Skeptic Project

1. Introduction

The Spanish fascists used barbaric methods throughout the Spanish Civil War in order to establish a brutal dictatorship.[1] The Spanish Communists used similar wartime measures in their failed effort to give birth to an even more totalitarian regime.[2] But many discussions of the Spanish Civil War overlook, minimize, or apologize for the atrocious behavior and tyrannical aspirations of perhaps the most powerful faction of the Spanish Republicans: the Anarchist movement.

The present essay aims to redress the balance. It first summarizes the historical details of the Anarchists' behavior during the Spanish Civil War, scrutinizing both the behavior of the upper echelons of the Anarchist movement as well as the rank-and-file militants. The essay then examines the economics of Anarchist-controlled Spain, focusing on both the policies adopted, their aims, and the results. I conclude with a philosophical dissection of the Spanish Anarchist movement, showing that their horrific behavior was largely the result of their incoherent view of human freedom, their unsuccessful attempt to synthesize socialism and liberty, and their uncritical and emotional way of thinking.

2. History and the Spanish Anarchists

Many recent discussions of the Spanish Anarchists center around Ronald Fraser's Blood of Spain [3]. While the present essay uses Fraser as a source, there is always a concern in a work of oral history that the experiences of the (necessarily small) number of people interviewed may not be representative. Instead, my primary reference source for the history of the Spanish Anarchists is Burnett Bolloten's The Spanish Civil War [4]. Bolloten's objectivity and clarity enjoy widespread approbation, even by many informed individuals highly sympathetic to the Spanish Anarchists. Noam Chomsky praises Bolloten's work in "Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship," and relies heavily upon Bolloten's earlier, less developed work throughout that essay.[5] Bolloten was moreover the key historian who documented the Communists' atrocities against the Spanish Anarchists, and one of the first historians to demonstrate that contrary to the propaganda of the Republican government, the Spanish Anarchists experimented with radical social changes on a vast scale during the war. Finally, Bolloten's objectivity speaks for itself, for he takes painstaking effort to confirm every fact and carefully note the existence of any conflicting evidence.

A. The Militants and Terror

In July of 1936, officers throughout Spain tried to orchestrate a coup detat against the Republican government.[6] In Catalonia, Aragon, and other areas, Anarchist militants defeated the military uprisings. Finding themselves more powerful than the regional governments and possibly the central government, the Spanish Anarchists seized the moment to implement some radical changes in those regions of Spain where they had a large following.

One of these radical changes was the beginning of large-scale murders of people believed to be supporters of the Nationalists. In most cases, these supporters had taken no specific action to assist the Nationalist rebellion; they were singled out for their beliefs, or what people guessed their beliefs were. As Bolloten explains:

"The courts of law were supplanted by revolutionary tribunals, which dispensed justice in their own way. 'Everybody created his own justice and administered it himself,' declared Juan Garcia Oliver, a leading Anarchist who became minister of justice in November 1936. 'Some used to call this "taking a person for a ride," [paseo] but I maintain that it was justice administered directly by the people in the complete absence of regular judicial bodies.'"[7] This distinction no doubt escaped the thousands of people who were murdered because they happened to have political or religious beliefs that the Anarchists did not agree with. "'We do not wish to deny,' avowed Diego Abad de Santillan, a prominent Anarchist in the region of Catalonia, 'that the nineteenth of July brought with it an overflowing of passions and abuses, a natural phenomenon of the transfer of power from the hands of privileged to the hands of the people. It is possible that our victory resulted in the death by violence of four or five thousand inhabitants of Catalonia who were listed as rightists and were linked to political or ecclesiastical reaction.'"[8] De Santillan's comment typifies the Spanish Anarchists' attitude toward his movement's act of murder of several thousand people for their political views: it is a mere "natural phenomenon," nothing to feel guilty over.

Bolloten's account of the Anarchist militants' wave of murders is well- corroborated by other sources. Thus, Hugh Thomas' The Spanish Civil War (a work which Bolloten takes issue with on a number of points) explains that: "All who could conceivably be suspected of sympathy for the nationalist rising were in danger. As among the nationalists, the irrational circumstances of a civil war made it impossible to lay down what was or was not treason. The worthy died, the unworthy often lived. In East Andalusia, lorries manned by the CNT drove into villages and ordered mayors to hand over their fascists. The mayors had often to say that they had all fled but the terrorists would often hear from informers which of the better off people were still there, arrest them and shoot them in a nearby ravine."[9] Thomas adds that, "In the vast majority of cases, the murders were of the rank and file of the Right. Often members of the working class would be killed by their own acquaintances for hypocrisy, for having kow-towed too often to their social superiors, even simply for untruthfulness. In Altea, near Alicante, for example, a cafe proprietor was killed with a hatchet by an anarchist for having overcharged for stamps and for the glass of wine that buyers of stamps were forced to take while waiting."[10]

Political belief was not the only kind of heterodoxy which the Spanish Anarchists refused to tolerate. Mere acceptance of theism, typically in its Catholic variant, provoked many of the Anarchist militants to violence. The burning of religious buildings, from cathedrals and churches to convents and monasteries was widespread, as was the murder of priests and nuns. This might puzzle the naive observer; after all, is not the Catholic church a perfect example of a communal, non-profit organization? Is not church property "held in common" by its adherents? At least in theory, the clergy's vow of poverty obliges them to hand over all of their personal property to the Church, which then provides for their needs out of the communal stockpile. The Catholic church seems to satisfy many of the social postulates that the Spanish Anarchists embraced. This did not save the lives of the unfortunate clergy, since militant atheism had been a feature of European anarchism at least since the time of Bakunin, and because the Catholic church had historically allied itself politically with conservative monarchism.

As Bolloten states, "Hundreds of churches and convents were burned or put to secular uses. 'Catholic dens no longer exist,' declared the Anarchosyndicalist organ, Solidaridad Obrera . 'The torches of the people have reduced them to ashes.'...'For the Revolution to be a fact,' ran an Anarchist youth manifesto, 'we must demolish the three pillars of reaction: the church, the army, and capitalism. The church has already been brought to account. The temples have been destroyed by fire and the ecclesiastical crows who were unable to escape have been taken care of by the people.'"[11] As Bolloten sums matters up: "Thousands of members of the clergy and religious orders as well as of the propertied classes were killed, but others, fearing arrest or execution, fled abroad, including many prominent liberal or moderate Republicans."

