Diego Abad de Santillán

A retrospective on the Spanish Civil War by the FAI leader, Diego Abad de Santillán, published in 1940, in which the former Minister of the Economy of the Generalitat blames foreign (especially Russian) intervention, the farcical “non-intervention” of the western democracies, and the centralism of the (Russian-ruled) Republic for Franco’s victory, citing long passages from official FAI documents, reports from various CNT committees, testimonials of front line soldiers, minutes from meetings of the Popular Front and libertarian plenums, etc., as well as his own wartime suggestions concerning military strategy (guerrilla warfare), and expresses regrets for his pacifying role in May 1937.

Written in 1939 by a member of FORU (Regional Workers Federation of Uruguay), this book—a scathing indictment of the leaders of the Spanish CNT and FAI for their “betrayal” of anarchist principles—contains, in addition to official documents and proclamations of the CNT and FAI and articles from the Spanish and international anarchosyndicalist press, relevant passages drawn from Max Nettlau, Diego Abad de Santillán, David Antona, Federica Montseny, Juan García Oliver, Pierre Besnard, Alexander Schapiro, Sebastién Faure, Camillo Berneri, Mariano Vázquez, Mikhail Bakunin and other anarchists and anarchosyndicalists.

In this collection of articles originally published in 1947-48 in the Toulouse journal, Universo, the prominent French anarchosyndicalist Pierre Besnard contributes to the debate over the government collaboration of the Spanish anarchosyndicalist organizations between 1936 and 1939 during the Revolution and the war against Franco’s forces; for the most part, Besnard lets the documents speak for themselves, and presents an interesting selection of contemporary texts, from the official CNT and FAI press and resolutions from CNT and FAI Congresses to articles published by opponents of collaboration, many of which are being made available in English translation for the first time.