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Title: The Tragedy of Spain Author: Rudolf Rocker Date: 1937 Language: en Topics: Spain 1936 Source: Retrieved on April 26, 2009 from http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/ANARCHIST_ARCHIVES/coldoffthepresses/tragedy.html Notes: Printed by Freie Arbeiter Stimme, 45 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y., October, 1937
July 19^(th) was the anniversary of the day on which a gang of
militarist adventurers rose against the republican regime in Spain and,
with the assistance of outside powers and foreign troops, plunged the
country into a bloody war. This murderous war has thus far devoured
nearly a million human lives, among them thousands of women and
children, and has transformed wide stretches of the country into desert
wastes. The profound tragedy of this bloody drama lies in the fact that
it is not just an ordinary civil war, but a struggle, as well, between
two different foreign power-groups that is being waged today on Spanish
soil. Two hostile imperialist camps are struggling for the natural
resources of a foreign country and the strategic advantage of its
coasts. The prosecution of this war is, moreover, having an unmistakable
influence on the struggle of the Spanish people for freedom, and this
influence is today constantly manifesting itself more clearly in the
intestine warfare between the revolutionary and the
counter-revolutionary forces of the country.
One cannot understand the significance of these occurrences at all
unless one takes sufficiently into account the powerful influence of the
foreign capital that is invested in Spain. Here is the key to the
attitude of England and France and their so-called âpolicy of
neutrality,â and at the same time the explanation of the ambiguous role
which the government of Soviet Russia has played from the beginning, and
still plays in the bloody tragedy of the Spanish people.
A point of decisive importance lies in the relation between Spanish
agriculture and the industries of the country. So far as the ownership
of the land is concerned, the soil of the country was before the
revolution almost exclusively in the hands of Spanish owners, although
the conditions in individual sections of the country were very
different. In many provinces, especially in the north, small landowners
constitute the overwhelming majority of the population; in others, in
the Levante, for example, and in Catalonia, the soil is worked by small
tenant farmers who have no proprietary rights in it; while in Andalusia
and Estramadura the whole countryside belongs to a few large landowners,
who operate it with hired labor.
In industry, however, a very different condition prevails. While retail
trade and the small industries are found chiefly in the hands of
Spaniards, the large industries and the most important commercial
enterprises of the country are almost without exception controlled by
outside capital, English capital being most strongly represented.
English capital is very extensively interested in the rich iron mines in
the vicinity of Bilbao, even where the mines are nominally in the
possession of Spanish owners. The very rich iron mining district of
Orconera is almost completely under the control of English capitalists;
the same is true in numerous other iron regions, especially in the iron
works of Desirto. The greater part of the dock facilities at Bilbao is
owned by English capitalists; likewise the railways which carry the ores
to the coast. English ship lines complete the connection between England
and the Basque iron fields. Spanish iron plays a tremendous part in
Englandâs present rearmament program. And it is a fact that from the
outbreak of the Fascist revolt till the fall of Bilbao the export of
iron from there went to England exclusively.
Another important factor in Spanish mining is the English Rio Tinto
Company, which exploits the richest copper mines in Spain, in the Huelva
province. The home office of this company, which commands a capital of
ÂŁ3,750,000, is in London. Its president is Sir Auckland C. Geddes. The
company was founded in 1873, and its concession from the Spanish
government has no time limit. It has issued 450,000 shares of common,
and 350,000 of preferred stock, representing altogether a million and a
third pounds sterling. The Rio Tinto Company also owns rich sulphur and
iron mines. Of the 540,000 tons of copper which Spain produces on the
average every year, by far the largest part comes from the Huelva field.
In August, 1936, this district fell into the possession of the rebels;
but the Burgos junta hastened to assure the Rio Tinto Company by a
special decree, that its rights would not be infringed and that the
copper which the Fascist army required for military purposes would be
paid for at the average market price.
Among the owners of the Rio Tinto Company we find the House of
Rothschild, which is interested, besides, in numerous other large
industrial enterprises in Spain, for example, in various railway lines,
of which the most important is the Madrid-Zaragoza line. But the
Rothschild family is very especially interested in the rich quicksilver
mines of Almaden in the province of Ciudad Real, with which there is
nothing to compare in the whole world. Spain is known as the worldâs
largest producer of quicksilver, while Italy holds second, and the
United States, third place. In 1934 Spain produced 1160 tons of this
precious stuff; America only 532 tons. Quicksilver is one of the most
indispensable requirements for warfare. One can understand, therefore,
why foreign powers take such a great interest in Spain.
English capital is also prominently interested in the Spanish aluminum
industry and in a whole series of industrial undertakings in Spanish
railway building and machine construction. The well-known firm of
Vickers-Armstrong is heavily interested in the âSociedad Española de
ConstrucciĂłn Navalâ (Spanish Naval Construction Company), in the
âInternational Paint Company,â and in Spanish war industry. With these
facts before his eyes one understands why the London city press has from
the first displayed outspoken sympathy for the bloody enterprise of the
Spanish military camarilla.
Another powerful factor in Spanish industrial life is the âSociĂ©tĂ©
MinĂšrere et MĂ©tallurgique de Peñarroyaâ (Mining and Metallurgical
Company of Peñarroya), which has its home office in Paris and commands a
capital of 309,375,000 francs. This company was founded in 1881, and its
concession from the Spanish government runs until 2003. The president of
the company is Charles Emile Heurteau, known as one of the leading men
in the capitalist Mirabaud group and closely associated with French war
industry. Its managers are Frédéric Ledoux, interested in a long series
of Spanish industrial enterprises, and Dr. Aufschlager, one of the
best-known representatives of the German armament industry. On the board
of directors of this organization are found a number of well known big
European financial figures: Pierre Mirabaud, former manager of the Bank
of France, Baron Robert Rothschild, Charles Cahen, brother-in-law of
Baron Antony de Rothschild, Humbert de Wendel, director of the âBanque
de lâUnion Parisienneâ and the international Suez Canal Company, the
Italian, Count Errico San Martino di Valperga, and the two Spaniards,
Count Ramonones and Marquis Villamejor, who are among the richest men in
Spain.
The company has a monopoly on the operation of numerous mines and the
industries connected with them and is especially heavily interested in
the Spanish lead industry. Its name acquired ill-repute during the World
War when it became known through an interpellation in the French Chamber
that all the lead produced in Peñarroya was reserved for the German
government, although the companyâs most prominent representatives were
good French patriots. But business is business.
This is only a short extract from a long list of the interests of
outside capital in Spain. There are a whole lot more of them. Thus, it
is generally known that the telephone exchange at Madrid is in the hands
of an American company, while the Barcelona telephone system is under
the control of British shareholders. But it would take too long
completely to exhaust this important subject. We are only concerned to
show that it is necessary to put a proper valuation on the powerful
influence of the foreign capital invested in Spain, if one wishes to get
a clear picture of recent events in that unhappy country.
It is self-evident that the representatives of foreign big capital must
be keenly interested in the political developments in the Spanish
situation. And here is found the answer to the question: Who has been
providing the mutinous generals, who commanded no resources of their
own, with the necessary financial means to keep their bloody crime
against their own people going? Señor Juan March, the richest man in
Spain, though he is in closest touch with foreign capital, would not
have been able to do this alone. Everyone who was informed at all about
internal conditions in Spain knew from the first where the money came
from. It was no secret that the foreign managers of capital invested in
Spain had every interest in supporting the conspiracy of the generals in
order to put down the revolutionary labor movement of the country, which
was spreading more and more vigorously, and which might endanger their
Spanish monopolies. Of course it did not matter to these men who
governed in Spain. They were interested exclusively in the security of
their invested capital and were ready to support any government that
furnished the necessary guaranties for their purposes.
If the present occurrences in Spain had manifested themselves before the
World War, the English government would certainly not have hesitated for
an instant to aid the bloody work of the rebellious generals quite
openly in order to protect English capital in Spain, as they had often
done in similar cases. But the World War, with its inevitable political
and economic consequences, had created a new situation in Europe, which
had been greatly intensified by the victory of Fascism in Italy and
Germany. The victory of Fascism had not only brought with it in those
countries a powerful military establishment; it had also been the signal
for a revival of the old imperialist ambitions, whose supporters were
constantly on the lookout for fresh sources of assistance to enable them
to extend their new system within and without and successfully overcome
any opposition by England and France. And these new forces were
incalculable, since they did not care a damn either for the prescribed
formulas of the old diplomacy nor for solemn treaties, and shrunk from
no means that promised the result they desired.
It was only natural that Spainâs enormous riches in iron, copper, zinc,
quicksilver, sulphur, magnesium, and other valuable minerals should
powerfully arouse the avarice of the Fascist states. It was no secret
that England was not yet sufficiently prepared for a new war, and that
France could hardly undertake one without her military support, so
Hitler and Mussolini played their high trumps in an effort to extract
the greatest possible profit from the situation.
It is generally known that not only were Italy and Germany informed in
every detail of the planned Fascist uprising in Spain, but that they
furthered it by every means at their disposal, so as to create
constantly greater difficulties for England and France. General
Sanjurjo, the soul of the Fascist conspiracy, who at the very outset
fell a victim to his own treacherous behavior, just before the
occurrences in Spain, had paid a visit to both Hitler and Mussolini, and
it was clear that the conversations in Berlin and in Rome had not been
about a projected picnic.
If it had not been for German and Italian Fascism the rebellion of the
Spanish generals would have caused the English government no headaches.
A military dictatorship and an eventual return to monarchy would even
have been welcome to the clever politicians on the Thames after it had
been proved that the weak republican regime in Spain, afflicted, as it
was, by constant convulsions, would not be able permanently to provide
the necessary political security for the interests of British capital.
In London they had long been accustomed to believe that no changes worth
mentioning in the internal policies of Spain and Portugal were possible
without calling the English government into council. Both countries had
long ago lost their political and economic independence and no longer
played any part in the politics of the great European powers. They
would, therefore, without doubt have put the necessary means at Francoâs
disposal to bring the Spanish people to their knees and in general to
lay down the law for them, so as to provide the necessary guaranties for
British interests.
But today things were different. Behind Franco are the political demands
of Hitler and Mussolini, who insist on their rights to the mineral
resources of Spain and to strategic points for the domination of the
Mediterranean. For, to the painful surprise of British diplomats,
Mussolini has openly declared that the Mediterranean is an Italian sea.
They donât easily forget a thing like that in England. Under these
circumstances a victory for Franco would not only be a serious threat to
British monopoly in Spain; it might even, given the right conditions,
develop into a grave danger to the British world empire.
They know in London very well that the statement which is being made
again and again with ever increasing emphasis that Franco has promised
Mussolini the Balearic Isles and is ready to turn over certain strategic
points in Spanish Morocco to Germany and Italy in compensation for the
assistance he has received, is not just idle rumor. And they are also
very well aware in England, who it is that is using all his skill in
stirring up the anti-British tendencies of Arabian nationalism in Egypt
and Palestine to make more trouble for England in the Near East.
And that Franco and his fellow conspirators stand much closer to Germany
and Italy than to England and France is also a matter about which they
have no illusions in London. The Spanish military camarilla planned
their revolt in collusion with Hitler and Mussolini and have carried it
out with their assistance. Besides, they were intellectually and
emotionally much more closely allied to the two Fascist powers because
of intrinsic kinship with their reactionary purposes and with the brutal
barbarism of their methods. Backed by Italy and Germany, Franco could
lead his trumps against England and France and at the same time permit
himself the use of language which had never before been heard in Spain
addressed to a great European power.
The English government could, therefore, not for an instant mistake the
seriousness of the situation. If they had been certain in London that
the defeat of Franco would lead merely to the firm establishment of the
bourgeois republic, they would in all probability have taken a different
attitude from the beginning. They would not in that case, by excessive
readiness to yield, have made Hitler and Mussolini ever more shameless
in their pretensions and have encouraged them in a course on which there
is, for a dictatorial government, no turning back, because its prestige
is linked with the personal success of the dictator.
But the Fascist revolt in Spain led to a release of the
social-revolutionary forces of the people, which had been bottled up for
many years and which now burst forth suddenly, and before their time.
Spain was ripe for the revolution. However, the inner corruption of the
old monarchist regime, which had been inaccessible to reason and which
resisted even the slightest reform, had entailed that the revolution
must today take on a much more comprehensive and more profoundly social
character.
The republic had in a few years worn out its prestige with the people.
The eternal irresolution of the republican party politicians, their
dread of any decisive step, which led to a steadily growing
recombination of the old reactionary elements of the country, the
systematic persecution of the labor movement, which was directed with
especial brutality against the C.N.T. (Confederacion Nacional del
Trabajo â the anarcho-syndicalist labor unions), eight or nine thousand
of whose members were from time to time introduced to the prisons of the
republic, the bloody incidents of Pasajes, Jerica, Burriana, Epila,
Arnedo, and Casas Viejas, and particularly and above all, the bloody
suppression of the uprising in Asturias in October, 1934, by African
troops, with its horrible accompaniments â all this had contributed in
richest measure thoroughly to disgust the Spanish people with the
republic, which was for them only a new facade, behind which lay hidden
the same old powers of darkness.
And, as a matter of fact, the clerical and monarchist elements were
raising their heads ever more threateningly and were seeking with
stubborn persistence to reunite their scattered forces and to regain
their lost position. When, then, after the fall of the Samper ministry
in October, 1934, three members of the âCatholic Popular Actionâ founded
by the Fascist, Gil Robles, were included in the new Lerroux cabinet,
everybody knew in what direction they were headed, and there could be no
further thought of a parliamentary solution of the political and social
crisis. The uprising in Asturias was the immediate outcome of the
situation, and its cruel suppression, with its utter disregard of every
principle of humanity, only poured oil on the flames, and opened an
abyss between the government and the people which could never again be
bridged.
That open reaction could never attain to victory without encountering
the desperate resistance of those great masses of the people which found
their revolutionary point of departure in the C.N.T. and the F.A.I.
(Iberian Anarchist Federation), was inevitable. What had been possible
in Germany was unthinkable in Spain. The guaranty for this was found in
the revolutionary and libertarian character of the Spanish workersâ and
peasantsâ movement, which had thus far maintained itself by years of
obstinate struggle against all reactions. In fact, a few months after
the occurrences in Asturias, there swept over Spain a new revolutionary
wave, which also put its stamp on the elections in February of 1936.
The victory of the so-called Popular Front was in no respect a vote of
popular confidence in the republic, but merely a proclamation by the
great masses that they were in no mind to abandon the field to the
reaction without resistance and allow it to set up the monarchy again.
That the elections could not bring any effective solution of the
situation and that the conflict between revolution and
counter-revolution would have to be carried on outside of parliament,
was clear to everyone who could see at all. And it very soon became
clear also that the new Popular Front government was not competent to
deal with the situation, and it was quickly confronted with problems
which it neither could solve nor had any desire to solve. That the
forces of reaction had no intention of allowing an electoral defeat to
end the matter, but were now fully determined to work out a real
decision by the armed hand, was revealed very soon after the assembling
of the new parliament. The frank appeal of the Monarchist deputy, Calvo
Sotelo, to the leaders of the army to overthrow the republic was the
first move in which the coming events cast their shadow before them.
