Workers’ Democracy in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1937

Andy Durgan

In terms of socioeconomic experiments the revolutionary movement in Spain during the summer of 1936 went further than most similar movements in Europe in the twentieth century. But unlike in Russia in 1917 or Germany in 1918, rather than workers’ councils a myriad of committees emerged to provide the basis of a new and highly fragmented revolutionary democracy. These bodies were both an inspiration of Spain’s powerful libertarian ⁶⁷ movement and a result of the practical needs of workers and peasants faced with a Fascist military uprising and the temporary collapse of the state.⁶⁸

Precedents

The idea that working-class people should run society was common among organized workers in Spain by the first decades of the twentieth century. The libertarian movement in particular had propagated this concept through a variety of forms of popular education and propaganda.

Spanish anarchism did not have a uniform vision for a future society, but it lacked for neither ideologues nor ideas when it came to drawing up plans or schemes for such an eventuality. Anarchist strategies for social revolution ranged from the mass revolutionary general strike to different forms of direct action and armed insurrection. All currents saw prefigurative forms of organization—whether the union or the municipal commune—as central to the revolutionary project. In contrast to the libertarians, Spain’s wouldbe Marxists were far less prolific when it came to posing alternatives to bourgeois democracy. The Socialist Workers’ Party’s (PSOE) deterministic brand of Marxism saw socialism as inevitable and amounting to little more than state control; although the immediate task was the completion of the bourgeois revolution, not socialism.

With the establishment of the republic in April 1931, the small Spanish Communist Party’s (PCE) call for the overthrow of the “bourgeois Republic” and “all power” to the (nonexistent) “soviets” was met with indifference if not hostility. However, the general enthusiasm for the new parliamentary democracy would not last long. In a context of deepening economic crisis, strikes led by the anarcho-syndicalist union, the CNT, were repressed and social reform was systematically blocked by the right. As a result both the powerful anarchist and Socialist movements underwent a process of radicalization during the first two years of the republic.

Inside the CNT the radical anarchist groups, in particular those organized inside the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI), were increasingly influential. Sections of the CNT now launched a series of armed insurrections—in January 1932 and January–December 1933—which saw the emergence of various forms of “revolutionary committees,” anticipating the similar bodies that would play an important role in 1936. Meanwhile, inside the Socialist movement a “revolutionary” left wing emerged under the leadership of veteran trade unionist Francisco Largo Caballero. By the elections of November 1933, the Socialists had broken with their petit bourgeois Republican allies in favor of an “all Socialist” government. The leadership of the CNT urged workers to boycott the elections altogether, thus contributing to a rightist victory.

It was widely perceived that the new, rightist government would be merely a staging post on the road to a quasi-fascist regime under the clerical reactionary party, Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA). The violent repression of the workers’ movement in Germany and Austria heightened the belief on the left that only armed insurrection and social revolution would avoid the Spanish workers’ movement suffering a similar fate. In response, “Workers’ Alliances against Fascism” were formed, first in Catalonia in December 1933 and over the coming months in many other parts of the country. These alliances were based on delegates from existing workers’ organizations: Socialists, dissident Communists (the real inspirers of the alliances), CNT “moderates” (Treintistas), and nonaligned unions (Durgan 1996, 240–266).

There was little consensus among the component organizations as to the alliances’ exact role in any revolutionary process. Only the dissident communist Bloque Obrero y Campesino (BOC—workers’ and peasants’ bloc) and the Trotskyists defended the centrality of workers’ councils to the creation of a future socialist society. This meant the alliances would need to be “democratized” by being elected from below rather than comprised of representatives of existing organizations.

Events would soon reveal both the limitations and potential of the alliances as organs of power. With the entrance of the reactionary CEDA into government in October 1934, the Socialist Party called a general strike to block the path to “fascism.” Without clear leadership or organization the strike soon faltered, except in Asturias. The region’s context as a mining community threatened with economic crisis—combined with local traditions of solidarity and the fact that the whole workers’ movement, including the CNT, supported the alliances—kept the strike going. Communications, economic activity, and military defense were coordinated through the alliances, which rapidly became the only authority in the region and the basis of a revolutionary government. Crushed by the army after two weeks of heroic resistance, the Asturian Commune would prove an important milestone on the road to war and revolution.

With elections approaching in early 1936, encouraged by the Social Democratic wing of the PSOE and the PCE, a Popular Front coalition of the whole left was formed, spanning from the petit bourgeois Republican parties to the POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification).⁶⁹ The general context of growing radicalization in the months to follow belied any claim that the Popular Front’s electoral victory in the 1936 elections reflected support for liberal democracy. Organized workers had voted en masse to obtain an amnesty for the thousands imprisoned after the October 1934 strike and to avoid a victory for the right. The lack of any unity initiative from left Socialists and anarcho-syndicalists alike had meant there had been no electoral alternative to the Popular Front.

