Random Precision
24th March 2009, 23:51
Abstract
The Spanish Civil War was one of the most politicized conflicts of the twentieth century, and one of its most intriguing aspects is the expropriation of native factories and workshops by their own workers. By its very nature this subject is controversial, and the involvement of the Spanish Anarchist movement makes it even more so. The workers control was uneven in geographical scope, centering mostly in the province of Catalonia. Furthermore, it was quickly curbed by the ascendancy of the Communist Party, and then crushed completely by the victory of Franco’s army in the war. All this brings up an important question: To what extent was the Spanish anarchist movement successful in establishing and maintaining workers control in Catalan industry during the Spanish Civil War?
This essay focuses exclusively on the commercial industry of Catalonia. Out of necessity there is also a focus on the city of Barcelona, the center of industry. Special attention is paid to the history of the anarchist union, the CNT. Key primary source accounts came from anarchist militants and workers active in the shaping of workers control of industry. Secondary sources include works by Robert Alexander, Burnett Bolloten, and others noted for their contributions to Spanish Civil War scholarship.
A careful analysis of the sources tells of a movement that established a functioning system of workers’ power and became its main proponent and defender during the course of the war. It established workers’ collectives under the most difficult of circumstances, among which were internal problems of collectivization and active hostility from fellow Loyalist forces. Their accomplishments stand out despite the fact that collectivization was successfully undermined throughout the war’s course by a collaboration of government and Communist forces, which managed to reintroduce private capitalism before the Nationalists conquered Catalonia.
Introduction
George Orwell arrived in Barcelona in December 1936, six months into Spain’s civil war. “When one came from England the [revolutionary] aspect of Barcelona was overwhelming,” he would write (Orwell 4). “It was the first time I had ever been in a town in which the working class was in the saddle” (4).
Possibly the most revolutionary change that occurred in Catalonia during the Civil War was direct workers’ control of industry. This is a phenomenon that happened only a few times in the history of the 20th Century. This brings up the complicated question, “To what extent was the Spanish anarchist movement successful in establishing and maintaining workers control in Catalan industry during the Spanish Civil War?”
A careful examination of sources reveals that the Anarcho-Syndicalist workers in Catalonia put decades of theory into practice by successfully introducing an unprecedented level of workers’ self-management in the areas they controlled. During the course of the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from July 1936 to May 1939, they would manage to keep much of it in practice, despite the dual pressures of the war against the fascists as well as active hostility to collectivization from fellow Loyalist forces.
Evaluation of Sources
Writing about any aspect of the Spanish Civil War brings problems with primary sources: as one of the most politicized war of the twentieth century, almost all primary source material on it is written from a certain political perspective. There is also the problem of discovering a valid history of the grassroots phenomenon that was the Spanish Revolution when most historians are content to focus on its leaders rather than the rank and file. There are two sources that bear detailed examination, the first being The Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War by Ronald Fraser, and the second The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War by Robert Alexander.
The Blood of Spain is a broad history that is composed of hundreds of personal accounts of the struggle interspersed with commentary dealing mainly with the background. While this is a comprehensive history of the war, the sections dealing with the Catalan social revolution are quite valuable. Fraser has chosen to focus on the stories of the workers, which makes it an incredibly valuable source. One limitation is that which comes with any personal account: each story comes from one person and it sometimes becomes difficult to piece together a coherent picture of the struggle from all of them. Also, when the author conducted his interviews over thirty years had passed since the events, so lapses of memory and errors by those he interviewed must be expected.
Also valuable was Robert Alexander’s two-volume The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, an exhaustive account of the anarchists’ role in the conflict, which deals primarily with the social revolution. He goes into great detail on the establishment and functioning of the collectives as well as reproducing valuable primary source material, which has gone unnoticed by other historians. However, for the most part Alexander’s approach consists of quoting published materials, as these are often taken from the anarchist leadership this approach is less helpful than that of Fraser. Also, it must be noted that Alexander is an American academic writing decades after the events he describes, and so distance must be taken into account as both a value and limitation of his book.
The Spanish Anarchist Movement
In 1910, a congress of the anarchist movement in Barcelona established the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, English: National Confederation of Labor) (Peirats 28). The CNT described itself as syndicalist, referring to a theory of working-class struggle. Rudolf Rocker, one of its leading theorists, describes its key concepts thusly:
[There is] the trade union, the syndicate, the unified organisation of labour which has for its purpose the defense of the interests of the producers… [having the functions of] 1. As the fighting organisation of the workers against the employers to enforce the demands of the workers for the safeguarding and raising of their standard of living; 2. As the school for the intellectual training of the workers to make them acquainted with the technical management of production and economic life in general so that when a revolutionary situation arises they will be capable of taking the socio-economic organism into their own hands and remaking it according to Socialist principles. (57)
In this way, then, was the CNT founded as a union that would attempt to organize workers as well as raising their proletarian consciousness, with the goal of the self-emancipation of the working class. It combined the principles of anarchism and syndicalism, and therefore may be properly termed anarcho-syndicalist.
The goal of the CNT as a revolutionary union was libertarian communism, that is to say, anarchy (Leval). In 1936, just a few months before the outbreak of war, the CNT national conference at Saragossa adopted a platform that began:
With the violent aspect of the revolution terminated, there will be declared abolished: private property, the State, the principle of authority… the organization of the producers, now free, will undertake direct administration of production and consumption (qtd. in Alexander 58).