It is generally known today that President Azaña was informed of the
intentions of the generals; but the cabinet did not move a finger to
avert the danger that threatened. Just as the thoroughly criminal
indecision of the republican government had in 1932 been responsible for
Sanjurjoâs military revolt, so this time, also, the so-called Popular
Front government permitted the militaristic brigands to weave traitorous
plans in peace, without taking a single step to oppose them. When the
first news of the uprising in Morocco reached Spain, the government was
actually just on the point of turning over the war ministry to General
Mola. But it was then too late; Mola was already leading his troops on
Madrid to administer the coup de grĂące to the republic.
All of these things were well known in Spain. The anti-Fascist press,
and especially the daily papers of the C.N.T., had often raised its
voice in warning against the approaching danger; but the Popular Front
government, with impudent frivolity, flung all precautions to the wind.
Then after the Fascist revolt had broken out and had been put down in
Barcelona in a few days by the heroic resistance of the C.N.T. and the
F.A.I., thus ridding Catalonia of the enemy and bringing to naught the
fine-spun plan for overcoming Spain by a well-directed strategic
surprise, it is easy to understand that the workers of Catalonia could
not stop half way, if they did not wish at the next opportunity to be
once more exposed to the same danger. And so there ensued the
collectivization of the land and the taking over of the industrial
plants by the workersâ syndicates; and this movement, which was released
by the initiative of the C.N.T. and F.A.I., swept on with irresistible
force into Aragon, the Levante, and other parts of the country. The
revolt of the Fascists had started Spain on her way to a social
revolution.
It was this turn in affairs which filled the managers of the foreign
capital invested in Spain with profound anxiety for the future of their
monopolies. If the revolt of the generals against their own people had
been purely a Spanish affair, the English government would certainly not
have hesitated to protect the interests of British capital in Spain. The
turning over of a whole people to the hangman would have caused the
English diplomats no serious pangs of conscience, so long as the desired
purpose could be achieved.
The policies of Hitler and Mussolini had put the Conservative government
of England in a difficult position. The complete defeat of Franco would
open undreamed of vistas to the new course of development in Spain and
give a powerful impulse to the work of social reconstruction already
begun. A decisive victory for Franco must, however, on the basis of all
reasonable presumptions, work out even more disastrously and greatly
strengthen the political position of Italy and Germany in Europe. On the
one hand it might be even more dangerous to the English monopolies in
Spain than a social revolution, which might under the circumstances
perhaps be obliged for a longer or shorter term to make certain
concessions to foreign capital in order to avoid a violent clash with
foreign powers. On the other hand, moreover, it could but entail for
England and France political consequences of unpredictable scope. In his
speech of June 27^(th) in Wurtzburg, Hitler had expressly stated that
Germany had the greatest interest in Francoâs victory, as she urgently
needed Spanish ore for the carrying out of her four year plan. In the
official report this passage in Hitlerâs address was, it is true,
greatly softened, to wipe out the bad impression in England; but they
knew there anyway what the game was being played for. The excited debate
over the Spanish situation in the English Lower House showed this very
clearly. In 1935 Germany had drawn vast supplies of iron and copper ore
from Spain; but the military preparations in England greatly reduced the
supply from this source.
But Italy is, if possible, even more interested in the natural resources
of Spain than is Germany. Her production of iron and steel runs at
present to a million tons a year, while three million tons are needed
annually for her actual requirements, and the deficiency has to be made
up from abroad. Spain, however, produces every year seven million tons
of iron. Under these circumstances one can easily understand how
Mussoliniâs mouth must water for the rich iron deposits of the Basque
provinces.
But in the present struggle of the great European powers over Spain not
only the treasures of her soil and her mines are involved, but much
besides. A decisive victory for Franco would throw Spain completely into
the arms of Italy and Germany and give to the power policies of
Mussolini and Hitler a point of support that would put England and
France in the greatest danger. The domination of the Spanish coasts by a
combined German and Italian fleet with suitable harbor facilities for
the air-forces of both countries, would cut France off from her colonies
and greatly imperil the transport of French colonial troops from North
Africa in case of war, if it did not make it utterly impossible. This is
apart from the fact that a Fascist neighbor beyond the Pyrenees would
make the defense of the French frontier much more difficult.
For England, moreover, the strategic position of Gibralter would in such
a case have lost its value. And a limit would also be put on Englandâs
domination of the Mediterranean, and English hegemony in the Near East
would be deprived of its strategic basis. Egypt, Palestine, Iraq, and
even India would be directly threatened, and the supplementing of
nationalist propaganda in those countries by a well devised Italian
propaganda would do the rest. Theyâre not going to forget Mussoliniâs
speech to the Lybians, in which he played himself up as the protector of
Islam and the movement for Arabian unity, so very quickly in England.
And in this situation lies the explanation of Englandâs whole attitude
on the Spanish question. It determined the so-called âneutrality policyâ
of the English and French diplomats, which seems unintelligible only to
those who think that the present struggle between two different power
groups in Europe is concerned only with abstract problems like democracy
and Fascism. To one who is naive enough to judge the thing from that
point of view the seeming blindness of the English and French statesmen
must of course cause a severe headache; but he will not have understood
the heart of the question at all.
Political catchwords like Fascism and democracy will perhaps play a part
in the coming war, just as the slogan, âwar of democracy against
Prussian militarism,â served its purpose in the World War. That Russian
tsarism was then on the side of âmilitant democracyâ might, to be sure,
have seemed rather suspicious even to the credulous, if in that great
era of hypocrisy oneâs own thoughts had still been able to play any part
at all.
No, the conservative potentates on the Thames are neither blind nor slow
of understanding. Who says they are, deceives himself and others, and
proves by it only that he himself is blind to facts as they are. Those
men know very well indeed what they are doing. They may miscalcuate and
be taken by surprise by events, which in the last analysis are stronger
than their fine-spun diplomatic network; for the hazardous game of
dictators is just as incalculable as is revolution, which has its own
logic. But they really are not blind.
The tactics of English diplomacy has always been to play one power
against the others in order to maintain Englandâs hegemony on the
Continent. These tactics were determined by the position of world power
of the British Empire. England could keep her hold on her colonies,
scattered over every continent, only so long as she was able to
guarantee them protection against foreign attack. But this is possible
only so long as English prestige in Europe remains unshaken. The instant
when England loses her political influence in Europe there will be no
more certainty of the internal cohesion of her world empire.
As long as the sea supplied natural fortifications for the mother
country and the English coast could be protected against any attack from
without by a strong fleet, it was relatively easy for the English
holders of power to maintain their dominant position in Europe. And
besides, the tremendous economic superiority of the British Empire put
into the hands of her statesmen the necessary instrument for exercising
an effective influence on the policies of the continental states and
preventing a strong anti-British coalition on the Continent. Napoleon
had experienced that to his sorrow. But by the conquest of the air and
the tremendous development of modern war technique the old status has
been completely altered and an invasion of the British Island Empire is
entirely within the realm of the possible, provided a strong alliance of
the great powers of Europe should combine for the purpose.
For this reason England is today more than ever dependent upon strong
alliances to meet this peril. In this connection the helmsmen of the
English state are not worried at all over the choice of allies, so long
as they serve her purpose. That is the reason why the whole English
foreign policy since the World War, from Sir John Simon to Anthony Eden,
has been just a simple sabotage of the so-called âLeague of Nationsâ
which kept her hands free for the alliances which would offer her the
greatest advantage in any given circumstances.
English diplomats pursued these same tactics with relation to the
Spanish question from the very beginning, after having first rendered
France and Prussia compliant to their purpose. On the one hand they left
no means untried to make a victory for the social revolution in Spain
impossible; on the other hand they permitted the government in Valencia
just enough support to prevent a quick victory for Franco, which just at
the moment could but be of great advantage to Italy and Germany. It is
to the interest of England and France that the murderous war shall take
its course until, at the proper moment, it can be ended by a compromise
which shall give to neither side the possibility of dictating the terms
of the peace which they wish to force upon the Spaniards from without.
The longer the war lasts the harder it must become for Hitler and
Mussolini to continue their support of Franco, the more completely will
the material resources of Germany and Italy be drained with time and the
two powers weakened for a world war. It is very well known that economic
development in Germany and Italy during the last two years has taken on
a character that is leading them at constantly increasing speed toward a
catastrophe. But Franco is wholly dependent upon the assistance of the
two Fascist states as long as he refuses to accede to the secret
conditions offered by England and France. Today he is demanding from his
allies 125,000 more men, five hundred flying machines, fifty batteries
of artillery, with a corresponding number of tanks, so that he may be
able to open a new offensive against Madrid, and at the same time on the
Teruel front. The struggle for Bilbao cost him 20,000 men and twenty
percent of his war supplies.
Even if Germany and Italy should decide to render him this further aid,
that will not alter the general situation. England and France will then
take the Valencia government under their arm to restore the disturbed
equilibrium. The Loyalist offensive which was instituted on the Madrid
front and in the south immediately after the fall of Bilbao is the best
proof of this.
In this game of chess in Spain the English diplomats have been doing
everything possible to avert the danger of a European war, which just at
this time cannot be desirable for England. They have calmly put up with
all Hitlerâs and Mussoliniâs brazen effrontery, a thing which must seem
incomprehensible to many; but they have never for one second lost sight
of their goal. They were ready to purchase peace âat almost any price,â
as the English foreign minister, Eden, expressed it; but they were also
very clear in their own minds as to just how far they would go in this
dangerous game. Chamberlainâs speech before his constituents in
Birmingham on July 3^(rd) and Edenâs speech in Coughlan on the same day
abolished the last doubt as to this.
Both speeches were directed at the addresses of Hitler and Mussolini and
left nothing to be desired in clarity. Eden stated that England had no
interest of any kind in Spainâs form of government; but he promptly
added: âThat does not mean, however, that we shall not be interested if
British interests within the land or maritime borders of Spain and in
ccommercial lines of communication along the Spanish coast are brought
into question.â The British foreign minister left, therefore, no doubt
that England is unwilling to concede to any European power a dominant
position in the Mediterranean, since this would of necessity imperil
British hegemony in the Near East, nor that his government is determined
in case of need to turn to war as a last resort to protect the vitally
important interests of the British world empire.
It is no secret that England has hitherto left no means untried and has
brought the strongest kind of pressure to bear upon the Spanish
government to bring about an understanding with Franco at the proper
time. This was the only way by which Franco could be induced to withdraw
from the influence of Italy and Germany and accept the conditions of
peace proposed by England and France. For this purpose Anglo-French
diplomacy maintained connections with both sides, and foreign agents
swarmed over Spain to create the necessary sentiment for an agreement.
When the fall of Madrid seemed inevitable they even got in touch with
General Miaja in an attempt to win him to a military dictatorship, for
which he seemed to the outside diplomats to be the fitting person. Miaja
rejected the proposal for reasons best known to himself.
All these maneuvers did not remain hidden from the Spanish
revolutionaries. The daily C.N.T. press and other organs of the
anti-Fascist front carried almost every week a new exposure of the
underground activity of the foreign diplomats and their henchmen in
Spain. And the big bourgeois dailies abroad took all possible pains to
make an understanding with Fascism seem plausible to the vacillating
elements in Spain. Thus the great conservative paper âLe Tempsâ in Paris
wrote very significantly during the recent crisis in the Valencia
government:
âIt is by no means out of the question that certain elements of the
anti-Fascist front would lend a willing ear to conciliatory counsel from
beyond the Pyrenees. The fall of Madrid and the resulting political
disturbances could but be favorable to the formation of a coalition
government of Left Republicans and Socialists of Prietoâs type. Such a
government would be more receptive to the proposal for a reciprocal
understanding and would serve republican Spain better shall would a
hopeless war.â
The ousting of the Caballero cabinet and the talking over of the
government by the bourgeois-Communist Negrin cabinet, which occurred
just afterwards, shows how exceedingly well informed the editors of âLe
Tempsâ were. Without doubt the statesmen in London and Paris believed
that their time had come and that the Negrin government would furnish
them the basis for bringing their plans to realization. It is known that
England had made use of the Basque government to enter into negotiations
with Franco. It was thought that by this means it wold be possible to
prevent the fall of Bilbao, where Englandâs immediate economic interests
were most seriously threatened. If these negotiations led to no result
it was because Hitler and Mussolini were also intensely interested in
the possession of the Basque iron fields, as in them they would get into
their hands a strong card against England. The fact that Italian troops
and German fiiers played the decisive role in the battle over Bilbao
shows how important the conquest of that city was to Germany and Italy.
It was not Franco, but the German General Faubel who captured Bilbao.
Contrary to the wishes of France and England, the end of the war was
thereby once more indefinitely postponed.
It was and is the goal of the Anglo-French statesmen to terminate the
war at the first favorable opportunity, and through an understanding
between the conservative Loyalist circles and Franco to force upon Spain
a form of government that will respect the ancient privileges of England
and will be strong enough to protect foreign capital against the attacks
of the âextremists.â The extremists, however, are in this instance the
great masses of the Spanish workers and peasants, and above all, of the
C.N.T.-F.A.I., which had proclaimed the slogan that the war could only
be carried to a victorious conclusion if it was waged in the spirit of
social revolution and brought to the people a complete transformation of
the social conditions under which they live. It was the danger of this
which caused the conservative government of England its greatest anxiety
and which, in the efforts of the workers and peasants at socialization,
had taken on a tangible form. To eliminate this danger was and is her
most important task. What means to this end the English Tories have in
view Winston Churchill set forth undisguisedly in his proposals for the
solution of the Spanish question, when he spoke of the necessity of a
five-year âneutral dictatorshipâ to âtranquilizeâ the country. Later
they could âperhaps look for a revival of parliamentary institutions.â
The Spanish workers and peasants know from experience what such a
âtranquilizingâ would be like. The gruesome suppression of the revolt in
Asturias in October, 1934, and the horrible massacres by the Fascist
incendiaries in Seville, Zaragoza, Badajoz, MĂĄlaga, and many other
places, to which tens of thousands of men, women, and children fell
victims, speak a language that is too clear ever to be forgotten. They
know in Spain what âneutral dictatorshipâ means.
The whole horror of the much-praised capitalist order lies just in this:
Without pity and devoid of all humanity it strides across the corpses of
whole peoples to safeguard the brutal right of exploitation, and
sacrifices the welfare of millions to the selfish interests of tiny
minorities. Spain is today the victim of imperialistic foreign powers
which are fighting out their differences on the backs of the Spanish
people and, without a trace of moral consideration, plunging into ruin
an entire country, in which, in right and conscience, they have nothing
to look for. Without the interference of foreign powers the revolt of
the Fascist brigands would have been disposed of in a few weeks, as it
had the enormous majority of the Spanish people against it.
