Abstract
The book Living Anarchism: José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement is a biography of one of the most influential members of the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist Movement, more specifically the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), as the most important union in Spain at the beginning of the 20th century. The book is written by historian Chris Ealham, who is a distant relative of Peirats, but did not know him personally. Through the life of Peirats, Ealham also shows us the events, turmoil and fate of the CNT. Therefore, the book is not only a biography of José Peirats, but also a biography of the CNT.
The book begins with an overview of the childhood and the family and social context of the little José Peirats. He comes from a poor family that dealt in the production of espadrils and oranges. The family pillar was his mother Teresa. José’s father was more interested in music than politics. At the initiative of Teresa, the family moved from La Walls, a place near Valencia, to Barcelona. Barcelona at the time was the centre of anarchism and syndicalism in Spain.
As a member of a working class family, José had a brief period of formal education, most of which he spent in the Workers Rational Athenaeum, in which classes were held by members of the CNT. His education was completed at the age of nine, and he then started work. In 1922, at the age of 14, he became a member of the CNT. The following year he participated in a strike of brick workers, that was suppressed by the police. José’s views became radicalized after the strike.
During the seven-year dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera, José Peirats continued to work as a brick worker and was a member of the CNT. The two most important figures in the life of José Peirats during this period were Pere Massoni and Domingo Canela. Massoni was a former Constructionist Union Secretary and an influential man, and José considered him a role model. Canela and José went to school together and then worked together in a brick factory. Also, José and Canela were members of a drama group called Verdad.
Under the leadership of Massoni, several young unionists managed to get the support of the leaders of the union and start a newspaper called El Boletin del Landrillero. In this newspaper, in 1928, José published his first text. Just a few months after the founding of the newspaper, José became its editor. Peirats’ career as author, writer and journalist was under the mentorship of Felipe Alaiz, who was considered the most influential left-wing journalist and writer of his generation. Peirats himself admitted that Alaiz was his tutor in journalism (p. 73).
At the elections held on 14 April 1931, the monarchists lost in all urban centres, and the Spanish Republic was proclaimed. In the CNT, there was a dilemma whether to support the Republic, which resulted in the first serious division. In a section of the CNT, plans were made for how to speed up history, and in the afternoon after the proclamation of the Republic, clashes erupted between anarchists and the police. The older and more moderate membership advocated giving the Republic a chance, while the younger and more radical ones, including Peirats, considered that the Republic was a limited bourgeois creation.
In the November 1933 elections, the CEDA (Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-Wing Groups) won the majority of votes. Its leader José María Gil Robles, it was thought among leftist circles (liberals and socialists), would work to destroy the Republic from the inside, something similar what happened to the Weimar Republic in Germany. In addition, the Catalans were afraid that they would lose their autonomy. Hence the Generalitat and CNT protested. The organizer was the Generalitat, and the CNT only supported the protest. The protest was put down by the police, and the army took control of Barcelona.
The Asturian Commune for two weeks repelled the attacks of the Spanish Legion, led by General Francisco Franco, and thus entered into the annals of anarchism. Asturian Commune members felt betrayed by the CNT. As editor of the magazine La Soli, Peirats wrote an editorial in which he advocated that participants in the Asturian rebellion should not receive the death sentence. The newspaper was immediately banned.
In the 1936 elections, the Popular Front won the majority of votes. All left-wing forces from anarchists, through socialists to communists, were included in this political formation. After the election it became clear that the royalists would not be able to break the Republic, in a legal way, and on 17 July 1936 militant conservatives attempted a coup in Morocco.
The Generalitat refrained from calling for armed resistance, but the anarchists were ready to defend the Republic. Bands of armed police began to be formed in Barcelona. On 20 July, after two sleepless nights after the coup, Peirats was part of a poorly-armed mass in Barcelona. In the shootings that day, Peirats lost close friends. The CNT had 50,000 armed members in the streets.
