Spanish Revolution of 1936

Social revolution

Economic

The most notable aspect of the social revolution was the establishment of a libertarian socialist economy based on coordination through decentralized and horizontal federations of participatory industrial collectives and agrarian communes. Andrea Oltmares, professor in the University of Geneva, in the course of an address of some length, said:

"In the midst of the civil war the Anarchists have proved themselves to be political organizers of the first rank. They kindled in everyone the required sense of responsibility, and knew how, by eloquent appeals, to keep alive the spirit of sacrifice for the general welfare of the people. "As a Social Democrat I speak here with inner joy and sincere admiration of my experiences in Catalonia. The anti-capitalist transformation took place here without their having to resort to a dictatorship. The members of the syndicates are their own masters and carry on the production and the distribution of the products of labor under their own management, with the advice of technical experts in whom they have confidence. The enthusiasm of the workers is so great that they scorn any personal advantage and are concerned only for the welfare of all."

— Andrea Oltmares

The key developments of the revolution were those related to the ownership and development of the economy in all its phases: management, production, and distribution. This was accomplished through widespread expropriation and collectivization of privately owned resources, in adherence to the anarchist belief that private property is authoritarian in nature.

The economic changes that followed the military insurrection were no less dramatic than the political. In those provinces where the revolt had failed the workers of the two trade union federations, the Socialist UGT and the Anarchosyndicalist CNT, took into their hands a vast portion of the economy. Landed properties were seized; some were collectivized, others were distributed among the peasants, and notarial archives as well as registers of property were burnt in countless towns and villages. Railways, tramcars and buses, taxicabs and shipping, electric light and power companies, gasworks and waterworks, engineering and automobile assembly plants, mines and cement works, textile mills and paper factories, electrical and chemical concerns, glass bottle factories and perfumeries, food-processing plants and breweries, as well as a host of other enterprises, were confiscated or controlled by workmen's committees, either term possessing for the owners almost equal significance in practice. Motion-picture theatres and legitimate theatres, newspapers and printing shops, department stores and bars, were likewise sequestered or controlled as were the headquarters of business and professional associations and thousands of dwellings owned by the upper class.

— Burnett Bolloten

Numerous experiments with management and control of workers and agrarian collectivizations were carried out throughout the republican territory. In some towns and cities, the transformations were spontaneous and took different paths. However, in a large number of cases the first steps were in imitation of those taken in Barcelona.

Socialized industry

After the coup d'état and the beginning of the civil war, many owners in the republican zone were assassinated, imprisoned, or exiled, thus leaving a multitude of companies and factories without direction. This situation led to the takeover of such entities, sometimes amounting to entire industries, by the unions. Within the industrial sphere the revolution was carried out in different ways. These differences radiated from numerous factors: the disappearance of the owner, the strength and political orientation of the workers' organizations, the existence of foreign capital in the company itself, or even the destination of its products. Faced with this situation, there were three major orientations:

• Workers' control occurred where the existence of foreign capital limited the revolutionary capacity of the workers
• Nationalization occurred in companies with management sympathetic to Soviet communism, and later in all war industries
• Socialization occurred in those industries that did not have a large volume of foreign capital and the political affiliation approached or defended the postulates of the CNT-FAI.

At the beginning of the war, 70% of all the industry in Spain was in Catalonia, which, as the nerve center of the CNT and Spanish anarchism, gave it a great importance within the revolutionary process, being one of the places where some of the most radical revolutionary experiments took place. In all the places where industrial measures were carried out, it is necessary to look at certain factors, such as the type of industry or the implantation of the different workers' organizations and political parties, especially at the beginning of the revolution, when the actions were more broad, when workers had greater freedom of movement and the state had no capacity to oppose them.

Socialization

Socialization consisted of the management of the industry by the workers themselves. On the practical level, it resulted in the abolition of private property by collective management and property, based on the principles of direct action and the anti-authoritarianism of anarchism. In this case, management fell to a board of directors made up of less than fifteen people, in which all the productive and service levels of the company were involved, and in which the trade union centrals had to be proportionally represented. This council was elected in a workers' assembly to which they were responsible. The benefits were distributed among: workers, company, and for social purposes. Within each company was a reserve fund that the assembly could decide to use for social purposes, such as contributions to regional credit unions, the unemployed, or as investments in education and health.

