From The Marxist Archives -The Revolutionary History Journal-José Rebull-On Dual Power

 

 

BOOK REVIEW

THE SPANISH REVOLUTION, 1931-39, LEON TROTSKY, PATHFINDER PRESS, NEW YORK, 1973

THE CRISIS OF REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP
AS WE APPROACH THE 75 th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BEGINNING OF THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR MILITANTS NEED TO LEARN THE LESSONS FOR THE DEFEAT OF THAT REVOLUTION.
I have been interested, as a pro-Republican partisan, in the Spanish Civil War since I was a teenager. What initially perked my interest, and remains of interest, is the passionate struggle of the Spanish working class to create its own political organization of society, its leadership of the struggle against Spanish fascism and the romance surrounding the entry of the International Brigades, particularly the American Abraham Lincoln Battalion of the 15th Brigade, into the struggle.

Underlying my interests has always been a nagging question of how that struggle could have been won by the working class. The Spanish proletariat certainly was capable of both heroic action and the ability to create organizations that reflected its own class interests i.e. the worker militias and factory committees. Of all modern working class revolutions after the Russian revolution Spain showed the most promise of success. Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky noted that the political class consciousness of the Spanish proletariat at that time was higher than that of the Russian proletariat in 1917. Yet it failed in Spain. Trotsky's writings on this period represent a provocative and thoughtful approach to an understanding of the causes of that failure. Moreover, with all proper historical proportions considered, his analysis has continuing value as the international working class struggles against the seemingly one-sided class war being waged by the international bourgeoisie today.

The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 has been the subject of innumerable works from every possible political and military perspective possible. A fair number of such treatises, especially from those responsible for the military and political policies on the Republican side, are merely alibis for the disastrous policies that led to defeat. Trotsky's complication of articles, letters, pamphlets, etc. which make up the volume reviewed here is an exception. Trotsky was actively trying to intervene in the unfolding events in order to present a program of socialist revolution that most of the active forces on the Republican side were fighting, or believed they were fighting for. Thus, Trotsky's analysis brings a breath of fresh air to the historical debate. That in the end Trotsky could not organize the necessary cadres to carry out his program or meaningfully impact the unfolding events in Spain is one of the ultimate tragedies of that revolution. Nevertheless, Trotsky had a damn good idea of what forces were acting as a roadblock to revolution. He also had a strategic conception of the road to victory. And that most definitely was not through the Popular Front.

The central question Trotsky addresses throughout the whole period under review here was the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the proletarian forces. That premise entailed, in short, a view that the objective conditions for the success of a socialist program for society had ripened. Nevertheless, until that time, despite several revolutionary upheavals elsewhere, the international working class had not been successful anywhere except in backward Russia. Trotsky thus argued that it was necessary to focus on the question of forging the missing element of revolutionary leadership that would assure victory or at least put up a fight to the finish.

This underlying premise was the continuation of an analysis that Trotsky developed in earnest in his struggle to fight the Stalinist degeneration of the Russian Revolution in the mid-1920's. The need to learn the lessons of the Russian Revolution and to extend that revolution internationally was thus not a merely a theoretical question for Trotsky. Spain, moreover, represented a struggle where the best of the various leftist forces were in confusion about how to move forward. Those forces could have profitably heeded Trotsky's advice. I further note that the question of the crisis of revolutionary leadership still remains to be resolved by the international working class.

Trotsky's polemics in this volume are highlighted by the article ‘The Lessons of Spain-Last Warning’, his definitive assessment of the Spanish situation in the wake of the defeat of the Barcelona uprising in May 1937. Those polemics center on the failure of the Party of Marxist Unification (hereafter, POUM) to provide revolutionary leadership. That party, partially created by cadre formerly associated with Trotsky in the Spanish Left Opposition, failed on virtually every count. Those conscious mistakes included, but were not limited to, the creation of an unprincipled bloc between the former Left Oppositionists and the former Right Oppositionists (Bukharinites) of Maurin to form the POUM in 1935; political support to the Popular Front including entry into the government coalition by its leader; creation of its own small trade union federation instead of entry in the anarchist led-CNT; creation of its own militia units reflecting a hands-off attitude toward political struggle with other parties; and, fatally, an at best equivocal role in the Barcelona uprising of 1937.

Trotsky had no illusions about the roadblock to revolution of the policies carried out by the old-time Anarchist, Socialist and Communist Parties. Unfortunately the POUM did. Moreover, despite being the most honest revolutionary party in Spain it failed to keep up an intransigent struggle to push the revolution forward. The Trotsky - Andreas Nin (key leader of the POUM and former Left Oppositionist) correspondence in the Appendix makes that problem painfully clear.