With the Republican parties in government the left Socialists still advocated “revolution” as the only road open to the working class. What this revolution would entail was less than clear. Rather than through democratically elected soviets, they saw socialism being introduced through a party dictatorship, which, in turn, was confused with the dictatorship of the proletariat per se. The left Socialists’ passivity—they somehow believed the Republican project would fall apart of its own accord—combined with their ideological ambiguities explains, to some degree, their lack of any independent role in the coming revolution.

The CNT for its part, having suffered greatly from repression, opted at its congress in May 1936 to abandon its insurrectional strategy in favor of a “revolutionary alliance” with the Socialist trade union federation, the UGT. Nevertheless most of the congress was dedicated to elaborating its vision of a future libertarian society. In the resulting documents—based on some one hundred and fifty proposals from different unions—the municipal commune gave way to the union as the basic organism of daily life. Despite the intensity of this debate the CNT, according to Xavier Paniagua, would enter the revolution two months later “without having clarified the most basic economic concepts” (1982, 265–272).

The Committees

The military uprising of July 18, 1936, divided Spain into two antagonistic zones. The presence of thousands of armed—albeit poorly—workers in the streets assured in many areas the loyalty of the Assault Guards (the Republican police force) and even the paramilitary Civil Guards. Where the workers’ movement waited for the authorities to take the initiative, the rebels were usually victorious given the Republican parties’ reluctance to distribute arms to the civilian population. The immediate territorial division of the country left about 60 percent of the population and most of the main industrial areas in the hands of the Republic. The rebels controlled some of the more important agricultural areas and managed to divide the loyalist zone in two, the north being isolated from the center and east.

With the collapse of much of the Republican state’s infrastructure, the facilitation of everyday life, soon profoundly affected by the stringencies of war, passed directly to the working class and its organizations. Participation in the unfolding revolutionary movement was not confined to the most active sectors of the organized working class: local studies show a high level of involvement of the masses in general. In particular, many women now entered into political life for the first time and played a leading role in the rearguard mobilization (Pozo 2002, 28; Durgan 2007, 79–87).

Barcelona, the epicenter of the revolution, saw what Chris Ealham has described as the “biggest revolutionary fiesta in twentieth-century Europe.” Workers’ control extended to the expropriation of property and its reallocation for social needs. In some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods there was an existing prewar culture of resistance and occupation of urban space, and this provided the basis for an embryonic process of social transformation. Not only did parties and unions occupy premises on a massive scale, but churches, the houses of the wealthy, and other buildings were also transformed into hospitals, schools, popular restaurants, warehouses, and garages (2005, 113, 122–127).

Once the working-class armed resistance had defeated the military uprising in over half of Spain, a military coup now became a civil war. One of the most immediate consequences of the workers’ victory was the near disintegration of the Republican state in those areas not under Fascist control. Instead, power resided in a myriad of local and regional committees. Most of these committees consisted of representatives of existing organizations and in this sense were similar to the workers’ alliances of 1934.

In many localities the committees took over the functions of municipal government, which often proceeded to disappear altogether. Where local town councils continued to exist, they were generally subordinate to or controlled by the revolutionary committee. One of the first acts of the committees in each town was to burn property titles, convert the church (if it had not been burnt down) into a warehouse or garage and collectivize the land. The procedure was similar in larger towns and cities. Barcelona served as an example:

The (CNT) defense committees, transformed into revolutionary neighborhood committees, in the absence of any slogan from any organization and without any more coordination than the revolutionary initiatives that each moment demanded, organized hospitals (and) popular dining halls, confiscated cars, lorries, arms, factories and buildings, searched private homes and carried out arrests of suspicious individuals and created a network of Supply Committees (Guillamón 2007, 80).

Most set up subcommittees to carry out these various tasks. They often financed themselves by expropriations or by charging local businesses a “war tax.” Some committees had their own press, invariably having taken over the local conservative newspaper.

The committees soon established their own security forces—“control patrols” or “rearguard militia”—as much to end arbitrary killings as to repress counterrevolutionaries. The victims of repression were usually members of rightist organizations, landowners, industrialists, and the clergy. The widespread nature of this repression in the first weeks of the war in the Republican rearguard was a reflection, albeit an unpalatable one, of mass radicalization ; it contrasted starkly with the bourgeois-democratic pretensions of the Popular Front.

The committees also immediately set themselves the task of recruiting and equipping militia columns to be sent to the front. These militias soon numbered around one hundred fifty thousand combatants, including former army troops. They were usually organized along democratic lines, especially those controlled by the CNT. The equivalents of officers were either elected by the troops or appointed by the left organizations; section and company leaders (the equivalents of sergeants and corporals) were nearly always elected. The civilian commanders of militia columns and units had often been leaders of prewar labor defense groups. Professional officers acted as military advisers. There were no differences in pay or treatment among ranks. Political discussion was common but orders were usually accepted without question once action had to be taken.

