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Title: Counter-Revolution in Spain Author: Robert Louzon Date: October 1937 Language: en Topics: Spain 1936, IWW, State socialism, syndicalist, anti-fascist Source: Retrieved on September 1, 2012 from http://recollectionbooks.com/CS/Spain2/CounterRevolution.htm Notes: In the Paris La Revolution Proletarienne, under the title “Notes on Spain” Introduction and translation by Joseph Wagner One Big Union Monthly, October, 1937
The articles on Spain prepared by me for the One Big Union Monthly,
consisting largely of translations appearing in the current and two
previous issues of this magazine, were not meant to serve as news
articles of the Spanish War Front.
The news about the ups and downs, of victories and defeats, on the
various fronts of fighting Spain are abundantly covered by the papers of
all shades and creeds. Each of them colors the news according to the
interests or the principles of the writer writing them up or of the
publication printing them. The lessons drawn from the developments of
the events differ from writer to writer and from publication to
publication. That cannot be helped, and perhaps it should not. The
questions involved in the Spanish struggles are much too complex to be
lightly disposed of.
Neither was the intent of these articles to pass judgment over what is
being done in Spain by the anti-fascists, nor to take sides with one or
another of the various contending parties and groups that grim
circumstances brought together in a common fight against the gory beast
of fascism.
But even though we are not so situated as to take a direct hand in the
great struggle on the Iberian Peninsula, we are greatly interested in
it, because as workers and as revolutionists we feel that the struggle
going on in Spain is our struggle as well.
Different political parties, radical groups with varying philosophies
are thrown together to form the anti-fascist front. And although they
have one common aim, these component groups are separated by class
interests and by philosophical and political views. In the course of the
war in Spain, the political supremacy of what is called loyalist Spain
has shifted more than once, and before the end comes there will be very
likely more shifts taking place. With these shiftings, tactics of
struggle also change. The ones at the helm at a given moment are prone
to claim credit for every victory that takes place while they are
holding the reigns of government, blaming the opposition for the
reverses taking place. The opposition looks upon it in just the opposite
way.
Because of the complexity of the question, I intended to place before
the readers of the O.B.U.M. the views of serious working class
observers, and who, moreover, had first hand knowledge of the situation,
and speak not by hearsay, but from actual observation.
In this issue I present an article by R. Louzon, one of the founders and
present editors of that admirable and well-known semi-monthly French
syndicalist magazine La Revolution Proletarienne. The article appeared
in the second July issue of the magazine mentioned.
Fellow Worker Louzon is one of the old guard of the pre-war French
General Confederation of Labor. He is still a French syndicalist with
the old revolutionary, non-political meaning of the term. He was
personally acquainted with Haywood; has closely followed the development
of our own I.W.W. with great sympathy ever since the I.W.W. was founded.
In spite of his multiple activity in the French labor movement, he has
been closely watching our own General Defense Committee cases and at
times has made financial contributions towards them. At the outbreak of
the Civil War in Spain, where Louzon is well acquainted in the
revolutionary world, he went over immediately to Catalonia, to secure
first hand information and to be able to write understandingly in his
magazine. He has visited Spain often in the last year, and made faithful
and objective reports of his findings to his readers. The following
article is one of his latest.
by R. Louzon
When I wrote in this magazine nearly a year ago my “Notes on Barcelona”
they were notes on Revolutionary Spain, as the subhead indicated. My
notes of today, however, are on the Counterrevolutionary Spain.
I left Spain by the end of May; I returned there at the beginning of
July. One month is a tremendously long time in revolutionary ... or
counterrevolutionary times. During that month of June the events have
succeeded themselves with great rapidity. Things that could be dimly
outlined as possible hypothesis in the May days, have since been
realized in an accelerated rhythm.
The present situation in Spain can be summed up in two facts:
First: total loss of power by the working class;
Second: transfer of power into the hands of the Spanish fascists, by the
intermediary of the communist party.
