The Spanish union which constituted a founding member of the International Confederation of Labor is known by the acronyms CNT-CIT and it is claiming through a series of lawsuits against the CNT-AIT that it (the CNT-AIT) belongs to an international which, according to their lawsuits „does not exist” and that the CNT-AIT is not the CNT-AIT. Recently, an article entitled „The making of the Spanish CNT-IWA” appeared on a well-known left website with the aim of trying to justify these lawsuits by building a case against the CNT-AIT. The following article is written in response and addresses a number of the assertations made therein.

Unlike the author of the article, I am publishing under my own identity and with full disclosure of who I am. Readers will make of it what they will. I am a long-time activist, associated not primarily with the anarchist movement, but with some other activity related activity, most notably union and tenant organizing. I am a founding member of the ZSP, which has been in the IWA since 2009, so in a position to see the drama unfold in that international organization. I was also a founding member of an organization called Workers' Initiative, which is in the ICL. Our local group left that organization because of numerous incidents which for us were signs of a clear break with anarchosyndicalism. It is because we insist that organizations which were founded in line with anarchosyndicalism follow a coherent practice, that we might be labelled with various epitaths from those who have a more fluid approach. Despite all, our focus has always been on workers' horizontal self-organization. We are not a theoretical propaganda group, but we are practioners of our philosophy. I have participated in a couple of strikes in my life and have helped other workers in such efforts. Personally, I am not as attached to the anarchist label as I am to the practice of mutual aid, direct action and horizontality in the organizations I work with. Currently, I serve as Secretary of the IWA, the same international federation that the CNT-AIT belongs to, which the CNT-CIT claims to the courts that it „does not exist”. It is with this function, but also in light of everything that I have witnessed and know about that I stand on the side of the CNT-AIT and stand by the position of the IWA that this organization IS the continuation of the CNT-AIT in Spain.

The title of the article,”the making of the CNT-AIT 2010-2024” clearly seeks to imply that our Section of the IWA, the CNT-AIT, is not really that organization. We of course disagree with this as we see it as the only legitimate continuation, in terms of following the Statutes of the CNT-AIT, in terms of maintaining its adherence to horizontal syndicalist organization and the IWA's practices which stem from libertarian thought, particularly in relation to several important ideas of anarcho-communism. I will explain why we consider this but also will address a number of the assertations made supposedly by CNT through one Salvochea (apparently using a nickname inspired by „the anarchist mayor”).

The Cordoba Congress and Precedents

No doubt that a major turning point in the organization formerly known as CNT-AIT was in 2010 at the Cordoba Congress. (I did not attend that Congress personally, however I have all the documents and have spoken to numerous participants, from both sides of the conflict. In 2010, the ZSP and myself personally had good contacts on both sides and we did not have a clear idea yet, until we started to notice numerous problems. I mention this to make clear that we did not have any „side” in this conflict at that point.) However, prior to this, many of the problems of the CNT and a clear line of conflict could be seen. The IX Congress of the CNT (then CNT-AIT) was also contested and there were various irregularities, including the stealing of the Congress documents. It was only with the intervention of the IWA Secretariat, who had personally collected copies of everything, that the documents were restored for the membership of the CNT. (Ironically, it was in Spain at the IWA XXV Congress that the Congress documents also mysteriously disappeared, but were again recovered from the Sections (except the CNT) by the IWA Secretariat.)

A False Narrative trying to Portray an Incompatibility of Ideas and Practice

The author of this article, is clearly trying to paint a very one-sided picture of the situation to pander to some section of English-speaking readers who have already shown their preferences. The tactic is to portray a clearly false picture. He writes as if the part of the CNT-AIT which adheres to some ideological guidelines, was „without showing any revolutionary praxis anywhere in Spain”. So here is the ideological construct which attempts to build a false paradigm, based on a construction and what they want people to believe: that having ideals is not compatible with having any „practice”.

