In this section: April - June 1931 - the character of the revolution, perspectives and tasks - including:
a) 'Permanent Revolution' - for a "proletarian revolution" or an intermediate "workers' and peasants' 'democratic dictatorship"?
b) To 'patiently explain' - the United Front, democratic demands, and the building of workers' juntas.
c) Catalan nationalism and the attitude to take towards Maurin's 'Catalan Federation'
d) On the tempo of revolutionary events in Spain.
e) "Down with Zamora-Maura" as a slogan for this stage of the revolution.
f) On the attitude to take towards the elections to the Cortes that had been called by the Zamora government.
Context to this period of writings:
The prefaces to the Pathfinder Press collection of Trotsky's writings on the Spanish Revolution summarises events in this period as set out below:
"Convinced that the rightist parties could not win a majority in elections to the Cortes, the king called municipal elections instead for April 12. All the large towns voted solidly for the republican and Socialist parties. The monarchists maintained a majority of the total votes cast only through their fraudulent control of the rural vote through the system of caciques (local political bosses).
When great crowds began gathering in the streets of Madrid proclaiming their hostility to the monarchy, Alfonso decided to abdicate. "Sunday's elections," he declared, "have shown me that I no longer enjoy the love of my people." On April 14 a republic was declared and a new government took office".
Trotsky himself wrote in May 1931 that "the fact that the Spanish bourgeoisie decided to part with the monarchy is to be explained by two equally important reasons. The stormy deluge of mass resentment forced the bourgeoisie to attempt to convert the generally despised Alfonso into a scapegoat. But such a serious manoeuvre, which has a serious risk connected with it, was available to the Spanish bourgeoisie only because the masses had confidence in the republicans and the Socialists and because during the change of regimes the communist danger could be ignored. The historic variant that has taken place in Spain is consequently a result of the force of mass pressure on the one hand, and the weakness of the Comintern on the other. One must begin by establishing these facts. It is a basic rule of tactics: if you want to get stronger, do not begin with an exaggeration of your forces".
The preface continues by explaining that "The first prime minister was Alcalà Zamora, an Andalusian lawyer who had been one of Alfonso's ministers before Primo de Rivera's coup ... The Socialist Party's representatives, Largo Caballero and Indalecio Prieto, were a minority of two in the overwhelmingly bourgeois government ...
The Zamora government announced elections to the Cortes for June 1931. In May, sharp clashes broke out in Madrid between monarchists and crowds of workers, while Anarchists burned a number of churches in reprisals against the corrupt pro-monarchist clergy.
The June elections were swept by the pro-government parties. The various rightist parties captured a total of only 60 seats in the Cortes to 116 for the Socialist Party alone. The rest of the seats were divided as follows: Radical Socialists, 60; Azaña's Republican Action Party, 30; Lerroux's Radicals, 90; Catalan Esquerra, 43; Alcalá Zamora's Progressive Party, 22; and 16 seats to the Gallegan Nationalists of Casares Quiroga. All of these last-named parties supported the republic".
April - June 1931 - the character of the revolution, perspectives and tasks.
Over these three months, Trotsky sought to set out a clear direction to guide the Left Opposition and to warn against the theoretical and strategic errors being put forward by the Stalinist Comintern.
Trotsky explained that "the Spanish workers look confidently upon the Soviet Union, the product of the October Revolution. This mood represents a valuable capital for communism ... But we must not permit the workers' faith in the October Revolution to be abused for the purpose of foisting upon them a policy that runs counter to all the lessons taught by October. It must be said clearly. It must be said so that the vanguard of the Spanish and the international proletariat will hear: The present leadership of the Comintern threatens the proletarian revolution in Spain with an immediate danger.
Any revolution can be ruined, even the most promising one; this was proved by the experience of the German revolution of 1923 and still more clearly by the experience of the Chinese revolution of 1925-27. In both instances, the immediate reason for the defeat was the wrong leadership. Spain is next in line. The leaders of the Comintern have learned nothing from their own mistakes. Worse yet, in order to cover up their past mistakes, they are compelled to defend them and to elaborate them. To the extent that it depends upon them, they are preparing the same fate for the Spanish revolution as for the Chinese".
Trotsky stressed that this "is not a question now of criticism in retrospect; for the International Left Opposition, it is a question of making an active intervention in the events in order to prevent a catastrophe. We have few forces. But the advantage of a revolutionary situation consists precisely in the fact that even a small group can become a great force in a brief space of time, provided that it gives a correct prognosis and raises the correct slogans in time".
