Research seminar of the group on Comparative Political History and the Seminar on Spanish History. With Chris Ealham, on the collaboration between the anarchist movement and Spain’s Republican government.

Juan García Oliver: Paradoxes of an anarchist in power

The outbreak of Civil War in July 1936 was accompanied by revolution in anti-fascist Spain. At the forefront of these explosions was the country’s powerful anarchist movement, which was confronted with the dilemma of attempting to establish revolutionary authority or collaborating with the existing Republican state. The latter option prevailed and anarchists entered government, but intense polemics over power and collaboration continued to divide anarchists throughout the war. Juan García Oliver, a charismatic anarchist pistolero who eventually became a Republican minister, embodies anarchist wartime dilemmas and contradictions. Chris Ealham, a top expert in the history of Spanish anarchism, will discuss his extraordinary trajectory.

Speaker: Chris Ealham (Saint Louis University – Madrid)

Discussant: Arturo Zoffmann (IHC — NOVA FCSH / IN2PAST)

Picture: Juan García Oliver (Source: Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe, 1-E-6497, originally published in Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny / Wikimedia Commons).