This is pure bullshit sorry this article ignores actual HISTORY and anarchist theory , collectives were based of free agreement and free association there was no hierarchy nobody was obligated to join a collective the same way we run this website they run factories , farms etc. Second there was a civil war and the Spanish Catholic Church was actually siding whit the Fascists the church helped Franco to win the war , third why read Marx ? the article ignores the whole theoretical basis of anarchism they lump anarchism in the same pot as Marxism they completely ignore the history of the first international and what happened there as for entering the government Emma Goldman said, "With Franco at the gate of Madrid, I could hardly blame the CNT-FAI for choosing a lesser evil: participation in government rather than dictatorship, the most deadly evil " . And how you can say that the Spanish Anarchists were a bunch of illiterates and idiots ? . As for coercive power Antony Beevor in his Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 noted : "The justification for this operation (whose ‘very harsh measures’ shocked even some Party members) was that since all the collectives had been established by force, Lister was merely liberating the peasants. There had undoubtedly been pressure, and no doubt force was used on some occasions in the fervor after the rising. But the very fact that every village was a mixture of collectivists and individualists shows that the peasants had not been forced into communal farming at the point of a gun."
Second the POUM and the CNT-FAI were the first to be persecuted by the Marxists and liberals of the Popular Front Government . Anarchism was frowned upon by the government of the Spanish Republic, which considered the anarchists a threat and disloyal to both the Republic and the war. Clashes were particularly vicious between Soviet-backed communists and anarchists, since the movements often found themselves completely at odds with each other (for example the infamous Barcelona May Days). Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%. Factories were run through worker committees; agrarian areas became collectivized and run as libertarian communes. Even places like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were collectivized and managed by their workers. In some places, money was entirely eliminated, to be replaced with vouchers.
It is reported,
“ The first measure in the collectivization of the Barcelona street railways was to discharge the excessively paid directors and company stooges. The saving was considerable. A conductor averaged 250 to 300 pesetas a month, while the general director (manager) was paid 5,000 and his three assistants 4,441, 2,384, and 2,000 pesetas respectively. The amount saved through the abolition of these posts went to increase the wages of the lowest paid workers 40% to 60%, and intermediate and higher brackets 10% to 20%. The next step was the reduction of working time to 40 hours per week (but for the war situation, it would have been cut to 36 hours weekly). ”
Another improvement was in the area of management. Before the revolution, streetcars, buses, and subways were each privately owned by separate companies. The union decided to integrate and consolidate all transportation into an efficient system without waste. This improvement meant better facilities, rights of way, and incomparably better service for the riding public. Fares were reduced from 15 to 10 centimes, with free transportation for school children, wounded militiamen, those injured at work, other invalids, and the aged.
“ Despite their limitations, the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists established libertarian collectives where the means of production and exchange were socialized, through direct management by the workers and not through imposition by the state. Economic surplus was also self-managed. Also, and once again in contrast to the USSR, the workers of the collectives were rewarded equally, without productivity falling or initiative lacking. The bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy believe that if there is not a large wage differential, initiative and interest in increasing production will be lost. This idea was shown to be false in the Spanish libertarian collectives, where solidarity between the collectivists made self-government function satisfactorily. ”
The newly "liberated" zones worked on libertarian principles; decisions were made through councils of ordinary citizens without any sort of bureaucracy. (It should be noted that the CNT-FAI leadership was at this time not nearly as radical as the rank and file members responsible for these sweeping changes.) In addition to the economic revolution, there was a spirit of social revolution. Some traditions were deemed as "oppressive" and done away with. For instance, the idea of "free love" became popular.
You can deny history this article is completely biased and very ignorant to say that Spanish Anarchists were totalitarian is too denigrate the image of a whole movement which was truly liberator . The article ignores left anarchist theories and uses both Marxist and Capitalist low critiques of anarchism . If you want to KNOWN what happened in Catalonia what happened in the Spanish Civil War listen to people that were there like George Orwell read his book Homage to Catalonia .
Watch these documentaries for some real info not biased bullshit . Historians that have nothing to do anarchism recalled the true events which occurred there this article wants to smear the legacy of the Spanish Revolution because the Revolution itself showed the world that anarchism actually worked on a large scale .
watch this documentary it consists of 30 interviews with survivors of the 1936-1939 Spanish Revolution.
