The founding documents of the IWW were ratified using a delegate system, and delegates were used by revolutionary Catalonia to treaty with the Stalin-backed Spanish Republican government. In the latter case, the Soviet-leaning representatives offered the anarchist delegates power and significant concessions if they would compromise significant aspects of their revolution, mistaking them for fellow politicians.

The Republicans were shocked to learn that any agreements made by the delegates had to be ratified by the revolutionary assemblies to be binding; and even if they were personally tempted to accept their bribes, they were structurally incapable of this kind of corruption.

While a delegate system may not meet some people’s definition of anarchist organization, it is clearly an improvement over ‘representative’ democracy. The revolutionary system was so threatening to the Spanish social order that the republicans viewed the anarchists as a greater threat than even the fascists, and wasted precious resources while losing to Franco in order to purge anarchists from their zones of control.