In this section: July 1936 - April 1937, following the start of the Civil War,
Rather than quote from Trotsky's writings in date order, I have tried to separate his advice from this period into the following sections (although inevitably the different sections are interconnected):
a) Why the 'Popular Front' strategy has led to Civil War.
b) The international consequences of events in Spain.
c) Why a revolutionary strategy is necessary for victory.
d) Why, despite the bravery of their members, the policy of the POUM must be sharply criticised.
e) The steps that genuine revolutionaries now need to take.
(See the previous post - the Spanish Revolution (5) - for Felix Morrow's history of this stage of the revolution).
a) Why the 'Popular Front' strategy has led to Civil War.
From a discussion around a resolution for the Fourth International (July 1936):
" 'The collision of the two camps in France, Belgium, and Spain is absolutely inevitable. The more the leaders of the Popular Front "reconcile" the class antagonisms and dampen the revolutionary struggle, the more explosive and convulsive character will it assume in the immediate future, the more sacrifices it will cause, and the more defenceless the proletariat will find itself against fascism. ["The New Revolutionary Upsurge and the Tasks of the Fourth International," paragraph 16.]'
The events have brought a confirmation of this prediction even before the present theses could be published. ...
For the second time in five years, the coalition of the labour parties with the radical bourgeoisie has brought the revolution to the edge of the abyss. Incapable of solving a single one of the tasks posed by the revolution, since all these tasks boil down to one, namely, the crushing of the bourgeoisie, the Popular Front renders the existence of the bourgeois regime impossible and thereby provokes the fascist coup d'etat. By lulling the workers and peasants with parliamentary illusions, by paralysing their will to struggle, the Popular Front creates the favourable conditions for the victory of fascism. ...
The Popular Front government reveals its total inadequacy precisely at the most critical moment; one ministerial crisis follows the other because the bourgeois Radicals fear the armed workers more than they do the fascists. The civil war takes on a lingering character".
From a letter to the International Secretariat, 27 July 1936:
"(Some on the 'Left' complain) 'Why is it that the leaders of the Spanish Popular Front, who have held power since February, did not take the necessary steps to deal with the army? What a blunder! etc.'
What these people do not understand is that it is not a question of "a blunder" but entirely one of class interests. When the bourgeoisie is constrained to conclude an alliance between its left wing and the workers' organisations, it needs the officer corps more than ever as a counterweight - for the most important question, that is, the question of the protection of property, is then posed.
This was no blunder at all! The Popular Front government in Spain was not a government, but simply a ministry. The real government resided in the General Staff, in the banks, etc. ...
The Radicals are seen (by these people) only as the right wing of the Popular Front; in reality they are there to represent the ruling class, and it is through them that finance capital maintains its rule".
From "The Lesson of Spain" (July 30, 1936):
"While this is being written, the civil War in Spain' has not yet terminated. The workers of the entire world feverishly await news of the victory of the Spanish proletariat. If this victory is won, as we firmly hope, it will be necessary to say: the workers have triumphed this time in spite of the fact that their leadership did everything to bring about their defeat. ...
In Spain, the Socialists and communists belong to the Popular Front, which already betrayed the revolution once, but which, thanks to the workers and peasants, once again attained victory, and in February created a 'republican' government.
Six months afterwards, the 'republican' army took the field against the people. Thus it became clear that the Popular Front government had maintained the military caste with the people's money furnished them with authority, power, and arms, and given them command over young workers and peasants thereby facilitating the preparations for a crushing attack on the workers and peasants."
From "Is Victory Possible in Spain" (April 23, 1937):
" 'What kind of revolution do you have in mind,' the philistines of the Popular Front demand of us, 'democratic or socialist? The victory of Largo Caballero's army over Franco's would mean the victory of democracy over fascism, that is, the victory of progress over reaction.'
One cannot listen to these arguments without a bitter smile. Before 1934 we explained to the Stalinists tirelessly that even in the imperialist epoch democracy continued to be preferable to fascism; that is, in all cases where hostile clashes take place between them, the revolutionary proletariat is obliged to support democracy against fascism.
