Spanish Civil War population question

[Die Neue Zeit]

I've had a Spanish Civil War question lingering in my head for about a week. It's about the population.

What's the class breakdown of Spain during the war? Wasn't there already a proletarian demographic majority?

[syndicat]

Yes. the working class was the majority.altho 52 percent of the population worked in agriculture, the majority of those working in agriculture were wage-laborers. in the southern half of the country, the latifundia zone, where 90 percent of the land was owned by 3 percent of the population, there were 750,000 agricultural day laborers. northeastern Spain had gone thru a huge industrialization and urbanization boom in the '10s and '20s, especially the area around Barcelona where 70 percent of Spain's manufacturing was located. there was still a large small business class, of shop keepers, small landlords, owners of small workshops or mercantile businesses. but even with the small owner farmers in the northern part of Spain, this class was a minority (tho a significant minority).

[Die Neue Zeit]

With this proletarian demographic majority, it was indeed possible for the CNT to implement its worker-peasant program the way it did, overcoming sentiments towards peasant patrimonialism.

[Jose Gracchus]

You have still failed to prove the "peasant patrimonialism" exists as an objective historical phenomena, regardless if it could be overcome by the working class majority in Spain. Maximov's program was built around the ideas he had while in the Russian Revolution.

[syndicat]

There were small holders, particularly in northern Spain. but the UGT and CNT farm labor unions were able to organize many of them. Many owned only tiny plots, not enough to survive on, and often worked part of the year in wage labor.

The UGT and CNT farm labor unions had similar policies. Their policy in regard to collectivization was that any land owning farmer could keep only as much land as he & his family could work without hiring people. Their aim was to abolish wage labor. They were against forced collectivization of small holders' plots. But many small holders voluntarily brought their land into the collectivized agricultural communities.

the big conflict between the Communists and the Left Socialist/syndicalist alliance was over the land of the farmers who owned larger amounts of land, enough to hire others. This was the Spanish kulak class. The UGT and CNT seized from them any excess of land over what they could farm themselves. This was what the CP was opposed to...sometimes. For opportunisitic reasons, the CP organized the land owning farmers who owned larger plots to have their land returned to them.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You have still failed to prove the "peasant patrimonialism" exists as an objective historical phenomena, regardless if it could be overcome by the working class majority in Spain. Maximov's program was built around the ideas he had while in the Russian Revolution.

For a moment I was confused between Maximov and Makhnov. I did have comments re. the latter in the Ukraine. As per our discussion on Bulgaria, Makhnov failed for the same reasons as Aleksandar Stamboliyski did: not enough one-man control over the state apparatus, not enough of a personality cult, and not enough of a peasant-derived military culture in the overall society.

[Jose Gracchus]

That's preposterous. :rolleyes:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Mao, for all his faults, was able to prevent MacArthur's adventurism in the Korean peninsula because of the peasant-derived military culture. Ditto with Tito relative to Stalin's geopolitical maneuverings.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Mao, for all his faults, was able to prevent MacArthur's adventurism in the Korean peninsula because of the peasant-derived military culture. Ditto with Tito relative to Stalin's geopolitical maneuverings.

MacArthur's "adventurism"? Isn't that the exact same word you used to describe the French wildcat strike of 1968? :lol:

[Die Neue Zeit]

There's imperialism, and then there's "adventurism." Obvious MacArthur was an imperialist scumbag, but I wanted to use "adventurism" to describe something beyond that.

The French wildcat strike of 1968 is obviously the subject of another thread.

[Jose Gracchus]

Mao, for all his faults, was able to prevent MacArthur's adventurism in the Korean peninsula because of the peasant-derived military culture. Ditto with Tito relative to Stalin's geopolitical maneuverings.

Utter bullshit without a shred of historical support.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why do you think Trotsky had to re-organize the Red Guards and other militias into a Red Army in light of the collapse against the German offensive? Mao and Tito had the "military culture" basis for not having to resort to such. I think it was comrade Luis Henrique who posted a month or two ago about the inherently undemocratic nature of states waging war, precisely because it requires "Yes sir!" authoritarianism to the hilt. "Abolish the standing army" and "turn swords into plowshares" when pigs fly over a capitalist world.