was almost the automatic consequence of executions (1974: 106–7). In September
1936 the anarchists entered the Catalan government calling it the Revolutionary
Defence Council so as to avoid giving the impression ‘to their already alarmed
extremist followers’ that they had joined a real government (Thomas, 1965: 367).
Marshall argues that in so doing, they had started down the slippery slide to
parliamentary participation and this meant sacrificing the social revolution to the
war against Franco (Marshall, 1993: 461).
As the crisis continued, the anarchists entered the government in Madrid, with
the anarchist Garcia Oliver becoming Minister of Justice and the CNT recognising
the republican state as ‘an instrument of struggle’ (Thomas, 1965: 404). The defence
of this action by the CNT’s daily paper is regarded by Marshall as ‘an unparalleled
bout of dissimulation’ (Marshall, 1993: 465). Oliver, ‘for all his devotion to
Bakunin’, proceeded to establish a new code of state laws and defended the need
for iron discipline in the popular army (Thomas, 1965: 470; Marshall, 1993: 465).
In late April 1937 a civil war between the anarchists and the communist-backed
government broke out in Barcelona, and some 500 were killed. Anarchist influence
ebbed away, and although the CNT continued to collaborate with the government,
they no longer took even nominal responsibility for its actions (Thomas, 1965: 558).
On 18 March 1938 the CNT signed an agreement with the socialist Union
General Trabajadores (UGT) to subject industry to central economic planning –
collectivisation everywhere was giving way to state control (Thomas, 1965: 671).
In Madrid, the anarchists backed attacks on the communists, putting the blame for
the perilous military position on the Popular Front government (Thomas, 1965:
750). By the end of March, Franco’s victory was secured.Chapter 11 Anarchism 247The Spanish Civil War
What does the civil war reveal about anarchism as an ideology? Leaving aside its fierce
opposition to Marxism that had already been evident in the nineteenth century, the civil war
points to a paradox at the heart of anarchism. In order to be effective, the militias had to
adopt more conventional methods of organisation and the anarchists had to agree to enter
into governments, trying in the Catalan instance to disguise the character of this institution.
This points to a wider predicament. Anarchism is only likely to flourish in deeply divided
conditions. A revolutionary situation inevitably throws up counter-revolutionary forces so that
anarchists are likely to find themselves in positions of power in civil war-type situations.
Dramatic changes are called for, and how is it possible to carry these through without
organisation and a state? It takes a state to get rid of a state – that in essence seems to be the
lesson of the events in Spain.
This argument conflicts with Marshall’s view that the defeat of the anarchist movement in
Spain arose from the failure to carry through the social revolution. The latter was sacrificed
for the war effort, and if this and the seizure of power by the communists had not taken place,
the outcome would have been very different. The failure, he suggests, was not a failure of
anarchist theory and tactics (Marshall, 1993: 467).
Focus