Workers Against Work – Seidman on the Civil War Barcelona CNT

Seidman's work is problematic, simply because he just lists shit loads of negative events without much context and in no real order.

It reminds me of what the Spanish conservative ABC did in the run-up to Franco's coup. It published all the murders, thefts, rapes and so on as front page news. The amount of actual crime had not increased, but the perception of it increased massively. Seidman's work feels like that.

Ultimately, there are no instant utopias and any real revolution is going to face problems. Fact of life. What Seidman does is try and convince you that no radical change is possible but focusing on the trival problems any massive social change will produce.

Great post Anarcho

any discussion of what happened in the Republican / cnt-fai zone of Spain during the civil war / revolution / counter-revolution must take into account the severe dislocation to the economy (in the broadest sense of the term) caused by the military uprising (loss of productive land / cutting off of access to raw materials) - which got worse as the war continued; the effects of the naval blockade (by UK / US non-intervention forces and Italian / german navies) which isolated the republican zone - apart from what could be got from France or supplied through it); effects of war on production etc, loss of working hours etc.

the fact that many lost their jobs could easily be due to loss of work for them to do (lack of raw materials) or loss of markets for items for export. the increase in working hours could be explained by the need where resources were available or where productivity could be expanded that as much needed to be produced as possible - either for direct consumption, supplies for the front line troops or for supplying the urban areas or for export (if possible.)

to simply blame everything on the CNT-FAI is quite absurd.

Except as Brinton showed, the trots are consciously directing attention away from the fact that the bolshies consciously worked to suppress the workers' autonomy from day 1, so the problem isn't with the evidence/excuses per se, its with what they are covering up.

Anarcho

Seidman's work is problematic, simply because he just lists shit loads of negative events without much context and in no real order.

I'm reading it, and finding it somewhat disturbing. Can you give me some of the context because I'm feeling that, but having trouble thinking myself out of that book.

One thesis I find particularly troubling is that the centralists in the CNT & FAI were able to flourish because of the problems around workers resisting work rather than the traditional anarchist history that says that workers were happy and collective and then the revolution got coopted and things fell apart (obviously i'm over simplifying).

i see my contribution to the other thread has been moved here.

I've not read seidman's text so can't comment on it.

perhaps more to the point has anyone got access to:

Politics and Pyrites during the Spanish Civil War
Charles E. Harvey
Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1978), pp. 89-104

it's not available on-line as far as I can see.

relevance being that the main iron ore and coal reserves in Spain are in the northwest of the country (including the asturias). From the maps of the SCW i've seen that part was either over-run very quickly by the nationalist forces or isolated from the rest of the republican area.

any manufacturing in the rest of the republican area that needed power (coal) or iron may well have been severely impacted by this situation.

the Harvey text looks like it might explore this question in much greater depth.

John- What you're saying makes sense. I've read a lot about the Spanish revolution, Dolgoff's book included. That's what was getting me. Now granted I'm not that far into his book and so I hadn't followed all the threads, and hearing what you're saying having read the whole book adds up. I guess what startled me was that these issues were not mentioned elsewhere I have read, and on the surface it seems like he has evidence to support his claims. My feeling was that the crux is how widespread such issues were, and that is a messy empirical question which takes some research to work out conclusively.

What do others make about the part in the book where he talks about the Friends of Durruti and cites an article where one of them calls for forced labor? I can't read spanish so couldn't follow up on it.

The Friends of Durruti did call for forced labor, to get the Stalinist police off the street and into the factories.

However that was to end the forced labor that the Stalinist apparatus was pushing the workers into.

I believe their words were something about putting the bourgeoisie to work.

John.

Right so this touches upon issues the other CNT thread has discussed, but I wanted to start a thread about Michael Seidman's book Workers Against Work: Labor in Paris and Barcelona During the Popular Fronts.

In it he presents the CNT as being like the Bolsheviks in Russia, attempting to impose work on the proletariat who resist their new union bosses as they did the old capitalist ones.

This sounds like the question of the 'Myth of the Anarchist Collectives' rearing itself again:

Looking back at this sad historical exper­ience which the Spanish proletariat suffered, denouncing the great myth of the collectives with which the bourgeoisie was able to deceive them, it is not a question of intel­lectualism or erudition. It is a vital necessity to avoid falling again into the same trap. To defeat us, and to make us swallow measures of super—exploitation, of unemployment, of sacrifice, the bourgeoisie uses deception: it will disguise itself as ‘worker’ and ‘popular’ (in 1936 the bourgeoi­sie made calluses on their hands and dressed as workers); the factories were proclaimed ‘socialised’ and ‘self-managed’; it calls for every type of interclassist solidarity such as the banner of ‘anti—fascism’, the ‘defence of democracy’, ‘anti—terrorist struggle’... it gives to the workers the false impression of their being ‘free’, of their controlling the economy, etc. But behind so much democracy, ‘participation’, and ‘self—management’, there hides intact, more powerful and strengthened than ever, the apparatus of the bourgeois state around which the capitalist relations of production maintain themselves and worsen in all their savagery.

The Myth of the Anarchist Collectives
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/015_myth_collectives.html

The great difference being that the Russian Revolution was part of a global wave of struggles that was shaking capitalism to its very foundations, while the war in Spain was a preparation for the Second World War,

Malfunction

the increase in working hours could be explained by the need [for] supplies for the front line troops...

