I was reading Karl Korsch yesterday and saw this:
A considerable portion of the largest enterprises were owned by foreign capital. Its representatives, like the native large capitalists, had been more or less open supporters of the rebelling generals. Both groups fled as soon as the Franco rebellion in Barcelona had failed unless they had anticipated that possibility and, like Juan March and Francois Cambo, had shrewdly abandoned the country they consecrated to civil war. The offensive against capital inaugurated by the Catalonian workers immediately after the heroic suppression of the Franco revolt resembled a war against an invisible enemy. The directors of the great railroads, of the urban transportation companies, of the shipping firms in the harbor of Barcelona, the owners of the textile factories in Tarrasa and Sabadell had disappeared and it was exceptional when during the seizure of the street car system of Barcelona the workers found in the administration buildings of the big monopolistic concerns a lonely, trembling creature whose life and liberty they could spare by a magnanimous impulse.
Thus the Catalonian proletariat established itself at will in the capitalist plants and offices that had been deserted by their erstwhile masters.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1939/collectivization.htm
This strikes me as similar to many other situations we've seen with foreign capital fleeing countries and the local working class occupying enterprises. Seems very interesting and rarely mentioned.
As mentioned in the piece,
As mentioned in the piece, not only foreign capitalists fled.
It was common knowledge among bosses that a coup was on the making, and CNT had warned of that possibility before the February elections, anlysing that after the elections there were two options: either the right-wing(s) would win and fascism would be sitting in the institutions or, would the left Popular Front win, there would be a military coup within 6 months.
(I write right-wings, in the plural, due to it being the common usage of the time)
Yeah both foreign and local
Yeah both foreign and local capitalists disappeared after the elections and the failed coup. They either fled or hid in the city. That's partly why the CNT's takeover of the industry and services of the city was quick. They didn't have any real opposition after the Civil Guard and the army barracks were dealt with.
Orwell mentions it in Homage the Catalonia, and cites the re-emergence of the local capitalists in the city streets before the May days incident as another sign that the revolution was coming to an end.