Anarchism In The Spanish Civil War

The final attempt to implement anarchism at a national level occurred in the Spanish civil war and is often cited as a legend within anarchist mythology, containing a various grouping of anarchists, liberals, socialists and Communists. As Eric Blair aka George Orwell, who served with the Trotskyist POUM division remarked in Homage to Catalonia and after the initial euphoria had worn off; ‘’’’. Orwell, a confirmed socialist, later retracted his youthful radicalism when the reality of Stalinism dawned, with such classics as Animal Farm. The anarchists partial success, primarily in Catalonia, lasted only two to three years and involved control by workers committees, unions, plus various militias. The novelty of being governed by mob rule,
The lesson not learned, as with all so-called ‘people’s revolutions’, is the end result of certain collapse, followed by excuses and ending in reassurances that the idea itself is sound. Marx also agreed that the state would eventually wither away under communism, it never did and never has.
Ideologies are judged by results, not beliefs and just as communism provided heaps of corpses as proof and Christianity the inquisitions, witch hunts and crusades, so too the anarchists believed that they could create a stateless and classless society and failed miserably. Anarchism is only one of the many ideologies arising from the late 18th to the mid 20th century in response to a changing world, which saw the end of European absolute monarchies, serfdom and ideas of how society ought to proceed.

That is not to say anarchism faded out entirely. It is still alive and well in some parts of the western world, but at a micro level of small ‘hippy’ like communities, reminiscent of the 60s, whose ideas could never function above that level. This is often cited as proof that anarchism