The Xmas present from the SWP you've all been waiting for.

[mk12]

EDIT: poorly worded

The CNT was the biggest leftist group in Spain though, wasn't it? The Communist Party were nowhere as near as big as the CNT, in 1936 or 1938.

 

[Pilgrim]

IMO any 'central' body across the whole of the non-franco forces would have been prone to control by those best at power politics - i.e. the liberals, state-socialists and Communist Party. By 1938 the Republic's Communist Party had a massive following, swollen by an influx of farmers and other small landowners and capitalists.

If memory serves, one of the things that Orwell notes in 'Homage To Catalonia' is that he didn't at first grasp that the middle classes (in general) were not supportive of the Revolution, and had merely laid low for a while.

Page 3 of my old edition has this to say: '...I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' state and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side. I did not realise that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being.'

I suppose the bourgeois in Spain were none too happy at the arrival of the Stalinists, but were positively appalled at the prospect of Spain falling to the Anarchists. Better to have some form of State, where vested interests and corruption can exist to some degree, than Anarchism making such practices obsolete, or at best much harder to get away with, I suppose.

 

[Random]

The CNT was the biggest leftist group in Spain though, wasn't it? The Communist Party were nowhere as near as big as the CNT, in 1936 or 1938.

They were allied with the Socialists, whose membership (if you include their union) was about the same as the CNT. Add Communist influence due to Soviet arms and you've got a far from 'revolutionary' command.

A central command based on delegates elected by factory, by land commune, and by militia commune, would have looked very different, but would have had to do without Russian arms and face outright hostility from France and the UK if it had assaulted and dispersed the Republican government's state.

 

[mk12]

So there was nothing the anarchists could do?

 

[Random]

I suppose the bourgeois in Spain were none too happy at the arrival of the Stalinists, but were positively appalled at the prospect of Spain falling to the Anarchists. Better to have some form of State, where vested interests and corruption can exist to some degree, than Anarchism making such practices obsolete, or at best much harder to get away with, I suppose.

That's part of it. More was that the PCE in the mid-1930s had adopted a position of cosying up to the Western 'democracies' (i.e. France and Britain) and were hence totally anti-revolution, and raised, in Spain, slogans all about defending private property. Plus during a revolution, it's good to be able to join a party, and look like a socialist; for similar reasons, in Russia 1917, the Social Revolutionary party swelled in size as all the smaller landowners and capitalists joined.

 

[Random]

So there was nothing the anarchists could do?

Well my hypothetical situation just now, with a council of communes, would have been something, no? I think we need to be clear that in some circumstances the right strategy and leadership won't stop the situation from being very hairy.

Also, in my first post on this thread I pointed out that the anti-fascist forces could have held off the Franquists if it was not for the idiotic Communist/liberal military strategy, and that guerilla warfare was the only real hope.

 

[Pilgrim]

Also, in my first post on this thread I pointed out that the anti-fascist forces could have held off the Franquists if it was not for the idiotic Communist/liberal military strategy, and that guerilla warfare was the only real hope.

Orwell goes even further than this, if memory serves.

He makes it clear that the Communist leadership was covertly counter-revolutionary, and that Stalinists privately did what they could to stop the progress of the Revolution where possible, including the withholding of arms from non-Stalinist forces such as the Anarchists and the POUM.

 

[mutley]

They were allied with the Socialists, whose membership (if you include their union) was about the same as the CNT. Add Communist influence due to Soviet arms and you've got a far from 'revolutionary' command.

A central command based on delegates elected by factory, by land commune, and by militia commune, would have looked very different, but would have had to do without Russian arms and face outright hostility from France and the UK if it had assaulted and dispersed the Republican government's state.

This is the heart of the problem. The CNT cosied up to the powers that be at the time (Socialists in '36, till the Stalinists rivalled them) and the POUM did the same. A central command based on directly elected delegates would indeed have been very different, (and in my opinion is best described as a workers state) but this central command would first have to seize power from the remnants of the bourgeois state. That in turn necessitates a group, a tendency, call it what you will, that argues for such a seizure of power, which is precisely what was lacking in Spain.

That would not have been the end of the matter - the other powers would have considered intervening, but France had just had the factory occupations of June '36...

 

[mutley]

Stalinist centralisation vs centralisation elected from below.

As Mutley said:

referenced at last! I shall now retire to the sofa and the telly, cos real life starts again tomorrow

 

[Random]

Absolutely, this is well documented. Weapons were held back from political opponents, and used behind the lines for repressions. Also, whil some above have debated how voluntary was the formation of rural collectives, there's little debate that the Communist forces violently de-collectivised the anarchist communes in 1938-9.

