Hierarchy in Anarchist Spain?

[Mindtoaster]

Quick question from a newbie.

I was debating with a Canadian guy who goes by the name of SolAurum on Youtube. He seems to support some odd kind of Non-Authoritarian fascism or... Well, I have no clue really but he's a complete reactionary who seems to have quite a distorted view of history and of the human being.

Anyway he posted on my profile:

"Come on dude, get real. Illegal immigrants are destroying America, it's muddling of culture that causes civilization collapse! But then you don't care, you prefer anarchy, chaos and disorder. Fool."

I went to respond to him and noticed in the rants he has on his profile that he had written down the following:

"Interests and Hobbies: My Fascism: First, we start with the reality of human nature. Anarchism, marxism, communism, all the left ideologies fail because of their denial of human nature. Namely, that humans are hierarchical animals. Even anarchist Spain had a hierarchy."


I have responded since but I was wondering... Was there actually hierarchy within the CNT, FAI, and Anarchist Catalonia. Is there even evidence that points towards the possibility of this?

[mykittyhasaboner]

i certainly have never read anything to suggest that there was a hierarchy. he is foolish for saying that. i mean its anarchism for fucks sake, how can their be an established hierarchy? what a moron.

[gla22]

yeah same, I have never heard any reports of hierarchy in anarchist Spain. Ask for proof or tell him to GTFO.

[Andres Marcos]

Although im not sure of the parts in Catalonia, Republican Spain under the leadership of Francisco Caballero there were representatives and Republican ministers from the CNT-FAI as early as October 1936 actually.

http://books.google.com/books?id=IBDCcHoPBiQC&pg=PA242&lpg=PA242&dq=CNT-FAI+ministers+in+the+government.&source=web&ots=ahDQ3U0v4l&sig=DOiGVBQLBqldaA1H_2jR2zHLwp8&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPA237,M1

[spartan]

Well some people in Catalonia had guns whilst others didn't.

Guess who got their wish to implement their ideas when push came to shove?

Of course this doesn't imply any sort of hierarchy on the part of the Anarchists in Spain, especially as it was with the majority of people's consent and active participation or so we are led to believe, but it does imply that armed groups have an advantage over others who aren't armed (Namely you aren't armed so dont get too critical or we will execute you as a counter-revolutionary even though you may be nothing of the sort).

Of course they were in the middle of a bloody civil war against Nationalists so we can forgive them their very few, and i mean very few, sins, especially when compared to the many sins of the Stalinists in Republican Spain who's treachery practically handed victory to the Nationalists on a golden plate with a thank you note on it.

[Bright Banana Beard]

Stalin betrayed the Spanish workers, of course. Oh wait.... he can't do shit.

[Random Precision]

Well, there was what we would call "dual power" in Catalonia at the start of the Civil War. On the one hand, there was the somewhat autonomous bourgeois Generalitat, and then there were the Military Revolutionary Committees mostly organized by anarchist workers. Unfortunately the leaders of the CNT-FAI never insisted on the importance of those committees or took steps to make them stronger; as a result they were easily crushed by Stalinist incursion about nine months into the war. The CNT also bought into the bankrupt politics of the Popular Front, and participated in both the Generalitat and Republican government until their ministers were forced out after the May Days.

So in answer to your question, I would say that there certainly was hierarchy in Catalonia, but it took the form of what could have been the emerging dictatorship of the proletariat- and it's a shame that the anarchist leadership lacked the confidence needed to bring it into being.

[Andres Marcos]

Guess who got their wish to implement their ideas when push came to shove?In actuality that is what happened at times, in instance of the ''voluntary'' collectivization there were many cases when it was actually forced, it seems of the other anarchists the CNT-FAI knew halfway in order to win a war you cnt just set your ideals above reality.


Unfortunately the leaders of the CNT-FAI never insisted on the importance of those committees or took steps to make them stronger; as a result they were easily crushed by Stalinist incursion about nine months into the war.
Stalin betrayed the Spanish workers, of course. Oh wait.... he can't do shit.
This would make it seem that the "Stalinists" were the ones to "betray" the anarchists first, and were not defending themselves from attack. This is from a book that is actually sympathetic to the anarchists:

"Workers! Don’t Vote!... Destroy the ballot boxes...crack the heads of the ballot supervisors as well as the candidates." When elections were called...the right won an overwhelming victory, ushering in what became known as El Bienio Negro, the two black years. (Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868—1936 p. 239),


"The Popular Front government appealed to the CNT-FAI, and Montseny and Oliver were dispatched to Barcelona to end the fighting. Over the radio, Oliver and later Montseny appealed to CNT militants to dismantle the barricades and return home."


"However, In Valencia...general strike ensued...Likewise, in Barcelona and Madrid..."

Spain was likely to have fallen (not only from Franco's army coming in from the South, but) because the sheer disunity of aim among all the groups. The anarchists while simultaneously fighting the fascists also fought against Communists and vice versa. You have to keep in mind POUM AND the CNT-FAI WERE part of the Popular Front and were still appealed to join it back again even during Barcelona skirmishes.

