INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-SPAIN:

100 YEARS OF ANARCHOSYNDICALISM:

As was stated previously on this blog this year marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Spanish Confederación Nacional de Trabajo, the CNT. Today anarchosyndicalism in Spain is divided, but all the heirs of the CNT claim its rich heritage. Previously I translated and published the statement of the CGT on this anniversary. Today it is the turn of the eponymous CNT, and their statement on this event. The original Spanish can be found at the CNT website.

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CNT, 100 years of anarcho-syndicalism (1910-2010):

On November 1, 1910, in Barcelona's Círculo de Bellas Artes, the CNT (National Confederation of Labor) was constituted. This organization, heir to the Spanish region to the Spanish of the 1st International (1870), was born from within the labor movement itself as the first independent trade union in this country.

Assuming the international slogan "the emancipation of the workers will be the work of the workers themselves, or it will not be", the CNT made itself the repository of that popular rebellion which, like a subterranean stream, opposed power over the length of time, to emerge triumphant at specific times, from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom to the French Revolution, the origin of the unique historical processes in which humanity obviously advanced along the path of freedom, justice, equality, dignity and progress.

Upon the simple agreement to create a labor organization independent from the political, religious and economic powers as a prerequisite for improving the living conditions of the workers through to the end of exploitation, the CNT began its anarchosyndicalist activity. In a few years it brought together most of the labor movement with significant social and economic advances that are now an invaluable legacy for today's society.

The work day of eight hours, the work week of thirty-six hours, the elimination of child labour, equality of women and incorporation into the daily lives of values such as solidarity, federalism, ecology, feminism, free love, anti-militarism, atheism ... so in vogue today, are part of that legacy that reached its zenith in the Social Revolution of 1936, when the utopia-libertarian communism- transformed everyone's daily life in all the liberated territories.

The reaction of international capitalism enabled Franco's fascist army to turn that revolutionary dream into a nightmare of hundreds of thousands of people persecuted, murdered and disappeared after the victorious coup in 1939. But not one of the culprits – all known, some active politicians -of that regime of terror, one of the most murderous in history, was even publicly reproved, thanks to the shameful impunity pact with Franco, which the national democratic left y (PSOE, PCE, UGT and CCOO) sealed in its surrender agreement with capital, known as "Spanish Transition" (1977).

Nevertheless, the people continued to defend, often with their lives, the simple principles of anarcho-syndicalism: independence, autonomy, federalism, self-management, assemblies, solidarity and direct action, ie self-organization, to reject any interference by political parties or other institutions, economic, religious, etc., in labor affairs. Strikes, demonstrations, repression and torture were the daily chronicle of the dictatorship (1939-1976), until their disappearance when the labor movement thrillingly came back to rebuild their beloved CNT (1977).

We live in new years of incessant labor conquest. The days of Montjuic, or San Sebastian de los Reyes, marked the powerful rebirth of the confederation in the 1970s. The progress of the labor movement, again self-organized by the CNT, through examples like the strike struggles of gas stations in 1978, prompted the reaction of capitalism, this time supported by the democratic state and its institutional apparatus (governments, parties, judges, trade union bureaucracies , ...).

The successful union of the CNT was suppressed by the police (Case Scala, 1978) and, with the silence and propaganda campaigns of defamation in the media, this has generated disastrous consequences for the labor movement in this country. The weakening of the anarcho-syndicalist presence in the labor movement made possible the loss of rights acquired after a long and bitter union struggles, by deregulation and labor precariousness implanted with the worst of the corruptions plaguing the country: Union Corruption. An officially silent corruption, which corrupts the union movement in general in the eyes of workers, but mainly it stars institutional unions –the CCOO and the UGT, whose unionist "yuppies" acquire grants and amounts in the millions from governments and businesses as payment to their treason, for accepting whatever measures are taken in defence of capital accumulation and rising profits (EREs, labour reforms, lay offs, etc ...)

Despite all that, thousands of workers now follow the genuine labor organization which we call the CNT, keeping it exclusively their own, making it the only living example of class unionism, capable of dealing with oppression and social control, ecological destruction and overexploitation of the world economy, all aspects inherent to capitalism.

2010 has for us a special connotation: it marks a century of existence of the CNT. It is the centenary of a people and the invaluable struggle of thousands of people, over the last hundred years has provided us with a shining blueprint, to be followed by the world’s working class, by their own culture, self-organizing capacity, radical struggles, popular spread and revolutionary achievements in order to build an anti-authoritarian society based on solidarity.

These ideals form the noble cause to which we invite you here and now.

