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Title: Reclaiming Syndicalism
Author: Lucien van der Walt
Date: May 2014
Language: en
Topics: syndicalism, history, Spanish revolution, South Africa, labor movement
Source: Retrieved on 26th June 2021 from https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/globallabour/issue/view/121
Notes: van der Walt, Lucien (2014) “Reclaiming Syndicalism: From Spain to South Africa to Global Labour Today,” Global Labour Journal: Vol. 5: Iss. 2, p. 239–252. Available at: http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/globallabour/vol5/iss2/10

Lucien van der Walt

Reclaiming Syndicalism

ABSTRACT: Events like the 2012 Marikana police massacre of miners in

South Africa bring into sharp relief core features of today’s

crisis-ridden, inequitable world order, wherein labour and human rights

abuses multiply in a vicious race-to-the-bottom. Union politics remain

central to developing responses to this system. But unions, like other

popular movements, face the core challenge of articulating an

alternative, transformative vision — especially given the crisis of

social democratic, Marxist-Leninist and nationalist approaches.

This paper engages debates on options for the broad working class – and,

showing the limitations of business unionism, social movement unionism,

and political unionism — suggests much can be learned from anarcho- and

revolutionary syndicalism, both historic and current. This is a

tradition with a surprisingly substantial, impressive history, including

in the former colonial world; a tradition envisaging anti-bureaucratic,

bottom-up trade unions as key means of educating and mobilising workers,

and of championing the economic, social and political struggles of the

broader working class, independent of parliamentary politics, party

tutelage and the state; and aiming, ultimately, at transforming society

through union-led workplace occupations that institute self-management

and participatory economic planning, abolishing markets, hierarchies and

states — a programme substantially and successfully implemented in the

remarkable Spanish Revolution of 1936–1939, also discussed in the paper.

The paper closes by suggesting the need for labour studies and

industrial sociology to pay greater attention to labour traditions

besides business unionism, social movement unionism, and political

unionism.

Union politics remain central to the new century. It remains central

because of the ongoing importance of unions as mass movements,

internationally, and because unions, like other popular movements, are

confronted with the very real challenge of articulating an alternative,

transformative vision. There is much to be learned from the historic and

current tradition of anarcho- and revolutionary syndicalism. This is a

tradition with a surprisingly substantial and impressive history,

including in the former colonial world; a tradition that envisages

anti-bureaucratic and bottom-up trade unions as key means of educating

and mobilising workers, and of championing the economic, social and

political struggles of the broad working class, independent of

parliamentary politics and party tutelage; and that aims, ultimately, at

transforming society through union-led workplace occupations that will

institute self-management and participatory economic planning,

abolishing markets, hierarchies and states.

This contribution seeks, firstly, to contribute to the recovery of the

historical memory of the working class by drawing attention to its

multiple traditions and rich history; secondly, to make a contribution

to current debates on the struggles, direction and options for the

working class movement (including unions) in a period of flux in which

the fixed patterns of the last forty years are slowly melting away;

thirdly, it argues that many current union approaches – among them,

business unionism, social movement unionism, and political unionism –

have substantial failings and limitations; and finally, it points to the

need for labour studies and industrial sociology to pay greater

attention to labour traditions besides business unionism, social

movement unionism, and political unionism.

To do this, this paper considers what progressive trade unions can learn

from an engagement with the anarcho- and revolutionary syndicalist

tradition – especially given the current crisis of social democratic,

Marxist-Leninist and nationalist approaches. Worldwide, unions are

grappling with the challenges posed by today’s crisis-ridden,

inequitable world, in which labour and human rights abuses multiply in a

vicious race-to-the-bottom. On the other hand, however, unions are

haunted by the failure of the Keynesian welfare state, by the collapse

of nationalist models like import-substitution-industrialisation, and by

the implosion of the Soviet model.

This situation was recently brought into sharp relief in post-apartheid

South Africa, where much hope had been placed in the ruling African

National Congress (ANC), to which the Congress of South African Trade

Unions (COSATU), and the South African Communist Party (SACP), are

formally allied. Strikes in a mining sector based on cheap labour were

marked by union schisms and, in August 2012, by the police massacre of

34 workers at Marikana.

