To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936

by Murray Bookchin

In the essays that make up this book, Murray Bookchin places the Spanish anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements of the 1930s in the context of revolutionary worker's movements of the pre-World War II era. These articles describe, analyze, and evaluate the last great proletarian revolution of the past two centuries. They form indispensable supplements to Bookchin's larger work, The Spanish The Heroic Years, 1868–1936 . Read together, these works constitute a highly informative and theoretically significant assessment of the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements in Spain. They are invaluable for any reader concerned with the place of the Spanish Revolution in history and with the accomplishments, insights, and failings of the anarcho-syndicalist movements.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Spain, Spanish Civil War, Political Science, War

69 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Murray Bookchin was an American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher. A pioneer in the ecology movement, Bookchin was the founder of the social ecology movement within anarchist, libertarian socialist and ecological thought. He was the author of two dozen books on politics, philosophy, history, and urban affairs as well as ecology. In the late 1990s he became disenchanted with the strategy of political Anarchism and founded his own libertarian socialist ideology called Communalism.

Bookchin was an anti-capitalist and vocal advocate of the decentralisation of society along ecological and democratic lines. His writings on libertarian municipalism, a theory of face-to-face, assembly democracy, had an influence on the Green movement and anti-capitalist direct action groups such as Reclaim the Streets.

Reviews

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, and enticing overview of misrepresented, avoided, or forgotten aspects of the "Spanish Civil War"—or more precisely, the Spanish Revolution.

Two million people, self-organized and started a proletarian revolution the likes of which have not been seen before. And in this revolution Murray Bookchin identifies the good aspects—which he traces back to the 1870s—and the bad aspects so that we might learn. Unfortunately, he also points out that current historical circumstances will never give rise to a revolution of this type, and I agree. So it is the responsibility of contemporary revolutionary movements to find new ways to overcome the bleak reality we're facing.

My favorite passage, which the author delivers with his usual finesse:
"What was lost in Spain was the most magnificent proletariat that radical movements had ever seen either before or after 1936-39 — a classical working class in the finest socialist and anarchist sense of the term. It was a proletariat that was destroyed not by a growing material interest in bourgeois society but by physical extermination. This occurred largely amidst a conspiracy of silence by the international press in which the liberal establishment played no less a role than the Communists."

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading it on the soil, it is hard to imagine here, but Bookchin brings great insight as always from history's lessons.

[Lee]

This is a brief overview of the anarcho/syndicalist movement during the Spanish Revolution. Bookchin gives a brief summary of the years the Spanish Revolution took place as well as critiques the relevance of the anarcho/syndicalists move towards a libertarian communist society. He discusses issues such as the flaws in CNT, and in general labor unions, and how they are more reformist than revolutionary. Furthermore, he suggests that when organizations such as the CNT/FAI grow in size, and although they are decentralized, directly democratic organizations, there are still tendencies that can be viewed as bureaucratic in nature due to the alluding of an almost centralized decision making but he shows that these types of organizations are not centralized but rather they are still structured from the bottom up. Among other points, he discusses the issues surrounding a very complicated issue within the anarchist milieu with anarchist vanguards. Towards the end of the overview, Bookchin hits on some key points that are relevant to contemporary times such as issues dealing with how to fight against the state in post-industrial capitalist society and the potential for building a conscious, well-organized revolutionary anarcho/communist movement.

[C.]

Communists suck. (comunistas chupar).

[Mackel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic. Brief but rich. Bookchin provides a very clear and critical look at what was going on in Spain with some very useful cultural context. Read it!

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent reminders to look at the strengths of the Spanish Civil War's anarchist organization and revolution in societal structure, broken as much by the statist Lefists as by Franco? But as 3 small overview essays, it does not defend this position with much.

[Fergus Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating history and analysis.

[— · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorough and lucid. Engaging subject matter, and valuable perspective. A litte short.

[Juan Vigeuras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Te ofrece una imagen muy interesante sobre la (sobre todo) Cataluña anarquista de guerra.

[Miko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ada banyak cerita bagus dari kaum kiri saat perang sipil Spanyol. Namun terjemahan bukunya perlu diperbaiki untuk lebih memahami.

