Trying to understand the anarchist movement in Barcelona, Catalonia, and the surrounding area in the early 20th century is by no means easy, but ultimately it is a phenomenon that is by no means new – it is a class struggle in the truest sense, which emerged, as in so many other parts of Europe and the Americas, with the development of the Industrial Revolution, when the bourgeoisie required a large workforce in the cities or in the industrial regions, and steam-powered machinery began to drive mass production; and so, faced with the need for a large workforce, the great migrations of the modern world began.
Initially, workers were offered appalling working and living conditions, and the bourgeoisie and capital paid scant heed to the needs that arose upon their arrival in the major cities.
All this took place against the backdrop of the First World War, during which Catalonia became the breadbasket of belligerent Europe.
This led to the amassing of great fortunes, following in the footsteps of the “Indianos” (returnees from the Americas), many of whom had already made their fortunes through the slave trade in the Americas during the 18th and 19th centuries.
On the other hand, the proletariat moved from the countryside to the city, fleeing the large estates where famine prevailed across much of Spain, in search of work to feed their children. By the start of the 20th century, as Joaquín Costa from Aragon noted, workers in the cities lived in veritable pigsties amongst the animals, whether in Paris, London, New York or Barcelona, where tuberculosis, cholera, measles and other diseases were wreaking havoc, particularly in working-class tenements with barely any ventilation, which is why the major cities had a higher mortality rate than in other towns and rural areas.
And the bourgeoisie—in this case, the Catalan bourgeoisie—eventually made use of all the state’s paramilitary forces to suppress trade union demands and social improvements that were not intended for the working class; these improvements had to be won day by day, through no small number of struggles and demands for social reform.
Not content with all the state’s police forces, employers had to hire and set up a syndicate of gunmen to assassinate the most militant workers, often applying the “law of flight/escapes“.
Thus, the imaginary of 20th-century cities had to be constructed, and the demands—not always well understood—took time to be fought for.
Meanwhile, the workers in Barcelona realised that, in order to debate and counter the arguments of the bourgeoisie, they had to educate themselves and acquire knowledge; and this thirst for learning spread even to those who could not read or write, and so it was that, first in the Andalusian farmlands and later in the dark corners of the Catalan working-class neighbourhoods, those who could read and write would, by the light of an oil lamp at night, read the newspapers that couriers brought from here and there, from across the Atlantic; later came the Ateneos as true temples of knowledge.
So, it all began with a hunger and curiosity for knowledge, so that one day they might be able to counter the tricks of the bourgeoisie, who always sought to mislead and manipulate the thinking of the workers, deceiving them time and time again.
There were moments of insurrection, which were short-lived due to a lack of organisation and conviction, but the constant activism of many anarcho-syndicalists – such as Ramón Archs, Adelaida Bou, Joan Pey, Salvador Seguí, Bruno Lladó, Ada Martí Vall, Pere Vandellós, Manuel Escorza, Mercedes Comaposada and a very long list of others. Through this, in the early years of the 20th century, they were able to organise the construction of the “parallel society” which they had, in a sense, structured at the 1918 Sants Regional Congress in Barcelona, ratified at the National Congress the following year, held at the Teatro de la Comedia in Madrid in 1919 – a period in which the workers, through consumer cooperatives, staff shops, the Tenants’ Defence Union, building cooperatives, rationalist schools, anarcho-syndicalist trade unions, libertarian and popular cultural centres, and the constant publication of books, pamphlets and magazines across all cultural and social spheres, collectively built a way of life that was a complete alternative to what capitalism had to offer.
Together, these projects gave rise to a daily revolutionary practice amidst the institutional violence—which we have outlined above—experienced by the workers and their families.
This climate of repression, prior to the revolution and the war, was experienced by at least three generations of workers, who possessed an unprecedented sense of solidarity and dignity, which fostered in them the belief that a change in their lives (revolution) was possible and that they could oust a bourgeoisie that had shown them no scruples whatsoever.