However, we always added: We can and must defend bourgeois democracy not by bourgeois democratic means but by the methods of class struggle, which in turn pave the way for the replacement of bourgeois democracy by the dictatorship of the proletariat. This means in particular that in the process of defending bourgeois democracy, even with arms in hand, the party of the proletariat takes no responsibility for bourgeois democracy, does not enter its government, but maintains full freedom of criticism and of action in relation to all parties of the Popular Front, thus preparing the overthrow of bourgeois democracy at the next stage".
b) The international consequences of events in Spain.
From "The Lesson of Spain" (July 30, 1936):
"The victory of the people means the end of the Popular Front and the beginning of Soviet Spain.
The victorious social revolution in Spain will inevitably spread out over the rest of Europe. For the fascist hangmen of Italy and Germany, it will be incomparably more terrible than all the diplomatic pacts and all the military alliances."
From an Interview with the French newspaper agency Havas (Feb. 19 1937):
"The policies of Stalin, who has always revealed himself as an opportunist in revolutionary situations, are dictated by a fear of frightening the French bourgeoisie, above all the "200 families" against whom the French Popular Front long ago declared war -on paper. Stalin's policies in Spain repeat not so much Kerensky's policies in 1917 as they do the policies of Ebert-Scheidemann in the German revolution of 1918. Hitler's victory was the punishment for the policies of Ebert-Scheidemann. In Germany the punishment was delayed for fifteen years. In Spain it can come in less than fifteen months.
However, would not the social and political victory of the Spanish workers and peasants mean European war? Such prophecies, dictated by reactionary cowardice, are radically false. If fascism wins in Spain, France will find itself caught in a vice from which it will not be able to withdraw. Franco's dictatorship would mean the unavoidable acceleration of European war ...
On the other hand, the victory of the Spanish workers and peasants would undoubtedly shake the regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. Thanks to their hermetic, totalitarian character, the fascist regimes produce an impression of unshakable firmness. Actually, at the first serious test they will be the victims of internal explosions. The victorious Russian revolution sapped the strength of the Hohenzollern regime. The victorious Spanish revolution will undermine the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. For that reason alone the victory of the Spanish workers and peasants will reveal itself at once as a powerful force for peace.
The task of the true Spanish revolutionists consists in strengthening and reinforcing the military front, in demolishing the political tutelage of the Soviet bureaucracy, in giving a bold social program to the masses, in assuring thereby the victory of the revolution and, precisely in that way, upholding the cause of peace. Therein alone lies the salvation of Europe!"
c) Why a revolutionary strategy is necessary for victory.
From a discussion around a resolution for the Fourth International (July 1936):
"Only the armed workers can resist fascism. The conquest of power by the proletariat is possible only on the road of armed insurrection against the state apparatus of the bourgeoisie. The smashing of this apparatus and its replacement by workers', soldiers', and peasants' councils is the necessary condition for the fulfillment of the socialist program.
Without carrying out these tasks, the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie have no way out of misery and need, and no way of being saved from the new war".
From "The Lesson of Spain" (July 30, 1936):
"Even now, in the midst of civil war, the Popular Front government does everything in its power to make victory doubly difficult. A civil war is waged, as every body knows, not only with military but also with political weapons.
From a purely military point of view, the Spanish revolution is much weaker than its enemy. Its strength lies in its ability to rouse the great masses to action. It can even take the army away from its reactionary officers. To accomplish this, it is only necessary to seriously and courageously advance the program of the socialist revolution.
It is necessary to proclaim that, from now on, the land, factories, and shops will pass from the hands of the capital ists into the hands of the people. It is necessary to move at once toward the realisation of this program in those provinces where the workers are in power.
The fascist army could not resist the influence of such a program for twenty-four hours; the soldiers would tie their officers hand and foot and turn them over to the nearest headquarters of the workers' militia.
But the bourgeois ministers cannot accept such a program. Curbing the social revolution, they compel the workers and peasants to spill ten times as much of their own blood in the civil war. And to crown everything, these gentlemen expect to disarm the workers again after the victory and to force them to respect the sacred laws of private property. Such is the true essence of the policy of the Popular Front. Everything else is pure humbug, phrases, and lies! ...
