Spanish Revolution
Encyclopedia
The Spanish Revolution was a workers' social revolution
that began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
in 1936 and resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist
and more broadly libertarian socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia
, Aragon
, Andalusia
, and parts of the Levante
. Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia
, the figure was as high as 75%, but lower in areas with heavy Communist Party influence, as the Soviet-allied party actively resisted attempts at collectivization enactment. Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian
areas became collectivised and run as libertarian
communes
. Even places like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were collectivized and managed by their workers. Sam Dolgoff
estimated that about eight million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution, which he claimed "came closer to realizing the ideal of the free stateless society on a vast scale than any other revolution in history." Dolgoff quotes the French anarchist historian Gaston Leval
(who was an active participant) to summarize the anarchist conception of the social revolution:
The collectivization effort was primarily orchestrated by the rank-and-file members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
(CNT; English: National Confederation of Labor) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica
(FAI; English: Iberian Anarchist Federation), with the two often abbreviated as CNT-FAI due to the affinity between the two organizations and the major role of the latter within the former in maintaining anarchist "purity." The non-anarchist socialist Unión General de Trabajadores
(UGT; English: General Union of Workers) also participated in the implementation of collectivization, albeit to a far lesser degree.
, best known for his anti-authoritarian
works Animal Farm
and Nineteen Eighty-Four
, was a soldier in the militia of the CNT-allied Partido Obrero Unificación Marxista
(POUM; English: Workers' Party of Marxist Unification). Orwell meticulously documented his first-hand observations of the civil war, and expressed admiration for the social revolution in his book Homage to Catalonia
.
Continuing, Orwell describes the general feeling of the new society that was built within the shell of the old, offering specific elaborations on the effective destruction of hierarchical arrangements that he'd perceived in anarchist Spain.
Orwell was a democratic socialist
and a left-libertarian sympathizer who expressed solidarity with the anarchist movement and social revolution, later commenting, "I had told everyone for a long time past that I was going to leave the P.O.U.M. As far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists."
and collectivization of privately owned productive resources (and some smaller structures), in adherence to the anarchist belief that private property
is authoritarian in nature. Spanish Civil War scholar (and anti-socialist) Burnett Bolloten
writes of this process:
The economic policies of the anarchist collectives were primarily operated according to the basic communist
principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
". In some places, money was entirely eliminated, to be replaced with vouchers and coupons distributed on the basis of needs rather than individual labor contributions. Bolloten writes of this process also:
Bolloten supplements this analysis through quotation of anarchist journalist Augustin Souchy
's remark that "The characteristic of the majority of CNT collectives is the family wage
. Wages are paid according to the needs of the members and not according to the labor performed by each worker." This focus on provision for the needs of members rather than individual remuneration effectively rendered these conditions anarcho-communist
in nature.
Despite the critics clamoring for "maximum efficiency" rather than revolutionary methods, anarchist collectives often produced more than before the collectivization. In Aragon
, for instance, the productivity increased by 20%. The newly liberated zones worked on entirely libertarian principles; decisions were made through councils of ordinary citizens without any sort of bureaucracy (it should be noted that the CNT
–FAI
leadership was at this time not nearly as radical as the rank and file members responsible for these sweeping changes). In addition to the economic revolution, there was a spirit of cultural revolution. Traditions some viewed as oppressive were done away with. For instance, women were legally permitted to have abortions, and the idea of "free love
" became widely prevalent. In many ways, this spirit of cultural liberation prefigured that of the "New Left
" movements of the 1960s.
As the war dragged on, the spirit of the revolution's early days flagged. In part, this was due to the policies of the Communist Party of Spain, which took its cues from the foreign ministry of Joseph Stalin
's Soviet Union, the source of most of the foreign aid received by the Republican side. The Communist policy was that the war was not the time for the revolution, that until victory in the war was won the goal had to be the defeat of the Francisco Franco
forces, not the abolition of capitalism
, which was to be addressed once the war had been won. The other left-wing parties
, particularly the anarchists and POUM
, disagreed vehemently with this; to them the war and the revolution were one and the same. Militia
s of parties and groups which had spoken out too vociferously in opposition to the Soviet position on the war soon found further aid to have been cut off. Partially because of this, the situation in most Republican-held areas slowly began to revert largely to its prewar conditions; in many ways the "revolution" was over well before the triumph of the Franco forces in early 1939.