Trotsky proposed that each national section of the Left Opposition should actively discuss the issues and that "after the necessary preparation, each must open the attack against the policy of the Comintern in the Spanish revolution. This offensive can have different forms: articles in the paper, critical resolutions, open letters, interventions at meetings, individual work and work by groups, etc".
"The leading comrades of all the sections must remember that we, the left wing, are precisely the ones who must place ourselves upon a solid scientific basis. Thoughtless dabbling with ideas, journalistic charlatanism ... are contrary to the very essence of a proletarian revolutionary organisation.
The fundamental questions of the revolution must be studied in the same way that engineers study the resistance of matter or doctors study anatomy and pathology. The problem of the permanent revolution, thanks to the events in Spain, has now become the central problem of the International Left Opposition".
The key questions that Trotsky sought to explain are listed below:
a) 'Permanent Revolution' - for a "proletarian revolution" or an intermediate "workers' and peasants' 'democratic dictatorship'"?
Trotsky wrote that "we must squarely pose two fundamental questions: (1) the question of the general character of the Spanish revolution and the strategic line that flows from it; and (2) the question of the correct tactical utilisation of democratic slogans and of parliamentary and revolutionary possibilities".
Specifically, and in order to expose the confusion of the line coming from the Stalinist Comintern and official Spanish Communist Party, Trotsky argued that communists had to be clear on the following: "should we look forward in Spain to an intermediate revolution between the accomplished republican revolution and the future proletarian revolution, a so-called "workers' and peasants' revolution', with a "democratic dictatorship"? Yes or no?".
He adds that "the whole strategic line is determined by the reply to this question ... We have the chance to expose all the emptiness, all the absurdity, and at the same time the terrific danger represented by the fiction of a middle-of-the-road, intermediate revolution".
Trotsky set out his answer to the question above in detail, as summarised below.
He starts by explaining how the Stalinist 'theoreticians' had "read in Lenin's writings the phrase about the "growing over" of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution. Not understanding Lenin, forgetting or distorting the experiences of the Russian Revolution, they make the concept of "growing over" a basis for the grossest opportunist meanderings".
Trotsky continued, "only very recently, (they had) expected that the dictatorship of the (Chinese bourgeois nationalist party, supposedly of the 'progressive' variety however, according to the Stalinists) Kuomintang would "grow over" into the workers' and peasants' dictatorship, and the latter into a socialist dictatorship of the proletariat. In this connection they imagined - Stalin developed this theme with particular profundity - that on one flank of the revolution, the "rightist elements" would gradually split away, while on the other flank the "leftist elements" would grow stronger; this is what the organic process of "growing over" was supposed to consist of. Unfortunately, the theory ... is entirely contrary to the class theory of Marx.
The character of the social regime, and consequently also the character of every revolution, is determined by the character of the class that holds the power in its hands. The power can pass from the hands of one class into the hands of an other only through a revolutionary overthrow, and not by any means through an organic "growing over." This basic truth the epigones (Comintern leaders) have trampled underfoot-first for China and now for Spain ...
These people dream of a process of evolutionary transition from a bourgeois into a socialist revolution, through a series of organic stages, disguised under different pseudonyms: Kuomintang, "democratic dictatorship," "workers' and peasants' revolution," "people's revolution" - and what is more, the decisive moment in this process when one class wrests the power from another is unnoticeably dissolved.
To be sure, the proletarian revolution is at the same time a peasant revolution; but under contemporary conditions, a peasant revolution without a proletarian revolution is impossible. We can say to the peasant quite correctly that our aim is to create a workers' and peasants' republic just as, after the October Revolution, we called the government of the proletarian dictatorship in Russia a "workers' and peasants' government." But we do not counterpose the workers' and peasants' revolution to the proletarian revolution; on the contrary, we consider them identical. This is the only correct way of putting the question.
Here we once more touch the very heart of the problem of the so-called permanent revolution. In the struggle against this theory, the epigones (Stalinists) have come to a complete break with the class point of view ...
Yes, Lenin in 1905 advanced the hypothetical formula a "bourgeois-democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry." If there ever existed a country where an independent democratic agrarian revolution preceding the seizure of power by the proletariat might have been expected, this country was Russia, where the agrarian problem dominated the whole of national life ... However, even in Russia there proved to be no place for the intermediary revolution between the bourgeois and the proletarian.
