The rural collectivization initiated by anarchists also received wide expansion within the Republic. Unlike in the USSR, it had not been caused by governmental pressure upon the peasantry. In some cases the majority of peasants forced minority to collectivization, in the other cases individual farms were preserved. Sometimes the radical anarchist detachments compelled most peasants to join collective farms, but CNT and leaders of anarcho-syndicalists opposed it. The general support for collectivization and its voluntary character for the majority of peasants were also confirmed by the fact that after defeat of anarcho-syndicalists in the conflict with communists in May-August, 1937, when anarchists had already no opportunity to lay violent hands on their opponents, the mass movement of agrarian collectives continued and even extended. As a whole, the collectivization produced a good effect on a nationwide scale as well. In spring 1937 the food situation noticeably improved, the cropland acres were extended which was admitted even by the opponents of anarchists. Successes and failures of particular collectives depended on their leaders, but as a whole, the movement which liquidated a tax burden without prior arrangements, latifundium system and small-scale crofting agriculture demonstrated its sustainability.
From September 1936 till May 1937 the F. Largo Caballero government of the Republic promoted deep social transformations. The anarcho-syndicalists participated in it since November and therefore it was not just a government of the People’s Front, but of a wide anti-fascist coalition. The activity of anarchist ministers in the government did not basically have just any specifically anarchical, but all-democratic character and fitted in the framework of the social state. While CNT was in the government, the opponents of anarcho-syndicalist social and economical experiment could not develop a serious attack against the industrial democracy sector. As soon as CNT left the government, they launched an attack which resulted in the essential curtailing of the social revolution. The presence of CNT in the government was a condition for preservation of those revolutionary achievements which had been reached in autumn of 1936. After syndicalists had joined the government of Spain, they conducted relatively pluralist economic policy which was supported by Largo Caballero and in fact became the basis of the social and economic line of the cabinet, as a whole.
During the Largo Caballero governance the military construction of the Republic was based on a combination of militia principles at a level of divisions and those of regularity at a level of units. That combination didn’t insure the Republic against a defeat in Malaga, but enabled to defend Madrid and to win the Italian corps near Guadalajara. The Negrin-Prieto government began to destroy the militia system, but didn’t gain a victory in the war. The decline in soldiers’ enthusiasm and growth of caste as well as a lack of control over officers contributed to the decrease in combat proficiency of the republican army in the second half 1937 and its defeats. Toppling of Largo Caballero frustrated the preparation of operation in Extremadura which could force the war from the positional phase which was fatal for the Republic.