Thomas amply confirms Bolloten's description of the Anarchists' religious persecution and intolerance. "'Do you still believe in this God who never speaks and who does not defend himself even when his images and temples are burned? Admit that God does not exist and that you priests are all so many hypocrites who deceive the people': such questions were put in countless towns and villages of republican Spain. At no time in the history of Europe, or even perhaps of the world, has so passionate a hatred of religion and all its works been shown. Yet one priest who, while 1,215 monks, nuns, and priests died in the province of Barcelona, managed to escape to France through the help of President Companys, was generous enough to admit that 'the reds have destroyed our churches, but we first had destroyed the church.'"[12]

Fraser documents many other instances of the Anarchists' religious intolerance, but also brings out an interesting case in which the Anarchist leader Carod forbade violence against religious buildings and personnel. "'You are burning the churches without thinking of the grief you are causing your mothers, sisters, daughters, parents, in whose veins flows Christian, Catholic blood. Do not believe that by burning churches you are going to change that blood and that tomorrow everyone will feel himself, herself an atheist. On the contrary! The more you violate their consciences, the more they will side with the church. Moreover, the immense majority of you are believers at heart.' He demanded that all lives and all property - not only religious - be respected."[13] Note that Carod merely appeals to the strategic folly of persecuting religious believers, since it leads people to "side with the church" (and presumably to side with the Nationalists as well). Carod's argument typifies the Spanish Anarchists' half-hearted self- criticism. One waits in vain for an Anarchist to defend freedom of thought, the individual's right to believe what he chooses; to say, in short, that mere belief is not a crime, but killing someone for his beliefs is.

None of this implies, of course, that similar atrocities were not committed by the Nationalists and by non-Anarchist forces on the Republican side. It is to be expected that Communists, fascists, and the other bloodthirsty zealots of the 20th century would brutally murder people for their beliefs. One would be surprised if moderate Republicans, moderate Socialists, and moderate monarchists restrained themselves from widespread murder in the midst of a fratricidal civil war. But one would hope that a movement condemning the state for its age-old brutality, and advocating an end to all human domination, would have behaved differently. Instead, it is clear that Anarchist militants were at the vanguard of the murder squads on the Republican side.[14]

Apologists for the Spanish Anarchist movement often claim that the aforementioned killings simply represent the individual decisions of unorganized groups of Anarchist militants, rather than any sort of a party-line policy organized and desired by the Anarchist leadership. Stanley Payne finds the facts of the Republican repression to be rather more complex: "A common distinction between the Red and White terrors in Spain that has sometimes been made by partisans of the left is that the former was disorganized and spontaneous, while the latter was centralized and systematic, continuing throughout the war and long afterward. This distinction is at best only partially accurate. In the early months the Nationalist repression was not at all centrally organized, whereas that in the Popular Front zone had more planning and organization than it is given credit for. This is indicated by the many executions in areas where social conflict was not particularly intense, and by the fact that many of the killings were done by revolutionary militia coming in from other districts. Nor did the political executions in the Republican zone end after the close of 1936, though they did diminish in volume."[15]

In any case, whether the murders were centrally ordered, completely decentralized, or (as is most likely) somewhere in between, what difference does it make? Does it matter if the widespread Nazi attacks on Jews known as the Kristallnacht were centrally organized or "spontaneous"? No; if an ideology categorizes many people as sub-human, urging ever greater brutality, and recommending restraint only when it is tactically convenient, it is perfectly reasonable to castigate the entire movement centering around that ideology, whether that movement be Nazism or Spanish Anarchism. It is quite clear that the rhetoric of the Spanish Anarchists focused on crushing the enemies of the workers by any means necessary; safeguarding the rights of innocent people who happened to despise everything Anarchism stood for was simply not on their agenda. Fraser's interview of Juan Moreno, a CNT day-laborer, merits notice: "'We hated the bourgeoisie, they treated us like animals. They were our worst enemies. When we looked at them we thought we were looking at the devil himself. And they thought the same of us.'"[16] Bolloten similarly notes, "According to Perez-Baro [a former member of the CNT who played a prominent role in the collectivization movement in Catalonia], thirty to forty years of revolutionary propaganda had made employers appear in the eyes of the workers not as 'class enemies,' but as 'personal enemies,' which resulted in a series of abuses against them."[17] In short, it is perfectly just to impugn the Anarchist movement as a whole for the numerous atrocities of its members, because these actions flowed logically from the central ideas of the movement rather than their misinterpretation by extreme fringe groups.

B. The Leaders and Collaboration

The complicity of the Spanish Anarchist leadership in the aforementioned atrocities is sometimes hard to untangle; obviously, most of the murder orders were not publicly recorded. However, public records concerning the Anarchist leadership's record of collaboration with the central and regional governments throughout Spain provides ample documentation of a long series of abuses and betrayals of whatever good principles the Anarchist movement held dear.

At the outset it is necessary to give some background on the pre-war organization of the Anarchists, which its supporters frequently claim was extraordinarily democratic. From at least 1927 on, the democratic procedures of the CNT were frequently compromised by a special faction known as the FAI, which Bolloten describes as the CNT's "ideological guide, whose mission was to protect the CNT from deviationist tendencies and to lead the trade-union federation to the Anarchist goal of libertarian communism."[18] Bolloten properly notes that many of the Spanish Anarchists would violently dispute this claim, but insists that the facts do not support them. "The FAI attempted to accomplish its directive mission by virtue of the fact that its members, with few exceptions, belonged to the CNT and held many positions of trust. It was an established principle that any person belonging to a political party should not occupy any official position in the trade-union organization. The FAI, moreover, kept a close and constant supervision over the unions of the CNT, often threatening to use force to prevent deviationist trends when argument failed. To be sure, this domination - or at least attempted domination - by the FAI was not always openly acknowledged by the CNT and FAI and indeed was at times emphatically denied, but it was frankly admitted after the Civil War by other leaders of the CNT."[19] Fraser corroborates Bolloten's remarks. Josep Costa, a CNT textile worker explains, "'The FAI was acting like a political group within the CNT, talking of liberty and acting like dictators...'"[20] Sebastia Clara, a dissident treintista CNT member, adds, "'Before the 1920's, the CNT was an organization in which the masses could express themselves democratically. Afterwards, this was no longer the case. Things changed with the creation of the FAI in 1927. It was they who now imposed their decisions...'"[21] While this burgeoning authoritarianism in the guise of democracy makes it easy to understand how the Anarchist leadership often deviated from the viewpoint of the rank-and-file, the fact that the FAI was noted for its ideological purism makes its numerous deviations all the more puzzling.

