Spanish Civil War - Anarchist victory effects?

Hello,

I am wondering what would happen if the Anarchists(such as the CNT-FAI) in the Spanish Civil war won out in the chaos of the Spanish Civil War and became the dominate faction in the Spanish Republic. For sake of argument lets say, that the civil war lasts about the same ending in 1939. What then?

How does this effect Spain as a country, and how does this affect the general left wing world wide? Would this Spain not join WW2 like OTL, or would they side with the allies and join and if so when? When the Cold War comes how do things change especially when one factors in the relations between the anarchists and communists? It was the Moscow aligned Communists after all that turned on them during the Spanish Civil war.
 
I can't see a CNT-FAI dominated government winning the war, it wouldn't do any better at attracting western support whilst also losing the support of the Soviet Union and thus virtually all of their arms and a large number of volunteers. Your best bet is to avoid the Spanish Civil War altogether and have anarchism continue to grow organically, similar to this appropriately named TL.
 
Pardon my ignorance, but what sort of government would they set up? Are there precedents? At face value it looks like an oxymoron.
 

SpookyBoy

Banned
Pardon my ignorance, but what sort of government would they set up? Are there precedents? At face value it looks like an oxymoron.
The CNT-FAI were anarcho-syndicalist, which means they seeked to establish a socialist society through usage of non-hierarchical trade unions to undertake mass industrial action. The problem with syndicalism being that it's likely to lead to a de facto government comprised of trade unions, which is a common criticism of anarchist Catalonia.
 
. . . The problem with syndicalism being that it's likely to lead to a de facto government comprised of trade unions, . . .
and the problem with this is . . . ;)

well, alright, maybe the unionists will act like greedy corporate owners and pull out all the profits and not invest in the future? But this is where I say that people can learn and raise their game over time.
 
Anarchist victory in the civil war would require in my opinion the following

1) A POD perhaps as far back as the 1870's to allow the anarchists to become the massively dominant left faction in Spain and Anarcho-Syndicalism to be the only effective working class movement. The presence of the socialists and their increasing influence by the communists meant that more organised forms of government would win over.

2) As with all non-right victory scenario's a much weaker rising carried out less competently, at the very least remove Franco from the scene.

3) International tension to be focused elsewhere so that Spanish intervention was not a big deal for either the Axis, the democracies or the USSR.

An anarchist government would of necessity require some massive compromise on the part of anarchist leaders ( anarchists agonised over joining the Catalan government even when they totally dominated the streets of Barcelona). I think the best bet for an anarchist survival is a total stalemate in the Spanish civil war which would lead to local anarchist enclaves e.g. in Aragon surviving. The existence of a stalemated and fragmented Spain would of course offer different scenario's for the 2nd world war, but no government that was in any way anti fascist would have been able to offer much resistance to the Whermacht should they have chosen to invade
 

SpookyBoy

Banned
and the problem with this is . . . ;)

well, alright, maybe the unionists will act like greedy corporate owners and pull out all the profits and not invest in the future? But this is where I say that people can learn and raise their game over time.
It's a problem if you're trying to aim for anarchism through this method
 
One thing I'd like to see is a mix of both formal, cash economies and the informal economy. And the government would be happy to encourage the informal economy without feeling the need to precisely measure it.
 
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