The most extensive system of committees was in Catalonia.⁷⁰ Hundreds of these bodies controlled local political, social, and economic life, adopting a variety of denominations: “revolutionary committee,” “antifascist committee,” “defense” or “militia committee,” and, in a minority of cases, “Popular Front committee” (more common in the rest of Spain). As elsewhere, most were established by the workers’ organizations “from above”; only in small villages where these organizations hardly existed were there direct elections. In a few localities the representatives were elected by assemblies of the members of the workers’ organizations, or by the militia, or by armed civilians.

The CNT dominated the majority of committees in Catalonia. Represented to a lesser extent, depending on local circumstances, were the peasants’ union, Unió de Rabassaires, the POUM, the UGT, and the newly formed PSUC.⁷¹ The petit bourgeois parties were sometimes excluded in the first weeks from the committees as being “not sufficiently antifascist.” But in contrast with the left Republican organizations in the rest of Spain, the principal Catalan Republican party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC), was a genuine mass party. Many of its members were in the CNT and in some towns outside Barcelona were active in resisting the military uprising in July 1936. The peculiarities of the ERC explain its resilience in the weeks to come and its ability to reassert its influence.

One of the clearest examples of the rupture with institutional authority in Catalonia was the city of Lleida—soon to be of strategic importance, given its position as a stopover for the Aragonese front. Here the ERC and other “bourgeois” parties were excluded from the Popular Committee that now ran the city; the influence of the POUM determined that only the working-class organizations were represented. A general assembly of union committees—effectively a “workers’ parliament”—debated and ratified the decisions of the committee. The first people’s tribunal in Catalonia, set up to judge the republic’s enemies, was established in Lleida in August; the Workers’ Social Brigade controlled the streets and hunted down counterrevolutionaries. Agrarian and supply subcommittees were also established and a municipal committee replaced the town council (Sagués 2005, 71–76).

In fact, in nearly all the most important committees in Catalonia, in spite of the inclusion of the Republicans the working-class organizations were in the majority. But if the distinction is made between revolutionary and Popular Front organizations, the majority usually tipped in favor of the latter. For example, in the important Sabadell Defense Committee, the workers’ organizations in general accounted for nine of the eleven representatives; specifically the CNT-POUM, only four.

Apart from the local committees, regional and provincial bodies were also established in the first days of the war. Some, like the Catalan Comité Central de Milicies Antifeixistes (CCMA), the Junta of Vizcaya, or the Council of Aragon, functioned as “truly autonomous governments.” These regional committees were of basically three types. At one extreme were regional Popular Fronts grouped around the civil governor, and at the other the anarchist-run Council of Aragon. Between these two extremes were those committees in which the most powerful organization in the region wielded the most influence (Broué 1982, 38, 42–3).

Often presented as an embryonic proletarian government, the CCMA was set up under the auspices of the Catalan government, the Generalitat, on July 21 with representatives from all the left and workers’ organizations. The Catalan president, Lluis Companys, hoped to channel resistance to the military uprising by creating a unitary body outside his government and hence acceptable to the anarcho-syndicalists. Earlier the same day an extraordinary plenum of the CNT had voted to accept the formation of the CCMA and to reject any possibility of taking power (“going for all”), as this would mean the establishment of a “libertarian dictatorship.” The Popular Front majority in the CCMA was not regarded as a problem by the anarcho-syndicalists, who believed the revolution was safe given their armed strength.⁷²

The declared intention of the CCMA was not to replace the Generalitat but in practice it soon did. As the anarchist leader Adad de Santillán put it, the CCMA was at the same time “the [Catalan] war ministry, the interior and foreign ministry and directed the activities of similar economic and cultural organisms. [It was] the most legitimate expression of the people’s power” (cited in Bernecker 1982, 390). Apart from helping to coordinate the organizing, provisioning, and sending of militia columns to the front, the CCMA established transport, health, education, and, most importantly, civilian supplies and security subcommittees.

Its first decree was for the maintenance of “revolutionary order” and it immediately established the “control patrols,” composed of members of all the left organizations but principally from the CNT, to impose order.⁷³ The patrols became one of the most lasting symbols of proletarian revolution in Barcelona. For the more moderate sections of the population the patrols stood as an uncomfortable example of revolutionary power, a power enhanced by their semi-autonomous status. Without the consent of any organization, they established their own tribunal to mete out justice to suspected counterrevolutionaries. Apart from the patrols, the CNT and other organizations and neighborhood committees had their own armed security units.

