The anarchist insurrection of December 1933 was an attempted revolution by Spanish anarchists, in response to the victory of the right-wing in the 1933 Spanish general election. It was the third of a series of anarchist insurrections in Spain, following those in January 1932 and January 1933.
The insurrection was centred in Aragon and La Rioja, where revolutionaries took over the regional capitals and a number of small towns, proclaiming libertarian communism and destroying municipal documents. It was accompanied by smaller, isolated actions in towns and cities throughout Spain. In some cases, the insurrection occurred bloodlessly, while in others, violent clashes erupted between revolutionaries and the authorities.
It lasted for only a week, from 8 to 15 December, before it was suppressed by the Spanish Republican Army. Hundreds of insurgents were arrested and sentenced for crimes committed during the insurrection. The new right-wing government, led by Alejandro Lerroux, subsequently repealed many of the social reforms implemented by its predecessor. A general strike broke out in Zaragoza, demanding the release of imprisoned insurgents, but many were not released until after the 1936 Spanish general election.
Background
Right-wing politics and unemployment in Spain
After the suppression of the anarchist insurrection of January 1933, and the killing of 22 people in the Casas Viejas massacre, the left-wing government of Manuel Azaña came under attack by both the right-wing and the far-left. The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), the country's anarcho-syndicalist trade union centre, called for the government to legalise its trade unions, recognise freedom of association and free political prisoners who had been detained during the insurrection. It spent the rest of the year protesting for these demands, holding a general strike in May 1933, after which they began preparing for the possibility of another insurrection. When President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora dissolved the Azaña government and called the 1933 Spanish general election, the Spanish anarchist movement was left with a dilemma. On the one hand, the CNT was committed to abstention from electoral politics. On the other, they were facing the rise of the far-right.
At this time, the Spanish middle class was facing economic difficulties. Employers were quick to fire their workers, causing a rise in unemployment, aiming to demoralise the labour movement enough to elect a new dictatorial right-wing government under José María Gil-Robles. The state provided no unemployment benefits at this time, so the CNT's attentions were turned towards helping workers survive and their revolutionary objectives were sidelined. In mid-1933, the CNT's Economic Defense Commission called a rent strike and for the non-payment of utility bills, while neighbourhood committees prevented the police from carrying out evictions. The CNT provided credit for unemployed workers to purchase basic necessities from the grocery store; the debt would be repaid after they started work again. CNT unions provided lists of job offers for their members, and when employers did not hire them, they occupied the workplaces. If they were removed, they would carry out sitdown strikes outside for eight hours each day, before collecting a "sitting wage" in compensation for not returning to the factory. At noon each day, unemployed workers' unions encouraged their members to go in groups to restaurants and eat the food there, feeding many people. All these actions contributed to the mobilisation of the working class, building solidarity and class consciousness.
When the Transports de Barcelona company refused to recognised union representatives and fired trade union activists, the CNT's Transport Workers' Union went on strike, destroyed streetcars and buses, and sabotaged the company's telecommunications. Individual activists of the CNT were also caught carrying out robberies, prompting the right-wing press to accused the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) of banditry. Prominent activists of the CNT and FAI, including Buenaventura Durruti, were blacklisted by employers, who hoped to antagonise the union into taking premature action. The right-wing press, including La Vanguardia, often reported robberies as having been carried out by the FAI itself, despite the organisation having denounced individual robberies.
1933 elections
By the time the CNT called a national meeting to respond to the upcoming general election, various right-wing factions, representing the aristocracy, military officers, bourgeoisie and clergy, joined into a unified bloc: the CEDA. In contrast, the left-wing had been divided and fractured by two years of experience in government. The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Republican Action (AR) and Radical Socialist Party (PRS) were all internally divided, which caused the parties to either collapse or splinter. Only the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), supported by the Catalan middle class, remained internally united. Given the fracturing of the left, the CNT thought that the CEDA would inevitably win the election, even if they encouraged their members to vote for a left-wing candidate. In response, the CNT initiated a massive propaganda campaign, denouncing politicians of both the left and right as "vultures" and calling for workers to abstain from voting. Calls for abstentionism were even taken up by Benito Pabón, a future deputy of the Syndicalist Party, and Miguel Abós, a moderate who had previously voted in the 1931 Spanish local elections.
The CNT's national plenary meeting was held on 30 October 1933 in Madrid, where regional delegates from Aragon proposed they move towards another insurrection. The meeting concluded that, in the event of a right-wing victory in the election, they would carry out a social revolution against the state. After the failure of the January 1933 insurrection, the CNT and FAI realised that they could not achieve victory unless they had allies. Building on previous collaborative efforts in Andalusia, the CNT improved relations with rank-and-file militants of the socialist-aligned Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), aiming to create a revolutionary alliance in regions such as Asturias. The meeting resolved to carry out a ruthless agitation campaign against the parliamentary system, presenting revolutionary socialism as the best response to fascism. The CNT established a new federation of defense cadres, led by Antonio Ortiz as the organisation's Defense Secretary. The organisation's publication, CNT, proclaimed that libertarian communism would rise again in Spain, calling on people to seize their town halls and establish workers' self-management by organising popular assemblies. The Nosotros group was divided over the proposed insurrection, with Joan Garcia Oliver believing that they did not have the time or resources necessary to put together a strong paramilitary force, while Buenaventura Durruti called for them to participate in any insurrectionary outburst, in order to warn the incoming government of their revolutionary potential.
