(en) Anarkismo.net: Review of Ready for Revolution, by Jorge Valadas

A really sharp review of Agustin Guillamon?s Ready for Revolution: The CNT Defense 
Committees in Barcelona, 1933-1938 was just published on H-net. Links to the original 
below. ---- Agustin Guillamon. Ready for Revolution: The CNT Defense Committees in 
Barcelona, 1933-1938. ---- Translated by Paul Sharkey. ---- Reviewed by Jorge Valadas 
Published on H-Socialisms (December, 2014) ---- Commissioned by Gary Roth ---- CNT Defense 
Committees ---- A vast literature on the Spanish Revolution already exists, and one tends 
to think that everything about it has been written previously. This is just not true! 
August?n Guillam?n brings us new proof of how rich and complex this episode of history is 
and how full of contemporary relevance it remains. The author is an independent historian, 
who has already written several books on the period.[1]

Based on extensive archival research, Guillam?n views these events from the side of the 
radicals. His previous books are centered on the autonomous activity of workers; in other 
words, the actions taken by workers independently of the organizations which claimed to 
represent them. In particular, he analyzes the actions, tactics, and strategies of the 
large institutionalized organizations from the perspective of the rank and file.

In Ready for Revolution: The CNT Defense Committees in Barcelona, 1933-1938, Guillam?n 
revisits the Spanish Revolution. The Defense Committees were rank-and-file organizations 
created by members of the anarcho-syndicalist union Confederaci?n National del Trabajo 
(CNT), which was by far the dominant union force in Barcelona in the 1930s. If the Defense 
Committees were tied to the union locals of the CNT, they were also independent of the CNT 
affiliate, the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI). Guillam?n describes the revolutionary 
process through the life of these committees, their debates, hesitations, decisions, and 
actions. He begins with the formation of the Defense Committees.

After the failure of the 1933 insurrection, the CNT was both disorganized and greatly 
diminished in size and effectiveness. Massive state repression had sent its most active 
militants to prison. During the Asturias working-class insurrection of 1934, the CNT was 
unable to take part in its stronghold in Barcelona. In the beginning, the debate in the 
Defense Committees focused on the question of armed direct action in order to counteract 
underworld assassins who targeted union activists at the behest of individual employers 
and employer associations. These committees later became local rank-and-file 
organizations, based in the politically and socially vibrant working-class districts of 
Barcelona.[2] Guillam?n recounts the internal debates within the Defense Committees as 
they quickly enlarged their fields of activity from self-defense to include other aspects 
of the social movement.

What is particularly pertinent in Guillam?n?s work is the insistence he places on the gap 
which existed between the political positions of these committees and the strategies of 
the majority of the anarchist leaders. Even before the participation of the anarchist 
leaders in the Republican government, a clear separation existed between the rank and file 
and the top echelons of the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movement, the so-called 
Higher Committees of the CNT-FAI. The CNT was far from being a monolithic organization, as 
is poignantly described by Guillam?n. Its leadership was not unified, members did not 
necessarily follow or accept decisions made by its leadership council, and a variety of 
ideologies, strategies, and tactics were pursued simultaneously. It was precisely this 
great diversity of ideas and actions that made the CNT so vibrant and powerful. One can 
say that there was not one CNT, but several CNTs. That being said, specific ideologies and 
tactics came to the fore, especially during moments of crisis, often accompanied by fierce 
resistance and controversy. The pattern of leadership-imposed resolutions and the 
opposition to them was especially evident in the decision to participate in the post-July 
1936 national government, and later on, in the conciliatory attitude adopted during the 
May 1937 events.

Guillam?n also shows how, even before the July 1936 military revolt, military questions 
and the role of violent action were essential to the debates inside the Defense 
Committees. In response to the military coup, these questions immediately became topical. 
Guillam?n provides a detailed and precise account of this development, especially the 
suddenness with which such decisions were made. What comes to the fore is the initiative 
and creativity of the rank-and-file CNT workers who embraced an outright fight against the 
military. The Defense Committees had been preparing for such a situation, but ultimately 
things did not happen as hoped. In any case, it was their experience making autonomous 
decisions rather than following the dictates of the organized political parties and unions 
that allowed them initially to overwhelm and defeat the fascist soldiers and their allies.

After the victory over the military, the Defense Committees assumed the task of organizing 
the ongoing defense of the city. For a few short weeks, they also took over the functions 
normally handled by the city administration. This gave them real power. It was precisely 
this new rank-and-file power which the bourgeoisie was eager to destroy when the Higher 
Committees of the anarchist movement decided to participate in the coalition government, 
thereby neutralizing the thrust of the Defense Committees towards working-class 
self-governance. This was the first battle lost by Defense Committees. As Guillam?n shows, 
a fierce debate, with considerable opposition, took place inside the anarcho-syndicalist 
movement between its leadership in the Higher Committees and the rank and file that 
identified with the Defense Committees. The government?s concern was the militarization of 
the appointed local defense groups, the Control Patrols, and their subsequent integration 
or wholesale replacement within the government?s security forces.