He also emphasizes the generally coercive nature of the war climate and anarchist military organization and presence in many portions of the countryside as being an element in the establishment of collectivization, even if outright force or blatant coercion was not used to bind participants against their will.
This charge had previously been made by historian Ronald Fraser
in his Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War, who commented that direct force was not necessary in the context of an otherwise coercive war climate.
Anarchist sympathizers counter that the presence of a "coercive climate" was an unavoidable aspect of the war that the anarchists cannot be fairly blamed for, and that the presence of deliberate coercion or direct force was minimal, as evidenced by a generally peaceful mixture of collectivists and individualist dissenters who had opted not to participate in collective organization. The latter sentiment is expressed by historian Antony Beevor
in his Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.
Historian Graham Kelsey also maintains that the anarchist collectives were primarily maintained through libertarian principles of voluntary association and organization, and that the decision to join and participate was generally based on a rational and balanced choice made after the destabilization and effective absence of capitalism as a powerful factor in the region.
There is also focus placed by pro-anarchist analysts on the many decades of organization and shorter period of CNT-FAI agitation that was to serve as a foundation for high membership levels throughout anarchist Spain, which is often referred to as a basis for the popularity of the anarchist collectives, rather than any presence of force or coercion that allegedly compelled unwilling persons to involuntarily participate.
Michael Seidman has revealed other contradictions with workers' self-management
during the Spanish Revolution. He points out that the CNT decided both that workers could be sacked for 'laziness or immorality' and also that all workers should 'have a file where the details of their professional and social personalities will be registered.' He also notes that the CNT Justice Minister, García Oliver, initiated the setting up of 'labour camps' and that even the most principled anarchists, the Friends of Durutti, advocated 'forced labour'.
Such policies obviously contradict the basic principles of anarchism. Yet, anarchist authors have sometimes understated the problems of workers' self-management in the Spanish Revolution. For example, while Gaston Leval
does admit that the collectives imposed a 'work discipline' that was 'more strict' than that of the former capitalist owners, he then restricts this comment to a mere footnote. Other radical commentators, however, have incorporated the limitations of the Spanish Revolution into their theories of anti-capitalist revolution. Gilles Dauvé
, for example, uses the Spanish experience to argue that to transcend capitalism, workers must completely abolish both wage labour and capital rather than just self-manage them. (Such a radical transformation would, of course, be easier in the 21st century, with its potential for material abundance, than in the Spain of the 1930s, with its harsh poverty and civil war conditions.)
Social revolution
The term social revolution may have different connotations depending on the speaker.In the Trotskyist movement, the term "social revolution" refers to an upheaval in which existing property relations are smashed...
that began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
in 1936 and resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist
Anarchism in Spain
Anarchism has historically gained more support and influence in Spain than anywhere else, especially before Francisco Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939....
and more broadly libertarian socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
, Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
, and parts of the Levante
Levante, Spain
The Levante is a name used to refer to the eastern region of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. It roughly corresponds to the former Xarq Al-Andalus, but has no modern geopolitical definition...
. Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community in northeastern Spain, with the official status of a "nationality" of Spain. Catalonia comprises four provinces: Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, and Tarragona. Its capital and largest city is Barcelona. Catalonia covers an area of 32,114 km² and has an...
, the figure was as high as 75%, but lower in areas with heavy Communist Party influence, as the Soviet-allied party actively resisted attempts at collectivization enactment. Factories were run through worker committees, agrarian
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
areas became collectivised and run as libertarian
Libertarian socialism
Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...
communes
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
. Even places like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were collectivized and managed by their workers. Sam Dolgoff
Sam Dolgoff
Sam Dolgoff was an American anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist.Dolgoff was born in the shtetl of Ostrovno in Vitebsk, Russia, moving as a child to New York City in 1905 or 1906, where he lived in the Bronx and in Manhattan's Lower East Side where he died...
estimated that about eight million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution, which he claimed "came closer to realizing the ideal of the free stateless society on a vast scale than any other revolution in history." Dolgoff quotes the French anarchist historian Gaston Leval
Gaston Leval
Gaston Leval was an anarcho-syndicalist, combatant and historian of the Spanish Revolution....
(who was an active participant) to summarize the anarchist conception of the social revolution:
The collectivization effort was primarily orchestrated by the rank-and-file members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...