Sentences such as these no doubt resonate with those who have already made substantial compromises, convincing themselves that this is the „only way”. With this we can see both the falsehood and the mechanism by which he appeals to a certain segment of people who have made the choices they have made. For us here in the ZSP, it is completely obvious that we could have become a larger organization had we made numerous compromises; for example, had our most talented people taken leadership roles and signed up people who just paid to belong for getting our services. We had this opportunity at several times, but we don't see the point of becoming just another union. This isn't why we are here.

However, this does not mean that we are an anarchist specific group, nor does it mean we are marginal or lacking practice.

Sad Realities and the Hierarchy of (Self) Importance

People like the author probably see it another way, because they keep repeated this mantra. As if the organizations that now comprise the CNT-AIT never had any „real” activity at all. It is quite insulting and it is quite sad for us knowing that this is the type of accusations our comrades in Spain faced for quite some while. However, the ZSP soon learned, as early as 2011, that to that part of the CNT, nobody was doing „real enough” activity to earn respect, especially in the IWA, which they refer to as „non-existent” or which they tend to dismiss in various ways, seen later in the article. This shows how a certain philosophy develops, which builds a hierarchy of importance of those with numerical advantage. However, this runs contrary to many basic tenets of the internationalist views of anarcho-communism, where all communities are supposed to be equal and where, in international matters and decision making, we are supposed to deal as equals. Ours is not the system where the most powerful or those with the most money expect to make decisions and force their will; we are the IWA, not the IMF. It is quite disturbing to come to the realization that there are people who somehow claim to adhere to libertarian principles whose highest principle is „might=right” and who appear to uphold bourgeois notions of representative democracy as opposed to advocating for an equality that transcends the imbalances of the current paradigms of power.

Who is „all”?

The author goes on to claim that „This view can be confirmed by all the movements and organisations that were related to the CNT in those years”.  In other words, although it should be obvious that part of the CNT would NOT confirm this view, he claims that ALL can confirm this. It is with this type of arrogance that many members of the now CNT-CIT have treated their own views as the views of „everybody”. This is of course an excellent example of the atmosphere within the CNT which led to the current situation. Those who felt that they „spoke for everybody” usually dismissed the concerns or opinions of others and, where not possible, tried to lead to the „dismissal” of those people from the Confederation.

References Devoid of Context

It is quite interesting that the author mentions, but says nothing of substance about the following „ Others, on the other hand, could point to internal conflicts in the Seville Local Federation or other unions during the 2000s.” Perhaps he is already convinced that by writing on the favourite organ of those who favor this type of syndicalism that whatever is written will not raise any questions. However, one only has to look at different problems in Seville and Andalucia in general to see what kind of problems many of our comrades faced. It was in this area that the union of Seville in particular broke the Statutes of the CNT-AIT in various ways when they bought votes by subscribing with more members than they actually had to sway votes in the regional towards the „new vision” promoted by some folks in that sector and where they syphoned money and resources from the CNT-AIT to set up a front union in a local enterprise where CNT members ran for work councils. And created a fake union of bus drivers to get even more votes. These practices were confirmed when the regional set up an investigation. As a result of all this, some of these unions and people remained or were able to get back into the CNT, despite the Statutes being clear that they should be expelled and not let back. The other result is that the union who denounced these practices, Cadiz, was then expelled from the CNT-AIT, their offices raided, their library stolen and then people physically attacked (only to be rescued by some people from the local community).

(The author later spins some tale of „recouperating property”, however the stolen library was gathered through donations of the local activists, so even for those who recognize the „property” line, this does not hold water.)

So yes, we can point to this and, in doing so, state that in that regional federation of Andalucia, Seville and Cordoba, possessing a large amount of votes by fact of representation of workers who just paid some dues but did not actively participate in the life of the CNT-AIT, were able to overlook the facts and the infringement of CNT-AIT statutes and accomplish the elimination of a union which did not breach anything. Further to this, other unions were expelled and a number of attempts to expel other unions followed. For reasons such as the fact that the names of several unions appeared together on stickers for a common campaign and some of these unions were expelled from the CNT already.

Let us be clear: this meant that, according to the „leaders” of the Andalucia hierarchy, any joint activity, even symbolic, of CNT-AIT unions with the expelled would be reason enough to merit their expulsion in turn?

