On February 14 and 15, the Constitutive Congress of the Aragon Federation of Collectives took place in Caspe, a small town in the province of Saragossa which had been freed of the fascists by forces coming from Catalonia. Each of these comarcal cantonal federations represented from 3 to 36 villages of greater or lesser importance.
We have the complete list of these villages, totalling The number of member families was , But at the time, collectivism was a reality and in full swing. So much so that very soon after many more collectives added their names to this first list. Furthermore, the existing ones witnessed a rapid increase in their resources.
For example at that congress the canton of Mas de las Matas comprised 19 villages of which only the head village was completely collectivised, but at a plenum held three months later the other 18 were too. The canton of Angues accounted for 36 collectives at the Congress of Caspe, whereas at the following plenum the number had risen to In the same period, the number of federated collectives in the canton of Barbastro had gone up from 31 to The development was so rapid that in the time needed to print the latest statistics, those figures had been exceeded.
It is worth pointing out that this movement was expanding rapidly in spite of the difficulties created by the war: in some cases, such as Granen, Amsa, Pina de Ebro, the Front was only a few miles away, and large numbers of our militants were engaged in the armed forces.
One cannot but admire the sense of organisation and solidarity shown by the Aragon libertarian collectives from the beginning. The following are the practical decisions that were taken at the end of the discussions, the range of which can well be imagined:. A ration book to be issued which will be valid for all collectivists. Then the traditional geographic-administrative limits were modified on the basis of the needs of the revolution and the logic of a social economy opposed to the arbitrary and capricious carving up by the historic State.
