching towards
-

its final liberation”™
At the same time, the CNT often viewed workers who were
not members as traitors to the revolution. At the 1919 national
congress, the CNT leadership passed a resolution giving the
workers of Spain a period of three months in which to enter
the CNT, failing which they would be denounced as scabs”
‘This was not an insignificant statement-it reflected a tendency
to see the key divide in society as one not between workers and
bosses, but between authoritarians and nonauthoritarians.
Although the CNT gained a substantial following among
many of the newly arrived workers in Catalonia and the agri-
cultural laborers of Aragon by leading a number of militant
strikes following the First World War, the Socialist-controlled

Bookehin, p 162
* Quoted in Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (London: Pelican,
1986),pp. 7574,
* Bumett Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevo-
ution (Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), . 197
Unién General del Trabajadores (UGT), with half a million
members, was still the largest union in the country. Although
the UGT was weighted down with a conservative leadership,
any successful workers' movement-let alone a successful
workers” revolution-would have to include the UGT's rank
and file

‘The birth of the Republic

Faced with growing opposition from Spanish workers after
the First World War, the Spanish ruling class fell back on its tra-
ditional crutch, the military. In 1923, General Miguel Primo de
Rivera took power under a military dictatorship. Even Primo de
Rivera's dictatorship, however, could not ensure order against
the growing tide of struggle. When the Great Depression broke
out in 1929, Spain fell into a severe economic crisis, and the
ruling class found that it could no longer contain the growing
anger with brute force.

In 1930, Primo de Rivera was forced to resign. King Alfonso
XII called for democratic elections, ushering in the First Re-
public and five years of social unrest, during which the politi-
cal right and left vied for control. Elections held in April 1931
went overwhelmingly to the republican parties, forcing King
Alfonso to abdicate the throne and flee the country. The gov-
ernment of the Second Republic (the First Republic
in 1873, lasted only a year), led by Manuel Azafia, was com-
posed of a coalition of the middle-class republican parties and
the right wing of the Spanish Socialist Party, the Partido So-
cialista Obrero Espafiol (PSOE). The PSOE provided a left-wing
cover for a strictly bourgeois government that, from the outset,
showed little interest in pursuing all but the most innocuous
reforms.

Land reform was perhaps the most pressing issue in all of
Spain. Agricultural products accounted for half of the coun-

formed

10
try's income and two-thirds of its exports. Seventy percent
of Spain’s population worked the land, yet a small class of
landowners controlled two-thirds of all the country’s arable
Tand, most of it held in large estates. Of the 5 million peasants
in Spain, 15 million lived as sharecroppers and another 1.5
million were landless workers® Starvation and hunger for
the Spanish peasantry were as routine as the planting and
harvesting of crops

‘The immediate solution was the confiscation of the large es-
tates and the redistribution of land to millions of poor peasants,
but this reform went to the heart of Spanish capitalism. Land in
Spain was mortgaged and heavily indebted to Spanish banks
Any expropriation of the large estates threatened not only the
large landowners; it would wipe out loans owed to the banks,
erippling Spanish capital. So the government stalled. It passed
agricultural reforms that provided landowners compensation
for any re-divided land. By the government’s own figures, this
redistribution would take more than 100 years.'!

The republican-Socialist coalition also faced nationalist
opposition from Catalan and Basque minorities within Spain
and maintained a tenuous hold on a large portion of Morocco,
which had been seized by the monarchy in a brutal imperial
war that had lasted from 1912 to 1926. The national question
was not simply a matter of justice for oppressed minorities;
it was a matter of survival for the Republic. The colonial
garrisons in Morocco were the most reactionary, brutal
sections of the armed forces. The Spanish Foreign Legion
and local mercenary groups that had carried out a war of
attrition against the Moroccan people were a breeding ground
for monarchist and fascist ideas. Any attack on the Republic
would likely come from those sections of the armed forces

¥ Felix Morro. Revolution and Counter-Resluton in Spain (Nevw York:
Pathfinder, 1974). p. 5
" Morron, . 10.

1
But the republican government would not give up its colonial
possessions; it had its own imperial ambitions

In less than two months, the republican-Socialist coalition
traded its first blows with the workers' movement. In May 1931,
members of the Civil Guard shot 10 workers after a clash with
‘monarchist groups. In July, a general strike broke out in Seville
in support of a walkout by local telephone workers. The gov-
emment declared martial law. Forty workers died and more
than 200 were wounded in the ensuing street battles.

The republican government was paralyzed between the
aspirations of the workers and peasants who had elected it
into power and its continued defense of the bourgeoisie. It was
incapable of carrying through even the most basic democratic
reforms. Reforms could only be defended and extended by
strengthening the power of working-class organizations. Only
by calling into question the very existence of the bourgeois
government could the workers' movement be strengthened.
As Trotsky wrote prophetically in 1931:

The Madrid government...promises strong mea-
sures against unemployment and land-hunger,
but it does not dare to touch a single one of
the social ulcers... The discordance between the
progress of the mass revolution and the policy
of the new ruling classes-that is the source
of the irreconcilable conflict that, in its future
development, will either bury the first revolution
or produce a second one.

The struggle over democratic demands was not simply
a fight for a less repressive state; it was at the core of the
fight for workers' power and socialism. The working class, as
Trotsky argued, was the only class capable of leading the fight
for democratic demands for the peasantry and the oppressed

" Trotsky, pp 126-27.

12
minorities; but, in that fight, it was bound also to fight for its
own, socialist aspirations.

