This article examines labour organisation in Gibraltar and its hinterland from c. 1914-1921. It demonstrates that the traditionally strong links which had existed between organisations in Gibraltar and neighbouring Spain, links based upon a shared belief in anarchist ideas and practices, had, by 1921, broken down due to the adoption of gradualist and constitutionalist politics and industrial relations by workers on the Rock. Two principle agents drove this change. First, in 1919, the British Workers' Union established a branch in Gibraltar which successfully worked to establish itself as principle negotiator and representative of workers on the Rock. Second, a reforming governor in Gibraltar undertook to open up political spaces in Gibraltar which offered the potential to work with, rather than against, the state in the colony. By the end of the period, anarchism, and anarchist ideas, were not extinguished in Gibraltar, but they would never again serve as the inspiration for industrial and political campaigns on the Rock, much to the delight of both Gibraltarian employers and the British colonial authorities. This case-study invites further consideration of how British style trade union activity in the empire displaced indigenous forms of organising, a subject which has heretofore received scant attention.
This article charts the personal history of Emilio Griffiths Navarro, a key individual in the Francoist administration in the Campo de Gibraltar (Cádiz province) during the early months of the Spanish Civil War. Griffiths is used as a case study to analyse the dynamics of Francoist repression in Southern Spain, and in particular the construction of what Rúben Serém has referred to as the ‘kleptocratic state’ that Franco’s fellow conspirator, General Queipo de Llano, constructed in the South. The article reaffirms the degree to which personal networks, personal rivalries and personal gain played a role in the Francoist repression. As a local case study, it also notes the unique conditions provided by rebel Spain’s border with British Gibraltar, and how this shaped the nature and extent of that repression. The article charts Griffiths’ own demise, from senior rebel official to arrest and unexplained death at the hands of Francoist security forces just 10 months later, and uses the mystery to further speculate as to rivalries and repression in early-Francoist Spain.
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