Terror and Violence: The Dark Face of Spanish Anarchism 1 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Salvaging the Revolution: Anarchist Historiography on the Spanish Civil War
Anarchist Studies Blog, 2019
In our latest AnarchistStudies.Blog article, Morris Brodie tracks 80 years of historiography on the Spanish Civil War, from caricatures of anarchists as idealistic and/or bloodthirsty (by fascist, liberal and orthodox communist historians) to an ‘anarchist renaissance’ in civil war historiography in the last twenty years. He includes a list of further reading on anarchists in the Spanish Civil War. Available at (https://anarchiststudies.noblogs.org/article-salvaging-the-revolution-anarchist-historiography-on-the-spanish-civil-war/)
The Spanish anarchist guerrilla through the example of Francisco Sabaté ('El Quico')
Kajos Luca Fanni et al. (eds.): 11th Interdisciplinary Doctoral Conference 2022 : Conference Book, 2023
The dictatorial rule of General Francisco Franco, who came to power in consequence of his victory in the Spanish Civil War, was met with widespread opposition from within Spain and in the exiled communities from the moment of its birth. Among the opponents of the regime, the anarchists were a dominant force, and their activities were very diverse. These included peaceful and non-violent, although mostly illegal activities from clandestine reorganization of the movement to prisoner aid and the distribution of propaganda publications. But we can also speak about various forms of active armed resistance that complemented and deepened the mentioned methods, ranging from expropriations to political assassinations and guerrilla activities in urban and rural areas. Francisco Sabaté Llopart (a.k.a. ’El Quico’) was probably the most notorious figure of the Spanish anarchist guerrillas, who, alone or with his comrades, carried out a number of courageous and successful actions against the institutions, representatives and supporters of the dictatorship. He remained a constant threat to Franco’s Spain until his death in 1960, long after the guerrilla movement had been wiped out. Therefore his death can be seen as a symbolic end to the guerrilla war in Spain. Results My research examined the life of Francisco Sabaté and its turning points, examining the material circumstances and ideological driving forces behind his activities. Through an insight into his personality and actions, I have come closer to understanding both the armed anarchist resistance during the Franco era and the theoretical and tactical debates within the Spanish Libertarian Movement (MLE), both at homeland and in exile, which generated a number of tensions. In my view, Sabaté’s activity is as well-suited to modelling guerrilla methods as it is for tracing the dictatorship’s reactions to them, and thus even to comparing them with guerrilla movements in other regions of the period. Conclusions Francisco Sabaté played an important role in the anarchist resistance against Franco’s regime, and can be considered the soul of the armed guerrilla struggle. Because of the length of time he was active and the number of actions he carried out, he is well-suited to be analysed as a prototype of the Spanish anarchist guerrilla and, through his actions, to provide a picture of the guerrilla movement as a whole. Sabaté is also relevant as an influence on armed guerrilla fighters in other countries.
Danny Evans and James Michael Yeoman - New Approaches to Spanish Anarchism.pdf
This article introduces the themes of a special edition of the IJIS on Spanish anarchism and transnational studies, presenting the case that the history of Spanish anarchism needs to be situated within a broader, international history of the left. This view helps to disrupt the image of anarchism as ‘exceptional’, without losing sight of its specific manifestation in Spain. It proceeds to outline the five articles that make up the remainder of the edition.
Although the history and theory of the anarchist movement remains relatively unknown in official intellectual circles, some still seem disturbed by establishing a hybridization between the academy and anarchism-two worlds that are so different in principle. But already in the 1970s, the anarchist Diego Abad de Santillán wrote in the preface to a work by one of his disciples, Fidel Miró: Anarchism, as humanism, is today more relevant than ever, more than at the time of its delivery to the labor movement, more than during the outbursts of heroic rebellion, more than in the era of its exemplary role during the war. It finds its resurgence in modern thought, philosophy, and sociology; among economists and thinkers of all languages and climates; in the nonconformist youth that is shaking the old pillars of society that refuses to be community. All this will and should be reinforced by anarchism like a humanist flag, without adjectives. Here lie the root and the strength to build a better world, a world of the twenty-first century in which we live already. 2 1 A review of Contemporary Anarchist Studies.
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.
Ni Dios, Ni Patria, Ni Amo. A study on the Spanish Anarchist ideology from 1868 to 2023
2023
Anarchism is an ideology based on the working-class consciousness and its aim is to destroy any authoritarian institution and to live horizontally. In the Spanish context, Anarchism had a strong presence primarily during the three first decades of the 1900’s. This thesis argues that Spanish Anarchism has been exposed to ideological changes and strives to analyse which elements that have undergone ideological transformation and which ones that remained stable through four periods: the arrival of Anarchism to Spain (1868 – 1881), the Golden Ages of Anarchism (1931 – 1939), the Francoist era and Transition to democracy (1939-1980) and the current situation (2000 – 2023). To answer this question, this thesis has combined Michael Freeden’s theory on morphological ideologies with the ideological analysis method of Kristina Boréus and Göran Bergström to get four models that depict semantically Spanish Ideology through different anarchist sources: manifestos, congress agreements, press articles, documentaries, official webpages, etc. The results show that the core concepts of the ideology remained the same from the 19th century and onwards, however with some additions; changes usually appear in the adjacent and peripheral concepts as adaptations to the historical contexts.
The Anarchist and the Partisan—Two types of terror in the history of irregular warfare
This article deals with the anarchist and the partisan as forerunners of contemporary terrorism. It investigates their different relationship to the state, the anarchist trying to replace it and the partisan trying to conquer it and what that means in terms of resistance, critique, and position on the use of force. The article is both theoretical and historical, trying to place the anarchist and the partisan within their different time epochs and institutional settings. It ends by discussing if and how a third type of political violence, Islamist terrorism, can be interpreted within the analytical framework of legality/illegality and regularity/irregularity worked out in the article, that is, to what extent is current the Islamist terrorist a child of the anarchist and the partisan?
Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions , 2008
This article challenges the traditionally accepted claims that in the early months of 1936, the anarcho-syndicalist labour union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo [National Confederation of Labour], or CNT, posed a revolutionary threat to the Spanish Second Republic. This argument has been used to explain the collapse of the Republican regime, and consequently the military coup that sparked the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. Though revolutionary insurrectionism was inherently characteristic of the CNT and the anarcho-syndicalist movement, in 1936, the organisation was neither prepared nor willing to incite a social revolution. This article analyses the reasons for the anarcho-syndicalists’ turn to moderation, paying special attention to the emergence of a perceived ‘fascist threat’ that heavily influenced the change in anarcho-syndicalist insurrectionary tactics which lasted into the Spanish Civil War. It also evaluates the impact of these findings on Civil War historiography, and proposes a reconsideration of the assessment of blame for beginning the conflict.