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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36419 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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What Spain and Russia had in common were that they were two of Europe's least industrialized, poorest countries.

Extremely good point. Anarchism has a bit of a flavor to "leave me alone to go back to what I was doing," which if you're a rural farmer at least does mean sustaining yourself. If you live in a city and already depend on an industrial ecosystem for food and goods, and all the available jobs are industrial in nature, then the most realistic improved scenario is one much the same but with better working and living conditions.

The rest of your post makes me think I really need to read more on Spanish anarchists, I had no idea the movement literally usurped religion in places.

Spain in the early 20th century is very fascinating. Gerald Brennan's The Spanish Labyrinth is old but a good overview of the conditions that ultimately produced the civil war, including the popularity of anarchism in the south. An excerpt:

The character of the rural anarchism that grew up in the south of Spain differed, as one would expect, from that developed in the large cities of the north. 'The idea', as it was called, was carried from village to village by Anarchist 'apostles'. In the farm labourers' gañanias or barracks, in isolated cottages by the light of oil candiles, the apostles spoke on liberty and equality and justice to rapt listeners. Small circles were formed in towns and villages which started night schools where many learned to read, carried on anti-religious propaganda and often practised vegetarianism and teetotalism. Even tobacco and coffee were banned by some and one of these old apostles whom I knew maintained that, when the age of liberty came in, men would live on unfired foods grown by their own hand. But the chief characteristic of Andalusian anarchism was its naive millenarianism. Every new movement or strike was thought to herald the immediate coming of a new age of plenty, when all even the Civil Guard and the land owners would be free and happy. How this would happen no one could say. Beyond the seizure of the land (not even that in someplaces) and the burning of the parish church, there were no positive proposals.

Thanks for the added info, I’ll definitely have to check that book out

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