Anarchism, more than anything else, is about the efforts of millions of revolutionaries changing the world in the last two centuries. Here we will discuss some of the high points of this movement, all of them of a profoundly anti-capitalist nature.
Anarchism is about radically changing the world, not just making the present system less inhuman by encouraging the anarchistic tendencies within it to grow and develop. While no purely anarchist revolution has taken place yet, there have been numerous ones with a highly anarchist character and level of participation. And while these have all been destroyed, in each case it has been at the hands of outside force brought against them (backed either by Communists or Capitalists), not because of any internal problems in anarchism itself. These revolutions, despite their failure to survive in the face of overwhelming force, have been both an inspiration for anarchists and proof that anarchism is a viable social theory and can be practised on a large scale.
It is important to point out that these examples are of wide-scale social experiments and do not imply that we ignore the undercurrent of anarchist practice which exists in everyday life, even under capitalism. Both Peter Kropotkin (in Mutual Aid) and Colin Ward (in Anarchy in Action) have documented the many ways in which ordinary people, usually unaware of anarchism, have worked together as equals to meet their common interests. As Colin Ward argues, "an anarchist society, a society which organises itself without authority, is always in existence, like a seed beneath the snow, buried under the weight of the state and its bureaucracy, capitalism and its waste, privilege and its injustices, nationalism and its suicidal loyalties, religious differences and their superstitious separatism" [Anarchy in Action, p. 14].
Anarchism is not only about a future society, it is also about the social struggle happening today. It is not a condition but a process, which we create by our self-activity and self-liberation.
By the 1960's, however, many commentators were writing off the anarchist movement as a thing of the past. Not only had fascism finished off European anarchist movements in the years before and during the war, but in the post-war period these movements were prevented from recovering by the capitalist West on one hand and the Leninist East on the other. Over the same period of time, anarchism had been repressed in the US, Latin America, China, Korea (where a social revolution with anarchist content was put down before the Korean War), and Japan. Even in the one or two countries that escaped the worst of the repression, the combination of the Cold War and international isolation saw libertarian unions like the Swedish SAC become reformist.
But the 60's were a decade of new struggle, and all over the world the 'New Left' looked to anarchism as well as elsewhere for its ideas. Many of the prominent figures of the massive explosion of May 1968 in France considered themselves anarchists. Although these movements themselves degenerated, those coming out of them kept the idea alive and began to construct new movements. The death of Franco in 1976 saw a massive rebirth of anarchism in Spain, with up to 500,000 people attending the CNT's first post-Franco rally. The return to a limited democracy in some South American countries in the late 70's and 80's saw a growth in anarchism there. Finally, in the late 80's it was anarchists who struck the first blows against the Leninist USSR, with the first protest march since 1928 being held in Moscow by anarchists in 1987.
Today the anarchist movement, although still weak, organises tens of thousands of revolutionaries in many countries. Spain, Sweden and Italy all have libertarian union movements organising some 250,000 between them. Most other European countries have several thousand active anarchists. Anarchist groups have appeared for the first time in other countries, including Nigeria and Turkey. In South America the movement has recovered massively. A contact sheet circulated by the Venezuelan anarchist group Corrio A lists over 100 organisations in just about every country.
Perhaps the recovery is slowest in North America, but there, too, all the libertarian organisations seem to be undergoing significant growth. As this growth accelerates, many more examples of anarchy in action will be created and more and more people will take part in anarchist organisations and activities, making this part of the FAQ less and less important.
However, it is essential to highlight mass examples of anarchism working on a large scale in order to avoid the specious accusation of "utopianism." As history is written by the winners, these examples of anarchy in action are often hidden from view in obscure books. Rarely are they mentioned in the schools and universities (or if mentioned, they are distorted). Needless to say, the few examples we give are just that, a few.
Anarchism has a long history in many countries, and we cannot attempt to document every example, just those we consider to be important. We are also sorry if the examples seem Eurocentric. We have, due to space and time considerations, had to ignore the syndicalist revolt (1910 to 1914) and the shop steward movement (1917-21) in Britain, Germany (1919-21), Portugal (1974), the Mexican revolution, anarchists in the Cuban revolution, the struggle in Korea against Japanese (then US and Russian) imperialism during and after the Second World War, Hungary (1956), the "the refusal of work" revolt in the late 1960's (particularly in "the hot Autumn" in Italy, 1969), the UK miner's strike (1984-85), the struggle against the Poll Tax in Britain (1988-92), the strikes in France in 1986 and 1995, the Italian COBAS movement in the 80's and 90's, and numerous other major struggles that have involved anarchist ideas of self-management (ideas that usually develop from the movement themselves, without anarchists necessarily playing a major, or "leading", role).
