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Though Trotsky’s writings on Spain fill a large volume he wrote no concise overview of the Spanish revolution. This “diary” is culled from the commentaries he produced all through the last decade of his life: the last item here is dated 20 August 1940, the day Trotsky was assassinated.
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What I heard over the wireless, read in the newspapers and saw on the films made me decide to go to Spain to fight for the workers. I joined the International Brigade.
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On Wednesday 5 May at 8am, a large force of police suddenly appeared at the Central Telephone Exchange of Tarragona, plentifully armed with weapons and grenades for taking it by assault. They occupied it without encountering any resistance whatever from the workers.
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It has been asserted in the Communist press that the so-called uprising in Barcelona was a carefully prepared effort to overthrow the Government and even to hand Catalonia over to the fascists by provoking foreign intervention in Barcelona. The second part of this suggestion is almost too ridiculous to need refuting.
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Let us examine the real points at issue between the Communist International and the revolutionary workers of Spain, including the POUM.
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The workers took control of the factories. The revolution came from below. From above, in other words from the leadership of the workers’ parties, came only curbs.
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I propose to give an account of what I saw while in Spain, and of the further developments since my return. The work of economic reconstruction commenced immediately after the various barracks and buildings occupied by the fascists had been retaken by the armed workers, and it is being carried on parallel with the military activities against fascism.
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The Spanish civil war was not primarily a struggle of “democracy against fascism”. It was a class struggle of the Spanish workers and peasants against capitalist, landlord and priest rule in Spain. This working class struggle was subverted by the Stalinists, who came to dominate the Republican areas from which the old ruling class had fled.