Parallel to the CCMA the Generalitat established the Consell d’Economia de Catalunya to “co-ordinate the revolution [and] the collectivization of the economy.” In practice the economic council acted independently of the Catalan government and was dominated by the CNT (Cendra 2006).

The CCMA also attempted to impose its authority on the local committees outside Barcelona, insisting they should serve as no more than recruiting bodies for the militia and even refusing to recognize those committees that did not include all the antifascist organizations. Its success in this regard was limited; most local bodies continued to enjoy a large degree of autonomy even when they were based on representatives of the very same organizations as were in the CCMA.

Elsewhere in the Republican zone the various regional and provincial committees exercised varying degrees of political, economic, and military control. In Valencia the Popular Executive Committee (CEP) was based on the parties that had signed onto the Popular Front program along with the anarcho-syndicalists; the workers’ organizations had nine representatives and the Republican and regionalist parties four. The central government in Madrid appointed a rival junta in the city, which demanded the CEP’s dissolution. But it was the junta that was soon forced to step down when the CEP forces stormed the remaining barracks in rebel hands at the end of July. The CEP was now the only authority in the city, and it established commissions to carry out the most urgent tasks: supplies, transport, health, justice, banking and taxes, militias and war, propaganda, press and communications, agriculture, commerce, and industry. In early November 1936 the CEP established an economic council with representatives from the unions to plan production and extend collectivization to all workplaces in which the owner had supported the rebels or that had more than fifty workers. In reality each local union took over the running of expropriated businesses without considering the number of workers or the political affiliation of the owner. Like its Catalan counterpart, the CEP’s attempts to coordinate the extremely diverse local committees in the region were not particularly successful (Girona 1986, 32–73; Bosch 1983, 21, 67, 385).

In some areas competing committees both tried to impose their authority. This was the case in Murcia, with two principal committees: one in the administrative and agricultural center, the provincial capital, led by the Socialists; and the other in the industrial and commercial center of Cartegena, led by the anarcho-syndicalists (González Martinez 1999). Likewise in Asturias there were two rival committees: the Provincial Committee in Sama, controlled by the Socialists; and the War Committee in Gijon, which, although including Socialists and Republicans, was “dominated by the anarchists.” The Gijon committee controlled the coast and surrounding area, setting up numerous intermediate committees at a neighborhood and factory level that ran security, services, and industry (González Muñiz et al. 1986, 37, 88; Radcliff 2005, 134).

In Andalucía localist traditions impeded the unification of the different committees (Bernecker 1996, 489). The most powerful committee in the region was Malaga’s Committee of Public Safety, despite its authority hardly extending beyond the city. As on most other committees, the workers’ organizations were hegemonic. The CNT played a decisive role, given that it provided the majority of fighters, had mass support, and controlled economic life. Although Malaga’s municipal government continued to exist, and had been purged of rightists, the CNT—unlike in many places in the Republican zone—refused to participate, rendering it ineffective (Lorenzo 1969, 161; Nadal 1988, 138–145).

The Council of Aragon was quite exceptional in that it was initially in the hands of the anarchists alone. It was set up at a plenum of unions in Bujaraloz in early October with the clear intention to put an end to the “excesses” of the militia columns in the region and to “direct economic, social and political activities”; to this end it created seven departments. The council organized its own police, carried out requisitions, imposed rigid mechanisms on the administration of the economy, directed the export of important quantities of oil, almonds, and saffron and the import of other products, and above all used its apparatus to consolidate the power of the CNT (Bernecker 1982, 133–170; 418–430).

Collectivization

In June 1937 the newspaper of the Socialist Land Workers Federation in Valencia stated: “Each revolution has it original characteristic: in England it was Parliament, in France the Rights of Man, in Russia the Soviet; [in ours] . . . the collectives” (Casanova 1988, 79). The widespread collectivization of agriculture, industry, and services was the clearest example of workers’ control and direct democracy during the Spanish Revolution. The nature of this process differed from region to region and had few precedents prior to the war. Most collectives had an extremely practical aim: to keep production and services functioning, to adapt to the specific conditions of war, and to collect the harvest in order to feed both the front and the rearguard.

Services and industry were subject to different forms of intervention by workers or the Republican authorities: socialization, collectivization, workers’ control, cooperativization, municipalization, and nationalization. Employers affected were principally those who had supported the military uprising, although some enterprises were taken over regardless of the owner’s political leanings. Where employers and managers stayed on they usually worked as technicians or advisors.

Collectivization was most common where the CNT was strongest: Catalonia, Valencia, and cities such as Malaga and Cartagena. In Catalonia 40 percent of all industry and services were expropriated; in Barcelona this rose to nearly 80 percent. Most firms were taken over spontaneously in the first days of the military uprising even before the CNT issued instructions to its members to do so. Evidence points to the great majority of workers in industry and services in Barcelona supporting collectivization. The petit bourgeoisie, state functionaries, and technical staff, while opposing the military uprising, tended to favor private property or state control. Parallel to collectivization an arms industry was organized by the Catalan government and the unions but was under the control of the former.