(CNT; English: National Confederation of Labor) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica
Federación Anarquista Ibérica
The Federación Anarquista Ibérica is a Spanish organization of anarchist militants active within affinity groups inside the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trade union. It is often abbreviated as CNT-FAI because of the close relationship between the two organizations...
(FAI; English: Iberian Anarchist Federation), with the two often abbreviated as CNT-FAI due to the affinity between the two organizations and the major role of the latter within the former in maintaining anarchist "purity." The non-anarchist socialist Unión General de Trabajadores
Unión General de Trabajadores
The Unión General de Trabajadores is a major Spanish trade union, historically affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party .-History:...
(UGT; English: General Union of Workers) also participated in the implementation of collectivization, albeit to a far lesser degree.
Orwell's account
The British author George OrwellGeorge Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
, best known for his anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarian
Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as a "political doctrine advocating the principle of absolute rule: absolutism, autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, totalitarianism." Anti-authoritarians usually believe in full equality before the law and strong civil...
works Animal Farm
Animal Farm
Animal Farm is an allegorical novella by George Orwell published in England on 17 August 1945. According to Orwell, the book reflects events leading up to and during the Stalin era before World War II...
and Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
, was a soldier in the militia of the CNT-allied Partido Obrero Unificación Marxista
Poum
Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....
(POUM; English: Workers' Party of Marxist Unification). Orwell meticulously documented his first-hand observations of the civil war, and expressed admiration for the social revolution in his book Homage to Catalonia
Homage to Catalonia
Homage to Catalonia is political journalist and novelist George Orwell's personal account of his experiences and observations in the Spanish Civil War. The first edition was published in 1938. The book was not published in the United States until February 1952. The American edition had a preface...
.
Continuing, Orwell describes the general feeling of the new society that was built within the shell of the old, offering specific elaborations on the effective destruction of hierarchical arrangements that he'd perceived in anarchist Spain.
Orwell was a democratic socialist
Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...
and a left-libertarian sympathizer who expressed solidarity with the anarchist movement and social revolution, later commenting, "I had told everyone for a long time past that I was going to leave the P.O.U.M. As far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists."
Social revolution
The most notable aspect of the social revolution was the establishment of a libertarian socialist economy based on coordination through decentralized and horizontal federations of participatory industrial collectives and agrarian communes. This was accomplished through widespread expropriationNationalization
Nationalisation, also spelled nationalization, is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being...
and collectivization of privately owned productive resources (and some smaller structures), in adherence to the anarchist belief that private property
Private property
Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...
is authoritarian in nature. Spanish Civil War scholar (and anti-socialist) Burnett Bolloten
Burnett Bolloten
Burnett Bolloten was a writer and scholar of the Spanish Civil War.-Biography:Son of a Liverpool jeweler, he was born in the UK. Not wishing to follow his father's career, he began to travel around the Mediterranean...
writes of this process:
The economic policies of the anarchist collectives were primarily operated according to the basic communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
principle of "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx in his 1875 Critique of the Gotha Program. In German, "Jeder nach seinen Fähigkeiten, jedem nach seinen Bedürfnissen!"...
". In some places, money was entirely eliminated, to be replaced with vouchers and coupons distributed on the basis of needs rather than individual labor contributions. Bolloten writes of this process also:
Bolloten supplements this analysis through quotation of anarchist journalist Augustin Souchy
Augustin Souchy
Augustin Souchy was a German anarchist, antimilitarist, and journalist.- First World War :At the outbreak of the First World War he moved in Austria. From there he was deported to and forced to wear a sign around his neck that read "Beware: Anarchist!", which later became the title of his...
's remark that "The characteristic of the majority of CNT collectives is the family wage
Family wage
A family wage is a wage that is sufficient to raise a family on. This contrasts with a living wage, which is generally taken to mean a wage sufficient for a single individual to live on, but not necessarily sufficient to also support a family...
. Wages are paid according to the needs of the members and not according to the labor performed by each worker." This focus on provision for the needs of members rather than individual remuneration effectively rendered these conditions anarcho-communist
Anarchist communism
Anarchist communism is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, markets, money, private property, and capitalism in favor of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with...
in nature.
