In this section: August 1937 - October 1938, analysing the unfolding victory for the counter-revolution.
Rather than quote from Trotsky's writings in date order, I have again tried to separate his analysis from this period into the following sections (although inevitably the different sections are interconnected):
1) Further Remarks on the 'May Days'
2) On the murder of Andres Nin
3) On the crushing of the POUM
4) On party democracy and debate
5) Against a policy of 'neutrality' in the civil war
6) Sectarianism and the limitations of the formula 'socialism or fascism'
7) Once again on the call for Soviets
8) On the failure of Anarchism
9) Stalinism - no longer 'bureaucratic centrism' but counter-revolutionary
10) On the problem of arming the revolution
11) On military organisation in a revolutionary army
(See the previous post - the Spanish Revolution (8) - for Felix Morrow's history of this stage of the revolution).
1) Further Remarks on the 'May Days'
From "A test of ideas and individuals through the Spanish experience", August 24, 1937:
"(One of our leading members in Belgium) Vereecken (has written on the) events of May of this year. 'It can be maintained,' he says, 'that the POUM was expecting them and was arming. The scope of the events took the party unawares. But any party would have been taken unawares.'
Every sentence is a mistake ... The events of May could be "foreseen" and prepared for in only one way: by declaring an uncompromising struggle against the governments of Catalonia and Spain; by refusing all political collaboration with them; by opposing their own party to all other parties, that is, to their directing centres, particularly and above all to the leadership of the CNT; by not allowing the masses for one instant to confuse the revolutionary leaders with the lackeys of the bourgeoisie!
An uncompromising policy of this kind, with, of course, active participation in the military struggle and in the revolutionary actions of the masses, would have assured the POUM of an unshakable authority among all the workers, above all among the Anarchists who constitute the great majority of the Catalan proletariat.
Instead of that, the POUM demanded the re-entrance of its leaders into the counterrevolutionary government and at the same time asserted in every issue of (its newspaper) La Batalla that the workers could take power without a fight. It was even with this goal that the POUM launched the infantile project of a special congress to be convoked by the bourgeois government in order to hand over the power to the workers and peasants.
This is precisely why the POUM was taken unawares and why the events of May were for it only another stage on the road to catastrophe. ...
Vereecken does not know the difference between a centrist and a Marxist party. One can, of course, recognise that a real mass insurrection goes beyond, to a greater or lesser degree, any revolutionary party. But the difference lies precisely in the degree: here too quantity turns into quality. A centrist party is carried away by events and is drowned in them, whereas a revolutionary party in the final showdown dominates them and assures victory. ...
'On the fourth and fifth of May,' Vereecken continues, 'its policy (the POUM's) was correct: defensive and not offensive. To march on to the taking of power would have been adventurism in the contingencies of the moment'. However, his whole argument is nothing but error. Who said - and where - that to go on in May to taking power was adventurism? ...
The element of vile provocation on the part of the Stalinists ... is of secondary importance. All the reports after the events show that with a leadership with any seriousness and confidence in itself the victory of the May insurrection would have been assured. ...
At this point, Comrade Vereecken can, however, retort: "But even the Bolsheviks in July 1917 did not decide to seize power and limited themselves to the defensive, leading the masses out of the line of fire with as few victims as possible. Why then was this policy not suitable for the POUM?"...
We have endeavoured during the past six years to analyse the concrete conditions of the Spanish revolution. Even at the beginning, we warned that one must not expect a rapid rhythm in the development of events, in the manner of Russia in 1917. ...
But it is precisely because we are not a all inclined to schematise historic events that we do not consider it possible to transport the tactics of the Bolsheviks in July 1917 in Petersburg to the events of May 1937 in Catalonia. ...
The armed demonstration of the Petersburg proletariat broke out four months after the beginning of the revolution, three months after the Bolshevik Party had launched a truly Bolshevik program (Lenin's April theses). The overwhelming mass of the population of the gigantic country was only just beginning to emerge from the illusions of February. At the front was an army of twelve million men who were only then being touched by the first rumours about the Bolsheviks.
Under these conditions, the isolated insurrection of the Petersburg proletariat would have led inevitably to their being crushed. It was necessary to gain time. These were the circumstances that determined the tactic of the Bolsheviks.
In Spain the May events took place not after four months but after six years of revolution. The masses of the whole country have had a gigantic experience. A long time ago, they lost the illusions of 1931, as well as the warmed-over illusions of the Popular Front. Again and again they have shown to every part of the country that they were ready to go through to the end.
If the Catalan proletariat had seized power in May 1937 - as it had really seized it in July 1936 - they would have found support throughout all of Spain. The bourgeois-Stalinist reaction would not even have found two regiments with which to crush the Catalan workers. In the territory occupied by Franco not only the workers but also the peasants would have turned toward the Catalan proletariat, would have isolated the fascist army and brought about its irresistible disintegration.
It is doubtful whether under these conditions any foreign government would have risked throwing its regiments onto the burning soil of Spain. Intervention would have become materially impossible, or at least extremely dangerous.
Naturally, in every insurrection, there is an element of uncertainty and risk. But the subsequent course of events has proven that even in the case of defeat the situation of the Spanish proletariat would have been incomparably more favourable than now, to say nothing of the fact that the revolutionary party would have assured its future".
From "On the Revolutionary Calendar, October 22 1937:
"(My) article, written May 12, 1937, on the basis of telegraphic dispatches 'not only incomplete but also deliberately distorted,' says: 'The analogy with the events of July 1917 is too evident for us to dwell on it. What must be emphasised above all are the differences.' The author is then far from content with the analogy. On the contrary, he warns the reader of its insufficiency for analysis and prognosis. ...
The analogy with the July days was made under conditions that, above all, are for the purposes of immediate propaganda. The uppermost purpose was to encourage the vanquished. 'The Russians also suffered their defeat in July, and yet they were able to seize power.' ... But don't forget that independent from this very general analogy ... the situations are absolutely different. ...
Without having the information that one could find solely at the place of action, one was still able to ask in the month of May whether the conquest of power was not materially possible. But since then documents, reports, innumerable articles have appeared in the press of all the tendencies. All the facts, all the data, all the testimony lead to the same conclusion: the conquest of power was possible, was assured, as much as the issue of the struggle can be assured in general in advance.
