Class Basis of the Rebels and Republic

[Desperado]

I understand very much their ideological basis, but what was their class support, and which parts of which class did they serve? I know that the landlords (Church included) where orientated towards the rebels, but what of the industrial bourgeoisie? Why wouldn't sections of the bourgeoisie want to side with the Francoists?

[Ismail]

The Republicans were generally liberal bourgeois figures who saw the weakening of the large landowners and the Church as a way to modernize Spain and to promote the development of a fairly laissez-faire capitalist economic policy. It largely depended on the area, though. Industrial capitalists in Bilbao were a fair bit more reactionary than those in Catalonia or Madrid. Sections of the industrial bourgeoisie did side with the Francoists.

The industrialized capitalist countries, of course, tended to distrust the Republicans owing to most of them willing to work with the PSOE and the PCE. When the civil war erupted, said capitalist states silently backed the Francoists.

[OhYesIdid]

oh, I thought you were talking about Star Wars...
Nevertheless, remember that what's more interesting about the civil war was how it allowed anarchist and socialist movements to fully express themselves during a period of chaos. Tells you a lot about how war provokes evolution.

[Blake's Baby]

I thought you were talking about the American Civil War.

Some of the industrialists (a lot I'd have thought) supported the Francoists. Party of order and all that.

[Kléber]

The bourgeoisie sided overwhelmingly with the rebels, but the Republic remained a bourgeois state that defended private property over means of production throughout the war.

Capitalists in the Republican zone were largely driven out and expropriated by the armed workers' militias which fought back the military rebellion in the early days of the war. The workers had risen up in response to the military and were too disorganized to immediately seize power from the remnants of the Republican state; they were split between various factions, the most powerful being the social-democratic PSOE and anarchist CNT-FAI which contained revolutionary elements but whose leaders were afraid or unwilling to make revolution. The PSOE, even its left wing under Caballero, was content to remain in the bourgeois Popular Front government without rocking the boat. The CNT-FAI and POUM stood to the left but they also joined the Republican government, and as its representatives they helped to betray and disarm their own proletarian supporters.

The Stalinist PCE and its controllers, the Soviet bureaucracy, played the most treacherous role. Despite their relative small size they aggressively recruited army officers and played a dominant role in Republican politics as the biggest providers of foreign aid, with the experience of the October Revolution. But instead of struggling for the dictatorship of the proletariat in Spain, they supported the right wing of the Republican government, using the Soviet military and PCE troops to smash the center of workers' power in Barcelona and restore bourgeois order to the city. The Stalinist GPU formed death squads and set up secret prisons under the protection of the Republican government in order to assassinate working-class leaders like Andreu Nin and thus prevent anyone to the left of the PCE from coming to power.

The Stalinist line was admitted clearly by Pravda in December 1936: "In Catalonia, the elimination of Trotskyists and Anarcho-Syndicalists has already begun; it will be carried out with the same energy as in the USSR."

By keeping the liberal shadow of the Spanish bourgeoisie in charge of the Republic, the goal was to present the USSR as a respectable ally to the liberal imperialists of Britain and France. That failed of course, but in the process they destroyed the workers' revolution that had started in 1936, demoralized the Republic's defenders and fucked over the war effort. Once the Soviet bureaucracy realized the Republic would never get support from Britain and France, they abandoned it altogether to make friends with Hitler. The liberal Republican officers then purged the Stalinists and surrendered to Franco.

[L.A.P.]

So if the bourgeoisie supported the Republicans then who mainly supported the Nationalists?

[Kléber]

The Republican and Nationalist states were both bourgeois. The Republic was led by bourgeois liberals but was kept alive by the working class. The Nationalist regime represented the conservative majority of the bourgeoisie, in alliance with the old reactionary classes - priests, aristocrats and officers.

[Ismail]

Actually the right-wing of the PSOE tended to fear the PCE. Prieto was an example, as was Besteiro (who pre-1933 claimed that the rise of fascism was a foolish paranoia, and in April 1939 called the prospects of a new world war a delusion.) Casado himself wanted to please the British a bit in the "negotiations" with Franco (who didn't care for them and was continuing his march onto Madrid) by denouncing the so-called "Communist infiltration" of the Republic.

