Bajo la sombra de la Comuna: sindicalismo y republicanismo en la Barcelona de 1871

Abstract

The article aims to take up again the historiographical debate about the impact of the Paris Commune in 1871 Spain. Researching beyond the well-known issue of Communard refugees in revolutionary Spain, the article argues that local experiences of social and political conflict were key to the Spanish reception of the Paris revolution. The May 1871 Spanish parliamentary lively debates on the Commune and the IWMA (or AIT) arose from a very specific local episode of workers' protest and popular political mobilization. The episode took place in Barcelona during the spring of 1871, while the Paris Commune was at its height. A challenging industrial strike that paralyzed Spain's largest cotton mill, the Batlló factory, and an unprecedented electoral victory by the Republican left-wing opposition of the Partido Republicano Democrático Federal (PRDF), overlapped then in Barcelona. The Commune, the article goes, contributed to merge both facts into one shared political experience. Barcelona ruling classes used the Commune transeuropean shadow to justify a simultaneous and hardline policy against trade unionists and Republicans. The Spanish Government final offensive against both local collective actors followed Versailles final attack on Communard Paris, exactly during the same days of late May 1871.