| Alt Llobregat insurrection | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 Municipalities wherelibertarian communism was proclaimed (red) in thecomarques ofBerguedà andBages (pink) | |||
| Date | 18–27 January 1932 (1932-01-18 –1932-01-27) | ||
| Location | |||
| Caused by | Political repression,exploitation of labour | ||
| Goals | Libertarian communism | ||
| Methods | General strike,insurrection | ||
| Resulted in | Insurrection suppressed
| ||
| Parties | |||
| Lead figures | |||
| Casualties | |||
| Death | None | ||
| Arrested | Hundreds | ||
| Deported | 104 CNT activists | ||
TheAlt Llobregat insurrection was arevolutionarygeneral strike which took place incentral Catalonia, in the northeast of Spain, in January 1932. Initially organised as awildcat strike by miners inFígols, who were protesting against low wages and poor working conditions, it soon turned into a general revolt and spread throughout the region. Workers seized local institutions, disarmed the police and proclaimedlibertarian communism, all without any killing taking place. Within a week, the rebellion was suppressed by theSpanish Army. A subsequent rebellion inAragon was also suppressed. In the wake of the insurrection, many anarchist activists were imprisoned or deported. The suppression of the insurrection caused a split in theConfederación Nacional del Trabajo, with itsradical faction ultimately taking control of the organisation and themoderate faction splitting off to form theSyndicalist Party. Further insurrections were carried out by CNT activists inJanuary andDecember 1933.
When theSecond Spanish Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, it brought an end to years ofdictatorship which had driven theSpanish anarchist movement underground and forced its members into exile.[1] The drafting of theSpanish Constitution of 1931 caused divisions in theProvisional Government. Theseparation of church and state was approved by theConstituent Cortes on 13 October 1931, with 178 votes in favour and 59 opposed. Members of theLiberal Republican Right, includingPrime MinisterNiceto Alcalá-Zamora andInterior MinisterMiguel Maura, resigned from the provisional government over the issue.[2]
TheSpanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE),Radical Socialist Republican Party (PRRS) andRepublican Action (AR) then came together to form a newleft-wing government, excluding theright-wing republican parties.Manuel Azaña became the new prime minister,Santiago Casares Quiroga took over as Interior Minister andJosé Giral was appointed as Navy Minister. Without the influence ofbusiness owners and theCatholic clergy over the new government, many in theworking class hoped they would addressunemployment andland reform, but neither of these came to fruition. Instead, on 20 October, the government passed the Law for the Defense of the Republic, which increased the power of the Interior Ministry.[2] On 9 December 1931, the Constituent Cortes approved the new constitution and elected Alcalá-Zamora as the firstPresident of the Republic. On 11 December, Alcalá-Zamora accepted the nomination, swore to uphold the new constitution and proclaimed the day a national holiday.[3]
While the governmentratified the constitution,social conflict spread throughout the nascent Spanish Republic. InZaragoza, workers proclaimed ageneral strike; inXixón, theoccupation of factories took place, culminating with the violent intervention of theCivil Guard, which killed 1 worker and wounded 11 others.[3] On 31 December, Casares Quiroga dispatched the Civil Guard to theExtremaduran town ofCastilblanco to suppress astrike action by the localpeasantry. Local activists responded to the intervention by surrounding the Civil Guards and killing them.[4] The Civil Guard retaliated against villages throughout the country, attackingLa Almarcha,Calzada de Calatrava andPuertollano inNew Castile.[5] In theAragonese town ofÉpila, the Civil Guard opened fire on striking workers, killing 2 people and wounding several others.[6] The Civil Guard also attacked striking workers in theValencian town ofXeresa,[4] killing 4 people and wounding 3 others.[6] In theRiojan town ofArnedo, the Civil Guard again opened fire on striking workers,[7] killing 6 men and 5 women[8] and wounding 18 men and 11 women.[9]