The most compelling example of this failure - As a result of the failure of the Communist Party of Germany to oppose the rise of Hitler in 1933 and the subsequent decapitation and the defeat of the Austrian working class in 1934 the European workers, especially the younger workers, of the traditional Socialist Parties started to move left. Trotsky observed this situation and told his supporters to intersect that development by an entry, called the ‘French turn’, into those parties. Nin and the Spanish Left Opposition, and later the POUM failed to do that. As a result the Socialist Party youth were recruited to the Communist Party en masse. This accretion formed the basic for its expansion as a party and the key cadre of its notorious security apparatus that would, after the Barcelona uprising, suppress the more left ward organizations. For more such examples of the results of the crisis of leadership in the Spanish Revolution read this book.

Revised-June 19, 2006

 

Click below to link to the Revolutionary History Journal index.

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. 
********

José Rebull-On Dual Power

A major source of information abroad on the real happenings in Spain during the Civil War was L”Internationale, the magazine of a French left wing grouping, the Union Communiste (no direct contact with the modern group bearing that name), led by Gaston Davoust (Henri Chazé, 1904-1984). It is especially valuable for preserving the viewpoint of the left faction within the POUM in Catalonia, the Cell 72. The piece immediately below is translated from Sur la Dualité du pouvoir, and the subsequent piece is from Un Courant de gauche au sein du POUM, and both appeared in L”Internationale, Fourth Year, New Series, no.31, 3 October 1937)
Both pieces were written by José Rebull (1906-  ), the younger brother of the heroic POUM leader Daniel Rebull, more usually known as David Rey. José Rebull was also active in the Spanish movement from an early age. He was Secretary of Maurín’s Bloque in Tarragona in 1933, and was responsible for the distribution of its press during the period of clandestinity after the Asturian uprising of 1934. After the formation of the POUM he was a member of its Central Committee and administrator of its chief paper, La Batalla.
The POUM varied considerably from area to area. The Levante district led by Luis Portela was practically Stalinist and supported the Popular Front. The Madrid organisation was of a Trotskyist character, and the Barcelona organisation led by Rebull was influenced by the ideas of Hugo Oehler and Rosalio Negrete. >From 1936 onwards Rebull led the left wing tendency in the Barcelona POUM, which came to include the majority of the city’s militants and dominated its local committee. It opposed the dissolution of the militia committees and Nin’s entry into the Generalitat. It had elaborated a contrary political strategy which it was to present to the national conference of the POUM, but the May Days intervened and the conference did not take place, even though its manifesto was printed beforehand in La Batalla on 15 April (cf, Counter-Theses for the Conference of the POUM, Revolutionary History, Volume 1 no.2, Summer 1988, pp.37-8). During the May Days Rebull’s group tried to persuade the CNT comrades manning the barricades to march on the government buildings in Barcelona and take control.
In October 1937 Rebull reproached the Central Committee of the POUM for its short-sighted policy of dissolving the POUM’s trade union, the FOUS, into the UGT, which apart from being much smaller than the CNT was dominated by the Stalinists in Catalonia.
When the POUM militants reached France after the collapse of Catalonia, the leaders took the opportunity to get rid of the left wing from the leadership. Rebull was most incensed, and formed the Committee for the Defence of the POUM Congress, which issued its first bulletin in Paris in July 1939, in which many of the documents of the ‘Cell 72’ appeared. In the course of this struggle the group was won over to the Trotskyist movement.
During the Second World War Rebull took part in a Socialist resistance movement in 1943-44 and was arrested by the Gestapo, but was freed in August 1944.
For the source of this material, cf Pierre Broué“s edition of Trotsky’s La Révolution Espagnole, Paris 1975, especially p.550 n4; Jean Cavignac, Les Trotskystes espagnoles dans la tourmente (1937-40), Cahiers Léon Trotsky, no.10, June 1982, especially pp.72-4; and Victor Alba and Stephen Schwartz, Spanish Marxism Versus Soviet Communism, New Brunswick 1988. The main documents of Cell 72 are reprinted H. Chazé, Chronique de la Révolution espagnole, Éditions Spartacus, Paris 1979.
Twice during the second congress we heard from the mouths of the leaders of our party the affirmation that dual power is not indispensable for the seizure of power by the working class. We consider this as a case of revolutionary myopia in the presence of the “spontaneity of the masses’ whom the leaders of our party wished to assist by concealing their mistakes – which explains the present position of the POUM.