In the narrative promoted by Salvochea and friends, this probably does not matter at all. He would like readers to believe that, besides those unions like Seville or Cordoba, the other ones were „not real” had „no practice” or whatever myth so frequently peddled to appeal to the folks that apparently have no real problem with such problematic behaviour and practices as exhibited by this sector. Ultimately, this is what it boils down to: feeling confident that just saying „we are the majority” can justify just about anything to enough people in the world.

Rude awakening to this problem

The problems created in this region were so serious that many people who observed them were very concerned at these serious anti-statutory actions in the CNT. Personally, it was not until 2011, when the IWA Plenary came to my city, did it all start to become clear to me that some people in the CNT were seriously abusing the organic process. This was highlighted in the Plenary by objections to proposals made by the CNT which had not been approved by the organic process of the organization and the question of whether to treat them. For an explanation, the proposals to an IWA meeting should be approved by the organization submitting them as a whole – not a single union of that organization. Or the Secretaries. Yet, this is what we saw. Had the unions of the CNT-AIT been supplanted by their Secretaries and the unions which adhered to a certain line, thus were able to go around the established statutory process?

More and more absurd things were happening, some of which I didn't understand. At the aforementioned Plenary, I was followed into the bathroom by the then-International Secretary of CNT, who was screaming some bizaare conspiracy theory about us having contact with the CNT-AIT Cadiz (who I believed were not yet expelled) screaming about how „Cadiz doesn't exist”. What kind of lunacy did we get ourselves into? None of us had any type of contact with these people and only later did we find out what was happening. (Actually because we were curious at what this person was so upset about.) Apparently the situation in Andalucia caused paranoia also on the international level. I've seen several texts which accuse a lot of CNT-AIT unions of exhibiting paranoia, but personally, it came down on me and other members of my union from the side of the consituants of CNT-CIT. I didn't know it at the time, but it was a harbinger of things to come.

Authoritarian Dynamics

The author is also confident that he can speak about „sectarian dynamics” and just rely on preconceived notions spread about CNT-AIT. After mentioning conflicts in Andalucia, without giving the slightest background of what happened, he states in the next sentence that those „sectarian dynamics” disappeared from the CNT by 2010. Sorry, but there is a serious logical break here. The issues in Andalucia were issues of „sectarian dynamics”? Or were they issues of breaking the statutes and then using a skewed voting system to anti-statutorially expel those who exposed the scam? I have read the documents and it seems clear to me that the latter was the problem. Reading this, one can see how uncritically some respond to buzz words like „sectarian” and how this type of behaviour has become a political problem on a global scale as people use the words to emotionally charge debates and obfuscate the facts. It is quite sad that „CNT” claims that this is showing the majority of people in the now CNT-CIT to be „anarcho-syndicalists”. What in the situation in Andalucia was even remotely reminiscent of the „anarcho” part of anarcho-syndicalism?

The author moves on to promote some post 2010 practices of CNT (now CNT-CIT) which he claims that the CNT-AIT are against. One is about the lawyers. This of course can be looked at in different ways. You can believe that it is better to educate members to act as lawyers or to promote having a cadre of professionals. One can see how there could be different arguments here or there. However, there also has to be some certain amount of accountability and transparency. Some questions arise. For example, if the CNT fights against „false autonomous” labor relations (also known as independent contractors). The CNT-CIT people claim they have „no paid positions” and technically, they did not have a labor relationship with the lawyers who were independent contractors. So, a bit of a contradiction, kept in order to claim to membership that there are „no paid people”. If you have a lawyer who is the partner of the General Secretary, providing income for the household derived from CNT members dues, this also raises questions of nepotism. Finally, the most serious questions involved whether the lawyers received explicit mandates from the membership to do what they did, or whether they took orders from the defacto leadership of the union. Here we can specifically refer to the lawsuits brought against the CNT-AIT. Many people from CNT-CIT have claimed that they were only told about them after the fact. Some people only learned about them from the CNT-AIT.

