Some Sources on the Spanish Revolution of 1936

We’ve recently posted some material connected to the Spanish Revolution. Spain : July 19 1936-July 19 1937 by Augustin Souchy was published in New York in 1937. ‘With the conclusion of the anti-fascist war, the Spanish proletariat will not be satisfied with a Republican capitalist system. Spain will have peace only when her hopes for a more just social system are realized.’ [https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/kprtcf] Gaston Leval’s Social Reconstruction In Spain was published in London in 1938. ‘On the 24th of July, five days after the outbreak of the military insurrection, the tramway-men of Barcelona decided at a meeting of their trade-union to run the whole enterprise themselves. The directors and the technical personnel had left, were hiding or were abroad. The workers had to depend on themselves.’ [https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/vmcxt3]

We have also made available four issues of Workers’ Free Press from Glasgow from 1937-38 [https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/sn0570]. They contain radical eyewitness accounts from Spain: ‘As Anarchists we ought to understand that Fascism is not something new, some new force of evil opposed to society, but it is only the old enemy, Capitalism, under a new and fearful sounding name.’ (‘The Anarchists in Spain : A Reply to Emma Goldman’, by Ethel MacDoanld in issue 3). ‘Workers moved about no longer with cheerful gaiety but with frowns on their brows. The Bourgeoisie looked sleek and sure of itself. Shopkeepers no longer gave the Red Salute. Barrel organs no longer played the “Internationale” or “Hijos del Pueblo”. Patriotic airs and jazz took over.’ (Barcelona after the Maydays, as described in ‘With the Workers’ Militias in Spain’ by Charles Doran in issue 3-4). We should also note the solidarity the Workers’ Free Press showed with the POUM. [Bought this with KSL Friends’ donations.] 

Cipriano Mera was a Madrid anarcho-syndicalist who rose to high military rank after the militarisation of the militias, and was imprisoned in Spain after the civil war. In exile he went back to being a bricklayer. We have posted a biographical tribute pamphlet Cipriano Mera : Thirty Years Gone [https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/kd53k8]. The pamphlet records his political struggles (Mera was expelled from the CNT by the bureaucrats, yet still saw himself as belonging to it) but also gives personal insights (giving not just his own jacket, but on one occasion his son’s to someone who needed it more!) In 1976 Suceso Portales wrote an obituary for Mera [https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/q83dxw]. A new article about Mera by Julián Vadillo Muñoz is in Germinal: revista de estudios libertario no.20.

The podcast ‘Short History Of the Spanish Civil War’ managed not to mention the revolution once in 49 minutes but it did quote from Mika Etchebéhère’s account of fighting in Sigüenza. [Podcast at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0nhjztx] Formerly an anarchist, Etchebéhère fought in a POUM unit. A biography by Horacio Tarcus, Mika’s tribute to her husband (who was killed fighting in the same unit) and Cipriano Mera’s account of meeting her during the war are all available via https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/6hdt5n. Interestingly both Etchebéhère and Mera helped the revolting students in Paris in May 1968.

Finally, we have just posted Versus the State : Theses on War, Revolution and Proletariat, a new book of essays by Agustín Guillamón. Our readers will know of his concern with the history of the Spanish Revolution and the Friends of Durruti (though the book is wide ranging, and not only concerned with history!) ‘The main historical lesson of 1936 remains, to this day, the need for the utter destruction of the capitalist State by means of revolutionary bodies emerging from the working class itself. And precisely because that revolution actually happened – albeit that it was defeated – it remains vital that it be studied without any dogmas, catechisms or doctrinal blinkers.’ [https://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/4qrhf5]

Image: Wood- or linocut from Workers’ Free Press, No.7 and 8, March-April 1938.