Events such as these, and ongoing frustration with ANC policies, were

the backdrop for momentous decisions by COSATU’s biggest affiliate, the

335,000-strong, radical National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa

(NUMSA). In December 2013, it rebelled against COSATU resolutions by

breaking with both parties, its general-secretary Irvin Jim stating ‘It

is clear that the working class cannot any longer see the ANC or the

SACP as its class allies in any meaningful sense’ (Letsoalo and

Mataboge, 2013). NUMSA, with roots in the independent 1980s trade union

left (the ‘workerists’), and, more recently, a formal commitment to

Marxism-Leninism, has supported the ANC programme since 1987.

In charting a way forward for 2014, however, NUMSA has stopped short of

simple answers, choosing instead an open-ended process of building a

‘movement for socialism’ and a ‘united front’ of popular movements.

NUMSA has started to pay more attention to its ‘workerist’ past, while

leaving its future options open. This openness signals, at least in

part, a cautious and potentially innovative approach: post-apartheid

South Africa is littered with failed attempts to form left alternatives.

Significantly, however, the union has rejected ties with the new

Economic Freedom Fighters party: its ‘centralised, commandist’ structure

and corrupt leaders were deemed incompatible with NUMSA’s traditions of

bottom-up decision-making and anti-capitalism (‘Economic Freedom

Fighters,’ in NUMSA, 2013).

But what does a ‘movement’ for radical change mean in the 21^(st)

century? If the state, including the nominally leftwing ANC state, has

proved so dangerous and unreliable an ally for organised labour, is it

possible to recover union traditions that are radical, even

anti-capitalist, yet autonomous of state power? Answering such a

question requires, I would suggest, critically examining a broad range

of experiences, and I would further suggest that an engagement with

syndicalism would be especially fruitful.

The syndicalist tradition has recently been the subject of several

important works and a rapidly growing scholarship (notably Damier, 2009;

Darlington, 2008; Ness, 2014), which has also made some important

organizing breakthroughs. It influences, for example, sectors of the

Solidarity-Unity-Democracy unions in France (SUD, Solidaires Unitaires

Démocratiques) and parts of the Italian COBAS (Comitati di Base,

‘committees of the base’). In Spain, meanwhile, the anarchosyndicalist

General Confederation of Labour (CGT) represented in 2004 around two

million workers through the workplace elections (Alternative

Libertariare, 2004), making it that country’s third largest federation.

Today’s CGT is one of the several important heirs of the classical

Spanish anarchist movement which, centred on the National Confederation

of Labour, or CNT, launched in the 1930s one of the most ambitious

attempts to reshape society ever undertaken. This experience, which

built upon decades of building a counter-hegemonic consciousness and

movement, and years of careful reflection, planning and militant

struggle, saw thousands of workplaces and millions of acres of land

placed under worker and peasant self-management, the radical

democratisation of the economy and a transformation of daily life,

including gender relations. As a concrete example of this syndicalist

praxis and its relevance to current union renewal, this paper will pay

close attention to the Spanish Revolution of 1936–1939.

Unions today: Organisation without social transformation?

A core reason for reclaiming the syndicalist tradition is that it helps

address the great challenge of today, for unions as for other popular

movements. The great challenge is not developing better organising

strategies. It is the great challenge of developing a vision of social

change that fundamentally shifts wealth and power to the popular

classes, and a commensurate strategy to achieve this vision above all.

It is at the level of vision that organized labour currently flounders.

In terms of numbers and organising, unions viewed globally are actually

doing fairly well – this despite major challenges and some real defeats.

Union density remains substantial in many Western countries, especially

in the state sector (Connolly, 2008: 18). Unions have also shown

resilience, even growth, of Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Pillay and

van der Walt , 2012), where they are often ‘one of the very few societal

organisations’ with a ‘sizeable constituency, country-wide structures

and the potential for mobilizing members on social or political matters’

(Schillinger, 2005: 1). Many unions can mobilise substantially more

people than their formal membership (for example, The Economist, 2006).

