Yes. As Murray Bookchin puts it, "[i]n Spain, millions of people took large segments of the economy into their own hands, collectivized them, administered them, even abolished money and lived by communistic principles of work and distribution -- all of this in the midst of a terrible civil war, yet without producing the chaos or even the serious dislocations that were and still are predicted by authoritarian 'radicals.' Indeed, in many collectivized areas, the efficiency with which an enterprise worked by far exceeded that of a comparable one in nationalized or private sectors. This 'green shoot' of revolutionary reality has more meaning for us than the most persuasive theoretical arguments to the contrary. On this score it is not the anarchists who are the 'unrealistic day-dreamers,' but their opponents who have turned their backs to the facts or have shamelessly concealed them" ["Introductory," in The Anarchist Collectives, ed. Sam Dolgoff, Free Life Editions, 1974]
Sam Dolgoff's book is by far the best English source on the Spanish collectives and deserves to be quoted at length (as we do below). He points out that more than 60% of the land was very quickly collectivized and cultivated by the peasants themselves, "without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high-salaried managers, or the authority of the state.
"Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism,
'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.'
They coordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity" [Ibid.]
According to Gaston Leval in Espagne Libertaire, about eight million people directly or indirectly participated in the new economy during the short time it was able to survive the military assaults and of the fascists and the sabotage of the Communists.
Lest the reader think that Dolgoff and Bookchin are exaggerating the accomplishments and ignoring the failures of the Spanish collectives, in the following subsections we will present specific details and answer some objections often raised by misinformed critics. We will try to present an objective analysis of the revolution, both its strong points and weak points, the mistakes made and possible lessons to be drawn from those mistakes.
It's true that collectivization was more extensive and lasted longer in
the rural areas. However, about 75% of Spanish industry was concentrated
in Catalonia, the stronghold of the anarchist labor movement, and
widespread collectivization of factories took place there.
As Dolgoff rightly observes, "[t]his refutes decisively the allegation that
anarchist organizational principles are not applicable to industrial areas,
and if at all, only in primitive agrarian societies or in isolated
experimental communities" [Ibid., pp. 7-8].
There had been a long tradition of peasant collectivism in the Iberian
Peninsula, as there was among the Berbers and in the ancient Russian
mir. The historians Costa and Reparaz maintain that a great many
Iberian collectives can be traced to "a form of rural libertarian-communism
[which] existed in the Iberian Peninsula before the Roman invasion. Not
even five centuries of oppression by Catholic kings, the State and the
Church have been able to eradicate the spontaneous tendency to establish
libertarian communistic communities" [cited Ibid., p. 20]. So it's not
surprising that there were more collectives in the countryside.
According to Augustin Souchy, "[i]t is no simple matter to collectivize
and place on firm foundations an industry employing almost a quarter of a
million textile workers in scores of factories scattered in numerous
cities. But the Barcelona syndicalist textile union accomplished this
feat in a short time. It was a tremendously significant experiment. The
dictatorship of the bosses was toppled, and wages, working conditions and
production were determined by the workers and their elected delegates.
All functionaries had to carry out the instructions of the membership and
report back directly to the men on the job and union meetings. The
collectivization of the textile industry shatters once and for all the
legend that the workers are incapable of administrating a great and
complex corporation" [cited Ibid., p. 94].
Therefore the Spanish Revolution cannot be dismissed as a product a of
pre-industrial society. The urban collectivisations occurred in the most
heavily industrialised part of Spain and indicate that anarchist ideas
are applicable to modern societies. In addition, by 1936 agriculture
itself was predominately capitalist (with 2% of the population owning
67% of the land). The revolution in Spain was the work (mostly) of
rural and urban wage labourers (joined with poor peasants) fighting a
well developed capitalist system.
Anarchism was introduced in Spain in 1868 by Giuseppi Fanelli, an
associate of Michael Bakunin, and found fertile soil among both the
workers and the peasants of Spain.
The peasants supported anarchism because of the rural tradition of Iberian
collectivism mentioned in the last section. The urban workers supported it
because its ideas of direct action, solidarity and free federation of unions
corresponded to their needs in their struggle against capitalism and the
state.
In addition, many Spanish workers were well aware of the dangers of
centralisation and the republican tradition in Spain was very much
influenced by federalist ideas (coming, in part, from Proudhon's work).
The movement later spread back and forth between countryside and cities
as union organisers and anarchist militants visited villages and as
peasants came to industrial cities like Barcelona, looking for work.
Therefore, from the start anarchism in Spain was associated with the
labour movement (as Bakunin desired) and so anarchists had a practical
area to apply their ideas and spread the anarchist message. By applying
their principles in everyday life, the anarchists in Spain ensured that
anarchist ideas became commonplace and accepted in a large section of
the population.
The Spanish Revolution also shows the importance of anarchist education
and media. In a country with a very high illiteracy rate, huge quantities
of literature on social revolution were disseminated and read out loud at
meetings by those who could read to those who couldn't. Anarchist ideas
were widely discussed. "There were tens of thousands of books, pamphlets
and tracts, vast and daring cultural and popular educational experiments
(the Ferrer schools) that reached into almost every village and hamlet
throughout Spain" [Ibid., p. 28].
Newspapers and periodicals were extremely important. By 1919, more than
50 towns in Andalusia had their own libertarian newspapers. By 1934 the
C.N.T. [the anarcho-syndicalist labor union] had a membership of 1,500,000
and the anarchist press covered all of Spain. In Barcelona the C.N.T.
published a daily, Solidaridad Obrera, with a circulation of 30,000.
The magazine Tierra y Libertad [Land and Liberty] in Barcelona had a
circulation of 20,000. In Gijon there was Vida Obrera [Working Life],
in Seville El Productor [The Producer], and in Saragossa Accion y
Cultura [Action and Culture], all with large circulations. There were
many more.
As well as leading struggles, organising unions, and producing books,
papers and periodicals, the anarchists also organised libertarian schools,
cultural centres, cooperatives, anarchist groups (the F.A.I.), youth groups
(the Libertarian Youth) and women's organisations (the Free Women movement).
They applied their ideas in all walks of life and so ensured that ordinary
people saw that anarchism was practical and relevant to them.
This was the great strength of the Spanish Anarchist movement. It was a
movement "that, in addition to possessing a revolutionary ideology [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", p. 99, from For Anarchism, pp. 79-105]
The Spanish anarchists, before and after the C.N.T. was formed, fought in
and out of the factory for economic, social and political issues. This
refusal of the anarchists to ignore any aspect of life ensured that they
found many willing to hear their message, a message based around the ideas
of individual liberty. Such a message could do nothing but radicalise
workers for "the demands of the C.N.T. 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
the capitalist system could not possibly grant to the workers." [J. Romero
Maura, "The Spanish case", p. 79, from Anarchism Today, edited by
J. Joll and D. Apter]
The structure and tactics of the C.N.T. 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",
as one militant put it. In addition, the C.N.T. 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.
The very structure of the C.N.T. and the practical experience it provided
its members in self-management produced a revolutionary working class the
likes of which the world has rarely seen. As Jose Peirats points out,
"above the union level, the C.N.T. was an eminently political organisation
. . ., a social and revolutionary organisation for agitation and
insurrection." [Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution, p. 239] It was
the revoluntary nature of the C.N.T. that created a militant membership
who were willing and able to use direct action to defend their liberty.
Unlike the German workers who did nothing to stop Hilter, the Spanish
working class (like their comrades in anarchist unions in Italy) took to
the streets to stop fascism.
The revolution in Spain did not just happen; it was the result of nearly
seventy years of persistent anarchist agitation and revolutionary
struggle, including a long series of peasant uprisings, insurrections,
industrial strikes, protests, sabotage and other forms of direct action
that prepared the peasants and workers organise popular resistance to the
attempted fascist coup in JUly 1937 and to take control of the economy when
they had defeated it in the streets.