Acceptable for the class war, but for an inter-imperialist war?
B.

Sorry, i've not had a chance to read the thread yet, but a mate of mine did a talk about the subject once (many moons ago), i'll see if he's still got the work he did.

Beltov

the Spanish Civil War / Revolution / Counter-revolution was a many-sided conflict. To dismiss it as an inter-imperialist war is far too simplistic (but doubtless suitable for your ideology)

simple fact is that the franco-ist troops didn't give two hoots whether people were anarchists, communists or internationalists, if they caught them and identified them they tried and, in many cases, executed them. Having a note from the ICC saying "Please excuse "insert name of internationalist here" from the firing squad as s/he is opposed to this inter-imperialist war and has conducted agitation on behalf of the working class against the imposition of increased production and cuts in wages probably wouldn't have done them any favours.

herewith quote of review of book I haven't read (but looks very good):

For Richards starts with a chapter on the Francoist eliminiation of dissent. On the Loyalist side much of the violence was spontaneous in the aftermath of the breakdown of establish order in the wake of the coup. Juan Negrin, so often and so falsely dismissed as a Communist puppet, actually went of his way to patrol with militias in order to prevent political assasinations. On the nationalist side, by contrast, there was constant talk of extermination, liquidation, of an utterly uncompromising crusade from politicians who were proud of and not ashamed of the Spanish Inquisition. The Nazi press praised the Nationalists for their vigor: "The Marxist parties are being destroyed and exterminated down the very last cell far more dramatically even than here in Germany." Perhaps 6,000 were summarily executed in Seville alone before February 1937. (Richards adds "This was not violence which was `necessary' in any military sense: there was no organized armed resistance to speak of." ) In Granada perhaps 8,000 were killed, and perhaps 4,000 were killed in the first week at Malaga. A thousand were killed in the conquest of San Sebastian in the Basque Country, and another thousand at Bilbao. There were fourteen concentration camps in the area of Valencia alone, while Mussolini's son in law, Count Ciano, believed that there were 200 executions daily in conquered Madrid in the summer of 1939.

http://www.amazon.com/Time-Silence-Repression-1936-1945-Cultural/dp/0521594014

book is "A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco's Spain, 1936-1945" by Michael Richards, Cambridge UP, 1998. horribly expensive but hopefully some libraries may have it.

John.

weirdness, e.g. "(in 1936 the bourgeoi­sie made calluses on their hands and dressed as workers)"], I don't really see that adds much to the discussion...

That's not really weirdness. The neutral and/or fifth column middle class dressed prole in Barcelona and other areas to avoid unwanted attention (whether justified or because of paranoia). That's pretty widely accepted no? I agree that Beltov's phrasing is off and it has nothing to do with the collectives though.

revol68

I think in the context of the ICC it is meant as a metaphor that the CNT and such were the bourgeois in 1936.

Well it could be that as well yeah.

Revol wrote:

"Basically their analysis is a pix and nix of bourgeois history eg prelude to WW2, bourgeois liberalism versus fascism, and some Bordigan pontificating".

Would "Bordigan pontificating" be the Italian left communists' view that there had been a radical change in the world balance of class forces between the post war wave of revolutionary movements and the war in Spain? That the working class had suffered a profound defeat and that a course towards world war had opened up?

If so, what exactly are your criticisms of that view?

Anarcho

Seidman's work is problematic, simply because he just lists shit loads of negative events without much context and in no real order.

It reminds me of what the Spanish conservative ABC did in the run-up to Franco's coup. It published all the murders, thefts, rapes and so on as front page news. The amount of actual crime had not increased, but the perception of it increased massively. Seidman's work feels like that.

that's a good point, i agree with it. It's a very old trick of historians to do paint a picture like that. It's very easy to do. I also found Seidman's work on the French uprising in 1968 to be challenging but problematic.

Anarcho

Ultimately, there are no instant utopias and any real revolution is going to face problems. Fact of life. What Seidman does is try and convince you that no radical change is possible but focusing on the trival problems any massive social change will produce.

I don't think Seidman is focussing on "trivial problems" at all. In fact, IIRC (its been a while since i read it), Seidman, for all his faults, has hit a very important issue indeed. Namely, that (seemingly) many CNTistas put the revolution on the back burner, and thus demanded workers to work faster and harder for the war effort against fascism. They demanded greater and greater sacrifices of workers and even disciplined them in this regard. Seidman's work is useful in this regard in that he proves, or i think he proves, that many workers resisted the demands for speed up and sacrifice of the CNT leadership. (Maybe he only proved this in a few factories; I cant remember).

I also think IIRC Seidman shows up some of the weaknesses of anarcho-syndicalist self-management, namely they retained the market, wages and so on eg. CNT controlled workplaces competed with each other on the market and retained wages, even if they called themselves libertarian communists. Some workers did not like this version of self-management and revolted against it. The spectre of communism haunts anarcho-syndicalism once again (to be fair, lots of anarchists in Spain were into communism and actually implemented it in a limited way).

