Spain and its Relevance Today

by Iain MacSaorsa

Lessons from the Spanish Revolution

"To organise a [libertarian] communist society on a large 
scale it would be necessary to transform all economic life 
radically, such as methods of production, of exchange and 
consumption; and all this could not be achieved other than 
gradually, as the objective circumstances permitted and to the 
extent that the masses understood what advantages could be 
gained and were able to act for themselves" Errico Malatesta, 
Life and Ideas, page 36

In part one, we indicated the social revolution that occurred 
after Franco's military coup was defeated in the streets. We also 
said that this revolution was undermined by the state and could 
not develop fully and that this was caused (in part) by the 
actions of the C.N.T. and F.A.I. committees. The issue now is 
what lessons for our struggles and times can be learned from the 
anarchist movement in Spain and the 1936 revolution?

We should not rush to condemn the C.N.T. out of hand. We should 
search for an explanation of what happened. The fact that 
anarchists joined a government should prompt the question, was 
the defeat in Spain a defeat of anarchist theory and tactics OR a 
failure of anarchists to apply their theory and tactics?

It is clear from the actions of, for example, the Makhnovists in 
the Ukraine during the Russian Revolution that anarchism is a 
valid approach to social struggle and revolution. So what made 
Spain "special"?

Firstly, as discussed in part one, the question of antifascist 
unity. The C.N.T. leaders were totally blinded by this, leading 
them to support a "democratic" state against a "fascist" one. 
While the bases of a new world was being created, inspiring the 
fight against fascism, the C.N.T. leaders collaborated with the 
system that spawns fascism, As the Friends of Durruti make clear, 
"Democracy defeated the Spanish people, not Fascism" (Class War 
on the Home Front, page 30).

The false dilemma of "anarchist dictatorship" or "collaboration" 
was a fundamentally wrong. It was never a case of banning 
parties, etc under an anarchist system, far from it. Full rights 
of free speech, organisation and so on should have existed for 
all but the parties would only have as much influence as they 
exerted in union/workplace/community/ militia/etc assemblies, as 
should be the case! "Collaboration" yes, but within the rank and 
file and within organisations organised in an anarchist manner. 
Anarchism does not respect the "freedom" to be a boss or 
politician.

Instead of this "collaboration" from the bottom up, the C.N.T. 
and F.A.I. committees favoured "collaboration" from the top down. 
This, as indicated in part 1, only favoured the state and the 
(political and economic) bosses. For example, Gaston Leval 
indicates that the collectivisation decree of October 1936 
"legalising collectivisation", "distorted everything right from 
the start" (Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, page 227) 
and did not allow the collectives to develop beyond a self-
managed semi-socialist condition into full socialism.[1]

Anarchosyndicalism

The centralisation which occurred within the C.N.T. after 19th 
July did not "just happen". There are institutional reasons why 
it occurred. These come from anarchosyndicalist practice.

The fusion of anarchism and the union movement ("syndicalism") is 
the basic idea of anarchosyndicalism. The unions are enough in 
themselves and, through the daily struggle for reforms, can lead 
to socialism. In practice, this does not quite work 
(unfortunately).

Anarchosyndicalist unions must operate within the same basic 
situation as normal unions, therefore they come under the same 
pressures and influences. These pressures of working within the 
capitalist system (in a unionist manner) produces in all unions 
the following tendencies:

1. They become bureaucratic/hierarchical, ie to generate 
"leaders" or union bosses separated from the rank and file. In 
order to get reforms, the union must negotiate and be prepared to 
compromise (which in practice means to get their members back to 
work). This results in the union committees, sooner or later, 
trying to control their own rank and file. This process of 
negotiation leads to a leader/led divide.

2. To concentrate on short term economic issues. This is due to 
the need to attract and keep a large union membership.

It is clear from its history that the C.N.T. was not immune to 
these tendencies. For example, the F.A.I. was formed explicitly 
to combat reformism within the C.N.T. (see Peirats, page 238-9, 
and Juan Gomaz Casas, page 100, for example). The actions of the 
C.N.T. during the revolution had historical precedents. 
Consistently committees had represented plenums with fait 
accomplis and acted without mandates (sometimes in ways contrary 
to C.N.T. policy). However, it must be pointed out this was 
minimised by the nature of the C.N.T. although it did happen.

