Rafael Farga Pellicer
Spain's first anarchists
Building the workers' federation.
Reformist Anarcho-CollectivistOne of 729 ideologies · enter the Anarcho-Collectivist hall →- Role
- Organiser & printer
- Era
- 1844–1890
- Region
- Spain
- Social band
- Reformist
- Placement
- −54 · −90 · +46
§ Where Rafael Farga Pellicer stands
3 axesFarga Pellicer's movement was collectivist: land, factories and tools were to become the collective property of workers' associations, with members paid according to their labour rather than by need. That programme, adopted by the Spanish Regional Federation founded in Barcelona in 1870, remained dominant in Catalan anarchism through the 1880s, keeping it left of centre rather than at the communist extreme.
He belonged to the anti-political wing of Spanish labour: the 1870 Barcelona congress resolved that workers should abstain from parliamentary politics and organise through their own federations of trades and localities. In 1872 he took that stance to The Hague and Saint-Imier, aligning the Spanish federation with Bakunin's rejection of the state.
Farga Pellicer's progressivism centred on workers' education and the printed word. As a printer and the editor of La Federación he helped build the secular press, reading circles and workers' clubs that made Catalan anarchism a culture as well as a union movement, though his focus stayed on labour organisation rather than cultural or sexual radicalism.
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§ The story
HistoricalRafael Farga Pellicer (1844–1890) was a Barcelona typographer and journalist who became one of the founders of Spanish anarchism. In 1869 he was among the Catalan workers and radicals inspired by Bakunin's envoy Giuseppe Fanelli to form the first Barcelona section of the International, and that year he represented it at the International's Basel congress, where he met Mikhail Bakunin and joined his Alliance of Socialist Democracy.
Farga Pellicer helped organise the Barcelona workers' congress of June 1870 that founded the Spanish Regional Federation of the International, and edited La Federación, the Barcelona weekly that carried its ideas. In 1872 he was a Spanish delegate at The Hague and at the founding of the anti-authoritarian International at Saint-Imier, aligning Spanish labour with Bakunin against Marx. He remained a printer and journalist in Barcelona, and the federation he helped build was the organisational seed of Iberian anarcho-syndicalism and, eventually, of the CNT.
Notable for
- 01Co-founded the Spanish FRE
- 02Catalan labour organiser
- 03Bakuninist Alliance member
Key works & moments
- 1869Helps found the Barcelona section of the International after meeting Giuseppe Fanelli.
- 1869Represents Barcelona at the International's Basel congress, where he meets Bakunin.
- 1870Helps organise the Barcelona congress that founds the Spanish Regional Federation of the International.
- 1872A Spanish delegate at The Hague and Saint-Imier, aligning Spanish labour with Bakunin.
- 1874The Spanish International is banned after the fall of the First Republic and goes underground.
§ Minds closest to Rafael Farga Pellicer
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§ Common questions
4 answersWhat was Rafael Farga Pellicer's political ideology?
Rafael Farga Pellicer was a Bakuninist collectivist and a founder of Spanish anarchism: on the 99ideologies three-axis compass, a Reformist Anarcho-Collectivist. Economically he sat left of centre (−54), favouring collective ownership by workers' associations with pay according to labour. On governance he was strongly libertarian (−90), rejecting the state and parliamentary politics, and socially he was moderately progressive (+46), a printer and editor who championed workers' education.
Was Rafael Farga Pellicer left-wing or right-wing?
Left-wing. Farga Pellicer helped found the Spanish section of the First International and spent his career building a labour movement that aimed to abolish capitalist property and the state. He belonged to the anti-authoritarian left, siding with Bakunin against Marx in 1872 and keeping Spanish workers out of parliamentary politics. His collectivism, which rewarded labour rather than distributing by need, was more moderate than the anarchist communism that later spread in Spain.
What was the Spanish Regional Federation of the International?
It was the Spanish branch of the First International, founded at a workers' congress in Barcelona in June 1870 after Giuseppe Fanelli's mission had seeded sections in Madrid and Barcelona. Bakuninist from the start, it rejected parliamentary politics and organised workers by trade and locality, siding with the anti-authoritarian International after 1872. Banned in 1874, it survived underground and re-emerged in 1881 as the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region, a forerunner of the CNT.
Which minds are closest to Rafael Farga Pellicer?
On the 99ideologies three-axis compass, the minds closest to Rafael Farga Pellicer are Giuseppe Fanelli (99% alike), Adhémar Schwitzguébel (98% alike) and Carlo Cafiero (97% alike). The furthest is Adam Sutler (0% alike).