In the anarchist newspaperTierra y Libertad, theIberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) proclaimed that the country had been "kidnapped" by the Civil Guard and printed graphic depictions of the violence.[5] In the Valencian city ofVillena, the novelistPío Baroja proclaimed that the Republic had killed more people in a few months than the monarchy had in forty years.[10] The events in Épila, Xeresa and Arnedo provoked a furious response fromanarcho-syndicalists inBarcelona, who began to speak of carrying out arevolution against the Republic.[11]
Despite the changes brought by the new Republican constitution, which had officially declared Spain to be aworkers' republic,[12] low wages and poor working conditions prevailed for miners and textile workers incentral Catalonia.[13] Since June 1931, deteriorating working conditions forpotash miners in theLlobregat andCardener river valleys had caused a rise in social tensions.[5]José Enrique de Olano [es], theautocraticCount of Fígols [es], owned the coal and potash mines in Alt Llobregat. He forced the miners to work inunsafe conditions, paid them inscrip and restricted their life to acompany town, where food was purchased from thecompany store.[14] He also refused his workers the rights tofreedom of assembly andfreedom of association, and effectively controlled the Civil Guard in the region.[12] The mining company made use of the Civil Guard to arrest disobedient workers, attack their unions and shut down left-wing publications. Many of the miners who had migrated fromCartagena considered returning to their home region, while others began to consider violence.[5] Meanwhile, in the regional capital ofManresa,Joan Selves [ca] reported that employers had refused to comply with the newminimum wage law and continued to pay textile workersstarvation wages.[12]
Members of theConfederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), ananarcho-syndicalist union, put together a plan to channel the workers' discontent into aninsurrection.[15] In early January 1932, the anarchist activistsBuenaventura Durruti,Vicente Pérez andArturo Parera embarked on a speaking tour of the region.[16] They encouraged workers to rise up in revolution againstcapitalism and thestate, and showed them how to manufactureimprovised explosive devices fromdynamite andtin cans.[5] InTierra y Libertad,Felipe Alaiz warned that adictatorship was being established in Spain by the Socialist and Republican parties, and called for anarchists to takedirect action against the government.[17] HistoriansGerald Brenan,Pierre Broué,Émile Temime [fr] andHugh Thomas would later attribute the instigation of the insurrection to theIberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), but Parera himself claimed that the FAI had not participated in an organisational capacity.[18]
On 18 January 1932, miners of theSant Corneli Colony [ca] inFígols carried out awildcat strike, demanding improvements to their living and working conditions.[19] As they believed the strike would only succeed if they could prevent their employers from repressing it,[20] they disarmed the Civil Guard and theSometentparapolice force, and they coordinated workers' patrols of the town's streets.[21] The flag of the CNT was raised above thetown hall[22] and from thesteeple of the local church.[23] Before long, the workers of Fígols had formed arevolutionary committee,[24] which proclaimed the establishment oflibertarian communism in the region.[25] According to anoral history by historianCristina Borderias, the proclamation ofcommunism was broadly accepted by the insurgent populace, for whom it meantsocial justice andfreedom.[26]
When the Catalan Regional Committee of the CNT received news of the insurrection breaking out in Fígols, they moved to support the workers' movement and expand it throughoutBerguedà andBages.[11] By 20 January, strike actions had spread to the neighbouring towns ofBalsareny,Berga andSallent, then on toCardona,Navarcles andSúria,[27] where workers shut down the mines and other local businesses.[28] In Sallent,syndicalists seized explosives from the local potash factory and raised ared flag over the town hall.[29] In Manresa, workerspicketed outside of factories and workshops.[30] Revolutionaries took control of the region'stelephone exchanges androads.[31] Workers also cuttelephone lines, which gave the first indication to the outside world that the strike had escalated into an insurrection.[30] Workers throughout central Catalonia seized their town halls, where they replaced thetricolour flag of the Spanish Republic with thered and black flag of anarchism.[32]
