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Saturday, December 28, 2013
Free Chelsea Manning Now!
Update 12/29/13: Alexa O’brien discusses Chelsea’s trial at the 30C3 CCC conference in Hamburg
digg
Yesterday journalist Alexa O’brien made a presentation at the 30C3 CCC conference in Hamburg. Watch it now on Youtube.
Amnesty International’s petition calling for the immediate release of Chelsea Manning has reached 15,000 signatures. It will be delivered in early 2014. Sign it today!
Amnesty International’s petition calling for the immediate release of Chelsea Manning has reached 15,000 signatures. It will be delivered in early 2014. Sign it today!
President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning
CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________
Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
Because the public deserves the truth and whistle-blowers deserve protection.
We are military veterans, journalists, educators, homemakers, lawyers, students, and citizens.
We ask you to consider the facts and free US Army Pvt. Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning.
As an Intelligence Analyst stationed in Iraq, Pvt. Manning had access to some of America’s dirtiest secrets—crimes such as torture, illegal surveillance, and corruption—often committed in our name.
Manning acted on conscience alone, with selfless courage and conviction, and gave these secrets to us, the public.
“I believed that if the general public had access to the information contained within the[Iraq and Afghan War Logs] this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy,”
Manning explained to the military court. “I wanted the American public to know that not everyone in Iraq and Afghanistan were targets that needed to be neutralized, but rather people who were struggling to live in the pressure cooker environment of what we call asymmetric warfare.”
Journalists used these documents to uncover many startling truths. We learned:
• Donald Rumsfeld and General Petraeus helped support torture in Iraq.
• Deliberate civilian killings by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan went unpunished.
• Thousands of civilian casualties were never acknowledged publicly.
• Most Guantanamo detainees were innocent.
For service on behalf of an informed democracy, Manning was sentenced by military judge Colonel Denise Lind to a devastating 35 years in prison.
Government secrecy has grown exponentially during the past decade, but more secrecy does not make us safer when it fosters unaccountability.
Pvt. Manning was convicted of Espionage Act charges for providing WikiLeaks with this information, but the prosecutors noted that they would have done the same had the information been given to The New York Times. Prosecutors did not show that enemies used this information against the US, or that the releases resulted in any casualties.
Pvt. Manning has already been punished, even in violation of military law.
She has been:
• Held in confinement since May 29, 2010.
• Subjected to illegal punishment amounting to torture for nearly nine months at Quantico Marine Base, Virginia, in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), Article 13—facts confirmed by both the United Nation’s lead investigator on torture and military judge Col. Lind.
• Denied a speedy trial in violation of UCMJ, Article 10, having been imprisoned for over three years before trial.
• Denied anything resembling a fair trial when prosecutors were allowed to change the charge sheet to match evidence presented, and enter new evidence, after closing arguments.
Pvt. Manning believed you, Mr. President, when you came into office promising the most transparent administration in history, and that you would protect whistle-blowers. We urge you to start upholding those promises, beginning with this American prisoner of conscience.
We urge you to grant Pvt. Manning’s petition for a Presidential Pardon.
FIRST& LAST NAME _____________________________________________________________
STREET ADDRESS _____________________________________________________________
CITY, STATE & ZIP _____________________________________________________________
EMAIL& PHONE _____________________________________________________________
Please return to: For more information: www.privatemanning.org
Private Manning Support Network, c/o Courage to Resist, 484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
Seven Ways To Support Freedom For Chelsea Manning- President Obama Pardon Chelsea Manning Now!
Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
The Struggle Continues …
Seven Ways To Support Heroic Wikileaks Whistle-Blower Chelsea Manning
*Call (202) 685-2900- Major General Jeffery S. Buchanan is the Convening Authority for Private Manning’s court- martial, which means that he has the authority to decrease the sentence imposed no matter what the judge handed down. Ask General Buchanan to use his authority to reduce the draconian 35 year sentence handed down by Judge Lind.
Please help us reach all these important contacts: Adrienne Combs, Deputy Officer Public Affairs (202) 685-2900 adrienne.m.combs.civ@mail.mil
Col. Michelle Martin-Hing, Public Affairs Officer (202) 685-4899 michelle.l.martinhing.mil@mail.mil The Public Affairs Office fax #: 202-685-0706
Try e-mailing Maj. Gen. Buchanan at jeffrey.s.buchanan@us.army.mil
The Public Affairs Office is required to report up the chain of command the number of calls they receive on a particular issue, so please help us flood the office with support for our heroic whistleblower today!
*Sign the public petition to President Obama – Sign online or print and share PDF petition Please sign the petition on the reverse side of this letter, “President Obama, Pardon Pvt. Manning,” and make copies to share with friends and family!
You can also call (Comments”202-456-1111), write The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20500, e-mail-(http://www.whitehouse.gov’contact/submitquestions-and comments) to demand that President Obama use his constitutional power under Article II, Section II to pardon Private Manning now.
*Start a stand -out, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, in your town square to publicize the pardon and clemency campaigns. Contact the Private Manning SupportNetwork for help with materials and organizing tips http://www.bradleymanning.org/
*Contribute to the Private Manning Defense Fund- now that the trial has finished funds are urgently needed for pardon campaign and for future military and civilian court appeals. The hard fact of the American legal system, military of civilian, is the more funds available the better the defense, especially in political prisoner cases like Private Manning’s. The government had unlimited financial and personnel resources to prosecute Private Manning at trial. And used them as it will on any future legal proceedings. So help out with whatever you can spare. For link go to http://www.bradleymanning.org/
*Write letters of solidarity to Private Manning while she is serving her sentence. She wishes to be addressed as Chelsea and have feminine pronouns used when referring to her. Private Manning’s mailing address: Bradley E. Manning, 89289, 1300 N. Warehouse Road, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304. You must use Bradley on the address envelope.
Private Manning cannot receive stamps or money in any form. Photos must be on copy paper. Along with “contraband,” “inflammatory material” is not allowed. Six page maximum.
*Call: (913) 758-3600-Write to:Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander U.S. Detention Barracks 1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027-Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).” (for more details-http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html#!/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027-Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).” (for more details-http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html#!/2013/11/respecting-chelseas-identity-is-this.html
Send The Following Message (Or Write Your Own) To The President In Support Of A Pardon For Private Manning
To: President Barack Obama
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge, Colonel Lind, on August 21, 2013 to Private Manning (Chelsea formerly known as Bradley) has outraged many citizens including me.
Under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution the President of the United States had the authority to grant pardons to those who fall under federal jurisdiction.
Some of the reasons for my request include:
Signature ___________________________________________________________
Print Name __________________________________________________________
Address_____________________________________________________________
City / Town/State/Zip Code_________________________________________
Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
To: President Barack Obama
White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, D.C. 20500
The draconian 35 years sentence handed down by a military judge, Colonel Lind, on August 21, 2013 to Private Manning (Chelsea formerly known as Bradley) has outraged many citizens including me.
Under Article II, Section II of the U.S. Constitution the President of the United States had the authority to grant pardons to those who fall under federal jurisdiction.
Some of the reasons for my request include:
*that Private Manning was held for nearly a year in abusive solitary confinement at the Marine base at Quantico, Virginia, which the UN rapporteur in his findings has called “cruel, inhuman, and degrading”
*that the media had been continually blocked from transcripts and documents related to the trial and that it has only been through the efforts of Private Manning’s supporters that any transcripts exist.
*that under the UCMJ a soldier has the right to a speedy trial and that it was unconscionable and unconstitutional to wait 3 years before starting the court martial.
*that absolutely no one was harmed by the release of documents that exposed war crimes, unnecessary secrecy and disturbing foreign policy.
*that Private Manning is a hero who did the right thing when she revealed truth about wars that had been based on lies.
I urge you to use your authority under the Constitution to right the wrongs done to Private Manning – Enough is enough!
Signature ___________________________________________________________
Print Name __________________________________________________________
Address_____________________________________________________________
City / Town/State/Zip Code_________________________________________
Note that this image is PVT Manning’s preferred photo.