When I say that the working class lost the power, I am naturally not
alluding to the fact that now the C.N.T has no longer representatives
either in the Valencia or the Catalonian governments. Cabinet ministers
are but cogs in the bourgeois-capitalist State machinery, therefore it
is not by its participation in the machinery of the bourgeois State
machinery, but by the creation of its own institutions, that the working
class develops its own power.
If the working class of Spain was partially in power until recently,
that was due to the fact that alongside of the bourgeois State power the
working class was able to impose the power of its own organs: the labor
unions, workers’ committees, etc.
Today, this power of the working class is nonexistent. It cannot be
stated too often, that political power is essentially — one can almost
say exclusively — a power of repression; it is the police force and the
armed force. Today the working class of Catalonia no longer has police
or armed power.
The “Patrols of Control” of Barcelona and vicinity, of which I spoke in
my former article in this magazine, have disappeared. This workers’
police force, that was functioning since August 1936, alongside the
police force of the State, was dissolved last month, and this time not
only on paper, but in fact: all of its members have been disarmed, the
most active of them were imprisoned, the leading militants have
“disappeared,” a euphemism signifying murdered.
The same holds true of the workers’ militias. Wherever these militias
existed, whose duty it was to enforce revolutionary order upon avowed or
camouflaged fascists, especially along the extensive frontiers, they
have been completely disarmed, their best elements were imprisoned, a
certain number of them murdered.
In Barcelona and in the entire Catalonia, nothing was left in the way of
organized armies except the mercenary corps of the State police: the
assault guards, the civil guards, carabiniers.
The same has taken place with the army. Working under the Catalonian
C.N.T. War Minister, the C.N.T. formerly had the control over the army
of Aragon; after this Cabinet post was taken over by General Pozas, an
appointee of the Valencia government, the commanding machinery was lost
by the workers’ organizations and it fell into the hands of the State.
The labor militants, the creators of the militia, who after the
“militarization” were supposed to merely transfer their title from
“delegations” to army “ranks,” are now obliged to ask the Minister of
War for confirmation of such transfers and the Minister confirms those
of whom he thinks he has nothing to fear, while postponing indefinitely
the confirmation of those he doubts, thus eliminating the ones and
placing the others in the position of being under obligation. By this
twofold scheme the entire hierarchy of the army passes under the direct
control of the State.
Thus, the workers’ police and army has been done away with. To be sure,
there are still men on the police force, especially among the assault
guards, who are at heart with the working class and with the C.N.T.;
certainly the soldiers of the Aragon front and a good number of
“confirmed” army officers have not forgotten their origin and when the
day comes they will be on the side of the people and not with the State.
And certain it is that besides the visible arms, there are plenty of
hidden arms, for the Catalonian proletariat, it seems, has conserved its
hidden arms. But, all that does not alter the fact that today there are
no longer any regularly and publicly functioning workers armed
institutions. The working class still has means of fighting the power,
but it no longer possesses organs of power.
Removed from the police force and from the army, the working class is
just as naturally removed from all auxiliary institutions of power. The
representatives of the F.A.I. (Iberian Anarchist Federation) have been
excluded from the popular courts of law, where the representation of the
workers have been reduced to a feeble minority. The C.N.T.
representatives likewise have been excluded from a large number of
municipal councils that have replaced the former municipal revolutionary
committees (but which were nothing in reality but committees, since they
had been composed of representatives of all the anti-fascist
organizations, in a determined proportion) under the pretext that the
C.N.T. has not repudiated their protest movement in the days of May. The
district workers’ committees can no longer function and there hardly
passes a week without some new decree being issued suppressing the
representation of the C.N.T. as well as of the U.G.T. in this or that
Council or administration.
Everywhere the State, the bourgeois State, constituted in its
traditional forms, re-establishes its sole and entire power. In
Catalonia as in Valencia, the working class is now completely excluded
from power: It has lost the power. Such is the first truth that we have
to establish, but there is a second.
The much lauded policy of the Spanish Communist Party, as dictated by
Stalin, is well enough known by now: it is the defense of the
bourgeoisie and of the private property; no more expropriation is to be
countenanced; the landed proprietors to be re-established into their
“rights”; the small and not-so-small employers to be organized in
“labor” unions. Such is the program. A program of hindrance and of
destruction of the conquests of the revolution; a program of bourgeois
defense.