When Being Radical Becomes Conservative

Personally, I find the sort of speech used by in the article to be similar to Donald Trump calling Kamala Harris a Marxist. He continues to promolgate the use of labels such as „conservative” and „orthodox” onto the CNT-AIT and this is, in my opinion, really misleading language. The CNT-AIT is an organization which is now and was then an organization looking towards a radical transformation of society, something that is, if anything, looking towards the future and far ahead of its time. The word „conservative” has various negative connotations as being „adverse to change”, but the CNT-AIT wants nothing more than to change the existing social and economic relations, the existing power relations. This is something I have no doubt about. So, is it enough to believe this implication that the part of the CNT which remained in IWA just didn't want to change?

All I can say is that not all change is necessarily a good thing. Changing towards a more vertical, specialized organization is certainly not good. And if we look back at the history of anarcho-syndicalism or even revolutionary syndicalism historically, we have seen many such moves away from more radical ideas. One person can label the attempts to tow the line as „conservatism” while others can see it as avoiding the slippery slope that so many organizations have gone down before.

„Property” which is Clearly Theft

Since „the CNT” mentions another institution with paid employees, I will refer to FAL. This is Fundacion Anselmo Lorenzo, which houses a large archives. The IWA unfortunately sent our archives to FAL before we understood what was happening inside the CNT. (My union actually proposed this and I personally was delegated to collect and catalog these archives and sent them to Madrid.) Since that time, both the IWA Secretariat and all members of the IWA have been denied access to these archives, which are kept in poor conditions in a warehouse, outside of FAL premises. The IWA has repeated asked to take these archives back, but they do not answer any correspondece. This is a situation dating to 2012. Therefore, we consider that our archives were clearly stolen by FAL. FAL is controlled by people who claim in courts that the IWA „doesn't exist” but for the purposes of bragging about their positions, they list the IWA archives as „their collection”. In the past, members from different CNT unions volunteered to manage the FAL archives, but at a certain point, and in circumstances which were not transparent to anybody, certain people became the paid „keepers” while others who were volunteers lost access. In the eyes of „CNT”, nothing wrong here. Probably he also thinks it's cool that they stole our archives (because why would we need them if we „don't exist”?)

This is where we can see some absurd things in the CNT. Some defenders of CNT-CIT continue to claim that there are „no employed persons”, especially when CNT-AIT members talk about it, but here you have it.

Paying for Services?

Personally, I don't care to compare CNT of the past with CNT-CIT of today, and whether an organization of 0.5% of its former size have the same justifications for paid staff as possibly it had before. That's a stupid theoretical exercise. The only clear conclusion from this all is that the CNT-CIT have no problem with this, which is clear from the fact that they also tried to convince the IWA that people should be „paid for services” and attempted to get us to approve paying CNT members for services as well. These proposals were discussed and struck down. (One of our questions to CNT was about whether they thought it was OK if the comrades from the lower wage countries offered lowered prices than them for their services.) It is clear to us that people have a right to have different opinions about this, but that we are closer to the idea against paid services and that in the CNT, there were different ideas about this matter.

I Represent More People than You

Finally about changing to porportional voting. The author clearly is a proponent, but there are questions raised about this. For example, if you have a large union where most of the membership does not care about issues or attend the meetings, but let just a few people decide issues. Unfortunately, I and others have observed this happening in a few unions, so in this way, the votes are a tool for individuals to have more power. It is not a way to exercise „democracy” in a better way – unless what you are talking about is REPRESENTATIVE democracy – in which case it helps those who represent.

Frankly, we are quite astonished about how this topic became seen, however we are quite certain that the bourgeois democratic influences on this type of syndicalism are very clear in this question. As association is supposed to be mutual or not at all, which is a clear anarchist tenet, it is clear that those who do not agree to that way can do something else and do not need to be bound to those who want to implement other practices.