Despite the critics clamoring for "maximum efficiency" rather than revolutionary methods, anarchist collectives often produced more than before the collectivization. In Aragon
Aragon
Aragon is a modern autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. Located in northeastern Spain, the Aragonese autonomous community comprises three provinces : Huesca, Zaragoza, and Teruel. Its capital is Zaragoza...
, for instance, the productivity increased by 20%. The newly liberated zones worked on entirely libertarian principles; decisions were made through councils of ordinary citizens without any sort of bureaucracy (it should be noted that the CNT
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions affiliated with the International Workers Association . When working with the latter group it is also known as CNT-AIT...
–FAI
Federación Anarquista Ibérica
The Federación Anarquista Ibérica is a Spanish organization of anarchist militants active within affinity groups inside the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo trade union. It is often abbreviated as CNT-FAI because of the close relationship between the two organizations...
leadership was at this time not nearly as radical as the rank and file members responsible for these sweeping changes). In addition to the economic revolution, there was a spirit of cultural revolution. Traditions some viewed as oppressive were done away with. For instance, women were legally permitted to have abortions, and the idea of "free love
Free love
The term free love has been used to describe a social movement that rejects marriage, which is seen as a form of social bondage. The Free Love movement’s initial goal was to separate the state from sexual matters such as marriage, birth control, and adultery...
" became widely prevalent. In many ways, this spirit of cultural liberation prefigured that of the "New Left
New Left
The New Left was a term used mainly in the United Kingdom and United States in reference to activists, educators, agitators and others in the 1960s and 1970s who sought to implement a broad range of reforms, in contrast to earlier leftist or Marxist movements that had taken a more vanguardist...
" movements of the 1960s.
As the war dragged on, the spirit of the revolution's early days flagged. In part, this was due to the policies of the Communist Party of Spain, which took its cues from the foreign ministry of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's Soviet Union, the source of most of the foreign aid received by the Republican side. The Communist policy was that the war was not the time for the revolution, that until victory in the war was won the goal had to be the defeat of the Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
forces, not the abolition of capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, which was to be addressed once the war had been won. The other left-wing parties
Political Parties
Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy is a book by sociologist Robert Michels, published in 1911 , and first introducing the concept of iron law of oligarchy...
, particularly the anarchists and POUM
Poum
Poum is a commune in the North Province of New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France in the Pacific Ocean. The town of Poum is located in the far northwest, located on the southern part of Banare Bay, with Mouac Island just offshore....
, disagreed vehemently with this; to them the war and the revolution were one and the same. Militia
Militia
The term militia is commonly used today to refer to a military force composed of ordinary citizens to provide defense, emergency law enforcement, or paramilitary service, in times of emergency without being paid a regular salary or committed to a fixed term of service. It is a polyseme with...
s of parties and groups which had spoken out too vociferously in opposition to the Soviet position on the war soon found further aid to have been cut off. Partially because of this, the situation in most Republican-held areas slowly began to revert largely to its prewar conditions; in many ways the "revolution" was over well before the triumph of the Franco forces in early 1939.
Criticism
Criticism of the Spanish Revolution has primarily centered around allegations of coercion by anarchist participants (primarily in the rural collectives of Aragon), which critics charge run contrary to libertarian organizational principles. Bolloten claims that CNT-FAI reports overplayed the voluntary nature of collectivization, and ignored the more widespread realities of coercion of outright force as the primary characteristic of anarchist organization.He also emphasizes the generally coercive nature of the war climate and anarchist military organization and presence in many portions of the countryside as being an element in the establishment of collectivization, even if outright force or blatant coercion was not used to bind participants against their will.
This charge had previously been made by historian Ronald Fraser
Ronald Fraser
Ronald Fraser was an English character actor, who appeared in numerous British films of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s whilst also appearing in many popular TV shows.-Background:...
in his Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War, who commented that direct force was not necessary in the context of an otherwise coercive war climate.
Anarchist sympathizers counter that the presence of a "coercive climate" was an unavoidable aspect of the war that the anarchists cannot be fairly blamed for, and that the presence of deliberate coercion or direct force was minimal, as evidenced by a generally peaceful mixture of collectivists and individualist dissenters who had opted not to participate in collective organization. The latter sentiment is expressed by historian Antony Beevor
Antony Beevor
Antony James Beevor, FRSL is a British historian, educated at Winchester College and Sandhurst. He studied under the famous military historian John Keegan. Beevor is a former officer with the 11th Hussars who served in England and Germany for five years before resigning his commission...
in his Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.