The collectives were based on workers' democratic self-management of their
workplaces, using productive assets that were under the custodianship of
the entire working community and administered through federations of
workers' associations. Augustin Souchy writes:
"The collectives organized during the Spanish Civil War were workers'
economic associations without private property. The fact that collective
plants were managed by those who worked in them did not mean that these
establishments became their private property. The collective had no right to
sell or rent all or any part of the collectivised factory or workshop, The rightful custodian was the C.N.T., the National Confederation of Workers
Associations. But not even the C.N.T. had the right to do as it pleased.
Everything had to be decided and ratified by the workers themselves through
conferences and congresses." [cited The Anarchist Collectives, p. 67]
According to Souchy, in Catalonia "every factory elected its administrative
committee composed of its most capable workers. Depending on the size of
the factory, the function of these committees included inner plant
organization, statistics, finance, correspondence, and relations with
other factories and with the community. . . . Several months after
collectivization the textile industry of Barcelona was in far better shape
than under capitalist management. Here was yet another example to show
that grass roots socialism from below does not destroy initiative. Greed
is not the only motivation in human relations." [Ibid., p 95].
A plenum of syndicates met in December of 1936 and formulated norms for
socialization in which the inefficiency of the capitalist industrial
system was analyzed. The report of the plenum stated:
"The major defect of most small manufacturing shops is fragmentation and
lack of technical/commercial preparation. This prevents their
modernization and consolidation into better and more efficient units of
production, with better facilities and coordination. . . . [F]or us,
socialization must correct these deficiencies and systems of organization
in every industry. . . . To socialize an industry, we must consolidate the
different units of each branch of industry in accordance with a general
and organic plan which will avoid competition and other difficulties
impeding the good and efficient organization of production and
distribution."
As Souchy points out, this document is very important in the evolution of
collectivization, because it indicates a realization that "workers must
take into account that partial collectivization will in time degenerate
into a kind of bourgeois cooperativism," as discussed earlier (see
H.4). Thus many collectives did not compete with each other for profits,
as surpluses were pooled and distributed on a wider basis than the
individual collective -- in most cases industry-wide.
We have already noted some examples of the improvements in efficiency
realized by collectivization during the Spanish Revolution (I.4.10).
Another example was the baking industry. Souchy reports that, "[a]s in the
rest of Spain, Barcelona's bread and cakes were baked mostly at night in
hundreds of small bakeries. Most of them were in damp, gloomy cellars
infested with roaches and rodents. All these bakeries were shut down.
More and better bread and cake were baked in new bakeries equipped with
new modern ovens and other equipment" [Ibid., p. 82].
Therefore, the collectives in Spain were marked by workplace democracy
and a desire to cooperate within and across industries. This attempt
at libertarian socialism, like all experiments, had its drawbacks as
well as successes and these will be discussed in the next section and
some conclusions draw from the experience.
The methods of cooperation tried by the collectives varied considerably.
Initially, there were very few attempts to coordinate economic activities
beyond the workplace. This is hardly surprising, given that the overwhelming
need was to restart production, convert a civilian economy to a wartime one
and to ensure that the civilian population and militias were supplied with
necessary goods. This, unsurprisingly enough, lead to a situation of anarchist
mutualism developing, with many collectives selling the product of their own
labour on the market (in other words, a form of simple commodity production).
This lead to some economic problems as there existed no framework of
institutions between collectives to ensure efficient coordination of
activity and so lead to pointless competition between collectives (which
lead to even more problems). As there were initially no confederations of
collectives nor mutual/communal banks this lead to the inequalities that
initially existed between collectives (due to the fact that the collectives
took over rich and poor capitalist firms) and it made the many ad hoc
attempts at mutual aid between collectives.
Therefore, the collectives were (initially) a form of "self-management
straddling capitalism and socialism, which we maintain would not have
occurred had the Revolution been able to extend itself fully under the
direction of our syndicates." [Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish
Revolution, p. 227-8] As economic and political development are closely
related, the fact that the C.N.T. did not carry out the political aspect
of the revolution meant that the revolution in the economy was doomed to
failure.
Given that the C.N.T. program of libertarian communism recognized that a
fully cooperative society must be based upon production for use, many C.N.T.
militants fought against this system of mutualism and for inter-workplace
coordination. They managed to convince their fellow workers of the
difficulties of mutualism by free debate and discussion within their
unions and collectives.
For example, the woodworkers' union had a massive debate on socialisation and
decided to do so (the shopworkers' union had a similar debate, but the majority
of workers rejected socialisation). According to Ronald Frazer a "union
delegate would go round the small shops, point out to the workers that the
conditions were unhealthy and dangerous, that the revolution was changing all
this, and secure their agreement to close down and move to the union-built
Double-X and the 33 EU." [Ronald Frazer, Blood of Spain, p. 222]
This process went on in many different unions and collectives and,
unsurprisingly, the forms of coordination agreed to lead to different forms
of organisation in different areas and industries, as would be expected in
a free society. However, the two most important forms can be termed
syndicalisation and confederationalism (we will ignore the forms created
by the collectivisation decree as these were not created by the workers
themselves).
"Syndicalisation" (our term) meant that the C.N.T.'s industrial union ran the whole
industry. This solution was tried by the woodworkers' union after extensive
debate. One section of the union, "dominated by the F.A.I. [the anarchist
federation], maintained that anarchist self-management meant that the workers
should set up and operate autonomous centres of production so as to avoid the
threat of bureaucratization." [Ronald Frazer, Blood of Spain, p. 222]
However, those in favour of syndicalisation won the day and production
was organised in the hands of the union, with administration posts and
delegate meetings elected by the rank and file.
However, the "major failure . . . (and which supported the original anarchist
objection) was that the union became like a large firm . . . [and its]
structure grew increasingly rigid." According to one militant, "From the
outside it began to look like an American or German trust" and the workers
found it difficult to secure any changes and "felt they weren't particularly
involved in decision making."
In the end, the major difference between the union-run industry and a
capitalist firm organisationally appeared to be that workers could vote for
(and recall) the industry management at relatively regular General Assembly
meetings. While a vast improvement on capitalism, it is hardly the best
example of participatory self-management in action although the economic
problems caused by the Civil War and Stalinist led counter-revolution
obviously would have had an effect on the internal structure of any
industry and so we cannot say that the form of organisation created was
totally responsible for any marginalisation that took place.
The other important form of cooperation was what we will term
"confederalisation." This form of cooperation was practiced by the Badalona
textile industry (and had been defeated in the woodworkers' union). It was
based upon each workplace being run by its elected management, sold its own
production, got its own orders and received the proceeds. However, everything
each mill did was reported to the union which charted progress and kept
statistics. If the union felt that a particular factory was not acting in
the best interests of the industry as a whole, it was informed and asked to
change course. According to one militant, "The union acted more as a
socialist control of collectivised industry than as a direct hierarchized
executive" [Op. Cit., p. 229]
This system ensured that the "dangers of the big 'union trust' as of
the atomised collective were avoided" [Frazer, Op. Cit., p. 229] as well
as maximising decentralisation of power. Unlike the syndicalisation
experiment in the woodworkers' industry, this scheme was based on horizontal
links between workplaces (via the C.N.T. union) and allowed a maximum of
self-management and mutual aid. The ideas of an anarchist economy
sketched in section I.3 reflects the actual experiments in self-management
which occurred during the Spanish Revolution.
Therefore, the industrial collectives coordinated their activity in many
ways, with varying degrees of direct democracy and success. As would be
expected, mistakes were made and different solutions found. When reading
this section of the FAQ its important to remember that an anarchist society
can hardly be produced "overnight" and so it is hardly surprising that the
workers of the C.N.T. faced numerous problems and had to develop their
self-management experiment as objective conditions allowed them to.
