paid to the individual manufacturer, except for a small deduction to cover commission, lighting and workshop rental costs.27
The statements above offer an economic breakdown of demands designed to do away with exploitation in the future society and to repudiate politicians and Leninists. These were binding upon the CNT’s trade unionism: an ability to open wage-earners’ eyes to hard and fast goals, handled by dedicated, steadfast syndicalists capable of standing up to repression; an eye for the detailed, practical implementation of resolutions; a wide-ranging vision taking in women, children and the disabled. Linked to which, the anarcho-syndicalist leadership was fully alive to its revolutionary mission as well as to the dangers surrounding it, and equipped itself with sound tools.
The sindicato único gathered all the workers of the same firm or locality (if the locality was small enough) under one roof. There was a community of interests and solidarity between skilled workers, specialists and labourers whose differing degrees of skill and pay rates tended to divide and split asunder. Solidarity was not restricted to the mythic slogan “Workers of the world unite”, as it was inside the UGT and European-style trade unionism (long forgotten these days in France, Germany, etc.), and workers stuck together regardless of work distinctions.
Brief review of the historical backdrop
Knowing how CNT personnel operated, one can better understand anarcho-syndicalism’s élan in Spain’s past.
The ideas of the International reached Spain thanks to an Italian deputy dispatched there by Bakunin (on the basis that he enjoyed free rail travel), who conflated the all-embracing ideas of the International with those of Bakunin, who in turn was in favor of encouraging the spread of unionisation by the workers through the Alliance.28 When Marxists took exception to this conflation, a split with the UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores/General Workers’ Union) resulted. The UGT grew rapidly from a membership of 57,000 in 1905 to 148,000 in 1933.
Between 1900 and 1911, the history of the Spanish labour movement was punctuated by many events: The colonial war in Morocco triggered a mutiny by recruits in Barcelona in 1909, in the wake of which the anarchist educationist Francisco Ferrer was executed by firing squad. Anarcho-syndicalist groups, ever-present since the introduction of the socialist ideas of the International Working Men’s Association in 1868, finally began to coordinate. Thanks to this, the CNT had a membership of 30,000 when it was launched in 1911.
One glaring mistake made by the CNT was that it turned a blind eye to colonial exploitation in the Spanish territory in Morocco, and failed to campaign for and alongside the victims of exploitation in the Maghreb. Ángel Pestaña was alone in raising the issue at the 1931 congress, although he did not table a motion through his trade union.29
The upshot of the First World War was that Spanish industry serviced the belligerents, and that exploitation of wage-earners surged as a result. In August 1917, the CNT and UGT made contact with each other and decided to mount a revolutionary general strike together. It failed, thanks to the chicanery of the socialists, summarised thus in the Spanish Cortes by Indalecio Prieto: “Sure, we gave weapons to the People. But it is also true that we did not give them ammunition”.30 In order to foment and orchestrate future labor disputes, the CNT espoused the sindicato único format.
The efficacy of the new format was borne out in 1919. Catalonia’s power company, La Canadiense, was brought to a standstill by a strike mounted in solidarity with eight bookkeeper employees (over their being taken on as permanent staff at a lower rate of pay).31 That solidarity then spread to many power plants and textile plants. The government declared a state of emergency in Catalonia and conscripted the workers who nevertheless refused to return to work. Their demands were for a pay increase, an eight-hour working day and half pay for days spent on strike. That strike began in January at La Canadiense and by the end of February it affected the whole of Catalonia. The strike dragged on into March, and between 24 March and 7 April there was a general strike in place. On 14 April, the employers’ union caved in to all of the demands, including the release of 3,000 arrested workers. Some 100,000 workers had taken part in the strike in Catalonia.
That strike, entirely the handiwork of the CNT, is an example of that organisation’s effectiveness; that year its membership numbered 755,000, which is to say, nearly 10 percent of the working population. In Catalonia alone, the CNT had 252,000 members by 1920, whereas the UGT had 211,000 in the whole of Spain.
In 1922, a CNT delegation was dispatched to the launch of the Third International in Moscow, and decided not to affiliate to the new International in light of the situation of anarchists and the Russian workers. Two Marxists in the delegation—Andrés Nin and Joaquín Maurín—then quit the CNT, and went on to launch the POUM.32
But more serious developments were afoot: the Catalan employers, out for revenge over the La Canadiense strike, armed men who gunned down trade union officers, including the man who had been the inspiration behind the strike tactics—Salvador Seguí. This was the era of pistolerismo (pitting the ‘hired killers’ against the syndicalists). In response, the defense groups were formed. There was all-out struggle between 1919 and 1923.
These were the days of Mussolini and military dictatorships across Europe (Hungary, Bulgaria), and the Spanish employer class needed a strong government. General Primo de Rivera took power in 1923, and not one political group lifted a finger to oppose him. The CNT opted to disband and take its structures underground, though at a local level the unions carried on with their activities, sometimes under a different designation.
During the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, the PSOE and the UGT not only failed to oppose the regime, but actually collaborated with it. This explains why the Mussolinian model, followed in Spain, never ruled out the parliamentary road: another effort was to wipe out the CNT by means of state sponsorship of the UGT. Thus the UGT’s general secretary, Largo Caballero, was seconded to the Ministry of Labor as councillor of State. But the dictatorship had no trade union policy; the workers were not taken in. Between 1920 and 1926 the UGT stagnated, with only a slight rise in its membership from 211,000 to 219,000.
Where the cenetistas (CNT personnel) stood was something of an unknown quantity as far as their adversaries were concerned. In fact, since 1927, the CNT had been flanked by an anarchist federation, the FAI (Federación Anarquista Ibérica/Iberian Anarchist Federation, the aspiration being to embrace Portugal as well, though this was never achieved, due to the Salazar dictatorship’s repression), the aim of which was to further the spread of anarchist ideas inside the CNT and across the country.
The dictatorship failed to live up to the ambitions of the Spanish employers who did not take to Mussolini-style dirigiste economics; the left-wing political parties began to stir, and disputes took a more bitter turn. The 1930–1931 period was crucial, for the regime allowed a measure of trade union reorganisation, doubtless on account of possible tensions arising from the 1929 depression. By around 1930, the UGT membership stood at 277,000.
From the Interior minister, General Mola, and following overtures made by Pestaña, the CNT secured the right to organise. Mola went on to become the organiser of the 1936 coup d’état and, in particular, was behind the orders that left-wing leaders be executed en masse and out of hand, without trial.
This was the backdrop against which the April 1931 municipal elections were held, with a clear victory going to the republicans, whereupon a Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931. King Alfonso XIII was no more keen than the employers to be forced into a direct confrontation. He abdicated and left the country.
