[39], In the initial months the ministry of war had little authority over transport and was forced to rely on the National Committee of Road Transport controlled by the CNT and UGT. 8. [29] While the official policy of the CNT was that of peaceful voluntary collectivization and many small farmers and peasant proprietors voluntarily joined the collectives, a larger proportion of them opposed collectivization or joined only after extreme duress. The pact was supposed to guarantee the legality of the remaining collectives and of worker's control, while at the same time recognizing the authority of the state on matters such as nationalization of industry and the armed forces. The most effective Anarchist unit in Catalonia was the Durruti Column, led by the militant Buenaventura Durruti, it fought mainly in the Aragon front. [38] Militiamen would often leave the front whenever they wished. Living conditions in the camps, chekas and prison ships were so though that finding a piece of mail sent to an inmate is extremely difficult and very few are known. International anarchist statement on the centenary of the 1921 Kronstadt Uprising ... • To elect a Commission to review the cases of those held in prisons and concentration camps; • To abolish all ... ☆ Embat – Organització Llibertària de Catalunya – Catalonia ☆ Federación Anarquista de … The growing influence of the Communist Party of Spain's (PCE) Popular Front government and their desire to nationalize revolutionary committees and militias brought it into conflict with the CNT and POUM, resulting in the May Days and the eventual replacement of the CNT by the PSUC as the major political force in Catalonia until their defeat to the Nationalist forces in 1939. Blanco's report also asserted that ‘if one has to shoot prisoners [for escapes] then it should be done to prisoners of marked fascist tendencies’. Collectives encouraged autarky and self-sufficiency, refusing to share with other collectives. “British Author with the Militia” in The Spanish Revolution, February 3, 1937. doi:10.1177/026569140003000203. S.I.M.’s operations were mostly secret, and they did not left behind many documents: the few that exist are mostly in public archives like Archivo Histórico Nacional and Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya. [24] The anarcha-feminists argued that overthrow of patriarchal society was just as necessary for personal freedom, as the creation of a classless society. They were organized into centuries with democratically elected leaders that had no permanent authority.[41]. 'Revolutionary' discipline depends on political consciousness--on an understanding of why orders must be obeyed; it takes time to diffuse this, but it also takes time to drill a man into an automaton on the barrack-square. It was the first time I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. [98], 1936 Revolution and worker's self management, Revolutionary militias and the regular army, Divisions in the government and anarchist movement, harvnb error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBolloten1991 (, sfn error: multiple targets (2×): CITEREFBolloten1991 (, sfn error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFBeevor2006 (. The PCE used the Popular army and the National Guard to dissolve CNT committees and aid tenant farmers and sharecroppers recover land lost in the revolution. It was the only anarchist unit which managed to gain respect from otherwise fiercely hostile political opponents. This is corroborated by a CIA report on the topic, which found that as many as 95% of prisoners in the camps they investigated were non-political: CIA (Freedom of Information Act) | Report on Soviet Gulags The targets were mainly small and medium landholders, since most of the large landholdings had fallen to the nationalists. [52], The party's attacks on the revolution, particularly the replacement of revolutionary committees with regular organs of state power brought it into conflict with the CNT-FAI, a major supporter of the revolutionary committees and the most powerful working class organization in Catalonia. The only S.I.M related documents in the hands of private individuals is the correspondence sent to or by its prisoners. One exception was Durruti...."[42]. The CNT agreed on a truce after negotiations with the minister of interior back in Valencia. [3] The CNT and Companys worked together to set up the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias, which became the main governing body in the region.[4]. As Eddie Conlon wrote in a publication for the Workers' Solidarity Movement: If you didn't want to join the collective you were given some land but only as much as you could work yourself. Another influential party in Barcelona was the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) which espoused an anti-Stalinist far left ideology, and was thus denounced by the PSUC as Trotskyist and Fascist. We specialize in Spanish civil war stamps and postal history, and we keep a specific section of S.I.M. Composed of anarchists from Valencia and freed convicts, the Iron Column was critical of the CNT-FAI for joining the national government and defended the militia system in their periodical Linea de Fuego. In a section of her memoirs which otherwise lambasts the anarchists, Communist militant Dolores Ibárruri states, "The [Spanish Civil] war developed with minimal participation from the anarchists in its fundamental operations. Tensions