Tomás González Morago

Tomás González Morago (n/a-1885) was a notable Spanish anarchist. Morago, who was an engraver,[1] was also a prominent member of the labor organization Primera Internacional in Spain. Accounts cite him as the first and greatest of the Spanish anarchist movement.[2][3]

Tomás González Morago
Born
Madrid, Spain
Died1885
Granada, Spain
Occupation(s)Revolutionary, activist, engraver
Philosophy career
SchoolCollectivist anarchism

Biography

González Morago was the son of a Carlist in Andalusia.[3] He became drawn to anarchism due to his religious beliefs. In his view, it realized the teachings of the Gospel.[3] He is recognized for possessing brilliant qualities, prompting peers such as Ericco Malatesta to call him as the greatest Spanish anarchist.[3] However, he was described as unstable, spending days in bed with bouts of depression.[3]

Court documents showed that he was imprisoned by a district court in 1884 for forging bank notes.[4] González Morago died as a young man in a Granada prison in 1885.[5] An account stated that cholera was the cause of his death.[3]

Works

In Madrid, González Morago owned an engraving shop, which also served as location for political meetings. By 1865, he was active in the Casino or Artistic Athenaeum of Madrid. Three years later, he was associated with the Castillian republicanism and became a follower of Emilio Castelar.

Together with the typographer Anselmo Lorenzo and the shoemaker Francisco Mora, González Morago formed the nucleus of Madrid Federation, which was the local section of the Primera Internacional.[6] Morago used the Geneva Alliance (Revolutionary Socialist Alliance[5]) program as the basis for the group's propaganda.[7] He established Solidaridad, the group's publication, on January 15, 1879. This organ published González Morago's manifesto that resulted in the significant expansion of the federation in Spain.[7] In the manifesto, he cited the role of internationalists in exploiting workers. He identified these as individuals who have scant knowledge of the people they exploit but have the capital to benefit from the works of other human beings.[8]

González Morago was expelled from the International on May 30, 1873.[9] This decision was executed by the organization's General Council. González Morago was one of those who wanted to abolish the council after it expelled Mikhail Bakunin and James Guillaume without fair hearing.[10] Bakunin promoted the socialist democratic ideal and opposed the position adopted by the Primera Internacional Council, which was viewed by Spanish symphatizers as Marxists and authoritarian.[11] In a confrontation at the headquarters of the Madrid Federation, González Morago, who also opposed the Marxists theses of the Internacional,[12] countered the arguments of the so-called authoritarians leading to the expulsion of the Marxists by the Madrid Federation.[11] Along with Francesc Tomàs i Oliver, González Morago is considered instrumental in the spread of Bakunin's ideas in the Iberian peninsula.

References
  1. Esenwein, George Richard (1989). Anarchist Ideology and the Working-class Movement in Spain, 1868-1898. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. p. 72. ISBN 0-520-06398-8.
  2. Rapoport, David C. (2006). Terrorism: The first or anarchist wave, Volume I. Oxon: Taylor & Francis. p. 180. ISBN 0-415-31651-0.
  3. Brenan, Gerald (2014). The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Spanish Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 227. ISBN 978-1-107-43175-1.
  4. Supremo, Spain Tribunal (1885). Sentencias del Tribunal Supremo en materia criminal (in Spanish). Madrid: Impr. del Ministerio de Gracia y Justicia. p. 1188.
  5. Paz, Abel (2011). The Story of the Iron Column: Militant Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War. Oakland, CA: AK Press. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-84935-064-8.
  6. Kaplan, Temma (1977). Anarchists of Andalusia, 1868–1903. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-4008-6971-8.
  7. Eckhardt, Wolfgang (2016). The First Socialist Schism: Bakunin vs. Marx in the International Working Men's Association. Oakland, CA: PM Press. pp. xiv. ISBN 978-1-62963-042-7.
  8. Piqueras, José A.; Sanz-Rozalén, Vicent (2007). A Social History of Spanish Labour: New Perspectives on Class, Politics, and Gender. New York, NY: Berghahn Books. pp. 31–32. ISBN 978-1-84545-296-4.
  9. Association (1864-1876), International Workingmen's (1964). Documents of the First International: The General Council of the First International, 1871-1872. Minutes. London: Lawrence & Wishart. p. 607.
  10. Graham, Robert (2015). We Do Not Fear Anarchy—We Invoke It: The First International and the Origins of the Anarchist Movement. AK Press. ISBN 978-1-84935-211-6.
  11. Montagut, Eduardo (March 2, 2016). "La Nueva Federación Madrileña en el origen del PSOE". Nuevatribuna (in Spanish). Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  12. Casas, Juan Gómez (1986). Anarchist Organisation: The History of the F.A.I. Black Rose Books. p. 34. ISBN 978-0-920057-38-4.
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