2 articles
2nd is 'The Friends of Durruti' [WS 38]

********* The Spanish Revolution of 1936 **********
                     from Workers Solidarity No 36

Many people would agree that the anarchist 
principle "from each according to their ability, 
to each according to their needs" is a nice idea.  
A self managed society with everyone having a 
real say in how things were run is a lovely 
ideal.  They might nod along to the lyrics of 
"Imagine" by John Lennon but then equally 
shake their heads and tell you that such a thing 
could never work "in the real world".  You would 
probably be told that  people are just naturally 
greedy and self-centred and such a thing would 
end in chaos.

However throughout the history of the 20th century 
ordinary working people have succeeded in taking things  
into their own hands and making a go of it. Nowhere, 
however, has come closer to a fully self-managed 
anarchist society then large areas of  "republican" Spain 
during the Spanish Civil War.

Here, for a short space of a few years, both on the land 
and in the factories workers and peasants demonstrated 
that far from chaos anarchism was an efficient, desirable 
and realisable method of running society. 

This account of the enormous social revolution in Spain 
is mainly taken from Gaston Leval's  "Collectives in the 
Spanish Civil War".   Leval was a French anarchist 
exiled for resisting the World War I draft who spent 
many years in exile in Spain and Latin America.

He returned in 1936 just in time to document the 
revolution in economic and social organisation as it 
occurred.  Rather then take off for the front he saw the 
importance of these changes and attempted to make a 
record of some sort for the future. 

The extent of collectivisation on the land was 
unprecedented.  Estimates of the numbers in collectives 
range as high as 5-7 million directly or indirectly 
involved (from Leval himself). Certainly millions  took 
part to some degree from periods of weeks to as long as 
three years as fortunes fluctuated in the war.   At the 
height of collectivisation there were 400 collectives in 
Aragon, 700 in the Levant and 300 in Castile.  Of course 
many just refuse to believe that so many people 
(whether landless or with fairly large holdings) would 
voluntarily collectivise.

FORCED COLLECTIVISATION?

One accusation which is repeated by almost all historians 
of the Spanish civil war is that the columns of the 
anarcho-syndicalist CNT union enforced collectivisation 
at the point of a gun. Ironically enough this was first 
put about by no less an authority the Spanish 
Communist Party but it is still accepted as gospel by the 
majority of historians of the civil war.

Of course this doesn't stand up to even a glance at the 
facts.  The CNT was a mainly industrial union based in 
Barcelona and Madrid.  In many areas such as Castile 
and Aragon their numbers were extremely low.  For 
example there were only 34,000 members of the CNT in 
Aragon, Navarre and Rioja all areas where most of the 
land was collectivised.

The military columns of the CNT moved immediately to 
the front and mostly took no further part in the 
collectives.   As Leval puts it, they "lived on the 
fringes of the task of social transformation being 
carried out".  Some far sighted militants such as 
Durutti realising their importance sent some members 
back to the collectives.   But these were skilled 
organisers not armed troops.

Finally in all the collectivsed areas there were many 
"individualists" who were allowed to hang on to their 
land. Far from been harassed to join they were often 
allowed to avail of the many free services of the 
collectives.  Though their numbers declined with time in 
many cases they remained a significant minority.  This 
couldn't have happened if collectivisation was forced.

ARAGON

Let's take a closer look at one region- Leval's first 
example: Aragon.  An estimated 69.5 % of Aragon's 
430,000 inhabitants in the revolutionary zone  took part 
in collectives in total, with up to 400 collectives 
established.   When Leval arrived in February 1937 
there were 275 collective villages with 141,430 families 
organised into 24 cantonal federations  holding their 
first conference in Caspe.  Obviously over the seven 
months since the Fascist coup in July this was a major 
achievement .

He visited the main collectives  of seven of these 
federations.  Collectivisation occurred in a similar way in 
most of them.  After the major landowners had fled the 
land an assembly was held.  It was decided to seize all 
land and machinery hold it in common .  Teams were 
formed to various jobs, each electing recallable delegates 
to a village assembly.

A BETTER LIFE FOR ALL

To distribute the common stock of goods rationing or a 
family wage was brought in.   Given the low level of  
Spanish  agriculture and the demands of the war it 
wasn't possible to jump immediately to communist 
distribution (i.e. free goods for all) in Aragon (or most 
other areas) .  However there was a major increase in 
living standards along with a greater say for everyone 
and a huge range of free social services. 

In the village of Graus, for example, the family (which 
persisted as  the main social form) wage meant a 15% 
increase in money going into households.  All services 
such as electricity and gas were free as well as free and  
hugely improved medical, educational and entertainment 
facilities.  Overall this meant an increase in living 
standards of 50-100%.

