The CNT today is not a monolithic organisation. On the contrary an intense debate is going on which is leading up to a new CNT Congress, to be held in October. Besides the problems of relationships between very different generations of militants (those from the pre-war CNT, and the majority of the new CNT (90% of whom are under 30), there are problems of relationships between exiles and the CNT in Spain itself.

Since the legalisation of the CNT, there have been bitter polemics over the political adherence of CNT members; over the trade union elections; over collective contracts, and specific tendencies have arisen with different perspectives on working in the CNT.

Double membership?

Could members of political parties and religious groups belong and represent the CNT? The national Plenum of autumn 1977 agreed that such people could hold no responsible positions in the CNT. This decision fell on militants of the Libertarian Communist Movement (MCL); the syndicalists and traditionalists rejected the MCL as 'Marxists', although it was not applied against the renascent Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI).

Union elections - unions and assemblies

At the same Plenum in 1977, the decision was taken to boycott the approaching union elections. The big unions altogether represented only 20% of the workers, and the CNT decided to reinforce the existing assemblies in order to promote working class autonomy. The Valencian regional committee however followed up this plenum by denouncing this agreement as 'councillist' and 'marxist'. At Fords near Valencia, certain CNT members had been elected by the workers assembly to works committees in the union elections. The Local Federation (50 members) decided to expel the Ford Works Union section (200 members) - for violating the decisions of the plenum (although the Ford unionists were carrying out the wishes of the assembly which wanted representation in the committee). Meanwhile the Valencian CNT maintained its campaign against assemblies...

Since then the 'councilists' have suffered verbal (sometimes physical) attacks and expulsions. A purist syndicalist position emerged arguing that the CNT should take part in union negotiations like the other bigger unions - this position was Iinked to the position that interunion activity was important rather than assembly work. On the other hand some of the assembleists began to advocate that the CNT should become a more 'global' organisation -· fighting in all areas of struggle. These differences can be summed up as:

• On the level of content: global alternative against trade union alternative or in other words - social struggle against economic struggle.
• On the strategic and tactical level: assembleism against syndicalism, or perhaps workers autonomy vs union leadership
• On the organisational level: integral/global organisation vs the syndicalist center

Collective contracts

Since the summer of 1978 a debate on pacts and contracts has gone on. The building union in Barcelona denounced the contracts as an instrument invented by the bourgeoisie to integrate the working class into the system by negotiating social peace for the length of the agreements. They also denounced the divisions imposed by trade and plant destroying any common platform of demands. A second tendency has argued that the time when the contracts are made is one of large scale mobilisation in which workers defend their interests. To refuse to take part in the negotiations is not only to abandon the workers when they most need support, but is also in the short term accepting marginalisation in relation to the workers struggle. A third intermediary tendency has also appeared. They recognise the building syndicate's criticisms and that the pacts run against the basic CNT principle of direct action. But for them the problem today is the existence of the Moncloa pact (a social contract) and the limitations on wage rises that flow therefrom. It is crucial to break these agreements and if the workers fight for higher wage rises then the pacts can become an opportunity to break with capital. Thus contracts become an instrument of rupture.

Apart from the Barcelonan building syndicate no positions have been taken by other unions-. so the debate continues (although in fact they take part in negotiations and mobilisations).

TENDENCIES & ORGANISATION

In order to attempt to catalogue these tendencies it seems useful to look at three different levels of organisation.

In examining the various tendencies that exist within the CNT it is necessary to examine their attitude to three main questions. First, what attitude should one take to the assemblies in the factories? Second, what importance should one place on the CNT itself, what should be its role? Third, to what extent should the CNT allow political tendencies to operate within it and how much importance should one attach to them? In considering the various tendencies and their attitudes to these questions, it should be born in mind that any such analysis is necessarily schematic, and that it would be difficult to pigeon-hole many members of the CNT so neatly.

There are 8 main tendencies:

Pure of revolutionary syndicalists. Press organ: the Valencian Fragua Social, c/o Gabriel Marti, Apartado de Correos 1.337, Valencia. They do not recognise the workers assemblies, denouncing them as 'councillist' and a camouflage for 'Marxist' activity, and are bitterly opposed to political groupings active within the CNT. They place all their faith in the CNT leadership and believe that the CNT by itself can produce the revolution.

