The Seville Congress was the Second Congress of the newly created
Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region
The Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region ( es, Federación de Trabajadores de la Región Española, FTRE) was a Spanish anarchist organization founded in the Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1881 by the initiative of a group of Catalan anarcho ...
held in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsul ...
in September 1882.
Background
The
Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region
The Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region ( es, Federación de Trabajadores de la Región Española, FTRE) was a Spanish anarchist organization founded in the Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1881 by the initiative of a group of Catalan anarcho ...
had been founded in the
Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1881
The 1881 Barcelona Workers' Congress was a congress of the workers' societies of Spain held in Barcelona in September 1881, during the reign of Alfonso XII, from which the new Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region emerged, with an anarcho-co ...
after the
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
government of
Práxedes Mateo Sagasta
Práxedes Mariano Mateo Sagasta y Escolar (21 July 1825 – 5 January 1903) was a Spanish civil engineer and politician who served as Prime Minister on eight occasions between 1870 and 1902—always in charge of the Liberal Party—as part of th ...
recognized the
right of association
Freedom of association encompasses both an individual's right to join or leave groups voluntarily, the right of the group to take collective action to pursue the interests of its members, and the right of an association to accept or decline membe ...
thus ending the period of forced secrecy of its predecessor, the
Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA
The Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association ( es, Federación Regional Española de la Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores), known by its Spanish abbreviation FRE-AIT, was the Spanish chapter of the sociali ...
. The following year the FTRE already had about 60,000 members, which, as
Clara Lida
Clara Eugenia Lida (Buenos Aires, December 27, 1941) is an Argentinian historian, well known for her work on social movements, anarchism and socialisms in the 19th century, and on Spanish emigration and Republican exile.
First years
Daughter of ...
has highlighted, is still surprising since after almost ten years of persecution and in hiding the
Spanish anarchist movement, far from disappearing, had re-emerged with such force, going from 30,000 members in 1873, with the
FRE-AIT
The Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association ( es, Federación Regional Española de la Asociación Internacional de Trabajadores), known by its Spanish abbreviation FRE-AIT, was the Spanish chapter of the social ...
, to 60,000 in 1882, with the FTRE. Lida also highlighted that the "profile" of the new FTRE was very different from that of the FRE-AIT eight years earlier. "Unlike in 1873, when the manufacturing, industrial and urban areas of
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...
,
Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
(including
Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in th ...
) and
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), an ...
predominated, the profile of the new militants in 1882 was strongly
Andalusian, with great weight of the agrarian organizations that for a decade they had united in the Union of Rural Workers (UTC), specifically aimed at organizing the agricultural proletariat within the Spanish Federation.”
Development
The Congress was held between September 24 and 26, 1882 at the Cervantes Theater in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsul ...
. 251 delegates attended representing 8
ex officio Unions - the most important being that of Rural Workers, which had 20,915 members, followed by Manufacturers, with 10,000 - and 218 local Federations, more than half of Andalusia - 130 that group to 38,000 affiliates, which represented almost two-thirds of the total - followed by Catalonia with 53 Federations that grouped 13,000 affiliates.
In Congress, the
anarcho-collectivists and the "
legalists", led by the Catalan
Josep Llunas
Josep Llunas i Pujals (January 30, 1852–May 23, 1905) was a Catalan libertarian and free-thinker from Spain.
He was a typesetter by profession, but he also studied music and singing and was a theatrical director. Of special significance in th ...
- who was elected a member of the Federal Commission - and the Galician
Ricardo Mella
Ricardo Mella Cea (April 13, 1861 – August 7, 1925) was one of the first writers, intellectuals and anarchist activists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Spain. He was characterized as an erudite in various subjects and versed in ...
, and the
anarcho-communist
Anarcho-communism, also known as anarchist communism, (or, colloquially, ''ancom'' or ''ancomm'') is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that advocates communism. It calls for the abolition of private property but retains res ...
s and
insurrectionalist
Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory and tendency within the anarchist movement that emphasizes insurrection as a revolutionary practice. It is critical of formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based o ...
s, led by the Andalusian Miguel Rubio, faced each other for the first time. Llunas affirmed that to achieve the revolution it was necessary to fight "with the weapons of reason and intelligence, instructing and enlightening ourselves, in a word, by means of the scientific revolution, not in riots and revolts.” In direct relation to this issue, the legality or illegality of the movement was discussed. “While some, especially the Catalan trade unionists, wanted a public movement that would structure a labor movement as massive as possible and legal, others, especially in Andalusia, wanted it to maintain its
secret and revolutionary character, and be willing to practice
propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed (or propaganda by the deed, from the French ) is specific political direct action meant to be exemplary to others and serve as a catalyst for revolution.