While anarchosyndicalism sees these dangers and tries to combat 
them, it is clear that it can only partially do so in practice.

In addition, the idea that by controlling the economy 
automatically means destroying the state is false. This comes 
from French Revolutionary Syndicalism and not Anarchism. In 
effect, it means ignoring the state. And ignoring something does 
not make it go away. This idea can be seen from some aspects of 
the Spanish Revolution, ie the working class took over the 
economy but left the state intact. The C.N.T. leadership 
collaborated with the state (had they become so used to 
negotiating that they could not see beyond it?) and the rest is 
history.

However, without the C.N.T. the revolution would not have 
happened  in the first place. The fact that the revolution 
occurred at all is a glowing testimony to the independence and 
militancy of ordinary C.N.T. members. An independence and 
militancy which the C.N.T. structure unlike marxist unions 
encouraged and not crushed through centralism. 

The very structure and practice of the C.N.T. did produce a 
revolutionary working class the likes of which the world has 
rarely seen. As Jose Peirats states, "above the union level, the 
CNT was an eminently political organisation..., a social and 
revolutionary organisation for agitation and insurrection" (Jose 
Peirats, Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, page 239).

Lessons

The following positive points can be gathered from the C.N.T. and 
the Spanish anarchist movement :

1. Its structure encouraged the politicisation, initiative and 
organisational skills of its members. It was a federal, 
decentralised body, based on direct discussion and decision 
making from the bottom up. "The CNT tradition was to discuss and 
examine everything", according to one militant. As Bakunin said  
"the International [ie the union movement] must be a people's 
movement, organised from the bottom up by the free spontaneous 
action of the masses. There must be no secret, governmentalism, 
the masses must be informed of everything... All affairs of the 
International must be thoroughly and openly discussed without 
evasions and circumlations" (Bakunin on Anarchism, edited by Sam 
Dolgoff, page 408).

The C.N.T. rejected full-time officials. Instead union officials 
were part-timers who did union work either after work hours or, 
if they had to miss work, they were paid their normal wage. Hence 
they were in touch with the union members and shared their 
experiences and needs as they continued to be workers. This 
reduced the tendency for union bureaucracies to develop or for 
officials to become an (unofficial) governing caste within the 
organisations.

This created a viable and practical example of an alternative 
method by which society could be organised. A method which was 
based on the ability of ordinary people to direct society 
themselves and which showed in practice that special ruling 
authorities are undesirable and unnecessary.

It also proves that anarchist organisation is more revolutionary 
that  "socialist" (i.e. Marxist) forms (which are, at best, more 
"democratic" forms of capitalist/statist structures).

2. The C.N.T. was organised, primarily, on a local basis. The 
industrial union federations (ie union federations for one 
industry) were weak. The real base of the C.N.T. was the 
regional/local federation of all industrial unions in an area. 
Hence class wide issues could be fought, industrial divides 
overcome and solidarity action spread across industry.

The C.N.T., because of this, fought in and out of the factory for 
social issues, helping to reduce the tendency towards 
concentrating only on economics as "the demands of the CNT went 
much further than those of any social democrat: with its emphasis 
on true equality, autogestion [self-management] and working class 
dignity, anarchosyndicalism made demands on the capitalist system 
could not possibly grant to the workers" (J. Romero Maura, The 
Spanish case, page 79, from Anarchism Today, edited by James 
Joll et al. This short essay is very good summary of the history 
and practice of the C.N.T. up to 1936 (although I feel that it 
gets certain aspects of Bakunin's ideas on "syndicalism" wrong)).

This is not to ignore the importance of industry wide federations 
of unions, of course. It just indicates that such forms of 
industrial unionism can, and do, concentrate on partial aspects 
of the class struggle and do not generate the same class and 
social awareness as regionally based organisations.

3. Direct action was used in every case. This raised the 
consciousness and militancy of the working class better than any 
election campaign. The benefits of "Doing it Yourself" was seen 
in practice. This, combined with anarchist organisation, resulted 
in a movement in which people could transform their assumptions 
about what was possible, necessary and desirable.

