sign in sign up
<<
Home , Buenaventura Durruti, Iron Column

Interlude 1: Resistance or ? The

Between 1936 and 1939, the Spanish Civil War ignited worldwide hopes of a revolutionary transformation under the banner of self-government of and by the people, workers and farmers, representing a watershed event in the history of anti-capitalist movements and anarchists in particular. Beginning from the struggle against Francisco Franco’s coup, with the initial collaboration between the various components of the anti-fascist forces, the events of that historical moment highlight a set of prob- lems typical of the revolutionary movements of the twentieth century: the relationship between civil war and , the relationship with state power and between state power and the demands of self- government, and the problem of political and social alliances between workers and farmers and between the cities and the countryside.

The Context On 28 June 1931, held its first free elections after the fall of Primo de Rivera’s fascist regime. Socialists and Republicans took power. King Alfonso XIII had left the country a few weeks earlier, at the same time as the Republic was proclaimed, which seemingly opened the door onto a period of social and political improvement. Incipient industrial- ization called for radical agrarian reform in an economy that was still characterized by large agricultural estates and an extremely polarized distribution of wealth. With the 1933 general elections, the Republican 58 INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE … government proved incapable of bringing about the necessary transfor- mations, however, and this led to the resurgence of the right wing, supported by the army and a rather backward clergy. The anarchists, profoundly entrenched in the deep strata of the population in some areas of the country, especially Aragon and Catalonia, tried to launch a bottom-up process of modernization favouring experiments of self- management and spreading education. They even posed the issue of birth control. They acted through two main organisations. The first one was the CNT, National of Labour, established in 1910 and soon to become a landmark actor. In this not-yet-industrialized context, the population of workers comprised mainly craftsmen and farm labourers (with groups of industrial workers concentrated in some big cities, such as ) and the CNT as a was a key reference point. The second was FAI, the Iberian Anarchist Federation that had been created in 1927 under the dictatorship. This organization composed homoge- neously of committed anarchists was arranged in federally-coordinated but autonomous local groups. Before the 1936 election, was gaining strength on the larger European stage. The had turned a corner in 1935, however, and abandoned its line of . In this climate, the left-wing parties tried to re-establish unity. Even the anarchists voted for or supported the , which in fact won. The atmo- sphere seemed to be changing once again, so much so that, at the congress of held in the spring, the CNT charted an optimistic route forward, pointing to libertarian as a project to be pursued in the immediate future. This prospect hinged on developing self-management, and the CNT itself encouraged and supported this goal beginning at the municipal level. In terms of positive content, the trade union aimed to overcome the gap between manual and intellectual work, a precondition for achieving the that would then charac- terize community life. On the more general political level, this vision involved the free municipalities, towns and cities, farms and industrial companies, being managed by assemblies in which every participant was granted the right to speak and become involved and decisions were made by the majority even while guaranteeing minority positions: a true direct and self-managed democracy. INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE … 59

Resistance, Revolution and Self-Management On 18 July 1936, a few weeks after the congress, however, Francisco Franco staged a military coup, the Pronunciamento. The CNT together with all the socialist and democratic forces organized the Resistance, which took hold in Barcelona, , , Malaga, Gijon and Bilbao in particular. The socialists, who boasted a more long-standing tradition, were represented by the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party); the communists, grouped together in the Spanish (PCE), were a minor but rapidly expanding force in the mid-1930s. They both believed that winning against fascism was the first step to any revolutionary experiment, and thus counted on receiving support from those sectors of the upper classes who adhered to democratic ideals; on the other hand, the anarchists and exponents of the Trotskyist POUM, the pan-Marxist workers’ party, did not believe that the Resistance could be seSimpleParated from the social revolution, and therefore set about launching innovative social experiments in regions where they held the majority. They achieved effective results by collectivizing the land, but also factories and services. Self-management touched the military sphere first of all, with the constitution of militias that also served the policing and supply functions understandably necessary in that period of war. The workers themselves socialized and self-managed companies as well; metal- lurgical and textile companies based in Catalonia were converted to the war-time endeavour, with wages increased and working hours decreased. The construction and tertiary sectors (from traditional trades such as large-scale distribution and personal services, to the artistic and entertain- ment sectors) also underwent collectivization. The banking sector had a different destiny: resistant to collectivization, of course, it was soon nationalized and then passed under the direct control of the government. Barcelona was the beating heart of the revolution:

On 19 July in Barcelona, workers occupied the tram company. Three days later, the vehicles began to once again circulate in the city, repainted with the colours of the CNT. On 21 July the railway workers occupied the Northern Railways and the MZA (Madrid-Saragossa-Alicante), creating revolutionary committees to defend the stations and organize the service. Various “service committees” were set up: councils for the workshop, depot and traction, train crews, personnel working on the tracks, oper- ators and train drivers. On 24 July in Manresa, near Barcelona, the CNT and UGT (socialist General Workers’ Union) led the occupation of the General Railway Company of Catalonia and took over the management 60 INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE …

of the service and work facility. On 31 July, the Generalitat of Catalonia acknowledged the right of the trade unions to organise all the technical, productive and administrative activities of the General Railway Company of Catalonia; a delegate was appointed to supervise the operation. On 25 July, the employees of the shipping agencies (including the famous Transat- lantic Company) occupied the port offices and forced the Generalitat to acknowledge the collectivization. Between 25 and 31 July, water, telecom- munications, energy and lighting services were collectivized throughout Catalonia. (Neuville 2015, 514–515)

From an institutional point of view, workers’ councils guided the collectivization process, in turn electing as executive bodies corporate committees made up of delegates with different skills. Trade unions promoted links between the sectors, partly to ensure the sufficient circu- lation of products. Again thanks to the efforts of the CNT, water and energy services were collectivized in Barcelona. The network of also developed very rapidly. In the countryside, particularly in the provinces of Tarragona and , “revolutionary committees” organized the occupation of land. Large estates became collective, but small owners were left with a choice: they were not forced to agree to collectivization, in open contrast to the case of the first Soviet five-year plan. In agricultural towns, the People’s Committee governed and the general assembly held sovereignty. Of course, the process of collectivization also involved serious problems: in the countryside, for example, this process was forced to grapple with a peasant mentality that distrusted collectives; in cities and factories, the main challenge facing this movement was the need for specific technical skills. On a cultural level, the Spanish Revolution counted on the activity of Ateneos Libertarios, a group that had been active in the country for decades and succeeded in spreading a new and richer store of knowledge among the working classes, including but not limited to humanist ideas. In the anarchist sphere, furthermore, the group Mujeres libres played a key role: this women’s organization with a journal by the same name proposed a radical course of female emancipation through self-valorisation under the banner of capacitatión.Womenalsoparticipatedinthecivil war in terms of combat, although often not in the front lines especially following the process of militarization. INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE … 61

The Problem of Politics and the Military Issue At the dawn of the civil war, the power balances characterizing the anti-fascist front varied greatly from region to region. In Catalonia, anar- chism resting on a worker and popular base effectively held power and was embodied by the Committee of anti-fascist militias. At the begin- ning of the conflict, the communists represented the minority and were aimed at allying themselves with the democratic bourgeoisie. At the end of September, a unitary government was formed, partly because the militias had a military need for weapons and ammunition they could not obtain on their own. The CNT anarchists held the Ministries of Health, Economy and Procurement; one of their major leaders, García Oliver, played a role, albeit informal, in the Ministry of Defence and the militia committee was soon incorporated into this ministry. In the Basque Country and , the communists were stronger, led by prominent militants such as Dolores Ibárruri, nicknamed “the Pasion- aria”, and these regions hosted active nationalist currents. The military issue was central: the militia was countered by the traditional model of an army (so-called militarization) with its typical hierarchies, although in this case driven by an ideology of resistance and democracy. Even the anarchist anticlericalism that was powerfully expressed in other areas was kept at bay here. In Valencia and the eastern part of the region, the People’s Executive Committee took power, experiencing tensions similar to those that developed in other regions. The first of these conflicts was over whether to militarize or maintain the militias, but this tension was quickly dismissed. In these areas, however, the famous Colonna di Hierro or Iron Column took hold, an anarchist militia faithful to the principles of and opposed to any form of collaboration with the govern- ment. The communists enjoyed widespread support in this area thanks in part to their political support for small landownership, in opposi- tion to collectivisation. In Republican Andalusia with its large population of farm labourers, the anarchists were very deeply-rooted and worked to spread the shift to collective landownership, albeit with inconsistent results. Madrid, the capital that fought the coupists off at the city gates throughout the entire conflict, was instead a fertile ground for some of the most collaboration-oriented projects to flourish: the militias were soon replaced by the people’s army, partly because of the growing weight of the Communist Party fuelled by Soviet aid. However, the CNT gradually gained a foothold among workers who had traditionally been represented by the Socialists and the UGT. 62 INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE …

In the end, the leading role played by anarchists and POUMists clashed with the communists and socialists’ increasingly strenuous efforts to corral the revolution within established institutional boundaries. And the clash was dramatic. The unitary government led by Francisco Largo Caballero, a member of the Socialist Party known as the “Lenin of Spain”, also included anarchist representatives such as , Juan García Oliver, Joan Peirò and Juan López Sánchez. These representatives all came under harsh critique from a part of the anarchist movement. They held the Ministries of Health, Justice, Industry and Trade, respectively, in the period from to May of the following year, when the government fell. In fact, 1937 represented a turning point in the Spanish Revolution. On 3 May, Barcelona became the stage of an armed conflict among the anti-fascist forces themselves that gave rise to an irreSim- pleParable falling-out between the Stalinist communists (loyal to Stalin), on the one hand, and the forces of the POUM (soon to be branded illegal) and CNT-FAI, on the other. The spark that ignited this conflict was an attack on the telephone exchange staged by a group of communist soldiers. These forces sought to force out the anarchists, who controlled communications at the time, and establish their own governmental dele- gate in a key location. As has been keenly noted, this episode “may also be read as a symbol of the intolerance of institutional power towards a real power based on controlling strategic points” (Venza 2009, 133). The escalation of violence was impressive: between 3 and 7 May, hundreds fell victim to this fratricidal conflict in the heart of the anti-fascist front. The casualties included Camillo Berneri, one of the most lucid minds in Spain at the time. There were multiple factors behind this true war-within-a- war: disagreements over the aims of the general struggle (social revolution or anti-fascist resistance?), over the way the struggle itself was organized (militia or regular army?) and over how the social nature of the USSR and its role ought to be interpreted, with anarchists and Trotskyists calling it counter-revolutionary and spreading news about the ongoing Stalinist purges. Yet in the eyes of posterity, such a clash only appears completely politically ridiculous. At any rate, the lines of disagreement turned out to be insurmountable and the ruptured front was ruinous for both the outcome of the anti-Franco and the destiny of the revolution. INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE … 63