The anarchists had stood aloof from the democratic strug-
gles for the republic. In Catalonia, a CNT stronghold, and
in the Basque provinces, the anarchists did not advocate the
right of self-determination, leaving the issue in the hands
of the middle-class nationalists. And, while it organized
demonstrations against the conscription of Spanish workers
to fight in Morocco, it all but ignored that country’s struggle
for independence.” The anarchists’ apoliticism led them to
vacillate between complete indifference to the struggles for
democratic reforms and wild ultra-leftism when antidemo-
cratic laws were used to repress them. Having played little
role in the formation of the Republic, the anarchists then faced
its betrayals and repression by leaping into an adventurous
cycle of insurrections that paved the way for the return of the
right wing,

In January 1932, anarchists launched an insurrection in
the Catalan mining town of Alto Llobregat. The military
suppressed it almost immediately. In January 1933, they
initiated a call for an insurrection in support of a strike of
railway workers. Sporadic uprisings broke out in Catalonia,
Valencia, and parts of Andalusia. They were uniformly crushed
almost. immediately. The centralized Spanish army had no
trouble isolating and defeating each revolt in succession.
‘The insurrections had little active support and were further
hampered by the anarchists” insistence on federalism and
autonomy. As César M. Lorenzo, son of the CNT's national

¥ Al a mass meeting in Madrid, anarchist leader Federica Montseny
eitcized Franco's forces,saying: “Ifthey were Spaniards,ifthey were pat-
ots, they would not have Iet loose on Spain the Regulars and the Moors to
impose the civilizaion of the Fascsts, not as a Christian civilization, but as
Moorish cvilzation. People we went to colonze for them now come and
colonize us, with religious pinciples and politcal ideas which they wish to
impose on the minds of the Spanish people”

13
secretary, describes, the federal structure of the CNT-FAI
made it impossible to coordinate actions, even for those who
wanted to, among the various sections:

Within the CNT everyone had his own opinion,
everyone acted according to his own judgment,
the leaders were ceaselessly criticized and chal-
lenged, the autonomy of the regional federations
was inviolable, just as the autonomy of the local
federations and unions was inviolable within the
regional federations. To get a decision accepted...a.
militant had to exhaust himself making speeches,
personal contacts, moving from place to place.
Among the libertarians the ballot was repugnant;
the unanimity they sought required interminable
debates

As Frederick Engels noted of the role of the Bakuninist an-
archists in the 1873 insurrection in Spain,

Nothing remains of the so-called principles of an-
archy, free federation of independent groups, ete,
but the boundless, and senseless fragmentation of
the revolutionary resources, which enabled the
government to conquer one city after another
with a handful of soldiers, practically unresisted.

The insurrections were isolated also by the anarchists’ in-
sistence that anyone who opposed their adventure was on the
other side. In a characteristic statement during one of its upris-

“Bolloten, p. 125

" Frederick Engels, “The Bakuninists at work” in Mars, Engels, Lenin,
Anarchism and Anarchesyndicalsm (Moscow: Progess Publishers, 1974), p.
146

1
ings in 1933, the FAI declared that “all those who do not coop-
erate in the armed insurrection are traitors!™*®

Justa week after the January insurrections, anarchists in the
small village of Casas Viejas rose up and seized nearby land,
proclaiming a libertarian society. The government ordered the
military to restore order. In the fighting, the military killed
hundreds, burning some alive. Pictures of the massacre of peas-
ants, armed with hatchets and scythes, by soldiers who were
armed with rifles and artillery infuriated the public and helped
to seal the fate of the Azafia government; but the cycle of in-
surrections took a heavy toll on the anarchists. Thousands of
union militants were arrested. As Murray Bookehin notes in
his history of anarchism before the civil war, “Perhaps the ex-
ample set by the uprising succeeded in fostering the militancy
ofthe growingleft factions in the Socialist Party, but apart from
strike actions and terrorism, it completely exhausted the move-
ment”

With the anarchists in retreat and the PSOE discredited for
its role in the republican government, the right took the ini-
tiative. The right-wing parties began cynically exposing the
atrocities of the Casas Viejas massacre in their press, and even
formed their own tribunals to examine abuses by the military.
Al of this was a self-serving attempt to embarrass the Azaia
government by groups that had nothing but contempt for the
peasantry, but in the absence of an alternative from the left it
allowed the right to gain the upper hand

The CNT played its part in the elections, arguing, “Workers!
Don't Vote!... Destroy the ballot boxes...crack the heads of the
ballot supervisors as well as the candidates™ When elections
were called in November 1933, the right won an overwhelming

¥ Quoted in Andy Durgan, “Revolutionary anarchism in Spain; Inter
national Soialism, Winter 1981, p. 101,

" Bookchin, p. 259

** Durgan p. 101

15
victory, ushering in what became known as EI Bienio Negro,
the two black years.

Reaction and revolt

‘The right-wing government that took power in November
1933, headed by Alejandro Lerrous, did so against the back-
drop of the ise of fascism in Europe. Hitler had been appointed
chancellor of Germany in January by the conservative presi-
dent Hindenburg. In March, the Austrian fascist, Englebert Dol-
fuss, had convinced the Austrian president to cede him dicta-
torial powers. Austrian workers rose up heroically to defeat
Dolfuss, but were crushed. Many Spanish workers feared that
Spain would be next. After the November elections, the largest
‘number of seats in the Cortes was held by members of the Con-
federacion Espariola de Derechas Auténomas (CEDA), a con-
federation of industrialists, monarchists, and admirers of Mus-
solini and Dolfuss, led by José Maria Gil Robles

‘The membership of the PSOE and UGT, radicalized by the
failure of the German Social-Democrats to put up any resis-
tance to the rise of fascism and by the Austrian workers' fierce
resistance, put pressure on their leadership to prevent any at-
tempt by Gil Robles to take power. Moderate PSOE leaders In-
dalecio Prieto and Roman Gonzles Pefia publicly pledged in
the Cortes that any attempt to install a fascist regime would
be met with armed revolution. The large left wing, led by the
Socialist Youth, declared that they were preparing for a prole-
tarian revolution.'” A call went out for the formation of a broad
united front of workers' organizations, known as the Alianza
Obrera, to resist the advance of the right

On October 1, members of CEDA demanded seats in the gov-
ernment, leading to the collapse of the Lerroux government
Lerroux formed a new cabinet that included four members

Morrow, p. 26

16
of CEDA. The PSOE leadership, which only months before
had promised armed resistance to Gil Robles, was now forced
act. On October 4, the Alianza Obrera and the UGT called
a nationwide general strike. In most places the strike was a
tragic failure. The reformist PSOE leadership that had called
for the strike had only partially committed to it. The start of
the strike was postponed twice in hopes that an agreement
could be reached with Lerrous to remove CEDA from the
cabinet. When the UGT finally issued a strike call, it was
on short notice and following a declaration of martial law
that enabled the government to arrest hundred of Socialist
organizers

