Archive Titles Authors Topics Latest entries Popular Texts Add a new text

More About the project Live Chat (IRC/Matrix) Tor Onion Services Bookshelf (wiki) Donate SHH! THIS IS A LIBRARY! (forums) Librarian Picks

SHH! THIS IS A LIBRARY! (forums)

Other languages Anarhistička biblioteka Det Anarkistiske Bibliotek (Danish) Anarchistische Bibliothek (German) Det Anarkistiska Biblioteket (Swedish) Bibliothèque Anarchiste (French) Библиотека Анархизма (Russian) De Anarchistische Bibliotheek (Dutch) Анархистичка библиотека (Macedonian) Biblioteca anarchica (Italian) Η Αναρχική Βιβλιοθήκη (Greek) Anarcho-Biblioteka (Polish) Anarkistinen kirjasto (Finnish) Anarşist Kütüphane (Turkish) Biblioteca anarquista (Spanish) 無政府主義図書館 (Japanese) South Asian Anarchist Library Esperanto Anarchist Library Southeast Asian Anarchist Library Biblioteca Anarhistă Anarchista könyvtár 아나키스트 도서관 (Korean) Anarchistická knihovna 中文无治主义图书馆 (Chinese) Biblioteca Anarquista (Portugese) Biblioteka-Anarkiste (Albanian) Liburutegi Anarkista (Basque) کتابخانه‌ی آنارشیستی (Farsi)

Det Anarkistiske Bibliotek (Danish)

Anarchistische Bibliothek (German)

Det Anarkistiska Biblioteket (Swedish)

Bibliothèque Anarchiste (French)

De Anarchistische Bibliotheek (Dutch)

Анархистичка библиотека (Macedonian)

Anarkistinen kirjasto (Finnish)

Biblioteca anarquista (Spanish)

Southeast Asian Anarchist Library

Biblioteca Anarquista (Portugese)

Biblioteka-Anarkiste (Albanian)

The Popular Front in the face of war and revolution

Was a revolutionary alternative possible?

In the vast body of literature surrounding the Spanish Civil War, it is often presented as a struggle between democracy and fascism. This view is almost hegemonic among sectors of the left, many of them historically influenced by Stalinism. But such an approach clashes with the sociopolitical reality of Spain in the 1930s.

The social, economic and political polarisation in the Spanish State in the years prior to the Civil War and the consequent failure of bourgeois democracy determined the outbreak of both the armed conflict and the revolution. [1] The electoral victory of the Popular Front in February 1936, instead of opening a new stage of social reforms, highlighted the inability of republican democracy to defeat the dominant classes determined to avoid any challenge to their power. The victory of the Popular Front unleashed a new wave of mobilisations by the working masses, both urban and rural, which the Republican government, as in 1931, attempted to repress. For its part, the right wing abandoned any hope of destroying Republican democracy from within and opted for a military coup.

The future of the Republic itself depended not only on its right-wing enemies, but also on the workers’ movement. In the case of the socialists, the revolutionary faction, led by Largo Caballero, refused to repeat the experience of 1931-1933 and insisted that the PSOE (social-democratic Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) not participate in the new government, leaving the republicans with the task of "finishing the bourgeois revolution." This schematic vision of Marxism meant that Largo Caballero and his followers lacked a strategy for seizing power and remained passively waiting for the Republicans to pave the way for a socialist government. In contrast, the more social democratic faction of Indalecio Prieto, supported by the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), defended the need to return to a coalition government to complete the Republican reformist programme. It was this latter position that was adopted by the socialist movement in the midst of the Civil War. The left wing of the PSOE, having lost part of its base to Stalinism—especially the Socialist Youth (FJS), which would unite with the Union of Communist Youth to found the Unified Socialist Youth (JSU)—was overtaken by events and ended up accepting the same position as its social-democratic rivals.

On the eve of the Civil War, the anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labour (CNT) continued to wield considerable influence within the Catalan labour movement—the most important on the Iberian Peninsula—and maintained a significant presence in Andalusia, Aragon, and the Valencian Community. Furthermore, in Asturias and Madrid, where socialists had historically held a majority within the labour movement, the CNT possessed a considerable strength. [2]

Activists and union leaders were divided between anarcho-syndicalists and various more purely anarchist …