The new International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) and the

creative use by unions of International Framework Agreements (IFAs) show

innovative approaches to organising neglected sectors. Militant,

left-wing trade unionism continues to exist, including formations

influenced by anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism, and by other

traditions including classical Marxism.

After statism: The loss of union vision

The very successes of unions in winning gains in wages and working

conditions, and in areas of civil and political rights and social

justice, inevitably pose a larger question: how to move from defensive

and partial struggles to a larger, transformative project that can

fundamentally change the balance of power and wealth in society? Without

such a change, every gain by working and poor people is under continual

threat, for the simple reason that they are a subordinate, disempowered

class in a social order geared against them – a system that does not

operate in their interests, and that only makes concessions when forced

to do so.

But what, exactly, does a progressive project mean, after the failures

of the big projects of social democracy, Marxism-Leninism, and

import-substitution-industrialisation? For example, given its numbers,

its power and its deep popular roots, NUMSA’s commitment to a ‘movement

for socialism’ has enormous potential, unmatched by previous left

projects in South Africa, yet faces the same challenge as its

predecessors – and indeed, of unions elsewhere.

Generally organised labour has struggled to develop a clear alternative

to the current order – a problem that unions share with many other

popular class sectors. The Arab Spring is the latest example of a series

of struggles against the impact of neo-liberalism, and against

authoritarian governments, that has been defined and limited by largely

negative aims: anti-globalisation, antiprivatisation, anti-oligarchy,

anti-dictatorship. But without a positive programme, space created by

successful struggles is quickly captured by neo-liberal parties (witness

one-time trade unionist Frederick Chiluba’s Zambia in the 1990s),

business oligarchies with empty slogans (‘Yes, We Can’: Barrack Obama’s

Democrats, with their war and austerity), and religious and nationalist

fundamentalists (Egypt’s resurgent Muslim Brotherhood, and its tussle

with the military is a case in point).

Union responses to the larger challenge of vision have often fallen into

three broad categories, none of which has proved satisfactory

historically– and certainly, none is satisfactory today. Firstly, there

is economism, or business unionism, which seeks to avoid larger issues

altogether by focusing on immediate bread-and-butter issues of wages and

workplace conditions. The problem is that the wages, conditions and

employment itself are deeply shaped by the larger social order, and

working and poor people face challenges at work, and outside work, that

go far beyond wages and conditions. Business unionism certainly cannot

address these issues.

The limitations of social movement and political unionism

A second approach, dubbed ‘social movement unionism’, has sought to

forge alliances and campaign beyond the workplace, stressed democratic

unionism, and played a role in fighting against repressive governments

and employers. The problem is that social movement unionism stops short

of a clear programme for systemic change, beyond demands for democratic

reforms. The content of those reforms, and of that democracy, is left

opaque; its politics tends to the problem of being defined by what it

opposes, rather than what it proposes.

In most cases, unions in the social movement union tradition have moved

fairly quickly into the third approach, political unionism. This

involves unions allying with a political party aiming at state power, in

the belief that this will provide working class access to, and benefits

from, state power and policy-making. Variants of political unionism

include social democracy, in which unions ally with mass parties seeking

to capture parliament; Marxism-Leninism, in which unions are led by

vanguard parties aiming at the creation of revolutionary dictatorships;

and nationalism, in which unions join a national bloc aiming at wielding

a national state.

A core problem has been that such alliances, rather than strengthen

unions, have often subordinated unions to states and ruling parties,

enmeshing them in networks of patronage, institutions of class

collaboration and political alliances that have limited their autonomy,

vision and, often, their internal democracy, meanwhile, workers and

unions are divided into rival blocs of party loyalists.