Unfortunately, thanks to fascist aggression and Communist Party
backstabbing, the experiment did not last long enough to fully answer all
the questions we have about the viability of the solutions they tried.
Given the time, however, we are sure they would have solved the problems
they faced.
Jose Peirats describes collectivization among the peasantry as follows:
"The expropriated lands were turned over to the peasant syndicates, and it
was these syndicates that organized the first collectives. Generally the
holdings of small property owners were respected, always on the condition
that only they or their families would work the land, without employing
wage labor. In areas like Catalonia, where the tradition of petty peasant
ownership prevailed, the land holdings were scattered. There were no
great estates. Many of these peasants, together with the C.N.T., organized
collectives, pooling their land, animals, tools, chickens, grain,
fertilizer, and even their harvested crops.
"Privately owned farms located in the midst of collectives interfered with
efficient cultivation by splitting up the collectives into disconnected
parcels. To induce owners to move, they were given more or even better
land located on the perimeter of the collective.
"The collectivist who had nothing to contribute to the collective was
admitted with the same rights and the same duties as the others. In some
collectives, those joining had to contribute their money (Girondella in
Catalonia, Lagunarrotta in Aragon, and Cervera del Maestra in Valencia)."
[cited The Anarchist Collectives, p. 112].
Peirats also notes that in conducting their internal affairs, all the
collectives scrupulously and zealously observed democratic procedures.
For example, "Hospitalet de Llobregat held regular general membership
meetings every three months to review production and attend to new
business. The administrative council, and all other committees, submitted
full reports on all matters. The meeting approved, disapproved, made
corrections, issued instructions, etc." [Ibid., p. 119]
Dolgoff observes that "[S]upreme power was vested in, and actually
exercised by, the membership in general assemblies, and all power derived
from, and flowed back to, the grass roots organizations of the people"
[Ibid., p 119]. This is confirmed by Gaston Leval [in Espagne
Liberataire, p. 219]: "Regular general membership meetings were convoked
weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. . . and these meetings were completely
free of the tensions and recriminations which inevitably emerge when the
power of decisions is vested in a few individuals -- even if
democratically elected. The Assemblies were open for everyone to
participate in the proceedings. Democracy embraced all social life. In
most cases, even the 'individualists' who were not members of the
collective could participate in the discussions, and they were listened
to by the collectivists."
It was in these face-to-face assemblies that decisions upon the distribution
of resources were decided both within and without the collective. Here, when
considering the importance of mutual aid, appeals were made to an
individual's sense of empathy. As one activist remembers:
"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, p. 79]
In addition, regional federations of collectives were formed in many
areas of Spain (for example, in Aragon and the Levant). The federations were
created at congresses to which the collectives in an area sent delegates.
These congresses agreed a series of general rules about how the federation
would operate and what commitments the affiliated collectives would
have to each other. The congress elected an administration council, which
took responsibility for implementing agreed policy.
These federations had many tasks. They ensured the distribution of surplus
produce to the front line and to the cities, cutting out middlemen and
ensuring the end of exploitation. They also arranged for exchanges between
collectives to take place. In addition, the federations allowed the
individual collectives to pool resources together in order to improve the
infrastructure of the area (building roads, canals, hospitals and so on)
and invest in means of production which no one collective could afford.
In this way individual collectives pooled their resources, increased
and improved the means of production they had access to as well as
improving the social infrastructure of their regions. All this, combined
with an increase of consumption at the point of production and the
feeding of militia men and women fighting the fascists at the front.
Rural collectivisations allowed the potential creative energy that
existed among the rural workers and peasants to be unleashed, an energy
that had been wasted under private property. The popular assemblies allowed
community problems and improvements to be identified and solved directly,
drawing upon the ideas and experiences of everyone and enriched by
discussion and debate. This enabled rural Spain to be transformed from
one marked by poverty and fear, into one of hope and experimentation (see
the next section for a few examples of this experimentation).
Therefore self-management in collectives combined with cooperation in rural
federations allowed an improvement in quality of rural life. From a
purely economic viewpoint, production increased and as Benjamin Martin
summarises, "[t]hough it is impossible to generalize about the rural
land takeovers, there is little doubt that the quality of life for most
peasants who participated in cooperatives and collectives notably improved."
[The Agony of Modernization, p. 394]
More importantly, however, this improvement in the quality of life included
an increase in freedom as well as in consumption. To requote the member
of the Beceite collective in Aragon we cited in section A.5.6, "it was
marvellous. . . to live in a collective, a free society where one could
say what one thought, where if the village committee seemed unsatisfactory
one could say. The committee took no big decisions without calling the
whole village together in a general assembly. All this was wonderful."
[Ronald Frazer, Blood of Spain, p. 288]
Here are a few examples cited by Jose Peirats: "In Montblanc the
collective dug up the old useless vines and planted new vineyards. The
land, improved by modern cultivation with tractors, yielded much bigger
and better crops. . . . Many Aragon collectives built new roads and
repaired old ones, installed modern flour mills, and processed
agricultural and animal waste into useful industrial products. Many of
these improvements were first initiated by the collectives. Some
villages, like Calanda, built parks and baths. Almost all collectives
established libraries, schools, and cultural centers." [cited The
Anarchist Collectives, p.
116].
Gaston Leval points out that "the Peasant Federation of Levant . . .
produced more than half of the total orange crop in Spain: almost four
million kilos (1 kilo equals about 2 and one-fourth pounds). It then
transported and sold through its own commercial organization (no
middlemen) more than 70% of the crop. (The Federations's commercial
organization included its own warehouses, trucks, and boats. Early in
1938 the export section established its own agencies in France:
Marseilles, Perpignan, bordeaux, Cherbourg, and Paris.) Out of a total
of 47,000 hectares in all Spain devoted to rice production, the
collective in the Province of Valencia cultivated 30,000 hectares."
[cited Ibid., p. 124]
To quote Peirats again: "Preoccupation with cultural and pedagogical
innovations was an event without precedent in rural Spain. The Amposta
collectivists organized classes for semi-literates, kindergartens, and
even a school of arts and professions. The Seros schools were free to all
neighbors, collectivists or not. Grau installed a school named after its
most illustrious citizen, Joaquin Costa. The Calanda collective (pop.
only 4,500) schooled 1,233 children. The best students were sent to the
Lyceum in Caspe, with all expenses paid by the collective. The Alcoriza
(pop. 4,000) school was attended by 600 children. Many of the schools
were installed in abandoned convents. In Granadella (pop. 2,000), classes
were conducted in the abandoned barracks of the Civil Guards. Graus
organized a print library and a school of arts and professions, attended
by 60 pupils. The same building housed a school of fine arts and high
grade museum. In some villages a cinema was installed for the first
time. The Penalba cinema was installed in a church. Viladecana built an
experimental agricultural laboratory.
"The collectives voluntarily contributed enormous stocks of provisions and
other supplies to the fighting troops. Utiel sent 1,490 litres of oil and
300 bushels of potatoes to the Madrid front (in addition to huge stocks of
beans, rice, buckwheat, etc.). Porales de Tujana sent great quantities of
bread, oil, flour, and potatoes to the front, and eggs, meat, and milk to
the military hospital.
"The efforts of the collectives take on added significance when we take
into account that their youngest and most vigorous workers were fighting
in the trenches. 200 members of the little collective of Vilaboi were at
the front; from Viledecans, 60; Amposta, 300; and Calande, 500." [Ibid.,
pp. 116-120].
