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Anarchist Aragon (July 21, 1936 – 1939) was a period in Aragon's history, within the larger context of the Spanish Revolution, characterised by collective land ownership reform,〔(【引用サイトリンク】accessdate=14 February 2015 )〕 social redistribution, communalisation of agrarian areas, attempt to eliminate the social influence of the Catholic Church, and worker economic and political management largely without the direction of a state. The period is generally agreed to have started at the Siege of the Alcázar, a highly symbolic Nationalist victory in Toledo in the opening stages of the Spanish Civil War, although anarchist communist thought was widely prevalent in such areas as Andalusia, the Levante, most of Aragon, as well as in Anarchist Catalonia. Mass collectivisation and the broad implementation of libertarian communist ideas occurred very quickly, largely voluntarily. The previous structure of landlords owning the majority of the land in Aragon, and Aragonese peasants essentially being serfs—with much dependence on the economic security of farming—was rapidly changed into communal ownership with many landlords emigrating to more stable regions or being forced off the land through peasant rebellion. The existence of these communes were met with much opposition, leading to blockades restricting access to required armaments and creating economic isolation (predominantly led by the United States and France), but also through the Nationalists who were heavily supported by Germany, Italy, and Portugal, precipitating their inability to withstand invasion by Nationalist militias. Aragon was controlled by the anarchist and socialist trade unions, parties, and militias during the Spanish Civil War. These included the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT, National Confederation of Labor) which was the dominant labor union at the time and the closely associated Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation). The Unión General de Trabajadores (General Worker's Union), the POUM and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (which included the Communist Party of Catalonia) were also involved. Though the Catalonian Generalitat was nominally in power, the trade unions were ''de facto'' in command of most of the economy and military forces. The growing influence of the Communist Party of Spain's (PCE) Popular Front government and their desire to nationalize revolutionary committees and militias brought it into conflict with the CNT and POUM, resulting in the Barcelona May Days and the eventual replacement of the CNT by the PCE as the major political force in Catalonia. ==Historical context== Aragon had highly subdivided land. Historian Graham Kelsey points out that according to one writer, in 1920, "the region possessed only 150 estates larger than one hundred hectares out of a total of 1,614,800" which goes to show that Aragon was predominantly an area of small-holder agriculture. In certain districts such as Huesca, Boltana, and Benabarre, there was a complete absence of large landowners. Another important feature of Aragon is its uncultivated agricultural area. According to Kelsey, 38 percent of land in Aragon is farmed and 23.5 per cent of that which remained is uncultivable. Kelsey states that "one half of the Aragonese land surface...lay idle." The large tracts of land which weren't able to be cultivated may have led to the vast inequalities that Aragon exhibited. Even though land was for the most part equally subdivided, inequalities were everywhere present. Kelsey quotes a correspondent of the anarcho-syndicalist weekly Campo Libre saying "Although this village is one in which property is considerably subdivided with almost all of us small landowners, the immense majority of us find ourselves obliged to live and work in a manner so completely circumscribed that our wretched condition as exploited workers is soon again evident."〔 The land that many small landowners owned was insufficient to cater to their needs, which caused many to find secondary sources of income. In Binefar, for instance, only 100 out of 800 families could live solely off their own land.〔 The poor living conditions may have been due to infertile soils. Kelsey explains how areas with more fertile soils, there was greater variation in the amount of land people owned, with a few families owning considerably larger amounts of land than others. By the turn of the century, Aragon was mostly agricultural. Even Zaragoza, the industrial capital, displayed few signs of genuine industrial expansion. Kelsey references a student of the city's industrial future who concludes that the city's "future would undoubtedly be agriculturally based, given the 'insurmountable obstacles' to industrial expansion in the city." However, in the next twenty-five years the capital would evolve to be the fifth most important industrial center in Spain.〔 In the early 20th century, socialism and anarchism grew throughout Spain. There was widespread discontent in Catalonia, which was heavily industrialized and was a stronghold of the anarcho-syndicalist trade unions. A series of strikes due to wage cuts and in response to military conscription for the Rif War in Morocco culminated in the Setmana Tràgica (Tragic week, July 25 – August 2, 1909), in which workers rose up in revolt and were suppressed by the army. The anarcho-syndicalist CNT was formed in October 1910 and immediately called for a general strike, which was suppressed by the military. The Great Depression worsened conditions. Further strikes followed in 1917 and 1919 amidst growing violence between the police and trade unions. With the CNT outlawed, the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) was formed in 1927 as a clandestine alliance of affinity groups during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. Its radical members, who were also part of the CNT, exerted considerable influence on the other members of the trade union. During the Second Republic, anarchists continued to lead uprisings such as the Casas Viejas revolt in 1933 and the 1934 Asturias Rebellion which was brutally put down by Francisco Franco with the aid of Moorish troops. There were several variants of anarchism in Spain: expropriative anarchism in the period leading up to