While the CNT and especially the FAI repeatedly condemned political participation before the Civil War, it was simple to induce CNT leaders to accept ministerial positions in the central government. Initially, Prime Minister Caballero offered the CNT a single seat, which the CNT national plenum rejected. This was no principled rejection, however; the Anarchist put forward a compromise resolution according to which "'auxiliary commissions' were to be set up in each ministry comprising two representatives of the CNT, two of the UGT, two of the Popular Front parties, and one government delegate. This project would have spared the CNT the embarrassment of direct participation in the cabinet, but would nonetheless have given it representation in every branch of government."[22] This proposal failed; the next Anarchist initiative was to advocate "that the government should be replaced by a national council of defense composed of five members of their organization, five of the UGT, and four members of the Republican parties."[23] Bolloten cites one Anarchist's acerbic critique of this Orwellian attempt to avoid joining the government by calling it something different: "'The purpose of this purely nominal change was to reconcile their fervent desire to enter the government with their antistate doctrine. What childishness! A movement that had cured itself of all prejudices and had always scoffed at mere appearances tried to conceal its abjuration of fundamental principles by changing a name... This behavior is as childish as than of an unfortunate woman, who, having entered a house of ill fame and wishing to preserve a veneer of morality, asks to be called a hetera instead of a whore.'"[24]

The Anarchists tried this tactic for about a month until CNT national secretary Horacio Prieto, who favored direct participation in the Popular Front government, prevailed. "Horacio Prieto decided to 'put an end to the last elements of opposition,' within the CNT and convoked a plenary session of the regional federations for 18 October. This time his arguments prevailed. The plenum accorded him full powers to conduct negotiations 'in his own way' in order to bring the CNT into the government. 'I was convinced,' he wrote after the war, 'of the necessity of collaboration, and I smothered my own ideological and conscientious scruples.'"[25] The end result of Prieto's dealings with the government was that the CNT won control of the ministries of justice, industry, commerce, and health. Bolloten notes and amply documents his remark that, "Not only did this decision represent a complete negation of the basic tenets of Anarchism, shaking the whole structure of libertarian theory to the core, but, in violation of democratic principle, it had been taken without consulting the rank and file."[26] This violation would not be the last one, as shall be seen.

The Anarchists were even more eager to assume governmental powers in Catalonia, where they were strong enough to overshadow the regional Catalonian government, the Generalitat. Rather than officially enter the Catalonian government, the Anarchists chose to retain the Generalitat as a legal cover; but real power shifted into the hands of the Anarchist-controlled Central Anti-Fascist Militia Committee. Bolloten indicates that for all practical purposes this Committee was the government of Catalonia under a new name: "the committee immediately became the de facto executive body in the region. Its power rested not on the shattered machinery of the state but on the revolutionary militia and police squads and upon the multitudinous committees that sprang up in the region during the first days of the Revolution. The work of the militia committee, attests Abad de Santillan, himself a member, included the establishment of revolutionary order in the rear, the creation of militia units for the front, the organization of the economy, and legislative and judicial action."[27] After a few months the Anarchists formally entered the Generalitat, mainly because the central government seemed unwilling to provide weapons to any other Catalonian organization.

It should be further noted that these Anarchist-run councils and committees were not mild-mannered minimal states, maintaining order while allowing the workers to organize themselves as they pleased. They were "modern" states, concerning themselves with the economy, education, propaganda, transportation, and virtually everything else.

The Anarchists' position in both the central government and in Catalonia slowly but surely declined after they entered into coalition governments with the other anti-Franco factions. A common pattern was for the non- Anarchists to push for some measure that the Anarchists opposed; the Anarchists would resist for a brief period; and finally, the Anarchists would agree to the original measure after changing some of the labels and minor details. By May of 1937, after a mere ten months in power, the Anarchists found themselves out-maneuvered on the national and regional levels by the Communists and other political enemies.

There were a series of cabinet crises in the regional Catalonian government; the resentment of the non-Anarchists, especially the Communists, against the continued de facto Anarchist control of Barcelona burnt ever brighter. While the members of the CNT who held positions in the Catalonian government kept trying to reach an understanding with their fellow ministers, the rank and file Anarchists seem to have become increasingly alienated from their leaders.

A raid on the Anarchist-controlled telephone company brought these feelings to the surface. (The non-Anarchists objected to the Anarchists' use of wiretaps to listen in on important conversations.) The CNT ministers merely demanded the removal of the main people responsible for the raid; but hundreds of the rank-and-file Anarchists responded with rage, setting up barricades. As Bolloten describes matters, "That same night [May 3 -B.C.] the executive committee of the POUM met with the regional committees of the CNT, FAI, and the Libertarian Youth. Julian Gorkin, a member of the executive [of the POUM -B.C.], recalls: 'We stated the problem in these precise terms: 'Neither of us has urged the masses of Barcelona to take this action. This is a spontaneous response to Stalinist aggression...[The regional committees] made no decision. Their maximal demand was the removal of the [police] commissioner who had provoked the movement. As though it were not the various forces behind him that had to be destroyed! Always the form instead of the substance!"[28]

The Anarchist leadership was, as this quote indicates, out of step with the rank-and-file; they urged the militants to stop the fighting. Their requests were not heeded, as Bolloten notes: "[T]here were forces intent on stoking the conflict. Not only were Rodriguez Salas's men initiating new offensive actions, but the tiny Trotskyist group of Bolshevik Leninists and the dissident Anarchist Friends of Durruti, joined by some of the more militant members of the POUM, were extremely active. While the activists ignored the Anarchist leadership, the CNT ministers desperately tried to hammer out a deal with their fellow ministers in the Generalitat, who were by this point willing to endanger Catalonian autonomy by allowing the armed forces of the central government to re- establish order. All the Anarchists managed to do was to obtain a few delays and haggle over the formation of a new government, while they cajoled the rank-and-file to fall into line. "CNT secretary Mariano Vasquez again begged workers to leave the streets. 'We tell you that this situation must end... We do not want this stigma to fall upon the Spanish Anarchists... This is not the moment, in front of piled-up corpses, to discuss who is right. It is essential that you disappear with your weapons from the streets... We must not wait for others to do so. We must do so ourselves. Afterward we shall talk. If you decide, when you discuss our conduct at our next assembly, that we deserve to be shot, then you may shoot us, but now you must obey our slogans.'"[29]