Peirats sums up the accomplishments of the agricultural collectives as
follows: "In distribution the collectives' cooperatives eliminated
middlemen, small merchants, wholesalers, and profiteers, thus greatly
reducing consumer prices. The collectives eliminated most of the
parasitic elements from rural life, and would have wiped them out
altogether if they were not protected by corrupt officials and by the
political parties. Non-collectivized areas benefited indirectly from
the lower prices as well as from free services often rendered by the
collectives (laundries, cinemas, schools, barber and beauty parlors,
etc.)." [Ibid., p114].
Leval emphasizes the following achievements (among others): "In the
agrarian collectives solidarity was practiced to the greatest degree.
Not only was every person assured of the necessities, but the district
federations increasingly adopted the principle of mutual aid on an
inter-collective scale. For this purpose they created common reserves to
help out villages less favored by nature. In Castile special institutions
for this purpose were created. In industry this practice seems to have
begun in Hospitalet, on the Catalan railways, and was applied later in
Alcoy.
"Had the political compromise not impeded open socialization, the
practices of mutual aid would have been much more generalized.
"A conquest of enormous importance was the right of women to livelihood,
regardless of occupation or function. In about half of the agrarian
collectives, the women received the same wages as men; in the rest the
women received less, apparently on the principle that they rarely live
alone.
"In all the agrarian collectives of Aragon, Catalonia, Levant, Castile,
Andalusia, and Estremadura, the workers formed groups to divide the labor
or the land; usually they were assigned to definite areas. Delegates
elected by the work groups met with the collective's delegate for
agriculture to plan out the work. This typical organization arose quite
spontaneously, by local initiative.
"In land cultivation the most significant advances were: the rapidly
increased use of machinery and irrigation; greater diversification; and
forestation. In stock raising: the selection and multiplication of
breeds; the adaptation of breeds to local conditions; and large-scale
construction of collective stock barns." [Ibid., pp. 166-167].
No, it is not. The myth that the rural collectives were created by "terror,"
organised and carried out by the anarchist militia, was started by the
Stalinists of the Spanish Communist Party. More recently, some right-wing
Libertarians have warmed up and repeated these Stalinist fabrications.
Anarchists have been disproving these allegations since 1936 and it is
worthwhile to do so again here.
As Vernon Richards notes, "[h]owever discredited Stalinism may appear to
be today the fact remains that the Stalinist lies and interpretation of
the Spanish Civil War still prevail, presumably because it suits the
political prejudices of those historians who are currently interpreting it."
[Introduction to Gaston Leval's Collectives in the Spanish Revolution,
p. 11] Here we shall present evidence to refute claims that the rural
collectives were created by force.
Firstly, we should point out that rural collectives were created in many
different areas of Spain, such as the Levant (900 collectives), Castile (300)
and Estremadera (30), where the anarchist militia did not exist. In Catalonia,
for example, the C.N.T. militia passed through many villages on its way to
Aragon and only around 40 collectives were created unlike the 450 in Aragon.
In other words, the rural collectivisation process occurred independently of
the existence of anarchist troops, with the majority of the 1,700 rural
collectives created in areas without a predominance of anarchist troops.
One historian, Ronald Frazer, seems to imply that the Aragon Collectives were
imposed upon the Aragon population. As he puts it the "collectivization,
carried out under the general cover, if not necessarily the direct agency,
of C.N.T. militia columns, represented a revolutionary minority's attempt to
control not only production but consumption for egalitarian purposes and
the needs of the war." [Blood of Spain, p. 370] Notice that he does not
suggest that the anarchist militia actually imposed the collectives, a
claim for which there is little or no evidence. Earlier he states that
"There was no need to dragoon them [peasants] at pistol point [into
collectives]: the coercive climate, in which 'fascists' were being shot,
was sufficient. 'Spontaneous' and 'forced' collectives existed, as did
willing and unwilling collectivists within them." [Op. Cit., p.349]
Therefore, his suggestion that the Aragon collectives were imposed upon the
rural population is based upon the insight that there was a "coercive
climate" in Aragon at the time. Of course a civil war against fascism would
produce a "coercive climate," particularly at the front line, and so the
C.N.T. can hardly be blamed for that. In addition, in a life and death
struggle against fascism, in which the fascists were systematically
murdering vast numbers of anarchists, socialists and republicans in the
areas under their control, it is hardly surprising that some anarchist troops
took the law into their own hands and murdered some of those who supported
and would help the fascists. Given what was going on in fascist Spain, and
the experience of fascism in Germany and Italy, the C.N.T. militia knew
exactly what would happen to them and their friends and family if they lost.
The question does arise, however, of whether the climate was made so coercive
by the war and the nearness of the anarchist militia that individual choice
was impossible?
The facts speak for themselves -- rural collectivization in Aragon embraced
more than 70% of the population in the area saved from fascism. Around
30% of the population felt safe enough not to join a collective, a
sizable percentage.
If the collectives had been created by anarchist terror or force, we would
expect a figure of 100% membership in the collectives. This was not the case,
indicating the basically voluntary nature of the experiment (we should point
out that other figures suggest a lower number of collectivists which makes
the forced collectivisation argument even less likely). In addition, if the
C.N.T. militia had forced peasants into collectives we would expect the
membership of the collectives to peak in size almost overnight, not grow
slowly over time. However, this is what happened:
"At the regional congress of collectives, held at Caspe in mid-February
1937,
nearly 80 000 collectivists were represented from 'almost all the villages
of the region.' This, however, was but a beginning. By the end of April the
number of collectivists had risen to 140 000; by the end of the first
week of May to 180 000; and by the end of June to 300 000." [Graham Kelsey,
"Anarchism in Aragon," pp. 60-82, Spain in Conflict 1931-1939,
Martin Blinkhorn (ed), p. 61]
If the collectives has been created by force, then their membership would
have been 300 000 in February, 1937, not increasing steadily to reach that
number four months later. Neither can it be claimed that the increase was
due to new villages being collectivised, as almost all villages had sent
delegates in February. This indicates that many peasants joined the
collectives because of the advantages associated with common labour, the
increased resources it placed at their hands and the fact that the surplus
wealth which had in the previous system been monopolised by the few was
used instead to raise the standard of living of the entire community.
The voluntary nature of the collectives is again emphasized by the number of
collectives which allowed smallholders to remain outside. According to evidence
Frazer presents (on page 366), an FAI schoolteacher is quoted as saying that
the forcing smallholders into the collective "wasn't a widespread problem,
because there weren't more than twenty or so villages where collectivisation
was total and no one was allowed to remain outside..." Instead of forcing
the minority in a village to agree with the wishes of the majority, the
vast majority (95%) of Aragon collectives stuck to their libertarian
principles and allowed those who did not wish to join to remain outside.
So, only around 20 were "total" collectives (out of 450) and around 30% of the
population felt safe enough not to join. In other words, in the vast majority
of collectives those joining could see that those who did not were safe.
These figures should not be discounted, as they give an indication of the
basically spontaneous and voluntary nature of the movement.
As was the composition of the new municipal councils created after July 19th.
As Graham Kesley notes, "[w]hat is immediately noticeable from the results
is that although the region has often been branded as one controlled by
anarchists to the total exclusion of all other forces, the C.N.T. was far
from enjoying the degree of absolute domination often implied and inferred."
[Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian Communism and the State, p. 198]
In his account of the rural revolution, Burnett Bolloton notes that "many
of the 450 collectives of the region were largely voluntary" although "it
must be emphasized that this singular development was in some measure due
to the presence of militiamen from the neighboring region of Catalonia, the
immense majority of whom were members of the C.N.T. and FAI."
