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This is a
very obscure pamphlet which I review mostly to show that I´m Number One when it
comes to obscure pamphlets. Trust me, not even Amazon sells this one!
“The Bankruptcy of Syndicalism and Anarchism” was published in 1979 by Workers for Proletarian Autonomy and Social Revolution. It was distributed in the UK years later by a mysterious outfit codenamed BM Blob. The pamphlet is very “in house”, even for yours truly, and deals with internal conflicts within the CNT, the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist labor union resurrected after the death of Franco and the reintroduction of democracy in Spain. The CNT split soon after its resurrection (the defectors later adopted the name CGT).
The authors, an otherwise unknown group of anarchists or Left Communists, oppose both factions. They describe the CNT as a chaotic mayhem of petty bureaucrats, careerists and competing cliques. The intramural CNT polemics seems to have been very acerbic. Factional opponents were accused of being “former” fascists, Trotskyites or “former priests” (sic) as a matter of course. Well, one CNT leader in Catalonia apparently *was* a priest! Little of substance is said about the CNT-CGT split, which concerned whether or not the anarcho-syndicalists should stand in the so-called union elections. CGT was for, the more orthodox anarchist CNT was against (and hence couldn´t really function as a union in the first place).
The ultraleftists who published this pamphlet might be excused for thinking that Spain would soon see another revolution – I assume the political situation in the years immediately after Franco´s death was still unstable (think ETA and the attempted coup in 1981). Today, ultraleftism is even more bankrupt than syndicalism and I wouldn´t be surprised if these merchants of the ra-ra-revolutionary word are themselves standing in union elections. Or, more likely, work at some college…
“The Bankruptcy of Syndicalism and Anarchism” was published in 1979 by Workers for Proletarian Autonomy and Social Revolution. It was distributed in the UK years later by a mysterious outfit codenamed BM Blob. The pamphlet is very “in house”, even for yours truly, and deals with internal conflicts within the CNT, the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist labor union resurrected after the death of Franco and the reintroduction of democracy in Spain. The CNT split soon after its resurrection (the defectors later adopted the name CGT).
The authors, an otherwise unknown group of anarchists or Left Communists, oppose both factions. They describe the CNT as a chaotic mayhem of petty bureaucrats, careerists and competing cliques. The intramural CNT polemics seems to have been very acerbic. Factional opponents were accused of being “former” fascists, Trotskyites or “former priests” (sic) as a matter of course. Well, one CNT leader in Catalonia apparently *was* a priest! Little of substance is said about the CNT-CGT split, which concerned whether or not the anarcho-syndicalists should stand in the so-called union elections. CGT was for, the more orthodox anarchist CNT was against (and hence couldn´t really function as a union in the first place).
The ultraleftists who published this pamphlet might be excused for thinking that Spain would soon see another revolution – I assume the political situation in the years immediately after Franco´s death was still unstable (think ETA and the attempted coup in 1981). Today, ultraleftism is even more bankrupt than syndicalism and I wouldn´t be surprised if these merchants of the ra-ra-revolutionary word are themselves standing in union elections. Or, more likely, work at some college…
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