Nationalization

Nationalization denoted the management of the industry by the state. It resulted in the abolition of private property and management. The boards of directors were controlled by the state, and the benefits were adduced to the state and the company itself. It was the choice that the Communist Party defended, since in this way it could weaken the economic power that the CNT held.

Worker control

Worker control involved the creation of workers' committees that would be in charge of controlling working conditions, the cash movements of the companies, and the control of production of companies that remained in private hands, excepting only those that did not have enough personnel to meet the conditions of belonging to a committee. These committees were made up of between three and nine members, they were made up of representatives of the two unions, in a proportional manner, and of all the services and industries that the company dealt with. These representatives were elected in an assembly of the center, an assembly in which it was decided whether a committee also had the right to sign for the movements of funds, the frequency of meetings between the committee and the patron, and the frequency of meetings between them. Committee membership was not remunerated, a term lasted two years, with eligibility for reelection. Members were responsible, for their management of a company, to the assembly of the company and to the General Council of Industry. A committee approved the hours, salary increases and decreases, changes of categories or workplace, and notifications of absences to workers. A committee had to meet once a week to discuss the employer's proposals and to ensure compliance with the official provisions. The employer representation still had the power of the legal representation of the company, the power to contract, the custody of the box, and the signature and the fixing of their remuneration. If the company had a corporation or other commercial model as a legal entity, a member of the committee had to attend the council meetings with voice but without a vote.

Salary

Remuneration for work was one of the points of friction between the anarchist and Marxist views during the revolutionary stage. While the anarchist organizations defended a single family salary, the Marxist organizations defended a staggered salary according to the type of work that was carried out. These differences were motivated by the differing conceptions of the individual and by motivating the individual as a producer. In the first place, while anarchism understands the individual as a subject with needs that must be met, Marxism understands the individual as a producer. Secondly, anarchism holds to the concept that the worker will strive to produce and improve the process while controlling the productive activity. Marxism, on the other hand, understands that the worker will try harder in exchange for receiving a higher remuneration.

Examples of collectivized industries

Film industry

The CNT's Entertainment Union was a model of organization and operation in the confederated media. It was significant that, between 20 and 25 July, the cinemas and theaters of Barcelona were one of the first and most resoundingly successful occupations by the activists from Barcelona's CNT. On 26 July, a Technical Commission was put in charge of preparing a project that defined the new framework of work in cinemas and theaters. That same day, the Catalan Generalitat, overwhelmed by events, created the Comisaría d'Espectacles de Catalunya which was not successful; the production of workers organized through the CNT union completely took over production.

From 6 August to May 1937, revolutionary enthusiasm organized and energized all the cinematographic and theatrical activities in Barcelona. The project began by standardizing wages for all job types in the film industry. Sickness, disability, old age, and forced unemployment benefits were established permanently. This whole system employed about 6,000 people and supported 114 cinemas, 12 theaters, and 10 music halls during that period. An opera company was even created at the Tivoli theater, in an attempt to bring the genre closer to the general public.

It can be said that it was one of the sectors that functioned the best economically, even building some cinemas such as the Ascaso (today's Vergara). Others were reformed or were finished building, such as the Durruti cinema (now the Arenas cinema).

At the political level, the collectivization of cinema was a new way of understanding art radically opposed to the bourgeois and capitalist system. There was no unity of criteria in the creative process, dogmatism was not allowed behind the scenes, and the "seventh art" incorporated a new form of journalism by taking cameras out into the street, to film what was happening there. A popular mobilization emerged to tell what they saw, and the message emerged as counter-information. The information of the people thus replaced that of power.

Between 1936 and 1937, more than a hundred films were produced, promoted by the production company and the distributor created by the CNT. The documentary genre was undoubtedly the most accomplished, as war news inevitably pushed out any other activity. SIE Films (Syndicate of the Entertainment Industry) and Spartacus Films were created for the production of films. The Union had two large studios with three plateaux for filming, and the "Palace of Belgium" was set up on the premises of Montjuïc, for auxiliary services of sets and extras. However, the repression of May 1937 strangled the Social Revolution in the streets of Barcelona and, although films continued to be made, the previous production rate slowed considerably.

