The Tactics of the Comintern from 1926 to 1940 (Pt. 6)

The Spanish War, Prologue to the Second World Imperialist War (1936–40)

The phase of the progressive degeneration of the Soviet State and of the communist parties was inevitably to end with a front-line participation in the imperialist massacre, first localized in Spain (1936-39), and later extended to the whole world (1939-45). This degenerative process began, as we have seen, in 1926 with the establishment of the Anglo-Russian Committee, and it was Bukharin who clearly expressed the substantial and radical change that had taken place in the programmatic terms of the policy of the Russian State and the International.

Between the United Front and the Anglo-Russian Committee the break in continuity is unequivocal, brutal. The first is framed in the classical terms of the capitalism-proletariat antagonism (the proletariat acting through the class party and the revolutionary State). The divergence between the French, Austrian, and German oppositions, and specially between the Italian left and the leadership of the International remains within the frameworks of the problem of the tactics to be followed to foster the development of class action and the Party. The second one, the Anglo-Russian Committee, is framed in Bukharin’s formula, who declares that its justification lies in the defense of the diplomatic interests of the Russian State. Diplomatic, since it is not a matter of a military battle limited to specific events, but of a whole political process. The programmatic approach is no longer within the framework of “capitalism-proletariat”, but within the framework of “capitalist State-Soviet State”. This new opposition is obviously not, nor could it be, a simple modification of formulations which nevertheless express a substance similar to the previous one. The very criteria of the definition of the capitalist State and the proletarian State are no longer of a Marxist character, but of a positivist and rationalist character, imposed by the evolution of the situation.

Previously, the notions of class and capitalist State were unitary, dialectical and descended from the analysis of the relations of production. Starting in 1926, the Comintern proceeded to a disassociate itself from the notion of class and the problem no longer consisted in an action aimed at the destruction of the State that embodies capitalist domination, but in an action aimed at supporting or undermining a specific capitalist force (deemed as capitalism par excellence). And which capitalist force? The one that comes into conflict with the “diplomatic” interests of the Soviet State at that particular moment in the evolution of international events.

At the time of the Anglo-Russian Committee the contours of this policy radically opposed to the previous one weren’t well defined yet, but the problem was already clear: we have a divergence between the defense of the interests of the English proletariat, engaged in a gigantic class battle, and the interests of the Russian State which is counting on England to strengthen its weak positions in the antagonistic evolution of States on the international field. If the endorsement given to the trade unionists, who were presented to the English proletarians as the leaders of their strike and the defenders of their interests, results in the opposite result to the one intended, since the English government moves on to the struggle against the Russian government, this does not alter in any way the fundamental alteration which has taken place in the policy of the Comintern and which is specified in the period of “social-fascism” when it moves on to the struggle against social-democracy specifically, separated from the rest of the capitalist apparatus. It no longer moves from the class objectives of the German proletariat to deduce from them a tactic of simultaneous struggle against social democracy and fascism, and since the former is elevated to the rank of enemy number one, it slips into a position of merely competing with Hitler’s maneuver for the legalitarian dismantling of the positions held in the German capitalist State by democrats and social-democrats. In this case the “diplomatic” benefits were not lacking for the Russian State, and the cruel defeat of the German proletariat was accompanied by a marked improvement in economic relations between Russia and Germany.

After social-fascism comes the Popular Front and the Spanish Civil War first, and finally the World War. The process of reversal undergone by the communist parties and the Soviet State goes even further than the limits reached by the tactics of social-fascism, since now it’s a matter of welding the workers to the apparatus of the capitalist State, peacefully in France, by force of arms for the first time in Spain, then in all countries.

The new policy is not presented in the coherent aspect of a struggle against the capitalist political force, the expression of the bourgeois class as a whole, but along the contradictory line which raises, in turn, social democracy or fascism to the rank of enemy number one, according to the needs of the evolution of the Soviet State in the international situation of the moment.

First modification, and then falsification and inversion later on, are not limited to the characterization of the capitalist class, but they also affect the characterization of the proletarian State in the new binomial of capitalist State-proletarian State, which replaces that of capitalism-proletariat. The proletarian State is no longer the one that identifies its fate with that of the world proletariat, but the one in which the defense of the workers of all countries is personified. Until 1939 the proletarians of every country saw their interests united with the diplomatic successes of the Russian State; from 1939 to 1945 the proletarians gave their lives for the military successes of this State. The situation for the Russian proletariat is just as tragic: first the intensive exploitation in the name of socialism, then their massacre under the same banner. Ultimately, therefore, the assessment of the events we have been dealing with must rise to a much higher plane than that limited to the tactics of the communist parties, and must concern itself not with the formal and organizational aspect of the relations between the proletarian State and the class party, but with the concrete type of these relations that history has presented, for the first time, with the victory of October 1917 in Russia. The proletarian State and the class party are converging instruments of the struggle of the revolutionary proletariat, and the hypothesis of their separation must be rejected as reactionary. It is only necessary to draw from the formidable Russian experience the lessons to establish their organic convergence in view of the future revolution. This is the central problem which we think our study should devote itself to, starting from the policy followed by the Russian State already in the heroic period when Lenin was at its helm, because our enlightened admiration for the great revolutionary does not prevent us from categorically affirming that the source of the degeneration and reversal of the Russian revolution is to be found in the insufficient solution of the problem of organic relations between the revolutionary State and the class party, in other words, the problem of the policy of the proletarian State on a national and international scale, an insufficiency in turn ineluctably linked to the fact that this question arose for the first time in October 1917.
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In order to understand the Spanish events it is necessary to refer first of all to the fundamental element of the Marxist understanding of things, to the essential point of what the French call the “démarche” of thought. To separate the essential from the accessory.

