💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › george-orwell-spilling-the-spanish-beans.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 10:38:15. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: Spilling the Spanish beans
Author: George Orwell
Date: 1937
Language: en
Topics: Spanish Revolution, Spanish Civil War, not anarchist
Source: https://libcom.org/library/spilling-the-spanish-beans-george-orwell

George Orwell

Spilling the Spanish beans

The Spanish war has probably produced a richer crop of lies than any

event since the Great War of 1914-18, but I honestly doubt, in spite of

all those hecatombs of nuns who have been raped and crucified before the

eyes of Daily Mail reporters, whether it is the pro-Fascist newspapers

that have done the most harm. It is the left-wing papers, the News

Chronicle and the Daily Worker, with their far subtler methods of

distortion, that have prevented the British public from grasping the

real nature of the struggle.

The fact which these papers have so carefully obscured is that the

Spanish Government (including the semi-autonomous Catalan Government) is

far more afraid of the revolution than of the Fascists. It is now almost

certain that the war will end with some kind of compromise, and there is

even reason to doubt whether the Government, which let Bilbao fail

without raising a finger, wishes to be too victorious; but there is no

doubt whatever about the thoroughness with which it is crushing its own

revolutionaries. For some time past a reign of terror — forcible

suppression of political parties, a stifling censorship of the press,

ceaseless espionage and mass imprisonment without trial — has been in

progress. When I left Barcelona in late June the jails were bulging;

indeed, the regular jails had long since overflowed and the prisoners

were being huddled into empty shops and any other temporary dump that

could be found for them. But the point to notice is that the people who

are in prison now are not Fascists but revolutionaries; they are there

not because their opinions are too much to the Right, but because they

are too much to the Left. And the people responsible for putting them

there are those dreadful revolutionaries at whose very name Garvin

quakes in his galoshes — the Communists.

Meanwhile the war against Franco continues, but, except for the poor

devils in the front-line trenches, nobody in Government Spain thinks of

it as the real war. The real struggle is between revolution and

counter-revolution; between the workers who are vainly trying to hold on

to a little of what they won in 1936, and the Liberal-Communist bloc who

are so successfully taking it away from them. It is unfortunate that so

few people in England have yet caught up with the fact that Communism is

now a counter-revolutionary force; that Communists everywhere are in

alliance with bourgeois reformism and using the whole of their powerful

machinery to crush or discredit any party that shows signs of

revolutionary tendencies. Hence the grotesque spectacle of Communists

assailed as wicked ‘Reds’ by right-wing intellectuals who are in

essential agreement with them. Mr Wyndham Lewis, for instance, ought to

love the Communists, at least temporarily. In Spain the

Communist-Liberal alliance has been almost completely victorious. Of all

that the Spanish workers won for themselves in 1936 nothing solid

remains, except for a few collective farms and a certain amount of land

seized by the peasants last year; and presumably even the peasants will

be sacrificed later, when there is no longer any need to placate them.

To see how the present situation arose, one has got to look back to the

origins of the civil war.

Franco's bid for power differed from those of Hitler and Mussolini in

that it was a military insurrection, comparable to a foreign invasion,

and therefore had not much mass backing, though Franco has since been

trying to acquire one. Its chief supporters, apart from certain sections

of Big Business, were the land-owning aristocracy and the huge,

parasitic Church. Obviously a rising of this kind will array against it

various forces which are not in agreement on any other point. The

peasant and the worker hate feudalism and clericalism; but so does the

‘liberal’ bourgeois, who is not in the least opposed to a more modern

version of Fascism, at least so long as it isn't called Fascism. The

‘liberal’ bourgeois is genuinely liberal up to the point where his own

interests stop. He stands for the degree of progress implied in the

phrase ‘la carrière ouverte aux talents’. For clearly he has no chance

to develop in a feudal society where the worker and the peasant are too

poor to buy goods, where industry is burdened with huge taxes to pay for

bishops’ vestments, and where every lucrative job is given as a matter

of course to the friend of the catamite of the duke's illegitimate son.

Hence, in the face of such a blatant reactionary as Franco, you get for

a while a situation in which the worker and the bourgeois, in reality

deadly enemies, are fighting side by side. This uneasy alliance is known

as the Popular Front (or, in the Communist press, to give it a

spuriously democratic appeal, People's Front). It is a combination with

about as much vitality, and about as much right to exist, as a pig with

two heads or some other Barnum and Bailey monstrosity.

In any serious emergency the contradiction implied in the Popular Front

is bound to make itself felt. For even when the worker and the bourgeois

are both fighting against Fascism, they are not fighting for the same

things; the bourgeois is fighting for bourgeois democracy, i.e.

capitalism, the worker, in so far as he understands the issue, for

Socialism. And in the early days of the revolution the Spanish workers

understood the issue very well. In the areas where Fascism was defeated

they did not content themselves with driving the rebellious troops out

of the towns; they also took the opportunity of seizing land and

factories and setting up the rough beginnings of a workers’ government

by means of local committees, workers’ militias, police forces, and so

forth. They made the mistake, however (possibly because most of the

active revolutionaries were Anarchists with a mistrust of all

parliaments), of leaving the Republican Government in nominal control.

