CHAPTER VI
COLLECTIVES IN THE LEVANTE

General Characteristics

The regional Federation of the Levante, an integral part of the National Confederation of Labour (C.N.T.) comprising that is workers' and peasants' Syndicates, traditionally organised by the Spanish Libertarians, served as the basis for the parallel Federation of Agricultural Collectives of the Levante. It covers five provinces which are, from North to South, Castellon de la Plana, Valencia, Alicante, Murcia and Albacete. The development of agriculture in the first three of these, all Mediterranean, among the richest in Spain also in terms of population - about 3,300,000 inhabitants in 1936 - resulted in the social achievements that took place often assuming unsuspected proportions. In my opinion it is in the Levante, thanks to its natural resources and the forward looking spirit of our comrades, that the work of libertarian reconstruction was most widespread as well as more complete. I was unable to study it in the same detail as for the Aragon Collectives, but from my own direct observations and much information graciously imparted by the local comrades, as well as from first hand accounts and original documents, I will attempt a general picture, completed by a number of monographs which will bring to life the characteristics and extent of the social transformation that was achieved.

Of the five provinces in the Levante it was understandable that the role of Valencia should be outstanding. Firstly for demographic reasons. It boasted 1,650,000 inhabitants at the time of the Revolution. (1) Murcia was next in importance with 622,000 inhabitants and in which the famous gardens covered only a very small part of the territory which had always been a land of misery and emigration. Alicante which was richer had a population of 472,000, then came Castellon de la Plana with 312,000 and finally Albacete with 238,000 inhabitants.

Anybody knowing however little of the social history of this region is not surprised to learn that the province of Valencia, especially in its achievements in agriculture and horticulture, advanced and developed faster than anywhere else. From 1870 the libertarian movement had always numbered outstanding militants in its ranks, especially in the county; the case of the "martyrs" of Cullera is famous in the annals of the social history of the region. There were others, as we have already mentioned. And whereas in the towns of the Levante republicanism often dominated the opposition at the time of the monarchy, the fighters in the country areas were very often defending antistatal ideas, a position which was, in any case, widely adopted among the peasantry. Thus in the period 1915-1920, it was to them (often they were smallholders) that libertarian propagandists coming from other regions frequently had to appeal in order to reorganise the movement, the rebirth of which had been encouraged in part by the high hopes aroused by the still little-understood Russian Revolution.

We had, therefore, in many places in these five provinces, militants who were economically and politically free, for whom the revolution was not just a matter of thoughtless agitation or of simple political changes but above all meant expropriation of the land and the organisation of society through libertarian communism.

In 1936 the villages of this province in which our social movement had put its roots were grouped in 22 comarcas (cantons) with their respective chief villages in Adamuz, Alborache, Carcagente, Catarroja, Chella, Foyos, Gandia, Jarafuel, Jativa, Moncada, Onteniente, Paterna, Puerto Sagunto, Requena, Sagunto, Utiel, Villar del Arzobispo, Villamarchante, Alcantara del Jucar, Titaguas, Lombay and Denia.

The province of Murcia comprised six cantonal federations the chief towns of which were firstly Murcia itself, then Caravaca, Cartagena, Vieza, Lorca, Mazarron, Mula, Pacheo, Elche de la Sierra, Hellin.

Then there was the province of Alicante with nine federations, again cantonal, in Alicante, Alcoy, Almansa, Elda, Elche, La Nucia, Orihuela, Villajoyosa, Villena.

The province of Castellon de la Plana comprised eight organised cantons each of which as usual grouped a greater or lesser number of villages. These were in Castellon, Albocacer, Alcora, Morella, Nules, Onda, Segorbe and Vinaroz.

And finally the province of Albacete, the least favoured where, furthermore, during the civil war the Collectives had to put up with the presence of the men commanded by the notorious French Communist Marty, nicknamed "the butcher of Albacete" for the cruelties committed in the name of the anti-fascist struggle. In this province we had only four organised cantons: Albacete, Alcarraz, La Roda, and Casa Ibanez.

It should be pointed out that very often the structure of our cantonal organisation had no connection with the traditional cantons of the public or state administration. As in Aragon, they had often been reorganised according to the needs of work, exchanges and other vital interests. More than for political reasons it corresponded to a need for direct union at the base and for that human cohesion which has without any doubt exercised a decisive influence in the constructive task of our creative federalism.

***

The development and numerical growth of Collectives in the Levante surprised even those of us who were the most optimistic as to the possibilities of social reconstruction. For in spite of the many difficulties, in spite of the opposition of our adversaries often in a coalition against us - republicans of different tendencies, Valencian autonomists, socialists and U.G.T-ists, Communists, many elements of the bourgeoisie, etc. - there were 340 Collectives represented at the congress of the Levante Peasants Federation held on 21-23 November, 1937; five months later the number had risen to 500 and by the end of 1938 a figure of 900 had been reached, and that of heads of households had risen to 290,000. Roughly speaking at least 40% of the population belonged to the Collectives.

The significance of these figures can be better appreciated if we make a different calculation. The five provinces of Levante consisted of 1,172 localities from the largest town to the smallest village. (2) It was therefore in 78% of the localities in the richest agricultural region in all Spain that in twenty months these 900 Collectives sprang up.

It is true that as units they did not achieve the high percentage achieved by the Collectives in Aragon. In Aragon the almost, total predominance of libertarian forces for a long time prevented ' State administration, municipal or national police forces, political parties supported by governmental authorities, assault guards and "carabineros", to hamper changes in the social structure. Whereas in Levante - and one should not forget that from November 1936 the Central government had moved to Valencia which had become the capital of legal Spain - all these forces were present and that with the small tradesmen, the liberal bourgeoisie, who were anti-Francoist but also anti-Collectivist, they opposed by every means, including violent ones, this attempt to put libertarian socialism into operation. There were pitched battles when even army tanks were brought up. In such conditions what was achieved savours of the prodigious.

The more so since in the Levante region, and as a consequence of the wealth and the density of the population in certain areas, the localities are often concentrations of from 10 to 20 thousand people in which the social classes and the forces facing each other are more solidly constituted and can more easily coordinate their efforts. Thus when our comrades took the offensive for socialisation the resistance was all the more vigorous. It required all the flexibility, ingenuity, imagination, and the intelligent and useful adaptation to circumstances, and the energy they undoubtedly possessed, for the revolutionary effort to be realised in spite of everything.

It is one of the reasons why the Levante Collectives were created in most cases on the initiative of the peasants' Syndicates in each locality, for they brought at the same time moral integrity, a tradition as organisers, experience in the struggle and numerical strength.

But in spite of close contact with these Syndicates - often the same men were at the head of the two organisations - the Collectives at first constituted an autonomous organism. The Syndicates of the C.N.T. continued to group most of their members but also "individualists" who though not collectivists neither were they reactionaries, prevented either by a questionable interpretation of the meaning of individual freedom or because their land was isolated. In some cases it was by a more or less justified hesitation based on fear either of governmental reaction after the victory, or of a fascist victory.

The role played by the Syndicates was therefore most useful. They constituted a step forward, an element of attraction. They also had another practical function. It was to them that the individualist trade-unionists would bring their produce which they undertook to barter with the Collectives. Commissions were set up in the Syndicate for dealing with rice, citrus fruits, vegetable seedlings, etc. In each locality the Syndicate had its food store where non-collectivists could get supplies. But the Collective had also its own. It was later thought that such an arrangement required double labour and the decision was taken to telescope the two in favour of the Collective, and with joint administrative representation. The individualist trade-unionists continued to bring their goods and collect their supplies in the same way as the Collectivists. (3)

Then mixed commissions were started for the purchase of machines, seeds, fertilisers, insecticides and veterinary aids. Lorries were shared, solidarity was spreading while avoiding, nevertheless, excessive confusion between the two organisms.

Socialisation rested then on two bases. With that remarkable flexibility which one has often observed among the builders of Spanish libertarianism, it embraces all that can be included, integral achievements as well as partial realisations. The means for inveigling them are complementary.

But very quickly the Collectives tended to unify and rationalise all that could be. Rationing and the family wage were established at cantonal level, the richer villages helping the poorer or less favoured as happened in Aragon and Castile. In every cantonal chief-town a team of specialised technicians was created to include accountants, an agronomist, a veterinary surgeon, an engineer, an architect, an expert in commercial questions, etc. These teams were at the service of all the villages.

The practice of mutual aid allowed for the equitable distribution and use of the means required for the smooth operation of the Collectives. Most of the engineers and veterinary surgeons through" out the region were members of the C.N.T., those employed by the non-collectivised economy collaborated as well, and generally without material gain, in preparing plans and projects, for the creative spirit of the Revolution carried forward those who wanted to contribute to economic and social progress in general.

Thus agronomists would put forward necessary or possible projects; planning agriculture, moving cultivations to land and climatic conditions which were more favourable but which hitherto, for reasons of private property, and the vested interests of different groups of smallholders, had not been possible. The vet in the Collective put stock rearing on a scientific basis. In the event he consulted the agronomist as to the feeding arrangements that could be made available. And he in his turn discussed this production problem with the peasants' commissions. But the architect and the engineer were also called to the rescue over the construction of stables, piggeries' cowhouses, barns for the Collectives. The tasks were being planned and the activities integrated.

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Thanks to the engineers, a large number of acequias (irrigation canals) were excavated and wells sunk which made it possible to convert dry lands into irrigated land. By using pumps, water was raised and distributed over large areas. The very porous, sandy nature of the soil and low atmospheric precipitations - 400 mm. on average when at least three times that amount was required - made the extraction and the good use of this precious liquid very difficult, especially as wells had to be sunk to depths of from 50 to 200 metres. This was a feasible proposition only for the large landowners who cultivated or employed people to cultivate profitable crops such as oranges, or for the Collective.

It was perhaps in the regions of Cartagena and Murcia that the greatest efforts were made in this direction. Near Villajoyosa in the province of Alicante the construction of a dam made it possible to irrigate a million almond trees which had previously suffered from permanent drought.

But the architects in the Collectives did not only deal with a habitat for the livestock. They went through the region giving advice about the human environment. Types of houses, location, aspect, materials, plumbing, etc., ... indispensable considerations which previously had been opposed both by the ignorance of some and the vested interests of others.

The close proximity of the villages to each other helped that active solidarity which puts all resources at the disposal of the whole community. Practical work was often intercommunal. A team would, for instance, be set up to deal with plant diseases, sulphur dusting, pruning, grafting, working the land in a number of localities; another team would be organised to grub up trees and carry out unusual cultivations or improvise new cultivations on the sites of those trees. All this facilitated the coordination of efforts and their synchronisation on a general plan of action which was developed not only on the abstract concepts of technocrats or technicians without experience, but also according to the practical lessons learned from work and from contact with men and realities.

It was a new society, a new world that had been created.

Let us examine more closely some aspects of general organisation. The 900 Collectives were brought together in 54 cantonal federations which grouped themselves and at the same time I subdivided into five provincial federations which at the top level ended in the Regional Comite of the Levante Federation situated in Valencia and which coordinated the whole.

This Comite was nominated directly by the annual congresses answerable to them and to the hundreds of peasant delegates, chosen by their comrades, whom the fine speeches of bureaucrats or domineering agitators would not dazzle, for in their great majority they knew what they wanted and where they were going. It was also on their initiative that the Levante Federation was divided into 26 general sections in accordance with specialisations in work and other activities. Those 26 sections constituted a whole which embraced probably for the first time in history outside the State and governmental structures, the whole of social life. We will assemble them into five main groupings, implying a corresponding administrative organisation:

AGRICULTURE: Cereals (particularly corn, the cultivation of which was often improvised or stimulated as a result of the Francoist occupation of the cereal growing areas); rice growing; citrus fruits (oranges, lemons, tangerines); fruit growing and its subdivisions (almonds, peaches, apples, etc.); olive groves; vineyards; vegetable growing or market gardening; livestock, especially sheep and goats; pigs and cattle.

FOOD INDUSTRIES: The Federation being essentially of the peasantry, the industries that one encountered were mainly connected with agriculture. The specialised sections were the following: wine production; fruit and vegetable packing houses; distillation of alcohol; fruit juices, various liqueurs; perfumes and by-products.

NON-AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES (not derived from agriculture): Building section; various manufactures; carpentry; manufacture of packaging materials for citrus fruits, clothing, etc.... One should note here the tendency for the integration of activities, thereby reducing, to a certain extent, the role of the Syndicate which the syndicalist movement had always considered as the sole organiser of industrial production. These problems were I resolved on the spot, in a friendly spirit between sister organisations.

COMMERCIAL SECTION- Apart from large scale exports, which will be discussed later, this section covered imports of machinery, road and sea transport facilities, and various products.

PUBLIC HEALTH & EDUCATION: Finally, the section for hygiene and sanitation which coordinated the efforts preserving and improving public health, and that of education which thanks to its schools, its teachers and the contribution by the Collectives, pursued with enthusiasm the duties which fell on them.

All these activities were synchronised on a scale involving 900 Collectives, many of them involving thousands of people. It will be easier now to appreciate how widespread these achievements were and how superior was this form of organisation. Obviously I cannot here describe it in every detail. But I will add precise details to some aspects already outlined.

Rice growing for example. In the province of Valencia alone, 30,000 out of a total national production from 47,000 hectares, were in the hands of the Collectives. The renowned region of La Albufera, which Blasco Ibanez has so exhaustively described, was entirely collectivised.

Half the orange production, that is 4 million quintals, was in the hands of the peasants' Federation, the federated Collectives and the Syndicates; and 70 per cent of the total harvest, that is more than 51 million quintals, was transported and sold in the European markets thanks to their commercial organisation called FERECALE (4) which at the beginning of 1938 had established in France sales sections in Marseilles, Perpignan, Bordeaux, Sete, Cherbourg and Paris.

It should be noted in passing that the importance of distribution was considerably greater than that of production. With first hand information on the subject we can make the following comparisons: as we have already said, the producers of the Levante Collectives were numerically about 40% of the total population. As a consequence of their superior technical organisation, their production was 50-60% of the total; and for the same reasons the collectivist system was responsible for between 60 and 70% of the total distribution to the advantage of the whole population.

The organisation in general and the extent of the resources that it guaranteed, made other achievements possible, as well as methods of work without which the tasks undertaken would often have failed due to a lack of technical means, and insufficient return or to the excessive cost of the efforts involved.

The spirit of active solidarity, the will to coordination were always and everywhere present. When, for instance, the members of a Collective or a local Comite considered it worthwhile to establish a liqueur or fruit juice factory or to process foods for human or animal consumption they informed the industrial section of the regional-federal Comite of Valencia of their initiative. The Comite would examine the proposal, and if considered necessary would invite a delegation to attend, with which it would study the pros and cons of the project. If on the basis of estimated demand, the availability of raw materials and other foreseeable factors the idea was attractive it would be adopted; if not it would be rejected after explanations and a full examination of the proposals. Another reason for rejection would be availability of existing factories.

But acceptance of the project did not mean that its original promoters would become its owners, even at the level of the local Collective. By employing from the beginning resources supplied by the Collectives as a whole, the Federation became the owner of the new factory and the local Collective was not entitled to sell for its own benefit the goods that were produced there.