For the CNT collectivization was a means to an end: the socialization of economic production. Over the coming months, both locally and regionally the anarcho-syndicalists drew up plans for establishing the basis of the new economy. At a regional and citywide level many industries were formed into associations to coordinate production. The aim of such associations was the socialization of any given industry, whereby production and profits would be subordinated to the common good.

Collectivized firms were run by factory councils, involving both blueand white-collar representatives and in a few cases the former employer. These councils were elected through mass meetings or were based on existing union bodies. Even when elected they tended to consist of established union leaders and activists. There were also subcommittees dealing with different aspects of running the collective. Although independent union committees were supposed to ensure working conditions did not deteriorate, in practice they did not always carry out this role given the extent of union involvement in the management of the collectives. The level of participation of the workforce in making decisions on running the collective differed from workplace to workplace. In general, decision-making was simplified; most members of the factory council continued working on the shop floor and received wages according to their professional status, with the intention of avoiding the emergence of an internal bureaucracy.

A majority of collectives made moves toward reducing wage differentials. Medical services were established, as were pension schemes. Nurseries were sometimes organized, reflecting the integration of women into industry. Training and education were also promoted and work was occasionally given to those previously involved in “pernicious activities,” such as “prostitutes, gamblers and boxers” (Castells 2002, 136).

The collectivization of industry and services took place under extremely unfavorable circumstances—industrial production had fallen by half by the end of 1937. The war led to shortages in raw materials, the loss of markets, the disruption of trade and transport, and a lack of men of working age (partly compensated by the incorporation of women into the labor process). Late or nonpayment by state bodies further exacerbated financial difficulties. There was also the need to adjust production to address military needs. Further difficulties were caused by technical and white-collar staff opposing collectivization or at least certain measures, such as a more egalitarian wage structure. There were also problems of discipline and lack of effort and the fact that many workers were ill equipped for administrative tasks (Castells 2002, 135).

Despite all these obstacles many urban collectives proved surprisingly efficient, especially when grouped together in associations. In addition to generally improving working conditions, they introduced administrative and structural reforms: for instance, accountancy was centralized, which facilitated bookkeeping and statistics. There was also a drastic reduction of intermediaries: producers and consumers were in closer contact. Developmental research was encouraged, as was import substitution to overcome the war’s disruption of trade. In some cases, the industrial plant and stock were in a better condition when they were returned to the owners at the end of the war than when they had been taken over.

Where the collectivization process went furthest was on the land. By 1937, there were more than 1,500 different rural collectives involving one and half million people. Although Eastern Aragon and the Levante were the principal centers of agricultural collectivization, there were also hundreds of collectives in Andalucía and New Castile. Most of the collectivized land had belonged to large landowners or Fascist sympathizers, or was taken over on the basis of the voluntary merging of existing smallholdings. While in some cases collectivization was enforced from outside, in most cases the peasants and farm laborers took the initiative themselves (Bosch 1983; Casanova 1985, 1988).

Agrarian collectives were usually run by an elected committee and brought under common use fundamentals such as fertilizers, seeds, and machinery. In many, artisans and traders also participated. Frequently schools and cultural centers were established and literacy campaigns launched. Most collectives did not confine themselves to economic issues but often took responsibility for the economic, social, and political life of the village as a whole.

Formally the CNT recognized the rights of small property owners to continue cultivating on an individual basis but in practice some were obliged to work collectively (Bernecker 1996, 541–542). Peasants tended to reject or support collectivization depending on their class interests, the poor and landless understandably being the most enthusiastic. In Valencia, for instance, collectivization was backed by poorer peasants, sharecroppers, and laborers but fiercely opposed by conservative smallholders. Catalonia was a case apart; most peasants were reluctant to give up individual cultivation and collectivization took place mainly where sharecroppers or tenants were poorer. The province of Jaen was unusual in that small and mid-sized landowners joined the collectives alongside sharecroppers and tenant farmers (Garrido González 1979).

In Valencia there were no precedents for collectivization or land occupations. During the anarchist uprising of January 1933, few examples of libertarian communism were put into practice. So the wave of collectivization in 1936 can only be understood in the specific context of the war. Moreover, the 343 Valencia collectives differed greatly, ranging from libertarian experiments to straightforward cooperatives. Yet, despite problems of coordination, insufficient transport, the loss of markets, and a lack of fertilizers, the most efficient collectives, according to the unions, were to be found in this region (Lorenzo 1969, 151).