From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Pierre Broue-The May Days In Barcelona 1937
Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.
Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.
Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.
The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff.
********
Every workers’ revolution in the twentieth century bears the characteristic mark that a situation of duality of power appears at its beginning. This is between the old organs of the state, whether rejuvenated or not, which have generally passed into the control of a government of ‘conciliators’ with the first phase, and the organs of the mass movement, organisations of struggle which have become the organs of a new power.
Our readers will know the analyses which Trotsky made on this matter in the
History of the Russian Revolution, about the duality of power
created by the first revolution in February 1917, between the old state, with
the Provisional Government at its head, and the new workers’ state in the
process of formation, that of the Soviets.
The appearance of the duality of power marks only the beginning of the struggle between them, the struggle which ends in the victory of either the revolution or the counter-revolution, through the victory of one power or the other. Study of the revolutions in the period since October 1917 reveals the decisive role of the general staffs on the side of the revolution, of their party, of the party which fights for the victory of the new power. That party has neither provoked nor engineered the revolution, any more than it can stop it, without joining the counter-revolution. The authority of the party may be widely recognised, even by a majority of the masses, but it enables it only to act as a brake on an offensive which may be premature or isolated – this was the case of the July Days of 1917 in Petrograd – or, on the contrary, to clear the way for the final assault, by helping the masses to overcome the obstacles on their road to power. This is the case of the insurrection of October 1917 in Russia.
What has been called the ‘May Days of 1937’ in Barcelona are an event of this kind, independently of the fact that the event took place within one of the two opposing camps in the course of a civil war, the Spanish Civil War. In fact, the duality of powers began in July 1936, with the victorious counter-stroke of the workers in a number of large cities, including Barcelona, against the military coup d’etat of General Franco.
In May 1937 it was the Popular Front government of the Generalidad of Catalonia – under the pressure of the Stalinists in the PSUC – which took the counter-offensive. It tried to seize a telephone exchange, which was in the hands of the militia of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT. The latter resisted, arms in hand, and the workers in Barcelona replied to the attempt by a general strike. Several days of street fighting followed in the Catalan capital.
The supporters and agents of Stalin speak of a ‘Fascist putsch’. Other elements in the Popular Front speak of a ‘tragic misunderstanding’. The Trotskyists agree on the general significance of what happened, but are divided in their appreciation of the incident itself. Trotsky believed that victory was possible and that, therefore, we have here an ‘October’ which failed, because there was no revolutionary leadership which wanted to fight to win. His comrade, the Italian Blasco (Pietro Tresso), regarded the event as ‘July Days’ ending badly for lack of a firm leadership, which could have prevented the retreat from turning into a rout.
In this month of May 1937, the atmosphere was tense. In the last days of April there had been violent incidents at Molins de Llobregat, where a PSUC leader was killed. Eight CNT militants were killed at Puigcerda in the course of an attack by armed police to recover control of the frontier for the government. On 1 May the government prohibited street demonstrations, which might provoke the outburst of workers’ anger which it feared, or might give to that anger the means to bring them together to hit back.
But the peace-making efforts of the two mediators were in vain. The sound of shots had alerted the people of Barcelona, who were in a state of extreme tension and were, in fact, expecting some move to be made, if not by the government, at any rate by the extremists of the PSUC. The news of the attack on the Telephonica spread like a trail of gunpowder. The workers went on strike in order to paralyse the advance of the counter-revolution. They erected barricades to prevent the government’s forces of repression from moving freely around. The branches of the CNT at its base, particularly its ‘defence committees’ were also there, and their members were armed.
George Orwell, in his book Homage to Catalonia, bears witness to having experienced the early hours of these ‘Days’ as acts of aggression against the working people of Barcelona, carried out by those whom he calls by their old name, the ‘Civil Guard’, former policemen who had been integrated into the new police forces which their chiefs were now throwing into attacks on the workers’ barricades in Barcelona. The Barcelona workers were led by the elements organised in the ‘control patrols’ – the last vestiges of the workers’ militias for maintaining order in the rear – and by the defence committees. They counter-attacked and came out of the workers’ districts. The battle raged in the centre of the city against the forces of order, which had their headquarters in the Karl Marx barracks of the PSUC. Their spearhead, directed towards the Ramblas, was located in the Hotel Colon, in Square of Catalonia, at the top end of the Ramblas.
Several victorious attacks were directed against the police strong-points in the Exhibition Palace and the American cinema. The Anarchists even found some tanks, which enabled them to break the encirclement of the workers’ fighting nuclei.
The leaders of the CNT maintained their policy of pacification, while at the same time they defended the militants, who, they said, were the victims of an act of aggression and of provocation. The same evening, 3 May, there was a meeting of the leaders of the CNT, the POUM and their youth organisations. One of the POUM leaders, Gorkin, declared:
Companys, the president of the Generalidad, called for calm. He denounced the initiative of Rodriguez Salas, but he demanded that the workers must leave the streets and return to their homes before peace could be restored. The regional committee of the CNT, between two attacks by the forces of order on its premises, called for a truce and for calm. All the personalities of the ‘left’ of the Popular Front rushed to its help on the radio.
Federica Montseny, the Minister for Health in the Popular Front government at Valencia, which was headed by Largo Caballero, protested against the fact that all the ceasefire negotiations took it for granted that the Telephonica had been taken over by the forces of order. The UGT in Catalonia decided to exclude from its ranks all those members of the POUM who did not expressly repudiate their comrades who were taking part in the insurrection!
The death of another minister, a member of the PSUC and of the UGT, named Antonio Sese, who was shot by unknown murderers as he was going to take up his appointment, perhaps gave the central government a pretext for taking public order out of the hands of the Catalan Generalidad. From that time onwards, public order was entrusted to General Pozas, a professional soldier, former head of the Civil Guard, who appears to have been linked to the PSUC by connections of a hardly political nature. There was total confusion. Both the arrival of troops sent by the Valencia government and a possible foreign intervention were expected. The new government included none of the PSUC people who had played a role in the provocation.
On 6 May the body of Berneri was found; he had been well and truly assassinated. The workers who followed the CNT were disorientated by the disorder and confusion, as well as by the appeals from their leaders. They began to desert the barricades in large numbers. The POUM, in its own way, buried the movement, with comments about ‘these three magnificent days’ and ‘this tremendous experience’. It put on record that it had been with the masses in the streets at the beginning, and observed that ‘under the repeated injunctions of their leaders, the masses have begun to withdraw from the struggle’. Yet it presented the result as being largely positive:
The fresh memory of that movement hovers over the discussion which opened within the POUM in the following days, in preparation for a congress which the Stalinist repression prevented from ever being held.
We have little information about the attitude of the right wing in the POUM, apart from an editorial of 15 May in its Valencia newspaper, El Communista. This condemned the workers in Barcelona and even the leaders of the POUM on the grounds that ‘one cannot swim against the stream with impunity’ and denounced, ‘after the provocateurs’, ‘those who played their game and cleared the ground in front of them’. We also know that the POUM organisation in Sabadell issued a manifesto condemning the action of the workers in Barcelona, and that Luis Portel, a member of its executive, judged the attitude of the leadership during these May Days to have been ‘adventuristic’.
The thesis of the executive was drafted by Nin. He drew a parallel with the ‘July Days’:
There we find that Trotsky directed precisely the same criticisms against what he called the ‘right wing’ of the Bolshevik Party, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who opposed the insurrection which Lenin proposed, as those which he directed against the POUM in 1937 or the German Communist Party at the time of its failed insurrection in 1923:
...I have been interested, seriously interested, in drawing the lessons of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s since childhood. As many of the blog entries will also testify to as well, I have probably spend more time, with the exception of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Paris Commune of 1871, thinking through the problems of that struggle in Spain than any others. Why? Well, as not less than of an authority than the great Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky has pointed out, the situation in Spain during the 1930s posed the question of the creation of the second workers state point blank. In short, the Spanish working class was class conscious enough, Trotsky would argue more than the Russian working class of 1917, to carry out this task. I believed that proposition, in a much less sophisticated form than Trotsky’s, to be sure, well before I read his views on the situation. Why did it fail?
