Decree of the Generalitat: Collectivizations and Worker Control

In the middle of September, following weeks of war and revolution in the Catalan rearguard, some change to the political situation was necessary. The “dual power” that had existed since the military uprising, with the Central Antifascist Militias Committee  wielding broad authority over defence, law and order, supplies, armaments, etc while the government of the Generalitat was almost inoperative and sittings of the legislature had been suspended, although it did manage to act as something of a counterweight, for example by helping right wingers and clergy whose lives were in danger to leave, had reach a point of imminent collapse. 

In this context, negotiations between the political parties and the trade unions, especially the UGT and CNT-FAI, led to the creation of a government of antifascist unity headed by the ERC leader, Josep Tarradellas i Joan. This “first Tarradellas government” as it was called lasted from 28 September to 17 December 1936. A coalition of all the antifascist forces of the moment: Tarradellas’ ERC, orthodox Communists (PSUC), Trotskyists (POUM), anarcho-syndicalists (CNT-FAI), trade unions connected to the PSUC (UGT), agrarian unionists (Uniò de Rabassaires), and moderate Catalan republicans (ACR). The new government had a clear program. First, it would institutionalize the conquests of the revolution in such areas as the end of public religious services and the reorganization of the justice system. Second, it would assert control over public order by ending extra-judicial executions and establishing popular tribunals. And third, it would prepare the home front for a drawn-out conflict by ensuring the food supply and protecting the civilian population from aerial bombardments, among other things.

Among all the government’s activities, the so-called S’Agaró decrees”, named after the town where the committee that drafted them met, stand out. These were a set of measures dealing with the economy that were intended to adapt the economic, business and labour relations structures to the new revolutionary situation. The objective was to establish the mechanisms for collectivizing and organizing the operation of businesses through workers’ control committees, sometimes assisted by the technical staffs and managers of the collectivized enterprises, to create an almost unprecedented type of socialized economy.

While the decrees had little practical impact, they did have great political and economic importance. They revealed the unprecedented relationship of partial independence that the Generalitat enjoyed after the military uprising. With the Spanish state almost completely non-existent in Catalonia, the Generalitat had taken on jurisdiction in areas such as the economy, defence, and education that theoretically belonged to Madrid. Intervening in the structure of the economy and organizing war industries that would arm the militias, and later on the Generalitat’s own regular army units. This situation, and the important political and social consequences it brought, were brough to an end by the confrontations between political and union forces in May 1937.