Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina


Book Description

From 1868 through 1939, anarchists' migrations from Spain to Argentina and back again created a transnational ideology and influenced the movement's growth in each country. James A. Baer follows the lives, careers, and travels of Diego Abad de Santillán, Manuel Villar, and other migrating anarchists to highlight the ideological and interpersonal relationships that defined a vital era in anarchist history. Drawing on extensive interviews with Abad de Santillán, José Grunfeld, and Jacobo Maguid, along withunusual access to anarchist records and networks, Baer uncovers the ways anarchist migrants in pursuit of jobs and political goals formed a critical nucleus of militants, binding the two countries in an ideological relationship that profoundly affected the history of both. He also considers the impact of reverse migration and discusses political decisions that had a hitherto unknown influence on the course of the Spanish Civil War. Personal in perspective and transnational in scope, Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina offers an enlightening history of a movement and an era.




Transatlantic Radicalism


Book Description

The Atlantic Ocean not only connected North and South America with Europe through trade but also provided the means for an exchange of knowledge and ideas, including political radicalism. Socialists and anarchists would use this “radical ocean” to escape state prosecution in their home countries and establish radical milieus abroad. However, this was often a rather unorganized development and therefore the connections that existed were quite diverse. The movement of individuals led to the establishment of organizational ties and the import and exchange of political publications between Europe and the Americas. The main aim of this book is to show how the transatlantic networks of political radicalism evolved with regard to socialist and anarchist milieus and in particular to look at the actors within the relevant processes—topics that have so far been neglected in the major histories of transnational political radicalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Individual case studies are examined within a wider context to show how networks were actually created, how they functioned and their impact on the broader history of the radical Atlantic.




The Spanish Anarchists and the Russian Revolution, 1917–24


Book Description

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.




Fighting Fascist Spain


Book Description

In the 1930s, anarchists and socialists among Spanish immigrants living in the United States created España Libre (Free Spain) as a response to the Nationalist takeover in their homeland. Worker-oriented and avowedly antifascist, the grassroots periodical raised money for refugees and political prisoners while advancing left-wing culture and politics. España Libre proved both visionary and durable, charting an alternate path toward a modern Spain and enduring until democracy's return to the country in 1977. Montse Feu merges España Libre's story with the drama of the Spanish immigrant community's fight against fascism. The periodical emerged as part of a transnational effort to link migrants and new exiles living in the United States to antifascist networks abroad. In addition to showing how workers' culture and politics shaped their antifascism, Feu brings to light creative works that ranged from literature to satire to cartoons to theater. As España Libre opened up radical practices, it encouraged allies to reject violence in favor of social revolution's potential for joy and inclusion.




Print Culture and the Formation of the Anarchist Movement in Spain, 1890-1915


Book Description

This book analyzes the formation of a mass anarchist movement in Spain over the turn of the twentieth century. In this period, the movement was transformed from a dislocated collection of groups and individuals into the largest organized body of anarchists in world history: the anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labour (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo: CNT). At the same time, anarchist cultural practices became ingrained in localities across the whole of Spain, laying foundations which maintained the movement’s popular support until the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939. The book shows that grassroots print culture was central to these developments: driving the development of ideology and strategy – broadly defined as terrorism, education and workplace organization – and providing an informal structure to a movement which shunned recognized leadership and bureaucracy. This study offers a rich analysis of the cultural foundations of Spanish anarchism. This emphasis also challenges claims that the movement was "exceptional" or "peculiar" in its formation, by situating it alongside other decentralized, bottom-up mobilizations across historical and contemporary contexts, from the radical pamphleteering culture of the English Civil War to the use of social media in the Arab Spring.




Historical Geographies of Anarchism


Book Description

This book provides rich and detailed insights into the lesser-known worlds of anarchist geography. It explores the historical geography of anarchism by examining its expression in a series of distinct geographical contexts and its development over time. The book explores the changes that the anarchist movement(s) sought to bring out in their spa




The Cambridge History of Global Migrations: Volume 2, Migrations, 1800–Present


Book Description

Volume II presents an authoritative overview of the various continuities and changes in migration and globalization from the 1800s to the present day. Despite revolutionary changes in communication technologies, the growing accessibility of long-distance travel, and globalization across major economies, the rise of nation-states empowered immigration regulation and bureaucratic capacities for enforcement that curtailed migration. One major theme worldwide across the post-1800 centuries was the differentiation between 'skilled' and 'unskilled' workers, often considered through a racialized lens; it emerged as the primary divide between greater rights of immigration and citizenship for the former, and confinement to temporary or unauthorized migrant status for the latter. Through thirty-one chapters, this volume further evaluates the long global history of migration; and it shows that despite the increased disciplinary systems, the primacy of migration remains and continues to shape political, economic, and social landscapes around the world.







In Defiance of Boundaries


Book Description

Choice Outstanding Academic Title "State-of-the-art yet accessible analyses that significantly expand understanding of the role of anarchism in Latin America. . . . Will long be a standard text that provides [an] important reference for scholars and students of labor and social movement history."--Choice "A vivid picture of the transnational nature of the anarcho-syndicalist/anarchist movement."--Anarcho-Syndicalist Review "A pioneering collection of essays on the world of anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists and libertarian thinkers in Latin America."--Barry Carr, coeditor of The New Latin American Left: Cracks in the Empire "An important contribution to a recent trend which sees anarchism not as derived from a European center but as a genuine Latin American phenomenon."--Bert Altena, coeditor of Reassessing the Transnational Turn: Scales of Analysis in Anarchist and Syndicalist Studies "Thoughtful, well-researched, and well-written. As a collection, this goes a long way to furthering our understanding not just of anarchism in Latin America, but of anarchism more generally."--Mark Leier, author of Bakunin: The Creative Passion. In this groundbreaking collection of essays, anarchism in Latin America becomes much more than a prelude to populist and socialist movements. The contributors illustrate a much more vast, differentiated, and active anarchist presence in the region that evolved on simultaneous--transnational, national, regional, and local--fronts. Representing a new wave of transnational scholarship, these essays examine urban and rural movements, indigenous resistance, race, gender, sexuality, and social and educational experimentation. They offer a variety of perspectives on anarchism’s role in shaping ideas about nationalism, identity, organized labor, and counterculture across a wide swath of Latin America.




The Radicalization of European Jews in the US Metropolis


Book Description

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many Jews from Central and Eastern Europe arrived in New York City, where they did not only find a new home, but far away from their shtetl origin, the new members of the American society also began to politically radicalize. There has been a discussion in the literature related to the field, where, how, and why the Jewish population radicalized. This study analyses two waves of radicalization: one related to the American environment that is responsible for the described process at the end of the 19th century; one, related to the developments in Eastern Europe during the early decades of the 20th century. For both radicalization processes this book compares the reasons, elements, and aims of those who join radical movements to show that there is a transatlantic perspective that links both processes to each other.