TOMÀS OLIVER, Francisco.
Mallorca 1850-Madrid 1903.

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Biographical/historical notes:

Francisco Oliver Tomás.
Bricklayer who did crucial work during the 1870s to advance the International in Spain, especially in organisational terms. An example of proletarian militancy of an anti-marxist stamp, he was the founder of the International in the Balearics and director of both its newspapers (El Obrero and La Revolución).

His activity came to prominence at the labor congress in 1870 which he attended and at which he championed anarchist theses; at the 1872 congress in Zaragoza he adopted a more moderate line on the social organisation of the workers (and his line carried the day) and he came away as an elected member of the federal council (representing the Este comarca); he was also at the congress in Córdoba and again appointed to the federal commission (as secretary for external affairs, and he took Ferrer’s place when he stepped down).

In the ensuing years he remained the axis of the FRE both in its underground as well as in its legal years (we know for certain that he was retained on the federal commission at the conferences in 1875-77, that he attended the Barcelona extra-ordinary conference in 1881 - representing Valencia - was reelected at the 1883 congress in Seville, was present at the congress of the Unión Manufacturera of Igualada in 1883 - at which he spoke out in favour of solidarity with the victims of reprisals in Jérez and was astoundingly competent.)

Around 1884 he must have had problems with the Barcelona comrades and he moved to Madrid without abandoning his activity, because even though it is argued that he steered clear of social issues in 1885-86, he certainly attended the Pacto congress (in Madrid, 1891) and in 1900 the Madrid association of which he was a member (El Porvenir del Obrero) sponsored the holding of a congress in 1900; again, in 1901 we find Tomás among the delegates to the congress of the FSORE, or new FTRE, in Madrid.

A man of great capability, he was a prominent representative of the collectivist line, opposed to both marxists and anarcho-communists (putting up quite a fight against the latter, especially at the congress in Seville in 1882, with help from Llunas). Unlike other anarchists, he could see the need for an efficient bureaucracy and preferred a lawful federation over a clandestine one. He wrote for the labour press (Revista Nueva, Bulletin du Jura, etc.) and is credited with authorship of the first history of Spanish anarchism, Del nacimiento de las ideas anarcocolectivistas en España (La Coruña 1893 and serialised in the press nine years earlier).

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Source: A Historical Encyclopaedia of Spanish Anarchism, by Miguel Iñiguez
Online, one of 400+ entries (192 pages of extracts), at Christie Books Archives, see
http://www.christiebooks.com/html/history/archives3.html

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