Bourgeois domination, that is to say, the maintenance of private property in the means of production, is inconceivable without the support of the armed forces for the exploiters. The officers' corps represents the guard of capital. Without this guard, the bourgeoisie could not maintain itself for a single day. The selection of the individuals. their education and training, make the officers as a distinctive group uncompromising enemies of socialism. Isolated exceptions change nothing. That is how things stand in all bourgeois countries.
The danger lies not in the military braggarts and demagogues who openly appear as fascists; incomparably more menacing is the fact that at the approach of the proletarian revolution the officers' corps becomes the executioner of the proletariat. To eliminate four or five hundred reactionary agitators from the army means to leave everything basically as it was before. The officers' corps, in which is concentrated the centuries-old tradition of enslaving the people, must be dissolved, broken, crushed in its entirety, root and branch.
The troops in the barracks commanded by the officers' caste must be replaced by the people's militia, that is, the democratic organisation of the armed workers and peasants. There is no other solution. But such an army is incompatible with the domination of exploiters big and small.
Can the republicans agree to such a measure? Not at all. The Popular Front government, that is to say, the government of the coalition of the workers with the bourgeoisie, is in its very essence a government of capitulation to the bureaucracy and the officers. Such is the great lesson of the events in Spain, now being paid for with thousands of human lives.
The political alliance of the working class leaders with the bourgeoisie is disguised as the defence of the "republic." The experience of Spain shows what this defence is in actuality. The word "republican, like" the word "democrat", is a deliberate charlatanism that serves to cover up class contradictions.
The bourgeois is a republican so long as the republic protects private property. And the workers utilise the republic to overthrow private property. The republic, in other words, loses all its value to the bourgeois the moment it assumes value for the workers. The Radical cannot enter into a bloc with workers' parties without the assurance in the officers' corps. ...
But here we are interrupted by the exclamation, "How can one dissolve the officers' corps? Doesn't this mean destroying the army and leaving the country disarmed in the face of fascism? Hitler and Mussolini are only waiting for that!" All these arguments are old and familiar. That's how the Cadets, the Social Revolutionaries, and the Russian Mensheviks reasoned in 1917, and that's how the leaders of the Spanish Popular Front reasoned. The Spanish workers half-believed these ratiocinations until they were convinced by experience that the nearest fascist enemy was to be found in the Spanish fascist army. Not for nothing did our old friend Karl Liebknecht teach: 'The main enemy in our own country!' ...
The articles appearing in Le Populaire and L'Humanité (newspapers of the French socialist and Communist Parties') on the events in Spain fill one with rage and disgust. These people learn nothing. They do not want to learn. They consciously shut their eyes to the facts. The principal lesson for them is that it is necessary at all costs to maintain the "unity" of the Popular Front, that is to say, unity with the bourgeoisie and friendship with Daladier (Minister of war in the French Popular Front government). ...
The Socialist and communist leaders repeat from day to day: "Our friend Daladier." The worker ought to reply to them: "Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are." People who entrust the army to that old agent of capital, Daladier, are unworthy of the workers' confidence.
Certainly, the Spanish proletariat, like the French proletariat, does not want to remain disarmed before Mussolini and Hitler. But to defend themselves against these enemies, it is first necessary to crush the enemy in one's own country. It is impossible to overthrow the bourgeoisie without crushing the officers' corps. It is impossible to crush the officers' corps without overthrowing the bourgeoisie.
In every victorious counter revolution, the officers have played the decisive role. Every victorious revolution that had a profound social character destroyed the old officers' corps. This was the case in the Great French Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century, and this was the case in the October Revolution in 1917.
To decide on such a measure one must stop crawling on one's knees before the Radical bourgeoisie. A genuine alliance of workers and peasants must be created against the bourgeoisie, including the Radicals.
One must have confidence in the strength, initiative, and courage of the proletariat, and the proletariat will know how to bring the soldier over to its side. This will be a genuine and not a fake alliance of workers, peasants, and soldiers. This very alliance is being created and tempered right now in the fire of civil war in Spain".
From an Interview with the French newspaper agency Havas (Feb. 19 1937):
"In civil war, incomparably more than in ordinary war, politics dominates strategy. Robert Lee, as an army chieftain, was surely more talented than Grant, but the program of the liquidation of slavery assured victory to Grant.