Foreign tyrants like Hitler and Mussolini, who have transformed their
own countries into wildernesses of intellectual barbarism and graveyards
of freedom, provided the Fascist hangmen of Spain with the means of
forcing war on the country and throttling their own people. But the
âgreat democraciesâ of Europe have tied the hands of the Spanish people
and exposed millions of human beings to all the horrors of mass murder,
so that, at the chosen hour, they may convert to the advancement of
their own purposes the results of a resistance whose heroism is
unexampled in history. And Stalinâs government renders willing henchman
service to these objectives of imperialist powers and makes itself the
defender of the counter-revolution against the great masses of the
Spanish workers and peasants.
This is the third time that foreign powers have interfered with the
armed hand in the struggle of the Spanish people for its human rights
and have supported the cause of the counter-revolution against the
liberation of the people. In 1823 the invasion of a French army crushed
Spanish liberalism and brought Riego to the gallows, delivering the
country over to the damnable tyranny of one of the bloodiest despots
that ever defiled a throne. In 1874 English and Prussian warships helped
General Pavia to strangle the first Spanish republic. Today the same
drama is being re-enacted on a larger scale.
That England and France should have taken such an attitude with respect
to the Spanish war is no surprise to anyone who takes into account the
deeper-lying causes in social affairs. Both are great capitalist states
whose internal and foreign policies are determined by principles that
look only to economic privileges and considerations of poltical power.
That is, indeed, the curse of the present social system, whose
inevitable logic operates more disastrously with each new stage of its
development. The caste of power-politicians has never let itself be
guided by ethical principles. To suppose that its representatives today
are any more sensitive to the dictates of social justice and humanly
worth-while aspirations would be unpardonable self-delusion.
Of greater significance is the attitude of the Russian government toward
the Spanish question. Not that we had the slightest illusions on this
side either. We had foreseen the inevitable results of the Bolshevist
dictatorship from its first beginnings, and the later developments in
Russia have confirmed our conceptions in every respect. The so-called
âdictatorship of the proletariat,â in which naĂŻve souls wished to see a
passing but inevitable transitional step to real socialism, has, under
the domination of Stalin, developed into a frightful despotism wilicll
lags behind the tyranny of the Fascist states in nothing, goes, indeed,
beyond them in many respects â a despotism which suppresses all free
expression of opinion with bloody brutality and deals with the lives and
fate of human beings as if they were inanimate objects.
Unfortunately only a small minority had from the begimling a correct
estimate of the occurrences in Russia; while even today there are in
every country still hundreds of thousands who are completely blind to
the Russian reality. We are not speaking now of the hired foreign
scribes of the Russian government, who with brazen faces and no scruples
of conscience defend even the most revolting crimes of the Russian
autocrats and, at command, exalt to the heavens today what only
yesterday they were trampling in the mud. No, we are thinking of those
thousands of honest, but unfortunately utterly blind, human beings who
with unexampled fanaticism work toward a goal that would mean the brutal
extermination of all freedom and all human dignity.
The reaction of today not only finds expression in systems of political
power whose living symbols are tyrants of the stamp of Hitler, Mussolini
or Stalin. Its actual strength is in that blind faith of the great
masses which justifies any atrocity so long as it is perpetrated by one
particular side, and recklessly condemns everything that opposes this
contemptible violation of human personality. This is the dictatorship of
unreason, which neither recognizes nor respects anyoneâs opinion, and
which at command lets itself be swept along into the vilest actions,
because it is wholly destitute of personal responsibility. This blind
fanaticism which finds in any critical judgment a sin against the
infallibility of the dictator is also the reason why those masses are
quite unable to perceive the great political transformation that has
been going on in Russia since the death of Lenin, so that they plead
with the same fanatical zeal for things which only a few years ago were
denounced by the Russian autocrats as âcounter-revolutionâ and âtreason
to the proletariat.â
Not that it is our purpose here to play up Lenin against Stalin, as so
many do today who have broken with Moscow and have taken refuge in one
or another of the numerous Communist oppositions. Lenin, Trotzky and all
the others who have fallen victims to Stalinâs regime were merely
pathbreakers for him. They prepared the foundation on which so-called
âStalinismâ was later to rise. He who finds freedom a âbourgeois
prejudice,â who defends hyprocrisy, deception, and cunning as
permissible instruments of warfare, as Lenin did openly, thereby
destroys all ethical ties between man and man, annihiliates the trust of
comrade in comrade, and must not wonder when the seed he has sown bears
the fruit that it bears. The great transformation which Stalin brought
about one step at a time was only the logical result of thc work of his
predecessors. Today this change is not manifesting itself in Russia
alone; it puts its stamp on all the tactics of the Communist parties
abroad, which have never been anything but instruments of Russian
foreign policy. This is revealed today with impressive clarity in the
attitude of the Stalin governmelnt on the Spanish question.
During the first three months of the Fascist uprising the Russian press
hardly troubled itself at all about the occurrences in Spain. Stalin had
his hands full standing his former friends against the wall and
systematically bringing to its conclusion the liquidation of the old
Communist Party in Russia. If he had really been at all concerned to
come to the aid of the Spanish people in their desperate struggle
against Francoâs hordes, he would have had the best opportunity to do so
in the first few months of the anti-Fascist war, for just then the
battling masses stood almost weaponless before a foe armed to the teeth,
to whom German and Italian Fascism was furnishing all possible
assistance. Irun and San Sebastian fell only because their defenders
lacked the military equipment with which to continue their heroic
resistance. If Franco was not then able to overrun Spain as he had
expected, it was not Russia who was to be thanked for it, but chiefly
the heroic resistance of the C.N.T. and the F.A.I., which cleared the
enemy out of Catalonia, and by doing so saved Spain â a fact which at
the time was acknowledged without reserve bv everybody, and which even
Francoâs press did not deny.
Russiaâs first intervention in Spanish affairs was her signing of the
so-called neutrality pact, which originated solely in the imperialist
interests of England and France. The moral significance of this pact at
first lay merely in the fact that it put the Popular Front government
growing out of the elections of February, 1936, on the same footing with
the mutinous generals who had committed high treason against thc
republic and were seeking to overthrow it by force, a thing which, for
example, the republican government of Mexico did not do. When the
Communist Party in France at first raised a mighty outcry against this
pact and accused the French government of betraying the Spanish
republic, Leon Blum needed only to call attention to the fact that
Russia had been the first power to sign the pact and that therefore the
charge of treachery recoiled upon Stalin.
Russia was bound to France by a military rapprochement the point of
which was directed against Germany. Germany was therefore leaving no
means untried to get this alliance broken off, and to this end was
bringing every possible kind of political pressure to bear upon France.
Russia was well aware of this danger and was, therefore, making every
effort to nullify Hitlerâs policy, even to setting herself up as
attorney for the imperialist interests of England and France in Spain.
It was not the celebrated âclass interests of the proletariat,â but the
national interest of the Russian state which led Stalin to take this
attitude. And England and France were now in a position to play off
Russia against the ambitions of Hitler and Mussolini while they went on
spinning their own plans, plans which had as their object to prevent a
conclusive victory for Franco and at the same time to block the social
revolution in Spain.
Communist workers in other countries were naturally not in a position to
see through this cunning game behind the scenes and were happy because
Russia was from time to time sending the Loyalist government larger or
smaller supplies of weapons and provisions. They naturally had no
inkling that this, also, was done with the approval of France and
England, who respected the provisions of the neutrality pact just as
little as did Hitler and Mussolini and tacitly approved the importation
of arms into Spain just to the extent that this suited their purposes.
But what the Communist press diligently concealed from its readers was
the fact that the Russian government never delivered a single cartridge
to the Spaniards that had not been paid for dearly and in cash with the
gold of the Valencia government.
But Russia did not content herself with sending now and then a shipload
of weapons to the Spanish Loyalists. Her secret agents and, more
particularly, her official representatives in Madrid, Valencia, and
Barcelona worked by every means to stir up discord in the ranks of the
anti-Fascist front and to exert pressure on the Spanish government to
induce it to lend a favorable ear to the whisperings of Anglo-French
diplomacy. The Stalin government was here quite deliberately furthering
the secret activities of the great capitalist powers and the cause of
the counter-revolution against the efforts at liberation of the Spanish
workers and peasants. England and France could not have asked for a
better agent. Exactly where their own efforts aroused a justified
distrust the Russian agents could operate in full publicity, as no one
would suppose that the alleged âfatherland of the proletariatâ would
lend itself to such a base betrayal of the cause of a splendid people.
With complete justice the English Member of Parliament, McGovern, stated
at the last congress of the Independent Labor Party of Great Britain:
âThe working class of Spain not only had to meet with the forces of
Franco, Italy and Germany, but with more cunningly organized support
from the British ruling classes. London big business is solidly lined up
behind Franco.
âUndoubtedly Russia had given valuable aid, but it should never have
been accompanied by any kind of political domination. It was a shameful
thing that the accompaniment of arms had been the attempted domination
of the whole political movement in Spainâ
As to both internal and foreign policy Russia stands today with both
feet in the camp of the counter-revolution. Stalin has organized his own
Thermidor in order to rid himself of the last representatives of Old
Bolshevism who could in any way be dangerous to his plans. But these
plans culminate in the renunciation of all the former political
principles of the old Communist Party of Russia and the setting up of a
sort of Soviet aristocracy which rests upon the new bureaucratic
machinery, freed of all the old elements, in order to make the great
masses of the peasants and the industrial workers amenable to its
domination. The so-called âdemocratic constitution,â the greatest farce
that the world has ever seen, merely serves to veil the real intentions
of the Russian autocrats and give them a different aspect as seen from
the outside.
This change in the nature of the Russian dictatorship must also, of
course, have its influence on the attitude of the Communist parties
abroad. That a radical swing to the right has set in here, and that the
Communist parties today advocate things which only a few years ago they
were violently opposing, even the blindest can see. But the deeper-lying
reasons for this change, which slaps in the face all the old party
principles advocated by Lenin and his friends, remain hidden from most
people.
When, in his day, Lenin came forward with his âtwenty-one pointsâ to
weld the Communist parties of the whole world into one iron-bound,
centralized organization which would be blindly obedient to every order
from the Moscow Central, he had a definite purpose in view. He wanted
thus to give the proletarian movement in every country a fixed direction
and to safeguard it against any coalition with bourgeois or so-called
Menshevist parties. Wherever a revolutionary situation developed in any
country the workers were to set to work immediately to seize political
power for themselves, and through a system of soviets on the Russian
pattern proceed to the expropriation of the land and the industrial
plants without entering into any compromise with other factions. Russia
was, moreover, to afford every possible moral and material assistance to
these efforts.
It is not our task here to pass critical judgment on the worth or
unworth of such tactics; we are concerned only in establishing the fact
in order to show that between the present tactics of Stalin and his
adherents and the principles advocated by Lenin there are no points of
contact whatever, but that they differ as much as do fire and water. It
was chiefly these tactics of Lenin which brought about the complete
break with the big Socialist parties abroad, whose leaders Lenin fought
tooth and nail and publicly pilloried as âbetrayers of the proletariat.â
In Germany, for example, where the Social Democrats held to the theory
that it was first necessary to consolidate the republic internally and
externally before it would be possible to proceed through social reform
to the establishment of socialism, their tactics were combatted by the
Communists by every means possible and with fanatical bitterness. The
adherents of Social Democracy were branded as âSocial-Fascistsâ and
counter-revolutionaries, and every ordinary Communist in Germany was
firmly convinced that in comparison with the Socialist Party, Hitler was
the lesser evil. The word âMenshevismâ came to eptomize every kind of
treason against the working class. From the Communist point of view the
âMenshevikâ was public enemy number one and had to be fought by every
means available.
And today? Everything which only a few years ago was damned to the
bottomless pit by the Communist International is now for Stalin and his
followers the acme of political wisdom. Stalin has become the executor
of the will of the once-hated Menshevism and tries to outdo it in
concessions to the bourgeois world. The whole idea of the popular front
is just a sweeping repudiation of the principles laid down by Lenin and
the Old Bolsheviks. One might perhaps object that it is at any rate a
step in advance if Stalin and his following ahroad have convinced
themselves of the untenability of those old principles and have
therefore set out along new lines. That would be correct, if along with
the new insight there had occurred a change in disposition; if they had
finally decided to respect even the opinions of others and to quit
playing the part of red popes. But it is just in this regard that there
has been the least change.
Stalin, who is today making the most far-reaching concessions to the
shallowest reformism and to the defenders of the bourgeois state, has
transformed Russia into a vast slaughterhouse and persecutes his real or
fancied enemies of the left with the pitiless obsession of an oriental
despot. The same man who is today supporting in Spain the interests of
his imperialist allies and defending the bourgeois republic against the
struggles of the Spanish workers and peasants for social liberation, is
having his miserable hired scribblers abroad shamelessly malign and drag
through the mud the heroic fighters of the C.N.T. and the F.A.I., who
are bearing the brunt of that struggle, just as he does with his
political opponents in Russia. The same man who set himself up as the
attorney for the so-called United Front is today with cynical
deliberateness destroying the anti-Fascist front in Spain so that in the
interest of foreign capitalists he can attack the Spanish revolution
from the rear.
During the first three months of the great struggle for freedom, when
Russia was not bothering herself about Spain at all, the social
revolution pursued its course with elemental fury and spread from
Catalonia to all the other sections of the country which were not in the
possession of the enemy. The peasants made themselves masters of the
land, and the city workers, of the industries, and themselves set about
the socialization of production without waiting for the decrees of
political parties. They set to work with innate devotion and a painful
sense of responsibility to build up a new Spain and end, once for all,
the bloody peril of Fascism. While the element that was capable of
fighting was hastening to the front, the workers and peasants left
behind were trying to set up a new social order and so to pave the way
for socialism. This state of affairs changed, if not all at once, yet
rapidly, when Russia appeared on the scene and dispatched her official
representatives to Madrid and Barcelona to begin their underground
burrowing in the interest of England and France. Since Spain was from
the beginning prevented by the famous neutrality pact from any
considerable importation of arms from abroad and consequently had to
avail herself of any slight assistance she could find, the Russian
agents had a relatively easy job forcing their conditions on the
government in Madrid and Valencia. This was the easier for them because
the bourgeois Republicans and the right wing of the Socialist Party were
not very well disposed toward the efforts of the workers and peasants at
socialization anyway, and had put up with them only because they
couldnât help themselves.
The Communists, however, under orders from Moscow, at once lined up with
the right. They, who previously had never been able to speak
contemptuously enough of the C.N.T. and the Anarchists because of their
âpetty bourgeoisâ tendencies, suddenly turned defenders not only of the
petty bourgeoisie, but of the Spanish big bourgeoisie, against the
demands of the workers. Immediately after thc occurrences of July, 1936,
the Communist Party had proclaimed the slogan: For the Democratic
Republic! Against Socialism! As early as August 8^(th) of last year the
Communist Deputy, Hernandez, had violently attacked the C.N.T. in Madrid
because of the taking over of the industrial plants by the workersâ
syndicates, and in that connection had declared that after Franco had
been beaten they would soon bring the Anarchists to their senses.â
But they were telling the Communist workers abroad that their comrades
in Spain were not participating in the socializing of the land by the
workers simply because they had to win the war before they could think
of the realization of socialism. In reality the Communist Party in Spain
is only carrying out the orders from Moscow and, under those orders, has
postponed the realization of socialism to an undetermined date because
it simply does not accord with the imperialist plans of Stalinâs allies.
