Spanish Revolution of 1936 in the context of "Libertarian socialism"

The Spanish Civil War (Spanish: guerra civil española) was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic and included socialists, anarchists, communists, and separatists. The opposing Nationalists who established the Spanish State were an alliance of fascist Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, or a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, or between fascism and communism. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

The war began after the partial failure of the coup d'état of July 1936 against the Popular Front government by a group of generals of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces. The Nationalist faction consisted of right-wing groups, including Christian traditionalist party CEDA, monarchists, including both the opposing Alfonsists and the religious conservative Carlists, and the Falange Española de las JONS, a fascist political party. However, rebelling units in almost all important cities did not gain control, leaving Spain militarily and politically divided. The rebellion was countered with the help of arming left-wing social movements and parties and formation of militias, what led to rapid socioeconomic and political transformation in the Republican zone, referred to as the Spanish Revolution. The Nationalist forces received munitions, soldiers, and air support from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany while the Republican side received support from the Soviet Union and Mexico. Other countries, such as the United Kingdom, France, and the United States, continued to recognise the Republican government but followed an official policy of non-intervention. Despite this policy, tens of thousands of citizens from non-interventionist countries directly participated in the conflict, mostly in the pro-Republican International Brigades.

Anarcho-syndicalism is an anarchist organisational model that centres trade unions as a vehicle for class conflict. Drawing from the theory of libertarian socialism and the practice of syndicalism, anarcho-syndicalism sees trade unions as both a means to achieve immediate improvements to working conditions and to build towards a social revolution in the form of a general strike, with the ultimate aim of abolishing the state and capitalism. Anarcho-syndicalists consider trade unions to be the prefiguration of a post-capitalist society and seek to use them in order to establish workers' control of production and distribution. An anti-political ideology, anarcho-syndicalism rejects political parties and participation in parliamentary politics, considering them to be a corrupting influence on the labour movement. In order to achieve their material and economic goals, anarcho-syndicalists instead practice direct action in the form of strike actions, boycotts and sabotage. Anarcho-syndicalists also attempt to build solidarity among the working class, in order to unite workers against the exploitation of labour and build workers' self-management.

The foundations of anarcho-syndicalism were laid by the anti-authoritarian faction of the International Workingmen's Association (IWMA) and developed by the French General Confederation of Labour (CGT). Anarcho-syndicalism was constituted as a specific tendency following the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907, which led to anarcho-syndicalism becoming the dominant form of trade union organisation in Europe and Latin America. After facing suppression during the Revolutions of 1917–1923, anarcho-syndicalists established the International Workers' Association (IWA) in 1922. Anarcho-syndicalism reached its apex during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, when the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) established an anarcho-syndicalist economy throughout much of the Spanish Republic. Anarcho-syndicalism went into decline after the defeat of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The movement split into two factions: the "orthodox" faction, which held to traditional syndicalist principles in spite of changing material conditions; and the "revisionist" faction, which aimed to achieve a mass base and work within the framework of newly established welfare states. By the end of the 20th century, the rise of neoliberalism and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc had led to a revival in anarcho-syndicalism, with syndicalist unions once again being established throughout the globe.

Barcelona (/ˌbɑːrsəˈloʊnə/ BAR-sə-LOH-nə; Catalan: [bəɾsəˈlonə] ; Spanish: [baɾθeˈlona] ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.7 million within city limits, its urban area extends to numerous neighbouring municipalities within the province of Barcelona and is home to around 5.7 million people, making it the fifth most populous urban area of the European Union after Paris, the Ruhr area, Madrid and Milan. It is one of the largest metropolises on the Mediterranean Sea, located on the coast between the mouths of the rivers Llobregat and Besòs, bounded to the west by the Serra de Collserola mountain range.

According to tradition, Barcelona was founded by either the Phoenicians or the Carthaginians, who had trading posts along the Catalonian coast. In the Middle Ages, Barcelona became the capital of the County of Barcelona. After joining with the Kingdom of Aragon to form the composite monarchy of the Crown of Aragon, Barcelona, which continued to be the capital of the Principality of Catalonia, became the most important city in the Crown of Aragon and its main economic and administrative centre, only to be overtaken by Valencia, wrested from Moorish control by the Catalans, shortly before the dynastic union between the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1516. Barcelona became the centre of Catalan separatism, briefly becoming part of France during the 17th century Reapers' War and again in 1812 until 1814 under Napoleon. Experiencing industrialization and several workers movements during the 19th and early 20th century, it became the capital of autonomous Catalonia in 1931 and it was the epicenter of the revolution experienced by Catalonia during the Spanish Revolution of 1936, until its capture by the fascists in 1939. After the Spanish transition to democracy in the 1970s, Barcelona once again became the capital of an autonomous Catalonia.

The phrase Spanish Republic at war refers to the Second Spanish Republic during the Civil War of 1936–1939. It represents the last stage in this war's history. The territory that remained under its control after the coup of July 1936—which was called the republican zone or the loyalist zone—gradually reduced as the rebel zone spread, until it was finally occupied in its entirety by the Francoist side (which had referred to the areas as the red zone throughout the civil war).

During this time, there were three consecutive governments: the one presided over by José Giral, from Republican Left, although during his short term (July–September 1936), real power was actually in the hands of the hundreds of committees that were created when the social revolution of 1936 broke out. The next government was presided over by Francisco Largo Caballero, the leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), one of the two trade unions that had led the revolution. Finally, the third government was presided over by Juan Negrín, also from the PSOE, as a consequence of the fall of Largo Caballero's government after the events of May 1937. Negrín governed until early March 1939, when Colonel Segismundo Casado's coup took place, putting an end to the Republican resistance and giving way to the victory of the rebel faction led by General Francisco Franco.

A classless society is a society in which no one is born into a social class like in a class society. Distinctions of wealth, income, education, culture, or social network might arise and would only be determined by individual experience and achievement in such a society.Thus, the concept posits not the absence of a social hierarchy but the uninheritability of class status. Helen Codere defines social class as a segment of the community, the members of which show a common social position in a hierarchical ranking. Codere suggests that a true class-organized society is one in which the hierarchy of prestige and social status is divisible into groups. Each group with its own social, economic, attitudinal and cultural characteristics, and each having differential degrees of power in community decision.

Classless societies can be attained through numerous means, such as abolishing inheritance, establishing social ownership, and modeling after social structures as observed in MAREZ, Revolutionary Catalonia, and prehistorical tribes.

Revolutionary Catalonia (21 July 1936 – 8 May 1937) was the period in which the autonomous region of Catalonia in northeast Spain was controlled or largely influenced by various anarchist, syndicalist, communist, and socialist trade unions, parties, and militias of the Spanish Civil War era. Although the constitutional Catalan institution of self-government, the Generalitat of Catalonia (led by the Republican Left of Catalonia, ERC), remained in power and even took control of most of the competences of the Spanish central government in its territory, the trade unions were de facto in command of most of the economy and military forces, which includes the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, National Confederation of Labor) which was the dominant labor union at the time and the closely associated Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation). The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT, General Worker's Union), the POUM (Workers' Party of Marxist Unification) and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC, which included the former Communist Party of Catalonia) were also prominent.

Socialist rule of the region began with the Spanish Revolution of 1936, resulting in workers' control of businesses and factories, collective farming in most of the countryside, and attacks against Spanish nationalists and the Catholic clergy. The growing influence of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) in the Popular Front government and their desire to nationalize revolutionary committees and militias brought it into conflict with the CNT and POUM, resulting in the May Days and the eventual replacement of the CNT by the PSUC as a major political force in Catalonia until their defeat to the Nationalist forces in 1939.