George Walford: State Anarchism

‘Though it is tempting to regard the Spaniards as natural anarchists, it is more likely that the social conditions of rural life in Spain created the circumstances for anarchism in Spain.’ [1]

Why should the social conditions of rural life have created circumstances for anarchism in Spain when they have not done so elsewhere? Recalling that the Spanish ‘anarchist’ movement took up arms in defence of a government – surely the one thing above all others that anarchists cannot do – it seems more likely that what we have here is a word used in a special sense, that what was known as anarchism in Spain has little to do with the movement known by that title elsewhere. The writer offering the above non-explanation quotes Malcom Muggeridge; ‘as worked out by Catalonian anarchists it was productive of something scarcely distinguishable from Welwyn Garden City.’ Now that’s more like it.

[1] Brian Bamford in Freedom 27 June 1992.

from Ideological Commentary 58, November 1992.