The most important evidence comes from the Anarchists. Since the May insurrection (the FAI newspaper) Solidaridad Obrera has not ceased to repeat the same plaintive melody: 'We are accused of having been the instigator of the May rebellion. But we were completely opposed to it. The proof? Our adversaries know it as well as we: if we had wished to take power, we could have accomplished it in May with certainty. But we are against dictatorship, etc., etc.'
The misfortune is precisely that the CNT did not want power. The misfortune is that the leadership of the POUM was passively adapting itself to the leadership of the CNT. ...
Since the so-called July days, the POUM, far from being strengthened, has been virtually crushed. The CNT, of which the POUM was a shadow, is now losing its positions one after the other. We do not know if the Spanish revolution can yet be saved by a new eruption from below. But the CNT and the POUM have done just about everything to assure the victory of the Stalinists, that is, of the counterrevolution".
2) On the murder of Andres Nin
From 'The murder of Andres Nin by Agents of the GPU', August 8, 1937:
"When Andrés Nin, the leader of the POUM, was arrested in Barcelona, there could not be the slightest doubt that the agents of the GPU would not let him out alive. The intentions of Stalin were revealed with exceptional clarity when the GPU, which holds the Spanish police in its clutches, published an announcement accusing Nin and the whole leadership of the POUM of being "agents" of Franco.
The absurdity of this accusation is clear to anyone who is acquainted with even the simplest facts about the Spanish revo lution. The members of the POUM fought heroically against the fascists on all fronts in Spain. Nin is an old and incorruptible revolutionary. He defended the interests of the Spanish and Catalan peoples against the agents of the Soviet bureaucracy. That was why the GPU got rid of him by means of a well-prepared "raid" on the Barcelona jail. ...
The newspaper dispatched inspired by the GPU calls Nin a "Trotskyist." The dead revolutionary often protested against this appellation, and with complete justification. Both under the leadership of Maurín and under that of Nin, the POUM remained hostile to the Fourth International. It is true that during the years 1931-1933, Nin, who was not then a member of the POUM, kept up a friendly correspondence with me. But as early as the beginning of 1933, differences of opinion on questions of principle led to a complete break between us. ...
The POUM excluded Trotskyists from its ranks. The GPU calls everyone who is in opposition to the Soviet bureaucracy a Trotskyist. This makes their bloody vengeance easy.
Quite apart from the differences of opinion that separate me from the POUM, I must acknowledge that in the struggle that Nin ... tried to defend the independence of the Spanish proletariat from the diplomatic machinations and intrigues of the clique that holds power in Moscow. He did not want the POUM to become a tool in the hands of Stalin. He refused to cooperate with the GPU against the interests of the Spanish people. This was his only crime. And for this crime he paid with his life".
From 'The Civil War in Spain', August 16, 1937:
"A civil war can be won only by advancing a bold program that satisfies the aspirations of the people. Franco's military successes are the result of the policy Stalin imposes on the Negrin government - a policy of preserving the social system, which is directed against the masses of workers and peasants.
After a series of defeats, Stalin is trying to shift the responsibility onto the left wing, calling its leaders agents of Franco - hence the shameful assassination of Nin and other leaders of the POUM by the GPU. If this policy continues for another month or two, the defeat of the revolution will become a fait accompli".
3) On the crushing of the POUM
From "A test of ideas and individuals through the Spanish experience", August 24, 1937:
"The Spanish revolution has enormous significance in the eyes of advanced workers, not only as a historical event of primary importance, but also as a( school of revolutionary strategy. Ideas and individuals are being submitted to an exceptionally important, one may say an infallible test. ...
Comrade Vereecken, one of the leading members of our Belgian section ... (has) for a long time ... been completely mistaken in his evaluation of the POUM, thinking that under the pressure of events this party would, so to speak, evolve "automatically" toward the left and that our policy in Spain would be limited to a "critical" support of the POUM.
Events have absolutely disproved this fatalistic and optimistic prognosis, extremely characteristic of centrist, but by no means of Marxist thinking. It is enough to recall here that this same fatalistic optimism imbued the whole policy of the POUM, whose leadership had adapted itself to the Anarchist leaders, in the hope that they would enter automatically the path of the proletarian revolution, just as Vereecken had adapted himself to the leaders of the POUM.
All these expectations were completely destroyed: events hurled the Anarchist leaders, as well as the leaders of the POUM, not to the left but to the right. ...
There can be "mistakes" in any organisation. Marx made mistakes, Lenin made mistakes, also the Bolshevik Party as a whole. But these mistakes were corrected in time, thanks to the accuracy of the fundamental line. For the POUM, it is a question not of isolated "mistakes" but of a fundamental line that is non-revolutionary, centrist, that is to say, essentially opportunist. In other words, for a revolutionary party "mistakes" are the exception; for the POUM, the exception is a few isolated correct steps.
Vereecken reminds us that on the nineteenth of July, 1936, the POUM participated in the armed struggle. Of course! Only a counter-revolutionary organisation would not have been able to participate in this struggle, which comprised the whole proletariat: none of us, obviously, have so characterised the POUM.
But how could participation in the struggle of the masses, who in those days imposed their policy on both the Anarchists and the Socialists as well as the POUMists, "repair the error" of participation in the Popular Front? ... The participation of the POUM in the Popular Front was not a fortuitous "mistake" but the infallible sign of its opportunist character. ...
The July days of 1936, when the Catalan proletariat with correct leadership could, without additional efforts or sacrifices, have seized power and opened the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat throughout Spain, ended, largely through the fault of the POUM, in a regime between the proletariat (committees) and the bourgeoisie, represented by its lackeys (Stalinist, Anarchist, and Socialist leaders).
The interest of the workers was to do away with the equivocal and dangerous situation as rapidly as possible, by handing over all power to the committees, that is, to the Spanish soviets. The task of the bourgeoisie, on the other hand, was to do away with the committees in the name of "unity of power." The participation of Nin in the government was a corporate part of the plan of the bourgeoisie, directed against the proletariat. ...
We have never suspected the purity of Nin's intentions. But the political evaluation of his participation in the Popular Front as an act of betrayal was absolutely correct".
