To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936

38 Pages·2012·0.23 MB·English

TheAnarchistLibrary
Anti-Copyright
To Remember Spain: The
Anarchist and Syndicalist
Revolution of 1936
Murray Bookchin
MurrayBookchin
ToRememberSpain:TheAnarchistandSyndicalistRevolutionof
1936
1994
RetrievedonApril27,2009fromwww.spunk.org
Firstpublishedin1994byAKPress
theanarchistlibrary.org 1994

Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Chapter 1. An Overview of the Spanish Libertarian
Movement 7
Chapter2.AfterFiftyYears:TheSpanishCivilWar 44
3
legacy of the Spanish Civil War that has not been earnestly con-
fronted,eitherbyanarchistsorbysocialists.Untiltheneedtoform
a political culture is clearly defined and given the centrality it de-
serves,theSpanishRevolutionwillremainnotonlyoneofthemost
inexplicable chapters of radical history but the conscience of the
radicalmovementasawhole.

73
Thetruth,indeed,isout—buttheearstohearitandthemindsto Preface
learnfromitseemtohavebeenatrophiedbyacultivatedignorance
andanearlytotallossofcriticalinsight.“Partyness”hasreplaced TheseessaysarelessananalysisoftheSpanishRevolutionand
politics,mindless“loyalty”hasreplacedtheory,“balance”inweigh- Civil War of 1936–39 than an evocation of the greatest proletar-
ing the facts has replaced commitment, and an ecumenical “radi- ian and peasant revolution to occur over the past two centuries.
calism”thatembracesStalinistsandreformistsundertheshredded Although they contain a general overview and evaluation of the
bannerof“unity”and“coalition”hasreplacedtheintegrityofideas Anarchist and Anarchosyndicalist movements (the two should be
and practice. That the banner of “unity” and “coalition” became clearly distinguished) in the three-year struggle at the end of the
Spain’s shroud and was used with impunity to destroy its revolu- 1930s,theyarenotintendedtobeafullaccountofthosecomplex
tion and risk delivering the country to Franco is as remote from events.
the collective wisdom of the left today as it was fifty years ago in It is no exaggeration to say that the Spanish Revolution was
thecauldronofabloodycivilwar. the farthest-reaching movement that the Left ever produced, for
Ultimately, the integrity of the Spanish left could be preserved reasons the essays that follow will make clear. The Spanish pro-
onlyifitarticulatedthemostdeep-seatedtraditionsoftheSpanish letariat and peasantry, led largely by Anarchist militants whose
people: their strong sense of community, their traditions of con- nameswillneverbeknowntous,strainedthelimitsofwhatwein
federalismandlocalautonomy,andtheirprofoundmistrustofthe the 1930s called “proletarian socialism” and went appreciably be-
state. Whether the American left shares with the Spanish left the yond them. Far more than the leaders of the Anarchosyndicalist
popularlegacythatthelattercleansedandrescuedfromtheright National Confederation of Labor and the Iberian AnarchistFeder-
is a crucial problem that cannot be discussed here. But insofar as ation (CNT-FAI) expected or apparently even wanted, Anarchists
theanarchistsgavethesetraditionscoherenceandaradicalthrust, andAnarchosyndicalistsspontaneouslyformedthefamousindus-
converting them into a political culture, not merely a contrived trial and agrarian collectives that so markedly distinguished the
‘’program,”theysurvivedgenerationsofincrediblepersecutionand Spanish Revolution from any that had preceded it. They provided
repression.Indeed,onlywhentheSocialistsresolvedtheproblem themilitiamenandwomenwhodiedbythethousandsintheearly
of the relationship between a political movement and a popular fightingagainsttheFrancoistgeneralswholedthemilitaryupris-
one by establishing their famous “houses of the people” or casas ing of July 1936 in behalf of the Spanish landlords, the industrial
del pueblo in Spain’s villages, neighborhoods, and cities did they bourgeoisie,andtheChurch.
