The International Workers' Association – Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores (IWA–AIT) is an international federation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions and initiatives. Based on the principles of revolutionary unionism, the international aims to create unions capable of fighting for the economic and political interests of the working class and eventually, to directly abolish capitalism and the state through the establishment of economic communities and administrative organs run by the workers. At its peak, the International represented millions of people worldwide. Its member unions played a central role in the social conflicts of the 1920s and 1930s.
The
… Read more federation is designed to both contest immediate industrial relations issues such as pay, working conditions and labor law, and pursue the reorganization of society into a global system of economic communes and administrative groups based within a system of federated free councils at local, regional, national and global levels. This reorganization would form the underlying structure of a self-managed society based on pre-planning and mutual aid—the establishment of anarchist communism.
The IWA's Revolutionary unionism asserts itself to be a supporter of the method of direct action, strikes, boycotts, sabotage, etc. Direct action reaches its deepest expression in the general strike, which should also be, from the point of view of revolutionary unionism, the prelude to the social revolution. Only in the economic and revolutionary organizations of the working class are there forces capable of bringing about its liberation and the necessary creative energy for the reorganization of society on the basis of libertarian communism.
Buenaventura Durruti was a Spanish insurrectionary, anarcho-syndicalist militant involved with the CNT, FAI and other anarchist organizations during the Spanish Civil War. Durruti played an influential role during the Spanish Revolution and is remembered as a hero in the anarchist movement. Durruti was an influential member of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) and of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Working closely with his comrades in the FAI and CNT Durruti helped to coordinate armed resistance against the nationalists. On July 24, 1936, Durruti led over 3,000 armed anarchists who later became known as the Durruti Column.
The Spanish Revolution was a workers' social revolution that began during the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 and resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist and more broadly libertarian socialist organizational principles throughout various portions of the country. Anarchists played a central role in the fight against Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. At the same time, a far-reaching social revolution spread throughout Spain, where land and factories were collectivized and controlled by the workers. Their legacy remains important to this day, particularly to anarchists who look at their achievements as a historical precedent of anarchism's validity.
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Anarcho-syndicalist organizations were involved in the Spanish Revolution, such as the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo / National Confederation of Labor), which was long affiliated with the International Workers' Association (AIT). When working with the latter group it was also known as CNT-AIT. Historically, the CNT has also been affiliated with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica.
The most notable aspect of the social revolution was the establishment of a libertarian socialist economy based on coordination through decentralized and horizontal federations of participatory industrial collectives and agrarian communes. In anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%. Factories were run through worker committees, and agrarian areas became collectivized and run as libertarian socialist communes. Many small businesses like hotels, barber shops, and restaurants were also collectivized and managed by their workers.
The International Brigades (Spanish: Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed for two years, from 1936 until 1938. It is estimated that during the entire war, between 40,000 and 59,000 members served in the International Brigades, including 15,000 who died in combat. They participated in the battles of Madrid, Jarama, Guadalajara, Brunete, Belchite, Teruel, Aragon and the Ebro.
The International Brigades was strongly supported by the Comintern and represented the Soviet Union's commitment to assisting the Spanish
… Read more Republic (with arms, logistics, military advisers and the NKVD), just as Fascist Italy, Fascist Portugal and Nazi Germany were assisting the opposing Nationalist insurgency. The largest number of volunteers came from France where the French Communist Party had many members, and communist exiles from Italy and Germany. Many Jews were part of the brigades, being particularly numerous among the volunteers coming from the United States, Poland, France, England, and Argentina.
Republican volunteers who were opposed to Stalinism did not join the Brigades but instead enlisted in the separate Popular Front, the POUM (formed from Trotskyist, Bukharinist and other anti-Stalinist groups, which did not separate Spaniards and foreign volunteers -such as George Orwell), or anarcho-syndicalist groups such as the Durruti Column, the IWA and the CNT.
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