The CNT white-collar union during the Spanish Civil War inValencia, a refuge for right-wing secondary school teachers

Abstract

A group of rightwing secondary school teachers took refuge in the CNT anarchist union (professionals’ section) in Valencia during the Civil War. During this time violent action spread chaos across the Republican rearguard despite the government’s attempts to restore public order. We analyze in this article the motivation for these teachers to join the CNT; namely, to avoid the Republican purge in education, to obtain a union card pass which would be useful in difficult situations, to receive legal advice and defence from CNT experts. Some of these teachers participated in the activities of the Fifth Column and later went on to be prominent collaborators of Franco’s dictatorship, others were priests and members of religious orders who succeeded in avoiding persecution. All of these identified with rightwing ideological positions. Despite their trade union affiliation, they survived the real political cleansing which commenced after the Civil War.