Monday 20 June 2022

The Spanish Revolution (10) - Trotsky's conclusions on "The Tragedy of Spain" 1939 - 40

In this section: February 1939 - August 1940, Trotsky's final articles on the Spanish Revolution.

As in previous posts, rather than quote from Trotsky's writings in date order, I have again separated his analysis from this period into separate sections:

1) The crimes of Stalinism in Spain

2) On the coming World War

3) On the 'empty abstraction' of 'antifascism'

4) On the culpability of Left Centrism

5) "The Class, the Party and the Leadership" - Why defeat stemmed from the lack of revolutionary leadership, not any supposed 'immaturity of the masses'


1) The crimes of Stalinism in Spain

From "The Tragedy of Spain", February 1939:

"One of the most tragic chapters of modern history is now drawing to its conclusion in Spain. On Franco's side there is neither a staunch army nor popular support. ... to win a victory over the heroic Spanish proletariat, Franco needed help from the opposite side of the battlefront. And he obtained this aid. 

His chief assistant was and still is Stalin, the gravedigger of the Bolshevik Party and the proletarian revolution. The fall of the great proletarian capital, Barcelona, comes as direct retribution for the massacre of the uprising of the Barcelona proletariat in May 1937.

Insignificant as Franco himself is, however miserable his clique of adventurists, without honour, without conscience, and without military talents, Franco's great superiority lies in this, that he has a clear and definite program: to safeguard and stabilise capitalist property, the rule of the exploiters, and the domination of the church; and to restore the monarchy. ...

We have witnessed during the last two years the growing distrust and hatred of the republican cliques on the part of the peasants and workers. Despair or dull indifference gradually replaced revolutionary enthusiasm and the spirit of self-sacrifice. The masses turned their backs on those who had deceived and trampled upon them. That is the primary reason for the defeat of the republican troops. The inspirer of deceit and of the massacre of the revolutionary workers of Spain was Stalin. The defeat of the Spanish revolution falls as a new indelible blot upon the already bespattered Kremlin gang. ...

Under the leadership of Stalin, they have assured the most terrible defeat when all the conditions for victory were at hand.

The Spanish proletariat gave proof of extraordinary capacity for initiative and revolutionary heroism. The revolution was brought to ruin by petty, despicable, and utterly corrupted "leaders." The downfall of Barcelona signifies above all the downfall of the Second and Third Internationals, as well as of anarchism, rotten to its core.

Forward to a new road, workers! Forward to the road of international socialist revolution!"

From "Spain, Stalin and Yezhov", March 4, 1939:

"Yezhov, the former head of the GPU, fell into disgrace for a number of reasons. But undoubtedly connected with his fall are the Spanish events. 

The rout of the armies of the republican government, which was brought about with the direct and most active participation of the GPU, represents a very great danger for both the GPU and its masters in the Kremlin.

Innumerable crimes committed on the Iberian Peninsula by the international scoundrels in Stalin's employ must now inevitably come out into the open. Scores, hundreds, and thousands of witnesses, victims, and participants are now departing and fleeing from Spain to all parts of the world. They will carry with them everywhere their testimony concerning the crimes of the GPU in Spain. ...

If the republicans had been victorious, many would have been inclined to condone Stalin's crimes: "Conquerors brought to judgment." But it has now become perfectly clear that the infamous murders of revolutionists only served to facilitate Franco's victory. ...

When forced to free their victims from the clutching claws, the agents of the GPU usually say: "Remember we have far-reaching hands." The fear of this threat seals many a lip.

We must now do all in our power to make the terrified ones speak up. Our comrades in all countries must explain to all former victims and semi-victims of the GPU that it is their direct duty to tell everything they know. 

Their relatives in the USSR will not suffer if the revelations assume a mass character. The organisations of the Fourth International can and must give these revelations a mass character. At present, this is an extremely urgent task in the struggle against the international Stalinist Mafia".

From "The Counter-Revolutionary Role of the Kremlin", July 1, 1939:

"The Spanish revolution, which exploded without Moscow and unexpected by it, soon revealed a tendency to take a socialist character. 

Moscow feared above all that the disturbance of private property in the Iberian Peninsula would bring London and Paris nearer to Berlin against the USSR. After some hesitations, the Kremlin intervened in the events in order to restrict the revolution within the limits of the bourgeois regime.

