Did the catalonians restrict rights to expression to certain groups?

[The Man]

In Anarchist Catalonia, did the Anarchists restrict the freedom of speech by Pro-Capitalists, Fascists, and other opposing thoughts?

Do you think that should happen in an Anarchist society?

[syndicat]

the fascists were rounding up leftists in towns they captured and murdering them. in that context, a person would not be wise to admit they had sympathies with the "national movement." the usual criticism is not just about freedom of speech but about whether they would kill the fascists. the answer is this: at the moment of the onset of the civil war, there was such popular anger that many people with rightist views were rounded up by various left groups, including anarchists, and killed. but the official anarchist organizations...FAI and CNT...did not approve of this and ordered that these killings stop.

[Jack]

Anarchist street gangs basically took over in the cities and killed over 3,000 members of the clergy alone (sometimes quite brutally, one Jesuit priest had his eyes gouged out by anarchists and was stabbed in the chest and left out with a sign that said "I am a Jesuit"). Anarchists would run through upper class neighborhoods and beat up or kill (and usually rob) bourgeois residents (or, in some cases, intellectuals who lived in these neighborhoods). So yes, Rightists were killed and attacked in anarchist run areas.

[Comrade J]

You should read For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway, as there are descriptions of how the bourgeoise and the priest of a town are killed by the rest of the townsfolk. This happened all over Catalonia, people saw it as an opportunity to get rid of those who had exploited them in previous years.

Also Franco sympathisers were imprisoned or killed, as he was known to have spies working amongst the POUM etc.

[PhoenixAsh]

The Catholic Church actually advocated uprisings and siding with the nationalists. that and their previous status as landholders and exploiters made them pretty hated.

The pro soviet communists also killed anarchists...and vice versa...and members of the international birgades and the POUM.

most people killed were suspected 5th colonists.

Overall, and I am not justifying this, the total amount of people killed was several times less than on the other side.

It was a war and it was not pretty.

[Jack]

most people killed were suspected 5th colonists.

It's 5th Collumnist, before a debate starts surrounding them.

[syndicat]

but the OP may be asking about some institutionalized system of repression. the answer is no. in the course of the civil war the Communists set up various political prisons where they held people and tortured them...including Socialist Party people, POUMists, anarchists and fascists. These were called "chekas". the CNT-FAI did not run chekas. Moreover, when Juan Garcia Oliver became Minister of Justice in Nov 1936, one of his first acts was to appoint an anarchist as head of the prisons to put a stop to arbitrary killings. in Oct 1936 for example 1,000 prisoners were summarly taken out of the prisons in Madrid, and out to the edge of town, and murdered. at that time the Madrid Defense Junta was controlled by the Communists.

I mentioned that the CNT-FAI ordered the arbitrary killings to end. they threatened anyone who engaged in these killings with being brought before a popular tribunal. this actually happened. an official of the CNT construction workers union was brought before the tribunal, accused of carrying out a killiing, and he was executed.

[Kléber]

I think the workers, anarchist and otherwise, were entirely justified in taking out a few fascists given the extraordinary situation, since the bourgeois Popular Front was afraid to do the job by imprisoning them and confiscating their property. But the Anarchists did not actually take power in Catalonia. The real problem with the CNT-FAI is that it didn't go far enough; independent worker militants took action to destroy and expel the reactionary classes, but the proletariat's leaders - Anarchist and POUMist - were afraid to fulfill their historical role and challenge the government by organizing workers' power or defending it, while the Stalinists played the most disgraceful role of all, they actually turned their guns against the working class. On the political stage the CNT-FAI and POUM retreated before every rightward lurch of the government, even as their political base was being systematically destroyed through torture and murder. The cowardly inaction of the CNT-FAI and POUM ensured that the Republican zone was dominated by the liberal shadow of an almost nonexistent bourgeoisie, puffed up by Soviet aid and the sectarian machinations of Stalinism, to the horrendous misfortune of the working class and the Republic itself.

[Jose Gracchus]

There was a comprehensive plan for workers' power based on workers' councils and congresses building up from collectivized industries and workplaces along industrial lines, and geographic-political organization building up from neighborhood assemblies and committees to urban communes and regional and national federations. It would have required the UGT go along with it, though.

[syndicat]

The real problem with the CNT-FAI is that it didn't go far enough; independent worker militants took action to destroy and expel the reactionary classes, but the proletariat's leaders - Anarchist and POUMist - were afraid to fulfill their historical role and challenge the government by organizing workers' power or defending it, while the Stalinists played the most disgraceful role of all, they actually turned their guns against the working class. On the political stage the CNT-FAI and POUM retreated before every rightward lurch of the government, even as their political base was being systematically destroyed through torture and murder. The cowardly inaction of the CNT-FAI and POUM ensured that the Republican zone was dominated by the liberal shadow of an almost nonexistent bourgeoisie, puffed up by Soviet aid and the sectarian machinations of Stalinism, to the horrendous misfortune of the working class and the Republic itself.

There is some truth to this. But it is also a half-truth. The CNT did in fact develop a revolutionary program to replace the Republican state, and in Sept 1936 attempted to negotiate with the UGT and the Left Socialists (largest Marxist faction to left of the CP). the CNT was a multi-tendencied organization...a mass organization. the majority had supported the initial plan for a negotiated solution with the UGT. the UGT was half the organized working class. the CNT and the anarchists divided internally, however, over what to do once Largo Caballero and the rest of the UGT/Left Socialist leadership rejected their proposal, and insisted on pursuing the Popular Front strategy.

Durruti and the revolutionary wing of the movement favored the CNT pushing the issue by taking power in regions where they were the majority and had the means to create a structure of workers power. They in fact did this in Aragon.

But the minority treintista faction supported the Popular Front. the deciding tendency were the people in the FAI in between Durruti and his camp and the treintistas. they wavered and ultimately lacked the guts to push forward with workers power to the level of governance of whole regions. Durruti believed that doing this would force the PSOE & UGT to go along, and I think he's right. But his viewpoint did not win out in the internal debates in the CNT in Sept-Nov 1936.

[gorillafuck]

Yes there was repression against fascists. They physically fought fascists, why on earth would they allow them to propagate in anarchist areas? So physically fighting them is a-okay but repressing what they say isn't?:laugh:

But a lot of the alleged actions of them are made up, results of fascist propaganda.

[Franz Fanonipants]

Fascist don't deserve a voice.

[Old Man Diogenes]

In Anarchist Catalonia, did the Anarchists restrict the freedom of speech by Pro-Capitalists, Fascists, and other opposing thoughts?

Do you think that should happen in an Anarchist society?

While this isn't technically about 'opposing thoughts', they weren't particularly consistent with the anarcho-syndicalism of the CNT and I found it an interesting little piece of info :);

"Spanish anarcho-syndicalism had long been concerned to safeguard the autonomy of what it called “affinity groups.” There were many adepts of naturism and vegetarianism among its members, especially among the poor peasants of the south. Both these ways of living were considered suitable for the transformation of the human being in preparation for a libertarian society. At the Saragossa congress the members did not forget to consider the fate of groups of naturists and nudists, “unsuited to industrialization.” As these groups would be unable to supply all their own needs, the congress anticipated that their delegates to the meetings of the confederation of communes would be able to negotiate special economic agreements with the other agricultural and industrial communes. Does this make us smile? On the eve of a vast, bloody, social transformation, the CNT did not think it foolish to try to meet the infinitely varied aspirations of individual human beings."

- 'Anarchism: From Theory to Practice' by Daniel Guérin, http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Daniel_Guerin__Anarchism__From_Theory_to_Practice. html