In April 1917, Lenin repeated and repeated for the benefit of Stalin, Kamenev, and others who were clinging to the old Bolshevik formula of 1905: There is not and there cannot be a "democratic dictatorship" other than the ... dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat. Only the dictatorship of the proletariat can take the place of such a "democratic dictatorship." ...
This is the conclusion Lenin drew from the living experience of the February and October revolutions. We stand entirely on the ground of these experiences and these conclusions".
Trotsky goes on to explain that what Lenin meant by the "growing over" of the democratic into a socialist revolution was a completely different approach to that being taken by the Stalinists:
"The fact is that the dictatorship of the proletariat does not at all coincide mechanically with the inception of the socialist revolution. The seizure of power by the working class occurs in definite national surroundings, in a definite period, for the solution of definite tasks. In backward nations, such immediate tasks have a democratic character: the national liberation from imperialist subjugation and the agrarian revolution, as in China; the agrarian revolution and the liberation of the oppressed nationalities, as in Russia. We see the same thing at present in Spain, even though in a different combination.
Lenin even said that the proletariat in Russia came to power in October 1917 primarily as an agent of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The victorious proletariat began with the solution of the democratic tasks, and only gradually, by the logic of its rule, did it take up the socialist tasks; it took up seriously the collectivisation of agriculture only in the twelfth year of its power. This is precisely what Lenin called the growing over of the democratic revolution into the socialist.
It is not the bourgeois power that grows over into a workers' and peasants' and then into a proletarian power; no, the power of one class does not "grow over" from the power of another class, but is torn from it with rifle in hand. But after the working class has seized power, the democratic tasks of the proletarian regime inevitably grow over into socialist tasks.
An evolutionary, organic transition from democracy to socialism is conceivable only under the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is Lenin's central idea. The (Stalinist) epigones have disfigured all this, have confused and distorted it, and now they poison the consciousness of the international proletariat with their falsifications".
Trotsky concluded by explaining that at this juncture, "It is not true that the "workers' and peasants' revolution" is on the agenda in Spain. It is not true that a new revolution, that is, an immediate struggle for power, is at present on the agenda in Spain in general. No; the question on the agenda is the struggle for the masses, for their liberation from republican illusions and from confidence in the Socialists, for their revolutionary consolidation. This second revolution will come but it will be the revolution of the proletariat leading behind it the poor peasants.
Between a bourgeois regime and the dictatorship of the proletariat, there will be no room for any sort of distinct "workers' and peasants' revolution." To count on such a revolution and to adapt one's policy to it, is to foist a Kuomintang on the proletariat, and to ruin the revolution".
b) To 'patiently explain' - the United Front, democratic demands, and the building of workers' juntas (or soviets).
Trotsky continues by stressing again that "the immediate task of the Spanish communists is not the struggle for power, but the struggle for the masses, and furthermore this struggle will develop in the next period on the basis of the bourgeois republic and to a great degree under the slogans of democracy. The creation of workers' juntas is undoubtedly the principal task of the day.
But it is absurd to counterpose the juntas to democratic slogans. The struggle against the privileges of the church, the abuses of the monastic orders and monasteries - a purely democratic struggle - produced a mass explosion in May (1931) that created favourable conditions for the election of workers' deputies; unfortunately, those conditions were allowed to slip away.
At the present stage, juntas are the organisational forms for the united proletarian front - for strikes, for the expulsion of the Jesuits, for participation in the elections to the Cortes, to establish contact with the soldiers, as well as to provide support to the peasant movement. Only through juntas embracing the basic core of the proletariat can the communists assure their hegemony in the proletariat, and thus also in the revolution. Only to the extent that the influence of the communists grows among the working class will the juntas be transformed into organs of struggle for power.
At one of the later stages - we do not yet know when - the juntas, as organs of the power of the proletariat, will find themselves opposed to the democratic institutions of the bourgeoisie. Only then will the last hour of bourgeois democracy have struck.
Every time the masses are drawn into struggle, they invariably feel - and cannot help but feel an acute need for an authoritative organisation rising above the parties, factions, sects, and capable of uniting all the workers for joint action. This is the form that the juntas elected by the workers must take".
In an April 1931 summary entitled "The Ten Commandments of the Spanish Communist", Trotsky set out the patient 'united front' work required at this stage of the struggle. These ten points are listed below:
1. (abridged here) The monarchy has lost power, but it hopes to win it back. The possessing classes are still firmly in the saddle.