 

[Pilgrim]

Absolutely, this is well documented. Weapons were held back from political opponents, and used behind the lines for repressions. Also, whil some above have debated how voluntary was the formation of rural collectives, there's little debate that the Communist forces violently de-collectivised the anarchist communes in 1938-9.

Orwell refers to the fact that weapons were in short supply on the Aragon front (and presumably elsewhere), he goes on to amke it clear that arms supplies were being held back by the Communists, not only to limit their fighting ability at the front, but also to make the non-Stalinist factions weaker for when the Stalinists began their purges. To me, this suggests a large degree of premeditation on the part of the Communists, as if they considered a purge to be at some point inevitable.

Orwell also mentions that, when he was on leave in Barcelona, the Civil Guards and Assault Guards seemed to have no shortage of weapons, including rifles, sub machine guns and handguns, all desperately needed at the front. Orwell had, after much haggling, to buy his pistol illegally from a secret arsenal held by the Anarchists.

 

[Random]

this central command would first have to seize power from the remnants of the bourgeois state. That in turn necessitates a group, a tendency, call it what you will, that argues for such a seizure of power, which is precisely what was lacking in Spain.

There were groups in Spain that argued for this. Why were they not effective in achieving their aims? Reducing everything down to 'the wrong type of leadership' is not very helpful. A more useful question is, why were more people not interested in abolishing the Republican government?

I'd say the differences between Spin 1936 and Russia 1917 are a large part of this. Russian republican government: weak, based in a few self-appointed intellectuals; fighting a highly unpopular war. Spanish republican government, weak, based in several established parties with mass membership; fighting a very popular war. Getting rid of the one, is much easier than getting rid of the other.

 

[mk12]

By the way, this is quite a good critique of the anarchists in Spain:

http://home.flash.net/~comvoice/10cSpanishCivil.html

I understand all the external factors that played a role in defeating the revolution in Spain. But...as Santillan said:

. "We could have remained alone, imposed our absolute will, declared the Generalitat null and void, and imposed the true power of the people in its place, but we did not believe in dictatorship when it was exercised against us, and we did not want it when we could exercise it ourselves only at the expense of others. The Generalitat government would remain in force with President Companys at its head, and the popular forces would organize themselves into militias to carry on the struggle for the liberation of Spain. Thus was born the Catalonia Antifascist Militias Committee..."

So he is admitting that workers power could have replaced the state machine, not that external factors stopped it from happening. The only reason that the state continued to exist was the fact that the anarchist leadership decided to collaborate with the government.

 

[levien]

Cool got a load for my mp3 player. Made me root through the old ones as well. top stuff. Not enough Cliff though.

 

[hibee]

Cool got a load for my mp3 player. Made me root through the old ones as well. top stuff. Not enough Cliff though.

you want to go down the record shop and get some better sounds, son

 

[Chuck Wilson]

Cool got a load for my mp3 player. Made me root through the old ones as well. top stuff. Not enough Cliff though.

If I ever work out to do it I have a tape that i should convert to a music file that I amateurishly made in 1984 of Cliff speaking on the IWW to a background of Africa Bombatta with Arthur Scargill cut and pasted into it.

 

[neprimerimye]

I'd like to learn more about the Spanish Civil War, particularly in the context of the Basque and Catalan national or regional identities within Spain.
Can anybody perhaps recommend a book dealing with what the Basques did during the War? Or a good website? Or just offer some general points? Something I need to get round to doing.

Well the Republic had granted devolution, in our terms, in both Catalunya and Euskadi. Which was one reason for the revolt on the part of the military of course. but in the context of the civil war this meant relatively little.

In the case of Euskadi because that region was conquered by the military in the early stages of the war. More importantly both the Basque and Catalan nationalist forces were in general based on the various petty bourgeois classes. This meant that in a civil war that rapidly became polarised along class lines they were of no real importance.

It should also be pointed out that the various forces of the left, however you define it, were in general supportive of the devolution of power to the Basque and Catalan regions. Even the Stalinist PCE/PSUC was in favour of such devolution and they were otherwise the most vociferous advocates of centralisation.

What has not been mentioned here is that the Republic did not favour granting independence to Spainish Morocco from which many of the nationalist troops were recruited. Some efforts were made by the Bolshevik Leninists to push this idea which would have weakened the nationalist rearguard but they came to nothing.