Only in the mining center of Asturias did the strike take on
truly revolutionary proportions. There, the UGT, Communists,
and the CNT had all entered into the Alianza Obrera, signing
a pact that committed them to work together “until they ob-
tain a social revolution in Spain” On the night of October 4,
sirens announced the beginning of the strike. Joint militias at-
tacked the barracks of the Civil Guards, disarming them. Min-
ers marched on the capital, Oviedo, liberating towns along the
route and gathering forces. When the miners took control of
cities, they redistributed land to the peasants and seized the
mines and factories. When they reached the capital, an armed
column of 8,000 miners occupied the city. For 15 days the be-
leaguered miners of Asturias held out against the troops of the
Foreign Legion. In the slaughter that followed, more than 3,000
were killed and thousands more were imprisoned 2

The various workers' organizations had joined spon-
taneously in Asturias. The October rebellion showed the
potential of a united workers' movement and the desire of
many rank-and-file workers from all parties for unity. When
the CNT national leadership rebuked the local CNT com-
mittee for having signed such a pact without their consent,

* Moo, p.31; Bookehin, p. 252

17
the rank-and-file miners responded, “In social struggles, as
in other wars, victory always goes to those who previously
got together and jointly organized their forces! Nationally,
though, the call for united action through the Alianza Obrera
was rejected by the CNT, who opposed the participation of
the PSOE.

In response to the call for the Alianza Obrera, the anarchist
leader, Buenaventura Durruti, argued, “The alliance, to be rev-
olutionary, must be genuinely working class. It must be the re-
sult of an agreement between the workers’ organizations, and
those alone. No party, however socialist it may be, can belong
to a workers’ alliance™ Essentially, the CNT's message was
“We refuse to unite in struggle with workers who have yet to
agree to march under our banner” An abstract opposition to
“politics” led the anarchists away from united working-class
action?*

The CNT's hostility to the Socialists was fueled by the
opportunism of the PSOE. Though rhetorically to the left of
other social-democratic parties in Europe, it had long since
abandoned revolutionary politics. The leadership of the PSOE.
saw the Alianza Obrera as nothing more than a paper alliance.
But by dismissing calls for unity and political struggle, the
anarchists turned their backs on millions of workers ready
o unite in struggle against the right, leaving them under the
vacillating leadership of the reformists and centrists of the

¥ Jost Peirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution (Deteoit: Red &
Black, 1974),p. 94

% Quoted in Abel Paz, Durruti: The People Armed, Naney MacDonald,
trans. (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1974),p. 154

©The Stalnists in this period also refused to support united front ac
s with the reformist workers” partics and organizations, arguin that
ey were *social fascists” Trotsky argued instead for revolutionaries o pro-
pose joint action to the leadership of the reformist organizations with the
weakness and vacilaton in practice, and thereby winning the majoriy of
Workers o revolution.

18
PSOE. The anarchists’ apolitical radicalism was merely the
flip side of the PSOE's craven opportunism. As the Russian
revolutionary Vladimir Lenin argued in 1917

The professional Cabinet Ministers and parlia-
mentarians, the traitors to the proletariat and
the “practical” socialists of our day, have left all
criticism of parliament to the anarchists. It is not
surprising that the proletariat of the “advanced”
parliamentary countries, disgusted with such
“socialists”..has been with increasing frequency
giving its sympathies to anarchosyndicalism, in
spite of the fact that the latter is merely the twin
brother of opportunism 2+

For Lerroux's right-wing coalition, however, the rebellion in
Asturias was the beginning of the end. The right had been thor-
oughly discredited and a new militancy was growing among
workers and the peasantry. When new elections were called,
few people doubted the outcome.

From Popular Front to revolution

In February 1936, an electoral alliance between the main par-
ties of the middle-class and the main workers' parties, known
as the Popular Front, came to power in Spain. The CNT and
the FAI had declined to join the Popular Front, affirming their
opposition to all political action. But in practice, the CNT-FAI
dropped its abstentionism and gave tacit approval to its mem-
bers to vote for the Popular Front, thereby assuring its narrow
victory.

‘The Popular Front came to power on the heels of a massive
wave of strikes and peasant rebellions. Although its program

VUL Lenin, State and Revolution (New York: International Publishers,
1932), pp. 3940

19
consisted of reforms specifically designed not to alienate the
bourgeoisie, most workers and peasants saw the victory of the
Popular Front as the beginning of larger battles. As one Madrid
socialist put it:

[The workers] wanted to go forward, they weren't
satisfied simply with the release of political prison-
ers and the return to their jobs of all those who had
been sacked as a result of the revolutionary insur-
rection of October 1934, Instinctively, they were
pressing forward, not necessarily to take power,
not to create soviets, but to push forward the revo-
Iution which had begun with the republic’s procla-
mation 25

‘The ruling class saw the Popular Front victory as a declara-
tion of war. Lerroux's right-wing coalition had been unable to
restrain the workers’ movement; now large sections of the rul-
ing class dropped their half-hearted support for the Republic
and swung behind a dictatorial solution. Soon after the elec-
tions, a motley coalition of high-ranking army officers, monar-
chists, and fascists began plotting a military coup.

On the morning of July 17, the army garrison in Spanish-
held Moroceo rose in revolt under the direction of General
Francisco Franco, Garrisons revolted in most major cities. From
the beginning it was clear that this was an attack not only on
the Popular Front government, but also on the working-class
organizations that had brought it to power. After seizing con-
trol of the Seville garrison on July 17, General Gonzalo Queipo
de Llano signed a proclamation declaring that the leaders of
any labor union on strike would “immediately be shot” as well
as “an equal number of members selected discretionally™

* Ronald Fraser, Blood of Spain (New Yorlc: Pantheon Books, 1979). p.

e
* Bolloten, pp. 41-42.

2
‘The Popular Front government received word of the upris-
ing within hours, but kept silent for an entire day. Even on the
afternoon of July 18, the government offered only a note that
read, “The Government speaks again in order to confirm the
absolute tranquility of the whole Peninsula” Instead, on the
night of July 18, the government dissolved itself and formed a
new cabinet of right-wing politicians outside the Popular Front.
Rather than fight the fascists, the government's first reaction
was to appease them. The workers, however, responded imme-
diately. It was a pattern that would be repeated throughout the
war. The Popular Front government stalled and prey
hoping until the last moment to avoid confrontation, and the
working class led the struggle against the fascists.