Anarchist film production was a large part of the creative life in Catalonia at the time; and it spread to Aragon, Madrid, and Levante through different models, adapting to the circumstances of towns and cities and the working people who made them possible. Although productive activity in Madrid was less important than in Barcelona, 24 films were shot, both documentaries and fictional.

Woodworking industry

Between 7,000 and 10,000 people worked in this industry during the Civil War. Shortly after the general strike, when workers returned to their companies and workshops, woodworkers began to socialize. They began by seizing the companies, and through a general plan to rationalize efforts and resources, they closed the workshops that did not meet sufficient health and safety conditions, regrouping them to have large and clear premises. Although at the beginning there were still small workshops, later they were also added to the socialization.

After a few months of spontaneity, efforts were coordinated until the 8-hour day, standardization of wages, improvement of working conditions, and the increase of production were achieved. Socialization was implemented throughout all phases of production: sawmill, joinery, and carpentry.

A professional school and libraries were created, there was even a Socialized Furniture Fair in 1937. Coordination was achieved with the socialized wood industry of the Levante, to manufacture different types of furniture and not to compete. Although some exchanges are carried out through barter (with other socialized branches, or with some agrarian communities), in most cases they had to use money.

The agrarian communities

The trend of latifundismo in the Spanish countryside led to widespread unrest among the peasantry. The confiscations of the 19th century had failed to substantially modify the structure of land ownership and the republic's agrarian reform process had not fulfilled the expectations for change. Thus, as a result of the coup d'état, a revolutionary process began in which the peasants expropriated from the landowners and organized self-managed communities based on collective ownership of the means of production. This phenomenon has been called "collectivization". The collectivities were created through different means. In regions that the nationalists had not seized, the municipalities and the peasants themselves initiated collectivization.

Thus was formed a collective labor regime in which the lands of the aristocrats and landowners were expropriated and joined with the lands of other collectives. Animals, tools, and work were all held and done collectively. Periodic assemblies were held to direct what the community was doing, as well as negotiate with other communities and encourage exchange. Most of these collectives were born in response to the lands that were left empty or were seized by committees after the coup d'état. The IRA counted between 1,500 and 2,500 communities throughout Spain. These collectives came to be territorially organized as was the case in Aragon, in Castile with the unification of the peasant federations, or in Levante with the creation of the CLUEA. Throughout the war they were present in the political and economic approaches of each faction, being in a way another of the ideological battlefields within the republican side.

The union or departure from the collective community was free. If a small owner wanted to continue working the land on their own, they could do so as long as they did not hire anyone. The UGT-organized National Federation of Land Workers (FNTT), which had more than half a million affiliates, was largely in favor of the collectives.

In Barcelona the communities exercised a management role similar to collectives, without employers, as everything was controlled by their own workers. City services such as urban transport were managed by collective communities. In the countryside of Aragon, the Valencian Community and Murcia, the agrarian communities acted as communes. The business role was joined to that of an institution that replaced the local powers of the municipalities in which they were created, in many cases abolishing money and private property (one of the principles of socialist anarchist society). Some of the most significant Aragonese communities were those of Alcañiz, Alcorisa, Barbastro, Calanda, Fraga, Monzón, and Valderrobres. In mid-February 1937, a congress was held in Caspe, the purpose of which was to create a federation of collectives attended by 500 delegates representing 80,000 Aragonese collectivists. Along the Aragon front, the Anarchist-influenced Council of Aragon, chaired by Joaquín Ascaso, had assumed control of the area. Both the Council of Aragon and these communities were not well regarded by the government of the republic; so, on 4 August the Minister of National Defense, Indalecio Prieto, issued orders to the 11th Division of Commander Enrique Líster to be sent on "maneuvers" to Aragon, and dissolving the Council of Aragon on 11 August.