Such a program of bourgeois defense naturally should have attracted the
entire bourgeoisie, and it has not failed to do so. The bourgeoisie
flocked in masses into the communist party and into its annex, the
Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia, as well as into the Catalonian
U.G.T. (General Workers Union), founded for their convenience. They
joined partly because the communist party program was their program,
their class program. But above all, they joined for reasons of personal
security. To be suspected of fascism was until recently a very serious
matter. But, by the very nature of things, the bourgeois is always in
danger of being suspected of that very thing. What better way of
avoiding suspicion than of having in his pocket a membership card in the
communist party or in one of the locals of the U.G.T.?
The Spanish communist party and its annexes have, therefore, become
bourgeois organizations not only in virtue of their program, but also by
their social composition. But this first fact was bound to be soon
followed by a second: Of all the bourgeois, the most interested in
averting the suspicion of fascism were the very ones who were actually
fascists. And that is how the communist party in its composition soon
became not only bourgeois, but above all, fascist bourgeois. Whether in
Valencia, where the district secretary of the Gil Robles party, among
others, is at present a member of the communist party, or in villages
far removed from Catalonia, the most active members of the communist
party are former members of the “Patriotic Union” of the CEDA, etc. etc.
It naturally follows that the Spanish communist policy is not only a
bourgeois policy, but actually a fascist policy. Through the racket in
connection with the furnishing of arms to the Spanish government, the
Russians having succeeded in giving the State powers to “their” party,
the fascist followers of the communist party made the party follow a
policy favoring Franco, and the Russians were much too dense to notice
it. The facts, however, are evident.
While hundreds of the militants of the antifascist organizations were
murdered and thousands imprisoned, and while the help rendered to Spain
by the foreign organizations was systematically sabotaged, the Falange,
yes the Spanish Phalanx, the Phalanx of Franco, is making open
propaganda and is recruiting almost openly in Catalonia. The Falangistas
arrested by the workers’ Control Patrols (before their dissolution) for
attempts of sabotage, are now free. And while the anti-fascists arrested
during the last two months, especially the foreigners, are lamentably
treated, kept in airless cells from which they are not taken out for a
moment, and are forced, like the prisoners in Calle Corcega in
Barcelona, to go on hunger strike, the imprisoned fascists enjoy all
manner of favors, so much so that the anti-fascist prisoners of Carcel
Modelo of Barcelona demanded that they be granted the same rights as
enjoyed by the fascist prisoners in the same prison! Finally, as they
cannot absolve all the fascists without too much open scandal, the
authorities decided to free them on bail of several thousand pesetas.
The most notorious fascists, who are rich or who have rich friends, can
thus leave the prison ... for an indefinite time.
The facts related above are serious enough, but what follows is even
more so. It is openly said that the fall of Bilbao was due to treason.
The fall of Bilbao is the masterstroke realized by the fascists, through
the medium of the communist party, by the overthrow of the Caballero
government in May.
To relieve the pressure on the Biscayan front, the Caballero government
had prepared a vast offensive to the south of Madrid, where the front is
not far from the Portuguese frontier, with the intention of cutting the
rebel armies in two. Everything was ready for the offensive that was to
begin early in May: 75,000 men had been assembled with adequate war
materials on hand.
But, a couple of days before the launching of the offensive, the
communist party torpedoed the Caballero government, forcing his cabinet
to resign and replacing him with the Negrin government, whose first task
as government head was to countermand the prepared offensive; the
assembled troops were scattered and during the entire month following
nothing was done to relieve the hard pressed Biscayan front. The Basque
minister’s letter of resignation (because of lack of aid from the
central government) was prevented publication by the censors, and the
Madrid journal C.N.T. was ordered suspended because it had published it
nevertheless. But nothing was done to save Bilbao; it was necessary for
the city to fall, for so it was decided by the fascists in the Stalinist
party.