One need only recall, for example, the “social peace” of which the civil and military governor Severiano Martínez Anido spoke; he drew up a list of 80 anarcho-syndicalists to be assassinated, thereby achieving what he defined as “social peace~” – undoubtedly the social peace of the graveyards.
And then came the moment of the great test that everyone had been awaiting: the armed insurrection by the Spanish army on the 17th of July 1936 in Morocco. As they waited for the army to rise up in Barcelona in the early hours of the 19th of July 1936, the workers—restless and impatient—longed for the moment to strike back. The weapons that had remained hidden from earlier uprisings of the 1930s were brought out, and with them they confronted an army that had assumed this would be a walk in the park, as in previous years – such as October 1934, when the anarchists, for the most part, did not take part in that clash, at least in Barcelona.
The fighting and control of the streets of Barcelona on 19 and 20 July 1936 was effectively waged by the workers of the CNT-AIT, who held back the troops of the rebel army in Barcelona, which were directing all their columns towards the city centre and the port of Barcelona to link up with General Goded, who, having just arrived from Mallorca, was to lead the uprising in the city.
It was only on that day, when fortune had already turned in favour of the people—defended by the CNT-AIT workers—that a section of the Civil Guard joined the workers in the struggle to uphold the existing law.
The major battles in the city of Barcelona took place on Diagonal/Passeig de Gràcia, at Plaça Catalunya opposite the Telefónica building (Hotel Colón and the Military Casino), on Passeig Parallel (Brecha de Sant Pau, Molino and Carrer Rosal), and culminated at Atarazanas the following day with the death of Francisco Ascaso.
It was only once the armed violence in Barcelona had ended that what we understand as the Spanish Revolution truly took shape, and the protagonists of that story were, without a doubt, the people of Barcelona alongside the CNT-AIT, who were out on the streets and were aware that, as García Oliver said, “We can defeat the army”.
At that moment, faced with the dilemma of “going all out” or waiting, they decided that the latter was unfeasible, as fascism was just 300 kilometres away in Zaragoza, but also lurking in the shadows of the night in the city of Barcelona itself, where much fascism still lay in wait; consequently, the full breadth of the political spectrum was needed to confront the fascism before them. Consequently, following various meetings with the Catalan authorities, Lluís Companys, and the assemblies of the Libertarian Movement on 21 and 23 July 1936, it was decided to establish the Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, in which all political and trade union groups would be represented, with the anarchists of the CNT-AIT and the FAI carrying considerable weight.
The revolution was underway, as was the counter-revolution fomented by the newly formed Communist Party in Catalonia, the PSUC.
Firstly, we say that the revolution was underway because all the critical sectors of the economy were immediately socialised, such as the power stations – known as “La Canadiense” – , the oil refineries which at that time were located in the Badalona area, transport, including the underground, trams and buses, and other sectors such as the war industry through the CNT-AIT’s metalworkers’ and chemical workers’ unions. And shortly afterwards, this extended to areas such as the timber industry, which took on the construction of buildings as well as the manufacture of furniture and household goods using timber available in the area, and even the entertainment workers’ union, for example.
Secondly, the collectivisation of all enterprises, covering every aspect of daily life, including grouping them by sector, such as barbers’ shops, livestock farms, dairies, hardware shops, etc.
Thirdly, the education of children through the CENU (Unified New School Council) and free education for those schools or teachers who did not join the CENU project, under the motto “No child without a school, no school without a teacher”; free and open education.
Fourthly, the food workers’ union, which became the “Sindicato de Abastos” (Food Supply Union) and sought, through soup kitchens, to ensure that the population was well fed and, above all, that displaced people arriving in the city received social support.
Fifth, security was ensured through patrols on the lookout for “fifth columnists” – that is, the fascists who operated under cover of night to destabilise the revolution – and through the People’s Tribunals, which sought to adjudicate fairly on everyday disputes and, for the first time, provided free and impartial justice for disputes between private individuals.