INTERNATIONAL ANARCHIST MOVEMENT-SPAIN:

CONGRATULATIONS ANARCHOSYNDICALISM FROM THE CGT:

As mentioned before on this blog this year marks the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the Spanish Confederación Nacional de Trabajo (CNT) in Barcelona. All of the Spanish anarchosyndicalist groups are planning events to mark this centennial. The CGT have recently published the following congratulatory note in their paper Rojo Y Negro. As can be seen from the article Rojo Y Negro plans to have a continuing series with historical documents and how they relate to the present time. Molly hopes to be following this series and translating at least some of the essays. To my knowledge the article below is the first time that it has appeared in an English translation.

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Congratulations, Anarcosindicalism:

2010 is the centenary of anarcho-syndicalism, that is, each and every one of the organizations. groups and individuals who declare themselves as such. And each and all deserve a fraternal greeting, congratulations for having held to type, congratulations to one of the most rebellious critical and constructive currents for liberty and equality which we could provide to human beings, congratulations to each and every one who in his or her life built anarcho-syndicalism.

And congratulations, then, to all anarchosyndicalist organizations : the first historical CNT of course , and now the CNT-AIT, the Solidaridad Obrera, a splinter or separate CNT in Barcelona, the CNT France but also all sections of the AIT, and other unions outside of Spain that claim anarchist syndicalism (SAC in Sweden, the two USIs in Italy Workers’ Initiative in Poland, the Greek ESE, etc.), and including that this is also the centenary of other anarcho específicos many groups, mainly Latin American, who largely subscribe to the anarcho-syndicalist ideas that emerged from the historic Congress 1910 in Barcelona.

And obviously, despite the current divisions of some anarchosyndicalist sectors , the non-dogmatic anarchonsindicalist backbone, wide and pluralistic, of the CGT, the General Confederation of Labor. Of course.

Its self-organization, its struggles, its popular assemblies, its self critical ability, and its construction of a society open to the horizontal movements of the social base, and especially to all workers , in every sense of the word, testify to a path and a practice that, with its errors and contradictions, is the most genuine expression of anarcho-syndicalism: the constant search for the self-emancipation of the exploited classes.

Rojo Y Negro is reporting the early acts of this anniversary, opening a page that will be revisited over the next eleven months, in which part of an historical text on a specific theme (of the many that have been directly or indirectly been treated by anarcho-syndicalism) will be used for another consideration of the matter and updating of the points made in the historic document. Each page will be accompanied with an original illustration that, with artistic freedom, express an image of what is being "discussed" in the current and historical texts. This is the particular contribution of Royo Y Negro to the centennial.

I cannot but emphasize another fact which was duly reported in the pages of Rojo Y Negro, and coincides with the centennial, and what it means for reflection and updating of libertarian principles, with the formation on the confederal level of the "Jóvenes Anarcosindicalistas-CGT’ (Anarchosyndicalist youth), certainly a historic milestone for the Confederacy, small now but it will hopefully enhance its presence and importance in the not too distant future. That a youth group, affiliated to the CGT, has decided to be called "anarcho" is not trivial. It indicates a clear intention to necessarily follow a path open to innovation, self direction, and self-management of their own lives. The precariousness, both social and in employment, and conditions of manipulation, exploitation and repression in which we live are directly suffered by women and men, and therefore it is up to us to confront this reality, deal with it, and build from solidarity and mutual support an alternative which is urgent and necessary to radically transform the oppressive and unjust world. They are the CGT.

Antonio Carretero,

Rojo Y Negro

ANARCHIST HISTORY:
THE CGT ON 100 YEARS OF SPANISH ANARCHOSYNDICALISM:
Here is a preliminary press release from the Spanish CGT on the 100th anniversary of the foundation of the CNT in Barcelona. The following English translation comes from the A-Infos site. I have slightly edited the translation below (mostly in terms of the definite article) to make it less grating to the English ear. As to the rather florid style, I'd like to assure the reader that this is a normal way of writing in Spain for almost all political persuasions, not just anarchists.


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History: 100 YEARS OF ANARCHO-SYNDICALISM (1910-2010):


A hundred years ago, a handful of women and men, with their courage and rebelliousness, started to change the World.


---- Being conscious that the workers emancipation could only be achieved through direct action and be made by the workers themselves, subjugated peoples of all conditions and trades decided to organize autonomously and to assume their destiny in community without any master, government or superstition.


---- That was how anarcho-syndicalism was born under the historical names of the Confederación General de Trabajo (General Workers’ Confederation) and the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Workers’ Confederation)( uh-not exactly. it is more the "present" names than the "historical" names-Molly ), inspired in the principles that invigorated the First International, the most democratic, humanist and revolutionary expression of political and social self-determination that modern times have known.







Experience has shown how these antiauthoritarian ideals were the ones that promoted the most important and ambitious historical social changes. They rejected the submission culture, preached by the ruling classes, the oligarchy and the Church, fighting on the ground the intolerance of the predatory bourgeoisie, and setting a great example of solidarity, and they disputed with totalitarianism the achievements attained with so much sacrifice.