Only after the fall of Bilbao — and the fall enabled Franco to withdraw
without danger a part of his northern troops — that they started an
offensive, for after all it was necessary for them to appear doing
something ... especially at the wrong time.
The sum total of all the above facts cannot leave room for doubt: The
Negrin government is entirely dominated by treason. The cleverness of
the fascists, acting under the cover of the Stalinist stupidity, makes
the Negrin government, nilly-willy a government of defeat.
If the Negrin government holds out, if the evil forces that brought them
to power are not destroyed, the defeats will succeed each other
continually. That will be certain victory for Franco and the certain
defeat not only of the revolution but of the republic itself. This is
the second truth that needed telling.
The defeat of the Spanish republic will also be a defeat of Stalin. And
on this subject it is interesting to note that the serious defeats
suffered in the last ten years by Russian imperialism are all due to the
same cause.
The Stalinist imperialism had experienced two notable defeats: that of
China with the boosting of Chiang Kai Shek, and that of Germany, with
the ascension of Hitler to power. Spain is reserving him a third defeat,
for he will either be beaten inside of republican Spain by the other
anti-fascist forces, or, if he maintains his hold over the Spanish
republic, it will be beaten by Franco. But the cause of these three
defeats are one and the same. Odd as it may appear, that cause is
Stalin’s absolute lack of understanding of the class struggle: in all
three cases the policy that led Stalin to defeat consisted in his
disregarding of the class antagonism.
In China he imagined himself able to marry the fish to the hare: the
bourgeois Kuomintang to the revolutionary workers and peasants. To
hinder such a marriage, the Kuomintang massacred everything that was
Russian. After having furnished Chiang Kai Shek the means with which to
conquer all China from Canton to Peking, Stalinist imperialism found
itself expelled, from one day to another, by this same Chiang Kai Shek.
In Germany, Stalin imagined that the revengeful Hitler would turn to be
a better support for his struggle against Poland and the other neighbors
on the western border of Russia than the timid social-democrats. The two
dictators could divide the existing spoils if the States emerged from
the Versailles treaties, just as their royal and imperial predecessors
had, in the past divided up and annexed Poland. Therefore, every time
before the advent of Hitler the communists of Germany were ready for
action, the Communist International sternly forbade them doing anything.
But, the attraction of the “corridor” did not cut much figure in the
class interests of Hitler’s backers. No matter how anti-socialist the
Stalinist regime had become, the absence of private property in Russia
was not agreeable to them; no matter how opposite to the October
revolution Stalin’s regime was, to the bulk of the world proletariat,
and especially to the German working class, it appeared to be the
continuation of that revolution and the symbol of their emancipation;
hence the fight inside of Germany against communism and against the
working class was not compatible with an alliance with Russia. That is
the reason that Hitler, brought to power by the Ruhr magnates to
extirpate communism and socialism in Germany, could not base his foreign
policy on a Russian alliance, but on the contrary on a struggle against
the U.S.S.R. From Hitler’s coming to power Stalin expected a
strengthening of the Rapallo treaty; the first act of Hitler was the
destruction of Rapallo.
Under different forms, this same misunderstanding of the fact that the
class struggle dominates the foreign as well as the domestic policies of
States is the cause that leads Russian imperialism to its defeat in
Spain.
It was Russia that saved Spain last November. The fact is incontestable:
it is foolish to deny it or to belittle the fact. Without the Russian
planes and without the International Brigade, which was a communist
creation, it would have been all over for republican Spain. The blockade
of Mr. Blum — the greatest treason ever committed by social-democracy in
the entire course of its history — was accomplishing its work. Just as
it was Russian help that enabled the Kuomintang to conquer China, it was
Russia that enabled the Spanish republic to save Madrid... and the rest.
But again, the same as in China, where Stalin believing thus to best
serve his imperialistic interests, ordered the communist party of China
to collaborate with the Kuomintang, to uphold the interests of the
Chinese bourgeoisie, just so in Spain, he forced his party to defend the
Spanish bourgeoisie against the revolution.
