Haven't given that up, eh? Have you checked out my blog? Here it is. I was reading Reform or Revolution and Other Essay's By Rosa Luxemborg, which is a great book. Albeit, she does criticize Lenin, but all-in-all, it's not too bad.
We did have organization way before the civil war, Bakunin writes of this. Albeit we didn't have a vanguard. We weren't led by any intelligentsia and not one organization tried to steer the revolution in any particular way.
"I don't need a Vanguard."
Lol! I thought the Syndicalist believed in Vanguardism. Well the CNT, to my knowledge, followed Vanguardism. Although their idea of a Vanguard wasn't a Bureaucracy, rather a union of workers.