The myth of the maddened crowd: class, culture and space in the revolutionary urbanist project in Barcelona, 1936–1937

To the Barricades! The Social Revolution of 1936 in Catalonia

“…Their problem may have been that when deliberating during an assembly many workers were in favor of increasing the working day and the free riders were forced to falsify their real preferences to avoid sanctions. Such decisions were largely based on the anarchists' aversion to modern means of transport, which resulted in the widespread destruction of cars (Carrasco, 1936;Ealham, 2005). 25 Similar views of many other protagonists can be found in Fraser (1979, especially pp.…”

“…33 The committees set up people's tribunals as well as control patrols (groups of armed militiamen who acted as police) (Guillamón, 2012(Guillamón, , p. 15, 2007. The trials held by these tribunals were characterized by their speed (Ealham, 2005;Paz, 2002, pp. 71-72).…”

“…In addition, very few of those who were executed were done so after being condemned by a court; the great majority were killed by the control patrols or by simple uncontrolled gangs. 35 During the whole revolutionary period the so-called paseos or "promenades" became commonplace: a group of armed people arrested someone in their house (usually at nightfall) or removed them from where they were detained and executed them in an open field where they subsequently abandoned or buried the corpse (Bueso, 1978, p. 295;Caballé, 1939;Ealham, 2005;Guardiola, 1939;Pi i Sunyer, 1975). 36 Certain groups were priority targets of the revolution.…”

“…Moreover, many of the changes in fashions and social norms referred to above were based on massive processes of falsification of preferences. The chronicles coincide in that many of those who adopted the new fashions in clothing and norms of speech were motivated by fear (Ametlla, 1984;Carrasco, 1936, p. 7;Cid, 2001;Ealham, 2005;Kaminski, 1937, p. 35;Lacruz, 1943, p. 129;Llarch, 1975;Salter, 2018, p. 29). Torres and Arxer (1999) point out how the militiamen pronounced the greeting salut with a tone of defiance in an attempt to humiliate or provoke the non-revolutionaries who falsified their authentic preferences.…”

The Faith and the Fury: The Construction of Anticlerical Collective Identities in Spain, 1874–1931

“…In large cities and provincial capitals, the inefficient central state authorized religious personnel to run reformatories and prisons. 31 In these centres -and in other ostensibly charitable institutions like orphanages and 'domestic service convents' -the clergy validated a series of authoritarian practices, such as dragooning mental patients into attending mass, which intensified anticlerical sentiment. In workers' districts, these establishments acquired a reputation for physical, psychological, and sometimes sexual abuse.…”