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This article studies debates about anarchist education in Spain, and other countries, where debates redounded, during the last third of 19th century. A bibliographic review, reading of some classic texts on socialist and anarchist thought, and analysis of archive sources, allow this investigation to reconstruct anarchist pedagogical knowledge, such as it was composed with discourses and practices of anarchist theorist and militants. Finally, this paper shows the formulation of a definition of anarchist education before Francisco Ferrer’s rationalist school.

Since she was one of the most important US anarchists, one might assume that Emma Goldman was in favor of the Bolshevists. However, while she supported the basic idea of the Russian Revolution, she criticized the Bolshevists for establishing a dictatorship based on terror and suppression of those, who criticized them. From her exile in England and France she was writing countless letters to emphasize that the Bolsheviks were not representing the hope for world revolution and the freeing of the international workers, but that they would use and corrupt the revolutionary ideals to establish rule and remain in power. This paper analyzes those writings to show how the hopes related to the events of 1917 were disappointed by the political realities and how the events impacted the life of Emma Goldman directly.

Anarchism is a political current that is distinguished by its diversity and heterogeneity. Yet, the libertarian circles have often been comprehended by historiography in a homogeneous way, contributing to reify their stories. In the face of these pitfalls and also against hagiography activists, the purpose of this paper is to introduce a synthesis of new interpretations of “anarchism” during the Second Republic and the Spanish Civil War. We cannot understand the history of the thirties in Spain without looking at the discourses and practices of libertarian circles.