Obviously, depending on the point of view presented (or ax to grind) there are a million possible subjective and objective reasons that can be given for the failure. Some, such as the general European situation, the perfidious role of the Western democracies, the shortcomings of the various bourgeois governments are examples of situations that I had believed at one time to be the prime reasons. However, since I have come of political age, in short, have gone beyond the traditional liberal explanations for the failure in Spain I have looked elsewhere for an explanation.
That elsewhere hinged more on the role that the various working class organizations and their policies than the objective world situation or other factors that have been used to argue the impossibility of success. Again, some organizations came up short. For a long time I followed the reasoning, in a general sense at least, of Trotsky’s dictum, repeatedly argued out all through the 1930s, about the crisis of revolutionary leadership. With this proviso- for a long time, a very long time I absolved the POUM (Party Of Marxist Unification in English) and the Nin/Andrade leadership from political responsibility for the debacle, especially in Catalonia. I was more than happy to blame the Stalinists (blameworthy in the end on other grounds, without question), the vacillations of the Social Democrats (ditto the Stalinists) and the theoretical idiocies of the Anarchists. But not the POUM, after all they were the most honest revolutionaries in Spain (along with, perhaps, the Friends of Durritti). Honest I still believe they were but revolutionary in the Bolshevik sense. Hell, no.
The leading cause of that long time absolution of the POUM, initially in any case came from my reading of George Orwell’s “Homage To Catalonia”. Orwell found himself in a POUM military unit and spent much of his time in Spain before being wounded with that unit, as well around POUM organizations. Hey, they were fighting Franco, right? They had their own militias, right? That was enough for me for a while. But then the fatal mistake occurred many years ago. I read Trotsky’s work on Spain in the 1930s, “The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39, and, more importantly, the Trotsky/Nin correspondence in the appendix. No one who truly reads those documents and looks at the real POUM actions (including that left/right unification with friend Maurin to form the POUM in 1935) will ever be the same after. That is where every mistake that the POUM made becomes a veritable indictment against them.
Okay, so I got ‘religion’ on the POUM. So, as the linked article points out, why then, and now did serious leftist militants alibi this group. Well, read the article. But, bear this in mind, if those who defended the POUM and Nin/Andrade then, and now, are right that means that, subjectively they believe that Spain could not be a workers state in the 1930’s. That same subjectivity has led to their view of the Russian October revolution of 1917 as a failed experiment as well. But, my friends, such reasoning leaves only this conclusion. Outside the short-lived Paris Commune we have to go back to the revolutions of 1848 for our models of what is possible for the modern international working class to do. If that is the case then we better start thinking about a possibility that Trotsky pointed to in the 1930s- the working class may be organically incapable of ruling in its own name. As an orthodox Marxist I cringe at that notion. Better this- abandon this abject defense of the POUM and accept that, honest party that it may have been, however, in the final analysis it was a roadblock to socialist revolution in Spain
Obviously, depending on the point of view presented (or ax to grind) there are a million possible subjective and objective reasons that can be given for the failure. Some, such as the general European situation, the perfidious role of the Western democracies, the shortcomings of the various bourgeois governments are examples of situations that I had believed at one time to be the prime reasons. However, since I have come of political age, in short, have gone beyond the traditional liberal explanations for the failure in Spain I have looked elsewhere for an explanation.
That elsewhere hinged more on the role that the various working class organizations and their policies than the objective world situation or other factors that have been used to argue the impossibility of success. Again, some organizations came up short. For a long time I followed the reasoning, in a general sense at least, of Trotsky’s dictum, repeatedly argued out all through the 1930s, about the crisis of revolutionary leadership. With this proviso- for a long time, a very long time I absolved the POUM (Party Of Marxist Unification in English) and the Nin/Andrade leadership from political responsibility for the debacle, especially in Catalonia. I was more than happy to blame the Stalinists (blameworthy in the end on other grounds, without question), the vacillations of the Social Democrats (ditto the Stalinists) and the theoretical idiocies of the Anarchists. But not the POUM, after all they were the most honest revolutionaries in Spain (along with, perhaps, the Friends of Durritti). Honest I still believe they were but revolutionary in the Bolshevik sense. Hell, no.
The leading cause of that long time absolution of the POUM, initially in any case came from my reading of George Orwell’s “Homage To Catalonia”. Orwell found himself in a POUM military unit and spent much of his time in Spain before being wounded with that unit, as well around POUM organizations. Hey, they were fighting Franco, right? They had their own militias, right? That was enough for me for a while. But then the fatal mistake occurred many years ago. I read Trotsky’s work on Spain in the 1930s, “The Spanish Revolution, 1931-39, and, more importantly, the Trotsky/Nin correspondence in the appendix. No one who truly reads those documents and looks at the real POUM actions (including that left/right unification with friend Maurin to form the POUM in 1935) will ever be the same after. That is where every mistake that the POUM made becomes a veritable indictment against them.
Okay, so I got ‘religion’ on the POUM. So, as the linked article points out, why then, and now did serious leftist militants alibi this group. Well, read the article. But, bear this in mind, if those who defended the POUM and Nin/Andrade then, and now, are right that means that, subjectively they believe that Spain could not be a workers state in the 1930’s. That same subjectivity has led to their view of the Russian October revolution of 1917 as a failed experiment as well. But, my friends, such reasoning leaves only this conclusion. Outside the short-lived Paris Commune we have to go back to the revolutions of 1848 for our models of what is possible for the modern international working class to do. If that is the case then we better start thinking about a possibility that Trotsky pointed to in the 1930s- the working class may be organically incapable of ruling in its own name. As an orthodox Marxist I cringe at that notion. Better this- abandon this abject defense of the POUM and accept that, honest party that it may have been, however, in the final analysis it was a roadblock to socialist revolution in Spain
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm
Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.
Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.
The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff.
********
The ‘May Days’ of 1937 in Barcelona
From Revolutionary History magazine, Vol.1 No.2, Summer
1988. Used by permission.
This article first appeared in the January 1988 issue of
La Verité and is translated by John Archer.
Every workers’ revolution in the twentieth century bears the characteristic mark that a situation of duality of power appears at its beginning. This is between the old organs of the state, whether rejuvenated or not, which have generally passed into the control of a government of ‘conciliators’ with the first phase, and the organs of the mass movement, organisations of struggle which have become the organs of a new power.
The appearance of the duality of power marks only the beginning of the struggle between them, the struggle which ends in the victory of either the revolution or the counter-revolution, through the victory of one power or the other. Study of the revolutions in the period since October 1917 reveals the decisive role of the general staffs on the side of the revolution, of their party, of the party which fights for the victory of the new power. That party has neither provoked nor engineered the revolution, any more than it can stop it, without joining the counter-revolution. The authority of the party may be widely recognised, even by a majority of the masses, but it enables it only to act as a brake on an offensive which may be premature or isolated – this was the case of the July Days of 1917 in Petrograd – or, on the contrary, to clear the way for the final assault, by helping the masses to overcome the obstacles on their road to power. This is the case of the insurrection of October 1917 in Russia.
What has been called the ‘May Days of 1937’ in Barcelona are an event of this kind, independently of the fact that the event took place within one of the two opposing camps in the course of a civil war, the Spanish Civil War. In fact, the duality of powers began in July 1936, with the victorious counter-stroke of the workers in a number of large cities, including Barcelona, against the military coup d’etat of General Franco.
In May 1937 it was the Popular Front government of the Generalidad of Catalonia – under the pressure of the Stalinists in the PSUC – which took the counter-offensive. It tried to seize a telephone exchange, which was in the hands of the militia of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT. The latter resisted, arms in hand, and the workers in Barcelona replied to the attempt by a general strike. Several days of street fighting followed in the Catalan capital.