It proceeded to describe the post-revolutionary social organization as the libertarian commune, which would determine production and organize consumption (Alexander 60), with a consensus-based form of democracy (62). Individual communes would federate on a national scale (61). The Saragossa document was only an outline; however, as the only unifying view of a future society presented by the Spanish anarchist movement, it bears examination and a comparison, as much as is possible, to the revolutionary events that occurred just two months after its adoption.
The Uprising and Initial Revolutionary Gains
On 17 July 1936 the military revolt against the Spanish Republic and its left-wing government began when Gen. Francisco Franco took command of garrisons in Morocco (Thomas 129). All over the country, military garrisons declared for the revolt (Morrow). Gen. Manuel Goded arrived in Barcelona on 18 July to lead the rising in Catalonia (Thomas 130). Aware of similar events across the country, the leaders of the CNT called a general strike and requested arms from the Generalitat, the autonomous Catalan government, to combat the military uprising, which they were refused (145). Workers of the CNT began to raid sporting good stores and construction jobs for rifles and dynamite. In a series of engagements with the military the workers of Barcelona were successful in halting the uprising, with Goded being captured and forced to broadcast an appeal for his forces to surrender (Thomas 147). As its members had defeated the military uprising, the CNT was now the virtual master of Catalonia.
All, including the bourgeois government of Catalonia, quickly recognized this new reality. On 20 July, Lluis Companys, the president of Catalonia, informed a group of Anarcho-Syndicalist leaders that
"Today you are the masters of the city and of Catalonia… you have conquered and everything is in your power. If you do not need me or do not want me as President of Catalonia, tell me now… If, on the other hand, you believe in this post I and the men of my party… can be useful in this struggle… You can count on me and my loyalty." (qtd. in Bolloten 389)
The CNT struggled internally whether to take power or leave the bourgeois state apparatus in place. Eventually the decision was made for the latter (Bolloten 390), a decision that would have great implications for the future of the anarchist-led economic revolution.
Meanwhile, the workers of Catalonia were taking direct action. On 28 July, the Barcelona Federation of Unions asked its members to return to work (Peirats 118). With this, workers in Catalonia and other areas of Republican Spain would take direct control of the means of production. In many places the factory takeovers preceded the order to return to work: the CNT metalworkers’ union announced its takeover of the workplaces on 26 July, while the railway workers had announced collectivization five days before (Peirats 119). The actions taken to expropriate the factories were therefore, as José Peirats, an anarchist militant writes, “a unanimous, spontaneous action that began as soon as the fighting ended” (119). In Catalan industry, the factories resumed production under union control.
The expropriation of industry was far from an easy task. Although many of the factory owners had fled or been captured after the failure of the military revolt, a few remained. Joan Domenech, the secretary of the Barcelona Glassworkers’ Union, recalled how his industry was collectivized:
‘Well, señores,’ I said, opening the meeting [of the glass employers and CNT militants]… ‘It’s clear that you employers really compete in an unfair and disloyal manner amongst yourselves… All this can’t continue. You should have formed an employer’s (sic) association long ago.’
‘Yes, yes’, some of them said, nodding.
‘All right’, I continued… ‘We’ll draw up a document creating an association: The Mirror and Plate Glass Employers’ Society’. We drew up the document; one by one they signed it…
‘Now we’re going to draw up another document which cedes all the Society’s rights to the union.’
‘Hombre, no! Hombre!’ They were all shouting now.
‘Yes, yes’ I said very insistently; given the situation, they all ended up signing.
‘Don’t get upset,’ I went on. ‘The first thing we’re going to do is to make an inventory of all stocks held in each of your workshops… To those showing a profit, we’ll pay ten per cent of surplus every three months…
Moreover, each one of you will stay on as a union member and be employed as a technician with the corresponding wage’…
They left the meeting quite content in the end. And that’s how we collectivized the plate glass business (qtd. in Fraser 140-1).
The spontaneous collectivization of industry put the Generalitat in the position of legalizing collectivization. Eventually it settled on the “Collectivization and Workers’ Control Decree” that was approved on 24 October 1936 (Fraser 209). Its preamble read:
“The criminal uprising of 19 July has produced an extraordinary upheaval in the country’s economy… The accumulation of wealth in the hands of a continually smaller group of persons has gone hand in hand with the accumulation of ever greater poverty by the working class… the victory of the people must mean the death of capitalism” (qtd. in Fraser 209).
The Collectives
The giant experiment in worker-managed commercial industry that is the subject of this investigation is hard to pin down, both because the experiment was undertaken spontaneously at the grassroots levels of the anarcho-syndicalist movement, and also because conditions varied widely from industry to industry, and from factory to factory. However, a study of the collectives enables one to make some generalizations about their structure and functioning. First, as many of the owners of individual factories had fled after the failure of the Nationalist revolt and others had been captured and/or executed by anarchist militants, who would administer the factories was an open question as the workers returned from their general strike. According to Victor Alba, a CNT militant, none of the owners of large factories returned to their firms after the street fighting was over, while perhaps 30% of the owners of middle-sized firms returned (Alexander 461). Given the failure of the owners to retake their businesses, a possible solution at this point was intervention by the Catalan Generalitat to take control of industry (461), but for whatever reasons this step was not taken. Therefore, it was up to the workers themselves to restart production, and collectivization was the solution they came up with. Writes Victor Alba:
[On 21 July] The people walked around disoriented… in the middle of the morning, after a few phone calls or visits to the union, the workers met in an assembly in the workplace…In all these assemblies- in Barcelona, in the factory cities of Catalonia… it was agreed that the workers would take charge of the firm, that [an] elected Committee would direct it and that contact would be maintained with the union (qtd. in Alexander 462).