In our three years of civil war the superiority of military art and military technique was often enough on the side of the enemy, but at the very end it was the Bolshevik program that conquered. The worker knew very well what he was fighting for. The peasant hesitated for a long time, but comparing the two regimes by experience, he finally supported the Bolshevik side.
In Spain the Stalinists, who lead the chorus from on high, have advanced the formula to which Caballero, president of the cabinet, also adheres: 'First military victory, and then social reform'. I consider this formula fatal for the Spanish revolution. Not seeing the radical differences between the two programs in reality, the toiling masses, above all the peasants, fall into indifference. In these conditions, fascism will inevitably win, because the purely military advantage is on its side. Audacious social reforms represent the strongest weapon in the civil war and the fundamental condition for the victory over fascism".
From "Revolutionary Strategy in the Civil War" (from the transcript of the Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made Against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials, April 14, 1937)
"Beals: I would like to ask one question since we are talking about the world war: the most imminent danger of war in Spain. Are you responsible for the Trotskyites in Spain?
Trotsky: There are no Trotskyites. The situation is such that everybody who opposes the politics of the Comintern is named by the Comintern "Trotskyite."... The Trotskyites in Spain are not numerous - the genuine Trotskyites. I regret it, but I must confess, they are not numerous. There is a powerful party, the POUM, the Workers Party of Marxist Unification. That party alone recognises that I am not a fascist. The youth of that party has sympathy with our ideas. But the policy of that party is very opportunistic, and I openly criticise it. ...
Beals: One reason I bring this out is that the charge has been made that the faction of Trotskyites sabotage the loyalist movement in Spain.
Trotsky: That we allegedly sabotage the loyalist movement. I believe that I have expressed it in many interviews and articles: The only way possible to assure victory in Spain is to say to the peasants: "The Spanish soil is your soil." To say to the workers: "The Spanish factories are your factories. That is the only possibility to assure victory. Stalin, in order not to frighten the French bourgeoisie, has become the guard of private property in Spain. The Spanish peasant is not very interested in fine definitions. He says: "With Franco and with Caballero, it is the same thing," because the peasant is very realistic.
During our civil war - I do not believe that we we victorious principally because of our military science. It is false. We were victorious because of our revolutionary program We said to the peasant: "It is your soil." And the peasant, who at one time went away and then went to the Whites, compared the Bolsheviks with the White Guards and said, "The Bolsheviks are better." Then when the peasantry, the hundreds and millions of Russian peasantry, were of the conviction that the Bolsheviks were better, we were victorious". ...
Beals: Then you don't think it is of great importance which side wins the war in Spain? It does not make a great deal of difference which side wins the war?
Trotsky: No, the workers must win the war. It is necessary that the workers win. But I assure you that by the policy of the Comintern and Stalin you have the surest way of losing the revolution. They lost the revolution in China, they lost the revolution in Germany, and now they are preparing the defeat in France and in Spain. We had only one victory of the proletarian revolution. That was the October Revolution, and it was made directly in opposition to the method of Stalin. ...
Finerty: Mr. Trotsky, if you were in power in Russia today and your help was asked by the loyalists in Spain, you would condition your help on the basis that the land was given to the peasants and the factories to the workers?
Trotsky: Not on the condition - not this question. The first question would be the attitude of the Spanish revolutionary party. I would say, "No political alliance with the bourgeoisie," as the first condition. The second, "You must be the best soldiers against the fascists." Third, "You must say to the soldiers, to the other soldiers and the peasants: 'We must transform our country into a people's country. Then, when we win the masses, we will throw the bourgeoisie out of office, and then we will be in power and we will make the social revolution". ...
Beals: This would mean, by the policy you follow, the probable victory of Franco, would it not?
Trotsky: The victory of Franco is assured by the present policy of the Comintern. The Spanish revolution, the Spanish proletariat and peasantry, by their efforts and energy and devotion during the past six years, could have assured five victories or six victories every year a victory. But the ruling stratum of the working class did everything to hinder, sabotage, and betray the revolutionary power of the masses. ...
