Was the Spanish Communist Party hostile towards the Anarchists in Catalonia?

[☭World Views]

This seems to suggest so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Catalonia#Clashes_with_the_Communists

Idk if it's true or the real motives behind the article.



I am picking up Homage to Catalonia to learn more. What else should I read?

[Raúl Duke]

This seems to suggest so:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchist_Catalonia#Clashes_with_the_Communists

Idk if it's true or the real motives behind the article.



I am picking up Homage to Catalonia to learn more. What else should I read?

Many accounts say it's true...what should be discussed is what were the motives.

There are a few more historical books on the subject. Currently, I don't know of any but someone here on revleft would probably mention it soon.

Personally, if you want a more balanced account (I guess), try asking Pastradamus or whatever he calls himself now about it.

[Искра]

Communist party of Spain was a part of III. International (Comintern) which was under Stalin's inflence. So they were puppets of Soviet Union. Which means that they were doing like Moscow said. Funny thing is that it was founded by two ex-CNT's members.

In Spanish revolution (and letter civil war) CP took stance that wining the civil war is more important than social revolution. So they stand there with liberals, republicans etc. against anarchist (CNT-FAI) and Trots (POUM) which wanted social revolution. It really funny that CP stands against social revolution, but you know Stalin wanted alliance with West against Nazi Germany and Italy...

As, civil war started 3rd Reich and Italy were helping Franco, so Stalin decided that he will help Republicans only if CP get part in the government. Later CP started to grow because of international brigades and once they got more political power + more weapons they openly stared to be hostile towards anarchists.

I would recommend you to read book by Hugh Thomas: Spanish Civil War

He's historian, member of British aristocracy who really dislikes anarchists, but still his book proves what I just wrote. Also I believe that it historically accurate.

[Ismail]

BTW World Views, check your PMs.

A pro-PCE viewpoint can be found in the 1973 book by Arthur H. Landis (who does cite Hugh Thomas frequently), Spain! the Unfinished Revolution. The book itself is quite good and should be read even by anti-PCE leftists, since it goes into quite a bit of detail about other parts of the war and the international situation vis-à-vis Spain.


It really funny that CP stands against social revolution, but you know Stalin wanted alliance with West against Nazi Germany and Italy...It did not consider the situation ripe for revolution.

From Landis' book (pp. 68-71):

On February 16th, the Sunday of the Carnival before Lent, all Spain went to the polls. Approximately 34,000 Civil Guards and as many as 17,000 Assault Guards were on duty. There was a minimum of violence. The final tabulation was as follows:
POPULAR FRONT AND BASQUE NATIONALISTS 4,838,449
PARTIES OF THE CENTER . . . 449,320
PARTIES OF THE RIGHT . . . 3,996,931

NUMBER OF DEPUTIES:
SOCIALISTS . . . 99
REPUBLCIAN LEFT . . . (Azaña) 87
REPUBLICAN UNION . . . (Martínez Barrio) 39
CATALAN ESQUERRA . . . (Companys) 36
COMMUNISTS . . . 17
TOTAL 278

NATIONAL FRONT (RIGHT)
C.E.D.A. . . . (Gil Robles) 88
AGRARIANS . . . (Landowners) 11
MONARCHISTS . . . (Calvo Sotelo) 13
INDEPENDENTS . . . 10
TRADITIONALISTS . . . (Carlists) 9
TOTAL 134

CENTER:
CENTER PARTY . . . (Portela Valladares) 16
LLIGA . . . (Catalan Right) 12
RADICALS (Lerroux) 4
PROGRESSIVES . . . (Alcalá Zamora) 6
BASQUES . . . 10
OTHERS . . . 7
TOTAL 55
(Publication of the Spanish Embassy, London, England: Secretariat of the Spanish Parliament (Cortes) 1936.)