Expenses and income were therefore everybody's concern. It, was also the Federation which allocated the raw materials supplied to all the factories and localities according to their kind of production and their needs respectively. (5)

The situation also required great flexibility which was impossible both on the scale of an isolated peasant or tradesman, and in purely corporative organisations where the individualist spirit and attitudes prevailed. Thus, until the Revolution vast quantities of fruit were left to rot on the ground because of a lack of markets at home and abroad. It was the case with sales to Britain which had to compete with supplies coming from Palestine and South Africa, and made it necessary to lower prices and, to some extent, production as well. (6)

But apart from the civil war, the loss of some European markets and of the home market occupied and cut off by Franco's troops, as well as the difficulties subtly put in the way of the libertarian socialist experiment by the government and its allies, made the situation worse. Not only was there a surplus of citrus fruits, but also of potatoes and tomatoes. So, once again, the initiative of the Collectives manifested itself.

An effort was made to put these oranges to better use by manufacturing essences extracted from the peel on a larger scale than before; a new food was manufactured, a kind of dessert called "honey-orange", and "orange wine"; the pulp was used for the preservation of blood from the abattoirs, and this provided a new food for poultry; the canning of vegetables and fruit was increased; the most important factories were located in Murcia, Castellon, Alfafar and Paterna. As the German peasants had been doing for a long time in their specialised cooperatives, drying plants for potatoes were set up in order to produce potato-flour for human and animal consumption and the same procedure was used for tomatoes.

We have said that the location of the cantonal federation centres was very often determined by their proximity to road junctions or railways, thus facilitating the transport of goods. In most cases food surpluses of the Collectives were stored in these centres. The corresponding sections of the federal Comite in Valencia were informed of the quantities of each variety, the quality, the date of production of the goods warehoused, and thus knew exactly what were the available reserves for deliveries, exports, barter, or for redistribution among the cantons or the Collectives.

The intensification of egg production and of chickens and rabbits, was further confirmation of that creative spirit. In July 1937 the Collective of Gandia alone was producing in its hatcheries 1,200 chicks every three weeks. New breeds of rabbits and fowls, unknown to most peasants (who too often were attached to the traditional and uneconomic ones) were introduced, and the Collectives that had taken the first step in this direction helped those who, for various reasons, had not yet started.

Furthermore the efforts at organisation and economic justice were not all that was achieved. The yearning for culture, the intense desire to spread education were one of the mainsprings and one of the major objectives of the Revolution. Thus every Collective created one or two schools as promptly as it set about its first economic initiatives. The family wage and the new ethic made it possible for all children to attend school. In their sphere of influence the Spanish Collectives gave the coup de grace to illiteracy in record time. The magnitude of the achievement can be gauged if one bears in mind that in the Spanish country' side in 1936, 60% of the people were illiterate.

To complete this effort, and with an immediate practical end in view, a school to train secretaries and accountants was I opened at the end of 1937. More than a hundred students were immediately sent there by the Collectives.

The last major innovation was the agricultural university of Moncada (province of Valencia). Its purpose was to train agricultural technicians. In the different classes and in the practical courses young people were instructed in the various specialities in land husbandry and zootechny (animal care, methods of selection, characteristics of breeds; horticulture, fruitgrowing, beekeeping, forestry, etc.). When the university was in full swing it had 300 students and there would have been many more if there had been more accommodation and more teachers. The University of Moncada situated at the foot of hills covered with orange trees was also available to the other regions.

A final example of solidarity in practice. The Collectives of the Levante had also received a large number of refugees, especially women and children from Castile who had fled before the fascist advance. Reception homes were set up in the heart of the country, and camps where the youngsters were well cared for in every way and could forget the war. Long lines of lorries coming from the villages took free supplies of food to Madrid. The Collectives of Benjopa, Oliva, Jeresa, Tabernes de Valldigna, Beirrairo and Simat (all in the canton of Gandia) donated 198 lorry loads of food in the first six months of the war. Shortly after the fall of Malaga a simple phone call produced seven lorry loads of food for Almeria, which was crowded with refugees who were exhausted and hungry.

For, faced with the necessities and responsibilities of life our t! comrades were not paralysed nor dehumanised by the bureaucratic spirit and the red-tape of the State. As good libertarians they practised a new humanism among themselves and with others, without cheating, without speculating even on the propaganda value of their gestures, with no other reward than the deep joy deriving from practical solidarity.

1. Carcagente

Carcagente, a large country borough rather than a small town, situated in the province of Valencia, had a population of 18,000 at the time of my first visit in November 1936. (7) Though its social history was less traumatic than that of Succa or Cullera. our movement had long established roots and exerted a great influence. Thus in November 1936, our peasants' Syndicate had 2,750 members, including some hundreds of small proprietors; that of the orange packers numbered 3,325, mostly women; in addition there were 320 buildings workers, 150 railwaymen, 120 engineering workers and 450 workers of various trades and professions - all members of the Syndicate. In all 41 per cent of the whole population. But if one takes into account the percentage represented by children, then the percentage of workers in the C.N.T. was extremely high.

In the outskirts of Carcagente within the jurisdiction of the town itself, as well as in the surrounding though less important localities, large estates, almost all specialising in the production of citrus fruits, dominated the economy. And a fair number of small proprietors who could not make a living from what their land produced supplemented their insufficient earnings by working for the rich or by all kinds of expedients. A not infrequent situation in Spain and one which must have contributed to tipping the scales in favour of the social revolution when the upheaval caused by the insurrection and fascist threat took place. The logical consequence was the overwhelming influence of our syndical organisation, which without hesitation set about socialising the large estates. The task was made all the easier because the large terrateriertes had vanished and what had to be avoided was that the productive wealth that had become socially available should not be shared out among new beneficiaries who would only reintroduce, though in a somewhat modified form, the basically identical system of exploitation, chaos and inequality that had just been done away with.

Simultaneously, and following the achievement of libertarian communism for which they had been struggling for so long, our comrades tackled the traditional small proprietors in order to transform as many of the parcels of individually cultivated land, scattered and broken up into huge areas, rationally exploited thanks to the common social property and to the use of techniques, which it had made possible.

I met again in Carcagente comrades I had previously known in Barcelona or in Buenos Aires where they had emigrated during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. They told me that to bring about these fundamental transformations they did not use force and especially was this the case in regard to the small growers. Those who joined did so of their own free will, following the example of the militants who set the example by handing over their land, animals and tools. There remained a number of recalcitrants, but our comrades had complete confidence in the superiority of group work in the practical and moral results, that could be achieved by mutual aid. They knew that by example they would succeed in winning over those who still hesitated They were so convinced that, in many cases - and I and others came across similar examples on many occasions - they did not hesitate, in order to complete collectivised areas in the middle of which were parcels of land belonging to individualists, to offer them better land in exchange for theirs and to help them settle in.

In a few months positive results were apparent. In the first place a local economic crisis had been wiped out. Difficulties created by the civil war and its repercussions had produced economic and commercial stagnation which hampered the disposal of the crops and each small grower, left to his own devices, was faced with disturbing problems. In due course the practice of union and solidarity made it possible to find ways to dispose of their produce, if not in Carcagente itself then in Valencia or in other provinces.

But this only partially remedied the slowing down in activity. The breakdown of the normal channels for exports and the commercial blockade or semi-blockade of Spain made the situation very difficult. And there was no question of solving it by the municipal organisation of public charity. This was the driving force towards a more far reaching social transformation. Thus all the time more peasants were offering their land to the Collective in return for membership. For only the Collective was capable of taking revolutionary action and finding the right solutions by the reorganisation of local life.

When I arrived there I was shown the latest batch of applications for admission that had been received. They gave details of area and the locations of the land, its condition as well as of the numbers in the family, details of livestock and of working tools - in all this no signs of coercion.

Nevertheless, and in view of the gravity of the situation created by the civil war, individual freedom or the autonomy of producers who had remained outside the Collective, did not mean the latter allowed them to put a brake on or interrupt production. Our comrades understood from the first day that it was necessary to collaborate for victory by redoubling their efforts. And without waiting for the municipal authorities and the political parties to undertake these responsibilities, the landworkers, Syndicate nominated a Commission to supervise the work being done in the countryside and to be on the lookout that there was no slackening either in the individualists' or the collectivists' passion for their work.

But naturally it was above all the Collective, organised by the peasants' Syndicate and placed under its control, which preached by example. I traversed huge orange groves, one of which covered five villages, and was struck by the tidy and clean cultivations. Every inch had been worked, as if combed, with meticulous care in order to ensure that the trees enjoyed all the natural goodness in the soil. The Valencian peasant was renowned for the love with which he tended his land and the crops he grew on it. And it was clearly visible. There was no need for fertilisers. "Previously," - said the comrades who were escorting me across the plantations of golden fruits - "all this, that belonged to the capitalists, was worked by wage earners who were somewhat indifferent to the results of their labours. The proprietors bought large quantities of chemical fertilisers or guano whereas all that was needed was to look after the land to get good harvests."

And it was with joy and pride that later they showed me grafts that they had made in order to improve the stock and the eventual quality of the fruit.

However in some places I came across crops growing between the rows, and to my enquiry the comrades pointed out that if the war lasted a long time the towns would be short of food. It was for this reason that in this generally gravelly soil, not very suitable for horticulture, they had planted early potatoes. They did more: taking advantage of the four months that elapse between harvesting the rice and the sowings that follow, they had sowed in the Valencian rice-fields, duly cultivated, early wheat.

As it was my first contact with an agrarian Collective I asked for details of the general organisation of work, and discovered that it was both simpler and much more complete than I had imagined. At the base, a public meeting of agricultural workers which included unionists and non-unionists (the latter were not numerous, as is apparent from the figures already given). On the proposal by those present, individualists and collectivists, a Comite was nominated by a majority vote if unanimity could not be achieved, which was divided into two sections: the technical section with six members entrusted with the management of production and the problems of disposal on the home and export markets, and the administrative section consisting of five members to deal with accountancy. The technical section included former professional exporters whose abilities were known and recognised. They were carrying out their tasks ably and seemed really integrated into the new social structure.

In Carcagente industrial socialisation started after agrarian socialisation. But it was launched in a manner that promised well for the future. Building work was in the hands of the Syndicate of the building industry, and engineering was controlled by the metalworkers' Syndicate; the woodworkers' Syndicate - cabinet-makers, joiners, carpenters - brought together all the small businessmen and craftsmen in one huge workshop where each, received a remuneration decided on by all; where no longer did one have to wait for the client or ask oneself how bills were to be met at the end of the month. Other less important trades, were grouped in a single Syndicate. Hairdressers shops where lighting, organisation and hygiene often left much to be desired were replaced by a number of collectivised establishments which were clean and comfortable. Yesterday's competitors had become workmates.

As one has already noted the packing of oranges for export employed the greatest number of hands. Several buildings in Carcagente disposing of the equipment required were used for this purpose. Each was directed by a Comite nominated by the workers, and consisting of a professional expert in commercial affairs, and a delegate for each of the specific activities: manufacture of wooden boxes, grading, packing, conditioning, etc. In the various operations men and women workers carried out the tasks with enthusiasm, following the rhythm of the mechanical graders alongside which the orange boxes, which offered a kind of artistic cachet common to the people of this region, were lined up waiting to be closed and loaded up. The destination of the fruit was Britain, Sweden, France, Holland, etc.... And the workers would say to me, "We want them to see abroad that with socialised production we work better than before."

It was also a Comite specially appointed by the assembly of workers which managed the building industry. Houses were not being built - not only because of the war (in grave crises building, work is always the first to grind to a halt) but also because a large number of residences belonging to the rich and the local fascists were handed over to those who were the most ill-housed. But conversions and repair work were carried out. A number of former employers supported the communal effort and worked well; and one of the two architects in Carcagente joined the Syndicate.

The brick works and the parpen factory as well as all other trades were organised along the same principles, and on the same bases for remuneration.

When I returned to Carcagente, at the beginning of February 1937, the orange export trade was the only one that had been socialised. But it was done independently. Firstly the local section of the U.G.T. had supported the new achievements; secondly, it was done in conjunction with the regional Comite. When orders came from Valencia, the selectors would move to the areas where they knew they could find the varieties and quantities required. These selectors would also indicate when fruit trees were ready for picking on the basis of the travelling time involved as well as of the climatic conditions of the purchasing countries.

So far as distribution in general was concerned, and in spite of the advice I had given with a view to avoiding a slow, but persistent, increase in prices which counteracted some of the positive results achieved in production, the local shop continued to operate. It constituted a negative factor, and the time had come to ask oneself whether one should not move towards a new stage which would complement the first.

A first step in that direction had been taken in a number of cases above all in the region of the Levante, by the constitution of a food supplies Comite which undertook to secure for local consumption essential foodstuffs which were not produced locally. The same Comite organised the application of barter on the largest possible scale. My friend Gra„en, later executed by a fascist firing squad, was planning the organisation of distribution centres in the various districts, which-would give the population control over the price mechanism and the distribution of consumer goods. The idea was taking shape rapidly there as well as in many other localities, and within six weeks half the trade of Carcagente was socialised and Granen had high hopes for the other half.

At the same time part of the orange groves were grubbed up, as there was no sale for the fruit, and replaced by vegetables. One was moving towards economic integration, which was also noticeable elsewhere.

2. Jativa

I cannot think of Jativa (situated like Carcagente in the province of Valencia) without remembering its style, as Arabic as its name, the beautiful valley in which it had been built long ago, its wonderful climate and the deep blue of its brilliant sky. With some local comrades I went to visit the ruins of a large Moorish castle still standing and steeped in history, along the top of hills flanking the town, where mimosa grew in profusion between the random stones. From that height it was a dream landscape that one saw. In the foreground various cultivations, and then immense orange groves in which the golden fruit hung, as if in bunches along the branches which were bending under their weight and surrounded by the green varnished leaves which gleamed in the sunshine.

The founding of the Collective in Jativa did not take place as quickly as in Carcagente, which is after all not so far away. Yet the social movement there also went back many years, and it always included good militants. Of the 17,000 inhabitants, 3,000 were members of the C.N.T. Agriculture predominated and industry played a very minor role and was above all linked to orange production and the tasks that stemmed therefrom, to rice production, prepared and ground locally, to olive production, used for oil produced in local oil-crushers.

The fascist attack had brought together all the Left factions who, as happened in many other places, converged on the municipal Council. Soon this was composed, on the basis of the numerical strength of the forces represented, of five representatives each from the C.N.T. and U.G.T., one socialist, one Communist, a Left republican and a member of the Valencian autonomists party.

Though industry stemmed from the needs of agriculture, socialisation was initiated by industry. It was not general in all trades and professions, and among the last to do so were the hairdressers who in January 1937 were prepared, with their employers, to collectivise the shops which until then they had only been allowed to control.

In the industrial field the functional structure and operation I followed the familiar pattern: technical sections for organisation, administrative sections; the Syndicates managed workshop activities in which workers elected the Comites entrusted with management at the place of work itself.

But the agrarian Collective created on the 16th January, 1937, three weeks after my first visit, seems to me to be more important, for it got off to a flying start which was quite remarkable.

There was a fundamental reason for this which explains many similar cases I had occasion to observe: most of the members of the C.N.T. were hard working peasants, accustomed to responsible work, to direct dealings, whereas in the local section of the U.G.T. there was a predominance of administrative employees in the private and public sectors, numbers of tradespeople, and the conservative elements among the small growers whose social reformist headquarters made the defence of traditional ownership of the land a profession of faith.