For anarchists, revolutions and mass struggles are "festivals of the oppressed," when ordinary people start to act for themselves and change both themselves and the world.
The Paris Commune of 1871 played an important role in the development of
both anarchist ideas and the movement. As Bakunin commented at the time,
The Paris Commune was created after France was defeated by Prussia in the
Franco-Prussian war. The French government tried to send in troops to
regain the Parisian National Guard's cannon to prevent it from falling into the
hands of the population. The soldiers refused to fire on the jeering crowd
and turned their weapons on their officers. This was March 18th; the
Commune had begun.
In the free elections called by the Parisian National Guard, the citizens
of Paris elected a council made up of a majority of Jacobins and
Republicans and a minority of socialists (mostly Blanquists --
authoritarian socialists -- and followers of the anarchist Proudhon). This
council proclaimed Paris autonomous and desired to recreate France as a
confederation of communes (i.e. communities). Within the Commune, the
elected council people were recallable and paid an average wage. In
addition, they had to report back to the people who had elected them.
Why this development caught the imagination of anarchists is clear -- it
has strong similarities with anarchist ideas. In fact, the example of the
Paris Commune was in many ways similar to how Bakunin had predicted that a
revolution would have to occur -- a major city declaring itself
autonomous, organising itself, leading by example, and urging the rest of
the planet to follow it. (See "Letter to Albert Richards" in Bakunin on Anarchism). The Paris Commune began the process of creating a new
society, one organised from the bottom up.
Many anarchists played a role within the Commune -- for example Louise
Michel, the Reclus brothers, and Eugene Varlin (the latter murdered in the
repression afterwards). As for the reforms initiated by the Commune, such
as the re-opening of workplaces as co-operatives, anarchists can see their
ideas of associated labour beginning to be realised. In the Commune's call
for federalism and autonomy, anarchists see their "future social
organisation. . . [being] carried out from the bottom up, by the free
association or federation of workers, starting with associations, then
going into the communes, the regions, the nations, and, finally,
culminating in a great international and universal federation"
[Bakunin, Ibid., p. 270].
However, for anarchists the Commune did not go far enough. It did not
abolish the state within the Commune, as it had abolished it beyond it.
The Communards organised themselves "in a Jacobin manner" (to use
Bakunin's cutting term). As Peter Kropotkin pointed out, it did not "break with the tradition of the State, of representative government, and it did not attempt to achieve within the Commune that organisation from the simple to the complex it inaugurated by proclaiming the independence and
free federation of the Communes" [Fighting the Revolution, p. 16]. In
addition, its attempts at economic reform did not go far enough, making no
attempt to turn all workplaces into co-operatives and forming associations
of these co-operatives to co-ordinate and support each other's economic
activities. However, as the city was under constant siege by the French
army, it is understandable that the Communards had other things on their
minds.
Instead of abolishing the state within the commune by organising
federations of directly democratic mass assemblies, like the Parisian
"sections" of the revolution of 1789-93 (see Kropotkin's Great French Revolution for more on these), the Paris Commune kept representative
government and suffered for it. "Instead of acting for themselves. . .the people, confiding in their governors, entrusted them the charge of
taking the initiative" [Kropotkin, Revolutionary Pamphlets, p. 19], and
so the council became "the greatest obstacle to the revolution"
[Bakunin, Op. Cit., p. 241].
The council become more and more isolated from the people who elected
it, and thus more and more irrelevant. And as its irrelevance grew, so
did its authoritarian tendencies, with the Jacobin majority creating a
"Committee of Public Safety" to "defend" (by terror) the "revolution."
The Committee was opposed by the libertarian socialist minority and
was, fortunately, ignored in practice by the people of Paris as they
defended their freedom against the French army, which was attacking
them in the name of capitalist civilisation and "liberty." On May 1st,
government troops entered the city, followed by seven days of
bitter street fighting. Squads of soldiers and armed members of the
bourgeoisie roamed the streets, killing and maiming at will. Over 25,000
people were killed in the street fighting, many murdered after they had
surrendered, and their bodies dumped in mass graves.