Reading these posts, I am struck by the age-old anarchist reaction to criticism of the anarchist canon -- especially the crowning glory of the faith, the Spanish revolution. That is, the criticisms are immediately and wholeheartedly dismissed. Anarcho even asserts Seidman is a conservative who believes radical change is impossible. How bout a bit of balance? I see good and bad in Seidman's work. Did anybody else find Seidman's work useful?

Where can I get a copy of Dolgoff's book?

Where can I get a copy of Dolgoff's book?

I think Black Rose (Montreal)may be the only place to buy new. See" http://www.blackrosebooks.net/dolgoff.htm

--mitch

I found this useful comment in Anarcho-Syndicalist Review (1996) about Seidman's book. (it's not online). In the midst of a very dismissive review by "JS" that claims Seidman is a post-modernist apologist for capitalism, it states:

"Seidman's contribution, if there is one...[is] in the attention he draws to the difficulties of workers' self-management during the Spanish revolution. Production did not always increase under self-management, nor were the new workplace relations always happy and harmonious. There were indeed problems, which will have to be addressed next time around. However to see in these problems an argument for the impossibility of worker self-management, is like arguing that slavery should not have been abolished in the US because the plantations lost their efficiency afterwards."

So there's a more balanced viewpoint. But I can't remember if Seidman is actually arguing that self-management is impossible, IIRC he just argues it was problematic and unpopular with some workers.

John.

Skraeling

Seidman's work is useful in this regard in that he proves, or i think he proves, that many workers resisted the demands for speed up and sacrifice of the CNT leadership. (Maybe he only proved this in a few factories; I cant remember).

Yeah he picks a tiny number of examples, and doesn't demonstrate very much about them. He states in some places productivity went down, but not much evidence that was due to workers' resistance rather than the war reducing raw materials, etc. Also he picks a couple of examples of formerly militant sectors showing productivity decline, but in most examples he doesn't say if the absentee workers were conservative, fascist or whathaveyou. He also says - and seems pleased by - how workers in some areas disliked refugees from fascist areas and how they put a strain on resources.

He completely ignores any counter-examples, which abound in other texts I've read

It's a pity that I don't have much time at the mo and more to the point can't remember Seidman's book too well so we could have a detailed debate. I think you may be right, I remember reading an article by Seidman on metal workers during France 1968 which I found frustrating. Seidman argued that the demand for self-management in May/june 1968 was not as widespread as many assume, in fact he argued that workers did not like self-management. But the problem with his argument is that he only focussed only metal workers, how can you arrogantly generalise from there and say all the workers wanted to abandon the factories? And he also overlooked all the counter-evidence, and there is lots, that many workers did support self-management.

History is a funny thing, basically you can prove anything if you selectively find evidence for something and ignore the rest. And all history is biased.

I also think IIRC Seidman shows up some of the weaknesses of anarcho-syndicalist self-management, namely they retained the market, wages and so on eg. CNT controlled workplaces competed with each other on the market and retained wages

Which ones competed on the open market? The socialised industries didn't, and I don't think the CNT agricultural collectives did either did they? Some did in the confusion at first, before collectivisation.

well, I think many of the "socialised" industries did, or at least they sold their produce on the market, I remember Leval's Collectives in Spain is good for this. see http://www.geocities.com/Knightrose.geo/subvert4.htm

article from Subversion 18

The 'revolution' in the countryside has usually been seen as superior to the 'revolution' in the towns and cities. Anarchist historian and eyewitness of the collectives, Gaston Leval, describes the industrial collectives as simply another form of capitalism, managed by the workers themselves:

"Workers in each undertaking took over the factory, the works, or the workshop, the machines, raw materials, and taking advantage of the continuation of the money system and normal capitalist commercial relations, organised production on their own account, selling for their own benefit the produce of their labour."

We would add that in many cases the workers didn't actually take over production; they simply worked under the direction of 'their own' union bureaucrats with the old bosses retained as advisors.

The reactionary consequences of the working class taking sides in the fight between democracy and fascism, instead of pursuing the struggle for their own needs, was particularly evident in the way the industrial collectives operated. For the sake of the 'war effort' workers frequently chose to intensify their own exploitation - usually with the encouragement of their anarchist leaders.

In 1937, for example, the anarchist Government Minister in charge of the economy in Catalonia complained that the "state of tension and over-excitement" produced by the outbreak of the Civil War had "reduced to a dangerous degree the capacity and productivity of labour, increasing the costs of production so much that if this is not corrected rapidly and energetically we will be facing a dead-end street. For these reasons we must readjust the established work norms and increase the length of the working day."

Seidman seems to imply that social change is impossible. He just comes off as an ultra-individualist.

Ultra-individualist? That's not my impression of him. I couldn't really work out where Seidman is coming from. Certainly he seems to use a left communist critique at times but then this just might be an appearance rather than reality. Maybe he is just one of those pomo academics.

Not surprising really, John Zerzans background was as a left communist and so was Freddie Perlmans.

EdmontonWobbly

Not surprising really, John Zerzans background was as a left communist and so was Freddie Perlmans.

I think that you are really stretching the definition of Left Communist there EW.

Dev

revol68

No he's not Zerzan and Perlman were pretty much left communists in their early days.

Again, I think that you are using a very different definition of Left Communist than the Left Communists do themselves.

Camatte was. He was a member of the PCInt, but the other two.

