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Title: The Two Anarchisms Author: Miguel Amorós Date: October 7, 2003 Language: en Topics: illegalism, first international, Spain, 19th century, individualism, Insurrectionary, organization, propaganda of the deed, repression, terrorism, violence Source: Retrieved on 11th May 2021 from https://libcom.org/history/two-anarchisms-legalism-illegalism-libertarian-movement-late-nineteenth-century-spain-mi Notes: Transcript of a presentation delivered at the Biblioteca Arús on October 7, 2003, organized by the Ateneu Enciclopédic Popular. Translated in December 2014 from the Spanish text obtained online at: http://reflexionrevuelta.wordpress.com/2012/02/14/miquel-amoros-los-dos-anarquismos-legalismo-e-ilegalismo-libertarios-a-finales-del-siglo-xix/.
Two false views have dominated libertarian historiography to this day.
The first considers Spanish anarchism between 1868 and 1910 to be a kind
of pre-history of the CNT. Manuel Buenacasa invented this notion in 1927
and Juan GĂłmez Casas gave it its finishing touches in 1968. According to
this view, the triune CNT-FAI-FIJL was the culmination of a movement
that had followed a linear course of development since Fanelli’s mission
to Spain. The second view posits the allegedly unique character of the
Spanish case and its particular genealogy; this view was the product of
the administrative imagination of the Urales family and of Santillán.
For these dignitaries, Iberian anarchism is an almost racial phenomenon,
more the offspring of Pi y Margall than of Bakunin; it would thus seem
to have originated with Anselmo Lorenzo, Farga Pellicer and Serrano
Oteiza, was then taken up by Llunas and Tárrida, and culminated with
Mella and the editors of La Revista Blanca. All of them were old
republicans and representatives of legalist, doctrinaire and liberal
tendencies who were practically always in the minority and were
frequently repudiated by the revolutionary workers. Thus, the anarchism
of action is left out or almost entirely ignored: the anarchism of
González Morago, Salvochea and Vallina, an anarchism that was based on
illegalist and conspiratorial affinity groups and which was dominant in
the libertarian milieu and exercised an enduring influence on the
workers movement. Concerning this kind of anarchism, little is said;
concerning the other kind of anarchism, the peaceful and bureaucratic
anarchism of the congresses, epic tales are spun. We can begin to
unravel this contradiction by way of solid historical research that will
put everyone in their proper place, but its main cause was never the
absence of critical investigation but rather the inertia of a movement
that had never drawn up a balance sheet of anything. Few periods of its
long history have been addressed with rigor, passion and objectivity;
most studies of this topic have been cooked up in the kitchens of the
universities. It must be rescued from such a fate.
The most surprising fact about nineteenth century anarchism is its
transformation from a tactic of mass insurrection into an ideology
separate from and external to the working class, which took place
between 1877 and 1889, between the Congress of Verviers and the
International Anarchist Congress in Paris. If there is anything special
about the Spanish case it is the fact that, due to Spanish anarchism’s
closer links with working class organizations, this transformation took
two or three years longer than elsewhere to reach its culmination. This
development reflected the problems that had arisen with regard to praxis
in a context of the decline of the workers movement, mainly problems of
organization, action and the formation of revolutionary consciousness.
The unsatisfactory solutions proffered for these problems caused the
social influence of anarchism to diminish and its revolutionary capacity
to dwindle. As a result, trade union and political reformism gained
ground and exacerbated the parlous situation of the anarchist movement,
which had in the meantime split along the lines of two narrowly
circumscribed and irreconcilable positions. On the one side were the
supporters of organization at any price, which was to be sustained
exclusively by oral and written propaganda; on the other side, the
unconditional advocates of violent agitation, who identified
organization with authority and put all their faith in the exemplary
nature of propaganda of the deed. For the former, once the majority of
the population was convinced and organized, the revolution would
automatically take place in peace and glory; for the latter, acts of
violence carried out by small groups or even by individuals would
suffice to unleash spontaneous uprisings that would usher in the
revolution amidst catastrophe. The two positions, once petrified,
mutually reinforced one another, since each one was a reaction against
the other, and they degenerated after 1890 into a state of scholastic
sclerosis, on the one hand, and an amoral and aggressive individualism,
on the other. The appalling repression inflicted on the anarchists by
the State achieved what the most lucid anarchists were unable to
accomplish, that is, it put an end to such sectarian madness, but
exacted a very high price: the sacrifice of a generation of fighters.