Is it because in the republican and anti-fascist camp there is talk of socialism, because hundreds of thousands of proletarians take up arms in the name of socialism, that we can affirm the existence of the real conditions for this struggle? In our premise we have indicated that the struggle between the fundamental classes, between capitalism and the proletariat, has been taking place, since October 1917, on a higher level than previously before, and it imposes on the proletariat the need to impose its revolutionary State: it must centralize on the proletarian front the social movements which take place even outside its geographical borders; but in the phase of its degeneration it can proceed to a similar centralization only through a radical modification which brings it back to its original position. Otherwise it becomes the main axis of the politics of counter-revolution, as happened first in anti-fascist Spain, then in the democratic countries when the partisan movement arose in the course of the second imperialist war.

The essential role in the anti-fascist sector of Spain was played by the Russian State, rather than the Spanish Communist Party, which was so small it barely existed.

Our analysis of the events will show that only because of the central fact imposed by the events – the war – was it possible to proceed to class-based and to determine the position of the revolutionary proletariat accordingly, while achieving such class-based objectives was impossible through merely accessory means, such as the elimination of the boss from the factories, the absence of the traditionally bourgeois parties from the government, and even, in the days of the most heated social tumult, of the elimination of the government itself.

If we succinctly show a film of the Spanish events, it’s not because we intend to put forth the thesis that a different tactic of the Communist Party or of any other political formation could have determined a different outcome of the situation, but we do it only to demonstrate, in the first place, that all the “workers’ initiatives” were ultimately just the only form through which the capitalist class could exist – in those specific circumstances – (and it existed politically and historically even if physically absent in the factories or cleverly concealed in the anti-fascist government, because it achieved its fundamental objective of preventing the affirmation of the proletarian class on the question of war and the State), and secondly to highlight the elements of an evolution that – albeit in less pronounced forms – spread to other countries after the world war and expressed itself in the liquidation of the bosses from nationalized industries, either temporarily or definitively.

The fact that the Italian left is the only current that survived after the cruel slaughter that, after the dress rehearsal in Spain in 1936-39, extended to the whole world in 1939-45, wasn’t due to coincidence. Socialist and communist parties could only exercise a fiercely counter-revolutionary role as situations reached the end point of their evolution. But Spain also represented the grave of trotskism and the colorful schools of anarchism and syndicalism.

Trotski, the giant of “maneuverism”, had even given a theoretical justification of the possibility for the proletariat to wedge itself into the democracy-fascism antagonism, stating that the historical inability of democracy to defend itself from fascism and the historical need to oppose it could create the condition for an intervention of the proletariat, the only class capable of bringing the anti-fascist struggle to its revolutionary conclusion. It was therefore inevitable that Trotski would take a place in the forefront in defending and increasing the “revolutionary achievements” obtained in the factories and fields or in the organization of the fighting army.

The anarchists, for their part, if in the early days they could avoid compromising their “anti-State purity”, were to find in these events the chosen land for their experiments in “free communes”, “free cooperatives”, “free army”. All these “freedoms” ended in the other “freedom”, the fundamental one: that of waging the anti-fascist war.

The foundation of the Party in Italy was accompanied by a clear stance not only on the fundamental problems of the time, but also on what arose as a reflection of the development of the fascist offensive: the democracy-fascism dilemma – said the Party – falls within the framework of the bourgeois class and the opposition of the proletariat can only fight for its own class-based objectives. The struggle for these objectives, even during the legalitarian or extra-legalitarian attack of fascism, imposes the simultaneity of the struggle against democracy and against fascism. The firm position of our current was confirmed by the whole development of the Spanish events, which, in a long and exhausting war of about three years, saw the opposition of two armies within their respective State apparatuses, both capitalist: Franco’s army relying on the classical structure of the bourgeois State, and the Madrilenian and Catalan army, whose bold peripheral initiatives in the economic and social field could only be part of a counter-revolutionary evolution, because at no time was the problem of the creation of a revolutionary dictatorship posed. There were many occasions presented by the Spanish events to refute the positions defended by Trotski: the same military battles won by the anti-fascist government did not show a situation favorable to the autonomous assertion of the proletariat, but a condition to strengthen its link with the anti-fascist capitalist State, since only through the efficiency of the latter could success against Franco be guaranteed; an irrefutable argument, since participation in the war was admitted in the first place.