All the actions of the Moscow agents in Spain were directed toward paralysing any independent movement of the workers and peasants and reconciling the bourgeoisie with a moderate republic. The Spanish Communist Party stood in the right wing of the Popular Front. 

On December 21, 1936, Stalin, Molotov, and Voroshilov, in a confidential letter to Largo Caballero, insistently recommended to the Spanish premier at that time that there be no infringement of private property, that guarantees be given to foreign capital against violation of freedom of commerce and for maintaining the parliamentary system without tolerating the development of soviets. 

This letter, recently communicated by Largo Caballero to the press through the former Spanish ambassador in Paris, L. Araquistain (New York Times, June 4, 1939), summed up in the best manner the Soviet government's conservative position in the face of socialist revolution.

We must, moreover, do justice to the Kremlin - the policy did not stay in the domain of words. The GPU in Spain carried out ruthless repression against the revolutionary wing ("Trotskyists," POUMists, left Socialists, left Anarchists). 

Now, after the defeat, the cruelties and frame-ups of the GPU in Spain are voluntarily revealed by the moderate politicians, who largely utilised the Moscow police apparatus in order to crush their revolutionary opponents".

2) On the coming World War

From "Mysteries of Imperialism", March 4, 1939:

"The Socialist Léon Blum (in France) and the Conservative Chamberlain (in Britain), in equal measure friends of "peace," were for non-intervention in the Spanish affair. ... 

Now, however, Chamberlain declares that if, after recognition of Franco, Italy and Germany do not withdraw the so-called volunteers from Spain, England is prepared to take the most serious measures, not short of war. The Radical Socialist Daladier, another well-known supporter of the policy of "non-intervention," completely supports Chamberlain in this question. ...

England and France were not at all inclined to support Spanish democracy but now, when they have helped Franco to stifle it, they are fully prepared to support with arms the "balance" in the Mediterranean, which mysterious technical term is to be understood as meaning the defence by the enslavers of their colonial possessions and the seaways leading to them. ...

In fact, the two imperialist democracies, in the person of their ruling classes, were from the very beginning completely on the side of Franco; they merely did not at first believe in the possibility of his victory, and were afraid of compromising themselves by premature disclosure of their sympathies. 

As Franco's chances improved, however, the real faces of the possessing classes of the "great democracies" were revealed ever more clearly, ever more openly, ever more shamelessly. Both Great Britain and France know perfectly well that it is considerably easier to control colonies, semi-colonies, and simply weak nations through a military dictatorship than through a democratic or even semi-democratic regime. ...

The Moscow diplomats also, of course, speak somewhat through gritted teeth in favour of Spanish democracy, the very thing they have destroyed by their policy. But in Moscow they now express themselves very carefully, because they are groping for a way to Berlin. The Moscow Bonapartists are ready to betray all the democracies in the world, not to speak of the international proletariat, just to prolong their rule for an additional week. ...

The struggle for peace, for democracy, for race, for authority, for order, for balance, and for dozens of other high and imponderable things means the struggle for a new division of the world. The Spanish tragedy will go down in history as an episode on the path of preparation of a new world war. The ruling classes of all shades are afraid of it and at the same time are preparing for it with all their might.

The charlatanism of Popular Fronts serves one part of the imperialists to conceal their plans from the popular masses, as the other gang uses phrases about blood, honour, and race for the same purpose. The petty-bourgeois windbags and phrasemongers only make it easier for the imperialists to prepare war, by preventing the workers from seeing the naked truth.

Thus, from various ends and by various methods, a new carnage of the people is being prepared".

From an "Interview with Sybil Vincent" (from the London Daily Herald), March 18, 1939:

"Can the regime of Franco maintain itself? Not, of course, for a thousand years, as the boasting National Socialism of Germany promises. But Franco will maintain himself for a certain time, thanks to the same conditions as Hitler. 

After great efforts and sacrifices, after terrible defeats, in spite of these sacrifices, the Spanish working class must be disappointed to the bottom of their hearts in the old parties: Socialists, Anarchists, Communists, who by their common forces, under the banner of the Popular Front, strangled the socialist revolution. 

The Spanish workers will now pass inevitably through a period of discouragement before they begin slowly and stubbornly to look for a new road. The period during which the masses lie prostrate will coincide precisely with the time of Franco's domination'.