This was more or less the form of administration that most collectives would have throughout the war, with the committees of enterprise electing the director of the firm, who would then be under careful supervision. Important decisions regarding operation were referred to the general assembly of workers, which were both frequently held and highly attended (Alexander 469). An excellent illustration of collective government may be found in Gaston Leval’s description of the textile industry in the city of Alcoy:
On the proposal of the Syndicate, control commissions in the textile industry transformed themselves into management Comites…
At the base, the workers in these five specialities chose at their factory meetings the delegate to represent them in integrating the factory Comites. One then finds these five branches of work, through the intermediary of the delegations, in the management Comite of the Syndicate. The general organisation rests therefore on the one hand on the division of labour and on the other on the synthetic industrial structure. (Leval)
Of course, it was inevitable that the government would take steps to regulate the form of collectives. That regulation took the form of the collectivization decree. The document automatically collectivized industrial and commercial firms that had more than 100 workers, or whose owners had fled or were on the side of the rebels (Fraser 211). Firms of a smaller size could choose to collectivize with the agreement of the owners and the majority of workers (211). The workers, in an assembly representing every section of the enterprise, were to elect a Works Council that would “assume the functions and responsibilities of the former board of directors” (Fraser 211).
Collectivization essentially split the difference in between two methods of workers control: first was socialization, a method under which all enterprises of each industry would have been merged together under the control of one body that would decide upon the sharing of profits. The second was cooperativization, under which individual enterprises would be under workers’ control, but would compete with each other in a way very similar to the capitalist system. Collectivization as a solution to this controversy was proposed and adopted at a plenum of the CNT’s Catalan regional committee in September 1936 (Fraser 212). In its essentials, it proposed keeping each firm separate under workers’ control, but with all their surpluses being transferred into a fund administered by the Economics Council of Catalonia to bring order to the economy (212). This, however, did not prevent the complete socialization of industries including those of wood and public transport that had already been achieved.
One feature that characterized the collectives was the technological improvements they were able to make in the industry of Catalonia. Franz Borkenau, an Austrian journalist, described his experience in one collectivized factory:
Undeniably, the factory I saw [the workshop of the general bus company] was a huge success for the CNT. Only three weeks after the beginning of the Civil War… it seems to run smoothly as if nothing had happened… Since socialization the factory had repaired two buses, finished one which had been under construction, and constructed a completely new one. The latter wore the inscription “constructed under workers’ control”. It had been completed, management claimed, in five days as against an average of seven days under the previous management. Complete success, then. (88)
Collectivization in general was noted for how it brought a new level of efficiency to Catalan industry. This most often took the form of organizational innovations such as bringing new machinery, equipment and personnel of each industry in large enterprises, termed “general collectives”, of which there were 36 in Barcelona (Alexander 467). In this way was the largely workshop-based industry of Catalonia converted into a factory-based industry. The accomplishments of the workers seem more incredible still when one considers the case of the optics industry, which was non-existent before the revolution:
“The greatest innovation was the construction of a new factory for optical apparatuses and instruments. The whole operation was financed by the voluntary contributions of the workers. In a short time the factory turned out opera glasses, telemeters, binoculars, surveying instruments, industrial glassware in different colors, and certain scientific instruments…” (Dolgoff).
The Challenges of Collectivization
Problems confronted by the collectivization movement during its short life were many. The first major internal problem however was the state of Spain’s economy, which was still recovering from the Great Depression at the beginning of the Nationalist revolt. Another challenge was the problem of ‘factory patriotism’. One particular factory would often take the surplus of its goods and use it for itself rather than turning it over to the general fund for collectives. Horacio Prieto, a former CNT national committee secretary, went so far as to say that
“The collectivism we are living in Spain is not anarchist collectivism, it is the creation of a new capitalism… Rich collectives refuse to recognize any responsibilities towards poor collectives…” (qtd. in Fraser 209).
Most of the issues facing the collectives resulted from the state of civil war. One of these was raw materials, many of which Catalonia was cut off from (Alexander 471). The lack of trained personnel as engineers and other specialists was a problem as many of them had fled after the failure of the uprising. Also at issue was a lack of capital as a resource for the collectivized factories: the CNT had long neglected the banking industry, regarding it as a facet of the capitalist economy that would not be necessary in a post-revolutionary society. Therefore it was content to give up the banks to the control of the Generalitat (Alexander 481).
Regardless of the problems the collectives faced, however, their existence was significant in that it changed the course of the war, perhaps providing the initial salvation of the Republic. Gaston Leval counts the industrial collectivizations among the factors that “permitted resistance during almost three years, and without which Franco would have triumphed in a few weeks”.
