The anarchist insurrection of January 1933 was an attempted revolution carried out by Spanish anarchists, with the intention of overthrowing the government of Spain and establishing libertarian communism.
The suppression of the Alt Llobregat insurrection in January 1932 led to the arrest and deportation of numerous anarchists, as well as an internal split within the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). The Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), which supported insurrectionary anarchism, gained control over the CNT, marginalising the moderate treintista faction. With the passage of new labour laws by the Republican government, the CNT's activities were repressed throughout the country and it went into a period of decline. But after contributing to the prevention of an attempted coup by General José Sanjurjo, the CNT experienced a resurgence in support and anarchist deportees were permitted to return to Spain. Due to the slow, bureaucratic implementation of land reform and the regulation of trade unions by the new labour laws, workers' and peasants' dissatisfaction with the left-wing government increased.
In December 1932, when the possibility of a general strike by railway workers arose, the Catalan anarchist Joan Garcia Oliver began planning another insurrection. A premature explosion of stockpiled grenades in Barcelona made the authorities aware of the planned insurrection. By the time the insurrection broke out on 8 January 1933, leading anarchists had been arrested and the police were on high alert throughout the city, resulting in the uprising being suppressed by the following morning. Insurrections subsequently broke out throughout Catalonia, Valencia, Aragon and Andalusia, but they were likewise suppressed. In the Andalusian town of Casas Viejas, Assault Guards carried out a massacre against the town's peasantry, killing both insurgents and uninvolved bystanders.
In the suppression of the uprising, thousands of anarchists were imprisoned and dozens were killed. The insurrection provoked the treintistas to break off from the CNT and form the Opposition Unions. An investigation into the Casas Viejas incident found the government of Manuel Azaña culpable for the massacre, which caused it to lose support from the far-left and emboldened political opposition from the right-wing. A new right-wing government led by Alejandro Lerroux was subsequently elected, provoking the outbreak of the anarchist insurrection of December 1933.
Background Following the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, escalating class conflict made many Spanish workers sympathetic to anarchism, which agitated for a social revolution to overthrow capitalism and the state. In January 1932, a miners' strike in Central Catalonia escalated into a region-wide insurrection, during which workers proclaimed libertarian communism, before being suppressed by the Spanish Army. Dozens of members of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), an anarcho-syndicalist trade union centre, were subsequently arrested and deported. The suppression of the insurrection caused an internal conflict to break out within the CNT, as the moderate "treintistas" and radicals of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) blamed each other for the defeat. In March 1932, the National Committee of the CNT came under the control of the FAI, after the treintista Ángel Pestaña resigned as General Secretary of the CNT and was replaced by the revolutionary anarchist Manuel Rivas. Despite treintista attempts to reform the National Committee, under the influence of the FAI, the CNT began to move its attentions away from trade unionism towards insurrectionary anarchism.
The CNT attempted to protest against new labour laws, introduced by the government on 8 April 1932, which regulated trade union activities and established works councils to resolve industrial disputes. But the new laws effectively criminalised the CNT, which saw many of its members arrested and imprisoned, while its traditional methods of industrial action were restricted. The Andalusian regional branch of the CNT led a series of strike actions against the new labour laws, which led to it being suppressed and driven underground in the region. In June 1932, after a series of against the arrest and deportation of its activists, the CNT's unions were shut down throughout the country, causing the organisation to lose 30% of its members. But after an attempted coup against the Republic by General José Sanjurjo, in August 1932, the CNT held mass demonstrations throughout the country, contributing to the defeat of the coup. While the coup plotters were deported, the CNT received a boost for its role in its suppression. The coup attempt also accelerated the passage of numerous social reforms by the government, including the introduction of the eight-hour day and a comprehensive land reform programme. However, the slow, bureaucratic implementation of the latter caused discontent among the peasantry, who saw little of the changes they had expected. The bureaucratic attempt at land reform was criticised by the resurgent CNT and FAI, which called instead for revolutionary methods of land occupation and collectivisation.
Meanwhile, in Catalonia, 99.45% of Catalan voters had endorsed the promulgation of a Statute of Autonomy in a referendum. The CNT, which had previously maintained a close relationship with the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and had supported the referendum as a voting bloc, became more openly critical of Catalan nationalism after the Statute was passed. For its part, the new Catalan government could not accept a situation of dual power between them and aimed to use its new powers to eliminate the CNT. The breakdown of relations between the CNT and ERC culminated with the 1932 Catalan regional election, when the CNT campaigned for anarchists to abstain from voting, resulting in turnout falling from 73% to 56%. By this time, the internal split within the CNT had escalated. The Local Federation of the CNT in Sabadell, led by the treintista Joan Peiró, refused to pay its union dues in protest against the influence of the FAI over the Catalan Regional Committee, provoking its expulsion from the CNT. Under the influence of the treintista Juan López Sánchez, local federations in Valencia and Huelva followed suit. The expulsion and marginalisation of treintista unions in the CNT resulted in the establishment of the Libertarian Syndicalist Federation (FSL), although leading treintistas cautioned against a complete split from the CNT. The Regional Federation of the CNT in Asturias attempted to call for dialogue between the two feuding factions, in order to find common ground between the FAI's insurrectionary position and the treintista emphasis on organisation, but the schism continued to deepen.
