What form did the Spanish revolution take, and what were the attitudes towards it of the major parties and unions in the Republic? (Communists, anarchists, POUM, socialists and liberals/left republicans)

In 1936 the communists, socialists and anarchists fought side by side for the first time in Spanish history, pledged to defeat fascism. Within days of the start of the Civil War deep divisions emerged in the Republican camp. The major parties and unions in the Republic had very different attitudes towards the Revolution. The divisions, which reflected different political concepts of the nature of war and revolution, remained throughout the conflict and unquestionably undermined the Republican war effort.

As well as the essential task of winning the war the wider issue of the type of society that would emerge from a future victory persisted. In seeking to solve these problems the Left were confronted with other questions fundamental to the whole basis of their organizations. Was one form of government to be supported against another? Was the situation such that a social revolution could triumph and, if not, what was to be the role of the revolutionary workers? The divisions were mainly a question of priorities. Should they first win the war to ensure the revolution or should they carry out the revolution to ensure victory in the war? The Spanish Communists thought that the war should come first, as did the left republicans and right wing socialists.  The anarcho-syndicalist CNT, left socialists, POUM (dissident communists - ¼ million members) thought the revolution should come first. They said losing the revolution meant losing the war. It led to which seriously weakened the Republican cause.  These divisions became a source of bitter controversy, ‘a war within the war’[1], that has prompted a great deal of argument, famously Noam Chomsky's critique in American Power and the New Mandarins of Gabriel Jackson. Chomsky attacked the book for taking the official line and ‘its reliance on the testimony of Republican ministers and army officers, who felt the need to justify their support of communist power[2]’.

During the months following the insurrection (summer 1936-1937), a social revolution ‘of unprecedented scope’ took place throughout much of Spain. The revolution was precipitated in large areas of the Republican zone by the military rising. As the police force, political and trade union militants defeated the insurgents in five of Spain’s seven largest cities, the existing Republican state institutions lost much of their power and authority. With no forces left to defend the Republican state and the people armed, state power ‘virtually collapsed overnight’[3].

This new situation surprised the leaders of the left’s political parties and organizations. No left organization called for revolutionary acts such as taking over factories and the land. The CNT leaders did not know how to proceed – eventually stating that the revolution must stand aside for collaboration with the Popular Front forces to defeat the common enemy.

Yet, as Salvado said, the ‘real power lay in the streets’[4]. Barcelona did experience a revolution, led by individual CNT unions. It soon became ‘a city run by the working class[5]’ - a profound change. The state machinery was swept away by revolutionary fervour. Everything was organised and run by the workers. Transport, public utilities, industrial plants and mines were all seized. The property of handicraftsmen, small manufacturers and tradesmen was sequestered. Popular committees wielded great power, organising all the basic services, such as transport. The anarchists ransacked churches, which they thought epitomised the oppression and manipulation of the poor by the state. The signs of working class power were everywhere in Barcelona. Huge Party banners hung from public buildings. Formal expressions of address were discarded. Beevor described it as ‘a world of instant friendship'[6]. He observed everywhere 'a heady atmosphere of optimism and excitement[7]'.

In Madrid, although the workers did take over many workplaces, the revolution was more subdued. There were two reasons for this: firstly it was far less industrialised than Barcelona and secondly because the dominant trade union was the Socialist UGT.

In the countryside anarcho-syndicalists and socialist trade union members seized land and initiated a profound agricultural revolution. Many saw land redistribution as the primary concern of the revolution. The eight hundred rural collectives that were created affected 400,000 workers. The collectives in Republican Spain were not the state collectives of Russia - it was the needs and not the production that was taken into account. For example, larger household received more than smaller ones. Richards saw the reforms as revolutionary, saying the agricultural collectives were ‘the first time in modern society that the anarchist principle – to each according to his needs, has been practised[8]’. Gaston Level wrote that ‘begging has been done away with…there are no more destitute’[9]. Richards said that ‘social justice was realised[10]’ in the collectives. They were based on the joint ownership and management of the land or factory. The total numbers involved were 800,000 for the land and million in industrial collectives.