The end result was that the reinforcements from the central government arrived and firmly placed power into the hands of the Generalitat. The power of the Communists was greatly enhanced at both the regional and national levels. A new central government was formed with Juan Negrin as Prime Minister. Bolloten amply documents that Negrin was a willing tool of the Communists, so it should be no surprise that the Anarchists lost all of their positions in the central government. One might think that by this point they would be thoroughly disillusioned with power, but the Anarchists now assumed the degrading role of the political beggar they held for the rest of the war. While condemning Negrin's government as counterrevolutionary, the CNT leadership tried to strike a new deal. When Negrin formed his second government, he threw the CNT a bone by giving them the ministry of education and health. This was enough to retain the CNT's collaboration until the Republic's defeat.

Soon after Negrin's appointment, the CNT lost all its seats in the Catalonian regional government. Making a virtue out of necessity, Bolloten notes Tierra and Libertad announced that, "'The CNT, with more than a million affiliates in Catalonia, is no longer with the government. This is because Anarchosyndicalism cannot get involved with professional politicians and cannot humble itself before anyone...[I]t refuses to defile itself with this kind of dirty politics.'"[30] In reality, the hangers-on of the CNT tried repeatedly to regain some role in the Catalonian government even as Franco's forces prepared to capture Barcelona.

Once the CNT left the government, the Communists intensified their persecution and terrorization of the Anarchists. Moreover, while the Anarchists made up a very large percentage of the Republic's soldiery, the Communists had a vastly disproportionate representation in the officer corps. Thus, the Anarchists allowed themselves to become cannon fodder for the Communists at the front, while the Communist secret police unleashed its hatred against the Anarchists in the rear. As Bolloten describes it, "The spontaneous, undirected terror of the CNT and FAI during the height of the Revolution had now given way to the more sophisticated, centrally directed, and, hence, more fearful terror of the Communists."[31]

Of course, one might wonder how it was possible for Anarchists to have joined forces with the Communists to begin with. How could the avowed opponents of the very existence of the state join forces with the pawns of the most murderous, totalitarian dictatorship that the world had ever known? Even if moral principle did not deter them, at least the Bolsheviks' propensity to exterminate their Anarchist allies might have given them pause. Even though many Anarchists eventually realized that the defeat of Franco would lead to the establishment of a Soviet satellite state, they kept fighting. Clearly the Anarchists' opposition to the Nationalists dwarfed their distaste for Leninist totalitarianism.

Then again, perhaps the CNT yearned so strongly for power that they were willing to sacrifice many principles for limited authority. After May 1937, they endured considerable humiliation in exchange for a paltry role in the Republican government. Were there any limits to what principles the Anarchists would sacrifice in order to be minor political players? Apparently not. Stanley Payne indicates that the CNT leadership actually tried to strike a deal with the fascists in 1945 and 1946. As Payne explains, a Falangist leader "began negotiations that summer with the new clandestine secretary general of the CNT, Jose Leiva, in Madrid. His goal was to rescue the Falange by gaining the support of opposition anarchosyndicalists for a broader, stronger, and more popular national syndicalism. Franco eventually rejected the CNT's demands, and the negotiations foundered the following year. Suppression of the CNT leadership was renewed."[32] What was the nature of the deal that the CNT sought with the Falange? "According to a report presented to Franco in May 1946, the CNT leadership offered a policy of cooperation, proposing to withdraw from the Giral Republican government- in-exile and accept three Falangists on their national committee, but in return insisted on freedom to proselytize."[33]

This was the Anarchism of the CNT: an Anarchism which not only allied with the Communist totalitarians, but attempted to strike a power- sharing deal with the fascist totalitarians six years after the end of the civil war.

C. The Urban Collectives

Burnett Bolloten was the first mainstream historian to document the radical social changes that occurred in Republican Spain; most earlier historians took the disclaimers of the Republican government at face value, in spite of the fact that the Republicans had every reason to conceal this radicalism in order to win military assistance from Britain and France. Bolloten explains that the CNT and to a lesser extent the UGT took advantage of the chaos to seize control of the means of production:

"In Valencia, a city of over 350,000 inhabitants, nearly all plants, both large and small, were sequestered by the CNT and UGT, as were those in the province of Alicante, while in the region of Catalonia, where the Anarchosyndicalists were in almost unchecked ascendancy during the first months of the Revolution, collectivization in many towns was carried out so thoroughly that it embraced not only the large factories but the least important branches of handicraft. The collectivization movement also infringed upon another preserve of the middle classes. In Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, with a population of nearly 1.2 million, the Anarchosyndicalist workers collectivized the wholesale business in eggs and fish and set up a control committee in the slaughterhouse, from which they excluded all intermediaries; they also collectivized the principal market for fruit and vegetables and suppressed all dealers and commission agents as such, permitting them, however, to join the collective as wage earners. The milk trade in Barcelona was likewise collectivized. The Anarchosyndicalists eliminated as unhygenic over forty pasteurizing plants, pasteurized all milk in the remaining nine, and proceeded to displace all dealers by establishing their own retail outlets."[34]

In fact, this policy of shutting down factories seems to have been as important to the CNT program as collectivizing the remainder. These factory closures were justified by several arguments: they were unhealthy for workers, or unhealthy for consumers, or just plain "inefficient." As Bolloten explains, "after the first few weeks of widespread and uncoordinated seizures, some of the unions began a systematic reorganization of entire trades, closing down hundreds of small plants and concentrating production in those with the best equipment."[35] It is worth noting that Spain was still in the midst of the Great Depression, with overall Spanish industrial production in 1935 about 13% below the 1929 level. Production in July of 1936 was itself about 18% below the January 1936 level, so the existence of unused capacity is no surprise.[36] What is odd is that in the midst of massive unemployment the Anarchists closed down a large percentage of the remaining firms instead of inviting unemployed workers to join them.