For anarchists, the lessons of the Paris Commune were threefold. Firstly,
a decentralised confederation of communities is the necessary political
form of a free society. Secondly, "there is no more reason for a
government inside a Commune than for government above the Commune" [Peter
Kropotkin, Fighting the Revolution, p. 19]. This means that an
anarchist community will be based on a confederation of neighbourhood and
workplace assemblies freely co-operating together. Thirdly, it is
critically important to unify political and economic revolutions into a
social revolution. "They tried to consolidate the Commune first and put off the social revolution until later, whereas the only way to proceed was to consolidate the Commune by means of the social revolution!" [Peter Kropotkin, Op. Cit., p. 19]
The socialist festival of May Day, although hijacked in recent years by
Leninists, originated with the execution of four anarchists in Chicago in
1886 for organising workers in the fight for the eight-hour day. The
American Federation of Labour had issued a call for strikes on May 1st,
1886, in support of this demand.
In Chicago the anarchists were the main force in the union movement, and
partially as a result of their presence, the unions translated this call
into strikes on May 1st. A meeting was called to protest police brutality
in the course of these strikes. (The police had attacked pickets,
killing one). As the meeting was breaking up it was attacked by the
police. A bomb was thrown into the police ranks, who opened fire on the
crowd. In the aftermath, all known anarchists were rounded up, the police
being told to "Make the raids first and look up the law afterwards" by
the state attorney.
Eight anarchists were put on trial for accessory to murder. No pretence
was made that any of the accused had carried out or even planned the
bomb. Instead the jury were told "Law is on trial. Anarchy is on trial.
These men have been selected, picked out by the Grand Jury, and indicted
because they were leaders. They are no more guilty than the thousands who
follow them. Gentlemen of the jury; convict these men, make examples of
them, hang them and you save our institutions, our society." The jury was composed of businessmen and the relative of one of the cops killed, so,
not surprisingly, the accused were convicted. Seven were sentenced to
death, one to 15 years' imprisonment.
An international campaign resulted in two of the death sentences being
commuted to life. Of the remaining five, one cheated the executioner and
killed himself on the eve of the execution. The remaining four were hanged
on November 11th 1887. They are known in Labour history as the Haymarket
Martyrs.
Albert Spies (one of the Martyrs) addressed the court after he had been
sentenced to die:
At the time and in the years to come, this defiance of the state and
capitalism was to win thousands to anarchism, particularly in the US
itself.
To understand why the state and business class were so determined to hang
the Chicago Anarchists, it is necessary to realise they were considered
the "leaders" of a massive radical union movement. In 1884, the Chicago
Anarchists produced the world's first daily anarchist newspaper, the
Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeiting. This was written, read, owned and published
by the German immigrant working class movement. The combined circulation
of this daily plus a weekly (Vorbote) and a Sunday edition (Fackel) more
than doubled, from 13,000 per issues in 1880 to 26,980 in 1886. Anarchist
weekly papers existed for other ethnic groups as well.
Anarchists were very active in the Central Labour Union, making it, in the
words of Albert Parsons (one of the Martyrs), "the embryonic group of the future 'free society.'" In addition to their union organising, the Chicago
anarchist movement also organised social societies, picnics, lectures,
dances, libraries and a host of other activities. These all helped to
forge a distinctly working-class revolutionary culture in the heart of the
"American Dream." The threat to the ruling class and their system was
too great to allow it to continue (particularly with memories of the
vast uprising of labour in 1877 still fresh -- see Strike! by J.
Brecher for details of this strike movement as well as the Haymarket events).
Hence the repression, kangaroo court, and the state murder of those the
state and capitalist class considered "leaders" of the movement.
Just before the turn of the century in Europe, the anarchist movement
began to create one of the most successful attempts to apply
anarchist organisational ideas in everyday life. This was in response
to the disastrous "propaganda by deed" period, in which individual
anarchists assassinated government leaders in attempts to provoke a
popular uprising and in revenge for the mass murders of the Communards. In
response to this failed and counterproductive campaign, anarchists went
back to their roots and to the ideas of Bakunin, beginning to build mass
revolutionary unions (syndicalism and anarchosyndicalism).
In the period from the 1890's to the outbreak of World War I, anarchists
built revolutionary unions in most European countries, which became most
widespread in Italy and France. In addition, anarchists in South and North
America were also successful in organising syndicalist unions. Almost all
industrialised countries had some syndicalist movement, although Europe and
South America had the biggest and strongest ones. These unions were
organised in a confederal manner, from the bottom up, along anarchist
lines. They fought with capitalists on a day-to-day basis around the issue
of better wages and working conditions, but they also sought to overthrow
capitalism through the revolutionary general strike.
