Are you an anarchist but not a member of an anarchist organisation?
- Thread starter danny la rouge
- Start date
I aint feeding no troll attempt by some plane driving fool, fool
BristolEcho
Well-Known Member
Plus the idea that Solfed are scabby is utterly laughable and anyone that was within them who thought that would be challenged.
It was also exactly what AmateurAgitator was trying to imply as well which is strange be honest. I agree with some of the points you make at times even though they get a bit repetitive. Throwing shade at Solfed and other organisations that are actually trying to do the grassroots organising you talk about so much is odd.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Righteous purity is a buzz isn't it.
I thought SF’s entire MO was workplace stuff with pickets being one of many tactics used against shifty employers. To suggest they support crossing picket lines is bizarre.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
as everyone knows, the only way to remain so pure is to do nothing and just carp at what other people do
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
And today on Mastermind your specialist subject is ultra-left groupuscules 1900-2000.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
As a transport spod I'd be happy to read about / discuss what actually happened in detail - detail which the article you pointed to is rather light on. Fair enough if they managed to take it over & run it as a collective for some period of time but I'm interested in the longer term stuff like investment in and maintenance of infrastructure, and how that would be organised and funded under a federated kind of structure. My impression is that the Barcelona system doesn't actually provide us with an example of this. Doesn't necessarily mean it can't be done - it's just that it doesn't demonstrate that it can work, because it was something that existed for a short time, inheriting things like infrastructure and timetabling and so on, ready made, from the previous regime.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
You'll probably find a bit more detail in this: Collectives in the Spanish revolution
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Thanks.
I've read the section of that about the Barcelona Tramways. Taken at face value, it sounds like what was achieved was indeed significant. For example it describes various system wide infrastructure upgrades and the development of new vehicle types. It describes higher wages, lower fares and better services. Enthusiastic and motivated workers fully signed up to the ideals.
To what extent can I take that account at face value though? It's very clear that the author wants to promote a certain ideology.
If I seek out information on the history of Barcelona's tramways, what I find seems to fall into two categories. Firstly there's info on anarchist type websites. In many of these articles, text is directly copied from this book. We hear about how the entire war damaged network was restored to operation in 5 days.
Secondly there's the mainstream internet, and here, articles about Barcelona's public transport network don't provide any accounts of these remarkable achievements in the three or four years between 1936 and 1939. Instead they describe at the end of that period a decrepit network with only 50 functioning trams and multiple points of failure in the electrification system.
Ok, I shouldn't necessarily take either version as the full picture. But when my googling of various terms including trams and barcelona takes me to apparently more serious historical accounts like this one
Workers Against Work
publishing.cdlib.org
Certainly it seems reasonable to take the account of the situation in that Gaston Leval book as a very selective and rose tinted one.
On top of the unreliability of the source, the fact that we're talking about something that existed in unusual circumstances for only a few years doesn't really persuade me of very much. In particular, the idea that it's a real life example of a truly bottom-up, worker controlled organisational structure looks like a bit of a fantasy to me.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
You don't seem to think that the mainstream Internet sites you've consulted might be interested in promoting a certain agenda. Revealing.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Thought you were going to put me on ignore.
Anyway, in anticipation of dull remarks such as the one you have offered, I specifically stated that I shouldn't take either version as presenting the full picture.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Yeh which is different from bias.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
All sources may be subject to bias. Insight for the day. Thanks so much for sharing your immense wisdom.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
Sure teuchter, Leval would certainly have a partisan view, but that doesn't necessarily negate what he's saying. I read that book over 30 years ago and from what I remember, he was able to be critical of some of the collectives he looked at, so not so much a rose tinted view. On the other hand, those who are most critical (ie Communist Party, some Republican factions, Francoist, and various right wing commentators) do indeed have their own agenda.
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
Also, from what I remember Seidman's work has its value and is worth engaging with, but Gaston Leval's work is actually informed by direct first-hand experience of the Spanish collectives, whereas Seidman was born in 1950. Obviously secondary historical analysis has its place, but I'd be wary of using terms like "more serious historical accounts" that seem to privilege it over direct accounts.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
You need it shared being as you thought it was the same as not the whole picture, as per your post above.
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
Fwiw, I can't for the life of me remember where I found it, but I swear I saw a pretty cutting critique of Seidman's approach somewhere - thought it might have been on libcom but the tag doesn't have anything too critical, then thought it might've been on here but I don't think that's it either, closest thing I could find was this decade-old thread with BA being BA, which is quite entertaining but not what I was looking for.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
When I said "apparently more serious historical accounts" I meant in comparison to those in what I was calling the "mainstream internet" sites. For example
99 years serving Barcelona residents: the history of Barcelona’s tramway | Barcelona City Council
Barcelona’s first tramway went into service on 27 June 1872. Running from the Pla de la Boqueria, on the Rambla, to Josepets de Gràcia, now Plaça de Lesseps, is was the first line of a transport system that met a tragic end at the hands of the Franco regime 99 years later.
The system was very badly affected by the Fascist uprising in 1936 and subsequent civil war. By the time the war ended, there were barely more than 50 units in working condition. The service was gradually re-established and even extended during this difficult stage, seeing through the strike of 1951, a big popular protest against the rise in ticket prices which was repeated in 1957.