The workers of central Catalonia declared the abolition ofprivate property and thestate.[33] They also established anon-monetary economy,[34] replacing money with a system oflabour vouchers[35] and the sharing of resources undercommon ownership.[26] Nolooting orkilling took place during the insurrection.[36] According to reports by the anarchist newspaperLa Tierra [es], the insurgents secured the region without arbitrary attacks against their political enemies, whether police, judges or priests. Once the region had been taken, the insurgent workers returned to their jobs in the coal fields.[37]
After members of the Civil Guard were fired at and injured,[31] theCivil Governor of Barcelona [es],Joan Moles [ca], called in reinforcements to suppress the rebellion.[29] On 21 January, Prime Minister Azaña addressed the insurrection in theCongress of Deputies.[38] Employers associations reported that he spoke with "fortitude and sincerity".[39] He denied that the movement was a labour conflict, claiming that there had been an agreement between the workers and their employers, although he did not know if the agreement had been upheld.[28] He declared that, while the Republic's legal code recognised the right to strike, the workers had noright to rebellion.[38] Azaña concluded his remarks by claiming that the insurrection had been directed byforeign agents and called for it to be suppressed. After receiving parliamentary support for intervention, he orderedDomènec Batet, theCaptain General of Catalonia, to suppress the insurrection.[40] According to historianJosep Peirats, Azaña gave the captain general "fifteen minutes to eliminate them after the troops arrived."[41] Despite Azaña's orders, the government forces in central Catalonia would come under the command of infantry commanderHumberto Gil Cabrera, who moved to end the insurrection with little bloodshed.[41]
On 22 January, reinforcements were brought in from the provinces ofLleida,Girona,Uesca andZaragoza.[42] TheSpanish Army swiftly occupied Manresa.[43] By 23 January, every town in the region had been occupied, except for the revolutionary stonghold of Fígols.[44] The following day, Spanish troops entered the town, where they discovered that the insurgent miners had blown up the explosives warehouse and fled into the mountains. By 25 January, the insurrection was over and social order was restored in central Catalonia. People in the region who had opposed the insurrection collaborated in the political repression that followed. Miners who had participated in the insurrection weredismissed from their jobs, and only those who had been marginal participants wererehired.[38] In the end, the libertarian communist experiment had lasted less than a week.[45]
On 23 January, while the insurrection in Catalonia was being brought to an end, the National Committee of the CNT called for ageneral strike in solidarity with the insurgents.[46] The call was only taken up by local unions in a few small towns.[47] InValencia, a small group of anarchists in the town ofSollana rebelled for a few hours. InAragon, the local branches of the CNT inBinéfar andBelver de Cinca called a general strike, shutting down businesses, cutting telephone lines and blocking the railway into Lleida province;[48] anarchist activists also planted two bombs at a Civil Guard barracks inAlcorisa; and, on 25 January, militants inCastel de Cabra declared the establishment of acouncil republic.[49] The latter group of revolutionaries seized the Castel de Cabra town hall, burned the tax register, barricaded the mayor in his house, and stole explosives from the construction company building theTeruel-Alcañiz railway line [es].[48] Soldiers were brought in from the provinces of Barcelona and Zaragoza to suppress the rebellion, and by 27 January, social order was restored in Aragon.[49]
In the wake of the rebellion, dozens of activists were arrested and the CNT branch offices in Uesca and Teruel were closed down.[50] Sixteen CNT members were arrested for the Alcorisa bombing and kept inpre-trial detention for 20 months; their trial finally took place in November 1933, with their defense lawyerGregorio Vilatela [es] securing their acquittal and release. The Aragonese Regional Committee of the CNT officially denied involvement in the insurrection and claimed it had attempted to stop it, but as government action against them intensified, they began to encourage a violent response. A few days after publishing a communique calling for action, the Aragonese CNT's periodicalCultura y Acción was shut down; it did not resume publication until theSpanish Revolution of 1936.Solidaridad Obrera was also suspended on 22 January, but it resumed publication on 4 March.[51]