In Aragon, agrarian collectives were formed that were structured by work groups of between five and ten members. To each work group, the community assigned a piece of land for which it was responsible. Each group elected a delegate who represented their views at community meetings. A management committee was responsible for the day-to-day running of the community. This committee was in charge of obtaining materials, carrying out exchanges with other areas, organizing the distribution of production, and the public works that were necessary. Its members were elected in general assemblies in which all the people who made up the community participated.

In many villages and towns money was even abolished and replaced by vouchers signed or stamped by committees. Although some communities had problems with the republican authorities (e.g. the dissolution in Aragon), others, such as those of Castilla, Region of Murcia, and Andalusia, could function with more or less success until 1939, when they were dissolved by Franco's troops.

Policy

Decision making

Following libertarian practices, the collectives were governed by structures that can be described as "from the bottom up". That is, all decisions and appointments were made in assembly. In these assemblies all issues concerning the people were discussed. In these same assemblies the progress of the community and the actions to be taken were debated.

Federalism

On a broader organizational level, the communities aspired to organize themselves into federations, following the example of Aragon. There were congresses in favor of the creation of federations of collectives, but in no case was a more elaborate body than in Aragon ever constituted. There were other cases of federalism, such as CLUEA, the managing body for citrus exports in the Levante.

Among the collectivities there was also exchange, either in the form of barter, with their own paper money or with official currency.

Environmentalism

The Spanish Revolution undertook several environmental reforms that were possibly the largest in the world at the time. Daniel Guérin notes that anarchist territories would diversify crops, extend irrigation, initiate reforestation, and start tree nurseries. Once there was a link discovered between air pollution and tuberculosis, the CNT shut down several metal factories.

Economy

The collectives were formed in the villages as a result of the abandonment, expropriation, or accumulation of land and work tools by the peasants. They were made up of people who wanted to belong and the work to be done was divided among the different members. In places where money was not abolished, the salary became in most cases a family salary. Accordingly, it was set according to the number of family members, increasing according to whether they were a couple or had children.

Money

The economic policies of the anarchist collectives were primarily operated according to the basic communist principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". One of the most outstanding aspects of the communities was the approach with which they faced the problem of money and the distribution of products. In the villages and towns where money was abolished, different solutions were sought; these ideas varied according to locality and town: vouchers signed or stamped by committees, account books, local coins, ration tables, or individual or family checkbooks. In the cases where money was abolished, it was used to acquire products or tools that the community could not obtain by itself.

In many communities money for internal use was abolished, because, in the opinion of Anarchists, "money and power are diabolical philtres, which turn a man into a wolf, into a rabid enemy, instead of into a brother." "Here in Fraga [a small town in Aragon], you can throw banknotes into the street," ran an article in a Libertarian paper, "and no one will take any notice. Rockefeller, if you were to come to Fraga with your entire bank account you would not be able to buy a cup of coffee. Money, your God and your servant, has been abolished here, and the people are happy." In those Libertarian communities where money was suppressed, wages were paid in coupons, the scale being determined by the size of the family. Locally produced goods, if abundant, such as bread, wine, and olive oil, were distributed freely, while other articles could be obtained by means of coupons at the communal depot. Surplus goods were exchanged with other Anarchist towns and villages, money being used only for transactions with those communities that had not adopted the new system.

— Burnett Bolloten

Obstacles

The biggest problems that the communities faced were those consequential of the war itself: shortage of raw materials such as fertilizers, seeds, gear, and tools, or the lack of labor due to the mobilization. They also had great problems in their relationship with the state, as the collectives were an expression of power outside the state and also as ideological rivals of the communism that dominated the government. This is how they suffered discrimination in the financing of the IRA, the CLUEA's competition in the Levante, forced unionization in Catalonia, or their forced dissolution in Aragon.

State response

Once the state was restructured at any of its levels, it tried to stop, direct or at least channel any revolutionary organism. Regarding the collectives, the Minister of Agriculture Uribe drew up a decree of agrarian collectivizations that only sought to channel them. With this decree an excessive importance was given to the individual farmer.

