The Fall of Spain- 1936

i think a proper answer will be very complex, and might involve parts of a, b, c, and perhaps d.

some people have a fatalistic view, seeing the failure of the CNT/FAI and the resultant failure of the revolution and civil war as being the necessary outcome, and that the temporary lapses in revolutionary consistency meant that the CNT and FAI were inherently failures, having no proper value to a revolutionary socialist.

i think one of the major issues is that, when any organization gets large enough, it comes to gain members of fairly different views. while, presumably, most of those in the CNT and FAI generally agreed on the desired outcome, there still were differing ideas as to how to achieve this, and *when*. but even with that, the CNT did end up attracting certain people who didnt much care about revolution and just wanted the CNT to become a labour organization without any further vision for the world. the same thing happened to the french CGT, with fairly dire results.

while certain of these figures - might as well refer to them as the "right wing" of the CNT - were able to come to prominence, this didnt preclude the revolutionary impetus of the "left" wing to push the revolution forward themselves. and, thusly, you have the collectives.

as for why the revolution wasnt pushed forward, right from the start, there are various reasons which have been stated - generally from the "right" wing. certain people, like Montseny (and i think, also de Santillan), argued that the Anarchist movement was just not large enough to put forward a genuinely libertarian revolution, and if they pushed the revolution forward, it would be in an authoritarian manner (for the record, i think this argument is poor, but i wont get into that). that was the major ideological reason given that i can recall.

the major military reason was that the Fascists were too strong for just the Anarchists to take on alone. besides, if the Anarchists tried to push things forward *completely* and utterly, one would assume they'd have had to fight against not just the Fascists on their own, but also the remaining political factions - the Social Democrats, the Communists, the Liberals, and so forth. logically, it would be a battle between Anarchists, on their own, versus a Republican coalition (the various groups i just mentioned above), and a Nationalist coalition (what i referred to as the "Fascists" a second ago - in reality, Fascists were only a component, the Nationalists were a coalition of many different rightists and moderates). this sort of three way battle, of two relatively weaker groups (Republicans and Anarchists) versus a relatively stronger group (the Nationalists) seemed not very conducive to anti-Fascist victory in the minds of many in the CNT/FAI - and these thoughts were undoubtedly not restricted to the CNT right. this argument seems fairly sensible to me, but i'd disagree with various particulars, especially how they started to become revolution-a-phobes, and, to some degree, subverted themselves to their "allies."

another bit of reasoning against pushing the revolution forward right off - and actually handing power back to non-revolutionaries - was a matter of keeping international appearances. they knew quickly into the war that the Nationalists would not be without foreign aid, and the Anarchists wanted foreign aid just as much as anyone. unfortunately, the Anarchist movements in many other countries were doing poorly at that time, at least partly due to the rise of Bolshevism, Fascism, and the lingering effects of WWI. relying just on foreign Anarchists didnt seem like a war-winning strategy. the right wing of the CNT believed it was of the utmost importance that they put on an aire of "respectability" to foreign Liberals, so they would give military aid. which was astoundingly naive, but never mind that now. anyway, beside that, there were the Communists. no doubt the rank and file would've loved revolution, but the leadership was tightly controlled by Stalin, and the rank and file tightly controlled by the leaders. Russia was able to give not inconsiderable military aid, but Stalin was just as uninterested in revolution in Spain as any Liberals were. and, thusly, gaining foreign aid meant appearing to be "respectable" to Liberal opinion, so no revolution. of course, foreign Liberal governments were not especially sympathetic to the Republicans no matter what, and, aside from a small amount of help from France in the early months of the war, and a bit of help from Mexico (Mexico was actually one of the most honest allies of the Republicans, as far as i can see - far more honest than Russia), these Liberal governments did nothing to help the anti-Fascist cause. of course, foresight is 20/20 - it's easy to judge the people back then as naive when you know how things turned out.

finally (of what i can recall, anyway), there was an argument circulated that, if they pushed the revolution forward where they could, it would embitter the rest of the Republican side against them, resulting in widespread persecution of Anarchists in places where they werent as strong. i'm a bit more sympathetic to this argument, myself, and it's undoubtedly correct.

as a last note on reasons for putting back the revolution, i should also say that we should not underestimate the way that war affects people and their actions. i dont think it's realistic that Anarchists expect people to stay perfectly revolutionary and pure in all situations - when war looms, it's often very difficult for any large grouping of people to not take a more authoritarian shift... at least temporarily. it's often been pointed out that, while certain leaders in the CNT went and made decisions which compromised the ideological integrity of the syndicate fairly well on their own, it was the masses within the CNT who refrained from censuring them. they had power enough to stop the leaders from these actions, but, instead, they accepted them with relatively little discord. instead of damning them as having failed in their revolutionary duty, i think we ought to consider that they would've recognized that the revolution was *definitely* lost if the civil war was not won. i think the people understood that certain compromises may be necessary (although i would disagree with some of these compromises, or how some of these compromises were formed).

does this mean that the revolution was forever lost due to inherent flaws of the CNT/FAI? i'm not altogether certain. in spite of the compromises made for the sake of the war, the revolutionary current never totally died - even in the last, direst days. even after the war was lost, people still held on to hopes for a revolution, and guerilla campaigns were undertaken for decades on. while i believe that certain leaders in the Anarchist organizations *really* failed spectacularily in several manners, and definitely did allow themselves to get pulled more and more into Liberalism due to their closeness through the alliance, i'm not certain that the CNT/FAI, general Anarchist movement, and revolution would've been unsalvageable, had the civil war been won. as i mentioned above, wars generally result in a greater degree of authoritarianism - and from what i've seen, Anarchists are no less susceptable, though they usually dont abandon their core principles and try to conduct war differently than the modern norm... but this is not to say that, just because a movement, or a whole people, have made a more authoritarian turn due to very understandable reasons - like a war - does not mean they must forever after be stuck in their compromises. it strikes me as perfectly possible that, after the civil war was won, revolution could've been pushed forward, perhaps successfully, and either after the civil war, or after the revolution, the rank and file of the Anarchist movement would try to push things back towards greater degress of liberty. people seem to fall for the slippery slope argument, when it comes to this stuff... i dont buy it. it's true that a slippery slope may lead to certain extremes at times, but it does not follow that it must. before the civil war, the CNT had gone through a few crises, but they had been successfully fought against, and the organization's ideological decency was retained. i predict that, if the Anarchists had made certain different decisions during the civil war, they possibly could've won the war, and then the revolution, and then we may've seen a shift back to a relative pre-war ideological normalcy. and, as a matter of fact, this did happen to some degree, as certain leaders (like Garcia Oliver) publically admitted their actions were foolish, and (more importantly) the organization went back to its roots. unfortunately, due to the civil war being lost, this backwards shift just didnt seem quite so important or vital anymore, and the CNT was kept from being able to organize in any impressive way until Franco died decades later.

that's just my view, though.