From "The Lessons of Spain - The Last Warning", December 17, 1937:
"The POUM ... tried, to be sure, to base itself on the formula of the permanent revolution (that is why the Stalinists called the POUMists Trotskyists). But the revolution is not satisfied with theoretical avowals. Instead of mobilising the masses against the reformist leaders, including the Anarchists, the POUM tried to convince these gentlemen of the superiorities of socialism over capitalism. This tuning fork gave the pitch to all the articles and speeches of the POUM leaders.
In order not to quarrel with the Anarchist leaders, they did not form their own nuclei inside the CNT, and in general did not conduct any kind of work there. To avoid sharp conflicts, they did not carry on revolutionary work in the republican army. They built instead "their own" trade unions and "their own" militia, which guarded "their own" institutions or occupied "their own" section of the front.
By isolating the revolutionary vanguard from the class, the POUM rendered the vanguard impotent and left the class with out leadership. ... That the POUM nevertheless fell victim to bloody and base repressions was due to the failure of the Popular Front to fulfill its mission, namely to stifle the socialist revolution - except by cutting off, piece by piece, its own left flank.
Contrary to its own intentions, the POUM proved to be, in the final analysis, the chief obstacle on the road to the creation of a revolutionary party. ...
Revolution abhors centrism. Revolution exposes and annihilates centrism. ... That is one of the most important lessons of the Spanish revolution. ...
The tragic experience of Spain is a terrible - perhaps final - warning before still greater events, a warning addressed to all the advanced workers of the world. "Revolutions," Marx said, "are the locomotives of history." They move faster than the thought of semi-revolutionary or quarter-revolutionary parties. Whoever lags behind falls under the wheels of the locomotive, and consequently - and this is the chief danger - the locomotive itself is also not infrequently wrecked. ...
It is necessary to think out the problem of the revolution to the end, to its ultimate concrete conclusions. ... During revolution the line of least resistance is the line of greatest disaster. To fear "isolation" from the bourgeoisie is to incur isolation from the masses.
Adaptation to the conservative prejudices of the labour aristocracy is betrayal of the workers and the revolution. An excess of "caution" is the most baneful lack of caution. This is the chief lesson of the destruction of the most honest political organisation in Spain, namely, the centrist POUM".
4) On party democracy and debate
From "A test of ideas and individuals through the Spanish experience", August 24, 1937:
"(Leading Belgian comrade Vereecken says he) is fully satisfied with the democracy of the POUM. The opportunists exclude the revolutionaries from their party. Vereecken says: 'the opportunists are right because the naughty revolutionaries build factions'. (!) ...
In the eyes of a Marxist, the revolutionary faction inside a centrist party is a positive fact; the sectarian or opportunist faction in the revolutionary party is a negative fact. That Vereecken should reduce the question to the simple right of factions to exist shows only that he has completely wiped out the line of demarcation between centrism and Marxism. ...
All of us have learned to appreciate the devotion of Comrade Vereecken to the cause of the working class, his energy, his eagerness to give all his strength disinterestedly to this cause. Young workers should learn this from Comrade Vereecken. But as for his political position, unfortunately, it is most often several yards to the right or to the left of the Marxist line ...
The internal life of the Fourth International is founded on the principles of democracy. Comrade Vereecken makes very wide, at times even anarchist, use of this democracy. Nevertheless, the advantage of the democratic regime consists in that the overwhelming majority, relying on experience and on comradely discussion, can formulate freely its authoritative opinion and can at the right moment call back to order a minority that has become engaged in a dangerous path".
From "On the Revolutionary Calendar, October 22 1937:
"The policy of the POUM was and remains (as much as it remains at all) the policy of Mensheviks. The Fourth International continues and develops the Bolshevik tradition. ...
The Fourth International is only at its beginning. It has a stupendous task of education to accomplish. It is necessary to be patient.
If one casts a glance back on our history during the last ten years, one cannot reproach us for lacking patience and endurance. Expulsions have been extremely rare; they can be counted on one's fingers. Our organisation has always employed the methods of discussion, of persuasion, leaving to time and to events the verification of the conflicting points of view.
The splits and resignations were the product of elements and groups that despite our best will and pedagogical patience have themselves acknowledged the incompatibility of their 'tendency" with the Bolshevik organisation. Those who have separated themselves from us, alleging the "bad regime" of the Fourth International, have fallen one after the other into nothingness. ...
(They) have had to verify by their own lamentable experience that it is not so easy to improvise a tendency outside of the line historically determined by developments during a dozen years, a great historic tradition, and the uninterrupted collective work of Marxist thought".
5) Against a policy of 'neutrality' in the civil war
In his "Answer to Questions on the Spanish Situation" of September 14, 1937, Trotsky argues against a position being put forward by some US socialists, who were calling for "No political or material support to the bourgeois Loyalist government":
"The difference between Negrin and Franco is the difference between decaying bourgeois democracy and fascism. Everywhere and always, wherever and whenever revolutionary workers are not powerful enough immediately to overthrow the bourgeois regime, they defend even rotten bourgeois democracy from fascism, and they especially defend their own position inside bourgeois democracy.
The workers defend bourgeois democracy, however, not by the methods of bourgeois democracy (Popular Fronts, electoral blocs, government coalitions, etc.) but by their own methods, that is, by the methods of revolutionary class struggle. Thus, by participating in the military struggle against fascism they continue at the same time to defend their own organisations, their rights, and their interests from the bourgeois-democratic government. ...
The defence of bourgeois democracy against fascism is only a tactical episode submitted to our line: to overthrow bourgeois democracy and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat. ...
It is true that the government of Stalin-Negrin and the government of Franco are both watch dogs of capitalism ... it is nevertheless absolutely false to conclude that in the struggle between the armies of Stalin-Negrin and of Franco, the proletariat should take a neutral position. The Spanish as well as the world proletariat are interested: (a) in militarily crushing Franco; (b) in a policy during the civil war that is capable of preparing for the earliest overthrow of the government of Stalin Negrín. ...
For the capitalist class, the difference between democracy and fascism is not decisive. It uses democracy or fascism for its own purpose, depending upon circumstances. But for the petty-bourgeois agents of capitalism - the leaders of the Social Democracy, the Stalinists, and the Anarchists -democracy signifies the source of their existence and influence; fascism signifies for them debacle and extermination.