Anyone who is still in doubt about this will have his eves opened fully
by the following words of Santiago Carillo, one of the most prominent
members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain:
âWe are fighting today for the democratic republic, and we are not
ashamed of it. We are fighting against Fascism, against foreign
intruders, but we are not today fighting for a socialist revolution.
There are people who tell us that we must come out for a social
revolution and there are those who proclaim that our fight for the
democratic republic is only a pretext to conceal our real purposes. No,
we are not carrying out any tactical maneuver, nor have we any kind of
concealed intentions against the Spanish government and world democracy.
We are fighting with complete sincerity for the democratic republic,
because at present we are not making any drive for social revolution,
and this will still hold true for a long time after the victory orer
Fascism. Any other attitude would not only favor the victory of the
Fascist intruders, it would even contribute to the transplanting of
Fascism into the remaining bourgeois-democratic states. For the Fascists
have declared that they will under no circumstances tolerate a
dictatorship of the proletariat in our country.â
The same people who today devote themselves with such suspicious zeal to
the safeguarding of the bourgeois-democratic world against Fascism and
who cannot find enough hypocritical words with which to assure the
so-called world-democracy of the honesty of their intentions, had not
cared a damn when their methods plunged Hungary, Germany, and other
countries into ruin and smoothed the road for Fascism in them. If they
pursue another course in Spain today it is because the national
interests of the Russian state are today closely linked with the
imperialist ambitions of England and France. To maintain this alliance
the holders of power in Russia lend themselves to the most contemptible
betrayal of the Spanish workers and peasants.
For this noble end the agents of Russian Soviet diplomacy are now
working at high pressure and with all the revolting hypocrisy of a
thoroughly Machiavellian policy, which came to fullest bloom in Russia
under the sign of the dictatorship and later served as a model tor
Hitler and Mussolini. For there is no form of government so favorable to
the complete disintegration of every moral principle in a people as
dictatorship, which supresses with brute force any honest criticism of
public evils and transforms entire peoples into herds of dull-witted
slaves. Under such a condition, maintained by fear, falsehood, deceit,
political murder, and an infamous system of espionage which makes a
public virtue of betrayal and infects even the intimate family circle,
the innate trust of man in man is undermined and all moral
responsibility toward oneâs fellows is smothered at its birth.
Until the July events of last year the Communist Party scarcely played
any part in Spain. It counted altogether about three thousand members.
Its objectives were alien to the general character of the people and had
no prospect at all of permeating the great masses of the workers and
peasants. In Spain the trade-unions, not the political parties, had from
the first played the most important part in the labor movement. Thus,
the Socialist Party was for decades unable to strike root at all outside
of Madrid and was known in colloquial speech only as âthe microscopic
partyâ (el partido microscopico), until by the organization of the
U.G.T. (âUnion General de los Trabajadores,â General Labor Union) it
little by little succeeded in gaining a foothold in the great industrial
districts of the north and in a few rural districts in Andalusia and
Estramadura.
Therefore the Spanish Stalinists now endeavored by the work of secret
cells to win in the political and trade-union organizations of the
Socialist Party a field which they would never have been able to conquer
under their own flag. They succeeded in this way in capturing a few
U.G.T. trade-unions in Madrid, Valencia, Malaga, and a few other places,
but even with these successes they could not think of instituting any
action of their own, as they had no influence worth mentioning over the
great majority of the U.G.T. workers, while the local organizations of
the powerful C.N.T. were completely closed to them.
In Catalonia, where the Socialists and their trade-union subsidiary, the
U.G.T. before the Fascist uprising played no part whatever, the
Stalinists, using the catchword of the United Front, succeeded in
tricking the Socialist Party and in calling into being the so-called
P.S.U.C. (âPartido Socialista Unido de Cataluña,â United Socialist Party
of Catalonia), which soon joined the Third International, and despite
its Socialist coat of arms is just an instrument of Moscow. With the
arrival of the official representatives of Russia this underground
boring very notably increased. What the Spanish Stalinists had to learn
in this respect was soon taught them by Señors Rosenberg in Madrld and
Antonov-Ovséenko in Barcelona.
In every country in Europe and America there exist hundreds of so-called
âneutralâ organizations which serve only the purpose of disguising the
game which the wire-pullers in Moscow are playing behind the scenes;
there are even a whole lot of well-known periodicals on both continents,
which can look back on many years of liberal tradition and which have
today come completely under the influence of Moscow. The same
contemptible game is being repeated in Spain. Russian insinuations found
willing ears in bourgeois and right Socialist circles and were making
themselves heard more and more clearly among the Catalonian Nationalists
as well, and deep in the ranks of Caballeroâs government in Valencia.
The agents of Moscow were now concerned above all else in finding a
broader basis for the execution of their plans and in building up
everywhere, organizations which they could at the proper time play off
against the C.N.T. and even against the U.G.T. Long before the July
events the C.N.T. had made sincere efforts to bring about an alliance
with the workers of the U.G.T. After the victorious suppression of the
Fascist revolt in Catalonia, C.N.T. leaders set to work with all their
energy for this goal, which they rightly regarded as the first
prerequisite for victory over the Fascists and as the necessary basis
for the development of a new social life infused with freedom and the
spirit of socialism. Just to take up any of the daily or weekly organs
of the C.N.T. or the F.A.I. is enough to convince one that here we are
not dealing with the hollow phrase-mongering of professional demagogues,
but with the expression of opinions inspired by the loftiest motives,
which just by reason of its sincerity is able always to find the right
word of conciliation.
The agents of Russia now sought by every means to defeat these efforts
for the unity of organized labor, as they recognized very clearly that
it was from this direction that the greatest danger to the carrying out
of their plans threatened. Out of their practical collaboration in the
management of the socialized plants and the rural co-operatives there
had grown up between the C.N.T. and the U.G.T. a friendly relationship
which was all the time being strengthened in the war against the common
enemy and by immediate necessities of daily life. This was especially
true in those sections of the country where this collaboration was not
disturbed by the interference of political parties from without, and
where the U.G.T. had for years had behind it a genuine workersâ element,
as in Asturias, Castile, Andalusia, and the Levante.
The situation in Catalonia, and especially in Barcelona, where the
U.G.T. had hitherto never been able to gain a foothold and never counted
more than a few thousand members, shaped itself very differently. A
peculiar change set in there after the July events. The necessity of
belonging to a trade-union organization impressed itself even on those
classes which had previously had no connection with organized labor, had
often, indeed, even been hostile to it. In that stirring period after
the defeat of the Fascist revolt, when the armed patrols of the workersâ
syndicates were standing guard and looking after the public safety, the
membership card of a trade-union played an important role and, one might
say, served its possessor as a pass.
So it came about that thousands of small managers, tradesmen, local
politicians, saloon-owners, government employees, etc., flocked into the
U.G.T. unions, which naturally were more to their liking than the old
storm-tried organizations of the C.N.T. And this went on at greater pace
as the Communist P.S.U.C., under whose political guardianship the
syndicates of the U.G.T. in Catalonia stand, came out more plainly with
its attacks on the efforts at socialization of organized labor. Thus the
U.G.T. in Catalonia gradually became the catchbasin for all the
reactionary elements who were interested in the restoration of the old
conditions.
The Stalinists, the actual originators of this strange development,
today are telling their credulous followers in foreign lands that the
U.G.T. has a membership of 450,000 in Catalonia. This, of course, is
just one of the ordinary propagandist lies which those delightful
fellows, under Russian guidance, manage so cleverly. They wanted in this
way to make the public forget as far as possible that behind the
Catalonian Federation of the C.N.T. there stands a million organized
workers, who are the backbone of the Spanish labor movement. Still it is
not to be disputed that the U.G.T. is today a serious hindrance to the
C.N.T. in Catalonia, and that under the special protection of the Negrin
government in Valencia it had grown into a grave danger to all the
economic and political achievements of the Spanish working class.
However, what the Communist wire-pullers in Spain are careful not to
mention to their adherents abroad is that the present U.G.T. in
Catalonia is not a workersâ organization at all, but a tool of the
reactionary bourgeois elements who are trying by every means to further
the counter-revolution in that country.
The most important component of the U.G.T. in Catalonia at present is
the G.E.P.C.I. (an alliance of the Catalonian small industrialists and
tradesmen), which was formerly among the most outspoken opponents of
organized labor and is today the most loyal ally of the Communist
P.S.U.C. The central office of this organization is located in the
premises of the Catalonian textile-mill managers, Calle Santa Ana, Nr.
2. Moreover, the president of the so-called âtextile workersââ section
is none other than Señor Gurri, former president of the association of
Catalonian textile manufacturers. One also finds there Señor Fargas,
previously known as one of the richest and most brutal employers in
Barcelona, with whom the C.N.T. has waged many a hard-fought contest.
Besides these there are found here a lot of well-known personalities out
of the old managersâ world of Barcelona, such as Señor Armengol and many
others who today carry on their light-shunning existence under the
protection of the Stalinists of the U.G.T. These are the men who are
today, at home and abroad, accusing the C.N.T. of âtreason to the
interests of the proletariatâ and whose implacable hatred is directed at
everyone who opposes the restoration of the old capitalist order.
In other parts of the country, as, for example, in the Levante, the
Stalinists have revived the notorious âsindicatos libres,â in which
under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera were gathered the most
depraved elements in the district to do the required dirty work for the
employers. From their ranks came the so-called âpistolerosâ, whose job
it was to terrify the workers by assassinations and other infamous
crimes. Many a valuable life fell prey to these bandits who are now the
most valuable allies of the Spanish Stalinists.
After the Communists had in this manner gained for themselves the
necessary foothold in the country there began a regular crusade against
everything that the workers and peasants had accomplished and, in
particular, a systematic boycott of those industrial plants conducted by
the C.N.T. and U.G.T. syndicates and the rural village co-operatives.
Anything was right for these men that served to spread the spirit of
disintegration and to bring to maturity the secret plans of their
taskmasters. These people, who, over night, had forgotten their old
principles and started caroling the siren song of the United Front in
every tongue on the globe, are the ones who by their vile intrigues have
broken the anti-Fascist front in Spain.
Socialists of all schools, sincere liberals and bourgeois anti-Fascists
who had an opportunity to observe on the spot the splendid work of
social upbuilding of the Spanish workers, have thus far passed only one
judgment on the creative ability of the C.N.T. and have rendered to its
labors the tribute of their sincerest admiration. None of them could
help extolling the native intelligence, the forethought and prudence
and, above all, the unexampled tolerance with which the workers of the
C.N.T. had performed their difficult task. So said the Swiss Socialist,
Andres Oltmares, professor in the University of Geneva, in a rather long
essay from which we take the following:
âIn the midst of the civil war the Anarchists have proved themselves to
be political organizers of the first rank. They kindled in everyone the
required sense of responsibility, and knew how by eloquent appeals to
keep alive the spirit of sacrifice for the general welfare of the
people.
âAs a Social Democrat I speak here with inner joy and sincere
admirations of my experiences in Catalonia. The anti-capitalist
transformation took place here without their having to resort to a
dictatorship. The members of the syndicates are their own masters, and
carry on production and the distribution of the products of labor under
their own management with the advice of technical experts in whom they
have confidence. The enthusiasm of the workers is so great that they
scorn any personal advantage and are concerned only for the welfare of
all.â
And, speaking of the adaptation of industries to the war needs,
Professor Oltmares declared that in the matter of organization the
Catalonian workersâ syndicates âin seven weeks accomplished fully as
much as France did in fourteen months after the outbreak of the World
War.â He might have added: and as Russia had not been able to accomplish
after two years of Bolshevist dictatorship.
Quite a number of similar reports by impartial and honest observers
found their way into the press of every country except Russia and the
Fascist states. However one may look upon the C.N.T. from the point of
view of world philosophy, he cannot refuse recognition to the unlimited
willingness to sacrifice and the constructive spirit of its members. But
not only Socialists and honest correspondents of bourgeois papers were
obliged to take cognizance of these facts; even Mr. Antonov-Ovséenko,
the Russian consul at Barcelona, was unable to avoid expressing the same
view. Thus in an interview he granted to a correspondent of the
âManchester Guardian,â published on December 22, 1936, we find:
âThe Consul, of course, denied the well known fact of the interference
of Soviet Government in the internal politics of Catalonia. But at the
same time he expressed greatest admiration for the Catalan workers,
especially for the anarcho-syndicalists.
âThe sobriety of the Catalan workers surprised and gratified the Soviet
Consul no less than their extreme common sense and adaptation to
realities. Recalling that it had been necessary in Petrograd in 1917 to
flood the cellars of the palaces to prevent drunkenness, Ovséenko
related his astonishment at visiting a champagne factory outside
Barcelona, which had not only been raided but kept in the most perfect
state by the workersâ committees.
ââThe anarchist movement,â the Soviet representative stated, âwas
obviously rooted in the Catalan working class, but its best
representatives were astonishingly able to realize the needs of the
present situation... Their strength is unparalleled in the anarchist
movement in any other country. Despite certain fanaticisms the typical
worker in the C.N.T. was chiefly interested in working under decent
conditions, and for this reason would fight to death against Fascism.â
âThe Consul has no doubt that the Catalan workers are capable of
reconstructing the wrecked industries, their unaided work in the harbor
and factories showing that they are capable of running industry
themselves. He was impressed with the fact that the political crisis in
Catalonia had been resolved in two days with the minimum of
disturbance.â
Since then seven months have gone by. At that time one still had to
proceed with caution so as not to make the Spanish workers and peasants
shy off, for, though they knew very well how to fight and to build, they
had no experience in the deceptive arts of crafty diplomacy. Their whole
lives had moved along roads where oneâs word was oneâs word and manâs
trust in man had not been flung to the dogs, as in Bolshevist Russia.
That the Russian consulâs asseverations were never meant seriously,
recent events in Spain have clearly shown. They were, from the first,
designed to throw dust in the eyes of the working people of Spain and
the world and to trick them with statements which the consul did not
himself believe. If one can bring any reproach against the leading
persons in the C.N.T.-F.A.I. it is that they accorded these false
âbrothersâ a greater confidence than they deserved, and that under the
pressure of desperate circumstances they let themselves be drawn into
making concessions which could only prove disastrous to them later.
Actuated by a thoroughly noble sentiment, they undervalued too greatly
the subterranean machinations of a secret enemy who threatens today to
prove more perilous to them than open Fascism. The fact the Russian
press, for reasons that are easily understood, never uttered one least
little word about the efforts of the Spanish workers and peasants at
social reconstruction, which the Russian consul at Barcelona âadmiredâ
so much, in itself speaks volumes.
