After years of hegemonic struggle, the outbreak of civil war in July 1936 finally gave “smoke-darkened” Gijón the opportunity, albeit briefly, to wrest power from the hands of the elites and embark on a revolutionary experiment in popular empowerment. The experiment was constrained by political infighting, by the exigencies of the war and by lack of resources. Aborted before it reached maturity and crippled by problems outside local control, it is impossible to predict how it would have continued to evolve. What is clear, however, is that the aspirations of the regime echoed those articulated over several decades of mobilization by a variety of popular groups and organizations. The revolution that unfolded contained elements of anarchism, socialism, republicanism and even communism, but what seemed to drive it was not any specific ideology but the familiar struggle for community empowerment and the little man's/woman's right to equal citizenship and a decent life. From this perspective, the political experiment of 1936–1937 was both the culmination of and the response to a long tradition of popular mobilization.

Taking the lead in this experiment was the CNT, whose rhetoric of polarization captured the mood of a city and country at war with itself. Once the military uprising opened the floodgates of political change, the already weak republican legitimacy collapsed and the more powerful leftist forces pushed forward with their urgent vision of change. De facto power shifted immediately, when the trade unions organized the physical defense of the city from the military rebels, and even after the surrender of the rebels on August 21st, the republicans never regained more than an auxiliary status in the regime.