The lessons of Spain: The final warning

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Anarchist peasants at a collectivized farm in Catalonia By LEON According to the Socialists and Stalinists, the Spanish revolution was called upon to solve only its "democratic" tasks, for which a united front with the "democratic" capitalist class [Popular Front] was indispensable. From this point of view, any and all attempts of the working class to go beyond the limits of capitalist democracy are not only premature but fatal. Furthermore, on the order of the day stands not the revolution, but the struggle against the insurgent Franco.

The revolutionary Marxist point of view, definitely expressed only by the young section of the Fourth International, takes the theory of permanent revolution as its starting point, namely: that even purely democratic problems, like the liquidation of semi-feudal landownership, cannot be solved without the conquest of power by the working class; but this in turn places the socialist revolution on the agenda.

Moreover, during the very first stages of the revolution, the Spanish workers themselves posed prac -tically not merely democratic problems but also purely socialist ones. The demand not to transgress the bounds of capitalist democracy [private property] signifies in practice not a defense of the democratic revolution, but a repudiation of it.

Only through an overturn in agrarian relations could the peasantry, the great mass of the population, have been transformed into a powerful bulwark against fas -cism. But the landowners are indissolubly bound up with the commercial-industrial capitalists and the intellectuals dependent on them.

The party of the working class was thus faced with a choice between going with the peasant masses or with the liberal capitalists. There could only be one reason to include the peasantry and the liberal capitalists in the same coalition at the same time: to help the capitalists deceive the peasantry and thus isolate the workers.

The agrarian revolution could have been accomplished only against the capitalists, and therefore only through measures of the dictatorship of the working class. There is no third, interim regime.

The political alliance between the working class and the capitalists, whose interests in the present epoch diverge upon basic questions at an angle of 180 degrees, is, as a general rule, capable of only paralyzing the revolutionary force of the working class.

The workers and peasants are capable of assuring victory [in a civil war] only if they wage a struggle for their own emancipation. Under these conditions, to subordinate the working class to the leadership of the capitalists means beforehand to assure defeat in the civil 8 SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1986 The modern history of capitalist society is filled with all sorts of Popular Fronts, i.e., the most diverse political combinations for the deception of the toilers. The Spanish experience is only a new and tragic link in this chain of crimes and betrayals.

Alliance with the shadow of the capitalists Politically most striking is the fact that in the Spanish Popular Front the place of the capitalist class was occupied by its shadow. Through the medium of the Stalinists, Socialists, and Anarchists, the Spanish capitalist class subordinated the working class to itself without even bothering to participate in the Popular Front. The overwhelming majority of the exploiters of all political shades went over into the camp of Franco [the fascists].

Without any theory of "permanent revolution," the Spanish capitalists understood from the outset that the revolutionary mass movement, no matter how it starts, is directed against private ownership of land and the means of production, and that it is utterly impossible to cope with this movement by democratic measures.

That is why only insignificant splinters from the possessing classes remained in the republican camp—attorneys for the capitalists, but not the capitalist class itself. Having staked everything on a military dictatorship, the possessing classes were able at the same time to make use of their political representatives of yesterday in order to paralyze, disorganize, and afterward strangle the socialist movement of the masses in republican territory.

However, thanks to their allies—the Socialists, Stalinists, and Anarchists-these political phantoms played the decisive role in the revolution. How? Very simply. By incarnating the principles of the "democratic revolution," i.e., the inviolability of private property. The task of the retired leaders of the left wing of the capitalists consisted in checking the revolution of the masses and thus in regaining for themselves the lost confidence of the capitalists and the landowners.

Counterrevolutionary role of Stalinism The interests of the republican capitalists fully coincided with the interests of Stalin, who needed to gain the confidence of the French and British ruling class by proving to them in action his ability to preserve "order" against "anarchy." Stalin needed the republican capitalists as a cover before the workers. The republican capitalists needed Stalin as an experienced executioner, with the authority of a revolutionist. Failing this, so insignificant a crew never could nor would have dared to attack the workers.

