Treintism () was a political movement within libertarian socialism in the Second Spanish Republic. Initially a faction within the National Confederation of Labor (CNT), the Treintists () were, after the publication of the Manifesto of the Thirty in September 1931, expelled from the CNT over the course of the years 1931 and 1932 and formed the Syndicalist Party in 1932. The Treintists and the labor unions associated with them, the Opposition Syndicates, rejoined the CNT in 1936. The movement fell into political irrelevance with the victory of the Nationalist forces of Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
The name is derived from the Spanish word for the number 30, treinta.
Ideology
The formation of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) in 1927 brought a new wave of hardline anarchist influence into the CNT. The FAI advocated for the immediate overthrow of the political system and was strictly anti-electoralist.
Treintism formed in ideological opposition to the hardline positions advocated by the FAI. The Treintists protested the growing disruptive influence of the FAI radicals in the CNT, and advocate a more moderate approach to the establishment of anarchism. The Treintists were sympathetic to syndicalistic forms of government, which was in turn rejected by the FAI anarchist purists. The Treintists advocated the establishment of powerful nationwide industrial labor unions, which was rejected by the FAI.
In the adoption of the Manifesto of the Thirty es, via WikiSource], the Treintists warned that a rushed revolutionary attempt or a failure by the anarchists to participate in the newborn Spanish Republic, which was called a historic turnabout in Spanish history, could ultimately lead to the birth of a Republican fascism.
History
Split from the CNT and formation of the Syndicalist Party
On 1 September 1931, thirty moderate CNT leaders signed the Manifesto of the Thirty in protest against the growing influence of the radical FAI within the ranks of the CNT. The FAI advocated a radical and purist anarchism and rejected any notions of reformism or cooperation with the statist system, even of the newly founded Second Spanish Republic. Within the anarchist movement, the FAI with its advocacy of simplistic revolution thus represented a radical faction of anarchism, which some more moderate elements in the CNT trade union network disagreed with.
After the signing of the Manifesto of the Thirty, to whose principal signers belonged Ángel Pestaña, Joan Peiró and Juan López Sánchez, the unions that supported the moderate signatories were systematically expelled from the CNT network on pressure of the FAI-aligned radical purists. The trade unions in question then formed the Opposition Syndicates (), representing a split in the anarchist and syndicalist trade union movement that was not healed until May 1936. The expulsion of the Treintists and moderate syndicalists prevented the CNT for several years from forming national industrial unions, which had been favored by the moderates. Instead, the CNT opted for localistic and subnational models favored by the FAI purist hardliners.
Ángel Pestaña then went on to become the leading founder of the Syndicalist Party (). The anarchist and syndicalist movements thus continued in two different directions, as the CNT came increasingly under FAI dominance of anarchist purism, whereas a significant amount of the more moderate syndicalists coalesced around the Treintists and the Syndicalist Party.
Activity of the Alianza Obrera and the Popular Front
Geographically, Treintism was strongest in the cities of Valencia and Alicante in the east and the city of Huelva in the southwest, but also represented a significant minority in Barcelona, where it broke the pattern of CNT dominance of the local anarchist and syndicalist movements especially among the metallurgy workers. By contrast, the mainline CNT was powerful with non-metallurgy workers in Barcelona, and had significant power bases in Catalonia, Galicia, and Aragon. Both movements were weak in the Province of León, Old Castile (with the exception of minority support in Logroño), Extremadura, New Castile (with the exception of minority support in Madrid), and the Basque Country (with the exception of minority support in Álava).