The revolution also radically affected women. The war saw the spontaneous growth of a women's movement after the 1936 elections. It was born not of literature or theory from abroad, but of women's instinctive sense that the overthrow of the class system should mean the end of the patriarchal system as well. The revolution sought to grant them equal status with men.  The anarchists had always declared the equality of human beings, but, as the anarchist feminist organisation, Mujeres Libres, emphasised, relationships still remained 'feudal'. An example of the manifest way the anarchists betrayed their ideals was ‘the different levels of pay for men and women in most CNT enterprises’[11]. Little headway was made outside the cities. However, the greatest demonstration of the new equality was the militia-women who fought in the front-line. A women's battalion took part in the defence of Madrid. This move towards equal participation was rigorously reduced under the authoritarian direction of the war effort, returning women to an auxiliary role by 1938.

It was largely a spontaneous, anarchist revolution, involving masses of anarchist and socialist urban and rural labourers. It was ‘apolitical’ in the sense that its organs of power and administration remained separate from the central Republican government and, even after several anarchist leaders entered the government in September 1936 continued to function independently.

There was certainly revolutionary upheaval to a great extent in 1936. But could this multi-faceted revolution consolidate itself? An important question was one of power. For example, what role was there to be for the legally instituted Republican governments who the CNT ignored (although they refused to turn the Popular Anti Fascist Militia Committee they dominated into the sole organ of power)? Power was also held in the popular committees throughout the Republican zone. This division of power could not continue if the war was to be won.

It was at the front where the lack of a unified power was felt the most. The main revolutionary task remained: to defeat the enemy. The forces of the Left were poorly armed and equipped. Orwell said many of them had no idea how to use guns. For example, each party and trade union had its own headquarters and transport, which just attended for its own and caring little for the rest. The militias were forced to constantly retreat. The main failure of the revolution was ‘its inability to fuse into a centralised power that could mobilise popular energies and resources to win the war’[12]. The left socialists and the Communist Party realised that this type of power was essential if the war was to be won.

Caballero’s Popular Front government, formed in September 1936 appeared to be such a power. Cabellero was the most popular leftist leader. He aimed to channel revolutionary fervour into a united war effort. The administration contained six Socialists, two Republicans, one Catalan, two Communists and one Basque Nationalist[13]. In November two FAI and two CNT become ministers. This gesture intensified tensions in the anarcho-syndicalist movement. The left parties were still faithful to the policy which all of them had adopted in the first days of the war. The preservation of the democratic Republic, with all differences subordinated to the defeat of fascism.

On the question of war and revolution there now appeared to be little doubt. Caballero restrained revolutionary power in the rear and the militias were merged into a unified Popular Army. Cabalero said ‘first we must win the war and afterwards we can talk about revolution’[14]. The Popular Front put winning the war first, with the twin goals to keep bourgeois democrats nationally and internationally in the anti-fascist struggle. However, Caballero experienced great difficulties achieving his aims, partially due to the internal divisions within the left. His prestige plummeted during 1937 as he abandoned Madrid and lost Malaga.

Caballero’s initial good relations with the Communists soon deteriorated. He had failed to recognise the growth in the Communist party from 20,000 members in 1936 to over half a million in 1937[15]. This increase was due to the fact that the USSR was the only power assisting the Republic militarily as well as the effective propaganda, confidence and clarity of position the Communists possessed. Following the government’s evacuation of Madrid the Communists filled the vacuum, ‘galvanising the masses with rousing slogans’[16]. The main error the Communists made was to fail to see how to overcome the ideological and organisational divisions in the working-class movement. They destroyed the unity with the CNT by putting the war before everything else. The Communists virtually total emphasis on pursuing military victory also led to its best militants going to the front, meaning the party lost its ties with the masses at the rear.