The Death of a Revolution
The bold turn away from capitalism that the anarchist collectives represented was bound to draw attention and eventually ire from the outside world. The first expression of this ire came from the Communist movement. During the course of the Civil War, the Soviet Union set itself up as the main backer of the Republic, providing it with money, arms, and eventually soldiers. Because of this the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) began to grow into a large and influential organization that would dominate the government of the Republic during much of the war’s course. Workers’ control as it existed in Catalonia was not in the interest of the Communists in Spain or the Soviet Union. André Marty, a French representative to the Communist International (Comintern) in Spain, reported at a meeting of its secretariat in 1936 that:
The anarchists set up worker control everywhere, transforming the workers into factory owners. The movement for worker control began in Catalonia… What is the danger here? The danger is that these decisions nearly always affect the interests of small and midsize industry, small and midsize trade, and even small shops… I dwell at length on this question because the anarchists have a decisive influence for the entire country. (qtd. in Radosh 43)
The Communists argued that it was foolish to try and accomplish a socialist revolution in industry while the war against fascism continued. Many Communist leaders openly proclaimed that they were fighting not for socialism, but for the liberal democracy that was Spain’s Second Republic (Bolloten 228). However, the Communists, like the government itself, were in no position at the start of the war to do anything about the existence of the collectives.
The Communists’ opportunity came in May 1937, after a general strike and series of riots in Barcelona called the “May Days” which pitted workers of the CNT against members of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), the Catalan affiliate of the PCE, and Catalan Generalitat, after an attempt by the police to seize the CNT-operated telephone exchange (Orwell 135). After the crisis ended, the ministers from the CNT were dismissed from the Catalan government (Morrow), and the Communists and liberal Republicans united to halt collectivization.
In the wake of the May events, a leader of the PSUC, Juan Comorera, was appointed as Councilor of the Economy (Alexander 514), a position that he used to sabotage the collectives by enforcing his interpretations of the collectivization decree (Alexander 515). Comorera had said before the May Days that collectivization represented
“seven months of grave errors, adventures, lamentable and dangerous experiments… which have to end, as all such experiments inevitably do” (qtd. in Fraser 578).
His actions were therefore hardly surprising. They included transforming the Catalan Council of the Economy from the coordinating body of workers’ control to an instrument of capitalist restoration (Alexander 516), and intervening in certain collectives to place former owners and technicians in their old jobs (517). The government of the Spanish Republic, specifically the Ministry of Finance took a role in the harassment of the collectives itself by demanding they pay excess profit taxes, depriving them of nearly all their surpluses, and giving itself the power to seize industrial collectives that had been the property of rebels (518). This campaign culminated in the decision to make each collectivized factory prove its legality by 15 September, or be seized by the state (Morrow).
While this decision did not officially end collectivization in commercial industry, it marked the turning point of the government’s campaign to accomplish that goal. Gradually workers’ self-management was eroded, through a variety of methods including official decrees, and behind-the-scenes manipulation. J. Esperanza, a CNT militant working in a leather factory, described how this process occurred for his industry:
Repeatedly, certain officials pestered us with forms and questionnaires which served no purpose, but had the virtue of exasperating the personnel… we resisted the paperwork which was sent by the… bureaucracy of the State… [Finally] they insisted that we renounce our Collective, ceding our rights to the State, which we again refused. Then the authorities decided to requisition our skins and tanning extracts… Unable to work, our comrades were disagreeably surprised by the presence of troops in each one of our 27 factories and our 6 warehouses. For about 5 weeks, there was stationed in our buildings… all of a Battalion to carry out the requisition… with all this the cause of the people was certainly not served, but the destruction of our collective was achieved. (qtd. in Alexander 1019)
This systematic program of repression eliminated workers’ control of industry in Catalonia, bringing about the end of workers’ control of industry before the defeat of the Republic by Franco’s army.
Conclusion
The radical economic changes that marked the beginning year or so of the Spanish Civil War are variously described as the “dangerous experiment” Juan Comorera saw or alternatively, as “an achievement which emerges as a beacon light [that] all revolutionaries… will have to follow” (Leval). Whatever one’s viewpoint on the collectives, however, it is agreed that they marked a profound shift in economic relations. The seizure of industry, which arose organically from the Catalan proletariat at the beginning of the Civil War, and which they would maintain more or less up unto its end despite pressures from both sides of the front lines, was that rare moment in history when a working class of any country took full, direct control of the means of production.
While it may be correctly argued that the pre-war experience of the CNT workers and their leadership ill-prepared them for a direct seizure of power in the workplace, the systems they put in place for direct workers’ control of commercial industry were indeed impressive given the background against which they emerged. It was even more impressive that this ill-organized movement provided the initial salvation for the Spanish Republic. Without them, it would have crumbled far more quickly. Furthermore, it is incredible that the workers of Catalonia managed to maintain this collectivization considering the pressure of the war and the pressure on the home front.
The uniqueness of the Catalan collectives certainly bears examining by historians of modern Spain as well as those looking toward the Catalan workers’ example of self-management, as it was the farthest-reaching of any such experiment in history. Leading anarchist thinker Emma Goldman said about a year before the conquest of Catalonia that the “collectivization of industry shines out as the greatest achievement of any revolutionary period. Even if Franco were to win and the Spanish anarchists were to be exterminated, the idea they have launched will live on” (qtd. in Guérin 142).
Works Cited
Alexander, Robert. The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. Vols. 1-2. London: Janus Company, 1998.
Bolloten, Burnett. The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1991.
Borkenau, Franz. The Spanish Cockpit. London: Faber & Faber, 1937.
Dolgoff, Sam, ed. The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Managent in the Spanish Revolution, 1936-1939. New York: Free Life Editions, 1974.
Fraser, Ronald. The Blood of Spain: an Oral History of the Spanish Civil War. New York: Pantheon, 1986.
Guérin, Daniel. Anarchism: From Theory to Practice. Trans. Mary Klopper. New York: Monthly Review, 1970.
