Overview

It was the revolutionary movement in Spain which took up Franco's challenge in July 1936, and this book soberly examines the many ways in which Spain's revolutionary movement contributed to its own defeat. Was it too weak to carry through the Revolution? To what extent was the purchase of arms from outside sources dependent upon the appearance of a constitutional government inside Republican Spain? In seeking to solve these problems, the anarchists and revolutionary syndicalists were confronted with other questions which this book examines.

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9781629636474

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The revolution that accompanied the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War was a high point in the history of working-class creativity, internationalism and self-activity. If it is to be a resource for present and future struggles, we must assess the strengths and weaknesses of the movement that propelled it. In this regard, the early endeavours of Vernon Richards remain indispensable. --Danny Evans, author of Revolution and the State: Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 Vernon Richards's Lessons of the Spanish Revolution is an excellent critical anarchist work on the revolution and the role of the anarchists. --Iain McKay, editor of Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology Lessons of the Spanish Revolution explores the deeply complex subject of the Spanish workers' heroic struggle against Franco's regime exceptionally well. One of the key strengths of the book can be seen in the way Richards unflinchingly lays bare a clutch of deeply sobering truths, particularly through demonstrating how a number of disastrous tactics pursued by Spanish anarchists and syndicalists directly contributed to the defeat of the revolutionary movement. --Richard J. White, coeditor of The Practice of Freedom: Anarchism, Geography, and the Spirit of Revolt

"""The revolution that accompanied the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War was a high point in the history of working-class creativity, internationalism and self-activity. If it is to be a resource for present and future struggles, we must assess the strengths and weaknesses of the movement that propelled it. In this regard, the early endeavours of Vernon Richards remain indispensable."" --Danny Evans, author of Revolution and the State: Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 ""Vernon Richards's Lessons of the Spanish Revolution is an excellent critical anarchist work on the revolution and the role of the anarchists."" --Iain McKay, editor of Direct Struggle Against Capital: A Peter Kropotkin Anthology ""Lessons of the Spanish Revolution explores the deeply complex subject of the Spanish workers' heroic struggle against Franco's regime exceptionally well. One of the key strengths of the book can be seen in the way Richards unflinchingly lays bare a clutch of deeply sobering truths, particularly through demonstrating how a number of disastrous tactics pursued by Spanish anarchists and syndicalists directly contributed to the defeat of the revolutionary movement."" --Richard J. White, coeditor of The Practice of Freedom: Anarchism, Geography, and the Spirit of Revolt"

Author Information

Across seven decades, Vernon Richards maintained an anarchist presence in British publishing. He edited the anarchist paper Freedom, translated the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta, and photographed George Orwell. David Goodway is a British social and cultural historian. He is the author of Anarchist Seeds beneath the Snowand editor of For Anarchism, Herbert Read Reassessed, and The Letters of John Cowper Powys and Emma Goldman, among others.

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