This was in direct contradiction with the basic postulates of Marxism and the views of Marx and Engels, but the Marxism of the Spanish socialists was quite as anaemic as that of the French socialists. And Marx and Engels as well as their continuators have said so many contradictory things!

Our comrades did not propose, however, to seize anybody's goods by force-unless they were fascists, terratenrentes, or caciques; and apart from a few isolated cases which we are prepared to assume took place, one cannot accuse them on this score. On the contrary, one is surprised to see how tolerant they were in general to the "individualists".

The emergence in strength of the agrarian Collective can be explained by other reasons which complement those already given. Before the uprising, the local libertarians exercised a constructive influence over a large number of peasants who were members of a local mutual benefit society. It was the active, organising dynamic nucleus of that mutual aid society which was to constitute the basic elements of the social microcosm in the process of being formed. It is extremely difficult to improvise as an organiser, and very often one finds in the antecedents of this revolution, a practical activity which explains the sureness of the advance and the rapidity of its success.

Furthermore, Jativa offers many other examples of a social conscience. There was the case of the owner of an oil-crusher - worth a fortune in local terms - who gave his working capital and lands to the Collective. Or that of his son, also one of the privileged, who brought all his capital and his wife's to the common cause. Or again that of the secretary (8) who did likewise. One cannot be surprised therefore by the idealistic optimism which could be read into the expressions, the actions, even the bearing of those who were busying themselves to create a new world, always on the move dealing with the many tasks with which they had been entrusted.

This spirit emerges in the Rules produced following many deliberations and published in a small white notebook, a copy of which I have preserved to this day. The following are the most characteristic Articles.

The family wage was established. A single man received 35 pesetas a week while a single woman received exactly a half. (10) Each dependent child entitled the family to an extra seven pesetas a week; and then from 10 to 14 years this was increased to 10.50 pesetas for boys and 8.75 for girls.

Very few essential matters were overlooked, but if experience revealed that one had, there was nothing to prevent the modification and improvement of the existing Statutes. One should add that not only was education compulsory but was given in the Collective's schools which from the beginning had staff and had fitted up three school buildings in which to hold the classes, and in addition a fourth building which was at the disposal of the children in their leisure hours, during the day, to study or to play.

Projects on such a scale must be based on a solidly established material situation. It was so. In a fortnight nearly 500 families applied to join the Collective, offering to it all their goods. The majority belonged to the C.N.T. with a minority from the U.G.T.. for almost everywhere socialists or members of the reformist trade union organisations did not follow the directives issued by their leaders. And the supporters would have been even more numerous had the organisers not thought it necessary to show caution, in order not to risk being overwhelmed, or hampered by collectivists who were still unsure.

On joining, each new member completed a form giving details about himself, his family and dependent relatives; then of his assets or liabilities and debts, in land, money, tools and draught animals.

The total area of collectivised land, including the expropriations from fascists and the large landowners as well as land brought by members, amounted to 5,114 hectares of which 2,421 were, irrigated. A fortnight after the official inauguration, the technical Comite was managing operations on 446 hectares. Thanks to its, initiative and to the enthusiasm of everybody, 75 hectares had, been reclaimed and prepared for cultivation, later being sown with corn and potatoes in anticipation of the threatened scarcity, d food in the towns.

On the basis of a general plan prepared by the technicians practitioners, a quarter of the land was to be planted with rice, another quarter as orange groves, and a half for market-garden produce.

It was also decided to introduce stock breeding. Within three weeks 400 sheep and goats (the renowned Murcia goats were conveniently situated) were ordered for breeding purposes. In due course it was hoped to supply the whole town with the meat it required: an urgent matter seeing that the main supply areas (Castile, Estremadura, Galicia) were in the hands of the Francoist forces.

A similar initiative was launched for poultry and egg production. Two incubators were purchased to make a start. Bee-keeping was still under consideration, but the conditions in that area where flowers and fruit trees abounded were favourable for this hitherto unexplored activity. Finally all the part of the Sierra which could not be cultivated by man and which erosion was denuding at an increasing rate was to be planted with pines. The seedlings had already been purchased.

In a very short time, the Collective had also acquired three lorries. It undertook large-scale works to improve and extend irrigation to the dry lands. In one week acequias were dug, and others started. The plan adopted consisted in raising the water by means of motorised pumps to a water tower from which it would be distributed to the land which until then had remained fallow because the small owners had neither the initiative nor the required resources for such undertakings. (11)

The Rules refer to the steward's office. Members of the Collective could obtain from it, at cost price, available goods that they required. Everyone could even ask for these goods in large quantities, paying by instalments without interest, so that housewives did not have to shop every other day for soap, lignite, lard, oil, etc.

As in all Collectives, the draught animals-donkeys, horses, mules-were housed in large stables specially fitted up, and were used both for heavy and light work. In the morning, specially trained boys would harness them to the carts and other equipment, saving time for the carters and landworkers. When they returned at night they no longer had to spend a further half hour unharnessing and grooming their horses before going home, for this task was done for them by their comrades. As also when there was much unloading to be done, others would come to help.

Less than two months after its constitution, I received a letter from the secretary of the Collective of Jativa which I feel deserves to be quoted in full.

Jativa, March 8, 1937.

Dear Comrade,

I have waited to reply, in spite of my promise to do so as soon as possible, because l wanted to give you as much information as possible on the progress of the Collective, and as the study I have in mind to write would make me delay too long, I have decided to send you what hard facts are available and leave a more detailed report to a later date.

The membership of the Collective has reached 408, of whom 82 are members of the U.G.T. while the others are from the C.N.T. Twenty-three applications for membership are waiting for the nominated Commission to decide one way or the other. There are many applications but we want to advance with caution.

The enthusiasm of the collectivists is fantastic, so much so that our members are working twice as much as they did before. For this reason we prefer to backpedal a little on accepting new members so that they shall not be influenced simply by material considerations, and that nothing should intervene to harm the wonderful spirit that exists and which is the guarantee for success.

The total wages for the 408 member families amounts to 22,811 pesetas a week, from which amount we must deduct 1,108.50 pesetas which some collectivists earn outside in other trades and which they hand over to the Collective in accordance with the Rules on this question. Other expenses have to be added such as:

Doctors, operations, dentists, confinements, oculist, medicaments estimate per year 26,600 ptas Purchases of furniture for new households per year 9,250 ptas House rents for collectivists per month 2,632 ptas

All the above represents weekly outgoings totalling 22,999 pesetas which divided by 453 working persons-we obviously do not include the elderly and the incapacitated-gives a family wage of 50.70 pesetas.

We have not yet been able to prepare our estimates for the purchase of fertilisers, materials for fumigation, machinery, feed for livestock and other expenses; neither have we estimates of income from the sale of our products: we are too absorbed by the meetings with peasants who have not joined, to decide amicably which land they can cultivate individually and which they can give up to us.

Things are happening all the time so that it is impossible to establish exact estimates until all these matters are settled. Nevertheless the life of the Collective is now and henceforth guaranteed. One can already make the following estimates in round figures:

Value of the crops from 340 hectares of orange groves at the minimum price of 3,000 pesetas

per hectare ... 1,020,000 ptas
ditto from 100 hectares of rice plantings average 720 quintals at 350 pesetas a quintal .. 252,000 ptas
ditto 280 hectares of irrigated land at an average
certainly greater than 6,000 pesetas ... ... 1,680,000 ptas
ditto 1,000 hectares of dry lands at 300 pesetas
- 300,000 ptas

3,252,000 ptas

The difference between the outgoings noted and the above estimated gross income is 2,052,752 pesetas which will permit us to improve our working equipment, to purchase fertilisers, feedstuffs for the animals, etc. We have kept our estimates as low as possible in order to improve the living conditions of the members of the Collective as and when our reserves will make this possible. This win encourage the farmers and smallholders who have so far hesitated in joining to make up their minds. The results obtained will then make them join us in a happier frame of mind than if they were to join now.

In the three months since our Collective was founded we have bought three lorries at a cost of 100,000 pesetas; we have also purchased 12 she-mules and 230 goats and are expecting delivery of forty cows. We have organised a poultry farm and bought six incubators. At the moment we are producing 3,000 eggs a month. We have decided to develop this farm as quickly as we can to ensure that eggs and poultry will be available to an members without payment.

The production and monetary return at the moment from all the collectivists amounts to 400,000 pesetas a month.

Fraternal greetings . . .

V.G.

The detailed account. of the Collective in Jativa ends here, but it is worth underlining once again the different conditions in which the Collectives in Aragon and those in the Levante were born. In Aragon it was possible to obtain from the beginning the support of a large proportion of the population because of the absence of opposition from the republican authorities, and because the traditional political parties had disappeared. Often the Collective merged with the village. In the Levante, in the circumstances, the Collectives were usually only partial-the estimate of 40% of the total population is a fair one in my view. But on the one hand the spread of their action, and on the other the greater demographic density, resulted in there being more numerous, with more members and, as a consequence of the abundance of their resources, their constructive achievement in the economic field was much more important. On the human level Aragon has certainly not been surpassed.

3. Other Methods of Operation

SEGORBE (province of Castellon de la Plana). As well as many libertarians, there were in this small town of 7,000 inhabitants also many militants among the socialists, U.G.T.-ists, Republicans and Communists. In addition there were the farmers who thought they would be able to keep the land which they formerly rented from the terratenientes, now dispossessed, and the traditional smallholders, satisfied with their situation, who were not attracted by collectivist organisation. These adverse forces constituted a solid front of resistance to the socialisation proposed by the C.N.T.-ers, even more so since the Minister of Agriculture, the Communist Uribe, made vehement speeches over the Valencia radio inciting the peasants to "resistance" against the Collectives, whilst La Pasionaria, (12) official leader of the Party of Moscow echoing the arguments formerly circulated by the reactionaries, was declaring over the same radio, to the benefit of the waverers: "Is it not a fact, comrade peasants, that it is painful to work and break one's back throughout the year, only to be deprived of the fruits of your labours by some immoral scoundrels when it is time to gather the harvest." Declarations of war on the supporters of collectivisation followed.

One came near to bloody incidents which the Stalinists were at pains to provoke, and when I went the first time to Segorbe, to address a meeting on the advantages of collectivisation from the social and economic points of view, I was hard pressed afterwards to bring calm among the tense comrades, advising against a violent confrontation with their detractors and for, to begin with, a modest, free community, as had been done elsewhere in order to win over supporters by the power of example.

The canton of Segorbe comprises 42 villages where, as in so many other places, our comrades had entered the municipal Councils through which they sought to have social reforms accepted, some of them fundamental.

On their initiative, price controls were established in most villages; then trade was socialised, firstly in order to share in the revictualling of the front which was not far off. A new stage was the establishment of a Comite which distributed goods to the controlled tradespeople. Then the "municipal cooperatives" were born in complete agreement with the delegates of seven villages who had been elected to constitute the distribution Comite for the whole canton. Finally the "Free Commune of Segorbe" was created with an initial nucleus of 42 families. A month later there were ninety. Fenner Brockway the English socialist was in Segorbe at the time and on his return to England referred to the deep impression he had received from that visit. *

JERICA (province of Castellon de la Plana). There too, and not because it was reactionary, the population did not readily accept the collectivisation of the land, not even of the expropriated estates belonging to the rich fascists, because the collectivists spirit was foreign to large numbers of people. And again it would be interesting to know to what extent the fear of a Francoist triumph or of a backward move by the Republic after victory influenced the attitude of those who, as was the case of some villages in Aragon, refused to participate in the new solutions.

Eight months after the 19th July uprising the C.N.T. had only 200 members-incidentally, as many as the U.G.T. but with this difference, so often noted: that support for the U.G.T. by the conservative smallholders, tradesmen and other recent converts to trade unionism was dictated by a desire to counteract the revolutionary enterprises of the C.N.T. and maintain in existence a class society in which everyone seeks to benefit at the expense of somebody else.

Nevertheless a start was made by socialising industry. Then our Syndicate seized five estates, one of 70 hectares, onto which 70 families belonging to the C.N.T. and 10 to the U.G.T. moved From these beginnings the number of collectivists rose rapidly.

SONEJA (province of Castellon de la Plana). The libertarian movement there has a long history-which probably goes back to the First International. In 1921 a number of our comrades organised a plasterers cooperative as a way of freeing themselves from the boss class and of doing something constructive. Ten years later almost all the plaster used in the village and its surroundings came from their firm which in 1936 had liquid assets valued at 300,000 pesetas. This was a small fortune in villages where a tradesman's rate was seven pesetas a day.

The resources that were at their disposal made it possible for our comrades to build a small school which they donated to the local Syndicate, and which they maintained at their expense. Then they founded a cultural group and a public library. Thanks to them, there were no illiterate children in Soneja. They were also looked upon as the most idealistic in the region and their moral rectitude, which was proverbial, meant that they were often called in to arbitrate in disputes.

After 19th July, a new municipal council was elected in which they were in a majority. As in Segorbe, industry was socialised first. It was not until the following March that the local general Syndicate undertook to socialise what it could in agriculture, only with the estates abandoned by their fascist owners, land neglected due to lack of initiative or because of physical disability.

Good work was done but it did not achieve the completeness that was noted in other localities, though it went on improving.

SUECA (13) (province of Valencia). On July 19th, as in all localities in the Levante, the anti-fascist forces, C.N.T.-ers, republicans and socialists constituted a defence Comite, took the necessary protective measures against the fascists, sought to ensure the means of life for all the inhabitants, and confiscated the large estates.

These estates were in the first place cultivated for the benefit of everybody. Then, surmounting a second stage, the Defence Comite took all the cultivable land under its control and proceeded to a new division according to the needs of families and the average yields of the various zones. A system reminiscent of the Russian "mir"; it was the only example of its kind in agrarian solutions, even provisional, that I had heard of. But as in the "mir", the land was given in usufruct, not as property legally recognised.

A household would receive two hectares of excellent, irrigated I and; an extra hectare for the first child and, following the convention established with family wages, a decreasing amount for each addition to the family. The middle range landowners were reduced to the common share which permitted them to live by their work.

At the same time, and perhaps before, the same Defence Comite, inspired by the libertarian elements who were in it, established a control of ricefields, rice being the main crop in that zone. The administrative agricultural commission was especially nominated and given a mandate to sell the crop and take charge of the proceeds. Then it opened accounts in a local bank in the name of each family who could thereby draw on their share of the money each week or month, up to the limits established so as to avoid waste and chaos.

It was at this point that on 10th January, 1937, about six months after the Civil War started, that the peasants' Syndicate, with 2,000 members and affiliated to the C.N.T., started the agrarian Collective of Sueca. 400 families joined, contributing their land and their working tools, so from the start 1,000 hectares of very rich land for general agriculture were available as well as 200 hectares for market gardening and a proportional share of the estates taken from the fascists. Juridically this land belonged to the commune (parish) but the occupiers did what they wished with it.

Shortly afterwards 32 families of members of the U.G.T. and ten of members of the Communist Party in their turn formed a Collective. Example was asserting itself with our adversaries.

