The Spanish Civil War

Yeoman, James Michael

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_25

James Michael Yeoman³

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Abstract

The Spanish Civil War is one of the most significant events in the history of anarchism. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 prompted a libertarian social revolution, which saw widespread collectivisation and worker self-management in Barcelona and urban Catalonia and the rural provinces of neighbouring Aragon. Empowered anarchist committees and groups also sought to overturn gender oppression, overhaul the education system, and enact radical public health programmes. This unprecedented revolution ended in May 1937, with the reassertion of Republican state control. After a week of violence in Barcelona, the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) was removed from its dominant position in the north-east of the country, and most revolutionary measures were halted or reversed. This chapter will begin by outlining the development of the anarchist movement in Spain. It will then focus on the Spanish Revolution, highlighting the key anarchist individuals, groups, and ideas of the early months of the Civil War, before moving on to a discussion of the events and historiography of the ‘May Days’. Finally, the chapter will examine the decline of the movement in the remaining years of the Civil War, and the experience of defeat, repression, and exile during the Franco dictatorship.

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Notes

1.
On the nineteenth-century movement, see J. Termes, Anarquismo y sindicalismo en España: La Primera Internacional (1864–1881) (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000); G. Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology and the Working-Class Movement in Spain, 1868–1898 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989). The FRE claimed 15,000 affiliates at its height, the FTRE 70,000, and the FSORE 80,000.
2.
Á. Herrerín López, Anarquía, dinamita y revolución social: Violencia y represión en la España de entre siglos (1868–1909) (Madrid: Catarata, 2011), 129–234 and ‘Anarchist sociability in Spain: In times of violence and clandestinity’, Bulletin for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, 38.1 (2013), 155–174.
3.
On turn-of-the-century anarchist culture and ideology, see J. Álvarez Junco, La ideología política del anarquismo español (1868–1910) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1991); L. Litvak, Musa libertaria: Arte, literatura y vida cultural del anarquismo español (1880–1913) (Madrid: Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo, 2001).
4.
Some of the better English-language regional studies include T. Kaplan, The Anarchists of Andalusia, 1868–1903 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977); P. Radcliff, From Mobilization to Civil War: The Politics of Polarization in the Spanish City of Gijón, 1900–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); R. Purkiss, Democracy, Trade Unions and Political Violence in Spain: The Valencian Anarchist Movement, 1918–1936 (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2014).
5.
See X. Cuadrat, Socialismo y anarquismo en Cataluña (1899–1911): Los origenes de laCNT (Madrid: Revista de Trabajo, 1976).
6.
A. Bar, LaCNT en los años rojos: Del sindicalismo revolucionario al anarcosindicalismo (1910–1926) (Madrid: Akal, 1981), 479–555.
7.
A. Smith, Anarchism, Revolution and Reaction: Catalan Labour and the Crisis of the Spanish State, 1898–1923 (New York: Berghahn, 2007), 290–360.
8.
J. Garner, Goals and Means: Anarchism, Syndicalism and the Origins of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2016), 219–254.
9.
J. Casanova, Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain: 1931–1939 (London: Routledge, 2005), 17–63.
10.
See J.R. Mintz, The Anarchists of Casas Viejas (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982).
11.
D. Evans, ‘“Ultra-Left” anarchists and anti-fascism in the Second Republic’, International Journal of Iberian Studies, 29.3 (2016), 241–256.
12.
Á. Barrio Alonso, Anarquismo y anarcosindicalismo en Asturias (1890–1936) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1988), 389–415.
13.
