Sam Dolgoff, editor of the best anthology of Bakunin’s writings, has now produced an excellent documentary history of the Anarchist collective in Spain. Although there is a vast literature on the Spanish Civil War, this is the first book in English that is devoted to the experiments in workers’ self-management, both urban and rural, which constituted one of the most remarkable social revolutions in modern history.--Paul Avrich
Lenin once identified “the sum total of the conditions necessary for socialism” as large-scale capitalist engineering and planned organization subordinated to a Soviet state, that is, a “proletarian dictatorship” ruled by a vanguard party. The eyewitness reports and commentary presented in this highly important study reveal a very different understanding of the nature of socialism and the means of achieving it.
Libertarian communism, as it was realized during the Spanish revolution, was truly the creation of workers and peasants. It was a “spontaneous” creation- for which, in fact, the groundwork had been laid by decades of struggle and education, experiment and thought.
Varied, complex, often inspiring, the achievement of the people in Spain is unique in the history of 20th century revolution. It should be carefully studied, not merely as the record of a remarkable human accomplishment, but also for the insight it provides into the problems of constructing a social order that is just and humane, committed to freedom from exploitation and oppression, whether by a capitalist autocracy or an authoritarian state apparatus.
For a brief period, the Spanish people offered the world a glimpse of a future that differs by orders of magnitude from the tendencies inherent in the state capitalist and state socialist societies that exist today. --Noam Chomsky
Table of Contents
Preface by Sam Dolgoff
Introductory essay by Murray Bookchin
Part One: Background
1. The Spanish Revolution
The Two Revolutions
The Trend Towards Workers’ Self-Management
2. The Libertarian Tradition
The Rural Collectivist Tradition
The Anarchist Influence
The Political and Economic Organization of Society
3. Historical Notes
The Prologue to Revolution
The Counter-Revolution and the Destruction of the Collectives
4. The Limitations of the Revolution
Part Two: The Social Revolution
5. The Economics of Revolution
Economic Structure and Coordination
A Note on the Difficult Problems of Reconstruction
Money and Exchange
6. Workers’ Self-Management in Industry
7. Urban Collectivization
Collectivization in Catalonia
The Collectivization of the Metal and Munitions Industry
The Collectivization of the Optical Industry
The Socialization of Health Services
Industrial Collectivization in Alcoy
Control of Industries in the North
8. The Revolution of the Land
9. The Coordination of Collectives
The Peasant Federation of Levant
The Aragon Federation of Collectives: The First Congress
10. The Rural Collectives
A Journey Through Aragon
The Collectivization in Graus
Libertarian Communism in Alcora
The Collective in Binefar
Miralcampo and Azuqueca
Collectivization in Carcagente
Collectivization in Magdalena de Pulpis
The Collective in Mas de Las Matas
11. An Evaluation of the Anarchist Collectives
The Characteristics of the Libertarian Collectives
In Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Appendix
Photographs and Posters
195 pages, index, bibliography
Paperback ISBN: 0-919618-20-0 $16.99
Hardcover ISBN: 0-919618-21-9 $45.99
1990