The result will be the same: as in China where one nice day, Stalin saw
his followers massacred at Nanking and at Hankow by the soldiers of
Chiang Kai Shek, so in Spain he will wake up one of these days to the
fact that his party is but an annex of the Falange, which has secured
victory for Franco.
In the presence of the situation as described above, what is the C.N.T.
doing? How does it react to the loss of power by the proletariat and to
the fascist control of the bourgeois power?
The C.N.T. is playing dead. It keeps itself carefully from reacting. The
C.N.T. allowed without the least protestation the disarming of the
Patrols of Control; it forbids any retaliation for the murdering of its
militants (official figures: 60 C.N.T. members “disappeared”), and
against the imprisonment of its members (official figures: 800 C.N.T.
members imprisoned); it is opposing only with respectful interventions
and legal defense.
In the meantime its forces — so it seems — are intact. In Valencia as in
Barcelona, the C.N.T. press is the most widely read. One comrade even
claimed — and his claim seems to be very nearly the general opinion —
that the C.N.T. never was as strong as it is now, for the prestige it
may have lost while participating in power, it now has regained, and the
Stalinists’ stupidity makes them grow stronger every day.
On the other hand, it is certain that it still retains its arms, keeping
them in the most unexpected places.
Finally, the economic attainments of the revolution are being preserved
almost entirely. As a general rule, the labor unions and collectives are
functioning the same as before. Stripped of political power, the working
class still retains economic control.
Thus in Puigcerda, of which I said last month that I don’t know whether
the work of collectivization that I had seen in February is still in
existence, and which is one of the places where the exclusion of the
workers from power was most complete and most brutal (seven murdered
since the end of May, without counting former murders; 50 imprisoned;
continuous presence of 500 guards in a town of 4,000 inhabitants). The
collectives are still in force almost entirely, according to what one of
the local militants told me, whom I met in the middle of July: only the
rayon cooperative was closed; a few tailors and certain other bourgeois
elements belonging to the UGT have seceded from the cooperative; “but,”
added the comrade, “this was fine, for on account of them we were
obliged to admit representatives of the UGT in the administration of the
cooperative; now that we are to ourselves, we can go ahead more openly
than before.”
The C.N.T. unions in Puigcerda have been dispossessed of their hall, but
they have simply occupied another hall, a little less imposing than the
old one. And they are only waiting for the arrival of their paper supply
in order to resume publication of their local Libertarian Youth paper,
Sembrador (The Sower).
Thus, under the storm, the Puigcerda comrades have bent down, after the
storm they are straightening out. And this is not a specialty of
Puigcerda; it is, I believe, the traditional policy of the C.N.T.: “let
the storm pass.”
To let the storm pass and saving everything that can be saved. Advancing
step by step, and maintaining its least attacked and most solid
positions as intact as possible. These positions at present are the
economic sectors. Not to engage its forces in order to save them for the
favorable moment, when circumstances are favorable for a new offensive.
However, this is not a new tactic with the C.N.T. and the F.A.I.: it is
their traditional, historical tactic. When the foreign comrades, alarmed
by these repeated retreats, of these abandoning positions of primary
importance without a struggle, communicate their fears to the Spanish
fellow workers, they invariably receive the following answer: “This is
not the first time that we are persecuted, we have known many others;
after every persecution we came out stronger than before. It will be the
same now as it happened in the past.”
The optimism that results from the strength of the C.N.T., a strength
that is not based on the mass of its members, nor on the wealth of its
treasures, but, if I may say, on the morale.
Through their principles, through their manner of being and of acting,
the C.N.T. and F.A.I. have deep and many-fold roots in the entire
Spanish proletariat. Due to that, they dispose at any moment, an
important number of active militants who can at the first favorable
opportunity raise the flag and take spontaneously the necessary action.
The labor union action and the anarchist morale are at present so rooted
into the body of the Spanish proletariat that they cannot be separated;
that bond cannot be severed without destroying the proletariat itself.
It is that, no doubt, that explains the expectant tactics followed at
present by the C.N.T. and which perhaps justifies it.