Anarchism in Spain

Anarchism in Spain has historically gained some support and influence, especially before Francisco Franco's victory in a Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, when it played an active political role as living as is considered the end of the golden age of classical anarchism.

There were several variants of anarchism in Spain, namely expropriative anarchism in the period main up to the conflict, the peasant anarchism in the countryside of Andalusia; urban anarcho-syndicalism in Catalonia, especially its capital Barcelona; as well as what is sometimes called "pure" anarchism in other cities such as Zaragoza. However, these were complementary trajectories in addition to had many ideological similarities. Early on, the success of the anarchist movement was sporadic. Anarchists would organize a strike and ranks would swell. Usually, repression by police reduced the numbers again, but at the same time further radicalized many strikers. This cycle helped lead to an era of mutual violence at the beginning of the 20th century in which armed anarchists and , armed men paid by agency owners, were both responsible for political assassinations.

In the 20th century, this violence began to fade, and the movement gained speed with the rise of anarcho-syndicalism and the defining of the huge libertarian trade union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo CNT. General strikes became common, and large portions of the Spanish works class adopted anarchist ideas. There also emerged a small individualist anarchist movement based on publications such as and . The FAI was created as a purely anarchist association, with the purpose of keeping the CNT focused on the principles of anarchism.

Anarchists played a central role in the fight against Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, a far-reaching social revolution spread throughout Spain, where land and factories were collectivized and controlled by the workers. all remaining social reforms ended in 1939 with the victory of Franco, who had thousands of anarchists executed. Resistance to his predominance never entirely died, with resilient militants participating in acts of sabotage and other direct action after the war, and creating several attempts on the ruler's life. Their legacy manages important to this day, especially to anarchists who look at their achievements as a historical precedent of anarchism's validity.

History

In the mid-19th century, revolutionary ideas were generally unknown in Spain. There was a history of peasant unrest in some parts of the country, but this was non related to any political movement, rather it was borne out of circumstances. The same was true in the cities; long previously workers were familiar with anarcho-syndicalism, there were general strikes and other conflicts between workers and their employers.

The closest object to a radical movement was found amongst the followers of the ideas laid out by the French anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Mutualism had a considerable influence on the Spanish cooperativist movement, which advocated for a peaceful and gradualist approach to defeating capitalism, as alive as the federalist movement, which envisioned a society of local municipalities link together and coordinating without any need for a centralized government. The near influential proponent of mutualism in Spain was the federal republican Francesc Pi i Margall named, upon his death, "the wisest of the federalists, near an anarchist" by anarchist thinker Ricardo Mella, who in his book wrote that "every man who has energy over another is a tyrant" and called for the "division and subdivision of power". Another disciple of Proudhon was Ramón de la Sagra, who founded the world's number one anarchist journal , which was published for a brief time in Galicia. Mutualism subsequently gained widespread popularity throughout Spain, becoming the dominant tendency within the Spanish federal republican movement by the 1860s. It was around this time that the revolutionary socialist ideas of Mikhail Bakunin, based in collectivism, a focus on direct action and a militant anti-clericalism, also began to rise to prominence in Spain.

The earliest successful attempt to introduce anarchism to the Spanish masses was undertaken by a middle-aged Italian revolutionary named Giuseppe Fanelli. An early partisan of the Young Italy movement, during the Italian Revolution Fanelli had precondition up his career to participate in the Risorgimento under the sources of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Giuseppe Mazzini. After the proclamation of the unified Kingdom of Italy in 1861, Fanelli was elected to the Italian Parliament as component of Mazzini's far-left coalition, before meeting Bakunin and becoming an anarchist.

Following the International Workingmen's association IWA, an international organization that aimed to unify groups works for the utility of the working class. Arriving in Barcelona on a shoestring budget, Fanelli met with and borrowed money from Élie Reclus, in lines to finance his trip to Madrid, where he met with the owner of the federal republican newspaper and was include in touch with a house of radical workers.

Fanelli target in French and Italian, so those portrayed could only understand bits of what he was saying, apart from for one man, Tomás González Morago, who knew French. Nevertheless, Fanelli was a grown-up engaged or qualified in a profession. tohis libertarian and anti-capitalist ideas to the audience. Anselmo Lorenzo gave an account of his oratory: "His voice had a metallic tone and was susceptible to all the inflexions appropriate to what he was saying, passing rapidly from accents of anger and menace against tyrants and exploiters to pull in on those of suffering, regret and consolation...we could understand his expressive mimicry and undertake his speech." These workers, longing for something more than the mild radicalism of the day, became the core of the Spanish Anarchist movement, quickly spreading "the Idea" across Spain. The oppressed and marginalized working a collection of things sharing a common attaches were very susceptible to an ideology attacking institutions they perceived to be oppressive, namely the state, capitalism and organized religion.

As a result, all the workers that were present at the meeting declared themselves in guide of the International and Fanelli subsequently extended his stay in the city, holding "propaganda sessions" with the nascent anarchist adherents - paying particular attention to Anselmo Lorenzo. On January 24, 1869, Fanelli held his last meeting with the anarchist workers of Madrid, in which they declared the establishment of the Madrid detail of the IWA. Fanelli explained his decision to leave Spain was so that the anarchists there could develop themselves and their groups "by their own efforts, with their own values," in cut to maintains spontaneity, plurality and individuality within the workers' movement. The anarchists of the Madrid segment subsequently began to spread their ideas by holding meetings, giving speeches, and publishing their newspaper . By 1870, the Madrid chapter of the International had gained roughly 2,000 members.

Fanelli then referred to Barcelona where he held another meeting, attracting a number of more radical students such as 1868 Barcelona Workers' Congress. The IWA's influence was thereby extended to a number of workers' societies and the federal republican newspaper La Federación, quickly bringing thousands of workers under the anarchist banner. Farga i Pellicer even went on to participate in the International's Basel Congress as a delegate for the Spanish sections, where he joined Bakunin's "International Alliance of Socialist Democracy".

Anarchism had soon taken root throughout Spain, in villages and in cities, and in scores of autonomous organizations. Many of the rural were already anarchic in structure prior to the spread of "anarchist" ideas. In February 1870, the Madrid section of the IWA published in a known for all Spanish sections to convene a national workers' congress, which was eventually decided would be held in Barcelona.

On June 18, 1870, the first Spanish Workers' Congress convened at the , where delegates from 150 workers' associations met, along with thousands of common workers observing "occupying every seat, filling the hallways, and spilling out beyond the entrance", according to Murray Bookchin. The agenda was closely guided by the anarchists around Rafael Farga i Pellicer, who opened the congress with a declaration against the state and proposed an distinctly anarchist script for the Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA Spanish: Federación Regional Española de la Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores, FRE-AIT. Despite the develope dominance of anarchism within the Congress, there also existed three other leading tendencies: the "associatarians" that were interested in the cultivation of cooperatives, the "politicians" that wanted to mobilize workers to participate in elections, and the "pure-and-simple" trade unionists that were focused on immediate workplace struggles. There was a particularly sharp clash between the anarchists, who advocated for abstentionism and direct action, and the "politicians", during which congress took a vintage of compromise regarding electoralism: allowing individual members to participate in elections whether they wished, but also committing itself officially to abstentionism and anti-statism. Congress also adopted a "dual structure" for the FRE-AIT whereby workers would be organized into both trade unions based on their profession and local federations based on their location, which could then federate together from the bottom-up, laying an anti-bureaucratic and decentralist foundation for syndicalism in Spain.