A footnote to the elections and their immediate aftermath is hereby described by Álvarez del Vayo:

“The morning after the elections the Popular Front victory was fully confirmed. At noon, Señor Largo Caballero and I, as elected members for Madrid, called on the Prime Minister to protest against the first of the Fascist assaults, which had taken place that very day in the streets of Madrid. (Members of the Falange had fired on a demonstration chiefly composed of women, who were marching to the prison to bring the political prisoners the good news for the election.) Señor Portela Valladares received us with courtesy, and said unhesitatingly: 'In you I greet today's victors.' A year later, during the war, Señor Portela Valladares, when he attended a meeting of the Cortes in Valencia for the express purpose of proclaiming to the world that the Parliament formed after the elections, over which he had presided, was 'truly representative of the nation's will,' disclosed that our call on the Prime Minister had not been the most important he had received that day. 'At four in the morning on the day after the elections,'—I quote Señor Portela Valladres—'I was visited by Señor Gil Robles and Calvo Sotelo who proposed that I should assume dictatorial powers, and who offered me the support of all the groups defeated in the elections. At seven that evening the same suggestion was made to me by the General Francisco Franco.'”
(Freedom's Battle, Álvarez del Vayo, Alfred Knopf, N.Y., 1940, pp. 5-6)

The electoral victory of the Popular Front Government of Spain in February, 1936, has been argued in many ways; with the figures so juggled in certain analyses of the Right as to prove that the victory was actually theirs. The Left on the other hand—the “Left” in this case being the Popular Front, which was quite different from the real Left, as we shall see—included the separatist Basque Nationalist Party, which was strongly catholic-conservative in its politics. Essentially, if the Basque vote were to be added to the Center, and both of these given to the Right, then indeed would the final tally be almost equal.

There are no exact figures on the votes for Socialists, Republicans, C.E.D.A., etc. But the proportionate representation given each party as a result of the total vote indicates that the Republican vote within the Popular Front was at least as large as the combined Communist-Socialist vote and those others of the Left Independents, inclusive, of, perhaps, 700,000 votes of the Anarcho-Syndicalists who at this time had voted for the amnesty.

That is to say that in terms of a true vote in-re the simplistics of capitalism versus socialism, the then grouping of Right-Center-Republicans outnumbered the bona-fide Left at three to one. Considering, however that a large percentage of the Anarchist votes had gone to Republicans rather than to Socialists or Communists, and that in the villages, for the simple reason that they had to live there, great numbers of villagers voted Right who were strongly Left, the real tally would be like two to one. The true Left, in other words, was still outnumbered; with about 33% of the total vote.

A salient point of the Popular Front, however, was that its Republican adherents wanted no part of the Center or of the Right; certainly no dictatorship from any source. They were bourgeois and they wanted a bourgeois state of laws, governed by a mandate of the people, preferably themselves. But when one writes of Republicans, one writes primarily of the mass of Republican voters; not the leadership. The difference being, a limited but positive idealism on the part of the mass, and a propensity for class-collaboration and corruption on the part of the leadership.

A salient point of the Popular Front, however, was that its Republican adherents wanted no part of the Center or of the Right; certainly no dictatorship from any source. They were bourgeois and they wanted a bourgeois state of laws, governed by a mandate of the people, preferably themselves. But when one writes of Republicans, one writes primarily of the mass of Republican voters; not the leadership. The difference being, a limited but positive idealism on the part of the mass, and a propensity for class-collaboration and corruption on the part of the leadership.

Considering all these facts one must conclude that the Popular Front vote was no mandate for “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat,” the nationalization or industry, or the creation of communes in the areas of agriculture, as some would have others believe . . . . But it was the form of government under which these concepts—as of that moment in time—could be advocated and worked for freely, and with a minimum of interference from the Republican bourgeoisie.

Fascism would most certainly not grant the Left this right. Indeed, the prime objective condition here was that the Financial Oligarchy could not countenance the continued existence of the Popular Front for precisely these same reasons. That the ultra-left, the F.A.I., the P.O.U.M., etc., could not understand this, to a point where they would fight the Popular Front far harder than they would ever fight the real enemy was, over the years, the tragedy of the Spanish Republic.

Alone among the parties of the Front and of the Left, the P.C.E. did seem to understand the above facts. This is not to say that hundreds of thousands of socialists, republicans, anarchists, workers, intellectuals and students did not. But it is to say that their organized leadership seemed forever abysmally ignorant of the facts.

That a Rightist rebellion was now imminent was common knowledge; to everybody, that is, except the majority of the Republican leaders and some Socialists. The threat of it lay like a miasmic cloud over the length and breadth of the country, ominous and foreboding. The force of the rising, when it came, would be disciplined and terrible. And there it would be but one weapon in the people's arsenal to hold it and destroy it. That was the now proven weapon of Left-Republican unity embodied within the structure of the Popular Front of the Spanish Republic.

