## H.2.16 Does the Spanish Revolution show the failure of anarchism?

The actions of the anarchists of the CNT and FAI during the Spanish Civil War is almost always mentioned by Marxists when they attack anarchism. Take, for example, Pat Stack:

> "This question of state power, and which class holds it, was to prove crucial for revolutionaries during the Spanish Civil War and in particular during the revolutionary upheavals in Catalonia. Here anarchism faced its greatest test and greatest opportunity, yet it failed the former and therefore missed the latter.

> "When the government in the region under the leadership of Companys admitted its impotence and offered to dissolve, effectively handing power to the revolutionary forces, the anarchists turned them down. CNT leader and FAI . . . militant Garcia Oliver explained, 'The CNT and the FAI decided on collaboration and democracy, renouncing revolutionary totalitarianism which would lead to the strangulation of the revolution by the anarchist and Confederal dictatorship. We had to choose, between Libertarian Communism, which meant anarchist dictatorship, and democracy, which meant collaboration.' The choice was between leaving the state intact and paving the way for Franco's victory or building a workers' government in Catalonia which could act as a focal point for the defeat of Franco and the creation of the structures of a new workers' state. In choosing the former the anarchists were refusing to distinguish between a capitalist state and a workers' state . . . The movement that started by refusing to build a workers' state ended up by recognising a capitalist one and betraying the revolution in the process." ["Anarchy in the UK?", Socialist Review, no. 246]

There are four key flaws in this kind of argument. First, there is the actual objective situation in which the decision to collaborate was made in. Strangely, for all his talk of anarchists ignoring "material conditions" when we discuss the Russian revolution, Stack fails to mention any when he discusses the decisions of the Spanish Anarchists. As such, his critique is pure idealism, without any attempt to ground it in the objective circumstances facing the CNT and FAI. Second, the quote provided as the only evidence for Stack's analysis dates from a year after the decision was made. Rather than reflect the actual concerns of the CNT and FAI at the time, they reflect the attempts of the leaders of an organisation which had significantly departed from its libertarian principles to justify their actions. While this obviously suits Stack's idealist analysis of events, its use can be flawed for this reason. Thirdly, clearly the decision of the CNT and FAI ignored anarchist theory. As such, it seems ironic to blame anarchism when anarchists ignores its recommendations, yet this is what Stack argues. Lastly, there is the counter-example of Aragon, which clearly refutes Stack's analysis.

To understand why the CNT and FAI made the decisions it did, it is necessary to do what Stack fails to do, namely to provide some context. The decision to ignore anarchist theory, ignore the state rather than smashing it and work with other anti-fascist organisations was made immediately after the army had been defeated on the streets of Barcelona on the 20th of July, 1936. It is this fact, the success of a popular insurrection in one region against a nation wide military coup, which helps place the CNT's decisions into context. Catalonia is but one region in Spain. While the CNT had great strength, it was not uniform. Some areas, such as around Madrid and in Asturias, the socialist UGT was stronger (although the CNT had been making inroads in both areas).

This meant any decision to introduce libertarian communism in Catalonia would have, in all likelihood, meant isolation within Republican Spain and the possibility that the CNT would have to fight both the Republican state as well as Franco. So the decision to collaborate was obviously driven by fear of Franco and the concern not to divide the forces fighting him. As a 1937 CNT report put it, the union had a "difficult alternative: to completely destroy the state, to declare war against the Rebels, the government, foreign capitalists . . . or collaborating." [quoted by Robert Alexander, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, vol. 2, p. 1156]

As such, the real choice facing the CNT was not "between leaving the state intact . . . or building a workers' government in Catalonia which could act as a focal point for the defeat of Franco" but rather something drastically different. Either work with other anti-fascists against Franco so ensuring unity against the common enemy and implement anarchism after victory or immediately implement libertarian communism and possibly face a conflict on two fronts, against Franco and the Republic (and, possibly, imperialist intervention against the social revolution). This situation made the CNT-FAI decide to collaborate with other anti-fascist groups in the Catalan Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias. To downplay these objective factors and simply blame the decision on anarchist politics is a joke. This dilemma was the one which was driving the decisions of the CNT leadership, not any failings in anarchist politics.

Similarly, the Garica Oliver quote provided by Stack dated from July 1937. They were made as justifications of CNT-FAI actions and were designed for political effect. They cannot be taken at face value as they are totally contradictory. He was arguing that libertarian communism (a society based on directly democratic free associations organised and run from the bottom up) was an "anarchist dictatorship" and less democratic than the capitalist Republic he had been fighting against between 1931 and 1936! Moreover, libertarian communism was the revolution. As such, to choose it over capitalist democracy to stop "the strangulation of the revolution" makes no sense, as the revolution which was created by the rank-and-file of the anarchist movement after the defeat of Franco was based on libertarian communist ideas and ideals!

