Workers' Liberty 26, November/December 1995

Trotsky: "Diary" of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War - 1936-9

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. 25 May, 1930 The Primo de Rivera dictatorship has fallen without a revolution, from internal exhaustion. In the beginning, in other words, the question was decided by the sickness of the old society and not by the revolutionary forces of a new society… The workers’ struggle must be closely linked to all the...

The 1936-37 Spanish Revolution: with the International Brigade

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. Before doing so I had to get recommendations from a member of the Communist Party. I was told by the Communist Party that the International Brigade was made up of volunteers to fight against fascism and for the workers’ revolution but that the workers’ revolution could not take place until the war was over. I thought this reasonable but I expected a socialist spirit and practice in the Brigade itself. I will not give dates or...

The 1936-37 Spanish Revolution: anarchists massacred at Tarragona

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. Once masters of the building, they took control of the urban and inter–urban communications, cutting the lines of the working-class and anarchist organisations. Four hours later a conference took place at the general military headquarters between Comrade Casanovas, representing the telephone workers, and the lieutenant–colonel...

Eyewitness in Barcelona - George Orwell

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. If the POUM and the left-wing anarchists were really in league with the fascists, why did not the militias at the front walk out and leave a hole in the line? And why did the CNT transport-workers, in spite of the strike, continue sending supplies to the front? I cannot, however...

Issues in the 1936-37 Spanish Revolution

Let us examine the real points at issue between the Communist International and the revolutionary workers of Spain, including the POUM. There are five points: 1. The attitude towards collectivisation. 2. The “Popular Army”. 3. The May Days in Barcelona. 4. The fight for a democratic republic or the fight for workers’ power. 5. The separation of the war from the revolution. 1. One of the stock arguments of the Communist International is that the POUM and the revolutionary workers forced collectivisation on the peasants. This is a plain mis-statement of what actually occurred. When the fascist...

How the Stalinists killed workers' control in the 1936-37 Spanish Revolution

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. The decrees of the Taradellas government of the Generalitat on collectivisation, for example were only a tardy confirmation of an already established state of fact. The economy of governmental Spain reflected the contradictory tendencies that tore the anti-fascist camp apart. On the one side there were the measures of nationalisation, in other words the state takeover of “abandoned” factories and enterprises, those factories where...

Workers' control in the 1936-37 Spanish Revolution

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. There was no question of patching up the capitalist framework — it was realised by the workers at the very outset that capitalism had failed in every respect and that a new social order would have to be established. In order that the taking over...

The 1936-37 Spanish Revolution and those who killed it: a chronology

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. The workers had effective power in society, but, led by anarchists who did not believe in class power, the Spanish workers did not consolidate that power. The Spanish Communist Party, under the military discipline of Stalin, defended in the Republican areas...

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