Dev

Wiki

In 1974 Black and Red Press published Unions Against Revolution by Spanish ultra-left theorist Grandizo Munis that included an essay by Zerzan which previously appeared in the journal Telos.

They were put together in repreint. Zerzan certainly wasn't published by FOR or Alarma.

Dev

Looking back at that post it seems like I was trying to make a jab at left communists, I actually wasn't. That wasn't actually my intent all I was saying is that Seidman wouldn't be the first person with an ultra left critique of unions to take a primitivist position. At least here in North America a lot of anarchist magazines misuse a lot of warmed over left communist rhetoric to make their point. Just look at Anarchy a Journal of Desire Armed, any of the plethora of shitty insurrectionist zines, or green anarchy and you can see a marked similarity in tone and approach. For the record though for all my disagreements I think the left communists are sometimes onto something, the former folks are all just on something.

John.

Seidman to me seems to straddle the ground between primitivist/anti-organisationalist anarchist and ultra-leftist. Like a lot of the people on anti-politics.net.

Do you have evidence Seidman is a primitivist? Does he explicitly reject all technology?

I have never got the crossover between the ultra-left and primitivism, most ultra-leftists are pro-technology.

But anyway, i hate the term "anti-organisationalist anarchist". That's just a term of abuse by anarchists who fetishise their own formal organisations and get obssessed with building the party, er, sorry, building the organisation which then substitutes its own struggles for the struggle of the proles in general :wink: I thinks the real debate on anarchist organisation is not between organisationalists and anti-organisationalist but between who those support formal organisation and those who support informal organisation (eg. affinity groups). Some like me support a mixture of the two and dotn get hung up on one or the other.

"Seidman to me seems to straddle the ground between primitivist/anti-organisationalist anarchist and ultra-leftist. Like a lot of the people on anti-politics.net."

Funny, seemed to me that Seidman is a reactionary, seeking to discredit any revolutionary change by magnifiying problems out of their real size. His work will be seized upon by all those seeking to discredit libertarian and revolutionary ideas -- which probably explains why the primitivists like him.

His argument seems to be that the anarchists knew that they would be shot if Franco won, and so pressed the apolitical workers to produce more in order to win the war. The apolitical workers, knowing that Franco would not bother them, resisted and this forced the anarchists to be authoritarian.

hardly very revolutionary...

In it he presents the CNT as being like the Bolsheviks in Russia, attempting to impose work on the proletariat who resist their new union bosses as they did the old capitalist ones.

Comment
Book of Saidmen is research wich smash the myf of CNT wich was carefully constructed by reformist sindicalism and anarcho-libaralism. It shows reality of contr-revolution and explotation of workers in this so called "Repablick" wich was in reality not better then bolshevik o fassist state.
It olso shows economicle reality of this so-called "anty-fassism" wich is form of colloboration with one capitalist state against another capitalist state.
Booke of Saidmen together with book of Jilles Douve "When Insurrections Die"
http://www.geocities.com/antagonism1/whenidie/index.html
was thery importent for us.
Than spanish workers recognised that explotation in this capitalist Repablick is extremly unpleasent they stoped to support that. It was the same as in USSR in 1941 than big part of proletariat did not support bolsheviks and many of tham become deserters.
Unfortunatly creative force of communisation were undermined in both cases by bolshevik repressions as in Kronshtadt 1921, in 1937 by Big Terror of Stalin (Big Terror was part of soviet anty-fasism- as preparation to big war- as Molotov said), and in Barselona and Aragon in 1937.
But i am not sure that Michael Seidman right than he talk about some development of tehnology wich only can give possitive resalts to proletarians.

MalFunction

i see my contribution to the other thread has been moved here.

I've not read seidman's text so can't comment on it.

perhaps more to the point has anyone got access to:

Politics and Pyrites during the Spanish Civil War
Charles E. Harvey
Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Feb., 1978), pp. 89-104

it's not available on-line as far as I can see.

relevance being that the main iron ore and coal reserves in Spain are in the northwest of the country (including the asturias). From the maps of the SCW i've seen that part was either over-run very quickly by the nationalist forces or isolated from the rest of the republican area.

any manufacturing in the rest of the republican area that needed power (coal) or iron may well have been severely impacted by this situation.

the Harvey text looks like it might explore this question in much greater depth.

Its on J-STOR. But you need a password. I've downloaded a copy so if you want it PM me your email address and I'll send it to you.

Bump - I remembered a question. He stated that a law was passed obliging all workers to join either the UGT or CNT. Is this true? If so anyone know how many workers joined the CNT as a result?

As far as i know CNT has in 1938 2,5 millions opposite 1 million in 1936
But i am not sure.

as an aside, John Zerzan's background was in Progressive Labor Party, not what is usually meant as "left-communism."

To understand the "collectives", it is important to understand that, prior to the Civil War, the CNT never advocated "collectives" for industry. Moreover, when the unions expropriated the capitalists in July to September,
1936, they did NOT create "collectives." Rather, the unions were managing industries directly. The unions had expropriated the capitalists in the name of the whole society, not as collective private property of the workers. The CNT's aim was to eliminate market competition between firms by merging all of the assets of each industry into an "industrial federation". As De Santillan wrote in Dce. 1936, the CNT is "an anti-capitalist, anti-proprietor movement", the unions and industrial federations are not to be "proprietors but merely administrators on behalf of society." The aim was a socialized economy, governed by social planning, and adherence to the plans would be necessary for social accountability.