The theoretical and practical dead end in which anarchism found itself
could not be escaped with mental leaps forward which, by ignoring
action—from the everyday struggle to so-called “expropriation”—indulged
in speculation about the future society and expressed the view that
anarchy would be the product of an ineluctable evolution that depends
more on scientific progress than on the will of individuals (all of
Kropotkin’s and Mella’s works express this tendency). Nor did mindless
activism help free anarchism from the pedagogical and contemplative
pacifism in which it had become mired; and the last outburst of
individualism, expressed in the fashionable popularity of Nietzsche and
Stirner and the intellectualist and elitist rejection of the class
struggle, was even less capable of providing an impetus that could help
anarchism break free from its stagnation. Anarchism really only
reappeared on the stage of history when it entered the trade unions and
began to advocate sabotage and the general strike, thus bringing its
worst period of confusion to a close.
Working class anarchism was born in the IWA as an anti-authoritarian
current that proclaimed the immediate possibility of social revolution
by way of the destruction of the State and classes, in accordance with
the example set by the Paris Commune. It soon clashed with the
authoritarian currents of the IWA, from which it split, and remained
united as a separate current until 1878. After 1878, due to persecution,
the failure of various insurrections, and the decline of the workers
movement, anarchism was reduced to a minority faction and was isolated
from the proletarian milieu, while the “workers” parties, often led by
exiles, underwent a period of rapid growth. The revolutionary awakening
of the masses did not take place and the anarchists subjected their
tactics to reexamination. Workers struggles for partial
improvements—“the economic struggle”—were looked down upon, because they
were considered to be manifestations of egoism that diverted the class
from its revolutionary mission. Yet the anarchists nonetheless cherished
a blind faith in the revolutionary spontaneity of the working class
masses, which was assumed to be an easy matter to provoke with a few
exemplary acts. Any other kind of propaganda was held to be ineffective.
The organization—previously the cornerstone of internationalism—came to
be considered to be a hindrance to freedom that, furthermore, led to
moderation and the cultivation of a leader-follower mentality. Small
affinity groups were supposed to be sufficient for action; any attempt
to organize beyond such groups fell under the suspicion of
authoritarianism. The London Congress (1881) confirmed this radical
change of perspective. There was a general uproar in favor of freedom
whenever anyone spoke of organization, as if the two things were
incompatible. Even the very fact of holding Congresses, electing
delegates and deliberating resolutions appeared to be an obstacle
standing in the way of the free initiative of individuals and a
restriction on the free impulse of the masses. There was a suspicious
insistence on the manufacture of explosives—it was later confirmed that
agents of the French police were behind these proposals—and
“revolutionary morality” was subjected to ridicule. The conclusion:
tactics based on mass organization and education by way of propaganda
and “economic disturbance” were discouraged in favor of the simpler
method of propaganda of the deed and insurrection.
Here on the Peninsula, things took a different turn. When Fanelli
arrived, he found a working class that had reached such a degree of
maturity that it had separated from the bourgeois radicalism represented
by the republicans in order to elaborate its own goals and ideology.
This task was carried out by the Federación Regional Española de la
Internacional [the Spanish Regional Federation of the International].
The FRE sought to organize the workers by way of “resistance” and
“cooperation” for the social revolution, and the adequate weapon was the
“scientific strike”, but the latter demanded an organizational level and
a clockwork execution that were truly unrealistic. At that time the idea
of organization was preeminent; it was the cornerstone of the
internationalist tactic, the embodiment of class solidarity and the womb
of the future society. One could say that when the organization was
perfected, the revolution would begin. The revolution does not have to
be bloody: the internationalists said, “Peace to men, war on
institutions”. Nonetheless, the outlawing of the FRE because of the
events of 1873 compelled a radical change of tactics. On the one hand,
the insurrections of SanlĂşcar, Alcoy and Cartagena had exhausted the
organization, and had also strengthened the position of the legalist
tendency of some members of the resistance societies. On the other hand,
the old landowning class and the industrial and commercial middle
classes had formed a united front in defense of private property and
religion. The proletariat had to confront the united bourgeoisie, which
was ready for Europeanization at least with respect to the strengthening
of the repressive apparatus of the State. The Madrid Congress (1874) did
not advocate “resistance” or the strike, and declared its support for
insurrection and “reprisals”: “The situation is such that political
action can no longer take any other form than conspiracy and violent
revolution.” The FRE went underground, declaring that it would not
recognize bourgeois legality—“The International is above the law”—and it
became a “secret” organization; its sections and associations dissolved
into “revolutionary action groups” and it adopted a Bakuninist program.
