BARCELONA — The Catalan pro-independence movement has swung into gear ahead of a referendum planned for October — from a massive street demonstration in Barcelona to leaflet drops in every corner of the region.

The campaign to keep Catalonia in Spain, on the other hand, is small and fractured, struggling to unite behind a single message or leader. Those who do speak up say the fierce backlash they feel shows how hard it is to debate possible secession from Spain.

“If you’re not in favor of independence, you’re a traitor and a fascist; that’s the least they call you,” said Josep Borrell, a former candidate for prime minister for Spain’s Socialists. “You probably won't notice anything in Barcelona, but if you go to a small village in the interior and you’re not pro-independence, you’d better shut up.”

Pro-independence forces keep using “absolutely false” reasoning, added Josep Piqué, a former minister and ex-leader of the center-right Catalan Popular Party, whose national branch holds power in Madrid. As the dictatorship of Francisco Franco repressed Catalan language and culture, everyone who opposes independence is labeled a Franco supporter, he said. “We need to keep insisting that the analogy between anti-independence [views] and Francoism doesn’t have anything to do with reality.”

Catalan nationalists point out that both sides are on the attack in this campaign, and note that the central authorities in Madrid retain a powerful voice by vowing the stop the referendum by all legal means. The vote was announced by Carles Puigdemont's regional government for October 1 over Spain's objections.

But the nationalists' success in branding people who oppose them as "right-wing" or worse works too. It's helped marginalize anti-independence groups that can claim to speak for around half the Catalan population, to look at recent polls. And it's kept them divided, for example by helping keep Catalonia's left from joining the common unionist front.

'Silent majority'

Back in March, a handful of students at the Autonomous University of Barcelona set up a tent on campus to promote their organization, Societat Civil Catalana (SCC), and encourage fellow students to protest against the Catalan government's secession plans.

Things didn't work out as they'd hoped. A much larger group of students, several dozen strong, greeted the SCC supporters that day, surrounding them and shouting “fascists out of the university.” The Spanish flag flying on top of the tent was taken down and set on fire.

The experience was “frustrating” and embarrassing, said Laura Casado, a 20-year-old languages student from Sabadell (on the outskirts of Barcelona), who was among the unionist supporters. She said she was drawn to the group by its political diversity — SCC has gathered support from both left and right.

"It’s a bit shocking,” she said. “We [the women] were mocked as being Barbies and they say we go after the boys in our group.” Casado and other students left the square escorted by security guards while the crowd booed and jeered.

The anti-independence forces come in different shapes, showing why the movement has stayed divided.

They didn't get to hand out many flyers. They rarely do. They complain that every action that pro-Spain students at the university have staged has been sabotaged.

Societat Civil Catalana was formed in 2014 to give voice to “the silent majority,” said Alex Ramos, the vice president of the organization. “All those people who feel themselves both Catalan and Spanish … and who felt helpless in the face of the secessionist movement.” The group says around 18,000 people have backed its pledge calling “on all Catalans to mobilize for an open Catalonia in a Spain that belongs to all of us.”

The SCC is the largest of a number of groups that opposes Catalan independence. The secessionist movement gained momentum in 2012, in part following the creation of the Catalan National Assembly (the biggest civil society group in support of secession) and the first mass demonstration in Barcelona in support of independence. The new anti-independence groups include the business collective Empresaris de Catalunya, journalists' association Pi i Margall, and lawyers’ group Llibertats — none of which is more than three years old.

“When the [independence] process started … there was some sort of skepticism from those of us who weren’t pro-independence, something like … they can’t be serious about it … this can’t be true,” said Carlos Rivadulla, vice president of Empresaris de Catalunya. “Our friends had joined this sort of collective emotional wave and it was hard for us to react until … we started to organize ourselves.”

Catalan society is split on independence. The latest figures from the Centre d'Estudis d'Opinió — founded by the Catalan government — put independence supporters at 44.3 percent and those against splitting from Spain 48.5 percent.

Those figures aside, it is pro-independence groups and political parties who have been able to put millions of people on the streets in support of their cause. Public expressions of support for the unity of the country have been modest.

“The silence is being broken little by little,” said former prime ministerial candidate Borrell. “It’s not the same psychological attitude," he added, contrasting the independence militants with those who want to stay in Spain. "It’s not the same motivation. Some have boundless enthusiasm and the others simply not.”

The lack of a powerful backlash against secessionism “doesn’t mean that the majority of Catalan society is pro-independence, but that it isn’t hostile to independence,” said Lluis Rabell, the speaker in the Catalan parliament for the leftist political alliance Catalunya Sí que es Pot (Catalonia Yes We Can), which includes the regional branch of the far-left Podemos. “These are two completely different things.”

The anti-independence forces come in different shapes, showing why the movement has stayed divided.

Some groups who don't necessarily support a break haven’t made up their mind about independence or even about whether to support the October referendum. That's the case with Catalonia Yes We Can. The Socialists oppose the breakup of the country and the decision to hold an independence vote but support greater autonomy for Catalonia. And then there are the liberal Ciudadanos and the conservative Popular Party who haven't taken a clear stance on whether Catalonia should be given more autonomy.

Peaceful, mostly

While the Catalan independence movement has always prided itself on non-violence — in contrast with the Basque terrorist group ETA over the decades — a small number of people have crossed the line.

The offices of political groups who oppose a split have been plastered with graffiti and feces. In the city of Lleida, posters were put up with unionist politicians declared “enemies of the people.”

“The [independence] process has created a divide in Catalan society” — Angel Ros, socialist mayor of Lleida

“Rarely a week goes by without being insulted in the street,” said Miguel García, a local councilor for the liberal, pro-unity Ciudadanos in the city of Hospitalet, who prides himself on wearing shirts decorated with a small Spanish flag. “Sitting in a restaurant, for example, and being told ‘fascist … get out of Catalonia’, that’s pretty common,” said García, who was assaulted in 2016 while distributing Ciudadanos flyers in the street.

Both sides downplay these incidents, and some pro-independence organizations have also been the target of attacks. “We shouldn’t exaggerate these sort of disgraceful and extremist incidents,” said the leftist Rabell, one of the politicians labeled “enemies of the people” in Lleida.

"The [independence] process has created a divide in Catalan society," said Angel Ros, the socialist mayor of Lleida. "That didn't exist in the past."