Gaston Leval”s study brings together two aspects that are generally
difficult to unite–analysis and testimony. He visited the towns and
villages of revolutionary Spain where people had opted to live a
libertarian communist lifestyle almost without precedent in history,
collectivizing the land, factories, and social services. Collectives in the
Spanish Revolution demonstrates clearly that the working class are
perfectly capable of running farms, factories, workshops, and health and
public services without bosses or managers. It proves that anarchist
methods of organizing, with decisions made from the bottom up, can work
effectively in large-scale industry, involving the coordination of many
thousands of workers in many hundreds of places of work across numerous
cities and towns, as well as broad rural areas. Leval”s history of anarchy
in action also gives insight into the creative and constructive power of
ordinary people. The Spanish working class not only kept production going
throughout the war, but in many cases managed to achieve increases in
output. They improved working conditions and created new techniques. They
created, out of nothing, an arms industry without which the war against
fascism could not have been fought. The revolution also showed that without
the competition bred by capitalism, industry can be run in a much more
rational manner. Finally it demonstrated how an organized working class has
the power to transform society.