Because it did not have sufficient forces, the Federal Commission of the
FRE sought to take advantage of those of the republicans, and attempted
to persuade the latter to join an uprising, to no avail. The contrast
between the revolutionary will of the internationalists and the cold and
passive condition of the masses was insurmountable, thus facilitating
the emergence of a reformist fraction among the internationalists’
ranks. In 1881, the FRE was exhausted and those who advocated a return
to legality, an opportunity which had arisen because of economic
prosperity and the new liberal government, won the support of the
majority of the organization. As a result, the Federal Commission was
deposed and the FRE itself dissolved and replaced by another
organization, the Federación de Trabajadores de la Región Española [the
Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region].
The tactics of the FTRE may be defined as complete legalism and
bureaucratism: Taking advantage of all legal means, rejection of action
outside the law, consideration of action as the exercise of a right and
of reforms as a step forward. It condemned violence—“Progress, not
violence, is the teacher”—and any disturbance of order: strikes, for
example, were supposed to be subject to such complicated rules as to
render them practically impossible. A gradual improvement of economic
conditions was sought by way of the “practice of legality”, cooperatives
and contracts with tenant farmers, not discounting alliances with other
parties “to defend liberty”, and not disdaining associating with “all
educated persons” of bourgeois origin. It was therefore not at all
unexpected that the new organization should have refrained from
disseminating the declarations, which were so contrary to its own
project, of the London Congress. The “destructive policy” of the FTRE,
inspired by “Progress” with a capital “P”, was “as variable as the
circumstances would permit and as the needs require”, and actually
constituted an attempt to restore the political conditions of the First
Republic, that is, the most favorable kind of bourgeois legality, upon
the basis of which the FTRE would be able to win an escalating series of
reforms. Calling for the modification of the economic conditions of the
proletariat by way of legislation, and refusing to support any
revolutionary movement or even victims of repression, it professed that
it did not aspire to put an end to bourgeois rule, but to play the role
of social democracy. The contradiction between its policies and the
anarchism proclaimed in its statutes was merely an apparent
contradiction, since that anarchism was merely a formality. Separated
from the nourishing pragmatism of workers struggles, it was an “ideal”,
contrived far from the class, taught by intellectual members of the
organization. It was not, as in the times of the International, the
result of the everyday experiences of the workers, the crystallization
of their social experience, but the product of the speculation of a
handful of ideologues. The legalists were the first to separate theory
and practice, relegating anarchism to the status of a “philosophy”.
Both the reformism of the FTRE as well as the decline in the
revolutionary spirit and activity of the working class favored the
development of a bourgeois anarchism, an anarchism that claimed to be
above classes. Bakuninist ideas were abandoned, thus breaking down
precisely the bridges to philosophy, history and dialectics. The
Bakuninist critique of bourgeois culture and of the fetishism of science
was ignored with Olympian confidence, and bourgeois thinkers such as
BĂĽchner, Comte and Rousseau were consulted in order to concoct a
positivist ideology that could be passed off as anarchism. This kind of
anarchism did not perceive any specific movement or historical
initiative that could be attributed to the proletariat, and sought in
scientism, anthropological optimism and nature itself, the social laws
that would create the material conditions for emancipation. In order to
study the social question, it was necessary to imitate the way
entomologists study butterflies, that is, it must be treated as a
biological fact. Ruling out the historical determination of society—and
of the individuals who live in society—and ignoring the relation between
the production of means of life and forms of social organization, the
new libertarian ideology conceived of social facts as the results of
natural laws that could be interpreted by science. These laws were
timeless; in order to achieve anarchy it was merely necessary to
discover these laws and for society to allow itself to be guided by
them. Anarchy was nothing but nature governing itself by its own laws,
which may be reduced to a single law: the law of progress. Progress and
freedom were therefore synonymous. Independently of the will of
individuals, progress implied continuous social development until the
attainment, by virtue of a law of nature, of anarchy. The eminently
bourgeois belief in progress was so strong that, for an ideologue like
Mella, the revolution was simply the concluding stage of evolution, a
process that takes place in society and in history, morality and art, as
well as in nature. Revolution and evolution were convergent realities.