Initially, the workers (rather than an Anarchist nomenklatura) usually assumed control over their places of employment. Quoting Fraser, "one thing dominated the libertarian revolution: the practice of self- management - the workers' administration of their factories and industries."[37] Yet government control quickly followed, or at least tried to. In October, the government of Anarchist-dominated Catalonia passed the Collectivization and Workers' Control Decree, which legally recognized many of the de facto collectivizations.

With government recognition came government regulation, as Fraser indicates: "Works councils, elected by an assembly decision of the workers and representing all sectors of the enterprise, were to administer the collectivized factory, 'assuming the functions and responsibilities of the former board of directors.' A Generalitat representative was chosen, in agreement with the workers, to sit on each council. Collectivized enterprises (and private firms under workers' control) in each sector of industry would be represented in an Economic Federation, in turn topped by a general industrial council which would closely control the whole industry. Fifty percent of a collectivized firm's profit would go to an industrial and commercial credit fund which would have to finance all Catalan industry; 20 per cent was to be put to the collective's reserve and depreciation fund; 15 per cent to the collective's social needs, and the remaining 15 per cent to be allocated by the workers as they decided in a general assembly."[38] Bolloten reports that this measure was "sponsored by the CNT and signed by its representative in the government, Juan P. Fabregas, the councilor of the economy."[39] Thus, the principle of genuine worker control was quickly cast aside in favor of something much more similar to state-socialism; a mere 15% of the profits were, under the law, under the discretionary control of the workers.

There was some internal opposition to these measures; Fabregas' successor de Santillan indicated hostility to some features, and did not strictly enforce the law. More importantly, there was a huge loophole - firms had to pay a percentage of their profits . To eliminate the exaction, one merely need eliminate the profits. With worker control, there is a simple way to do this: keep raising wages until the "profits" disappear. Taxes on profits - which is what the Decree amounted to - will raise revenue if the workers and the owners are different people; but with worker control such taxes are simple to evade. Witness after witness reports the abolition of piece-work, improvement of working conditions, lavish non-wage compensation, and so on. This is initially surprising; if the workers run the factory, don't they pay the price of hampering production? Not if the government taxes away most of the workers' profits. As Thomas states, "[T]he industrial syndicalism of Barcelona kept, unlike the rural anarchists, to individual wages, and did not experiment with family wages. These wages probably increased, it is true, in late 1936 by about a third over July. But the effect was ruined by the inflation, due to a fall in production, shortage of credit, as well as an influx of refugees from Castille and Aragon."[40]

Thus, due to the weak enforcement and easy evasion of government regulations and taxes, it appears that some workers found themselves the new co-owners of their former employers' property. This created vague apprehension among many Anarchists, and experience soon enabled them to articulate their concerns. The Anarchist Jose Peirats aptly described their essential worry: "Fortified in their respective collectives, the industries would merely have replaced the old watertight compartments of capitalism and would inevitably lapse into bureaucracy, the first step in a new society of unequals. The collectives would end up waging the same commercial war against each other with the same combination of zeal and mediocrity that characterized the old bourgeois businesses. And so they attempted to expand the notion of collectivism to include, in a structural and permanent way, all industries in one harmonious and disinterested body."[41] Joan Ferrer, secretary of the CNT commercial employees' union, was able to confirm Peirats' fear up close. "'It came as a psychological shock to some workers to find themselves suddenly freed from capitalist tutelage. Exchanging one individualism for another, they frequently believed that, now that the owners were gone, they were the new owners. Though affecting white-collar workers in this instance, the problem was by no means confined to them...'"[42]

In short, after being told that the workers now owned the means of production, the workers often took the statement literally. What is the point of owning the means of production if you can't get rich using them? But of course if some workers get rich, they are unlikely to voluntarily donate their profits to the other members of their class. This seems elementary upon reflection, but only practical experience was able to reveal this to the economic reformers of the Spanish Revolution.

Fraser explains that at a joint CNT-UGT textile union conference, "The woodworkers' union weighed in with its criticism of the state of affairs, alleging that, while small, insolvent workshops were left to struggle as best they could, the collectivization of profitable enterprises was leading to 'nothing other than the creation of two classes; the new rich and the eternal poor. We refuse the idea that there should be rich and poor collectives. And that is the real problem of collectivization.'"[43] Bolloten repeats a remark of CNT militia leader Ricardo Sanz: "'[T]hings are not going as well as they did in the early days of the [revolutionary] movement... The workers no longer think of workings long hours to help the front. They only think of working as little as possible and getting the highest possible wages.'"[44] Bolloten attributes this decline in enthusiasm to Communist repression, but it is at least as consistent with the simple observation that people often prefer improving their own lot in life to nourishing revolution.

In short, practical experience gradually revealed a basic truth of economics for which theoretical reflection would have sufficed: if the workers take over a factory, they will run it to benefit themselves. A worker-run firm is essentially identical to a capitalist firm in which the workers also happen to be the stockholders. Once they came to this realization, however dimly, the Spanish Anarchists had to either embrace capitalism as the corollary of worker control, or else denounce worker control as the corollary of capitalism. For the most part, they chose the latter course.

As Bolloten writes, "[T]he Anarchosyndicalists, contrary to common belief, were not without their own plans for the nationwide control and rationalization of production. Rootedly opposed to state control or nationalization, they advocated centralization - or socialization, as they called it - under trade-union management of entire branches of production. 'If nationalization were carried out in Spain as the Socialists and Communists desire,' said one Anarchist newspaper, 'we should be on the way to a dictatorship, because by nationalizing everything the government would become the master, the chief, the absolute boss of everyone and everything.'"[45] The Anarchist solution for this danger of absolute dictatorship was to call absolute dictatorship by a different name. "In the opinion of the Anarchosyndicalists," explains Bolloten, "socialization would eliminate the dangers of government control by placing production in the hands of the unions. This was the libertarian conception of socialization, without state intervention, that was to eliminate the wastes of competition and duplication, render possible industrywide planning for both civilian and military needs, and halt the growth of selfish actions among the workers of the more prosperous collectives by using their profits to raise the standard of living in the less favored enterprises."[46] Of course, one could refuse to call a union with such fearsome powers a "state," but it would need all of the enforcement apparatus and authority of a state to execute its objectives. The "more prosperous collectives," for example, would be unlikely to submit voluntarily to industrywide planning funded by their profits.

