Factionalism in Transition: A Comparison of Ruptures in the Spanish Anarchist Movement (original) (raw)
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Revista Internacional de Sociología, 2019
This article seeks to understand the trajectory of radicalization in the Catalan 'procés'. Regardless of their formal legal standing, referendum campaigns are distinct political opportunities which also generate further opportunities. Contrary to what some theories of protest would predict, when political opportunities are closed down at national level, and repression toughens, violent escalation leading to fragmentation and ultimately demobilization does not necessarily ensue, at least in the short term. As the Catalan 'procés' illustrates between the mid-2000s and late-2018, the combination of mechanisms such as appropriation of opportunities, downward scale shift and movement convergence can mitigate escalation processes. A dense network of local and grassroots assemblies displaced the previously dominant, major civil society organizations that led mass protests, especially during the 2012-2015 'diadas'. These grassroots actors prioritized the organization of dissent through more direct, more disruptive, but mostly peaceful forms of action. This in turn facilitated movement convergence, based upon solidarization, as it opened up local spaces where the activists from across the spectrum could mobilize together, preempting a clear violent escalation and the emergence of violent splinter groups till late 2018.
The use (or the threat) of force and the behaviour of crowds in the 19 th and 20 th centuries has recently inspired Spanish historians to investigate the phenomena of conflict and socio-political violence. Negative or punitive caricatures of social conflict such as those associated with the Lombroso school, the crowd psychology of Gustave Le Bon and Gabriel Tarde, or Sorel's mythology of violence, seem to have been left behind for good. The combined influence of the British Marxist school, French social histories of popular movements during the French Revolution, and the rebirth of the sociology of collective action following on from the work of Mancur Olson, facilitated the emergence of a revitalised social history. This new social history has widened its focus to include a whole range of differing forms of protest and social movements. From the 1990s onwards, Spanish social history has tried to incorporate new analytical methods to the traditional 'history from below' of British Marxism. 1 Indeed, the influence of Charles Tilly on Spanish social history lies particularly in his heterodox reconciliation of the Marxist theory of revolution with the utilitarianism of Stuart Mill and Weber's work on the role of the state, alongside his persuasive interpretation of protest as a non-institutionalised form of political participation. 2 More recently, new studies have emerged on the various manifestations of social conflict characteristic of societies in transition to so-called 'modernity', the majority of which focus on a particular province or region. Alongside the more organised forms of conflict led by political parties, associations or unions that have traditionally dominated political and labour history, other, non-institutionalised expressions of protest, or transgressions of order have started to receive greater attention. Particular prominence has been given to popular riots, due to their violence and spectacular nature, but also to a wide range of activities for * This study forms part of the research projects directed by Manuel Álvarez Tardío (Ref. HAR2012-31520); José Miguel Lana Beresain (Ref. HAR2012-30732); and Francisco Alía Miranda (Ref. PEII-2014-024-P). 1 See E. González Calleja and J.L. Ledesma, "Conflictividad y violencia sociopolítica en la España de la primera mitad del siglo XX" in E.
Social Movements and the Spanish Transition
2017
Around the world, social movements have become legitimate, yet contested, actors in local, national and global politics and civil society, yet we still know relatively little about their longer histories and the trajectories of their development. This series seeks to promote innovative historical research on the history of social movements in the modern period since around 1750. We bring together conceptually-informed studies that analyse labour movements, new social movements and other forms of protest from early modernity to the present. We conceive of 'social movements' in the broadest possible sense, encompassing social formations that lie between formal organisations and mere protest events. We also offer a home for studies that systematically explore the political, social, economic and cultural conditions in which social movements can emerge. We are especially interested in transnational and global perspectives on the history of social movements, and in studies that engage critically and creatively with political, social and sociological theories in order to make historically grounded arguments about social movements. This new series seeks to offer innovative historical work on social movements, while also helping to historicise the concept of 'social movement'. It hopes to revitalise the conversation between historians and historical sociologists in analysing what Charles Tilly has called the 'dynamics of contention'.
Revista Internacional de Sociología, 2019
This article seeks to understand the trajectory of radicalization in the Catalan 'procés'. Regardless of their formal legal standing, referendum campaigns are distinct political opportunities which also generate further opportunities. Contrary to what some theories of protest would predict, when political opportunities are closed down at national level, and repression toughens, violent escalation leading to fragmentation and ultimately demobilization does not necessarily ensue, at least in the short term. As the Catalan 'procés' illustrates between the mid-2000s and late-2018, the combination of mechanisms such as appropriation of opportunities, downward scale shift and movement convergence can mitigate escalation processes. A dense network of local and grassroots assemblies displaced the previously dominant, major civil society organizations that led mass protests, especially during the 2012-2015 'diadas'. These grassroots actors prioritized the organization of dissent through more direct, more disruptive, but mostly peaceful forms of action. This in turn facilitated movement convergence, based upon solidarization, as it opened up local spaces where the activists from across the spectrum could mobilize together, preempting a clear violent escalation and the emergence of violent splinter groups till late 2018.