In short, this was a vulgar anarchism that idealized the economic and
social development of the bourgeoisie and which fit the reformism
propagated by the FTRE like a glove. The distance between the real
bourgeoisie and its ideal version was so great that it permitted any
sort of philanthropic liberalism to pass itself off as real anarchism.
Isolated from the workers movement in many countries, anarchism ceased
to be the most radical expression of the historic movement that
dissolves the existing conditions. With the path of action practically
blocked, it was hardly capable of developing on the theoretical level,
if we except the formulation of libertarian communism and the
Kropotkinist studies of a naturalist bent. There were major
contradictions between theory and practice, as was demonstrated by the
paltry results garnered by the proclamation of propaganda of the deed
and insurrection; in fact, the anarchists were divided with respect to
every issue. A failed attempt to establish unity at the Geneva Congress
(1882) caused one of the participants to exclaim: “we are united in our
division.” A similar attempt at the Barcelona Congress (the
“Cosmopolitan” Congress of 1885) was even more of a fiasco, “due to the
intemperance of some of the delegates, who with their protests
constantly interrupted the debate”.
The predominant sentiment—especially in France—was an
anti-organizational state of mind that Malatesta dubbed “amorphous”. A
true Bakuninist, Malatesta was one of the few anarchists of his time who
was convinced that the success of the revolution hinged upon the
existence of internationally organized forces. Most anarchists had
reservations about the legitimacy of a congress for establishing a line
of conduct, and were even less enthusiastic about it if it were to
promote some kind of reorganization, at a time when even the least
attempt at coordination was considered to be coercive. For many of them,
the congresses were pointless and had no reason to exist, but for others
they were necessary in order to prevent the isolation and
marginalization of the movement, and there were even those who wanted to
attract people from the socialist congresses. It was only when Clement
Duval and Vittorio Pini proclaimed the right to theft at their
respective trials, however, that the process of ideological
decomposition in anarchism reached its high point. The International
Congress in Paris (July 1889) was a sounding board for this
decomposition. Anarchism hit rock bottom: the social question was
transformed into an existential question. The individual replaced the
class as the revolutionary subject. The world and the individual were no
longer understood in tandem, as related to one another; the social
conflict was not interpreted as a class struggle but as a struggle
between the lone individual and bourgeois society. The masses were of no
account because they were not revolutionary. The movement had proceeded,
without any transitional stages, directly from spontaneist optimism to
defeatist pessimism. If we read The Thief, for example—the novel by
Georges Darien—we see the masses described as cowards, imbeciles and
servile lackeys, eager to toil to enrich the exploiter, to offer their
services to the ambitious, and to bow down before the powerful. The
enemy was no longer institutions, but men; all the bourgeoisie, even the
most insignificant, and all the slaves, all of whom were worthless. No
respect was due to Humanity because there were no more men. It was no
longer necessary to observe any norms of conduct. Whoever could violate
the most such norms was more revolutionary than anyone else. Arising
from an inverted morality, the illegalist mentality perceived all
morality as just so many prejudices and as a sign of weakness. The
figure of the outlaw, the man who seized by force what bourgeois society
had denied him, as in the romantic epoch, was the object of admiration.
Even a simple act motivated by self-preservation such as theft was
elevated to the category of revolutionary deeds. In vain did Kropotkin
plead that theft or “individual expropriation” did not abolish, but
rather reinforced, private property. Because the amoralists blamed
everything on society and because they restricted themselves to making
their own individual revolutions, they did not acknowledge any
contradiction between ends and means. The means they used were,
moreover, consistent with the ends they sought.