The confirmation of the Marxist position against all anarchist and syndicalist schools could not be brighter. In fact, especially in the first period of the events following the establishment of the military fronts, from August 1936 to May 1937, the conditions were the most favorable to the realization of the anarchist postulates. Faced with the disintegration of the State apparatus, specially in Catalonia, the flight and elimination of the masters, all spontaneous initiatives had free rein. And the anarchists were in the vast majority at the head of the army, trade unions, agricultural and industrial cooperatives, the same embryonic State network of Barcelona. The failure can not thus be attributed to a lack of objective conditions, while the pretext always invoked to justify the failure, namely the support given to Franco by Mussolini and Hitler, can not be invoked by anarchists, since they asked, in response to the fascist intervention in Spain, not a struggle of the proletariat of other countries against their respective democratic governments, but rather that those proletarians pressure their capitalist governments so that they’d intervene militarily in favor of republican Spain or at least that they send weapons for the success of the anti-fascist war.

As we have said, class-based objectives clearly delineated from those of the bourgeoisie could only be carried out in function of the central problem: that of the war. This is what our current did, and when, in August 1936, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification) – a party of the extreme left in Catalonia – our delegate, who was present as an observer, expressed his opinion that it was necessary to propagate not the idea that the workers and soldiers in the Franco regime must be massacred, but the opposite idea of fraternization, the leaders of this “Marxist” organization categorically affirmed that such propaganda deserved the death penalty.

How could the anti-fascist war in Spain be qualified as imperialist, when it was not only impossible, but inconceivable, to determine the imperialist interests in antagonism, since it involved two armies from the same country? It’s certain that the Spanish events posed, as far as the characterization of the war that developed there was concerned, a problem that Marxists had never seen before. But if fitting historical precedents could not be found, the Marxist method of analysis nevertheless made it possible to affirm that, although it was true that conflicting specific and imperialist interests could not be detected in the Franco-Popular Front duel, the imperialist character of both Franco’s war and that of the Popular Front was indisputably revealed by the fact that neither of them was based on the dictatorial and revolutionary organization of the proletarian State. The same thing was true for Catalonia in the autumn of 1936: the decay of the previous Catalan State, not being overcome by the institution of the proletarian State, could only know a (moreover transitory) phase during which the persistence of the bourgeois class in power asserted itself not physically and directly, but thanks to the inexistence of a proletarian struggle directed to the foundation of the proletarian State.

In the two cases, of the characterization of the war and of the Catalan State, the imperialist nature of the former, the capitalist nature of the latter, does not result from the external elements (the stakes of the war, the apparatus of coercion of the State), but from the substantial elements that are condensed in the lack of an affirmation of the proletarian class, which in Spain is not able – not even through its sparse minority – to pose the problem of power. It has already been said that the proletariat derives from the negation of the negation of capitalism, from a negation that implicitly contains the affirmation of the opposite.

The Popular Front remains in the state of simple negation of Franco and it was necessary to set up the negation of the Popular Front itself in order for the proletarian class to assert itself. This process of negation is not evidently imposed on the formal and formalist, rationalist level, but results dialectically from the theoretical and political clarification of the proletarian class. Only the establishment of the objectives of this class sets the course of the revolutionary struggle against Franco’s State, against the State of Barcelona and Madrid, and against world capitalism. It is also on this level that the general strike that broke out in response to Franco’s attack is situated.

Let us now turn to a brief exposition of the most important facts.
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Unlike other countries Spain did not have a bourgeois revolution. The feudal organization of Spanish society annexed important territories across the sea, thus providing the opportunity for the clergy and the nobility to accumulate enormous wealth. The capitalist mode of production that was established in the mining and industrial centers of the country did not lead to the fall of the dominant feudal castes, but – contrary to Russia, where the czarist State and the bourgeoisie were not confused and remained distinct, even if rarely in opposition – in Spain these castes and the State adapted to the needs of the industrialized economy, located only in certain centers. When, at the end of the last century, the time came for the old Spanish colonies to begin industrializing, the ties were broken and the empire fell apart.

On the other hand, unlike England, Spain did not proceed to an intense industrialization of the country in connection with the possibilities offered by the possession of the colonies so that, when in Europe we have the formation of the powerful capitalist nation-States, the Spanish bourgeoisie is deprived of any possibility of affirmation in the field of international competition.

The nobility and clergy not only remained the holders of landed estates but also became owners of mining companies, banks and industrial and commercial enterprises, while the areas of highest industrial development, Catalonia and Asturias, came largely under the control of foreign capital, mainly English.