The supporters and agents of Stalin speak of a ‘Fascist putsch’. Other elements in the Popular Front speak of a ‘tragic misunderstanding’. The Trotskyists agree on the general significance of what happened, but are divided in their appreciation of the incident itself. Trotsky believed that victory was possible and that, therefore, we have here an ‘October’ which failed, because there was no revolutionary leadership which wanted to fight to win. His comrade, the Italian Blasco (Pietro Tresso), regarded the event as ‘July Days’ ending badly for lack of a firm leadership, which could have prevented the retreat from turning into a rout.
In this month of May 1937, the atmosphere was tense. In the last days of April there had been violent incidents at Molins de Llobregat, where a PSUC leader was killed. Eight CNT militants were killed at Puigcerda in the course of an attack by armed police to recover control of the frontier for the government. On 1 May the government prohibited street demonstrations, which might provoke the outburst of workers’ anger which it feared, or might give to that anger the means to bring them together to hit back.
At the Telephonica
The explosion came on 3 May. That afternoon the Barcelona police
chief, an active member of the PSUC named Eusebio Rodriguez Salas, presented
himself in front of the central telephone exchange, the Telephonica, in
the Square of Catalonia in Barcelona. The exchange belonged to the American
Telegraph and Telephone Company; it had been seized during the revolutionary
days, and was under the control of a committee and of members of the CNT
militia. It is located in the heart of the Catalan capital, and what happened to
it came to be a symbol for the fate of the revolution and the workers’
positions. The initiative by Rodriguez did not get a green light from the
government, which had not been consulted, but it had the approval of the
government’s public order adviser, who, as everyone knew, was completely devoted
to the PSUC.
The police chiefs escort got into the building by surprise and disarmed the
militiamen whom it caught unawares on the ground floor. The militiamen on the
upper floors were warned and began to resist this unexpected attack and to fire
on the attackers. Two senior police officers, members of the CNT named Asens and
Eroles, were warned at once and rushed to the Telephonica to stop the
shooting. They did their utmost to convince their comrades not to keep up their
resistance, which, they said, would only make things worse. In response to their
persuasion, the militiamen agreed to vacate the Telephonica, which
remained in the hands of the police.But the peace-making efforts of the two mediators were in vain. The sound of shots had alerted the people of Barcelona, who were in a state of extreme tension and were, in fact, expecting some move to be made, if not by the government, at any rate by the extremists of the PSUC. The news of the attack on the Telephonica spread like a trail of gunpowder. The workers went on strike in order to paralyse the advance of the counter-revolution. They erected barricades to prevent the government’s forces of repression from moving freely around. The branches of the CNT at its base, particularly its ‘defence committees’ were also there, and their members were armed.
George Orwell, in his book Homage to Catalonia, bears witness to having experienced the early hours of these ‘Days’ as acts of aggression against the working people of Barcelona, carried out by those whom he calls by their old name, the ‘Civil Guard’, former policemen who had been integrated into the new police forces which their chiefs were now throwing into attacks on the workers’ barricades in Barcelona. The Barcelona workers were led by the elements organised in the ‘control patrols’ – the last vestiges of the workers’ militias for maintaining order in the rear – and by the defence committees. They counter-attacked and came out of the workers’ districts. The battle raged in the centre of the city against the forces of order, which had their headquarters in the Karl Marx barracks of the PSUC. Their spearhead, directed towards the Ramblas, was located in the Hotel Colon, in Square of Catalonia, at the top end of the Ramblas.
Several victorious attacks were directed against the police strong-points in the Exhibition Palace and the American cinema. The Anarchists even found some tanks, which enabled them to break the encirclement of the workers’ fighting nuclei.
The leaders of the CNT maintained their policy of pacification, while at the same time they defended the militants, who, they said, were the victims of an act of aggression and of provocation. The same evening, 3 May, there was a meeting of the leaders of the CNT, the POUM and their youth organisations. One of the POUM leaders, Gorkin, declared:
Either we place ourselves at the head of this movement to destroy the enemy within, or the movement will collapse, and this enemy will destroy us.
No one denies that the situation was favourable for liquidating the
undertaking and the forces of the PSUC. However, despite the enthusiasm of its
youth section (Young Libertarians), the CNT maintained its waiting stance of
‘protestation’, and the POUM did not want to be isolated from it.
The fighting continued on 4 May, with sudden silences following brutal
outbursts. La Batalla, the newspaper of the POUM, spoke of ‘the
provocations with which the counter-revolution is testing the pulse of the
ability of the working masses to resist’ and ‘the preparations for a
thorough-going attack on the conquests of the revolution’. The article goes
on:But the counter-attack by the proletariat could not be more powerful. Thousands of workers have taken to the streets, arms in hand. Factories, workshops and shops have ceased work. The barricades have gone up again in every part of the city. The majority of places in Catalonia have copied the gesture of its capital. The working class is strong and will know how to crush every effort by the counter-revolution. We must live on the alert, rifle in hand. We must maintain the magnificent spirit of resistance and of struggle, which guarantees our victory. We must prevent counter-revolution from raising its head again.
The POUM journal also demanded that Rodriguez Salas be dismissed,
that the decrees be annulled, that ‘public order be in the hands of the working
class’ and that a workers’ revolutionary junta be formed, with the creation of
‘committees to defend the revolution in every quarter, every place and every
workplace’.
All the evidence goes to show that in this article we have a policy made up
on the spot. Victor Alba, the historian of the POUM, assures us that this is not
what the POUM wanted to do, but only what it could do, bearing in mind that it
was determined not to cut itself off from the CNT! Indeed, the leader of the
CNT, Garcia Oliver, appealed on the radio for a ceasefire; he called on people
not to speak any more about ‘provocations’ or to ‘go on about the dead’.Companys, the president of the Generalidad, called for calm. He denounced the initiative of Rodriguez Salas, but he demanded that the workers must leave the streets and return to their homes before peace could be restored. The regional committee of the CNT, between two attacks by the forces of order on its premises, called for a truce and for calm. All the personalities of the ‘left’ of the Popular Front rushed to its help on the radio.
State terror
On 5 May the forces of order mounted what was nothing less than a
terrorist attack. Armed groups of men in uniform arrested the Italian Anarchist,
Berneri, who criticised the policy of class collaboration of his Anarchist
comrades with the Popular Front. His dead body was found the next day. But,
during this time, the CNT was working with the UGT (the reformist trade union
federation) to issue a joint appeal for work to be resumed, explaining that the
cessation of industry in ‘these moments of anti-Fascist war is equivalent to
collaborating with the common enemy by weakening ourselves’.
The Friends of Durutti, an organisation of dissident Anarchists, who had
opposed the absorption of the militias into the army, issued an appeal for the
formation of a ‘revolutionary junta’ to include the POUM. It criticised the
leaders of the CNT who called for a ceasefire, and demanded that the
‘provocateurs’ be executed. Every leading organ of the CNT repudiated this
declaration and the organisation which issued it, in extremely violent terms.
Barcelona was vibrating with rumours. The 29th Division, commanded by the
Anarchist Jover, and the 26th, under the POUMist Rovira, were forbidden to march
on the capital. In fact these commanders had thought of doing so, but were
dissuaded by their organisations. Leaders of the JCI (Jeunesses Communistes
Internationalistes) and the committee for defence in north Barcelona organised a
column, based on officer-cadets from the military academy, to seize the central
headquarters of the PSUC and of the Generalidad. It was the POUM leader, Andres
Nin, who put a stop to this operation. British warships were anchoring in the
roadstead.Federica Montseny, the Minister for Health in the Popular Front government at Valencia, which was headed by Largo Caballero, protested against the fact that all the ceasefire negotiations took it for granted that the Telephonica had been taken over by the forces of order. The UGT in Catalonia decided to exclude from its ranks all those members of the POUM who did not expressly repudiate their comrades who were taking part in the insurrection!