As Gaston Leval points out, "it is true that the presence of these forces
. . . favoured indirectly these constructive achievements by preventing
active resistance by the supporters of the bourgeois republic and of
fascism." [Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, p. 90]
In other words, the presence of the militia changed the balance of
class forces in Aragon by destroying the capitalist state (i.e. the local
bosses - caciques - could not get state aid to protect their property)
and many landless workers took over the land. The presence of the militia
ensured that land could be taken over by destroying the capitalist "monopoly
of force" that existed before the revolution (the power of which will be
highlighted below) and so the C.N.T. militia allowed the possibility of
experimentation by the Aragonese population.
This class war in the countryside is reflected by Bolloten's statement that
"[if] the individual farmer viewed with dismay the swift and widespread
collectivisation of agriculture, the farm workers of the Anarchosyndicalist
C.N.T. and the Socialist UGT saw it as the commencement of a new era."
[The Spanish Civil War, p. 63] Both were mass organisations and
supported collectivisation.
Therefore, anarchist militia allowed the rural working class to abolish the
artificial scarcity of land created by private property (and enforced by the
state). The rural bosses obviously viewed with horror the possibility that
they could not exploit day workers' labour. As Bolloten points out "the
collective system of agriculture threaten[ed] to drain the rural labour
market of wage workers." [Op. Cit., p. 62] Little wonder the richer peasants
and landowners hated the collectives.
Bolloten also quotes a report on the district of Valderrobes which indicates
popular support for the collectives:
"Collectivisation was nevertheless opposed by opponents on the right and
adversaries on the left. If the eternally idle who have been expropriated
had been asked what they thought of collectivisation, some would have
replied that it was robbery and others a dictatorship. But, for the
elderly, the day workers, the tenant farmers and small proprietors who
had always been under the thumb of the big landowners and heartless
usurers, it appeared as salvation" [Op. Cit., p. 71]
However, most historians ignore the differences in class that existed in
the countryside. They ignore it and explain the rise in collectives in
Aragon (and ignore those elsewhere) as the result of the C.N.T. militia.
Frazer, for example, states that "[v]ery rapidly collectives. . . began
to spring up. It did not happen on instructions from the C.N.T. leadership -
no more than had the [industrial] collectives in Barcelona. Here, as there,
the initiative came from C.N.T. militants; here, as there, the 'climate'
for social revolution in the rearguard was created by C.N.T. armed strength:
the anarcho-syndicalists' domination of the streets of Barcelona was
re-enacted in Aragon as the C.N.T. militia columns, manned mainly by
Catalan anarcho-syndicalist workers, poured in. Where a nucleus of
anarcho-syndicalists existed in a village, it seized the moment to carry
out the long-awaited revolution and collectivized spontaneously. Where
there was none, villagers could find themselves under considerable pressure
from the militias to collectivize. . ." [Op. Cit., p. 347]
In other words, he implies that the revolution was mostly imported into Aragon
from Catalonia. However, the majority of C.N.T. column leaders were opposed to
the setting up of the Council of Aragon (a confederation for the collectives)
[Frazer, Op. Cit., p. 350]. Hardly an example of Catalan C.N.T. imposed
social revolution. The evidence we have suggests that the Aragon C.N.T. was
a widespread and popular organisation, suggesting that the idea that the
collectives were imported into Aragon by the Catalan C.N.T. is simply false.
Frazer states that in "some [of the Aragonese villages] there was a
flourishing C.N.T., in others the UGT was strongest, and in only too many
there was no unionisation at all." [Blood of Spain, p. 348]
The question arises of how extensive was that strength. The evidence we
have suggests
that it was extensive, strong and growing, so indicating that rural Aragon
was not without a C.N.T. base, a base that makes the suggestion of imposed
collectives a false one.
Murray Bookchin summarises the strength of the C.N.T. in rural Aragon as
follows:
"The authentic peasant base of the C.N.T. [by the 1930s] now lay in Aragon
. . .[C.N.T. growth in Zaragoza] provided a springboard for a highly
effective libertarian agitation in lower Aragon, particularly among
the impoverished laborers and debt-ridden peasantry of the dry steppes
region." [The Spanish Anarchists, p. 220]
Graham Kelsey, in his social history of the C.N.T. in Aragon between 1930
and 1937, provides the necessary evidence to more than back Bookchin's
claim of C.N.T. growth. Kesley points out that as well as the "spread of
libertarian groups and the increasing consciousness among C.N.T. members
of libertarian theories . . .contribu[ting] to the growth of the
anarchosyndicalist movement in Aragon" the existence of "agrarian unrest"
also played an important role in that growth [Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian
Communism and the State, pp.80-81]. This all lead to the "revitalisation
of the C.N.T. network in Aragon" [p. 82] and so by 1936, the C.N.T. had built
upon the "foundations laid in 1933. . . [and] had finally succeeded in
translating the very great strength of the urban trade-union organisation
in Zaragoza into a regional network of considerable extent." [Op. Cit.,
p. 134]
Kelsey and other historians note the long history of anarchism in Aragon,
dating back to the late 1860s. However, before the 1910s there had been
little gains in rural Aragon by the C.N.T. due to the power of local bosses
(called caciques):
"Local landowners and small industrialists, the caciques of
provincial
Aragon, made every effort to enforce the closure of these first rural
anarchosyndicalist cells [created after 1915]. By the time of the first
rural congress of the Aragonese CNT confederation in the summer of 1923,
much of the progress achieved through the organization's considerable
propaganda efforts had been countered by repression elsewhere."
[Graham Kelsey, "Anarchism in Aragon," p. 62]
A C.N.T. activist indicates the power of these bosses and how difficult
it was to be a union member in Aragon:
"Repression is not the same in the large cities as it is in the villages
where everyone knows everybody else and where the Civil Guards are
immediately notified of a comrade's slightest movement. Neither friends
nor relatives are spared. All those who do not serve the state's repressive
forces unconditionally are pursued, persecuted and on occassions beaten
up." [cited by Kelsey, Op. Cit., p. 74]
However, while there were some successes in organising rural unions,
even in 1931 "propaganda campaigns which led to the establishment of scores
of village trade-union cells, were followed by a counter-offensive from
village caciques which forced them to close." [Ibib., p. 67]
But even in
the face of this repression the C.N.T. grew and "from the end of 1932. . .
[there was] a successful expansion of the anarchosyndicalist movement into
several parts of the region where previously it had never penetrated."
[Kesley, Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian Communism and the State,
p. 185]
This growth was built upon in 1936, with increased rural activism which had
slowly eroded the power of the caciques (which in part explains their support
for the fascist coup). After the election of the Popular Front, years of
anarchist propaganda and organisation paid off with a massive increase
in rural membership in the C.N.T.:
"The dramatic growth in rural anarch-syndicalist support in the six
weeks since the general election was emphasized in the [Aragon CNT's
April] congress's agenda. . . the congress directed its attention
to rural problems . . . [and agreed a programme which was] exactly
what was to happen four months later in liberated Aragon." [Kesley,
"Anarchism in Aragon", p. 76]
In the aftermath of a regional congress, held in Zaragoza at the start of
April, a series of of intensive propaganda compaigns was organized
through each of the provinces of the regional confederation. Many
meetings were held in villages which had never before heard anarcho-
syndicalist propaganda. This was very successful and by the beginning
of June, 1936, the number of Aragon unions had topped 400, compared to
only 278 one month earlier (an increase of over 40% in 4 weeks). [Ibib.
, pp. 75-76]
This increase in union membership reflects increased social struggle
by the Aragonese working population and their attempts to improve their
standard of living, which was very low for most of the population. A
journalist from the conservative-Catholic Heraldo de Aragon visited
lower Aragon in the summer of 1935 and noted "The hunger in many homes,
where the men are not working, is beginning to encourage the youth to
subscribe to misleading teachings." [cited by Kesley, Ibib.,
p. 74]
Little wonder, then, the growth in CNT membership and social struggle
Kesley indicates:
"Evidence of a different kind was also available that militant trade
unionism in Aragon was on the increase. In the five months between
mid-February and mid-July 1936 the province of Zaragoza experienced
over seventy strikes, more than had previously been recorded in any
entire year, and things were clearly no different in the other two
provinces . . . the great majority of these strikes were occuring in
provincial towns and villages. Strikes racked the provinces and in at
least three instances were actually transformed into general strikes."