These historical precedents structured Spanish bourgeois society in a peculiar way in which the development of industrialization is arrested by the persistence of ties to the feudalism of old. The workers’ movement, in which both at the time of the First International and today is largely made up of anarchists, is so affected by this that until today the conditions for the establishment of a party based on Marxist concepts have not been met. The social upheavals that have occurred there find in these objective conditions the premise to draw a climate with a lot of struggle, but the impossibility of a radical modification of the archaic social structure of the bourgeoisie condemns the proletariat to remain on the sidelines with its own class goals. Marx noted as early as 1845 that a revolution that would take three days in another European country would take nine years in Spain. Trotski, for his part, explained the intervention of the army in the social field as resulting from the fact that it – like the clergy and the nobility – tended to conquer, without ever being able to achieve it, a position of social dominance alongside the other two existing castes. In a word, therefore, the non-existence of historical conditions for the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the nobility determines the historical non-existence of conditions for an autonomous and specific struggle of the proletarian class and excludes the hypothesis that Spain can play the role of epicenter of the international revolutionary upheavals.

In 1923, in relation to the disasters of the Moroccan campaign, Primo de Rivera took power and the regime he established was wrongly qualified as fascist. No revolutionary threat justified the establishment of a fascist-type dictatorship and, in fact, the corporatist framework entailed the participation of socialists in the consultative bodies, in the Equal Commissions established for the regulation of labor conflicts, and Largo Caballero, secretary of the General Union of Workers under socialist control, was even appointed as State Councilor. Under De Rivera the Spanish bourgeoisie tries in vain reorganize the State on a modern, centralized basis along the lines of other bourgeois States. This attempt failed and, in the midst of the great world economic crisis that broke out in 1929, capitalism found itself having to face a difficult and complex social situation. The De Rivera type of State is no longer appropriate because the situation does not allow the arbitration of labor conflicts, as powerful mass movements are inevitable. The conversion that was taking place at that time, and which responded to the interests of capitalist domination, was judged by all the political formations, with the exception of ours, as the advent of a new regime imposed by the revolutionary maturation of the masses.

In January 1930 De Rivera was liquidated. Another general, Bérenguer, takes his place to ensure the transition to the new government. In San Sebastian, in August 1930, the pact between the successors was concluded and, after the municipal elections that gave a majority to the Republicans in 46 out of 50 capitals, when the first threat of a workers’ movement (the railroaders’ strike) appeared, in February 1931, the monarchist Guerra took the initiative to organize the departure of King Alfonso XII.

A period of intense social conflicts opened up, as we said. These conflicts are inevitable due to the extreme weakness of the Spanish bourgeoisie at the outbreak of the world economic crisis. But the bourgeoisie, unable to avoid these conflicts, shows great sagacity in preventing their revolutionary developments. The proclamation of the republic is not enough to avoid the immediate outbreak of the telephone strike in Andalusia, Barcelona, and Valencia. The movement of the peasants of Seville takes violent forms: the left-wing government massacres thirty peasants and the reactionary Maura, Minister of the Interior, congratulates the socialists for their attitude in defense of order and the republic. Alongside the UGT (the union organization controlled by the socialists), the CNT (National Confederation of Workers controlled in a monopolistic form by the anarchists) also strictly remains within the limits of wage demands and states that these movements, unable to find an outlet, couldn’t have found a way to direct the fight against the republican State.

In June 1931 the elections give an overwhelming majority to the left-wing parties and Zamora gives way to Azaña, who excludes the right from the government. Parallel to a worsening of the social tension, on the one hand the government shifts more and more to the left, and on the other hand the repression of the movements intensifies. On October 20, 1931, the Azaña-Caballero Ministry declares that the young republic is in danger and passes the Defense Law which, in its chapter on compulsory arbitration, outlaws unions that fail to give two days’ notice before calling a strike. The UGT, which is in government, takes an open stance against “anti-republican” strikes, the CNT maintains its neutrality in the face of the violent and terrorist action of the leftist government, and the two days mentioned in the law are not enough for the union leaders to prevent the outbreak of revolts. The CNT, however, managed to keep all strikes under its control and limited itself to not taking the reigns of those that were outside the framework of republican legality.

At the beginning of 1932, after the government with socialist participation had obtained the unanimous approval of the Cortes for the way in which it fought the strikes, in August 1932 the right-wing forces began to reorganize. But the moment wasn’t yet right for it, the atmosphere was still too socially explosive and Sanjurjo’s coup to seize power failed.