The scope of the revolution

The figures are often fuzzy. Various numbers have been proposed. Gaston Leval says that there were 3 million people who participated. Vernon Richards talks about 1,500,000. Frank Mintz, in a 1970 study, says it was between 2,440,000 and 3,200,000; but by 1977 he had already revised these figures, placing it at a minimum of 1,838,000 collectivists. Its justification is the following:

Andalusia. The minimum number of agricultural communities is 120 and the maximum of 300, taking an average of 210 with 300 people in each, would be 63,000 people.

Aragon. The figure of 450 communities with 300,000 inhabitants is acceptable. In addition, the UGT had a certain strength, for example 31 communities in Huesca.
Cantabria. The data cited, although minimal, can be noted: a hundred agricultural groups with 13,000 people.
Catalonia. The minimum data for agricultural communities is 297 and the maximum is 400. If we take 350 with 200 people on average, we have 70,000. Taking 80% of the 700,000 workers in the province, we have 560,000 people, that is, with their families, a minimum of 1,020,000.
Center. CNT agricultural collectives with 23,000 families, that is, a minimum of 67,992 people, approximately, to which must be added the UGT collectives, of at least as much, this is 176,000 in agriculture. There were many industrial collectives in the capitals and in the towns. It seems logical to me to consider a minimum of 30,000 people affected.
Extremadura. The figure of 30 groups with an average of 220 people, that is, 6,000 people, should be considered as a maximum for the CNT and the UGT.
Raise. Our estimate is at least 503 groups in agriculture, which would affect 130,000 people. In the industry, the minimum and hypothetical figure is 30,000, which as in the case of the Center is reasonable.

Total. 758,000 collectivists in agriculture and 1,080,000 in industry. We therefore have 1,838,000, a minimum figure as explained at the beginning.

— Frank Mintz. "Self-management in revolutionary Spain". La Piqueta, 1977.

The revolution in education

Within the educational field there were also important experiments, although, as will be seen, these experiences had great drawbacks preventing carrying out more intense work. One of the most significant changes was due to the fact that education went from being a defensive and destructive field of capitalism to being understood as a fundamental pillar of the construction of the new revolutionary society.

Primary and secondary education

The New Unified School Council (UNSC), created in Catalonia on 27 July 1936, was entrusted with the task of restructuring the educational system in Catalonia. This organization could be understood as a model of public management of education: free, co-educational, secular, use of the vernacular, and unification of the different educational levels. However, the CENU created a Regional Federation of Rationalist Schools that was outside the UNSC system.

In rural areas, the collectivist movement was forced to intervene more directly than in the cities. Either because there were no educational structures before or because there was greater autonomy, in many rural municipalities the community faced local, professional, or municipal expenses. It was also important obey the statutes of some communities that prohibited child labor.

Vocational and technical training

Within the field of vocational and technical training, various initiatives were developed. In the industrial field, these were largely the result of the unions, which, knowing that they were lacking in technicians and distrusting them, tried to train members of their organizations. Among these initiatives were numerous schools of particular trades: railways, optics, transporters, metallurgists, and departments dedicated to professional training.

In the agricultural field, federations of trade unions carried out this type of initiative, among which we can find the school of secretaries of Levante, the agricultural university of Moncada, the regional institute of agriculture and livestock, and the school of militants of Monzón.

Non-Formal and Cultural Education

For informal education there were the libertarian athenaeums, or popular social centers in which different informative, cultural, or work tasks were developed. The athenaeums had a very strong tradition where anarchism was strong. However, in the war they even expanded into areas with few CNT roots. In some cases, such as Madrid, these athenaeums came to create schools, have health insurance, and promote other types of services.

Various communities also carried out other initiatives, such as the creation of libraries, artistic activities, a cinema forum, theater groups, athenaeums, the foundation of its own academies, or nursery schools.

Problems faced

The problems that had to be faced had two different roots: on the one hand, there were the problems typical of a war, to which others that had been dragging down the educational sphere can be added, and on the other, those typical of the rationalist school movement.