[Ibib., p. 76]
Therefore, in the spring and summer of 1936, we see a massive growth in
C.N.T. membership which reflects growing militant struggle by the urban
and rural population of Aragon. Years of C.N.T. propaganda and organising
had ensured this growth in C.N.T. influence, a growth which is also
reflected in the creation of collectives in liberated Aragon during the
revolution. Therefore, the construction of a collectivized society was
founded directly upon the emergence, during the five years of the Second
Republic, of a mass trade-union movement infused by libertarian, anarchist
principles. These collectives were constructed in accordance with the
programme agreed at the Aragon C.N.T. conference of April 1936 which
reflected the wishes of the rural membership of the unions within Aragon
(and due to the rapid growth of the C.N.T. afterwards obviously reflected
popular feelings in the area).
In the words of Graham Kesley, "libertarian dominance in post-insurrection
Aragon itself reflected the predominance that anarchists had secured before
the war; by the summer of 1936 the CNT had succeeded in establishing
throughout Aragon a mass trade-union movement of strictly libertarian
orientation, upon which widespread and well-supported network the extensive
collective experiment was to be founded." [Ibib., p. 61]
Additional evidence that supports a high level of C.N.T. support in
rural Aragon can be provided by the fact that it was Aragon that was the
center of the December 1933 insurrection organised by the C.N.T. As Bookchin
notes, "only Aragon rose on any significant scale, particularly Saragossa
. . .many of the villages declared libertarian communism and perhaps the
heaviest fighting took place between the vineyard workers in Rioja and the
authorities." [M. Bookchin, Op. Cit., p. 256]
It is unlikely for the C.N.T. to organise an insurrection in an area within
which it had little support or influence. According to Kesley's in-depth
social history of Aragon, "it was precisely those areas which had most
important in December 1933 . . . which were now [in 1936], in seeking to
create a new pattern of economic and social organisation, to form the basis
of libertarian Aragon" [G. Kesley, Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian
Communism and the State, p. 161] After the revolt, thousands of workers
were jailed, with the authorities having to re-open closed prisons and turn at
least one disused monastrey into a jail due to the numbers arrested.
Therefore, it can be seen that the majority of collectives in Aragon
were the product of C.N.T. (and U.G.T) influenced workers taking the opportunity
to create a new form of social life, a form marked by its voluntary and
directly democratic nature. For from being unknown in rural Aragon, the
C.N.T. was well established and growing at a fast rate - "Spreading out from
its urban base... the C.N.T., first in 1933 and then more extensively in 1936,
succeeded in converting an essentially urban organisation into a truly
regional confederation." [Ibib., p. 184]
Therefore the evidence suggests that historians like Frazer are wrong to
imply that the Aragon collectives were created by the C.N.T. militia and
enforced upon a unwilling population. The Aragon collectives were the natural
result of years of anarchist activity within rural Aragon and directly
related to the massive growth in the C.N.T. between 1930 and 1936. Thus
Kesley is correct to state that:
"Libertarian communism and agrarian collectivisation were not economic
terms or social principles enforced upon a hostile population by special
teams of urban anarchosyndicalists . . ." [G. Kesley, Op. Cit., p. 161]
This is not to suggest that there were no examples of people joining
collectives involuntarily because of the "coercive climate" of the front
line. And, of course, there were villages which did not have a C.N.T. union
within them before the war and so created a collective because of the
existence of the C.N.T. militia. But these can be considered as exceptions
to the rule.
Moreover, the way the C.N.T. handled such a situation is noteworthy. Frazer
indicates such a situation in the village of Alloza. In the autumn of
1936, representatives of the C.N.T. district committee had come to suggest
that the villagers collectivise (we would like to stress here that the
C.N.T. militia which had passed through the village had made no attempt
to create a collective there).
A village assembly was called and the C.N.T. explained their ideas and
suggested how to organise the collective. However, who would join and how
the villagers would organise the collective was left totally up to them (the
C.N.T. representatives "stressed that no one was to be maltreated"). Within
the collective, self-management was the rule.
According to one member, "Once the work groups were established on a
friendly basis and worked their own lands, everyone got on well enough,"
he recalled. "There was no need for coercion, no need for discipline and
punishment. . . A collective wasn't a bad idea at all." [Op. Cit.,
p. 360].
This collective, like the vast majority, was voluntary and democratic -
"I couldn't oblige him to join; we weren't living under a dictatorship."
[Op. Cit., p. 362] In other words, no force was used to create the
collective and the collective was organised by local people directly.
Of course, as with any public good (to use economic jargon), all members of
the community had to pay for the war effort and feed the militia. As Kesely
notes, "The military insurrection had come at a critical moment in the
agricultural calendar. Throughout lower Aragon there were fields of grain
ready for harvesting. . . At the assembly in Albalate de Cinca the opening
clause of the agreed programme had required everyone in the district,
independent farmers and collectivists alike, to contribute equally to
the war effort, thereby emphasizing one of the most important considerations
in the period immediately following the rebellion."
In addition, the collectives controlled the price of crops in order to ensure
that speculation and inflation were controlled. However, these policies
as with the equal duties of individualists and collectivists in the war
effort were enforced upon the collectives by the war.
Lastly, in support of the popular nature of the rural collectives, we
will indicate the effects of the suppression of the collectives in August
1937 by the Communists, namely the collapse of the rural economy. This
sheds considerable light on the question of popular attitudes to the
collectives.
At a meeting of the agrarian commission of the Aragonese Communist Party
(October 9th, 1937), Jose Silva emphasized "the little incentive to work of
the entire peasant population" and that the situation brought about by the
dissolution of the collectives was "grave and critical." [quoted by
Bolloten, Op. Cit., p. 530] A few days earlier the Communist-controlled
Regional Delegation of Agrarian Reform acknowledged that "in the majority of
villages agricultural work was paralyzed causing great harm to our agrarian
economy." [Ibid.]
Jose Peirats explains the reasons for this economic collapse as a result
of popular boycott: "When it came time to prepare for the next harvest,
smallholders could not by themselves work the property on which they had
been installed [by the communists]. Dispossessed peasants, intransigent
collectivists, refused to work in a system of private property, and
were even less willing to rent out their labour." [Anarchists in the
Spanish Revolution, p. 258]
If the collectives were unpopular, created by anarchist force, then why did
the economy collapse after the suppression? If Lister had overturned a
totalitarian anarchist regime, why did the peasants not reap the benefit of
their toil? Could it be because the collectives were essentially a
spontaneous Aragonese development and supported by most of the population
there? This analysis is backed up by Yaacov Oved's statement (from a paper
submitted to the XII Congress of Sociology, Madrid, July 1990):
"Those who were responsible for this policy [of "freeing" the Aragon
Collectivists], were convinced that the farmers would greet it joyfully
because they had been coerced into joining the collectives. But they were
proven wrong. Except for the rich estate owners who were glad to get their
land back, most of the members of the agricultural collectives objected and
lacking all motivation they were reluctant to resume the same effort of in the
agricultural work. This phenomenon was so widespread that the authorities and
the communist minister of agriculture were forced to retreat from their
hostile policy." [Yaacov Oved, Communismo Libertario and Communalism in
the Spanish Collectivisations (1936-1939)]
Even in the face of Communist repression, most of the collectives kept going.
This, if nothing else, proves that the collectives were popular institutions.