That anarchist organisational techniques encouraged member participation,
empowerment and militancy, and that they also successfully fought for
reforms and promoted class consciousness, can be seen in the growth of
anarcho-syndicalist unions and their impact on the labour movement. The
Industrial Workers of the World, for example, still inspires union
activists and has, throughout its long history, provided many union songs
and slogans.
Most of the syndicalist unions were severely repressed during World War I,
but in the immediate post-war years they reached their height. This wave
of militancy was known as the "red years" in Italy, where it attained its
high point with factory occupations (see
A.5.5 - Anarchists in the Italian Factory Occupations.). But these years
also saw the destruction of these unions in country after county, through
two influences. On the one hand, the apparent success of the Russian
revolution led many activists to turn to authoritarian politics. The
Communist parties deliberately undermined the libertarian unions,
encouraging fights and splits. More importantly, however, these years saw
capitalism go on the offensive with a new weapon -- fascism. Fascism arose
in Italy and Germany as an attempt by capitalism to physically smash the
widespread organisations the working class had built. In both these
countries, anarchists were forced to flee into exile, vanish from sight, or
became victims of assassins or concentration camps. In the USA, the IWW
was crushed by a wave of repression backed whole-heartedly by media, the
state, and the capitalist class.
In Spain, however, the CNT, the anarcho-syndicalist union, continued to
grow, claiming one and a half million members by 1936. The capitalist class
embraced fascism to save their power from the dispossessed, who were
becoming confident of their power and their right to manage their own
lives (see
A.5.6 Anarchism and the Spanish Revolution.). Elsewhere, capitalists supported authoritarian
states in order to crush the labour movement and make their countries
safe for capitalism. Only Sweden escaped this trend, where the syndicalist
union the SAC is still organising workers (and is, in fact, like many
other syndicalist unions, growing as workers turn away from bureaucratic
unions whose leaders seem more interested in protecting their privileges
and cutting deals with management than defending their members).
The Russian revolution of 1917 saw a huge growth in anarchism in that
country and many experiments in anarchist ideas. However, in popular
culture the Russian Revolution is seen not as a mass movement by ordinary
people struggling towards freedom but as the means by which Lenin imposed
his dictatorship on Russia. The Russian Revolution, like most history, is
a good example of the maxim "history is written by those who win." Both
capitalist and Leninist histories of the period between 1917 and 1921
ignore what the anarchist Voline called "the unknown revolution" -- the
revolution called forth from below by the actions of ordinary people.
The initial overthrow of the Tsar came from the direct action of the
masses, and the revolution carried on in this vein until the new,
"socialist" state was powerful enough to stop it. For the Left, the end
of Tsarist was the culmination of years of effort by socialists and
anarchists everywhere, representing the progressive wing of human thought
overcoming traditional oppression, and as such was duly praised by leftists
around the world.
In the workplaces and streets and on the land, more and more people became
convinced that abolishing feudalism politically was not enough. The
overthrow of the Tsar made little real difference if feudal exploitation
still existed in the economy, so workers started to seize their workplaces
and peasants, the land. All across Russia, ordinary people started to
build their own organisations, unions, co-operatives, factory committees
and councils (or "soviets" in Russian). These organisations were initially
organised in anarchist fashion, with recallable delegates and being
federated with each other.
The anarchists participated in this movement, encouraging all tendencies
to self-management. As Jacques Sadoul (a French officer) noted in early
1918:
Anarchists were
particularly active in the movement for workers self-management of
production (see M. Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers Control).
But by early 1918, the authoritarian socialists of the Bolshevik party,
once they had seized power, began the physical suppression of their
anarchist rivals. Initially, anarchists had supported the Bolsheviks,
since the Bolshevik leaders had hidden their state-building ideology
behind support for the soviets.
However, this support quickly "withered away" as the Bolsheviks showed
that they were, in fact, not seeking true socialism but were instead securing
power for themselves and pushing not for collective ownership of land and
productive resources but for government ownership. The Bolsheviks,
for example, systematically destroyed the workers' control movement, even
though it was successfully increasing production in the face of difficult
circumstances.
Lenin suppressed workers' control on the spurious grounds that it would reduce
the productivity of labour -- an argument that has subsequently been shown
to be false by cases where workers' control has been established (see
section C.2.4). It's interesting to note that today's capitalist
apologists, who often claim workers' control would reduce productivity,
are actually using a discredited Leninist argument.