The revolutionary proletariat should not put both fighting camps in the same bag; it must use their fight for its own interests. The revolutionaries can be successful not by the politics of neutrality but by dealing military blows to the number one foe: fascism.
Franco is an obvious, immediate, and deadly foe, hated by the majority of the workers and peasants. Negrín, Stalin, Caballero, and the others are less obvious, more camouflaged foes who still lead millions of workers and peasants. With Franco the only possible fight is a physical one; with Negrin a physical fight at present is impossible because the revolutionary elements are in a minority, and the physical fight, which is inevitable, should be prepared for politically.
The most important means for this political preparation is to denounce and expose the bad conduct of the war by the government and to explain to the masses that the reason for this bad conduct is the servility of the government to the interests of capital. ...
Will we, as a revolutionary party, mobilise new volunteers for Negrín? That would be to send them into the hands of the GPU. Collect money for the Negrín government? Absurd! We will collect money for our own comrades in Spain. If we send comrades across the border, it will be conspiratorially, for our own movement. ...
We will defend the idea that the trade unions should collect money not for the government but for the Spanish trade unions, for the workers' organisations. If anyone objects that the Spanish trade union leaders are connected with the government and that it is thus impermissible to send them money, we will answer by pointing to a single example: during the miners' strike in Great Britain in 1926, we sent money to the miners' trade union, the leaders of which were closely connected with the British government.
Strike committees can be reformists; they can betray; they have connections with the bosses. But we can't avoid them as long as the workers are not capable of changing them. And thus we send them the money with the risk that they will betray the workers. We warn the workers of this, and when it occurs, we say, 'You see, your leaders have betrayed you'. ...
If we were to have a member in the Cortes, they would vote against the military budget of Negrin. To (do so) signifies to vote him political confidence. We cannot do it. To do it would be a crime.
How can we explain our vote to the Anarchist workers? Very simply: We have not the slightest confidence in the capacity of this government to conduct the war and assure victory. ... We accuse this government of protecting the rich and starving the poor ... This government must be smashed. ...
We charge Negrin with the political responsibility for the conduct of the war. But at the same time, we must repulse the fascist hordes until the moment when we ourselves can take into our hands the conduct of the war.
So long as we are not strong enough to replace it, we are fighting under its command. But on every occasion we express openly our non-confidence in it; it is the only possible way to mobilise the masses politically against this government and to prepare its overthrow. Any other politics would be a betrayal of the revolution. ...
The slogan "Neither victory nor defeat" or "We are neither defencists nor defeatists" is false from a principled point of view and politically pernicious. It is devoid of every agitational value. Imagine a revolutionist standing between two camps of civil war with a banner: Neither victory nor defeat. This is a slogan for a club of Pontius Pilates, not for a revolutionary party.
We are for the defence of the workers' organisations and the victory of the revolution over Franco. We are "defencists." The "defeatists" are Negrín and Stalin and their ilk. We participate in the struggle against Franco as the best soldiers, and at the same time, in the interests of the victory over fascism, we agitate for the social revolution and we prepare for the overthrow of the defeatist government of Negrin. Only such an attitude can give us an approach to the masses".
In a further 'Letter to James Cannon' (September 31, 1937), Trotsky adds further comment about his argument that revolutionaries could not vote for Negrin's war budget:
"The question: 'How can we refuse to devote a million pesetas to the purchase of rifles for the front?' was a hundred and a thousand times put to the revolutionary Marxists by the reformists: 'How can you vote against the millions and millions necessary for schools, for roads, not to speak of national defence?' We recognise the necessity of schools and roads no less than the necessity of the fight against Franco. We use the 'capitalist' railroads; our children go to the 'capitalist' schools; but we refuse to vote for the budget of the capitalist government.
During our fight against Kornilov, we never voted in the soviet in a way that could have been interpreted as political solidarity with Kerensky.
From the point of view of agitation, we would not now have in Spain the slightest difficulty explaining our negative vote: 'We asked for two million for rifles and they gave only one million. We asked for distribution of the rifles under workers' control; they refused. We asked that the police be disarmed and their rifles given to the front; they refused. How can we voluntarily give our money and our confidence to this government?' Every worker would understand and approve our action".
From "Ultra-Lefts in General and Incurable Ultra-Lefts in Particular", September 28, 1937, Trotsky adds:
"The Stalin-Negrín government is a quasi-democratic obstacle on the road to socialism; but it is also an obstacle, not a very reliable or durable one, but an obstacle nonetheless, on the road to fascism.
Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, the Spanish proletariat may perhaps be able to break through this obstacle and seize power. But if it aided, even passively, in tearing it down today, it would only serve fascism. ...
The Bolsheviks did not remain neutral between the camp of Kerensky and that of Kornilov. They fought in the first camp against the second. They accepted the official command as long as they were not sufficiently strong to overthrow it. It was precisely in the month of August, with the Kornilov uprising, that a prodigious upswing of the Bolsheviks began. This upswing was made possible only thanks to the double edged Bolshevik policy.
While participating in the front lines of the struggle against Kornilov, the Bolsheviks did not take the slightest responsibility for the policy of Kerensky. On the contrary, they denounced him as responsible for the reactionary attack and as incapable of overcoming it. In this way they prepared the political premises of the October Revolution. ...
The struggle between the two camps can very well cease in an instant. The new situation thus created would dictate a new tactic, in line with the same strategic goal. But for the present, the military struggle between Negrín and Franco still continues, and the tactic for today must be dictated by the situation as it is today".
6) Sectarianism and the limitations of the formula 'socialism or fascism'
From "Ultra-Lefts in General and Incurable Ultra-Lefts in Particular", September 28, 1937:
"Marxist thought is concrete, that is, it looks upon all the decisive or important factors in any given question, not only from the point of view of their reciprocal relations, but also from that of their development. It never dissolves the momentary situation within the general perspective, but by means of the general perspective makes possible an analysis of the momentary situation in all its peculiarities.
Politics has its point of departure in precisely this sort of concrete analysis. Opportunist thought and sectarian thought have this feature in common: they extract from the complexity of circumstances and forces one or two factors that appear to them to be the most important (and sometimes are, to be sure), isolate them from the complex reality, and attribute to them unlimited and unrestricted powers. ...
