Confederal militias

The confederal militias were a movement of people's militia organized during the Spanish civil war by the dominant organizations of anarchism in Spain: the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI). These militias played an important role in the Revolution of 1934. They were not the only ones, since other militias belonging to other organizations, parties and trade unions also played a role in the revolution, such as those of POUM ("Workers' Party of Marxist Unification"), those of the Syndicalist Party (PS) and those of the General Union of Workers (UGT). After the coup d'état of July 1936, armed groups of civilian volunteers organized by the parties and trade unions formed in the areas where the uprising failed, joined the remains of the regular army units and state security forces that had remained loyal to the Republic. Volunteers in these militias declined to wear uniforms, give the military echelon a salute, and perform other formal military duties. The officers, elected, could quickly succeed one another at the head of a group and the men felt they had the right to discuss the orders and only apply them if they were in agreement. As the war progressed, the militias were progressively dissolved and assimilated into the Spanish Republican Army, in spite of many militiamen refusing the militarization. The origin of the CNT militias in the Spanish Civil War is in the Defense Committees, clandestine military organizations of the CNT that were financed by and subordinate to the unions. The essential functions of the defense committees were twofold: arms and administration. These committees were a reorganization and expansion of different affinity groups, such as Los Solidarios, who fought against the bosses' pistolerismo between 1917 and 1923. In 1934, other factions began to organize their own clandestine militias. The Communist Party formed the Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias. The Carlists formed the Frente Nacional de Boinas Rojas, in an attempt to create a hierarchical national Requeté structure, detached from local Carlist juntas.