While eliminating the workers' control movement, the Bolsheviks also
systematically undermined, arrested, and killed their most vocal
opponents, the anarchists, as well as restricting the freedom of the
masses they claimed to be protecting. Independent unions, political
parties, the right to strike, self-management in the workplace and
on the land -- all were destroyed in the name of "socialism." For
insiders, the Revolution had died a few months after the Bolsheviks
took over. To the outside world, the Bolsheviks and the USSR came to
represent "socialism" even as they systematically destroyed the
basis of real socialism. The Bolsheviks put down the libertarian
socialist elements within their country, the crushing of the uprisings
at Kronstadt and in the Ukraine being the final nails in the coffin of
socialism and the subjugation of the soviets.
The Kronstadt uprising of February, 1921, was, for anarchists, of immense
importance. This is because it was the first major uprising of ordinary
people for real socialism.
In the Ukraine, anarchist ideas were most successfully applied. In areas
under the protection of the Makhnovist movement, working class people
organised their own lives directly, based on their own ideas and needs --
true social self-determination. Under the leadership of Nestor Makhno, a
self-educated peasant, the movement not only fought against both Red and
White dictatorships but resisted the Ukrainian nationalists.
In opposition to the call for "national self-determination," i.e. a new
Ukrainian state, Makhno called instead for working class self-determination
in the Ukraine and across the world. The Makhnovists organised worker and
peasant conferences (some of which the Bolsheviks tried to ban) as well
as free soviets, unions and communes. He became known as the Ukrainian
"Robin Hood."
The Makhnovists argued that the "freedom of the workers and peasants is
their own, and not subject to any restriction. It is up to the workers and
peasants themselves to act, to organise themselves, to agree among themselves
in all aspects of their lives, as they see fit and desire. . .The Makhnovists
can do no more that give aid and counsel. . .In no circumstances can they,
nor do they wish to, govern." [Peter Arshinov, quoted by Guerin, Ibib.,
p. 99]
In Alexandrovsk, the Bolsheviks proposed to the Makhnovists spheres of
action - their Revkom (Revolutionary Committee) would handle political
affairs and the Makhnovists military ones. Makhno advised them "to go and
take up some honest trade instead of seeking to impose their will on the
workers." [Peter Arshinov in The Anarchist Reader, p. 141]
The Makhnovists rejected the Bolshevik corruption of the soviets and
instead proposed "the free and completely independent soviet system of
working people without authorities and their arbitrary laws." Their
proclamations stated that the "working people themselves must freely choose
their own soviets, which carry out the will and desires of the working
people themselves, that is to say. ADMINISTRATIVE, not ruling soviets."
Economically, capitalism would be abolished along with the state -
the land and workshops "must belong to the working people themselves, to
those who work in them, that is to say, they must be socialised." [The
History of the Makhnovist Movement, p. 271 and p. 273]
The anarchist experiment of self-management in the Ukraine came to a bloody
end when the Bolsheviks turned on the Makhnovists (their former allies
against the "Whites," or pro-Tsarists) when they were no longer needed.
The last anarchist march in Moscow until 1987 took place at the funeral
of Kropotkin in 1921, when some 10,000 marched behind his coffin. Many of
these had been released from prison for the day and were to be murdered by
Leninists in later years. From about 1921 on, anarchists started
describing the USSR as a "state-capitalist" nation to indicate that
although individual bosses might have been eliminated, the Soviet state
bureaucracy played the same role as individual bosses do in the West.
For more information on the Russian Revolution and the role played by
anarchists, the following books are recommended: The Unknown Revolution
by Voline; The Guillotine at Work by G.P. Maximov; The Bolshevik Myth
and The Russian Tragedy, both by Alexander Berkman; The Bolsheviks and Workers Control by M. Brinton; The Kronstadt Uprising by Ida Mett; The History of the Makhnovist Movement by Peter Arshinov. Many of these books
were written by anarchists active during the revolution, many imprisoned
by the Bolsheviks and deported to the West due to international pressure
exerted by anarcho-syndicalist delegates to Moscow who the Bolsheviks were
trying to win over to Leninism. The majority of such delegates stayed
true to their libertarian politics and convinced their unions to reject
Bolshevism and break with Moscow. By the early 1920's all the
anarcho-syndicalist union confederations had joined with the anarchists in
rejecting the "socialism" in Russia as state capitalism and party
dictatorship.
After the end of the First World War there was a massive radicalisation
across Europe and the world. Union membership exploded, with strikes,
demonstrations and agitation reaching massive levels. This was partly due
to the war, partly to the apparent success of the Russian Revolution.