becomeavitalmovementinSpanishlifeandpolitics. TheendeavorsoftheAnarchistsandtheirLeftSocialistalliesin
The “Popular Front” ruptured this relationship by replacing a the Spanish Revolution must never be forgotten, lest today’s Left
popular culture with the “politics” of backroom “coalitions.” The loseasenseofcontinuitywiththerevolutionaryera—itsidealism,
utterlydisparatepartiesthatenteredinto“coalitions”wereunited principles, and ideas. The loss of this continuity would contribute
solelybytheirsharedfearofthepopularmovementandofFranco. topoliticalopportunismandtoafashionableideologicalpluralism
The left’s need to deal with its own relationship to popular tradi- that mingles reformist politics with radical rhetoric as the need
tions which have a latent radical content — to cleanse these tra- arises.
ditions and bring out their emancipatory aspirations — remains a
72 5
Theessaysthatfollowattempttoreachawiderreadershipthan classicalworkingclassinthefinestsocialistandanarchistsenseof
dothemoreacademicstudiesoftheevents.Thefirstessay,retitled the term. It was a proletariat that was destroyed not by a grow-
here“AnOverviewoftheSpanishLibertarianMovement,”consists ing material interest in bourgeois society but by physical exter-
ofmySeptember1973introductoryessaytoSamDolgoff’sTheAn- mination. This occurred largely amidst a conspiracy of silence by
archist Collectives: Workers’ Self-Management in the Spanish Revo- the international press in which the liberal establishment played
lution 1936–1939 (New York: Free Life Editions, 1974), which was no less a role than the Communist. It is appalling that Herbert M.
moreofacompendiumofexcerptsthanacomprehensiveworkin Matthews,theNewYorkTimes’sprincipalcorrespondentontheso-
its own right. The second essay, “After Fifty Years: The Spanish called “Loyalist”side of the war,could write as recently as 1973,“I
Civil War,” published in New Politics, n.s., vol. 1, no. 1 (Summer would say that there was a revolution of sorts, but it should not
1986), was written to commemorate the half-century anniversary be exaggerated. In one basic sense, there was no revolution at all,
oftheSpanishRevolution.1 IwishtothankmyfriendsPhyllisand sincetherepublicangovernmentfunctionedmuchasitdidbefore
Julius Jacobson, the editors of New Politics, for their kind permis- the war.“13 Whether this is stupidity or collusion with the forces
siontoreprinttheessayhere. that ended the “revolution of sorts,” I shall leave for the reader to
IdedicatethisbooktotheCNT-FAIrevolutionariesGastónLeval judge. But it was correspondents of this political temper who fed
and José Peirats — two astonishingly honest and committed com- newsofthe“Spanishwar”totheAmericanpeopleinthe1930s.
rades. The literature that deals with the conflict, generally more
forthright than what was available for years after the war, has
MurrayBookchin grown enormously, supported by oral historians of considerable
InstituteforSocialEcology ability.HastheAmericanleftlearnedfromtheseaccountsorfrom
the Spanish collectives, industrial as well as agricultural, which
PlainfieldVermont05667
offer dramatic alternative models of revolutionary modernization
February28,1993 to the conventional ones based on nationalized economies and
centralized, often totalitarian, control? My answer would have
to be a depressing no. The decline of the “New Left” and the
emergence of a more “orthodox” one threatens to create a new
myth of the “Popular Front” as a golden era of radicalism. One
would suppose that the new material on Spain, largely left-wing
in orientation, has been read by no one. The “Spanish war” is no
longercloakedinsilence,butthefactsarebeinglayeredoverwith
a sweet sentimentality for the aging survivors of the “Lincoln
Battalion”andtheMom-PopstereotypesinfilmslikeSeeingRed.
13QuotedinBurnettBolloten,TheSpanishRevolution(ChapelHill,1979),p.
1NewPolitics,P.O.Box98,Brooklyn,NewYork11231. 59.
