THE SPANISH TRIANGLE
The Revolution & the Civil War in Spain 1936-39
By Dan Family (1972)
With an Introduction by Jim Bumpas
INTRODUCTION
By Jim Bumpas
The commonplace liberal histories (including those by Socialist and Communist Party members) of the period involved have suppressed what I understand to be the primary reason for the failure of the Spanish revolution. Very possibly EVERY revolution has failed because of this factor.
Basically, the revolution failed because the revolutionaries and those willing to see what good a revolution can do in society were demoralized by the overwhelming efforts of liberals and reactionaries (in the Franco areas) to control them. The position on social control unites both liberals and reactionaries. Liberals view society as an incomprehensible complexity that only liberals with adequate scientific training and knowledge can manage. Of course, their view convinces most liberals themselves that they themselves have not sufficiently mastered the elements of "scientific socialism" or some other "social science." Thus, even these liberals must depend on a smaller elite, with the proper technocratic expertise, to manage society for them. The military and clerical reactionaries view society primarily as a set of rather simple power relationships, and they try to develop sufficient power to be able to force society under their control. Each of these two models is more successful the more they balance elements from each view (note the Soviet Union and the United States as two very successful examples of this balance).
In every revolution, there have been large numbers of people so motivated by the possible horizons only dimly seen, that they throw off restraints and try to establish some system of self-management. These people know that everyone and every community knows best their own needs and that all people are capable of living in a free society absent any controlling elite.
In the Spanish revolution, the people with the awareness of the possibilities and the desire for such a system of workers’ self-management were extraordinarily well-organized and powerful, but not quite powerful or organized enough to overcome both the internal enemies of liberals and military reactionaries coupled with the support of the governments of Germany, Italy, France, the United States, and the Soviet Union.
The tremendous forces of all these powers were focused against the anarchists in Spain. It is a tribute to the anarchist strength that they were able to hold out so long. But the constant demoralization caused by all the divisive and undercutting attempts of supposed "allies" (most anarchists in Spain felt the liberals were allies, at least at first) and the overt force of "enemies" took its toll. More and more people began to lose hope for a revolutionary Spain and ceased caring whether Franco or the Communist Party won control of Spain. When the Soviet Union saw that the western "democracies" were not going to join their "anti-fascist" crusade and form an alliance, Soviet support for Spain was withdrawn. Continued external support for Franco assured his rapid success. Within a year, the USSR had signed its non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, with whom the USSR had just waged a war by proxy in Spain.
Bakunin expressed an amazing insight into this problem 100 years ago. He felt that a government of social-scientist-technocrats would be even more tyrannical that any monarchy against which he had fought. I think more of us see that today. And we will have to establish a self-managing society, where the people who know their own needs and what they want to do about them, control their own lives; where all elites are abolished, both military and technocratic. In the words of Marx, "the emancipation of the working-class must be achieved by the workers themselves."
The Revolution & the Civil War in Spain
"During the months following the Franco insurrection in July 1936 a social revolution of unprecedented scope took place throughout much of Spain. It had no ‘revolutionary vanguard’ and appears to have been largely spontaneous involving masses of urban and rural laborers in a radical transformation of social and economic conditions that persisted, with remarkable success, until it was crushed by force. This predominantly anarchist revolution has been treated in recent historical studies as a kind of aberration, a nuisance that stood in the way of successful prosecution of the war to save the ‘bourgeois regime’ from the Franco rebellion." (4)
Most commentators refer to the events in Spain, 1932-1939, as a "civil war." Such references tend to limit the discussion to the development of "official" military and diplomatic parties. In this way, it has been easy for most of them to ignore the revolution that took place. The recently elected "loyalist" government battled a military junta led by then- colonel Francisco Franco. But in fact, both of these "official" sides were simultaneously trying to suppress a revolution being made by industrial workers and agricultural laborers. Thus, there were in reality three sides, a kind of "Spanish Triangle," involving the liberal government, the military junta, and the Spanish workers.
There was considerable social change underway in Spain in the years following World War I. Spain, a neutral monarchy, had profited greatly by selling industrial goods to the warring nations, and the end of the war caused widespread unemployment and depressed wages. Trade unions and political parties gained power. These conditions along with growing discontent brought about the end of the reign of Alfonso XIII and the beginning of a democratic republic. But as anti-monarchist republicans won control of the government, social unrest continued. Conservatives who favored the monarchy and traditional Spanish institutions resisted efforts at liberalization, while radicals sought more extreme reforms.
In February 1936, a leftist coalition of liberals, right-wing socialists, and the Communist Party won the national elections in Spain. During the months before Franco’s military putsch there were strikes by workers, expropriations, suppression of the left militancy, imprisonment of right-wing extremists, and a refusal by the liberal government to arm workers and peasants against a potential fascists coup.