3) On the 'empty abstraction' of 'antifascism'

From "Once again on the causes of the defeat in Spain", March 4, 1939:

"In the Mexican newspaper El Popular ... Guillermo Vegas León ... (argues that) the war in Spain, you see, is not a war for socialism but rather a war against fascism. In the war against fascism, it is impermissible to engage in such adventures as the seizure of factories and land. Only the friends of fascism are capable of proposing such plans. And so forth and so on. ...

But tell us, pray, why during a struggle against fascism must the land belong to the landlords and the factories and mills to the capitalists, all of whom are in Franco's camp? Is it perhaps because the peasants and workers "have not matured" for the seizure of land and factories? But they proved their maturity by seizing on their own initiative the lands and factories. ...

Let us take another example. At present China is engaged in a war against Japan, a just, defensive war against plunderers and oppressors. With this war as a pretext, the government of Chiang Kai-shek, aided by Stalin's government, has crushed all revolutionary struggle and above all the struggle of the peasants for the land. 

The exploiters and the Stalinists say: "Now is not the time to solve the agrarian question. Now it is a question of a common struggle against the Mikado." Yet it is self-evident that were the Chinese peasants precisely at the present time in possession of the land, they would defend it tooth and nail against the Japanese imperialists. 

We must recall once again that if the October Revolution was able to triumph in a war of three years duration over countless enemies, including the expeditionary forces of the mightiest imperialist powers, it was only because this victory was assured above all by the fact that during the war the peasants had gained possession of the land while the work ers held the mills and factories. Only the fusion of the socialist overturn with the civil war made the Russian Revolution unconquerable. ...

The very concepts of "antifascism" and "antifascist" are fictions and lies. Marxism approaches all phenomena from a class standpoint. 

Azaña is "antifascist" only to the extent that fascism hinders bourgeois intellectuals from carving out parliamentary or other careers. Confronted with the necessity of choosing between fascism and the proletarian revolution, Azaña will always prove to be on the side of the fascists. ...

The slogan "Against fascism, for democracy!"cannot attract millions and tens of millions of the populace if only because during wartime there was not and is not any democracy in the camp of the republicans. Both with Franco and with Azaña there have been military dictatorship, censorship, forced mobilisation, hunger, blood, and death. 

The abstract slogan "For democracy!" suffices for liberal journalists but not for the oppressed workers and peasants. They have nothing to defend except slavery and poverty. ...

They will direct all their forces to smashing fascism only if, at the same time, they are able to realise new and better conditions of existence. In consequence, the struggle of the proletariat and the poorest peasants against fascism cannot in the social sense be defensive but only offensive.

That is why León goes wide of the mark when, following the more "authoritative" philistines, he lectures us that Marxism rejects utopias, and the idea of a socialist revolution during a struggle against fascism is utopian. In point of fact, the worst and most reactionary form of utopianism is the idea that it is possible to struggle against fascism without overthrowing the capitalist economy.

Truly astonishing is the total ignorance of these people. ... It is obvious that they never read the basic documents of the first four congresses of the Communist International nor the theoretical research of the Fourth International, which prove and explain and enable even an infant to digest the fact that the struggle against fascism is unthinkable in modern conditions other than by the methods of the proletarian class struggle for power. ...

Had (the insurrectionary proletariat) possessed a revolutionary and not a treacherous leadership, it would have purged the state apparatus of all the Azañas, instituted the power of the soviets, given the land to the peasants, the mills and factories to the workers -and the Spanish revolution would have be come socialist and unconquerable.

But because there was no revolutionary party in Spain, and because there was instead a multitude of reactionaries imagining themselves as Socialists and Anarchists, they succeeded under the label of the Popular Front in strangling the socialist revolution and assuring Franco's victory.

It is simply ridiculous to justify the defeat by references to the military intervention of Italian fascists and German Nazis, and to the perfidious conduct of the French and British "democracies." Enemies will always remain enemies. Reaction will always intervene whenever it can. Imperialist "democracy" will always betray. This means that the victory of the proletariat is impossible in general! 

But what about the victory of fascism in Italy and Germany itself? No intervention there. Instead we had there a powerful proletariat and a very large Socialist Party and, in the case of Germany, a large Communist Party as well. Why then was there no victory gained over fascism? Precisely because the leading parties tried to reduce the question in both these countries to a struggle "against fascism" when only a socialist revolution can defeat fascism".

4) On the culpability of Left Centrism

From "The Culpability of Left Centrism", March 10 1939:

"Left centrism, especially under revolutionary conditions, is always ready to adopt in words the program of the socialist revolution and is not niggardly with sonorous phrases. But the fatal malady of centrism is not being capable of drawing courageous tactical and organisational conclusions from its general conceptions. ...

