The famous Paris Commune had a little sister: the Canton of Cartagena. Its neglected history is linked to both the ‘cantonal revolution’ in Spain in 1873 and the colonial and global social protests of that time. In her contribution to the “Deep Democracy” series, Jeanne Moisand explores this inspiring case.
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Nineteenth-century Spain has left little mark on the militant repertoires of the global left, even though it was a country particularly welcoming to revolutionary movements. One of these revolutions deserves the attention of those interested in past experiences of radical democracy today. The ‘cantonal revolution’ of 1873 gave rise to a proliferation of autonomous communes, called ‘cantons’ in homage to federalism in Switzerland. The largest canton, located in the southeastern military port of Cartagena, resisted a six-month siege by an army sent from Madrid to crush it.
Driven by a plebeian republicanism with pronounced socialist overtones, the project aimed to establish the Spanish Federal Republic ‘from below’ by involving the colonies in the proclamation of autonomy. Similar in form to the Paris Commune, the ‘cantonal revolution’ in Spain surpassed the limits of the latter by integrating the colonial world into the practice of radical democracy based on worker associations.
A revolution within the revolution
The cantonal revolution erupted during the final years of the revolutionary cycle that began in 1868 with the September Revolution, which established a parliamentary monarchy based on universal male suffrage. These political freedoms encouraged popular politicization, and federal republicanism and socialism spread throughout cities and rural areas. Socialism gained visibility with the founding of the First International in London in 1864, and its branch in Spain attracted thousands of members from 1870 onwards.
The revolutionary cycle that began in 1868 was not limited to the metropolis. Insurgents in Cuba proclaimed the island’s independence and started the Ten Years’ War (1868–78). More than 200,000 conscripts were sent from all over Spain to defend the colony and slavery. Many of these conscripts, who were all from the working class, deserted or rebelled. They soon swelled the ranks of the two enemy camps of the armed opposition: radical republicanism, which rose up against the unfulfilled promises of the September Revolution in 1869, 1870, and 1872, and the Carlists, who were ultra-royalists and Catholics and launched an insurrectionary war in 1872. Unable to stabilize the regime, King Amadeo I abdicated in February 1873. The First Spanish Republic was proclaimed.
The ‘moderates’ advocated for order in the hope of rallying the elites to the regime, while the ‘intransigents’ demanded the quick implementation of the federal and abolitionist program. In July 1873, they proclaimed ‘cantons,’ or autonomous municipal republics intended to federate with each other. The moderates sent in the army to defeat them. By the end of August, this had been achieved throughout the country except in Cartagena, where the insurrectionary commune resisted due to its substantial defensive capabilities.
The inhabitants of Cartagena took refuge behind their fortified mountains and made use of the resources of their military port, particularly the warships, whose crews had defected. A revolutionary junta, an executive body comprised of 25 individuals, governed this insurgent municipality. The junta refused to surrender and was supported by 10,000 to 15,000 people who chose not to flee during the first few months of the siege, even though it would have been easy to do so.
An association of atypical workers
In a world where political power was reserved for social elites, the canton of Cartagena began putting the democratic promise of ‘power of the people, by the people’ into practice. The junta included several workers from the local military arsenal who founded the Federal Center of Cartagena, which was affiliated with the Federal Republican Party and the International Workers’ Association. Similar to Pierre-Joseph Proudhon – the anarchist, socialist, philosopher, and economist who founded mutualist philosophy and is considered by many to be the ‘father of anarchism’ – they believed that the Republic should emerge from a federation of workers’ associations.
Influenced by this anarchist-tinged socialism, these men were internationalists, who had associated with workers from Great Britain recruited to build a floating dock in the port since the 1860s. Some of these workers participated in the canton. The junta also included rural workers from the provinces of Murcia and Alicante. They were represented by the canton’s most charismatic leader, the peasant Antonio Gálvez. Gálvez had led all the local Republican uprisings in previous years. Another leader of the Republican guerrilla movement was Tomás Bertomeu, who came from the industrialized Alicante countryside and was affiliated with the First International.