The particular characteristics of the Spanish case would make the
illegalist psychosis commence with a reaction against the legalism of
the FTRE and a radical questioning of its organizational conception. The
FTRE had hardly been established before the first dissident faction
arose, that of “The Disinherited”, which called for a return to the
tactics of the FRE, that is, a decentralized, secret organization,
insurrectionary revolutionary action and calls for reprisals. The police
responded with the affair of “La Mano Negra” [The Black Hand], which led
to the imprisonment of hundreds of Andalusian workers. When the Sagasta
government took advantage of the opportunity to outlaw the FTRE, the
FTRE’s Federal Commission condemned the crimes allegedly committed by
the phantom organization of La Mano Negra without expressing even the
slightest doubt concerning the police account of the affair, thus
handing over its Andalusian militants to the torturers and hired thugs.
Then the local federation of Gracia held a secret congress (1884) where
it was decided that the FTRE should be dissolved and that the
organization’s members should go underground (the “Aventine Secession”).
The confrontations between the old leaders (“sellouts” and “traitors”)
and the “Aventine” dissidents (“Jacobins”, “troublemakers” and
“charlatans”) would be repeated at the “Cosmopolitan” Congress in the
following year. The Madrid Congress of 1885 was able to prevent the
dissolution of the FTRE but only in exchange for the resignation of the
Federal Commission and the incorporation of less hierarchical statutes.
The new equilibrium between the tendencies proved to be too tenuous,
however, and the new orientation of the Catalan sections decided the
fate of the entire Federation. All the proposed resolutions were
directed against the foundations of the bureaucratic edifice erected in
1881. They called for the dissolution of the Federal Commission, the
abolition of congresses and statutes, permission for more than one
section of the same trade or local federation to operate in the same
town, the elimination of the requirement that prospective members of the
Federation should express agreement with its principles, the
renunciation of the imperative mandate of the delegates, etc. The
Conferences for Social Studies held in Barcelona (in 1887 and 1888) even
recommended the rejection of the section structure itself, the
cornerstone of the entire working class organizational system (which
would later be called the sindicato [trade union]), because its creation
expressed the desire to obtain immediate improvements in working
conditions which, because such improvements were almost impossible, must
be concentrated instead on the realization of revolutionary ideals. The
sections therefore had to be replaced by groups of workers without
regard for trade or occupation. “Resistance” as a product of a perfected
organization looked good on paper, but proved to be impractical in
reality. “Spontaneous and natural” resistance was preferable, without
rules, in the heat of an unpremeditated solidarity that was not affected
by considerations of self-interest. The most adequate organizational
form for the new perspective could not be the FTRE, but a federation in
which individuals, associations and sections would be completely
autonomous, that is, one in which each one of its constituent elements
would preserve its specific ideology, its particular goals and its
independence of action. Rather than a new federation, this described a
kind of ad hoc agreement for joint action without any statutes, or
leadership, or reciprocally binding commitments. The new system
liberated strikes from all bureaucratic encumbrances but did not
envision means to transform them into either weapons of revolution or
schools for anarchism. The revolutionary question therefore remained
unresolved: those who conceived the Pact of Union and Solidarity sought
to address this problem with a kind of anarchist party (the OARE), thus
separating the “resistance against capital” from the “struggle for
anarchy”. Anarchism removed itself from the social battle because it had
its own separate struggle, one that was at a higher level. It thus came
to the same conclusions as the reformists: the proletarians were
incapable of going beyond “resistance”, unless they adhere to an
ideology that is expressed in a fragmented manner by groups external to
the class.
The second factor that paved the way to illegalism was the theoretical
battle unleashed concerning the distribution of the product of labor in
the future society. The clash between collectivism and communism was
superimposed on the major disagreements with regard to organization and
action, which were the real bones of contention. What was actually at
stake were two opposed concepts of anarchism. The formula of “to each
according to his needs”, which summarized anarchist communism, appeared
in 1876 in Italy and was adopted by the majority of European anarchists
a few years later. Repression in France and Italy—especially after the
Lyon Trial in 1883—forced many anarchists to go into exile, some of whom
took refuge in Spain and established themselves in Barcelona, where they
made contact with the dissident sector of the FTRE and propagated
communist ideas. The anarchists of Gracia were the most radical and
immediately echoed the new ideas in their paper, La Justicia Humana,
edited by Emilio Hugas and MartĂn Borrás, initiating a debate with the
supporters of the collectivist formula, “to each the entire product of
his labor”, which was the slogan of the old International. The works of
Kropotkin, however, were beginning to be translated and had a major
impact, and the collectivists retreated to take refuge in the compromise
slogan formulated by Tárrida at the Second Socialist Congress of Reus
(1889): anarchism “without adjectives”, or “straight” anarchism, or to
express it more accurately, “undefined” anarchism. Malatesta’s pamphlet,
Between Peasants, which advocated the communist position, was also
published in Spanish, and five years later all Spanish anarchists were
communists. The differences between communists and collectivists were
not limited to hypotheses about the future society. The Spanish
anarcho-communists rejected organization, in agreement with Kropotkin
and the French (and in opposition to Malatesta): sections, federations,
mandated delegates, voting, minutes, majorities, elected officers, etc.