On July 17, 1936, Colonel Franco and other officers seized control of the army in Morocco with no ideology other than to restore the "caudillo" type dictatorship which reigned in Spain during the 1920’s. Most of the standing army sided with Franco, but many groups of sailors remained "loyal," shooting their captains and preventing troop movement from Morocco. Hitler sent transport planes to get Franco’s army over the Straits. British ships at Gibraltar threatened the loyalist navy thereby securing a vital corridor for Franco (since the air transports were a mere trickle). Five Texaco tankers on route to the Spanish government delivered the oil to Franco instead, while the United States and Great Britain proclaimed a biased neutrality.
The only substantial aid the government received came from the Soviet Union, and, in turn, pro-Soviet and Communist politicians had an easy time rising to top posts in the Spanish central government. This aid was distributed by the Communist Party leadership, favoring its own non-combat police agencies (including the Civil Guard), while leaving the battlefields inadequately supplied. George Orwell, an eyewitness to these events, claims that the Communist Party held up arms for the Aragon Front because the people fighting there were anarchists. (Orwell notes that a victory on the Aragon front would have connected the resources and mining areas of Asturias in the north with the industrial areas of Catalonia along the east coast thereby strengthening the anti-Franco forces.) He also observed that the Civil Guard was the best-equipped force he saw during these war year in Spain. Meanwhile, workers and other anti-fascists in Barcelona and Madrid broke in to government armories and ships in port to arm themselves and proceeded to set up various defense committees.
In the next few months, however, the Communist Party gained increasing control over the central government of Catalonia and Valencia. Before the coup, the Communist Party had little influence, but now its membership grew rapidly. As one observer wrote:
"Unable to draw to themselves the manual workers, who remained firmly fixed in the unions, the Communists found themselves the refuge for all those who had suffered from the excesses of the (workers’) Revolution or who feared where it might lead them. Well-to-do Catholics, orange growers in Valencia, peasant farmers in Catalonia, small shopkeepers and businessmen, army officers and government officials enrolled in their ranks.... Thus (in Catalonia) one had a strange and novel situation: on the one side stood the huge compact proletariat of Barcelona with its long revolutionary tradition, and on the other the white-collar workers and petite bourgeoisie of the city, organized and armed by the Communist Party against it."(3)
The Peasant Federation (Communist Party organized) "served as a powerful instrument in creating rural collectivization promoted by the agricultural workers in the province"(1) thus protecting the wealthy peasants. Two posters on the wall of the Communist Party headquarters in Valencia read: "Respect the private property of the small peasant" and "Respect the private property of the small industrialist"(2) (one who employs 100 workers). The PSUC (Partido Socialista Unificado de Catalonia, the Communist Party in Catalonia) was also the political organ of the UGT (Union General de Trabajadores) which had a membership of 1.5 million. They never claimed they were fighting the "dictatorship of the proletariat;" they were fighting for parliamentary democracy.(7) This is no surprise because "the whole of Comintern policy is now subordinated to the defense of the USSR which depends on a system of military alliances. In particular, the USSR is in alliance with France, a capitalist-imperialist country. The alliance is of little use to Russia unless French capitalism is strong, therefore Communist policy in France has got to be anti-revolutionary."(7)
For this same reason the government turned down a request by Moroccan nationalists for arms and materials. The anarchist FAI (Spanish Federation of Anarchists), political organ of the anarcho-syndicalist workers organization, CNT, advocated arousing nationalist militancy in Morocco to five Franco two fronts to deal with. But the loyalist government in Madrid had already tried to lure French and British support by granting concessions in north Africa (which would be undermined if the Moroccan nationalists were given arms).
The wealthy industrialists left Spain immediately as peasants expropriated the large estates and workers seized control of their factories. In Barcelona, collectivization of industry and commerce followed the program of the May 1936 Saragossa Congress of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT (Confederation Nacional de Trabajadores), a union of two million workers. Workers managed the factories in the following manner:
"A factory under self-management was directed by a managerial committee of five to fifteen members representing the various trades and services. They were nominated by the workers in general assembly and served for two years, half being changed each year. The committee appointed a manager to whom it delegated all or part of its own powers. In very large factories the election of a manager, who could be recalled at any time, required the approval of the supervisory organization. Moreover, a government controller was appointed to each management committee. In effect it was not complete self-management but a sort of joint management in very close liaison with the Catalonia government."(5) The abundant areas made resources available to poorer ones, minimizing the discrepancies in living standards.(1)
On September 5, 1936, a regional congress of peasants was called together by the CNT and it "agreed to collectivize land under trade union management and control."(1) The collectives were largely voluntary and popular and 90 percent of the peasants in Catalonia chose to collectivize. Individuals were permitted to farm their land providing no laborers were employed. In the Levant region (Valencia, Spain’s richest), 900 collectives covered half the geographical area and produced half of all the citrus production. Aragon had 450 collectives totaling 500,000 peasant workers; Castille had 300 collectives with 100,000 peasants.(5) Production went up because the former landlords left much of the land uncultivated. The use of soil technology also increased output. These successes generated enthusiasm and built solidarity among the peasants.