But they never got to the point of a planned economy. But they did create industrial federations in a number of industries -- north coast fishing, railways, telephone system, public utilities, furniture manufacturing, film industry, haircutting, bakeries, dairies, and eventually the textile industry (in 1937).

The idea of "collectives" was first proposed at a conference held in September of 1937 where the unions were trying to figure out what to do with the industries that had been expropriated. A Catalan nationalist accountant named Joan Fabregas was the person who coined the term "collective" to refer to the idea of converting expropriated facilities into cooperatvies. The stronger, bigger unions wanted to push ahead with "socialization" but the weaker unions liked the idea of cooperatives.

Referring to the civil war as an "inter-imperialist war" is idiotic. When the working class of a country expropriates the employers and builds its own revolutionary labor army -- as the CNT did in July of 1936 -- obviously a proletarian revolution is in process. The civil war was essentially a class war. Of the people executed by the fascists in the fascist zone during the war, 80% of them were workers, the whole coup was an attempt to exterminate the revolutionary labor movement.

When the working class creates its own army and then volunteers to work extra unpaid hours to make ammunition, the ICC paints that as super-exploitation or, I guess, "self-exploitation." How, then, is a working class to defeat the counter-revolution?

The CNT *can* be criticized, perhaps, for not seeing the danger to placing ex-bosses and engineers in key administrative positions, and failing to see the importance of democratizing their skills. It's necessary to have a program for avoiding the consolidation of a new professional/managerial class elite, as happened in the USSR. Not having a theory of the power of that class gets in the way of developing the right practices. That said, in most cases management were fired or fled and the union shop committees took over as administrative councils, but in principle accountable to the assemblies. A number of CNT veterans interviewed for Ron Fraser's "Blood of Spain" did say it was a mistake not to re-build a separate union shop committee, apart from the administrative council, to ensure that there was an organization specifically looking out for workers' interests. After all the elimination of the class system is a protracted process, it doesn't happen overnight, because their are ingrained habits of giving orders, of looking to others to give orders, of deferring to people with more education, etc.

And of course everything was complicated by the decision of the CNT to joint the Commonwealth of Catalonia (Sept 26, 1936) and the Popular Front government (Nov 4, 1936). I personally think this was a mistake, and it did end up corrupting some of the people involved in that process (like Garcia Oliver). But the situation remained essentially contradictory. This means there are two "sides" or aspects to the situation -- something the ICC can't see.

t.

I've been re-reading Seidman's book, and I think its actually a very important book that shouldn't be dismissed as complete bollocks. I agree with most of John's comments regarding Seidman's sloppy historical work, his conflation of years and organisations etc. But I would agree with a lot of Magidd's comments, its really useful for questioning the overly rosy picture that anarchists paint of the Spanish revolution. I think if one read the Spanish collectives by Dolgoff and Levals book alongside Seidman's book a more balanced view of the revolution comes thru, and see it a moment that had positives and negatives.

The thing i got out of it was an overwhelming sense that there was a big divide between the anarchist militants (not just the anarchist leadership, but militants in general) and workers. The militants couldn't seem to understand why non-militant workers didn't share their militancy, their devotion to the cause, their idealism and thus got pissed off with them and all intolerant of those lazy workers, and demanded more sacrifices from them.

i think Seidman's perspective is a mixture of reformist and communist. He is influenced by left communism. One of his arguments, which unfortunately is not clearly stated anywhere, is that anarcho-syndicalism was a limited praxis that did not really want to fundamentally transform workplaces, but just to humanise them, make them more efficient, productive and democratic. The basic structure of the workplace was left untouched. Many workers realised this and revolted against it, while others accepted it.

Where Seidman hits trouble is his importation of the autonomist Marxist thesis in the 1970s that workers wanted just to work less for more pay. This has kinda reformist implications in a revolutionary situation like Spain. He seems to me to be basically saying most apolitical workers were not interested in revolutionary change but just wanted more pay and less work so they could have more leisure time and spend more time with their friends and families. Maybe true but i dont think he really proves it. I think it was more complex than that.

Also i was a little disturbed by the workerism and productivism of many in the CNT. For example, according to Seidman, Santillan believed work would be both a right and a duty, and he believed those who do not work, do not eat. So no right to be lazy then, and if Santillan's workerism is taken literally children, the sick and elderly would starve to death. He said "salvation is in work", which to me is the ugly old christian belief that redemption comes through hard work (preferably manual labour) dressed up in new clothes.

Referring to the civil war as an "inter-imperialist war" is idiotic. When the working class of a country expropriates the employers and builds its own revolutionary labor army -- as the CNT did in July of 1936 -- obviously a proletarian revolution is in process.

Comment:

I wood like to say that something in this argument is just sort of manipulation.

1) No doubts that proletarian revolution started in Spane in 1936. Here is the reasons of appearance of colleltive plants and pesant communes. They were created sometimes by local CNT-members. Olso the truth is that in the beginig there was sort of workers militia wich fight with fascists. And we can say that it was proletarian insurrection and cluss war in the beginig. But...

