Spanish Revolution 90th Anniversary Highlights Anarchist Self‑Management

The 90th anniversary of the Spanish Revolution of the 1930s has prompted renewed reflection on the anarchist experiment that saw workplaces and farms collectivised across Catalonia and other regions. Central to the effort was the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), which swelled to about 2.5 million members and coordinated a network of worker schools, cultural centres and the women’s liberation organization Mujeres Libres.

Recent re‑publications of historic essays, such as Nicolas Walter’s 1986 piece, explore how the Spanish experience offers lessons for contemporary proposals of self‑managed socialism, emphasizing direct worker control, democratic planning and the integration of gender emancipation into broader social change.