‘The CNT and the UGT demanded that the Popular Front gov-
ernment arm the workers, but it refused. Ignoring the govern-
ment's pleas, detachments of workers stormed army barracks,
seized weapons and began distributing them to anyone with
a trade union or party membership card. They quickly orga-
nized defenses, creating armed patrols, arresting fascist sym-
pathizers, and building barricades. Within days, the revolt was
defeated in many cities and Franco’s forces were being rolled
back out of the province of Aragén. But wherever the Popular
Front government successfully prevented workers from mobi-
lizing, the rebellion succeeded. Writes historian Hugh Thomas:

ricated,

Nearly everywhere on July 18, the civil gover-
nors followed the example of the government
of Madrid, and refused to cooperate with the
working-class organizations who were clamoring
for arms. In many cases, this brought the success
of the risings and signed the death warrants of
the civil governors themselves, along with local
working-class leaders.”

7 Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Ciil War (London: Pelican, 1956),p. 220.

21
Historians Broué and Temime write:

In effect, each time that the workers' organiza-
tions allowed themselves to be paralyzed by their
anxiety to respect Republican legality and each
time that their leaders were satisfied with what
was said by the officers, the latter prevailed. On
the other hand, the Movimiento was repulsed
whenever the workers had time to arm and when-
ever they set about the destruction of the army as
such, independently of their leaders’ positions or
the attitude of “legitimate” public authorities **

Although the Popular Front government remained in power,
the state apparatus it depended on had collapsed. Most army
officers were sympathetic to Franco, and the soldiers had either
joined the uprising or the workers” resistance. Many industri-
alists and landowners fled to rebel-held territory.

As the old society began to fall apart, the workers’ move-
ment organized new structures in its place. The trade unions
commandeered cars and trucks to transport members of the
newly formed workers' militias; they formed ambulance ser-
vices and worker-run hospitals. Communal kitchens and trans-
portation centers were organized ’ In the cities, workers took
over factories and placed them under workers’ control. They
elected representatives to oversee production and coordinate
work in the shops. George Orwell, who arrived in Barcelona
six months after the uprising, wrote a moving description of
the city under workers' control in his book Homage to Catalo-

Biere Broué and Emile Témime, The Revoluton and Civil War in Spain
(London: Faber and Faber, 1970),p. 104

*The CNT-controlled radio tation in Barcelona broadeast cookin tips
for cooks i the communal kitchen who were unaceustomed 1o steetching
recipe for hundreds of people.

2
It was the first time that I had ever been in a town
where the working class was in the saddle. Prac-
tically every building of any size had been seized
by the workers and was draped with red flags or
with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; ev-
ery wall was serawled with the hammer and sickle
and with the initials of the revolutionary parties.
Every shop and café had an inscription saying that
it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had
been collectivized and their boxes painted red and
black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the
face and treated you as an equal.

‘The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flam-
ing from the walls in clean reds and blues that
made the few remaining wall advertisements look
like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide
central artery of the town, were crowds of people
streaming constantly to and fro, the loud-speakers
were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far
into the night... There was much in it that I did not
understand, in some ways 1 did not even like it,
but Irecognized it immediately as a state of affairs
worth fighting for.**

In the countryside, peasants took control of the
land, redistributing large estates and, in many
places, collectivizing the land and setting up com-
munes. An anarchist in the town of Membrilla,
deseribed their local commune:

On July 22, the big landowners were expropriated,
small property was liquidated, and all the land
passed into the hands of the commune

George Orwell, Homage o Catalonia (New York: Harcourt Brace Jo-

vanovich, 1980), pp.4-5.

2
‘The local treasury was empty. Among private in-
dividuals the sum of thirty thousand pesetas in all
was found and seized. All the food, the clothing,
the tools, etc, were distributed equitably along the
population. Money was abolished, labor was col-
lectivized, property was taken over by the commu-
nity, and the distribution of consumer goods was
socialized.

Three liters of wine are distributed to every per-
son per week. Rent, electricity, water, medical at-
tention and medicines are free.**

‘War and revolution

From the beginning, the republican parties had nothing but
contempt for the revolution: “The Revolution commenced un-
der a republican government that neither wished to support it
nor could support it”*? But by 1936, the republican parties had
little mass support. They held on to power largely through the
support they received from the left. As it had during the first
period of the republic, the leadership of the PSOE continued
to defend the republican parties. Now the Spanish Communist
Party (PCE) joined them.

Before the civil war, the PCE had been an insignificant party.
It had failed to gain a large following after its founding in 1921,
and since Stalin’s rise to power in Russia, it had abandoned any
commitment to revolutionary struggle and become litle more
than a tool of Soviet foreign policy. Now, after a brief period
of ultra-leftism in the early 19305, in which it refused to work
jointly with reformist workers’ organizations, the PCE flipped
over to become the leading advocate of the Popular Front. The
PCE hoped to win the support of the Allies to join & coalition

Bolloten, . 70,
* Bolloten, p. 56,

2
against fascism at a time when the Soviet Union was facing
increasing hostility from the Nazi government in Germany.

From the first days of the war, the Popular Front govern-
ment, with the support of the PSOE and the PCE, passed re-
strictions on the ability of peasants to seize large land holdings
and on workers' ability to run factories under workers' control.
It passed laws stating that under no condition would the pri-
vate property of foreign firms be seized. Only by restraining
the demands of the workers and peasants, the Popular Front
government and its supporters argued, could it maintain unity
between all antifascist forces, including the bourgeoisie. José
Diaz, leader of the PCE wrote:

Ifin the beginning the various premature attempts
at “socialization” and “collectivization”...might
have been justified..at the present time, when
there is a government of the Popular Front, in
which all the forces engaged in the fight against
fascism are represented. such things are not only
not desirable, but absolutely impermissible.**

Thus the left became the last defenders of the bourgeois or-
der.

Both the PCE and the PSOE tried to underwrite their alliance
with bourgeois forces by arguing that Spain needed first to
have a bourgeois revolution, and only after this could it have
a workers' revolution. But the bourgeoisie and much of the
armed forces saw Franco’s rebellion as the only force capable of
restoring order and protecting capitalism against the advances
of the workers and peasants,

Each attempt to appease the bourgeoisie by suppressing the
class struggle and the peasants’ fight for land weakened the
fight against fascism. Only by strengthening the organizations
of workers and peasants, and only by offering a political

Morrow, p.95.

