As we indicated in the last section, the decision to collaborate with the state was made by the CNT due to the fear of isolation. The possibility that by declaring libertarian communism, the CNT would have had to fight the Republican government and foreign interventions as well as the military coup influenced the decision reached by the militants of Catalan anarchism. They argued that such a situation would only aid Franco.
Rather than being the product of anarchist ideology, the decision was made in light of the immediate danger of fascism and the situation in other parts of the country. The fact is that the circumstances in which the decision to collaborate was made are rarely mentioned by Marxists, who prefer to quote CNT militant Garcia Oliver's comment from over a year later:
"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." [quoted by Vernon Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, p. 34]
It is this quote, and quotes like it, which is ritualistically trotted out by Marxists when attacking anarchist ideas. They argue that they expose the bankruptcy of anarchist theory. So convinced of this, they rarely bother discussing the problems facing the CNT after the defeat of the military coup we discussed in the last section nor do they compare these quotes to the anarchist theory they claim inspired them. There are good reasons for this. Firstly, if they presented the objective circumstances the CNT found itself it then their readers may see that the decision, while wrong, is understandable and had nothing to do with anarchist theory. Secondly, by comparing these quotes to anarchist theory they would soon see how at odds they are with it. Indeed, they invoke anarchism to justify conclusions the exact opposite of that theory.
So what can be made of Garcia Oliver's argument?
As Abel Paz notes, "[i]t is clear that the explanations given . . . were designed for their political effect, hiding the atmosphere in which these decisions were taken. These declarations were made a year later when the CNT were already far removed from their original positions It is also the period when they had become involved in the policy of collaboration which lead taking part in the Central Government. But in a certain way they shed light on the unknown factors which weighted so heavily on these who took part in the historic Plenum." [Durruti: The People Armed, p. 215]
For example, when the decision was made, the revolution had not started yet. The street fighting had just ended and the Plenum decided "not to speak about Libertarian Communism as long as part of Spain was in the hands of the fascists." [Mariano R. Vesquez, quoted by Paz, Op. Cit., p.214] The revolution took place from below in the days following the decision, independently of the wishes of the Plenum. In the words of Abel Paz:
"When the workers reached their workplaces . . . they found them deserted . . . The major centres of production had been abandoned by their owners . . . The CNT and its leaders had certainly not foreseen this situation; if they had, they had, they would have given appropriate guidance to the workers when they called off the General Strike and ordered a return to work. What happened next was the result of the workers' spontaneous decision to take matters into their own hands.
"Finding the factories deserted, and no instructions from their unions, they resolved to operate the machines themselves." [The Spanish Civil War, pp. 54-5]
The rank and file of the CNT, on their own initiative, took advantage of the collapse of state power to transform the economy and social life of Catalonia. Paz stresses that "no orders were given for expropriation or colectivisation — which proved that the union, which represented the will of the their members until July 18th, had now been overtaken by events" and the "union leaders of the CNT committees were confronted with a revolution that they had not foreseen . . . the workers and peasants had bypassed their leaders and taken collective action." [Op. Cit., p. 40 and p. 56]
As the revolution had not yet begun and the CNT Plenum had decided not to call for its start, it is difficult to see how "libertarian communism" (i.e. the revolution) could "lead to the strangulation of the revolution" (i.e. libertarian communism). In other words, this particular rationale put forward by Garica Oliver could not reflect the real thoughts of those present at the CNT plenum and so, in fact, was a later justification for the CNT's actions.
Similarly, Libertarian Communism is based on self-management, by its nature opposed to dictatorship. According to the CNT's resolution at its congress in Zaragonza in May, 1936, "the foundation of this administration will be the commune" which is "autonomous" and "federated at regional and national levels." The commune "will undertake to adhere to whatever general norms [that] may be agreed by majority vote after free debate." It stressed the free nature of society aimed at by the CNT:
"The inhabitants of a commune are to debate among themselves their internal problems . . . Federations are to deliberate over major problems affecting a country or province and all communes are to be represented at their reunions and assemblies, thereby enabling their delegates to convey the democratic viewpoint of their respective communes . . . every commune which is implicated will have its right to have its say . . . On matters of a regional nature, it is the duty of the regional federation to implement agreements . . . So the starting point is the individual, moving on through the commune, to the federation and right on up finally to the confederation." [quoted by Jose Peirats, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, vol. 1, pp. 106-7] Hardly a picture of "anarchist dictatorship"! Indeed, it is far more "democratic" than the capitalist state Oliver describes as "democracy."