Past Questions and Current Problems The trajectory of the leaves unanswered a series of questions which are important for any revolutionary movement: the relationship between war and revolution, spanning the twentieth century from St. Petersburg to Berlin, from Munich to Budapest and Barcelona; the relationship between revolutionary social change and power, partic- ularly state power, leaving unresolved the crucial issue of the extent to which institutions originally developed in a capitalist context can be used for the purposes of . The anarchists in Spain experienced this problem particularly keenly, although the revolutionary forces as a whole appear to have been unprepared to deal with it: the 1936 revolution came about unexpectedly, without previously laying the theoretical and practical foundations that would have allowed it to make the great leap beyond the society of dominion. How then can such a historically important issue as the relationship between power and revolution be faced without reducing it to a mere question of ideology or abstract political identity, if the aims behind the revolution are not clear? Perhaps a revolution is won before the revolution actually begins… If we accept the idea that power is not an object, that is, a mechanism, but rather a relationship, it follows that it is modified or destroyed by creating different or even alternative relationships. In this sense, social change in the name of self-management was inextricable from the struggle to resist Francoism, because they were two sides of the same issue. The forces involved in the struggle seemed to lack a full awareness of this series of links, however. It was no coincidence that, as part of the historical and political appraisal carried out after the fact, some anarchists came to believe that one of the causes of their defeat was the lack of a science of anarchist politics: investing all of their efforts in the “spontaneous aspect of the social sphere does not succeed in fulfilling the need for a general direction of emancipatory movement” (Berti 1998, 856). This clear and brave insight gave rise in turn to considerations about the long-term polit- ical shortcomings of not only international , but also the entire centuries-old revolutionary movement. As a preliminary point, however, it is important to make the slightly naïve yet necessary distinction between a weak and very general version of the concept of politics and a strong and specific vision: when poli- tics is considered a sphere of collective life, revolutionaries throughout history have delved into the political and proposed lines of action for transforming communal life; on the other hand, when politics is 64 INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE … treated a seSimpleParate and specific sphere with its own rules, forms and historically-determined institutions, anarchists and revolutionaries in general tend, at least at the beginning, to deny politics on the grounds that it is a sphere distinct from the economic, cultural and social ones; in a word, distinct from civil society. From this point of view, therefore, even the Spanish revolutionaries of the 1930s lacked a proactive political line and science of politics, one that went beyond rejecting the existing state or, alternately, conquering it: in one way or another, they allowed themselves to be acted upon by a politics determined by other subjects, in the battle for hegemony. And yet, it should be acknowledged that, over time, the anarchists specifically have been able to reveal the most perva- sive mechanisms of power, uncovering its psychological repercussions on individuals and groups as well as the political contradictions embedded in party structures which are too often the sole purview of oligarchies of professional politicians, blind to the needs of the masses. Furthermore, it is worth noting how consistently anarchists have condemned the decep- tions of democratic ideology, the assembly system and nationalistic and patriotic ideologies that undermine any desire for active participation in the life of the polis. These insights are the fruit of an anarchist political science, a critical and negative science that may indeed be partial but is nonetheless serious, authentic and aimed at self-government, the guiding star of any revolution. What the Spanish anarchists thus lacked was the ability to bring to its logical consequences the typical trait that has distinguished anarchist doctrine from its beginnings, namely anti-dogmatism. The other currents of international socialism involved in the civil war, from to communism, also suffered from this lack, in some cases even more so. It consisted in the conviction that there is one primary path, a direc- tion that is not only primary but also solitary and unique, for achieving social transformation, that is, demolishing the centuries-old rule of the state and capital. This is a solid rule, rooted in the consciousness and even the spontaneity of the social subjects who suffer the effects of capi- talism. At the same time, however, there is a question that over time has received only axiomatic answers: whether state institutions or even the market may be modified so as to bring about change, or whether only social spontaneity holds the thaumaturgical potential to generate great transformation. The twentieth century was tasked with demonstrating that the only overall plan for transforming a society based on capital and the state likely to succeed is one that simultaneously tackles all the sides INTERLUDE 1: RESISTANCE OR REVOLUTION? THE … 65 of its tetragonal physiognomy. It remains a mystery how best to combine different perspectives, that is, to harmonize into a single perspective multiple divergent visions, each of which is deeply-rooted and categorical because they often demand of their adherents the kind of heroic self- denial that can only derive from an almost religious faith in one’s aims and methods. Answering these questions is the key to resolving the enigma of an unprecedented social configuration. Proceeding not based on slogans but in a way that is historically operational, that is, which provides direc- tions for future action and holds the power to set in motion a true turn in civilization. Without forgetting that, in politics, the ethics of princi- ples goes hand in hand with the ethics of responsibility, and this latter invests anyone aiming to construct a socialist society with the obligation to answer for the reasonably predictable consequences of their actions. For this array of reasons, any plan for escaping capitalism must be able to reflect on power in a non-dogmatic way, unhesitatingly questioning the myth of state neutrality but also admitting in the most disenchanted possible way that it is sometimes acceptable to mediate and compromise with existing institutions if the aims and perspective are clear and well- defined: after all, one of the specific competencies of politics, sometimes forgotten even in “frontier socialism”, is to “not depart from good, when possible, but know how to enter into evil, when forced by necessity” (Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 18).

References

Berti, Giampietro. 1998. Il pensiero anarchico dal Settecento al Novecento. Manduria-Bari-Roma: P. Laicata Editore. Enzensberger, Hans Magnus. 2019 [1972]. ’s Brief Summer. The Life and Death of Buenaventura Durruti. London: Seagull Books. Madrid, Francisco, and Claudio Venza (eds.). 2001. Antología documental del anarquismo español. Vol. I. Organización y revolución: De la Primera Inter- nacional al Proceso de Montjuich (1868–1896). Madrid: Fundación . Neuville, Richard. 2015. Catalogne, la classe ouvrière avait pris le dessus. In Encyclopédie internationale de l’Autogestion, 513–523. : Syllepse. Paz, Abel. 2007 [1986]. Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, trans. Chuck. Morse. Oakland (CA)-Edimburgh: AK Press. Ranzato, Gabriele. 2004. L’eclissi della democrazia. La guerra civile spagnola e le sue origini. 1931–1939. Turin: Bollati Boringhieri. Woodcock, George. 1986 [1962]. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.