Sixth, the reduction of housing rents by 50 per cent or more; in towns such as Badalona, the abolition of private home ownership was even decreed, with housing becoming communal property.
Seventh, healthcare: initially, in July and August 1936, free healthcare promoted by the CNT-AIT was launched at a hospital exclusively for women at 388 Provença Street; shortly afterwards, this free service for women was extended to what is now the Pilar Clinic at 271 Balmes Street, and at the field hospital set up on Montserrat Avenue by Swiss athletes for the People’s Olympics.
What remains of all that today? I would say nothing.
We have a society that has been emasculated and terribly manipulated, a society that is very submissive. It has been brought up on a diet of fear, educated to “obey rather than to think independently and critically”.
Despite everything, fortunately, there are always pockets of resistance to be found in the initiatives of thousands of social cooperatives, which are trying to build a self-managed and participatory economy, both in terms of consumption – with co-ops, particularly for food, operating in direct contact with farmers and other sectors, which have spread through a large part of Catalonia, anarcho-syndicalists who are trying to create trade union structures that allow them to be supportive, autonomous and assertive, and mutual aid organisations such as the PAH and the Sindicat de Llogateres, which today are one of the umbilical cords linking us to the struggles of the 1930s, of those dispossessed of the land in our own country.
There are also some interesting examples of co-operative initiatives in the construction sector, such as “La Borda“, and new initiatives emerging in this area of housing. It is also worth recalling some educational initiatives, such as “Paideia” in Extremadura – which has been running since the 1980s, initially under Josefa Martín Luengo, who paved the way for other similiar projects: “Arcadia” in Barcelona, bringing to mind another recent initiative at “La Pinya”, also in Barcelona.
Meanwhile, there are the trade unions, the CGT, which has a significant number of members, ranging from separatists to Marxists and anarchists, who contribute in a striking way to raising the profile of anarcho-syndicalist demands on the streets. And the two CNTs: the traditional CNT-AIT, the one that was capable of bringing about a social revolution in 1936, and a new CNT-CIT, whose trajectory we are unfamiliar with, as it lacks a history of its own and appears to have appropriated the history of others, as well as the “Solidaridad Obrera” trade union, which has little presence in Catalonia, but does appear to make its presence felt in the centre of the peninsula.
The Bakuninist principles of fighting against the State are somewhat diluted in this new phase of resistance and survival, whilst we await better times for the anarcho-syndicalism of the people, who are fighting for their freedom.
Meanwhile, there are emerging groups of disaffected anarchists, squatters and members of cultural associations, amongst others, who have little to do with anarcho-syndicalism; though fortunately this form of anarchism retains its own autonomy, and I hope it will be able to respond to all those who invest in the State, however difficult it may be to survive within it or against it. The dignity of the Bakuninist project is what counts and what cries out: FREEDOM!
Thus, there is still a long way to go, and fortunately there are many unlabelled anarchist groups—who are the ones who must find those cracks in the State, which comrades such as the primitivist John Zerzan himself, or Murray Bookchin with his libertarian municipalism, so strongly advocate—as paths to emancipation from this capitalism that so suffocates the community.
“To the Barricades” (1936)
Written by Valeriano Orobón Fernández in 1936, “To the Barricades” (“A las barricadas“) was one of the most popular anarcho-socialist ballad during the Spanish Civil War.
Lyrics
Black storms agitate the winds Dark clouds won’t allow us to see Though pain and death may await us, Against the enemy by duty we are called.
The most precious good is liberty, And it must be defended with faith and courage.
Raise the revolutionary flag which from triumph unceasingly bears us high Worker, on your feet. To battle! Reaction must be overthrown.
To the barricades, to the barricades! For the triumph of the Confederation!
