ANARCHO-SYNDICALISTS AND THE SPANISH REPUBLIC (1931–1936)

Many anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists in Spain generally welcomed the fall of the monarchy in April 1931, hoping that these changes would open the way for a more free development of the libertarian trade union movement and for anarchist agitation. However, the initial calculations of those who had pinned their hopes on the republic were quickly shaken. The policy of the republican governments was diametrically opposed to the ideas of the anarcho-syndicalists, and the repression of the authorities against the strike and protest movement led to the fact that the republic began to be perceived in the libertarian environment as a hostile regime. This contributed to the strengthening of internal divisions in the anarcho-syndicalist trade union association, the National Confederation of Labor (CNT), causing it to split into radical and moderate trends. The first of them, having won a victory, took a course towards the immediate accomplishment of the social revolution. The political and social regime of the Spanish Republic, in the view of the anarcho-syndicalists, was to be overthrown and replaced by the system of stateless libertarian communism, which was perceived as an alternative to the fascist threat. This article examines the stages and vicissitudes in the development of relations between the anarcho-syndicalist movement and the Spanish Republic in the period preceding the military-nationalist rebellion of July 1936, and analyzes the reasons and motives for the change in the positions of the CNT and anarchists.