And, in spite of various changes in personnel, every subsequent

Government had been of approximately the same bourgeois-reformist

character. At the beginning this seemed not to matter, because the

Government, especially in Catalonia, was almost powerless and the

bourgeoisie had to lie low or even (this was still happening when I

reached Spain in December) to disguise themselves as workers. Later, as

power slipped from the hands of the Anarchists into the hands of the

Communists and right-wing Socialists, the Government was able to

reassert itself, the bourgeoisie came out of hiding and the old division

of society into rich and poor reappeared, not much modified.

Henceforward every move, except a few dictated by military emergency,

was directed towards undoing the work of the first few months of

revolution. Out of the many illustrations I could choose, I will cite

only one, the breaking-up of the old workers’ militias, which were

organized on a genuinely democratic system, with officers and men

receiving the same pay and mingling on terms of complete equality, and

the substitution of the Popular Army (once again, in Communist jargon,

‘People's Army’), modelled as far as possible on an ordinary bourgeois

army, with a privileged officer-caste, immense differences of pay, etc.

etc. Needless to say, this is given out as a military necessity, and

almost certainly it does make for military efficiency, at least for a

short period. But the undoubted purpose of the change was to strike a

blow at equalitarianism. In every department the same policy has been

followed, with the result that only a year after the outbreak of war and

revolution you get what is in effect an ordinary bourgeois State, with,

in addition, a reign of terror to preserve the status quo.

This process would probably have gone less far if the struggle could

have taken place without foreign interference. But the military weakness

of the Government made this impossible. In the face of France's foreign

mercenaries they were obliged to turn to Russia for help, and though the

quantity of arms sup- plied by Russia has been greatly exaggerated (in

my first three months in Spain I saw only one Russian weapon, a solitary

machine-gun), the mere fact of their arrival brought the Communists into

power. To begin with, the Russian aeroplanes and guns, and the good

military qualities of the international Brigades (not necessarily

Communist but under Communist control), immensely raised the Communist

prestige. But, more important, since Russia and Mexico were the only

countries openly supplying arms, the Russians were able not only to get

money for their weapons, but to extort terms as well. Put in their

crudest form, the terms were: ‘Crush the revolution or you get no more

arms.’ The reason usually given for the Russian attitude is that if

Russia appeared to be abetting the revolution, the Franco-Soviet pact

(and the hoped-for alliance with Great Britain) would be imperilled; it

may be, also, that the spectacle of a genuine revolution in Spain would

rouse unwanted echoes in Russia. The Communists, of course, deny that

any direct pressure has been exerted by the Russian Government. But

this, even if true, is hardly relevant, for the Communist Parties of all

countries can be taken as carrying out Russian policy; and it is certain

that the Spanish Communist Party, plus the right-wing Socialists whom

they control, plus the Communist press of the whole world, have used all

their immense and ever-increasing influence upon the side of

counter-revolution.

In the first half of this article I suggested that the real struggle in

Spain, on the Government side, has been between revolution and

counter-revolution; that the Government, though anxious enough to avoid

being beaten by Franco, has been even more anxious to undo the

revolutionary changes with which the outbreak of war was accompanied.

Any Communist would reject this suggestion as mistaken or wilfully

dishonest. He would tell you that it is nonsense to talk of the Spanish

Government crushing the revolution, because the revolution never

happened; and that our job at present is to defeat Fascism and defend

democracy. And in this connexion it is most important to see just how

the Communist anti-revolutionary propaganda works. It is a mistake to

think that this has no relevance in England, where the Communist Party

is small and comparatively weak. We shall see its relevance quickly

enough if England enters into an alliance with the U.S.S.R.; or perhaps

even earlier, for the influence of the Communist Party is bound to

increase — visibly is increasing — as more and more of the capitalist

class realize that latter-day Communism is playing their game.

Broadly speaking, Communist propaganda depends upon terrifying people

with the (quite real) horrors of Fascism. It also involves pretending —

not in so many words, but by implication — that Fascism has nothing to

do with capitalism. Fascism is just a kind of meaningless wickedness, an

aberration, ‘mass sadism’, the sort of thing that would happen if you

suddenly let loose an asylumful of homicidal maniacs. Present Fascism in

this form, and you can mobilize public opinion against it, at any rate

for a while, without provoking any revolutionary movement. You can

oppose Fascism by bourgeois ‘democracy, meaning capitalism. But

meanwhile you have got to get rid of the troublesome person who points

out that Fascism and bourgeois ‘democracy’ are Tweedledum and

Tweedledee. You do it at the beginning by calling him an impracticable

visionary. You tell him that he is confusing the issue, that he is

splitting the anti-Fascist forces, that this is not the moment for

revolutionary phrase-mongering, that for the moment we have got to fight

against Fascism without inquiring too closely what we are fighting for.

Later, if he still refuses to shut up, you change your tune and call him

a traitor. More exactly, you call him a Trotskyist.

