Collectivizations: The constructive achievements of the Spanish Revolution : Essays, documents and reports

Notes
See the short biographical article by Nick Heath at: http://libcom.org/history/partos-pal-1911-1964-aka-paul-polgare-pablo-polgare-folgare for the various pseudonyms employed by Paul or Pablo Folgare, a/k/a Paul Polgare, a/k/a Pal Partos. The original Spanish edition of 1937 utilized the Spanish version of Souchy’s first name, but not Folgare’s [Note added by the translator of the English edition]. The collectivization process in Russia never went beyond this stage. André Gide describes this in his book, Retour de l’URSS, as follows: “We visited a model Kolkhoz in the neighborhood of Sukhum. It dates from six years back. After having struggled obscurely for some time, it is now one of the most prosperous in the country. It is known as ‘the millionaire’ and is bursting with life and happiness. This Kolkhoz stretches over a very large tract of country. The climate ensures a luxurious vegetation. Th... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 3 : Membrilla
3. MEMBRILLA In the rocky countryside of La Mancha, to the southwest of Ciudad Real, one finds Membrilla. In miserable huts, the poor inhabitants of a poor province; 8,000 people, but the streets are not paved; the town has no newspaper, no cinema, no café, no library. It did, however, contain many churches, which have all been burned. In 1920 some workers founded a branch Trade Union of the National Confederation of Labor. The militants underwent continuous persecution; the organization was even dissolved during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. The reestablished Republic reintroduced political freedom, but economic conditions did not improve, and the town was just as poor as before. Five years passed in this way, without anything having changed with regard to the social conditions of the town. When the military uprising began, on July 19, there were seven Civil Guards and several dozen fascists... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 2 : Fraga
2. FRAGA Another small town, without wealth or comfort. At the junction of the Barcelona-Saragossa-Madrid highway, in the region of Aragon, on the slope of one of those hills that one finds throughout the region, Fraga, a little town with 9,000 inhabitants, the leading town in one of the provinces of Aragon, gives the impression of a large city of badly cobbled streets and dilapidated old hovels. From these hovels, simple and friendly workers emerge; the streets are full of life, and the town, which is usually so quiet, is today bustling with activity. Here, too, those who were always exploited, and who used to work incessantly only to die of hunger, these workers of the farms and the workshops, have taken their own destinies into their hands. This was not difficult, for as soon as the first news of the military uprising and the people’s reaction reached the town, the few active fascist sympathizers here rapidly disappeared. Oth... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 1 : Lécera, An Aragonese Town Where Libertarian Communism Is A Reality
Part 4 - Libertarian Communism 1. LÉCERA, AN ARAGONESE TOWN WHERE LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM IS A REALITY Lécera is a model town—Its characteristics—The understanding of the Revolutionary Committee—The administration and remuneration of labor—Distribution of products—The outpost of Monte Lobo—Belchite, two thousand five hundred meters from us—A talk with Captain Luis Jubert A MODEL TOWN FOR THE NOBILITY OF ITS SENTIMENTS Lécera is the largest town in the province of Zaragoza and belongs to the judicial district of Belchite. The latter town is twelve kilometers distant. Lécera has 2,400 inhabitants and possesses some industry, including a plaster factory. The rest of its economy is based on agriculture, its most important crops being wheat, grapes, saffron and a smaller quantity of miscellaneous grain crops. (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 11 : Blanes
11. BLANES A PLACE THAT USED TO BE A HATEFUL LOCATION OF EXPLOITATION OF THE WORKERS Just before arriving at the town we encounter the concentration of buildings of the SAFA, a well-known factory producing artificial silk. When we look at this factory, when we converse with the workers employed in it, we must remind ourselves of all its odious past: the phases of struggle provoked by the management of this factory. SAFA operated with Swiss and French capital, and Romanones and Ventosa y Calvell were also major shareholders in the enterprise. The workers were treated with the most extreme despotism, as if they were servants born to endure every kind of insult and the most outrageous provocations; they were paid paltry wages for the unhealthiest jobs. Many became ill due to their work in the factory, so that the shareholders could see their profits rise. There were three major strikes at SAFA that demonstrated... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Arenys de Mar
10. ARENYS DE MAR TOWNS AND CITIES We wanted to visit sparsely populated towns as well as densely populated cities. We have constantly observed that in the small towns more significant social programs of a revolutionary type have been implemented than in the more populous cities. Perhaps this is in part due to the fact that a small town is less complicated compared to a city. What interests us is what has been achieved, or plans that are being considered for implementation. We take into consideration the importance, or the congenial character, of all those initiatives that have been undertaken to establish a new era. This is what we are trying to highlight in our brief reports gathered among the confederal areas, as we visited various towns... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 1 - The New Collective Economy Collectivizations: The Constructive Achievements of the Spanish Revolution. Essays, Documents and Reports—Agustin Souchy and Paul Folgare Publisher’s Note from the Spanish Edition of 1977 This work, which comprises one of the main sources that must be referred to for any analysis of the collectivizations that took place during the Spanish Revolution, was first published by “Tierra y Libertad” in Barcelona in 1937. After the Civil War it was republished in Toulouse by the CNT, in an edition that omitted the authors’ names. The mere fact that the first edition of this book was published in 1937 will be enough to alert the reader to the existence of certain very general limitati... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Textile Industry
2. THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY The structure of the textile industry—Report of the Textile Trade Union of Barcelona—The structure of the collective organizations in the textile industry. Three patterns—La España Industrial: Report on the activity of the Central Committees in the factories. THE STRUCTURE OF THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY REPORT OF THE TEXTILE TRADE UNION OF BARCELONA One of the most important industries in Catalonia, most heavily concentrated in Sabadell and Tarrasa, is the textile industry. The trade union mentioned above has 40,000 CNT workers in Barcelona alone. The two major trade union federations together have 230,000 workers in the industry, 170,000 of whom are members of our Confederation. The current proport... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Agriculture
7. AGRICULTURE The Resolutions of the Plenary Assembly of the Agricultural Workers of Catalonia—Statutes of the Section of Collective Labor of the Trade Union of Valls—The organizational plan for the agricultural, livestock and industrial wealth of Sollana RESOLUTIONS OF THE PLENARY ASSEMBLY OF THE AGRICULTURAL WORKERS OF CATALONIA The Presentation, which provided a detailed study of the different characteristics that distinguish Catalonian agriculture, as well as a profound analysis of the psychology of the peasants of the region, allows us to summarize the following orientations, in the hope that they will serve or be capable of serving as a guide for the planning of the path that we must follow and that will lead us to the ac... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Tarrasa
Part 3 - Collective Labor in the Provinces of Catalonia 1. TARRASA THE FACTORIES OF TARRASA Close to the city, the mountain, the cyclopean pile of San Llorenç del Munt, casts its imposing silhouette. On the plain, an army of smokestacks. In Tarrasa, a town with some forty thousand residents, the manufacturing industry predominates, in which some fourteen thousand workers are employed, eleven thousand of whom are members of the CNT and the rest affiliated with the UGT. Almost all the factories are working at full capacity. There are plenty of factories devoted to spinning wool (acortiments) and weaving fabrics, which are especially dedicated to working to supply war materiel. A forty-hour workweek is in effect, although when it is nec... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)