The death of another minister, a member of the PSUC and of the UGT, named Antonio Sese, who was shot by unknown murderers as he was going to take up his appointment, perhaps gave the central government a pretext for taking public order out of the hands of the Catalan Generalidad. From that time onwards, public order was entrusted to General Pozas, a professional soldier, former head of the Civil Guard, who appears to have been linked to the PSUC by connections of a hardly political nature. There was total confusion. Both the arrival of troops sent by the Valencia government and a possible foreign intervention were expected. The new government included none of the PSUC people who had played a role in the provocation.
On 6 May the body of Berneri was found; he had been well and truly assassinated. The workers who followed the CNT were disorientated by the disorder and confusion, as well as by the appeals from their leaders. They began to desert the barricades in large numbers. The POUM, in its own way, buried the movement, with comments about ‘these three magnificent days’ and ‘this tremendous experience’. It put on record that it had been with the masses in the streets at the beginning, and observed that ‘under the repeated injunctions of their leaders, the masses have begun to withdraw from the struggle’. Yet it presented the result as being largely positive:
Beyond any doubt it [the proletariat] has won a great, partial victory. It has defeated the counter-revolutionary provocation. It has won the dismissal of all those who were directly responsible for the provocation. It has struck a serious blow at the bourgeoisie and reformism. It could have won more, much more, if those in the leadership of the organisations which stand at the head of the working class of Catalonia could have risen to the level of the masses.
On 7 May the police took over the abandoned barricades, which were
to be demolished amid great publicity by girls belonging to the PSUC. The trams
began to run again. Two hundred militants were freed from jail. Shots were fired
at the car of Federica Montseny, the Anarchist minister. The issue of La
Batalla for 8 May once again urged a return to work. At the same time,
the local committee of the POUM in Barcelona sharply criticised the executive of
its party, which it accused of having ‘capitulated’ in the course of those days,
in the face of the counter-revolution, under the pressure of the conciliatory
leaders of the CNT.
Little by little we are now uncovering the long list of revolutionary
militants with whom the specialised groups in the service of Stalin settled
their accounts in the course of these ‘days’ – Berneri and his friend Barbieri,
Alfredo Martinez, the leader of the Libertarian Youth, and the German Trotskyist
Freund, known as Moulin, who was the link between the small group of Trotskyists
and the Friends of Durutti – and ‘disappeared’. This was only the beginning of
the repression.POUM nonsense
There can be no doubt that La Batalla was
publishing complete nonsense on 6 May, when it presented the May Days as having
turned out positively. These days were the first stage in the unfolding of a
counterrevolution, the first victims of which, a few weeks later, were to be the
POUM itself and, in particular, its principal leader, the old revolutionary,
Andres Nin.
How can this mistaken appreciation be explained if we consider the
extraordinary strength which the huge movement of the working class of Barcelona
had revealed a few days, indeed a few hours, earlier?The fresh memory of that movement hovers over the discussion which opened within the POUM in the following days, in preparation for a congress which the Stalinist repression prevented from ever being held.
We have little information about the attitude of the right wing in the POUM, apart from an editorial of 15 May in its Valencia newspaper, El Communista. This condemned the workers in Barcelona and even the leaders of the POUM on the grounds that ‘one cannot swim against the stream with impunity’ and denounced, ‘after the provocateurs’, ‘those who played their game and cleared the ground in front of them’. We also know that the POUM organisation in Sabadell issued a manifesto condemning the action of the workers in Barcelona, and that Luis Portel, a member of its executive, judged the attitude of the leadership during these May Days to have been ‘adventuristic’.
The thesis of the executive was drafted by Nin. He drew a parallel with the ‘July Days’:
In July 1917 the workers in the Russian capital took to the streets arms in hand, rising up against the policies of the democrat, Kerensky. The Bolshevik Party considered this movement to be ill-timed and dangerous. None the less, the Bolsheviks played an active part in it, placed themselves at its head, led it and guided it in such a way as to prevent it from becoming a disaster for the revolutionary proletariat.
Nin started from the provocation by the forces of the police. He
declared that the workers had defended the interests of the proletariat in the
streets. As to the policy of his party, he wrote:
If it had all depended on us to start things off, we would not have given the order for insurrection. The moment was not favourable for a decisive action, But the revolutionary workers, rightly indignant at the provocation of which they were the victims, flung themselves into battle, and we could not leave them to their fate. To act otherwise would have been an unpardonable betrayal.
Nin declared that the activity of the POUM aimed at ‘canalising a
movement which, because it was spontaneous, had many chaotic aspects, and to
avoid its transforming itself into a fruitless putsch, which would have fatal
consequences for the proletariat. It was necessary to provide limited slogans
for the movement.’
A third position, that of J. Rebull and of Cell 72, reproaches the leadership
of the POUM for having ‘run after the events’ and having ‘once again waited on
the opinion of the opportunist elements in the confederal leadership’. Their
counter-theses declared:The first results of the workers’ insurrections are a defeat for the working class and a new victory for the pseudo-democratic bourgeoisie.
Trotsky’s verdict
Trotsky devoted a number of writings to the Spanish Revolution and
several times discussed the May Days. He conceded to the defenders of the
policies of the POUM that there was a superficial resemblance between the
movement of the masses before the July Days in Petrograd and that of May 1937 in
Barcelona. However, he was concerned in particular to emphasise the deep
differences between the two – according to him, the essential differences lay in
the fact that in 1937 the Spanish masses had a more serious experience of their
revolution than those had in Russia in 1917. Trotsky wrote:
In Spain, the May events took place not after four months, but after six years of revolution. The masses of the whole country have had a gigantic experience. A long time ago they lost the illusions of 1931, as well as the warmed-over illusions of the Popular Front. Again and again they have shown to every part of the country that they were ready to go through to the end. If the Catalan proletariat had seized power in May 1937 – as it had really seized it in July 1936 – they would have found support throughout all of Spain. The bourgeois-Stalinist reaction would not even have found two regiments with which to crush the Catalan workers. In the territory occupied by Franco not only the workers but also the peasants would have turned toward the Catalan proletariat, would have isolated the Fascist army and brought about its irresistible disintegration. It is doubtful whether under these conditions any foreign government would have risked throwing its regiments onto the burning soil of Spain. Intervention would have become materially impossible, or at least extremely dangerous.
Naturally, in every insurrection, there is an element of uncertainty and risk. But the subsequent course of events has proved that even in the case of defeat the situation of the Spanish workers would have been incomparably more favourable than now, to say nothing of the fact that the revolutionary party would have assured its future (L Trotsky, A test of ideas and individuals through the Spanish experience, The Spanish Revolution 1931-1939, New York, l973, p278-279)
In Trotsky’s opinion, it was a revolutionary party which was
lacking in May 1937. This is the reason for his ferocious criticism, not merely
of the Anarchists but also of the policies of the POUM, and what he calls its
‘indecision, its equivocations, its hesitations and its lack of a clear
programme’, which prevented it from providing for the masses ‘the revolutionary
leadership without which victory was not possible’.
Perhaps a little more light can be shed on Trotsky’s position on the
insurrection, which failed in May 1937 for lack of a revolutionary party, and on
his divergences with his comrade Blasco, which were never expressed in writing
in a direct debate, if we look back to his preface to Volume Three of the
Russian edition of his works, which we know under the title The Lessons
of October.There we find that Trotsky directed precisely the same criticisms against what he called the ‘right wing’ of the Bolshevik Party, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who opposed the insurrection which Lenin proposed, as those which he directed against the POUM in 1937 or the German Communist Party at the time of its failed insurrection in 1923:
A party which has been carrying on revolutionary agitation for a long time, tearing the proletariat little by little from the influence of the conciliators, and which, once it is lifted to the height of events by the confidence of the proletariat, begins to hesitate, to look for midday at two o’clock, to turn its back and to tack about, paralyses the activity of the masses, provokes disappointment and disorganisation among them and leads the revolution to defeat ...