The FAI, some non-FAI anarchists, and the 'historical anarchosyndicalists'. Press; Tierra y Libertad, illegal, so no fixed address. They follow roughly the same line in that they oppose 'councillism' and support the CNT leadership. However, they see a role for the FAI in struggles outside the union, in the politics of culture, anti-militarism, ecology, etc.

Critical anarcho-syndicalists and some libertarian communists. Press: Bicicleta, c/o Nave no 12, 20 Valencia 2. They support self-organisation by workers in assemblies and their unity in action at the base. They see the CNT as a class organisation, but don't see it as 'global' organisation as this would entail a centralisation of the libertarian movement of which the CNT is only a part. They are opposed to political groupings within the CNT, as they fear that these would turn into Leninist parties using the union as a 'transmission belt' within the working class.

The anarcho-communist group Askatasuna, some anarchists and libertarian communists. Press: Askatasuna, Apartado de Correos 1.628, Bilbao. They believe in the importance of the assemblies. They believe that the CNT can go beyond a purely union role, can unite all libertarian tendencies and fight in all areas of social struggle. They see scope for political organisations within the CNT, adding to its development of theory.

Other libertarian communists. Press: Palante, Apartado de Correos 42.025, Madrid. Very similar to Askatasuna, but are opposed to political tendencies in the CNT, following the line that they can only lead to Leninism.

Critical and non-orthodox anarchists. No press. Similar ideas to the followers of Askatasuna and Palante, but believe that while tendencies should produce revues and debate theory within CNT, they should not go beyond this and organise.

Finally, there are two groups outside the CNT, but which are sympathetic and take part in debates with Bicicleta and Palente:-

Libertarian and autonomous Marxists. Press: Emancipacion, c/o Guipouzcoa No 11, 1 Oizqda, Madrid 20. They support the assemblies, and they believe that the CNT, the Organisation of Workers Autonomy and a number of other groups should fuse to form one political union organisation, allowing tendencies.

Spontaneist libertarians. They believe only in the importance of the workers assemblies, there is no need to organise at any other level.

Is the CNT in crisis? It is obvious that all the political and union organisations are going through some sort of crisis, in part as a reaction to the euphoria of 1976/7. The CNT's is perhaps more acute and fundamental, revealing greater differences of opinion. Only the CNT has held no congress since the death of Franco. The congress in October will be the first for 43 years.

This article is a translation and adaptation by T.Z. of an article in Tout le Pouvoir Aux Travailleurs, paper of our French sister-organisation, the Union of des Travailleurs Communistes Libertaires.

The CNT (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo - the anarchosyndicalist revolutionary union of Spain) held its fifth congress in 69 years of existence on December 8th to 16th in the Hall of the Casa de Campo in Madrid. A revolutionary union with a paid up membership of 85,000 and 300,000 adherents is a matter of great importance for the Spanish working class. Unfortunately it appears that the CNT is at present more a closed shop than an outward going organisation responding to the needs of the workers. It appears that it is being controlled by purist anarchists who are more concerned to preserve their doctrine than to make it a constructive force in the class struggle.

If the LCG supported its reconstruction in 1976, it was because it represented then an initiative to construct a class and mass movement that was both anti-capitalist and anti-statist. We have always taken a critical position on anaracho-syndicalism, but we thought that a CNT implanted in the working class by its practice in the workplaces could bypass the errors of the Spanish libertarian movement, coming to grips with the questions that anarchosyndicalism has, even today, never clearly responded to. For that, it was necessary that the CNT had democratic structures, and was implanted in the workplaces, leading a political drawing from the real practice of its militants and advancing towards a revolutionary libertarian alternative.

We supported the CNT because some of its militants seemed to be in agreement with this schema and the entire libertarian workers movement was rallying to it. This support did not mean that we stopped criticising all the mistakes of the past, the lack of democracy and the temptations to make the CNT a sanctuary of purist ideology. (See previous articles in LC, Libertarian Spain 1 & 2, and our supplement on Spain.) Unlike some anarchists and libertarians, we did not want to enshrine the myth of the CNT still further, but to support its practice, in the workplaces, and its part in the construction of a libertarian workers movement.

1979 was a year of diminishing struggle in Spain. The movement that had developed after the death of Franco outside the reformist unions (the Socialist UGT and the Communist CC.OO) in the factory assemblies has been undermined and isolated. Even where militant strikes have succeeded, e.g. the victory of the petrol pump attendants in January, there have been victimisations of militants. The government has been introducing legislation to make strikes illegal (contracts with employers would be binding for their duration) although lockouts were legal. Likewise, political and solidarity strikes were to be forbidden, and factory committees could order a return to work above the heads of the workers themselves. New legislation also facilitated redundancies, and made payment of the national minimum wage dependent on produtivity.