A trade union leader who would let himself be guided by the general tendency of rotting capitalism in order to abandon all economic and partial struggle would be, in actuality, in spite of his "revolutionary" concepts, an agent of reaction.
A Marxist trade union leader must not only grasp the general tendencies of capitalism, but also analyse the specific features of the situation, the conjuncture, the local conditions - the psychological element included - in order to propose a position of struggle, of watchful waiting, or of retreat. It is only on the basis of this practical activity, intimately linked with the experience of the great mass, that the trade union leader is able to lay bare the general tendencies of decomposing capitalism and to educate the workers for the revolution. ...
It is a truism that our epoch is characterised politically by a relentless struggle between socialism (communism) and fascism. But unfortunately this does not mean that the proletariat is already and everywhere conscious of this alternative, nor that in any given country, at any given moment, it may ignore the partial struggle to safeguard its democratic liberties.
The fundamental alternative, communism or fascism, established by Lenin, has become for many a hollow formula, which the left centrists use only too often to cover up their capitulations, or the sectarians to justify their inaction.
Upon entering the government of the Catalan Generalitat, the unfortunate Andrés Nin began his broadcast declarations with the following thesis: 'The struggle that is beginning is not the struggle between bourgeois democracy and fascism, as some think, but between fascism and socialism.' ... However, in practice, Nin transformed the Leninist formula into its opposite: he entered a bourgeois government whose objective was the spoliation and the stifling of all the gains, all the props of the incipient socialist revolution.
The substance of his thoughts was the following: since this revolution is a socialist revolution 'in essence,' our entry into the government can only aid it. And the pseudo-revolutionary sectarian exclaimed: "Nin's participation in the government is perhaps a mistake, but it would be a crime to exaggerate its importance. Hasn't Nin recognised that the revolution is socialist 'in essence' ?" Yes, he proclaimed it, but only in order to justify the policy that sapped the foundations of the revolution. ...
The alternative, socialism or fascism, merely signifies, and that is enough, that the Spanish revolution can be victorious only through the dictatorship of the proletariat. But that does not at all mean that its victory is assured in advance. The problem still remains, and therein lies the whole political task, to transform this hybrid, confused, half-blind and half-deaf revolution into a socialist revolution. It is necessary not only to say what is but also to know how to use "what is" as one's point of departure."
7) Once again on the call for Soviets
From "The POUM and the Call for Soviets", October 1 1937:
"In 1931, at the beginning of the revolution, I wrote that I believed that it would not be advisable to begin with the slogan for soviets. During massive strikes, as in Russia in 1905, strike committees were built, but the workers didn't under stand at that time that this was the beginning of soviets.
At present the word "soviet" signifies the Soviet government. The worker who is involved in a strike cannot understand what connection that has with a soviet. The Socialists and Anarchists would oppose it as the dictatorship of the proletariat. My opinion, therefore, was that it was necessary to create mass organisations but not to give them the name of "soviets," rather to name them "juntas," a traditional Spanish name, and not so concrete as "soviet."
But instead an artificial organisation was created, not representative of the wide masses, with delegates from the old organisations: Anarchists, three members; Socialists, three; and delegates from the CP and the POUM. And they imposed the same relationship in every town.
Revolution is a very dynamic process, with the political sense of the masses developing to the left while the bourgeois classes swing to the right. During one month, the situation changes rapidly. The revolution in its development sweeps away the old organisations, the old conservative parties, and the trade unions. The new leadership in every plant, in every factory, is younger, more active, more courageous. The old organisation becomes the greatest brake upon the revolution.
It was absolutely necessary to build juntas - or we can call them soviets; we know what we mean - that's the only way to give the revolution a unified expression. ... How can they say that the workers didn't build soviets? They built committees everywhere and these committees took over industry. It was only a question of unifying these committees, of developing them, and that would have been the Soviet of Barcelona".
8) On the failure of Anarchism
From a letter to a well-known Italian-American Anarchist, October 6 1937:
"As a Marxist, I am an adversary of anarchism. Even more irreconcilably am I an adversary of the present opportunism of the leaders of the CNT. But this cannot hinder me from seeing and recognising that in the ranks of this organisation are concentrated the elite of the Spanish proletariat. Profound revolutionary solidarity binds me to the Anarchist workers, whereas in the pseudo-Marxist cliques of Stalin-Negrín I see only masked class foes".
From "The Lessons of Spain - The Last Warning", December 17, 1937:
"The Anarchists had no independent position of any kind in the Spanish revolution. All they did was waver between Bolshevism and Menshevism. More precisely, the Anarchist workers instinctively yearned to enter the Bolshevik road (July 19, 1936, and May days of 1937) while their leaders, on the contrary, with all their might drove the masses into the camp of the Popular Front, i. e., of the bourgeois regime.
The Anarchists revealed a fatal lack of understanding of the laws of the revolution and its tasks by seeking to limit themselves to their own trade unions, that is, to organisations permeated with the routine of peaceful times, and by ignoring what went on outside the framework of the trade unions, among the masses, among the political parties, and in the government apparatus.
Had the Anarchists been revolutionists, they would first of all have called for the creation of soviets, which unite the representatives of all the toilers of city and country, including the most oppressed strata, who never joined the trade unions. The revolutionary workers would have naturally occupied the dominant position in these soviets. The Stalinists would have remained an insignificant minority.
The proletariat would have convinced itself of its own invincible strength. The apparatus of the bourgeois state would have hung sus pended in the air. One strong blow would have sufficed to pulverise this apparatus. ...
Instead of this, the anarcho-syndicalists, seeking to hide from "politics" in the trade unions, turned out to be, to the great surprise of the whole world and themselves, a fifth wheel in the cart of bourgeois democracy. But not for long; a fifth wheel is superfluous. After García Oliver and his cohorts helped Stalin and his henchmen to take power away from the workers, the Anarchists themselves were driven out of the government of the Popular Front. ...
The fear of the petty bourgeois before the big bourgeois, of the petty bureaucrat before the big bureaucrat, they covered up with lachrymose speeches about the sanctity of the united front (between a victim and the executioners) and about the inadmissibility of every kind of dictatorship, including their own. ...
