The Anarchist Collectives

Description

The Anarchist Collectives reveals a very different understanding of the nature of radical social change and the means of achieving it.

“Sam Dolgoff, editor of the best anthology of Bakunin’s writings, has now produced an excellent documentary history of the Anarchist collective in Spain. Although there is a vast literature on the Spanish Civil War, this is the first book in English that is devoted to the experiments in workers’ self-management, both urban and rural, which constituted one of the most remarkable social revolutions in modern history.” – Paul Avrich

“The eyewitness reports and commentary presented in this highly important study reveal a different understanding of the nature of socialism and the means for achieving it.” – Noam Chomsky

“Varied, complex, often inspiring, the achievement of the people in Spain is unique in the history of 20th century revolution. It should be carefully studied, not merely as the record of a remarkable human accomplishment, but also for the insight it provides into the problems of constructing a social order that is just and humane, committed to freedom from exploitation and oppression, whether that oppression is by a capitalist autocracy or an authoritarian state apparatus. For a brief period, the Spanish people offered the world a glimpse of a future that differs by orders of magnitude from the tendencies inherent in the state capitalist and state socialist societies that exist today.” — Noam Chomsky