In September 1932, agrarian reform is finally voted in. The concessions made to the peasants who become “owners” are such that they will have to wait 17 centuries before being released from the commitments contained in the act of purchase. In January 1933 the repressive action of the government reaches its peak: striking workers are massacred in Malaga, Bilbao, Zaragoza. After these adventures, and when a certain fatigue was manifested among the masses, the conditions for a new change of government personnel arose: on September 8, 1933 Azaña resigned, the new elections of November 19, 1933 gave a majority to the right-wing parties, and the Lerroux-Gil Roblès government was formed under the influence of the landowners. When, in October 1934, the Asturian insurrection broke out, the right-wing government did nothing but follow in the footsteps of its left-wing predecessors and the movement was bloodily repressed. The socialists had declined any responsibility for this “wild” form of struggle and the anarchists themselves had ordered the resumption of work.

During the pause of social tension (tragically interrupted by the insurrection of Asturias) that goes from September 1934 to February 1936 are the right-wing governments at the helm of the bourgeois State and repression is exercised mainly on a legalitarian level: at the time of the elections of February 16, 1936, there’s 30,000 political prisoners.

In connection with the international atmosphere which soon we’ll see the great movements in France and Belgium, a period of even greater social tension than that of 1931-33 opens up in Spain, and as a result the Spanish bourgeoisie calls its leftist servants to power. In this more heated social climate, the anarchists themselves are aligned with the needs of the new situation: the fierce abstentionists of yesterday, in a rally in Zaragoza, after solemnly reaffirmed the apolitical nature of the CNT, leave their members free to vote for whoever while the Regional Committee of Barcelona, two days before the elections, makes open propaganda in favor of the Popular Front under the pretext that it advocates amnesty.

The elections of February 16, 1936 mark an overwhelming success for the Popular Front that obtains the absolute majority in the Cortes. It is composed of the republican left of Azaña, of the dissident radicals of Martinez Barrios, of the Socialist Party, of the Communist Party, of the Syndicalist Party of Pestaña and of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification (the POUM, a result of the unification of the Right Oppositionist Workers and Peasants’ Bloc of Barcelona directed by Maurin, and of the trotskist tendency directed at that time by Andrea Nin). The electoral program contains: general amnesty, repeal of regressive laws, decrease of taxes, policy of agrarian credits.

After the elections, the Azaña government is formed with only representatives of the left. But in the indicated situation of aggravation of the social tension, the bourgeoisie could not limit itself to the concentration in a single government; its other forces remained in waiting and already in April 1936, on the occasion of the commemoration of the foundation of the Republic, the right-wing parties organized a counter-manifestation that was qualified as a “revolt”. At the session of the Cortes, Azaña declares:

«The government took a series of measures and removed or transferred the fascists who were in the administration. The right-wingers are panicking, but they will not dare to raise their heads again».

We are less than three months from the “insurrection of the sectarian Franco”: the Communist Party, enthusiastic about Azaña’s declarations, votes for confidence in the Government.

In the first days of July 1936, Lieutenant Castillo, a member of the Popular Front, is assassinated and, in retaliation, the monarchist leader Sotelo is also killed. The Popular Front and all the parties that comprise it express sacred indignation at the accusation launched by the right wing of being responsible for the assassination, and Council President Quiroga has to resign because a phrase in his speech could have been interpreted as encouraging the authors of the assassination.

From Morocco Franco launched his offensive, whose initial targets were Seville and Burgos: two agrarian centers, the first of which, having experienced the most violent but inconclusive peasant uprisings, offered the best conditions for the success of the coup.

It was thus in the very bosom of the State apparatus under the complete control of the Popular Front that Franco’s enterprise could be meticulously organized, and its preparations could not escape the attention of the leftist and extreme leftist ministers. What is more, the first reaction of these parties is obviously conciliatory. The radical Barrios, who had already presided in 1933 over the conversion of the government from the left to the right, tried to repeat the operation in the opposite direction and if it did not succeed it was not because the compromise was excluded in principle, but because the social atmosphere did not allow it.

In response to Franco’s attack a general strike is unleashed on July 16 which is completely successful, especially in Barcelona, Madrid, Valencia, in Asturias, while Franco’s two points of support, Seville and Burgos, are firmly held by the putschists.

One of our critics wasn’t wrong to ask us: but finally, for you all the events before and after the general strike count for nothing, the general strike itself being nothing more than a temporary outbreak of measles? In fact, as far as the proletarian movement is concerned, the general strike was nothing more than a lightning explosion of the class consciousness of the Spanish proletariat: only in those few days we witnessed not an armed struggle between two bourgeois armies but a fraternization of the strikers with the proletarians relegated to the army, who, making common cause with the insurrectionary proletarians, disarmed, immobilized or eliminated the ruling body of the army itself..