One version of this problem is a continual exodus of unionists into

prestigious state employment, which has few effects on state policy, yet

damages union capacity and promotes careerism amongst unionists. The

2014 South African elections saw 12 senior COSATU figures rewarded with

senior state appointments (Musgrave, 2014; for more on this process and

its effects: Buhlungu, 2010). In more extreme cases, unions have been

transformed into ‘transmission belts’ between the ‘vanguard’ and ‘the

mass’, relaying demands for more output while disciplining recalcitrant

workers (e.g. Lenin, [1920] 1965: 21, 31–32).

The other core problem is that the project of political unionism, with

its statist project, is faced with the general crisis and failure of the

left’s statist projects. Keynesian and related social democratic

strategies still exercise a certain fascination, but their viability is

questionable. Besides the problem that such strategies have had little

success outside of the advanced industrial countries, it is difficult to

deny that the regulatory institutions, relatively closed economies,

economic booms and insurgent working class movements that forced the

emergence of the classic Keynesian welfare state no longer exist.

Even at its (rather impressive) best, the Keynesian welfare state’s real

gains for working people were marred by substantial inequalities in

wealth and power and massive union and societal bureaucratisation:

initial opposition to the model came not from the right but the left,

with demands around self-management, gender equity and environmental

issues (Wilks, 1996: 97). Its existence was to a large extent contingent

on its compatibility with the goals of capitalists and state managers:

as those goals changed, in the face of factors like capitalist crisis

and globalisation, the system was phased out (for variations on this

theme: Pontussen, 1992; Swenson, 1991; Wilks, 1996).

Although classic Marxist regimes retain some attraction, including in

unions like NUMSA, their record raises serious questions. It is marked

indelibly by massive repression (not least, of labour and unions),

economic inefficiency and crisis, and inglorious collapse (precipitated

in substantial part by deep working class discontent). Even their

achievements in social welfare must be viewed with some scepticism.[1]

This has drastically undermined the old confidence that these

represented a compelling, superior ‘new civilization’ (e.g. Webb and

Webb, 1937). A growing literature, in fact, demonstrates that these

Marxist regimes were always deeply shaped by global capitalist dynamics

(e.g. Sanchez-Sibony, 2014) and confirm, in many respects, the old

anarchist and syndicalist argument that they represented a form of

‘state-capitalism’ (e.g. Sergven, [1918] 1973: 122–125).

Writers who wish to insist that such experiences were not the ‘real’

Marxist project, or misrepresented Marx, have to deal with the

unpleasant reality that this was the dominant Marxist project, including

for the great majority of Marxists, and provides the only historic cases

of revolutionary Marxist rule.

Meanwhile, nationalist import-substitution-industrialisation has faded

as a policy option (Waterbury, 1999). Its legacies are uneven, and

sometimes positive, but the project itself is no longer viable. Even at

its most successful, however, the model was typified by authoritarian

regimes and by substantial labour repression and union cooptation (e.g.

Freund, 1988: chapter 5): cheap labour was, after all, one of the major

subsidies to ‘national’ capital provided by state intervention in

capital-poor countries.

Reclaiming syndicalism: Prefiguration, democracy, anti-capitalism

This brings us to the fourth approach, syndicalism. There is,

admittedly, much confusion regarding what syndicalism encompasses. This

is, for example, true in the South African context where syndicalism is

often misleadingly used as a term for militant but apolitical unionism.

This follows the tendency of Lenin, Poulantzas and others to dub

syndicalism a form of ‘left economism’ (Holton, 1980: 5–7, 12–13,

18–19), a proposition that is itself rooted in the notion that unions

are, by their nature, reformist and narrow unless subordinated to a

political party (e.g. Toussaint, 1983).

Such labelling errs in two main ways: on the one hand, the record of a

union like NUMSA, which is playing a decisive role in rebuilding the

left project, without party tutelage and, indeed, in defiance of the

SACP, completely confounds notions that unions are inherently reformist,

left to their own devices; on the other hand, they manifestly fail to

grapple with the ideology and history of actual syndicalism.

Syndicalism promotes a vision of a society free of social and economic

inequalities, with a participatory democratic economy and society that

extends into the direct control of the workplace and a bottom-up planned

economy; in this society, hierarchy and elite control over economic and

other resources is removed.