"The central government and especially the Community and Socialist members of it, desired to bring (the collectives) under the direct control of the State."(3) Some anarchists joined the government to "oppose dictatorial tendencies" such as these (but they were criticized as hypocrites for participating in the government). As the summer of 1936 ended there existed "dual power;" workers’ self-management and government control conflicting with each other in many areas of Spain.
On October 7, 1936, the Minister of Agriculture (a Communist named Sr. Uribe) legalized the expropriation of land belonging to participants of the Franco coup only, and demanded that the "irresponsible expropriations" of land belonging to anyone else be returned. A demand for a stronger decree by the CNT and a UGT was denied, and the Communist Party press called the Uribe decree "the most revolutionary measure to take place since the military uprising."(1) On October 24, 1936, Catalonian collectives were legalized only if the factory had more than 100 workers. The collectivists criticized this similar decree as another backward step, but even this was rescinded six months later as a favor to Spanish capitalists. On December 17, 1936, the Russia’s Pravda reported: "So far as Catalonia is concerned, the cleaning up of Trotskyist and anarcho-syndicalist elements there has already begun, it will be carried out these with the same energy as in the USSR."
A system of financial credit was essential to industry without which raw materials were impossible to obtain. The loyalist president, a left socialist, refused to set up a bank as demanded by the CNT, so the only assets available a collateral or for commerce were those that were seized in July. The central government was able to prevent the functioning of collectives through its control of credit and gold. In fact, Spanish gold was shipped to the Soviet Union under the supervision of communist Juan Negrin, the Madrid government’s Finance Minister.
On February 3, 1937, the dairy trade collective was decreed illegal by the governments food minister (a communist named Juan Comorera). "He restored private commerce (money payment) in bread" by abolishing the village committees which cooperated in bringing flour to the towns. "The resentment in the working class districts was naturally acute, the more so as the scarcity of bread rapidly increased after Comorera had taken office" in December, 1936.(2)
On April 17, 1937, the border posts were seized by "carabineros" (police units similar to the Civil Guard) on orders from the Finance Minister Negrin. Anarchists had operated these posts since July, and eight anarchists were killed in clashes, including the mayor of the town of Puigcerda. Workers’ control of customs was annulled and the government refused to certify workers’ ownership of materials that had been expropriated. Without certification, no nation would import "workers’ products." Also foreign courts tied up these goods at the request of the former owners. When manufactured goods would not be traded for raw materials, production stopped.
"By May, 1937, things had reached a point at which some kind of outbreak could be regarded as inevitable. The immediate cause of friction was the government order to surrender all private weapons, coinciding with the decision to build up a heavily armed ‘non-political’ police force from which trade union members were to be excluded."(7)
On May 3, 1937, Barcelona police chief, Rodriguiz Salas, and the Civil Guard showed up at the central telephone buildingto seize it from the CNT-UGT committee, alleging that "official" calls were being tapped. (A similar seizure took place in Tarragona two days later.) The Civil Guard seized other buildings as well. As word got around, work stopped, fighting and shooting followed, and by the next morning barricades were all over town. "Roughly speaking, the CNT-FAI-POUM forces held the working-class suburbs, and the police and PSUC held the central and official portion of Barcelona."(7)
On May 5, the Friends of Durruti, an anarchist affinity group within the CNT, distributed a leaflet suggesting that a revolutionary council be formed, that the Civil Guard be disarmed, and that those responsible for the attack on the phone exchange be shot. The newspaper of the POUM (a Marxists unification party whose slogan was, "the only alternative to Fascism is workers’ control") supported the leaflet and urged workers to stay at the barricades, but CNT and UGT officials urged workers to return to work. Fighting continued until the morning of May 6, when a truce offered by police chief Salas was accepted by the workers.
On May 6, 1937, two British destroyers and a cruiser demonstrated in Barcelona harbor for the purpose, according to English newspapers, "of protecting British interests." British interests such as the Barcelona Traction Company worth $10 million had been expropriated the previous July. (The phone exchange and been expropriated from IT&T.) On May 7, 1937, without warning 5000 Assault Guards arrived in Barcelona by sea from Valencia, violating the Salas truce. The battle that followed killed 500 workers.