Agrarian collectivization involving both the CNT and UGT also occurred in Andalucía, Castile, and Murcia. In Andalucía, the Socialist Land Workers’ Federation had included collectivization as part of its program; there had been examples in latifundio (large estates) areas before the war.

Collectivization had also been previously carried out in Castile. When the civil war began the practice spread throughout the region. Initially spontaneous, the collectivization process was soon taken over by the unions, especially the predominant UGT. The CNT, in contrast, hardly existed in Castile at the beginning of the war but grew from three thousand to one hundred thousand members during the first ten months of the war, especially among smallholders. Eventually the anarcho-syndicalists ran 186 of the 455 collectives in the region. According to César Lorenzo, “collectives were . . . so general and spontaneous” in Andalucía and Castile “that no one dared to argue against them.” As a result even members of the PCE and the Republican parties were sometimes involved (Rodrigo González 1985; Lorenzo 1969, 160).

In Eastern Aragon there were an estimated 450 collectives involving 300,000 people by February 1937. Here the collectivization differed in various ways. For instance, unlike in many other areas, prewar inter-union rivalries led local Socialists to be opposed to the process. It has also been claimed frequently that the Catalan anarchist militia initiated the collectivization of land instead of the local peasants themselves. According to Julian Casanova, collectivization in Aragon was inspired by urban revolutionaries whose theories were designed more for landless farmhands than for the smallholding peasantry of Aragon. Available evidence points to different levels of acceptance of the process; whether collectivization was “imposed” or “spontaneous” depended on factors such as class structure and types of land ownership. In general, Casanova concludes that the demise of Republican legality in the region was more important than the armed presence of the CNT militias. Outside pressure to collectivize was greatest near the front and in areas where the CNT had not existed before the war (Bernecker 1996, 521; Casanova 1985, 119–129).

It was in Aragon that the most radical experiments in collectivization took place, reflecting both the poverty of most villages and the fact that in this region the state had collapsed altogether. Hence in many localities a system of vouchers often replaced money. This was not primarily for ideological reasons, as has often been assumed, but because the absence of the state and the subsistence nature of the local economy made the use of currency unnecessary. Goods and food were distributed on the basis of villagers’ needs.

Any surplus produced was reinvested in the collective. For those embracing libertarian ideals there was a strong ethical undercurrent to the collectivization process in the “sharing of poverty,” which was as important ideologically as it was practical economically. Women, however, participated little in the running of the collectives and often received a lower minimum wage than men, illustrating the limitations placed on egalitarianism, even in revolutionary Aragon.

The coordination of agrarian collectives at a regional level, especially during the first year of the war, was usually undertaken by the rural unions, which developed plans to improve and organize production. Valencia was the center of the most ambitious of these regional organizations, exporting citrus fruit on a massive scale.⁷⁴ The Council of Aragon controlled consumption and production, channeling exports and imports through the port of Tarragona.

Due to lack of surviving primary sources it has been difficult to ascertain to what degree the agrarian collectives were effective; taking into account the adverse objective circumstances, most evidence suggests that agricultural output was more or less sustained but there simply was not enough time for these revolutionary experiments to take root.

Rebuilding the State

The revolution under way in much of the Republican zone was shaped by both the military situation and the divisions within the left. By the autumn of 1936, the Fascist army threatened to overwhelm the republic. The lack of a strong centralized authority and the shortcomings of the republic’s military organization had to be solved if defeat were to be averted. For the Popular Front parties ⁷⁵ this meant finishing with a revolution they saw as alienating the middle classes and, in particular, the foreign democracies from which they hoped to obtain arms. The Soviet government, given its aim of forming an alliance with the democracies against the Fascist powers, made the adoption of such a nonrevolutionary policy a condition for the provision of arms to the republic.

The first step toward pushing back the revolution was the formation of a new government, headed by Largo Caballero, on September 4, 1936. Its most immediate aim was to secure a monopoly over armed force. The creation of a regular army, the Popular Army, was counterposed to the claimed ineffectiveness of the revolutionary militias. The militias’ limitations had been demonstrated in facing the better-trained troops under Fascist command, especially on open ground. To overcome such weaknesses the CNT and the POUM also called for a centralized command, but for one controlled by the workers’ organizations rather than under control of the Popular Front government.

In Catalonia the anarcho-syndicalists hoped, by accepting a more direct relationship with the Popular Front parties, to get reciprocal treatment elsewhere in terms of representation as well as supplies and arms for their militias. Consequently the Catalan CNT decided to disband the CCMA and participate in the Generalitat, albeit on the premise that this would be a form of “defense council” and not a “government.” Inside the CCMA no one opposed its dissolution. The POUM argued in its press for the CCMA to “take power” but, fearing isolation from the CNT, it accepted the creation of the new government provided it carried out the “socialist program” of the Consell d’Economia de Catalunya.