4. The role of anarchists, as anarchists. Without the actions and 
ideas of anarchists, the C.N.T. would have soon become the same 
as any other union. The anarchists raised the "moral tone" of the 
unions and ensured they did not degenerate into reformism. This 
had been pointed out by many people before hand, for example 
Malatesta wrote: "Trade unions are by their very nature reformist 
and never revolutionary. The revolutionary spirit must be 
introduced, developed and maintained by the constant actions of 
revolutionaries who work within their ranks as well as outside, 
but it cannot be the normal definition of the union function. On
the contrary"  (Errico Malatesta, Life and Ideas, page 117). [2]

The actions of our comrades did make the C.N.T. a revolutionary 
organisation, did make it operate in an anarchist manner. 
However, the tactics they used over time changed. In the late 20s 
and early 30s, the F.A.I. started to fight reformism by be 
elected to every union post they could. In the short term it 
worked, but in the longer term it meant that "if the FAI 
influenced the CNT, the opposite was also true... anarchism lost 
much of its special character when anarchists tried to lead the 
anarchosyndicalist federation. In fact, the anarchists were run 
by the union..." and "blinkered by participation in union 
committees, the FAI became incapable of a wider vision" 
(Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, Jose Peirats, page 239).

This proved to by the undoing of the anarchist movement as the 
reality of being a union official resulted in militants becoming 
syndicalists first, anarchists second. As the rank and file 
militants left for the front, the "moral tone" of the 
organisation fell. The rank and file were too busy constructing 
collectives and fighting to effectively control the committees. 
In this situation, the actions of the committees could not be 
effectively stopped by the normal C.N.T. procedures (plenums, 
etc) and by the time anything could be done to stop the 
consequences of the initial betrayal of the 20th of July, it was 
too late. 

This problem of "officialdom" was seen by many anarchists. As 
Durruti noted "no anarchists in the union committees unless at 
ground level. In these committees, in the case of conflict with 
the boss, the militant is forced to compromise to arrive at an 
agreement. The contacts and activities which come from being in 
this position, push the militant towards bureaucracy. Conscious 
of this risk, we do not wish to run it. Our role is to analyse 
from the bottom the dangers which beset an union organisation 
like ours. No militant should prolong his (sic) job in 
committees, beyond the time allotted to him (sic). No permanent 
and indispensable people" (Durruti The People Armed, page 216) 
[3].

However, the dangers of bureaucracy could not be defeated by the 
tactics of the F.A.I. in the 30's nor by those anarchists who 
considered themselves as syndicalists first.

5. As noted earlier, for anarchism to succeed the state must not 
be ignored but smashed and "replaced" by a libertarian 
structure(s) to coordinate activity. In his history of the FAI, 
Juan Gomaz Casas (an active Faista in 1936) makes this clear:

"How else could libertarian communism be brought about? It would 
always signify dissolution of the old parties dedicated to the 
idea of power, or at least make it impossible for them to pursue 
their politics aimed at seizure of power. There will always be 
pockets of opposition to new experiences and therefore resistance 
to joining 'the spontaneity of the unanimous masses'. In 
addition, the masses would have complete freedom of expression in 
the unions as well as...their political organisations in the 
district and communities" (Anarchist Organisation: the History 
of the FAI, page 188).

As the Friends of Durruti said "A revolution requires the 
absolute domination of the workers organisations". (The Friends 
of Durruti accuse, from Class War on the Home Front, page 34).

Only this, the creation of viable anarchist organisations can 
ensure that the state and capitalism can be destroyed and 
replaced with a just system based on liberty, equality and 
solidarity.

By way of a conclusion

Anarchism must be relevant to working class people. We must 
advocate anarchist tactics and organisation in all struggles. It 
is clear that to organise anarchists is not enough. We must 
encourage the organisation of the working class, otherwise 
"revolutionary" ideas are only the domain of professional 
revolutionaries. People, under these circumstances, cannot 
formulate and apply their own agenda and so remain passive tools 
in the hands of leaders. By permanent libertarian social 
organisation, people can control their own struggles and  so, 
eventually, their own lives. It accustoms people, through 
practice, to self-management and so anarchism. The experience of 
the C.N.T. shows this.


This was the great strength of the Spanish Anarchist movement. It 
was a movement "that, in addition to possessing a revolutionary 
idealogy [sic], was also capable of mobilising action around 
objectives firmly rooted in the life and conditions of the 
working class.... It was this ability periodically to identify 
and express widely felt needs and feelings that, together with 
its presence at community level, formed the basis of the strength 
of radical anarchism, and enabled it to build a mass base of 
support" (Nick Rider, The practice of direct action: the 
Barcelona rent strike of 1931, page 99, from For Anarchism, 
pages 79-105).