BENICARLO (province of Castellon de la Plana). The method of application in Benicarlo reminds one of Segorbe with some variables. None of the fifty-two villages in the canton decided to attempt a partial or complete collectivist experiment at the beginning, nor was it the case of our comrades wanting to impose it by force. Nevertheless the resistance weakened later and some Collectives were set up.

Once again it was the participation of the municipal council and the kind of solutions provided for the problem of food supplies that paved the way. Private business being at a standstill, our comrades met the situation by commandeering lorries and vans and organising a municipal Comite entrusted with the task of sales and purchases "for the whole of the fifty-two villages of the canton".

This organism started by buying from the peasants their produce which they despatched to the consumer or to disposal centres or even abroad. Then it centralised supplies of seeds and fertilisers and distributed them with a view to intensifying the production of corn and potatoes, bearing in mind the food shortages to be expected that winter. (The peasants seemed to us to be more farseeing and concerned with the fate of the towns than the governors and citizens whose concern it should have been.) This led to the supervision of the work of the smallholders, to avoid any sabotage or negligence in a period when the general needs had to prevail.

At the same time the cantonal comite of Benicarlo, thanks to the friendly relations which permitted a growing unity between agriculture and industry, brought immediate improvements to the peasants' conditions. Farmers and medieros had no longer to pay land rent either in money or kind. They very soon benefited from the free installation of electricity, the result of excellent intersyndical relations on a regional basis, and each village had its telephone. The necessary resources for these enterprises came from the rents on the houses of the people of Benicarlo itself, who were invited to pay them to the municipal Council where our comrades had their headquarters. In return taxes were abolished and the proprietors were never thrown out onto the street.

Then schools were started, kindergartens organised. All this convinced the doubters, and in the end the Collectives made their appearance.

In the case of Benicarlo, initiative came therefore mainly from the centre. It was by beginning at the centre that it was possible first to start and then to extend the "Confederal Communities", thus called because of their affiliation to the C.N.T. Everything concerning the canton went through Benicarlo which was strategically well situated. Every morning an average of 150 carts brought or collected goods of all kinds. The fraternal network was finally established, and later completed.

Carried along by the tide of events, the political parties either accepted the fait accompli or collaborated.

Footnotes to Chapter 6

[1] The variations in geographical characteristics as well as of dependent resources were such that in 1936, regions in the same province had a population density in the Mediterranean zone of 450 per sq. kilometre, and in other places only 25 to 30 kilometres from the coast, the density was less than 20.

[2] The population of Spain is much less dispersed than that of France, for instance, and the number of communes was, even when taking into account the smaller population, considerably lower. The figures for the Levante are no less eloquent.

[3] It should be added that a number of socialist peasants or who belonged to the U.G.T. joined the Collectives. This was another good reason for maintaining the autonomy of the Collectives.

[4] FERECALE (the initials for the Regional Federation of Peasants of the Levante) was constituted for the transport and the marketing of citrus fruits. It was made up of the following sections: technical personnel; warehouses; depots; land transport; home market; international exports; general accounts, sea transport. General delegations had been set up in Castellon, Burriana, Gandia, Denia and Alicante.

It owned its fleet of motor vessels of 120-150 tons. The orders which came from abroad were sent to the regional warehousing centre in which the fruit (especially oranges) according to the quality required was stored. The goods were despatched from each centre to its corresponding embarkation section; the invoicing centre then transmitted the registration to the accounts section. Furthermore the control sections established in the ports transmitted by telephone the receipts and outgoings to the headquarters of FERECALE in Valencia; and the depots from which the goods had been removed acted in a similar manner.

[5] Of course there were depots with raw materials distributed among the five provinces, for it goes without saying that everything was not concentrated in Valencia

[6] The home market could have expanded. But apart from the cost of transport in this excessively mountainous country, the old system had never taken it up.

[7] The influx of refugees from Castile had not yet begun.

[8] This secretary, a very young man, surprised me by his knowledge of the problems of Spanish agriculture. And yet, he was unknown, even in our movement.

[9] This measure was taken for the members of the Collective who did not own their homes. They were, as one can see, a minority. It is also worth mentioning that collectivists lived at home individually. So nothing in common with the views of Etienne Cabet and other reformers, which led to many community experiments during the last century in N. America failing largely because of excessive communising and at all times, which stifled the personality. This separation was practised in all Spanish Collectives.

[10] This difference in the means of life, which one finds elsewhere though not always, will come as a shock, and rightly so. It must not be forgotten that Spain has retained some of the consequences of the Arab presence which lasted 800 years, followed by the most backward Catholic Church that has ever existed. That is one explanation. Then, in practice, it is, exceptional for a woman to live alone; generally the spinster or the widow lives with her family - family traditions are more respected in Spain than in France or Britain. The problem of the single woman does not present itself in the way that might be supposed when viewed from the point of view of French ways of life. It should be added that at the family table, everyone men and women, eat their fill. There is no distinction made except in the poorest families, where often if, for instance, their means allowed them to buy only one egg, it would be kept for the head of the family not so much because he was the head as that he was the breadwinner and needed to be nourished to maintain his strength to work.

[11] This project was in due course carried out. When the water gushed forth for the first time in the direction of the orange groves, flooding seemed inevitable. A young runner was dispatched post haste to ask them to turn off this wonderful torrent!

[12] Leader and rabid Stalinist militant.

*Translator's footnote: Brockway in an article, "The C.N.T. as I saw it" (Spain and the World, Jy 19, 1937) wrote of Segorbe: "Most of all I enjoyed my visit to the Agricultural Collective of Segorbe. I must not delay to describe it in detail, but the spirit of the peasants, their enthusiasm, the way they had contributed their stock to the common effort, their pride in it-all was an inspiration . . . The anarchists of Spain, through the C.N.T., are doing one of the biggest constructive jobs ever done by the working-class."

[13] Our movement had deep roots in Sueca, where its history had been at times, dramatic.

CHAPTER VII
THE COLLECTIVES OF CASTILE

Circumstances beyond my control interrupted my first-hand study of the achievements of the Spanish social revolution much too soon; as a result I was unable to observe on the spot the Collectives of Castile, or more exactly of the two Castilles: the Old and the New. Collectivisation in the Centre took place after Aragon and the Levante and was at the same time a natural development and a necessity. Yet the Castilian region, especially the one that a mind historically informed automatically evokes, did not seem ready for such a venture which was so contrary to the role that it had played since the suppression of the "comuneros" at the time of Don Carlos. (1) For since the triumphant Reconquest at the expense of the Arabs, it was the home of centralism and of political domination set up by Ferdinand and Isabella (called, with reason, the "catholic kings") and maintained by force of arms. The establishment of the Court in Madrid, understandably engineered by Charles V, succeeded in infusing among the population, as almost always happens with the population of capital cities, a power complex, and the most fanatical Church which the monarchy made into an instrument of power, added to it the seal of its intransigent fanaticism. However, political and religious convictions do not necessarily always destroy higher human qualities. It is the case of the Castilian peasant, the nobility of whose spirit and soul, whose uprightness' courage and profound honesty are his greatest virtues which inspire the esteem of others, and whose respect for the State has not become a voluntary and servile submission. Every individual being in the first place a man, it is in the first place within himself, from his innermost conscience that he draws the reasons for his behaviour.

On the other hand, municipal and customary right has held out in Castile as in other regions of Spain, and under the authoritarian structures of the central power, it very often maintained, as with the fire under the ash, a spirit and a practice of mutual aid that people like Adolfo Posadas and Joaquin Costa have praised in such works as El Derecho Consuetudinario or El Colectivismo Agrario en Espana. For the Castilian peasant, a tradition of mutual aid, of municipal rights, persists, and a word given is worth more than the law. He is hospitable and generous. He is a worker, making the corn which feeds the whole country grow on land which is hard, unproductive, and at an average altitude of 700 metres above sea level, exposed throughout most of the year either to bitter frosts or torrid heat. The continual struggle has developed in him a characteristic austerity and courage.

Yet libertarian ideas had penetrated very little the vast Castilian plateau. Conservatives predominated there, with the centuries old "caciquism" of the large landowners. Whenever an awakening to new ideas had taken place it was the reformist socialists who had benefited.

But the Civil War changed many things. For from the first moment in a large part of the region it did not develop against fascism. On the other hand, it extended inevitably to the largest landed estates, implicitly or explicitly its allies. The flight of men who immediately went to the regions that had been taken from the Republic, facilitated or provoked the revolutionary seizure of their estates.

And from the first moment, in all the villages which had previously been dominated by a social organisation from another age, the Popular Front nominated administrators who confiscated not only the land but the machines and the draught animals as well.

At the same time, the reformist trade union, the U.G.T., appointed administrative Comites for the management of the expropriated estates. And the Communists, who were part of the Popular Front, infiltrated these new organisms as fast as they could.

The manner in which this incongruous bunch of administrators, without any creative initiative, conducted affairs was disastrous from the start. The Republicans, naturally legalists, and who had never thought about such responsibilities, did not know what to do with the means of production. The Communists and socialists, accustomed not to act without receiving instructions from the Party's Central Committee, or from the State institutions, were waiting for orders which never came, or which were too vague when they didn't arrive too late.

Now, work on the land demands constant initiative responding to the diverse circumstances which cannot be foreseen from an office, and nothing is more unbearable to the peasant than to be given orders from a distance by people who know nothing about the job. The militants of the political parties were putting a brake on the tasks needing to be done instead of being the instigators.

As a result yields fell on the large landed estates that had been seized under the auspices of the State which was undertaking, almost by force, an agrarian reform about which there had been talk for years without anything being done on the kind of scale required. Then the workers were blamed for the situation, and that the partial stoppage of work on the land (which was in fact caused by the incapacity of the local authorities, of the management committees to choose between large private property and socialism) had caused a decline in production which was threatening the towns.

The situation therefore became favourable for the organisation of Collectives. Soon there was in addition the departure of the government from Madrid before the advance of the Francoist troops which were being contained with difficulty twelve kilometres to the south of the capital. Relieved of the State machine the spirit of the population began to unwind, to "degovernmentalise" itself, and things were ordered through the freed, or at least much freer, initiative of the population.

A new stage in which the libertarian influence began to make itself felt with unexpected vigour. Until then it was only in the capital that it was developed to a degree which had the potential to attain historic proportions. For some years past, especially since the proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931, the libertarian movement had made progress in Madrid where the royal residence, the presence of the Court, of Parliament and the various organisms of the State, and the absence of industries, imposed and favoured institutions of a parasitic and bureaucratic character and dulled local customs. But during those five years our movement had shot forward, and our daily newspaper C.N.T. had increased its circulation to 30,00.0 copies. The building workers' Syndicate which had cost our militants much effort to organise against the opposition of the existing Syndicate, whose paid organiser was the reformist leader Largo Caballero, had 15,000 members on the eve of the Francoist attack; that of the woodworkers had absorbed a third of the labour force among cabinet makers, joiners and carpenters. The Syndicate of liberal professions included a growing number of journalists, engineers, and writers whose fundamentally anti-State feelings drove them out of the U.G.T. which continued to be managed by State socialists.

During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1924-1931) an Ateneo (centre for studies and cultural activities) had been organised, and had begun to spread information on social matters. (2) Once the Republic was proclaimed some thirty Ateneos of the same kind though of less ambitious proportions, for which a library was the starting point, were organised in the central area as well as in the districts where there was a chain of them, and which provided not only a reading room used also for lectures and where books were available in quantities, but workers' syndicates established their headquarters there; thus the class. struggle and the development of the individual went hand in hand. The districts of Tetuan, Cuatro Caminos, La Bombilla, Cerretera Extramadura and many more each had its Ateneo. And naturally these Ateneos had set up a Federation and a network which covered the city and its suburbs. The high moral level of this activity explains to a large degree the influence; of the C.N.T. and the constructive achievements which took place as soon as the situation made it possible to act. Our Madrid comrades who had already established contacts with peasant groupings intervened slowly, advocating what was being done in Aragon and in the Levante. Very soon they got a hearing, the more so as the majority consisted of manual workers and not of bureaucrats, and that those workers could easily put down the hammer and the trowel and take up the pitchfork when it was deemed necessary to do so.

And the Collectives were created, spreading to the north and south of Madrid, across those parts of the two Castiles that had not been conquered by the Francoists two-thirds of the province of Guadalajara, almost all the province of Madrid, Toledo and Ciudad Real, (3) and the entire province of Cuenca. In a year, there were 230 Collectives with about 100,000 members with their families. Six months later the number of Collectives had risen to 300. No one doubted that the movement would have developed well beyond this had Franco not won the war. The reader may be very surprised to learn that the Federation of Land Workers which was after all affiliated to the U.G.T., itself joined the collectives.

The Collectives were a success right from the start, the results of solidarity, a community of efforts, and of the use of the most effective techniques. There was no waiting for slogans and for official or semiofficial approval before forging ahead. Land clearance, irrigation works, new sowings, tree planting, collective stores ("cooperatives"), poultry yards, economic equality as a result of the establishment of the family wage . . . After all, the workers who supported the U.G.T. more often than not had the same objectives as those who belonged to the C.N.T. Like them, they wanted the expropriation of the large landed proprietors which the minireform effected by the government of the Second Republic was carrying out with exasperating slowness. They wanted the establishment of social justice in practice, with the right to a living, to consumer goods, to the satisfaction of material needs for themselves and their families And they knew full well that this would be impossible so long as the land belonged to a minority of exploiters and parasites Agreement was therefore easily reached between the two peasant organisations.

In December 1937, the secretariat of the National Federation of Agriculture attached to the C.N.T. was able to declare that the region of the Centre, roughly comprising the two Castiles, came second among the regions so far as the results of socialisation were concerned. First came the Levante, and we have already outlined the extent of its achievements, and at the time the Collectives of Aragon were deeply affected by the ravages caused by the brigade led by the Communist Lister which was then showing more courage against the collectivist peasants than against Franco's armed forces.

The achievements in Castile were not only due to the efforts of the libertarian militants of the region (4) and of the socialists who dared to join forces with them. A fact which deserves to be mentioned, and which once again demonstrates the deep solidarity that linked the regions: In July 1937, 1000 members of the Levante Collectives had been sent to Castile to help and to advise their less experienced comrades. As a result of this concentration of complementary activities it would seem that in Castile, with the lessons of Aragon and the Levante to assist them, great strides were made in a minimum of time.

From the administrative point of view, the organic structure of the Castilian Collectives is basically the same as already described for Aragon and the Levante. A Management Commission, nominated by the village or collectivist assembly and responsible to groups or producers constituted and organised according to age, suitability for work, their sex and the variety of tasks (5) delegates from the groups meeting periodically to plan overall and to coordinate efforts. (6)

As in Aragon and the Levante the administrative Commissions consisted of as many members as there were branches of activity: agriculture, livestock, housing, education, etc.... In the small villages or in Collectives with few members, a single delegate would undertake a number of these functions, and generally would go on working at his normal job. For, to quote from a report published at the time. "in a well organised Collective nobody has to give up being a peasant".

The Economic Council for Castile which resided in Madrid was itself advised by experts, with and without diplomas, on agricultural problems and stock rearing. At the same time local accountancy, generally entrusted to a professional often coming from the town, recorded everything concerning production, consumption, wages paid, goods in store. Thus everything was controlled by the peasants, who were regularly apprised; on the other hand what was produced at the cantonal level was communicated to the corresponding commission of the cantonal federation which, in turn, informed the Collectives set up in the country districts. They thus practised a decentralisation of administrative functions.

