Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
According (Q Broue and Temime, it was the restriction of credit that finally
desnoyed colleC[ivized indusny. The Companys governmem in Caralonia
refused (Q create a bank for industry and credit, as demanded by the CNT and
POUM, and the cemral governmem (relying, in this case, on control of the
banks by the socialist UGn was able (0 control the flow of capital and "(0
reserve credit for private emerprise." All attempts to obtain credit for collectivized
industry were unsuccessful, they maintain, and "the movemenr of collectivization
was restricted, then halted, the government remaining in control
of industry through the medium of the banks ... [and later] through its control
of the choice of managers and directors," who often turned out to be the former
owners and managers, under new titles. The situation was similar in the
case of collectivized agriculture (pp_ 204 0.
The situation was duly recognized in the West. The New York Times, in
February 1938, observed: "The principle of State intervention and control of
business and industry, as against workers' control of them in the guise of collectivization,
is gradually being established in loyalist Spain by a series of
decrees now appearing. Coincidentally there is to be established the principle
of private ownership and the rights of corporations and companies to what is
lawfully theirs under the Constitution."84
Morrow cites (pp. 64-65) a series of acts by the Catalonian governmem
restricting collectivization, once power had shifted away from the new institutions
set up by the workers' revolution of July 1936. On February 3, the collectivization
of the dairy nade was declared illegal.85 In April, "the
Generalidad annulled workers' control over the customs by refusing to certifY
workers' ownership of material that had been exported and was being tied up
in foreign courts by suits of former owners; henceforth the factories and agricultural
collectives exporting goods were at the mercy of the government." In
May, as has already been noted, the collectivization decree of October 24 was
rescinded, with the argument that the decree "was dictated withom competency
by the Generalidad," because "there was not, nor is there yet, legislation
of the [Spanish] state to apply" and "article 44 of the Constitution declares
expropriation and socialization are functions of the State." A decree of August
28 "gave the government the right to intervene in or take over any mining or
metallurgical plant." The anarchist newspaper Solidaridad Obrera reported in
October a decision of the department of purchases of the Ministry of Defense
that it would make conrracts fo r purchases only with enterprises functioning
"on the basis of their old ownets" or "undet the corresponding intervention
controlled by the Ministry of Finance and Economy."8 G
Returning to Jackson's statement that "In Catalonia, the CNT factory committees
dragged their heels on war production, claiming that the government
deprived them of raw materials and was favoring the bourgeoisie," J believe one
must conclude that this statement is more an expression of Jackson's bias in
favor of capitalist democracy than a description of the historical acts. At the
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