It is safe to take Garica Oliver's words with a large pinch of salt. To rely upon them for an analysis of the actions of the Spanish Anarchists or the failings of anarchism suggests an extremely superficial perspective. This is particularly the case when we look at both the history of the CNT and anarchist theory. As noted in section H.1.4, according to anarchist ideas, the social revolution, to quote Bakunin, must "totally destroy the State," expropriate capital and the land "on behalf of workers' associations" and create "the federative Alliance of all working men's associations" which "will constitute the Commune." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170] As can be seen, the CNT ignored these recommendations. Given that the CNT did not destroy the state, nor create a federation of workers' councils, then how can anarchist theory be blamed? It seems strange to point to the failure of anarchists to apply their politics as an example of the failure of those politics, yet this is what Stack is doing.

As we discuss in section I.8.11, the CNT leadership, going against anarchist theory, decided to postpone the revolution until after Franco was defeated. As the Catalan CNT leadership put it in August 1936:

> "Reports have also been received from other regions. There has been some talk about the impatience of some comrades who wish to go further than crushing fascism, but for the moment the situation in Spain as a whole is extremely delicate. In revolutionary terms, Catalonia is an oasis within Spain.

> "Obviously no one can foresee the changes which may follow the civil war and the conquest of that part of Spain which is still under the control of mutinous reactionaries." [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 151-2]

As can be seen, concern that Catalonia would be isolated from the rest of the Republic is foremost in their minds. Equally, there is the acknowledgement that many CNT members were applying anarchist politics by fighting fascism via a revolutionary war. This can be seen by the rank and file of the CNT and FAI ignoring the decision to "postpone" the revolution in favour of an anti-fascist war. All across Republican Spain, workers and peasants started to expropriate capital and the land, placing it under workers' self-management. They did so on their own initiative. They also applied anarchist ideas in full in Aragon, where the Council of Aragon was created in October 1936 at a meeting of delegates from CNT unions, village collectives and militia columns. In other words, the creation of a federation of workers' associations as argued by Bakunin. Little wonder Stack fails to mention what happened in Aragon: it would undermine his argument against anarchism to mention it.

To contrast Catalonia and Aragon shows the weakness of Stack's argument. The same organisation, with the same politics, yet different results. How can anarchist ideas be blamed for what happened in Catalonia when they had been applied in Aragon? Such a position could not be logically argued and, unsurprisingly, Aragon usually fails to get mentioned by Marxists when discussing Anarchism during the Spanish Civil War. The continuity of what happened in Aragon with the ideas of anarchism and the CNT's 1936 Zaragoza Resolution on Libertarian Communism is clear.

In summary, how could anarchism have "failed" during the Spanish Revolution when it was ignored in Catalonia (for fear of fascism) and applied in Aragon? How can it be argued that anarchist politics were to blame when those very same politics had formed the Council of Aragon? It cannot. Simply put, the Spanish Civil War showed the failure of certain anarchists to apply their ideas in a difficult situation rather than the failure of anarchism.

Needless to say, Stack also claims that the Friends of Durruti group developed towards Marxism. As he puts it:

> "Interestingly the one Spanish anarchist group that developed the most sophisticated critique of all this was the Friends of Durutti [sic!]. As [Trotskyist] Felix Morrow points out, 'They represented a conscious break with the anti-statism of traditional anarchism. They explicitly declared the need for democratic organs of power, juntas or soviets, in the overthrow of capitalism, and the necessary state measures of repression against the counter-revolution.' The failure of the Spanish anarchists to understand exactly that these were the stark choices‚ workers' power, or capitalist power followed by reaction."

That Stack could not bother to spell Durruti's name correctly shows how seriously we should take this analysis. The Friends of Durruti (FoD) were an anarchist grouping within the CNT and FAI which, like a large minority of others, strongly and consistently opposed the policy of anti-fascist unity. Rather than signify a "conscious break" with anarchism, it signified a conscious return to it. This can be clearly seen when we compare their arguments to those of Bakunin. As noted by Stack, the FoD argued for "juntas" in the overthrow of capitalism and to defend against counter-revolution. Yet this was exactly what revolutionary anarchists have argued for since Bakunin (see section H.2.1 for details). The continuity of the ideas of the FoD with the pre-Civil War politics of the CNT and the ideas of revolutionary anarchism are clear. As such, the FoD were simply arguing for a return to the traditional positions of anarchism and cannot be considered to have broken with it. If Stack or Morrow knew anything about anarchism, then they would have known this.

