Agitated: Grupos Autónomos and Armed Anticapitalism in Spain, 1974-1984

A cultural history of Spain's dictatorship through the lens of the Grupos Autónomos, who opposed both the Franco regime and the new capitalist democracy. The Franco dictatorship in Spain was famously beset by armed revolutionary groups, inheritors of the legacy of Spanish anarchism that Franco had crushed. Less well-known are the Grupos Autónomos (Autonomous Groups) active during Spain's transition to "democracy," a transition set in motion and overseen by the powerful elites of the Franco regime and intended to maintain existing social and economic relations. As the country reorganized under a veneer of a parliamentary monarchy, resistance spread in the form of small autonomous bands of armed rebels who sought a more free and egalitarian future for Spain. Agitated is the tale of those groups. It brings alive the young people who comprised them, detailing their struggle against the faux democracy of authoritarian capitalism and the vibrant lives they lived: the counterculture they formed, their relations with workers, life underground, of course, the repression they suffered.

Author: Joni D
Publisher: AK Press
Published: 01/17/2023
Pages: 380
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 2.51lbs
ISBN13: 9781849354318
ISBN10: 1849354316
BISAC Categories:
- Political Science | Political Ideologies | Anarchism
- Social Science | Social Classes & Economic Disparity
- Social Science | Violence in Society

About the Author
Joni D. was born in Barcelona in 1968. He has written on the early punk movement in Spain as well as a trilogy of novels about the Spanish resistance to the dictatorship, the punk and autonomous movements, and the global struggle for freedom.