Why did CNT anarchists refused the mayor of Barcelona's offers during the war..?

[Ohnoatard]

At the start of the war, the mayor of Barcelona offered to step down and turn over power to the anarchists. But the anarchists rejected all states, capitalist ones as well as revolutionary ones. Thus, they rejected the mayor's offer to form their own state, instead leaving the bourgeoisie in control of the old one.

The anarchists hoped that their power in the streets would be sufficient to secure the victory of the revolution. But as the government used its power to limit the militias and disarm the more radical parties, the anarchists realized they could not just stand aside. From rejecting the government, the anarchists now decided to join it, sending four ministers to be a part of the republican government.
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In the End... the government was able to starve, and then cripple, the revolution.

The counterrevolution came to a head in May 1937, when government forces were sent to put down an uprising in revolutionary Barcelona. For days, government soldiers battled CNT and POUM militia members.

Isolated and besieged (the government even sent two of the anarchist ministers to argue with their comrades to stop fighting), the revolution was disarmed, and then beheaded. Following the battle in Barcelona, the government, led by the Communists(Stalinists), disbanded the militias, outlawed the radical parties, and hundreds of revolutionaries disappeared and were murdered.

With the revolution defeated, it was only a matter of time, before Franco's military superiority would prevail.

The tragedy was complete when Franco's forces entered Barcelona in January of 1938. This time, there were no heroics, no courageous defense.

There was nothing left to fight for.

As one observer wrote: "Barcelona accepted defeat with sorrow and saw no purpose at all in prolonging the fight. We were no longer in 1936."

[Raúl Duke]

I heard a few reasons...

Some certain reasons being around the concept of timidity and "worrying about British battleships" at sea. Another time when revolutionaries where timid was during the Paris Commune (i.e. they didn't take the money/gold from the central bank of Paris; the money/gold allegedly made its way to the counter-revolutionaries which used it to fund an army to put down the commune) and they didn't do an offensive against Verseilles or where ever the place where this army that later put down the Commune was being set up.

Another reason perhaps was they thought that perhaps it's better to "fight all united" (a "united front") against fascism and then later take all the power.

However, I personally don't know of any exact reasons why the anarchists or more specifically the CNT of Spain didn't (or don't remember the well-articulated reasons) but don't worry someone more knowledgeable (Like pastradamus I guess) will address your question.

[What Would Durruti Do?]

Well they pretty much already controlled the government anyway and made them irrelevant did they not? Isn't that how they were allowed to form the militias in the first place?

[Bitter Ashes]

This isnt my strongest subject, so I expect to be corrected for this.

It's my understanding that the CNT was a syndachist organisation. They already had power of the means of production and the workplaces were in democratic workers control. Maybe they thought that was enough for them at that moment? There was an awful lot going on at that point and it's possible that it was agreed that learning how to maintain public services from scratch was something that could wait until more peaceful times, because they already had a very effective method of lobbying the goverment with thier workers' councils.

That'd seem like the logical answer to me, but it's only guesswork and I'm sure there's people on this forum who would be better suited to give input on this than me.