The Nationalists conquered Catalonia before the government made any concerted, official effort to nationalize the workers' factories. But it is doubtful that the government would have met much resistance from the CNT if and when the nationalization occurred.

Describing the CNT conferences of September 1937 and January 1938, Thomas states: "Although suggestions for reform were canvassed, most ideas put forward sought the improvement of the existing state of affairs; the millenarian aspect of anarchism had almost vanished. What was left seemed no more than a federalist movement, without effective national organization, which gave general, if grudging, support to the government. Under the influence of the realistic ex-secretary-general of the CNT, Horacio Prieto, anarchists were persuaded to accept the idea of nationalization of large industries and banks in exchange for collectivization of small ones, and on the land, as well as the 'municipalization' of local services."[47]

While the formal expropriation of the workers did not occur, the government frequently used its control over the Spanish money and banking system to quietly nationalize the means of production. For ideological reasons, Anarchists had always avoided working in the banking industry, so insofar as workers did control banks, they were members of the Socialist UGT rather than the Anarchist CNT. To obtain credit, Anarchists either had to get a loan from the Socialist- controlled banks, or else receive a bail-out from the central government. Bolloten explains the dilemma of the workers' collectives:

"Another obstacle to the integration of industry into a libertarian economy lay in the fact that a large number of firms controlled by the CNT were in a state of insolvency or semi-insolvency and were compelled to seek government intervention to secure financial aid... Both in Catalonia and in the rest of Republican Spain, this situation created grave economic problems for the CNT collectives. So desperately did some of them require funds that Juan Peiro, the Anarchosyndicalist minister of industry, openly recommended intervention by the central government, having received in his department eleven thousand requests for funds in January 1937 alone."[48]

Fraser and Thomas corroborate Bolloten's analysis. "[T]here were the committees," explains Fraser, "which... simply continued to present their weekly wage list to the Generalitat, which went on paying them, instead of seeking to get their businesses going."[49] In the footnote, Fraser adds, "This later became institutionalized as the 'pawn bank,' through which the workers of the deficitary enterprises received their wages in return for 'pawning' their company's capital equipment and inventory to the Generalitat - a measure which resulted in giving the latter virtual control of the enterprise."[50] Along similar lines, Thomas writes that, "In all large industries, and in industries important for the war, a state representative sat on the committee. He would be responsible for controlling credit, and sometimes raw materials. His role became more and more important, so that, in some enterprises (particularly the munitions factories), something close to nationalization would soon be achieved."[51] "Outside of Catalonia, the central government... sought to bring all major factories under state supervision, whether nationalized or privately managed. To ensure this, credit was made difficult for anarchist factories, and many other difficulties were put in their way by the government... This occurred even though an anarchist, Peiro, was nominally at the ministry of industry."[52]

Peiro initially tried to push through a decree collectivizing all industry, but Prime Minister Caballero squelched the idea since it would alienate foreign capitalists and their governments. Next, Bolloten explains, "Peiro then redrafted his decree... From the cabinet the decree went to a ministerial commission that, according to Peirats, converted it into a skeleton. 'But the calvary is not over. To put the decree into effect money is necessary, that is, credit must be granted by the minister of finance [Juan Negrin]. He haggles like a usurer and finally grants an insignificant sum... Finally, the Industrial Bank intervenes, which reduces the amount still further.'"[53]

The simplest way that the collectives could have avoided dependence on the government would have been to issue debt; in short, to borrow from the general public rather than the government. But undoubtedly the fear of revealing surplus wealth to lend would make such a scheme impossible. Even if their physical safety were not their concern, investors could hardly expect to ever get their money back. The insecurity of property rights thus made it very difficult to borrow from the public, so the collectives mortgaged themselves piece by piece to the government until finally the government rather than the workers owned the means of production.

Fraser argues that, "These difficulties might have been palliated if the industrial and commercial fund foreseen by the decree had been rapidly set up, for one of its purposes was to channel funds from the wealthier to the poorer collectives. It was to be financed by a levy of 50 per cent of a collective's profits."[54] Even if enforced, though, almost all sources indicate that profits were almost non-existence; possibly, as I have indicated, because workers were smart enough to realize that raising their wages and improving working conditions was an easy route to avoid any profits tax. Even if this could have prevented the collectives from becoming dependent on the central government, the end result would have been to make them dependent on a union so powerful that it would be a state in everything but name.

Fraser quotes Albert Perez-Baro, a civil servant and a former CNT member: "'This truly revolutionary measure [the 50 per cent profits tax] - though rarely, if ever, applied - wasn't well received by large numbers of workers, proving, unfortunately, that their understanding of the scope of collectivization was very limited. Only a minority understood that collectivization meant the return to society of what, historically, had been appropriated by the capitalists...'"[55] In other words, most workers assumed that worker control meant that the workers would actually become the true owners of their workplaces, with all the rights and privileges thereof. Only the elite realized that worker control was merely a euphemism for "social control" which in turn can only mean control by the state (or an Anarchist "council," "committee," or "union," satisfying the standard Weberian definition of the state).

D. Militarization

In the early stages of the war, the militant members of various left- wing parties and unions often did battle with members of the rebel Nationalist army. There is no doubt that the CNT's militants stifled military coups in several regions, and were initially the vanguard of the anti-Franco forces. "[T]here was no central military body that could review the situation on all the battlefronts, formulate a common plan of action, and decide on the allocation of available supplies of men, munitions, arms, and motor vehicles in such a way as to produce the best results on the most promising front," explains Bolloten. "Nor could such central control be expected in the early days of spontaneous activity and individual initiative. 'We all remember,' writes a Republican sympathizer, 'how we began to wage the war. A few friends got together, jumped into a truck or car that they owned or confiscated, one with a rifle, another with a revolver and a few cartridges and took to the highway to look for fascists. When we reached a point where we encountered resistance, we fought, and, when the munitions were exhausted, we generally retreated not to a defensive position... but to our point of departure.'"[56] Bolloten adds the observation that, "To make matters worse, each party and labor union had its own military headquarters that, in most cases, attended to the requirements of its own militia without any knowledge of or regard to the needs or military plans of other units on the same or neighboring sector, least of all distant fronts..."[57]

While all of the militias resisted military discipline to some degree, Bolloten affirms that at first the Anarchist militias resisted it vigorously because they took their ideals seriously: "The CNT-FAI militia reflected the ideals of equality, individual liberty, and freedom from obligatory discipline integral to the Anarchist doctrine. There was no officers' hierarchy, no saluting, no regimentation."[58] Unfortunately for the Anarchists, this lack of discipline made their militia rather ineffective in spite of their frequent numerical superiority. It did not take long for the Anarchist leadership to decide that military success was more important than the voluntaristic notions of the rank-and-file. Solidaridad Obrera soon wrote in favor of the strictest discipline: "'To accept discipline means that the decisions made by comrades assigned to any particular task, whether administrative or military, should be executed without any obstruction in the name of liberty, a liberty that in many cases degenerates into wantonness.'"[59] While many of the rank-and-file resisted, military discipline swiftly became common in the Anarchist militias.