In Spain, however, the attacks of the Stalinists were directed not
merely against these efforts, but against all the accomplishments which
had been born of the events of July, 1936. It was they who zealously
urged upon the government the suppression of the workersâ patrols by the
police; it was they who played themselves up as defenders of the middle
class, in order to turn these against the workers; it was they who
suggested to the government at Valencia a censorship of the press under
Russian supervision; it was they who at the time of the heaviest battles
against Franco and his German and Italian allies provoked one
governmental crisis after another in Valencia and Barcelona in order to
bring their secret plans in the interest of England and France to
fulfillment; and it was they who sought earnestly to concentrate all
power in the hands of the central government in order to institute
through this agency that âneutral dictatorshipâ for the âtranquilizing
of the countryâ which had been so warmly recommended by the leader of
the English Tories, Winston Churchill.
The Communist press of the whole world and its allies among the socalled
neutral powers are trying by an infamous propaganda of falsehoods to
deceive their readers as to the real state of affairs, telling them that
the attitude of the Spanish Stalinists is dictated purely by the need to
avoid driving the middle class and the small land-owners into Francoâs
arms, as the âridiculous socializing campaignâ of the C.N.T. is doing.
But in this respect also matters are really quite different. The C.N.T.
from the beginning regarded the petty bourgeois and small farmer as
natural allies in the struggle against Fascism. Its press has all along
pointed out that during this transition period it recognizes any
economic form which does not have as its objective the exploitation of
man by man. For this reason it has put no obstacles in the way of family
management in the country or of small enterprises in the city. To be
sure the C.N.T. attacked with all its energy speculators and cut-throats
with union cards in their pockets who wanted to profit from the
confusion; and that is altogether understandable.
In its work of socialization the C.N.T. has imposed upon itself the
greatest moderation and has gone about its task with a tact and prudence
that only pure malevolence would dare to deny. Wherever small farmers
have preferred individual operation to agrarian collectives, they have
been left their free choice. Their small pieces of land have not been
touched; they have even been enlarged in proportion to the size of the
families. It is a fact that after the great days of the July revolution
many hundreds of small employers and small farmers voluntarily put their
plants and their land at the disposal of the workersâ syndicates and
hailed the social revolution with genuine enthusiasm. In Aragon, for
example, an overwhelming majority of the small farmers declared for
collective agriculture. There exist there at present about four hundred
collective enterprises, of which only ten have joined the U.G.T., while
all the others belong to the C.N.T. syndicates.
In reality a very friendly relation has existed for a long time between
the C.N.T. and the anti-Fascist bourgeoisie. This did not change until
the disruptive work of the Stalinists set in, and the Communists began
to play up the petty bourgeoisie as their trump cards against the
workers. Only then did it become possible for âTreball,â the Communist
Party sheet in Barcelona, to proclaim with proletarian pride that âthe
totality of the petty bourgeoisieâ was organized in the Catalonian
U.G.T. This was written by the same men who earlier had used tones of
profound contempt to designate their Socialist opponents of both the
right and left as âpetty bourgeois.â With bitter irony, but most
convincingly, the daily paper âCNTâ in Madrid characterized this
Jesuitical duplicity of the Communists:
âThe Communist Party wishes to make us believe that the revolution is to
be furthered by favoring small businessmen, safeguarding private
ownership, standing up for the interests of small industrialists,
excluding labor organizations from a share in the government, sabotaging
the village collectives of the peasants, showing oneself amenable to the
wishes of foreign capital, and, above all, by denying that the present
situation in Spain is favorable to a social revolution. That same
Communist Party is doing this, which only a few years ago, when it was
setting itself for the first time to disseminate its ideas in our
country, had assigned to the social revolution the first place on its
order of the day.
âIn other words: For the Communist Party the revolution will be made
with the help of the counter-revolution, and the counter-revolution with
the help of the revolution. And if anyone says that this is nonsense, he
is reminded that we are not here setting forth our own views, but the
latest theory of unadulterated Marxism-Leninism.â
Norman Thomas, the well known leader of the Socialist Party of the
United States, who recently returned from an investigating trip in
Spain, relates in âThe Nationâ that there is a joke current there to the
effect that when anyone is too conservative to join the Left Republicans
he joins the Communists. In reality, however, this is not a joke, but a
stubborn fact that there is no way of getting around. Concerning the
role of the Communist Party in Spain there is only one opinion among men
of every political shade. Thus, the Liberal âManchester Guardianâ
states:
âThe Communists in Spain are the Right wing supporters of the
government. They are in a sense conservatives, seeing that their
declared aim is to re-establish republican democracy...
âThe anarchists, who command the majority of labor in Catalonia, are the
only party which puts revolution first. They, alone of all the Spanish
political movements, remain true revolutionaries, with the exception of
the rather vveak P.O.U.M.â
Even the conservative âNew York Timesâ was obliged to confirm this:
âThe Communists are today perhaps the most moderate faction in Spain,
and in comparison with the Anarchists, who stand to their left, they are
flatly conservative. Notwithstanding this, the prospects for a Communist
regime after the Russian pattern are very small, as the Anarchists are
too strong.â
And Dr. Trabal, one of the best-known Catalonian Nationalist leaders,
who a short time ago joined the Communist P.S.U.C., declared with
cynical frankness:
âYes, I am now among the Socialists. But let no one tell me that I have
changed my position. I stand just where I always stood. It is the
Socialists and the Communists who have changed their position. With
their help I can go on working for my ideals.â
While the Spanish Stalinists were aligning themselves with the Spanish
bourgeoisie against the mass movement of the workers and peasants, there
began in the Russian press a savage campaign against the so-called
âTrotzkyistsâ in Spain and the C.N.T., which for cowardly deceit and
meanness of sentiment excelled anything that the most perverted fancy
could invent. It is extremely sign)ficant that just at the time when the
Russian consul at Barcelona was assuring the âManchester Guardian,â in
the interview referred to, that âfor these reasons Russia could not but
look sympathetically upon the Catalan wQrl;ersâ movement. It certainly
has no intention of preventing their working out of their own salvation
in the manner most suited to their national characteristicsâ â just then
âPravdaâ thought it fitting to report:
âSo far as Catalonia is concerned, the cleaning up of Trotzkyist and
Anarcho-Syndicalist elements there has already begun, and it will be
carried out there with the same energy as in the U.S.S.R.â (Pravda,
December 17, 1936)
And these cowardly and conscienceless attacks stiffened just in the
measure that the Stalinists, with the aid of the official
representatives of Russia, succeeded in gaining ground, until at last
the Spanish correspondent of âPravdaâ published in that paper a
sensational article, which we here reproduce verbatim:
âThe central organ of the Anarchists in Barcelona, âSolidaridad Obrera,â
carried in its March 16^(th) issue, an insulting attack on the Soviet
press. It is significant that the writer directs his attack more
particularly at those reports in the Soviet press which related to the
counter-revolutionary activities of the Trotzkyist P.O.U.M., and makes
the assertion that âthese injurious tactics are meant merely to rouse
dissension in the ranks of the anti-Fascist front in Spain:
âThis obscene defense of the Trotzkyist traitors proceeds from those
shady elements which have sneaked into the ranks of the
Anarcho-Syndicalist organization. They are the former colleagues of
Primo de Rivera in the âFascist Phalanxâ and the Trotzkyists. It is no
secret that these plague spots flourish best today in âSolidaridad
Obreraâ; for it is known that the actual literary director of this sheet
is Canovas Cervantes, former editor of the Fascist paper, âLa Tierra.â
âThese agents of Franco have today intrenched themselves behind the
Anarchist organization to destroy the Spanish Popular Front; but they
are not going to succeed. The Anarcho-Syndicalist masses every day
understand better the necessity for an iron discipline and a strong
peopleâs government. That is the reason why these enemies of the Spanish
people have crept into the ranks of the Anarchists and are combating the
Popular Front with redoubled frenzy.
âIt is no accident that just at the moment when the Italians are setting
themselves for an offensive on the Guadalajara front, the tricky
Trotzkyists are preparing an armed revolt against the Valencia
government. It is also necessary to note that the sheet, âNosotrosâ, in
Valencia is pleading every day for the release of all those who are in
jail for taking part in an armed uprising, among whom are to be found a
number of outspoken Fascists. And this demand is always accompanied by
threats against the government.
âThe anti-Soviet story in âSolidaridad Obreraâ is proof that behind the
central organ of the Anarchists stand Trotzkyists and the agents of the
German secret police. This fact has already alarmed those leaders of the
Catalonian Anarchists who seriously intend to combat international
Fascism.â (Pravda, March 22, 1937)
With such contemptible charges, every word of which is a deliberate lie
thought out with cynical calculation, dishonorable calumniators, who in
the service of their political patrons have made Iying a trade, dare to
belittle a movement which by its heroic resistance has saved the country
from the attacks of the Fascist conspirators; a movement whose adherents
are fighting and dying with une::ampled bravery on every front; a
movement which produced a Durruti, whose name will live in Spanish
history when only a monstrous blot of shame will stand for the breed
that now slanders his comrades. They will never forget in Spain that it
was chiefly the militia of the C.N.T. which, under men like Mera,
Palacios, and Benito y Vallanueva, hurled themselves at the enemy before
Madrid and blocked his way with their bodies. âAnd without Durruti and
his heroic troops Madrid would today long have been in the hands of the
Fascists,â as âFrente Libertario,â organ of the confederated militia
could assert with full justice.
No other movement has made such enormous sacrifices during the frightful
war against Fascism as the C.N.T.-F.A.I. None has lost so many of its
best in this desperate struggle. Everyone knows this in Spain. Their
bitterest opponents cannot refuse them that recognition. The five
hundred thousand who made up the last escort of their comrade
Buenaventura Durruti, fallen by a cowardly assassination, gave powerful
expression to this universal conviction.
That the hatred of the holders of power in Russia is directed today with
especial bitterness at the P.O.U.M. is easy to understand. To Stalin,
who for a considerable time has been busy exterminating the last
remnants of the Old Bolshevism in Russia and getting rid, one after the
other, of his former comrades, who under Lenin used to hold the highest
positions in the Soviet state, it could not, of course, be pleasant that
there should be men in foreigm countries who were unwilling to believe
that nine-tenths of the old and most influential leaders of the
Bolshevist Party are in the service of Hitler and the Japanese
militarists. Still less could it please him that there should be
heretics who just could not swallow the nursery tale of a conspiracy on
so large a scale that it had been sabotaging the Russian industrial
system day and night for years, had its men in the highest circles of
the Russian army, and even in the G.P.U., and yet could not bring itself
to act, but calmly let its alleged leaders one by one be stood against
the wall.
The leaders of the P.O.U.M. (âPartido Obrero de UnificaciĂłn Marxista,â
Workersâ Party of Marxist Unity) have all come from the Communist Party.
As a result of their past experiences they were better informed
concerning the secret machinations of the Russian politicians than
anybody else, and they were not shy about sharing their information with
the public. For this reason the P.O.U.M. was for a long time a thorn in
the flesh of the Stalinists; the more so because the official Communist
Party in Barcelona had earlier never been able to show as many as three
hundred members, while the great majority of the Catalonian Communists
were in the P.O.U.M. organization. This was changed only after the
Stalinists succeeded in cozening the Socialist Party of Catalonia into
setting up the P.S.U.C.
There was never any intrinsic relation between the C.N.T. and the
P.O.U.M. people. This must be emphasized, as the Stalinist press is
today purveying to its readers the falsehood that the P.O.U.M. has very
strongly influenced the attitude of the C.N.T. in Catalonia. There could
really be no talk of such a thing, as the two factions are diametrically
opposed in their theoretical basic principles as uell as in their
methods and their organizational objectives. The P.O.U.M. was always a
small party, counting in all Spain scarcely more than thirty thousand
members. Its tendency was Bolshevistic; its adherents believed that only
a single political party should undertake to conduct the revolution. The
P.O.U.M. embraced in its ranks hair-splitting Marxist factions of the
most diverse types, from the Catalonian followers of Caballero to the
Trotzkyists. Still it would be incorrect to designate it as a
âTrotzkyistâ party, for Trotzky himself had repeatedly spoken out in
sharp condemnation of the tactics of the P.O.U.M. people. From the
beginning the P.O.U.M. had taken a hostile attitude toward the C.N.T.,
as all the productions of its press and all the public announcements of
the organization reveal most clearly.
This attitude was quite natural, for the C.N.T. had been from the first,
the outspoken opponent of any guardianship over the labor movement by
political parties. Its socialism was of a constructive sort and was
based on the trade-union organizations of the workers and peasants. It
was not the result of an abstract theory coming from the study-closet,
but the vital product of long and sacrificial struggles, out of which
the ideas of social liberation had grown of themselves and had in the
course of years taken on organic form. The C.N.T., with its two million
members, is a mass movement and reveals a very definite current in the
history of the country, which can look back on an ancient and glorious
tradition intimately interwoven with the deeds and thoughts of the
Spanish people. The P.O.U.M., however, was a foreign factor in the
Spanish libertarian movement and was, therefore, never able to strike
root among the great masses of the Spanish workers and peasants.
The P.O.U.M. people tried at first to penetrate into the U.G.T. of
Catalonia, and they even succeeded in getting possession of a few
important posts in it. But as the Stalinists of the P.S.U.C. gained
ground there, it became just so much harder for the P.O.U.M. people to
retain their places, and at last they were completely forced out of the
U.G.T.
After the first of the big political trials of the so-called
âTrotzkyistsâ in Moscow, the attacks of the Spanish Stalinists upon the
P.O.U.M. were redoubled and steadily grew more hate-filled and
malevolent. In Madrid, the Stalinists broke into the quarters of the
P.O.U.M. Youth and destroyed everything they could lay their hands on.
The government even suppressed the P.O.U.M. paper for a time and under
pressure from the Russian embassy excluded the P.O.U.M. from
representation in the Committee of Defense of the revolutionary militia,
an act which called forth the unanimous protest of all the other
revolutionary factions.
In Barcelona, where the P.O.U.M. was stronger than in other cities, its
leaders made a sharp response to the malicious attacks of their
Stalinist opponents. On November 27, 1936, âLa Batalla,â the organ of
the P.O.U.M. in Barcelona, carried an article about the back-stairs
politics of Russian diplomacy in Spain, in which it declared: âIt is
unbearable that, under the pretext of affording us certain assistance,
some one wants in return to force upon us definite political forms and
presumes to dictate Spanish policy.â
This article let loose a veritable flood of the vilest accusations in
the Stalinist press. There was no deed of infamy that was not charged to
the P.O.U.M. Even the Russian consul at Barcelona took part personally
in these disgraceful proceedings and attached the P.O.U.M. as an
instrument of Franco, Hitler, and Mussolini â a wretched calumny for
which not a shadow of proof can be adduced. These occurrences led to the
famous crisis in the Catalonian government, deliberately provoked by the
Stalinists in order to force Andres Nin, leader of the P.O.U.M., who
held the position of Minister of Justice there, out of office. That
finally happened in December of last year under immediate pressure from
the representative of the Russian government, who made the assistance of
his government dependent on it â and against the unanimous protest of
the C.N.T., which wished at any cost to avoid the disruption of the
anti-Fascist front.
After the bloody May events in Barcelona, there finally arrived for the
Stalinists the hour in which they could give their revenge on the
P.O.U.M. free rein. On orders from the bourgeois-Communist government at
Valencia, all the unions of the P.O.U.M. were dissolved by the police
and its most influential leaders arrested and taken away to Madrid. The
scandalous campaign of lies in the Stalinist press pointed to the
intention of staging on Spanish soil one of those infamous âespionage
trialsâ after the Russian pattern.