However, while the Communists always stuck to their policy the anarcho-syndicalists remained uncertain over the question of war or revolution. Although the CNT tried to push a collectivisation decree through the Popular Front government, many anarcho-syndicalists realised that total social revolution could not be made if there was to be victory in the war. The CNT’s confused ‘war at the front; revolution at the back policy never became a unified strategy[17]’.

For the POUM, a small party of dissident Communists, the war and the revolution remained inseparable. They thought there could be no successful revolution unless the war was won and the war could not be won unless there was a revolution. They supported the revolution, which they hoped would ‘do away with state power and replace it with libertarian communism’[18]

            The Communists, who did not support the revolution, directed the counter-revolution. From 1936, the central government fell increasingly under Communist control, largely as a result of the Russian military assistance. The Communists thought that in order to consolidate international and domestic support for the Republic it was necessary to block and then overturn the revolution. 

The first phase of the counter-revolution was the legalisation and restriction of the revolution’s accomplishments. The second stage of the counter- revolution, from October 1936 to May 1937, involved the destruction of the local committees, the replacement of the militia by a conventional army and the re-establishment of the pre-revolutionary social and economic system, wherever possible. Thirdly, in May 1937, there was a direct assault on the working class in Barcelona. The ‘May Days’ determined the question of war and revolution. Anarcho-syndicalists and the POUM, engaged in 5 days of street fighting, against the PSUC (Catalan socialists) and the Catalan nationalists, before CNT ministers in the popular front government succeeded in getting the anarcho-syndicalists to lay down their arms. Following the success of this attack, the process of liquidation of the revolution was completed. The collectivisation decree was rescinded and industries freed from workers control. The war was no longer one to build a new society and a new humanity. By July 1937 the state and the institutions of government had once again reasserted themselves. The central government and the Communist party were now even more in control. The new Prime Minister, Juan Negrin has been portrayed as merely ‘a Communist puppet’[19], when he was actually a realist whose main goal was the pragmatic pursuit of victory. He was well aware that the war could not be won without the Western democracies changing their position. In the meantime he realised the Republic’s main task was to sustain its long-term defensive capabilities.

The weakness of this strategy was that it relied on winning time when weariness and demoralisation were increasing. The air of despondency increased as the Republic suffered from food shortages and Franco’s forces managed to split them in two in Spring 1938. Defeatism was rife amongst the likes of Priteo.

Yet many Historians believe the Republic failed to win the war not because its policies were wrong but because of the strength of international forces against it. Salvado said ‘Negrin ultimately lost the war on the diplomatic front’[20]. a‘Republican hopes rested on the Western democracies[21]’. The likes of Britain and France were never prepared to match fascist aggression by force, preferring appeasement. When the allies signed up to the Munich Pact in 1938 ‘the Republic’s fate was sealed’[22]. On 27 February 1939 Britain and France officially recognised Franco’s government. After Franco continued to make gains Republican morale fell even more. On 1 April 1939 the end of the war had been announced: long years of punishment and persecution lay ahead for the Left, with at least 100,000 executions between 1939 and 1943[23].

Bibliography

• A.Beevor, The Spanish Civil War, London, 1922

• B.Bolloten, The Spanish Civil War

• S.M. Ellwood, The Spanish Civil War, Oxford, 1991.

• R.Fraser, Revolution and war in Spain 1931-39.

• H.Gannes and T.Repard, Spain in Revolt, London, 1936.

• G.Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

• V. Richards, Lessons of the Spanish Revolution (1936-1939), London, 1953

• F.R. Salvado, 20^th century Spain, Politics and Society in Spain 1898-1998, New York, 1999.

Microsoft Encarta 2000 articles on Spanish Civil War, Communism and Barcelona

• http://www.pitzer.edu/~dward/Anarchist_Archives/spancivwar/Spanishcivilwar.html - accessed on 1/3/00

• http://www.eb.com  - accessed on 1/3/00