By the end of May, Finance Minister Negrin was named Premier in Valencia. The October 22 decree was rescinded, citing Article 44 of the Spanish constitution of 1932 which declares that expropriation and socialization are functions of the state. And on June 15, 1937, Sr. Negrin suppressed the POUM and declared it illegal.
By the summer of 1937, Franco controlled a larger population than the government. Negrin worried about crop failures due to the low morale among the peasants, so he legalized collectives but only during the current year. After the harvest he rescinded it.
He did not wait until the harvest to move against the collectives in Aragon. On August 11, 1937, Negrin decreed that the Aragon regional defense committee be dissolved, along with the Council of Aragon and all of the municipal councils that it coordinated. Two weeks later a decree gave the government the legal right to intervene in any mining and metallurgical industry. And on September 21, 1937, he dispatched an army division to dismantle the Aragon collectives and to arrest the head of the Council of Aragon on the charge of robbery. More specifically the crime was the expropriation of jewels by the Council in the wake of the July 1936, uprising. One eyewitness gave the following account of the government's suppression of the workers' movement:
"On 22 October, 1937, at the National Congress of Peasants, the delegation of the Regional Committee of Aragon presented a report of which the following is a summary: More than 600 organizers of collectives have been arrested. The government has appointed management committees that seized the warehouses and distributed their contents at random. Land, draught animals, and tools were given to individual families or to the fascists who have been spared by the revolution. The harvest was distributed in the same way. The animals raised by the collectives suffered the same fate. A great number of collective pig farms, stables, and dairies were destroyed. In certain communes, such as Bordon and Calaceite, even seed was confiscated and the peasants are now unable to work the land."(4) Before the year was out, 30 per cent of the collectives have been smashed by the "loyalist" government and the Aragon front collapsed.
Eighteen months after Franco's coup, there was no doubt that the revolution had been reduced to a war for control of the central government. Consolidation of central power over the rural and urban areas under loyalist control had been thorough. In October, 1937, according to one anarchist newspaper, Solidaridad Obrero, a decision was made in the Ministry of War to make contracts for purchases only with industries functioning on the basis of their old owners.(4) Even uniforms for the government army were imported rather than obtained from the workers' textile collectives.
In the next year (August 1938), all war industries fell under the direct control of the Ministry of War Supplies. At this point there was little enthusiasm remaining among the revolutionary workers. Only token resistance to Franco survived. In April of 1939 Franco's triumph arrived, although a few guerrilla bands in Asturias persisted where Loyalist control had not been thorough.
As one loyalist government official stated: "The fact that is concealed by the coalition of the Spanish Communist Party with the left Republicans and the right wing Socialists is that there has been a successful social revolution in half of Spain. Successful, that is, in the collectivization of factories and farms which were operated under trade union control, and operated quite efficiently. During the three months that I was director of propaganda for the United Stated and England under Alvarez del Vayo, the Foreign Minister for the Valencia government, I was instructed not to send out one word about this revolution in the economic system of loyalist Spain. Nor are any foreign correspondents in Valencia permitted to write freely of the revolution that has taken place." (4) Only the Bolshevik and western versions of the "Civil War" were distributed.
Irresponsible statements, without supporting evidence, by respected liberal commentators and historians have obscured the significance of the Spanish revolution. One says, "the revolutionary tide began to ebb in Catalonia" after "accumulating food and supply problems, and the experience of administering villages, frontier posts, and public utilities, had rapidly shown the anarchists the unsuspected complexity of modern society."(6) Although there was no rationing of food in Barcelona before Comorera became food Minister, one commentator says that Comorera "protected the peasant from collectivization" by restoring money payment which resulted in larger discrepancies in the living standards of Catalonians. Hugh Thomas, another mainstream historian, says, "no effective way of limiting consumption in richer collectives was devised to help the poorer ones."(8). But UPI correspondent Burnett Bolloten reports examples to prove the opposite.
The U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull said, "One of the most serious factors in the situation lies in the 'fact' that the (Spanish) government has distributed large quantities of arms and ammunition into the hands of irresponsible members of left-wing political organizations." Eyewitnesses report, however, that the government tried to prevent this.
Although the Communist Party dominated government of Spain destroyed the revolution, enabling Franco’s military junta to win the civil war, the revolution that took place in Spain is no myth. In 1938, anarchist Emma Goldman said, "The collectivization of land and industry shines out as the greatest achievement of any revolutionary period. Even if Franco were to win and the Spanish anarchists were to be exterminated, the idea they have launched will live on."
Bibliography – footnotes are indicated by source-page numbers in the order of their appearance in this paper.
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