Leval, Gaston. Collectives in the Spanish Revolution. London: Freedom, 1975. Anarcho-Syndicalism 101. 3 Sept. 2007 <http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net/>.
Morrow, Felix. Revolution and Counterrevolution in Spain. London: New Park Publications, 1963. Marxists Online Archive. 29 May 2007 <http://www.marxists.org>.
Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia. New York: Harvest Books, 1962.
Péirats, José. Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. London: Freedom, 1990.
Radosh, Ronald, Mary Habeck, and Grigory Sevastianov, eds. Spain Betrayed: the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War (Annals of Communism Series). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale UP, 2001.
Rocker, Rudolf. Anarcho-Syndicalism: Theory and Practice. 6th ed. San Francisco: AK, 2004.
Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1961.
The Spanish Civil War was one of the most politicized conflicts of the twentieth century, and one of its most intriguing aspects is the expropriation of native factories and workshops by their own workers. By its very nature this subject is controversial, and the involvement of the Spanish Anarchist movement makes it even more so. The workers control was uneven in geographical scope, centering mostly in the province of Catalonia. Furthermore, it was quickly curbed by the ascendancy of the Communist Party, and then crushed completely by the victory of Franco’s army in the war. All this brings up an important question: To what extent was the Spanish anarchist movement successful in establishing and maintaining workers control in Catalan industry during the Spanish Civil War?
This essay focuses exclusively on the commercial industry of Catalonia. Out of necessity there is also a focus on the city of Barcelona, the center of industry. Special attention is paid to the history of the anarchist union, the CNT. Key primary source accounts came from anarchist militants and workers active in the shaping of workers control of industry. Secondary sources include works by Robert Alexander, Burnett Bolloten, and others noted for their contributions to Spanish Civil War scholarship.
A careful analysis of the sources tells of a movement that established a functioning system of workers’ power and became its main proponent and defender during the course of the war. It established workers’ collectives under the most difficult of circumstances, among which were internal problems of collectivization and active hostility from fellow Loyalist forces. Their accomplishments stand out despite the fact that collectivization was successfully undermined throughout the war’s course by a collaboration of government and Communist forces, which managed to reintroduce private capitalism before the Nationalists conquered Catalonia.
Introduction
George Orwell arrived in Barcelona in December 1936, six months into Spain’s civil war. “When one came from England the [revolutionary] aspect of Barcelona was overwhelming,” he would write (Orwell 4). “It was the first time I had ever been in a town in which the working class was in the saddle” (4).
Possibly the most revolutionary change that occurred in Catalonia during the Civil War was direct workers’ control of industry. This is a phenomenon that happened only a few times in the history of the 20th Century. This brings up the complicated question, “To what extent was the Spanish anarchist movement successful in establishing and maintaining workers control in Catalan industry during the Spanish Civil War?”
A careful examination of sources reveals that the Anarcho-Syndicalist workers in Catalonia put decades of theory into practice by successfully introducing an unprecedented level of workers’ self-management in the areas they controlled. During the course of the Spanish Civil War, which lasted from July 1936 to May 1939, they would manage to keep much of it in practice, despite the dual pressures of the war against the fascists as well as active hostility to collectivization from fellow Loyalist forces.
Evaluation of Sources
Writing about any aspect of the Spanish Civil War brings problems with primary sources: as one of the most politicized war of the twentieth century, almost all primary source material on it is written from a certain political perspective. There is also the problem of discovering a valid history of the grassroots phenomenon that was the Spanish Revolution when most historians are content to focus on its leaders rather than the rank and file. There are two sources that bear detailed examination, the first being The Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War by Ronald Fraser, and the second The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War by Robert Alexander.
The Blood of Spain is a broad history that is composed of hundreds of personal accounts of the struggle interspersed with commentary dealing mainly with the background. While this is a comprehensive history of the war, the sections dealing with the Catalan social revolution are quite valuable. Fraser has chosen to focus on the stories of the workers, which makes it an incredibly valuable source. One limitation is that which comes with any personal account: each story comes from one person and it sometimes becomes difficult to piece together a coherent picture of the struggle from all of them. Also, when the author conducted his interviews over thirty years had passed since the events, so lapses of memory and errors by those he interviewed must be expected.
Also valuable was Robert Alexander’s two-volume The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, an exhaustive account of the anarchists’ role in the conflict, which deals primarily with the social revolution. He goes into great detail on the establishment and functioning of the collectives as well as reproducing valuable primary source material, which has gone unnoticed by other historians. However, for the most part Alexander’s approach consists of quoting published materials, as these are often taken from the anarchist leadership this approach is less helpful than that of Fraser. Also, it must be noted that Alexander is an American academic writing decades after the events he describes, and so distance must be taken into account as both a value and limitation of his book.
The Spanish Anarchist Movement
In 1910, a congress of the anarchist movement in Barcelona established the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, English: National Confederation of Labor) (Peirats 28). The CNT described itself as syndicalist, referring to a theory of working-class struggle. Rudolf Rocker, one of its leading theorists, describes its key concepts thusly:
[There is] the trade union, the syndicate, the unified organisation of labour which has for its purpose the defense of the interests of the producers… [having the functions of] 1. As the fighting organisation of the workers against the employers to enforce the demands of the workers for the safeguarding and raising of their standard of living; 2. As the school for the intellectual training of the workers to make them acquainted with the technical management of production and economic life in general so that when a revolutionary situation arises they will be capable of taking the socio-economic organism into their own hands and remaking it according to Socialist principles. (57)
In this way, then, was the CNT founded as a union that would attempt to organize workers as well as raising their proletarian consciousness, with the goal of the self-emancipation of the working class. It combined the principles of anarchism and syndicalism, and therefore may be properly termed anarcho-syndicalist.