The 90th anniversary of the spanish revolution, today
Manel Aisa Pàmpols, Redes Libertarias, 20/07/2026
Trying to understand the anarchist movement in Barcelona, Catalonia, and the surrounding area in the early 20th century is by no means easy, but ultimately it is a phenomenon that is by no means new – it is a class struggle in the truest sense, which emerged, as in so many other parts of Europe and the Americas, with the development of the Industrial Revolution, when the bourgeoisie required a large workforce in the cities or in the industrial regions, and steam-powered machinery began to drive mass production; and so, faced with the need for a large workforce, the great migrations of the modern world began.
Initially, workers were offered appalling working and living conditions, and the bourgeoisie and capital paid scant heed to the needs that arose upon their arrival in the major cities.
All this took place against the backdrop of the First World War, during which Catalonia became the breadbasket of belligerent Europe.
This led to the amassing of great fortunes, following in the footsteps of the “Indianos” (returnees from the Americas), many of whom had already made their fortunes through the slave trade in the Americas during the 18th and 19th centuries.
On the other hand, the proletariat moved from the countryside to the city, fleeing the large estates where famine prevailed across much of Spain, in search of work to feed their children. By the start of the 20th century, as Joaquín Costa from Aragon noted, workers in the cities lived in veritable pigsties amongst the animals, whether in Paris, London, New York or Barcelona, where tuberculosis, cholera, measles and other diseases were wreaking havoc, particularly in working-class tenements with barely any ventilation, which is why the major cities had a higher mortality rate than in other towns and rural areas.
And the bourgeoisie—in this case, the Catalan bourgeoisie—eventually made use of all the state’s paramilitary forces to suppress trade union demands and social improvements that were not intended for the working class; these improvements had to be won day by day, through no small number of struggles and demands for social reform.
Not content with all the state’s police forces, employers had to hire and set up a syndicate of gunmen to assassinate the most militant workers, often applying the “law of flight/escapes“.
Thus, the imaginary of 20th-century cities had to be constructed, and the demands—not always well understood—took time to be fought for.
Meanwhile, the workers in Barcelona realised that, in order to debate and counter the arguments of the bourgeoisie, they had to educate themselves and acquire knowledge; and this thirst for learning spread even to those who could not read or write, and so it was that, first in the Andalusian farmlands and later in the dark corners of the Catalan working-class neighbourhoods, those who could read and write would, by the light of an oil lamp at night, read the newspapers that couriers brought from here and there, from across the Atlantic; later came the Ateneos as true temples of knowledge.
So, it all began with a hunger and curiosity for knowledge, so that one day they might be able to counter the tricks of the bourgeoisie, who always sought to mislead and manipulate the thinking of the workers, deceiving them time and time again.
There were moments of insurrection, which were short-lived due to a lack of organisation and conviction, but the constant activism of many anarcho-syndicalists – such as Ramón Archs, Adelaida Bou, Joan Pey, Salvador Seguí, Bruno Lladó, Ada Martí Vall, Pere Vandellós, Manuel Escorza, Mercedes Comaposada and a very long list of others. Through this, in the early years of the 20th century, they were able to organise the construction of the “parallel society” which they had, in a sense, structured at the 1918 Sants Regional Congress in Barcelona, ratified at the National Congress the following year, held at the Teatro de la Comedia in Madrid in 1919 – a period in which the workers, through consumer cooperatives, staff shops, the Tenants’ Defence Union, building cooperatives, rationalist schools, anarcho-syndicalist trade unions, libertarian and popular cultural centres, and the constant publication of books, pamphlets and magazines across all cultural and social spheres, collectively built a way of life that was a complete alternative to what capitalism had to offer.
Together, these projects gave rise to a daily revolutionary practice amidst the institutional violence—which we have outlined above—experienced by the workers and their families.
This climate of repression, prior to the revolution and the war, was experienced by at least three generations of workers, who possessed an unprecedented sense of solidarity and dignity, which fostered in them the belief that a change in their lives (revolution) was possible and that they could oust a bourgeoisie that had shown them no scruples whatsoever.
