International Journal of Iberian Studies - Volume 29, Issue 3, 2016

This article introduces the themes of this special edition, presenting the case that the history of Spanish anarchism needs to be situated within a broader, international history of the left. This view helps to disrupt the image of anarchism as ‘exceptional’, without losing sight of its specific manifestation in Spain. It proceeds to outline the five articles that make up the remainder of the edition.

Spanish anarchists travelled to and from both Argentina and Cuba in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, bringing with them not only ideology, but press, pamphlets and organizing strategies. Spanish immigrants and visitors played important roles in the development of the labour movement and anarchist women’s movement in each country. It is true that the movement in Spain was unique, in the sense that it attained a massive following and played a prominent role in a profound social revolution. But it is also the case that ideas and practices from Spain found fertile ground and exercised a deep influence on labour movements in Cuba and Argentina. And the experiences of Spanish exiles in Argentina and Cuba, in turn, influenced the movements in Spain. The ‘travels’ of Spanish anarchism suggest that anarchist internationalism was a transnational reality, one critical to the development of movements on both sides of the Atlantic.

This article analyses the factors that have led to what in my opinion amounts to the marginalization of rural collectivization in Spanish Civil War historiography. The uniqueness of this process has added weight to the notion of exceptionalism typically attached to studies of the rural world, modern Spain, anarchism, and the Spanish Civil War. As a consequence, analyses of this phenomenon have tended to lack both complexity and a sufficient appreciation of context.

This article investigates the anarchist understanding of fascism during the Second Republic, and particularly during the abstention campaign of 1933, when the practice of radicals in the National Confederation of Labour (CNT) has been described as ‘ultra-left’ in view of its sectarianism and insistence on the need for an insurrectionary response to the threat of the right. The article explores the comparison made to the German Communist Party (KPD) during the so-called ‘Third Period’, and the lessons that anarchists in Spain attempted to draw from the rise of Hitler.

En 1906 apareció en La Línea (Cádiz) un periódico anarquista de filosofía e inspiración nietzscheana titulado El Anticristo, del que solo conservamos dos números, que se anuncia con una periodicidad quincenal. Para su contextualización, expondremos la filosofía de Nietzsche en relación al anarquismo, la opinión de este autor respecto a los anarquistas, y cómo el movimiento libertario asume partes del pensamiento y personalidad del filósofo alemán. Como referencia del anarquismo nietzscheano español, analizaremos el contenido de este periódico, la gran influencia que tuvo, los temas de sus artículos. Finalmente, se señalará la ascendencia de esta publicación y en general del nietzscheanismo anarquista español en posteriores y distintos pensadores del movimiento libertario ibérico.

In the early twentieth century a group of Spanish anarchists settled in the town of Dowlais, South Wales, as part of a wider migration to the area prompted by the town’s ironworks. Over the following fifteen years this community kept in constant contact with their comrades in Spain through the networks sustained by the anarchist press. Examination of these records reveals the dislocation experienced by these migrants, and their efforts to retain their identity and standing within the movement they had left behind. This study highlights the benefits of a translocal approach towards anarchist internationalism, which focuses on the experience of ordinary members of the movement and their struggles to overcome the challenges presented by international movement.

ENCRUCIJADAS GLOBALES: REDEFINIR ESPAÑA EN EL SIGLO XXI, JOSE COLMEIRO (ED.) (2015) Madrid: Iberoamericana; Frankfurt: Vervuert, 365 pp., Col. (La Casa de La Riqueza. Estudios de la Cultura de España, 31), ISBN: 9788484898795 (Iberoamericana), ISBN: 9783954874187 (Vervuert), p/bk, €24.00

SPANISH-ISRAELI RELATIONS, 1956–1992: GHOSTS OF THE PAST AND CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES IN THE MIDDLE EAST, GUY SETTON (2016) Brighton and Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 270 pp., ISBN: 9781845197568, h/bk, £65.00/$74.95

PODER Y ESCRITURA FEMENINA EN TIEMPOS DEL CONDE-DUQUE DE OLIVARES (1621–1643). EL DESAFÍO RELIGIOSO DE TERESA VALLE, LAURA S. MUÑOZ PÉREZ (2015) London: Tamesis, 244 pp., ISBN 9781855662872, h/bk, $99