Across Europe, anarchist ideas became more popular and anarcho-syndicalist
unions grew in size. For example, in Britain, the ferment produced the
shop stewards' movement and the strikes on Clydeside, in Germany, the rise
of industrial unionism, and in Spain, a massive growth in the
anarcho-syndicalist CNT. In addition, it also, unfortunately, saw the
rise and growth of both social democratic and communist parties.
In August, 1920, there were large-scale stay-in strikes in Italy in
response to an owner wage cut and lockout. These strikes began in the
engineering factories and soon spread to railways, road transport, and
other industries, with peasants seizing land. The strikers, however, did
more than just occupy their workplaces, they placed them under workers'
self-management. Soon 500,000 "strikers" were at work, producing for
themselves. Errico Malatesta, who took part in these events, writes:
Daniel Guerin provides a good summary of the extent of the movement:
However, after four weeks of occupation, the workers decided to leave the
factories. This was because of the actions of the socialist party and the
reformist trade unions. They opposed the movement and negotiated with the
state for a return to "normality" in exchange for a promise to extend
workers' control legally, in association with the bosses. This promise was
not kept. The lack of independent inter-factory organisation made workers
dependent on trade union bureaucrats for information on what was going on
in other cities, and they used that power to isolate factories, cities,
and factories from each other. This lead to a return to work, "in spite of the opposition of individual anarchists dispersed among the factories"
[Malatesta, Op. Cit., p. 136]. The local syndicalist union confederations
could not provide the necessary framework for a fully co-ordinated
occupation movement, as the reformist unions refused to work with them;
and although the anarchists were a large minority, they were still a
minority.
This period of Italian history explains the growth of Fascism in Italy. As
Tobias Abse points out, "the rise of fascism in Italy cannot be detached from the events of the biennio rosso, the two red years of 1919 and 1920, that preceded it. Fascism was a preventive counter-revolution. . .launched as a result of the failed revolution" ["The Rise of Fascism in
an Industrial City", p. 54, in Rethinking Italian Fascism, pp.
52-81]
As Malatesta argued at the time of the factory occupations, "[i]f we do
not carry on to the end, we will pay with tears of blood for the fear we now
instill in the bourgeoisie." Later events proved him right, as the
capitalists and rich landowners backed the fascists in order to teach the
working class their place. However, even in the dark days of fascist
terror, the anarchists resisted the forces of totalitarianism. "It is no coincidence that the strongest working-class resistance to Fascism was in. . .towns or cities in which there was quite a strong anarchist, syndicalist or anarcho-syndicalist tradition" [Tobias Abse, Op. Cit., p.
56].
The anarchists participated in, and often organised sections of, the
Arditi del Popolo, a working-class organisation devoted to the
self-defence of workers' interests. The Arditi del Popolo organised and
encouraged working-class resistance to fascist squads, often defeating
larger fascist forces. The Arditi was the closest Italy got to the idea of
a united, revolutionary working-class front against fascism, as had been
suggested by Malatesta and the UAI. However, both the socialist and
communist parties withdrew from the organisation, with the socialists
signing a "Pact of Pacification" with the Fascists. The leaders of the
authoritarian socialists preferred defeat and fascism than risk their
followers becoming "infected" by anarchism.
Even after the fascist state was created, anarchists resisted both inside
and outside Italy. Many Italians, both anarchist and non-anarchist,
travelled to Spain to resist Franco in 1936. During the Second World War,
anarchists played a major part in the Italian Partisan movement. It was
the fact that the anti-fascist movement was dominated by anti-capitalist
elements that led the USA and the UK to place known fascists in
governmental positions in the places they "liberated" (often where the
town had already been taken by the Partisans, resulting in the Allied
troops "liberating" the town from its own inhabitants!).
It is hardly surprising that anarchists were the most consistent and
successful opponents of Fascism. The two movements could not be further
apart, one standing for total statism in the service of capitalism while
the other for a free, non-capitalist society. Neither is it surprising
that when their privileges and power were in danger, the capitalists and
the landowners turned to fascism to save them. This process is a common
feature in history (to list just three examples, Italy, Germany, and Chile).
Spain in the 1930's had the largest anarchist movement in the world. At
the start of the Spanish "Civil" war, over one and one half million
workers and peasants were members of the CNT (the National Confederation of Labour), an anarcho-syndicalist union federation, and 30,000 were
members of the FAI (the Anarchist Federation of Iberia). The total
population of Spain at this time was 24 million.
The social revolution which met the Fascist coup on July 18th, 1936, is
the greatest experiment in libertarian socialism to date. Here the last
mass syndicalist union, the CNT, not only held off the fascist rising but
encouraged the widespread take-over of land and factories. Over seven million
people, including about two million CNT members, put self-management into
practise in the most difficult of circumstances and actually improved both
working conditions and output.