Immediately the democratic and anti-fascist State tries to remain in control of the situation: in Madrid the hierarchy is established through the “Enlistment Offices” controlled by the State, in Barcelona in a less immediate way: Companys (leader of the Catalan left) declares, in agreement with the leaders of the CNT, that «the State machine must not be touched because it can be of some use to the working class» and the two bodies destined to ensure the first State control were immediately created; in the military field the “Central Committee of the Militias”, in the economic field the “Central Council of the Economy”. The Central Committee of the Militias comprised 3 delegates from the CNT, 2 delegates from the FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation), 1 delegate from the Republican Left, 2 Socialists, 1 delegate from the League of “Rabasseres” (small tenants under the control of the Catalan Left), 1 delegate from the Coalition of Republican Parties, 1 delegate from the POUM and 4 representatives of the Generalitat of Barcelona (the defense counselor, the general commissioner of public order and two delegates from the Generalitat without a fixed State post). All the above-mentioned political formations ensured the continuity of the capitalist State in Catalonia from July 1936 to May 1937, and it is superfluous to add that the overwhelming majority held by the workers’ organizations was presented as a guarantee of the subjection of the bourgeois class to the demands of the proletarian movement.

Meanwhile, from the beginning of the events, Zaragoza falls into the hands of Franco and the proximity of this military center allows Barcelona to present the necessity of military victory against “fascism” as the supreme “necessity of the moment”, to which everything must therefore be subordinated.

The Spanish Communist Party, which takes a front line position in the anti-fascist war, cannot tolerate misunderstandings, and it is in Moscow that its function as a counter-revolutionary spearhead is brutally revealed. Here is what the following infamous communiqué says: «The Central Executive Committee of the Soviet Union rejected the appeal for pardon of those sentenced to capital punishment on August 24 by the Military College of the USSR, in the trial of the unified Trockist-Zinovievist center. The verdict has been carried out». L’Humanité, in its issue of 28-8-36, comments: «When the accused approved Vyshinsky’s indictment and asked to be shot, they only expressed their conviction that they could no longer expect any mercy. They reasoned coldly: we wanted to assassinate you, you are killing us: it is right. These sixteen murderers remained until the very end fierce enemies of the Communist Party, of the State and of the Soviet people, and their death purged the atmosphere of the socialist country that they plagued with their presence». For his part, Prosecutor Vyshinsky concluded his indictment thus: «I demand that every last one of these mad dogs be shot».

It is these same murderers of the Russian proletariat who put themselves in the vanguard of the anti-fascist war and unleashed the offensive to respond to the intervention of Hitler and Mussolini in favor of Franco with a similar intervention from the other countries in favor of the “legitimate republican” government.

In the midst of the Spanish events, when the general strike had not yet ceased, and on the other hand the strike in France was developing, the head of the government of the French Popular Front, Leon Blum, considering that the opening of the Pyrenean border could establish a dangerous contact between the strikers of the two countries, decided to close it. In August 1936, it is Blum himself who takes the initiative of the constitution of the “Committee of non-intervention in Spain”, with its headquarters in London and representatives of the governments of all countries, fascist and democratic, Russia included.

The role of this “Non-Intervention Committee” was to avoid international complications, while each “High Contracting Party” industrialized the corpses of the proletarians who had fallen in Spain to make them serve the success of the world counterrevolution: in Russia to massacre the real leaders of the October Revolution, in the fascist countries to prepare the climate for world war, in France to make the workers’ movement move away from their class objectives. In fact, it is well known that the main slogan launched by the Communist Parties and the Socialist Left was: “airplanes for Spain!”

Military events in Spain have had their ups and downs. Both the defeats and the military victories in the anti-fascist war are used in the progressive elimination of all extra-legal initiatives and in the reconstruction of the classic hierarchy of the anti-fascist State. The defeats because they were presented as resulting from the lack of a strict military discipline around the ruling center, the victories because they were presented as confirmation of the usefulness of a firm centralization around the military staff.

As for the anarchists, they abandoned, shred by shred, their program. At first, immediately after the conclusion of the general strike of July 1936, they responded to the first attempts to incorporate the workers in an organic form in the Militias controlled by the Generalidad with the words “militia yes, soldiers no”, but they soon abandoned this position, faced with the necessities of the military struggle, to dislodge the fascists from Zaragoza. They then renounced their opposition to the core program of the far left government presided over by Caballero: the establishment of the Single Command extended to the entire territory of the anti-fascist sector with the capitals of Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. The needs of the military struggle fully justified on a strategic level the need for centralization in a single command, and the anarchists came to participate, through their representatives who became ministers, in the Caballero government, the Caballero who is presented as the Spanish Lenin (an expression that has historically tolerated every such insult): the same Caballero remained in 1936-37 perfectly consistent with the position that had earned him the appointment as Councilor of State under the regime of De Rivera!

As we have said, in the period from the liquidation of the general strike of July 1936 until May 1937, while the Madrid State could afford to maintain even the previous police apparatus of the “Civil Guards”, in Catalonia the classical State apparatus of the bourgeoisie went through a “vacation” during which control over the masses was established indirectly through the “Central Committee of Militias” and the “Council of Economy”. This transitional phase is followed by the elimination of any element, even peripheral, that disturbs the smooth functioning of the anti-fascist capitalist State. In October 1936, Caballero launched a decree for the militarization of the militia, and the CNT, in its resolution of October 14, decreed that it would not be possible to demand respect for working conditions, for working hours, for wages nor for overtime, in all industries directly or indirectly connected with the anti-fascist war, which practically means in all industrial enterprises.

