Anarchism and the Spanish Civil War

The Last Great Cause

V.G. Tenturini

Search Foundation (2010)

Book Review

The Last Great Cause is a virtual encyclopedia of Spanish political history, starting from the Napoleon’s invasion in 1808. Although I was chiefly interested in the history of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, the book also provides a comprehensive overview of the fascist coup Franco launched in 1936, the International Brigades who fought (unsuccessfully) to save the second Spanish Republic, the so-called “transition” following Franco’s death in 1975 and more recently efforts by the crusading Spanish jurist Baltasar Garzon to achieve justice for tens of thousands of victims of the Franco regime.

Venturini begins by identifying unique features of 19th century Spanish society that provided fertile ground for a major anarchist movement. Among these were Spain’s failure to achieve industrial revolution (except in Catalonia), the absence of a Spanish middle class and strong separatist movements in Catalonia and the Basque region of Spain. Unlike socialism, which historically develops among middle class intellectuals, Spanish anarchism had its origin in the working class.

The Rise of Spanish Anarchism

In 1868, a group of disconnected generals led the first major effort to depose the Spanish monarchy. The same year, Mikhail Bakunin, known as the father of collective anarchism, sent his disciple Giuseppe Fanelli to Spain to organize Spanish farm laborers. Within five years, the number of anarchists in Spain totaled 50,000.

The resulting “glorious revolution” produced in the First Republic. It lasted eleven months before the monarchy was restored.

Spanish history between 1902 and 1929 was marked by profound political and economic turmoil. During the early 1900s, Spanish anarchists merged with the Syndicalist* movement. In 1911, they formed the CNT.** CNT membership grew from 14,000 to 700,000 by 1919. In 1917, the CNT joined forces with the UGT*** to stage the first general strike.

In 1929, continuing popular unrest would lead to Alfonzo XIII’s removal from power and the creation of the Second Republic in 1931.

The Forces Backing Franco’s Coup

From the outset, the Republic faced powerful opposition from the Catholic Church, the Spanish military, wealthy landholders and Spanish and European Banks. Spain was embroiled in virtual civil war from 1933 on, as the forces of reaction engaged armed thugs (as the Falange Espanola) to thwart governmental efforts to carry out land and other democratic reforms.

These forces of reaction also assisted in planning and implementing the fascist coup Franco launched in 1936. The Republic was at a clear disadvantage in resisting the coup, owing to the major support Franco received from fascist Germany and Italy and the covert support he received from Britain and the US.  According to Venturini, Britain, which had major business interests in Spain, directly aided Franco with intelligence and naval support. American oil companies also provided him with oil (while refusing to sell it to Spain’s legitimately elected government), and Ford and other US manufacturers supplied him with trucks.

The International Brigades

Venturini estimates 40,000-50,000 volunteers from 53 countries participated in the International brigades. When Franco captured Catalonia in January 1939 500,000 Republican soldiers and civilians fled across the border to France. Many of the anarchists joined the Maquis, where they played a vital role in liberating France from the Nazis.

Venturini emphasizes that no allied troops fought in the South of France – that these regions were liberated by the Resistance – in many instances before the liberation of Paris.

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*Syndicalism is a type of economic system in which industries are owned and managed by the workers.
**CNT Confederación Nacional del Trabajo National Confederation of workers.
***The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT, General Union of Workers) is a major Spanish trade union, historically affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).
****Rural guerrilla bands of French resistance fighters.

A History of British Anarchism

The Slow Burning Fuse: the Lost History of British Anarchists

by John Quail

Granada Publishing (1978)

A number of chapters are available free on-line at Libcom.org

Book Review

The Slow Burning Fuse is the first (and only?) textbook of British anarchism, a social movement that’s virtually invisible in mainstream British history books.

According to Quail, anarchism evolved out of the 1830-48 European revolutions.* He describes it as a reaction to the ease with which electoral reform and democratic socialism snuffed out popular desire for genuine revolution. Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin were the primary architects of anarchist thought.

