Fire and frenzy: three centuries of revolts in Barcelona

BarcelonaFrom the present, it may seem that we have never lived in such a dark era, with such an uncertain future and such accumulated hopelessness. If one looks back, however, insurrection has often taken hold of the streets of Barcelona. At times, the response has been fierce repression—including executions—and without any conquest for the rebels. At other times, citizen mobilization has toppled governments and caused irreversible changes. In fact, many current rights would not exist without great mobilizations.

Barcelona carried the reputation of being revolutionary for a long time. Friedrich Engels, in the mid-19th century, wrote: "The history of Barcelona, the largest industrial city in Spain, is the one that records the most barricades in the world". "This image was consolidated between 1820 and the First Republic, it was reborn with the 'Rosa de Foc' (Fire Rose) at the beginning of the 20th century and the Civil War, but it already had clear precedents in the Bread Riots (1789) and the Conscription riots (1773)", explains historian Jordi Roca Vernet.

In protests like the Bread Riots of 1789 or the Women's Revolt of 1918, it was precisely them who were the first to take to the streets. In the Barcelona of 1789, a municipal decree announcing an increase in the price of bread unleashed a revolt that, for three days, turned the city's life upside down. In 1918, it was again the rising cost of bread that put women on a war footing. Amàlia Alegre, a resident of the Raval, hung a sign calling them to march to the Civil Government and demand a price reduction. Despite the appearance of a spontaneous gesture, there was political articulation behind it: Alegre was linked to the Radical Party.

Pasquinades and bells

"There are historical photographs of the Civil Government stairs where you can see how they gave way due to the massive presence of women who climbed them all at once to speak with the governor; they broke the staircase with their weight," explains historian and archaeologist Laia Gallego. "It is a little-known revolt, but very interesting, just like the women's rallies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which show how they went about conquering spaces. The defense of basic needs continues today, and in these struggles there is once again a majority of women," adds Gallego.

These protests went beyond simple protest for hunger. "When the population revolted in 1789, they were not only claiming food, but defending a certain conception of social justice, according to which the authorities had the responsibility to guarantee supply and prevent speculation," points out historian Raquel Castellà. "The 1773 'Revolt of the Quintas' also had a dimension that went beyond recruitment," she adds. In 1773, discontent spread in the streets through lampoons that pointed out causes and culprits, the revolt spread inside and outside the city walls, and the bells were rung for 'sometent', the traditional form of mobilization at that time.

"More than half of the population was mobilizing, but if they went down in history it was not only for the motives, but also for their ability to organize themselves into boards or deputations. Guild structures and professional associations facilitated these boards, which negotiated both with the local Bourbon power and with the revolting groups," details Jordi Roca Vernet.

The unions and the ambition to storm power

The great leap, according to Roca Vernet, occurred between 1820 and 1874: "In this period it was no longer just a matter of negotiating, but the capacity to propose an alternative and disruptive political project in the face of multiple crises was articulated." An example of this transition was the Bullanga of 1835. Barcelona suffered from overcrowding within the walls, deadly epidemics (such as yellow fever in 1821 or cholera in 1834), and a worsening of living conditions aggravated by labor mechanization and the fiscal pressure of the Carlist Wars. The outbreak of the riot initiated the Revolutionary Biennium and the Progressive Triennium. The population burned convents because it had accumulated grievances against the Church for the oppression it had exerted against the popular sectors during the Restoration, and the alignment with Carlism unleashed their anger. That revolt accelerated the disentailment and urbanistically transformed the city: ecclesiastical spaces gave way to civic facilities such as theaters, libraries, and archives.

"With the riots there was a deep unease and very recognized leaders emerged. The way of capitalizing on the unease was more organized and a real social change took place there," details the historian Manel Risques. This leap was consolidated with the strike movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the appearance of the unions. Strikes such as that of the selfactines (1854; against the mechanization of spinning) or the general strike of 1855, under the motto "Association or death", paralyzed production to demand the right of association, the 10-hour workday, and a minimum wage. Years later, the La Canadenca strike (1919), called by the Single Union of Water, Gas and Electricity of the CNT, brought Barcelona to a standstill for 44 days, leaving the city without light or transport, and forced the government to concede, establishing for the first time by law the 8-hour workday.

"La Canadenca is an extraordinary example of how a labor grievance ends up causing a far-reaching legislative transformation –says Raquel Castellà–. But this does not mean that material needs disappear from subsequent mobilizations. The 1951 tram strike once again puts the cost of living at the center, and the struggles for housing or for self-managed spaces at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st maintain a very clear material dimension. Therefore, we do not go from fighting to survive to fighting to have rights: what changes is the way in which these needs are formulated politically, how they are organized collectively, and what capacity they have to challenge power". Protests such as those of Cinema Princesa (1996), Can Vies (2014), or the Battle of Urquinaona (2019), according to Roca Vernet, responded to "very concrete problems and collectives": the housing crisis, which the squatter movement was already denouncing in the first two cases, and the protest against the Procés sentences, which the police forces did indeed perceive as a threat. "Despite having a rupturist rhetoric, they did not have an alternative government proposal or the capacity to drag along social majorities, so they were impactful but without continuity or structural changes".

