Most studies of the Spanish anarchist movement have tended to focus on the regional or national features of its historical development. This is true even though it is well known that, from the late nineteenth century on, anarchist workers and activists who were compelled by harsh economic circumstances and political persecution to flee the Iberian peninsula made up a significant diaspora. Many of these involuntary migrants landed in Latin American countries like Argentina, where it proved possible for them to build interpersonal and institutional ties that linked them to their new home and their mother country. Precisely how these transnational relationships developed among the radicals who lived and worked in their newly adopted communities and the impact this process had on the course of the anarchist movements in both Spain and Argentina is the subject of Baer's study.
Anarchism first threw down roots in Spain during the “Glorious Revolution” (“La Gloriosa”) of 1868; however, it was not until the 1880s and 1890s that it became an active movement in Argentina. In the latter case, anarchism's early development owed a great deal to the massive flow of European immigrants from countries like Spain and Italy. Baer devotes his early chapters to an examination of the various ways in which prominent libertarian intellectuals from both countries migrating to Buenos Aires and other urban centers shaped the organizational infrastructure and associational life of the fledgling Argentine anarchist movement. The author points out that, more so than any other émigré group, it was the Spanish anarchists who helped to lay the ideological foundations of Argentine anarchism.
Their primary vehicle was the anarchist press. Soon after their arrival in Buenos Aires, for example, writers and thinkers who had been involved in the theoretical debates and tactical discussions that had divided anarchists in Spain began publishing their views in the city's leading libertarian publications. Baer explains that even as counterproductive as some of these acrimonious exchanges were, they exposed Argentine anarchists to a variety of socialist ideas, including those needed to build a viable revolutionary movement. Illustrative of this point is the pivotal role played by the Spanish printer Antonio Pellicer Paraire, who had emigrated to Argentina in 1891. By arguing persuasively in the pages of La Protesta Humana and other key periodicals that the anarchists’ revolutionary élan should be anchored in trade union organizations, Pellicer helped to prepare the ground for the formation in 1901 of Argentina's first significant radical labor federation, the Federación Obrera Argentina (FOA).
Although Baer's account of how the cross-fertilization between the Spanish and Italian anarchists and their Argentine counterparts created the basis for a uniquely hybridized movement will be familiar to students of Latin American labor history, the chapters he devotes to the experiences of migrants who returned to Spain are both innovative and noteworthy. He tells us that it was not uncommon during the first decades of the twentieth century for inmigrants of Spanish origin to move back and forth across the Atlantic, thus reinforcing the ties that linked them to the anarchist movements in both countries.
The first wave of anarchist migrants returned home shortly after the Argentine government passed a series of so-called residency laws in 1902; these aimed to deport any foreigner who was perceived as threat to national security or public order. In the coming months, hundreds of anarchist activists who fell afoul of the new legislation were thus compelled to return to Spain. Then, following the establishment of a repressive military dictatorship in Argentina in 1930, an even more significant transatlantic migration occurred, not least because politics in Spain was moving in the opposite direction. In Spain, the Primo de Rivera dictatorship came to an end in 1930, and the emergence of the Second Republic in 1931 ushered in a period of economic and political strife that saw the spectacular growth of Spanish anarchism. Baer's narrative of this phase of transnational exchanges focuses primarily on notable anarchist figures who returned to their homeland.
At the center of this discussion are the experiences of Diego Abad de Santillán, a native of Spain who had cut his anarchist teeth in the Argentine labor movement. Together with other recent transplants from Argentina such as the influential libertarian journalist Manuel Villar, Abad immersed himself in Spanish affairs upon his return in 1934. Recognized by his peers as an exceptionally talented writer and organizer, Abad over the next two years played a crucial role in shaping the policies of the ultra-revolutionary anarchist organization, the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI), a vanguard party that he and his fellow faistas believed could guide the massive Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) down the path of revolution.
Ironically, it was a military-led rebellion of the right rather than the insurrectionary tactics of the FAI itself that unleashed in July 1936 the popular revolution that spread rapidly throughout different parts of republican Spain. In Catalonia, where the insurgent forces were quickly subdued, the anarchists of the CNT-FAI assumed command over the course of events. Yet, despite their widely acknowledged supremacy, Abad and other anarchist leaders refused to seize the reins of revolutionary power that they had so long desired. Their controversial decision to compromise deeply held anti-political principles by forming a collaborative partnership with nonrevolutionary parties on the left would have far-reaching consequences for the anarchist movement during the war.
As he does elsewhere in the book, Baer argues here that previous scholarly explanations of this and other fateful decisions made by Spanish anarchists have failed to take into account the crucial role Argentine émigrés reputedly played at critical moments in their movement's history. Based on his close study of the personal histories of several key anarchist figures, Baer contends that the beliefs and actions of highly influential libertarians like Abad de Santillán can be attributed in part to the hybrid identity they acquired from their experiences as activists in both Argentina and Spain.
However, it is not yet known whether Abad's unique perspective had a decisive effect on the thinking of other anarchist leaders who also opted for collaborationism. For, even though the author clearly wants the reader to believe this was the case, his conclusion regarding this controversial episode in anarchist history is based largely on circumstantial rather than hard evidence.
Despite the author's recurring overstatement of the effect of the dual identities of certain anarchists on anarchist movements in both Argentina and Spain, the scholarly virtues of this book outweigh its relatively minor interpretive shortcomings. One of the author's major achievements is to have pieced together from largely fragmentary documentary sources vividly realized portraits of individuals who made significant contributions to anarchist causes on both sides of the Atlantic. No less commendable is the fact that, by directing the reader's attention to the transnational and migration processes that shaped the development of anarchism in these two countries, Bauer has highlighted the historiographical limitations of nation-centered studies of these movements. The book provides a persuasive argument for viewing historical issues through a wider geographical lens; therefore, it should prove indispensable reading for anyone interested in the social and labor history of modern Spain and Latin America.