Although British anarchism never became the mass movement it did in France and Spain, it had a major influence on the British trade union movement and British socialism.

In the UK, anarchism grew out of the Chartist** and Radical*** clubs and their demands for an end to the aristocracy and the privilege of unearned income (enjoyed by the royal family and Church of England clergy), abolition of the House of Lords, home rule for Ireland and nationalization of major industries. The most vocal proponents were German, French and Russian refugees who fled to Britain (as Karl Marx did) following the passage of antisocialism legislation in their native countries. For many years, all German revolutionary and anarchist literature was produced in London.

British anarchism reached high points during significant periods of working class unrest (1889-94 and 1910-19). Its influence declined after 1920 for four main reasons:

1) Police infiltration and false flag events (the British police appear to be responsible for most of the major bombings attributed to British anarchists).
2) The incorporation of anarchist supporters into the fledgling Labour Party (aka Socialist Labour Party) which first assumed power in 1924
3) The absorption of anarchist supporters into the British communist party following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution. News of Lenin’s brutal treatment of Russian anarchists was very slow to reach the UK. Initially most British anarchists jubilantly supported the Bolshevik Revolution.

In their heyday, British anarchists boasted an active membership (ie participating in street protests) of 4,000, although 7,000-8,000 subscribers bought their newspapers and magazines.

In the early twentieth century, members of the anarchist movement collaborated with socialists, suffragettes and trade union syndicalists in staging major strikes and mass

Anarchism experienced a brief resurgence during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and campaigned for British volunteers to join the International Brigades fighting Franco’s fascist coup.

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*1830 revolutions

• France
• Belgium
• Netherlands
• Poland
• Switzerland

1849 revolutions

• Italy
• France
• Germany
• Hungary
• Galicia (Ukraine)
• Switzerland
• Poland
• Ireland
• Danubian principalities (Romania)
• Schleswig (Denmark)

**Chartism was a working class movement between 1836 and 1848 with a principal aim of gaining political rights and influence for the working class.
***The Radicals were a parliamentary political grouping in the UK who helped to transform the Whigs into the Liberal Party

How Marx and Lenin Defeated Participatory Democracy

State and Revolution: the Marxist Theory of the State and the Tasks of the Proletariat in the Revolution

by V.I. Lenin (1927)

Book Review

Free download from State and Revolution

State and Revolution is principally a diatribe against anarchism. Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution,  wrote this book in hiding in Helsingfors (Finland). He defines the state as “an organ of domination of one class by the other by means of a standing army, police, prisons and an entrenched bureaucracy.”

I was particularly intrigued to re-read State and Revolution in view of Carroll Quigley’s revelations, in Tragedy and Hope, about the role Wall Street interests played in funding the Bolshevik revolution.

Lenin notes three main differences between Marxists and anarchists as regards the state:

1. Anarchists demand abolition of the state within 24 hours. In contrast, Marxists “know” the state can’t be dissolved until class differences are eliminated. They believe the state (ie the dictatorship of the proletariat) will wither away once the capitalist elite is dissolved.
2. Following revolution, Marxists will substitute organized armed workers for the old state. Anarchists (according to Lenin) have no idea what will replace the state.*
3. Marxists want to make use of the modern (ie capitalist) state to prepare workers for revolution – anarchists reject this as a strategy.

State and Revolution reiterates many of the arguments Marx and his supporters used to expel Bakunin from the First International Working Men’s Association at the 1872 conference in the Hague. Although the anarchists made up most of the sections of the First International (they were extremely powerful in Spain, where they had the largest contingent of grassroots supporters), Marx and his supporters controlled the General Council (the leadership body) of the First International.