They only accepted the existence of informal groups, without any
commitments on the part of their members. They claimed that fraternal
contact between comrades, more effectively than any regulation or
circular, would suffice to create the relations necessary for propaganda
and action. Their point of departure was the idea that, in order to
carry out the revolution, neither accords nor rules were needed, nor any
kind of strategy, much less any organization; the revolution was an
explosion of popular fury that would take place spontaneously, thanks to
the fact that certain violent acts will have awakened the smoldering
spirit of the oppressed masses. Thus, “instead of repudiating personal
acts in which the individual pays with his life for carrying out a
heroic action for the cause of justice, we should to the contrary praise
them so that they will have emulators, and these acts, becoming
generalized, are the acts that can lead the spontaneous revolution”
(Tierra y Libertad, Gracia, 1899; this was the paper formerly known as
La Justicia Humana). The way to cause the revolution to break out could
not be more simplistic: instead of preparations, which, of course,
implied organization, the hypertrophied exemplary nature of impressive
personal acts. Violence was cheerfully exalted: “Force is repelled with
force. That is why dynamite was invented” (motto of The Victim of Labor,
1889). Action and propaganda of the deed were the same thing, as they
both implied violence and illegalism: “take advantage of every occasion
… to provoke the people to attack and seize property, to offend
authority and to scorn and violate the law….” (in The Social Revolution,
1889, edited by Francesco Serantoni; the same newspaper printed a eulogy
for Pini). The effectiveness of these methods with respect to awakening
the spirit of revolt in the workers had yet to be proven, and indeed the
opposite conclusion seemed to have more evidence in its favor. The
fireworks had been exploding since 1886 in sympathy with the labor
conflicts of the period, without a major increase in working class
combativity and without anyone even asking if all the bombs were worth
the risk and the trouble they caused. This was the weakest point of the
spontaneist tactic: the unrealistic evaluation of the utility of violent
actions and the callous disregard of their foreseeable consequences.
Without being aware of it, their refusal to draw up a balance sheet of
their words and deeds drove the most resolute Spanish anarchists down
the slope of ideological chaos and irresponsible adventurism, a slope
down which their European counterparts had already plummeted.
The workers movement experienced a brief resurgence with the May Day
demonstrations and the struggle for the eight hour day, but was almost
immediately suppressed. Then, for the first time, anarchist
individualism made its debut in its ultraviolent version in the
publications, El Revolucionario and El Porvenir Anarquista [The
Anarchist Future] (Gracia, 1891), in proclamations written by Paolo
Schichi, Paul Bernard and Sebastián Suñé. Malatesta, who visited
Barcelona around this time, was given a cold reception by the communist
sector, especially by Schichi, who had recently published a paper with
an unambiguously significant title (Pensiero e Dinamita [Thought and
Dynamite]), and was compelled to complete his Spanish tour with an
escort of collectivists. As a result of the bomb attacks at the Plaza
Real the group influenced by Schichi and Bernard was imprisoned, but
others took up where they left off. Every nuance and variety of
illegalist anarchism were propagated in ephemeral publications:
amoralism, “to attain our goal, all means are good” (La Cuestión Social,
1892, written in Valencia by refugees); unrealistic optimism, “since no
one respects it anymore, authority is collapsing” (La Revancha
[Revenge], 1893, edited in Reus by Bernard); triumphalist individualism,
“individual propaganda is and always will be the most vivid kind and
will yield the most results” (La Controversia, 1893, also written in
Gracia by refugees); the cult of violence, “science has placed at our
disposal what is necessary to cause the most solid fortresses to fly
into the air” (El Eco de Ravachol, Sabadell, 1893); organizational
phobia, “organization engenders submission” (La UniĂłn Obrera, Sant MartĂ
de Provençals, 1891), “organization and revolution are two words that
are like cat and dog to each other” (Ravachol, Sabadell, 1893), “The
organization is the offspring of authority” (La Controversia),
“[organization] is the school of laziness” (El Eco del Rebelde,
Zaragoza, 1892), etc. The draconian repression of the riot at Jerez
(1892) would be echoed by the sentencing of Ravachol in France, a
personality who had been praised so often that he had been turned into a
victim of society and a martyr for the idea on both sides of the
Pyrenees. The thirst to avenge the cruelty displayed at Jerez found a
model in Ravachol’s bombs, when the climate was already ripe for
terrorism. For many people, the sadism of bourgeois repression
legitimized any act, regardless of how fearful and bloody it might be.