2. (abridged here) The government is an exploiters' government created to protect them from the exploited. The proletariat is in irreconcilable opposition to the government of the "Socialist" republican agents of the bourgeoisie.
3. The participation in power of the Socialists means that violent clashes between the workers and the Socialist leaders will increase. This opens up great possibilities for the revolutionary policy of the united front. Every strike, every demonstration, every approach of the workers to the soldiers, every step of the masses towards the real democratisation of the country will henceforth collide with the resistance of the Socialist leaders acting as the men of "order." It is therefore all the more important for the communist workers to participate in a united front with the Socialist, syndicalist, and nonpartisan workers, and to draw them under their leadership.
4. The communist workers today constitute a small minority in the country. They cannot aspire to power immediately. At the present moment, they cannot set themselves as a practical task the violent overthrow of the republican-Socialist govern ment. Any attempt of this sort would be a catastrophic adventure. The masses of workers, soldiers, and peasants must pass through the stage of Socialist-republican illusions in order to rid themselves of these illusions all the more radically and conclusively, so that they are not trapped by phrases, can look the facts straight in the face, and stubbornly prepare the second revolution, the proletarian revolution.
5. The task of the communists in the present period is to win the majority of the workers, the majority of the soldiers, the majority of the peasants. How can this be done? By carrying on agitation, by training cadres, by "explaining patiently" (to use Lenin's expression), by organising - all this on the basis of the experience of the masses and with the active participation of the communists in the experience: a broad and audacious united-front policy.
6. The communists do not take any step, with the republican Socialist bloc or with any part of it, that either directly or indirectly might restrict or weaken the communist freedom of criticism and agitation. Everywhere the communists will tirelessly explain to the masses of the people that in the struggle against every form of monarchist counterrevolution they will be in the front ranks, but that for such a struggle no alliance is needed with the republicans and the Socialists, whose policy will inevitably be based on concessions to the reaction and will tend to cover up its intrigue.
7. The communists issue the most radical democratic slogans: complete freedom for the proletarian organisations; freedom of local self-administration; election of all officials by the people; admission to suffrage of men and women from the age of eighteen, etc.; formation of a workers' militia and later on of a peasants' militia, confiscation of all properties of the monarchy and the church for the benefit of the people, above all, for the unemployed and the poor peasants and for improving the conditions of the soldiers; complete separation of church and state.
All civil rights and political privileges for the soldiers; election of officers in the army. The soldier is not an executioner of the people, nor an armed mercenary of the rich, nor a praetorian guard, but a revolutionary citizen, blood brother to the worker and the peasant.
8. The central slogan of the proletariat is that of the worker soviet. This slogan must be proclaimed tirelessly and popularised constantly, and at the first opportunity we must proceed to put it into practice. The workers' soviet does not mean the immediate struggle for power. This is undoubtedly the perspective, but one that the masses can attain only through their own experience and with the help of the enlightening work of the communists.
The workers' soviet today means assembling the scattered forces of the proletariat, struggling for the unity of the working class, for its independence. The workers' soviet takes up the questions of strike benefits; of feeding the unemployed; of contacts with the soldiers in order to prevent bloody encounters with them; of contacts between the city and country in order to assure the alliance of the workers with the poor peasants. The workers' soviet includes representatives of the army corps. It is in this way and only in this way that the soviet will become the organ of the proletarian insurrection and later on the organ of power.
9. The communists must immediately work out a revolutionary agrarian program. Its basis must be the confiscation of the lands of the privileged and rich classes, of the exploiters, beginning with the monarchy and the church, for the benefit of the poor peasants and the soldiers. This program must be concretely adapted to the different parts of the country. In each province, according to its own economic and historic peculiarities, a commission must be created for the concrete elaboration of the agrarian program, in close cooperation with the revolutionary peasants of the locality. We must know how to understand the will of the peasants in order to express it in a clear and accurate manner.
10. The so-called left Socialists (led by Largo Caballero) - among whom there are many honest workers - will invite the communists to make a bloc and even to unite the various organisations. To this the communists answer: "We are ready, in the interests of the working class and for the solution of definite concrete tasks, to work hand in hand with any group and with any proletarian organisation.
Precisely towards this end do we propose to create soviets. Workers' representatives, belonging to different parties, will discuss within these soviets all the timely questions and all the immediate tasks. The workers' soviet is the healthiest, most natural, most open, and most honest form of this alliance for common work. In the workers' soviet we communists will propose our slogans and our solutions, and we will endeavour to convince the workers of the correctness of our course.