One need only recall, for example, the “social peace” of which the civil and military governor Severiano Martínez Anido spoke; he drew up a list of 80 anarcho-syndicalists to be assassinated, thereby achieving what he defined as “social peace~” – undoubtedly the social peace of the graveyards.
And then came the moment of the great test that everyone had been awaiting: the armed insurrection by the Spanish army on the 17th of July 1936 in Morocco. As they waited for the army to rise up in Barcelona in the early hours of the 19th of July 1936, the workers—restless and impatient—longed for the moment to strike back. The weapons that had remained hidden from earlier uprisings of the 1930s were brought out, and with them they confronted an army that had assumed this would be a walk in the park, as in previous years – such as October 1934, when the anarchists, for the most part, did not take part in that clash, at least in Barcelona.
The fighting and control of the streets of Barcelona on 19 and 20 July 1936 was effectively waged by the workers of the CNT-AIT, who held back the troops of the rebel army in Barcelona, which were directing all their columns towards the city centre and the port of Barcelona to link up with General Goded, who, having just arrived from Mallorca, was to lead the uprising in the city.
It was only on that day, when fortune had already turned in favour of the people—defended by the CNT-AIT workers—that a section of the Civil Guard joined the workers in the struggle to uphold the existing law.
The major battles in the city of Barcelona took place on Diagonal/Passeig de Gràcia, at Plaça Catalunya opposite the Telefónica building (Hotel Colón and the Military Casino), on Passeig Parallel (Brecha de Sant Pau, Molino and Carrer Rosal), and culminated at Atarazanas the following day with the death of Francisco Ascaso.
It was only once the armed violence in Barcelona had ended that what we understand as the Spanish Revolution truly took shape, and the protagonists of that story were, without a doubt, the people of Barcelona alongside the CNT-AIT, who were out on the streets and were aware that, as García Oliver said, “We can defeat the army”.
At that moment, faced with the dilemma of “going all out” or waiting, they decided that the latter was unfeasible, as fascism was just 300 kilometres away in Zaragoza, but also lurking in the shadows of the night in the city of Barcelona itself, where much fascism still lay in wait; consequently, the full breadth of the political spectrum was needed to confront the fascism before them. Consequently, following various meetings with the Catalan authorities, Lluís Companys, and the assemblies of the Libertarian Movement on 21 and 23 July 1936, it was decided to establish the Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, in which all political and trade union groups would be represented, with the anarchists of the CNT-AIT and the FAI carrying considerable weight.
The revolution was underway, as was the counter-revolution fomented by the newly formed Communist Party in Catalonia, the PSUC.
Firstly, we say that the revolution was underway because all the critical sectors of the economy were immediately socialised, such as the power stations – known as “La Canadiense” – , the oil refineries which at that time were located in the Badalona area, transport, including the underground, trams and buses, and other sectors such as the war industry through the CNT-AIT’s metalworkers’ and chemical workers’ unions. And shortly afterwards, this extended to areas such as the timber industry, which took on the construction of buildings as well as the manufacture of furniture and household goods using timber available in the area, and even the entertainment workers’ union, for example.
Secondly, the collectivisation of all enterprises, covering every aspect of daily life, including grouping them by sector, such as barbers’ shops, livestock farms, dairies, hardware shops, etc.
Thirdly, the education of children through the CENU (Unified New School Council) and free education for those schools or teachers who did not join the CENU project, under the motto “No child without a school, no school without a teacher”; free and open education.
Fourthly, the food workers’ union, which became the “Sindicato de Abastos” (Food Supply Union) and sought, through soup kitchens, to ensure that the population was well fed and, above all, that displaced people arriving in the city received social support.
Fifth, security was ensured through patrols on the lookout for “fifth columnists” – that is, the fascists who operated under cover of night to destabilise the revolution – and through the People’s Tribunals, which sought to adjudicate fairly on everyday disputes and, for the first time, provided free and impartial justice for disputes between private individuals.
