To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936 by Murray Bookchin

To Remember Spain: The Anarchist and Syndicalist Revolution of 1936 Reviews

• 
  Lori

  A fascinating, and enticing overview of misrepresented, avoided, or forgotten aspects of the "Spanish Civil War"—or more precisely, the Spanish Revolution.
  
  Two million people, self-organized and started a proletarian revolution the likes of which have not been seen before. And in this revolution Murray Bookchin identifies the good aspects—which he traces back to the 1870s—and the bad aspects so that we might learn. Unfortunately, he also points out that current historical circumstances will never give rise to a revolution of this type, and I agree. So it is the responsibility of contemporary revolutionary movements to find new ways to overcome the bleak reality we're facing.
  
  My favorite passage, which the author delivers with his usual finesse:
  "What was lost in Spain was the most magnificent proletariat that radical movements had ever seen either before or after 1936-39 — a classical working class in the finest socialist and anarchist sense of the term. It was a proletariat that was destroyed not by a growing material interest in bourgeois society but by physical extermination. This occurred largely amidst a conspiracy of silence by the international press in which the liberal establishment played no less a role than the Communists."
• 
  Josh

  Reading it on the soil, it is hard to imagine here, but Bookchin brings great insight as always from history's lessons.
• 
  C.

  Communists suck. (comunistas chupar).
• 
  Luke

  Decent reminders to look at the strengths of the Spanish Civil War's anarchist organization and revolution in societal structure, broken as much by the statist Lefists as by Franco? But as 3 small overview essays, it does not defend this position with much.
• 
  Fergus Murray

  Fascinating history and analysis.
• 
  —

  Thorough and lucid. Engaging subject matter, and valuable perspective. A litte short.
• 
  Steven Peterson

  Murray Bookchin is a fascinating author. He wrote a number of works on libertarian and anarchist issues. Unlike many, who are naïve and don’t have a hard-eyed view of matters, he examined such issues in a critical manner. Just so, this (too) brief work.
  
  Some years earlier, Bookchin had authored a work on the development of the Spanish anarchist and syndicalist movement, starting in the latter third of the 19th century. His telling of Fanelli’s visit, trying to communicate Bakunin’s ideas in Italian to a Spanish audience is quite a vision! In that work, Bookchin traces the development of the movement in Spain up until the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936). This is his sequel, covering the anarchist and syndicalist revolution in Spain, from 1936 to the victory by General Franco.
  
  Up front, I must say that the book is a bit of a disappointment. It is not even 70 pages long; it is comprised of two previously published works. While there is much insight here, there is not much depth of analysis. But what he has to say is to the point and provocative and, as one would guess, hard-eyed.
  
  A key point that he makes: this period, 1936-1939, is normally referred to as the Spanish Civil War. He argues that that fundamentally misunderstands (or consciously distorts) some of the most important events. He says that there was a genuine revolution taking place—from the city of Barcelona to the rural areas of Spain. An anarchist and syndicalist revolution, where peasants and workers spontaneously developed self-governing units and used anarchosyndicalist methods to organize production and distribution.
  
  The movement ultimately failed, due, partly, to the failures of the anarchists themselves (they begin to develop more hierarchical structures, participated in the government, and undermined their cause). Other factors: the enmity that the communists had toward the anarchists and how they translated that into undermining the anarchists, the dithering Republican government, and the power of Franco’s forces. Very hard-nosed analysis.
  
  He also lays out the contributions, especially in rural areas, for anarchist practice. Most judge anarchism to be wildly impractical. Bookchin tries to make the case that the evidence on the ground showed some successes until Franco triumphed.
  
  Whatever one thinks of his argument, this is an interesting volume, simply, for speaking to the case that there was a real revolution trying to take place within a Civil War. While the book is too brief, it is thought-provoking and might interest those interested in such issues.
  
• 
  Vallan

  good book. near the end of the book: "Whether the American left shares with the Spanish left the popular legacy that the latter cleansed and rescued from the right is a crucial problem ... insofar as the anarchists gave these traditions coherence and a radical thrust, converting them into a radical culture, not merely a contrived "program," they survived generations of incredible persecution and repression"
  my biggest beef here? bookchin is pretty cynical about the possiblity of a repeat of something resembling the Spanish Civil War but never really evidenced the assertion to my satisfaction, giving reasons that amount to "things have changed". ya know, i don't even entirely disagree, at least with regards to trench warfare's obsolescence, but it's not your strongest argument bookchin.
  good cnt fai primer. can't remember if it's any better than "lessons of the spanish civil war". "lessons" is probably a lil' more thorough. though bookchin is probly more critical of cnt bureaucratization and fai adventurism.
• 
  Graham

  If a fairly didactic examination of the relationship between communists and anarcho-syndicalists in the power struggles of post-monarchy, pre-Franco Spain seems like something up your alley, by all means get this. The historical analysis is interesting and concise (mercifully so, considering how bogged these tracts can get intheir own revolutionary verbiage), but whoever edited this should be fired. An inability to use even basic punctuation properly could very easily hinder any progressive authors who might intend to be taken seriously as writers and not just polemicists. Possibly a nit-picky point, but one worth considering, especially considering how glaring the errors tended to be.