There were many increases in productivity and 
efficiency.  In several areas huge new projects were made 
possible by collectivisation.  In Esplus there were four 
new piggeries producing hundreds of animals and the 
sheep herd increased from 600 to 2,000.  In Mas de Las 
Mantas a huge collective bakery handled all the baking 
previously the exclusive task of women in the home.  In 
Alcorisa there had been a 50% increase in cultivated 
land and centralisation of tailor's shops brought a 66% 
increase in production. 

These are just a few examples where the landlord system 
had held back the efficient use of land while peasants 
and labours had faced starvation every year.

At the February meeting of the cantonal federations 
measures were been taken to set aside areas of land for 
research into better seed production in each canton.  It 
had been suggested, for example, that virus free potatoes 
could be raised in the mountains of upper Aragon  These 
type of innovations could never have been dreamed up 
by the landlords who relied entirely on cheap labour 
(without "wasting" money on machines) to keep them 
well heeled while the majority starved.

The Federation was also attempting to promote 
exchanges between collectives with richer ones 
distributing food and machinery to those in less well off 
areas.  The collectives also supplied the major cities 
voluntarily (unlike the case in the Russian civil 
war(1921) where forced grain seizures by the Bolsheviks 
killed off any fellow feeling between rural and urban 
workers).  They also sent spare supplies to columns at 
the front.

INDIVIDUALISTS

The conference also took an interesting attitude towards 
'individualist' farmers which contrasted with Stalin's 
murderous forced collectivisation in the 1930s.   The 
individualists were left to their own devices  though the 
collectives were under no obligation to give them any aid 
(in practice most did).  However they were totally 
forbidden from employing workers and they lost 
automatic inheritance rights.   Many individualists did 
eventually go over to the collectives and they were 
usually won over by example and not forced.

Aragon is only one of the regions covered.   In some 
other areas there was almost a fully communist system in 
operation.  For example in the Naval collective in 
Huesca a system operated were you just went to the 
collective store and took what you needed.  
Contributions and withdrawals were recorded and all 
was reduced to simple accounting. 

In most areas this just wasn't possible and rationing was 
the order of the day.   However the achievements are sill 
impressive given the miserable state of Spanish 
agriculture in the first place. 


INDUSTRIAL COLLECTIVES

The CNT was a mainly urban anarcho-syndicalist union 
drawing much of its support from workers in Barcelona 
and Madrid.  For this reason it may seem surprising that 
industrial collectivisation did not go as far as that on the 
land.  However it must be remembered that many of 
these industries depended almost totally on countries 
outside Spain for both markets and raw materials.   
These were almost immediately cutoff by the European 
governments on the grounds of "non-interference" in 
Spain's internal affairs.   Also most factories had to 
retool for the war effort which made huge demands on 
labour time.

Even allowing for this, however, as Leval points out 
there was not true socialisation in many cases "but a 
worker's Neo-Capitalism".  By this he meant that the 
framework of capitalism was maintained with workers  
running factories, selling goods and sharing the profits. 

CNT

His loyalty to the CNT prevents him from pointing the 
finger here.  Their refusal to drive the revolution 
through to it's logical conclusion,  abolishing capitalism 
and refusing to share power with the bourgeois in 
government must be singled out as the decisive reason 
why industry wasn't entirely self-managed.  The CNT's 
syndicalism left them uninterested in politics and 
political power.   They left the parliament and state 
structure intact which gave the bourgeois a base from 
which to rebuild.   They should have destroyed  the 
government's political power entirely and used the arms 
and gold reserves seized to further the revolution.


BARCELONA

All things considered, the achievements in industrial 
collectivisation were still amazing and surprised foreign 
observers like George Orwell.   3000 enterprises in 
Barcelona were collectivised.   A council was elected by 
an assembly of all the workers to run each workplace.   
Each section elected to delegates to liaise with the 
council on day to day matters.   The council sent 
recallable representatives to a council for each industry 
which drew up general plans for that industry.

All the major services were greatly improved.  Equal 
wages were paid to all grades and the general wage level 
was increased for most workers.

For example all the small electricity generators in 
private hands were linked together and  new dams and 
generators built to give a more efficient system.  The 
water supply which had been erratic was improved with 
supply going up to 150,000 cubic metres fairly quickly 
(Leval explains, however that it couldn't be increased 
much further as most existing natural catchments were 
been used and, presumably, there wasn't time to build 
reservoirs).