***

From the economic point of view, the Collectives in Castile did not always have the same organic structure that one finds, for instance, in those of Aragon. Often they could only develop in the vast estates which the socialising peasants took possession of. On the other hand, and as in Andalusia, some estates were so large that with the personnel settled on them they literally constituted socio-economic units, so that an isolated Collective could nevertheless be a very important one. But it was also the case that within the jurisdiction of some villages many scattered Collectives were linked together by a coordinating local Comite. In other cases practically the whole village was collectivised, or the part of it that was constituted a homogeneous and integrated unity in the multiplicity of the general activities.

For whatever may have been the significance of those realisations, all of them, from the beginning, tended to unify and even, to use a verb dear to Bakunin, to "solidariser" * their action. It explains why each Collective belonging to the cantonal Federation, after covering its expenses (payment of wages or transfers-the word "wages" was repugnant to most people-purchase of fertilisers, seed, machines, school outgoings, sanitation, etc.) would send any cash surplus to the "Cantonal Equalisation Fund". his Fund, the administrators of which were nominated by a general assembly of delegates from the Collectives and responsible to them, had as its main function the distribution of moneys, supplied by the more favoured Collectives, among the less favoured ones.

Thus, as in Aragon, the libertarian communist principle was applied not only within each Collective, but between all the Collectives. No village ravaged by a hailstorm, or drought, or, frost and receiving compensation for the damage sustained, was expected to reimburse a penny of what it had received.

But the federal Equalisation Fund had also other functions. It was not enough to help the village or isolated Collective which f was through no fault of its own constantly in the red. With the help of the specialists from the Comite of the federation of the Centre it looked into ways and means for remedying the difficulties by improving yields in agriculture and by organising. auxiliary industries.

As in the case of other regions in Spain, all the cantonal funds in the Central region were federated. The headquarters were it in Madrid. The region thus constituted a unity the parts of which, freely settled local problems, but also, generally speaking, common problems such as those concerned with production. In a year the Madrid Comite distributed a million pesetas worth of fertilisers and machines to the poorest Collectives. (7) It had obtained that money from the sale of the surpluses of the wealthiest Collectives. So the general and federal mechanism was well set up. Nothing was left to chance. And the general regional organisation did not limit itself to the functions we have so far enumerated. It gave advice, full time guidance as to the best techniques to adopt, and the most suitable methods of production.

Already in November 1937, the peasants' regional Federation (8) had established its laboratories which were consulted on problems such as cultivation depth, suitable fertilisers, recommendations as to cultivations and seeds following chemical analysis of the' soil. But it was considered not enough simply to give advice: the section for fertilisers acquired and supplied what had been, recommended by the laboratories section. There was always, complete synchronisation.

Campo Libre (Freeland), organ of the Federation, published as did the other regional organs of the libertarian Collectives, detailed information on how to cultivate or deal with cereals, vegetables' vines, fruit trees, according to the varieties, climate and soil. It included technical data on dealing with diseases, on storing produce, as well as on suitable stock breeds for each region and on rational feeding to be adopted, etc. And the technical sections of the Federation published in the organs of the press announcements such as the following:

Other advice and suggestions on all aspects of agricultural production and its by-products contributed to the technical development of the peasantry and all these efforts facilitated the rapid rationalisation of agriculture which was enthusiastically assisted by our agricultural engineers, chemists and other experts. (9) One found this morality, this solidarity, this responsibility, this collectivist application in all aspects of life. Already towards the end of 1937 when the comrades who had been sent from the Levante or from Catalonia with vans arrived in no matter which collectivised village in Castile looking for corn, they always ran into a refusal. Even if there were available stocks the reply they got was, "Comrade, what we have here does not belong to us; you must get in touch with the secretariat of the regional Federation in Madrid." No offers of money or goods could in any way change this attitude for it was understood that respecting decisions taken ensured the success of the whole enterprise. So that all the prospective buyers could do was to phone Madrid or go there, where the section for barter or commerce accepted to supply the goods asked for if the general interest of the less favoured regions and the ever-present considerations of the demands of the war permitted.

We have said that the regional Federation of peasants of the Centre had become the regional Federation of peasants and of food supplies. It was firstly a case of the awareness of the role played by producers, secondly of the organic integration for which precedents existed, though less developed, in Aragon and in the Levante.

On 25 October 1937, on the initiative of the peasant organisation of the region of the Centre, the fusion took place between the 97,843 peasants and the 12,897 workers in the distributive trades who also belonged to the C.N.T. It was yet another step in the coordination of complimentary functions. From that moment, production and distribution were one activity. It was the distributors in the producers' Federation who undertook the distribution of products in the cooperatives and stores or public warehouses, which was organised as quickly as possible, both in the villages and in the towns, not forgetting the capital of Spain. Private trading was eliminated or at least kept under control, and thus was eliminated the possibility for a minority of middlemen to speculate on the produce brought by a majority of growers and take over control of the material means of the whole population. (10)

Then, as in Aragon, as well as in the Levante and in Catalonia, and we feel sure in the parts of Andalusia and Estremadura which for some time were in the hands of our comrades, this economic reorganisation was completed by the creation of a large number of schools, children's colonies, important irrigation works and a great number of initiatives for getting waste land into production, even in Madrid, sometimes at the price of superhuman efforts. One must further add the positive measures our comrades succeeded in getting accepted in the municipal Councils where they endeavoured to extend the role of the Commune (parish) and to transform it into an active element of social reorganisation.

Here now are a few examples which give one a fairly clear idea of the achievements of the three hundred Collectives of Castile.

Collective of Miralcampo: It was founded on the vast estate of Count Romanones, the famous leader of the monarchist liberals. In 1936, before the Revolution, wheat had been grown on 1,938 hectares and barley on 323 hectares. After collectivisation the acreage sown was increased to 4,522 hectares for wheat and 1,242 hectares for barley. Wine production increased from 435 to 727 hectolitres as a result of the improved treatment of the vines and the organisation of irrigation (for there had not been the time to replace the plants). The value of melon production rose from 196,000 to 300,000 pesetas and that of lucerne from 80,000 to 250,000 pesetas. (11)

Furthermore the Collective had a splendid rabbit industry, some 100 pigs and a food warehouse at which 800 people got their supplies. (12)

Throughout the canton the constructive achievements of the Collectives of Tielmes, Dos Barrios, Cabanas Yelpe, Cislada, Tomelloso, Almagro compared favourably with those of Miralcampo.

Marzanares: The collectivists' achievements here were on a much larger scale than in Miralcampo. At the time this town had a population of 25,000 and surprisingly, for it was in Castile, the libertarian movement had put down numerous roots there. (13) Furthermore, collectivisation was undertaken as early as August 1936; from the start our comrades succeeded in carrying along with them the local members of the U.G.T.

In 1937 the Collective had 22,500 hectares of land, and 2,500 hectares of woodlands and forests. Half this wealth came from expropriations, the other half from gifts and voluntary membership. In the archives were kept the particulars of 63 expropriations, 23 voluntary gifts in perpetuity and of the gifts of 500 collectivists who had previously been smallholders. The initial nucleus consisted of 1,700 people, men, women and children.

The following year they were producing 87,610 quintals of wheat, 96,840 hectolitres of wine, 630,000 pesetas worth of secondary cereals and fruit and vegetables valued at 900,000 pesetas.

From February 1937, the Collective possessed 700 mules and she-mules, as many carts and ploughs, six tractors, four threshing machines for the cereals, six hand operated and three motorised blowers, 80 pumps for extracting and distributing water onto the vegetable cultivations. In addition 3,000 sheep, 80 goats and two huge pigeon houses each with 6,000 birds.

That is not all. There were three oil-crushers equipped with hydraulic presses, thirty wine cellars with a capacity of 131,200 hectolitres, an alcohol distillery for medicinal purposes, a printing works, two cartwrights' workshops with modern equipment, a joiner's shop, a workshop for the weaving of esparto grass, a plaster factory, a sulphur factory for the sulphur dusting of the vines, and an engineering workshop.

It is true that almost all these installations already existed but the Collective got them to maximise their production. And being the cantonal headquarters, it assisted the Collectives of Membrilla, La Solana, Alhambra, Villarte, Arenas de la Vega, Daimiel, Villarubia, Almagro and Bolanos with whom it was linked by a community of effort. Such was the confidence it inspired that the Institute for Agrarian Reform, the official organism of the State, granted it a loan of 800,000 pesetas to tide it over the organisational period and which it was able to return without difficulty, even though mobilisation for the war involving a large number of members deprived it of willing hands which would have made it possible to do more.

Alcazar de Cervantes-It was in this town, where the traditional name Alcazar de San Juan had been changed by the Revolution, that Cervantes was born (this is a controversial matter). From October 1936 the local sections of the C.N.T. and of the U.G.T. began the socialisation of agriculture. Of 53,000 hectares within the jurisdiction of the municipal Council, 35,000 hectares passed into the hands of the Collective.

An administrative Comite consisting of three members from each of the Syndicates was nominated. The chairman, an old peasant, small proprietor and member of the U.G.T. was not perhaps the best choice for this revolutionary undertaking but his nomination was, so far as our comrades were concerned, a gesture of toleration. And in the event there were no grounds for complaint.

The first task for the Collective was, as always, to intensify -agricultural production. Until then the growing of cereals was virtually non-existent. A year later production had reached 19,000 hectolitres of wheat, 15,000 hectolitres of barley. No mean achievement on hard land and under generally unfavourable climatic conditions.

In February 1938 the Collective had 1,800 mules and she-mules and a breeding flock of 400 sheep which though it had not increased in size because it was always being drawn upon in order to contribute to the feeding of Madrid and those at the front, nevertheless had by July 30, 1937 produced after payment of family wages, a net gain of 211,792 pesetas.

The region is most suited to the cultivation of the vine. In 1937 the harvest produced 48,300 quintals of grapes which were delivered to the presses attached to the collective cellars. A thirtieth part of the production was kept for local consumption and the money received from the sale of the balance was used to improve the standard of living and to bring, by the distribution of clothing and furniture and the carrying out of repairs to houses, comforts previously unknown.

Industrial collectivisation appeared only in March 1937, six months after the birth of the agrarian Collective. Presumably the results obtained by the latter acted as an incentive to act for those who had so far hesitated. The members of the C.N.T. started by establishing an engineering workshop in an abandoned house. Some craftsmen and small tradesmen helped them, and shortly afterwards, the workshop boasted 40 engineering workers with a technical manager nominated by them. It had been started with tools which each of them had brought along, but the situation was improved as circumstances allowed.

Footnotes to Chapter 7

[1] Though the suppression took place at the time of Charles V it was not his doing. Whatever it may cost some Spaniards to admit it, it was the Spanish aristocracy alone which annihilated the democratic uprising: the repercussions had far-reaching importance in the social history of Spain.

[2] This Ateneo with a libertarian spirit served to complement, relatively speaking, the Ateneo founded under the monarchy by the liberal Madrid intellectuals and whose campaigns and political positions certainly exerted an influence on public life in Spain. On many occasions, libertarian militants, among them Orobon Fernander, a young man of great merit who died of consumption, were invited.

[3] Ciudad Real (Royal Town) was renamed during the revolution Ciudad Libre (Free Town).

[4] Many militants from Madrid who had effectively participated in the propaganda effort in the countryside, contributed to the organisation of the Collectives.

[5] It should be remembered that women only worked irregularly - "to harvest the lucerne and to thin out the sugar beet plants" as the Collectivists of Albalate de Cinca put it in their report.

[6] What happened in Castile was the opposite of what took place in the Levante. For it was the militants from the towns who went to the countryside to spread the message.

*Translator's note: "solidariser" = to make common cause with.

[7] One cannot appreciate the amount involved unless one also knows that at the time a quintal (225 Ibs.) of corn was worth 58 pesetas.

[8] Which had become the regional Federation of Peasants and for the feeding of the Centre.

[9] What we know of the Russian Revolution and the press that appeared from the first years of Bolshevik rule, permits us to say that one did not find any advice being given which reflected such a constructive spirit.

[10] Here is some cogent evidence: in Barcelona, and in Catalonia in general, it was not possible to socialise and amalgamate production and distribution. And the meal that cost 12 pesetas in a Barcelona restaurant cost 3 pesetas in a socialised restaurant in Madrid.

[11] At that time prices had not risen more than 10% over 1936 prices.

[12] In his book Historia del Anarco-Sindicalismo espanol published in Madrid in 1961, the writer Juan Gomez Casas wrote: "The Collectives organised by the regional Federation of the Centre of Spain on the estates of Count Romanones in Miralcampo and Azuqucca, province of Guadalajara, specially deserve to be mentioned. The peasants completely transformed the whole physiognomy of these regions, they diverted the course of a river in order to irrigate the land, greatly increased the area under cultivation, built farms, a mill, schools, communal refectories, home for the collectivists and enormously increased production."

Let us add that when he returned to his land at the end of the war, Count Romanones, who was a good sport was so amazed at what he saw that he prevailed on the fascists who were holding the organiser of this constructive achievement in prison and would certainly have shot him, to set him free.

[13] Out of the normal population of 18,000, the C.N.T. had an average of 3,000 members; at the beginning of socialisation and as a consequence of recent persecutions there were 2,000. A few months later it had a membership of 6,000.

CHAPTER VIII
COLLECTIVIST BOOK-KEEPING

We have seen that the overwhelming majority of Spanish anarchists had supported libertarian, or anarchist, communism or anarchocommunism, or again, in the period going from 1918 to 1936, anarcho-syndicalism, of which the formula and name made headway as one of the consequences of the Russian Revolution, but added nothing, in fact quite the contrary, to the constructive ideas of anarchism which we can qualify by the generic term social. (1)

We have also seen that the communist anarchist formula, as well as that of libertarian communism and of anarcho-syndicalism, was one of free consumption which seemed to guarantee an equal right for all to the means of life, and to be the practical expression of true social justice. It was for this reason that Kropotkin had simplified it in summing it up in his book The Conquest of Bread, by the formula which was too readily believed literally of "prise au tas": each and all would take freely what they needed from the communal stores. But for quite a long time reservations had been expressed among social anarchists. The first among them was undoubtedly Malatesta, whose critical mind was quite frequently aroused, though he was generally unable to offer constructive, valid solutions to those he criticised. He had expressed doubts as to the possibility of putting this principle into practice in complete freedom, and stated that it could not be applied until production of consumer goods had considerably increased; unfortunately he was unaware of the fact that the increase in needs always follows, assuming it does not precede, the increase in production, and that for this problem there would never be a possibility of free consumption.

But less well known militants, among them the writer of this book, had posed the problem in their own way. Some of them suggested the use of a form of money-which, incidentally, Malatesta had done about 1922 without pursuing the matter. Some also preconised a form of money without explaining its financial mechanism, and to prevent it giving rise to dangerous hoarding, imagined it to be "melting" and losing its value in a short space of time. Other solutions were advanced such as, for instance, that distribution should be organised, with some control, by syndical cooperatives and municipal stores, which would avoid waste and prevent sabotage by counter-revolutionary elements in the form of excessive consumption and waste. Nevertheless by 1936 no valid theoretical solution had yet been found, especially so far as the towns were concerned.

