George Woodcock (1912-1995) was a historian, political biographer, essayist, poet, and anarchist. He wrote biographies of such anarchist thinkers as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Godwin, Oscar Wilde, and Peter Kropotkin. Throughout his life, Woodcock was given numerous awards for his work, but he refused several awards from the government of Canada on the grounds that he only accepted awards granted by his peers.

In this chapter, Woodcock recounts the most successful anarchist experiment of the twentieth century: Revolutionary Catalonia in Spain from 1936 to 1939. The anarchists successfully collectivized agricultural, factory work, and municipal jobs, leading in almost every case to increased productivity and happier people. But similar to Ukraine following the Russian Revolution, the Spanish anarchist society was brought down by outside forces, principally the Spanish communist party and the fascists.