[Random Precision]

A pro-PCE viewpoint can be found in the 1973 book by Arthur H. Landis (who does cite Hugh Thomas frequently),

Even worse. Thomas was a British patriot who wrote the official story from the Comintern straight into his book while neglecting primary sources that contradicted it.

For the OP, I would recommend The Spanish Cockpit by Franz Borkenau as a primary source. Though he was anti-Marxist he goes into great detail on the merging of the PCE with the liberal Republicans, in other words the loyalist middle class and bourgeoisie. And I would recommend The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution by Pierre Broué and Émile Témime as a good secondary source that focuses on the revolutionary aspect of the conflict.

[JohannGE]

I am picking up Homage to Catalonia to learn more. What else should I read?

I would highly recomend The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 - Antony Beevor. Only £8.96 from Amazon both a great read and refference.

He makes a great effort to deliver the facts in a non partisan way and leaves you to come to your own conclusion about the rights and wrongs. (Probably that the Anarchists where stitched up by everyone else concerned. ;)) Recently re published with new material released from the archives.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battle-Spain-Spanish-Civil-1936-1939/dp/0297848321

[The Ungovernable Farce]

I'd strongly recommend Ronald Frazer's Blood of Spain. Made up of hundreds of interviews with pretty much everyone - anarchists, POUMistas, socialists, PCErs, liberal Republicans, Basque nationalists, Catholics, monarchists, falangists - to build up the closet thing you'll get to a decent picture of what really happened (the anarchists and POUM got screwed over by the Stalinist-Republican alliance).

[Искра]

I'd strongly recommend Ronald Frazer's Blood of Spain. Made up of hundreds of interviews with pretty much everyone - anarchists, POUMistas, socialists, PCErs, liberal Republicans, Basque nationalists, Catholics, monarchists, falangists - to build up the closet thing you'll get to a decent picture of what really happened (the anarchists and POUM got screwed over by the Stalinist-Republican alliance).

Can you help me to get it? Link to amazon, or even better pdf version?

[JohannGE]

Can you help me to get it? Link to amazon, or even better pdf version?

Pleanty in USA used in various conditions.

http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Spain-History-Spanish-Civil/dp/0394738543

Bit dearer from UK.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/0140054804/ref=sr_1_olp_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1253818513&sr=8-1-spell

Can't find any online pdf, not even as a torrent! :(

[The Ungovernable Farce]

Yeah, I can't find any online copies either. Can always try libraries as well.

[Pogue]

Yes, the Stalinists in the CPE actively supported the supression of the anarchists/POUM/working class/revolution, in typical Stalinist style.

[Искра]

Can always try libraries as well.
There's no such books in Croatian libraries... :(

Thx. for amazon!

[Bright Banana Beard]

They were especially hostile to each other since they cannot get along or be in agreement as their views is different. The Stalinists really wanted to pause the revolution because of of strong Republican base among the Popular Front. The anarchist, however, are on their own and would not listen or help the Republican Army, their love for individualism freedom really made them undependable on the fronts in many cases.

The Stalinists really never care about social revolution, they are entirely focusing on securing the Republican from selling out to the Nationalists, but the Popular Front inability to put aside the internal conflict made them lose the civil war. The blame is really to put on all side on Republican section, not just Stalinists.

[Bilan]

They were especially hostile to each other since they cannot get along or be in agreement as their views is different. The Stalinists really wanted to pause the revolution because of of strong Republican base among the Popular Front. The anarchist, however, are on their own and would not listen or help the Republican Army, their love for individualism freedom really made them undependable on the fronts in many cases.


One part of your post was correct: the views of the anarchists and the SCP are irreconciable.
Now, this is not because anarchists fetishise individual freedom. This is because of the views on Russia and on the revolution itself. Now, the anarchists in this represented a view that was absolutely counterpoised to that of the Stalinists and "official communists" in that, the revolution was happening now, and that the only way to stamp out fascism was through proletarian revolution; that the Spanish working class would set an example to the proletariat of Germany and Italy (To paraphrase Durruti).
It was not about "individual freedom" it was about pushing the revolution forward.