He analysed the position of the ‘Old Bolsheviks’, who advanced
against Lenin in April 1917 the old formula of ‘the democratic dictatorship of
the proletariat and peasantry’, which they counterposed to that of the
dictatorship of the proletariat and the struggle for Soviet power:
Their method ... consisted in exerting on the leading bourgeoisie a pressure which did not go outside the framework of the bourgeois democratic regime. If this policy had been victorious, the development of the revolution would have proceeded outside our part y, and we would have, in the end, had an insurrection of the masses of workers and peasants which was not led by the party, in other words, July Days on a vast scale, that is, a catastrophe.
It seems to us that this formula permits conclusions to be drawn
about the May Days by settling at least the ambiguities which may have survived
in the historic debate about the analogies with the Russian Revolution. About
these ambiguities, Trotsky himself took pleasure in emphasising that he himself
had not introduced them, though he was often blamed for doing so, and he made
clear that, for his part, he had been very deeply convinced that ‘Spain was not
Russia’, a conclusion which did not in the slightest justify the policy which
led to catastrophe.
Pierre Broué
***The
Life And Times Of Michael Philip Marlin – They
Shoot Blackmailers, Partner
As readers know Tyrone Fallon, the
son of the late famous Southern California private operative, Michael Philip
Marlin (Tyrone used his mother’s maiden name for obvious reasons), and private
eye in his own right told my old friend Peter Paul Markin’s friend Joshua
Lawrence Breslin some stories that his illustrious father told him. Here’s one
such story although not about himself but about an operative for the largest
detective agency on the West Coast, John “Stubs” Lane. (Stubs nick-named for a
habit picked while sitting alone endlessly in cold cars driving cold coffee and
picking out cigarette stubs from the ashtray after the deck ran out).
From
The Pen Of Frank Jackman-with kudos to Raymond Chandler
A lot of times guys, hard guys with
fast-trigger fingers, or an itch for the high life fall off the edge, fall into
places where they never should have fallen. Take our slumming streets of Los
Angeles private eye Stubs Lane’s client, let's call him Lance Landry, in this short
story about blackmailers (although I would not bet money, bet six-two and even
money, that pressed, hard-pressed blackmailers would not be above putting a
pair of slugs in anybody who got in their way if necessary). Lance, a hard guy,
a former hard guy anyway from back East who went West for the sun, easy
pickings, and golden pay- dirt, had an old flame thing, and maybe not so old
flame, for Rita Farr. Yes, Rita Farr the exotic and erotic latest 1940s screen
siren who made all the boys flutter and the girls shutter (that the boys are
fluttering of course, and not over them) was working on another picture to
enrich Paine Productions. Paine Productions which had a great deal at stake in
the reputation of one Rita Farr.
That is where the maybe not so old
flame with Lance came in. See the studio put the big nix sign on Rita and Lance
being together. It seemed then (and maybe now too) that movie stars, high
profile sex goddess movie stars and rough -edged gangsters were a lethal
audience mix. So Lance was out. Except somebody, okay, a blackmailer, had the
photos and letters that showed for all the world to see that Lance was still
carrying the torch, had still seen Rita after the studio nix.
Enter our man Stubs whom Lance had hired
to keep an eye on Rita, keep the riffraff and grifter of the world away from
her. Stubs, not always able to be choosy about whom he worked for, and in any
case was friends, or at least on speaking terms with more than one outlaw as
part of his chosen work, including Lance, took the job, took it seriously too.
The problem was that no sooner had
Philip been employed than Rita was kidnapped by her driver, kidnapped at the
behest of a party (or parties) unknown. As we all know that falling down on the
job would make a tough gumshoe like Stubs see red, seek to right thing up
quickly, in short, to deliver the ransom and create hell for the kidnappers.
And so he did, taking guff from the studio boss, from Lance, from the party
unknown, including a few fists flying and bullets whistling by along the way.
But some rough justice wins out in
the end. It seems that one of Lance's old partners in crime, as will happen in
any enterprise, did not like being shut out of the golden pay- dirt and was
seeking revenge for that slight. In the end he went down, the actual kidnapper
went down, and even Lance went down in order to save Rita when things got dicey
at exchange time. And Rita? Well Rita after taking a run for the satin sheets
at Stubs in gratitude (so he said) who was not buying, possibly fearing an
affair with Rita might come with a bullet not far behind, went off to marry the
studio boss. Jesus.
***The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through The Great Depression And World War II…
… he had to laugh, laugh out loud although the deathly rattling of the freight car that he was just then riding, riding as a non-paying customer, would drown that laughter from any ears, if there were any ears open among his fellow “passengers” strewn about the bare wooded floor of their “room.” The reason for his witless fit of laughter was the knowledge that last year, the year of our Lord 1933, he had had money, plenty of money, for a Pullman sleeper to ride west in. And had done just exactly that on one business trip (and spent plenty, treating rounds too at the dining car bar).
Friday, December 27, 2013
From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-Trotsky And The POUM
...There is no question that in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s the prime driving force was the working class of Catalonia, and within that province its capital, Barcelona, was the key hot-bed for revolutionary action. The role of Barcelona thus is somewhat analogous to that of Petrograd (later Leningrad) in the Russian revolution of 1917 and deserves special attention from those of us later revolutionaries trying to draw the lessons of the hard-bitten defeat of the Spanish revolution. All the parties of the left (Socialist Party, Communist Party, left bourgeois radicals, Catalan nationalists, Anarchists, various ostensible Trotskyists, the POUM, and non-party trade unionists) had militants there, and had myriad associated social and political organizations that drove the revolution forward in the early days before the working class surrendered its hard-fought gains to the bourgeoisie or in Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky’s memorable phrase, “the shadow of the bourgeoisie.”
That said, the May Days in Barcelona take added importance for those of us who believe that in the ebb and flow of revolution that the actions taken there by the various parties, or more pertinently, those actions not taken by some, particularly the POUM (and left-anarchists) sealed the fate of the revolution and the struggle against Franco. A description of the flow of the events, a fairly correct description of the events if not of the political conclusions to be drawn, in those days by a militant who was there, Hugo Oehler, is an important aid in understanding what went wrong.
Note: Hugo Oehler was noting but a pain in the butt for Jim Cannon and others in the United States who were trying to coalesce a Trotskyist party that might be able to affect events that were rapidly unrolling here in the heart of the Great Depression. Nevertheless Cannon praised Oehler as a very good and honest mass worker. That meant a lot coming from Cannon. One does not have to accept Oehler’s political conclusions to appreciate this document. Moreover, his point about trying to link up with the Friends of Durritti is an important point that every militant in Barcelona should have been pursuing to break the masses of anarchist workers from the CNT-FAI. Time ran out before these links could be made decisive. But that is a commentary for another day. Read this (and Orwell and Souchy as well) to get a flavor of what was missed in those May days.
additional Note On The POUM Program
The editorial comment above the programmatic points makes the correct criticisms of the "omissions" in the POUM program. I would add that another problem is the issues that are not raised, especially on the specific question of the right to national self-determination on the Spanish peninsula (and not just the question of a socialist federation of nations which is raised) and the very thorny and devastating one the colonial question, particularly on Spanish Morocco where Franco recruited heavily for his side.
Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.
Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.
Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.
The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff.
********
...There is no question that in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s the prime driving force was the working class of Catalonia, and within that province its capital, Barcelona, was the key hot-bed for revolutionary action. The role of Barcelona thus is somewhat analogous to that of Petrograd (later Leningrad) in the Russian revolution of 1917 and deserves special attention from those of us later revolutionaries trying to draw the lessons of the hard-bitten defeat of the Spanish revolution. All the parties of the left (Socialist Party, Communist Party, left bourgeois radicals, Catalan nationalists, Anarchists, various ostensible Trotskyists, the POUM, and non-party trade unionists) had militants there, and had myriad associated social and political organizations that drove the revolution forward in the early days before the working class surrendered its hard-fought gains to the bourgeoisie or in Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky’s memorable phrase, “the shadow of the bourgeoisie.”
