Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
Yet so far as one can judge the people were contented and hopeful.
There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still
extremely [ow; you saw few conspicuously destitute people, and no
beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution
and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an
era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave
as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the
barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly
Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves.
[n the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostinltes to Stop
being prostitutes. To anyone from the hard-boiled, sneering civi­
[ization of the English-speaking races there was something rather
pathetic in the literalness with which these idealistic Spaniards took
the hackneyed phrases of revolution. At that time revolutionary ballads
of the naivest kind, all about proletarian btotherhood and the
wickedness of Mussolini, were being sold on the streets for a few
centimes each. [ have often seen an illiterate militiaman buy one of
dlese ballads laboriously spell Out the words, and then, when he had
got the hang out of it, begin singing it to an appropriate tune.
Recall the dates. Orwell arrived in Barcelona in late December 1936. Comorera's
decree abolishing the workers' supply committees and the bread committees was on
January 7. Borkenau returned to Barcelona in mid-January; Orwell in April. 91
91 See Bolloten, op. cit. , p. 71, citing the anarchist spokesman Juan Peito, in
September 1936. Like other anarchists and left-wing Socialists, Peiro sharply condemns
the use of force to introduce collectivization, taking the position such as
Ricardo Zabalza, general secretary of the Federation of Land Workers, who stated, on
January 8, 1937: "I prefer a small, enthusiastic collective, formed by a group of active
and honest workers, to a large collective set up by force and compost of peasants
without enthusiasm, who would sabotage it until it failed. Voluntary collectivization
may seem the longer course, but the example of the small, well-managed collective
will attract the emire peasanrry, who are profoundly realistic and pracrical, whereas
forced collectiviz.ation would end by discrediting socialized agriculture" (cited by
Bolloren op. cit. , p. 59). However, rhere seems no doubr thar rhe preceprs of the anarchisr
and lefr-socialist spokesmen were ofren violated in practice.
92 Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit, pp. 219-21. Of this officer, Jackson says only that
he was "a dependable professional officer." After the fall of Malaga, Lieutenant
Colonel Villalba was tried for treason, for having deserted the headquarters and abandoned
his troops. Broue and Temime temark that it is difficult to determine what
justice there was in the charge.
93 Jesus Hernandez and Juan Co morera, Spain Organ ises for Vict01y: The Pobcy of the
Communist Party of Spain Explained (London, Communist Party of Great Britain,
n.d.), cited by Richards, op. cit., pp. 99-100. There was no acclisarion that the phone
service was restricted, but only that the revolutionary workers could maintain "a close