C. Ealham, Anarchism and the City: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Barcelona, (1898–1937) (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2010), 130–148.
14.
D. Evans, ‘The conscience of the Spanish Revolution: Anarchist opposition to state collaboration in 1937’, (PhD thesis, The University of Leeds, 2016), 30–33. Forthcoming as Revolution and the State: Anarchism and the Spanish Revolution (London: Routledge, 2018). My thanks to Dr Evans for providing the manuscript and his thoughts on this chapter.
15.
H. Graham, The Spanish Republic at War, 1936–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 79–84.
16.
A. Guillamón, Ready for Revolution: TheCNT Defence Committees in Barcelona: 1934–1938, trans. P. Sharkey (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2014), 45–70.
17.
Génerao Tejedor, cited in J. Peirats, TheCNT in the Spanish Revolution, trans. Paul Sharkey and Chris Ealham, vol. 1 (Hastings: The Meltzer Press, 2001), 119.
18.
Ealham, Anarchism, 170–173.
19.
E. de Guzmán, Madrid rojo y negro (Madrid: Oberon, 2004), 39–61.
20.
Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 120–130. On the coup in Zaragoza see G. Kelsey, Anarchosyndicalism, Libertarian Communism and the State: The CNT in Zaragoza and Aragon, 1930–1937 (Amsterdam: IISH and Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1991), 148–154.
21.
P. Preston, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain (London: Harper Collins, 2012), 131–218.
22.
M. Vincent, ‘“The keys of the kingdom”: Religious violence in the Spanish Civil War’, in C. Ealham and M. Richards (Eds.), The Splintering of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 68–89 and ‘Made Flesh? Gender and doctrine in religious violence in twentieth-century Spain’, Gender & History, 25.3 (2013), 668–80.
23.
J. de la Cueva, ‘Religious persecution, anticlerical tradition and revolution: On atrocities against the clergy during the Spanish Civil War’, Journal of Contemporary History, 33.3 (1998), 355–369. See also A. Guillamón, The Friends of Durruti Group: 1937–1939, trans. Paul Sharkey (Edinburgh: AK Press, 1996), 15–21.
24.
Cited in Ealham, Anarchism, 177.
25.
Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 145.
26.
J.L. Ledesma, ‘Qué violencia para qué retaguardia o la República en guerra de v1936,’ Ayer, 76.4 (2009), 83–114.
27.
M. Vincent, Spain 1833–2002: People and State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 137–139.
28.
J. Vadillo Muñoz, ‘El anarquismo en el Madrid de la Segunda República: Perfil social, estrategias y tácticas,’ Revista Historia Autónoma, 10 (2017), 123–143. On the internal struggles between the PCE and CNT within the Madrid defence council, see J. Aróstegui and J.A. Martínez, La Junta De Defensa de Madrid: Noviembre 1836–Abril 1937 (Madrid: Comunidad de Madrid, 1984), 136–140.
29.
P. Radcliff, ‘The culture of empowerment in Gijón, 1936–1937,’ in C. Ealham and M. Richards, Splintering of Spain, 113–155.
30.
A. Bosch Sánchez, Ugetistas y libertarios: Guerra Civil y revolución en el País Valenciano, 1936–1939 (Valencia: Institucío Alfons el Magnànim, 1983), 15–126.
31.
Ealham, Anarchism, 173.
32.
Guillamón, Revolution, 71–107.
33.
Ealham, Anarchism, 173–180.
34.
Critical analysis of international accounts of the revolution is given in V. Cunningham, ‘Introduction’, in V. Cunningham (Ed.) Spanish Front: Writers on the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), ix–xxxiii and Gerd-Rainer Horn, ‘The language of symbols and the barriers of language: Foreigners’ perceptions of social revolution (Barcelona 1936–7)’, History Workshop Journal, 29 (1990), 42–64.
35.
F. Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit: An Eye-Witness Account of the Political and Social Conflicts of the Spanish Civil War (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1974), 69.
36.
M. Low and J. Breá, Red Spanish Notebook: The First Six Months of the Revolution and Civil War (London: Martin Seckler and Warburg, 1937), 18–20.
37.
G. Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (London: Penguin, 2000), 2–3. For a recent critical appraisal of Orwell’s account see P. Preston, ‘Lights and shadows in George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies (2017).
38.
M.A. Ackelsberg, Free Women of Spain: Anarchism and the Struggle for the Emancipation of Women (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2005), 93–97.
39.