Established in late September, the new Catalan government, like the CCMA before it, had a Popular Front majority but the CNT maintained, at least for the time being, a powerful influence.⁷⁶ The most important initiative taken by the Generalitat Council was the introduction of a collectivization decree, which sanctioned and systematized the process under way since July. Under the decree management councils were set up in each company, unions being represented proportionally along with a representative named by the Generalitat. The decree represented a compromise among the different factions in the government. It put an end to spontaneous collectivization and opened the way to increasing state intervention in the economy.

Other measures introduced by the new Catalan government included the expansion and municipalization of public services, a system of people’s tribunals to try suspected supporters of the rebels, legislation regulating civil marriage, a very liberal divorce law, access to birth control, legalized abortion, the promotion of progressive methods in education, and an ambitious program of school building.

Despite these progressive policies—a clear reflection of the balance of forces in autumn 1936—the majority in the Catalan government sought to undermine the revolution. The conversion of the local antifascist committees into municipal councils would prove an important first step toward this aim, allowing the Republican ERC to return to power at a local level, accompanied by the PSUC. The CNT, and to a lesser extent the POUM, presented the municipal councils as a step toward the unity needed to win the war and even as a continuation of the revolution. Opposition to the forming of the new local governments was usually in response to their composition rather than their existence as such. For instance, in Lleida a joint assembly of CNT and POUM members stated that “under no circumstances” should members of Republican parties be allowed representation in the municipal government (Pozo 2002, 307). In many cases the revolutionary committees continued to exist alongside the restored municipal authorities, maintaining control over collectivization and internal security. It usually took the intervention of the CNT leadership to put an end to this parallel situation. Even then, in a third of the new municipal councils, the distribution of representatives stipulated by the Generalitat was not followed (Pozo 2002, 294).⁷⁷

Events in Catalonia proved a precedent for CNT participation in the central government. Military setbacks had reinforced the belief among many anarcho-syndicalist leaders that some form of statewide authority was essential. But a proposal by the CNT in mid-September to set up a “National Defense Council” comprised of itself, the UGT, and the Republicans came to nothing once the Socialist union refused to contemplate taking this step without including the workers’ parties.

In early November, with Madrid threatened by Franco, the CNT, claiming that circumstances had changed the nature of the Spanish state, agreed to enter the government as necessary to win the war and protect the conquests of the revolution. With the authority gained by the participation of the CNT and through its control of the armed forces, credit, trade, and communications sectors, the central government could begin to reestablish its authority. The decision to participate in government appears to have been accepted by most CNT activists. The “tragic reality” of the war had “imposed itself over ideology” (Peirats 2001, 172–184; Bolloten and Esenwein 1990).

With the new central government installed, and following the experience of Catalonia, the remaining antifascist and revolutionary committees were gradually disbanded or absorbed into reconstituted regional, provincial, and municipal authorities. In Andalucía the antifascist committees were dissolved during November and replaced with new municipal committees with CNT participation. In Asturias the Council of Asturias and Leon was formed in December 1936 with a clear majority of representatives from the workers’ movement. In Valencia the CEP continued to meet until January but its authority was undermined by the arrival in early November of the central government. Although new municipal councils were established concurrently throughout the Levante, in an echo of the Catalan process, many committees, especially those controlled by the CNT, initially refused to disband.

Such resistance did not last, however. Even the anarchist-run Council of Aragon sought to incorporate itself within Republican legality, and in January 1937 it was reorganized with the participation of all the Popular Front organizations, albeit still under libertarian hegemony.

The underlying tension between those that advocated continuing with the revolution and those that saw it as an impediment to winning the war was most dramatically reflected in the campaign by the PSUC and the Soviet government against the dissident Communist POUM. The campaign against “Trotskyism” was now exported beyond the borders of the USSR. The PSUC and PCE, like Communist parties elsewhere at the time, were completely subordinate to Moscow and soon launched a massive campaign of slander against the “Trotskyist-Fascist” POUM. Inevitably, given the strength of both the revolution and the POUM in the region, this campaign centered on Catalonia.

Much of the Catalan Communists’ newfound strength was in the UGT, whose ranks had swelled once the obligatory unionization of all workers was introduced in August 1936. This growth was particularly marked among the white-collar and technical sectors, which provided a counterweight to the anarchists in the collectives. The PSUC, like the PCE in other regions, also received support from sections of the lower middle classes and peasants frightened by the revolution.⁷⁸

By the spring of 1937 civilians began to feel the full impact of the war. In the Republican rearguard there were increasing shortages of basic goods. Thousands of refugees had arrived in the already overextended cities, soon to be subjected to unprecedented air raids. It was in this context that the PSUC stepped up its campaign against the “excesses” of the revolution, which it blamed for the calamities befalling the civilian population. In particular, it agitated around the growing food shortages with the slogan “more food, less committee.”