Guillam?n?s hypothesis is worth considering. According to him, the Defense Committees had 
the potential to evolve into revolutionary organizations in the working-class districts. 
Their evolution was blocked by the strategies and tactics used by the CNT?s Higher 
Committees. For this, the Control Patrols were armed by the government in October 1936 as 
a means to neutralize and disband the locally constituted Defense Committees. It should 
also be noted that the Defense Committees in any case were not organs of direct democracy 
and did not represent the working class at large. They were not elected, but instead 
included CNT members known locally as the most militant. Their composition was based on 
local networking relations, rather than a directly democratic process. This characteristic 
explains, in part, their inability to effectively oppose the Higher Committees and 
maintain their autonomy.

Finally, the struggle over supplies became the critical crisis for the Defense Committees. 
On that question, the Defense Committees confronted again the government?s bureaucracy and 
security forces, since the departments in charge of economic distribution were under the 
control of the Stalinists of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC). The pages in 
which Guillam?n describes the debates between the Defense Committees and the Agriculture 
and Economy Department in the Companys government are most helpful in understanding the 
Stalinist point of view. Joan Comorera, a hard-line communist in charge of the department, 
was one of the most violent opponents of the independent leftists clustered in the 
Workers? Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and the CNT radicals in the Defense 
Committees, who, he suggested, acted as ?agents provocateurs ? poisoning militants? minds? 
(p. 142). To defend the state bureaucracy, he accused the Defense Committees of creating 
their own separate bureaucracy and falsely accused them of having ties to the local 
mafias. To counteract their influence, he also established a marketplace and retail 
distribution network that bypassed them altogether. In this confrontation, the Defense 
Committees did not have the full support of the CNT-FAI Higher Committees, which were 
consumed by their participation in the Republican government?s antifascist alliance.

This key question about the supply of goods marked a turning point in the revolutionary 
process. The strikes and riots against the lack of affordable food and other basic 
products, the high interest rates, and black market activities were the spark for the May 
1937 events.[3] The communist attempt to regain control of Barcelona?s streets and social 
spaces from the radical tendencies represented by the Defense Committees and other 
groupings should be understood in this light. The defeat of the radicals meant the 
crushing of the spirit of autonomy that was still so alive and active in parts of the CNT 
and POUM rank and file. The reinforcements provided to the Republican government by the 
Stalinists marked the end of the revolutionary struggle. It was a victory of 
collaborationism versus the militance of the rank and file. The revolutionary spirit was 
drowned first by the civil war directed against it and then by the regular war against the 
fascists that buried it altogether: the wars devoured the Revolution.

Guillam?n?s text is accompanied by an excellent glossary, which itself serves as a rich 
introduction to the groups and individuals of the Spanish Revolution. Paul Sharkey?s 
first-rate translation preserves the spirit and rigor of the original text.

Notes

[1]. See the interview with August?n Guillam?n by Paul Sharkey, where the author talks 
about his political itinerary, interests, and research projects: 
http://bataillesocialiste.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/inte...2013/.

[2]. On the intense social and political life of the working-class districts of Barcelona, 
see Chris Ealham, ?An imaginary geography: ideology, urban space and protest in the 
creation of Barcelona?s Chinatown, c. 1835-1936,? International Review of Social History 
50, no. 3 (2005): 373-397. Ealham demonstrates that what was perceived by the bourgeoisie 
as ?zones of misery, disorder and dangerous classes? were in fact a particular field of 
social and political ?worker?s order.? Also see Ealham?s Anarchism and the City: 
Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Barcelona, 1898-1937 (AK Press: 2010).

[3]. See Guillam?n?s recent book on this period: La Guerra Del Pan: Hambre y violencia en 
la Barcelona revolucionaria, de diciembre de 1936 a mayo de 1937 [The Bread War: Hunger 
and Violence in Revolutionary Barcelona from December 1936 to May 1937] (Barcelona: 
Aldarull/Dskntrl, 2014).

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=42026

Citation: Jorge Valadas. Review of Guillamon, Agustin, Ready for Revolution: The CNT 
Defense Committees in Barcelona, 1933-1938. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. December, 2014.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=42026
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative 
Works 3.0 United States License.

Oakland: AK Press, 2014. 260 pp. $14.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-84935-142-3.

Related Link:
http://www.revolutionbythebook.akpress.org/review-of-ready-for-revolution-by-jorge-valadas/