Much of this has been accepted by the CC.OO and UGT, who have campaigned mainly over the issue of redundancies arguing for negotiated procedures.

This decline in militancy, especially outside the Basque country-has left the militants of the CNT exposed. There have been two reactions-either to concentrate on activity outside the legal framework wherever this framework prevents direct action, or to adopt a more flexible approach, working from within the factory committees for revolutionary strategies. The proponents of the first option have been called purists and idealists; the proponents of the second course have been denounced as reformists and marxists.

Readers of Libertarian Spain No.2 (copies still available, send 30p in stamps to LS, Box 3, 73 Walmgate, York) will be familiar with the expulsion of the ASKATASUNA current of anarchist communists by the CNT of the Basque country. This expulsion was a precedent for the treatment given to Sebastian Puigcerver, a former member of the CNT national committee and a tendency with which he was associated, the Anarcho-syndicalist Affinity Groups. The grounds for this expulsion were that the individuals expelled had set up parallel groups which aimed to control the CNT. This had already been used against the comrades of the Movimiento Communista Libertaria (MCL). If one bears in mind that the CNT was only reconstructed on the merger of different tendencies-the councillists, the libertarian communists, Askatasuna, autonomists, traditional anarchists, etc,etc,etc, and that the basis on which it attempted to function was the reconcilliation of different points of view, then his change is quite amazing. BICICLETA, an independent anarchist collective, who had themselves been expelled from the CNT, published a letter outlining the links between the Federacion Anarquista Iberica (the grouping that had dominated CNT internal life for so many years) Luis Andres Edo, a dominant voice in the Barcelona building workers' CNT union, and the old CNT exiles in Toulouse. Let two facts suffice on this point: 1) Juan Ferer, a central leader of the FAI, had proposed at an intercontinental meeting of the anarchíst federations that the exiles should take the reins of the CNT; 2) a statement made by Federica Montseny, leading Toulouse exile and one of those who had served as minister in the Republican government in the Civil War, at the Mutualite Hall in Paris that rather than let the CNT escape from their hands they would prefer to see it dead.

There can be little doubt that the charge made against the "reformists" was that the parallel organisation set up by the "orthodox" anarchists had decided to put the boot in. The eхpulsions were associated with physical attacks on some "reformists". The voting of expulsions had been accompanied by counter-charges that the meetings were fixed deliberately. At any event the internal power struggle has been effective in driving workers out of the unions - for example the voting on the expulsion of Puigcerver and 11 comrades was 48 to 18 with 18 abstentions in a union of 1,000 members.

Following this and other expulsions in April and May last year the editorial of Solidaridad Obrera, the CNT's largest paper, a fortnightly, was voted out. "Soli" changed from a paper that was open to debate on all points to a more boring but orthodox uncontroversial paper. The orthodox political justification for this is, in the words of the new general secretary of the CNT Jose Bondia, that they should have dared to question the historic basis of the CNT and its anarchosyndicalist theory. Dogmatism rules OK!

Given such a polemical background it was only to be expected that the 5th Congress should be traumatic. The first two days were filled with discussions on credentials. 737 delegates representing 350 unions were present. (The CNT is made up of regional unions of trades.) The conference was a meeting for many international observers, including sections of the International Workers Association, the syndicalist international, in Norway, Italy, France, Venezuela, Germany, Britain, Chile, Cuba, etc. The third day was taken up with procedural discussions largely on how the main conference motion should be discussed, and on the report of the national committee.

The actual debate on anarchosyndicalism and libertarian communism (the method and aim of the CNT) left many problems.

How are these principles to be put into practice? The classical slogans of anarchosyndicalism: antiparliamentarianism, anti-capitalism, anti-militarism, federalism, direct action etc create as many problems as they solve. The reaffirmation of the Zaragozza 1936 Congress motions ignores the many obvious criticisms that the '36 motions on sexuality, libertarian communism, education etc are open too. These criticisms were not allowed to be debated at Congress.