As Yaacov Oved argues in relation to the breaking up of the collectives:
"Through the widespread reluctance of collectivists to cooperate with the
new policy it became evident that most members had voluntarily joined the
collectives and as soon as the policy was changed a new wave of collectives
was established. However, the wheel could not be turned back. An atmosphere
of distrust prevailed between the collectives and the authorities and
every initiative was curtailed" [Op. Cit.]
Jose Peirats sums up the situation after the communist attack on the
collectives and the legalisation of the collectives as follows:
"It is very possible that this second phase of collectivisation better
reflects the sincere convictions of the members. They had undergone a
sever test and those who had withstood it were proven collectivists. Yet
it would be facile to label as anti-collectivists those who abandoned
the collectives in this second phase. Fear, official coercion and
insecurcity weighed heavily in the decisions of much of the Aragonese
peasantry." [Op. Cit., p. 258]
While the collectives had existed, there was a 20% increase in production
(and this is compared to the pre-war harvest which had been "a good crop."
[Frazer, p. 370]); after the destruction of the collectives, the economy
collapsed. Hardly the result that would be expected if the collectives were
forced upon an unwilling peasantry. The forced collectivisation by Stalin
in Russia resulted in a famine. Only the victory of fascism made it possible
to restore the so-called "natural order" of capitalist property in the
Spanish countryside. The same land-owners who welcomed the Communist
repression of the collectives also, we are sure, welcomed the fascists
who ensured a lasting victory of property over liberty.
So, overall, the evidence suggests that the Aragon collectives, like their
counterparts in the Levante, Catalonia and so on, were popular
organisations, created by and for the rural population and, essentially,
an expression of a spontaneous and popular social revolution. Claims that
the anarchist militia created them by force of arms are false. While acts
of violence did occur and some acts of coercion did take place
(against C.N.T. policy, we may add) these are the exceptions to the rule.
Bolloten's summary best fits the facts:
"But in spite of the cleavages between doctrine and practice that plagued
the Spanish Anarchists whenever they collided with the realities of power,
it cannot be overemphasized that notwithstanding the many instances of
coercion and violence, the revolution of July 1936 distinguished itself
from all others by the generally spontaneous and far-reaching character of
its collectivist movement and by its promise of moral and spiritual
renewal. Nothing like this spontaneous movement had ever occurred before"
[Op. Cit., p. 78]
Yes. In contradiction to the old capitalist claim that no one will
innovate unless private property exists, the workers and peasants exhibited
much more incentive and creativity under libertarian socialism than they
had under the private enterprise system. This is apparent from Gaston
Leval's description of the results of collectivization in Cargagente:
"Carcagente is situated in the southern part of the province of Valencia.
The climate of the region is particularly suited for the cultivation of
oranges. . . . All of the socialized land, without exception, is cultivated
with infinite care. The orchards are thoroughly weeded. To assure that
the trees will get all the nourishment needed, the peasants are
incessantly cleaning the soil. 'Before,' they told me with pride, 'all
this belonged to the rich and was worked by miserably paid laborers. The
land was neglected and the owners had to buy immense quantities of
chemical fertilizers, although they could have gotten much better yields
by cleaning the soil. . . .' With pride, they showed me trees that had
been grafted to produce better fruit.
"In many places I observed plants growing in the shade of the orange
trees. 'What is this?,' I asked. I learned that the Levant peasants
(famous for their ingenuity) have abundantly planted potatoes among the
orange groves. The peasants demonstrate more intelligence than all the
bureaucrats in the Ministry of Agriculture combined. They do more than
just plant potatoes. Throughout the whole region of the Levant, wherever
the soil is suitable, they grow crops. They take advantage of the four
month [fallow period] in the rice fields. Had the Minister of Agriculture
followed the example of these peasants throughout the Republican zone, the
bread shortage problem would have been overcome in a few months." [cited in
Dolgoff, Anarchist Collectives, p. 153].
This is just one from a multitude of examples presented in the accounts
of both the industrial and rural collectives (for more see section
C.2.3
in which we present more examples to refute that charge that "workers'
control would stifle innovation" and I.8.6). The available evidence proves
that the membership of the collectives showed a keen awareness of the
importance of investment and innovation in order to increase production
and to make work both lighter and more interesting and that the
collectives allowed that awareness to be expressed freely. The Spanish
collectives indicate that, given the chance, everyone will take an interest
in their own affairs and express a desire to use their minds to improve
their surroundings. In fact, capitalism distorts what innovation exists
under hierarchy by channeling it purely in how to save money and maximise
investor profit, ignoring other, more important, issues.
As Gaston Leval argues, self-management encouraged innovation:
"The theoreticians and partisans of the liberal economy affirm that
competition stimulates initiative and, consequently, the creative spirit
and invention without which it remains dormant. Numerous observations made
by the writer in the Collectives, factories and socialized workshops permit
him to take quite the opposite view. For in a Collective, in a grouping
where each individual is stimulated by the wish to be of service to his
fellow beings research, the desire for technical perfection and so on
are also stimulated. But they also have as a consequence that other
individuals join those who were first to get together. Furthermore, when,
in present society, an individualist inventor discovers something, it is
used only by the capitalist or the individual employing him, whereas in
the case of an inventor living in a community not only is his discovery
taken up and developed by others, but is immediately applied for the
common good. I am convinced that this superiority would very soon manifest
itself in a socialised society." [Collectives in the Spanish Revolution,
p. 247]
Therefore the actual experiences of self-management in Spain supports the
points made in section I.4.11. Freed from hierarchy, individuals will
creatively interact with the world to improve their circumstances. This
is not due to "market forces" but because the human mind is an active
agent and unless crushed by authority it can no more stop thinking and
acting than the Earth stop revolving round the Sun. In addition, the
Collectives indicate that self-management allows ideas to be enriched
by discussion, as Bakunin argued:
"The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the
whole. Thence results... the necessity of the division and association
of labour. I receive and I give - such is human life. Each directs and
is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant
authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all,
voluntary authority and subordination" [God and the State, p. 33]
The experience of self-management proved Bakunin's point that society is
more intelligent than even the most intelligent individual simply because
of the wealth of viewpoints, experience and thoughts contained there.
Capitalism impoverishes individuals and society by its artificial boundaries
and authority structures.
Just because something is good does not mean that it will survive.
For example, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazi's failed but that
does not mean that the uprising was a bad cause or that the Nazi regime
was correct, far from it. Similarly, while the experiments in workers'
self-management and communal living undertaken across Republican Spain
is one of the most important social experiments in a free society ever
undertaken, this cannot change the fact that Franco's forces and the
Communists had access to more and better weapons.
Faced with the aggression and terrorism of Franco, and behind him the
military might of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the treachery of the
Communists, and the aloofness of the Western bourgeois "republics" (whose
policy of "non-intervention" was strangely ignored when their citizens
aided Franco) it is amazing the revolution lasted as long as it did.
This does not excuse the actions of the anarchists themselves. As is well
known, the C.N.T. cooperated with the other anti-fascist parties and trade
unions on the Republican side (see next section). This cooperation lead to
the C.N.T. joining the anti-fascist government and "anarchists" becoming
ministers of state. This cooperation, more than anything, helped ensure the
defeat of the revolution.
Some anarchists still maintain that the Spanish anarchist movement had
no choice and that collaboration (while having unfortunate effects) was
the only choice available. This view was defended by Sam Dolgoff and
finds some support in the writings of Gaston Leval, August Souchy and
many other anarchists.
Most anarchists opposed collaboration at the time and most think it was a
terrible mistake. This viewpoint finds its best expression in Vernon Richard's
Lessons of the Spanish Revolution and, in part, in such works as Anarchists
in the Spanish Revolution by Jose Pierats and Anarchist Organisation:
The History of the FAI by Juan Gomaz Casas as well as in a host of
pamphlets and articles written by anarchists ever since.