2
program based upon land redistribution and workers power,
could the loyalist side hope to overcome the fascists. Not unity
with the bourgeoisie, but a sharp break with the bourgeoisie
(which had, after all, tried to prevent workers from taking up
arms against the fascists) was necessary to defeat Franco. As
Trotsky wrote at the time:

Acivil war is waged, as everyone knows, not only
with military but also with political weapons
From a purely military point of view, the Spanish
revolution is much weaker than its enemy. Its
strength lies in its ability to rouse the great masses
toaction. It can even take away the army from its
reactionary officers. To accomplish this, it is only
necessary to seriously and courageously advance
the program of the socialist revolution ¢

An immediate redistribution of the large landed estates
would have won the support of millions of peasants to the
government, including many conservative peasants who had
joined the clerical and monarchist forces in Franco's army. A
declaration of independence for Morocco would have under-
cut Franco's support in North Africa, and even opened up a
second front against his forces in Morocco. The immediate
nationalization of industry and banking would have prevented
the bourgeoisie from sabotaging war production by reopening
closed plants and seizing money that could be used to purchase

‘The Popular Front government could not pursue these basic
tasks because they threatened the very existence of the bour-
geoisie. Only a revolutionary government led by the working
class could enact them. The workers controlled the streets and
the factories, but that would not continue indefinitely. Either

FTrotsky: p. 255

2
the workers would seize power in a new revolution or Franco
and his supporters would crush the Republic.

‘The failure to seize power

‘The CNT was in control of much of Republican Spain and
had power in its hands. In the Catalan capital of Barcelona, the
Leaders of the CNT-FAI were called into the offices of Luis Com-
panys, head of the regional government. There Companys told
them, “Today you are masters of the city and of Catalonia... You
have conquered and everything s in your power: if you do not
need or want me as president of Catalonia, tell me now”™

‘The delegates of the CNT were surprised by this frank ad-
mission: “He saw the situation more clearly than us because he
hadn't been in the thick of the street fighting. One of us replied,
“We have come to no decision about this, consequently we can-
not give an answer. We would have to return and report to the
ONT"*

‘The choice was posed clearly: Either the CNT would over-
throw the old government and establish 2 revolutionary gov-
ernment in Catalonia, or the Popular Front would remain in
power and slowly strangle both the revolution and the fight
against Franco. The CNT, however, was not prepared for the
choice.

On July 23, the Catalan Regional Committee of the CNT-FAI
called a meeting to discuss whether to overthrow the Catalan
government. Initially, FAI leader Juan Gareia Oliver, who later
entered the national government as minister of justice, argued
to“go for everything” overthrow the government and establish
libertarian communism. If the government were overthrown,
however, it would have to be replaced by workers® govern-
ment led by the CNT-FAL The anarchists believed any such

Broué and Temime,p 150
* Fraser, p. 111,

27
state would be a dictatorship, a mortal blow to their anti-statist
principles. Federica Montseny argued that “her conscience as
an anarchist would not permit her to accept...to go for every-
thing as Garcia Oliver proposed, because the installation of
an anarchist dictatorship, because it was a dictatorship, could
never be anarchist™ And Mariano Vizquez, the regional sec-
retary of the Catalan CNT, opposed “compromising the Orga-
nization [CNT] in dictatorial practices™®

Looking back on the decision, FAI leader Diego Abad de San-
tillin wrote:

We could have remained alone, imposed our abso-
lute will, declared the Generalidad null and void,
and imposed the true power of the people in its
place, but we did not believe in dictatorship when
it was being exercised against us, and we did not
want it when we could exercise it ourselves only at
the expense of others. The Generalidad would re-
main in force with President Companys at its head,
and the popular forces would organize themselves
into militias to carry on the struggle for the liber-
ation of Spain**

When the final vote was taken, Garcia Oliver backed down,
and only one delegate voted in favor of overthrowing the gov-
emment. The CNT announced that it would support Companys
remaining as head of the government.

Many anarchists at the time and since have tried to justify~
or at least explain-the decision of the CNT to leave the
government intact and even offer support. Some maintain
that no such decision needed to be made. “The dilemma of

Robert ). Alexander, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War (Janus
Publishing: London, 1999, p. 743,

* Alexander, p. 743,

* Quoted n Broué and Temime, p. 131

28
the “Anarchist and Confederal dictatorship’ or ‘Collaboration
and democracy.” writes anarchist Vernon Richards, “existed
only for those ‘influential militants’ of the CNT-FAI who,
wrongly interpreting their functions as delegates, took upon
themselves the task of directing the popular movement™* For
Richards the problem exists only because Garcia Oliver and
others were “authoritarian” enough to acknowledge it. But
Richards is only sidestepping the problem. A real dilemma did
exist for the thousands of anarchists,

Most anarchists cite the war and the necessity of maintain-
ing unity in the fight against fascism as the reason for not over-
throwing the state. As Gaston Leval, a French anarchist who
fought with the CNT militias, explains:

‘The anarchists, too, faced with the fascist peril, the
suppression of free speech and the right to orga-
nize, faced with the inevitable persecutions of all
those who would not submit to dictatorship, real-
ized that everyone must unite against fascism.**

Here the anarchists are only aping the arguments of the Stal-
inists, accepting the political and later physical disarming of
the Spanish working class for the sake of “antifascist unity”
‘The Popular Front government had already shown itself un-

willing to lead a determined struggle against Franco for fear of
alienating the bourgeoisie at home and abroad. A determined
struggle against fascism could only be led by the workers; but
the state could not be sidestepped. It had to be overturned and
replaced with a workers' government capable of waging the
war along revolutionary lines. By renouncing their intention
to overturn the bourgeois state, the anarchists merely showed
the inability of their theories to provide a way forward.

“ Richards. p. 40.

* Quoted in Sam Dolgoff. ed, The Anarchist Cllectives: Workers’ Scif-

Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939 (New York: Black Rose
Boaks, 1990), p.50.