In speaking of the working class, too, it hsd an expansive approach,

including all wage earners, skilled as well as unskilled, urban as well

as rural, and their families and defenders: this was not a narrow

project for men in hard-hats alone. For example, today’s syndicalist

unions like the CGT include many white collar workers, technicians and

professionals; the 1930s CNT included not just industrial workers, but

‘peasants and field-workers’ and the ‘brain-workers and the

intellectuals’ (Rocker, [1938] 1989: 98–99).

Also of especial interest is the prefigurative approach of the movement,

that is, the strategy of developing, in its daily life, the basic moral,

political and organisational infrastructure and daily practices of the

new society. Rather than embrace an instrumentalist approach, in which

ends justify means, syndicalism, like the anarchist movement in which it

is rooted, stresses that means shape ends and, therefore, that today’s

politics must foreshadow tomorrow’s future.

Consciousness, developed through struggle, education and participation –

a revolutionary counter-culture – wedded to a flat, decentralized,

inclusive, pluralist and pragmatic, yet militant and autonomous style of

union organisation – a counter-power, opposed to the institutions of the

ruling class – are to be forged in daily struggles, until ready and

prepared for the final assault.

But in the final assault there would be both rupture – the removal of

the old regime – and continuity – in that the unions, and their allies,

already carried within themselves the basic framework of the new

society, including the means of occupying workplaces and placing them

under self-management. Syndicalist unions thus combine ‘the defence of

the interests of the producers within existing society’, including in

political struggles, with ‘preparing the workers for the direct

management of production and economic life in general’ (Rocker, [1938]

1989: 86). Or, in the words of the old South African revolutionary

syndicalist paper, The International, it involves (1917):

…. One Big Union of all wage workers… aggressively forging ahead ….

gaining strength from each victory and learning by every temporary

set-back – until the working class is able to take possession and

control of the machinery, premises and materials of production right

from the capitalists’ hands, and use that control to distribute the

product entirely amongst the workers … It takes every colour, creed and

nation. Revolutionary Industrial Unionism is ‘organised efficiency’.

Every worker in every industry; every industry part and parcel of one

great whole.

Political, autonomous, anti-statist

With this ethos, syndicalism envisages a militant class-struggle

unionism that empowers members while minimising internal hierarchy, and

actively opposing domination and oppression by nation, race and sex –

within the larger society, but within the union too. Historically, it

promoted political education and struggle around larger social and

political issues, and forged alliances with a range of other popular

movements, including neighborhood, youth and political groups, while

steering sharply clear of alliances with all political parties aiming at

state power.

To use the state, with its hierarchical character and deep alliance with

capitalists and landlords, contradicts the basic syndicalist project of

constituting, from the bottom-up, a militant and autonomous working

class movement able to replace hierarchy and exploitation (including by

the state). Moreover, the state is no ally of the working class,

providing a place of power and wealth for a political elite that is

allied, structurally, to the corporations, themselves a place of power

and wealth for an economic elite. Reliance on electoral parties is

viewed as futile, serving mainly to deliver the unions up as voting

cattle, while promoting passive reliance on officials, bureaucrats and

the (hostile) capitalist state (Spitzer, 1963: 379–388). Allying with

vanguard parties to create revolutionary dictatorships is also

incompatible with a bottom-up movement for self-management; such regimes

can only repress, never emancipate, the popular classes.

Syndicalist anti-statism does not, it must be stresssed, mean

disinterest in political issues, for syndicalism fights for ‘political

rights and liberties’ just as much as it does for better wages (Rocker,

[1938] 1989: 88–89, 111). However, it does not do so through parliaments

and the state, but outside and against both, with the trade union,

‘toughened by daily combat and permeated by Socialist spirit’ and

bringing to bear the power of workers at the point of production, the

‘lance head’ of these and other broader working class battles (Ibid.).

A viable alternative?

To what extent was syndicalism ever an important tradition, worthy of

serious consideration? And to what extent can its project be seen as one

that is more than merely rhetorical i.e. to what extent did it achieve

both its immediate and ultimate objectives?