So, regardless of how good a social system is, objective facts will
overcome that experiment. Saturnino Carod (a leader of a C.N.T. Militia
column at the Aragon Front) sums up the successes of the revolution
as well as its objective limitations:
"Always expecting to be stabbed in the back, always knowing that if we
created problems, only the enemy across the lines would stand to gain. It
was a tragedy for the anarcho-syndicalist movement; but it was a tragedy for
something greater - the Spanish people. For it can never be forgotten that
it was the working class and peasantry which, by demonstrating their ability
to run industry and agriculture collectively, allowed the republic to
continue the struggle for thirty-two months. It was they who created a war
industry, who kept agricultural production increasing, who formed militias
and later joined the army. Without their creative endeavour, the republic
could not have fought the war..." [Blood of Spain, p. 394]
The most important political lesson learned from the Spanish Revolution is
that a revolution cannot compromise with existing power structures.
The Spanish Revolution is a clear example of the old maxim, "those who only
make half a revolution dig their own graves." Essentially, the most important
political lesson of the Spanish Revolution is that an anarchist revolution
will only succeed if it follows an anarchist path and does not seek to
compromise in the name of fighting a "greater evil."
On the 20th of July, after the fascist coup had been defeated in Barcelona,
the C.N.T. sent a delegation of its members to meet the leader of the Catalan
Government. A plenum of C.N.T. union shop stewards, in the light of the
fascist coup, agreed that libertarian communism would be "put off" until
Franco had been defeated (the rank and file ignored them and collectivised
their workplaces). They organised a delegation to visit the Catalan president
to discuss the situation - "The delegation. . . was intransigent . . .
[e]ither Companys [the Catalan president] must accept the creation of a
Central Committee [of AntiFascist Militias] as the ruling organisation or
the C.N.T. would consult the rank and file and expose the real situation
to the workers. Companys backed down." [Abel Paz, Durruti - the people
armed, p. 216, our emphasis]
The C.N.T. committee members used their new-found influence in the eyes of
Spain to unite with the leaders of other organisations/parties but not the
rank and file. This process lead to the creation of the "Central Committee of
Anti-Fascist Militias", in which political parties as well as labour unions
were represented. This committee was not made up of mandated delegates, but
of representatives of existing organisations, nominated by committees.
Instead of a genuine confederal body (made up of mandated delegates from
workplace, militia and neighbourhood assemblies) the C.N.T. created a body
which was not accountable to, nor could reflect the ideas of, ordinary
working class people expressed in their assemblies. The state and government
was not abolished by self-management, only ignored.
This first betrayal of anarchist principles led to all the rest, and so the
defeat of the revolution and the civil war. In the name of "antifascist"
unity, the C.N.T. worked with parties and classes which hated both them and
the revolution. In the words of Sam Dolgoff "both before and after July
19th, an unwavering determination to crush the revolutionary movement was
the leitmotif behind the policies of the Republican government; irrespective
of the party in power." [The Anarchist Collectives, p. 40]
To justify their collaboration, the leaders of the C.N.T.-FAI claimed not
to collaborate would have lead to a civil war within the civil war. In
practice, while paying lip service to the revolution, the Communists and
republicans attacked the collectives, murdered anarchists, cut supplies to
collectivised industries (even war industries) and disbanded the anarchist
militias after refusing to give them weapons and ammunition (preferring to
arm the Civil Guard in the rearguard in order to crush the C.N.T. and so the
revolution). By collaborating, a civil war was not avoided. One occurred
anyway, with the working class as its victims, as soon as the state felt
strong enough.
Garcia Oliver (the first ever, and hopefully last, "anarchist" minister
of justice) stated that collaboration was necessary and that the C.N.T.
had "renounc[ed] revolutionary totalitarianism, which would lead to
the strangulation of the revolution by anarchist and Confederal [C.N.T.]
dictatorship. We had confidence in the word and in the person of a Catalan
democrat" Companys (who had in the past jailed anarchists). Which means that
only by working with the state, politicians and capitalists can an anarchist
revolution be truly libertarian!
However, as Vernon Richards makes clear:
"[was it] essential, and possible, to collaborate with political parties that
is politicians honestly and sincerely, and at a time when power was in the
hands of the two workers organisations?. . . All the initiative. . . was in
the hands of the workers. The politicians were like generals without armies
floundering in a desert of futility. Collaboration with them could not, by
any stretch of the imagination, strengthen resistance to Franco. On the
contrary, it was clear that collaboration with political parties meant the
recreation of governmental institutions and the transferring of initiative
from the armed workers to a central body with executive powers." [Vernon
Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, p. 42]
The false dilemma of "anarchist dictatorship" or "collaboration" was
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.
In his history of the FAI, Juan Gomaz Casas (an active F.A.I. member 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, p. 188]
Instead of this "collaboration" from the bottom up, the C.N.T. and F.A.I.
committees favoured "collaboration" from the top down. The leaders ignored
the state and cooperated with other trade unions as well as political
parties in the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias. In other words,
they ignored their political ideas in favour of a united front against what
they considered the greater evil, namely fascism. This lead the way to
counter-revolution, the destruction of the militias and collectives.
In particular, the continued existence of the state ensured that economic
confederalism between collectives (i.e. extending the revolution under the
direction of the syndicates) could not develop naturally nor be developed
far enough in all places. Due to the political compromises of the C.N.T.
the tendencies to coordination and mutual aid could not develop freely
(see next section).
It is clear that the defeat in Spain was due to a failure not of anarchist
theory and tactics but a failure of anarchists to apply their theory and
tactics. Instead of destroying the state, the C.N.T.-F.A.I. ignored it. For
a revolution to be successful it needs to create organisations which can
effectively replace the state and the market; that is, to create a widespread
libertarian organisation for social and economic decision-making through
which working class people can start to set their own agendas. Only by going
this route can the state and capitalism be effectively smashed.
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 and not tyrannical to dethrone
tyrants!
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.
As the Friends of Durruti argued "A revolution requires the absolute
domination of the workers' organisations." ["The Friends of Durruti accuse",
from Class War on the Home Front, p. 34] Only this, the creation of viable
anarchist social organisations, can ensure that the state and capitalism can
be destroyed and replaced with a just system based on liberty, equality and
solidarity.
The second important lesson is on the nature of anti-fascism. The C.N.T.
leaders were totally blinded by the question of anti-fascist unity, leading
them to support a "democratic" state against a "fascist" one. While the bases
of a new world was being created around them by the working class, 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,
p. 30]
To be opposed to fascism is not enough, you also have to be anti-capitalist.
In Spain, anti-fascism destroyed the revolution, not fascism. As the Scottish Anarchist Ethal McDonald argued at the time, "Fascism is not something new,
some new force of evil opposed to society, but is only the old enemy, Capitalism, under a new and fearful sounding name. . . Anti-Fascism is the
new slogan by which the working class is being betrayed." [Workers Free
Press, Oct 1937]
I.8.1 Wasn't the Spanish Revolution primarily a rural phenomenon and
therefore inapplicable as a model for modern industrialized states?
I.8.2 How were the anarchists able to obtain mass popular support in
Spain?
I.8.3 How were Spanish industrial collectives organized?
I.8.4 How were the Spanish industrial collectives coordinated?
I.8.5 How were the Spanish agricultural cooperatives organized and
coordinated?
I.8.6 What did the agricultural collectives accomplish?
I.8.7 I've heard that the rural collectives were created by force.
Is this true?
I.8.8 But did the Spanish collectives innovate?
I.8.9 Why, if it was so good, did it not survive?
I.8.10 What political lessons were learned from the revolution?