That said, the May Days in Barcelona take added importance for those of us who believe that in the ebb and flow of revolution that the actions taken there by the various parties, or more pertinently, those actions not taken by some, particularly the POUM (and left-anarchists) sealed the fate of the revolution and the struggle against Franco. A description of the flow of the events, a fairly correct description of the events if not of the political conclusions to be drawn, in those days by a militant who was there, Hugo Oehler, is an important aid in understanding what went wrong.
Note: Hugo Oehler was noting but a pain in the butt for Jim Cannon and others in the United States who were trying to coalesce a Trotskyist party that might be able to affect events that were rapidly unrolling here in the heart of the Great Depression. Nevertheless Cannon praised Oehler as a very good and honest mass worker. That meant a lot coming from Cannon. One does not have to accept Oehler’s political conclusions to appreciate this document. Moreover, his point about trying to link up with the Friends of Durritti is an important point that every militant in Barcelona should have been pursuing to break the masses of anarchist workers from the CNT-FAI. Time ran out before these links could be made decisive. But that is a commentary for another day. Read this (and Orwell and Souchy as well) to get a flavor of what was missed in those May days.
additional Note On The POUM Program
The editorial comment above the programmatic points makes the correct criticisms of the "omissions" in the POUM program. I would add that another problem is the issues that are not raised, especially on the specific question of the right to national self-determination on the Spanish peninsula (and not just the question of a socialist federation of nations which is raised) and the very thorny and devastating one the colonial question, particularly on Spanish Morocco where Franco recruited heavily for his side.
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/revhist/backissu.htm
Peter Paul Markin comment on this series:
This is an excellent documentary source for today’s leftist militants to “discover” the work of our forebears, particularly the bewildering myriad of tendencies which have historically flown under the flag of the great Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky and his Fourth International, whether one agrees with their programs or not. But also other laborite, semi-anarchist, ant-Stalinist and just plain garden-variety old school social democrat groupings and individual pro-socialist proponents.
Some, maybe most of the material presented here, cast as weak-kneed programs for struggle in many cases tend to be anti-Leninist as screened through the Stalinist monstrosities and/or support groups and individuals who have no intention of making a revolution. Or in the case of examining past revolutionary efforts either declare that no revolutionary possibilities existed (most notably Germany in 1923) or alibi, there is no other word for it, those who failed to make a revolution when it was possible.
The Spanish Civil War can serve as something of litmus test for this latter proposition, most infamously around attitudes toward the Party Of Marxist Unification's (POUM) role in not keeping step with revolutionary developments there, especially the Barcelona days in 1937 and by acting as political lawyers for every non-revolutionary impulse of those forebears. While we all honor the memory of the POUM militants, according to even Trotsky the most honest band of militants in Spain then, and decry the murder of their leader, Andreas Nin, by the bloody Stalinists they were rudderless in the storm of revolution. But those present political disagreements do not negate the value of researching the POUM’s (and others) work, work moreover done under the pressure of revolutionary times. Hopefully we will do better when our time comes.
Finally, I place some material in this space which may be of interest to the radical public that I do not necessarily agree with or support. Off hand, as I have mentioned before, I think it would be easier, infinitely easier, to fight for the socialist revolution straight up than some of the “remedies” provided by the commentators in these entries from the Revolutionary History journal in which they have post hoc attempted to rehabilitate some pretty hoary politics and politicians, most notably August Thalheimer and Paul Levy of the early post Liebknecht-Luxemburg German Communist Party. But part of that struggle for the socialist revolution is to sort out the “real” stuff from the fluff as we struggle for that more just world that animates our efforts. So read, learn, and try to figure out the
wheat from the chaff.
********
Trotsky and the POUM
From Revolutionary History, Vol.1 No.2, Summer 1988. Used by permission.
During these years Nin oriented himself almost exclusively to the Catalan Federation which was a split from the PCE. It was led by Joaquim Maurin who was a right-centrist who only objected to the ultra-leftist excesses of Stalinism. Nin refused to criticise Maurin openly and refused to build a left opposition faction within Maurin’s group. Indeed, Nin went further in his opportunism and even helped to write the Federation’s documents and edit its paper.
Trotsky’s political ties with Nin were effectively broken in 1933 although Nin did not publicly break with Trotsky until 1935 when he joined forces with Maurin to form the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). In the intervening period Trotsky upbraided Nin for failing to enter the PSOE (the Spanish Socialist Party) and its union (UGT) whose rank and file were undergoing massive radicalisation in 1934 and 1935.
Despite these failings Trotsky recognised that the POUM, small as it was, organised some of the best vanguard elements in the Catalan working class. (Its influence outside this region was negligible.) It was a lone voice in Spain in unmasking the crimes of the Stalinists in the Moscow Trials. Also during 1935 the POUM developed the best formal criticisms of the Popular Front and the Second Republic in the pages of its paper La Batalla. Its leftism earned it the hostility of even the CNT and UGT leaders who sought to exclude POUMists from their unions.
The POUM was small. Before the Civil War estimates of its size vary from 3000 to 8000. Like most of the left groups it grew during the Civil War and by September 1936, it was about 30 000 strong, with l0 000 in its own militia. Yet much more than to contribute to its numerical growth, the Popular Front government and the Civil War cruelly exposed the centrist politics of the POUM leaders. Capable of left criticisms, the POUM consistently refused to carry through a break with the leaders of the CNT and UGT. Fearful above all of ‘isolation’ from these leaders they diplomatically refused to be critical of their practice. Worse still, they acted as a ‘loyal opposition’ in the Popular Front, often arguing against the PCE’s proposals but accepting to abide by them and even taking responsibility for them when they were defeated.
It is for this reason that Trotsky ruthlessly called the POUM ‘the chief obstacle on the road to the creation of a revolutionary party’. Unlike Stalinism, which refused for a second to adapt to the revolutionary impulses of the masses after July 1936 and instead derailed and destroyed all radical initiatives, the POUM wanted revolution, proclaimed its necessity and even on occasion proposed correct tactics. However, it did this alongside covering-up the weaknesses and betrayals of the anarchist, socialist and even Stalinist leaders. For one whole year La Batalla refused to criticise the CNT leadership!
The best example of the POUM’s centrism was to be found in its attitude to the Popular Front itself. Before the February 1936 elections the POUM campaigned against any coalition with the republican bourgeoisie. Then, on the very eve of the elections, they actually entered the Popular Front – only to renounce it again when the elections were over. However, Nin’s criticism of the Popular Front after February was not that it tied the workers’ organisations to the programme of the bourgeoisie but that it was not genuinely a Popular Front. La Batalla of 17 July 1936 on the eve of the Civil War, called for ‘an authentic government of the Popular Front, with the direct participation of the Socialist and Communist parties’.
Yet, when the Civil War erupted and the initiative was with the masses, the POUM shifted direction sharply and gave voice to the demands of the socialist revolution. In those early weeks the POUM exercised the leadership in the Lerida revolutionary committee. It was the only committee in Catalonia to refuse to have a representative of the republican bourgeoisie on it.
But even here the POUM stopped halfway. It could and should have used its revolutionary influence in towns like Lerida and Gerona to agitate for the formation of district and provincial Soviet-type bodies which would have developed into a decisive challenge to the authority of the Generalidad.
Not only did they refuse this road but Nin went out of his way to explain at great length that Soviet-type bodies were unnecessary and ‘alien’ to Spain. This unforgivable rationalisation for the prejudices and libertarian localism of the anarcho-syndicalist masses was typical of the POUM. Instead of ‘saying what is’, the POUM tried at every turn of events to minimise the differences and above all to conciliate with the leaders of the CNT.
Nin was to get his wish for a ‘genuine’ Popular Front in September 1936. Up until 7 September La Batalla denounced ‘bourgeois ministers’, unlike the PCE which heaped praise upon them. But once the Caballero cabinet was formed (ie, the PSOE leader and the leftist face of the bourgeoisie) in Madrid and the offer was made to the POUM of a seat in the provincial government in Catalonia, all this ceased.