Moves by the Republican authorities to gain control in the economic sphere were accompanied by measures to create a state monopoly over security. By spring 1937, violent clashes in Catalonia between rival factions and between the police and radicalized workers had become increasingly frequent. Continual accusations in the Communist press that the POUM and other “uncontrollables” were “fascist agents” provided further justification for attacks on the extreme left. Bloody clashes in the countryside between collectivists and their opponents were used by the Generalitat—now more firmly in the hands of the ERC and PSUC—to justify the creation in February 1937 of a unified police force under its control and permitting no political or trade union affiliation.

Attempts to reassert Republican authority solely by administrative means and propaganda were not sufficient. Apart from the POUM, many anarcho-syndicalists still believed that they were fighting not to defend the Republic but to advance the social revolution. This unsustainable situation came to a head on May 3, when Republican Assault Guards tried to seize the Barcelona telephone exchange, a symbol of workers’ control in the city. The resultant street fighting proved a watershed for the revolution. Resistance was organized by the CNT defense committees, rooted in the poorer neighborhoods, and the radical anarchist group, the Friends of Durruti.⁷⁹ The latter stood apart from other anarchist groupings, having called for the creation of revolutionary juntas based on the CNT, FAI, and POUM that should “take power.”

The CNT and FAI leaderships, nevertheless, balked at a POUM proposal to completely take over Barcelona, fearing such an initiative might further aggravate the situation. Calls by the libertarian leaders for a ceasefire led to both the dismantling of the barricades and the deepening of opposition inside the CNT to collaboration with the Popular Front parties. The aftermath of the fighting saw widespread repression of the radical left—the control patrols were disbanded, hundreds of CNT militants imprisoned, the POUM declared illegal, and its leader Andreu Nin murdered.

With the defeat of the revolutionaries in Catalonia, the new government—headed by moderate Social Democrat Juan Negrín and lacking CNT participation—turned its attentions to the last stronghold of the revolution, eastern Aragon. In August 1937 the Council of Aragon was dissolved by the government, its leaders arrested, and many of the region’s collectives dismantled. Meanwhile in Catalonia, as the political situation swung harder against the revolution, there was also an increase in the harassment of collectives, with police raids, confiscations, and support for returning property to the former owners (Castells 2002, 135). Parallel to this, collectivized industries were increasingly dependent on the Catalan government. Goods exported by collectives were sometimes confiscated at their port of entry, so they had to trade through the Generalitat and thus had no direct access to foreign currency. The Catalan government’s control of credit further undermined collectivization.

The strengthening of the central government’s hold over the military and political situation was combined with attempts to at least regulate, if not eliminate, workers’ control in the economy throughout Republican Spain. State control replaced collectivization. In those industries taken over by the central government all worker participation in the decision-making process was abolished and a new elite of state functionaries was imposed. As in Catalonia, control of credit was also used to bring the remaining collectives under state tutelage.

According to Antoni Castells, state control proved inefficient because it was opposed by wide sectors of the working class and led to demoralization and a subsequent decline in productivity. In many cases state intervention dismantled programs aimed at increasing the economic efficiency of collectivized firms. The increasing number of bureaucrats hampered production and stoked further discontent among the workers. The state also lacked competent personnel and often acted on the basis of political bias rather than on criteria of economic efficiency. Evidently state intervention was not part of a socialist plan but carried out by a government with a thoroughly liberal-democratic orientation (1996).

Earlier, in October 1936, the Agricultural Ministry, in Communist hands, had introduced a decree that allowed for the return of land to former owners, obliged the revision of expropriations carried out by unions, and ensured that peasants could choose between individual or collective exploitation of land. Attempts at enforcing the decree led to increasing tension between the collectivists—who generally refused to observe its regulations—and their opponents. This was particularly the case in Valencia, where the PCE organized conservative peasants into the Federación Provincial Campesino (FPC). Aided by the police, the FPC used the decree to arrest collectivists and destroy property. By January 1938 the Valencian CNT could report that the “counter revolution was active in every village” (Casanova 1988 38–9).

The offensive against the agrarian collectives had a deleterious effect on the harvest. The head of the Agrarian Reform Institute, the Communist José Silva, admitted later that the arbitrary dissolution of collectives, including prosperous and voluntary ones, had wreaked havoc on the countryside. As a result many collectives had to be reestablished—including in Aragon—and most of those remaining were left untouched. In August 1938, the Agrarian Reform Institute reported that 40 percent of fertile land in fifteen provinces was still under collective cultivation. There were now 2,213 collectives involving 156,822 families—considerably more than in 1936. Of these only 54 percent had been collectivized legally—a clear sign that many collectivists continued to resist government encroachment despite the radical change in the political situation inside the Republican zone (Bernecker 1996, 522, 539).