The Spanish Anarchists and the Russian Revolution, 1917–24 explores the impact of the Russian Revolution on the world’s most powerful anarchist movement, the Spanish National Confederation of Labour. The monograph traces the curve of euphoria followed by scepticism that characterized anarchist reactions to the Soviet experiment in 1917–24. This book unearths the interactions between anarchists and Bolsheviks, and assesses their significance for social conflict in Spain and for the foundation of international communism. The Spanish anarchists are a window to examine the global appeal of the Bolsheviks among diverse, non-Marxist militant groups at a time of cross-fertilization for the left internationally. Through the case study of the Spanish anarchists, this book highlights how identification with the victorious Russian Bolsheviks became a rousing device and a political asset at a time of intense social effervescence, when, in the eyes of many, world revolution seemed imminent. However, for heterodox, non-Marxist forces, such as the Spanish anarchists, the Soviet model had to be negotiated and adapted to local conditions and political traditions. This book later traces the ending of this phase of cross-fertilization at a time of defeat and demoralization for the labour movement in Spain and across Europe.

This is the first scholarly volume to offer an insight into the less known stories of women, children, and international volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. Special attention is given to volunteers of different historical experiences, especially Jews, and voices from less researched countries in the context of the Spanish war, such as Palestine and Turkey. Of an interdisciplinary nature, this volume brings together historians and literary scholars from different countries. Their research is based on newly found primary sources in both national and private archives, as well as on post-essentialist methodological insights for women’s history, Jewish history, and studies on belonging. By bringing together a group of emerging and senior scholars from different countries, we highlight the polyphony of voices of diverse individuals drawn into the Spanish Civil War. Contributors to this volume have explored new or little researched primary sources found in archives and documentary centers, including papers held by relatives of the people we study. The volume is aimed at both scholarly and non-scholarly public, including any readers interested in the Spanish Civil War, twentieth-century European history, Jewish studies, women’s history, or anti-Fascism. The volume can be used in both undergraduate college courses and in postgraduate university seminars.

Focusing on the processes of political socialisation and democratisation that took place in Spain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this book brings together specialists who propose the need to rethink the contemporary history of democracy in Spain to build a new narrative. To do so, the authors go down to the local level, where they are able to trace a political culture that forged the foundations of a process of political "modernization" much more complex than what conventional historiography has conveyed, even though it was not always transferred institutionally to the national level. The idea of a rural Spain that was backward, apolitical, violent and unprepared for democracy gives way to a more interesting history which, while recognising the peculiarities of the country and the important limitations to democracy, shows examples that could help build a new narrative closer those of other neighbouring countries. Aimed at contemporary historians interested in Spain and Europe, the book also addresses the debates faced by other social scientists on the concept of democracy. This dialogue between history, sociology and political science is particularly present in a special final chapter featuring a discussion of democracy and its application to Spanish history.

This book analyzes the promotion of subnational identities undertaken by Spanish fascism and the Franco regime between 1930 and 1975, as well as their patterns of survival, accommodation and adaptation. It examines the proactive attitudes of the various actors committed to the dictatorship – from Falangists to Francoist intellectuals to Catholic conservatives – alongside their repressive or annihilating approach to regional cultures and languages. As in most Fascist regimes between 1922 and 1945, a narrative of the ethnocultural, ethnoterritorial and historic diversity of the nation persisted, with differing degrees of intensity and different tendencies. These discourses and practices were not limited exclusively to the ideological and social sphere of anti-Francoism, and the roots of the ‘State of the Autonomous Communities’, which gave rise to the extension of political autonomy to all Spanish regions from 1978 onwards, date back to the deep structure of the dictatorship, with foundations in demands put forward by the local, provincial and regional elites within later Francoism. The volume is primarily written for scholars and students of Iberian Studies, European Modern and Contemporary History, Cultural Studies, especially those with an interest in memory studies, fascism, nationalism and regionalism, cultural resistance under dictatorship, and transitions from dictatorship to democracy.

This volume explains the genesis and development of the nexus between radical Basque nationalists and Irish republicans, how they have learnt from each other historically, and how they have utilised this relationship, at times, to their benefit. From medieval tales of shared origins to the violent conflicts largely wrought by ETA and the IRA, the Basque Country and Ireland have long been associated in popular imagination. Despite this, little is known of historical Basque-Irish relations and, in particular, the web of party-political, military and social movement connections between radical Basque nationalists and Irish republicans since the Irish Revolutionary Period (1916–23). Drawing on extensive archival research undertaken in Spain, Ireland and the UK, and more than 70 interviews conducted with politicians, former paramilitaries and grassroots activists, this is the first study to comprehensively document and analyse the emergence, evolution and implications of this mythified transnational relationship. Radical Basque Nationalist-Irish Republican Relations: A History will appeal to students and scholars of Irish republicanism, Basque nationalism, terrorism studies and social movements studies, as well as those interested in the contemporary history of Western Europe’s two most volatile regions.

