Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

482 ! ANARCHISM
are interdependent feel free among themselves and naturally respect each other's
liberty. Furthermore so far as collective life is concerned, the freedom of each is the
right to participate spontaneously with one's thought, one's heart, one's will, one's
initiative to the full extent of one's capacities. A negative liberty is not liberty: it is
nothingness ...
On this subject we would like to make an observation to which we attach great
philosophical and practical importance. The theoreticians and partisans of the liberal
economy affirm that competition stimulates initiative and, consequently, the creative
spirit and invention without which it remains dormant. Numerous observations
made by the writer in the Collectives, factories and socialized workshops permit him
to take quite the opposite view. For in a Collective, in a grouping where each individual
is stimulated by the wish to be of service to his fellow beings, research, the desire
for technical perfection and so on are also stimulated. But they also have as a consequence
that other individuals join those who were the first to get together. Furthermore
when, in present society, an individualist inventor discovers something, it is
used only by the capitalist or the individual employing him, whereas in the case of an
inventor living in a community not only is his discovery taken up and developed by
others, but is immediately applied for the common good. I am convinced that this superiority
would very soon manifest itself in a socialized society.
127. AlbertJensen: The CNT-FA/, the State and Government (1938)
Albert Jensen belonged to the Swedish section of the lWA, the SA C. The fo llowing article, "The
CNT-FAI, the State and the Government, " was originally published in the International, No.
2, May 1938, the monthly review of the lWA.Jensen sets fo rth some of the background to the
Spanish Revolution, and offe rs some criticisms of the conduct of the CNT-FAl, particularly its
fa teful decision to collaborate with the Republican government, a policy which ultimately led
to the defeat of the anarchist social revolution in Spain prior to the fa scist military victory in
March 1939.
THE MILITARY REVOLT OF JULY 19, 1936 and the extraordinarily swift suppression of
that revolt in Barcelona and Catalonia by the workers: It was the masses and the comrades
of the CNT-FAI who took the initiative. The governmental authority was absolutely
passive. The workers took possession of industry, collectivizing it and putting
it under the control of the syndicates. The expropriation of large farms, the collectivization
of these, and also, in a certain measure, those of small rural proprietors. Land
and sea transport, the post, telegraph and telephone services, schools, and public
health organizations were collectivized and controlled by the syndicates. At the