I can only repeat that I gave the key, a little key to my friends and everybody who is of the same conviction, and my first advice is to be the best soldiers now in the camp of Caballero. That is the first thing. You know there is a group of the Fourth International, a company of our comrades in the trenches. It is so elementary that I will not dwell on it. It is necessary to fight.
But, you know, it is not sufficient to fight with a gun. It is necessary to have ideas and give these same ideas to others, to prepare for the future. I can fight with the simple peasant, but he understands very little in the situation. I must give him an explanation. I must say: "You are right in fighting Franco. We must exterminate the fascists, but not in order to have the same Spain as before the civil war, because Franco issued from this Spain. We must exterminate the foundation of Franco, the social foundation of Franco, which is the social system of capitalism. ...
Beals: Why would you send the soldier to fight Franco and yet refuse to enter the government of Caballero to assist in the same purpose?
Trotsky: I explained it. We refused categorically to enter the Kerensky government, but the Bolsheviks were the best fighters against Kornilov. Not only that, the best soldiers and sailors were Bolsheviks. During the insurrection of Kornilov, Kerensky must go to the sailors of the Baltic fleet and demand of them to defend them in the Winter Palace. I was at that time in prison. They took him to the guard, and sent a delegation to me to ask me what must be done: to arrest Kerensky or defend him? That is a historical fact. I said: "Yes, you must guard him very well now; tomorrow we will arrest him". [Laughter]"
d) Why, despite the bravery of their members, the policy of the POUM must be sharply criticised.
From a letter to Victor Serge (July 30, 1936):
"Some people consider my sharp critique of (Nin's) policies to be sectarian. If it is sectarianism, then all of Marxism is only sectarianism, since it is the doctrine of the class struggle and not of class collaboration.
The present events in Spain in particular show how criminal was Nin's rapprochement with Azaña: the Spanish workers will now pay with thousands of lives for the reactionary cowardice of the Popular Front, which has continued to support with the people's money an army commanded by the executioners of the proletariat. Here it is a question, my dear Victor Serge, not of splitting hairs, but of the very essence of revolutionary socialism. ...
A marvellous historian of the Russian Revolution, you refuse, I do not know why, to apply its most important lessons to other countries. Everything you say about the Popular Front applies to the bloc of Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries with the Cadets (the Russian "Radicals"), and yet, we led a merciless struggle against that Popular Front, which alone made it possible for us to win".
From an Interview with the French newspaper agency Havas (Feb. 19 1937):
"On the left wing of the Spanish governmental coalition, and partly in the opposition, is the POUM. This party is not "Trotskyite." I have criticised its policies on many occasions, despite my warm sympathy for the heroism with which the members of this party, above all the youth, struggle at the front.
The POUM has committed the error of participating in the electoral combination of the "Popular" Front; under the cover of this combination, General Franco during the course of several months boldly prepared the insurrection which now ravaging Spain. A revolutionary party did not have the right to take upon itself, either directly or indirectly, any responsibility for a policy of blindness and criminal tolerance. It was obliged to call the masses to vigilance.
The leadership of the POUM committed the second error of entering the Catalan coalition government; in order to fight hand in hand with the other parties at the front, there is no need to take upon oneself any responsibility for the false governmental policies of these parties. Without weakening the military front for a moment, it is necessary to know how to rally the masses politically under the revolutionary banner."
From a letter complaining to the editorial board of (Belgian Left Opposition newspaper) "Lutte Ouvrière" (March 23 1937):
"I find (in your paper) an article taken from Spanish Revolution, the organ of the POUM, with a eulogistic introduction by yourselves. I can't conceal from you that your solidarity not with the struggle of the workers of the POUM but with the policy of its leadership seems to me not merely an error but a crime against which I shall publicly protest with all my strength.
The article that you reprint is false from beginning to end, and the manner in which it is false is extremely revealing of the equivocation and ambiguity of the policy of Nin and his associates.
They carry on a polemic against "bourgeois antifascism" and the program of a "bourgeois neo-republic." But how and why did Nin come to be minister of that "bourgeois neo-republic"? Did he openly recognise his error, which to tell the truth was a betrayal? How can one combat the bourgeois republic while being in its government? How can one mobilise the workers to overthrow the bourgeois state while at the same time representing oneself as a minister of bourgeois "justice"? Is one taking things seriously or making fun of the program and ideas of the proletariat ?
