The Reconstruction of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo during the political transition to democracy in Spain, 1976-1979

Maggie Torres presents at the Centre for the History of Ibero-America Seminar.

Shortly after the death of Franco, at the beginning of 1976, the historic anarcho-syndicalist trade union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), began a process of organisational reconstruction after almost forty years of exile and clandestine organizing under the Francoist regime. The reconstruction of the CNT was hampered by divisions from its inception, not least by its own past, represented by the ‘official’ Toulouse exile organisation, whose main aim was to control the process and thus ensure its continued leadership role and the doctrinal ‘purity’ of the organisation. However, during the following few years these divisions would harden, leading to an increasing polarisation between ‘radical anarchists’ and ‘reformist syndicalists’, the ostensible reason for the split in the organisation at the CNT Congress in December, 1979.   

This paper is an attempt to understand this growing polarisation, and shall examine the factors which exacerbated divisions during these years, within the context of the specific nature of the political transition to democracy in Spain.

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