It soon became clear that the Republican government intended to form its own national army. The Anarchist ministers objected; Bolloten notes that in addition to ideological scruples, the Anarchists wanted to keep military dominance in their own hands, and out of the hands of the Communists. To counter this move towards a national army, explains Bolloten, "The CNT-FAI leaders had proposed in September 1936 that a 'war militia' be created on the basis of compulsory service and under the joint control of the CNT and the UGT..."[60] It thus took scarcely two months for the Anarchists to openly advocate conscription - enslaving young men to kill or be killed - so long as the conscripts were forced to risk their lives for the cause of the CNT. (Since the UGT held the loyalty of a far smaller proportion of the working class at this stage, the joint control of the CNT and UGT clearly would have amounted to a junior role for the UGT at best.)

In spite of their presence in the national government, explains Bolloten, "the libertarian movement was unable to use its participation in the government to increase its say in the military field or even curb the progress of the Communists, but rather was obliged in the end to circumscribe its efforts to maintaining control of its own militia units and securing arms from the war ministry."[61] The war ministry had many levers to secure compliance from the Anarchist militias. Not only could they give or deny weapons, supplies, and so on. The government also put the Anarchist militias on the government payroll, and could then threaten to withhold money from any unit that resisted the government's decisions.

The most important decision the government made was to "militarize" the militias: in short, to absorb them into the government's army and subject them to standard military rule. Most of the militia columns swiftly fell into line, although it is unclear to what extent this was because they were following the orders of the Anarchist leadership, or enticed by the central government's money and weapons. One notable exception was the so-called Iron Column. "No column," explains Bolloten, "was more thoroughly representative of the spirit of Anarchism, no column dissented more vehemently from the libertarian movement's inconsistencies of theory and practice and exhibited a more glowing enmity for the state than the Iron Column..."[62] Bolloten quotes one of the members of the Iron Column, in whose words there is clearly a strong undertone of criticism of the Anarchists working with the government: "'We accept nothing that runs counter to our Anarchist ideas, ideas that must become a reality, because you cannot preach one thing and practice another.'"[63]

Lest one praise their idealism too highly, it should be noted that the Iron Column apparently saw no contradiction between Anarchism and terrorism and robbery. "In the early months of the war," states Bolloten, "it had been able to rely upon its own recruiting campaigns and upon confiscations carried out with the aid of Anarchist-controlled committees in villages and towns behind the lines. '[During] our stay in Valencia,' ran a manifesto issued by the column, 'we noticed that, whereas our negotiations for the purchase of arms had failed, because of the lack of hard cash, in many shops there was a large quantity of gold and other precious metals, and it was this consideration that induced us to seize the gold, silver, and platinum in several jewelers' shops.' 'Around October [1936],' recounts one historian [Rafael Abella -B.C.], 'the column abandoned the front... and went on an expedition in Valencia [which was under Republican control -B.C.] spreading panic in its path. Its goal was to "cleanse the rear of all parasitic elements that endangered the interests of the revolution." In Valencia, it stormed hotels and restaurants, terrifying the city. In a raid on jewelry stores, it seized all the gold and silver it could find.'"[64]

As the central government re-affirmed its authority, such raids on Republican towns became too dangerous; but because the Iron Column continued to lambast Anarchist collaboration with the Popular Front government, the Iron Column found itself unable to obtain resources legally either. The Iron Column continued to refuse militarization, but the central government intensified its pressure on dissenting militias.

"[T]he war ministry had not only decided to withhold arms from all militia units declining to reorganized themselves along the prescribed lines, but had decreed, although in carefully selected language, that the pay of all combatants - which in the case of the militia had previously been handed to each column in a lump sum without supervision and irrespective of structure - would henceforth be distributed through regular paymasters stationed only in battalions. As the decree made no mention of paymasters in units that had not adopted a military framework, it was clear that if the Iron Column were to hold fast to its militia structure the time would soon arrive when all pay would be suspended."[65]

In the end, some members of the Iron Column deserted rather than face militarization (ninety-seven men were denounced as deserters by their fellow Anarchists), while the others caved in and joined the regular army.

To be more precise, most of the Iron Column joined units which, while nominally part of the army of the central government, were actually part of the private fiefdom of the CNT. While the Communists did their best to establish ideologically "mixed" units (hopefully with Communist officers), the Anarchists tried very hard to keep Anarchist soldiers together. So eager was the Anarchist leadership to build up armed forces under its de facto control, that the CNT national congress freely gave its approval to conscription - on one condition:

"Although a CNT national congress decided to agree to the mobilization of the two classes announced by the government, it did so on the understanding that all men with Anarchosyndicalist membership cards should be drafted by the CNT for service in its own militia units. In Catalonia, the regional committee of the CNT stated with reference to this decision: 'As it would be very childish to hand over our forces to the absolute control of the government... the national congress has decided that all persons in the [two mobilized] classes who belong to our trade-union organization should present themselves immediately to the CNT barracks or, in the absence thereof, to the trade-union or [CNT] defense committees [of their locality], which will take note of their affiliation, their age, their employment, the class to which they belong, their address, and all the necessary facts... This committee will issue militia cards that will be sent to the inscribed comrades, who, of course, will henceforth be at the disposal of the Regional Committee, which will assign them to the column or front selected.'"[66]

In this manner, the Spanish Anarchist abandoned even the pretense of voluntary service in the armed forces. Rather than defend the right of the individual to choose whether or not he wished to join the army at all, the CNT merely did its best to get its fair share of the hapless conscripts.