History of tramways in Barcelona
public-transport.net
A history of public transport in Barcelona - ShBarcelona
This article traces the development of public Transport in Barcelona from the late 19th Century to the modern era
www.shbarcelona.com
These are a few sites which simply provide an outline view of the history of the tram network - they are not detailed academic type histories like the Seidman one (I know nothing about Siedman - it's simply something that came up in google) which are more focused on the politics.
What I note about all those "mainstream internet" overviews is that none of them see what happened between 1936-39 as of significance, as far as the tram network is concerned, other than that it was a period where a great deal of damage was done, in the civil war, which then took some time to repair. That is at odds with what's described by Leval, which makes it sound like something very significant happened. I did deliberately choose to say that possibly neither account gives the whole picture - the wording that sent Pickmans into a projection frenzy - because one way in which they could both be "true" is that initially a great deal of work was done to repair the network but towards 1939 other things happened which then undid this.
If this was a UK tram system I'd expect to find rather a lot of detail on this kind of history - especially if electrical wiring was redesigned or tracks re-aligned. There would be a bunch of photos of the work happening, maps showing exactly which bits were done in which year and so on. There's nothing like that in the Leval account - we just have to take his word for it.
Of course, if I could search / read in Spanish or Catalan maybe it would be possible to dig up lots of information of this kind.
Rob Ray
Weight is meaningless
I'm not sure "by then end of the war" and "during the period of the war in which reorganisation of the prior system took place" are as simultaneous as all that. One is change enacted in the space provided by the liberation of a space, the other is the ravaged end result of the fascist victory.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Well, yes, that's not disagreeing with what I've said.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
To be honest, I'd be more surprised if mainstream authors did spend more time on civil war transport achievements than to those made during the fascist and post-fascist reconstruction.
Ooh look, an anarchist tram
And a bus!
Ooh look, an anarchist tram
And a bus!
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Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I didn't say they couldn't both be true, did I. I said that you didn't recognise your 'mainstream' sources might have their own agenda. You're might be really stupid or really dishonest but my money's on bothWhen I said "apparently more serious historical accounts" I meant in comparison to those in what I was calling the "mainstream internet" sites. For example
The image of crowded trams with lots of people hanging from their boarding steps is part of the image of the city that was organising the Universal Exposition of 1929. There were 800 trams during that time. running along a network more than 200 km and capable of transporting over 250 million passengers a year.99 years serving Barcelona residents: the history of Barcelona’s tramway | Barcelona City Council
Barcelona’s first tramway went into service on 27 June 1872. Running from the Pla de la Boqueria, on the Rambla, to Josepets de Gràcia, now Plaça de Lesseps, is was the first line of a transport system that met a tragic end at the hands of the Franco regime 99 years later.ajuntament.barcelona.cat
The system was very badly affected by the Fascist uprising in 1936 and subsequent civil war. By the time the war ended, there were barely more than 50 units in working condition. The service was gradually re-established and even extended during this difficult stage, seeing through the strike of 1951, a big popular protest against the rise in ticket prices which was repeated in 1957.
During the the Spanish War, the public transport network was heavily damaged. But, just from 1939, the tramways network started to circulate. The electric restrictions were very frequently, and the service was very bad. The tramways were crowded with people. In the 1950´s and 1960's, the service improved.History of tramways in Barcelona
public-transport.net
Public transport was affected greatly by the ravages of the Civil War. Many of the tram lines were damaged by air-raids, and sabotages of the rail networks also took place. In addition to this, there was very little capital available with which to run the transport system. In the aftermath of war, the city’s transport networks were gradually repaired and reinstated. In 1951, the municipal government gradually began to take over the management of transport services which had previously been run by private companies.A history of public transport in Barcelona - ShBarcelona
This article traces the development of public Transport in Barcelona from the late 19th Century to the modern era
These are a few sites which simply provide an outline view of the history of the tram network - they are not detailed academic type histories like the Seidman one (I know nothing about Siedman - it's simply something that came up in google) which are more focused on the politics.
What I note about all those "mainstream internet" overviews is that none of them see what happened between 1936-39 as of significance, as far as the tram network is concerned, other than that it was a period where a great deal of damage was done, in the civil war, which then took some time to repair. That is at odds with what's described by Leval, which makes it sound like something very significant happened. I did deliberately choose to say that possibly neither account gives the whole picture - the wording that sent Pickmans into a projection frenzy - because one way in which they could both be "true" is that initially a great deal of work was done to repair the network but towards 1939 other things happened which then undid this.
If this was a UK tram system I'd expect to find rather a lot of detail on this kind of history - especially if electrical wiring was redesigned or tracks re-aligned. There would be a bunch of photos of the work happening, maps showing exactly which bits were done in which year and so on. There's nothing like that in the Leval account - we just have to take his word for it.
Of course, if I could search / read in Spanish or Catalan maybe it would be possible to dig up lots of information of this kind.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
You saying something does not make it true. Take a little time to get your head around this idea.
Kevbad the Bad
Amiable Bowel Syndrome
teuchter the lack of detailed evidence that you would like, about the transport network in Barcelona, may have something to do with the subsequent 40 years of brutal military dictatorship, massive censorship and the death, exile or imprisonment of so many of those involved. Plus, at the time, other things seemed more important than creating tram spotter manuals and the like.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
Yup, happy to recognise that.
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