[Random Precision]

This would make it seem that the "Stalinists" were the ones to "betray" the anarchists first, and were not defending themselves from attack. This is from a book that is actually sympathetic to the anarchists:

"Workers! Don’t Vote!... Destroy the ballot boxes...crack the heads of the ballot supervisors as well as the candidates." When elections were called...the right won an overwhelming victory, ushering in what became known as El Bienio Negro, the two black years. (Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868—1936 p. 239),

This is referring to an election several years before the war. I don't really see what it has to do with the discussion.



"The Popular Front government appealed to the CNT-FAI, and Montseny and Oliver were dispatched to Barcelona to end the fighting. Over the radio, Oliver and later Montseny appealed to CNT militants to dismantle the barricades and return home."


"However, In Valencia...general strike ensued...Likewise, in Barcelona and Madrid..."

Now this is (I believe) referring to the May Days, which was indeed provoked by the Stalinists, with the full cooperation of the organs of the Republican Government and Generalitat. They recieved a bit more than they bargained for:


The Telephone Building of Barcelona is located in the centre of the city, on Plaza Catalunya. Like all public enterprises, not only in Catalonia but throughout Spain, the telephone building had been taken over by the workers' organisations and controlled by them according to the Decree of Collectivisation of October 24th, 1936. A delegate of the Catalan Generality was at the head of the control committee of the workers. This arrangement was in accord with the laws of the country. It is likely that the UGT was not satisfied with this state of affairs because it had fewer members in the control committee than the CNT. But they also had fewer members among the workers and employees of the telephone building. Rodriguez Salas, not wishing to wait until his partisans might win over a majority of the workers and employees to this organisation, decided to gain absolute control of the Telephone Exchange by force.

About three o'clock in the afternoon of May 3rd, three motor lorries of police drove up to the telephone building under his personal command. They entered the building, wanting to occupy it. The manner of their approach was, of necessity, regarded as an insulting provocation of the workers. They were asked to put up their hands and turn over their weapons. (Since last July, all responsible leaders of organisations, political parties, public institutions, etc., carry small arms. In addition, all public building have arms as a protection against fascists, some only rifles, and others, more important, also have machine guns.)

The workers defended themselves. A machine gun covered the police from an upper storey. They could not go beyond the first floor. While all this was taking place inside the building, word of the assault spread in the square, and soon after, throughout the city. It was as though a match had been set to gunpowder. The workers of Barcelona, belonging to the CNT in an overwhelming majority, feared that this might be only the beginning of still further actions against their rights. People came from all parts of the city to see what had happened; the police tried to keep them back; the collision had taken place.

Workers and police ran about excitedly in every section of the city The union headquarters were full of people. Everybody wanted arms. Everybody wanted to be ready to defend other buildings from similar assaults. Perhaps, at some other time, this assault upon the telephone building might not have had such consequences. But the accumulation of political conflicts during the past few months had made the atmosphere tense. It was impossible to stem the indignation of the masses.

- Augustin Souchy, "The May Days in Barcelona 1937" (see also firsthand accounts by Orwell, Nin, and those in Fraser's "Blood of Spain" and secondhand accounts from Broue/Temime, Bolloten, Morrow, Peirats, Alexander, etc.)


Spain was likely to have fallen (not only from Franco's army coming in from the South, but) because the sheer disunity of aim among all the groups. The anarchists while simultaneously fighting the fascists also fought against Communists and vice versa.

Yes. There were two sides in anti-fascist Spain. One, made up of the anarchist and POUM rank and file, sought to turn the civil war into a revolutionary war. The other, composed of the remnants of the bourgeois regime that had not gone over to fascism, the few liberal Republicans left, reformists and the Communist Party, sought to preserve the decaying bourgeois regime against both a fascist insurrection and a popular revolution (in the case of the latter thinly disguised in rhetoric about the bourgeois-democratic revolution). So one side was revolutionary, and the other counter-revolutionary, there was bound to be conflict between them.


You have to keep in mind POUM AND the CNT-FAI WERE part of the Popular Front and were still appealed to join it back again even during Barcelona skirmishes.

Indeed. But I make no apologies for the leadership of either group. Furthermore, the POUM was dismissed from the government shortly after the May Days, as well as widely persecuted.

[Sendo]

In actuality that is what happened at times, in instance of the ''voluntary'' collectivization there were many cases when it was actually forced, it seems of the other anarchists the CNT-FAI knew halfway in order to win a war you cnt just set your ideals above reality.


This would make it seem that the "Stalinists" were the ones to "betray" the anarchists first, and were not defending themselves from attack. This is from a book that is actually sympathetic to the anarchists:

"Workers! Don’t Vote!... Destroy the ballot boxes...crack the heads of the ballot supervisors as well as the candidates." When elections were called...the right won an overwhelming victory, ushering in what became known as El Bienio Negro, the two black years. (Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists: The Heroic Years, 1868—1936 p. 239),


"The Popular Front government appealed to the CNT-FAI, and Montseny and Oliver were dispatched to Barcelona to end the fighting. Over the radio, Oliver and later Montseny appealed to CNT militants to dismantle the barricades and return home."


