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The CNT and the Russian Revolution

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The CNT and the Russian Revolution i 7 _ _ _ _ ___ _1 _ -I-77_ _ __ gy _ -..“._ ii -----——-—\.—- _,_._,_ _-.-- -_ -._..n-1.,--_.....n--._,-'- 1-.--—-—_ ...- _. _ __-- _ _ _ _ _ i__ ______ _ _ ting‘-_ —-— ____ _ - M915 The Kat6 Sharplay Llbrary Q; kfiir 11* "** fifia * I 1,‘ --.._,=_;-,1,t-l§?'=&| W3 _-_____...-4-q-|.__-_'___. I’ I -Huhalflf -£$»'s.,§¢@..._ ... “'3'-‘~=~"‘" ~‘* ‘*1 av V '1 . wv .w\~ E ’#%z'$'?'*"‘§$T'-l‘~l5‘-Y MW; g§»§¥¢§&h** Q an 1:: $1: ,,,,M,|&<ir~ w=1v#4 W $2.; i§..*§% wgfl,i,-b-§"”.w F *5 "" rmi 1* F“ hjwm 2 v _JI 12> F "-1'-\'3_~":"‘*' M #*‘i§!¥l§ ,;~g/§a~#* 11¢» yr we,--» “:1? ¥¥\-‘\a*4: printed by 3* .2;“wflai n -'1 '§\“.u'tr ‘3#rffiw\7°* Introduction I Early reactions from anarchists to the events of the Russian Revolution ranged from the ecstatic to the enthusiastic and not until the early twenties was there a cohesive understanding amongst them about the brutality and counter revolutionary nature of the Bolshevik coup d’etat. In 1917 it seemed as though the old order could be overthrown and that single fact (momentous as it was ) remained a cause of celebration for some years. s As this pamphlet shows the CNT (with some telling exceptions) was part of the general acclaim although with experience this mood would change. In reading Llorens we become aware of the disparity of views and tendencies in the CNT and the enormous state pressure under which they had to operate. We become aware also of the methodology of the CNT. Pestana, in Moscow, doesn’t just flinch at what the Bolsheviks are saying. He also flinches at the undemocratic way in which they run their conferences. No direct democracy in the running of the Second Congress of the Third International. Pestana himself comes well out of these events perhaps suggesting a need to re-examine his later actions. Our knowledge of the importance of the activities of such militants as Gaston Leval is constantly growing and we can see the central role he has both in the future trajectory of the CNT and in the release of some Russian anarchists. The Kate Sharpley Library plans to reprint some of his vety early work which includes his account of his activities and the militants he met. So, instinctively and politically the CNT moved away from the Bolsheviks. Driven to them by the search for allies in the attempt to bring about a general insurrection of the proletariat they sensed their centralistand statist tendencies and broke offcontact. Llorens’ pamphlet presents a lucid and multi-layered view of these events. Events which will need to learned and analysed by all class struggle anarchist militants. Kate Sharpley Library The Revolutionary circumstance with the Lerroux-ists, republicans and party socialists), the very traditions of iibertarian and the example of contemporary French revolutionary By 1917 the CNT had been in existence for a bare 7 years, much or that time as a syndicalism (the CGT). Out of the confluence of all these elements sprangthe C.N.T., clandestine organisation. 1917 - which was to prove a watershed year in the history but it was through the hard knocks of social struggle and organisational coexistence of this century - was to prove a watershed for the CNT as well. In August, 6 months that its liberating goals were constantly being reframed. Outlawed in 1911, within aftertheRussianpeople’s revolutionin February, and3 months before the Bolsheviks’ just months of its foundation the CNT’s unions could not operate openly until 1916. coup d’état, the CNT embarked upon a great wave of revolutionary, insurrectionist The problems it faced. therefore, in following the European trend towards revolution strikes, thereby aligning itself with the efforts made by the labour movement will readily be appreciated. Yet it managed to contemplate the prospect, and although elsewhere (Htmary, Italy, Germany. .) in what was to be the most important window affiliation to the Third International was mooted at its first national congress, in the on revolution in Europe. The failures of the labour movement in Italy and Germany La Comedia theatre in Madrid in 1919, that congress also served, as we shall see, to were to leave the way open for the success of fascism and national socialism: the acknowledge the need for expansion and for establishment of links with like-minded consolidation of Bolshevik power on the ruins of the people’s revolution would lead international revolutionary organisations. on to a regimented communism. Totalitarianism, in both its avatars, was poised to lord it over Europe. The CNT’s international outlook. In Spain, things took a different turn, but ultimately the outcome would be similar - The La Corneolia congress (T919) the Franco dictatorship. Even so, historians have often sought to identify the essential characteristics of the CNT as the reason why it proved impossible for a socialist The CNT’s first congress provided a platform for an interesting debate and a sharing revolution