ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 analyses the developments in anarchist organisational strategy and the creation of the anarcho-syndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), from 1907 to 1915. Existing historiography of this period has focused almost exclusively on the movement’s epicentre in Barcelona, and the internal politics of the early CNT leadership. Examination of the periodicals of this period provides a sense of the cultural formation of syndicalism within the anarchist movement outside Cataluña, how it was presented in relation to previous organisational theories, the contingencies in the development of the CNT, or the early resistance to the organisation. The anarchist press was vital in the process of promoting—and, in some cases, resisting—the spread of syndicalism and in bringing disparate groups together to assist in the creation of the CNT, firstly in its inaugural congresses in 1910 and 1911, and again during the early years of the First World War. Chapter 4 ends with a symbolic milestone for the movement and its press, when the CNT’s official organ, Solidaridad Obrera, was transformed into the movement’s first stable daily publication in 1916, leading to a contraction and centralisation of the hitherto pluralised and fragmented anarchist print culture.