Following all the opportunists and centrists, (French socialist) Marceau Pivert explains the defeat of the Spanish proletariat by the bad behaviour of French and British imperialism and the Bonapartist clique of the Kremlin. This is quite simply to say that a victorious revolution is always and everywhere impossible.

One can neither expect nor ask for a movement of greater scope, greater endurance, greater heroism on the part of the workers than we were able to observe in Spain. ... Whoever invokes the ignominy of the bourgeoisie and its lackeys, instead of analysing the bankrupt policy of the revolutionary or quasi-revolutionary organizations, is a criminal. It is precisely against them that a correct policy is needed!

An enormous responsibility for the Spanish tragedy falls upon the POUM. I have all the greater right to say so because in my letters to Andrés Nin, since 1931, I predicted the inevitable consequences of the disastrous policy of centrism. 

By their general "left" formulas the leaders of the POUM created the illusion that a revolutionary party existed in Spain and prevented the appearance of the truly proletarian, intransigent tendencies. 

At the same time, by their policy of adaptation to all the forms of reformism, they were the best auxiliaries of the Anarchist, Socialist, and Communist traitors. The personal honesty and heroism of numerous workers of the POUM naturally provoke our sympathy; against the reaction and the rabble of Stalinism we are ready to defend them to the utmost. But that revolutionist is worth precious little who, under the influence of sentimental considerations, is incapable of considering objectively the real essence of a given party.

The POUM always sought the line of least resistance, it temporised, ducked, played hide-and-seek with the revolution. It began by trying to retrench itself in Catalonia, closing its eyes to the relationship of forces in Spain. In Catalonia, the leading positions in the working class were occupied by the Anarchists; the POUM began by ignoring the Stalinist danger (in. spite of all the warnings!) and attuning itself to the Anarchist bureaucracy. 

So as not to create any "superfluous" difficulties for themselves, the POUM leaders closed their eyes to the fact that the anarcho-bureaucrats were not worth one whit more than all the other reformists, that they only covered themselves with a different phraseology.

The POUM refrained from penetrating into the midst of the CNT in order not to disturb relations with the summits of this organisation and in order to retain the possibility of remaining in the role of counsellor to them. That is the position of (the left Menshevik) Martov. But Martov, be it said in his honour, knew how to avoid mistakes as crude and shameful as participation in the Catalan government! ...

For the workers who, during the revolution, direct all the force of their class hatred against the bourgeoisie, the participation of a "revolutionary" leader in a bourgeois government is a fact of enormous importance: it disorients and demoralises them. 

And this fact did not fall from the sky. It was a necessary link in the policy of the POUM. The leaders of the POUM spoke with great eloquence of the advantages of the socialist revolution over the bourgeois revolution; but they did nothing serious to prepare this socialist revolution because the preparation could only consist of a pitiless, audacious, implacable mobilisation of the Anarchist, Socialist, and Communist workers against their treacherous leaders. 

It was necessary not to fear separation from these leaders, to change into a "sect" during the early days, even if it were persecuted by everybody; it was necessary to put forth exact and clear slogans, foretell the morrow, and basing oneself on the events, discredit the official leaders and drive them from their positions.

In the course of eight months, the Bolsheviks, from the small group that they were, became a decisive force. The energy and the heroism of the Spanish proletariat gave the POUM several years in which to prepare. The POUM had the time on two or three occasions to emerge from its swaddling clothes and to become an adult. If it did not, it is in no way the fault of the "democratic" imperialists and the Moscow bureaucrats, but the result of an internal cause: its own leadership did not know where to go or what paths to take.

An enormous historical responsibility falls upon the POUM. If the POUM had not marched at the heels of the Anarchists and had not fraternised with the "Popular Front," if it had conducted an intransigent revolutionary policy, then, at the moment of the May 1937 insurrection and most likely much sooner, it would naturally have found itself at the head of the masses and would have assured the victory. The POUM was not a revolutionary party but a centrist party raised by the wave of the revolution. That is not at all the same thing".

From "Fighting Against the Stream", April 1939:

"(Nin) was in Spain as (a) representative of the Russian Left Opposition, and during the first year we did not try to mobilise, to organise our independent elements. We hoped that we would win Nin to the correct conception, and so on. 