[Geral · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bacaan pertama saya tentang anarkisme

[Steven Peterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murray Bookchin is a fascinating author. He wrote a number of works on libertarian and anarchist issues. Unlike many, who are naïve and don’t have a hard-eyed view of matters, he examined such issues in a critical manner. Just so, this (too) brief work.

Some years earlier, Bookchin had authored a work on the development of the Spanish anarchist and syndicalist movement, starting in the latter third of the 19th century. His telling of Fanelli’s visit, trying to communicate Bakunin’s ideas in Italian to a Spanish audience is quite a vision! In that work, Bookchin traces the development of the movement in Spain up until the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936). This is his sequel, covering the anarchist and syndicalist revolution in Spain, from 1936 to the victory by General Franco.

Up front, I must say that the book is a bit of a disappointment. It is not even 70 pages long; it is comprised of two previously published works. While there is much insight here, there is not much depth of analysis. But what he has to say is to the point and provocative and, as one would guess, hard-eyed.

A key point that he makes: this period, 1936-1939, is normally referred to as the Spanish Civil War. He argues that that fundamentally misunderstands (or consciously distorts) some of the most important events. He says that there was a genuine revolution taking place—from the city of Barcelona to the rural areas of Spain. An anarchist and syndicalist revolution, where peasants and workers spontaneously developed self-governing units and used anarchosyndicalist methods to organize production and distribution.

The movement ultimately failed, due, partly, to the failures of the anarchists themselves (they begin to develop more hierarchical structures, participated in the government, and undermined their cause). Other factors: the enmity that the communists had toward the anarchists and how they translated that into undermining the anarchists, the dithering Republican government, and the power of Franco’s forces. Very hard-nosed analysis.

He also lays out the contributions, especially in rural areas, for anarchist practice. Most judge anarchism to be wildly impractical. Bookchin tries to make the case that the evidence on the ground showed some successes until Franco triumphed.

Whatever one thinks of his argument, this is an interesting volume, simply, for speaking to the case that there was a real revolution trying to take place within a Civil War. While the book is too brief, it is thought-provoking and might interest those interested in such issues.

[Vallan · Rating 4 out of 5]

good book. near the end of the book: "Whether the American left shares with the Spanish left the popular legacy that the latter cleansed and rescued from the right is a crucial problem ... insofar as the anarchists gave these traditions coherence and a radical thrust, converting them into a radical culture, not merely a contrived "program," they survived generations of incredible persecution and repression"
my biggest beef here? bookchin is pretty cynical about the possiblity of a repeat of something resembling the Spanish Civil War but never really evidenced the assertion to my satisfaction, giving reasons that amount to "things have changed". ya know, i don't even entirely disagree, at least with regards to trench warfare's obsolescence, but it's not your strongest argument bookchin.
good cnt fai primer. can't remember if it's any better than "lessons of the spanish civil war". "lessons" is probably a lil' more thorough. though bookchin is probly more critical of cnt bureaucratization and fai adventurism.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

If a fairly didactic examination of the relationship between communists and anarcho-syndicalists in the power struggles of post-monarchy, pre-Franco Spain seems like something up your alley, by all means get this. The historical analysis is interesting and concise (mercifully so, considering how bogged these tracts can get intheir own revolutionary verbiage), but whoever edited this should be fired. An inability to use even basic punctuation properly could very easily hinder any progressive authors who might intend to be taken seriously as writers and not just polemicists. Possibly a nit-picky point, but one worth considering, especially considering how glaring the errors tended to be.

[Nektarios kouloumpos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Φτωχό σε αποδεικτικά στοιχεία και παραπομπές. Μπορεί ο Μπουκτσιν να γράφει τα ίδια πάνω κάτω με τον Τσόμσκι όσον αφορά τα αίτια της ήττας των άναρχοσυνδικαλιστών στον ισπανικό εμφύλιο, αλλά δεν τα τεκμηριώνει όπως ο Τσόμσκι.
Για κάποιον που ενδιαφέρεται να ακούσει την αναρχική πλευρά του ισπανικού εμφυλίου, σύντομα αλλά και πρόχειρα, ίσως είναι μια καλή αρχή.