When the election campaign started, the CEDA immediately began calling for the establishment of a fascist dictatorship and broadcast speeches from José Calvo Sotelo, in exile since his participation in an attempted right-wing coup. The clergy purchased the votes of its congregations, while caciques promised jobs and better living conditions for the peasantry if they voted for the right-wing. On the other side, the PSOE failed to mobilise their supporters, giving half-hearted speeches about revolution to unconvinced crowds, and the AR watched half of its voting bloc switch to Alejandro Lerroux's Radical Republican Party (RRP).
Meanwhile, the CNT organised rallies throughout Spain, calling for people to choose between fascism and revolution. On 12 November, a CNT rally in Barcelona's La Monumental arena attracted 100,000 attendees. Buenaventura Durruti, Francesc Isgleas, Benito Pabón and Valeriano Orobón Fernández spoke at the rally. Pabón spoke in the Catalan language, in order to counter the xenophobia of the Catalan nationalists who called all CNT militants "Murcians". Orobón Fernández described the history of Adolf Hitler's rise to power, arguing that both the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Communist Party of Germany (KPD) had contributed to the victory of the Nazi Party, and urging Spanish socialists to not make the same mistakes. On 16 November, the FAI held a rally at the Palau de les Belles Arts, where attendees vastly outnumbered the venue's 45,000-capacity, forcing more than half of the audience to listen to the speeches through amplifiers placed outside. The rally concluded with a call by the FAI General Secretary Alejandro Gilabert, in the event of a right-wing electoral victory, for people to unleash social revolution, establish libertarian communism and fight until the destruction of all forms of authoritarianism. His resolution was accepted with acclaim and the attendees chanted "Long live Anarchy!" (Spanish: Viva la Anarquía).
On 19 November 1933, the day of the election, Solidaridad Obrera reaffirmed calls for abstention; they told readers not to fear a right-wing victory, as it would ultimately benefit the anarchist movement. As predicted, the right-wing bloc won the general election. The divided left-wing bloc had won only 99 seats (down from 263), while the centre had won 156 (up from 110) and the right won 217 (up from 44). There were high levels of abstention in areas where the CNT was strongest, including Seville (50.16% abstention rate), Málaga (48.37%), Cádiz (62.73%) and Barcelona (40%). The following day, the CNT called for a social revolution to combat the rise of fascism.
Preparations
During the election, the national plenary of the CNT voted to transfer the headquarters of the National Committee to Zaragoza; 230 delegates voted for the transfer, while 153 voted for it to be transferred to Madrid and 100 voted for it to remain in Barcelona. On 14 November, the National Committee established its new headquarters on Calle Argensola, 17, in Zaragoza, where it would continue its work under the General Secretaries Miguel Yoldi and Horacio Prieto.
On 26 November, another national plenary of the CNT was held in Zaragoza, where the organisation resolved to establish a National Revolutionary Committee (NRC) to organise the insurrection. The NRC was led by the Leonese mechanic Buenaventura Durruti, the Aragonese metalworker Antonio Ejarque, the Castilian bricklayer Cipriano Mera, the Basque doctor Isaac Puente, and the Andalusian bricklayers Rafael Casado Ojeda and Rafael García Chacón. The NRC established its headquarters on Calle de los Convertidos in Zaragoza. There they were joined by local Aragonese CNT delegates Joaquín Ascaso, Miguel José, Augusto Moisés Alcrudo, Ramón Andrés, Santiago Baranda and Felipe Orquín (all of whom, except the day labourer Andrés, were bricklayers).
The NRC divided the country into three zones: the red zone, consisting of Aragon, Navarre and La Rioja, where the insurrection would begin in full force; the blue zone, mainly Catalonia, where they would proclaim a general strike and later escalate it into insurrection; and the green zone, in the socialist regions of Asturias, Castile, Euskadi and Galicia, where a general strike would be carried out in an attempt to draw in socialist workers; Andalusia and Valencia were also marked as red-blue. The NRC printed pamphlets calling on industrial workers to occupy their workplaces and seize the means of production, establishing workers' councils to organise a new post-capitalist economy; and calling for agrarian workers to establish communes and take control of food distribution through consumer cooperatives. They also proposed the creation of workers' militias, based on small, mobile guerrilla units, to defend the revolution. The pamphlets were sent to CNT Defense Committees and FAI groups, which copied and distributed them throughout the country.
At a preparatory meeting in Zaragoza, militants disagreed over the plan for Zaragoza to rise up first and then be followed by Teruel and Uesca, with some debating over whether to even initiate the insurrection in Aragon. Durruti warned them that if they backed down, then the insurrection would collapse throughout Spain. He believed that, following sustained repression in Andalusia and Catalonia in the wake of the January insurrection, only Aragon was capable of leading the revolution. He then said that if they still did not want to participate, then they were not obliged to do so, and asked them to decide quickly. He impressed the assembly enough that the Aragonese agreed to lead the insurrection. Despite receiving requests from other regional branches of the CNT to delay the insurrection, as they were not yet prepared, the Aragonese NRC pushed forward with its plans.