Perhaps the most dramatic improvement was on the 
trams, the major method of transport in  Barcelona.  Five 
days after the fascists were beaten off the streets the 
trams were running under workers' control.  The fleet 
had been increased from 600 to 700 by the repair of 100 
trams previously discarded as un-fixable.  A new safety 
and signal system was built.  Track and roadway repaired 
and improved, an automatic breakdown warning system 
installed and many lines re-routed. Passengers carried 
increase from 183,543,516 to 233,557,506 at a standard 
class cheap fare.  Tell that to anyone who maintains 
workers are too ignorant to run things themselves!

The Spanish revolution proved conclusively, if only 
briefly, that given a chance workers and peasants can 
run things themselves a lot better then the bosses.   The 
elimination of the profit motive and the undistorted 
application of technology improved life greatly for those 
involved.  

Workers' self-management and the agricultural 
collectives didn't collapse due to some flaw in human 
nature.  They were smashed by fascist attacks from the 
front and Communist tanks in the rear (for example a 
division of tanks under the command of the Communist 
general Lister was used to destroy most of the Aragon 
collectives).   Anarchism as a method of organising 
society faced the test of history and passed with flying 
colours.

Des McCarron


**********  The Friends of Durruti ***************
                     from Workers Solidarity No 34

THE WAR in Spain (1936-1939) has often been 
portrayed as a simple struggle between Fascism 
and democracy. In fact it was anything but. A 
military coup launched in July 1936 was defeated 
by worker's action in most parts of Spain. 

There then followed a wide ranging social 
revolution (see Worker's Solidarity 33).  As many 
as 5-7 million were involved in the collectivisation 
of agriculture and thousands  in worker's control 
of industry. About 2 million of these were also 
members of the oldest union in Spain the anarcho-
syndicalist; CNT.

As with all revolutions a counter-revolution 
followed quickly on the Spanish revolution. This 
was spearheaded by the Spanish Communist party. 
These were faithful adherents to Stalin's foreign 
policy of sucking up to France and England in the 
hope of military and economic alliances.  They 
resisted the revolution at all stages and found 
willing allies in the Spanish republican and 
socialist forces.  All took pains to convey to the 
world a struggle between fascism and democracy. 

They also took steps to try and make it such a 
struggle by smashing collectives and factory 
committees and sabotaging the efforts of 
revolutionary forces at the front.  However even 
more worrying is the fact that the "anarchists" of 
the CNT made little attempt to combat these forces. 
In fact four became government ministers.

One tendency within the CNT; the Friends of 
Durruti resisted the growing reformism within the 
CNT. In this review of their pamphlet; "Towards a 
Fresh Revolution" Conor Mc Loughlin outlines their 
importance to modern anarchists.

"We are not interested in medals or in general's 
sashes, we want neither committees or ministers" 
Bueneventura Durruti - Solidaridad Obrera Sept 12 1936

"The government has posthumously granted the 
rank of Lieutenant Colonel to the illustrious 
Libertarian leader  Buenaventura Durruti on the 
anniversary of his death"- Solidaridad Obrera April 
30  1938

The friends of Durutti were setup in 1937 by  rank and 
file members of the CNT and memders of CNT columns 
resisting militarisation.  "Towards a fresh revolution" 
was published in 1938 as "a message of hope and a 
determination to renew the fight against an 
internationalism." It's a short and relatively easy read  
at  43 pages. It is obviously aimed at activists in the 
CNT and it pulls no punches in it's  attacks on the 
Spanish bourgeoisie  and "colaborationists" in the CNT.  
However  be warned it does assume a certain amount of 
background knowledge of the history of the CNT and the 
Spanish revolution. It would be useful to read in 
conjunction with Vernon Richard's "Lessons of the 
Spanish Revolution"
	
JULY 19th 1936

The pamphlet begins by recalling the massive gains 
made by Spanish workers in areas where they had 
succeeded in beating the fascist coup. The coup had been 
defeated by workers facing down the military often with 
their bare hands. It had been defeated without any help 
from the popular front government who refused to arm 
the people. This was to be repeated throughout the 
course of the "civil war". The workers confronted fascism 
with revolution the government proved more afraid of 
revolution then fascism (which is not to knock the many 
genuine anti-fascists in some of the government parties.).

The July events triggered a massive social revolution 
throughout Spain. (see Workers Solidarity no. 33).  
Workers took over in the factories and on the lands and 
began the creation of a self-managed communist society.  
Millions were involved in agricultural communes and 
worker's self management in the factories. 