In and of itself, this self-justification that "we did not seize power not because we were unable but because we did not wish to, because we were against every kind of dictatorship", and the like, contains an irrevocable condemnation of anarchism as an utterly anti-revolutionary doctrine. To renounce the conquest of power is voluntarily to leave the power with those who wield it, the exploiters. ...
They hid from power not because they are against "every kind of dictatorship" - in actuality, grumbling and whining, they supported and still support the dictatorship of Stalin-Negrin but because they completely lost their principles and courage, if they ever had any. ...
In opposing the goal, the conquest of power, the Anarchists could not in the end fail to oppose the means, the revolution. The leaders of the CNT and FAI not only helped the bourgeoisie hold on to the shadow of power in July 1936; they also helped it to re-establish bit by bit what it had lost at one stroke.I In May 1937, they sabotaged the uprising of the workers and thereby saved the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Thus anarchism, which wished merely to be anti-political, proved in reality to be anti-revolutionary, and in the more critical moments - counter-revolutionary. ...
By hiding behind Kronstadt and Makhno (events in the Russian Civil War), the attorneys of anarchism will deceive nobody. In the Kronstadt episode and in the struggle with Makhno, we defended the proletarian revolution from the peasant counter-revolution. The Spanish Anarchists defended and continue to defend bourgeois counter-revolution from the proletarian revolution.
No sophistry will delete from the annals of history the fact that anarchism and Stalinism in the Spanish revolution were on one side of the barricades while the working masses with the revolutionary Marxists were on the other".
From "The Fifth Wheel", January 27, 1938:
"We have already heard from some Anarchist theoreticians that at the time of such 'exceptional' circumstances as war and revolution, it is necessary to renounce the principles of one's own program. Such revolutionists bear a close resemblance to raincoats that leak only when it rains, i. e., in 'exceptional' circumstances, but during dry weather they remain waterproof with complete success".
From "Traitors in the Role of Accusers", October 22, 1938:
"The newspaper dispatches inform us that (the FAI newspaper) 'Solidaridad Obrera' blames the world proletariat for not having rendered sufficient support to the Spanish revolution. What hypocrisy! ...
The entire world proletariat followed the course of the Spanish revolution with bated breath as long as it was a genuine movement of the masses toward socialism. The sympathy of the workers turned to amazement, indignation, and worse still, indifference, when Stalin, Negrín, and their associates began to stifle the Spanish revolution with the support of Anarchists from Solidaridad Obrera.
The hypocrisy of the charges directed against the world proletariat becomes especially clear in the light of the Barcelona trial of the POUMists. We shall not dwell on the accusations that the leaders of the POUM had relations with the fascists. No thinking person in the whole world believes this filthy fabrication! The only serious charge in the prosecutor's mouth is that the POUM, by its 'extremist' revolutionary conduct, compromised the Spanish revolution in the eyes of democracy abroad, that is, England and France. That is what the indictment literally says.
This means that the Barcelona government wanted to carry out a revolution . . . with the permission of the English and French imperialists. The task of the GPU was to prevent the masses from going beyond the limits of what was acceptable to King George, Chamberlain, President Lebrun, etc.
This great goal could not be reached except by suppressing the workers' and peasants' movement, destroying the revolutionary party, and organising kangaroo courts. The world proletariat can give the accusers from Solidaridad (!) Obrera this reply: "Shut your mouths, traitors".
9) Stalinism - no longer 'bureaucratic centrism' but counter-revolutionary
From "The Lessons of Spain - The Last Warning", December 17, 1937:
"Three ideologies fought - with unequal forces - in the so called republican camp, namely, Menshevism, Bolshevism, and anarchism. As regards the bourgeois republican parties, they were without either independent ideas or independent political significance and were able to maintain themselves only by climbing on the backs of the reformists and Anarchists.
Moreover, it is no exaggeration to say that the leaders of Spanish anarcho-syndicalism did everything to repudiate their doctrine and virtually reduce its significance to zero.
Actually two doctrines in the so-called republican camp fought - Menshevism and Bolshevism. According to the Socialists and Stalinists, i.e., the Mensheviks of the first and second instances, the Spanish revolution was called upon to solve only its "democratic" tasks, for which a united front with the "democratic" bourgeoisie was indispensable. From this point of view, any and all attempts of the proletariat to go beyond the limits of bourgeois democracy are not only premature but also fatal. Furthermore, on (their) agenda stands not the revolution but the struggle against the insurgent Franco. ...
The Bolshevik point of view, clearly expressed only by the young section of the Fourth International, takes the theory of permanent revolution as its starting point, namely, that even purely democratic problems, like the liquidation of semi-feudal land ownership, cannot be solved without the conquest of power by the proletariat; but this in turn places the socialist revolution on the agenda.
Moreover, during the very first stages of the revolution, the Spanish workers themselves posed in practice not merely democratic problems but also purely socialist ones. The demand not to transgress the bounds of bourgeois democracy signifies in practice not a defence of the democratic revolution but a repudiation of it. ...
There could only be one reason to include the peasantry and the liberal bourgeoisie in the same coalition at the same time: to help the bourgeoisie deceive the peasantry and thus isolate the workers. The agrarian revolution could have been accomplished only against the bourgeoisie, and therefore only through measures of the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is no third, intermediate regime. ...
It would be naive, however, to think that the politics of the Comintern in Spain stem from a theoretical "mistake." Stalinism is not guided by Marxist theory, or for that matter by any theory at all, but by the empirical interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. ...
The theoreticians of the Popular Front do not essentially go beyond the first rule of arithmetic, that is, addition: 'Communists' plus Socialists plus Anarchists plus liberals add up to a total which is greater than their respective isolated numbers. Such is all their wisdom. However, arithmetic alone does not suffice here. One needs as well at least mechanics.
The law of the parallelogram of forces applies to politics as well. In such a parallelogram, we know that the resultant is shorter, the more the component forces diverge from each other. When political allies tend to pull in opposite directions, the resultant may prove equal to zero.
A bloc of divergent political groups of the working class is sometimes completely indispensable for the solution of common practical problems. In certain historical circumstances, such a bloc is capable of attracting the oppressed petty-bourgeois masses whose interests are close to the interests of the proletariat. The joint force of such a bloc can prove far stronger than the sum of the forces of each of its component parts.