As such, the failure of the Spanish anarchists was not the "stark choice" between "workers' power" and "capitalist power" but rather the making of the wrong choice in the real dilemma of introducing anarchism (which would, by definition, be based on workers' power, organisation and self-management) or collaborating with other anti-fascist groups in the struggle against the greater enemy of Franco (i.e. fascist reaction). That Stack does not see this suggests that he simply has no appreciation of the dynamics of the Spanish Revolution and prefers abstract sloganeering to a serious analysis of the problems facing it.

Stack ends by summarising:

> "The most important lesson . . . is that whatever ideals and gut instincts individual anarchists may have, anarchism, both in word and deed, fails to provide a roadworthy vehicle for human liberation. Only Marxism, which sees the centrality of the working class under the leadership of a political party, is capable of leading the working class to victory."

As a useful antidote to these claims, we need simply quote Trotsky on what the Spanish anarchists should have done. In his words: "Because the leaders of the CNT renounced dictatorship for themselves they left the place open for the Stalinist dictatorship." Hardly an example of "workers' power"! Or, as he put it earlier in the same year, a "revolutionary party, even having seized power (of which the anarchist leaders were incapable in spite of the heroism of the anarchist workers), is still by no means the sovereign ruler of society." [our emphasis, Writings 1936-7, p. 514 and p. 488] Rather than seeing "democratic organs of power, juntas or soviets, in the overthrow of capitalism" as being the key issue, Trotsky considered the party as being the decisive factor. At best, such organs would be used to achieve party power and would simply be a fig-leaf for its rule (see section H.3.11 for more on this).

Clearly, the leading Marxist at the time was not arguing for the "centrality of the working class under the leadership of a political party." He was arguing for the dictatorship of a "revolutionary" party over the working class. Rather than the working class being "central" to the running of a revolutionary regime, Trotsky saw the party taking that position. What sort of "victory" is possible when the party has dictatorial power over the working class and the "sovereign ruler" of society? Simply the kind of "victory" that leads to Stalinism.

Anarchists reject this vision. They also reject the first step along this path, namely the identification of party power with workers' power. Simply put, if the "revolutionary" party is in power then the working class is not. Rather than seeing working class organisations as the means by which working people run society, Leninists see them purely in instrumental terms - the means by which the party can seize power. As the Russian Revolution proved beyond doubt, in a conflict between workers' power and party power Leninists will suppress the former to ensure the latter.

To paraphrase Stack, the most important lesson from both the Russian and Spanish revolutions is that whatever ideals and gut instincts individual Leninists may have, Leninism, both in word and deed, fails to provide a roadworthy vehicle for human liberation. Only Anarchism, which sees the centrality of the working class self-management of the class struggle and revolution, is capable of ensuring the creation of a real, free, socialist society.

Therefore, rather than see the failure of anarchism, the Spanish Revolution showed the failure of anarchists to apply their politics due to exceptionally difficult objective circumstances, a mistake which almost all anarchists acknowledge and have learned from. This does not justify the decision, rather it helps to explain it. Moreover, the Spanish Revolution also has a clear example of anarchism being applied in the Council of Aragon. As such, it is hard to blame anarchism for the failure of the CNT when the same organisation applied its ideas successfully there. Simply put, Marxist claims that the Spanish Revolution shows the failure of anarchist ideas are not only wrong, they are extremely superficial and not rooted in the objective circumstances of the time.

Lastly, it could be argued that our critique of the standard Leninist attack on anarchism during the Spanish Revolution is similar to that presented by Leninists to justify Bolshevik authoritarianism during the Russian one. After all, Leninists like Stack point to the objective circumstances facing Lenin's regime - its isolation, civil war and economic problems - as explaining its repressive actions. However, this is not the case as the defeat of the Spanish Revolution was due to anarchists not applying our ideas while, for Russia, it was due to the Bolsheviks applying their ideology. The difficulties that faced the Russian Revolution pushed the Bolsheviks further down the road they where already travelling down (not to mention that Bolshevik ideology significantly contributed to making many of these problem worse). As we discuss in section H.6, the notion that "objective circumstances" explains Bolshevik tyranny is simply unconvincing, particularly given the role Bolshevik ideology played in this process.

For more discussion of the Spanish Revolution and its lessons for anarchists, see section I.8. In addition, the appendix "Marxists and Spanish Anarchism" has a much fuller discussion of this issue (including whether the Friends of Durruti broke with anarchism).