As the remarks about the Iron Column make clear, the CNT made no attempt to subsist merely on voluntary donations of time and resources. It readily accepted government hand-outs. More importantly, the Spanish Anarchists missed no opportunity to seize needed resources. In most cases, the Anarchists did so in areas where they were the dominant power; the chaotic looting of the Iron Column was dwarfed by the official looting of the various Anarchist committees and councils. Eventually, though, there is little precious metal and hard currency left to steal, at least in plain sight; the real source of wealth is human beings. As the next section reveals, when the Anarchists realized that food and valuable agricultural commodities could be extorted from forced collectives of terrorized peasants, they saw an opportunity that was simply too good to refuse.

E. The Rural Collectives

In August of 1937, Prime Minister Juan Negrin secretly ordered government forces under the direction of the Communists to dissolve the Council of Aragon, the Anarchist body which exercised de facto rule over Republican-controlled Aragon. One of the primary actions of this Communist-led operation was to break up the Anarchist-controlled rural collectives. To justify their action, the Communists accused the Anarchists of imposing forced collectivization on a hostile peasantry. Considering Stalin's forced collectivization and terror-famine in the Soviet Union only a few years before, this was a curious accusation to make.[67] But make it they did, while the beaten Anarchist movement denounced the Communists for their brutality in the service of counterrevolution. As Bolloten writes:

"'The population of Aragon, especially the peasants,' recounts the official Communist history of the Civil War, 'acclaimed the dissolution of the council with indescribable enthusiasm,' but Ricardo Sanz, the Anarchosyndicalist commander of the Twenty-sixth Division, paints a less radiant picture. The Eleventh Division, he claims, took by assault the official centers in Caspe and arrested the majority of the office workers, dissolving the Council of Aragon by force. 'It took harsh measures against all the villages, attacking the peasant collectives. It despoiled them of everything - work animals, foods, agricultural implements, and buildings - and initiated a fierce repression and persecution of the members of the collective.'"[68]

One would have to be a fool to take Communists at their word. Still, the fact that an accusation originated with the Communists is no reason to bar objective research from verifying the truth of their claims. The Communists were often the originators of reports of German atrocities during World War II; does this mean that any historical study of Nazi concentration camps is suspect? Of course not. It merely means that one must take extra care to find independent sources untainted by the Communists' propaganda machine. (Thus, since Thomas' evidence for the involuntary nature of the collectives comes almost entirely from Communist sources, I omit it.)

With this in mind, I now review the history of the Anarchists and rural collectivization. As before, Burnett Bolloten's The Spanish Civil War , widely acclaimed for its objectivity and comprehensiveness, is my most frequent reference. On this particular issue, Bolloten's words carry if possible even greater weight, for it was Bolloten, more than any other historian, who documented the deceptive propaganda and drive for total power of the Spanish Communist movement.

After the attempted military coup in July 1936, there was a revolution in many rural areas somewhat similar to that in urban areas. It should be noted, however, that the power of the CNT was centered in the cities rather than the countryside, so it would be extremely surprising if the rural revolution were as "spontaneous" as the urban revolution. "Very rapidly collectives, in which not only the means of production but also of consumption were socialized, began to spring up," explains Fraser. "It did not happen on instructions from the CNT leadership - no more than had the collectives in Barcelona. Here, as there, the initiative came from CNT militants; here, as there, the 'climate' for social revolution in the rearguard was created by CNT armed strength: the anarcho-syndicalists' domination of the streets of Barcelona was re- enacted in Aragon as the CNT militia columns, manned mainly by Catalan anarcho-syndicalist workers, poured in. Where a nucleus of anarcho- syndicalists existed in a village, it seized the moment to carry out the long-awaited revolution and collectivized spontaneously. Where there was none, villagers could find themselves under considerable pressure from the militias to collectivize..."[69] Note well Fraser's point that the anarchists in rural Aragon relied heavily on urban Catalonian anarchists to get off the ground. However over-stated the Anarchists' claim to represent "the people," was in Barcelona, in rural Aragon such a claim was absurd.

Bolloten gives more details about the initial stages of the rural revolution. "Although no hard and fast rules were observed in establishing libertarian communism, the procedure was more or less the same everywhere. A CNT-FAI committee was set up in each locality where the new regime was instituted. This committee not only exercised legislative and executive powers, but also administered justice. One of its first acts was to abolish private trade and to collectivize the soil of the rich, and often that of the poor, as well as farm buildings, machinery, livestock, and transport. Except in rare cases, barbers, bakers, carpenters, sandalmakers, doctors, dentists, teachers, blacksmiths, and tailors also came under the collective system. Stocks of food and clothing and other necessities were concentrated in a communal depot under the control of the local committee, and the church, if not rendered useless by fire, was converted into a storehouse, dining hall, cafe, workshop, school, garage, or barracks. In many communities money for internal use was abolished..."[70]

It barely took a month for Anarchists to set themselves up as the government of those parts of Aragon under their control, euphemistically dubbing themselves the "Regional Defense Council of Aragon." As Thomas explains, "The collectives established in Aragon - the CNT later claimed that there were 450 of them - held a conference in late September... They set up a regional 'Council of Defense,' composed of CNT members, and presided over by Joaquin Ascaso, a cousin of the famous anarchist killed in July. This had its seat at Fraga, and thence exercised supreme power over the whole of revolutionary Aragon."[71] The Anarchists angered the other Republican factions by excluding them from the Council of Aragon, but there was little they could do. Thus, while the behavior of the government of Catalonia was a compromise between the Anarchists and other parties, the actions of the government of Aragon reveal the proclivities of undivided Anarchist rule.

Many people fled for fear of their lives. Their land was seized almost immediately. After all, who but a "fascist" would flee? The expropriation of land from anyone too terrified of the new regime to even wait to see what their new life would be like provided the nucleus for the collectives. Bolloten quotes one authority, who explains that, "'[A]pproximately one-third of all lands and (since collectivization occurred mainly on arable land) between half and two-thirds of all cultivated land in Republican Spain were seized. By a cruel irony, the victims were predominantly small and medium holders, since most of the latifundio districts had fallen to the Nationalists...'"[72] While the Anarchists occasionally spoke of overthrowing feudalism, they did no such thing; feudalism had been largely abolished in Spain by t

Crappy forums cut off the end! ;_;

NO U

You're all fags!