Barcelona May Days - Anarchist Perspective

Anarchist Perspective

George Orwell in his book Homage to Catalonia sees the May days as a suppression of the revolution by parties backed by Stalin's USSR such as the PSUC. He argued that the USSR did not want genuine socialist revolution in Spain. He describes Barcelona in 1936 as a city under the control of the workers - police replaced by workers' patrols, workplaces collectivised - and the egalitarian nature of the militias in Barcelona (such as the POUM militia in which he served). He contrasts this with the oppressive police state that developed after May and the subsequent suppression of the POUM.

However, Orwell states: "It will never be possible to get a completely accurate and unbiased account of the Barcelona fighting, because the necessary records do not exist. Future historians will have nothing to go upon except a mass of accusations and party propaganda".

In the second appendix of his book, he explains that the spark of the friction among Republican forces was the Government order to surrender all private weapons in order to build up a non-political police force, from which trade union members would be excluded.