The goal of the CNT as a revolutionary union was libertarian communism, that is to say, anarchy (Leval). In 1936, just a few months before the outbreak of war, the CNT national conference at Saragossa adopted a platform that began:
With the violent aspect of the revolution terminated, there will be declared abolished: private property, the State, the principle of authority… the organization of the producers, now free, will undertake direct administration of production and consumption (qtd. in Alexander 58).
It proceeded to describe the post-revolutionary social organization as the libertarian commune, which would determine production and organize consumption (Alexander 60), with a consensus-based form of democracy (62). Individual communes would federate on a national scale (61). The Saragossa document was only an outline; however, as the only unifying view of a future society presented by the Spanish anarchist movement, it bears examination and a comparison, as much as is possible, to the revolutionary events that occurred just two months after its adoption.
The Uprising and Initial Revolutionary Gains
On 17 July 1936 the military revolt against the Spanish Republic and its left-wing government began when Gen. Francisco Franco took command of garrisons in Morocco (Thomas 129). All over the country, military garrisons declared for the revolt (Morrow). Gen. Manuel Goded arrived in Barcelona on 18 July to lead the rising in Catalonia (Thomas 130). Aware of similar events across the country, the leaders of the CNT called a general strike and requested arms from the Generalitat, the autonomous Catalan government, to combat the military uprising, which they were refused (145). Workers of the CNT began to raid sporting good stores and construction jobs for rifles and dynamite. In a series of engagements with the military the workers of Barcelona were successful in halting the uprising, with Goded being captured and forced to broadcast an appeal for his forces to surrender (Thomas 147). As its members had defeated the military uprising, the CNT was now the virtual master of Catalonia.
All, including the bourgeois government of Catalonia, quickly recognized this new reality. On 20 July, Lluis Companys, the president of Catalonia, informed a group of Anarcho-Syndicalist leaders that
"Today you are the masters of the city and of Catalonia… you have conquered and everything is in your power. If you do not need me or do not want me as President of Catalonia, tell me now… If, on the other hand, you believe in this post I and the men of my party… can be useful in this struggle… You can count on me and my loyalty." (qtd. in Bolloten 389)
The CNT struggled internally whether to take power or leave the bourgeois state apparatus in place. Eventually the decision was made for the latter (Bolloten 390), a decision that would have great implications for the future of the anarchist-led economic revolution.
Meanwhile, the workers of Catalonia were taking direct action. On 28 July, the Barcelona Federation of Unions asked its members to return to work (Peirats 118). With this, workers in Catalonia and other areas of Republican Spain would take direct control of the means of production. In many places the factory takeovers preceded the order to return to work: the CNT metalworkers’ union announced its takeover of the workplaces on 26 July, while the railway workers had announced collectivization five days before (Peirats 119). The actions taken to expropriate the factories were therefore, as José Peirats, an anarchist militant writes, “a unanimous, spontaneous action that began as soon as the fighting ended” (119). In Catalan industry, the factories resumed production under union control.
The expropriation of industry was far from an easy task. Although many of the factory owners had fled or been captured after the failure of the military revolt, a few remained. Joan Domenech, the secretary of the Barcelona Glassworkers’ Union, recalled how his industry was collectivized:
‘Well, señores,’ I said, opening the meeting [of the glass employers and CNT militants]… ‘It’s clear that you employers really compete in an unfair and disloyal manner amongst yourselves… All this can’t continue. You should have formed an employer’s (sic) association long ago.’
‘Yes, yes’, some of them said, nodding.
‘All right’, I continued… ‘We’ll draw up a document creating an association: The Mirror and Plate Glass Employers’ Society’. We drew up the document; one by one they signed it…
‘Now we’re going to draw up another document which cedes all the Society’s rights to the union.’
‘Hombre, no! Hombre!’ They were all shouting now.
‘Yes, yes’ I said very insistently; given the situation, they all ended up signing.
‘Don’t get upset,’ I went on. ‘The first thing we’re going to do is to make an inventory of all stocks held in each of your workshops… To those showing a profit, we’ll pay ten per cent of surplus every three months…
Moreover, each one of you will stay on as a union member and be employed as a technician with the corresponding wage’…
They left the meeting quite content in the end. And that’s how we collectivized the plate glass business (qtd. in Fraser 140-1).
The spontaneous collectivization of industry put the Generalitat in the position of legalizing collectivization. Eventually it settled on the “Collectivization and Workers’ Control Decree” that was approved on 24 October 1936 (Fraser 209). Its preamble read:
“The criminal uprising of 19 July has produced an extraordinary upheaval in the country’s economy… The accumulation of wealth in the hands of a continually smaller group of persons has gone hand in hand with the accumulation of ever greater poverty by the working class… the victory of the people must mean the death of capitalism” (qtd. in Fraser 209).