Clearly, these often quoted words of Garcia Oliver cannot be taken at face value. Made in 1937, they present an attempt to misuse anarchist ideals to defend the anti-anarchist activities of the CNT leadership rather than a meaningful explanation of the decisions made on the 20th of July, 1936.
Moreover, the decision made then clearly stated that Libertarian Communism would be back on the agenda once Franco was defeated. Oliver's comments were applicable after Franco was defeated just as much as when they were made. The real reasons for the decision to collaborate lies elsewhere, namely in the objective circumstances facing the CNT after the defeat of the army in Barcelona, July 20th, 1936, and not in anarchist theory.
This can clearly been seen from the report made by the CNT to the International Workers Association to justify the decision to forget anarchist theory and collaborate with bourgeois parties and join the government. The report states that "the CNT, loyal to its ideals and its purely anarchist nature, did not attack the forms of the State, nor try publicly to penetrate or dominate it . . . none of the political or juridical institutions were abolished." [quoted by Robert Alexander, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, vol. 2, p. 1156]
In other words, according to this report, "anarchist" ideals do not, in fact, mean the destruction of the state, but rather the ignoring of the state. That this is nonsense, concocted to justify the CNT leaderships' betrayal of its ideals, is clear. To do so we just need to look at Bakunin and Kropotkin and look at the activities of the CNT before the start of the war.
Bakunin had argued that "the revolution must set out from the first to radically and totally destroy the State" and that the "natural and necessary consequence of this destruction" will include the "dissolution of army, magistracy, bureaucracy, police and priesthood." Capital would be expropriated (i.e. the "confiscation of all productive capital and means of production on behalf of workers' associations, who are to put them to use") and the state replaced by "the federative Alliance of all working men's associations" which "will constitute the Commune." [Michael Bakunin: Selected Writings, p. 170] Similarly, Kropotkin had stressed that the "Commune . . . must break the State and replace it by the Federation." [Words of a Rebel, p. 83]
Thus anarchism has always been clear on what to do with the state, and it is obviously not what the CNT did to it! Nor had the CNT always taken this perspective. Before the start of the Civil War, the CNT had organised numerous insurrections against the state. For example, in the spontaneous revolt of CNT miners in January 1932, the workers "seized town halls, raised the black-and-red flags of the CNT, and declared communismo liberatario." In Tarassa, the same year, the workers again "seiz[ed] town halls" and the town "swept by street fighting." The revolt in January 1933 began with "assaults by Anarchist action groups . . . on Barcelona's military barracks . . . Serious fighting occurred in working-class barrios and the outlying areas of Barcelona . . . Uprising occurred in Tarassa, Sardanola-Ripollet, Lerida, in several pueblos in Valencia province, and in Andalusia." In December 1933, the workers "reared barricades, attacked public buildings, and engaged in heavy street fighting . . . many villages declared libertarian communism." [Murray Bookchin, The Spanish Anarchists, p. 225, p. 226, p. 227 and p. 238]
It seems that the CNT leadership's loyalty to "its ideals and its purely anarchist nature" which necessitated "not attack[ing] the forms of the State" was a very recent development! That enemies of anarchism quote Garcia Oliver's words from 1937 or from this document and others like it in order to draw conclusions about anarchist theory says more about their politics than about anarchism!
As can be seen, the rationales later developed to justify the betrayal of anarchist ideas and the revolutionary workers of Spain have no real relationship to anarchist theory. They were created to justify a non-anarchist approach to the struggle against fascism, an approach based on ignoring struggle from below and instead forging alliances with parties and unions at the top (in the style of the UGT "Workers' Alliance" the CNT had correctly argued against before the war).
Rather than trying to cement a unity with other organisations at the top level, the leadership of the CNT should have applied their anarchist ideas by inciting the oppressed to enlarge and consolidate their gains (which they did anyway). This would have liberated all the potential energy within the country (and elsewhere), energy that clearly existed as can be seen from the spontaneous collectivisations that occurred after the fateful Plenum of July 20th and the creation of volunteer workers' militia columns sent to liberate those parts of Spain which had fallen to Franco.
