Spanish Civil War Research Paper
The Spanish civil war began in response to the fascist uprising led by General Francisco Franco in Spain. It came to embody the fight between working class and the bourgeoise. The working class was guided in part by the Anarchists and faced the challenge that most oppositional movements face and that is the balance of organization and demands. Movements often fail due to focus of on the winning of their movement rather than what will lead to the implication of their goals. This complete focus on one part of the movement leads to faults internally and externally within the movement. The Anarchists, therefore, dealt with the need for efficient organization and their demands for total equality by allowing both to exist side by side and…
One of
the ways that the anarchist in the Spanish civil war dealt with the tension between the need for efficient organization and their demand for equality was by not allowing both issues to battle each other but instead coexist. The anarchists took what they believed in not only limited to equality but also the opposing of small minority power over the masses and applied it to their movement. As noted by the Anarchist Library saying
" the workers and peasants had created their own institutions to administer the cities in Republican Spain, formed their own armed workers’ squads to patrol the streets, and established a remarkable revolutionary militia force with which to fight the Francoist troops — a voluntaristic militia in which men and women elected their own commanders and in which military rank conferred no social, material, or symbolic distinctions”
The factors that would lead to win for the anarchist such as control of institutions and a militia had not only the working class in them but also leading them as well. It showcased that equality can be implemented even before the end goal of total equality was reached. The demand for equality was part of the organization tactic for the Anarchists rather than a part of their driving factors. In using what they embody into their organization, the anarchist saw a movement that was not just a war to defeat the fascists but the beginning of a revolution (lib.com)
One of
the ways that the anarchist in the Spanish civil war dealt with the tension between the need for efficient organization and their demand for equality was by not allowing both issues to battle each other but instead coexist. The anarchists took what they believed in not only limited to equality but also the opposing of small minority power over the masses and applied it to their movement. As noted by the Anarchist Library saying
" the workers and peasants had created their own institutions to administer the cities in Republican Spain, formed their own armed workers’ squads to patrol the streets, and established a remarkable revolutionary militia force with which to fight the Francoist troops — a voluntaristic militia in which men and women elected their own commanders and in which military rank conferred no social, material, or symbolic distinctions”
The factors that would lead to win for the anarchist such as control of institutions and a militia had not only the working class in them but also leading them as well. It showcased that equality can be implemented even before the end goal of total equality was reached. The demand for equality was part of the organization tactic for the Anarchists rather than a part of their driving factors. In using what they embody into their organization, the anarchist saw a movement that was not just a war to defeat the fascists but the beginning of a revolution (lib.com)