Bakunin, who was unable to attend the Hague conference, called a second rival congress in Saint Imier Switzerland. Bakunin’s international working men’s association was far larger and lasted longer than its much smaller Marxist rival. The latter was largely isolated in United States and collapsed in 1876

I take strong exception to a number of Lenin’s arguments for a strong central state following revolution. Dismissing the anarchist proposal for a federation of self-governing units as totally “Utopian,” he claims that “human nature can’t do without subordination, control and managers” and that a strong (armed) central government is essential to “suppress excesses on the part of idlers, gentlefolk and swindlers.”

In my view, Lenin makes a big mistake in blaming “human nature” for the social problems that clearly result from capitalist oppression and exploitation.

Nevertheless his observations about the fraudulent nature of representative democracy suggest little has changed over the last hundred years:

“In any parliamentary country, the actual work of the state is done behind the scenes and is carried out by the departments, the offices and the staffs. Parliament itself is given up to talk for the specific purpose of fooling the people.”

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*Untrue. Bakunin, the founder of collective anarchism (aka participatory democracy), proposed replacing the state with federations of collective work places and communes.

The Global Movement for Participatory Democracy

Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas

Directed by Silvia Leindecker and Michael Fox

Film Review

Beyond Elections is about the global participatory democracy (aka direct or deliberative democracy) movement – the grassroots effort to replace so-called representative democracy (aka polyarchy*) with a process in which citizens participate directly in policy decisions that affect their lives. Historically participatory democracy began in ancient Athens, where people governed directly through large public assemblies (unfortunately assemblies were limited to free born men, who comprised only one-fifth of the population).

According to the filmmakers, participatory democracy died out until 1989, when the Brazilian Workers Party resurrected it in Porto Allegre Brazil by creating participatory budget assemblies. In my view, this isn’t strictly correct, as the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, who the Marxists expelled from the First International** , advocated for a system of participatory democracy called “collective anarchism.” Workers used participatory democracy to run the 1871 Paris Commune, as did numerous Spanish cities during the Spanish Civil War.

The Spread of Participatory Democracy

The documentary explores how this new style of local government spread throughout Brazil and to other Latin American countries, as well as to Europe, Africa and even parts of Canada (Guelph Ontario and parts of Montreal). A few US activists are campaigning for more American communities to adopt participatory democracy (several are described in the 2012 book Slow Democracy), but most Americans have never heard of it. The only aspect of participatory democracy widely adopted in the US are workers cooperatives.

Beyond Elections presents numerous examples of participatory democracies in the various Latin American countries that have implemented it. Under representative democracy, local councils are nearly always controlled by local business interests, and elected officials typically enact budgets that benefit these interests. When ordinary people control the budgeting processes through popular assemblies, they spend the money on programs benefiting the entire community, eg on clean safe housing, health centers and basic sanitation.

The Venezuelan Example

Following Hugo Chavez’s election in 1998, the Venezuelan government called a constitutional assembly to write a new constitution. The latter enabled Venezuelans to directly govern their communities through communal councils, as well as water committees, workers committees (to set up and run workers cooperatives), health committees and land committees (to implement land reform and set up farmers cooperatives).

The projects carried out by the communal councils and various committee were funded by grants from the central government. Despite endemic corruption in the Venezuelan bureaucracy, these new grassroots-run structures succeeded in bringing health care, decent housing and basic sanitation to Venezuelan slums for the very first time.

The film also examines the adoption of participatory democracy in Bolivia, Ecuador and parts of Mexico controlled by the Zapatistas.

The film is in 16 parts of roughly 5 minutes. Each successive segment starts automatically as the preceding segment finishes.

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*In a polyarchy, power is closely guarded by a wealthy elite and the population remains passive except for periodic “free elections” in which they vote for the elites of their choice. When a tiny minority controls nearly all the wealth, “free elections” are only possible if the majority is systematically controlled with psychological propaganda. See Emancipate Yourself from Mental Slavery
**The First International Working Man’s Association was an international organization which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist[1] and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were based on the working class and class struggle.