Agricultural History Review, Volume 63 Part 1 (2015), pp. 113–131

During the first third of the twentieth century rural anarchism found its deepest roots in southern Spain. A small number of convinced revolutionaries had significant success in organizing large numbers of landless harvest workers by following a strategy of direct action to resolve local problems. It competed successfully with other trade unions for members, not just because it was usually the first to organize in the villages, but also because the socialists largely ignored farm workers until after the First World War, and Catholic syndicates could only access a limited constituency because of widespread anticlericalism. However weaknesses emerged during the Second Republic (1931–6) as the anarchist movement had to choose whether or not to support the new government, which was favourably inclined towards workers. At the same time it lost ground to the rival socialist union, which was more successful in operating at a national scale. 

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