Publicly the Left Opposition gave him its support. In private correspondence we tried to win him and push him forward, but without success. We lost time. Was it correct? It is difficult to say.

If in Spain we had had an experienced comrade, our situation would be incomparably more favourable, but we did not have one. We put all our hopes on Nin, and his policy consisted of personal manoeuvres in order to avoid responsibility. 

He played with the revolution. He was sincere, but his whole mentality was that of a Menshevik. It was a tremendous handicap, and to fight against this handicap only with correct formulas falsified by our own representatives in the first period, the Nins, made it very difficult".

From "No Greater Crime", July 15 1939:

"In the heat of revolutionary war between the classes, Nin entered a bourgeois government whose goal it was to destroy the workers' committees, the foundation of proletarian government. When this goal was reached, Nin was driven out of the bourgeois government. 

Instead of recognising after this the colossal error committed, Nin's party demanded the re-establishment of the coalition with the bourgeoisie. ... There can be no greater crime than coalition with the bourgeoisie in a period of socialist revolution. ...

The most ardent sympathy for the victims of Stalin's executioners does not free one from the obligation of telling the workers the truth. ...

Within the POUM a left opposition is now beginning to raise its head (José Rebull and his friends). The duty of Marxists is to help them draw the final conclusions from their criticisms."

5) "The Class, the Party and the Leadership" - Why defeat stemmed from the lack of revolutionary leadership, not any supposed 'immaturity of the masses'

Trotsky's rough drafts and notes for this final article, "The Class, the Party and the Leadership - Why Was the Spanish Proletariat Defeated? (Questions of Marxist Theory)", were found amongst his papers after his murder in August 1940. The full text can be read online but the key sections are posted below:

The Class, the Party and the Leadership

"In Paris there is published a periodical Que Faire (What To Do). ... In and of itself (it is) of no importance whatever. But it is of symptomatic interest. That is why we think it profitable to dwell upon this periodical's appraisal of the causes for the collapse of the Spanish revolution, inasmuch as this appraisal discloses very graphically the fundamental features now prevailing in the left flank of pseudo-Marxism.

"Que Faire" explains

... Let us analyse step by step the hints and half-thoughts of our author. According to him, a false policy of the masses can be explained only as it "manifests a certain condition of social forces," namely, the immaturity of the working class and the lack of independence of the peasantry. ... 

By means of a tautology, he unloads the responsibility on the masses. This classical trick of all traitors, deserters, and their attorneys is especially revolting in connection with the Spanish proletariat.

Sophistry of the betrayers

In July 1936 - not to refer to an earlier period - the Spanish workers repelled the assault of the officers who had prepared their conspiracy under the protection of the Popular Front. The masses improvised militias and created workers' committees, the strongholds of their future dictatorship. 

The leading organisations of the proletariat, on the other hand, helped the bourgeoisie to destroy these committees, to liquidate the assaults of the workers on private property, and to subordinate the workers' militias to the command of the bourgeoisie, wit the POUM moreover participating in the government and assuming direct responsibility for this work of the counter-revolution.

What does "immaturity" of the proletariat signify in this case? Self-evidently only this, that despite the correct political line chosen by the masses, they were unable to smash the coalition of Socialists, Stalinists, Anarchists, and the POUMists with the bourgeoisie. ...

But why should workers who show such correct revolutionary instinct and such superior fighting qualities submit to treacherous leadership?, object our sages. Our answer is: there wasn't even a hint of mere submission. The workers' line of march at all times cut a certain angle to the line of the leadership. And at the most critical moments this angle be came 180 degrees. The leadership then helped directly or indirectly to subdue the workers by armed force.

In May 1937 the workers of Catalonia rose not only without their own leadership but also against it. ... One must understand exactly nothing in the sphere of the inter-relationships between the class and the party, between the masses and the leaders, in order to repeat the hollow statement that the Spanish masses merely followed their leaders. 

The only thing that can be said is that the masses who sought at all times to blast their way to the correct road found it beyond their strength to produce in the very fire of battle a new leadership corresponding to the demands of the revolution. 

The dialectical approach 

There is an ancient epigram from the evolutionist and liberal conception of history: Every people gets the government it deserves. History, however, shows that one and the same people may in the course of a comparatively brief epoch get very different governments (Russia, Italy, Germany, Spain, etc.), and furthermore that the order of these governments doesn't at all proceed in one and the same direction: from despotism to freedom as was imagined by the liberal evolutionists. 

