A Short Introduction To Anarchism During The Spanish Civil War

The Spanish civil war was one of the most crucial events of the twentieth century and has therefore been intensively studied, yet there are surprising gaps in these studies. In the first few months of the civil war there was a social revolution of unprecedented scale, it had no “revolutionary vanguard” and was largely spontaneous. The revolution originated in both industrial and rural areas, which was contrary to the Marxist belief that the revolution would only occur among the industrial working classes. The direction the revolution took was determined by Spanish traditions and anarchist theory. One of the important factors that distinguish the Spanish Labour movement from similar movements in the rest of Europe is that it is not dominated by Marxist ideals but by anarchist philosophy.