2
The anarchist movement had always assumed that the so-
cial revolution would solve the question of the state. Now, in a
revolutionary situation, the anarchists faced a situation of dual
power in which either a workers’ state or a bosses” state was
posed sharply. As Leval again explains:

At the end of 1936, all those among the anar-
chists who were preoccupied primarily with
the revolutionary question oversimplified and
underestimated the political problem. The social
revolution would sweep away the entrenched
powers and institutions. The political parties
would disappear. The parasitic classes, no longer
able to count on the support of the state, would
disappear. And all that would remain to be done
would be to organize the new anarchist society.
But the necessity of fighting the war against
fascism completely upset these expectations. The
state continued to exist

‘The revolutionary Marxist tradition, contrary to the claims
of the anarchists, had always maintained the necessity of de-
stroying the bourgeois state. Its opposition to anarchism had
always been that immediately following a revolution it is neces-
sary to replace the bourgeois state with a workers’ government
capable of suppressing the forces of reaction. As Lenin writes
in State and Revolution:

We do not at all disagree with the Anarchists on
the question of the abolition of the state as an aim.
We maintain that, to achieve this aim, temporary
use must be made of the instruments, means and
methods of the state power against the exploiters,
just as the dictatorship of the oppressed class

Quoted in Dolgoft, p.51.

30
is temporarily necessary for the annihilation of
5

classes.
Again and again, the anarchists found themselves in the
same dilemma. To overthrow the state meant replacing it with
a revolutionary government led by the CNT-FAL Anarchists
rejected this as dictatorship. If the CNT-FAI refused power, the
government would remain in the hands of class forces hostile
to the revolution and unwilling to continue the revolutionary
struggle that had arrested Franco's advance. Trotsky writes

In and of itself, this self-justification that “we
did not seize power not because we were unable
but because we did not wish to, because we
were against every kind of dictatorship” and
the like, contains an irrevocable condemnation
of anarchism as an utterly anti-revolutionary
doctrine. To renounce the conquest of power is
voluntarily to leave the power with those who
wield it, the exploiters. The essence of every
revolution consisted and consists in putting
new class in power, thus enabling it to realize its
own program in life. It is impossible to wage war
and to reject victory. It is impossible to lead the
masses towards insurrection without preparing
for the conquest of power **

Even the CNT's enemies saw its failure clearly. Major Fred-
eric Escofet, a moderate Catalan republican, wrote:

[The CNT found itself] virtually in control of
the streets, the arms and transportation, in other
words, with power in its hands; its leaders, who

© Lenin p. 51
“Trotsky. p. 316

31
were bold and energetic and experienced fighters,
were disoriented. They had no plan,
doctrine, no idea what they should do or what
they should allow others to do. The CNT concept
of libertarian communism was devoid of realism
and was silent as to the road it should follow in a
revolutionary period **

no clear

From contempt to collaboration

In Madrid, the Popular Front government was still in power,
but had little support. The republican parties' base of support,
already weak in July, had evaporated after Franco's initial vie-
tories. Inan attempt to widen support for the government, Pres-
ident Manuel Azafia invited the left Socialist and head of the
UGT, Francisco Largo Caballero, to form a new government
with Cabellero as prime minister. Caballero was a reformist
turned radical who combined fiery speeches in support of the
revolution with continued collaboration with the party’s right
wing and the Popular Front government

In September, Caballero formed a government composed of
the Socialist, Communist, and left Republican parties. But, from
the beginning he was insistent that the CNT be included in the
government. Claridad, the publication of Caballero’s faction of
PSOE, wrote, “The entry of the representatives of the CNT into
the present Council of Ministers would certainly endow the
directive organ of the nation with fresh energy and authority,
in view of the fact that a considerable segment of the working
class, now absent from its deliberations, would feel bound by
its measures and its authority™*

Initially, the CNT refused Caballero's offer of a single seat
in the cabinet. They hoped that the strength of the militias and

“Trotsky: p. 392
“ Bollote,pp. 19295

32
the factory commiltees would be sufficient to defend the revo-
Iution. “The militia commiltees guarantee the supremacy of the
people in arms. wrote Abad de Santillin.*” But as the Commu-
nists and right-wing Socialists began using their control over
supply lines to starve the revolutionary organizations of food
and arms, the anarchists realized that they could not remain
indifferent to the composition of the government. Having re-
nounced the intention of overthrowing the state, the CNT-FAI
opted for collaboration with it! When Caballero agreed to give
the CNT-FAI four seats in the government, the CNT-FAI ac-
cepted.

The CNTEAT's decision to join a government, and a
capitalist government no less, was a complete betrayal of
the stated aims of anarchism and utterly compromised the
anarchists. Looking back on the decision, Federica Montseny,
then minister of health and social welfare, wrote:

As a consequence, the state recovered the position
it had lost, while we revolutionaries, who formed
part of the state, helped it to o so. That was why
we were brought into the government. Although
we did not enter it with that intention, we were
in it, and therefore had no alternative but remain
imprisoned in the vicious circle.*

The CNT-FAI now joined Caballero and the Communists as
the last defenders of the bourgeois order.

In the aftermath of the civil war, few anarchists support the
CNT's decision to enter the government. Even at the time, the
CNT-FAI received severe criticism from anarchists abroad. But
what anarchist critics fail to do is provide any alternative, any
way out of the dilemma in which the CNT-FAI found itself. José

Quoted i Casas,p. 194
* Alexander, . 876

33
Peirats, who during the civil war had been a leader in the lib-
ertarian youth movement and a strident critic of collaboration,

describes the paralysis of the opponents of collaboration:

At the distance of many years, I think that those
of us who opposed consistently the governmen-
talist thesis could not have offered any other way
of resolving the problems of the time than a stoic
and heroic gesture. I think, also, that there was
an unconfessed complicity in many militants op-
posed to collaboration, who shouted their holy ire
at the same time they allowed it to happen... They
couldn’t offer any solution.**

Anarchist critics are unable to provide a solution because
they accept the theoretical underpinnings that led the CNT-
FAlleaders away from the seizure of power and toward collab-
oration. Helmut Ruediger, representative of the International
Workingmen's Association in Barcelona, himself a eritic of the
CNT, acknowledged the opposition’s dilemma in his response
to the eriticisms of foreign anarchists such as Emma Goldman:

31

Those who say that the CNT should have estab-
lished its own dictatorship in 1936 do not know
what they are demanding... The CNT would have
needed a government program, a program for ex-
excising power; [it would have needed] training in
the exercise of power, an economic plan centrally
directed, and experience in the use of the state ap-
paratus... The CNT had none of these. Nor do those
who believe that the CNT should have implanted
its own dictatorship have such a program, either
for their own country or for Spain. Do not let us
delude ourselves!