6 71
London, Paris, and Washington — and they gradually were as the
conflictinSpaincametoanend.
By the time the war was internationalized by unstinting Ger-
manandItalianaidtoFrancoandtheSovietUnion’shighlycondi-
Chapter 1. An Overview of the
tional and limited assistance to the “Republicans” — in exchange,
I may add, for Spain’s sizable gold reserves — revolutionary vic-
Spanish Libertarian Movement
tory was impossible. The May Days could have produced a “Cata-
lan Commune,” a sparkling legacy on which the Spanish people
couldhavenourishedtheirhopesforfuturestruggles.Itmighteven
InthemorninghoursofJuly18,1936,GeneralFranciscoFranco
havebecomeaninspirationforradicalmovementsthroughoutthe
issued the pronunciamiento from Las Palmas in Spanish North
world.ButtheCNT,alreadypartlybureaucratizedin1936,became
AfricathatopenlylaunchedthestruggleofSpain’sreactionarymil-
appallingly so by 1937, with the acquisition of buildings, funds,
itaryofficersagainstthelegallyelectedPopularFrontgovernment
presses,and other material goodies. This reinforced and rigidified
inMadrid.
the top-down hierarchicalstructure that is endemic to syndicalist
TheFrancopronunciamientoleftlittledoubtthat,intheeventof
organization.WiththeMayDays,theunion’sministerialelitecom-
victorybytheSpanishgenerals,theparliamentaryrepublicwould
pletelyarrestedtherevolutionandactedasanoutrightobstacleto
be replaced by a clearly authoritarian state, modeled institution-
itsadvanceinlatermomentsofcrisis.
allyonsimilarregimesinGermanyandItaly.TheFrancoistforces
TheCommunistPartyofSpainwonallitsdemandsforanarmy,
or“Nationalists,”astheyweretocallthemselves,exhibitedallthe
decollectivization, the extermination of its most dangerous oppo-
trappings and ideologies of the fascist movements of the day: the
nents,theStalinizationoftheinternalsecurityforces,andthecon-
raisedopen-palmsalute,theappealstoa“folk-soil”philosophyof
versionofthesocialrevolutionintoa“waragainstfascism”—and
order,duty,andobedience,andtheavowedcommitmentstosmash
it lost the war completely. Soviet aid, selective and unreliable at
thelabormovementandendallpoliticaldissidence.Totheworld,
best, came to an end in November 1938, nearly a half-year before
the conflict initiated by the Spanish generals seemed like another
Franco’s victory, while Italian and German aid continued up to
oftheclassicstruggleswagedbetweenthe“forcesoffascism”and
the end. When Stalin moved toward a pact with Hitler, he found
the “forces of democracy” that reached such acute proportions in
the“Spanishwar”anembarrassmentandsimplydenieditfurther
the thirties. What distinguished the Spanish conflict from similar
support. The “Western democracies” did nothing for “Republican”
strugglesinItaly,Germany,andAustria,however,wasthemassive
Spaindespitethatregime’ssuccessinsuppressinginternalrevolu-
resistancewithwhichthe“forcesofdemocracy”seemedtooppose
tionanditsWestern-orientedpolicy ininternationalaffairs.Thus,
to the Spanish military. Franco and his military co-conspirators,
it denied Spanish Morocco, a major reservoir of Franco’s troops,
despitethewidesupporttheyenjoyedamongtheofficercadresin
theindependencethatmighthaveturneditagainsttherebelarmy,
thearmy,grosslymiscalculatedthepopularoppositiontheywould
despitepromisesbyMoroccannationalistsofsupport.
encounter. The so-called “Spanish Civil War” lasted nearly three
WhatwaslostinSpainwasthemostmagnificentproletariatthat
radicalmovementshadeverseeneitherbeforeorafter1936–39—a
70 7
years—fromJuly1936toMarch1939—andclaimedanestimated would not have been a burden on the awakened people of Spain
millionlives. — and hopefully, would have contributed to the popular impetus.