Fifteen months after the start of the revolution, it was clear to Peirats that they could no longer fight for revolutionary ideals, but rather just to survive. Peirats was a member of the 119 Brigade of the 26th Division. The Republican army noted only defeats. With his entire 26th Division with broken dreams and unrealized ideals, he arrived at the border with France. At age 31 and with only the clothes on his back, Peirats became an asylant.
After signing an agreement with South American governments, there was an opportunity for the asylants to move from France to some of the South American states. Peirats moved to the Dominican Republic, to the city of Santo Domingo. In December 1940, Peirats moved to Ecuador and in the end to Panama. In March 1947, Peirats returned to France. Here he tried to return to the centre of the gatherings of anarchist emigration, which he had previously known as very divided. He was one of those who advocated for the unification of all anarchists. Over time, he established himself as one of the leading figures of the MLE-CNT (General Council of the Spanish Liberation Movement and CNT), which was finally reunified in 1961. But his dissident spirit was not to be quelled and he was in constant conflict with the group leaders, Montseny and Esgleas.
In Montseny and Esgleas, Peirats observed the bureaucratization of the MLE-CNT. In 1947, Peirats was elected Secretary of the MLE-CNT. The fight against the bureaucracy had brought him many enemies. He later wrote that that year had been the hardest in his life (p. 143). Meanwhile, at the request of MLE-CNT’s Culture and Propaganda Secretary, Martin Vilarrupla, Peirats began writing a history of the revolution. In 1949, Peirats became the Secretary of the CNT for the second time (p. 149). By the end of 1951, his book about the history of the revolution was published. The book was called La CNT. No one before its publication had had access to so many archives, internal communications, official correspondence, registers of members and events. La CNT is a case study of the mass anarcho-socialist movement in Spain (p. 152).
In 1954, José Peirats met Gracia Ventura, the love of his life. They lived together until his death in 1989 (p. 156). The Montpellier Congress in 1965 had enduring consequences for the MLE-CNT. At the Congress, the atmosphere was electric and violent. Dissatisfied with the results of the Congress, a month after it was held, Peirats decided, after 43 years of activism, to leave the CNT (p. 167).
Franco died in November 1975. The transition of power and the transformation of the political system from dictatorship to democracy followed an agreed transition between the moderate opposition and the progressive elements of the Franco system. There were hopes that after the death of Franco, the CNT would regain its old glory and power. However, after 40 years in exile, the CNT did not have the necessary cadres, and it devolved ideologically (p. 199).
Peirats, aged and already retired, tried to get involved in the CNT’s activities, but the social context had completely changed. In 1977, he held a speech at the protest in Valencia, before 40,000 protesters. Two months later on 2 July, he addressed the protesters in Barcelona. The event was attended by 300,000 protesters. The protest demanded the autonomy of Catalonia, which had been abolished by Franco in 1939 (p. 203). Peirats generally did not support regionalism, but a fight for social rights. He did not approve of the Basque and Catalonian demands for autonomy within Spain. Regarding the issue of autonomy, he reminded the attendees of the experience of the 1930s when they had autonomy. His speech ended with the phrase that his fatherland is the world, and his family is humanity – a famous phrase from the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta (p. 204). His open rejection of the autonomy of Catalonia provoked anger in the Catalan CNT. His address was censored by the CNT press, and Catalan organizations issued statements in which they distanced themselves from Peirats’ views. It was to be Peirats’ last major public appearance.
This book is a comprehensive and multifaceted study of a human life, through which the history of the anarchist and syndicalist movement in Spain is depicted. It illuminates significant moments from the history of Spain and the Spanish Civil War and the exile of anarchists as part of the Republican army. Hence, this book should be compulsory reading for anyone studying the Civil War in Spain and the anarchist-syndicalist movement, historically, sociologically and politically. It will greatly help in the understanding of the importance of key individuals and groups in the anarchist movement in Spain and their interrelationships.