The role of anarchists, therefore, was that of "inciting the people to abolish capitalistic property and the institutions through which it exercises its power for the exploitation of the majority by a minority" and "to support, to incite and encourage the development of the social revolution and to frustrate any attempts by the bourgeois capitalist state to reorganise itself, which it would seek to do." This would involve "seeking to destroy bourgeois institutions through the creation of revolutionary organisms." [Vernon Richards, Op. Cit., p. 44, p. 46 and p. 193]
In other words, to encourage, what Bakunin called the "federation of the standing barricades," made up of "delegates . . . vested with binding mandates and accountable and revocable at all times") which could have been the initial framework for both defending and extending the revolution (to "defend the revolution" a "communal militia" would be organised, the revolution would "radiate . . . outwards" and communes would "federate . . . for common defence.") [Michael Bakunin, No Gods, No Masters, vol. 1, p. 155 and p. 142] The equivalent of the "Sections" of the French Revolution, what Kropotkin argued "laid the foundations of a new, free, social organisation" and expressed "the principles of anarchism." [The Great French Revolution, vol. 1, p. 206 and p. 204] Indeed, such an organisation already existing in embryo in the CNT's barrios defence committees which had led and co-ordinated the struggle against the military coup throughout the city.
Later, a delegate meeting from the various workplaces (CNT and UGT organised as well as unorganised ones) would have to had been arranged to organise, to again quote Bakunin, "the federal Alliance of workers associations" which would "constitute the Commune" and complement the "federation of the standing barricades." [Op. Cit., p. 155] In more modern terminology, a federation of workers' councils combined with a federation of workers' militias and community assemblies. Without this, the revolution was doomed as was the war against Franco's forces.
Such a development, applying the basic ideas of anarchism (and as expounded in the CNT's May resolution on Libertarian Communism), was not an impossibility. After all, the CNT-FAI organised something similar in Aragon. The fear that if libertarian communism was implemented then a civil war within the anti-fascist forces would occur (so aiding Franco) was a real one. Unfortunately, the conclusion draw from that fear, namely to win the war against Franco before talking about the revolution, was the wrong one. After all, a civil war within the Republican side did occur, when the state had recovered enough to do start it. Similarly, with the fear of a blockade by foreign governments. This happened away, confirming Durruti's comment that he "did not expect help for a libertarian revolution from any government in the world . . . not even from our own government in the last analysis." [quoted by Vernon Richards, Op. Cit., p. 194f] Organising a full and proper delegate meeting in the first days of the revolution would have allowed these ideas to be discussed by the whole membership of the CNT and, perhaps, a different decision may have been reached on the subject of collaboration.
By thinking they could postpone the revolution until after the war, the CNT leadership made two mistakes. Firstly, they should have known that their members would hardly miss this opportunity to implement their ideas so making their decision redundant (and a statist backlash inevitable). Secondly, they abandoned their anarchist ideas, failing to understand that the struggle against fascism would never be effective without the active participation of the working class. Such participation could never be achieved by placing the war before the revolution and by working in top-down, statist structures or within a state.
Indeed, the mistake made by the CNT, while understandable, cannot be justified given that their consequences had been predicted by numerous anarchists beforehand, including Kropotkin decades previously in an essay on the Paris Commune. In that essay he refutes the two assumptions of the CNT leadership — first, of placing the war before the revolution and, second, that the struggle could be waged by authoritarian structures or a state.
Kropotkin had explicitly attacked the mentality and logic begin the official CNT line of not mentioning Libertarian Communism "until such time as we had captured that part of Spain that was in the hands of the rebels." Kropotkin had lambasted those who had argued "Let us first make sure of victory, and then see what can be done." His comments are worth quoting at length:
"Make sure of victory! As if there were any way of transforming society into a free commune without laying hands upon property! As if there were any way of defeating the enemy so long as the great mass of the people is not directly interested in the triumph of the revolution, in witnessing the arrival it of material, moral and intellectual well-being for all! They sought to consolidate the Commune first of all while postponing the social revolution for later on, while the only effective way of proceeding was to consolidate the Commune by the social revolution!
