Among the points in the Popular Front's program were the following:
The republicans do not accept the principle of the nationalization of the land and its free distribution to the peasants.
The republicans do not accept the subsidy te unemployment (dole) solicited by the workers delegation.
the republican parties do not measures of nationalization of the banks proposed oy une workers parties In addition, the Popular Front program had nothing to say about the right of Morocco to independence or the right of the Basques and Catalans to determination.
response to the fascist uprising in his book Homage to Catalonia:
It was the kind of effort that could probably only be made by people who were fighting with a revolutionary intention—i.e. were fighting for something better than the status of dynamite rahd arena med only with stake .. Men and women armed only with sticks stormed stone bulldings held by trained soldiers with machine guns. Machine gun nests that the accept the Fascists nadplaced smashed by rushing taxis at them at sixty miles an hour In Catalonia, where nearly half the industrial proletariat in Spain was concen self- trated, the workers pushed the capitalist government completely aside in their reAn armoured car belonging to the roul, a centrist party strong in thi eventually physically liquidated by the Spanish Communist Party, on S
ared city or madrid. FRANKEL is had achieved what emselves would never in and in six out of its played power into the lary proletariat. hold it? What use could ag class in effective ican territory, the Democrauc leaders its subordination to hists resisted the • Front government in region, who were orders. n Heartfield, depicting the vultures of German and to reassert its authority. But they had no alternative propose. Anarchists refused to lead the working class in the establishment of its own government, since they denied that there was any difference between a capitalist state and a workers When the Anarchists found the theory that the state could be ignored untenable, the world was treated to the spectacle of Anarchist ministers in a capitalist government. They joined the Catalonian regional government in September 1936 central government in Madrid in November O1 TaE vear.
With the entry of the Anarchists into the Catalonian government, the reaction picked up steam. The local militia and antifascist committees that had been ruling the towns and villages ordered dissolved.
were CENSORSHIP Through its control of the treasury and banks, which allocated credit, the central government systematically whittled away at the areas of the economy controlled by the workers.
Political censorship became increasingly heavy-handed, with frequent suspensions and even banning of left-Anarchist and Marxist periodicals and meetings.
The government also moved to reesta blish a regular army and police force. In Catalonia, where the revolution had made its most extensive advances, a March 1, 1937, decree unified all police into a single state-controlled corps, its members prohibited from association with trade unions and political parties. was followed attempis to suppress the workers patrois that had fulfilled police functions up to that time.
On the front lines, the Popular Front government systematically withheld arms from the units of workers militia not reorganized as part of its regular army, These measures were vigorously pushed by the Stalinists. Although the bourgeoisie had gone over en masse to the fascists, the Stalinists were determined to preserve capitalism in Spain. As early as September 1936 they raised the slogan, "Protect the property of the small industrialist."
'DIVERSION'
he Stalinists argued that the social révolution could only be a diversion from the antifascist struggle. In accordance with the strategy being followed by the Kremlin at that time, they advocated an antifascist alliance with the liberal bourgeoisie and the imperialist democracies.
They consciously and systematically strangled the Spanish revolution. The aim was to prevent the rise of a workers state in Spain, in hope that this would enhance Stalin's prospects for a pact imperialist democracies against Hitler.
In his article "The Class, the Party, and the Leadership," Trotsky said:
The most consistent policy in the ruling bloc was pursued by the stanists. They were ne fighting vanguard of the bourgeois-republican counterrevo union nev wantee to enminate une need for fascism by proving to the Spanish and world bourgeoise that nev were themserves capable of strangling the proletarian revolution under the banner or democracy, The December 1936 Prauda, the Soviet Communist party newspaper, had written, so tar as Catalonia is concerned, the cleaning up of Trotskyists and Anarchists has begun and it will be carried out with the same energy as in the USSR."
GPU TERROR
And in fact, the GPU went to work in Spain, applying the methods used by Stalin in the Soviet Union against political opposiBut in rolling back the social revolution, staliniste cleared the way for the triumph of Franco. As Trotsky explained immediately after the civil war began, in A civil war is waged, as everybody knows, not only with military but also with political wea pons. Prom a purey mintary point or view. une Spanish revolution is much weaker than its enemy. Its strength lies in its ability to rouse the great masses to action.