For the first time, so it seemed to many of us in the thirties, an Given these conditions, my answer would be yes, as proved to
entire people with dazzling courage had arrested the terrifying be the case in Barcelona at the beginning, where Franco’s army
success of fascist movements in central and southern Europe. was defeated earlier than elsewhere. Franco’s forces, which failed
Scarcelythreeyearsearlier,HitlerhadpocketedGermanywithout to gain victories in central Spain’s major cities, could have been
ashredofresistancefromthemassiveMarxist-dominatedGerman kept from taking such key radical centers as Seville, Córdoba,
labor movement. Austria, two years before, had succumbed to an Oviedo, and Saragossa — the latter two of strategic importance,
essentiallyauthoritarianstateafteraweekoffutilestreet-fighting linkingthemostindustrializedurbanregionsofSpain,theBasque
by Socialist workers in Vienna. Everywhere fascism seemed “on country, and Catalonia. But the regime temporized with the aid
the march” and “democracy” in retreat. But Spain had seriously ofthe“PopularFront”parties—particularlytheCommunistsand
resisted — and continued to resist for years despite the arma- right-wingSocialists—whileconfusedworkersinthesekeycities
ments, aircraft, and troops which Franco acquired from Italy and fellvictiminalmosteverycasetomilitaryruses,notcombat.With
Germany. To radicals and liberals alike, the Spanish Civil War far greater determination than its enemies, the military drove a
was being waged not only on the Iberian Peninsula but in every wedgebetweentheBasquesandCatalansthatthe“PopularArmy”
country where “democracy” seemed threatened by the rising tide neverovercame.
of domestic and international fascist movements. The Spanish Evenso,Franco’sforcesstalledsignificantlyatvarioustimesin
CivilWar,wewereledtobelieve,wasastrugglebetweenaliberal thewar,suchthatHitlerexpectedhis“crusade”tofail.12Thedeath
republic that was valiantly and with popular support trying to blowtopopularresistancewasdeliveredbytheCommunistParty,
defend a democratic parliamentary state against authoritarian whichwaswillingtoriskthecollapseoftheentirewareffortinits
generals — an imagery that is conveyed to this very day by most programtodissolvethelargelylibertarianrevolution—onewhich
books on the subject and by that shabby cinematic documentary hadtried,faintheartedlyenough,tocometoamodusvivendiwith
ToDieinMadrid. itsopponentsonthe“left.”Butnosuchunderstandingwaspossible:
What so few of us knew outside Spain, however, was that the thePCEsoughttomakethe“Spanishwar”respectableprimarilyin
SpanishCivilWarwasinfactasweepingsocialrevolutionbymil- theSovietUnion’sinterestsandtocloakitselfforallthedemocratic
lionsofworkersandpeasantswhowereconcernednottorescuea world to see in the trappings of bourgeois virtue. The revolution
treacherous republican regime but to reconstruct Spanish society hadtarnishedthisimageandchallengedtheexplicitlycounterrev-
alongrevolutionarylines.Wewouldscarcelyhavelearnedfromthe olutionaryfunctionwhichtheentireCommunistInternationalhad
pressthattheseworkersandpeasantsviewedtheRepublicalmost adoptedintheserviceofSovietdiplomacy.Hencenotonlydidthe
with as much animosity as they did the Francoists. Indeed, acting SpanishRevolutionhavetobeexterminated,itsexterminatorshad
largelyontheirowninitiativeagainst“republican”ministerswho to be seen as such. The “Reds” had to be regarded as a safe bet by
were trying to betray them to the generals, they had raided arse-
nals and sporting-goods stores for weapons and with incredible 12Dénis Smyth, “Reflex Reaction: Germany and the Onset of the Spanish
valor had aborted military conspiracies in most of the cities and CivilWar,”inPreston,op.cit.,p.253.