The secret is that a people is comprised of hostile classes, and the classes themselves are comprised of different and in part antagonistic layers that fall under different leadership; further more every people falls under the influence of other peoples who are likewise comprised of classes.

Governments do not express the systematically growing "maturity" of a "people" but are the product of the struggle between different classes and the different layers within one and the same class, and finally, the action of external forces - alliances, conflicts, wars and and so on. 

To this should be added that a government, once it has established itself, may endure much longer than the relationship of forces that produced it. It is precisely out of this historical contradiction that revolutions, coups d'etat, counter-revolutions, etc., arise.

The very same dialectical approach is necessary in dealing with the question of the leadership of a class. Imitating the liberals, our sages tacitly accept the axiom that every class gets the leadership it deserves. In reality leadership is not at all a mere "reflection" of a class or the product of its own free creativeness. A leadership is shaped in the process of clashes between the different classes or the friction between the different layers within a given class. 

Having once arisen, the leadership invariably rises above its class and thereby becomes predisposed to the pressure and influence of other classes. The proletariat may "tolerate" for a long time a leadership that has already suffered a complete inner degeneration but has not as yet had the opportunity to express this degeneration amid great events.

A great historic shock is necessary to reveal sharply the contradiction between the leadership and the class. The mightiest historical shocks are wars and revolutions. Precisely for this reason the working class is often caught unawares by war and revolution. But even in cases where the old leadership has revealed its internal corruption, the class cannot immediately improvise a new leadership, especially if it has not inherited from the previous period strong revolutionary cadres capable of utilising the collapse of the old leading party. 

The Marxist interpretation, that is, the dialectical and not the scholastic interpretation of the inter-relationship between a class and its leadership, does not leave a single stone unturned of our author's legalistic sophistry.

How the Russian workers matured

He conceives of the proletariat's maturity as something purely static. Yet during a revolution the consciousness of a class is the most dynamic process directly determining the course of the revolution. ...

The Bolshevik Party in March 1917 was followed by an insignificant minority of the working-class and furthermore there was discord within the party itself ... What were the advantages of Bolshevism? A clear and thoroughly thought-out revolutionary conception at the beginning of the revolution was held only by Lenin. The Russian cadres of the party were scattered and to a considerable degree bewildered. But the party had authority among the advanced workers. Lenin had great authority with the party cadres. Lenin's political conception corresponded to the actual development of the revolution and was reinforced by each new event. 

These advantages worked wonders in a revolutionary situation, that is, in conditions of bitter class struggle. The party quickly aligned its policy to correspond with Lenin's conception; to correspond, that is, with the actual course of the revolution. Thanks to this, it met with firm support among tens of thousands of advanced workers. Within a few months, by basing itself upon the development of the revolution, the party was able to convince the majority of the workers of the correctness of its slogans. This majority, organised into soviets, was able in its turn to attract the soldiers and peasants.

How can this dynamic, dialectical process be exhausted by a formula of the maturity or immaturity of the proletariat? A colossal factor in the maturity of the Russian proletariat February or March 1917 was Lenin. He did not fall from the skies. He personified the revolutionary tradition of the working class. 

For Lenin's slogans to find their way to the masses, cadres had to exist, even though numerically small at the beginning; the cadres had to have confidence in the leadership, a confidence based on the entire experience of the past.

To cancel these elements from one's calculations is simply to ignore the living revolution, to substitute for it an abstraction, the "relationship of forces"; because the development of the revolution precisely consists of the incessant and rapid change in the relationship of forces under the impact of the changes in the consciousness of the proletariat, the attraction of the backward layers to the advanced, the growing assurance of the class in its own strength. 

The vital mainspring in this (revolutionary) process is the party, just as the vital mainspring in the mechanism of the party is its leadership. The role and the responsibility of the leadership in a revolutionary epoch is colossal.

Relativity of "maturity" 

The October victory is a serious testimonial to the "maturity" of the proletariat. But this maturity is relative. A few years later the very same proletariat permitted the revolution to be strangled by a bureaucracy that rose from its ranks. Victory is not at all the ripe fruit of the proletariat's "maturity." Victory is a strategical task. ...

It is necessary to utilise the favourable conditions of a revolutionary crisis in order to mobilise the masses; taking as a starting point the given level of their "maturity," it is necessary to propel them forward, to teach them to understand that the enemy is by no means omnipotent, that it is torn asunder with contradictions, that behind the imposing facade panic prevails. 