Whatever oneâs attitude may be toward the ideas and objectives of the
P.O.U.M., one cannot deny that in the war against Franco and his allies,
its adherents took their places like men and fought bravely. On July 19
they fought shoulder to shoulder with the workers of the C.N.T.-F.A.I.
They did the same in Madrid and on the other fronts. A large number of
their best men lost their lives in those battles. Maurin, one of the
founders of the P.O.U.M. and, next to Andres Nin, the most influential
leader of the movement, was shot by the rebels. José Oliver fell in
Galicia; Germinal Vidal and Pedro Villarosa died on the Aragon front.
One could hardly suppose that they would sacrifice their lives in the
war against Fascism, if they were in the service of Franco and
Mussolini.
The governmentâs measures against the militants of the P.O.U.M., and
especially the transparent maneuvers of the Stalinists, have elicited
numerous protests from the most diverse sources both in Spain and in
foreign countries. The National Committee of the C.N.T. in Valencia
appealed to President Azaña, the Cortes, and the Minister of Justice in
an open letter demanding justice for the arrested leaders of the
P.O.U.M. in manful and vigorous language. Even under present conditions
it is hard to believe that Spain will become the scene of one of those
judicial comedies which for the past few years have been a part of the
political orders of the day in Russia.
But the Spanish Stalinists and their Russian prompters did not rest
content with sowing discord in the ranks of the anti-Fascist front and
assailing the popular revolution with open and secret boycott. They
proceeded to clear unpleasant opponents from their path by assassination
and to intimidate the populace by a system of secret terrorism. There is
today not the slightest doubt that terrorist groups exist in many parts
of Spain which operate after the method of the Russian Cheka.
Last April the C.N.T. succeeded in uncovering such a Chekist cell in
Murcia and in arresting its most important members. For months the
populace had been alarmed by the sudden disappearance of residents, a
large number of whom belonged to the C.N.T. When the local police made
no effort to get to the bottom of the matter, the C.N.T. took things
into its own hands. It turned out that all the people arrested in
connection with the affair were members of the Communist Party. We quote
from a public statement that w as signed by representatives of the
Popular Front the Libertarian Youth, and the Provincial Committee of the
C.N.T.:
âWe have been awaiting a disavowal by the Communist Party and its press
of the arrested members of the âChekaâ who had been working in
co-operation with the governor of Murcia. We have not yet seen anything
of the kind. Therefore we are now going to speak plainly and say to
those who are trying to import terror-systems and political
dictatorships into Spain from abroad that they are reckoning without
their host. The Spanish people have not the souls of slaves and will
never put the guidance of their fate into the hands of tyrants. We are
today fighting to drive the foreign intruders who are laying our country
to waste, from our soil. We shall know also how to drive out those other
elements who wish to introduce among us political terror-systems which
belong to the past and are repugnant to the thought and feeling of our
people.â
In Castile, and particularly in Madrid and its vicinity, where the
C.N.T., before the revolt of the Fascists, had only a strong minority of
the workers behind it, much has been changed since that revolt. Whole
groups of the U.G.T. went over to the C.N.T., so that the latter is
today almost equal in membership to the U.G.T. in the central part of
the country, and includes, moreover, the most active elements in the
labor movement. Such a development was naturally unwelcome to the
Stalinists, because it was in the highest degree favorable to the
alliance with the U.G.T., which the C.N.T. incessantly advocated. It is
therefore very understandable that in that same Madrid and vicinity,
where the influence of the Communist Party is strongest, especially
since it succeeded in driving the followers of Largo Caballero out of
the leadership of the U.G.T., no means was left untried to hinder the
advance of the C.N.T.
Thus, Cazorla, Communist representative on the Madrid Committee of
Defense, availed himself of his position as chief of police to initiate
a savage persecution of the militants of the C.N.T. This went so far
that one day he had one of the most successful military leaders of the
C.N.T., Verlardini, Chief of Staff of the Mera Division, arrested as a
Fascist. Of course, he had to be released at once, because even General
Miaja characterized Cazorlaâs action as inexpedient (âimprocedenteâ). So
the Communist Cheka set to work still more energetically. From February
to April of this year more than eighty members of the C.N.T. fell victim
to these cowardly assassins in Madrid and vicinity.
In the village of Villanueva in the Province of Toledo, the headquarters
of the field-workersâ organization of the C.N.T. were raided bv order of
the Communist mayor, and sixteen of the C.N.T. workers were murdered by
the Cheka. Similar proceedings took place in the neighboring town of
Villamayor, which had likewise a Communist mayor. When the C.N.T.-F.A.I.
press demanded a rigorous investigation of these proceedings, the
Stalinists set every agency at work to prevent it. âEl Mundo Obrero,â
the central organ of the Communist Party in Madrid, defended the mayor
of Villanueva to the uttermost and proclaimed him an âhonest and sincere
anti-Fascist.â That, however, could not prevent the Communist mayors of
both Villanueva and Villamayor along with the other murderers of the
sixteen field-workers being, under the pressure of public opinion,
brought to trial before a peopleâs court. At this trial incredible
things came to light, such as the horrible rape and murder of a mother
and daughter, which shook the entire population to its depths. The
peopleâs court sentenced the two Communist instigators of this frightful
crime to death. One can understand why the Communists are today urging
the abolishment of the peopleâs courts so strongly.
On May 24 of this year two persons, accompanied by the Communist mayor,
appeared at the home of Gonzales Moreno, secretary of the C.N.T. of
Mascaraque, and told Moreno that they were messengers from the Lister
Brigade and were under orders to arrest him and take him to the city of
Mora de Toledo. Moreno at first refused to obey the order, until the
Communist mayor of Mascaraque promised to accompany him. But when Moreno
had climbed into the waiting auto, the mayor calmly walked off. Next day
Moreno was shot behind the Christ Church in Mora de Toledo. In this case
there was involved just an ordinary act of revenge, for Moreno, who had
formerly been a member of the Communist Party, had left it to join the
C.N.T. âSolidaridad Obrera,â from which we take this account, commented:
âIncluding this new victim there have now been sixty people murdered in
Mora de Toledo. Among them were men and women who had done nothing
except to belong to the C.N.T. and to condemn the criminal acts of the
Communists which kept the neighborhood in terror. Such horrors are not
to be explained by the antagonism of different political convictions,
nor even by the lust for power of certain advocates of revolution. The
perpetrators of crimes so base are simply provocateurs in the service of
Fascism. We demand the punishment of the guilty persons. Those in
responsible positions in our organization have always admonished the
comrades to dignity and self-control. Now, however, we feel ourselves
obliged to bring the horrible crimes which threaten to plunge
anti-Fascist Spain into a fraternal war to the knowledge of the public,
so that the Spanish people may know who are the real provocateurs among
the working class.â (Solidaridad Obrera, July 1, 1937.)
These are only a few facts from a long list that since the May events in
Catalonia has been growing at a frightful rate. The instigators of these
crimes, who today are to further Stalinâs political plans with wanton
hands shattering the anti-Fascist front, are directing all their efforts
toward driving the C.N.T. to violent resistance and so dealing a
deathblow to the social revolution in Spain. The C.N.T. has risked its
best human material to bring the war against the foreign intruders to a
victorious conclusion. Its leading spirits know only too well that on
the outcome of the war depends not only the fate of Spain, but the fate
of their own movement. This awful responsibility has driven them to
things whose dangers cannot be overlooked. In their honest effort to
weld all revolutionary forces together against the threatening Fascism
they could not bring themselves to attack the enemy within their own
ranks with the same healthy vigor which they had so gloriously displayed
in their open battle with Fascism. The less so as they could not fail to
recognize that an open war within the anti-Fascist front could but be to
the advantage of Franco and his allies.
Their conscientiousness toward a foe who from the very beginning had a
definite object in view and was not bothered by conscientious scruples,
led the C.N.T. into a situation which might perhaps have been avoided if
the danger had been recognized and correctly estimated earlier. Those
are matters about which it is hard to pass judgment from without.
Besides, it must not be forgotten that in such situations, where
decisions of far-reaching importance have to be made every moment, not
even the best of us has any magic safeguard against mistakes. Far be it
from us, therefore, to look for real or fancied blunders at a moment
like this, when the whole movement is threatened from every side with
the most serious dangers.
The role that the Russian government has played in Spain from the
beginning, and still plays, is clear to anyone who is not smitten with
absolute blindness. But there is also another reason why the Russian
autocrats and their servile following abroad hate the revolution of the
Spanish workers and peasants from the bottom of their hearts. That is
the libertarian spirit by which it is actuated, and which is in itself
merely the product of a movement which in the long and difficult
struggle of its development has made freedom the basis of its efforts
and has vigorously fought every form of dictatorship.
It is the great moral merit of libertarian Socialism in Spain â which
today finds its mighty expression in the C.N.T. and the F.A.I. â that
from the time of the First International, yes, even before that, it has
fostered in Spanish workers a spirit which prizes freedom above all else
and has made the intellectual independence of its adherents the most
important factor in its existence. The libertarian labor movement of
Spain has never lost itself in the labyrinth of an economic dialectic,
and so its intellectual buoyant force has never been crippled by
fatalistic ideas, as has so often been the case with Socialism in other
countries. Nor has it wasted its capacity for action in the dreary
routine tasks of bourgeois parliaments. Socialism has not been for it a
thing that can be dictated to the people from above by some state or
party bureaucracy, but an organic process of growth which proceeds from
the social activity of the rmasses themselves and finds in their
economic organization a basis which binds together all creative forces
and still imposes no artificial restrictions on the initiative of the
individual.
It was this spirit â out of which was born the nineteenth of July â
which seized with irresistible power upon the entire working population,
and even laid hold on elements which had previously had no connection
with the work of the C.N.T. And it was this spirit by which the workers,
peasants, and intellectuals were guided in their efforts to rebuild the
social life of the country upon new principles, and which gave to their
creative work that characteristic expression which had not before been
seen in any other country.
But the C.N.T. never misused the strength it possessed, and still
possesses, particularly in Catalonia, to suppress other schools of
thought and force its will upon them. Instead it did everything in its
power to unite the anti-Fascist elements for the battle against the
common enemy and the reshaping of the social life. They had no thought
of limiting freedom of opinion or of denying to others on the ground of
their factional inclinations the freedom which they claimed for
themselves. They welcomed every sincere criticism and remained faithful
to those principles of freedom which they had always professed.
For a year now the Spanish people have been engaged in a desperate
struggle against a pitiless foe and have been exposed besides to the
secret intrigues of the great imperialist powers of Europe. Despite this
the Spanish revolutionaries have not grasped at the disastrous expedient
of dictatorship, but have respected all honest convictions. Everyone who
visited Barcelona after the July battles, whether friend or foe of the
C.N.T., was suprised at the freedom of public life and the absence of
any arrangements for suppressing the free expression of opinion.
For two decades the supporters of Bolshevism have been hammering it into
the masses that dictatorship is a vital necessity for the defense of the
so-called proletarian interests against the assaults of the
counter-revolution and for paving the way for socialism. Thev have not
advanced the cause of Socialism by this propaganda, but have merely
smoothed the way for Fascism in Italy, Germany and Austria by causing
millions of people to forget that dictatorship, the most extreme form of
tyranny, can never lead to social liberation. In Russia the so-called
dictatorship of the proletariat has not led to Socialism, but to the
domination of a new bureaucracy over the proletariat and the whole
people.
If today the agents in Spain of the Russian Stalin-regime are
threatening to destroy everything that the workers and peasants have
achieved, and are directing their whole energy toward putting all power
into the hands of a bourgeois-Communist party dictatorship, they are not
doing so to serve the interests of the proletariat, but to further the
onslaughts of the counter-revolution and to serve the ends of English
and French capitalism.
What the Russian autocrats and their supporters fear most is that the
success of libertarian Socialism in Spain might prove to their blind
followers that the much vaunted ânecessity of a dictatorshipâ is nothing
but one vast fraud which in Russia has led to the despotism of Stalin
and is to serve today in Spain to help the counter-revolution to a
victory over the revolution of the workers and peasants.
That after a victorious war against Fascism, Spanish history would not
just start on again from the point at which the nineteenth of July
surprised it, was plain to everyone who had an eye for realities. Only
the Communists did not want to see it, must not see it, since they were
worl:ing in the service of Russia; but Russia was looking after the
business of her imperialist allies. Spain had entered upon a social
revotution. No one could suppose that the rebellious workers and
peasants after a successful conclusion of the war would patiently submit
themselves once more to the old yoke and surrender the social
achievements which they had bought so dearly with the blood of their
best. On the other hand, however, no one could suppose that after the
end of the war the Spanish bourgeoisie would forbear to try to regain
whatever there was for them to regain. That while things were in this
state not everything would run along smoothly was also plain to everyone
who could see.
The further the great transformation in economic and social life
proceeded and brought agriculture and industry under the control of the
workersâ syndicates, the harder would it be for the old powers in Spain
to re-establish the old conditions. And this was just what the foreign
capitalists dreaded most and were seeking by every means to prevent. But
no one had rendered them such invaluable service in this matter as the
Russian government and its instrument, the Communist Party of Spain. It
was they who had everywhere put the most serious difficulties in the way
of the constructive activity of the workersâ syndicates and who today
are wantonly seeking to destroy a work which is of the very greatest
importance for the social development of the country.
Everywhere where the membership of the U.G.T. was made up of genuine
workers and peasants its representatives worked beside the workers of
the C.N.T. in the management of the industrial and agricultural
enterprises in the most perfect harmony. Only where the Communists had
gathered the whole of the petty bourgeoisie into the U.G.T., as, for
example, in Barcelona, did it seek pettily and contemptibly, in order to
prepare the way for the return to the old capitalist conditions, to
nullity by secret or open sabotage the magnificently conceived work of
socialization which the C.N.T. had begun. When the C.N.T. in Catalonia
took over the Ministry of Defense and in exchange turned over the
responsibility for the supply of food-stuffs to the U.G.T., the
Communist minister, Comorera, undertook by every sort of demagogic trick
to undermine the work of the syndicates and to put the control of the
food supply for the city of Barcelona into the hands of the small retail
tradesmen and the middlemen. At the same time thc Communists and the
bourgeois press were waging an incessant war against the constructive
work of the C.N.T. and were holding it responsible for all the evils
which their own representatives were causing. Even though they were
having no luck with the great masses, still this systematic work of
disintegration served to poison public opinion and to instill in the
ranks of the anti-Fascist front a spirit that could but operate
ruinously. In January of 1937 they even organized in the little city of
Faterell a revolt against the C.N.T., which was of itself of little
importance, but which showed what these people were capable of.
