How Stalin knifed the Spanish revolution
Socialist Outlook1990sScanned print read by OCR, and not yet proofread: expect run-together words, dropped letters and, where a piece began partway down a page, a few lines of its neighbour. The printed page is the authority.
THERE IS a debate going on about the role in the 1930s of the Spanish Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM).
Some critics of Ken Loach's brilliant film Land and Freedom argue that the crushing of the POUM, the theme of his film, was a side issue in the war.
Others argue that it highlights a sectarian squabble amongst the left. Both these criticisms misanderstand Ine dynamics or tie war and trie fevo lution as well as the key strategic problems from the Republican side which were heing fought nut at that time.
In fact Loach's subiect matter goes to the heart of the problem: what was the strategic objective of the war from the point of view of the Spanish working class?
Was it a war to defend the bourgeois republic or was it a workers' revolution aimed at establishing sobehind the crushing of the POUM by the Stalinists, and it was this debate which held the key to the defeat of Franco's fascist revolt.
That revolution was on the agenda in Spain at that time can hardiy be a matter of dispute. The fascist bid for power itself, in July 1930, was a direct response to a revolutionary wave of struggles which embraced the Spanish working class after the election of the Popular Front government in February of that year.
Mass strikes
The fascist revolt intensified this process, triggering mass strikes and the occupation of 80% of the land in the Republican zone. The issuc war not whether to start a revolution, but whether to stop one which was already in progress - in the interest of Stalin's policy of promoting cross. class popular front policies.
The POUM which had been founded in 1935 was by late 1936 a mass movement of around 40,000 members. It was. however. along with the anarchists, politically com. promised by its support for the Popular Front.
ne anan nao Coco Republican goverment headed by Largo Caballero, and Andreas Nin. one of the central leaders of thel POUM. tokk a ministerial post in the Catalonia coalition government.
Despite popular perception, the POUM was not a Trotskyist organi. sation, though it shared with the Trotskyists an analysis of Stalinism. Nin was former Trotskyist and had tion of the International Left OppoHe left the ILO for the POUM at its formation. Trotsky had lambasted nam and the reun for tel suppor of the Popular Front.
Despite their compromised position in the government, both the anarchists and their trade union federation the CNT, along with the POUM (and the left of PSOE to some xien nad a rauscany antercot vicw or tne progress of te war trom tne mainstream of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) or the Stalinists.
The Stalinists, from the outset, opposed social revolution and called for a democratic republic - as a part of Stalin's alliance with western capitalist 'democracies" against fascism.
They were supported by the mainstream of PSOE, and when Caballero became prime minister in August he argued that the Republic had to adopt a form of govemment acceptable to Britain and France.
"First we must win the war", he argued, "afterwards we can talk of revolution"
Vacillating
At the time of the rising. Stalin wrote to Caballero in September advocating an alliance with Azaha, the vacillating President and Republican Party leader, in the following terms: enemies of Spain considering her a communist republic".
Both the anarchists and the POUM, despite their participation in govermment, fook the sharply opposite view - the rank and file even They saw the way forward through hamessing the re volutionary energy of the working class, by em. bracing a military strategy linked to key social objectives such as the expropriation and redistribution of land. Nin asked in a speech in Sep"Has the working class in arm now to defend the democratic republic? Is the working class of Catalonia aron see ano Sace ding its blood to retur to the Republie of Azaña"?
The anarchist leader Buenaventure Durruti put it this way: "We wan eo uton noc iso n nowa and not perhaps tomorrow after the next Europcan war". He insisted that it was necessary to carry out the war and the revolution at the same time.
These diverging views were directly reflected in the approach of the two sides to the military conduct of the war, which was conducted initially by militia columns. formed along political lines, confronting what pecame Franco s ariiyThe columns played an important role in halting the initial fascist ad. vances and in the first defence of Madrid - where Durruti, the most able of the anarchist militia commanders, was killed.
Aid with strings
As the war progressed the prestige and power of the Communist Party with its political strings firmly attached.
They advocated the formation of a regular army, called the People's Almy, and une conouct oi tnewa along conventional military lines.
The POUM and the anarchists militia were a direct obstacke to this That is one reason why they were framed, provoked and smashed by the CP. operating hand in hand with forces of Stalin's GPU.
ne uRwo on une 15 1937, and this marked the end of the revolutionary potential of the civil war. Andreas Nin was abducted by GPU agents, tortured, and beaten By now the Moscow Trials were in full swing, demonstrating Stalin's thinking towards his political oppoexecuted in August, and Stalinist propaganda now routincly equated Troiskvists with fascists It is impossible to say whether a war conducted alone revolutionary lines would eventually have defeated Franco. But it is clear that Stalin's line was a disaster Despite his craven support for a parlamentary republic, the British and French governments persisted in their line of "non-intervention'. underpinning.
Freedom: Ken Loach's why Stalin saw the POUM as a while Hitler and Mussolini piled in troops to reinforce Franco's fascist Ken Loach's film therefore casts valuable light on the events which created the political caulron of World War Two and shaped the politics of the rest of the century. deficient and - as we now see -