Nothing then had been formulated with sufficient breadth and precision. So once the revolution had started it was imperative to find one or several solutions. The situation demanded it. In the regions where, as in Castile, in Catalonia or in the Levante, the official politico-administrative structures were being upheld and continued by the presence of the republican State, the use of official money was retained and backed by gold. (2) In the regions we have just referred to all that had to be done in order to avoid inequalities was to establish the family wage. The peseta remained as the standard of value and the means of distribution.

But - and this was the case especially in Aragon - where the State did not dominate, many original solutions had to be improvised; and we mean "many", for each village or small locality introduced its own solution.

At the beginning, then, there was no tacit agreement other than for the abolition of money, the expression and symbol of traditional injustice, social inequality, the crushing of the poor by the rich, the opulence of some at the expense of the poverty of others. For centuries, and from as far back as the complaints of the outcasts of fortune had been transmitted from generation to generation, money had appeared as the greatest of all means of exploitation, and the hatred of the common people had built up against the cursed metal, against the paper money which the revolutionaries had set their minds on abolishing first and foremost.

In Aragon they kept their word. Nevertheless, for all that the principle of the "prise au tas" or in economic terms free consumption, was not applied. Apart from access, without control, to existing goods available in great abundance, and which were not the same in every village (here it was bread and wine, elsewhere vegetables, oil or fruit) some form of order was established from the first days when it was felt to be necessary, just as it was for the prosecution of work and production. For the revolution was considered right from the beginning a very important constructive undertaking. Especially in the countryside, there was no revolutionary orgy. The need to control and to foresee events was understood from the first day.

We have preserved confirmatory testimony of the manner in which the collectivist book-keeping was established. Let us begin with the simplest of all.

We are in the village of Naval situated in the north of the province of Huesca. No money, not even local money, no rationing. Free consumption from the first day, but supervised consumption. Everybody could call at the "Antifascist Comite' which is advised, if necessary, by the local libertarian group. A cooperative for general distribution was improvised and it produced a book of coupons numbered 1 to 100, in which were marked from day to day the commodities handed over on demand, and the consumer's name.

On September 15, the day collective life began there, Antonio Ballester-or somebody in his family-received half a kilo of chickpeas and a kilo of soap; Jose Gambia received a pair of canvas shoes: Serano Bistue, wire netting for a rabbit hutch and some string: Prudencia Lafulla a kilo of rice and a kilo of sugar: Joaquina Bastos a kilo of soap: Antonio Puertolas two kilos of meat; Ramon Sodomillo three litres of wine, Josi Lafarg a loaf of bread; Jose Arnal a little girl's dress, a kilo of soap and one of rice: (3) just as Sotero Fuentes who also took a kilo of soap and one of lard; Sesouta, nails for the cabin for the guard; Joaquina Solanona and others each take a kilo of soap, while others take sugar, condensed milk, rice. And to end the first day one finds an entry on counterfoil No. 25 an exchange of half a dozen eggs, presumably brought by an individualist in exchange for half a kilo of sugar.

Naval at that time had 800 inhabitants and 176 families. There was not therefore on that first day excess or waste. And the counterfoils on subsequent days showed the same moderation of free consumption: two pairs of canvas shoes for two men, three kilos of soap, a bottle of lye: a kilo of chick peas: a kilo of sugar; 150 grammes of lamb's meat, "for a sick person" is the comment as if to explain the reason for requesting this luxury food, a litre of oil, sewing thread, then two kilos of bread, three litres of wine (special): a kilo of pasta; and again more soap, and more lye, and again more soap. (4) Each of these articles was asked for by different people and entered on separate counterfoils.

Such was the most simple procedure for control adopted by Naval and other villages in the early days. But it was further simplified later. For on December 1st of the same year, the book of counterfoils was replaced by a booklet without counterfoils which was distributed to each family. And for the family, whose booklet we picked at random, purchases of groceries and meat amounted to 107.30 pesetas in December, 79.20 pesetas IN January, 68.85 pesetas in February, 90.80 pesetas in March, 83.00 pesetas in April. A separate account was kept for haberdashery, clothing and shoes.

But behind that primary control, in all its simplicity, one found a more strict and complicated accountancy. The following details are taken from the notes we made on consulting the account books of the general control and from the documents we have examined or have kept.

Firstly an account book where are entered daily outgoings and incomings, purchases and sales of all products without exceptions. Then the Large Book in which are to be found all the transactions on a daily basis for the respective sections specially established. And another book dealing with the slaughter of animals with the date, details of the animals, number, place of origin, weight, quality, quantity of meat held for the sick and quantity delivered to the butcher.

In a small separate account book is entered what is supplied to the collectivists "para vicios" ("for vices") as the writer, who must have been a bit of a puritan, puts it with relish, the "vicios" were tobacco for the men, a few toilet products for the women, sweets for the children . . . The men had two pesetas a week, women one peseta and children fifty cents. This account book had a counterpart in which were entered the accounts of the two village cafes where one could obtain lemonade, a glass of wine-one only-soda water or a "coffee" made from roasted barley.

I was then shown the account book dealing with the two lorries . which the Collective had purchased and the account of expenses incurred for them (petrol, tyres, repairs, etc.). There was also an account book for the sale of pottery made locally and sold throughout the region. Then a separate receipt book for sales of salt locally obtained. Finally the Expenses book in which were entered the total expenses incurred by each family.

An accurate accountancy, though improvised by men who had never kept accounts in their lives.

So far as distribution was concerned, whatever the form or method adopted, the organising initiative was appearing all the time. In hundreds of villages, libretas de consumo (consumer books) in different sizes and colours were issued. Ration tables were appended, for one had to ration not only in the event of a reduction in the reserves and perhaps in production, but because it was also necessary to send food supplies to the front and the towns, which only too often appeared not to appreciate the gravity of the situation. Here then is a libreta issued in Calanda (province of Teruel). It is on green paper and a rather large format (22 cm x 13 cm). It covers the period from March 1, 1937 to February 2, 1938 and each page covers a week. The first column lists the products that the holder or his family may obtain, from meat to lye, including grocery products, preserves (in Aragon this meant generally tomatoes and sardines), dry vegetables, furniture, material and even perfumery. Altogether 27 items. Alongside the list are columns for each day of the week where the value of purchases reckoned in pesetas is entered. The weekly total can be easily obtained and auditing carried out.

The libreta for Fraga is smaller (15 cm x 10 cm) and in the i first column are printed the days of the month from 1st to 31st, and along the top is a list of fourteen products, with their corresponding columns, that it was thought necessary to ration (on the basis of local production, existing reserves and commitments to the militia or the nearby fronts). The libreta for Ontinena (in this case called libreta de credito) was of the same size as that for Fraga. But there were no specific dates nor a list of available products. The corresponding columns were completed at the time of purchase. The libreta for Granollers (in the province of Barcelona), was based on a different concept. Produced by the municipal Council, it had eight thin sheets per week and these were divided into perforated coupons on which were indicated the quantity of wine, eggs, sugar, potatoes, butcher's meat, poultry (boiling fowl or rabbit), salt cod or pork meat which each family was entitled to buy (calculated on the composition of the family) and on which days, which was specially indicated on the basis of the established organisation for food supplies

Thus there were in Catalonia and especially in Aragon some 250, perhaps more, libretas all with a similar concept but of different forms. But there were other forms of food rationing and control. All this varied according to the available resources. existing reserves and the approach to the problems. In the town of Barbastro, the second most important in the province of Huesca a rations table was established without libreta, without national or local money.

Bread was not rationed; wine was, sometimes; oil also but on average 30 litres was distributed per person per year. It was, as in many places, the only source of fat used in cooking.

It should be added that children over the age of fourteen counted as adults.

All these examples and others we could quote on this aspect of collectivist book-keeping demonstrate that there was never disorder. On the contrary, one could perhaps reproach the prime movers of the Collectives with having sometimes organised things too much. One has seen how in Naval only a minimal part of the expenditure was reserved for small extras, "para vicios" . This concern was to be found where rationing had reached a touching degree of austerity. Holas de fumadores (smokers' cards)which at the same time took into account a human weakness and put a brake on excesses, were issued and distributed in many Collectives, as well as vales or consumer vouchers entitling the holder to a cup of grilled barley "coffee". In Ontinena for instance each Collectivist received a card for ten drinks, excluding alcohol, which was punched at each tasting, and if he invited a friend to "have one" he would simply have one "coffee" or lemonade less that week.

Wherever strict rationing and official money were eschewed, a local money replaced them. Villages which did so had vouchers with their name and 1, 2, 5 or 10 pesetas, sometimes even with 25 or 50 centimes overprinted, and this fiduciary currency was, locally of course, as sound as the official peseta guaranteed by the Valencia government. It even had the advantage of not losing its value.

Nevertheless, it must also be recognised that it could only be used at a local level. This did not escape the notice of those who, took the initiative for social reconstruction. Nor, for that matter of those inhabitants wishing to travel. In such cases the Comite of the Collective supplied the necessary pesetas to allow the person to travel to parts where official money was law. (5) But to bring to an end the multitude of local currencies, the congress, of the Aragon Collectives, which we summarised in an early chapter, had unanimously agreed to completely abolish their use and to establish an egalitarian rationing system for all the Aragon Collectives.

Consequently they produced a family rations book valid for everybody. This libreta which was dated from April 1, 1937 to December 31, by the week, listed 21 articles and groups of articles which, incidentally, give one an idea of the sobriety of the life of a Spanish peasant (and which had been redoubled by the exigencies of the war). They were, in the order in which they were printed: bread, wine, meat, oil, chick peas, beans, rice, pasta, sausages, sausage, blood sausage, fatty pork, various preserves (not specified), sugar, chocolate, tinned tomatoes, potatoes, milk, lentils, olives, lye, soap, hardware, household articles, haberdashery, footwear.

The Communist attack which took place shortly afterwards was to prevent the general application of this project. Having to retire within themselves, greatly reduced in numbers by the destruction they had suffered, the Collectives were, as a result, condemned to a precarious existence.

One can, nevertheless, come to the following conclusions: for the problem of distribution, which from certain points of view was greater than that of production itself, the Collectives demonstrated an innovatory spirit which by the multiplicity of its facets and its practical commonsense, compels our admiration. The collective genius of the rank and file militants succeeded in solving problems which a centralised governmental organisation would have neither been able nor known how to solve. If the pragmatic methods to which they had to have recourse may appear to be insufficient, and sometimes unsound in view of some contradictions which one observes here and there, the development tending to eliminate these contradictions was taking place rapidly (in eight months, or less, depending on the cases, structural resolutions had been taken) and progress was being rapidly made towards unifying and decisive improvements. During that time, in the part of the country where the official money ruled, the peseta was continually being devalued because of the inability of the government to hold down prices, and speculation was getting under way and growing.

During my stay in Mas de las Matas I asked the principal organisers of the Collective (youngsters inspired by idealism, intelligence and faith) for exact figures on the livestock which I had been told had increased in the Collective. They supplied the figures which I am transcribing from the original:

GENERAL COLLECTIVE OF MAS DE LAS MATAS

Pigs for slaughter: 570
Piglets: 99
Sows:61
Milk Cows: 24
Rearing Calves: 61
Sheep: 708
Lambs for slaughter: 471
Young ewes for breeding next year: 471
Goats: 164
Kids: 116
Year old goats: 270

Consumption of meat during the month of April: 194 lambs, 50 sheep, 16 first quality, and 18 kids.
Mas de las Matas, May 5, 1937.
The Collective Comite.

One could not be more precise and I am certain that no mayor in a French or German Commune could provide in so short a time such detailed returns. Well, in the 1,600 or so agrarian or mainly agrarian Collectives (half of which included the whole village) in Spain at that time the same precise book-keeping was maintained day by day. And if there were exceptions unknown to us, they were exceptions that proved the general rule.

We found the same care for good organisation in other aspects of economic life seen on a much larger scale. Thus we asked the local Comite of d'Aangues, head village of the canton of the same name, in the province of Huesca, to explain to us the method used for the movement and the control of exchanges in the locality and for the canton with other zones in Aragon as well as in Catalonia. Our curiosity was satisfied with the following document:

CANTON OF ANGUES (PROV. OF HUESCA)

Deliveries made by our cantonal Federation of different products sent as barter to the cantonal Federation of Granollers:

1937
Value in pesetas
3 April
13,300 kilos of grain @ 0.53
7,049.00
10 April
22,050 kilos of grain @ 0.53
11,686.00
14 April
13,300 kilos of grain @ 0.53
7,049.00
17 April
Diff. o£ 25k on previous delivery
13.25
17 April
2 pigs @ 60 pesetas each
120.00

Total 25,917.75

Deliveries made by the canton of Granollers to our cantonal Federation:

3 April
192 store pigs @ 60 pesetas
11,520.00
10 April
214 store pigs @ 60 pesetas
12,840.00
10 April
Sum received in pesetas
7,800.00
Total
31,360.00

SUMMARY
Debit
31,360.00
Credit
25,917.75
Owing to Granollers
5,442,25

We asked the administrative Comite of the Collective of Albalate de Cinca for as detailed an account as possible on the whole organisation. Our comrades replied as follows:

The informants ended with the following:

Let us look a little more closely at what we will call the "solidary book-keeping" at the level of the Federation of Aragon Collectives and of all the Collectives in the other regions. It had been classified at the plenum which took place in Caspe on April 25, 1937, three months after the congress where the Regional Federation had been constituted. Among other new resolutions, the delegates rejected the offer made by the Minister of Agriculture of a financial loan which could have helped the Collectives to solve certain difficulties arising from the retention of the peseta, and from the fact that they did not accept barter except with other Collectives or Syndicates belonging to the U.G.T. or the C.N.T. All relations with private business, "individualists" or the State were absolutely banished.

The application of these principles brought with it the need to know exactly what resources were available so as not only to engage in barter but also for mutual aid on a permanent footing. Thus, shortly after the April plenum, on the basis of questionnaires sent out wherever necessary, the following figures were available for a first group of 77 village Collectives or collectivised villages which were producers of wheat. Surplus wheat available amounted to 17,180 quintals; but on the other hand other villages suffered from a shortage amounting to 1,653 quintals, so after making up the deficiencies to these villages a balance of 15,520 quintals remained for disposal.

For oil the calculations referred to the same group of 77 villages which had a production of 4,053 quintals. But elsewhere there would be a deficit of 1,637 quintals because of the vagaries of the climate. So after making good the deficit there remained 2,415 quintals for barter (machinery, clothing, etc.). The villages that benefited from this solidary aid, which was quickly organised no longer simply at cantonal level (as we saw in the case of Mas de las Matas) but at regional level, had their current accounts and paid with other goods, calculated in peseta values, when they could. But this practice of solidarity rapidly went beyond the narrow framework of the canton and took place through the intermediary of cantonal Comites, at an entirely regional level. (6)

I would add a detail which demonstrates with what lucid stubbornness the collectivist organisation defended its autonomy and above all its liberty against the non-collectivist organisms. We have pointed out that a Regional Council had been created in Aragon which constituted an independent political organism in order to prevent the government of Valencia from extending its powers over the region (it did so nevertheless by July-August 1937). That Council was headed by a majority of libertarians with a member of the Ascaso family, all of whom were more or less well-known militants, as its chairman. And it happened that that semi-governmental organisation wanted to semi-govern particularly in monopolising foreign commerce, reserving to itself the profits from the operations. But the Federation bluntly refused to accede to this intention, declaring that it was prepared, if necessary, to pay a tax so that the Aragon Council could discharge its responsibilities, but that the economy rested on the Collectives and that it was not prepared to give up its control.