Thus we are on the way to May of 1937. On the 4th of this month, under pressure from the Stalinist Comorera, head of the PSUC (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia), the Generalitat of Barcelona decided to take back direct control of the Telephone Company: this was the signal of a general action aimed at eliminating all management not directly framed by the antifascist State. A general strike broke out spontaneously: all the political formations proclaimed their innocence in this “crime”, and it was with bullets and machine guns that the movement was bloodily repressed. It is suggestive that Franco, even though important groups of proletarians had abandoned the front and gone down to Barcelona, did not take advantage of the occasion to unleash a military offensive: he left his anti-fascist comrades to it because their success depended on his own. The operation succeeds in full: all peripheral initiatives are eliminated after the violent repression of the strike movement of May 1937. The Negrin Government of the resistance “until the end” was then formed, in which the last hopes of all sectors of the anti-fascist movement were placed. It was this Government which, after abandoning Madrid, and after the intermediate step of Valencia, moved first to Barcelona and then to Paris, leaving to the socialist Besteiro the task of negotiating with Franco for the conclusion of the war during the spring of 1939.

It should be noted that, with its usual skill and cynicism, the Spanish bourgeoisie proceeded, after the strike of May 1937, to liquidate some of the elements that had been at its service at the critical moment of July 1936. This is the case of Andrea Nin, Minister of Justice in the first antifascist government in Barcelona. He was transferred to Madrid, and was then taken by “irregular” elements (the Stalinist International Brigades) to be assassinated in circumstances that have never been clarified. This is also the case of the anarchist Berneri, arrested by the Barcelona police, who, following the technique of fascist punitive expeditions, had previously made a home visit to ensure that the victim was unarmed. Instead of being taken to prison, Berneri is assassinated; the anarchists protest but do not even dream of breaking the solidarity that binds them to the antifascist government.

We have spoken of the International Non-Intervention Committee. It had fully succeeded in avoiding both the possible international complications arising from the Spanish war and the possibility of an autonomous intervention of the international and Spanish proletariat in the course of these events. We would like to point out that Russia, which left to the communist parties the task of protesting against the policy of the very committee in which it participated, did not take an initiative of open armed intervention in Spain until after the fall of Irún on September 1, 1936, and its consequences (the establishment of the centralized government headed by the “sinister” Caballero) had given it the necessary guarantees. The decree on the militarization of the militia and the “union handovers” of the CNT to complete, totalitarian discipline of the anti-fascist war were issued on October 14, 1936, and it was on the same date that the Soviet ship “Zanianine” landed in Barcelona. Needless to say that on the one hand all the measures that ensured the subsequent strike of May 1937 would be crushed were already in place, and on the other hand, the open intervention of Russia in the Spanish war was even more self-interested than that of Hitler and Mussolini, since all the weapons were being bought with gold by the anti-fascist government of Caballero first, then Negrin.

The Spanish tragedy ended in the spring of 1939 with a total victory for Franco. A few months later, on September 3, the second world imperialist war broke out. The events that preceded it were: the Munich Compromise of September 1938; the Russian-German pact of August 1939.

After the remilitarization of the western bank of the Rhine, which we discussed in chapter 5, and the absorption of Austria in the winter of 1938, it was the turn of the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Hitler defends and takes the reigns of the irredentist movement in the Sudetenland, which occupies the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia. England sends one of its delegates, Runciman, for the examination of the question and the report that this drafts is favorable to the claims of the Sudetenland. France, bound by a pact of mutual assistance with Czechoslovakia, takes at first a hostile position to the Sudeten movement, but then resigns itself to participate in the Conferences of Godesberg and Monaco, where the four Greats of the time (Germany, Italy, France, England) sanction a compromise that gives satisfaction to Hitler.

The controversy surrounding “Munich” has not yet died down. Russia, and with it the Communist Parties, claim that Munich represented the conclusion of the policy of the imperialist States of isolating the “country of socialism”. The French and British political personalities participating in the Munich Agreement, Daladier and Chamberlain, argued instead that this compromise allowed them to gain a year and thus prepare for war against Hitler. The latter, for his part, proclaimed that the agreement was part of his policy of “peaceful” and non-war reparation of the injustices enshrined in the Treaty of Versailles.