It is necessary to proclaim that, from now on.
the land, factories, and shops will pass from the hands of the capitalists into the hands of the people. It is necessary to move at once toward the realization of this program in those provinces where the workers are in power. The fascist army could not resist the influence of such a prograr: for twenty-four hours: the soldiers would tie thei officers hand and foot and turn them over to the nearest headquarters of the workers militia. But the bourgeois ministers cannot accept such a prustall Indeed they could not. In a country where peasants made up 70 percent of the population, the Popular Front regime refused to expropriate the wealthy landowners and declare the land the property of those who till it. MOROCCO LOST Morocco was the base of the fascist rebellion; much of Franco's army, including many of his crack units, was Moroccan. It had taken fourteen years of warfare to the freedom fighters, but Popular Front government refused to declare Morocco independent. Any tampering with the colonial status of North Africa would have upset the French imperialists, and it was to them the republican regime looked for aid.
democracies, however, were afraid that the rapid defeat of the fascist uprising would result in a Soviet Spain, Paris, London, and Washington, Diedging "nonintervention in Spanish affairs, clamped an arms embargo on both sides in the conflict. In reality, this was aimed solely at the antifascist side, since Franco was liberally supplied with arms by Hitler and Mussolini.
The Nazis openly sent their "Condor Legion" and other forces, totaling about 16,000, into the war, and Mussolini dispatched 50,000 Italian troops. The Kremlin sent supplies to the republican regime, but never enough for a decisive militarv effort. Stalin's policy of limited aid was similar to The one followed by his successors relation to Vietnam.
Enough was given to prevent early defeat of the Lovalists and the consequent collapse of Soviet prestige in the international working class. And this fitted in, at bottom, with Anglo-French policy which did not desire an immediate Franco victory But not enough was given to facilitate a victorious conclusion from which might issue-once the spectre of Franco was gone—a Soviet Spain.
The worthlessness of relying on the imperialist democracies for support against dramatically shown wher London and Paris recognized the Franco regime in February 1939 while the loyalists still held one-third of Spain.
Those WHO argued that the Spanish workers should tailor their policies to limits acceptable to Moscow-and ultimately to the imperialists-were answered by Trot sky. He wrote in 1937:
Revolutions have been victorious up to this time not at al thanks to nich and mienty loreig patrons who supplied them with arms. As a rule, counterrevolution en oved foreign patronage The proletariat of Russia conquered domestic reacuon and lorela interventionists without support from the outside. Revolutions succeed, in the first place, with the help of a bold social program, when aves mme masses to possibility of seizing weapons that are on their ternitory and disorganizing the army of the enemy.
The defeat of the republic was accompanied by an exodus of approximately 500,000 refugees. Nevertheless, the Franco regime officially admitted to 271,000 political prisoners in 1940. The number of persons in prison in 1942 totaled about 241,000. The decline, however, was not because of the number of prisoners released.
MASS MURDER
Gabriel Jackson wrote in The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931-1939:
I consider it certain that close to 200,000 men died in the years 1939-43. A professional officer and lawyer, who had served with the Nationalists in the war and was appointed as a delense attorney tor the mass court-mardais swore to me that on the basis of Ministry of Interior usts alone ne knew mat more can 300,000 death sentences had been executed by the end of World War II.
Even this staggering repression, however, failed to root out working-class opposition. In May 1947, for example, 50,000 Basque workers struck on May Day. Government reprisals sparked strikes that were admitted by the regime to involve 40 percent of the workers in the Bilbao area, and 75 percent of those over a broader area.
Refugees from Franco's terror cross the border into France. 1939 spain Franco hobnobs with his fascist mentors: Mussolini (above) and Hitler In 1951 there were even bigger struggles In Barcelona, 300,000 workers took part in a one-day general strike in March. following month 100,000 struck in Bilbao and other Basque towns, and students went on strike in Madrid.
With help from Washington, however, Franco was able to stabilize his regime during the following years. In January 1950, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson announced that Washington was ready to vote for an end to the diplomatic blockade that had been instituted by the United Nations in retaliation for Franco's aid to Hitler during World War II.
In December 1950 Washington and Madrid exchanged ambassadors, following year Washington began negotiations for bases in Spain. Also, Spanish officers began to train in the United States. Since concluding its 1953 military pact with Franco, Washington has supplied him with a steady flow of economic and military aid.
Now, with the reins dropping from the old dictator's hands, Spanish capitalists may soon be facing the day of reckoning postponed by the fascist victory in the civil war
red weekly 20 november 1975
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lovember 1975 PASARI MOS
(From Intercontinental Press - slightly abridged)