The article is false from beginning to end. It speaks of the "leaders of the petty bourgeoisie" who "have risen through the disappearance of monopoly capitalism." The characterization of the function of Azaña, Companys, et al. is wholly false. These gentlemen are not the petty bourgeoisie. The real petty bourgeoisie, ruined, declassed, are the peasants, artisans, and employees (clerks). Azaña and his sort are the political exploiters of the little bourgeoisie in the interests of the big bourgeoisie. They remain in the camp of the popular masses like scarecrows and the crows are the leaders of the Socialists, reformists, and also, alas, the POUMists. They (Azaña, Companys, et al.) dare not touch private property, and they stoop even to the role of defender of "justice" based on private property. That is the truth, and all the rest is only a lie. "Monopoly capitalism" is pretending to be dead only until the victory of Franco. ...
Everything is false in the article, retrospect as well as perspective. "Cohabitation" (i. e., collaboration of the classes, if you please) has been possible only "thanks to the war against freedom." But this "cohabitation" (that is to say, this collab oration of the POUM with the leaders of the bourgeois neo republic) has terribly paralyzed the upsurge of the workers and peasants and piled up defeat on defeat. ...
Instead of rousing the armed masses against them. This is where Bolshevism begins. Instead of playing the vaudeville role of minister of the bourgeois neo-republic, it was necessary to mobilise the workers courageously, openly, for the purpose of driving out the bourgeois ministers and making it possible to replace the Socialist and Stalinist ministers. ...
For six years, Nin has made nothing but mistakes. He has flirted with ideas and eluded difficulties. Instead of battle, he has substituted petty combinations. He has impeded the creation of a revolutionary party in Spain. All the leaders who have followed him share in the same responsibility. For six years they have done everything possible to subject this energetic and heroic proletariat of Spain to the most terrible defeats, and in spite of everything the ambiguity continues.
They do not break the vicious circle. They do not rouse the masses against the bourgeois republic. They accommodate themselves to it and then, to make up for it, they write articles from time to time - on the proletarian revolution. Such wretchedness! And you reproduce that with your approbation instead of flaying the Menshevik traitors who cover themselves with quasi-Bolshevik formulas.
Do not tell me that the workers of the POUM fight heroically, etc. I know it as well as others do. But it is precisely their battle and their sacrifice that forces us to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. Down with diplomacy, flirtation, and equivocation. One must know how to tell the bitterest truth when the fate of a war and of a revolution depend on it. We have nothing in common with the policy of Nin, nor with any who protect, camouflage, or defend it".
From "Is Victory Possible in Spain" (April 23, 1937):
"Nin says: "From the time that we were expelled from the Catalan government, reaction has intensified". In fact it would have been more appropriate to say: "Our participation in the Catalan government more readily provided the bourgeoisie with the chance to strengthen itself, drive us out, and openly enter the road of reaction."
The POUM as a matter of fact even now partly remains in the Popular Front. The leaders of the POUM plaintively try to persuade the government to take the road of socialist revolution. The POUM leaders respectfully try to make the CNT leaders understand at last the Marxist teaching about the state. The POUM leaders view themselves as "revolutionary" advisors to the leaders of the Popular Front. This position is lifeless and unworthy of revolutionaries.
It is necessary to openly and boldly mobilize the masses against the Popular Front government. It is necessary to expose, for the syndicalist and Anarchist workers to see, the betrayals of those gentlemen who call themselves Anarchists but in fact have turned out to be simple liberals. It is necessary to hammer away mercilessly at Stalinism as the worst agency of the bourgeoisie. It is necessary to feel yourselves leaders of the revolutionary masses, not advisors to the bourgeois government. ...
The present acts of violence against the workers' organisations, especially the left wing, in the name of "discipline" and "unity of the army" represent nothing less than a school of Bonapartism. What is involved is not the internal discipline of the proletarian army but the military subordination of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie ...
