The Spanish Revolution

A new world in their hearts

"You feel that, had there been a documentary crew on the 
battlefields of Spain in the thirties this is what they would 
have brought back"

So said 'Hot Press' about Ken Loach's excellent film "Land 
and Freedom".  Yet the version of the conflict in Spain 
peddled by the school history books bears no resemblance to 
this 'documentary'.  The revolution in Spain is portrayed 
simply as a civil war fought between democracy and 
fascism.

"Land and Freedom" goes some way towards redressing 
this, but even here you have to look hard to see any 
evidence that there were anarchists in Spain at the time.  In 
fact, the Anarcho-Syndicalist Confederation Nacional de 
Trabajo or CNT had almost two million members, and they 
had a profound influence on the Spanish social revolution.  

Anarchism had (and still has) a long tradition in Spain.  
This goes right back to the middle of the last century, 1869 
to be precise, when the anarchist ideas of Michael Bakunin 
were first brought to Spain by the Italian Guiseppe Fanelli.  
Anarchism developed rapidly in the harsh economic 
conditions prevailing in Spain at the time.

1911 saw the formation of the CNT.  This was an Anarcho-
Syndicalist union.  They hoped to organise all workers into 
one big union and bring about anarchism through a 
revolutionary general strike.  In its day to day activity the 
union put into action the anarchist principles of direct 
action and direct democracy.  All delegates and 
representatives weresubject to being mandated and recalled 
if they did not carry through their mandates.

Strikes and repression

The CNT experienced rapid growth.  Its strongholds were in 
Catalonia (especially Barcelona) and Andalucia.  It also had 
a large following in the Asturias, Levant, Saragossa and 
Madrid.  It organised militant strikes and protests including 
several city wide and national strikes.  For most of its 
history it was subject to vicious government repression, not 
only under the semi-dictatorship in power until 1931, but 
also under the republican and popular front governments 
which followed.  This included the 1936 popular front 
government.

Franco's coup began in July 1936.  The government had 
been warned that a military uprising was about to occur but 
refused to take the warnings seriously.  The Prime Minister 
Casares Quiroga reportedly  replied to one such warning

"By which you mean you are sure that the military will 
rise? Very well then, but for my part, I am going to have a 
lie down.."

This rather pathetic attempt at humour sums up the 
attitude of the government.  The parties of the popular 
front reacted in a similarly complacent fashion.  The 
communist and socialist parties issued this joint note

"The moment is a difficult one.  The government is sure 
that it possesses sufficient means to crush this criminal 
attempt."

Taking arms

The government refused to arm the workers.  Workers 
armed themselves.  The CNT broke out its own arms (that 
it had been saving for just such a rainy day) and organised 
detachments to seize barracks and arsenals before the 
military could link up and consolidate.  Over most of 
northern and central Spain they beat the fascists and the 
army with whatever arms came to hand.

There is absolutely no doubt that  the initial response to 
Franco's coup was due to the deep implantation of 
anarchist ideas among Spanish workers.  There was no 
waiting around for the government to act (and just as well 
too).  Workers beat the coup and moved to take control.

Anarchist influence was everywhere from the formation of 
the militias and the expropriation and collectivisation of 
land to the seizures in industry.  The smashing of the 
military coup was like the bursting of a dam, releasing a 
surging human tide of imagination and creativity.  

Throughout "republican" Spain anarchist ideas inspired a 
transformation.  This transformation would take a far 
longer article then this to describe and, indeed, has been the 
subject of several large books.  However a few examples 
will at least give a flavour of the times.

On the Land

In the short space of a few years the small peasants and 
agricultural labourers demonstrated that, far from chaos, 
anarchism was an efficient, desirable and realisable method 
of running things.  There were unprecedented levels of 
voluntary collectivisation throughout the land on the anti-
fascist side.  Gaston Level (in his book "Collectives in the 
Spanish Civil War") puts the numbers involved as high as 
5-7 million people.

Collectivisation occurred much as described in "Land and 
Freedom".  After the major landowners had split, a village 
assembly was held.  If a decision to collectivise was taken all 
individually owned land and machinery was brought 
together for the use of the entire collective.  Teams were 
formed to look after various areas of work and each elected 
recallable delegates to a village assembly.  Individuals were, 
however, able to remain outside the collective and keep 
their own property if they wished, though they were 
forbidden from hiring labourers to work their land.  Most 
of these people eventually joined, their reservations 
disappearing in the face of the visible successes of the 
collectives.  

To distribute the common stock of goods, rationing or a 
family wage was brought in.  Given the low level of 
production at the time it was impossible to go straight to 
communist distribution (i.e. free goods for all).  But there 
was a major increase in living standards with more of a say 
for everyone and many free services.

A Tale of Seven Hundred Trams

Industrial collectivisation was extensive especially in the 
anarchist stronghold, Barcelona.  As George Orwell put it in 
"Homage to Catalonia"

"It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where 
the working class was in the saddle."

About 3000 enterprises in the city were collectivised.  The 
tram system provides a shining example of just how much 
better we can run things when we do struggle up into that 
saddle.

On July 24th, five days after the rising was crushed, the 
tram crews got together and decided to run the whole 
system themselves.  A committee was elected.  They quickly 
introduced many changes.  Within another 5 days 700 
trams were in service.  100 trams had been patched up and 
rushed into service.  The major reason for the quick repair 
job was the re-employment of 657 laid off tram-men.  

Putting people first

With the profit motive gone, safety became more 
important and the number of accidents was reduced.  A 
new automatic safety and signalling system was introduced.  
Sections of track were repaired and re-laid.

The old fares had varied from 0.1 to 0.4 pesetas.  A new 
standard fare of 0.2 pesetas was introduced.  Yet more 
money was made (and ploughed back in) and an extra 50 
million passengers were carried.  Wages were equalised for 
all workers (which meant an increase for most) and there 
was free medical care for all workers in the city.

Perhaps the most amazing fact is that over the two years of 
collectivisation there were only 6 cases of workers caught 
stealing from the workshop.

What went wrong?

The factors involved in the defeat of the revolution would 
take an article in themselves to explain, ranging from the 
military power of the fascists (and their outside aid) to the 
betrayals by the communists and social democrats, and this 
is not my purpose here.  What is important is that the 
social revolution did not collapse due to internal problems 
or flaws in human nature.  It was defeated from without.  
Anarchism had not failed.  Anarchists had proved that 
ideas which look good in the pages of theory books look 
even better on the canvas of life.   

 

Conor McLoughlin