the conflict, the peasant anarchism in the countryside of Andalusia; urban anarcho-syndicalism in Catalonia, particularly its capital Barcelona; and what is sometimes called "pure" anarchism in other cities such as Zaragoza. However, these were complementary trajectories, and shared a great deal of ideological similarities. Early on, the success of the anarchist movement was sporadic. Anarchists would organize a strike and ranks would swell. Usually, repression by police reduced the numbers again, but at the same time further radicalized many strikers. This cycle helped lead to an era of mutual violence at the beginning of the 20th century, in which armed anarchists and ''pistoleros'', armed men paid by company owners, were both responsible for political assassinations. In the 20th century, this violence began to fade, and the movement gained speed with the rise of anarcho-syndicalism and the creation of the huge libertarian trade union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). General strikes became common, and large portions of the Spanish working class adopted anarchist ideas. There also emerged a small individualist anarchist movement based on publications such as ''Iniciales'' and ''La Revista Blanca''.〔(''El anarquismo individualista en España.'' by Xavier Diez )〕 The Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI, Iberian Anarchist Federation) was created as a purely anarchist association, with the intention of keeping the CNT focused on the principles of anarchism. Terrorism by extremists became less common around the start of the 20th century. Anarchists saw the obvious need for a form of direct action capable of overthrowing the State and capitalism. The idea of syndicalism became popular (or anarcho-syndicalism to differentiate from the reformist syndicalism in other parts of Europe). Purist "Anarchist Communists" were unwilling to adopt syndicalist ideas and became marginalized, although the two groups soon became indistinguishable. A new organization, the Federation of Workers' Societies of the Spanish Region, was formed in 1900. The organization adopted syndicalism on libertarian principles. Its success was immediate: general strikes swept across Spain within a year. Many of these strikes had no visible leadership but were initiated purely by the working class. As opposed to reformist strikes, many of these strikers made no clear demands (or intentionally absurd demands; for example, the demand to be given seven and a half rest hours in an eight-hour day); in some cases workers demanded no less than the end of capitalism. The Spanish government responded harshly to these developments, and the Federation of Workers' Societies was suppressed. But the decentralized nature of anarcho-syndicalism made it impossible to completely destroy and attempts to do so only emboldened the spirit of resistance. Two events in 1909 bolstered support for another general strike in Barcelona. A textile factory was shut down, with 800 workers fired. Across the industry, wages were being cut. Workers, even outside the textile industry, began to plan for a general strike. At around the same time, the government announced that military reserves would be called up to fight in Morocco, where tribesmen were skirmishing with Spanish troops. The reservists, mostly working men, were not keen to risk their lives or kill others to protect what they characterised as the interests of Spanish capitalists (the fighting was blocking routes to mines and slowing business). Anti-war rallies sprang up across the country, and talk of a general strike could be heard. The strike began in Barcelona on July 26, a few weeks after the call for reserves was made. It quickly developed into a widespread uprising. Anselmo Lorenzo wrote in a letter: "A social revolution has broken out in Barcelona and it has been started by the people. No one has led it. Neither the Liberals nor Catalan Nationalists, nor Republicans, nor Socialists, nor Anarchists." Police stations were attacked. Railroad lines leading into Barcelona were destroyed. Barricades sprang up in the streets. Eighty churches and monasteries were destroyed by members of the Radical Party (who, it should be noted, were generally much less "radical" than anarchists or socialists), and six individuals were killed during the disturbances. After the revolt, about 1,700 individuals were indicted on various charges. Most were let go, but 450 were sentenced. Twelve were given life imprisonment and five were executed, including Francisco Ferrer, who was not even in Barcelona at the time of the insurrection. Following this "Tragic Week", the government began repressing dissidents on a larger scale. Unions were suppressed, newspapers were shut down, and libertarian schools were closed. Catalonia was put under martial law until November. Rather than giving up, the Spanish working class became emboldened and more revolutionary than before, as workers adopted syndicalism as a revolutionary strategy. Sam Dolgoff estimated that about eight million people participated directly or at least indirectly in the Spanish Revolution, which included Aragon. He claimed the Spanish Revolution "came closer to realizing the ideal of the free stateless society on a vast scale than any other revolution in history."〔Dolgoff (1974), p. 5〕 Dolgoff quotes the French anarchist historian Gaston Leval (who was an active participant) to summarize the anarchist conception of the social revolution:〔Dolgoff (1974), p. 6〕 The collectivization effort was primarily orchestrated by the rank-and-file members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT; English: National Confederation of Labor) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI; English: Iberian Anarchist Federation), with the two often abbreviated as CNT-FAI due to the affinity between the two organizations and the major role of the latter within the former in maintaining anarchist "purity." The non-anarchist socialist Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT; English: General Union of Workers) also participated in the implementation of collectivization, albeit to a far lesser degree. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Anarchist Aragon」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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