• In the first place, it is necessary to point out the poor school attendance in Spain. This problem was exacerbated in rural areas, where a large number of municipalities lacked schools or were in a very precarious situation, with many communities still trying to eradicate child labor.
• In a sense similar to the previous point, one of the problems suffered at a general level, and in the rationalist school, in particular was the lack of trained teachers. This problem, which is inseparable from the structural lack of education, was aggravated in rural areas when it coincided with the summer vacation period. The lack of trained teachers was especially incidental in the libertarian sphere, since most of the people who were in charge of the rationalist schools were militants.
• One of the problems that was tried to solve was the lack of coordination between rationalist centers. In most cases, this coordination occurred informally, on the basis of affinity and proximity. The most interesting response in this regard was the Regional Federation of Rationalist Schools of Catalonia, which planned the creation of an editorial and a Rationalist Norm. However, the federation did not have a remarkable evolution.
• And finally, the scarcity of economic and material resources must be pointed out due to the need to maintain a war economy and the economic downturn to which the collectivist movement was subjected. This lack of resources was a fundamental element in understanding the lack of reorganization of the educational structure, with problems such as the lack of endowments, which was sometimes made up with the repurposing of other buildings.

The revolution, the Civil War and the militias

The coincidence of the revolution and the Spanish Civil War meant that in the military field various initiatives avre developed coordinated by the new administrations established by the revolutionary wave, most of which would be unsuccessful.

The Aragon front

This was the first military initiative, developed on 24 July 1936, when the first voluntary militia, the Durruti Column, departed from Barcelona in the direction of Zaragoza. One of the last columns was the Los Aguiluchos Column, which left Barcelona on 28 August in the direction of Huesca. The columns of Barcelona and Lleida headed mainly towards Huesca and Zaragoza, and the Valencian ones towards Teruel, repeatedly besieging the three provincial capitals. At the beginning of September, the Carod-Ferrer Column arrived and was installed around Villanueva de Huerva.

This operation lasted until the end of September, when faced with the imperative of the imminent Battle of Madrid some of the columns gave up their independence, subordinating themselves to the requirements of the government.

The Mallorca landings

The idea of an expedition to Mallorca had been present since 19 July, when it was taken by the nationalists, along with Ibiza and Formentera. Menorca was the only island in the Balearic archipelago that remained in republican hands. The republicans managed to take back the islands of Ibiza, Formentera, and Cabrera, landing on the island of Mallorca in the area of Punta Amer and Porto Cristo. On 5 September, Bayo's column began the withdrawal from Mallorca, which lasted until 12 September, returning to Barcelona.

The so-called "Mallorca landings" could be considered to have been definitively concluded when on 20 September Francoist troops from Mallorca occupied Formentera.

The defense of Madrid

The last major operation of the confederal militias took place in November 1936. Buenaventura Durruti, one of the main protagonists of the Revolution, died on 20 November 1936. The resistance of the popular militias, together with the reinforcements of the International Brigades, allowed Madrid to resist the attack of the rebels. In the subsequent defense of the city, numerous anarcho-syndicalists intervened, such as the column led by the Madrilenian Cipriano Mera.

Nevertheless, the confederal militias were militarized into the Spanish Republican Army in 1937.

Criticisms

Criticism of the Spanish Revolution has primarily centered around allegations of coercion by anarchist participants (primarily in the rural collectives of Aragon), which critics charge ran contrary to libertarian organizational principles. Bolloten claims that CNT–FAI reports overplayed the voluntary nature of collectivization, and ignored the more widespread realities of coercion or outright force as the primary characteristic of anarchist organization.

Although CNT-FAI publications cited numerous cases of peasant proprietors and tenant farmers who had adhered voluntarily to the collective system, there can be no doubt that an incomparably larger number doggedly opposed it or accepted it only under extreme duress...The fact is...that many small owners and tenant farmers were forced to join the collective farms before they had an opportunity to make up their minds freely.

He also emphasizes the generally coercive nature of the war climate and anarchist military organization and presence in many portions of the countryside as being an element in the establishment of collectivization, even if outright force or blatant coercion was not used to bind participants against their will.

Even if the peasant proprietor and tenant farmer were not compelled to adhere to the collective system, there were several factors that made life difficult for recalcitrants; for not only were they prevented from employing hired labor and disposing freely as their crops, as has already been seen, but they were often denied all benefits enjoyed by members...Moreover, the tenant farmer, who had believed himself freed from the payment of rent by the execution or flight of the landowner or of his steward, was often compelled to continue such payment to the village committee. All these factors combined to exert a pressure almost as powerful as the butt of the rifle, and eventually forced the small owners and tenant farmers in many villages to relinquish their land and other possessions to the collective farms.