The mainstream press, both in Spain and in Europe, saw this junta as a replica of the Paris Commune. Although the number of Parisian refugees in Cartagena was often exaggerated, three of them were indeed present in the canton, one of whom joined the junta. Antonio de la Calle first rose up with thousands of other Republicans in Andalusia in 1869 before taking refuge in Paris, where he joined the National Guard. He was sentenced to death in absentia at the end of the Commune and fled, arriving in Cartagena shortly after the canton was proclaimed.
He was initially the editor of the revolutionary newspaper El Cantón Murciano and was then elected to the junta, heading its ‘public services commission.’ He participated in notable transfers between the two revolutions and was particularly inspired by the activities of the women of the Commune, which led him to recognize the women of the Canton as having revolutionary agency. He signed a decree on ‘the emancipation of women.’
Soldiers, sailors, convicts – and women
In addition to the local workers who played a prominent role in the junta, the canton of Cartagena also mobilized working-class men who had migrated from afar as a result of forced migrations organized by the army. Thousands of men were prepared for war in Cartagena before being sent to Cuba. Conscripts who tried to escape or disobeyed ended up in prison, particularly in Cartagena, where the prison population exploded on the eve of the Canton.
These laborers – soldiers, sailors, and convicts – rebelled and made up most of the cantonal troops. Though far from ideal workers of the labor movement, they were fairly typical of the time. They were workers forced into service by empires, employed in menial jobs in the arsenal and on warships. They were destined to serve in Cuba, in sugar refineries deserted by slaves, as well as on the front lines.
Women also mobilized in the canton, particularly young, single women from rural areas who had come to serve the local bourgeoisie’s growing needs as maids, nannies, and laundresses. Made precarious by the colonial war that took their fiancés and brothers away, these women contributed to the collective survival by preparing daily soup, caring for the sick, making bags of gunpowder, and participating in the defense with rifles in hand from the ramparts at the end of the siege. How can we explain the determination of these groups of workers to defend Cartagena’s autonomy, despite the fact that many of them are not from the city?
Municipal power and inclusive democracy
While fighting to preserve the cantonal experience, these groups defended not only the autonomy of the province or municipality but also the possibility of participating in an inclusive popular democracy rather than a merely representative one. Although cantonal elections were held in November, the insurgents had more faith in assembly practices than in the electoral process.
For example, at the end of the summer of 1873, an assembly was convened to decide whether to continue the resistance or begin negotiations with Madrid. Present were not only the members of the junta but also delegates appointed by their peers from the arsenal workshops, the Cartagena civic militia, mutinous ships, and battalions of the revolutionary army. This type of enlarged municipal assembly resembled the cabildos abiertos (open municipal councils) of the old regime, which were traditionally convened in times of crisis. Unlike the cabildos, however, these assemblies were not based on the mobilization of a community of inhabitants but rather on the mobilization of men who were often strangers to one another.
Certain democratic practices, such as the appointment of delegates and petitions, spread from local popular political institutions, such as citizen militias, arsenal workshops, and republican clubs. These practices spread to conscripts, convicts, and even women. This allowed the civic community to gradually open up to insurgents and the most marginalized people. After being excluded from the assemblies until then, representatives of the convicts participated in the last assembly of the canton at the end of the six-month siege, which decided to surrender. Although their presence was not allowed, the opinions of the mobilized women were included in the debates.
Solidarity with the colonies
This revolutionary community defended municipal power against the militarized empire, which was expected to crumble after the proclamation of autonomous cantons in the colonies. The life stories of several local leaders who had lived in Cuba, the Philippines, and Cartagena exemplified this solidarity. This solidarity was also evident in the massive mobilization of soldiers and sailors who refused to fight in Cuba in defense of slavery. They transformed the canton into a significant military strike against the colonial war.
The cantonalists deserve recognition because they successfully implemented ‘power of the people, by the people’ on a local scale and associated it with a broader vision of a just world. Their movement of solidarity with the colonies was rare among Europe’s left at the time.