Southern Citadel: A Case Study of Mass-line Anarchism After the Spanish Revolution
Despite for much of the 20th Century being known as the “Switzerland of Latin America” for its peaceable democratic climate rooted in arguably one of the world’s first welfare states under the “radical liberal” anticlerical President José Batlle y Ordóñez from 1910, the small South American republic of Uruguay also produced the continent’s most combative armed anarchist movement. With remarkable political, strategic, and tactical sophistication and verve, the majority of the country’s anarchists waged war on the state as it declined into dictatorship in the period of continental mass-murdering fascist regression in the late 1960s through mid-1980s. But beyond taking up arms on a more ethically grounded basis than their better-remembered compatriots such as the Tupamaros who also engaged in armed struggle, the anarchists built one of the largest fighting mass working class movements of the post-Spanish Revolution era – against the servile reformism of the Uruguayan Communist Party, the continent’s fourth-largest – with an anarcho-syndicalist shaped national union centre some 400,000 strong by 1972, roundly refuting the notion that mass-formation anarchism had died on the barricades of Barcelona in 1939. The unique importance of the Uruguayan experience is necessary to stress: it demonstrated the validity of mass-line anarchism within modern industrial societies decades after World War II; it neatly updated Mikhail Bakunin by cleverly articulating between what it termed the “levels” (or “grades”) of the militants and the masses; and it developed an actively engaged political practice that anticipated what in Latin America today is called “social insertion.” That the very existence of this mass-ranked experiment in libertarian communist counter-power has been airbrushed out of history by anarchists as much as by the usual leftist suspects, the Marxists, is a testament to the troubling potency and pragmatism of its ideas. This paper is a partial extract from my forthcoming book In the Shadow of a Hurricane: Global Anarchist Ideological and Organisational Lineages, which took 20 years’ research in 15 languages.
THE CONSCIENCE OF THE SPANISH REVOLUTION: ANARCHIST OPPOSITION TO STATE COLLABORATION IN 1937
University of Leeds, 2016
This thesis analyses the opposition mounted by anarchists to the policy of state collaboration, which was adopted by the principal organisations of the Spanish libertarian movement at the outset of the civil war. Collaboration is understood in broad terms as the involvement of libertarian individuals and organisations in the reconstruction of the Republican state following its near collapse in July 1936, a process that implied not only participation in the organs of governance, but also in the ideological reconstitution of the Republic as a patriarchal and national entity. Using original sources, the thesis shows that the opposition to this process was both broader and more ideologically consistent than has hitherto been assumed, and that, in spite of its heterogeneity, it united around a common revolutionary programme. Focusing on the strategies adopted by oppositional anarchists over the course of 1937, from the radical interpretation of the CNT’s socialisation campaign to the insurrectionary mobilisation of May and finally to the defence of federalism within the libertarian organisations, the thesis also sheds light on the turbulent relationship between the responsible committees of the libertarian movement and its ‘mid-level’ union and affinity group delegates. The ‘conscience’ of the Spanish revolution, like its Russian precursor, both recognised and struggled against the role that the principal revolutionary organisation in the country had assumed in the reconstruction of the state. In the Spanish case, the resistance to state reconstruction was informed by the essential insight of anarchism: that the function and purpose of the modern state cannot be transformed from within. By situating the struggles of the radical anarchists within the contested process of state reconstruction, the thesis affirms the continued relevance of this insight to the study of the Spanish revolution.
Debats, 2022
This article aimed to determine how the structure of political opportunities in Spain has changed in connection to the cycles of protest associated with the 15-M anti-austerity movement and Catalan independence process between 2011 and 2017. To do this, we compared both episodes of conflict based on an analytical model developed through theories of the political process. In addition, we used evidence from the analysis of statistical records, barometers of public opinion, newspapers, and research carried out by other authors. This article discusses the similarities and differences between both episodes in relation to the different variables making up the structure of political opportunities. We end by identifying the impacts of both episodes on these structures as well as the state responses when trying to manage the challenges launched by them. Finally, the institutionalisation dynamics followed by both movements were compared and we also examined their conclusions in two different outputs: transformation of the party system in the case of the Spanish 15-M movement and repression and imprisonment of the pro-independence leaders in the Catalan one. To conclude, it is made clear that the chances of social co-mobilisation success increase when political opportunities are broadened, when the existence of allies is proven, and when the opponents' weakness are made evident. However, we also expound how, when faced with intensified protests, government forces and the state apparatus may respond with reform or repression, or with a complex combination of both.
Acta Politica, 2019
Traditional theories of collective action would predict that, after a triggering event, the trajectory of a wave of protest is determined by the institution-alisation–radicalisation tandem. Based on the Spanish cycle of anti-austerity and against the political status quo protest in the shadow of the Great Recession, this article contends with this approach, as a clear trend towards radicalisation is never observed as the cycle unfolds. An alternative interpretative framework is developed to understand protest trajectories when collaborative inter-organisational strategies prevail. The eventful 15M campaign triggered in 2011 represents the most remarkable turning point in the Spanish socio-political mobilisation scene in recent years and had a transformative capacity over subsequent protest endeavours. Specifically, after the 15M campaign, the combination of downward scale shift and coalition building shaped the trajectory of mobilisation, and allowed for the peak of protest to persist until late 2013, when institutionalisation took over. Data from an original Protest Event Analysis dataset are used to illustrate the main arguments.