In the heady days after the 19th of July, the initiative and power truly
rested in the hands of the rank-and-file members of the CNT and FAI. It
was ordinary people, undoubtedly under the influence of Faistas (members
of the FAI) and CNT militants, who, after defeating the fascist uprising,
got production, distribution and consumption started again (under more
egalitarian arrangements, of course), as well as organising and
volunteering (in their tens of thousands) to join the militias, which were
to be sent to free those parts of Spain that were under Franco. In every
possible way the working class of Spain were creating by their own
actions a new world based on their own ideas of social justice and freedom
-- ideas inspired, of course, by anarchism and anarchosyndicalism.
George Orwell's eye-witness account of revolutionary Barcelona in late
December, 1936, gives a vivid picture of the social transformation that had
begun:
The full extent of this historic revolution cannot be covered here. It will
be discussed in more detail in Section I.8
of the FAQ. All that can be done is
to highlight a few points of special interest in the hope that these will
give some indication of the importance of these events and encourage
people to find out more about it.
All industry in Catalonia was placed either under workers' self-management
or workers' control (that is, either totally taking over all aspects of
management, in the first case, or, in the second, controlling the old
management). In some cases, whole town and regional economies were
transformed into federations of collectives. The example of the Railway Federation (which was set up to manage the railway lines in Catalonia,
Aragon and Valencia) can be given as a typical example. The base of the
federation was the local assemblies:
The delegates on the committee could be removed by an assembly at any time
and the highest co-ordinating body of the Railway Federation was the
"Revolutionary Committee," whose members were elected by union assemblies in the various divisions. The control over the rail lines,
according to Gaston Leval, "did not operate from above downwards,
as in a statist and centralised
system. The Revolutionary Committee had no such powers. . . The members of
the. . . committee being content to supervise the general activity and to
co-ordinate that of the different routes that made up the network."
[Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, p. 255].
On the land, tens of thousands of peasants and rural day workers created
voluntary, self-managed collectives. The quality of life improved as
Cupertino allowed the introduction of health care, education, machinery and
investment in the social infrastructure. As well as increasing production,
the collectives increased freedom. As one member puts it, "it was
marvelous. . . to live in a collective, a free society where one could say
what one thought, where if the village committee seemed unsatisfactory one
could say. The committee took no big decisions without calling the whole
village together in a general assembly. All this was wonderful." [Ronald
Frazer, Blood of Spain, p. 360]
On the social front, anarchist organisations created rational schools, a
libertarian health service, social centres, and so on. The Mujeres Libres
(free women) combated the traditional role of women in Spanish society,
empowering thousands both inside and outside the anarchist movement (see
The Free Women of Spain by Martha A. Ackelsberg for more information on
this very important organisation). This activity on the social front only
built on the work started long before the outbreak of the war; for
example, the unions often funded rational schools, workers centres, and so
on.
The voluntary militias that went to free the rest of Spain from Franco
were organised on anarchist principles and included both men and women.
There was no rank, no saluting and no officer class. Everybody was equal.
George Orwell, a member of the POUM militia, makes this clear:
In Spain, however, as elsewhere, the anarchist movement was smashed
between Leninism (the Communist Party) and Capitalism (Franco) on the
other. Unfortunately, the anarchists placed anti-fascist unity before
the revolution, thus helping their enemies to defeat both them and the
revolution. Whether they were forced by circumstances into this position
or could have avoided it is still being debated.
Orwell's account of his experiences in the militia's indicates why the
Spanish Revolution is so important to anarchists:
For more information on the Spanish Revolution, the following books are
recommended: Lessons of the Spanish Revolution by Vernon Richards;
Anarchists in the Spanish Revolution by Jose Peirats;
Free Women of Spain by Martha A. Ackelsberg; The Anarchist
Collectives edited by Sam Dolgoff;
"Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship" by Noam Chomsky (in
The Chomsky Reader); The Anarchists of Casas Viejas by
Jerome R. Mintz; and Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell.
A.5.1 The Paris Commune
"revolutionary socialism [i.e. anarchism] has just attempted its first striking and practical demonstration in the Paris Commune" [Bakunin on Anarchism, p. 263].
A.5.2 The Haymarket Martyrs
"If you think that by hanging us you can stamp out the
labour movement. . . the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the
millions who toil in misery and want, expect salvation -- if this is your
opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread on a spark, but there and
there, behind you -- and in front of you, and everywhere, flames blaze
up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out."