Calling the Kettle Black

Personally, I find it sort of incredible that the author complains of „tasteless tactics” of those from the CNT-AIT. Clearly there were conflicts and heated debates and I have no doubt they turned ugly (hence by strong belief that CNT-AIT and CNT-CIT are best off as separate organizations). But how ironic that the people who were following me into the bathroom with paranoid rantings, trying to physically block me from the 2013 Congress in Valencia, chasing me into the room, harrassing me, stealing the documents, beating up some members of CNT-AIT, trying to steal the microphone from me in 2015, which almost lead to a fight – all of these really disgusting and uncomradely actions that we have witnessed and faced, that this author complains about people making long speeches. Come on.

Did they really think that by exhibiting this kind of lunatic behaviour to us we were going to see them as the victims of mobbing, rather than the ones creating all sorts of problems with whomever they disagreed with?

The author, goes on to use the epiteth „Taliban”, a choice of label which is clearly inappropriate and indicative of the level of discourse that was promoted in the post 2010 CNT. It is quite amazing to see this author speaking of conspiracy theories in light of the ones that were later levelled against all sorts of members of the CNT-AIT and even against myself. The height of conspiracy theories was later developed by people trying to make purges in the CNT who invented a theory that I, in 2010, conspired with a woman (who I had never met or corresponded with – in another words, a complete stranger), to derail the 2010 CNT Congress. Not only was this not true, but in 2010 I had no position on internal functioning in CNT. We sent a warm greeting to this Congress.

Accusations from Persons inside CNT (CIT)

Personally, when reading the article, my mind is sort of blown since I read some of the great conspiracy theories of what became of the CNT-CIT and, in my particular case, have seen a complete fabrication. It is clear that since some people (but not enough in my opinion) have asked questions about these lawsuits that CNT-CIT have brought against CNT-AIT, this article is meant is to paint the CNT-AIT as the devil or worse and to undermine their assertations that they are who they say they are. I do not doubt that there was lots of stuff said on the internet, from both sides, but my personal observations tell me that those behind this article and the like tended to wander from the truth more often than others.

Anarcho-syndicalism Cannot be Devoid of its Libertarian Elements

Coming back to more concrete issues of anarcho-syndicalism, I would like again to express my personal view that anarcho-syndicalism is different than anarchist specific groups but for me, this doesn't mean going away from anarchist practices. My union does not consist of „only anarchists”. Neither does the CNT-AIT. It never defined itself this way. There are some organizations in the world that disagree with this approach; personally I don't agree with them, but it is not a cause for conflict. When the CNT tries to portray this as a chasm between anarchists and anarcho-syndicalism, it is clear that he is constructing an alternative reality, to again try to convince people that CNT-AIT organizations are not „unions”. The level of consciousness on this topic in some places in the world is currently so low that this is the „right message” to convey to his target audience; it just isn't true.

Omissions and Bias

Further the article goes superficially into some accounts of expulsions and other matters in the CNT. These come from one side and, as you can expect, there are the other points of view. (There will be links at the bottom about some of these experiences). From what I know, there are many omissions here and all of these accounts are slanted. It is hard for people from the outside to keep up, but we have the alternative view that the so-called „small” unions were particularly targetted for expulsion. As well as anybody who called out any of that Sector for behaviour (such as the Cadiz expulsion).

What Happened in Relation to the IWA?

Finally the article comes to the IWA so, having been Secretary of the IWA at the time, I have good knowledge of the facts. In as early as 2009, delegated persons of the CNT tried to withhold membership dues to the IWA. I will not get into any question of their reasons, as my interpretation of it will be different then those in CNT-CIT leadership. The fact was that there was no organic decision to do it and, with the intervention of the then IWA Secretary at the 2010 CNT Congress, the money was released. The document, written by the Treasurer (and not the CNT membership) at the time was to the effect that the CNT doesn't have votes porportionate to their contribution, which is again the IMF mentality. (Those who pay more should have more say. Pretty contrary to anarcho-communist ideas I'd say.) Then, later, when I was in the Secretariat of the IWA, again CNT stopped paying its dues. The problems with this were several: first, all CNT-AIT members had paid their money and the statutes required a set amount to be paid to the IWA. Prior to the 2015 Zaragoza Congress, where the author correctly stated that the Congress decided not to pay dues, the leadership of the CNT, namely the Treasurer and Secretary General, decided this for the membership. It was only by accident that prior to 2015, people in CNT-AIT learned about this when in a personal conversation I learned that the dues had been paid and people had no idea that money was not sent to the IWA.

