Anarchists in the Spanish Civil War (2002)
The article continuously talks about and highlights the importance of the socialist&#x2F;anarchist movements in Catalonia and how it was a focus of resistance against the spanish government in many of its forms. From an outsider perspective, it&#x27;s easy to forget or not realize that Catalonia is only 1 of the 17 autonomous communities in which Spain is divided. I think it&#x27;s very interesting to put it in context to better understand Catalonia&#x27;s history, especially to see that the current situation (independentism as a movement of opposition to the spanish government) is not something new at all, and that Catalonia has been historically a very singular region.<p>But what I wanted to talk about is something the article omits. Basically because it wasn&#x27;t really known until barely half a year ago, when Sònia Garangou published <i>Les Joventuts Llibertàries de Catalunya (1932-1939)</i>, about the libertarian youth in catalonia (JLC from here on), not to be confused with the FIJL, the iberian federation of libertarian youth. Even within the libertarian and anarchist movements, Catalonia had many differences with other spanish groups, and it really went on its own path.<p>&gt; As late as 1936, the CNT devoted an entire discussion at its national congress to the place of vegetarians, nudists, naturists, and &quot;opponents of industrial technology&quot; in a libertarian communist society.<p>CNT, FAI, POUM, etc. have always been the highlighted organizations in the spanish anarchist, communist and libertarian movements, but the recent research tells us that in Catalonia, the JLC might have been equally or even more relevant (in those years, CNT had around 550.000 affiliates in all Spain, FAI between 5.000 and 30.000, POUM even less, and JLC around 32.000 only in Catalonia). They were highly organized and decentralized, and besides vegetarianism and naturism, and maybe even more importantly, they were one of the first organizations in Spain to promote gender equality, have many women leading the local and regional groups, and also promoting culture through the creation of local libraries.<p>I think we will be able to read more about all this in a few years, after more studies and research are done, but for the moment, I thought it was interesting to mention this forgotten fragment of history, that might be so relevant to put the historical events and differences in context.<p>Nowadays, it&#x27;s true that the anarchist movements have lost a lot of strength, but even if they seem residual, they are still organized enough and have the capacity to initiate direct action and mobilize people when needed, and the last events in catalonia are good proof of it. We have been seeing a resurgence of small groups of people organized at a local level, and even when it might seem they are organized for a very different reason, anarchist groups and individuals have been highly participative in these processes, as they have historically been with any social movement.<p>And it&#x27;s really characteristic that the differences between the anarchist groups from Catalonia and the rest of Spain that we talk about from 85 years ago still happen nowadays. 85 years later, and in Madrid they still don&#x27;t quite understand what catalans are doing.<p>P.S. I&#x27;m not an expert, so don&#x27;t take my words too seriously, I&#x27;m just giving my opinion on a few points I think can be interesting to better understand anarchist movements in Spain and the influence they still have today.