A complete answer to the first question exceeds the scope of this paper,

suffice it to say that the view that anarchism and syndicalism were

‘never more than a minority attraction’ (e.g. Kedward, 1971: 120) has

been widely challenged by a ‘small avalanche’ of scholarship (Anderson,

2010: xiii) demonstrating the existence of mass anarcho- and

revolutionary syndicalist unions in the Caribbean, Latin America and

parts of Europe, in countries as diverse as Argentina, Bolivia, France,

Cuba, Peru, Portugal, The Netherlands as well as of powerful syndicalist

movements elsewhere, including Britain, Czechia, Hungary, Italy, Japan

and Russia, and the lasting imprint of both on popular and union

culture. In colonial and postcolonial countries, including Bolivia,

Egypt and South Africa, these formations played an important part in

struggles against imperialism and national oppression; they pioneered

unions in countries as diverse as China, Egypt, Malaysia, and Mexico.

Syndicalist unions were also involved in major uprisings and rebellions,

including in Mexico (1916), Italy (1913, 1920), Portugal (1918), Brazil

(1918), Argentina (1919, 1922), and Spain (1909, 1917, 1932/3).

Nor did the story of these movements end in 1914 (or 1917): many

syndicalist movements and currents peaked in the 1920s and 1930s, as in

Peru and Poland, and a number survived – sometimes undergoing big bursts

of growth, as in postwar France (Damier, 2009: 193) and Chile– in the

years that followed. For instance, syndicalism remained an influence in

Argentinean, Brazilian, Bolivian, Chilean and Cuban unions into the

1960s, and among Uruguayan workers and students in the 1970s (Mechoso,

2002), with a massive revival in Spain in the 1970s and early 1980s;

other notable cases include the guerrilla war of the anarchist Chu

Cha-pei in Yunan, China, against the Maoist regime in the 1950s (H. L.

Wei interview in Avrich, 1995: 214 et seq.). The 1960s revolts and the

New Left, the post-Berlin Wall era, and in contemporary and Occupy

movements (for anarchists in Occupy Wall Street: Bray, 2013) and radical

unions (Ness, 2014) have all provided vectors for new anarchist and

syndicalist influence and growth.

Transformation from below: Syndicalism as revolution

Regarding the second question, the extent to which syndicalism achieved

its immediate and ultimate objectives, a growing literature generally

indicates that syndicalist formations generally had and have an

impressive record of promoting oppositional working class movements, of

organising durable movements with pragmatic yet principled programmes

and democratic practices, of winning real economic, political and social

gains, and in providing space for the elaboration of radical

alternatives and human dignity. ‘Embedded in larger popular movements

and countercultures, linked to other organised popular constituencies,

taking up issues that went well beyond the workplace, playing a central

role in community struggles, and at the heart of a project of

revolutionary counterculture, including the production of mass

circulation daily and weekly newspapers, the historical syndicalist

unions were social movements that never reduced the working class to

wage earners, or the aspirations of the working class to wages’ (van der

Walt and Schmidt, 2009: 21).

Counter-power, counter-culture: The CNT in Spain

What, then, of the ability to move from prefiguration to figuration,

from counter-power to taking power, from revolutionary preparation to

revolution? There are a number of important cases of the concrete and

positive anarchist and/or syndicalist programme being implemented in

various degrees, including in Macedonia, Mexico, the Ukraine, and

Manchuria. But the case in which syndicalist unions played the most

central role remains that of the Spanish Revolution of 19361939.

The most important union federation in Spain was the 2-million strong

CNT, in a population of around 24 million: if we keep the proportions,

and translate them onto today’s larger South African population, the CNT

would have been 4-million strong i.e. twice as large as COSATU. The CNT

organised in a wide variety of sectors, with a major presence in the

industrial region of Catalonia, but it also had a rural presence and

important strongholds elsewhere in the country (for material on the CNT

and the Revolution, see inter alia Ackelsberg, 1985; Ackelsberg, 1993;

Amsden, 1978; Bosch, 2001; an overview can be found in Hattingh, 2011;

contemporary accounts and oral histories can be found in Dolgoff 1974;

Fraser, 1979).