How could that be I asked? Then I learned about the fact that the same Treasurer had not provided financial reports to the membership and this went on for long time. Neither did the CNT unions receive the reports from the IWA Secretariat that noted that the CNT was in arrears. How was it possible? Who was withholding information and why?

Then it turned out that the General Secretary had embezzled thousands from the CNT for a drug habit. He was expelled, but nobody questioned the role of the Treasurer.

When we found out about all this, it was very clear that things were not working as the should in CNT.

We were particularly struck by the fact that many unions of that organization, now CNT-CIT, found all of this normal, meaning that the leadership took action without any mandate whatsoever and only later submitted it to a Congress for approval.

This didn't look like anarcho-syndicalism to us.

The CNT-AIT and the Warsaw Congress, 2016

The article again makes no sense as it claims that the CNT-AIT was born from a group of people who kept paying to the IWA. The fact of the matter is that the 2015 Zaragoza Congress never put a question to the membership as to whether they withdraw from the IWA. The Sector from CNT-CIT may have already had this plan in mind, as early as 2010 perhaps, and certainly from 2013 but perhaps they were thinking that if they didn't pay their dues to the IWA, the Sections would cower and give in to their proposals that they had already rejected twice. As those who have followed no doubt know, this didn't happen. The CNT-AIT was our Section that included the founders of CNT-CIT, up until December 2016 when it became clear that they did not want to remain in the IWA, that they wanted something else, but those of the CNT-AIT, wanted to remain. Thus, we consider the CNT-AIT to be exactly that – the continuation of our Section in Spain. We consider the CNT-CIT to be an organization which wanted to break with the statutes and practices of CNT-AIT, which wanted to go in a different direction and which did so.

As I mentioned, I am a member of the ZSP, I live in Warsaw and in 2016 we hosted this historic Congress of the IWA. I was there and know perfectly well what happened. The CNT leadership had decided that it would not hold any meeting to treat the Warsaw Congress as it intended that the organization would boycott it. The CNT, not having had any meeting to make decisions, also did not delegate anybody to attend this Congress. Some members of CNT-AIT, angry at this decision, which was not taken by the membership but through the actions of the Secretaries not to convoke a meeting, wanted to come to observe the Congress. At this point, the executives of the CNT delegated somebody. (Note that in our opinion, it is only correct when the organization as a whole chooses the delegate.) The person sent was very notorious, a Catalan nationalist who was behind conducting various „investigations” into, among other things, which CNT-AIT members had contacts in the IWA. Another interesting fact was that he was expelled from his union, but re-entered CNT through another one, which was contrary to the CNT statutes of the time. It seemed quite clear that one of the motivations for going was to denounce those who went to the Congress, which was done directly after and served as more reasons for expulsions. Never mind that this person was also not delegated organically to be there.

(Later it is mentioned that comrades in France picketed outside of a meeting in France.This was the same person. It sort of missed the points that the meeting was in fact mostly in attendance by Catalan nationalists and it was a person who had been conducting purges inside the CNT-AIT. Also involved in creating a conspiracy theory against myself. „Poor guy” got picketed. I did share a report of the protest on my personal Facebook. Really treacherous guy and it bothers me to see him portrayed as a victim, knowing what he did.)

As the IWA stipulates that admission to IWA is made through application to a Congress, and as CNT-AIT was being expelled, it was complicated but clear to everybody that as a technicality, we could not expel CNT-AIT and admit it at the same time.

The account provided is somewhat strange in the fact that it claims the CNT submitted to the 2016 Congress a proposal to increase dues but later claims it „withdrew” from the IWA and decided to do this in 2015. No such proposal was ever submitted, neither by the CNT or by anybody else. The CNT did not participate in the 2016 Warsaw Congress. They had no agreements. There was one executively-appointed delegate from the now CNT-CIT and a number of people who attended as observers (with no right to propose anything or vote anything). Why this confabulation?