Enriqueta Rovira cited in Ibid., 99.
40.
Ibid., 115–197.
41.
On anarchist education during the Republic and Civil War, see A. Tiana Ferrer, Educación libertaria y revolución social (España, 1936–1939) (Madrid: UNED, 1987) and J. Navarro Navarro, A la revolución por la cultura: Prácticas culturales y sociabilidad libertarias en el País Valenciano, 1931–1939 (Valencia: Universitat de València, 2004).
42.
R. Cleminson, Anarchism, Sex and Science: Eugenics in Eastern Spain, 1900–1937 (Bern: Peter Lang, 2000), 227–253.
43.
Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 136–142; F. Mintz, Anarchism and Workers’ Self-Management in Revolutionary Spain, trans. P. Sharkey (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2013), 63–77.
44.
See the example of Barcelona’s bread industry in Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 140 and bus factory visited by Borkenau, in Spanish Cockpit, 89–91.
45.
Andreu Capdevilla cited in R. Fraser, Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War (London: Pimlico, 1994), 214–215.
46.
See M. Seidman, ‘The Unorwellian Barcelona’, European History Quarterly, 20 (1990), 163–180.
47.
Fraser, Blood of Spain, 222 (see 210–236 for reflections on collectivisation from a range of participants and onlookers); Evans, ‘Anarchist’, 76–82.
48.
The legalisation decree of October 1936 is reproduced in Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 276–281.
49.
Casanova, Anarchism, 130–131, cautiously cites official figures which suggest that 1469 rural collectives were formed across Republican Spain, run by the CNT (857), UGT (415), joint CNT–UGT (135), and other organisations (62).
50.
Graham, Spanish Republic, 102–103.
51.
See the attempt to coordinate the orange trade in Valencia in Mintz, Anarchism, 273–278. See also A. Bosch Sánchez, ‘The Spanish Republic and the Civil War: Rural conflict and collectivisation’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 75.5 (1998), 117–132 and ‘Collectivisations: the Spanish Revolution revisited, 1936–9’, International Journal of Iberian Studies, 14.1 (2001), 4–16.
52.
See A. Diez Torre, Trabajan para la eternidad: Colectividades de trabajo y apoyo mutua durante la Guerra Civil en Aragón (Madrid: La Malatesta and Zaragoza: Prensas Universidades de Zaragoza, 2009) for one of the most complete recent studies.
53.
Casanova, Anarchism, 113–114.
54.
Compare the contemporary view of the PCE given in Fraser, Blood of Spain, 347 and that of Casanova, Anarchism, 136–138, with those of Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 231–239 and Mintz, Anarchism, 79–89.
55.
Fraser, Blood of Spain, 349.
56.
Kelsey, Anarchosyndicalism, 157–166.
57.
A. Castillo Cañiz, ‘Anarchism and the countryside: Old and new stumbling blocks in the study of rural collectivization in the Spanish Civil War’, International Journal of Iberian Studies, 29.3 (2016), 228.
58.
J. Ascaso, Memorias (1936–1938): Hacia un nuevo Aragón (Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza, 2006), ix–xix.
59.
Ibid., 147–157.
60.
For a detailed analysis of the Council, see J. Casanova, Anarquismo y revolución en la sociedad rural aragonesa, 1936–38 (Barcelona: Crítica, 2006), 133–243.
61.
Fraser, Blood of Spain, 391–392; Kelsey, Anarchosyndicalism, 171–172.
62.
Graham, Spanish Republic, 325–326.
63.
de Guzmán, Madrid, 86–169; A. Paz, The Story of the Iron Column: Militant Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War, trans. Paul Sharkey (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2011), 31–45.
64.
Casanova, Anarchism, 109.
65.
Fraser, Blood of Spain, 132–136, 133.
66.
J. García Oliver, El eco de los pasos (Barcelona: Ruedo Ibérico, 1978), 194–199.
67.
Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, trans. Chuck Morse (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2006), 577–677.
68.
Low and Breá, Red Spanish, 215.
69.
Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 170–171. See also García Oliver’s invocation of Durruti during his May Days radio address in Oliver, El eco de los pasos, 426–427.
70.
Graham, Spanish Republic, 177–179.
71.
Guillamón, Durruti, 22–45.
72.
M. Aguilera Povedano, ‘Los hechos de mayo de 1937: Efectivos y bajas de cada bando,’ Hispania, 73:245 (2013), 789–816.
73.
Guillamón, Revolution, 177–183; Evans, ‘Anarchist’, 115–123.
74.