to be brought off successfully at that time. Far from sharing that view, we of experiences. With regard to the analysis or the revolutionary events in Russia, with maintain that the libertarianism of the Spanish labour movement was no hindrance, which we are concerned here, that should be placed in the overall context of the quest but rather a boon, and that, if it was unable to join in more successfully with the for international contacts and openings, something that is often overlooked because revolutionary trend in Europe, this was due to collateral considerations. The CNT of the importance of the debate that surrounded the issue of affiliation to the Third was quickly robbed of the initiative in this situation, for - excepting in Catalonia, and, International. to a lesser extent, in Levante and Andalusia - it had but little foothold in the remainder of the country: hence the isolation of the strikes of 1917 and 1919 (the LaCanadiensc Reports of the abolition of tsarism and the initial successes of the people’s revolution strike), played out in industrial Catalonia. in February were enthusiastically welcomed in libertarian labour circles. The subsequent Bolshevik coup in October, portrayed as a socialist revolution, was also We should also take into account an external factor of crucial and dramatic heartily welcomed. Later it would emerge that the Bolsheviks espoused dictatorial significance: repression. Every available resource of the State and the bourgeoisie methods in order to put paid to popular participation, hobble the soviets, subjugate was deployed in an attempt to curtail the rise or anarcho-syndicalism: gangs of the unions and cooperatives to government policy and, in the end, outlaw all political gunmen were hired, repressive paramilitary corps (like the Somaten) were set up, or trade union groups and indeed prohibit the right of tendency even within their own constitutional rights were suspended or trampledunderfoot (by the ley de fugas, mass party. But all these measures, which were to speed the Bolshevik regime towards a deportations, illegal arrests. etc), the bourgeoisie created and subsidised a yellow totalitarian State by 1918, were neither known about nor appreciated until some time labour union (the so-called “free union"), the army and police connived with the later. gunmen and the forces of repression themselves operated outside of the law... Against that backdrop, what was achieved was considerable indeed. In fact the To the credit of libertarians, they were among the first to criticise the Communists’ macabre battery of repression deployed in order to finish it off was testimony to the revolutionary despotism, but the criticisms and testimony here began to emerge after revolutionary potential of the CNT. 1920, when Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Peter Kropotkin, Rudolf Rocker, Luigi Fabbri, etc. began to publish their views, experiences and analyses, to which Likewise consideration should be given to the fact that the CNT was not the creation those of Russian anarchists like Maximoff, Arshinov, and, above all, Voline, were of some enlightened vanguard nor did it spring fully formed from its foundation added years later. congress. A lot of factors converged in the creation of this anarcho-syndicalist organisation: the workerist traditions or the First International and the more recent Thus, ininternational anarchistcircles, the Russianrevolutionwas heartily welcomed, experience or labour combinations (the Solidaridad Obrera association etc.), not as a model to be imitated, in that the details of what had happened were not reaffirmationoftherepudiationofpoliticalinterferenceandsubordination(experiences available, but rather as an instance of social change, evidence that bourgeois rule was 1 . 2 susceptibletooverthrow. As thehistorianJosepTermes states,theRussianrevolution’s behave at a meeting or assembly, as he proved beyond question during the La impact upon the CNT was emotional.‘ The CNT and anarchist press generally was Canadiense strike (1919), Segui had an extraordinary strategic vision. If we review awash with articles that were lyrical paeans to the Bolsheviks. who were seen as his contribution on this item at the Congress, we see that in fact he manages to turn revolutionary heroes. Few dared mention the Bolsheviks’ authoritarian roots and affiliation into a formal libertarian critique and the Third International into the CNT’s hold aloof from what the new Communist state was about. Among that few were chance to break out of its isolation, as indeed turned out to be the case. Segui opened Federico Urales, Jose Prat, and Dionysios, but, as Josep Termes points out, “they by ageeing with the majority view in the Congress, just as he did at the Las Arenas were as so many drops of water in a sea of anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist rally in 1919, but then he began to introduw the critical points, sugared the enthusiasm for the revolution of the soviets.”= pill in that way.
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