The other manipulation was the supposed vote to leave the IWA. Rather, proposals were made to „relaunch” the IWA or to stop paying dues. This question and what proceeded was seen by the CNT-AIT as another manipulation as their was actually no mandate from the 2015 Zaragoza Congress to launch CIT. (This is later confirmed in the article itself.)

The Making of the ICL and what happened to CNT

So the „making of the International Confederation of Labor” was something agreed to rather post-factum, not only for the CNT-CIT.

When we see these „accounts” of the whole story, we are also subjected to some interesting tales, like of the 3-person Sections of the IWA, which don't exist. Yes, there are some small Sections in the IWA, but why always the false exaggerations? People must start somewhere and not all comrades around the world are lucky enough to be born into a situation where they have inherited the wealth of tradition. If you don't see that logic, don't be in the IWA. If the CNT-CIT are happier as they are now, OK. People have the right to their opinions, but using lies all the time is not cool.

I am also quite curious about the claim that when the CNT „announced its withdrawal”, other Sections had to deal with it. CNT NEVER announced its withdrawal to the IWA; it left it to the 2016 Congress to decide that CNT had, in fact both withdrawn and is expelled from the IWA. If it had announced its withdrawal, how could it send a delegate (even one not mandated) to the Congress? Why would we let that person in? It is clear that this issue of the CNT was resolved at the Warsaw Congress of 2016.

Again, to clarify the history, the 2016 Congress recognized the de-facto withdrawal of CNT and USI from the IWA and declared it was both recognizing the withdraw and expelling them. FORA was not expelled at the 2016 Congress, another oft-repeated falsehood. It was not clear what their position was at all. At the 2013 Congress they spoke very firmly AGAINST the CNT positions. It was decided to contact them for clarifications and later decided that they had also withdrawn.

One thing that is said is correct: the text speaks about how ICL was formed. Please note, the CNT's agreements was not to form ICL, but „refound” the IWA. This is admitted in the text. („But the agreement was to re-found the IWA and not to create a new organisation (ILC). As a result, there were new controversies within the Confederation.”) However, how can an international federation be „refounded” if that federation repeatedly says no to this proposal?

CNT in Defense of the Vindictive Lawsuits

Now to the lawsuits, which are defended in the article. The first claim of course is that the CNT-CIT is rapidly growing. Turn to the lawsuits which use as one of the main arguments against CNT-AIT, not anything claimed in the article but literally the following claims: „the CNT-AIT prevents us from growing”; „workers are confused about what union they are joining” and „the CNT-AIT doesn't exist because the IWA doesn't exist”.

It is later claimed that these lawsuits is like some „existential” problem for the IWA. What is a problem for us is what they've done and obviously, suing so many unions for 50,000 euros, then expanding the lawsuits on September 18 is a problem for our Section in Spain. In the spirit of solidarity against these attacks, it was decided at Congress that we will campaign in defense of CNT-AIT.

Hiding, Again

Finally, about the authorship of this article, at the end we see that it is signed „CNT”. Is this really an article written by and approved by this organization? Who knows. User is PB, submitted by Salvochea. Therefore I can only refer to the author, not PB or Salvochea, because who knows who wrote this.

I talk about this because this question has been an issue. I sign this reply, with my own name, and, as named in this article, I certainly have a right to reply. Too bad the author or authors of this act as they do, trying to convince the world that this is a statement made by thousands in an attempt to give it more gravitas.

If anybody is interested in some of the background, there are more articles on the internet about the internal divisions and some other matters. Below is a list of some.

Laure Akai
Member of ZSP-IWA
https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2018/03/los-problemas-en-andalu... (in Spanish)

https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/

https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/12/were-leaving-cnt-see-yo...

https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/12/cnt-spain-criticizing-c...

https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-assembly-of-sov-of-...

https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2018/12/animal-farm-in-cit.html

https://newworldinourhearts.blogspot.com/2018/11/more-on-purges-in-madri...