"It was the same with the governmental principle. In proclaiming the free Commune, the people of Paris proclaimed an essential anarchist principle . . . If we admit, in fact, that a central government is absolutely useless to regulate the relations of communes between each other, why do we grant its necessity to regulate the mutual relations of the groups that constitute the Commune? . . . A government within the Commune has no more right to exist than a government over the Commune." [Words of a Rebel, p. 97]
Kropotkin's argument was sound, as the CNT discovered. By waiting until victory in the war they were defeated. Kropotkin also indicated the inevitable effects of the CNT's actions in co-operating with the state and joining representative bodies. In his words:
"Paris . . . sent her devoted sons to the Hotel-de-Ville [the town hall]. Indeed, immobilised there by fetters of red tape, forced to discuss when action was needed, and losing the sensitivity that comes from continual contact with the masses, they saw themselves reduced to impotence. Paralysed by their distancing from the revolutionary centre — the people — they themselves paralysed the popular initiative." [Op. Cit., pp. 97-8]
Which, in a nutshell, was what happened to the leading militants of the CNT who collaborated with the state. Kropotkin was proved right, as was anarchist theory from Bakunin onwards. As Vernon Richards argues, "there can be no excuse" for the CNT's decision, as "they were not mistakes of judgement but the deliberate abandonment of the principles of the CNT." [Lessons of the Spanish Revolution, pp. 41-2] It seems difficult to blame anarchist theory for the decisions of the CNT when that theory argues the opposite position.
However, while the experience of Spain confirms anarchist theory negatively, it also confirms it positively by the Council of Aragon. The Council of Aragon was created by a meeting of delegates from CNT unions, village collectives and militia columns to protect the new society the people of Aragon were building. Its creation exposes as false the claim that anarchism failed in during the Spanish Civil War. In Aragon, the CNT did follow the ideas of anarchism, abolishing both the state and capitalism. If they had followed this example in Catalonia, the outcome of the Civil War may have been different.
In spite of opposition from the two Catalan militia leaders, the Aragonese delegates at the Bujaraloz assembly, encouraged by Durruti, supported the proposals and the Regional Defence Council of Aragón was born with the specific objective of implementing libertarian communism. The meeting also decided to press for the setting up of a National Defence Committee which would link together a series of regional bodies that were organised on principles similar to the one now established in Aragon.
The formation of the Regional Defence Council was an affirmation of commitment to the principles of libertarian communism. This principled stand for revolutionary social and economic change stands at odds with the claims that the Spanish Civil War indicates the failure of anarchism. After all, in Aragon the CNT did act in accordance with anarchist theory and its own history and politics.
Therefore, the activities of the CNT during the Civil War cannot be used to discredit anarchism although it can be used to show that anarchists can and do make terrible decisions in difficult circumstances. That Marxists always point to this event in anarchist history is unsurprising, for it was a terrible mistake.
However, to use this to generalise about anarchism is false as it, firstly, requires a dismissal of the objective circumstances the decision was made in (see last section) and, secondly, it means ignoring anarchist theory and history. It also gives the impression that anarchism as a revolutionary theory must be evaluated purely from one event in its history. The experiences of the Makhnovists in the Ukraine, the U.S.I and U.A.I. in the factory occupations of 1920 and fighting fascism in Italy, the insurrections of the C.N.T. during the 1930s, the Council of Aragon created by the CNT in the Spanish Revolution and so on, are all ignored when evaluating anarchism. Hardly convincing, although handy for Marxists. As is clear from, for example, the experiences of the Makhnovists and the Council of Aragon, that anarchism has been applied successfully on a large scale, both politically and economically, in revolutionary situations.
As Emma Goldman argued, the "contention that there is something wrong with Anarchism . . . because the leading comrades in Spain failed Anarchism seems to be very faulty reasoning . . . the failure of one or several individuals can never take away from the depth and truth of an ideal." [Vision on Fire, p. 299] This is even more the case when anarchists can point to anarchist theory and other examples of anarchism in action which fully followed anarchist ideas. That opponents of anarchism fail to mention these examples suggests their case against anarchism, based on the experience of the CNT in the Spanish Civil War, is deeply flawed.
Rather than show the failure of anarchism, the experience of the Spanish Revolution indicates the failure of anarchists to apply their ideas in practice. Faced with extremely difficult circumstances, they compromised their ideas in the name of anti-fascist unity. Sadly, their compromises confirmed (rather than refuted) anarchist theory as they led to the defeat of both the revolution and the civil war.