The pamphlet however poses the central question.   Why, 
when a clear majority supported and took part in the 
building of a social revolution, wasn't this pushed 
forward by the CNT; the massive anarcho-syndicalist 
union.  Their answer is brief: "what happened had to 
happen"

Why was this sellout inevitable as the FOD maintain?  
Why did leading anarchists move on to become leading 
ministers in the Spanish government? 

In explaining their apparently fatalistic view of the CNT 
the FOD  go on to show how the CNT was devoid of any 
revolutionary theory or programme.  They had "Lyricism 
aplenty" and detailed plans had been laid down as to 
how an anarchist Spain would operate at their  national 
conference in Saragosa in May 1936.  But they couldn't 
get from A to B, from bread and butter struggle to a 
future libertarian society. 

For this reason they handed the revolution to the tender 
mercies of the Socialists, republicans and Communists. 
These forces which emerged without a shred of support 
from the July events were not slow to rebuild. Instead of 
destroying it they propped up the Spanish state in it's 
hour of need. As the FOD put it: "It breathed a 
lungfull of Oxygen into an anemic, terror stricken 
bourgeoisie."

Garcia Oliver one of the "leading militants" who was 
shortly to enter the government without even consulting 
the Union's members claimed he had avoided "an 
anarchist dictatorship". This shows a complete and crass 
lack of understanding of the essential tasks of an 
anarchist organisation i.e. the smashing of the state and 
the transfer of power to worker's and peasants.  The 
CNT and Spanish workers were to pay in blood for this 
collaboration.

We acknowledge the great work of the CNT in 
propagandising anarchism and the struggle against 
Franco.  But we must stand with the FOD in absolute 
condemnation of the deferring of revolutionary politics to 
class collaboration.

The FOD had a programme which could have won the 
support of the Spanish masses and led them to 
anarchism and the destruction of Fascism. However they 
were too small and too late. The need for such a 
programme as outlined in "How anarchists should 
organise" in this issue has never been more pressing

MAY 3 rd 1937
	
By this stage the counter-revolutionaries in the 
"republican" camp felt confident enough to provoke a fight 
with the Barcelona working class.  Police under the 
command of Rodriguez Salas, the public order commissar, 
attacked the telephone exchange. They were strongly 
resisted by  CNT organised workers inside. 

Barricades soon sprang up all over the city. Fighting 
broke out with the CNT and POUM (non-Stalinist 
Marxists) quickly gaining the upper hand over 
government and PSUC (Stalinist controlled Catalan 
"Socialist" party). After an armed stand off the workers 
were finally persuaded to lay down arms by the CNT 
"leadership". 

 The FOD strongly urged workers to remain put and were 
in the thick of the fighting.  They pointed out that the 
workers had won and now controlled Barcelona (after a 
steady erosion of their position since July 1936). They 
insisted that workers stayed put. They issued a 
manifesto calling for the disbanding of the army and 
parties which had supported the coup and the 
establishment of a revolutionary Junta to continue the 
war.

It is worth explaining exactly what they meant by this 
Junta since the word has very bad associations. They 
wanted the Junta to control only the war effort. It was to 
be made up of elected, recallable delegates.  The economy 
was to be under the control of workers through their 
syndicates.   

For issuing these demands they were attacked as 
traitors and agent provocateurs. The CNT brokered peace 
was an abandonment of the revolutionary Barcelona 
workers. Several thousand troops arrived from Valencia. 
There were  mass arrests, executions and immediate 
press censorship.  The destruction of the POUM and CNT 
by Stalin's CHEKA agents began.

The May events were a vital turning point in the Spanish 
revolution. The collectives were crushed throughout 
republican areas  soon afterwards. Worker's control was 
smashed and militarisation completed. The "peoples 
army" then suffered massive and bloody defeats at the 
hands of the fascists. 

We would agree with almost all the FOD's positions 
summarised at the end of the pamphlet. These include;

1. That the war should have been a continuation of the 
revolution with a democratic worker's army.

2. All available arms and money should have been seized 
by the workers. (The CNT spent most of the war 
guarding  the government's 2,259 pesatas in gold! This 
money which could have aided the revolution was 
exported to Russia to buy the arms that helped destroy 
it.)

3. No collaboration with the Spanish bourgeois

4.   Real worker's unity

5. Total socialisation of the economy and food 
distribution

6. Equalisation of pay rates

7. No armistice with Foreign imperialist powers.

To this we could only add the immediate granting of 
independence to remaining Spanish colonies.

The FOD were armed with a revolutionary programme 
that could have brought Spain towards anarchism and 
crushed the Fascists. But they were too small and to late 
to hope to win workers to it's implementation The need 
for anarchists organised with such a programme has 
never been more pressing. We are attempting to build 
one.

Conor McLoughlin