Sixth, the reduction of housing rents by 50 per cent or more; in towns such as Badalona, the abolition of private home ownership was even decreed, with housing becoming communal property.
Seventh, healthcare: initially, in July and August 1936, free healthcare promoted by the CNT-AIT was launched at a hospital exclusively for women at 388 Provença Street; shortly afterwards, this free service for women was extended to what is now the Pilar Clinic at 271 Balmes Street, and at the field hospital set up on Montserrat Avenue by Swiss athletes for the People’s Olympics.
What remains of all that today? I would say nothing.
We have a society that has been emasculated and terribly manipulated, a society that is very submissive. It has been brought up on a diet of fear, educated to “obey rather than to think independently and critically”.
Despite everything, fortunately, there are always pockets of resistance to be found in the initiatives of thousands of social cooperatives, which are trying to build a self-managed and participatory economy, both in terms of consumption – with co-ops, particularly for food, operating in direct contact with farmers and other sectors, which have spread through a large part of Catalonia, anarcho-syndicalists who are trying to create trade union structures that allow them to be supportive, autonomous and assertive, and mutual aid organisations such as the PAH and the Sindicat de Llogateres, which today are one of the umbilical cords linking us to the struggles of the 1930s, of those dispossessed of the land in our own country.
There are also some interesting examples of co-operative initiatives in the construction sector, such as “La Borda“, and new initiatives emerging in this area of housing. It is also worth recalling some educational initiatives, such as “Paideia” in Extremadura – which has been running since the 1980s, initially under Josefa Martín Luengo, who paved the way for other similiar projects: “Arcadia” in Barcelona, bringing to mind another recent initiative at “La Pinya”, also in Barcelona.
Meanwhile, there are the trade unions, the CGT, which has a significant number of members, ranging from separatists to Marxists and anarchists, who contribute in a striking way to raising the profile of anarcho-syndicalist demands on the streets. And the two CNTs: the traditional CNT-AIT, the one that was capable of bringing about a social revolution in 1936, and a new CNT-CIT, whose trajectory we are unfamiliar with, as it lacks a history of its own and appears to have appropriated the history of others, as well as the “Solidaridad Obrera” trade union, which has little presence in Catalonia, but does appear to make its presence felt in the centre of the peninsula.
The Bakuninist principles of fighting against the State are somewhat diluted in this new phase of resistance and survival, whilst we await better times for the anarcho-syndicalism of the people, who are fighting for their freedom.
Meanwhile, there are emerging groups of disaffected anarchists, squatters and members of cultural associations, amongst others, who have little to do with anarcho-syndicalism; though fortunately this form of anarchism retains its own autonomy, and I hope it will be able to respond to all those who invest in the State, however difficult it may be to survive within it or against it. The dignity of the Bakuninist project is what counts and what cries out: FREEDOM!
Thus, there is still a long way to go, and fortunately there are many unlabelled anarchist groups—who are the ones who must find those cracks in the State, which comrades such as the primitivist John Zerzan himself, or Murray Bookchin with his libertarian municipalism, so strongly advocate—as paths to emancipation from this capitalism that so suffocates the community.
“To the Barricades” (1936)
Written by Valeriano Orobón Fernández in 1936, “To the Barricades” (“A las barricadas“) was one of the most popular anarcho-socialist ballad during the Spanish Civil War.
Lyrics
Black storms agitate the winds
Dark clouds won’t allow us to see
Though pain and death may await us,
Against the enemy by duty we are called.
The most precious good is liberty,
And it must be defended with faith and courage.
Raise the revolutionary flag which from triumph unceasingly bears us high
Worker, on your feet. To battle!
Reaction must be overthrown.
To the barricades, to the barricades!
For the triumph of the Confederation!
(Source: https://www.brianjgriffith.com/interwarcrisis/to-the-barricades-1936/)