Had the Bolshevik Party failed to carry out this work, there couldn't even be talk of the victory of the proletarian revolution. The Soviets would have been crushed by the counter-revolution and the little sages of all countries would have written articles and books on the keynote that only uprooted visionaries could dream in Russia of the dictatorship of the proletariat, so small numerically and so immature.

Auxiliary role of peasants

Equally abstract, pedantic, and false is the reference to the "lack of independence" of the peasantry. When and where did our sage ever observe in capitalist society a peasantry with an independent revolutionary program or a capacity for independent revolutionary initiative? The peasantry can play a very great role in the revolution, but only an auxiliary role.

In many instances, the Spanish peasants acted boldly and fought courageously. But to rouse the entire mass of the peasantry, the proletariat had to set an example of a decisive uprising against the bourgeoisie and inspire the peasants with faith in the possibility of victory. In the meantime, the revolutionary initiative of the proletariat itself was paralysed at every step by its own organisations. ...

The role of personality 

Our author substitutes mechanistic determinism for the dialectical conditioning of the historical process. ... 

History is a process of the class struggle. But classes do not bring their full weight to bear automatically and simultaneously. In the process of struggle the classes create various organs, which play an important and independent role and are subject to deformations. This also provides the basis for the role of personalities in history. 

There are naturally great objective causes which created the autocratic rule of Hitler but only dull-witted pedants of "determinism" could deny today the enormous historic role of Hitler. The arrival of Lenin in Petrograd on April 3, 1917, turned the Bolshevik Party in time and enabled the party to lead the revolution to victory.

Our sages might say that had Lenin died abroad at the beginning of 1917, the October Revolution would have taken place "just the same." But that is not so. Lenin represented one of the living elements of the historical process. He personified the experience and the perspicacity of the most active section of the proletariat. His timely appearance on the arena of the revolution was necessary in order to mobilise the vanguard and provide it with an opportunity to rally the working class and the peasant masses.

Political leadership in the crucial moments of historical turns can become just as decisive a factor as is the role of the chief command during the critical moments of war. 

History is not an automatic process. Otherwise, why leaders? Why parties? Why programs? Why theoretical struggles?

Stalinism in Spain 

"But why, in the devil's name," asks the author ... "did the revolutionary masses who left their former leaders rally to the banner of the Communist Party?"

The question is falsely posed. It is not true that the revolutionary masses left all of their former leaders. The workers who were previously connected with specific organisations continued to cling to them, while they observed and checked. Workers in general do not easily break with the party that awakens them to conscious life.

Moreover the existence of mutual protection within the Popular Front lulled them: since everybody agreed, everything must be all right. The new and fresh masses naturally turned to the Comintern as the party which had accomplished the only victorious proletarian revolution and which, it was hoped, was capable of assuring arms to Spain. 

Furthermore the Comintern was the most zealous champion of the idea of the Popular Front; this inspired confidence among the inexperienced layers of workers. Within the Popular Front, the Comintern was the most zealous champion of the bourgeois character of the revolution; this inspired the confidence of the petty and in part the middle bourgeoisie. That is why the masses "rallied to the banner of the Communist Party."

Our author depicts the matter as if the proletariat were in a well-stocked shoe store, selecting a new pair of boots. Even this simple operation, as is well known, does not always prove successful. As regards new leadership, the choice is very limited. 

Only gradually, only on the basis of their own experience through several stages, can the broad layers of the masses become convinced that a new leadership is firmer, more reliable, more loyal than the old. 

To be sure, during a revolution, i.e., when events move swiftly, a weak party can quickly grow into a mighty one provided it lucidly understands the course of the revolution and possesses staunch cadres that do not become intoxicated with phrases and are not terrorised by persecution. But such a party must be available prior to the revolution inasmuch as the process of educating the cadres requires a considerable period of time and the revolution does not afford this time.

Treachery of the POUM

To the left of all the other parties in Spain stood the POUM, which undoubtedly embraced revolutionary proletarian elements not previously firmly tied to anarchism. But it was precisely this party that played a fatal role in the development of the Spanish revolution. ...

The POUM, while criticising the old parties, subordinated itself to them on all fundamental questions. It participated in the "Popular" election bloc; entered the government that liquidated workers' committees; engaged in a struggle to reconstitute this governmental coalition; capitulated time and again to the Anarchist leadership; conducted, in connection with this, a false trade union policy; and took a vacillating and non-revolutionary attitude toward the May 1937 uprising. ...