In the end of course the minority nations in the Spainish state were divided on class lines every bit as much as the rest of Spain. Had the workers movement in the Republican held areas set a course for a social revolution as advocated by the Fourth Internationalists then Basque and Catalan autonomy would have been guaranteed. But the mainstream of anarchismignored the question of state power and the Stalinists acted as counterrevolutionaries while the POUM waffled so the minority nations ended up in the shit with the rest of Spain.

Also worthy of a read are the two special editions of Revolutionary History journal which contain many eyewitness and contemporary accounts otherwise unpublished. There is also a long essay by Andy Durgan on the POUM.

 

[neprimerimye]

Revolutionary History's site can be found at www.revolutionary-history.co.uk/

On the site you will find two editions of the journal with extensive materials concerning the civil war. Both are now oop and therefore freely avaiable to download. There is also a booklet available on the 1934 Asturian Rising. Details below.

The Asturian Uprising Fifteen Days of Socialist Revolution, by Manuel Grossi

Vol 1 No 2, Summer 1988
The hidden history of the Spanish Civil War
Editorial
Baruch Hirson and Prometheus Research Library on Li Fu-Jen
Paul Flewers : Stalinism & Spain (with Spartacist statement)
Pierre Broue : Walter Held
Nils Kaare Dahl : Some memories of Walter Held
Walter Held : Stalinism and the POUM in the Spanish Revolution
Keith Hassell : Trotsky and the POUM
Pierre Broue : The 'May Days' of 1937 in Barcelona
Hugo Oehler 'Barricades in Barcelona', with preface by Ernest Rogers
The Spanish Left in its own words (includes the following):
The Spanish Revolution in Practice : Why we make this invitation
The programme of the POUM in 1936
The Communist Party denounces the POUM
The Communist Party calls for a professional army
The POUM attacks the nationalism of the Spanish Stalinists
The Anarchists defend the gains of the Spanish Revolution against the 'communists'
Negrete and Oehler report from Barcelona
Manifesto of the POUM during the Barcelona May Days
POUM policy during the May events
Manifesto of the National Committee of the CNT regarding the May Days in Barcelona
Counter-theses for the conference of the POUM
The programme of the Spanish Bolshevik-Leninists
Kurt Landau : Stalinism in Spain (with preface by Alfred Rosmer)

Vol 4, Nos 1 & 2
The Spanish Civil War. The View from the Left
(Dedicated to the Memory of Sam Bornstein)
Introduction
Part 1 : Causation
Andy Durgan : The Spanish Trotskyists and the Foundation of the POUM
Hans Schanfranek : Kurt Landau
Kurt Landau : The Spanish Revolution of 1936 and the German Revolution of 1918 - 19
Mieczyslaw Bortenstein : Spain Betrayed ; How the Popular Front Opened the Gates to Franco
Part 2 : Eyewitness
Nicola di Bartolomeo : The Activity of the Bolshevik-Leninists in Spain and its Lessons
Don Bateman : Georges Kopp and the POUM Militia
Domenico Sedran : Carlini in Spain
Pietro Fancelli : Letters from Spain
August Thalheimer : Notes on a Stay in Catalonia
A Brandlerite Militant : Three Months on the Huesca Front
Sherry Mangan : Spanish Militants Describe Their Escape
Part 3 : Analysis
Hans David Freund : Letters from Madrid
Hans David Freund : Dual Power in the Spanish Revolution
Jose Rebull : On Dual power
Jose Rebull : On the Slogan of a UGT-CNT Government
Waldemar Bolze : Where are the Real Saboteurs ?
Jean Rous : Spain 1936-39 ; The Murdered Revolution

 

[revol68]

Occultist eh? That's a new one.

However, while junta does indeed mean committee, the 'friends of durruti' argued that this committee should repress the counter-revolution, argued that 'anarchist comrades should not have ideological misgivings' about this as there was no room to 'pussyfoot around' (I can't find my battered copy of their statement so i'm paraphrasing from memory).

That ain't anarchism.

well if thats not anarchism then no one told all the CNT militias on the front shooting dead fascists.

 

[mutley]

well if thats not anarchism then no one told all the CNT militias on the front shooting dead fascists.

I think the point is that anarchism is more than just one thing. Yes it's shooting dead fascists and fighting capitalism in a brave and self-sacrificing manner. It's also being incapable of effectively dealing with a better camouflaged form of reaction. And having a dog on a string and swearing a lot. (Only joking.)