The Collectives
The giant experiment in worker-managed commercial industry that is the subject of this investigation is hard to pin down, both because the experiment was undertaken spontaneously at the grassroots levels of the anarcho-syndicalist movement, and also because conditions varied widely from industry to industry, and from factory to factory. However, a study of the collectives enables one to make some generalizations about their structure and functioning. First, as many of the owners of individual factories had fled after the failure of the Nationalist revolt and others had been captured and/or executed by anarchist militants, who would administer the factories was an open question as the workers returned from their general strike. According to Victor Alba, a CNT militant, none of the owners of large factories returned to their firms after the street fighting was over, while perhaps 30% of the owners of middle-sized firms returned (Alexander 461). Given the failure of the owners to retake their businesses, a possible solution at this point was intervention by the Catalan Generalitat to take control of industry (461), but for whatever reasons this step was not taken. Therefore, it was up to the workers themselves to restart production, and collectivization was the solution they came up with. Writes Victor Alba:
[On 21 July] The people walked around disoriented… in the middle of the morning, after a few phone calls or visits to the union, the workers met in an assembly in the workplace…In all these assemblies- in Barcelona, in the factory cities of Catalonia… it was agreed that the workers would take charge of the firm, that [an] elected Committee would direct it and that contact would be maintained with the union (qtd. in Alexander 462).
This was more or less the form of administration that most collectives would have throughout the war, with the committees of enterprise electing the director of the firm, who would then be under careful supervision. Important decisions regarding operation were referred to the general assembly of workers, which were both frequently held and highly attended (Alexander 469). An excellent illustration of collective government may be found in Gaston Leval’s description of the textile industry in the city of Alcoy:
On the proposal of the Syndicate, control commissions in the textile industry transformed themselves into management Comites…
At the base, the workers in these five specialities chose at their factory meetings the delegate to represent them in integrating the factory Comites. One then finds these five branches of work, through the intermediary of the delegations, in the management Comite of the Syndicate. The general organisation rests therefore on the one hand on the division of labour and on the other on the synthetic industrial structure. (Leval)
Of course, it was inevitable that the government would take steps to regulate the form of collectives. That regulation took the form of the collectivization decree. The document automatically collectivized industrial and commercial firms that had more than 100 workers, or whose owners had fled or were on the side of the rebels (Fraser 211). Firms of a smaller size could choose to collectivize with the agreement of the owners and the majority of workers (211). The workers, in an assembly representing every section of the enterprise, were to elect a Works Council that would “assume the functions and responsibilities of the former board of directors” (Fraser 211).
Collectivization essentially split the difference in between two methods of workers control: first was socialization, a method under which all enterprises of each industry would have been merged together under the control of one body that would decide upon the sharing of profits. The second was cooperativization, under which individual enterprises would be under workers’ control, but would compete with each other in a way very similar to the capitalist system. Collectivization as a solution to this controversy was proposed and adopted at a plenum of the CNT’s Catalan regional committee in September 1936 (Fraser 212). In its essentials, it proposed keeping each firm separate under workers’ control, but with all their surpluses being transferred into a fund administered by the Economics Council of Catalonia to bring order to the economy (212). This, however, did not prevent the complete socialization of industries including those of wood and public transport that had already been achieved.
One feature that characterized the collectives was the technological improvements they were able to make in the industry of Catalonia. Franz Borkenau, an Austrian journalist, described his experience in one collectivized factory:
Undeniably, the factory I saw [the workshop of the general bus company] was a huge success for the CNT. Only three weeks after the beginning of the Civil War… it seems to run smoothly as if nothing had happened… Since socialization the factory had repaired two buses, finished one which had been under construction, and constructed a completely new one. The latter wore the inscription “constructed under workers’ control”. It had been completed, management claimed, in five days as against an average of seven days under the previous management. Complete success, then. (88)
Collectivization in general was noted for how it brought a new level of efficiency to Catalan industry. This most often took the form of organizational innovations such as bringing new machinery, equipment and personnel of each industry in large enterprises, termed “general collectives”, of which there were 36 in Barcelona (Alexander 467). In this way was the largely workshop-based industry of Catalonia converted into a factory-based industry. The accomplishments of the workers seem more incredible still when one considers the case of the optics industry, which was non-existent before the revolution:
“The greatest innovation was the construction of a new factory for optical apparatuses and instruments. The whole operation was financed by the voluntary contributions of the workers. In a short time the factory turned out opera glasses, telemeters, binoculars, surveying instruments, industrial glassware in different colors, and certain scientific instruments…” (Dolgoff).
The Challenges of Collectivization
Problems confronted by the collectivization movement during its short life were many. The first major internal problem however was the state of Spain’s economy, which was still recovering from the Great Depression at the beginning of the Nationalist revolt. Another challenge was the problem of ‘factory patriotism’. One particular factory would often take the surplus of its goods and use it for itself rather than turning it over to the general fund for collectives. Horacio Prieto, a former CNT national committee secretary, went so far as to say that
“The collectivism we are living in Spain is not anarchist collectivism, it is the creation of a new capitalism… Rich collectives refuse to recognize any responsibilities towards poor collectives…” (qtd. in Fraser 209).
Most of the issues facing the collectives resulted from the state of civil war. One of these was raw materials, many of which Catalonia was cut off from (Alexander 471). The lack of trained personnel as engineers and other specialists was a problem as many of them had fled after the failure of the uprising. Also at issue was a lack of capital as a resource for the collectivized factories: the CNT had long neglected the banking industry, regarding it as a facet of the capitalist economy that would not be necessary in a post-revolutionary society. Therefore it was content to give up the banks to the control of the Generalitat (Alexander 481).
Regardless of the problems the collectives faced, however, their existence was significant in that it changed the course of the war, perhaps providing the initial salvation of the Republic. Gaston Leval counts the industrial collectivizations among the factors that “permitted resistance during almost three years, and without which Franco would have triumphed in a few weeks”.