Thus, a yearning for vengeance against the bourgeoisie and its
executioners found expression in the failed assassination attempt of
Pallás against general MartĂnez Campos and Salvador’s bombs at the
Liceo. These were no longer instances of propaganda of the deed; they
were desperate acts that sought to “teach a hard lesson” to the ruling
class, to show it that its victory was not complete, that from now on it
was war to the death. Unfortunately, the anarchists were never aware of
the fact that they were confronted by a reactionary class entrenched in
caciquismo and religion, a class that would not allow even the most
trivial reforms, and that in order to prevent the loss of its privileges
and its property it was capable of decimating the working class without
batting an eye. To terrorize it without really causing it any serious
harm was the worst kind of mistake because the repression that it
unleashed in response to these attacks struck far beyond its ostensible
targets, and even had an impact on its own more progressive sectors. The
State promulgated two laws against anarchism while simultaneously
creating the police force—the “political-social brigade”—responsible for
enforcing them. Nor was that all, because the State also resorted to the
suspension of civil liberties and to provocations. The police, by means
of agents infiltrated into the libertarian milieu, arranged an attack in
which only innocent people would die: the bomb thrown at the procession
of the Corpus Christi in Barcelona as it passed down the street of
Cambios Nuevos (1896). Suddenly it was open season on all anarchists,
regardless of how peaceful they may have been; then, the repression was
turned against the militant workers, regardless of whether or not they
were anarchists; and finally, the persecution was extended without much
of a display of logic to journalists, republicans, intellectuals and
even modest bourgeois liberals. This wave of repression concluded in the
Montjuich Trials, frame-ups that became symbols of the criminal
injustice and boundless cruelty of the bourgeois inquisitors. With
regard to illegality, the Spanish bourgeoisie had outdone anarchy. The
execution of Cánovas in 1897, who was the mastermind behind the drama of
Montjuich, was a paltry moral compensation.
Returning to the “affinity group” concept upon which the agitation of
the period between 1890 and 1897 was based, we see that the absence of
ideological controls, responsibilities and rules exposed the groups to
the machinations of criminals and opportunists who were attracted to the
groups by the prospect of the possible rewards of illegal action, and
opened up the door to frauds and infiltrators who employed violent
language. It was not without reason that the peaceful anarchists accused
the illegalist milieu of being full of ignorant bums and fanatics who
were working hand in hand with thieves, provocateurs and informers.
Their unrealistic idea of revolution might at first have been nothing
but a harmless sentimental peccadillo of the revolutionaries in their
struggle with the reformists, but once it reached a certain threshold,
the idea cannot be understood as anything but a culpable lack of
consciousness. The immediate results of this puerile tactic were
confusion and disaster. The workers resistance societies were broken up,
lives were thrown away for no purpose, and part of the population sided
with the government. The numerous groups and newspapers disappeared
without a trace, leaving a vacuum that would be filled by the political
parties. Many militants permanently distanced themselves from anarchy
and those who remained were too few to work alone, and had to
collaborate with republicans and philanthropic bourgeoisie. The campaign
for new trials for the victims of Montjuich, Jerez and La Mano Negra
succeeded, but the revolution was more distant then ever. Fatally
lacking a strategy, anarchism had lost the social war in its first
skirmishes. It would recover historically with its entry into the trade
unions, but it never regained its old vigor. All too often was the word
“freedom” used to sabotage efforts to make it a reality, and all too
often were “circumstances” used as an excuse for capitulation:
voluntarism without ideas and unprincipled opportunism were always its
chronic illnesses.