On the contrary, the political alliance between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, whose interests on basic questions in the present epoch diverge at an angle of 180 degrees, as a general rule is capable only of paralysing the revolutionary force of the proletariat.
Politically most striking is the fact that the Spanish Popular Front lacked in reality even a parallelogram of forces. The bourgeoisie's place was occupied by its shadow. Through the medium of the Stalinists, Socialists, and Anarchists, the Spanish bourgeoisie subordinated the proletariat to itself without even bothering to participate in the Popular Front. The overwhelming majority of the exploiters of all political shades openly went over to the camp of Franco.
Without any theory of 'permanent revolution,' the Spanish bourgeoisie understood from the outset that the revolutionary mass movement, no matter how it starts, is directed against private ownership of land and the means of production, and that it is utterly impossible to cope with this movement by democratic measures.
That is why only insignificant debris from the possessing classes remained in the republican camp: Messrs. Azaña, Companys, and the like - political attorneys of the bourgeoisie but not the bourgeoisie itself. Having staked everything on a military dictatorship, the possessing classes were able, at the same time, to make use of their political representatives of yesterday in order to paralyse, disorganise, and afterward strangle the socialist movement of the masses in 'republican' territory. ...
The task of the retired leaders of the left bourgeoisie consisted in checking the revolution of the masses and thus in regaining for themselves the lost confidence of the exploiters: "Why do you need Franco if we, the republicans, can do the same thing?"
The interests of Azaña and Companys fully coincided at this central point with the interests of Stalin, who needed to gain the confidence of the French and British bourgeoisie by proving to them in action his ability to preserve 'order' against 'anarchy.' ...
The classic reformists of the Second International, long ago derailed by the course of the class struggle, began to feel a new tide of confidence, thanks to the support of Moscow. This support, incidentally, was not given to all reformists but only to those most reactionary. Caballero represented that face of the Socialist Party that was turned toward the workers' aristocracy. Negrin and Prieto always looked towards the bourgeoisie. ...
The Stalinists were thus in alliance with the extreme right, avowedly bourgeois wing of the Socialist Party. They directed their repressions against the left - the POUM, the Anarchists, the 'qleft' Socialists - in other words, against the centrist groupings who reflected, even in a most remote degree, the pressure of the revolutionary masses.
This political fact, very significant in itself, provides at the same time a measure of the degeneration of the Comintern in the last few years. I once defined Stalinism as bureaucratic centrism, and events brought a series of corroborations of the correctness of this definition. But it is obviously obsolete today.
The interests of the Bonapartist bureaucracy can no longer be reconciled with centrist hesitation and vacillation. In search of reconciliation with the bourgeoisie, the Stalinist clique is capable of entering into alliance only with the most conservative groupings among the international labor aristocracy. This has acted to fix definitively the counterrevolutionary character of Stalinism on the international arena.
This brings us right up to the solution of the enigma of how and why the Communist Party of Spain, so insignificant numerically and with a leadership so poor in calibre, proved capable of gathering into its hands all reins of power, in the face of the incomparably more powerful organisations of the Socialists and Anarchists.
The usual explanation that the Stalinists simply bartered Soviet weapons for power is far too superficial. ... Despite the "authority" created by Soviet shipments, the Spanish Communist Party remained a small minority and met with ever-growing hatred on the part of the workers. On the other hand, it was not enough for Moscow to set conditions; Valencia had to accede to them. This is the heart of the matter.
Not only Zamora, Companys, and Negrín, but also Caballero, during his incumbency as premier, were all more or less ready to accede to the demands of Moscow. Why? Be cause these gentlemen themselves wished to keep the revolution within bourgeois limits. Neither the Socialists nor the Anarchists seriously opposed the Stalinist program. They feared a break with the bourgeoisie. They were deathly afraid of every revolutionary onslaught of the workers.
Stalin with his munitions and with his counterrevolutionary ultimatum was a saviour for all these groups. He guaranteed them, so they hoped, military victory over Franco, and at the same time, he freed them from all responsibility for the course of the revolution. ... As the finishing touch to their comfort, these gentlemen could henceforth justify their betrayal to the workers by the necessity of a military agreement with Stalin. ...
Only from this broader point of view can we get a clear picture of the angelic toleration which such champions of justice and freedom as Azaña, Negrín, Companys, Caballero, (the 'Anarchist' Minister of Justice) García Oliver, and others showed towards the crimes of the GPU. If they had no other choice, as they affirm, it was not at all because they had no means of paying for airplanes and tanks other than with the heads of the revolutionists and the rights of the workers, but because their own "purely democratic," that is, anti-socialist, program could be realised by no other measures save terror.
When the workers and peasants enter on the path of their revolution - when they seize factories and estates, drive out the old owners, conquer power in the provinces - then the bourgeois counterrevolution - democratic, Stalinist, or fascist alike - has no other means of checking this movement except through bloody coercion, supplemented by lies and deceit.
The superiority of the Stalinist clique on this road consisted in its ability to apply instantly measures that were beyond the capacity of Azaña, Companys, Negrín, and their left allies.
The hounding of 'Trotskyists', POUMists, revolutionary Anarchists and left Socialists; the filthy slander; the false documents; the tortures in Stalinist prisons; the murders from ambush - without all this the bourgeois regime under the republican flag could not have lasted even two months. The GPU proved to be the master of the situation only because it defended the interests of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat more consistently than the others, i. e., with the greatest baseness and bloodthirstiness. ...
The Spanish revolution once again demonstrates that it is impossible to defend democracy against the revolutionary masses otherwise than through the methods of fascist reaction. And conversely, it is impossible to conduct a genuine struggle against fascism otherwise than through the methods of the proletarian revolution.
Stalin waged war against "Trotskyism" (proletarian revolution), destroying democracy by the Bonapartist measures of the GPU. This refutes once again and once and for all the old Menshevik theory, adopted by the Comintern, in accordance with which the democratic and socialist revolutions are transformed into two independent historic chapters, separated from each other in point of time. The work of the Moscow executioners confirms in its own way the correctness of the theory of permanent revolution. ...