The CNT was strong but bottom-up, well-organised but decentralised, and

very, very militant. Its union structure was relatively flat, with a

minuscule full-time staff, with decisions centred on the local

membership, which met regularly in general assembly and appointed

mandated delegates, roughly equivalent to shopstewards. In terms of

struggles, emphasis was placed on direct action, rather than the use of

industrial courts and arbitration, or parliamentary politics, as a means

of promoting self-confidence, self-reliance and self-activity.

CNT activities were ambitious and wide-ranging. It had a history of

partial and general strikes, and had actively joined rent strikes and

other protests; it had cells working within the armed forces; and it had

an enormous presence in many working class neighbourhoods, running

centres that provided meeting spaces, classes and a range of cultural

activities; it was closely linked to anarchist youth, women’s and

propaganda groups. In addition the CNT published and distributed vast

numbers of books and pamphlets: by 1938, it ran more than 40 newspapers

and magazines, including many mass circulation dailies (Rocker, [1938]

1989: 146), and had a radio service.

In short, the CNT had an enormous impact on working class and peasant

consciousness, stressing revolution as direct working class and peasant

control of society, including self-management of workplaces through CNT

structures. The most radical CNT militants organised in the

semi-clandestine Anarchist Federation of Iberia (FAI): not a

parliamentary party or a Leninist vanguard, the 30,000-strong FAI was an

anarchist political organisation that aimed to promote the CNT project

and the revolutionary struggle. It is, finally, worth noting that the

CNT and FAI vastly overshadowed the Spanish Communist Party, which

struggled to move to get above 10,000 members.

The Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939: Resist, occupy, produce

In July 1936, there was an attempted military coup, backed by the most

conservative sectors of the ruling class. Armed CNT militants stopped

the coup in most of Spain; sections of the armed forces came over to the

CNT, as did members of the moderate unions. A large CNT militia,

numbering around 120,000, defended much of the country.

In the cities, CNT structures quickly took over large parts of industry.

In Catalonia province, workers within hours seized control of 3,000

enterprises, including all public transportation, shipping, electric and

power companies, gas and water works, engineering and automobile

assembly plants, mines, cement works, textile mills and paper factories,

electrical and chemical concerns, glass bottle factories and

perfumeries, food processing plants and breweries. Most of these were

placed under direct workers self-management through assemblies and

committees. Where employers remained at the company, they were either

made to report to workers’ control commissions, or to join the

commission – in which case they were paid the same wage as everyone

else, and decisions were made democratically. The workers’ control

structures emerged directly out of CNT structures: crudely, CNT

assembliesnow ran the factories, and the ‘shopstewards’ committees acted

as the control committees. Then factories were linked up, first by

industry and then by region: so, for example, the CNT metal union

provided the means of coordinating the metal industry, and through the

CNT, coordinated this with other industries.

The CNT also had an important impact, in this period, on the

rank-and-file of the rival social democratic union, the General Union of

Labour (UGT), who were also drawn into collectivisation en masse,

especially in the countryside; in a number of cases, joint CNT-UGT

collectives were established. In the countryside, perhaps two thirds of

farmland came under various forms of bottom-up collectivisation: by some

estimates, a further five to seven million people were involved here,

besides the two million in the urban collectives.

This was not a system of nationalisation, in which the state took over,

nor yet of privatisation, but of collectivisation, the roots of which

lay deep in decades of preparation. The revolutionary period saw

substantial changes in many areas of daily life. Income, in the

collectives, was delinked from ownership, and to a large extent, from

occupation: in urban areas, especially, people were ‘paid’ on the basis

of family needs; in many rural areas, money was completely abolished.

Divorce was made available, and CNT halls were sometimes used for

revolutionary weddings. The CNT’s allies, Mujeres Libres (or ‘free

women’) meanwhile ran further education and mobilisation campaigns among

women.