How and why did the Communist Party of Spain, so insignificant numerically and with a leadership so poor in caliber, prove capable of gathering into its hands all levers of power, in the face of the incomparably more powerful organizations of the Socialists and Anarchists.

The usual explanation that the Stalinists simply bartered Soviet weapons for power is far too superficial. In return for munitions Moscow received Spanish gold. According to the laws of the capitalist market, this covers everything. How then did Stalin contrive to get power in the bargain?

The customary answer is that the Soviet government, having raised its authority in the eyes of the masses by furnishing military supplies, demanded as a condition of its "collaboration" drastic measures against revolutionists and thus removed dangerous opponents from its path. All this is quite indisputable but it is only one aspect of the matter and the least important at that.

Despite the authority created by Soviet shipments, the Spanish Communist Party remained a small minority and met with ever-growing hatred on the part of the workers. On the other hand, it was not enough for Moscow to set conditions: Valencia [republican capital] had to accede to them. This is the heart of the matter.

Not only the republican capitalists, but all wings of the Socialist Party, were more or less ready to accede to the demands of Moscow. Why? Because these gentlemen themselves wished to keep the revolution within capitalist limits. Neither the Socialists nor the Anarchists seriously opposed the Stalinist program. They feared a break with the capitalists. They were deathly afraid of every revolutionary onslaught of the workers.

Stalin with his munitions and with his counterrevolutionary ultimatum was a saviour for all these groups. He guaranteed them, so they hoped, military victory over Franco and at the same time he freed them from responsibility for the course of the revolution.

These gentlemen could henceforth justify their betrayal to the workers by the necessity of military agreement with Stalin. Stalin on his part justified his counterrevolutionary politics by the necessity of maintaining an alliance with the republican capitalists.

When the workers and peasants enter on the path of their revolution, i.e., when they seize factories and estates, drive out the old owners, conquer power in the provinces—then the capitalist counterrevolution-demo -cratic, Stalinist, or Fascist alike—has no other means of checking this movement except through bloody coercion, supplemented by lies and deceit.

The superiority of the Stalinist clique on this road consisted in its ability to apply instantly measures which were beyond the capacity of the capitalists in the republican camp and their left allies.

Stalin confirms "permanent revolution"

Two irreconcilable programs thus confronted each other on the territory of republican Spain. On the one hand, the program of saving at any cost private property from the working class, and saving in so far as possible democracy from Franco; on the other hand, the program of abolishing private property through the conquest of power by the working class.

The first program expressed the interests of capitalism through the medium of the labor aristocracy, the top petty-bourgeois circles, and especially the Soviet bureaucracy. The second program translated into the language of Marxism the tendencies of the revolutionary mass movement, not fully conscious but powerful. Unfortunately for the revolution, between the handful of revolutionary Marxists and the revolutionary workers stood the counterrevolutionary wall of the Popular Front.

The republican government had promised the capitalists to defend property by "democratic" measures but revealed, especially in July 1936, its complete bankruptcy.

The Spanish revolution once again demonstrates that it is impossible to defend capitalist democracy against the revolutionary masses otherwise than through the methods of fascist reaction. And conversely, it is impossible to conduct a genuine struggle against fascism otherwise than through the methods of the socialist revolution.

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SPANISH REVOLUTION vanguard from the class, the POUM rendered the vanguard impotent and left the class without leadership."

The POUM could have played a revolutionary role for the masses—but it didn't. Its errors stemmed not from lack of courage or heroism, but from errors in political orientation.

Origins of the POUM The POUM was founded in 1935 by a fusion of the Spanish section of the International Left Opposition (supporters of Trotsky) with the Workers and Peasants Bloc, a group that had been the Catalan section of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) and was expelled for its opposition to Stalin in 1929.

Trotsky insistently advised against this fusion because it was consummated on an unclear political program. The Spanish Trotskyists had called for a socialist revolution as the main task of the workers, while the Bloc up to 1935 agreed with the Spanish Stalinists that only a "democratic" revolution was necessary and governmental alliances with "left" capitalists could be tactically correct.