A good overview of the PCE's view of the situation can be gleaned from the following (large) quote:

"Revolutionary claims from the Anarchists and POUM were easily dismissed as ridiculous by PCE leaders because, by definition, the only authentic 'revolution' could be one declared and led by Communists. Initially, in the aftermath of the military coup and in the absence of any other information, party leaders assumed that only a breakdown in order had occurred. When local party and trade-union branches seized control in the Republican zone, this was seen, accordingly, as a temporary necessity that would be reversed when central government power was restored. Anything more than this was denounced as the actions of 'uncontrollables' amongst the ranks of the CNT. However, the PCE had to acknowledge, albeit grudgingly, that something more fundamental might be occurring when it became clear that local Communists were also participating in land and factory seizures in many areas. Faced on one hand with the need to support the popular front, and to respond to Comintern injunctions not to drive the middle classes into the hands of the Nationalists, and on the other hand with the desires of party of the rank and file of the party to seize the revolutionary opportunities that had opened up, the leadership of the party leadership prevaricated.

Rather than following its own party, the PCE responded by adopting the compromise position taken by the left wing of the Socialist Party; to favour both the popular front and the revolution. Accordingly, the Communists did nothing to prevent party members from creating collectives, joining local committees or forming their own militias... In many respects it was natural for the PCE to take a particularly active role in the creation of new centralised institutions... There appears to have been no policy of Communist 'infiltration', as one was not needed. Communist ideology emphasised the importance of the state... they were not alone in this view – it was common to the Socialist and republican parties as well....

Yet, at the same time the PCE leadership actually showed a marked reluctance to take decisive action, seeking clarification from Moscow on how exactly they were supposed to proceed. Partly this was another case of confusion over how to translate a general principle into concrete action. But mainly it was a concern on the part of the party leaders that the PCE lacked the strength to act alone and a fear that any precipitate blow against the POUM would wreck the popular front approach to the war. Instead, a low level conflict with the POUM, and to an extent the Anarchists, in Catalonia bubbled away fuelled by local rivalries, serious enough to lead to assassinations on all sides. In the end, it was this steadily growing tension, rather than a calculated strike delivered by the PCE on behalf of Moscow, which provided the background to the sudden eruption of open conflict in May 1937.

During the deep political crisis that now engulfed the Republican camp, the leaders of the PCE were largely bereft of the advice of the Comintern and by no means clear about how best to proceed. At a series of meetings of the Politburo the underlying differences between them were exposed in debates about the party position. Díaz (debilitated by the severe illness that was to dog the rest of his life) and Hernández cautioned against precipitate action that might alienate the Anarchists and urged continuing support of the Caballero government. This view was opposed by the Comintern delegates... However, what finally persuaded the Communist leadership openly to oppose Caballero was the support of the right faction of the PSOE, led by Negrín, and the smaller republican parties for action. Caballero would no doubt have survived if his party had continued to back him... Negrín then formed a new administration in which the number of Communist ministers was reduced to two.

With the compromise period of the wartime Republic now brought to a close, harsh actions were taken against the POUM and CNT following the May events. Far from moving unilaterally to crush the proponents of a revolutionary approach to the war – including Caballero's faction of the PSOE – the Spanish Communists acted only in co-ordination with their Socialist and republican partners... Nor were Communist leaders uniformly enthusiasts for this course, despite the further urgings of Comintern for decisive action once contact was restored with Moscow. Díaz and Hernández remained fearful for the future of Republican unity, arguing ineffectively for rapprochement with the CNT and POUM rather than confrontation, and afraid that the party risked alienating its own rank-and-file supporters who favored a revolutionary approach. In the event, the brutality which Communist troops and police... owed far more to feeling on the ground than any dictates from Moscow."
(Tim Rees & Andrew Thorpe. International Communism and the Communist International, 1919-43. Manchester: Manchester University Press. 1998. pp. 153-155.)

Furthermore Helen Graham in her book The Spanish Republic at War notes for instance that the PCE, the Comintern and Stalin himself often took opposing lines, although Stalin later supported the PCE after the fact. For instance Stalin felt that Caballero, although incompetent and anti-PCE, should stay because workers would identify with him more. The PCE didn't agree. Also Graham notes that the USSR continued to back the Republic, although considering it was constantly losing land and was seen by many as being on its last legs, obviously this support was reduced. The M-R Treaty was signed months after the Republic fell, and obviously at that point the USSR was pretty security-conscious.

[Desperado]

Furthermore Helen Graham in her book The Spanish Republic at War notes for instance that the PCE, the Comintern and Stalin himself often took opposing lines, although Stalin later supported the PCE after the fact.

Yeah, I just read her book (The Spanish Civil War: A Very Short Introduction) where she reiterated those points and seemed to play down "Sovietization".