A.5.3 Building the Syndicalist Unions
A.5.4 Anarchists in the Russian Revolution.
"The anarchist party is the most active, the most militant of the
opposition groups and probably the most popular. . . .The Bolsheviks are
anxious." [quoted by Daniel Guerin, Anarchism, pp. 95-6]
"Kronstadt was the first entirely independent attempt of the people to free themselves of all control and carry out the social revolution: this attempt was made directly. . . by the working classes themselves, without political
shepherds, without leaders, or tutors" [Voline, The Unknown Revolution,
quoted by Guerin, Ibid., p. 105].
A.5.5 Anarchists in the Italian Factory Occupations
"workers thought that the moment was ripe to take possession once [and] for all the means of production. They armed for self-defence. . . and
began to organise production on their own. . . . It was the right of
property abolished in fact. . . it was a new regime, a new form of social
life that was being ushered in. And the government stood by because it
felt impotent to offer opposition" [Life and Ideas, p. 134].
During this period the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI) grew in size to nearly
one million members and the influence of the Italian Anarchist Union (UAI)
with its 20,000 members grew correspondingly. As the Welsh Marxist historian
Gwyn A. Williams points out "Anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists were the most consistently and totally revolutionary group on the left. . .the most obvious feature of the history of syndicalism and anarchism in 1919-20: rapid and virtually continuous growth. . .The syndicalists above all captured
militant working-class opinion which the socialist movement was utterly failing
to capture." [Proletarian Order, pp. 194-195]
"the management of the factories. . .[was] conducted by technical and administrative workers' committees. Self-management went quite a long way. . .the self-management issued its own money. . . Very strict
self-discipline was required. . . [and] very close solidarity was
established between factories. . . . [where] ores and coal were put into a
common pool, and shared equitably" [Anarchism, p. 109].
Over the occupied factories, flew "a forest of red and black flags" as "the council movement outside Turin was essentially anarcho-syndicalist" [Williams,
Op. Cit.., p. 241, p. 193]. Railway workers refused to transport troops, workers
broke into strikes against the orders of the reformist unions and peasants
occupied the land. Such activity were "either directly led or indirectly inspired by anarcho-syndicalists." [Ibid., p. 193]
A.5.6 Anarchism and the Spanish Revolution.
"The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the
revolution
was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it
probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was
ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was
something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever
been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. 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. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs
of workman. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been
collectivised; even the bootblacks had been collectivised and their boxes
painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and
treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had
temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Señor' or 'Don' or even
'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' or 'Thou', and said
'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dias'. . . Above all, there was a belief in the
revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era
of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings
and not as cogs in the capitalist machine." [Homage to Catalonia,
pp. 2-3]
"All the workers of each locality would meet twice a week to examine all
that pertained to the work to be done... The local general assembly named a
committee to manage the general activity in each station and its annexes. At
[these] meetings, the decisions (direccion) of this committee, whose members
continued to work [at their previous jobs], would be subjected to the
approval or disapproval of the workers, after giving reports and answering
questions."
"The essential point of the [militia] system was the social equality
between officers and men. Everyone from general to private drew the
same pay, ate the same food, wore the same clothes, and mingled on
terms of complete equality. If you wanted to slap the general
commanding the division on the back and ask him for a cigarette,
you could do so, and no one thought it curious. In theory at any
rate each militia was a democracy and not a hierarchy. It was
understood that orders had to be obeyed, but it was also understood
that when you gave an order you gave it as comrade to comrade and not
as superior to inferior. There were officers and N.C.O.s, but there
was no military rank in the ordinary sense; no titles, no badges, no
heel-clicking and saluting. They had attempted to produce within the
militias a sort of temporary working model of the classless society.
Of course there was not perfect equality, but there was a nearer
approach to it than I had ever seen or that I would have though
conceivable in time of war. . . " [Op. Cit., p. 26]
"I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size
in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism
were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragon one was among tens
of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin,
all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory
it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There
is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a
foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental
atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilised
life -- snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc. -- had simply
ceased to exist. The ordinary class- division of society had disappeared
to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England;
there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned
anyone else as his master. . . One had been in a community where hope was
more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word 'comrade' stood for
comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the
air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that
Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world
a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving'
that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the
grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of
Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men
to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique'
of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people
Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all . . . In
that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of
everything but no boot-licking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what
the opening stages of Socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of
disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. . ." [Op. Cit.,
pp. 83-84]