This charge had previously been made by historian Ronald Fraser in his Blood of Spain: An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War, who commented that direct force was not necessary in the context of an otherwise coercive war climate.

[V]illagers could find themselves under considerable pressure to collectivize – even if for different reasons. There was no need to dragoon them at pistol point: the coercive climate, in which 'fascists' were being shot, was sufficient. 'Spontaneous' and 'forced' collectives existed, as did willing and unwilling collectivists within them. Forced collectivization ran contrary to libertarian ideals. Anything that was forced could not be libertarian. Obligatory collectivization was justified, in some libertarians' eyes, by a reasoning closer to war communism than to libertarian communism: the need to feed the columns at the front.

Anarchist sympathizers counter that the presence of a "coercive climate" was an unavoidable aspect of the war that the anarchists cannot be fairly blamed for, and that the presence of deliberate coercion or direct force was minimal, as evidenced by a generally peaceful mixture of collectivists and individualist dissenters who had opted not to participate in collective organization. The latter sentiment is expressed by historian Antony Beevor in his Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939.

The justification for this operation (whose "very harsh measures" shocked even some Party members) was that since all the collectives had been established by force, Líster was merely liberating the peasants. There had undoubtedly been pressure, and no doubt force was used on some occasions in the fervor after the rising. But the very fact that every village was a mixture of collectivists and individualists shows that the peasants had not been forced into communal farming at the point of a gun.

Historian Graham Kelsey also maintains that the anarchist collectives were primarily maintained through libertarian principles of voluntary association and organization, and that the decision to join and participate was generally based on a rational and balanced choice made after the destabilization and effective absence of capitalism as a powerful factor in the region.

Libertarian communism and agrarian collectivization were not economic terms or social principles enforced upon a hostile population by special teams of urban anarchosyndicalists, but a pattern of existence and a means of rural organization adopted from agricultural experience by rural anarchists and adopted by local committees as the single most sensible alternative to the part-feudal, part-capitalist mode of organization that had just collapsed.

There is also focus placed by pro-anarchist analysts on the many decades of organization and shorter period of CNT–FAI agitation that was to serve as a foundation for high membership levels throughout anarchist Spain, which is often referred to as a basis for the popularity of the anarchist collectives, rather than any presence of force or coercion that allegedly compelled unwilling persons to involuntarily participate.

Michael Seidman has suggested there were other contradictions with workers' self-management during the Spanish Revolution. He points out that the CNT decided both that workers could be sacked for "laziness or immorality" and that all workers should "have a file where the details of their professional and social personalities will be registered". He also notes that the CNT Justice Minister, García Oliver, initiated the setting up of "labour camps", and that even the most principled anarchists, the Friends of Durruti, advocated "forced labour". However, Garcia Oliver explained his idealistic vision of justice in Valencia on 31 December 1936; common criminals would find redemption in prison through libraries, sport, and theatre. Political prisoners would achieve rehabilitation by building fortifications and strategic roads, bridges, and railways, and would receive decent wages. Garcia Oliver believed it made more sense for fascist lives to be saved than for them to be sentenced to death. This is in contrast to the policy of mass annihilation of political opponents enacted in the rebel zone during the war.

Some radical commentators have incorporated their views on limitations of the Spanish Revolution into their theories of anti-capitalist revolution. Gilles Dauvé, for example, uses the Spanish experience to argue that to transcend capitalism, workers must completely abolish both wage labour and capital rather than just self-manage them.

In his writings on the Spanish Revolution, Leon Trotsky delivered a series of deprecatory criticisms of the various factions including the POUM and reformist left. He attributed the failures of the Spanish Republic to the oscillating position of the leadership, reformist programmes and organisational ineptitude in erecting mass revolutionary parties. He reserved his strongest condemnation for the Stalinist-allied Communist party for their repressive actions of other left-wing factions which ensured the ascendancy of Franco and the Comintern for abandoning the revolution in favour of maintaining diplomatic parity with the West.