If one takes into account the what actually followed, it becomes indisputable that the thesis of using a year for the better preparation of a Franco-English war does not hold up, since in 1940, when, after the Polish campaign, Hitler launched the Blitzkrieg against the West, no obstacle stood in the way of his resounding victory. Similarly, the thesis of Russia and the Communist Parties is confirmed as false, since the Munich Compromise did not determine the isolation of Russia. Russia maintained diplomatic relations in view of a military alliance with France and England until August 1939; in this same August it was Russia that broke off these negotiations on its own initiative and, while the allied delegates were still in Moscow, established the economic and military agreement with Germany. In June 1941 the military alliance with France, England and America was formed and remained in force until the end of military operations in July 1945.

The Munich Compromise is explained by the different considerations from those supported by the imperialists who then had to move to the unleashing of the war. On the European level, it is certain that it responds to the needs of the inevitable German predominance in the framework of the intersection of the two industrial and agrarian basins (the Germanic one and the Balkan one) corresponding in turn to the connection of the two great waterways of the Rhine and the Danube. On the level of an eventual construction of the European economy, the Munich compromise represents a rational solution that capitalism tends to give to the natural needs of the structure of this continent. With regard to the antagonistic development of the bourgeois States of Europe and its repercussions on the international scene, the compromise had to come up against insurmountable obstacles, because neither Russia could adapt to being definitively eliminated from Europe, nor could the United States tolerate the establishment of a German hegemony, which could thus threaten its positions not only in Europe but also on other continents.

Having achieved a solution to the Danube problem in Munich, Germany moved towards a similar solution to the Polish problem. Meanwhile, France and England sent their military missions to Russia with a view to concluding a military alliance. As we have said, these missions are still in Moscow when the bomb of the Russian-German treaty drops.

Up until this moment, on August 23, 1939, Russia advocated in the diplomatic field punitive measures against “the aggressor” and it was Litvinov who defined the aggressor as those who, in violation of contractual commitments, invaded another country. The aggressor – Litvinov specifies – must benefit from the automatic economic and military support of the League of Nations. And it is evident that Hitler, with his attack against Poland, was in the specific conditions contemplated by Soviet diplomacy.

But, suddenly, the doctrine of being against the aggressor is completely abandoned, Russia pledges to give no support to Poland, which will be invaded a few days later, and receives in return not only a part of Poland, which it will hasten to occupy at the end of September, but also the Baltic countries and Bessarabia.

The Russian-German agreement has the same fate as the Munich Compromise. About two years later, on June 21, 1941, it’s torn apart by further events: Hitler invades Russia. Once again, to explain this event, the interpretations of the contenders are not enough. Not that of the Russians that they had thus gained two years to prepare for war, since the Blitzkrieg was just as violent and rapid in Russia as it had been in May-June 1940 in the campaign in the West, and on the other hand it would have been better to face Germany in 1939 when the Franco-English threat still existed and Poland had not yet been eliminated. Nor does the German argument hold water, since it was clear – and current events confirm this – that if a compromise was possible with France and England in order to prevent an overflow of German power towards the East, this compromise was absolutely impossible with Russia because of its age-old interests in Eastern Europe.

On another level, the Russian-German treaty had its full effects: in the Axis countries, in Germany and Italy, it strengthened the front of the fascist deception for the war against the international plutocracy; in the democratic countries, and especially in France, it determined the political fracture that was to facilitate first the German military victories, and then the establishment of the military occupation regime.

The French Communist Party, which until September 1938 had was in a bloc with the government for the defense of the fatherland in the name of the fight against Hitlerism and Fascism, and which had then passed to a violent opposition against the Munich Compromise presented as the “prize to the aggressor”, radically changed its tone, highlighted the imperialist objectives of France and England, but did not speak either of the equally imperialist objectives of Germany and Italy, or of the imperialist significance of the war that was developing in the meantime.

The leader of the French Communist Party, Maurice Thorez, defected and was able to reach Russia thanks to the support of the German authorities who facilitated his passage, and the French and Belgian Communist Parties asked the German occupation authorities for permission to publish their newspapers. Events precipitated, Hitler invaded Russia on June 21, 1941 and as a result there was a new radical change in the policy of the Communist Parties. They now move on to the organization of the Resistance and partisan movements.
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The Italian bourgeoisie gave Fascism to the proletariat because it could not conclude its revolutionary struggle after the First World War. This same bourgeoisie, in compensation for the frenzied participation of the workers in the second imperialist conflict, has given the Italian proletariat a regime which aggravates the conditions of exploitation imposed by Fascism itself.

The open betrayal of the communist parties, which participated in the anti-fascist war, can today rely of the support of one of the most powerful imperialist States in the world to hinder the rebirth of the proletarian movement, but this betrayal can not eliminate the antagonisms on which capitalist society is based. These antagonisms not only persist but tend to worsen, and the Italian Left can serenely look back on its past struggle against capitalism and opportunism: it was the first to raise its voice against the deviations of the International, it has followed all the storm of events without ever deflecting, and it takes up the flag of internationalism and class struggle to continue its fight, whatever the difficulties to be overcome and the path that must be taken to reach the final victory.