The dictatorship of the Stalinists over the republican camp is not long-lived in its essence. ... Should Stalin - as is unfortunately the likelihood - succeed in bringing the work of gravedigger of the revolution to its conclusion, he will not even in this case earn thanks. The Spanish bourgeoisie needed him as executioner, but it has no need for him at all as patron or tutor. ...
By turning Bolshevism on its head, Stalin succeeded completely in fulfilling the role of gravedigger of the revolution. ... Stalin in Spain in 1937 is the continuator of Stalin of the March 1917 conference of the Bolsheviks. But in 1917 he merely feared the revolutionary workers; in 1937 he strangled them. The opportunist had become the executioner".
10) On the problem of arming the revolution
From "The Lessons of Spain - The Last Warning", December 17, 1937:
"The Socialists and Anarchists who seek to justify their capitulation to Stalin by the necessity of paying for Moscow's weapons with principles and conscience simply lie and lie unskillfully.
Of course, many of them would have preferred to disentangle themselves without murders and frame-ups. But every goal demands corresponding means. ... They became Stalin's criminal accomplices only because they were his political co-thinkers.
Had the Anarchist leaders in the least resembled revolutionists, they would have answered the first piece of blackmail from Moscow not only by continuing the socialist offensive but also by exposing Stalin's counter-revolutionary conditions before the world working class. ...
The Thermidorean bureaucracy fears and hates revolution. But it also fears being strangled in a fascist ring. Besides, it depends on the workers. All indications are that Moscow would have been forced to supply arms, and possibly at more reasonable prices.
But the world does not revolve around Stalinist Moscow. During a year and a half of civil war, the Spanish war industry could and should have been strengthened and developed by converting a number of civilian plants to war production.
This work was not carried out only because Stalin and his Spanish allies equally feared the initiative of the workers' organizations. A strong war industry would have become a powerful instrument in the hands of the workers. The leaders of the Popular Front preferred to depend on Moscow. ...
And what if Moscow, in the absence of a Popular Front, should have refused to give arms altogether? And what, we answer to this, if the Soviet Union did not exist altogether? Revolutions have been victorious up to this time not at all thanks to high and mighty foreign patrons who supplied them with arms. As a rule, counter-revolution enjoyed foreign patronage.
Must we recall the experience of the intervention of French, English, American, Japanese, and other armies against the Soviets? The proletariat of Russia conquered domestic reaction and foreign interventionists without military support from the outside.
Revolutions succeed, in the first place, with the help of a bold social program, which gives the masses the possibility of seizing weapons that are on their territory and disorganising the army of the enemy. The Red Army seized French, English, and American military supplies and drove the foreign expeditionary corps into the sea. Has this really been already forgotten? ...
The army of Franco, including the colonial Riffians (Berbers) and the soldiers of Mussolini, was not at all immune to revolutionary contagion. ... what was lacking was a revolutionary party!"
11) On military organisation in a revolutionary army
From "The Lessons of Spain - The Last Warning", December 17, 1937:
"The conditions for victory of the masses in a civil war against the army of exploiters are very simple in their essence:
(The 12 conditions set out by Trotsky are quoted in full below)
1. The fighters of a revolutionary army must be clearly aware of the fact that they are fighting for their full social liberation and not for the re-establishment of the old ("democratic") forms of exploitation.
2. The workers and peasants in the rear of the revolutionary army as well as in the rear of the enemy must know and understand the same thing.
3. The propaganda on their own front as well as on the enemy front and in both rears must be completely permeated with the spirit of social revolution. The slogan 'First victory, then reforms,' is the slogan of all oppressors and exploiters from the Biblical kings down to Stalin.
4. The revolutionary masses must have a state apparatus that directly and immediately expresses the will. Only the soviets of workers', soldiers', and peasants' deputies can act as such an apparatus.
5. The revolutionary army must not only proclaim but also immediately realise in life the more pressing measures of social revolution in the provinces won by them: the expropriation of provisions, manufactured articles, and other stores on hand and the transfer of these to the needy; the redivision of shelter and housing in the interests of the toilers and especially of the families of the fighters; the expropriation of the land and agricultural inventory in the interests of the peasants; the establish ment of workers' control and soviet power in place of the former bureaucracy.
6. Enemies of the socialist revolution, that is, exploiting elements and their agents, even if masquerading as "democrats," "republicans," "Socialists," and "Anarchists," must be mercilessly driven out of the army.
7. At the head of each military unit must be placed commissars possessing irreproachable authority as revolutionists and soldiers.
8. In every military unit there must be a firmly welded nucleus of the most self-sacrificing fighters, recommended by the workers' organisations. The members of this nucleus have but one privilege: to be the first under fire.
9. The commanding corps necessarily includes at first many alien and unreliable elements among the personnel. Their testing, retesting, and sifting must be carried through on the basis of combat experience, recommendations of commissars, and testimonials of rank-and-file fighters. Coincident with this must proceed an intense training of commanders drawn from the ranks of revolutionary workers.
10. The strategy of civil war must combine the rules of military art with the tasks of the social revolution. Not only in propaganda but also in military operations it is necessary to take into account the social composition of the various military units of the enemy (bourgeois volunteers, mobilised peasants, or as in Franco's case, colonial slaves); and in choosing lines of operation, it is necessary to rigorously take into consideration the social structure of the corresponding territories (industrial regions, peasant regions, revolutionary or reactionary, regions of oppressed nationalities, etc.). In brief, revolutionary policy dominates strategy.
11. Both the revolutionary government and the executive committee of the workers and peasants must know how to win the complete confidence of the army and of the toiling population.
12. Foreign policy must have as its main objective the awakening of the revolutionary consciousness of the workers, the exploited peasants, and oppressed nationalities of the whole world".
(I have selected the following additional points from the following paragraphs of the article:)
"The Spanish proletariat displayed first-rate military qualities. ... There was no lack of heroism on the part of the masses or courage on the part of individual revolutionists. But the masses were left to their own resources while the revolutionists remained disunited, without a program, without a plan of action.
The "republican" military commanders were more concerned with crushing the social revolution than with scoring military victories. The soldiers lost confidence in their commanders, the masses in the government; the peasants stepped aside; the workers became exhausted; defeat followed defeat; demoralisation grew apace. All this was not difficult to foresee from the beginning of the civil war. By setting itself the task of rescuing the capitalist regime, the Popular Front doomed itself to military defeat".
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