Alexander, p. 766
Furthermore, had it possessed such a program before July 19,
the CNT would not have been the CNT; it would have been a
Bolshevik party, and, had it applied such methods to the Revo-
lution, it would

‘The minority of anarchists who rejected collaboration and

e dealt Anarchism a mortal blow.*

tried to find a way out of the impasse of anarchism were forced
to break with key aspects of anarchist theory and move to-
ward revolutionary Marxism. The Friends of Durruti, formed in
March 1937, was a small group of anarchists based in Barcelona
who broke with what they called “apolitical anarchism’

To beat Franco we need to crush the bourgeoisie
and its Stalinist and Socialist Allies. The capitalist
state must be destroyed totally and there must be
installed workers” power depending on rank-and-
file workers’ commiltees. Apolitical anarchism has
failed*!

In response to this call for the overthrow of the Popular
Front and its replacement with a revolutionary government,
the CNT leadership demanded their expulsion from the union.

‘The defense of Madrid and the rise of the
Communists

The very week the anarchists joined the government,
Caballero showed just how shallow the Popular Front govern-
ment's conviction to fight the fascists was. When Franco's
forces moved to within a few miles of the capital, Madrid,
rather than again arm the workers and call for a defense of the
city, the new government's first act was to vote unanimously
to flee the capital (the anarchist ministers abstained from the

* Bolloten, p. 395
* Casas . 210,

35
vote, but did not publicly criticize the decision), leaving behind
virtually no organized defense of the city.

Abandoned by the government, the inhabitants of Madrid
began scrambling to build defenses. One young man recalled:
“When the government left, we felt betrayed.. Everyone ex-
pected the enemy to take the city. But they didn't. The climate
began to change. There were calls everywhere to defend the
city. ‘Better to die than to live on your knees™*?

Men, women, and even children hastily gathered arms and
set out for the front. The union of streetcar workers began
running free shuttles from the working-class quarters to the
front. For weeks, workers fought the fascists street by street,
house by house, showing incredible heroism. Men and women
often went to the front unarmed, waiting to relieve someone
or waiting for a comrade to fall in battle so they could take up
arms. Revolutionary posters went up around the city that read,
“MADRID WILL BE THE TOMB OF FASCISM! No pasarin!
[“They shall not pass!”] Every house a fortress, every street a
trench, every neighborhood a wall of iron and combatants™*

After a month of bitter fighting, Franco's forces began with-
drawing from the Madrid suburbs that had been captured at
the beginning of November. The Popular Front had won its first
significant victory of the war. Victory had come through the
tremendous initiatives and sacrifices of the workers of Madrid,
but it was the Communist Party that would claim credit

When the Popular Front government had fled Madrid, it had
taken with them the leaderships of all the leading political par-
ties and trade unions except the Communists. The organization
of the defense of the city was left largely in their hands. Af-
ter the defense of Madrid, the Communist press printed glow-
ing accounts of how the Communists had saved Madrid, of the
heroism of the Communist-controlled International Brigades,

Feaser p. 262
* Fraser, p. 255

36
and of the support received from the Soviet Union during the
defense.

‘The PCE and its corollary in Catalonia, the Partit Socialista
Unificat de Catalunya (PSUC), had grown from insignificant
organizations at the outbreak of the civil war to mass organi-
zations that included many heroic workers who gave their lives
in Madrid, but these were not revolutionary workers' parties.
‘The Communists’ principle demands had been the defense of
private property and the limiting of the revolution. In 1936, the
‘majority of its members were small landowners, intellectuals,
and members of the urban middle class 5

After the defense of Madrid, the Communists used their new-
found popularity to begin to take control of the Popular Army
and police forces, recruiting or winning support from leading
‘members of the right wing of the PSOE and many of the re-
‘maining officer corps. They then took full advantage of their
position over the distribution of weapons to withhold ammu-
nition and supplies from the workers’ militias of the CNT and
the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista (POUM), a small
anti-Stalinist party based mainly in Catalonia. The aim was
clear: to starve the revolution. But the Communists could not
gain undisputed control of the war without settling scores with
the anarchists, the POUM, and the revolutionary workers of
Barcelona.

Barcelona: The anarchist betrayal

Since July, Barcelona and most of the province of Catalo-
nia had been in an uneasy truce. The workers’ organizations,
particularly the CNT, controlled most aspects of daly life; but
the regional government was slowly disbanding the revolution-
ary commiltees and trying to restore “order” The changes bred
resentment among most workers in Catalonia, but opposition
had been compromised when the CNT and POUM had entered
the regional government in September 1936. Instead, anger and

“Bolloten, p. 321

37
frustration built over the winter. George Orwell, on leave from
the front, described the changes in the city since his last visit

[Under] the surface-aspect of the town, under the
luxury and growing poverty, under the sceming
gaiety of the streets with their propaganda-
posters, and thronging crowds, there was an
unmistakable and horrible feeling of political
rivalry and hatred. People of all shades of opinion
were saying forebodingly: “There's going to
be trouble before long” The danger was quite
simple and intelligible. It was the antagonism
between those who wished the revolution to
go forward and those who wished to check or
prevent it-ultimately, between Anarchists and
Communists **

‘The inevitable clash finally came on the morning of May 3,
when three truckloads of Assault Guards, under the personal
command of a PSUC minister, arrived at the anarchist-held
Telephone Exchange with an eviction notice. This was a test of
power. The Telephone Exchange had been seized by the CNT
in the first days of fighting in July and had been run under
workers’ control ever since. It was widely regarded as the most
visible symbol of workers' power in the city.

‘The CNT militants inside the building responded to the evic-
tion order with bullets. Within hours, barricades were being
erected all over the working-class districts of the city. “Hun-
dreds of workers armed themselves” wrote Augustine Souchy,
a well-known German anarchist, “constructing barricades and
disarming the civil guard with their consent. No blood was
spilled. The workers were masters of the situation™** From the

Orwell pp. 11718
* Alexander, . 905

38
front, a joint column of CNT-POUM militia began a march on
Barcelona to support the uprising

Once the fighting started, two things were clear. First, the
spontaneous uprising in Barcelona had the support of the ma-
jority of workers in Catalonia. Second, this provocation by the
government was intended as an act of war against the revo-
lution. This time there could be no collaboration; either the
workers would move forward and overthrow the government,
or their defeat would be the beginning of the end for the revo-
lution. There were no guarantees that an uprising in Barcelona
would have gained support outside of Catalonia, but a defeat
in Barcelona guaranteed the defeat of the revolution.

