“What so few of us knew outside of Spain, however, was that the ‘Spanish Civil War’ was in fact a sweeping social revolution by millions of workers and peasants… to reconstruct Spanish society along revolutionary lines” (Dolgoff xii).
The politics of Spain during the Republic and the role anarchism played in the recurring dramas of the fledgling government has been commented upon extensively. This paper will address factors which allowed anarchism to become a successful political force in Spain, and particularly Barcelona, as well as the power of anarcho-syndicalism and its unifying force in revolutionary Catalonia. Daily life in Barcelona during the period between the outbreak of war in 1936 and the fall of Catalonia in 1939 will be examined to demonstrate how anarchism functioned as a political reality for the people of Barcelona.
Spain is the only country in the world where anarchism developed into a major political force (Mintz 2). Catalonia and Barcelona were the epicenter of this Spanish social revolution. Other regions, notably Andalucía, had anarcho-syndicalism among other facets of the anarchist movement, yet the urban workers of Barcelona were able to change the social and political fabric of the city through continuous upheaval brought on by strikes and protests.
Barcelona in 1930 was a city of stark class contrasts. “…illegality was so deeply embedded in the property relations of 1930’s Barcelona that it is difficult to disguise its pronounced class character” (Ealham 104). Public spaces such as the Rambles became magnets for petty crime, mainly the robbery of wealthy appearing pedestrians. Ealham notes that little inter-working class crime was recorded, showing crime was primarily a worry of the bourgeoisie and a r...
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...Rajoy is stripping Spaniards of just that” (BBC web).
Works Cited
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Dolgoff, Sam. The anarchist collectives: worker's self-management in the Span. Revolution 1936-1939. 1. ed. New York, NY: Free Life Ed., 1974. Print.
Ealham, Chris. Anarchism and the City. ; Revolution and Counter Revolution in Barcelona, 1898-1937. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2010. Print.
Mintz, Jerome R. The anarchists of Casas Viejas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Print.
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As Rand refutes a principal concept of socialism, she illustrates multiple counts of insubordination and social class structures. Socialism’s attempt to remove class structure fails miserably. The most prominent demonstration of rebellion rises from Equality 7-2521 and his emotions and desire for knowledge. After being denied by the Council of Scholars, Equality 7-2521 rashly breaks a window and flees “in a ringing rain of glass” (Rand 75). Equality 7-2521’s actions illustrate the ‘working class’ rebelling against the ‘elitists’ though this society attempted to eliminate social structures. Furthermore, Equality 7-2521 was not alone in rebelling against ‘the brotherhood’, Liberty 5-3000 followed his example. Unsatisfied with her life and the suppression of emotion, she followed Equality 7-2521’s example and “on the night of the day when we heard it, we ran away from the Home of Peasants” (Rand 82). The rebellion of the two members reflects the means of a social rev...
Miguel Melendez’s book, “We Took the Streets” provides the reader with an insightful account into the activities of the Young Lords movement established in the latter years of the 1960s and remained active up until the early seventies. The book’s, which is essentially Melendez’s memoir, a recollection of the events, activities, and achievements of the Young Lords. The author effectively presents to the reader a fascinating account of the formation of the Young Lords which was a group of college students from Puerto Rico who came together in a bid to fight for some of the basic rights. As Melendez sums it up, “You either claim your history or lose authority over your future” (Melendez 23). The quote is in itself indicative of the book’s overall
The Andes had a legacy of resistance that was unseen in other Spanish occupied place during the colonial period. There were rebellions of various kinds as a continued resistance to conquest. In the “Letters of Insurrection”, an anthology of letters written amongst the indigenous Andean people, between January and March 1781 in what is now known as Bolivia, a statement is made about the power of community-based rebellion. The Letters of Insurrection displays effects of colonization and how the “lesser-known” revolutionaries that lived in reducción towns played a role in weakening colonial powers and creating a place of identification for indigenous people.
Max Gallo’s ‘Spain Under Franco’ is a comprehensive work that attempts to provide an overview of the living conditions and political dynamics in Franco’s Spain. Gallo makes extensive efforts to detail the brutal totalitarian nature of the state by saying that ‘the reprisals and executions which went on long after victory had been won [by Franco in the civil war] mark an undeniable retrogression for any civil society governed by traditional norms of law’.1 In addition, Gallo explains why Spain drifted towards an authoritarian form of government in the aftermath of World War Two instead of a democracy as Italy had done by arguing that ‘there was literally no social stratum capable of envisaging the replacement of Francoism by a democracy of
Petrou, Micheal. “Inside A Revolution.” Maclean’s 127.9 (2014): 20. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web. 5 Mar. 2014
Birkett, Dea. "Children of the Revolution." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 17 Jan. 2001. Web. 26 May 2014.
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..., "Major Problems In Mexican American History" The Mexican Immigrant Experience, 1917-1928, Zaragosa Vargas (233)
...t Spanish historians of America” (7). People in modern day Argentina will relate with these works of literature because their government system is still under the same idealized form that the past was trying to create. The people living today will see how the conflicts they deal with today regarding social class emerged in the late eighteenth century to nineteenth century. They will realize that the same conflicts they deal with are the same conflicts previous generations dealt with. The vision of the nation these authors illustrate might provide current Argentine citizens with a vision of how the nation of Argentina should be in the twenty-first century and later generations.
Life in Mexico was, before the Revolution, defined by the figure of the patron that held all of power in a certain area. Juan Preciado, who was born in an urban city outside of Comala, “came to Comala because [he] had been told that [his] father, a man named Pedro Paramo lived there” (1). He initially was unaware of the general dislike that his father was subjected to in that area of Mexico. Pedro was regarded as “[l]iving bile” (1) by the people that still inhabited Comala, a classification that Juan did not expect. This reveals that it was not known by those outside of the patron’s dominion of the cruel abuse that they levied upon their people. Pedro Paramo held...
The Francisco Franco authoritarian regime lasted from the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 until Francisco Franco’s death in 1975. Spain in the early 1930s had “become a free, democratic country” (87) but this would change. The origins of Franco’s power begins with the bloody Spanish Civil War. The Franco supported Nationalists versus the Pro-Democratic Republicans.
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