In application of the Law for the Defense of the Republic, the authorities launched a mass raid against anarchists in the Catalan capital ofBarcelona.[52] On the morning of 20 January, police began arresting people in their homes; the teacherTomás Cano Ruiz [es] was one of the first to be arrested.[53] The following morning, Durruti was arrested, and in the afternoon,Francisco andDomingo Ascaso were detained.[53]Gregorio Jover andRamon Vila Capdevila were also arrested.[54] Without a single trial being held, the arrested men were selected for either imprisonment or deportation.[55] Hundreds of people were imprisoned in Barcelona and Manresa.[54] Over 100 militants of the CNT, many of whom had not taken any part in the insurrection, were marked for deportation.[56] On 22 January, the deportees were packed into thehold of theBuenos Aires,[52] atransport ship of theSpanish Transatlantic Company.[53] By 26 January, more than 200 CNT activists were detained on the ship.[57] The detainees were provided with no bedding and little food and water, were constantly watched by the ship's crew, and were denied visitors, packages and mail.[53] On 28 January, about 100 of the detained activists began ahunger strike in protest against the conditions of their confinement.[57]
The ship was kept in port until 10 February, when it was cleared to set sail.[58] On the day the ship left port, deputies of theRepublican Left of Catalonia (ERC) requested that the government commute the deportation sentences.[59] The ship embarked with 104 prisoners on board and collected more prisoners fromCádiz, before leaving mainland Spain. The ship passed through theCanary Islands andBioko, before it finally made port atDakhla on 3 April. By the time the deportees arrived in theRío de Oro colony, many had fallen gravely ill and one had died. The deportees returned to mainland Spain by September 1932, by which time the CNT and FAI were once again in open conflict with the Spanish government.[57]
After consulting with its membership, on 15 February, the National Committee of the CNT called a 24-hour general strike to protest the deportations.[60] Violent clashes broke out between striking workers and the police, with one outburst in Zaragoza leaving 4 dead and 15 wounded, which further instilled feelings ofvictimisation in members of the CNT.[60] In towns throughout Catalonia, revolutionary anarchists formed executive committees to take control of localities and enforce their proclamations of libertarian communism; anarchist historianCésar M. Lorenzo [es] characterised these events as an attempt to create adictatorship of the proletariat.[31] Inspired by Alt LLobregat, anarchist groups inTerrassa occupied the city hall and proclaimed libertarian communism.[61] Revolutionary actions continued to escalate throughout the country, with peasants in Andalusia, Aragon, Castile and Valencia seizinghaciendas from theirlandlords.[62] In the midst of the clashes between the anarchists and the government,CNT General SecretaryÁngel Pestaña continued to hold meetings with Prime Minister Azaña and Interior Minister Casares Quiroga, requesting that the deportees bepardoned. Azaña blamed the anarchists for the crackdown against them, offering to release the deportees only after a sustained period of peace.[60]
The Alt Llobregat insurrection exacerbated the internal divisions in the CNT, which had split intomoderate andradical factions.[63] The militants arrested after the insurrection had all been radicalfaistas (members of the FAI), which briefly strengthened the position of the moderatetreintistas within the CNT.[54] Thetreintistas criticised thespontaneity of the insurrection, arguing that the state forces had been able to suppress the rebellion because the anarchists had presented a "dispersed, incoherent and atomised line of battle".[64] They concluded that the working class needed stronger organisation in order to takecollective action,[65] and thus called for the CNT to take control of the country's varioussocial movements.[64] On the other hand, the insurrection had convinced the FAI of the practicability of revolutionary anarchism and libertarian communism, while the anarchist magazineLa Revista Blanca declared that "the downfall ofbourgeois society is at hand".[66] Meanwhile,left communists pointed to the insurrection as an example of apolitical revolution, in which revolutionaries had attempted to seize political power through executive committees.[67] TheWorkers and Peasants' Bloc (BOC), aMarxist party which had attracted a number of CNT members into its ranks, proclaimed that anarchism had "ceased to exist" and that the Marxist thesis of seizing political power had been accepted by the working class.[68] The insurrection also raised the issue of libertarian communism withliberal intellectuals, withSalvador de Madariaga mocking the revolutionaries for the impracticability of their ideas, which he described asQuixotism.[69]