Pioneers in the denunciation of every injustice and always ahead of their time, the anarcho-syndicalists wrenched the eight-hour day from the capitalists. They also conquered, after centuries of humiliation, social equity for women bringing their ideas about social revolution, full, complete and libertarian, throughout the World and especially to Latin America, a land that from that moment turned into the second home of that heroic proletarian activism.







It was also the libertarian resistance that in a first and critical moment checked the onslaught of the mercenary Nazi fascists troops that were called up by the Francoist dictatorship to subdue the Spanish people and punish their revolutionary insolence. Even nowadays, the Spanish revolution developed from 1936 to 1939 continues to amaze the world and is considered as an historical milestone. At the same time, here in Spain, in the scene of that unequal contest, revanchism and conspiratorial forgetfulness remain, sparing with the ethical legacy of those people that had a new World in their hearts.




That’s why, when we are celebrating the first century of that brightness that still lightens the fertile path of freedom and solidarity, when the terrible mirages of the autocratic and statist power have revealed themselves as fellow travellers of domination and exploitation, we, the anarcho-syndicalists, recall ourselves to condemn the new and unforeseen threats that are putting in danger the existence of our planet and the decent coexistence of the peoples and to reassert our faith in working humanity and in the final defeat of capitalist barbarism and its representatives.




In the beginning of 21st Century, we are convinced that the homeland of the oppressed is the entire World and that their family is the whole of humanity, women and men, young and elderly, native and foreigner, and we defend rebelliousness and peace and call for the breaking up of the recent and invisible chains of voluntary servitude.




When everything in the highest levels of society is conspiring to stifle the cry against established injustice, the anarcho-syndicalists, revolutionary trade-unionists, anarchists, libertarians, anticapitalists and antiauthoritarians, acting as repositories of the authentic democracy of direct action, state that we are the people in its infinite rebelliousness, and recognise the enormous debt contracted with the previous generation that fought for freedom, justice and dignity.




Because our idea of anarchy symbolize the highest expression of order.




Because when all the people govern, as the ideal of true democracy hopes, no one rules, as anarchism fights towards.
¡¡SALUD Y LIBERTAD!!
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Jose Pascual Rubio Cano
Scr Relaciones Internacionales CGT
http://www.rojoynegro.info/2004/
http://www.cgtchiapas.org/
http://www.lsqueluchan.org
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From: CGT Internacional

ANARCHIST HISTORY-SPAIN:

100 YEARS OF THE CNT:

This year marks the hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Spanish CNT. I am already reading and getting the notices of "100 years of anarcho-syndicalism" from both of the Spanish organizations that claim the CNT's legacy, the eponymous CNT and the CGT. In the next little while I'll be presenting some items from both organizations to mark the occasion. While the Spanish CNT may certainly claim to have been the largest and most successful of the anarcho-syndicalist unions of the last century it was hardly the first. That honour belongs to the French CGT, founded in 1895, and its 'Charter of Amiens' in 1906 pretty well laid out the simple basic principles that anarcho-syndicalist groups would subsequently follow. Even though the CGT itself later strayed from the anarchist course due to its capture by the rising Communist Party of France.

Thus, this more properly called '100 Years of the CNT' rather than '100 Years of Anarcho-syndicalism'. From October 30 to November 1 of 1910 a congress of the Catalan union federation Solidaridad Obrero, meeting in Barcelona under the shadow of the previous years 'Semana Tragica', decided, in a burst of enthusiasm, to generalize their federation into one encompassing all of Spain. The Spanish anarchists were quite prone to "bursts of enthusiasm", and sometimes these worked out extremely well, as it did in this case. The following year, 1911, the newly formed Confederación Nacional De Trabajo (CNT) was formed. The rest, as they say, is history, the most glorious page written into the history books by anarchism.

Have a look at our 'Links' section for numerous anarcho-syndicalist contacts. For those interested in the further history there is a 24 unit pdf self-education course here. Stay tuned to Molly's Blog through the year as we present more on this anniversary, including items from both of the heirs of the historical CNT.

PERSONAL:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOLLY:

It's two more days, and it will be the Third Birthday of Molly's Blog. In that time I have posted close to 3,000 entries on this blog. The page views passed the 100,000 mark some time ago, and I am presently working on the 100,000 visitors mark. At the present time the visitors average about 100 per day. To my mind this is insufficient. Eugene Plawiuks's 'La Revue Gauche' still averages over 400 visitors per day even though Eugene has been "off line" for months". Obviously I'm not doing all that I should. Still....

In these three years Molly's Blog has seen a consistent improvement in both readership, layout and (I think) content. This blog has been repeatedly quoted by others in the blogosphere. In the months and years to come I hope to build on what has already been done. Expect the unexpected from the tiny cat in Winnipeg.

By the way, the 5th of August is also a full moon. I think it should be renamed as the 'Molly Moon'. That is, of course, my own ego speaking, but I do hope to present the proposal to the International Astronomical Society or at least the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.