Some workers' organizations understood the need to take
power. The Friends of Durruti argued for the disarming of the
military and the disbanding of the Communist Party for orga-
nizing against the revolution. They also argued for the over-
throw of the government and the formation of a revolutionary
junta. Likewise, the small group of Trotskyists in Barcelona
published a leaflet calling on workers to form revolutionary
councils and for the seizure of power. But both groups were too
small to influence events decisively. Leadership of the workers'
‘movement still lay with the leadership of the CNT-FAL

‘The Popular Front government appealed to the CNT-FAL
and Montseny and Oliver were dispatched to Barcelona to
end the fighting. Over the radio, Oliver and later Montseny
appealed to CNT militants to dismantle the barricades and
return home. CNT leaders stopped the CNT militia column
from continuing its march to Barcelona " In disgust, workers
burned bundles of CNT newspapers at the barricades. “I heard

The POUM, while not utrightly trcacherous, was inefecive in its
oppositon. It semained focused on convincing the CNT leadership of the
need o scize power rather than on pursuing an independent line, When it
was clea that the CNT was ol going o take poser, the POUM arged for it
vwn mermbers o leave the barricades and haltedthe POUM ta colurmn's
mach to the capita

39
some comrades cry with rage over the telephone when they
telephoned the [CNT-FAI] committees and the latter told
them not to shoot, even though they were being attacked by
machine-gun fire” wrote Abad de Santillin ** The barricades
remained for another five days, but without the support of
the CNTFAI leadership, militants eventually retreated in
frustration and disgust. The revolution had been defeated.

‘The months that followed were months of outright reaction.
First the POUM and then the anarchists were purged from
any position of power by the Communists. Thousands of
revolutionaries disappeared into secret prisons to be tortured
or killed. In June, POUM leader Andrés Nin was kidnapped
and executed by the Soviet secret police. Any vestige of
revolutionary power-the factory committees, the communes,
the Council of Aragén, the militias-was forcibly disbanded.

‘The Popular Front government held out for nearly another
two years, but from May 1937 on, its fate was sealed. Once
the revolution was defeated, the civil war became a strictly
military conflict. In a conventional war, the fascists held all
the advantages-money, equipment, troops. The tremendous
heroism and sacrifice on the part of Spanish workers that
had marked the early months of the war had been based
on a belief that they were fighting for a new society. With
that gone, there was little reason to risk everything. As one
peasant soldier fighting on Franco's side shouted across the
trenches to workers' appealing to him to switch sides, “What
has the republic done for us that we should fight for it?"s’
When Barcelona, the cradle of the revolution, fell to Franco
on January 26, 1938, there were no barricades, there was no
heroie defense. Manuel Tagiiefa, the Communist Commander
of the 15" Army Corp wrote, “Barcelona accepted defeat with

* Bolloten, p. 451
* Quoted i Morrow, p. 1.

10
Sorrow and saw no purpose at all in prolonging the fight. We
were no longer in 19367

Conclusion

The apoliticism of the anarchist movement, its “denial” of
political struggle, left it to drift between extreme militancy and
collaboration. Responsibility for the defeat of the revolution
must ultimately lie with Franco's army, the complicity of the
PSOE leadership, and the treachery of the Communists-but it
also lay in the betrayal of the revolution by the anarchist lead-

The failure of the CNT-FAI to take power and its subsequent
collaboration was not in spite of its anarchist principles; it was
aproduct of them. By rejecting the formation of a workers” gov-
ernment as a form of dictatorship and refusing to seize power,
the CNT-FAI left itself no course but that of collaboration, cov-
ered up with phrases borrowed from the Stalinists about the
need for “antifascist unity” As Trotsky noted somewhat hu-
‘morously at the time:

We have already heard from some Anarchist the-
oreticians that at the time of such “exceptional”
circumstances as war and revolution, it is neces-
sary to renounce the principles of one’s own pro-
‘gram. Such revolutionists bear a close resemblance
to raincoats that leak only when it rains, ., in “ex-
ceptional” circumstances, but during dry weather
they remain waterproof with complete success.**

The anarchists thus vacillated between ultra-left adventur-
ism (the period of the insurrections and a complete rejection

“ Mortow, p. 669
Trotsky. p. 327

a1
of politics) and complete accommodation (joining a bourgeois
government) at the decisive revolutionary moment.

An alternative is necessary not as a historical exercise, but
because it shapes the struggles of today. In trying to explain the
failures of the CNT in the Spanish Revolution, some anarchists
have taken exactly the wrong lessons and retreated from the
very idea of class struggle altogether. Murray Bookchin writes
that as a result of the failure of the Spanish Revolution

‘The limitations of the trade union movement, even
in its anarchosyndicalist form, have become man-
ifestly clear. To see in trade unions (whether syn-
dicalist or not) an inherent potentiality for revolu-
tionary struggle is to assume that the interests of
workers and capitalists, merely as classes, are in-
trinsically incompatible. This is demonstrably un-
true if one is willing to acknowledge the obvious
capacity of the system to remake or to literally cre-
ate the worker in the image of a repressive indus-
trial culture and rationality.*

An inability to provide an alternative to the policies of the
CNT-FAI has led Bookchin and others away from the idea that
workers can struggle to remake the world in a more equal and
democratic image. Today the anarchist movement is a far cry
from the tradition of the CNT. It is dominated by middle-class,
lifestyle politics, often explicitly rejecting workers' struggle as
2 means of liberating society.

Yet this is the greatest legacy of the Spanish Revolution.
Whatever its failures, it stands as a heroic example of workers
struggle. Whatever its flaws, it gives a glimpse of what a social-
ist world could look like. But that alone is insufficient. While
revolutionary socialists and anarchists share a common goal

in a classless society, ultimately an alternative to capitalism

Dolgoff, introduction, pp.exii-iv.

12
must be found not within the tradition of Bakunin, Kropotkin,
and Goldman, but with the revolutionary socialist tradition of
Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky.

13
‘The Anarchist Library
Anti-Copyright

Geoff Bailey
Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War
2002

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International Socialist Review. Issue 24, July-August 2002

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