As land reform efforts were frustrated and political repression slowly de-escalated, by late 1932, the FAI was making plans for another insurrection. The treintistas feared that another uprising would shift Republican attentions away from preventing another military coup and back towards repressing the labour movement. One moderate member of the CNT National Committee, Horacio Prieto, warned that the organisation would not permit a second insurrection against the Republic. Fears of a second insurrection caused a stagnation in the CNT's activities, at a time when the FAI was itself organisationally inert. Many of its activists were still in prison, exiled or in hiding for their part in the Alt Llobregat insurrection. FAI activists Federica Montseny and Diego Abad de Santillán engaged in self-censorship, so as not to themselves becomes targets for repression. The only anarchist that freely organised was Valeriano Orobón Fernández, a member of neither faction of the CNT, who upheld industrial unionism and advocated for a popular front. But in the wake of the Sanjurjada, anarchist deportees were granted pardons by the Republican government and permitted to return from exile. In the final months of the year, the insurrectionary anarchists redoubled their organising efforts. This process culminated at a rally at the Palau de les Belles Arts, when Durruti gave a speech in which he predicted that another revolution was imminent. This provoked an immediate reaction from the Catalan government, which shut down Solidaridad Obrera and deployed armed police throughout Barcelona.
Planning Rail strike On 1 December 1932, a rail strike broke out in Spain, after Minister of Public Works Indalecio Prieto refused to raise the wages of railway workers. Despite the government attempting to break the strike by threatening the striking workers with conscription, it continued throughout the month. The strike was backed by the CNT's Railway Industry National Federation (FNIF), which aimed to improve working conditions for its members. As the FNIF believed the strike would result in repression against the workers, it called for an insurrection to prevent the government from consolidating its force, in a course of action recommended by a national plenum of the CNT. Throughout the country, various regional committees of the CNT attempted to foment a revolutionary response to the strike. In Madrid, the Regional Committee of the CNT provided the railway workers' union with financial support, so that they could escalate the strike action into a general strike.
However, most railway unions were affiliated to the UGT, which advocated for negotiations with the government. The FNIF was also internally divided on the issue, with a majority of unions believing they were unprepared for a general strike: when the matter came to a vote, 35 unions sections voted in favour, while 36 were opposed. The CNT was ultimately forced to pull back from its plans, as the proposed general strike failed to manifest. When the civil governor of Zaragoza, , arrested the local leaders of the CNT on 1 January 1933, there was no response from the local anarchist movement. The Catalan Regional Defence Committee, under the influence of Joan Garcia Oliver, quickly grew frustrated with the reluctance of the CNT to take revolutionary action. Garcia Oliver called for the CNT to begin practicing "revolutionary gymnastics", a kind of insurrectionary action intended to prevent the consolidation of the Republican government's forces. Despite the rail strike falling through, plans for an insurrection went ahead.
In Catalonia
In early December 1932, after the deported members of the Nosotros group had returned from exile, Joan Garcia Oliver called a meeting at his house. Among the attendees were Domingo and Francisco Ascaso, Buenaventura Durruti, Aurelio Fernández, Miguel García Vivancos, Gregorio Jover, Juliana López, Pepita Not, Antonio Ortiz, Ricardo Sanz and María Luisa Tejedor. Garcia Oliver informed them that the Catalan Regional Committee of the CNT had entrusted him with devising a plan for an insurrection. The group lamented that the CNT had wasted time with internal debates, while the state had strengthened itself. They believed that it would have been easy to carry out a social revolution during the first year of the republic, when the Assault Guard did not yet exist, the Spanish Army still lacked discipline and the Civil Guard was hated by much of the public. Seeking to prevent the further consolidation of the government's forces and inspired by the Alt Llobregat insurrection, the group resolved to bring about a revolutionary situation. The group believed that conditions were right for an insurrection, as the Republican government was facing an increasing backlash against its land reform programme, while in Catalonia, President Francesc Macià was dying. They also took issue with the government's use of works councils, advocated by Interior Minister Santiago Casares Quiroga and Agriculture Minister Marcelino Domingo, to resolve agricultural strikes in Andalusia.