This thesis explores the impact of the Russian Revolution on the Spanish anarchist movement in the years 1917-24. Initially, anarchists in Spain welcomed the news of the Russian Revolution euphorically. They embraced many aspects of Bolshevik ideology. The anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labour participated in the first congresses of the Comintern and sent two official delegations to Russia. Yet this enthusiasm was short-lived. By the summer of 1921 anarchists began to turn against Soviet Russia. They reaffirmed their libertarian credentials and articulated an anarchist critique of Bolshevism. In June 1922, the Confederation abandoned the Comintern. This thesis traces the curve of enthusiasm followed by scepticism and hostility that characterised the Spanish libertarians’ attitude towards revolutionary Russia. It grounds these developments in the changing Spanish, Russian, and European political contexts, which went from a phase of revolutionary effervescence in 1917-20 to a phase of defeat and stagnation for the labour movement and of counterrevolutionary offensive in 1921-24. This thesis contends that the short anarchist romance with Bolshevism was not a mere misunderstanding brought about by the lack of reliable news on Russia, as much of the historiography has claimed, but represented a genuine rapprochement that had political causes: the attenuation of the divide between radical Marxists and anarchists during the First World War, the feeling of intense enthusiasm and optimism that set in after the Bolshevik victory, and the temptation to capitalise politically on the Russian Revolution and use it to outcompete the Social Democrats. The situation changed drastically after 1921, when Spanish labour experienced sudden defeat in a dispiring international juncture. Anarchists faced the unwelcome competition of the newly created Spanish Communist Party, which posed as the official representative of the Comintern in Spain. In this context, optimism turned into bitterness, preparing the ground for the turn against the Bolsheviks.

“A respectful and relevant biography of the fiery crusader” from the feminist activist and author of Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen (The New York Times Book Review). Writer, anarchist, revolutionary, feminist—Emma Goldman was all these things and more. She was a fiery advocate, taking bold stands on a wide range of issues including women’s rights, homosexuality, capitalism, and the military draft. Her tumultuous childhood in Tsarist Russia fostered her rebelliousness and emboldened her opposition to violent authority. Upon arriving in New York in 1885, Goldman found a home in the anarchist movement in the United States. She traveled the country to deliver lectures on anarchism, and was jailed for urging unemployed workers to demand the food they needed. Goldman also aggressively supported Margaret Sanger’s effort to educate women about birth control. Goldman was deported to Russia as fears of an anarchist revolution in the US grew. But back in her homeland, she didn’t find the socialist paradise of worker equality and empowerment she had hoped would take root after the Bolshevik Revolution. Disillusioned, she left the Soviet Union and traveled the world to write and agitate on behalf of her causes. Goldman’s radical legacy endures, revived during the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s. Her story provides inspiration for any woman who ever wanted to make a difference in the world.

The "most dangerous woman alive" in the most inspring revolution of modern history.

Bearded bomb-throwers, self-indulgent nihilists, dangerous subversives.these characteristic clichés of anarchists in the popular imagination are often reproduced in the cinema. In Film and the Anarchist Imagination, the first comprehensive survey of anarchism in film, Richard Porton deconstructs such stereotypes while offering an authoritative account of films featuring anarchist characters and motifs. From the early cinema of Griffith and René Clair, to the work of Godard, Lina Wertmüller, Lizzie Borden and Ken Loach, Porton analyzes portrayals of anarchism in film, presenting commentaries and critiques of such classics as Zéro de Conduite, Tout Va Bien, and Love and Anarchy. In addition, he provides an excellent guide to the complex traditions of anarchist thought, from Bakunin and Kropotkin to Emma Goldman and Murray Bookchin, disclosing a rich historical legacy that encompasses the Paris Commune, the Haymarket martyrs, the anarcho-syndicalists of the Spanish Civil War, as well as more familiar contemporary avatars like the Situationists and the enragés of May 1968.

"The Spanish Anarchists and the Russian Revolution, 1917-24 explores the impact of the Russian Revolution on the world's most powerful anarchist movement, the Spanish National Confederation of Labour. The monograph traces the curve of euphoria followed by scepticism that characterized anarchist reactions to the Soviet experiment in 1917-24. The book unearths the interactions between anarchists and Bolsheviks and assesses their significance for social conflict in Spain and for the foundation of international communism. The Spanish anarchists are a window to examine the global appeal of the Bolsheviks among diverse, non-Marxist militant groups at a time of cross-fertilization for the left internationally. Through the case study of the Spanish anarchists, the book highlights how identification with the victorious Russian Bolsheviks became a rousing device and a political asset at a time of intense social effervescence, when, in the eyes of many, world revolution seemed imminent. However, for heterodox, non-Marxist forces, such as the Spanish anarchists, the Soviet model had to be negotiated and adapted to local conditions and political traditions. The book later traces the ending of this phase of cross-fertilization at a time of defeat and demoralization for the labour movement in Spain and across Europe"--