Homage to Catalonia is a 1938 memoir by English writer George Orwell, in which he accounts his personal experiences and observations while fighting in the Spanish Civil War.
The Spanish Revolution was a workers' social revolution that began at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and for two to three years resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist and, more broadly, libertarian socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country, primarily Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia, and parts of the Valencian Community. Much of the economy of Spain was put under worker control; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%. Factories were run through worker committees, and agrarian areas became collectivized and run as libertarian socialist communes. Many small businesses, such as hotels, barber shops, and restaurants, were also collectivized and managed by their workers.
The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification was a Spanish communist party formed during the Second Republic and mainly active around the Spanish Civil War. It was formed by the fusion of the Trotskyist Communist Left of Spain and the Workers and Peasants' Bloc against the will of Leon Trotsky, with whom the former broke.
Andreu Nin i Pérez was a Spanish politician, trade unionist and translator. He is mainly known for his role in various Spanish left-wing movements of the early 20th century and, later, for his role in the Spanish Civil War. He is also known for his work translating Russian classics such as Ana Karenina, Crime and Punishment and some works by Anton Chekhov, from Russian into Catalan.
The May Days, sometimes also called May Events, refer to a series of clashes between 3 and 8 May 1937 during which factions on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War engaged one another in street battles in various parts of Catalonia, centered on the city of Barcelona.
The Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) broke out with a military uprising in Morocco on July 17, triggered by events in Madrid. Within days, Spain was divided in two: a "Republican" or "Loyalist" Spain consisting of the Second Spanish Republic, and a "Nationalist" Spain under the insurgent generals, and, eventually, under the leadership of General Francisco Franco.
In 1937, the Nationalists, under the leadership of Francisco Franco began to establish their dominance. An important element of support was their greater access to foreign aid, with their German and Italian allies helping considerably. This came just as the French ceased aid to the Republicans, who continued, however, to be able to buy arms from the Soviet Union. The Republican side suffered from serious divisions among the various communist and anarchist groupings within it, and the communists undermined much of the anarchists' organisation.
The British Independent Labour Party sent a small contingent to fight in the Spanish Civil War. The contingent fought alongside the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and included George Orwell, who subsequently wrote about his experiences in his personal account Homage to Catalonia.
The Durruti Column, with about 6,000 people, was the largest anarchist column formed during the Spanish Civil War. During the first months of the war, it became the most recognized and popular military organisation fighting against Franco, and it is a symbol of the Spanish anarchist movement and its struggle to create an egalitarian society with elements of individualism and collectivism. The column included people from all over the world. Philosopher Simone Weil fought alongside Buenaventura Durruti in the Durruti Column, and her memories and experiences from the war can be found in her book, Écrits historiques et politiques. The Durruti Column was militarised in 1937, becoming part of the 26th Division on 28 April.
Wilebaldo Solano Alonso was a Spanish Communist activist during the Spanish Civil War, especially noted for his work with Socialist youth organizations as a member of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Most of his activities before and during the Second Spanish Republic were centered in Catalonia.
Abel Paz (1921–2009) was a Spanish anarchist and historian who fought in the Spanish Civil War. He is considered one of the noted Spanish anarchist historians, writing multiple volumes on anarchist history, including a biography of Buenaventura Durruti, an influential anarchist during the war. He kept the anarchist tradition throughout his life, including a decade in Francoist Spain's jails and multiple decades in exile in France.
Revolutionary Catalonia was the period in which the autonomous region of Catalonia in northeast Spain was controlled or largely influenced by various anarchist, communist, and socialist trade unions, parties, and militias of the Spanish Civil War era. Although the constitutional Catalan institution of self-government, the Generalitat of Catalonia, remained in power and even took control of most of the competences of the Spanish central government in its territory, the trade unions were de facto in command of most of the economy and military forces, which includes the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo which was the dominant labor union at the time and the closely associated Federación Anarquista Ibérica. The Unión General de Trabajadores, the POUM and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia were also prominent.
The Friends of Durruti Group was a Spanish anarchist group commonly known for its participation in the May Days. Named after Buenaventura Durruti, it was founded on 15 March 1937 by Jaume Balius i Mir and Félix Martínez, who had become disillusioned with the policies of the CNT-FAI's leadership. During the May Days in Barcelona, they actively agitated among the anti-government forces, advocating for the formation of a "revolutionary junta", in close collaboration with Spanish Trotskyists. Following the suppression of the uprising, the group began publishing the newspaper El Amigo del Pueblo, in which they denounced the CNT-FAI for "collaborationism", resulting in their expulsion from the organisation. Their 1938 pamphlet Towards a Fresh revolution, which reaffirmed their proposals for a revolutionary junta, became an influential text within the anarchist current of platformism. But the group ultimately failed to make a broader impact within the Spanish movement and collapsed by the end of the war.
Clara Thalmann was a Swiss journalist, athlete and militiawoman, who fought during the Spanish Civil War.
Women in the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification were faced with many of the same problems as other Communist and Anarchist women in the 1930s, such as hypocrisy of the male leadership in their support of women's rights, while continuing their sexist and patriarchal behavior in private.
Women in the Popular Front in the Spanish Civil War were part of a broad leftist coalition founded ahead of the 1936 Spanish general elections. The Second Spanish Republic represented a changing cultural and political landscape in which women's political organizations could flourish for the first time. It failed to empower women completely, as they were often locked out of governance roles and positions in political organizations. Many organizations continued to discriminate against women, as Marxist ideology did not see them as a unique group with special needs but as part of larger class grouping in which class equality needed to be prioritized.
Women in the Spanish Civil War saw the conflict start on 17 July 1936. The war would impact women's everyday lives. Feminist solutions to problems of women in this period often took an individualistic approach. For women of the Second Republic, by close of the Civil War their efforts for liberation would fail.
The confederal militias were a movement of people's militia organized during the Spanish Civil War by the dominant organizations of anarchism in Spain: the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI).
The Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia was an administrative body created on 21 July 1936 by the president of the Government of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, under pressure by the anarcho-syndicalists of the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) and Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), which led the workers' struggle against the July 1936 military uprising in Barcelona.
Josep Rovira i Canals (1902–1968) was a Catalan politician, a leader of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification. During the Spanish Civil War he managed to send several militia units to the Aragon front, and was arrested by the republican authorities in the context of the repression against the POUM.