8 69
of an older, more organic society heightened the critical percep- towns of Spain. We were almost totally oblivious to the fact that
tions and creative élan of a large worker-peasant population. The these workers and peasants had seized and collectivized most of
embourgeoisement of the present-day proletariat, not to speak of thefactoriesandlandinrepublican-heldareas,establishinganew
itslossofnerveinthefaceofaroboticandcybernetictechnology, social order based on direct control of the country’s productive
aremerelyevidenceofthevastlychangedsocialconditionsandthe resources by workers’ committees and peasant assemblies. While
overallcommodificationofsocietythathasoccurredsince1936. the republic’s institutions lay in debris, abandoned by most of its
Militarytechnology,too,haschanged.Theweaponswithwhich military and police forces, the workers and peasants had created
the Franco forces and the “Republicans” fought each other seem theirowninstitutionstoadministerthecitiesinRepublicanSpain,
liketoystoday,whenneutronbombscanbeattheserviceofacom- formedtheirownarmedworkers’squadstopatrolthestreets,and
pletelyruthlessrulingclass.Forcealonecannolongeropposeforce establishedaremarkablerevolutionarymilitiaforcewithwhichto
withanyhopeofrevolutionarysuccess.Onthisscore,thegreatest fight the Francoist forces — a voluntaristic militia in which men
power lies with the rulers of society, not with the ruled. Only the andwomenelectedtheirowncommandersandinwhichmilitary
hollowing out of the coercive institutions in the prevailing soci- rankconferrednosocial,material,orsymbolicdistinctions.Largely
ety, such as occurred in Portugal fairly recently and certainly in unknowntousatthattime,theSpanishworkersandpeasantshad
theGreatFrenchRevolutionoftwocenturiesago—wheretheold madeasweepingsocialrevolution.Theyhadcreatedtheirownrev-
society, divested of all support, collapsed at the first thrust — can olutionarysocialformstoadministerthecountryaswellastowage
yieldradicalsocialchange.Thebarricadeisasymbol,notaphysi- war against a well-trained and well-supplied army. The “Spanish
calbulwark.Toraiseitdenotesresoluteintentatbest—itisnota CivilWar”wasnotapoliticalconflictbetweenaliberaldemocracy
meanstoachievechangebyinsurrection.Perhapsthemostlasting and a fascist military corps but a deeply socio-economic conflict
physical resistance the Spanish workers and peasants could have betweentheworkersandpeasantsofSpainandtheirhistoricclass
organized,evenwithFranco’smilitarysuccesses,wouldhavebeen enemies,rangingfromthelandowninggrandeesandclericalover-
guerrillawarfare,aformofstrugglewhoseverynameandgreatest lords inherited from the past to the rising industrial bourgeoisie
traditions during modern times are Spanish. Yet none of the par- andbankersofmorerecenttimes.
ties and organizations in the “Republican” zone seriously contem- The revolutionary scope of this conflict was concealed from us
platedguerrillawarfare.Instead,conventionalarmiesopposedcon- — by “us” I refer to the many thousands of largely Communist-
ventionalarmieslargelyintrenchesandascolumns,untilFranco’s influenced radicals of the “red” thirties who responded to the
ploddingstrategyandoverwhelmingsuperiorityofsuppliesswept struggle in Spain with the same fervor and agony that young
hisopponentsfromthefield. people of the sixties responded to the struggle in Indochina. We
Could revolutionary warfare have defeated Franco? By this I neednotturntoOrwellorBorkenau,radicalsofobviouslystrong
mean a truly political war which sought to capture the hearts of anti-Stalinistconvictions,foranexplanationofthisfervor.Burnett
the Spanish people, even that of the international working class, Bolloten, a rather politically innocent United Press reporter who
which exhibited a measure of class consciousness and solidarity happened to be stationed in Madrid at the time, conveys his own
that seems monumental by present-day standards. This presup- sense of moral outrage at the misrepresentation of the Spanish
posestheexistenceofworking-classorganizationsthatminimally
68 9
conflict in the opening lines of his superbly documented study, Costa,aCNTunionleaderwhofoughtontheAragonfront.“The
TheGrandCamouflage: menwerelikelambsgoingtoaslaughter.Therewasnolongeran
army,nolongeranything.Allthedynamichadbeendestroyedby
AlthoughtheoutbreakoftheSpanishCivilWarinJuly, thetreacheryoftheCommunistpartyintheMayevents.Wewent
1936,wasfollowedbyafar-reachingsocial-revolution through the motions of fighting because there was an enemy in
intheanti-Francocamp—moreprofoundinsomere- front of us. The trouble was that we had an enemy behind us too.