Historian Graham Kelsey also maintains that the anarchist collectives were primarily maintained through libertarian principles of voluntary association and organization, and that the decision to join and participate was generally based on a rational and balanced choice made after the destabilization and effective absence of capitalism as a powerful factor in the region.
There is also focus placed by pro-anarchist analysts on the many decades of organization and shorter period of CNT-FAI agitation that was to serve as a foundation for high membership levels throughout anarchist Spain, which is often referred to as a basis for the popularity of the anarchist collectives, rather than any presence of force or coercion that allegedly compelled unwilling persons to involuntarily participate.
Michael Seidman has revealed other contradictions with workers' self-management
Workers' self-management
Worker self-management is a form of workplace decision-making in which the workers themselves agree on choices instead of an owner or traditional supervisor telling workers what to do, how to do it and where to do it...
during the Spanish Revolution. He points out that the CNT decided both that workers could be sacked for 'laziness or immorality' and also that all workers should 'have a file where the details of their professional and social personalities will be registered.' He also notes that the CNT Justice Minister, García Oliver, initiated the setting up of 'labour camps' and that even the most principled anarchists, the Friends of Durutti, advocated 'forced labour'.
Such policies obviously contradict the basic principles of anarchism. Yet, anarchist authors have sometimes understated the problems of workers' self-management in the Spanish Revolution. For example, while Gaston Leval
Gaston Leval
Gaston Leval was an anarcho-syndicalist, combatant and historian of the Spanish Revolution....
does admit that the collectives imposed a 'work discipline' that was 'more strict' than that of the former capitalist owners, he then restricts this comment to a mere footnote. Other radical commentators, however, have incorporated the limitations of the Spanish Revolution into their theories of anti-capitalist revolution. Gilles Dauvé
Gilles Dauvé
Gilles Dauvé is a French political theorist associated with left communism.In collaboration with other left communists such as François Martin and Karl Nesic, Dauvé has attempted to fuse, critique, and develop different left communist currents, most notably the Italian movement associated with...
, for example, uses the Spanish experience to argue that to transcend capitalism, workers must completely abolish both wage labour and capital rather than just self-manage them. (Such a radical transformation would, of course, be easier in the 21st century, with its potential for material abundance, than in the Spain of the 1930s, with its harsh poverty and civil war conditions.)
See also
- Anarchism in SpainAnarchism in SpainAnarchism has historically gained more support and influence in Spain than anywhere else, especially before Francisco Franco's victory in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939....
- Anarchist CataloniaAnarchist CataloniaAnarchist Catalonia was the part of Catalonia controlled by the anarchist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo during the Spanish Civil War.-Anarchists enter government:...
- HorizontalidadHorizontalidadHorizontality or horizontalism is a social relationship that advocates the creation, development and maintenance of social structures for the equitable distribution of management power...
- Spanish Civil WarSpanish Civil WarThe Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
- Land and FreedomLand and FreedomLand and Freedom is a 1995 film directed by Ken Loach and written by Jim Allen. The film narrates the story of David Carr, an unemployed worker and member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, who decides to fight for the republican side in the Spanish Civil War...
- LibertariasLibertariasLibertarias is a Spanish historical drama made in 1996. It was written and directed by Vicente Aranda.In 1936, Maria , a young nun is recruited by Pilar , a militant feminist, into an anarchist militia following the onset of the Spanish Civil War...
- 2011 Spanish protests2011 Spanish protestsThe 2011 Spanish protests, also referred to as the 15-M Movement and the Indignants movement, are a series of ongoing demonstrations in Spain whose origin can be traced to social networks and Real Democracy NOW among other civilian digital platforms and 200 other small associations...
External links
- The Spanish Civil War: Anarchism in Actionessay on Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War, hosted on Pierre J. Proudhon memorial computer.
- Collectives in the Spanish Revolution by Gaston Leval, perhaps the best study of the anarchist collectives created during the Spanish Revolution.
- With the Peasants of Aragonby Augustin Souchy, classic study of libertarian collectivisation in the countryside.
- Spanish Revolution articles from the Kate Sharpley Library
- Michael Seidman's writings at Libcom.org.
- Spanish Revolution 2011 in Barcelona