Each group must enjoy full freedom of criticism in the workers' soviet. In the struggle for the practical tasks proposed by the soviet, we communists will always be in the front ranks." This is the form of collaboration that the communists propose to the Socialist, the syndicalist, and the nonpartisan workers".
c) Catalan nationalism and the attitude to take towards Maurin's 'Catalan Federation'
The 'Catalan Federation', led by Joaquin Maurin, had split from the official Communist Party. Maurin was a personal friend of Andres Nin, then a leading member of the Left Opposition in Spain. However, Trotsky was critical of Maurin's political outlook and (see previous blog post) had already warned Nin against collaborating with Maurin on an unprincipled basis.
First of all, Trotsky wanted to make clear the Left Opposition recognised the "progressive character of Catalan nationalism". He warned that "mistakes on this point (the national question) may have fatal consequences".
He explained that: "the chief carrier of the national tendencies and illusions is the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia, striving to find support amongst the peasantry against the centralising role of big capital and the state bureaucracy ... From this source national illusions also seep in among the workers ... perhaps also in the Catalan Federation ... but (this) does not at all diminish the progressive, revolutionary democratic character of the Catalan national struggle - against the Spanish great-power chauvinism, bourgeois imperialism, and bureaucratic centralism.
It must not be forgotten for a minute that Spain as a whole and Catalonia in particular are at present governed not by Catalan national democrats but by Spanish bourgeois imperialists in alliance with the landowners, old bureaucrats, and generals, and with the support of the Spanish national socialists. This whole fraternity stands on the one hand for the continued subjugation of the Spanish colonies, and on the other for maximum bureaucratic centralisation of Spain itself, that is for the suppression by the Spanish bourgeoisie of the Catalans, the Basques, and the other nationalities.
At the present stage of developments, with the given combination of class forces, Catalan nationalism is a progressive revolutionary factor; Spanish nationalism is a reactionary imperialist factor. The Spanish communist who does not understand this difference, ignores it, does not advance it to the front rank, but on the contrary covers up its significance, risks becoming an unconscious agent of the Spanish bourgeoisie and being lost to the cause of the proletarian revolution.
What is the danger of petty-bourgeois national illusions? That they are capable of dismembering the proletariat of Spain along national lines, which is a very serious danger. But the Spanish communists can successfully fight against this danger in only one way: by pitilessly denouncing the violence of the bourgeoisie of the ruling nation and in that way winning the confidence of the proletariat of the oppressed nationality. Any other policy would be tantamount to supporting the reactionary nationalism of the imperialist bourgeoisie of the ruling nation against the revolutionary democratic nationalism of petty bourgeoisie of an oppressed nation".
To guard against the division of the working-class as a whole, Trotsky argued that "the Catalan Federation should strive to enter the general Spanish communist organisation". He was also concerned that a split on national lines risked the Catalan workers being "drawn into decisive struggle before it has the chance to consolidate itself with the proletariat of all of Spain" (and so risk isolation and defeat, "in the style of the Paris Commune").
Trotsky also raised considerable concerns at the Catalan Federation's policies under Maurin's direction.
Here are some of the chief criticisms raised by Trotsky in an article written in June 1931 in response to their program:
"Dear Comrades:
I have just read for the first time in La Lutte de classes the platform of the so-called Workers and Peasants Bloc, the name under which the Catalan Federation acts. ... The document as a whole, from beginning to end, produces a painful impression. Everything I have written ... against the official policy of the Comintern on the Spanish question applies to the Catalan Federation. ...
In all their documents the word "communism" does not appear a single time. Anyone who hides his communism from the masses ceases to be a communist.
They speak of the democratic revolution, of the democratic republic, of the popular revolution, without the slightest attempt at a class analysis. The government is accused of indecision, of vacillation, etc. . . . But nowhere is it called a government of the bourgeoisie, an enemy of the people. ...
The fact that Alfonso was given a chance to flee abroad is presented as the "first profound mistake of the provisional government." Mistake? Is this to mean that Zamora is not sufficiently "sensible" in his revolutionary policy? This is how the Russian Mensheviks put the question. To call a deliberate counter-revolutionary calculation on the part of the bourgeoisie a "mistake" means to whitewash the bourgeoisie and to cover up for it to the masses. ...