The POUM demands the "calling of a delegated congress of workers' and peasants' syndicates and of soldiers." In form, what seems to be involved is a congress of workers', peasants, and soldiers' deputies. But the trouble is that the POUM respectfully proposes that the bourgeois-reformist government itself call such a congress, which then ought to "peacefully substitute itself for the bourgeois government. A revolutionary slogan is turned into empty phrases!
The fourth point proclaims: "For the creation of an army controlled by the working class." The bourgeoisie in alliance with the reformists should create an army that Nin will control. On the most crucial question, the army, the lifelessness of the positions of the POUM leaders appears in the most deadly form. The army is a weapon of the ruling class and cannot be anything else. The army is controlled by whoever commands it, that is, by whoever holds state power. The proletariat cannot "control" an army created by the bourgeoisie and its reformist lackeys.
The revolutionary party can and must build its cells in such an army, preparing the advanced sections of the army to pass over to the side of the workers. This basic revolutionary task is glossed over by the Central Committee of the POUM with sugary utopias about workers' "control" over the army of the bourgeoisie. The POUM's official position is shot through with ambivalence. It cannot be otherwise: ambivalence is the heart of centrism. ...
In the same speech (at the end of March) Nin said that they want to take the guns away from the workers and recommended that the workers not surrender their arms. This advice, of course, is correct. ...
It is extremely typical that Nin will not say clearly and precisely exactly who wants to take the arms from the workers, though it is the direct duty of a revolutionary to name the authors of counterrevolutionary plans, to brand them and their parties, and to render them hateful in the eyes of the masses of people.
It is not enough to tell the workers: "Don't give up your arms." It is necessary to teach the workers to disarm those who would take the arms from the workers. The politics of the POUM both in content and in tone fail completely to correspond to the urgency of the situation.
The POUM leadership consoles itself by thinking that it is "more advanced" than the other parties. But that is not enough. The comparison should be not with the other parties but with events, with the course of the class struggle. The outcome of the revolution will be decided in the last analysis not by these pompous ministers nor by party committees, with their intrigues and combinations, but by the millions of workers and peasants, on the one hand, and the Spanish and world bourgeoisie, on the other. ...
The art of Nin, Andrade, Gorkin - in contradictions to the teachings of Marx and Lenin - lies in avoiding the clear formulation of problems, precise analysis and honest reply to criticism. For that very reason every new stage of the revolution catches them unaware. And the worst experiences still lie ahead!"
e) The steps that genuine revolutionaries now need to take.
From a letter to the International Secretariat, 27 July 1936:
"The Spanish events will open new and great possibilities for the Fourth International in Spain and France as everywhere - precisely at the expense of the centrist tendencies. ...
We must turn our faces towards the great masses, make inroads into the mass organisations at any price, by any means, without allowing ourselves to be influenced or paralyzed by a conservative intransigence. But before these masses we must preserve our independence, avoid any compromise with vainglorious centrists, any erasing of borders between them and us - in a word, any criminal reconciliation"
From a letter to Jean Rous (a Trotskyist in Barcelona, August 16, 1936).
"The question most on my mind concerns relations between the POUM and the syndicalists. It seems to me it would be extremely dangerous to let oneself be guided exclusively or even primarily by doctrinal considerations. At all costs, it is necessary to improve relations with the syndicalists, despite all their prejudices.
The common enemy must be defeated. The confidence of the best syndicalists must be won in the course of the struggle. These considerations may certainly seem commonplace to you and I apologise in advance. I am not sufficiently familiar with the situation to offer any concrete advice. I would only like to note that before October we made every effort to work together even with the purest Anarchists.
The Kerensky government often tried to use the Bolsheviks against the Anarchists. Lenin resolutely opposed this. In that situation, he said, one Anarchist militant was worth more than a hundred hesitating Mensheviks. During the civil war forced on you by the fascists, the greatest danger is lack of decisiveness, a spirit of equivocation, in a word - Menshevism".
From "A Strategy for Victory" (Feb. 25 1937):
"Some comrades, affected by the terrible struggle under way in Spain, and especially by the extremely difficult situation of the POUM, tend to adapt themselves passively to the political line of the POUM leadership. They approve it with a number of secondary reticences.
This attitude seems to me to be false and even harmful. One does not demonstrate one's friendship for a revolutionary organisation in a difficult situation by closing one's eyes to its mistakes and the dangers arising from them.