The debate on organisation became the last straw for the minority of delegates who were unhappy with the proceedings. Disagreement centred on the question of "double" militancy should a member of the CNT be allowed to be active in another organisation? The traditional answer was "no" it meant that communists had no power in the CNT but it caused controversy in relation to the FAI since "double" militancy in the CNT and FAI was always allowed. Today, with the development of many libertarian currents, the problem is accentuated since the FAI is still allowed a privileged position that is refused to all other political groups. When this position was reaffirmed 50 delegates including the Aragon federation left the Congress, angry that the FAI and exiles hold over the CNT could not be challenged in the Congress.

Thus the major part of the conference appears to have acheved little beyond sterile sectarian debates which will only have pleased traditionalists who wanted to reaffirm principles of the past.

The last two days of the conference were taken up with re-election of the new national committee and debates on all the questions of day-to-day strategy. The new General Secretary was voted in by only 45 of the 350 unions which were present at the start. Many unions had left in disgust, others were clearly committed to supporting attempts to question the validity of Congress, or attempts to set up a rival libertarian revolutionary union. Whilst a definite majority does exist for the orthodox anarchists, this hegemony has been won partly by default since all its opponents are divided into smaller tendencies, and partly because some unions have not taken sides.

Congress decided against the previous policy of working in assemblies, and voted for the establishment of CNT committees in each factory. It also decided not to stand in the stateorganised elections to factory committees, and made commitments to alternative strategies, sabotage and unlimited strikes. Whilst it did not rule out the possibility of participating in collective bargaining, congress argues that it should only take part when it could do so directly without intermediaries. These final debates on union strategy, unemployment, the press, prisoner international organisation, the CNT exiles, privileged relations with the FAI, education, ecology etc recieved little attention and were passed over hurriedly.

The main impression created by the conference was one of disarray and division. Doubtless the purified CNT may still play a role as a bunker for the revolutionary opposition, but given its sectarianism, its lack of democratic debate, and maximalism, it is doubtful if it can play a role as the centre for an opposition.

The congress has confirmed the splintering of the CNT. In the weeks that followed entire regions refused to accept the result of the conference. On 26 and 27 January a national meeting of unions declared that it did not recognise the new general secretary and set up structures to permit coordination between these unions, including the appearence of the paper "CNT"

A national plenum followed in Zarragozza where the unions represented decided that the process of appeal against conference decision was over of only recognising the secretariat elected at the plenum, and to regard as exterior to the CNT all those who had sabotaged its democratic functioning (including Bundia, the General Secret Secretary elected at the December congress, and the FAI exiles). It was decided to prepare for a congress on the 25, 26, 27 and 28 of July to restore a democratic structure and to plan a union strategy.

These militants have been attacked as fascists, marxists and reformists. It has been alleged that they are a small minority acting outside the factories. Certain "anarchosynicalists" have attacked and ransacked the offices of unions in opposition, like the "Water, Gas and Electricity" in Barcelona in mid-January, and the entertainments industry union in Barcelona in the beginning of March.

The worst incident was-on the 16th March, when 60 "anarchosyndicalists" attacked the office of the CNT in Maturo, near Barcelona, where a regional plenum of the unions in opposition was being held. Firing shots in the air and laying about them with iron bars, they wounded several militants, including Enrique Marcos, the former general secretary, and a militant of Maturo who risks losing an eye.

Far too many people who tried to pull the CNT out of the crisis it was in were expelled by those who are tragically incapable of anything else other than threats and aggression, expulsions and fixed ideology.

Today the comrades who did not recognise the congress are trying to construct an organisation capable of real debate and real union strategy. They are united in the need to construct an organisation based on worker's democracy and affirming its attatchment to the libertarian workers' movement. Their political positions are not as yet well developed, but we must support them in their desire to confront problems in practice and without sectarianism. If these comrades reappropriate the CNT, then we still support the CNT. We have political differences with these comrades, but they are differences that can be argued in debate.

Some lessons to be drawn from the disarray of the CNT are that:

1) Revolutionary strategy for unions must be dialectical: it must advance the general level of class consciousness towards revolutionary goals by drawing on the strength of the class as a whole. The small impact that the CNT made was due to its support for factory assemblies in the period 1976-78, its fall is due to its failure to find a realistic policy in a period of downturn of class struggle where it should have played a decisive role in the struggle for worksharing against unemployment.

2) The policy of the purist orthodox anarchists is vanguardistic, since it places the needs of their small groups above that of class struggle.

3) The disarray of the CNT flows from the ideological confusion of the Spanish working class as a whole - the massive apathy developed by the reformists and the government has defused the radicalisation following on from the dismantling of Francoism.

Terry Sheen and Billy Williams