Statistical information on socialisation in the Spanish Revolution

Adequate statistical information is difficult to obtain, but the following data should give a general idea of the extent of the libertarian revolution on the land and in the cities.

Pierre Broué and Emile Témime state that in Aragon, "under the control of the anarchists, the collectivisation movement embraced more than three-quarters of the land, almost exclusively in communities affiliated to the CNT ." (p. 159)

"Over half the land in the Republican zone was collectivised" according to Augustine Souchy.

Gaston Leval talks about "revolutionary experience involving, directly or indirectly, 7 to 8 million people."

José Peirats is more specific on the number of hectares cultivated by the collectives and makes a revealing comparison with the land "legally distributed during the five. years of agrarian reform by the Republican government" - 876,327 hectares - while only "in a few weeks the Revolution expropriated 5,692,202 hectares directly occupied by the peasants…" (Los Anarquistas en la Crisis Politica Espanola, Buenos Aires, 1964, p. 145 - italics SD's).

Frank Mintz estimates 1,265 to 1,865 collectives, "embracing 610,000 to 800,000 workers. With their families, they involve a population of 3,200,000…" (p. 149)

Leval lists 1,700 agrarian collectives, broken down as follows:
- Aragon, 400 (for Aragon Souchy estimates 510);
- Levant, 900;
- Castile, 300;
- Estremadura, 30;
- Catalonia, 40;
- Andalusia, unknown.

For the collectivised urban industries he estimates: Catalonia, all the industries and all transportation; Levant, 70% of all the industries; Castile, part of the industries - he gives no figures. (Espagne Libertaire, p. 80)

OCRed and lightly edited by libcom from Sam Dolgoff's The Anarchist Collectives