The situation in Spain can be saved only by an energetic, radical, and heroic comeback of the left wing of the proletariat; thus an immediate regroupment is necessary. It is necessary to open up an implacable campaign against the bloc with the bourgeoisie, and for a socialist program. It is necessary to denounce the Stalinist, Socialist, and Anarchist leaders precisely because of their bloc with the bourgeoisie. ... It is a question of marshaling the masses against their leaders, who are leading the revolution to complete destruction.
The policy of the POUM leadership is a policy of adaptation, expectation, hesitation, that is to say, the most dangerous of all policies during civil war, which is uncompromising. Better to have in the POUM 10,000 comrades ready to mobilize the masses against treason than 40,000 who suffer the policies of others instead of carrying out their own. The 40,000 members of the POUM (if the figure is accurate) cannot by themselves assure the victory of the proletariat if their policy remains hesitant. But 20,000, or even 10,000, with a clear, decisive, aggressive policy, can win the masses in a short time, just as the Bolsheviks won the masses in eight months.
The present policy of the POUM leadership is that of Martov (a leading Menshevik in the Russian Revolution), not of Lenin. And for victory, the policy of Lenin is needed".
From "The Proposed Barcelona Conference" (in an internal international bulletin, March 20 1937):
"Victory is possible only by the road that we have indicated time and again. Either Nin, Andrade, Gorkin must change their policy radically, that is to say, change from the path of Martov to that of Lenin, or they will lead the POUM to a split and perhaps even to a terrible defeat.
Revolutionary words (editorials, solemn discourses, etc.) do not advance the revolution a step. The struggle of the POUMist workers is magnificent, but without resolute leadership it cannot bring victory. It is a question of rousing the masses with supreme courage against the traitorous leaders. There is the beginning of wisdom.
Break with the phantom bourgeoisie who stay in the Popular Front only to prevent the masses from making their own revolution. That is the first order of the day. Rouse the Anarchists, Stalinists, and Socialists against their leaders, who do not want to break with their bourgeois ministers, those scarecrows protecting private property. That is the second step. Without that, everything else is verbiage, prattle, and lies. ...
It is precisely in view of the interests of the Spanish revolution and in the face of the approaching war that it is necessary to distinguish clearly where the revolutionists are, and even the honest semirevolutionists-semicentrists, and where the falsifiers, those agents of the Bonapartist caste who have demonstrated by the Moscow trials that they are capable and ready at any moment to betray the supreme interests of the proletariat in order to safeguard their privileges".
From "Is Victory Possible in Spain" (April 23, 1937):
"It is necessary to break - sharply, decisively, boldly - the umbilical cord of bourgeois public opinion. It is necessary to break from the petty-bourgeois parties including the syndicalist leaders. It is necessary to think the situation through to the end. It is necessary to descend to the masses, to the lowest and most oppressed layers. It is necessary to stop lulling them with illusions of a future victory that will come by itself. It is necessary to tell them the truth, however bitter it may be. It is necessary to teach them to distrust the petty-bourgeois agencies of capital. It is necessary to teach them to trust in themselves. It is necessary to tie your fate to theirs inseparably. It is necessary to teach them to build their own combat organisations - soviets - in opposition to the bourgeois state.
Can one hope that the present leadership of the POUM will carry out this turn? Alas, the experience of six years of revolution leaves no room for such hopes. The revolutionists inside the POUM, as well as outside, would be bankrupt if they limited their role to "persuading," "winning over" Nin, Andrade, Gorkin, the way the latter try to win over Largo Caballero, Companys, et al. The revolutionists must turn to the workers, to the depths, against the vacillations and waverings of Nin. ...
Forty thousand members with a wavering and vacillating leadership are able only to disperse the proletariat and thereby to pave the way for catastrophe. Ten thousand, with a firm and perceptive leadership, can find the road to the masses, break them away from the influence of the Stalinists and Social Democrats, the charlatans and loudmouths, and assure them not just the episodic and uncertain victory of the republican troops over the fascist troops, but a total victory of the toilers over the exploiters.
The Spanish proletariat has shown three times that it is able to carry out such a victory. The whole question is in the leadership!"
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