Footnotes to Chapter 8

[1] Individualist anarchism never made headway.

[2] Spain was one of the countries in Europe with the largest gold reserves, it was estimated that the State Bank had about 3,000m. pesetas (gold).

[3] The fact that a man should have gone to collect those articles and that others went on doing so were indications of an instant revolution in customs. What Spanish male would have previously done the shopping at the grocer's and also bought a little girl's dress?

[4] Soap was, as one can see, one of the articles most in demand. This concern for cleanliness speaks volumes.

[5] This was and still is practised in the Israeli kibbutzim which otherwise cannot, on many points, be compared with the Spanish Collectives, for one finds in them norms and an organisation almost conventual, which reminds one of the communities advocated by a host of reformers of the 19th Century, and in which individual freedom is altogether overlooked.

[6] At that time, the Caspe Comite had sent a circular to all villages and Collectives in order to carry out a general survey on the number of fruiting trees (pears, apples, nuts, olives, vines, almonds, etc.), on the numbers of head of animals (donkeys, mules, horses, sheep, cattle, pigs, goats) and on the availability of manpower and of the area of suitable land available, proportions of irrigated and dry lands. Thus a general organisation was being prepared at the level of the whole region.

CHAPTER IX
LIBERTARIAN DEMOCRACY

There was, in the organisation set in motion by the Spanish Revolution and by the libertarian movement, which was its mainspring, a structuring from the bottom to the top, which corresponds to a real federation and true democracy. It is true that deviations can occur at the top and at all levels; that authoritarian individuals can transform, or seek to transform, delegation into intangible authoritarian power. And nobody can affirm that this danger will never arise. But the situation was quite different from what it is or would be in a State apparatus. In the State which Marx, when he was seeking to court favour with the Paris Communards who had escaped the slaughter, so as to win them over to his cause, called a "parasitic superstructure" of society men installed in positions of command are inaccessible to the people. They can legislate, take decisions, give orders, make the choice for everybody without consulting those who will have to undergo the consequences of their decisions: they are the masters. The freedom which they apply is their freedom to do things in the way they want, thanks to the apparatus of law, rules and repression that they control, and at the end of which there are the prisons, penal settlements, concentration camps and executions. The U.S.S.R. and the satellite countries are tragic examples of this.

The non-Statist system does not allow these deviations because the controlling and coordinating Comites, clearly indispensable, do not go outside the organisation that has chosen them, they remain in their midst, always controllable by and accessible to the members. If any individuals contradict by their actions their mandates, it is possible to call them to order, to reprimand them, to replace them. It is only by and in such a system that the "majority lays down the law''.

Since 1870 this system had been adopted by the Spanish libertarians, who, in their determination that the mass of members should pronounce and decide for themselves as often as possible on the problems that arose as well as on the running of activities were following the ideas of Proudhon and Bakunin.

Did this mean that there were no minorities, no individuals; exerting an often decisive influence on the assembly, or in the daily life of the Syndicates, Collectives, Federations? To answer in the affirmative would be to lie and would deceive nobody. As everywhere and always, there were in those organisms militants who were better prepared, who were the first to stand in the breach, and to preach by example, risking their own skins, and who, driven by the spirit of devotion and sacrifice, were better informed on the problems, and found solutions to them more readily. The history of mankind concedes a worthy place to the minorities who have assumed the responsibility for the happiness of their contemporaries and the progress of the species. But the libertarian minority assumed that role according to anti-authoritarian principles, and by opposing the domination of man by man.

To emancipate the people it is first of all necessary to teach them, to push them to think and to want. The sizeable and enthusiastic libertarian minority sought therefore, as we have seen, to teach the masses to do without leaders and masters and to that end were always communicating information to them, educating them, accustoming them to understand the problems affecting them either directly or indirectly, to seek and to find satisfactory solutions. The syndical assemblies were the expression and the practice of libertarian democracy, a democracy having nothing in common with the democracy of Athens where the citizens discussed and disputed for days on end on the Agora; where factions, clan rivalries, ambitions, personalities conflicted, where, in view of the social inequalities precious time was lost in interminable wrangles. Here a modern Aristophenes would have had no reason to write the equivalent of The Clouds.

Normally those periodic meetings would not last more than a few hours. They dealt with concrete, precise subjects concretely and precisely. And all who had something to say could express themselves. The Comite presented the new problems that had arisen since the previous assembly, the results obtained by the application of such and such a resolution on the volume of production, the increase or decrease of any particular speciality, relations with other syndicates, production returns from the various workshops or factories. All this was the subject of reports and discussion. Then the assembly would nominate the commissions, the members of these commissions discussed between themselves what solutions to adopt, if there was disagreement, a majority report and a minority report would be prepared.

This took place in all the syndicates throughout Spain, in all trades and all industries, in assemblies which, in Barcelona, from the very beginnings of our movement brought together hundreds or thousands of workers depending on the strength of the organisations. So much so that the awareness of the duties, responsibilities of each spread all the time to a determining and decisive degree.

***

The practice of this democracy also extended to the agricultural regions. We have seen how, from the beginning of the Civil War and of the Revolution the decision to nominate a local management Comite for the villages was taken by general meetings of the inhabitants of villages, how the delegates in the different essential tasks which demanded an indispensable coordination of activities were proposed and elected by the whole assembled population. But it is worth adding and underlining that in all the collectivised villages and all the partially collectivised villages, in the 400 Collectives in Aragon, in the 900 in the Levante region, in the 300 in the Castilian region, to mention only the large groupings which comprised at least 60% of ‹republican" Spain's agriculture, the population was called together weekly, fortnightly or monthly and kept fully informed of everything concerning the commonweal.

This writer was present at a number of these assemblies in Aragon, where the reports on the various questions making up the agenda allowed the inhabitants to know, to so understand, and to feel so mentally integrated in society, to so participate in the management of public affairs, in the responsibilities, that the recriminations, the tensions which always occur when the power of decision is entrusted to a few individuals, be they democratically elected without the possibility of objecting, did not happen there. The assemblies were public, the objections, the proposals publicly discussed, everybody being free, as in the syndical assemblies, to participate in the discussions, to criticise, propose, etc. Democracy extended to the whole of social life. In most cases even the individualists could take part in the deliberations. They were given the same hearing as the collectivists.

This principle and practice were extended to the discussions in the municipal Councils in the small towns and even in sizeable ones such as Villanueva y Geltru, Castellon de la Plana, Gerona, Alicante or Alcoy. We have seen that when, because of the exigencies of war, our comrades had joined these Councils, as a minority, they nevertheless very often exercised an influence far greater than their numerical strength, firstly because they secured the agreement of the other parties, who could not easily refuse, that discussions should be open to the public. Ordinary people with free time made a point of attending them. And often social reforms o£ immediate value (building of schools, nurseries, children's playgrounds, decent conditions for the old) were snatched from the political majority which would not have been granted if the discussions had taken place behind closed doors.

Both at the individual and local levels, we think these different aspects of libertarian democracy ushered in a new civilisation. To give a more exact idea of what is meant, we will observe the unfolding of a village assembly in Tamarite de Litera, in the province of Huesca, at which the writer was present.

***

The pregonero (public crier) presents himself at the cross roads, in the square and at the busiest corners of the village. He blows three times on his small horn with which he always announces his presence, then in a slow, light tenor voice which, for some reason I do not know, is used by all pregoneros in Aragon, he reads, clipping the words and sentences somewhat at random, from a paper on which is written that the members of the Collective are invited by the administrative Commission to attend the general assembly which will take place that same evening at 9 o'clock.

At 9.30 p.m. the local cinema is half full. At 10 p.m. it is packed. There are about 600 people including some 100 women, girls and a few children.

While waiting for the opening of the meeting, everybody is talking without shouting in spite of the expansive temperament of the inhabitants of that region. In the end the secretary of the Collective mounts the platform alone. Silence falls and the secretary immediately proposes the adoption of necessary arrangements:

"We must," he says, "nominate a secretariat for the meeting." Immediately one of those present asks to speak "on a point of order".

"There are some individualists in the hall. They are enemies of the Collective. They have no business being here, we must turn them out. What's more, it is imperative that women should remain silent during the discussion, otherwise they will have to be removed as well."

Some of those present seem to be in agreement with the double proposal, others clearly have doubts. The secretary replies that in his opinion the individualists should be allowed to remain and even take part in the discussions. "We have nothing to hide and it is by seeing how we act that they will end by being convinced." As to the talkative women they are peasant women who had never attended such discussions before and who also have a right to speak they will surely keep quiet and there will be no need to have recourse to such extreme measures. The assembly approves and the individualists remain.

Then the secretariat is nominated, consisting of comrades who are elected in turn. Then the chairman speaks. He is, naturally, one of the most active militants, and one of the best informed on the problems included in the agenda. He starts by dealing exhaustively with the reason for the Commission calling this extraordinary assembly. Though intelligent, he is no speaker, but makes a great effort to express himself with the utmost clarity, and succeeds.

First question: Four comrades on the Commission must be replaced because they are not carrying out their tasks satisfactorily, not through any bad will on their part, but because they lack the necessary background. Furthermore, there is a certain amount of discontent with the delegate dealing with food supplies. He is very able but has a difficult personality and his manner is too brusque, which results in unpleasant confrontations, particularly in inter-regional relations; it would perhaps be better if in future he dealt with the barter arrangements with more distant regions where individual contacts are not so important. The delegate for industry and commerce could look after distribution at local level, and the relations which this involves with members of the Collective.

The assembly accepts, without unnecessary discussion, the changes recommended and nominates successors. Then the delegate for food supplies has his duties limited in one direction and extended in another.

Another question which is on the agenda: A fairly large group of members of the Collective have just recently withdrawn from it to return to individualist activities. But the Collective which has taken over non-agricultural local production possesses all the bakehouses for breadmaking and the individualists' group claims one.

Faces are serious, concentrated, tense. Women make their comments without raising their voices. A collectivist has the floor:

"We must lend them a bakehouse for a fortnight or a month to give them time to build one for themselves."

"No," replies another, "they should have remained with us. Since they have left us, let them get on with it!"

A third declares that there are already too many bakehouses in the village and one must not build any more. Many other members expressed themselves with that economy of words which is a characteristic of the Aragonese peasants. When nobody else wishes to speak then the chairman expresses his opinion.

In the first place there is the problem of the smooth running of the economy. To construct another bakehouse is to waste material needed for other uses; it will in due course involve an expense for wood and electricity, which must be avoided, for the repercussions of bad management do not rebound only on the individualists but also on the whole national economy. Now, we must show that we can do better than the capitalists. This is why, instead of increasing the number of bakehouses being used we must even reduce them. Let us therefore make the bread for ourselves and for the individualists. But they will supply us with the amount of flour required to make the amount of bread they need and there will be the same quality of bread for all of us. Besides, we must not refuse bread to the individualists for, in spite of their error they must be in a position to eat, and in a situation in which the present roles were to be reversed, we would be happy if our adversaries did not prevent the collectivists from feeding themselves.

The chairman has convinced the assembly, which, following the comments of some collectivists, approves without dissentients. The next question concerns the pros and cons of rationing bread. The high family wages paid by the Collective allows them to buy large quantities, which encourages some abuse, and even sometimes inequalities which the Revolution cannot permit. Consequently it is necessary to establish a top limit for consumption to ensure that every family can obtain the quantities it needs but without there being waste.

The assembly accepts rationing, but then a juridical problem is posed: who will apply the measures decided upon, the municipal Council or the Collective? The former covers the whole population; the individualists who represent an eighth, and the Collectivists. If the municipal Council takes charge, rationing will have to be established for everybody. If it's the Collective, the individualists will not consider themselves obliged to respect it. Many views are put forward which allow for an assessment of the powers of the two organisations. And it is decided to ask first the municipal Council to undertake the task. If it does not accept, the Collective will at least within the limits of its possibilities.

But the withdrawal of the individualists has posed another problem. Many of them have left their old parents on the hands of the Collective, while at the same time setting themselves up on the land which formerly belonged to the old folk they have now abandoned. Those dispossessed have been taken care of by the Collective because they are old and unable to work, but the behaviour of those individualists is unacceptable. What action can be taken?

The chairman, who has outlined the dispute, makes it quite clear from the start that there is no question of expelling the old folk. In any event they will be assisted, but their children must take back their parents or forfeit their land. Such is his opinion.

A number of members of the assembly take part in an orderly manner throughout. One suggests that the irresponsible sons should be deprived of half their harvest. Another repeats that it would be a shame to oblige these old folk to leave the Collective: anything must be considered but that. They return to the suggestion made by the chairman: either the individualists take their parents to live with them or they will have no land and solidarity of any kind will be withheld from them. The moral issue is uppermost. The proposal is approved.

Every time a solution is approved and before another is taken up, the assembly comments, giving free expression to its thoughts. Nevertheless the general conversation is not noisy, and barely lasts a minute.

Now the question to be discussed concerns the potteries which in normal times were a source of revenue as they supplied many villages in the region and even some small towns with jugs, porous water coolers and cantaros (earthenware pitchers). They also manufactured tiles and bricks there. But as there was a shortage of manpower in the fields because of the mobilisation for the front, the potters were sent there and abandoned the potteries; others too were at the front. Thus production had fallen off sharply. What should be done?

One man suggests that the potters should work a ten hour day instead of eight; another that one should increase the manpower in the potteries; a solution supported by a third speaker who adds that they should try to bring in skilled men from other regions. He also suggests that the tile factory which had been closed as a result of the current situation, should be reopened.

He is given the reply that we are in a war situation and that one can do very well without tiles. Laughter from the assembly, which approves, and as someone asks why cannot the skilled workers produce this year as much as in the previous year, the secretary of the Collective, a former mayor and who is well informed on these matters, explains that before many cantons obtained their supplies from Huesca and since this town is now in Francoist hands, they get their supplies from Tamarite. One must get the potters to return to their craft and in addition we must put an appeal in our Press for skilled workers from other regions to come and live here. Proposal accepted.

They have come to the end of the agenda, and move on to "any other business". One of the members points out that in Tamarite there is an alpagatero (a canvas shoe maker) who is good at his job. One could organise a workshop where the women could go and work instead of wasting their time gossiping in the street. The women laugh, but the proposal is accepted. A man of between 50 and 60 points out that the little girls of the village are not serious, since they prefer to go out instead of going to work in the workshop specially set up for them to learn dressmaking. As a solution to the problem he suggests that a good dressmaker be selected with the task of training them, but that classes should be held in a church without windows.

The door would be bolted, and the little girls not allowed out during the working hours. Everybody laughs, the parties concerned more than the others.

Many collectivists express their views in turn, and it is decided that in every workshop a woman delegate shall supervise the apprentices. Those who do not attend on two consecutive occasions without good cause will be dismissed. But the man who would have them kept under lock and key was implacable; he suggests quite seriously, or so it seemed, that to punish them when their work was unsatisfactory the young girls should be made to fast for two or three days. To that there is a general roar of laughter.

