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16 - Spain in Revolt: The Revolutionary Legacy of Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism

from The North Atlantic Region

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2022

By
George Esenwein
Edited by
Marcel van der Linden
Marcel van der Linden
Affiliation:
International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam
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Summary

Although anarchism was introduced to Spain during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, it was not until the First World War that it attained the proportions of a mass movement. Following a brief review of the ideological development of anarchism up to the time of the Second Republic (1931–6), this chapter examines two competing tendencies that dominated the movement during the 1930s, namely, the syndicalists (treintistas) and the ultra-revolutionaries (faístas). Because it was during the Spanish Revolution and Civil War between July 1936 and March 1939 that anarcho-syndicalism experienced the apogee of its development in Spain, the central focus of this chapter will be on those aspects of anarchist wartime activities that illuminate both the strengths and the weaknesses of Spanish libertarianism.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Socialism , pp. 380 - 410
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Alexander, Robert, The Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War, vols. i–ii (London: Janus Publishing, 1998).Google Scholar
Bolloten, Burnett, The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, new intro. by George Esenwein (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Casanova, Julián, Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain: 1936–1939, trans. Andrew Dowling and Graham Pollok (revised by Paul Preston) (Abingdon and New York: Routledge and Taylor & Francis, 1997).Google Scholar
Ealham, Chris, Living Anarchism: José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement (Edinburgh and Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2015).Google Scholar
Evans, Danny, Revolution and the State: Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939 (London and New York: Routledge, 2018).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gómez Casas, Juan, Anarchist Organization: The History of the FAI, trans. Abe Bluestein (Montreal and Buffalo: Black Rose Books, 1986).Google Scholar
Leval, Gaston, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, trans. Vernon Richards (London: Freedom Press, 1975).Google Scholar
Nash, Mary, Defying Male Civilization: Women in the Spanish Civil War (Denver: Arden Press, 1995).Google Scholar
Peirats, José, La CNT en la Revolución Española, vols. i–iii (Toulouse: Ediciones CNT, 1951–3) (English edition published in three volumes, edited by Chris Ealham, The CNT in the Spanish Revolution, trans. Paul Sharkey and Chris Ealham (Hastings: ChristieBooks/PM Press, 2005–11)).Google Scholar
Ruíz, Julius, The ‘Red Terror’ and the Spanish Civil War: Revolutionary Violence in Madrid (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014).Google Scholar

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