Tolerance of violence

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, the perception of violence was very different from what it is today. The Tragic Week (1909) broke out due to the unrest accumulated after Spain's defeat in the overseas colonies and the need to recruit men from the working class—who could not pay to be exempted from military service. The popular uprising ended with a terrible toll: two thousand arrests, two hundred deportations, and five executions, including that of the educator Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, who was shot as a scapegoat.

"In the 19th century, violence was understood as a form of negotiation, and there was much higher resilience to police and military violence," notes Roca Vernet. "People were aware that challenging power did not mean spending a few days at the police station, but risking one's life or suffering harsh penalties. In the riot of 1843, for example, there were 140 executed and 400 exiled." Risques agrees: "Now there is a very strong rejection of violence, but when the State was exclusionary, as in the 19th century, direct confrontation and barricades were seen as the logical way to stand up to power."

During the Franco regime, however, the model changed and the weight of street repression was no longer in the hands of the army but fell to militarized police forces, which acted with impunity under the protection of the civil governor. Even so, actions such as the tram strike of 1951 managed to curb the increase in fares. "In this country, things have been changed through demonstrations: we would not have reached the 1978 Constitution without the prior mobilizations," emphasizes Risques.

In fact, as the historian Dolors Marín details, throughout the Transition, from 1975 to 1978 there were many strikes, practically every day. In 1970 there were 1,547 strikes throughout Spain; in 1974 they increased to over 2,000; they reached 2,807 in 1975, and in 1976, which significantly marked the beginning of the democratic transition, they rose to 3,662. That year, more than 2.5 million workers went on strike. Even though Franco died in his bed in 1975, the regime was finished off in the streets. Many legislative changes were the result of significant mobilizations, also for LGBTI and women's rights. "They were very violent demonstrations and the police shot at the protesters with live ammunition; there were many arrests and many beatings. They deeply marked the entire generation of the Transition and, above all, the behavior of people in the streets. It went from, first, timidly coming out to overturning buses, burning things when necessary, or smashing the windows of establishments like El Corte Inglés," says Marín.

The discourse of power

Can we say that there is a linear evolution towards increasingly less violent societies? Castellà believes not. "Violence has always been judged based on who exercises it, against whom it is directed, and who has the capacity to publicly explain the facts," he states.

From the perspective of power, the treatment of protest has maintained some historical constants. "Since the 19th century, authorities and the media have used terms like subsistence riot or bullanga to degrade mobilizations –explains Roca Vernet–. The concept of bullanga was constructed to deny political organization and present the protest as a spontaneous and violent movement. Qualifying the participants as criminals, lumpen or mere women has been a systematic strategy to minimize the real challenge".

Roca Vernet compares this with recent episodes: "In France, we have seen broad mobilizations of diverse sectors in defense of education and equality. However, it is often preferred to focus attention on the disturbances to degrade the protest and ignore the demands. Regarding the recent episodes in Barcelona, the response of a very small group has been overblown due to the destruction of heritage and the fear that the French model might be repeated".

On the other hand, explains Roca Vernet, popular mobilizations in a democratic framework, however many limitations this framework may have, do not have the same path as in a period where there was no democracy. "When the citizenry did not have formal channels to express their discontent, the street was the final resort," says Roca Vernet. Another difference, as Risques details, is that in a democracy, the police do have to answer for disproportionate actions.

From the street to the networks

Technology has also transformed coordination dynamics. As Castellà recalls, the mobilizations of the 18th and 19th centuries were not spontaneous: markets, taverns, workshops, spaces of popular sociability, associations, and neighborhood networks were fundamental for transmitting information, sharing grievances, and generating complicity. Rumors, proclamations, printed leaflets, and an increasingly influential political press also played an important role. Unions provided permanent structures, coordination mechanisms, strike funds, and negotiation capacity. This allowed for sustaining mobilizations over prolonged periods and articulating demands that went beyond a single neighborhood.

Digital social networks have transformed the speed of calls to action. "A mobilization can spread in a matter of hours and fill a street, but speed does not necessarily equate to greater transformative capacity if the struggle cannot be sustained over time," states Castellà.

In short, the history of Barcelona's revolts does not show a linear evolution or an innate inclination of the city to build barricades or burn dumpsters, but rather the persistence of a historical struggle that still continues: who has the power to decide and how citizens can intervene in matters that affect their lives in many aspects.

The La Canadenca strike, which at the time generated a very intense social confrontation, is today remembered as a milestone in the history of labor rights. "Many mobilizations that we remember today as social achievements were perceived, at the time, as a threat by a part of society. History also teaches us that the legitimacy of a protest is disputed in the present and reinterpreted from the future," says Castellà.