2) But than coalition between burgua state and unions was created and supported by CNT. Revolutionary activity of local workers was paralised. Burgua state was not destroid and all organisations must collaborate with him.
Step by step it restore control under the spanish society. And we can see it in all parts of life.

3) It happened with militias. They fightin the beginig. Than state together with unions like CNT and UHT started to create real statist army with burgua offisers and withaut self-orgernised desigions. Oruell wrights about that. Than all revolutionary motivation was lost.

4)As for factoris. There are 2 anarhist notions of that years: collectivisation and socialization. Colectivisation is ocupation of factrory by workers colectives and they local consolidation (federation) under the unions. Socialization meanse collective controlle of holl society under the industry; creation of new sistem of econimical communication wich will based not on the burocratic and marcet principles but on the communist principle.
Collectivisation cood be the first step to socialization.
But this stap haven't been done. Why? Becouse of CNT burgua politicse of coalition. CNT was loyal to burgua state.
Gaston Leval wrights that workers control factoris themsevs in 1936 and work as collective capitalists. They sell production, buy what they need ets. The state's "loo of collectivisation" forbid them to make next step to socialisation. As Leval wrote "that was not socialisation but workers neo-capitalism".
G. Leval. Op. cit. S.78; Y. Oved. Op. cit. P.177-178.
Syndicalistcat uses words of Santilian: "The CNT's aim was to eliminate market competition between firms by merging all of the assets of each industry into an "industrial federation". As De Santillan wrote in Dce. 1936, the CNT is "an anti-capitalist, anti-proprietor movement", the unions and industrial federations are not to be "proprietors but merely administrators on behalf of society." The aim was a socialized economy, governed by social planning, and adherence to the plans would be necessary for social accountability."Yeh, that was an declaration. But during the revolution CNT DID NOT put it into practice. Santilian olso talking about this.
Diego Abad de Santilian was minister of economy in catalunian govermamen ("good" position for so called "anarchist") in the end of 1936 said: "We did alot but did it wrong way. We have half a dozen of collective capitalists instead of old owners. Still we did not make revolution in Catalunia".
D. Abad de Santillan. Zwischenbilanz der Revolution. // D. Abad de Santillan, J. Peiro et al. Oekonomie und Revolution. Wien, 1986. S.196-197, 198.
Yeh, may be he wanted (in that moment) to change situation. But his description of REAL situation is much more important than some of his dreames. And socialisation was never made in Catalutia as we know todey.
There were attemptes of coordination of work of industrial
sector. But as Danial Geren said it included strong elements of state control and bureaucracy.
All factory comitties included delegates of state.
Development of all brenches of the industry must be controlled by the spesial comittie wich included representatives of state and unions (not only CNT). That commities controll the sellary in they branches and direction of industrial development.
So what happened with revolution in industry? It started in 1936 but than was destroid by collective force of unions, state and free market. What it was clouse to so-colled "selfmengment" in th conditions of capitalism and state burocratick controll in some modern states. State exploatation and market self-explotation: there are 2 main reasons of capitalist expluatation in Republickan state wich was correctly described by Michael Seidman.

The civil war was essentially a class war.

Comment
Only in the begining. Than anty-facsist burgua contr-revolution started and destroy collective forces of workers class in Repablick step by step. So after Barsellona and Aragon anty-facsist repressions against workers collectives, after may-august
1937 it was more just normal inter-imperialist war between 2 burgua states.

Of the people executed by the fascists in the fascist zone during the war, 80% of them were workers, the whole coup was an attempt to exterminate the revolutionary labor movement.

Comment
The same shit happened in the anti-fassist zone step by step. Read Oruell. Thausends of proletarian revolutionaris were executed. Militias disappeared and state army appeared. Forces of proletarian insurrection were smashed by CNT, polise and burgua army together in Barselona in may 1937. Communs of Aragon were destroyd by anti-facsist brigade of Enrikko Lister in august 1937. Factorys were comming back to the controlle of capitalist (state)managment. In the end of 1937 Barsellona was burgua sity again. Oruell wrote about that olso. So alot of proletarians did not want to fight for repablick anymore. That was unreasonable. What ddid they have to protect: state, regular army, capitalist explotation at the industry, repressions, destruction of communes?

He said "salvation is in work", which to me is the ugly old christian belief that redemption comes through hard work (preferably manual labour) dressed up in new clothes.

Yeah. I've heard it said before that there was a pretty strong Catholic influence on the anarchists in Spain - what with the whole thing against smoking and drinking and also this. Still, whose perfect? You can't just shake off years of Catholicism just like that, I would imagine society takes time to heal.

A question slightly off topic. As Seidmans book is about to be translated into German: Are there any serious English language texts dealing with "Workers against work" from an anarcho-syndicalist point of view? Web links as well as references to printed material would be apreciated (as pm).

John.

Beltov, other than a number of blanket assertions echoeing what the ICC repeat all the time without backing it up [with a hefty dose of weirdness, e.g. "(in 1936 the bourgeoi­sie made calluses on their hands and dressed as workers)"], I don't really see that adds much to the discussion...

What's the point of paying any attention to ultra-leftoid dogma-driven weirdos? They start with the assumption that anything a union does must be reactionary then fit reality to that assumption.

That was another thing about Seidman that pissed me off, saying that pre-revolution anarchists were slagging off the "lazy" and "parasites" - implying that they meant workers who didn't like work, as opposed to what they obviously did mean which was the capitalists, priests, etc.