"However, In Valencia...general strike ensued...Likewise, in Barcelona and Madrid..."

Spain was likely to have fallen (not only from Franco's army coming in from the South, but) because the sheer disunity of aim among all the groups. The anarchists while simultaneously fighting the fascists also fought against Communists and vice versa. You have to keep in mind POUM AND the CNT-FAI WERE part of the Popular Front and were still appealed to join it back again even during Barcelona skirmishes.


I don't understand this Stalinist sense of war. Are you saying we should stop having revolution as soon as the most modest gains are made and then prop them up with a state army that squashes internal dissent?

You're probably proposing that the anarchists could not "win" the civil war. This is true. It is also true that neither could the Stalinist Communists. IF you define "win" in the traditional manner.

Now the anarchist areas made strides in improving productivity and quality of life. Wouldn't it then make sense to work together as much as possible within the collectives and realize that Franco's armies strolling down Main Street is not a death knell but rather self-sabotage of revolutionary ideas is the death knell? It would be better to risk "losing" and stage guerrilla war than to revert to some liberal democracy for the sake of "unity". Why not spread the revolution beyond the borders of Republican Spain? Just because that plan (spreading the revolution) did not come through for Lenin doesn't mean we should give up trying it. Dying for the Republican cause post-Catalonia seems like a waste to me. Why die for something that has been eroded to a status of "lesser evil"?

I'm not going for ultra-left purity here. Based on my understanding of the civil war, what the Communist party wanted was a complete reversal to a liberal republic with the hope that IF the Republic wins, then there MIGHT be a revolution at a later date. Seems like bullshit to get people to accept authoritarianism. There will always be an aggressor, if not Franco, then it would have become UK and France and the US. We can not slow down the revolution for the sake of fighting this war or that war and justifying it by saying "As soon as we're done we'll seize the means of production...I promise"

[ellipsis]

I posted this on my blog. It is about the Abraham Lincoln Brigades.


Desert Peace's (http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/12/lessons-from-past-against-tyranny.html) post of Stephen Lendman's article on the Spanish Civil War and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, American anti-fascist volunteers. The anarchist elements of the Republican anti-Franco forces during the Spanish Civil War did some really remarkable and innovative things. The actions and tactics of Buenaventura Duranti heavily influence Abraham Guillen who trained and inspired countless urban guerrilla is South America. This section of the aforementioned article is particularly relevant for this blog's purposes.

The "Lincolns," wanted democratic freedom and fascism defeated. Its volunteers became known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade although fighting units chose their own names and identities. In keeping with the "Popular Front" culture, they became part of the Fifteenth International Brigade along with nationals from other countries. They called themselves the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, the George Washington Battalion, and the John Brown Battery that included 125 doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and technicians with the American Medical Bureau. They were all volunteers for a noble cause and among them was the first ever racially integrated unit in US history and first one ever led by a black commander. Most never fired a rifle or had military training, but they were committed to learn and they did fast.

They also practiced what they believed in the ranks and created an egalitarian "peoples' army." Rank-and-file soldiers at times elected their own officers and generally shunned traditional military protocol. With them were well-known, or aspiring, writers, artists, composers and filmmakers, including James Lardner (son of Ring Lardner Sr.), Joseph Vogel, Ralph Fasanella, Conlon Nancarrow, Edwin Rolfe, Alvah Bessie, Phil Bard, William Lindsay Gresham and famed author Ernest Hemingway. He supported the "Popular Front," went to Spain in 1937 to report on the war, and spent most of it with the International Brigades.

[Lamanov]

First of all, Spain wasn't "anarchist". Anarchism was a formidable force.

Second, there was no actual hierarchy in the CNT. Everything was decided by direct action. However, there were some acts that could have suggested hierarchy. Certain anarchist members, notable militants, made deals with leftist leaders in the first hours of crisis (like Durruti, Oliver and Santillan with Companys in his residence in the night of 19-20th july to make a pact against the rebels) before any discussions took place on that matter.

Of course, it's relatively comprehensive, but it doens't justify the moves.

When CNT collectives met, cooperation with People's Front Goverment on the grounds of "antifascism" was already happening. Revolutionary huntas were controling everything, but they weren't excercising complete political power since government was left intacked.

On september 4th new prime minister Caballero call in the anarchists to join the government: they refused (after series of meetings), but didn't do anything else. (Garcia Oliver got pissed off over this: "Either we fight, or we cooperate! Make a decision!")

Since nothing was happening, while most militant members were at the front lines and while unions were bussy over economic mess, reformists prevailed.

Real hierarchy in anarchist ranks was created when Birtan, Domenech and Fabergas entered Generalidad on september 27th as ministers. It happened not after a broad congress, because it was difficult to consult the base unions, but after regional plenary meeting. This meant hampering with direct democracy over serious issues, even though they believed it was temporary.

This was followed by "joint statements" of CNT and PSUC on october 22nd, after which de-collectivisation began (on 24th all workplaces with less then 100 workers were returned to private ownership). On october 29th Oliver, Lopez, Santillan and Montseny joined the republican government as ministers.