In its place Nin assured the readers of La Batalla that a revolutionary orientation was ‘assured’ whenever there was a majority of ‘socialists’ in the government. Nin went so far as to define the dictatorship of the proletariat as a united front of workers’ parties and trade union leaders who assume governmental power! Nin ‘forgot’ the little matter of the democratic control and accountability of the mass of workers and poor peasants!
Once the POUM took its seat in the Catalan government it also took responsibility for the measures of the government. Of course, the POUM proposed radical measures to its Stalinist and bourgeois allies: an industrial and credit bank; no compensation to factory owners, etc. But these were rejected and the POUM remained respectfully silent. Worse, when the government proposed that there should be a government agent in each factory, or that there should be no further elections of factory councils for two years, the POUM agreed.
Worse even than that – indeed criminal – was Nin’s readiness to accompany President Companys on a tour of Lerida to convince the workers that the powers of the revolutionary committees should be dissolved. Nin argued:
From Revolutionary History, Vol.1 No.2, Summer 1988. Used by permission.
Despite Trotsky’s trenchant criticism of the political parties in
the workers’ camp in Spain there were few people in Spain who were listening to
him. A Spanish section of the International Left Opposition had been formed by
Andres Nin after his expulsion from the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) in 1927.
For two and a half years – from September 1930 to February 1933 – Trotsky
corresponded with Nin who was virtually alone in Barcelona. Relations with other
supporters in Madrid were slight, a fact which already revealed a chronic
provincialism (an adaptation to Catalan nationalism) in Nin’s political
make-up.
During these years Nin oriented himself almost exclusively to the Catalan Federation which was a split from the PCE. It was led by Joaquim Maurin who was a right-centrist who only objected to the ultra-leftist excesses of Stalinism. Nin refused to criticise Maurin openly and refused to build a left opposition faction within Maurin’s group. Indeed, Nin went further in his opportunism and even helped to write the Federation’s documents and edit its paper.
Trotsky’s political ties with Nin were effectively broken in 1933 although Nin did not publicly break with Trotsky until 1935 when he joined forces with Maurin to form the Workers Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). In the intervening period Trotsky upbraided Nin for failing to enter the PSOE (the Spanish Socialist Party) and its union (UGT) whose rank and file were undergoing massive radicalisation in 1934 and 1935.
Despite these failings Trotsky recognised that the POUM, small as it was, organised some of the best vanguard elements in the Catalan working class. (Its influence outside this region was negligible.) It was a lone voice in Spain in unmasking the crimes of the Stalinists in the Moscow Trials. Also during 1935 the POUM developed the best formal criticisms of the Popular Front and the Second Republic in the pages of its paper La Batalla. Its leftism earned it the hostility of even the CNT and UGT leaders who sought to exclude POUMists from their unions.
The POUM was small. Before the Civil War estimates of its size vary from 3000 to 8000. Like most of the left groups it grew during the Civil War and by September 1936, it was about 30 000 strong, with l0 000 in its own militia. Yet much more than to contribute to its numerical growth, the Popular Front government and the Civil War cruelly exposed the centrist politics of the POUM leaders. Capable of left criticisms, the POUM consistently refused to carry through a break with the leaders of the CNT and UGT. Fearful above all of ‘isolation’ from these leaders they diplomatically refused to be critical of their practice. Worse still, they acted as a ‘loyal opposition’ in the Popular Front, often arguing against the PCE’s proposals but accepting to abide by them and even taking responsibility for them when they were defeated.
It is for this reason that Trotsky ruthlessly called the POUM ‘the chief obstacle on the road to the creation of a revolutionary party’. Unlike Stalinism, which refused for a second to adapt to the revolutionary impulses of the masses after July 1936 and instead derailed and destroyed all radical initiatives, the POUM wanted revolution, proclaimed its necessity and even on occasion proposed correct tactics. However, it did this alongside covering-up the weaknesses and betrayals of the anarchist, socialist and even Stalinist leaders. For one whole year La Batalla refused to criticise the CNT leadership!
The best example of the POUM’s centrism was to be found in its attitude to the Popular Front itself. Before the February 1936 elections the POUM campaigned against any coalition with the republican bourgeoisie. Then, on the very eve of the elections, they actually entered the Popular Front – only to renounce it again when the elections were over. However, Nin’s criticism of the Popular Front after February was not that it tied the workers’ organisations to the programme of the bourgeoisie but that it was not genuinely a Popular Front. La Batalla of 17 July 1936 on the eve of the Civil War, called for ‘an authentic government of the Popular Front, with the direct participation of the Socialist and Communist parties’.
Yet, when the Civil War erupted and the initiative was with the masses, the POUM shifted direction sharply and gave voice to the demands of the socialist revolution. In those early weeks the POUM exercised the leadership in the Lerida revolutionary committee. It was the only committee in Catalonia to refuse to have a representative of the republican bourgeoisie on it.
But even here the POUM stopped halfway. It could and should have used its revolutionary influence in towns like Lerida and Gerona to agitate for the formation of district and provincial Soviet-type bodies which would have developed into a decisive challenge to the authority of the Generalidad.
Not only did they refuse this road but Nin went out of his way to explain at great length that Soviet-type bodies were unnecessary and ‘alien’ to Spain. This unforgivable rationalisation for the prejudices and libertarian localism of the anarcho-syndicalist masses was typical of the POUM. Instead of ‘saying what is’, the POUM tried at every turn of events to minimise the differences and above all to conciliate with the leaders of the CNT.
Nin was to get his wish for a ‘genuine’ Popular Front in September 1936. Up until 7 September La Batalla denounced ‘bourgeois ministers’, unlike the PCE which heaped praise upon them. But once the Caballero cabinet was formed (ie, the PSOE leader and the leftist face of the bourgeoisie) in Madrid and the offer was made to the POUM of a seat in the provincial government in Catalonia, all this ceased.
In its place Nin assured the readers of La Batalla that a revolutionary orientation was ‘assured’ whenever there was a majority of ‘socialists’ in the government. Nin went so far as to define the dictatorship of the proletariat as a united front of workers’ parties and trade union leaders who assume governmental power! Nin ‘forgot’ the little matter of the democratic control and accountability of the mass of workers and poor peasants!
Once the POUM took its seat in the Catalan government it also took responsibility for the measures of the government. Of course, the POUM proposed radical measures to its Stalinist and bourgeois allies: an industrial and credit bank; no compensation to factory owners, etc. But these were rejected and the POUM remained respectfully silent. Worse, when the government proposed that there should be a government agent in each factory, or that there should be no further elections of factory councils for two years, the POUM agreed.
Worse even than that – indeed criminal – was Nin’s readiness to accompany President Companys on a tour of Lerida to convince the workers that the powers of the revolutionary committees should be dissolved. Nin argued:
These revolutionary committees, whether Popular Executive Committees, or Committees of Public Safety, represent only part of the workers’ organisations, or else represent them in incorrect proportions ... Obviously, the suppression of their revolutionary initiative is to be regretted, but one must recognise the need to codify ... the various municipal organisations, as much with the aim of replacing them uniformly as of setting them under the authority of the new General Council.
After having performed these valuable services for the bourgeoisie,
on 16 December 1936 Nin was kicked out of the government. The POUM’s usefulness
was at an end. Trotsky commented:
In the heat of the revolutionary war between classes Nin entered a bourgeois government whose goal it was to destroy the workers’ committees, the foundation of proletarian government. When this goal was reached, Nin was driven out of the bourgeois government.
Postscript
Despite the record of Trotsky’s criticism of the POUM it is sad to
reflect that the British Trotskyists grouped around Reg Groves, the Marxist
League, and their paper the Red Flag tended to obscure these
criticisms and parade the POUM as a revolutionary organisation. The September
1936 Red Flag argued that ‘upon the rapid evolution of POUM
into a Bolshevik Party depends the fate of the Spanish Revolution’. This does
not reflect Trotsky’s own view of the POUM at the time. The Bolshevik-Leninists
of Spain were only formed in the spring of l937 but they were formed in
opposition to the POUM.
Keith Hassell
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