 

[revol68]

I think the point is that anarchism is more than just one thing. Yes it's shooting dead fascists and fighting capitalism in a brave and self-sacrificing manner. It's also being incapable of effectively dealing with a better camouflaged form of reaction. And having a dog on a string and swearing a lot. (Only joking.)

really, I was under the impression that it was leninists who backed United Fronts, National Liberation and a multitude of reactionary wank dressed in leftie rhetoric.

 

[mutley]

really, I was under the impression that it was leninists who backed United Fronts, National Liberation and a multitude of reactionary wank dressed in leftie rhetoric.

Nope, you've lost me. Are you saying united fronts and national liberation are reactionary wank?

 

[revol68]

Nope, you've lost me. Are you saying united fronts and national liberation are reactionary wank?

yeah those more covert types of reaction you said the anarchists had problems dealing with.

I thought your whole point was that the CNT should never have joined the government in a United Front against fascism? Something I would agree with, but apparently you didn't even mean that, which makes me wonder what the fuck your on about when you talk about "better camoflagued forms of reaction".

 

[levien]

you want to go down the record shop and get some better sounds, son

Nah mate, clever things these little boxes. Can create a seperate little list for talks and stuff. Don't get enough time to read political books recently.

 

[TremulousTetra]

If I ever work out to do it I have a tape that i should convert to a music file that I amateurishly made in 1984 of Cliff speaking on the IWW to a background of Africa Bombatta with Arthur Scargill cut and pasted into it.

it's very easy. It tells you how to, on my "How to" page on my website, or I will talk you through it if you want.

fraternal greetings. ResistanceMP3

 

[mutley]

yeah those more covert types of reaction you said the anarchists had problems dealing with.

I thought your whole point was that the CNT should never have joined the government in a United Front against fascism? Something I would agree with, but apparently you didn't even mean that, which makes me wonder what the fuck your on about when you talk about "better camoflagued forms of reaction".

It was a popular front, not a united front, which provided a cover for rolling back the gains of the revolution. United fronts over particular issues don't lead to that. And i was thinking of the popular front as being a better camouflaged form of reaction than the obvious reaction of Franco.

Plus national liberation struggles: if you say that these are just 'reactionary' then that's a pitifully polarised way of viewing the world. Any national liberation struggle combines progressive aims (ie freedom to speak a language, to set up a state that is controlled by the people of a given area - then the class struggle can develop..) with elements within it who would undoubtedly act in a reactionary way given the chance to control their own little peice of capital.

But these arguments could clearly go on and have been done before i'm sure. The crucial thing is that when faced with the absolute necessity to organise in the face of the fascists the anarchists organisations collapsed into taking part in a bourgeois government rather than seize power.

 

[Chuck Wilson]

it's very easy. It tells you how to, on my "How to" page on my website, or I will talk you through it if you want.

fraternal greetings. ResistanceMP3

What a gem you are .I will have to explore this.Could be a collectors item.

 

[Fisher_Gate]

If I ever work out to do it I have a tape that i should convert to a music file that I amateurishly made in 1984 of Cliff speaking on the IWW to a background of Africa Bombatta with Arthur Scargill cut and pasted into it.

If anyone wants to embarass the Economic Policy Adviser to the Mayor of London, aka John Ross, I have a tape of a speech by him made in 1981 to an IMG school vigorously defending the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a great victory for socialism and the working class globally.... Probably a few other skeletons in the closet among that collection too ...

 

[Chuck Wilson]

If anyone wants to embarass the Economic Policy Adviser to the Mayor of London, aka John Ross, I have a tape of a speech by him made in 1981 to an IMG school vigorously defending the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as a great victory for socialism and the working class globally.... Probably a few other skeletons in the closet among that collection too ...

Could have done a duet with Workers Power? Bloody hell John Ross, I remember him .Ever come across Oliver New the ex sociology student tube guard/driver?

 

[Fisher_Gate]

Could have done a duet with Workers Power? Bloody hell John Ross, I remember him .Ever come across Oliver New the ex sociology student tube guard/driver?

Nah - WP were softies. Ross' only criticisms of the Sparts "Hail the Red Army in Afghanistan" slogan was that the Soviet Army wasn't officially called the Red Army and we should always use the correct title ... I seem to recall the only person who supported him was fellow Mayor of London highly-paid functionary Redmond O'Neill - though Grogan and the US SWP had a tepid support for the invasion too. Oliver New was probably there - he would have supported the IMG's (correct) majority line of "Soviet Troops Out of Afghanistan". Haven't seen him for yonks though as I haven't been around much.