Spain 1936: from war to revolution
On 17 July 1936 a cabal of army officers staged a military coup against the Spanish government. Workers had to decide how to respond. It was a pivotal moment for the politics of the 1930s and there are important lessons for socialists today.
For revolutionaries the Spanish Civil War resonates through the decades. It provides an inspirational example of the heroism, creativity and self-organisation of workers. Everything was possible. When the English writer George Orwell arrived in Barcelona in December 1936 he wrote, âIt was the first time that I had been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flags of the anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties.â
The Spanish Civil War is usually portrayed as a battle between fascism on one side and democracy on the other. But this was a workersâ revolution and the fact that it was crushed led directly to defeat for the republic and decades of fascist rule in the Spanish state. Eighty years on, questions arise that are still fundamental to our movement: how best to fight fascism; how revolutionaries should organise in the struggle for socialism; what programmes to adopt; who best to ally with; our attitude to the state.
The anti-fascist forces combined liberal republicans, regional nationalists, social democrats, communists, revolutionary socialists and anarchists, and they all battled to increase their own political, ideological and military influence. But what kind of democracy were people fighting for? What kind of political alliance would best lead the republic? And what kind of army was needed to prosecute the war most effectively?
The global depression following the 1929 Wall Street Crash had seen a polarisation in politics. Many in the international workersâ movement had moved left, galvanised by the example of the Russian Revolution. Ruling classes, desperate to defend their own interests, often resorted to brutal repression.
Fascism seemed to be on an inexorable rise. In Germany Europeâs best organised labour movement had failed its most important test. Instead of calling for working class unity against fascism, as the Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky argued, the German Communist Party accused social democrats of being âsocial fascistsâ for propping up capitalism. The labour movement was split with catastrophic consequences.
By the mid-1930s, with the Second World War on the horizon, Communist Parties, directed by Moscow, turned this policy on its head. Now they sought to make alliances with âprogressive capitalistsâ in order to create a bulwark against the threat of German invasion. Russian leader Stalin was desperate to ally with capitalist imperial powers, especially Britain and France. Communist Parties were encouraged to enter alliances with not just social democrats but also bourgeois parties that were opposed to fascism, to show that the Communists could be trusted not to threaten capital. To many this idea of the popular front seemed to make sense, but in practice maintaining unity meant the interests of the working class became secondary.
In 1936 the Spanish republic was only five years old and since the Kingâs abdication power had see-sawed between the right and left. Spain was backward economically â industrial capitalism had developed mainly in just a few cities â and the bourgeois democratic revolution had weak foundations. Big business, the church, army and landowners looked with fear and contempt at the rights and social reforms workers were demanding.
After âtwo black yearsâ of repression, the popular front government was elected in February. The reformist Socialist Party was a key component. Their power base came from the trade union it had founded, the moderate General Union of Workers (UGT) which claimed up to 1.5 million members. One of their leaders, Largo Caballero, was known as the âSpanish Leninâ.
This should not obscure the fact that the popular front was dominated by middle class republican parties. Previous republican governments had instituted some moderate land reforms and made concessions to the regional aspirations of Catalonia, although not the Basque Country. Ultimately their aim was to strengthen Spanish capitalism.
Nevertheless, workers celebrated the popular front victory, immediately raising demands for reforms and organising strikes. Now, after months of planning, sections of the ruling class acted decisively. When the army mutinied its leaders expected a quick victory against a weak opponent. Garrisons revolted in most major cities. Fascist leaders declared their first task was to defeat the workersâ movement and threatened to execute strikers. Their methods were savage, exemplified by their use of rape as a weapon of war.
The man who came to lead the fascists was General Francisco Franco who was head of the Spanish Army of Africa based in Morocco. In the first days of the war, with the government paralysed, Franco persuaded Hitler and Mussolini to give him planes to airlift his troops into Spain.
What Franco had not anticipated was a spontaneous revolutionary anti-fascist uprising. When the government refused to distribute weapons, the trade unions called a general strike and workers stormed military barracks in order to arm themselves. They formed anti-fascist committees and organised militias, managing to repel the army, and in the process took control of several major citiesâŚ..
Continued at:- http://socialistreview.org.uk/415/spain-1936-war-revolution