could also erupt between workers and those in charge of managing output, as well as disputes over how much work members were required to put towards the collective. But it was usually the case that increased production under the new system eliminated shortages. Rivalry between the various organizations exacerbated the lack of any centralized command and general staff. Property holders resented the seizure of their land and the prohibition on employing wage labor. Even those collectives that had been created voluntarily were raided. We know that certain irresponsible elements have frightened the small peasants and that up to now a certain apathy has been noted in their daily labors. To […] [54], In the Catalan Generalitat, power was divided between the CNT, PSUC and Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC). When a new cabinet was formed by President Companys, the CNT decided not to participate. [58] Further decrees by the Generalitat which called up conscripts, dissolved military committees and provided for the integration of the militias into a regular army caused a crisis in which CNT ministers walked out of the government in protest. Between 400,000[89] and 500,000[90] refugees including the defeated Army of Catalonia crossed the border into France. ", Between July and November 1938 the Republican forces launched their largest offensive yet which was designed to reconnect their divided territory with Catalonia. [25], Just as in the cities, peasant revolutionaries seized land in the countryside and organized collective farms. In what became known as the Barcelona May Days of 1937, fighting broke out after civil guards attempted to take over a CNT-run telephone building in Barcelona's Plaça de Catalunya. Outgoing mail from these places is also rare: the inmates, generally, were only allowed to send a postcard per month, and the short life of the camps (from April 1938 to February 1939) did not give many chances to prisoners to send mail. The Communists, supported by the centrist faction of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) under Indalecio Prieto now called for the POUM to be dissolved, but PM Largo Caballero resisted this move, and the Communists, along with their allies in the PSOE, then left the government in protest. Not only production was affected, distribution was on the basis of what people needed. By the end of May 1937, the Communists were conducting a campaign to destroy the rural collectives. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. As a teenager, the Spanish anarchist Antonio García Barón joined the Durruti Column to defeat fascism and advance the anarchist revolution during the Spanish Civil War. The discipline of even the worst drafts of militia visibly improved as time went on. [36], After the military rebellion, the Republic was left with a decimated officer corps and a severely weakened army in the regions it still controlled. Republican officer Major Aberri said of the militiamen he encountered at the Aragon front: "It was the most natural thing in the world for them to leave the front when it was quiet. The Anarchists also believed that private ownership of land created a bourgeois mentality and led to exploitation. ‘Los amigos de Durruti’ was the only group from within the anarchist camp that attempted to convert the struggle in May into what its activists called ‘the second revolution’. Address to the International Working Men's Association Congress by Emma Goldman. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. The committees, unions and parties widely disregarded demands from the ministry of war and retained equipment and vehicles for themselves and their own militia forces. Food reserves and other amenities were stored in a communal depot under committee control. Salas, the Chief of Police (who may or may not have been exceeding his orders), sent three lorry-loads of armed Civil Guards to seize the building, while the streets outside were cleared by armed police in civilian clothes. It came to prominence primarily in the Catalonia region of Spain under the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, National Confederation of Labor in English) in 1910. By now, most Catalans were demoralized and tired of the fighting. [65] On 7 May, the assault guards entered Barcelona unopposed, and soon there were twelve thousand government troops in the city. workers; it was alleged that it was badly run and that official calls were being tapped. Trotskyism and Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War. While some joined voluntarily, others, especially in the beginning of the revolution, were forced to join the collectives by anarchist militias. In Barcelona, the CNT collectivized the sale of fish and eggs, slaughterhouses, milk processing and the fruit and vegetable markets, suppressing all dealers and sellers that were not part of the collective. [75] On 11 August, the Eleventh popular army division dissolved the CNT dominated Regional Defense Council of Aragon by force. Interest has often focused on the barricades and revolts of ‘Picasso’s Barcelona’ at the turn of the century and the great social revolution unleashed by the Civil War and chronicled by George Orwell. Toryho was removed from his position by the CNT national committee on 7 May 1938. Modern historians tend to agree that it was an accident, perhaps a malfunction with his own gun. 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