New problem: The nomination of a new hospital director (and we learn that the director is a woman, which is fairly unusual). This hospital has been converted into an Old People's Home, but they are now being treated at home by a doctor who joined the Collective and the cantonal hospital is at their disposal for all urgent cases or serious illnesses. This again poses a problem of jurisdiction. It is a general hospital. It is a question of ascertaining whether or not it comes under the municipal Council reconstituted following the publication of the decree emanating from the Valencia government. If it does, the hospital is everybody's responsibility, collectivists and individualists, and the latter must also share in the expenses. So far the Collective have paid everything, and its enemies have take advantage of its bounty. A matter for further study.

Following the examination of questions of less importance the chairman closes the session. The assembly has lasted 21 hours. Most of those who took part were peasants from the village or its environs, accustomed to rise early, and who at that time of the year had worked twelve or fourteen hours.

Yet no one left before the end of the discussions, not even those who had remained standing as there were not enough seats to go round. No woman or child had gone to sleep. Eyes had remained wide open, and faces as wide awake. One read on them, at the end, as much, often amused, interest as one had observed at the beginning. And the chairman, at the same time paternal, fraternal, and the teacher, had to insist to prevent a much longer agenda.

The final resolution adopted concerned the frequency of assemblies which from being held monthly were to take place weekly.

And the collectivists made their different ways home to bed commenting on the discussions and resolutions adopted as they went. Some lived a fair distance away and travelled either on foot or on bicycles.

CHAPTER X
THE CHARTERS

In earlier chapters we have sought to introduce, within our space limitations, as many documents, or the most important sections of rules and Statutes which illustrated the essential principles on which the agrarian Collectives were founded and organised. We now add, separated from those chapters so as to avoid too many repetitions, other texts which, such as those already reproduced partially or in full, confirm the spirit, at the same time constructive and humanist, which guided the Spanish libertarian organisers in their historic task.

In order to study and know about this phase in human history this has for us the same importance as have the charters of the Communes and the towns of the Middle Ages. These texts remain for the future, factors to be appraised, and in which those who will continue the struggle for a more equitable and rational society may find inspiration. Perhaps by examining them under a microscope, a critical mind could put forward some objections of secondary importance. But in spite of any clumsiness in drafting, we are convinced that never, so far, has a revolution shown such a precise constructive spirit, such clear radical concepts, and such a noble social ethic. Considered in their essentials, one can state that the ends pursued, the methods outlined and adopted, constitute a doctrine of socialism which "fits" life and which can lead men to a better future charged with real justice and true brotherhood.

STATUTES OF THE WORKERS' FREE COLLECTIVE OF TAMARITE DE LITERA

Article 1. With the title of Collective and cooperative, there has been set up in Tamarite on October l, 1936 a Collective composed of peasants and industrial workers with the aim of exploiting collectively the agricultural properties and industrial enterprises formerly belonging to factious elements who participated directly or indirectly in the fascist uprising in Spain and whose goods thus pass to the Collective. Also included in this action of collective exploitation are the goods of collectivists and of property owners or industrial enterprises which have remained loyal and in agreement with the revolutionary movement, as well as the goods of those who, without being fascists, do not properly farm their land or do not use their own labour, or have stopped cultivating their land.

Art. 2. Our Collective composed of, as we have already said, peasants and industrial workers, will be guided by humane sentiments and the noblest social principles.

Art. 3. The ends aimed at by the constitution of this Collective shall be: the improvement of the social and economic condition of the mass of peasants and industrial workers who have always struggled for the ideas of social recognition both before the fascist uprising and during the revolution.

ASSETS OF THE COLLECTIVE

Art. 4. The assets of the Collective shall consist of all properties, urban, rural as well as of the goods expropriated from fascist elements, and the goods of the Collective itself and of those who, without being fascist, do not properly cultivate their land' by their own efforts.

Art. 5. In no case will the assets of the Collective be broken up, I whether they come from fascists or from voluntary members. Land will be cultivated in common by a single community which will divide into three or more sections; each section or delineated zone will dispose of all the equipment needed for agricultural work, working animals tools; each group will nominate its technical delegates to ensure the best use of the expropriated estates.

(a) As already stated, the workers will be divided into three sections, or more, according to individual aptitudes; some to attend to the olive trees and the various fruit trees, others for harvesting lucerne and cereals, others for land work with spade or hoe, others to handle the mules, others on minor tasks; by this organisation we shall eliminate weak points and shortcomings of which we are only too well aware.

(b) Every collectivist is authorised to belong to whichever section he wishes and will then be able to change domicile with his family; all will have the obligation to carry out the instructions of the responsible delegates who will have decided at preliminary meetings on the work to be done; if anyone does not apply the agreements made in those meetings the administrative Commission will be informed by the responsible delegate who will decide on the expulsion of the comrade or comrades who have adopted that position.

(c) The groups previously constituted will have the right to carry on, according to the already established constitution.

(d) All those who own 3 hectares of irrigated land as well as of dry land will be free to join the Collective or to be individualists, but they will be allowed to cultivate their land only by their own efforts: however both collectivists and individualists will have to help in the ways asked of them by the community, by bringing their working animals as well as their personal effort. Those possessing less than 31 hectares will have to join the Collective.

(e) Each group as well as each collectivist will receive from the management commission a book in which will be entered income and outgoings.

Art. 6. With a view to ensuring the best administration possible, an inventory of all the assets of the Collective will be prepared in which all the different parcels of land, other property and goods, etc., will appear with a mention of their fascist origin.

Art. 7. As the products of communal enterprise are harvested they will be stored in places chosen by the Collective, the sharing out or private warehousing not being authorised.

Art. 8. On land which by its situation or where the number "of inhabitants provides favourable conditions, large farming units will be set up.

Art. 9. Those who will apply to join the Collective will have to bring to it all their goods, thus ceasing to be individualists and becoming members of, and in solidarity with, the Collective.

Art. 10. In order to know the position of each Collective at all times each section will have to keep a permanent account of production and consumption.

Art. 11. Fascist elements who were to consciously sabotage the work and be a liability on the Collective will have to be expelled for we well know that if the situation were to change, these elements would become not only our persecutors but even of the members of our families.

RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF THE COLLECTIVE

Art. 12. The Collective puts at the service of collectivists the general consumers' cooperative which deal with all needs: food, drinks, heating, clothing; equally it assures medical and pharmaceutical services and everything concerning collective needs and development; it also disposes of four oil crushers, one flour mill, a soap factory (in conjunction with oil crushers for the production of lower grade oil), a lye factory, three lime kilns, three for ceramics and bricks, and one electricity generator.

Art. 13. Every collectivist has the right to rear pigs, hens, turkeys, geese, rabbits, where he lives, in order to assure a surplus. 10% of the poultry and rabbits will be handed over to the collectivist units, and any surplus eggs will be passed to the cooperative in order to supply those workers engaged in industrial work and all those who may need them until such time as the new collective units can produce them for themselves.

Art. 14. All collectivists working in industry and all those who, not being agricultural workers, cannot cultivate vegetables will receive supplies for themselves and their families free of charge.

Art. 15. The Collective guarantees to the head of each family a weekly wage in local money. The scale of payments in local money is as follows:

A young couple ... ... ... ... ... 25.00 pesetas
An old couple ... ... ... ... ... 21.00 pesetas
Three adults ... ... ... ... ... ... 33.00 pesetas
For each additional person ... ... ... 1.00 peseta per day
For each minor ... ... ... ... ... 0.70 peseta per day
For two single women ... ... ... ... 20.00 pesetas per week
For a single man ... ... ... ... ... 18.00 pesetas per week
For a single woman ... ... ... ... 14.00 pesetas per week
For those taking their meals at the Collective's canteen ... ... ... 9.00 pesetas

These figures can be modified up or down depending on circumstances, and general examination by the assembly of collectivists.

Art. 16. All members of the Collective without sex discrimination, will have to work from the age of fourteen to sixty except in cases of physical disability medically confirmed; in such cases work will be voluntary and not obligatory.

Art. 17. Expenses for medical treatment, medicaments, light and shelter are borne by the Collective, as well as supplies of edible oil for the whole year.

Art. 18. When a member of the Collective takes a companion, that is to say, wishes to start a new family, the Collective guarantees her material needs.

Art. 19. When for valid reasons or unavoidable circumstances a collectivist is obliged to go and live elsewhere, the Collective will assume responsibility for the expenses involved in the move.

Art. 20. Every collectivist comrade will have the inalienable right of withdrawing from the Collective whenever he wishes to do so; but 15% of the value of the assets that he brought on joining will be retained.

Art. 21. The administrative Commission will consist of one delegate for each section or zone; the delegates will decide among themselves the position and functions of each. The nomination of the delegates and the tasks of the various sections of the Collective will take place at a general Assembly of Collectivists; the duration of these functions will not be limited; they will end at the request of the delegates themselves, and when the Assembly expresses itself in these terms.

RULES FOR THE COLLECTIVE OF SALAS ALTAS

The undersigned gathered together in general Assembly and after having defined collectivist norms, freely decide to organise a Collective and to join it. And they approve the following bases to ensure its economic development.

1. Every inhabitant in Salas Altas, whatever his condition and without distinction of workers' organisation or party, may belong to the Collective.

2. The members of the Collective will nominate a Comite consisting of a chairman, vice-chairman, a secretary, an accountant, a treasurer, and as many members as deemed necessary, according to the tasks to be dealt with.

3. This Comite will have a purely administrative character and will explain its activities before the assemblies of collectivists who will be able to approve of them or dismiss them if they have not carried out their mandate satisfactorily.

4. Members will bring all their goods and chattels; land, cultivating tools, draught animals, money and various means of work.

5. The collectivists will likewise bring their poultry with a view to establishing a large collective poultry unit to increase this valuable asset. This task will be undertaken by those to be chosen by the Assembly.

6. Communal stables will be organised so that all draught animals can be brought together and attended by a competent staff. In this way drivers will work shorter hours than the time required for agricultural jobs or transport.

7. Sheep will be made up into flocks, and the Collective will nominate shepherds to handle them and take them to the pastures. A skilled person will be chosen for slaughtering. He will decide which sheep should be killed.

8. The produce of the land and groceries will be stored in collective warehouses to ensure better supervision.

9. One or more cooperatives will be constituted; these will secure the products that have to be obtained by barter; they kill distribute consumer goods on presentation of a producer's took, and on the basis of the scales established by the Assembly.

10. These scales can be modified upwards or downwards depending on the economic situation of the Collective.

11. Nobody shall consume to excess. In exceptional cases such as in the case of the sick, the request will have to be supported by a doctor's certificate.

12. The assembly will decide on the annual holidays which members of the Collective will take.

13. The money available to the Collective will be used only to purchase goods in those regions where money still exists.

14. In all branches of work (agriculture, stock rearing, mines) delegates may be re-elected; their instructions must be respected; where they were not the Collective would take the steps it deemed necessary.

15. Over the age of fifteen all members of the Collective will have to work. The assembly will have to decide what young married women or people who are unfit to work, should do.

16. Collectivists over the age of sixty are exempted from work; nevertheless if such is their wish and their physical condition permits it, they can undertake work that suits their physical condition in order to help the Collective.

17. Anyone who without justification withdraws from the Collective, will have no rights over the collective assets.

18. Resolutions will be passed on a majority vote of the assembly.

19; Every member will receive a receipt for the assets brought by him on joining.

20. The Assembly is sovereign and its agreements are law even if they modify the present Statutes.

Such is the collectivist Statute which we undertake to implement. Salas Altas, December 7, 1936.

TEXT OF THE COLLECTIVIST RESOLUTION OF ALBALATE DE CINCA

"In Albalate de Cinca on January 28, 1937, almost all the inhabitants of the locality met in a general assembly under the chairmanship of Isidoro Castro Gil, chairman of the municipal Council. The secretary read the minutes of the previous meeting which were approved unanimously. Then one passed on to examine the Proposal presented by the Council, the text of which reads:

"So long as present circumstances continue the local administration will be represented by the municipal Council, whoever may be the people comprising it.

"As responsible body for local administration the Council proposes to establish family rationing authorising a maximum consumption per person per day. All expenses will be included in this sum except for those of a medical or pharmaceutical nature. Equally it proposes to fix a payment for those who do not produce foodstuffs, such as blacksmiths, joiners, carters, workers in the cooperative, the pharmacy and other activities which are useful to all of us, with the exception of the posts of members of the Council who must work without payment, which also exempts them from paying for what they obtain to live.

"It also proposes that a workers' Centre be opened where coffee and wine will be served. A caretaker will have to be nominated for this.

"The question of the Cooperative then followed. It was a question of how clothing would be distributed, especially warm clothing. Several comrades declared that those who had not yet paid their debts should not be supplied. Gabriel Sender Castro intervened to propose a satisfactory solution and recommended the distribution of underwear to all the inhabitants whether they had paid their debts or not, and that done one would firmly demand repayment of debts from those who could pay, by threatening them with not supplying warm clothing if they didn't. This tactic was adopted.

"To various questions Tomas Almunia declared that instead of serving coffee, which was not indispensable, it would be better to save the money for three months and to spend it on a cineprojector with sound if possible. The chairman replied that they would immediately do their best to get both things done.

"Felix Galindo proposed the nomination of controllers for the buying and selling operations and this was turned down. And the meeting was closed."

COLLECTIVE OF PINA DE EBRO
(Bases approved by the local Assembly on Jan. 3, 1937)

(After a prologue consisting of sentimental revolutionary references, the text comes to the point):

"In view of what has been said, workers and peasants rising to the demands of the hour, founds its voluntary Collective on the following bases:

1. Membership of the Collective is voluntary for all the inhabitants of the village, whatever may be their economic situation and so long as they accept the Statute now established.

2. All members in agreement with this new social regime will bring all their assets to the Collective: land, implements, working animals, money and tools.

3. As soon as circumstances warrant it, efforts will be made to build collective stables in order to house all animals suitable for working the land, the same will be done for cattle and sheep and skilled hands will be chosen for the task.

4. Warehousing of all foodstuffs, groceries and agricultural products in collective stores to ensure adequate control; equally. Organisation of one or more cooperatives for the distribution of foodstuffs and different implements that will be required by the collectivists.

5. The quantity of products distributed to the collectivists may increase or decrease, depending on the economic situation of the Collective.

6. Work will be carried out by groups at the head of which there will be a responsible delegate. Efforts will be made to organise sections of carters and herdsmen and of workers with a trade, so that talented comrades can relieve each other in these tasks.

7. All members of both sexes over the age of 15 will have to work for the Collective. Only people over sixty or incapacitated are exempted unless their physical condition allows them to undertake light work for the benefit of the Collective.

8. The Collective withdraws completely from those who would wish to continue to live in an individualist regime; so much so that they will not be able to have recourse to them in any circumstances. They will work their lands themselves; all land that remains uncultivated in their hands will be taken over by the Collective.

9. Any suspicion of exploitation of man by man is abolished; and consequently all forms of tenant farming, sharecropping or paid employment. This measure will be applied to all the inhabitants of the locality whatever their situation.

10. The Assembly is sovereign and operates on a majority basis. It is at the Assemblies that decisions will be taken regarding members who might disturb the smooth running of the Collective."