Anarchist Organisation: The History of the F.A.I.

Anarchist Organisation is the first English-language history of the 30,000-member Federacion Anarquista Iberica (F.A.I.), the unique organisation of Spanish anarchists based on autonomous affinity groups. Dictatorship forced thee F.A.I. underground and its members into exile; however, it was revived throughout Spain in the post-Franco years and continues to exist to this day.

This first-hand account traces the history of Spanish anarchism back to the founding of the F.A.I. in Valencia in 1927 and follows the F.A.I.’s development throughout the crucial Civil War years, dealing with its organizational principles, controversies, objectives, and programmes.

Juan Gomez Casas was active in the Libertarian Youth during the Spanish Revolution. In 1947 a military tribunal sentenced him to thirty years in prison for belonging to an illegal organization, nearly fifteen of which he served. He later acted as secretary of the national labour organisation C.N.T. in the post-Franco period and continues to be actively involved in the C.N.T. today. Casas has written several books and has translated a number of others in Spanish, of which Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was the first.

“Casas brings unique qualifications to the task of chronicling the history of the F.A.I…. the effort is rewarding.” --Social Anarchism

Table of Contents

Translator’s Notes

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One: Antecedents of the Alliance of Social Democracy in Spain

• Fanelli in Madrid and Barcelona
• The Founding Nucleus in Madrid
• The Marxist “Alliance”
• Thomas Gonzalez Morago and the Local Federation of the International in Madrid

Chapter Two: The C.N.T. and Anarchism Up to the Primo De Rivera Dictatorship

• Creation of the C.N.T.
• Anarchosyndicalism and Anarchism
• The Congress at the Comedia Theatre and the Start of Terrorism
• Creation of the National Federation of Anarchist Groups

Chapter Three: Anarchism and Anarchosyndicalism During the Primo De Rivera Dictatorship and Up to the Second Republic

• Existence Underground, Crisis, and Theoretical/Tactical Debates
• Arango and Santillan and La Protesta
• New Theoretical Debates. Attack by Maurin and Oscar Perez Solis
• Organizational Activity up to the Establishment of the F.A.I.
• From the National Plenum in March to the Valencia Conference
• Analysis of The Platform

Chapter Four: The Iberian Anarchist Federation

• The Valencia Conference
• Response to the F.A.I.- Los Solidarios
• Fall of the Dictatorship
• The Confederal (C.N.T.) Congress at the Madrid Conservatory
• Reappearance of the Los Solidarios
• Radicalization of Anarchosyndicalism
• Anarchism and Treintismo
• The Myth of the F.A.I.
• The F.A.I. and the Cycle of Insurrections
• National Plenum of Regions
• Revolutionary Strategy and Theory
• The Problem of Libertarian Communism
• National Plenum of F.A.I. Regions, January-February 1938
• Brief Comments on the F.A.I. National Plenum
• The F.A.I. and the Saragossa Congress

Chapter Five: The Civil War

• The C.N.T.- F.A.I. Connection
• Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias
• C.N.T.- F.A.I. and Government Collaboration
• Facing International Anarchism and Anarchosyndicalism: Difficult Justifications
• Theory and Practice To May 1937
• Councils on Political Affairs and the Peninsular Plenum of the F.A.I. Change of Structure
• Late and Incomplete Reaction of the F.A.I. Military Defeat and Collapse of the Republic
• Disagreement Between the C.N.T. and the F.A.I.
• Predicaments for the F.A.I.
• Fall of Catalonia. The F.A.I. and the Libertarian Movement in the Centre-South Zone
• The F.A.I. Today

Bibliography

Bibliography of Books in English

1986: 261 pages, bibliography

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-920057-38-4