There was a general effort to restructure work, to make it more

pleasant, more healthy and less stressful: as an example, small and

unhealthy plants were replaced by large, airy ones, which were cheaper

as well as healthier. The unemployed were given work, with unemployment

dramatically reduced while output increased and hours decreased. The

collectives were not, it should be added, ‘owned’ by the workers – they

were run by them; they could not be sold or rented out. It was the

larger network of collectives, born of the CNT, that had possession; it

was through congresses and conferences that changes could be made.

The larger project of the revolution stalled, however, for a range of

reasons. One myth, that should be disposed of at once, was that the CNT

and FAI lacked a concrete plan to remake society, or to defend, with

coordinated military force, the revolutionary society. The CNT had

organised a series of armed uprisings in the early 1930s, and developed

a clandestine military structure coordinated through local, regional and

finally, national, defence committees; its May 1936 congress reaffirmed

the need for coordinated military action, based on the unions, in the

event of revolution (for the CNT’s 1936 programme: CNT [May 1, 1936]

n.d.; for a fuller critique of the claim that the CNT lacked a concrete

programme or military perspectives, see van der Walt, 2011: 195–197).

The CNT militias formed in 1936 emerged directly out of the earlier

clandestine CNT military (Guillamón, 2014), just as the CNT collectives

emerged directly from the CNT union branches.

First and foremost, the revolution stalled following a tactical decision

in late 1936 to form a broad anti-fascist bloc against the (by no means

defeated) army plotters. Significant moves towards planning the economy

from the bottom-up did not develop far beyond the provincial level; the

collectivisation of the financial sector was aborted; the CNT’s Popular

Front allies sabotaged its collectives, slowly destroying the Revolution

and demobilising the revolutionary spirit that had halted the coup of

1936; in the end, the Popular Front, now abandoned by the CNT

syndicalism or anarchism, was itself crushed by the plotters of 1936,

who instituted four decades of dictatorial repression.

Some conclusions

The point of the above exposition is not to present the CNT as perfect,

but to underline, rather, a core part of the constructive history of

syndicalism: it showed that industry and agriculture could be run

effectively without the profit motive, and without bureaucratic

hierarchies, and that a working class, inspired by a great ideal, can

remake the world.

To prove the CNT was flawed is possible; to draw critical lessons on its

history is necessary; however, to dismiss the possible contribution of

this and other syndicalist experiences to current labour challenges is,

however, mistaken. Syndicalism has historically played a very important

role in the history of the working class movement, not just in Spain,

but elsewhere; it is a tradition that bears close scrutiny, for to

‘recall anarchism’, and anarcho-syndicalism, ‘which Leninist Marxism

suppressed’, is, as Arif Dirlik argued, in his study of the Chinese

movement, to rethink the very meaning and possibilities of the left

tradition, and ‘recall the democratic ideals for which anarchism …

served as a repository’ (1991: 3–4, also pp. 7–8).

This anarchist and syndicalist repository is one that bears

investigation, not as a simple cure-all for all difficulties, but as a

basis for reflection and renewal in labour movements and in scholarship.

As part of confronting the challenges facing today’s unions, there is

everything to be gained from broadening our understanding of the history

and traditions of the labour movement. For scholars of labour studies

and of industrial sociology, too, there is a need to pay greater

attention to traditions like anarcho- and revolutionary syndicalism,

both in theorising labour, and in understanding its pasts, presents, and

possible futures.

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Biographical note

LUCIEN VAN DER WALT is a Professor of Industrial and Economic Sociology

at Rhodes University, in Grahamstown, South Africa. He has published

widely on labour and left history, political economy, and anarchism and

syndicalism. He is also involved in union and working class education.

[email: l.vanderwalt@ru.ac.za]

[1] The much-lauded Cuban healthcare system is in fact deeply segmented:

official statistics and observations of its tourist and elite sectors

obscure the serious inequities and shortages experienced by most Cubans

(e.g. Hirschfeld, 2001). Repression of dissident doctors is also well

documented (e.g. Reiner, 1998).