He sounds pretty dishonest overall - what is his political allegiance - is he one of those anti-work individualist weirdos, a primmo or an academic dilletante?

Magidd:

Me: "Of the people executed by the fascists in the fascist zone during the war, 80% of them were workers, the whole coup was an attempt to exterminate the revolutionary labor movement."

maggid: "The same shit happened in the anti-fassist zone step by step."

Not the same at all. but i understand what magidd is referring to. In the early months of the war there was some killing of suspected fascists or bourgeois but it was spontaneous, an expression of popular anger. But murder wasn't (yet) institutionalized. After the fall of the Caballero government in May 1937, the Negrin government authorized the setting up of a Communist-controlled secret political police, the SIM, which systematically murdered revolutionaries. But they didn't kill anything like the 150,000 executed in the fascist zone.

The Communists were able to weasel their way into control of the army and police because the Republican state was rebuilt after the CNT joined the national Popular Front government in Nov. 1936.

But it would be a mistake to refer to it as a "bourgeois state", in that case, because the Communists' aim was the same sort of managerialist mode of production as existed in the USSR, not capitalism. See "Spain Betrayed" which contains documents from the Soviet archives, and shows what the Communists' aims were.

magidd: "And socialisation was never made in Catalutia as we know todey."

Of course. And i agree that the reason the revolution wasn't consolidated and the CNT was unable to completely carry out its program was because they didn't overthrow the government. I argue this in some detail in my essay "Workers Power and the Spanish Revolution":

http://www.workersolidarity.org/spain.pdf

From the fact that the proletarian revolution was defeated, it doesn't follow that it didn't happen at all.

me: "The civil war was essentially a class war.:

magidd: "Only in the begining. Than anty-facsist burgua contr-revolution started and destroy collective forces of workers class in Repablick step by step. So after Barsellona and Aragon anty-facsist repressions against workers collectives, after may-august 1937 it was more just normal inter-imperialist war between 2 burgua states."

I don't agree. Capitalism would have been dead in Spain if Franco had been defeated. It's not a foregone conclusion what it would have been replaced with. There were two opposed forces to capitalism. The Communists had mobilized the middle strata -- the petty bourgeoisie and professional/managerial class -- and were driving towards a dismal managerialist mode of production, through state nationalizaton of the collectives, entrenched state control, building up of a secret police, and so on. But the working class forces were not yet completely destroyed.

t.

And i agree that the reason the revolution wasn't consolidated and the CNT was unable to completely carry out its program was because they didn't overthrow the government. I argue this in some detail in my essay "Workers Power and the Spanish Revolution":
http://www.workersolidarity.org/spain.pdf
From the fact that the proletarian revolution was defeated, it doesn't follow that it didn't happen at all.

Comment
I generally agree with position of Gilles Douvet (of his book "When insurrections diy"). Revolution happend but then it was destroide by burgua repressions, by forses of burocracy and market, by state burocracy, union politics and self-exploatation of workers. And then Saidmen analise exploatation of labor power in Repablick he is right.

From the fact that the proletarian revolution was defeated, it doesn't follow that it didn't happen at all.

Comment
I agree. But we must remember that it was defeated by anty-facsism and facsism together.

But it would be a mistake to refer to it as a "bourgeois state", in that case, because the Communists' aim was the same sort of managerialist mode of production as existed in the USSR, not capitalism. See "Spain Betrayed" which contains documents from the Soviet archives, and shows what the Communists' aims were.

Comment
USSR was state-capitalist sistem. It was one big corporation wich was integrated into the world market economy. It was extremly dependet from export-import operations. Modern russian scientists proved that all industrialisation in USSR was made thanks to the import of vestern industrial equipment. Collactivisation and consentration-camps only permit Stalin orgernised export of corn and gold. Our scientists proved: there are the economicle reasons of Grate Starvation 1933, Stalin's repressions and centralisation. German scientist Robertt Curz call that "Accelerated Capitalist Modernisation". Actualy state-capitalism of bolsheviks was close to state-capitalism of Russian Imperia (but it was not the same).
Sistem wich leninists wanted to build in Spane was olso state-capitalism.

But the working class forces were not yet completely destroyed.

Comment
Workers class forces in Spane were completely destroyed by anti-fassists in 1936-1938. Step by step workers lost armed militias, self-organisation, communes, freedom or speach, independens from state, ets. Allredy in the end of 1937 civil war became inter-imperialist war- the same as Second Imperialist War. After defit in Barselona and Aragon in may-august 1937 there was no revolution wich proletarians wanted to protect.

Caballero government in May 1937, the Negrin government authorized the setting up of a Communist-controlled secret political police, the SIM, which systematically murdered revolutionaries. But they didn't kill anything like the 150,000 executed in the fascist zone

Comment
Some of scientists (Hugo Grant) say that republicans executed about 100,000. Anyway they killed thausends of revolutionaris. That was contr-revolutional terror of anti-fassists.

magidd: "Some of scientists (Hugo Grant) say that republicans executed about 100,000. Anyway they killed thausends of revolutionaris. That was contr-revolutional terror of anti-fassists."