(Their platform says ...) "The defence of the revolution must be the supreme law." Defence against whom? The bourgeoisie in power defends its revolution against the proletariat. Whoever conceals this fact behind hollow phrases about defence in general of the revolution in general against enemies in general helps the bourgeoisie to stifle the proletariat under the banner of the revolution"...
The name of the Socialist Party is not mentioned in the platform. Not a word is said about the anarcho-syndicalists. The official Communist Party is not mentioned. One might say that the "Workers and Peasants Bloc" is prepared to act in a void ...
I am ready, of course, to welcome every step of the Federation in the direction of Marxism. But the document as it stands represents a pure "Kuomintangism" transported to Spanish soil. The ideas and methods against which the Opposition fought implacably when it was a question of the Comintern's Chinese policy find their most disastrous expression in this document. ...
As far as I know, the leaders of the Catalan Federation systematically dissociate themselves from the Left Opposition. This is not enough; the Left Opposition must dissociate itself in clear and precise manner from the ideas and methods that are expressed by the leaders of the Catalan Federation in the document. ... A false point of departure during a revolution is inevitably translated in the course of events into the language of defeat.
The Spanish Left Opposition, weak as it is, can render enormous services to the proletariat and to the Spanish revolution. But in order to fulfill this mission, it must establish in its own ranks a regime of clarity, honesty, and intransigence".
And in letters to Andres Nin written on the same period, Trotsky wrote that:
"As far as I can judge, the anarcho-syndicalists are following a policy of conciliation toward the despicable regime of Colonel Macia (leader of the Catalan Esquerra party), the Barcelonese agent of the Madrid imperialists. ...
As far as I can tell from your letter, the Catalan Federation has adopted a conciliatory position toward the anarcho syndicalists; that is to say, it has replaced the revolutionary policy of the united front with the opportunist policy of defending and flattering the Macía regime".
"To win over the proletarian nucleus of the Catalan Federation, it is necessary to create a firm nucleus of the Left Opposition in Catalonia and corresponding publications - at the very least, a bulletin in the Catalan language. We must submit Maurín to pitiless and incessant criticism; events will completely confirm our criticism".
d) On the tempo of revolutionary events in Spain.
In May 1931, as part of his wider pamphlet, 'The Spanish Revolution in Danger', Trotsky wrote the following about the likely tempo of events in Spain:
"But is there still time to apply correct tactics? Isn't it too late? Haven't all the opportunities been missed?
It is extremely important to determine the exact tempo with which the revolution is developing - if not to determine the basic strategic line, then at least to determine the tactics. For without correct tactics, the best strategy may lead to ruin. Of course, to guess the tempo far in advance is impossible. The tempo has to be examined in the course of the struggle, making use of the most varied indicators. Moreover, in the course of events the tempo may change very abruptly. But we must nevertheless keep before our eyes a definite perspective in order to introduce the necessary correctives into it in the course of experience.
The Great French Revolution took over three years to reach its highest point, the dictatorship of the Jacobins. The Russian Revolution produced the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks within eight months. Here we see a tremendous difference in tempo. If in France events had developed faster, the Jacobins would not have had the time to take shape, because they did not exist as a party on the eve of the revolution. On the other hand, had the Jacobins represented a power on the eve the revolution, events would probably have proceeded faster. That is one of the factors determining the tempo. But then are also others, perhaps more decisive ones.
The Russian Revolution of 1917 was preceded by the revolution in 1905, which Lenin called a dress rehearsal. All the elements of the second and third revolutions were prepare beforehand, so that the forces participating in the struggle moved as if according to plan. This hastened extraordinary the period of the revolution's rise to its culmination.
Nevertheless, it must be kept in mind that the decisive factor in relation to the tempo in 1917 was the war. The agrarian question might have been postponed for months, perhaps for a year or two, but the question of death in the trenches could bear no postponement. The soldiers were saying: "What good is the land to me if I am not alive?" The pressure of twelve million soldiers was a factor in the extraordinary acceleration of the revolution. Without the war, in spite of the "dress rehearsal" of 1905 and the presence of the Bolshevik Party, the pre-Bolshevik period of the revolution might have lasted not eight months, but perhaps a year or two or more.
These general considerations have an unmistakable significance for determining the possible tempo of development of the events in Spain. The present generation of Spaniards has known no revolution, has gone through no "dress rehearsal" in the past. The Communist Party went into the events in an extremely weak condition. Spain is not carrying on any foreign war; the Spanish peasants are not concentrated by the millions in the barracks and trenches, and are not in immediate danger of extermination. All these circumstances compel us to expect a slower development of events and consequently permit us to hope for a lengthier period in which to prepare the party for the seizure of power.