As Malatesta made clear, "to encourage popular organisations of 
all kinds is the logical consequence of our basic ideas, and 
should therefore be an integral part of our programme... 
anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the 
people to emancipate themselves... we want the new way of life to 
emerge from the body of the people and correspond to the state of 
their development and advance as they advance" (Life and Ideas, 
page 90).

This can only occur via popular self-organisation. Bearing this 
in mind, we must also be aware of the dangers in 
anarchosyndicalism. The anarchist movement must not be (con)fused 
with the mass organisations of the working class ("unions"). The 
"union" (by which I mean any social organisation organised in a 
libertarian manner, within and without workplaces, and definitely 
not STUC trade unions) movement and anarchism follow different, 
but related paths. These "unions" should be encouraged by 
anarchists and be as anarchistic as possible in their operation 
and practice, but they must never replace the anarchist movement 
(ie certain aspects of anarchosyndicalism as tactics, not 
principles).

In building the new world we must destroy the old one. 
Revolutions are authoritarian by their very nature, but only in 
respect to structures and social relations which promote 
injustice, hierarchy and inequality. It is not "authoritarian" to 
destroy authority! Revolutions, above all else, must be 
libertarian in respect to the oppressed. That is, they must 
develop structures that involve the great majority of the 
population, who have previously been excluded from decision 
making about social and economic issues.

When it comes to mass movements (and a revolution is the ultimate 
mass movement), the role of anarchists is clear: encourage direct 
action, decentralised, federal delegate organisations based on 
direct discussion and direct decision making and destroy the 
state. Not to do so is to repeat the mistakes of all previous 
revolutions and which were the undoing of the largest anarchist 
movement in the world.

Notes :-

1. As Bakunin wrote 60 years earlier "In a free community, 
collectivism can only come about through the pressure of 
circumstances, not by imposition from above but by a free 
spontaneous movement from below" (Bakunin on Anarchism, page 
200). For where else could the impetus for a libertarian social 
revolution come from unless from "below"?

Its no coincidence that collectivisation was more socialistic in 
rural collectives as the state was effectively destroyed in many 
areas (like Aragon) by federations of collectives. As one 
militant describes the process of collectivisation had to be 
based on free federation "from the bottom up" :-

"There were, of course, those who didn't want to share and who 
said that each collective should take care of itself. But they 
were usually convinced in the assemblies. We would try to speak 
to them in terms they understood. We'd ask, "Did you think it was 
fair when the cacique [local boss] let people starve if there 
wasn't enough work?" and they said, "Of course not". They would 
eventually come around. Don't forget, there were three hundred 
thousand collectivists [in Aragon], but only ten thousand of us 
had been members of the C.N.T.. We had a lot of educating to do".
Felix Carrasquer, quoted in Free Women of Spain, page 79.

An anarchist society cannot be created "overnight", to assume so 
would be to imagine that we could enforce our ideas on a pliable 
population. Socialism can only be created from below, by people 
who want it and understand it, organising and liberating 
themselves. The lessons of Russia should have cleared any such 
illusions about "socialist" states long ago. The lesson from 
every revolution is that the mistakes made in the process of 
liberation by people themselves are always minor compared to the 
results of creating authorities which eliminate such "ideological 
errors" by destroying the freedom to make mistakes. This only 
destroys freedom as such, the only real basis for socialism.

2. Such ideas would, now, only be appropriate to rank and file 
organisations created in and by struggle in opposition to the 
Trade Unions. The STUC cannot be reformed, so why try? The last 
70 years have contained enough proof of this.

3. As an aside, Durruti is echoing Bakunin who said "The purpose 
of the Alliance [ie anarchist federation] is to promote the 
Revolution... it will combat all ambition to dominate the 
revolutionary movement of the people, either by cliques or 
individuals. The Alliance will promote the Revolution only 
through the NATURAL BUT NEVER OFFICIAL INFLUENCE of all members 
of the Alliance" (Bakunin on Anarchism, edited by Sam Dolgoff, 
page 387).
 