It is primarily associated with acts of violence perpetrated by pro ...
. The conflict in the Andalusian countryside would put the tensions and differences between the two models to the test.”
In the manifesto approved in Congress, the moderate anarcho-collectivist and legalist theses triumphed - it was proclaimed, for example, that strikes "when we cannot necessarily avoid them, we will do them regulation and solidarity" - which was applauded by the liberal press, such as the influential Madrid newspaper ''
El Imparcial
''El Imparcial'', founded in 1918, was a newspaper in Puerto Rico. It circulated daily, except Sundays./ ''About El Imparcial. (San Juan, P.R.) 1918-197?.''] United States Library of Congress. Retrieved 26 July 2012. Its complete name was ''El I ...
'' which highlighted that "the anarchist workers of Spain" - unlike what was happening in France where "the supporters of
anarchy
Anarchy is a society without a government. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. ''Anarchy'' was first used in English in 1539, meaning "an absence of government". Pierre-Joseph Proudhon adopte ...
and of
collectivism
Collectivism may refer to:
* Bureaucratic collectivism, a theory of class society whichto describe the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin
* Collectivist anarchism, a socialist doctrine in which the workers own and manage the production
* Collect ...
present themselves at their meetings as furious madmen demanding blood and extermination" - "they have just celebrated their annual congress with such correctness in the procedures, so much temperance in the forms and such unanimity in the agreements, that it could well serve as a lesson to many political assemblies of doctors in parliamentary customs".
However, "unanimity" within the FTRE was not such, as demonstrated by the fact that the
illegalists
Illegalism is a tendency of anarchism that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium and Switzerland during the late 1890s and early 1900s as an outgrowth of individualist anarchism. Illegalists embrace criminality either openly or secre ...
shortly after the Seville Congress constituted a new federation under the name of ''
Los Desinheredados''. In their press organ ''The Social Revolution'' they denounced years later that the Federal Commission had not published the agreement of the
London Congress of 1881 on "
propaganda of the deed
Propaganda of the deed (or propaganda by the deed, from the French ) is specific political direct action meant to be exemplary to others and serve as a catalyst for revolution.
It is primarily associated with acts of violence perpetrated by pro ...
".
And on the other hand, it was not clear that the authorities and employers were going to tolerate the existence of an anarchist organization that advocated the
social revolution
Social revolutions are sudden changes in the structure and nature of society. These revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed society, economy, culture, philosophy, and technology along with but more than just the political sy ...
. Thus, at the end of 1882, the FTRE newspaper ''
The Social Magazine'' reported that in some places members of the organization were not hired or forced to leave if they wanted to be hired, and many others had lost their job for that reason. The newspaper also denounced that "to the demonstrations that mass workers make in front of the municipalities asking for 'bread and work'", especially in Andalusia, which was going through a serious agrarian crisis, they responded "by arresting the most determined and sending forces of the Army to maintain ''order''”, or by sending the
Civil Guard
Civil Guard refers to various policing organisations:
Current
* Civil Guard (Spain), Spanish gendarmerie
* Civil Guard (Israel), Israeli volunteer police reserve
* Civil Guard (Brazil), Municipal law enforcement corporations in Brazil
Histori ...
to investigate the affiliates' meetings. For this reason, the newspaper demanded that the "public powers" not resort to "reprobate and illegal means" to repress the workers - "take us to the courts of justice, and they, that they acquit us or condemn us; but do not inhibit the workers' spirits, do not outrage them, do not threaten them, do not raid their homes, do not apprehend them, do not take them to jail like common criminals."
References
Bibliography
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*
*
*{{cite book , last=Tuñón de Lara , first=Manuel , authorlink=Manuel Tuñón de Lara , title=El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 , edition=2ª , year=1977, orig-year=1972 , publisher=Laia , location=
Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ...
, isbn=84-7222-331-0 , language=es
1882 in Spain
1882 in politics
Anarchism in Spain
History of Andalusia
History of Seville
Events in Seville