But there are factors that pull in the opposite direction and may provoke premature attempts at decisive battle that are equivalent to a defeat of the revolution: the weakness of the party accentuates the strength of the spontaneous elements in the movement; the anarcho-syndicalist traditions have the same effect; finally, the false orientation of the Comintern opens the gates to explosions of adventurism.
The conclusion from these historical analogies is clear: the situation in Spain (where there is no recent revolutionary tradition, no strong party, no foreign war) leads to a condition in which the normal birth of the dictatorship of the proletariat will, from all indications, prove to be delayed for a considerably longer period than in Russia and therefore there are circumstances that strengthen to an extraordinary degree the danger of a miscarriage of the revolution".
e) "Down with Zamora-Maura" as a slogan for the current period
In June, Trotsky proposed this slogan as being applicable to the situation in Spain at this point. In doing so, he drew on the lessons of the Russian Revolution in the months after April 1917, after Lenin had returned from exile and successfully redirected the policy of the Bolsheviks.
"The enormous role of the Bolshevik slogan "Down with the ten capitalist ministers" is well known. This slogan was adopted in 1917 at the time of the coalition between the conciliators and the bourgeois liberals. The masses still trusted the Socialist conciliators but even the most trusting masses always have an instinctive distrust of the bourgeoisie, of the exploiters, and of the capitalists. It is upon this distrust that the tactic of the Bolsheviks was based during that specific period.
We didn't say "Down with the Socialist ministers," we didn't even advance the slogan "Down with the Provisional Government" as a fighting slogan of the moment, but instead we hammered incessantly on the same theme: "Down with the ten capitalist ministers." This slogan played an enormous role, because it gave the masses the opportunity to learn from their own experience that the Socialist conciliators thought much more of the capitalist ministers than of the working masses. Slogans of that type are best fitted for the present stage of the Spanish revolution ...
After Lenin's arrival, the Bolshevik Party did not solidarise itself for one moment with Kerensky and the conciliators, but it helped the masses to push the bourgeoise out of power and to test the government of the conciliators in practice. That was an indispensable stage in the Bolshevik rise to power.
Insofar as it is possible for me to judge from a distance, the elections to the Cortes will show an extreme weakness of the rightist republicans of the Zamora and Maura type, and will bring about an overwhelming majority of petty-bourge conciliators of various stripes: Radicals, Radical Socialists and "Socialists." In spite of this, we can almost certainly expect the Socialists and the Radical Socialists to cling with all their forces to their allies on the right. The slogan "Down with Zamora-Maura" is quite timely. ...
The communists say to the Socialist workers: "Unlike us, you believe your Socialist leaders; then force them at least to take power. In this we shall honestly help you. And when they are in power, we will see by what happens which of us is right." ".
f) On the attitude to take towards the elections to the Cortes that had been called by the Zamora government.
Trotsky counselled in May 1931 that, while the communists should have made a far clearer call for a boycott of Berenguer's undemocratic elections, to do so now for the Cortes elections called by Zamora for May would be to fail to recognise the new situation following Alfonso's abdication:
"From external appearances, the republican insurrection took place, as is known, through the medium of the municipal elections. Of course, the insurrection had deeper underlying reasons and we spoke about them long before the collapse of the Berenguer ministry. But the liquidation of the monarchy by "parliamentary" methods was entirely for the benefit of the bourgeois republicans and the petty-bourgeois democrats. A great many workers in Spain imagine now that the basic questions of social life can be decided with the aid of the ballot. This illusion can be shattered only by experience. But one must know how to assist this experience. How? By turning one's back on the Cortes, or on the contrary by participating in the elections? This question demands an answer. ...
With regard to the Berenguer Cortes, the tactic of boycott was perfectly correct. It was clear beforehand that either Alfonso would succeed for a certain period in again resorting to the road of military dictatorship or else the movement would roll over the head of Berenguer with his Cortes. Under these conditions, the communists had to take the initiative in the struggle to boycott the Cortes. ...
Unfortunately the Spanish communists, thrown off the track by the leadership of the Comintern, did not understand the situation and made preparations to participate in the elections, but again without any confidence. The events rolled over their heads, and the first victory of the revolution brought the communists almost no increase in influence.