It is possible by taking into account previous international experience, Moscow's influence, the influence of a number of defeats, etc., to explain politically and psychologically why the POUM unfolded as a centrist party. But this does not alter its centrist character, nor does it alter the fact that a centrist party invariably acts as a brake upon the revolution, must each time smash its own head, and may bring about the collapse of the revolution. 

It does not alter the fact that the Catalan masses were far more revolutionary than the POUM, which in turn  was more revolutionary than its leadership. In these conditions to unload the responsibility for false policies on the "immaturity" of the masses is to engage in sheer charlatanism frequently resorted to by political bankrupts. 

Responsibility of leadership 

The historical falsification consists in this, that the responsibility for the defeat of the Spanish masses is unloaded on the working masses and not those parties that paralysed or simply crushed the revolutionary movement of the masses. 

The attorneys of the POUM simply deny the responsibility of the leaders ... and refuse to pose the question of such concrete factors as programs, parties, and personalities that were the organisers of defeat. This philosophy of fatalism and prostration is diametrically opposed to Marxism as the theory of revolutionary action.

Civil war is a process wherein political tasks are solved by military means. Were the outcome of this war determined by the "condition of class forces," the war itself would not be necessary. War has its own organisation, its own policies, its own methods, its own leadership by which its fate is directly determined.

Naturally, the "condition of class forces" supplies the foundation for all other political factors; but just as the foundation of a building does not reduce the importance of walls, windows, doors, roofs, so the "condition of classes" does not invalidate the importance of parties, their strategy, their leadership. ...

By reducing to zero the significance of the party and of the leadership, these sages deny in general the possibility of revolutionary victory, because there are not the least grounds for expecting conditions more favourable. Capitalism has ceased to advance, the proletariat does not grow numerically; on the contrary, it is the army of unemployed that grows, which does not increase but reduces the fighting force of the proletariat and has a negative effect also upon its consciousness.

There are similarly no grounds for believing that under the regime of capitalism the peasantry is capable of attaining a higher revolutionary consciousness. 

The conclusion from the analysis of our author is thus complete pessimism, a sliding away from revolutionary perspectives. It must be said - to do them justice - that they do not themselves understand what they say. ...

Repression of Spanish revolution

The Spanish proletariat fell victim to a coalition composed of imperialists, Spanish republicans, Socialists, Anarchists, Stalinists, and on the left flank, the POUM. They all paralysed the socialist revolution, which the Spanish proletariat had actually begun to realise. 

It is not easy to dispose of the socialist revolution. No one has yet devised other methods than ruthless repression, massacre of the vanguard, execution of the leaders, etc. 

The POUM, of course, did not want this. It wanted, on the one hand, to participate in the republican government and to enter as a loyal peace-loving opposition into the general bloc of ruling parties; and on the other hand, to achieve peaceful comradely relations at a time when it was a question of implacable civil war. For this very reason the POUM fell victim to the contradictions of its own policy.

The most consistent policy in the ruling bloc was pursued by the Stalinists. They were the fighting vanguard of the bourgeois-republican counter-revolution. They wanted to eliminate the need for fascism by proving to the Spanish and world bourgeoisie that they were themselves capable of strangling the proletarian revolution under the banner of "democracy." This was the gist of their policies. 

The bankrupts of the Spanish Popular Front are today trying to unload the blame on the GPU. I trust that we cannot be suspected of leniency toward the crimes of the GPU. But we see clearly and we tell the workers that the GPU acted in this instance only as the most resolute detachment in the service of the Popular Front. Therein was the strength of the GPU; therein was the historic role of Stalin. ...

These gentlemen do not even bother with the question of the social character of the revolution. Moscow's lackeys, for the benefit of England and France, proclaimed the Spanish revolution as bourgeois. Upon this fraud were erected the perfidious policies of the Popular Front, policies that would have been completely false even if the Spanish revolution had really been bourgeois. But from the very beginning, the revolution expressed much more graphically the proletarian character than did the revolution of 1917 in Russia. 

In the leadership of the POUM, gentlemen sit today who consider that the policy of Andrés Nin was too "leftist," that the really correct thing was to have remained the left flank of the Popular Front. The real misfortune was that Nin, covering himself with the authority of Lenin and the October Revolution, could not make up his mind to break with the Popular Front".

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