The Death of a Revolution
The bold turn away from capitalism that the anarchist collectives represented was bound to draw attention and eventually ire from the outside world. The first expression of this ire came from the Communist movement. During the course of the Civil War, the Soviet Union set itself up as the main backer of the Republic, providing it with money, arms, and eventually soldiers. Because of this the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) began to grow into a large and influential organization that would dominate the government of the Republic during much of the war’s course. Workers’ control as it existed in Catalonia was not in the interest of the Communists in Spain or the Soviet Union. André Marty, a French representative to the Communist International (Comintern) in Spain, reported at a meeting of its secretariat in 1936 that:
The anarchists set up worker control everywhere, transforming the workers into factory owners. The movement for worker control began in Catalonia… What is the danger here? The danger is that these decisions nearly always affect the interests of small and midsize industry, small and midsize trade, and even small shops… I dwell at length on this question because the anarchists have a decisive influence for the entire country. (qtd. in Radosh 43)
The Communists argued that it was foolish to try and accomplish a socialist revolution in industry while the war against fascism continued. Many Communist leaders openly proclaimed that they were fighting not for socialism, but for the liberal democracy that was Spain’s Second Republic (Bolloten 228). However, the Communists, like the government itself, were in no position at the start of the war to do anything about the existence of the collectives.
The Communists’ opportunity came in May 1937, after a general strike and series of riots in Barcelona called the “May Days” which pitted workers of the CNT against members of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), the Catalan affiliate of the PCE, and Catalan Generalitat, after an attempt by the police to seize the CNT-operated telephone exchange (Orwell 135). After the crisis ended, the ministers from the CNT were dismissed from the Catalan government (Morrow), and the Communists and liberal Republicans united to halt collectivization.
In the wake of the May events, a leader of the PSUC, Juan Comorera, was appointed as Councilor of the Economy (Alexander 514), a position that he used to sabotage the collectives by enforcing his interpretations of the collectivization decree (Alexander 515). Comorera had said before the May Days that collectivization represented
“seven months of grave errors, adventures, lamentable and dangerous experiments… which have to end, as all such experiments inevitably do” (qtd. in Fraser 578).
His actions were therefore hardly surprising. They included transforming the Catalan Council of the Economy from the coordinating body of workers’ control to an instrument of capitalist restoration (Alexander 516), and intervening in certain collectives to place former owners and technicians in their old jobs (517). The government of the Spanish Republic, specifically the Ministry of Finance took a role in the harassment of the collectives itself by demanding they pay excess profit taxes, depriving them of nearly all their surpluses, and giving itself the power to seize industrial collectives that had been the property of rebels (518). This campaign culminated in the decision to make each collectivized factory prove its legality by 15 September, or be seized by the state (Morrow).
While this decision did not officially end collectivization in commercial industry, it marked the turning point of the government’s campaign to accomplish that goal. Gradually workers’ self-management was eroded, through a variety of methods including official decrees, and behind-the-scenes manipulation. J. Esperanza, a CNT militant working in a leather factory, described how this process occurred for his industry:
Repeatedly, certain officials pestered us with forms and questionnaires which served no purpose, but had the virtue of exasperating the personnel… we resisted the paperwork which was sent by the… bureaucracy of the State… [Finally] they insisted that we renounce our Collective, ceding our rights to the State, which we again refused. Then the authorities decided to requisition our skins and tanning extracts… Unable to work, our comrades were disagreeably surprised by the presence of troops in each one of our 27 factories and our 6 warehouses. For about 5 weeks, there was stationed in our buildings… all of a Battalion to carry out the requisition… with all this the cause of the people was certainly not served, but the destruction of our collective was achieved. (qtd. in Alexander 1019)
This systematic program of repression eliminated workers’ control of industry in Catalonia, bringing about the end of workers’ control of industry before the defeat of the Republic by Franco’s army.
Conclusion
The radical economic changes that marked the beginning year or so of the Spanish Civil War are variously described as the “dangerous experiment” Juan Comorera saw or alternatively, as “an achievement which emerges as a beacon light [that] all revolutionaries… will have to follow” (Leval). Whatever one’s viewpoint on the collectives, however, it is agreed that they marked a profound shift in economic relations. The seizure of industry, which arose organically from the Catalan proletariat at the beginning of the Civil War, and which they would maintain more or less up unto its end despite pressures from both sides of the front lines, was that rare moment in history when a working class of any country took full, direct control of the means of production.
While it may be correctly argued that the pre-war experience of the CNT workers and their leadership ill-prepared them for a direct seizure of power in the workplace, the systems they put in place for direct workers’ control of commercial industry were indeed impressive given the background against which they emerged. It was even more impressive that this ill-organized movement provided the initial salvation for the Spanish Republic. Without them, it would have crumbled far more quickly. Furthermore, it is incredible that the workers of Catalonia managed to maintain this collectivization considering the pressure of the war and the pressure on the home front.
The uniqueness of the Catalan collectives certainly bears examining by historians of modern Spain as well as those looking toward the Catalan workers’ example of self-management, as it was the farthest-reaching of any such experiment in history. Leading anarchist thinker Emma Goldman said about a year before the conquest of Catalonia that the “collectivization of industry shines out as the greatest achievement of any revolutionary period. Even if Franco were to win and the Spanish anarchists were to be exterminated, the idea they have launched will live on” (qtd. in Guérin 142).
Works Cited
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