C. Ealham, ‘De la unidad antifascista a la desunión libertaria: Los comités superiores del movimiento libertario contra los quijotes anarquistas en el marco del Frente Popular (1936–1937)’, Mélanges de la Casa de Velázquez, 41.1 (2011), 136–137.
75.
García Oliver provides a transcript of his message in El eco de los pasos, 425–427. Some on the barricades assumed that Oliver had been taken prisoner and made to speak these words, such was their disbelief, see Graham, Spanish Republic, 271–272.
76.
F. Godicheau, ‘Los hechos de mayo de 1937 y los “presos antifascistas”: Identificación de un fenómeno represivo’, Historia Social, 44 (2002), 39–63.
77.
P. Pagès i Blanch, ‘El asesinato de Andreu Nin, más datos para la polémica’, Ebre, 58.4 (2010), 57–76.
78.
Kelsey, Anarchosyndicalism, 173–180; J. Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, trans. Paul Sharkey and Chris Ealham, vol. 2 (Hastings: Christie Books, 2005), 228–242.
79.
Godicheau, ‘Mayo’, 62–63.
80.
Casanova, Anarchism; Paz, Iron, 169–178.
81.
Borkenau, Spanish Cockpit, 175.
82.
C. Ealham, ‘The Spanish Revolution: 60 years on’, Tesserae, 2.2 (1996), 215–216.
83.
Graham, Spanish Republic, 286–296; Godicheau, ‘Mayo’, 41–42. See also D. Kowalsky, ‘Operation X: Soviet Russia and the Spanish Civil War,’ Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 91.1–2 (2014), 159–178.
84.
Ealham, ‘Revolution’, 213–214 and 221–224.
85.
Fraser, Blood of Spain, 110–113 Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 130–134; Guillamón, Revolution, 78–82.
86.
Casanova, Anarchism, 116–119.
87.
Cited in Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 180–181.
88.
Ealham, ‘Unidad’, 122–127.
89.
E. Goldman, Vision on Fire: Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2006), 106. See also criticism from Sebastian Faure, cited in Peirats, CNT, vol. 1, 181–184.
90.
Ealham, ‘Unidad’, 133–135.
91.
Graham, Spanish Republic, 205–210.
92.
Guillamón, Revolution, 155–175.
93.
C. Ealham, Living Anarchism: José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2015), 91–102.
94.
F. Gallego, La crisis del antifascismo: Barcelona, Mayo De 1937 (Barcelona: Random House, 2008), 406–414.
95.
Ealham, ‘Unidad’, 126.
96.
Casnova, Anarchism, 122.
97.
For example see H. Graham, ‘“Against the state”: A genealogy of the Barcelona May Days (1937)’, European History Quarterly, 29.4 (1999), 531 and Casanova, Anarchism, 129–130.
98.
Castillo Cañiz, ‘Anarchism and the Countryside’, 230.
99.
Ealham, ‘Revolution’, 227–228 and ‘Unidad’, 125.
100.
Evans, ‘Anarchist’, 56–111.
101.
Segundo Blanco of the Asturian CNT joined Negrín’s new government in March 1938. See Casanova, Anarchism, 155–156.
102.
Guillamón, Revolution, 183–186; Evans, ‘Anarchist’, 208–213.
103.
On the post-May 1937 oppositional press see F. Godicheau, ‘Periódicos clandestinos anarquistas en 1937–1938: ¿Las voces de la base militante?,’ Ayer, 55.3 (2004), 175–206.
104.
Graham, Spanish Republic, 316–323.
105.
J. Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, trans. Paul Sharkey and Chris Ealham, vol. 3 (Hastings: Christie Books, 2006), 68–81.
106.
Graham, Spanish Republic, 372.
107.
Fraser, Blood of Spain, 480–485; Peirats, CNT, vol. 3, 214–217.
108.
Ealham, Living, 122–127.
109.
Garcia Oliver, El eco de los pasos, 506–512.
110.
Á. Viñas, ‘Playing with history and hiding treason: Colonel Casado’s untrustworthy memoirs and the end of the Spanish Civil War’, Bulletin for Spanish Studies, 91.1–2 (2014), 295–323.
111.
H. Graham, ‘Casado’s ghosts: Demythologizing the end of the Spanish Republic’, Bulletin for Spanish Studies, 89.7–8 (2012), 260.
112.
H. Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (London: Penguin, 2012), 861–890.
113.
Á. Herrerín López, La CNT durante el franquismo: Clandestinidad y exilio (1939–1975) (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2004), 14–36.
114.
Ibid., 406–422 and Ealham, Living, 37–169.
115.
Ibid., 197–221.
116.
A comprehensive survey and bibliography of English-language works on Spanish anarchism can be found in Chris Ealham’s introduction to Peirats, CNT, vol. 3, i–xiv.
117.
See D. Evans and J. M. Yeoman, ‘New approaches to Spanish anarchism,’ International Journal of Iberian Studies, 29.3 (2016), 199–204 and the collection of works which follow in this issue.
118.
See in particular A. Monjo, Militants: Participació i democràcia a laCNT als anys trenta (Barcelona: Laertes, 2003) and Guillamón, Revolution.

