Although the revolution didn't go as far in the cities as it did in the country, many achievements are worth noting. It was in Catalonia, the industrial heartland and stronghold of the CNT, that most was gained. In Barcelona over 3,000 enterprises were collectivised. All the public services, not only in Catalonia but throughout the Republican zone, were taken over and run by committees of workers.
To give some idea of the extent of the collectivisation here is a list provided by one observer (Burnett Bolloten, The Grand Camouflage by no means an anarchist book). He says "railways, traincars and buses, taxicabs and shipping, electric light and power companies, gasworks and waterworks, engineering and automobile assembly plants, mines and cement works, textile mills and paper factories, electrical and chemical concerns, glass bottle factories and perfumeries, food processing plants and breweries were confiscated and controlled by workmens's (sic) committees, either term possessing for the owners almost equal significance". He goes on "motion picture theatres and legitimate theatres, newspapers and printing, shops, department stores and hotels, de-lux restaurants and bars were likewise sequestered".
This shows clearly that the portrayal of anarchism as being something to do with quaint small workshops is untrue. Large factories, some of them employing thousands of workers, were taken over and run by workers' committees.
Often the workplaces were siezed because the owners had fled or had stopped production to sabotage the revolution. But the workers did not stop with these workplaces all major places of work were taken over. Some were run and controlled by the workers. In others "control committees" were established to ensure that production was maintained (these existed to exercise a power of veto on the decisions of the boss in cases where the workers had not taken over the power of management).