On 19 February, anarchist agitatorFederica Montseny published the article "¡Yo Acuso!", in which she criticised the CNT's leaders for failing to provide a prompt and sufficient response to the uprising.[70] Montseny herself believed that the reason for Pestaña's behaviour was that theCatalan government had promised him anofficial position. Her father,Joan Montseny, launched asmear campaign against Pestaña in the newspaperEl Luchador.[71] Anarchist militantJoan Garcia Oliver also accused Pestaña of having sabotaged the National Committee's call for a general strike, alleging that he had sent letters to the CNT's each regional committee saying that all other regional committee already opposed a general strike. Pestaña responded that he believed the proposals for a general strike had been used as pretext to impose adictatorship within the CNT, prompting a wave of demands for him to resign, including from 200 CNT prisoners inLa Model.[10] A general meeting of the CNT's regional committees denounced the anti-Pestaña campaign for dividing and weakening the anarchist movement,[71] but by March 1932, Pestaña had resigned as General Secretary.[70] He was succeeded by the revolutionary anarchistManuel Rivas,[72] who presided over a new National Committee dominated by activists fromaffinity groups, includingMarcos Alcón,José Ramos,Ricardo Sanz andMiguel Terrén.[64] On 29 May, the CNT National Committee called a national day of protest.[73] This ultimately resulted the severance of the previously cordial relations between the CNT and theleft-wing nationalists of the ERC.[74]
As a wave of strikes erupted in Catalonia, in late April 1932, a regional plenum of the CNT was held inSabadell, where up to 300 delegates represented up to 250,000 workers. By this time, the union rank-and-file had turned decisively against thetreintistas, with the plenum electing thefaistaAlejandro Gilabert as the new regional secretary of the CNT in Catalonia.[75] The plenum also voted to expel local CNT branches inLleida,Girona andTarragona, which had come under the influence of the BOC.[76] The local branch of the CNT in Sabadell was itself heavily influenced by thetreintistas, who sought to use it to regain control of the CNT.[77] In September 1932, the Sabadell branch began to withholdunion dues from the Catalan regional committee, which responded by expelling it from the CNT; they were soon followed by other unions in Valencia.[78] These Catalan and Valencian unions, representing 60,000 workers, reorganised into theOpposition Unions, which hoped to eventually rejoin the CNT.[79] The split was criticised by the nascentLibertarian Youth (FIJL), who accused the Opposition Unions of seeking affiliation with political parties.[80] At this time, Pestaña himself was expelled from his own metalworkers' union. He continued to upholdgradualism, going on to establish theSyndicalist Party, while other reformist figures such asJoan Peiró andJuan López Sánchez eventually rejoined the CNT.[81]
By late 1932, the collapse of the reformist faction of the CNT led to many members of the FAI merging back into the CNT's union structures, particularly its Defense Committees.[82] At this time, leaders of the social movements which thetreintistas had sought to control were already preparing for another insurrection.[83] The CNT defense committees had come to see the Alt LLobregat insurrection as proof that revolution was possible. Inspired by the insurrection, political theorists also began publishing articles and pamphlets about the organisation of a libertarian communist society, withIsaac Puente's libertarian communist programme even being adopted by the FAI and later the CNT at large.[84] In January 1933, the Regional Defense Committee of Catalonia launched anotherinsurrection.[85] This one spread throughout much of Spain, before it was violently suppressed. In the immediate aftermath, the police carried out amassacre against workers in the Andalusian town ofCasas Viejas.[86]