It might perhaps be objected that our account rests only on reports in
the C.N.T. press and is therefore not impartial. That would, however, be
a serious mistake. One finds this same opinion expressed even in those
papers whose managers just shortly before the Fascist revolt were
roundly damned by the Communists as Menshevists and âtraitors to the
proletariat.â Thus, âAdelante,â organ of the Socialist Party in
Valencia, wrote with bitter irony, concerning the treachery of the
Stalinists:
âAt the outbreak of the Fascist revolt the labor organizations and the
democratic elements in the country were in agreement that the so-called
Nationalist Revolution, which threatened to plunge our people into an
abyss of deepest misery, could be halted only by a Social Revolution.
The Communist Party, however, opposed this view with all its might. It
had apparently completely forgotten its old theories of a âworkersâ and
peasantsâ republicâ and a âdictatorship of the proletariat.â From its
constant repetition of its new slogan of the parliamentary democratic
republic it is clear that it has lost all sense of reality. When the
Catholic and conservative sections of the Spanish bourgeoisie saw their
old system smashed and could find no way out, the Communist Party
instilled new hope into them. It assured them that the democratic
bourgeois republic for which it was pleading put no obstacles in the way
of Catholic propaganda and, above all, that it stood ready to defend the
class interests of the bourgeoisie.â (Adelante, May 1, 1937.)
That this is not saying too much is shown by the fact that the female
Communist leader, âLa Passionaria,â in Madrid, openly advocated an
alliance of the Communist Youth with the Catholic Youth organizations.
The same paper (âAdelanteâ) a little while ago sent a special
questionnaire to the secretaries of all the field-workersâ trade-unions
of the U.G.T. in different parts of the country, in which, along with
other questions, were the two following: 1. Who is opposing the peasant
collectives? 2. Is the work of the Communist Party in rural districts
helpful or harmful to the activities of the trade-unions? The result of
the inquiry was as follows:
âThe replies to these questions revealed an astounding unanimity.
Everywhere the same story. The peasant collectives are today most
vigorously opposed bv the Communist Party. The Communists organize the
well-to-do farmers svho are on the lookout for cheap labor and are for
this reason, outspokenly hostile to the co-operative undertakings of the
poor peasants.
âIt is the element which before the revolution sympathized with the
Fascists and Monarchists which, according to the testimony of the
trade-union representatives, is now flocking into the ranks of the
Communist Party. As to the general effect of Communist activity on the
country, the secretaries of the U.G.T. had only one opinion, which the
representative of the Valencia organization put in these words: âIt is a
misfortune in the fullest sense of the wordâ.â
There is no doubt that all these underground machinations met with the
approval of the Left Republican and Communist ministers in the Valencia
government. This reveals itself not only in the deliberate sabotaging of
the new co-operative economy in city and country, but also in the
systematic boycott of the Aragon front by the central government, in
which the Russian embassy in particular and, no doubt, its English and
French colleagues as well, had a hand. On the Aragon front there stood
for the most part C.N.T. formations. Therefore it was sought to prevent
at all costs, equipping them with large armament. For months the front
remained without flying machines, tanks, and heavy artillery. Its
defenders had to depend almost entirely on hand-arms and machine-guns,
and were deficient even in these. And yet an offensive on this very
front would have been of the greatest strategic importance. It would not
only have been able to prevent the fall of Bilbao, but would in large
measure have relieved the brave defenders of Madrid. The C.N.T. press
had been denouncing this outrageous game for months. Miguel Martin
Guillen, one of the military leaders of the C.N.T. in Aragon, even spoke
of outright treachery:
âSend us weapons, armored cars, airplanes, etc., and all Aragon will be
ours! Less treachery and a better comprehension of the actual situation!
Less politics and more action, and Huesca, Teruel, and Zaragosa will
fall into our hands! We can no longer endure being condemned here to
forced inactivity. Still less can we endure the cowardly and underhand
attacks from certain political circles, which reproach us for our
inaction, whose cause they know only too well. Fewer intrigues and more
impartiality...â (Orientaciones Nuevas, May 22, 1937.)
It is a fact that as we write these lines, Franco, with great technical
superiority, has opened an offensive at Teruel, against which whole
troops have been sacrificed uselessly because they lacked the large
armament necessary for a successful resistance. But England, France and
Russia were just as little interested in a decisive victory for the
Loyalists as they were in a victory for Franco. And it was still less to
their liking to arm the Aragon front, where the C.N.T. was most strongly
represented. And while the Aragon front was being systematically
boycotted, the Communist press in foreign countries was telling its
readers that the C.N.T. men did not want to fight, those defenders of
the same front where once stood Durruti, who had been called âthe hero
of the Aragon front.â
When, before the fall of Bilbao, it looked as if Franco was minded to
accede to the proposals of the Anglo-French diplomats for mediation, it
concerned the latter above everything to render the Valencia government
well-disposed toward their plans. They had already been employing all
the instruments of political pressure to that end and, no doubt, had
found an open ear in certain circles of the old government. But Largo
Caballero had at least learned that acceding to the plans of England and
France would be equivalent to outright betrayal of the Spanish people,
and he uas not willing to lend himself to that. For this reason he
refused to yield to the pressure from without and accused his Republican
and Communist opponents in the government of âhaving shown too great
receptiveness to suggestions from certain exalted circles beyond the
Pyrenees.â
That was enough to bring about the fall of the Caballero government.
Again it was the Communists who provoked the crisis in the Valencia
government in order to help the Negrin government into the saddle, a
government consisting exclusively of bourgeois Republicans, Catholics,
Right Socialists, and Communists, and which is therefore only too much
inclined to accede to the wishes of the foreign imperialists. And again
it was the Russian ambassador who made further assistance from his
government dependent on the overthrow of the Caballero cabinet.
That the new government, whose first act was to exclude the two big
workersâ organizations, the C.N.T. and the U.G.T., from representation,
openly serves the ends of the counter-revolution recent events in Spain
and the persecution of the best fighters in the anti-Fascist front, have
sufficiently proved. It is significant that in its first manifesto the
new government announced that in the interest of the war it was
particularly ânecessary that the present cabinet be of an exclusively
political character.â
Of course! Only politicians of the worst sort can bring themselves to
sacrifice the interests of the Spanish people to the pretensions of
foreign capitalists and to rob the toiling masses of the fruits of the
revolution. The Communists, however, readily lent themselves to these
reactionary proposals and offered a façade behind which the old powers
of darkness today are waiting their hour. On this âLa Correspondencia,â
organ of the U.G.T. in Valencia, comments sarcastically:
âIt almost gives the impression that the U.G.T. and the C.N.T. play a
very unimportant part in the affairs of our country. Their members have
the right to make their contributions and die at the front like good
fellows. In all other matters, however, they are to leave the
politicians a free hand and permit them to lead them where they will.â
But even before the recent crisis in the government at Valencia had
reached its end they poised for a mighty blow at the revolutionary
workers of the C.N.T.-F.A.I., so as to prove to the foreign capitalist
powers that it was their firm intention to put an end to the efforts of
the syndicates at socialization. As always, so this time also, the
Stalinists were the executive instrument for the professional bourgeois
politicians and middle-class reactionaries whose intentions coincided
with those of the foreign imperialists.
That in the May events in Catalonia we are not dealing with a revolt of
the Anarchists and the P.O.U.M., as the foreign press almost unanimously
reported, was clear to everyone who had even a glimpse into the
conditions. The assertion that the C.N.T.-F.A.I. in alliance with the
P.O.U.M. intended to seize the entire governmental power in Catalonia
was, in fact, so silly that it could only impress people who had not the
faintest glimmering as to the actual state of affairs in that province.
If the C.N.T.-F.A.I. had really entertained any such plans, they had for
a long time after the nineteenth of July the best opportunity to put
their wishes into effect, for their tremendous moral and physical
superiority over every other faction was such that simply no one could
have resisted them. They did not do so, not because they lacked the
strength, but because they were opposed to any dictatorship from
whichever side it proceeded.
Over 120,000 members of the C.N.T.-F.A.I. were fighting in its military
formations on every front. An uprising in the hinterland would have been
contemptible treachery to these men, who at every instant were risking
their lives to prevent the advance of Franco and his allies. Moreover,
the C.N.T. was represented in the Generalidad of Catalonia, and people
do not usually revolt against a government in which they are themselves
participating. Every effort of the C.N.T. after the nineteenth of July
was centered on winning the war and the revolution. They were by far the
strongest and most sacrificing factor in the anti-Fascist front,
influenced by no partisan political interest of any kind and having in
view solely the social liberation of the great masses. Their whole
behavior in the desperate struggle against the hordes of Fascism bears
splendid testlmony to this and can be interpreted in no other way.
No, the occurrences in Catalonia were not the result of an âAnarchist
and Trotzkyist conspiracyâ against the government, but of a long and
carefully prepared plot against the Spanish working class in which the
Communists and their allies, the Catalonian Nationalists, played the
most important role. The most important, not the sole part, for all the
reactionary elements collaborated in this conspiracy, from the
compromise-ready politicians of Valencia and Barcelona to the most
exalted circles of foreign diplomacy. The plans had been made for
months, as is clearly shown by numerous indisputable facts.
Thus, on March 5, 1937, there appeared at the arsenal in Barcelona, a
group of men who, presenting an order from Vallejo, the director of war
industries, demanded the delivery of ten armored cars. The
superintendent of the arsenal complied with the order. Later, however,
doubts arose, and he telephoned Vallejo to ask whether he had given such
an order. It was then revealed that the whole thing was a fraud and that
Vallejoâs signature had been forged. It was quickly discovered that the
armored cars were in the Voroshilov Barracks, the military headquarters
of the Communist Party. At first, they simply denied the fact there. But
when the Catalonian Prime Minister, Tarradelles, intervened and
threatened a search by force, they had to admit the theft. What was the
purpose of this act? One does not steal armored cars unless one intends
to use them. But against whom else could they have been employed in
Barcelona if not against the workers of the C.N.T. and F.A.I.? No human
being who is in possession of all five of his senses will deny that one
only undertakes a trick like that if he has some special plan in his
mind.
But that is not all. âPravdaâ reported as early as March 22 that the
P.O.U.M. was preparing an uprising against the government in Valencia.
That was, of course, a deliberate lie, and on top of that, a thoroughly
stupid lie; for the P.O.U.M. was only a small organization, which had no
influence with the great mass of the organized workers. To think that
such a body could plan an uprising against the government is simply an
insult to human intelligence. But in Russia even the stupidest lie is
quite good enough.
But it was not onIy in Russia and in the leading circles of the Spanish
Communists and the Estat CatalĂĄ that people were so suspiciously well
informed about the coming âuprising.â In diplomatic circles abroad they
were likewise possessed of the best possible âinformationâ about the
matter. Diego Abad de Santillan, who for a while held the office of
Minister of Economy in the Catalonian government and who is known all
over Spain and South America as one of the most honorable of men, whose
regard for truth and sense of responsibility no one can question,
shortly after the occurrences in Barcelona issued the following
statement, which speaks for itself:
âThere is no doubt that the recent events were the result of a
deliberate plot, such as has never before been seen in the history of
the social movement. This is plain from the fact that two weeks before
they happened, people were talking about them in foreign diplomatic
circles and were prepared for their occurrence. It was discussed there
quite openly that now that the C.N.T.-F.A.I. had been forced out of the
leading positions in Madrid and Valencia the Anarchists in Catalonia
were to be given a fight. The same statements were being made in Paris
by persons who stand very close to the Catalonian government.
âAnd how else can one explain the sudden arrival of foreign warships in
our harbor just a few hours before the outbreak of hostilities? Is not
that another proof that we are here dealing with a plan determined in
advance? Long before the first shot was discharged in Barcelona, English
and French cruisers were hurrying toward the port as if they had a
prophetic presentiment of the things to come. If one takes all this into
consideration, one asks oneself how much faith in the triumph of the
anti-Fascist cause still exists among those people who invoke foreign
protection against the workers of their own country?â (Solidaridad
Obrera, May 13, 1937.)
The bloody occurrences in Barcelona were merely the last in a long
series of unheard-of provocative acts having for their sole purpose to
incite the C.N.T. and the F.A.I. to retaliation, so that later the moral
responsibility for the inevitable consequences could be shoved off on
them. Thus, the government in Valencia, all on the quiet, organized a
special troop of revenue officers, carabineros, made up entirely of
Communists and Right Socialists. In April of this year a section of this
troop uas suddenly sent into Catalonia to occupy the French border,
which up to then had been guarded by the workersâ militia of the C.N.T.,
who were everywhere with unimpeachable punctiliousness looking after the
public .safety. This act, which had even no legal justification, can
only be interpreted as a provocation directed against the C.N.T.
On April 27, the carabineros, without any reason whatever, brought on a
clash with the residents of the little city of Puigcerda, whose
population consisted exclusively of Anarchists, in the course of which
Antonio Martin, President of the City Council, and two comrades of the
C.N.T. were shot by Catalonian Separatists. The town was known for its
exemplary economic and political arrangements, which had even been
highly extolled on several occasions by correspondents of foreign
newspapers. Still the C.N.T., even this time, did not let itself be
drawn into retaliatory measures, since it was well aware of the enormous
responsibility that rested on its shoulders. If, along with all this,
one takes into consideration the continual crises in the Catalonian
government which were being provoked by the Communists, one understands
at once that the alleged ârevolt of the Trotzkyists and the Anarchistsâ
in Catalonia was in reality a well-planned assault of the
counter-revolution, by which it was sought to batter down the strongest
bulwark of the Spanish labor movement and clear the field for the
schemes of the foreign imperialists.
The immediate cause of the events in Catalonia was an openly provocative
act of the Minister of Public Safety, Artemio Aiguadé, a member of the
Catalonian Separatists, who had taken over this post in the newly formed
cabinet only a few weeks before. At three oâclock on the afternoon of
May 3^(rd), Commissar Rodriguez Salas, a member of the Communist
P.S.U.C., appeared with a strong division of police at the central
telephone exchange in Barcelona and stated categorically that he had
orders from Aiguadé to occupy the building. The telephone central, like
most of the other public buildings in the city, stood under the control
of the C.N.T. and U.G.T., together with an official delegate from the
Generalidad, and this state of affairs had long been recognized by the
government.
When, therefore, the workers protested, Salas ordered his men to disarm
them by force. On the first floor luck was with him in this, because the
workers were simply taken by surprise. In the second story, however, he
encountered the energetic resistance of the C.N.T. men. Shots were fired
on both sides, and the police were unable to force their way further.
Meanwhile a huge crowd of people had gathered in the street, attracted
by the shooting. The general excitement, however, reached its height
when armed P.S.U.C. men suddenly appeared in the adjacent streets and
began erecting barricades. An outcry went up then all over the city and
quickly spread to the most remote suburbs: âTreason! Treason! To arms!
Weâve got to defend the Revolution!â
All this occurred quite spontaneously. The workers felt that a malicious
assault on them had been arranged and resolutely prepared to defend
themselves without waiting for the decision of their organizations. In
the turn of a hand, the suburbs were converted into armed intrenchments.
It was plain from the very beginning that the whole of organized labor
was on the side of the C.N.T., just as in July, 1936. So strong was the
general resistance in the Barcelona suburbs that the police there, as a
whole, remained neutral; likewise the Republican, and even the
Communist, militia, as, for instance, the soldiers in the Communist
barracks in Sarria. In many sections they went straight over to the
people, as in Sans and San Gervasio the Guardia de Asalto likewise did.