And what is a Trotskyist? This terrible word — in Spain at this moment

you can be thrown into jail and kept there indefinitely, without trial,

on the mere rumour that you are a Trotskyist — is only beginning to be

bandied to and fro in England. We shall be hearing more of it later. The

word ‘Trotskyist’ (or ‘Trotsky-Fascist’) is generally used to mean a

disguised Fascist who poses as an ultra-revolutionary in order to split

the left-wing forces. But it derives its peculiar power from the fact

that it means three separate things. It can mean one who, like Trotsky,

wished for world revolution; or a member of the actual organization of

which Trotsky is head (the only legitimate use of the word); or the

disguised Fascist already mentioned. The three meanings can be

telescoped one into the other at will. Meaning No. 1 may or may not

carry with it meaning No. 2, and meaning No. 2 almost invariably carries

with it meaning No. 3. Thus: ‘XY has been heard to speak favourably of

world revolution; therefore he is a Trotskyist; therefore he is a

Fascist.’ In Spain, to some extent even in England, anyone professing

revolutionary Socialism (i.e. professing the things the Communist Party

professed until a few years ago) is under suspicion of being a

Trotskyist in the pay of Franco or Hitler.

The accusation is a very subtle one, because in any given case, unless

one happened to know the contrary, it might be true. A Fascist spy

probably would disguise himself as a revolutionary. In Spain, everyone

whose opinions are to the Left of those of the Communist Party is sooner

or later discovered to be a Trotskyist or, at least, a traitor. At the

beginning of the war the P.O.U.M., an opposition Communist party roughly

corresponding to the English I.L.P., was an accepted party and supplied

a minister to the Catalan Government, later it was expelled from the

Government; then it was denounced as Trotskyist; then it was suppressed,

every member that the police could lay their hands on being flung into

jail.

Until a few months ago the Anarcho-Syndicalists were described as

‘working loyally’ beside the Communists. Then the Anarcho-Syndicalists

were levered out of the Government; then it appeared that they were not

working so loyally; now they are in the process of becoming traitors.

After that will come the turn of the left-wing Socialists. Caballero,

the left-wing Socialist ex-premier, until May 1937 the idol of the

Communist press, is already in outer darkness, a Trotskyist and ‘enemy

of the people’. And so the game continues. The logical end is a régime

in which every opposition party and newspaper is suppressed and every

dissentient of any importance is in jail. Of course, such a régime will

be Fascism. It will not be the same as the fascism Franco would impose,

it will even be better than Franco's fascism to the extent of being

worth fighting for, but it will be Fascism. Only, being operated by

Communists and Liberals, it will be called something different.

Meanwhile, can the war be won? The Communist influence has been against

revolutionary chaos and has therefore, apart from the Russian aid,

tended to produce greater military efficiency. If the Anarchists saved

the Government from August to October 1936, the Communists have saved it

from October onwards. But in organizing the defence they have succeeded

in killing enthusiasm (inside Spain, not outside). They made a

militarized conscript army possible, but they also made it necessary. It

is significant that as early as January of this year voluntary

recruiting had practically ceased. A revolutionary army can sometimes

win by enthusiasm, but a conscript army has got to win with weapons, and

it is unlikely that the Government will ever have a large preponderance

of arms unless France intervenes or unless Germany and Italy decide to

make off with the Spanish colonies and leave Franco in the lurch. On the

whole, a deadlock seems the likeliest thing.

And does the Government seriously intend to win? It does not intend to

lose, that is certain. On the other hand, an outright victory, with

Franco in flight and the Germans and Italians driven into the sea, would

raise difficult problems, some of them too obvious to need mentioning.

There is no real evidence and one can only judge by the event, but I

suspect that what the Government is playing for is a compromise that

would leave the war situation essentially in being. All prophecies are

wrong, therefore this one will be wrong, but I will take a chance and

say that though the war may end quite soon or may drag on for years, it

will end with Spain divided up, either by actual frontiers or into

economic zones. Of course, such a compromise might be claimed as a

victory by either side, or by both.

All that I have said in this article would seem entirely commonplace in

Spain, or even in France. Yet in England, in spite of the intense

interest the Spanish war has aroused, there are very few people who have

even heard of the enormous struggle that is going on behind the

Government lines. Of course, this is no accident. There has been a quite

deliberate conspiracy (I could give detailed instances) to prevent the

Spanish situation from being understood. People who ought to know better

have lent themselves to the deception on the ground that if you tell the

truth about Spain it will be used as Fascist propaganda.

It is easy to see where such cowardice leads. If the British public had

been given a truthful account of the Spanish war they would have had an

opportunity of learning what Fascism is and how it can be combated. As

it is, the News Chronicle version of Fascism as a kind of homicidal

mania peculiar to Colonel Blimps bombinating in the economic void has

been established more firmly than ever. And thus we are one step nearer

to the great war ‘against Fascism’ (cf. 1914, ‘against militarism’)

which will allow Fascism, British variety, to be slipped over our necks

during the first week.