As I say, i don't think the outcome was a foregone conclusion. In March 1939 the Communists attempted a coup to overthrow the Negrin government, because they feared Negrin was about to surrender. The anarchists organized a pre-emptive takeover, forming a joint Left Socialist/anarchist National Defense Council, and the anarchist-controlled Fifth Army Corps, commanded by Cirpriano Mera, defeated the Communists. But by then the Republican army was completely demoralized and unable to continue fighting.

Had Franco been defeated, it's possible the anarchists in the CNT would have forced a change of direction.

t.

But by then the Republican army was completely demoralized and unable to continue fighting.
Had Franco been defeated, it's possible the anarchists in the CNT would have forced a change of direction.

Comment
CNT was the part of state-capitalism and cooperated with state-menagment and millitary burocrasy in the proses of exploatation of labor power. CNT was not allredy controled by factory workers but was controled by burocrasy. CNT in 1939 became part of the state mashin of exploitation. I don't belive that burocrat-exploiter can liberate labor power from exploitation.
Moreover organisation wich betray revolution in 1936 (then join government) end going everyday deeper and deeper to reformism, burocracy, protaction of "workers state" (that conseption was supportad by CNT newspaper) and nationalism- this organisation cood not save revolution in 1939.
Anyway CNT cood not restor revolution becouse Repablick was defeated and Franko win. And he win becouse (as Oruell show) workers did not want strugle for anti-fassist regimne and repablisk. And that meanse revolution was defeated befor Republick and it was defeated by Republik.
Isn't that what we call contr-revolution?

maggid: "CNT was the part of state-capitalism and cooperated with state-menagment and millitary burocrasy in the proses of exploatation of labor power. CNT was not allredy controled by factory workers but was controled by burocrasy. CNT in 1939 became part of the state mashin of exploitation. I don't belive that burocrat-exploiter can liberate labor power from exploitation.
Moreover organisation wich betray revolution in 1936 (then join government) end going everyday deeper and deeper to reformism, burocracy, protaction of "workers state" (that conseption was supportad by CNT newspaper) and nationalism- this organisation cood not save revolution in 1939."

I think this is simplistic. The state moved to gain greater control over the expropriated industries from 1937 on. Partly this was due to growing power of the CPE. Partly it was because the collectives were dependent on the state for credits and foreign trade.

But consider the situation in May of 1937, the May Days events. The Friends of Durruti were not able to change the CNT's direction because they didn't have the support of the majority of members in the unions. But the local unions were still controlled by their members. This is why the Regional Committee in Catalunya couldn't get the Friends expelled from the unions. If the Friends had the support of the members, they could have gotten elected as labor council delegates. And then at a regional plenary they could have ousted the Popular Front collaborationist regional comittee. The problem was the failure at the outset to pose an alternative strategy to defeat the army and save the revolution, apart from the Popular Front strategy pressed by the Communists. Many leading activists of the CNT then were corrupted in their views by participating in state structures. But this is not the same as saying that some new2 bureaucratic structure was consolidated in the CNT or the collectivized enterprises.

t.

But the local unions were still controlled by their members

Comment
Yes. So there was only one way for revolution in 1937- to initiate new insurrection againste state and anti-fassists, to unite during that insurrection all revolutionary workers and start libertarian communist transformation.
But local assembless of CNT were still loyal to burocratic leadership of CNT. And even Durruty Friends were loyal and did not want to split with CNT.
But after defeat in may 1937 chanses for insurrection have been lost. Well, mey be (who knowse)there were another small chenses. But revolutrion was allredy dead.

Many leading activists of the CNT then were corrupted in their views by participating in state structures. But this is not the same as saying that some new2 bureaucratic structure was consolidated in the CNT or the collectivized enterprises.

Yes they did. There were important disigions wich were controlled not by members but by CNT burocrates. In the same tome i allredy bring fakts about state controle under the spanish industry in Republick.

Yes, there was increasing state control. I already pointed that out myself. That is not the same as changes to the structure of the CNT.

Anyway, I've aready said I think your perspective is too one-demensional and simplistic. I don't want to go into all the details since I don't see this as productive.

I think we agree about the basic issue. Part of it is that you use different terminology.

t.

Just googled Seidman CNT Spain and this thread was the top search result. Just commenting to remind myself to read it later. And it seems a good classic libcom thread, it deserves a bump.

Here's a comment about Seidman's book from Tom Wetzel. I'm copying/pasting this from his facebook comments discussing the book with someone. I can't vouch for whether what he says is true but he's read several books on the Spanish revolution and seems to know a lot about it so I think he's a reliable source.

I wouldn't put much stock in Seidman, if he's your source. I've found all kinds of errors in his hatchet job. He's a right wing author. He confuses the CNT socialization of 1936-early 1937 with the industries after the Stalinist inspired nationalization took hold in late 1937-1938.

He seems to get confused about the time line. He talks about a criticism of something as if it occurred in another period.

I'm not saying the process was free of conflicts, and some industrial federations had the delegate councils not holding frequent enough assemblies and getting out of touch -- a problem with the furniture industry federation, which led to resistance from the base, and forced changes in methods of working. The CNT had a mobilized rank and file who were used to have their say, so the committees in charge did not face an atomized rank and file

the best source are the eye witness accounts with many documents in Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish Revolution. the intro to the new reprint has some pushback against Seidman.