spectsthantheBolshevikRevolutioninitsearlystages I saw a comrade lying dead with a woundin the back of the neck
—millionsofdiscerningpeopleoutsideofSpainwere thatcouldn’thavebeeninflictedbytheNationalists.Wewerecon-
keptinignorance,notonlyofitsdepthandrange,but stantlyurgedtojointheCommunistparty.Ifyoudidn’tyouwere
even of its existence, by virtue of a policy of duplic- in trouble. Some men deserted to escape the bullying.” That Com-
ity and dissimulation of which there is no parallel in munistexecutionsquadswerewanderingoverbattlefieldsafterthe
history. troopshadpushedforwardandwerekillingwoundedanarchosyn-
Foremostinpracticingthisdeceptionupontheworld, dicalists with their characteristic black-and-red insignia has also
andinmisrepresentinginSpainitselfthecharacterof beentoldtomebyCNTmenwhoparticipatedintheBattleofthe
the revolution, were the Communists, who, although Ebro,thelastofthemajor“Republican”offensivesinthecivilwar.
but an exiguous minority when the Civil War began, The end of the war on April 1, 1939, did not end the killings.
used so effectually the manifold opportunities which Franco systematically slaughtered some 200,000 of his opponents
that very upheaval presented that before the close of between the time of his victory and the early 1940s in a carnage
theconflictin1939theybecame,behindademocratic of genocidal proportions that was meant to physically uproot the
frontispiece,therulingforceintheleftcamp. living source of the revolution. No serious ideological efforts at
conversion were made in the aftermath of the Francoist victory.
Thedetailsofthisdeceptioncouldfillseverallargevolumes.The Rather,itwasavindictivecounterrevolutionthathaditsonlypar-
silencethatgathersaroundSpain,likeabadconscience,atteststo allel, given the population and size of Spain, in Stalin’s one-sided
the fact that the events are very much alive — as are the efforts civilwaragainsttheSovietpeople.
to misrepresent them. After nearly forty years the wounds have ArevolutionarycivilwarofthekindthatoccurredinSpainisno
nothealed.Infact,astherecentrevivalofStalinismsuggests,the longer possible, in my view, today — at least, not in the so-called
diseasethatproducedthepurulenceofcounterrevolutioninSpain “FirstWorld.”Capitalismitself,aswellastheclassesthataresaidto
still lingers on in the American left. But to deal with the Stalinist oppose it, has changed significantly over the past fifty years. The
counterrevolutioninSpainisbeyondthescopeoftheseremarks.It Spanishworkerswereformedbyaculturalclashinwhicharichly
mightbeuseful,however,toexaminetherevolutionarytendencies communal world, largely precapitalist, was brought into opposi-
thatunfoldedpriortoJuly1936andexploretheinfluencetheyexer- tiontoanindustrialeconomythathadnotyetpervadedthecharac-
cisedontheSpanishworkingclassandpeasantry.Theircollectives terstructureoftheSpanishpeople.Farfromyieldinga“backward”
werenot the results of virginal popular spontaneity, important as or“primitive”radicalmovement,thesetensionsbetweenpastand
popular spontaneity was, nor were they nourished exclusively by present created an enormously vital one in which the traditions
10 67