ABSTRACT
Conventionally, the image given of the path taken by the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union, the CNT, following the establishment of a democratic republic in April 1931 has been, put very broadly, that almost from the inauguration of the new regime it came under the domination, particularly in Catalonia, of the most intransigent wing of anarchism, organized in the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI). This then sought immediate confrontation with the regime, launching a wave of maximalist, purely ideologically motivated, insurrectionary activism, without any intermediate objectives, a round of ‘mindless revolutionism’ that served only to destabilize the Republic and fritter away the strength of the CNT itself. No clear explanation is generally given of the process through which these radical elements came to the fore in what was an open, mass organization and in which, as several recent writers have pointed out, a great many of the membership were not by any means committed anarchists, it frequently being suggested that this was due to internal organizational machinations or fortuitous circumstances rather than to any more direct appeal to any section of the working class.