Now the Zamora government has undertaken to convene a constituent Cortes. Is there any basis for thinking that the convocation of this Cortes will be interrupted by a second revolution? There is no basis whatever. Powerful movements of the masses are quite possible, but without a program, with out a party, without a leadership, these movements cannot bring about a second revolution. To call for boycott would now be to call for self-isolation. It is necessary to participate most actively in the election.
Parliamentary cretinism is a revolting sickness, but anti-parliamentary cretinism is not much better. We see this most clearly in the fate of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalists. The revolution poses political questions directly and at the present stage gives them a parliamentary form. The attention of the working class cannot but be concentrated on the Cortes, and the anarcho-syndicalists will vote on the sly for the Socialists or perhaps the republicans. To fight against parliamentary illusions without fighting simultaneously against the anti-parliamentary metaphysics of the anarchists is less possible in Spain than anywhere else. ...
Precisely because the Spanish people are inclined to exaggerate the creative power of the Cortes, every awakened worker, every revolutionary peasant woman wants to participate in the elections. We do not solidarise ourselves for a moment with the illusions of the masses; but we must utilise whatever is progressive about these illusions to the utmost, otherwise we are not revolutionists but contemptible pedants.
The mere lowering of the voting age directly affects many hundreds of thou sands of workers and peasants, both men and women. And which ones? The young and active ones, those who are called upon to create the second revolution. To set this young generation against the Socialists, who seek the support of the older workers, is quite an elementary and incontestable task of the communist vanguard.
Furthermore, the Zamora government wants to put a constitution through the Cortes providing for a bicameral legislature. The revolutionary masses who have just overthrown the monarchy and who are imbued with an impassioned, even if very vague, striving towards equality and justice will respond warmly to the agitation of the communists against the plan of the bourgeoisie to foist a "house of lords" upon the backs of the people.
This small question can play a tremendous role in the agitation, create severe difficulties for the Socialists, and drive a wedge between the Socialists and the republicans, that is, divide even for a time the enemies of the proletariat and - what is a thousand times more important - drive a wedge between the working masses and the Socialists.
The demand for a seven-hour working day, advanced by ( the official Communist Party) Pravda, is quite correct, extremely important, and timely. But can this bare demand be advanced, ignoring the political surroundings and the revolutionary democratic tasks? By speaking only of the seven-hour day, of factory committees and arming the workers, by ignoring "politics," and by not having a single word to say in all its articles about the elections to the Cortes, Pravda goes all the way to meet anarcho-syndicalism, fosters it, covers up for it.
In the meantime the young worker, whom the republicans and the Socialists deprive of suffrage - although bourgeois legislation considers him sufficiently mature for capitalist exploitation - and on whom they want to impose a second house, will tomorrow, in the struggle against this abomination, want to turn his back on anarchism and stretch out his hand for a rifle. To counterpose the slogan of arming the workers to the reality of the political processes that grip the masses at their vitals means to isolate oneself from the masses - and the masses from arms. ...
For a certain time, all the questions of the Spanish revolution will in one way or another be refracted through the prism of parliamentarianism. The peasants will wait with the greatest anxiety for what the Cortes will say about the agrarian question. Is it hard to see the significance of a communist agrarian program unfolded from the forum of the Cortes under present conditions? But to do this, it is necessary to have an agrarian program and to gain access to the parliamentary forum. The Cortes will not solve the land question, this we know; that will require the fighting initiative of the peasant masses themselves. But to take such an initiative the masses need a program and a leadership.
The communists need the forum of the Cortes as a bond with the masses; and from this bond will develop actions that will submerge the Cortes. This is the essence of the revolutionary dialectic with regard to parliament".
Trotsky wrote separately in June 1931, with respect to the Catalan Federation:
"The questions of democratic slogans, of the utilisation of the elections, and later on of the Cortes, are questions of revolutionary tactics subordinated to the general question of strategy. But the most correct strategic formulas are worth nothing without a tactical solution to these formulas at a given moment.
But matters look very bad in Spain from this point of view. According to the French newspaper dispatches, the leader of the Catalan Federation, Maurín, is reported to have said in is Madrid speech that his organisation will not participate in the elections because it does not believe in their "sincerity." Could this possibly be true? That would mean that Maurín is not approaching the problems of revolutionary tactics from the point of view of the mobilisation of the forces of the proletariat, but from the point of view of morality and petty-bourgeois sentimentalism".
***
No comments:
Post a Comment