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Department of History, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK
James Michael Yeoman

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Department of Politics and International Relations Goldsmiths, University of London, London, UK
Carl Levy
Department of Politics, History and International Relations, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK
Matthew S. Adams

Glossary of Political Groups

ADD:: Amigos de Durruti (Friends of Durruti) Radical anarchist group, hostile to militarization and ‘encroachment’ on the revolution. Founded March 1937.
CCMA:: Comité Central de Milicias Antifascistas (Central Committee of Anti-fascist Militia) Anti-fascist co-ordinating body established in Catalonia during the early revolution.
CNT:: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour) Spanish anarcho-syndicalist organisation. Founded 1910–1911.
FAI:: Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Iberian Anarchist Federation) Purist anarchist organisation, aimed to direct the CNT. Founded 1927.
FIJL:: Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias (Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth) National anarchist youth organisation.
FRE:: Federación Regional de España (Regional Federation of Spain) Spanish section of the First International, dominated by Bakuninists. 1870–1874 Peak membership c.15,000.
FSORE:: Federación de Sociedades de Resistencia de la Región España (Federation of Societies of Resistance of the Spanish Region) Successor to the FRE and FTRE. 1900–1907. Peak membership c.70,000.
FTRE:: Federación de Trabajadores de la Región España (Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region) Anarcho-collectivist labour federation. 1880–1888. Peak membership c.50,000.
JJLL:: Juventudes Libertarias (Libertarian Youth) Catalan anarchist youth organisation.
MMLL:: Mujeres Libres (Free Women) Anarcho-feminist group. Founded May 1936. Membership c.20,000.
PCE:: Partido Comunista de España (Communist Party of Spain) National Communist Party. Dramatically grew in support and influence during the Civil War.
POUM:: Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (Party of Marxist Unification) Coalition of Trotskyist and other dissident communist groups, primarily active in Catalonia. Founded 1935.
PSOE:: Partido Socialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party) Parliamentary party of the socialist movement.
PSUC:: Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (Unified Socialist Party of Cataluña) Coalition of socialist and communist groups in Catalonia, federated with PCE. Founded July 1936.
UGT:: Unión General de Trabajadores (General Workers’ Union) National union of the socialist movement.

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Yeoman, J.M. (2019). The Spanish Civil War. In: Levy, C., Adams, M.S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_25

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