In Sans the workers took four hundred of the Guardia Civil prisoners and
held them in the C.N.T. headquarters. It is characteristic that these
and all the other prisoners taken by the workers were promptly released
when the fighting was over, while such known members of the C.N.T. as
fell into the hands of the other side were murdered in cowardly fashion.
Only in the heart of the city, the section where the old middle class
resided, did the Communists and their allies remain masters of the
situation; and even there only because the workers from the beginning
confined themselves strictly to defense and made no direct attacks, as
they might easily have done. The Regional Committee of the C.N.T. was
concerned above everything else to bring the fighting to an end and to
prevent its spreading to other sections of the country. Delegations
hurried to Prime Minister Tarradelles and Minister of the Interior
Aiguadé and demanded the withdrawal of the bands of police. They were
assured that no order had been given for the occupation of the telephone
central. This was a manifest lie, for it was later established that
Aiguadé had given Salas the order. A short time before the outbreak of
hostilities a C.N.T. operator at the exchange had taken in a telegram
which was addressed to a well-known Catalonian Separatist politician in
France and consisted of the words: âEstic bĂ©. Tot marxa.â (I am well.
All goes nicely.) The Regional Committee was therefore at once certain
that there had been here not just an unfortunate misunderstanding, but a
well-planned attack on the organized workers for the purpose of
expelling the representatives of the C.N.T. from the Generalidad and
bloodily destroying their organization. This conviction was only too
well justified, for, it developed later, the same things were going on
in other Catalonian towns and were being managed in the same way. The
committee found itself in a difficult position. Its members were well
aware that the spreading of the conflict would deal the anti-Fascist
cause a crushing blow. On the other hand they could not possibly expect
the workers to allow themselves to be calmly butchered by a cowardly
band of conspirators. The committee therefore concentrated its efforts
from the very beginning on the defence, and demanded the immediate
dismissal of Aiguadé and Salas by the government, thus restoring peace
as quickly as possible. When the government hesitated, the general
strike was proclaimed, from which were exempted only those workers
engaged in industries of war. This is but an additional proof of the
great sense of responsibility which motivated the working classes of
Barcelona. Had the government accepted this only too reasonable demand,
peace would have been restored within a few hours, for the workers
certainly had nothing to gain by killing each other. By their disruptive
tactics the Communists and Separatists prolonged the negotiations,
thereby aggravating the situation needlessly.
In the suburbs practically no fighting took place. In Sans,
Hostafranchs, San Gervasio, etc., the workers merely disarmed the police
and the Guardia Civil and concerned themselves only with their own
defense. Meanwhile the C.N.T. and the F.A.I. issued appeals to the
populace informing them of the true state of affairs and calling on them
to end the fighting. In an appeal to the police they say:
âThe C.N.T. and F.A.I. are against every form of dictatorship, nor are
they minded to force their own dictatorship on others. As long as our
adherents live they will never submit to a dictatorship. We are fighting
against Fascism, not because we like to fight, but because we wish to
assure freedom to the people; because we wish to prevent the return of
those forces which are merely looking forward to massacring the militant
workers and establishing the exploitation of the people. And we are
fighting against all those, who do not, indeed, call themselves
Fascists, but nevertheless wish to establish a system of absolutism
which stands in contradiction to all our traditions and to the history
of our people.â
And in a manifesto to organized workers of every faction, we read:
âMen and women of the people! Workers! We are speaking to you frankly
and honestly, as we have always done. We are not responsible for what is
happening today. We are attacking no one, We are only defending
ourselves. We did not begin this fight, nor did we provoke it. We are
only replying to the accusations, the calumnies, and to the violence
that is sought to be done to the C.N.T.-F.A.I., the irreconcilable
fighters of the anti-Fascist front.
âWe have never concealed our aims, and we have given sufficient proof of
our worth. Why do they want to exterminate us? Is it not suspicious that
we are being attacked here while our formations in Madrid, in Andalusia,
in Viscaya and Aragon are constantly supplying new proofs of their
courage and their strength? Workers of the C.N.T. and U.G.T.! Remember
the road that we have traveled together! How many of us have fallen
covered with wounds, in the open streets and on the barricades! Lay down
your arms! Remember that you are brothers! We shall conquer if we are
united. If wee fight one another we are doomed to defeat!â
That is not the language of conspirators, but of men who recognized
their responsibility, and who were cravenly assailed because with
unshakable fidelity they defended the freedom of the Spanish people.
When the C.N.T. militia on the Aragon front got word of the events in
Catalonia, without delay they sent one of their best fighters, Jover, to
Barcelona. They were ready at once to go to the assistance of their
basely betrayed brothers. The National Committee of the C.N.T. prevented
this. That certainly was not the conduct of men who had designs to
overthrow the government and put themselves in exclusive possession of
public power. On May 4^(th) delegates from the National Committee of the
C.N.T. and U.G.T. arrived from Valencia to help restore peace. On May
5^(th) the government at last decided on an armistice. Aiguadé and Salas
were removed from their positions. The old government retired and a new
one was formed in which one representative each from the C.N.T., the
U.G.T., the Left Republicans, and the small farmers had a seat. But,
though after the armistice was decided on the workers removed their
barricades in the suburbs, the Communists were constantly provoking new
clashes in the heart of the city, as they doubtless had been informed
that the Valencia government had decided to interfere. Thus, a division
of the Guardia Civil, after the syndicates of the C.N.T. had already
ceased fighting, suddenly attacked the quarters of the Libertarian
Youth. The Youth defended their home with grim contempt for death and in
doing so lost six of their best comrades.
In this way the C.N.T.-F.A.I. while the negotiations for an armistice
were still in progress lost a number of their best comrades, all of them
murdered by Stalinist assassins. On the afternoon of May 5, the two
Italian Anarchists, Berneri and Barbieri, were arrested by Communists,
and during the following night both were shot. Camillo Berneri was one
of the finest minds in the libertarian movement of Italy, a man of
blameless character and broad political outlook. As a young professor in
the University of Camarino, he had left Italy after Mussoliniâs
accession to power and had since lived abroad as a political refugee.
Immediately after the nineteenth of July, 1936, he hastened to Barcelona
and formed the first Italian free troop for the war against Fascism. His
clear vision quiclcly recognized the ambiguous role of the Russian
government, and he warned his Spanish comrades against the approaching
danger. In the periodical, âGuerra di Classe,â which he conducted, he
published an article under the title, âBurgos and Moscow,â in which he
laid bare the underground machinations of the Stalinists, so that the
Russian ambassador in Barcelona lodged a protest against it. After that
the agents of Moscow hated him from the bottom of their hearts, and he
paid for his article with his young life, the victim of a cowardly
assassination.
And in those bloody days Domingo Ascaso also fell by the hand of an
assassin. He was the brother of Francisco Ascaso, one of the first to
lose his life in the battle against the Fascists on July 19^(th), and
for a long time Durrutiâs closest friend. Murdered also was Francisco
Ferrerâs nephew, who had returned from the front, wounded, a short time
before. He still walked with a crutch and was accompanying his mother on
the street when he was shot down before her eyes by cowardly murdering
hoodlums. These are just a few names from a long list who were
maliciously massacred at that time. Five hundred deod and fifteen
hundred wounded; that is the bloody audit for which the organized
workers of Barcelona have to thank Stalinâs policy. And all of that â we
keep repeating it â because the Russian government has to show itself
well-disposed toward Anglo-French imperialism; because Russia has
contemptibly betraved the cause of the workers and peasants in Spain,
and its adherents there stand squarely in the camp of the
counter-revolution.
If Stalinâs agents and their allies, the Catalonian Separatists, have,
still, not succeeded in carrying out their dark plots against the
organized workers of Catalonia, this is owing only to the determined
resistance of those workers, who did not quietly permit the elements
without conscience to wantonly destroy their life work and break up
their movement.
One thing, however, Stalinâs followers in Spain have achieved. They have
shattered the anti-Fascist front and have delivered Catalonia to the
Negrin government. To achieve this end they have allied themselves with
the most reactionary elements of the old regime, of whom a large number
are nothing but Fascists in disguise. When on July 19^(th), of last year
the organized workers of Barcelona put down the Fascist revolt and took
the land and the factories under their own management, many of those
people who now stand on the side of the Communists left Spain in great
haste and took refuge abroad; ahead of all the others, the leader of the
Catalonian Separatists, Señor Dencås, who very significantlv, fled to
Rome, later to help the Stalinists arrange the âuprisingâ in Barcelona.
In June of this year the National Committee of the C.N.T. in Valencia
issued a public statement on the events in Barcelona, in which the
underground activities of these people were nailed down, and it was
proved by a long list of assured facts that many of the prominent
leaders of the Estat Catalå, like Aiguadé, Dencås, Casanovas, Lluhi
Vallesca, Ventura Cassols, Sancho Xicotta and many others were
maintaining secret connections with Fascist circles in France. In this
open indictment the committee stated: âWe are assuming full
responsibility for every word that is said here. No one will be able to
dispute these facts. The individual cases which we cite here are based
on trustworthy information and are the result of exact knowledge of the
true state of affairs.â
None of the persons so seriously accused has thus far attempted to
mitigate the force of this public indictment by the National Committee
of an organization which numbers over two million members in Spain. But
this does not in any way concern the leaders of the Communist Party in
Spain and their Russian prompters. They have a definite mission from the
Russian government to fulfill, and anyone who will be helpful in this is
welcome to them. And after the occurrences in Catalonia they did not
cease their ruinous work, which had as its first objective to force the
C.N.T. out of the Generalidad of Catalonia. How they are going about
this is shown by the following secret circular from the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of Spain to their agents in Catalonia:
âCrisis. Provocation of the same. Motives: We can rely upon the
transient aspect of the present government. But our party demands the
presidency. The new government will display the same characteristics as
the government in Valencia; a strong government, a âPopular Frontâ
government, whose chief mission it will be to foster the desire for
peace in the minds of the people and to call to account the instigators
of the recent counter-revolution. (The occurrences in Barcelona are
meant. â Author.) The C.N.T. will be permitted to participate in this
government, but under such conditions that they will feel obliged to
refuse co-operation. Then we can represent ourselves as the ones who
wish to co-operate with all factions. If certain inconveniences should
arise from this, they will not fall on us, but on those who on other
occasions have been in the same position.â
This secret document was published in Madrid by the daily âCNTâ on the
same day on which the Communists in Catalonia provoked the recent
governmental crisis, and with the result, moreover, that the C.N.T.
withdrew its representatives from the government. Comment on this infamy
is superfluous.
For the time being reaction is marching on in Spain. The press is
subject to an intolerable censorship. Hundreds of the best fighters of
the anti-Fascist front are languishing in the jails. The dissolution of
the P.O.U.M. and the arrest of its leaders was the first stroke. And
while the reactionary Negrin government is leaving no means untried to
strengthen itself internally, increasingly stubborn rumors of Francoâs
efforts toward a rapprochement with England and France continue to make
their appearance in the foreign press. World famous papers like the
Paris âTemps,â the âNew York Times,â and âThe Daily Heraldâ in England
have repeatedly hinted during the last few weeks that Franco is thinking
of adopting a new course in his foreign policy and intends to part with
his former allies, Germany and Italy. The âManchester Guardianâ of July
13, was able to report that Francoâs agents in London and Paris are
actively seeking to raise a loan there. The paper speaks of a sum
between twenty-five and fifty million pounds sterling and comments: âIt
is not known whether these negotiations have thus far been successful.â
That for a considerable time negotiations have been in progress to end
the war in Spain by compromise at the first suitable opportunity is
beyond the slightest doubt. Englandâs sudden advances to Italy also
point to this. According to a report of the âCosmosâ international news
agency the Belgian Prime Minister, Van Zeeland, is also playing an
important part in these proceedings behind the scenes. That the Negrin
government, which was brought into existence by direct pressure from
England, France, and Russia, has knowledge of all these things is a
matter of course. If one takes all this into consideration the real
causes of the bloody May events in Barcelona are much easier to
understand.
On the other hand, however, the bloody reaction of the Negrin
government, which is entirely under the control of Russia and her
imperialist allies, has effected a great internal transformation, which
becomes more obvious every day. The left wing of the Socialist Party
under Largo Caballero, which today is being fought by the agents of
Russia just as bitterly as the C.N.T., is now aligning itself sharply
against the treacherous disintegrating labors of the Communists and
their bourgeois retinue. The enormous majority of the U.G.T. is on this
side and is just about to form a revolutionary alliance with the C.N.T.
for the defense of the achievements of the revolution. âThe U.G.T. of
Catalonia is not our U.G.T., the U.G.T. of Spain,â declared Hernandez
Zancajo, one of the most prominent leaders of the U.G.T., and the words
were echoed with a roar by the fighting men of the movement.
However, in spite of all the reactionary machinations of the
governrnent, the C.N.T., together with the F.A.I and the Libertarian
Youth, is making important gains in all sections of the country. The
workers and peasants do not intend to surrender their social conquests
to the reaction and are preparing to defend them. What the Monarchist
reaction did not succeed in doing in seventy years Stalinâs despotism
and its Spanish agents will not succeed in doing either. A movement
which is so deeply intergrown with the lives of the Spanish people and
which constitutes one of the most important parts of that life, cannot
be throttled by the methods of the Russian Cheka.
The Negrin government is trying by all the devices of a ruthless
censorship, which is completely in the hands of its Russian taskmasters,
to keep these matters from the knowledge of foreigners. But they are not
succeeding even in that. The mysterious disappearance of the P.O.U.M.
leader, Andres Nin, which the government hushed up for weeks, has roused
a storm of indignation. Nin, who after the May events in Barcelona was
arrested with other leaders of his party and taken to Valencia and from
there to Madrid, has vanished without a trace. The government at first
stated that he had escaped from his guards, but nobody in Spain believes
that fairy tale. Instead they are everywhere convinced that he was
murdered by Russian Chekists either on the way to Madrid or in Madrid
itself. Even in the camp of the bourgeois Republicans they are beginning
to resent Russiaâs guardianship, which is becoming constantly more
unbearable as time goes on. The Nin affair has called forth even in
these quarters protests such as one would not previously have expected
there. They are getting tired of being the wards of a cowardly mob, for
which any crime is good enough so long as it serves the ends of Moscow.
Spain today faces a new decision. They feel that on both sides; for the
present situation is unbearable and can but lead to certain catastrophe.
For twelve months a brave people has been sacrificed to the eelfish
interests of imperialist robbers and their Russian henchmen. It is high
time for the Libertarian world to understand that and to wake up to the
fact that the fate of Spain will be the fate of Europe. Never has a
people fought for its freedom more heroically. Never has a people been
worse betrayed by open and secret enemies. It is Spainâs great tragedy
that she has hitherto been so little understood: the story of the
sufferings of a people that is bleeding from a thousand wounds and still
will not give up the fight, because it knows that it carries in its
breast the precious growth of freedom and human dignity on which the
future of all of us depends.
New York, August, 1937.