Federación Anarquista Ibérica

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Common flag of CNT and FAI during the Civil War

The Federación Anarquista Ibérica ( FAI ) (German: Iberian Anarchist Federation ) is an anarchist federation and the amalgamation of the União Anarquista Portuguesa (German: Anarchist Portuguese Union ) and the Federación Nacional de Grupos Anarquistas de España (German: National Federation of Anarchist Groups in Spain ). It publishes a monthly magazine, the Tierra y Libertad (German: Boden und Freiheit ) and is a member of the International of Anarchist Federations .

history

During the Spanish Civil War she was the militant revolutionary arm of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in Spain until 1939. The FAI was founded in 1927, during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera . Its aim was to maintain the union's social revolutionary course.

She supported the demands of the anarchist labor movement in Spain both during the monarchy under King Alfonso XIII. as well as in the Second Republic from 1931 from underground with violent attacks such as acts of sabotage , and in some cases also political assassinations . Several revolutionary attempts at overthrowing the CNT / FAI to implement anarchism across society were put down by the army and the Guardia Civil .

The CNT was the largest union in Spain with over two million members in the 1930s. With it, the FAI had a broad social base among Spanish farmers and workers, especially in Catalonia , which is more industrialized than the rest of Spain, and its capital, Barcelona . The CNT / FAI played an important role in the Spanish civil war against the putschists under General Franco . However, the FAI, together with the CNT, increasingly lost ground in the inner-republican power struggle against the communists . The considerable increase in membership could not change that. Instead, the FAI changed the processes of internal decision-making as part of a policy of adaptation to political conditions. The increased bureaucratisation of the organization went hand in hand with the restriction of the grassroots democracy .

Legendary revolutionary fighters of the FAI and the CNT were, for example, the combat group " Los Solidarios " around the anarchists Francisco Ascaso , Gregorio Jover , Juan García Oliver and Buenaventura Durruti , who was shot in 1936 during the civil war under circumstances that have not yet been clarified.

After Franco's victory and the establishment of a military dictatorship in Spain, the CNT was banned in 1939, which also meant that the clandestine FAI lost its importance.

The FAI in exile was a founding member of the International of Anarchist Federations in 1968 . After Franco's death in 1975 and the end of his regime, the FAI in Spain was reorganized unarmed.

Cinematic reception

  • Vivir la Utopía (“ The Utopia Life ”), by Juan A. Gamero from 1997, is a Catalan documentary film about the development of the Spanish anarchist movement up to the resistance against the putschists and the outbreak of the social revolution in 1936. Historical images and filming alternate with interviews with 30 civil war and revolutionary veterans. One focus of the film is on the establishment of collective farms and their importance and functioning in rural and urban areas.

literature

Web links

Commons : Federación Anarquista Ibérica  - Collection of images, videos and audio files