A Marxist cannot place absolute confidence in the capacity of mass spontaneity. The masses have an absolute need for a leading Marxist party endowed with a proper Marxist policy. (Maurín, La Nueva Era, May 1936)

We do not accept the reformist position according to which the social overturn can take place by the ‘conquest’ of the bourgeois state. In this case the problem of dual power could be laid aside. But if you look at reality, you must recognise the necessity for destroying the bourgeois state and replacing it with a new organ that has nothing in common with the state of the exploiters.
Before the total destruction of the bourgeois state and before the establishment of the new proletarian structure, there exists a period of transformation called ‘dual power’. We think that dual power is indispensable, and moreover that it is inseparable from any revolution. To go decisively towards this duality and to resolve it to the advantage of the proletariat is a problem that our leadership has never understood.
Without any official declaration, and without even an editorial in La Batalla, our leadership has accepted the liquidation of ‘dual power’ to the advantage of the bourgeoisie. Thus we can read the following lines in an article signed ‘Indigeta’:

The Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias was dissolved as a logical consequence of the formation of the new government of the Council of the Generalitat. ‘Dual power’, a classic revolutionary phase, was completely detrimental to the course of our revolution. What began at the top has now reached the base ... Two months of civil war and revolution have shown us the evils of such a duality. (La Batalla, 7 October 1936)

The liquidation of the situation of ‘dual power’ was the beginning of the retreat for our revolution. Our party has also incurred responsibility for the elaboration of this counter-revolutionary decree.

What constitutes the essence of dual power? We must pause upon this question, for an illumination of it has never appeared in historic literature. And yet this dual power is a distinct condition of social crisis, by no means peculiar to the Russian Revolution of 1917, although there most clearly marked out ... The two-power regime arises only out of irreconcilable class conflicts – is possible, therefore, only in a revolutionary epoch, and constitutes one of its fundamental elements ... To overcome the ‘anarchy’ of this two-fold sovereignty becomes at every new step the task of the revolution – or the counter-revolution ... The English Revolution of the seventeenth century, exactly because it was a great revolution shattering the nation to the bottom, affords a clear example of this alternating dual power, with sharp transitions in the form of civil war. (Trotsky, The February Revolution) [1]

It is precisely around the problem of dual power that the dramatic struggle of parties and classes revolves:

The dual power merely expresses a transitional phase in the revolution’s development, when it has gone farther than the ordinary bourgeois-democratic revolution but has not yet reached a ‘pure’ dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry. (Lenin, The Revolution of 1917) [2]

How is ‘dual power’ organised? This is what Lenin explains:

Making use of liberty, the people began to organise independently. The chief organisation of the workers and peasants, who form the overwhelming majority of the population of Russia, was the Soviet of Workers’, Soldiers’ and Peasants’ Deputies. These Soviets already began to be formed during the February Revolution ... [3]

It is true that the forms of the Spanish Revolution are different from the forms of the Russian and German revolutions. But in their content all proletarian revolutions – including those of Russia and Spain – are similar; they are phases of the world revolution, and dual power appears in all these phases. Let us again read the opinions of our comrade Maurín:

Against the official power is ranged another power, a power from below, the Soviet. What is it that gives the Soviet this strength, this power? Simply the unity of all the workers. That is what determines its power ... Would the Bolsheviks have been able to take power in October if the Soviets – the second power – had not existed beforehand and prepared the conditions favourable to the insurrection? No. (Nueva Era, May 1936)

If we were to affirm in an absolute manner that ministries have admitted of an easy adaptation because we had the firm conviction that the terrain was favourable for it, we would be going in for Byzantinism. However, in the absence of any organ of proletarian power, we still today firmly accuse to our leaders of not having either encouraged or even attempted to create soviets. The file of Avant [4] is irrefutable proof of the lamentable part played by the leadership of the POUM at the time when the masses of Catalonia were firmly convinced that the past should henceforth remain no longer and that it was necessary to march decisively forward. But they could only be convinced of it – not by occasional vague articles in our press – but by the effective and practical creation of proletarian power. What was the slogan, what was the intent of the leaders of our party at this time?
“We are waiting for what Solidaridad Obrera will say, we are waiting to know what the leaders of the CNT are thinking.” With this the leadership of the POUM may have evaded their responsibility, but at least they told the truth.
Cell 72, Fifth Barcelona District of the POUM.

 

Notes

1. L.D. Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, London 1934, pp.223-5.
2. V.I. Lenin, The Tasks of the Proletariat in Our Revolution, Collected Works, Volume 24, Moscow 1977, p.61.
3. V.I. Lenin, Lessons of the Revolution, Collected Works, Volume 25, Moscow, 1977, p233.
4. Avant was the POUM’s paper in Catalan, founded in December 1936. 

José Rebull

On the Slogan of ‘A UGT-CNT Government’

At the start of the situation that followed the ‘solution’ of the crisis of the Valencia government by the elimination of Largo Caballero and the ministers of the CNT, La Batalla on 20 May launched the slogan of “a UGT-CNT government”. This syndicalist slogan against which our party had fought for a long time is now put forward as a progressive stage that will get us out of the present situation. The same editorial adds that this does not mean abandoning the slogan of a workers’ and peasants’ government, but that it is only a question of a provisional solution that would allow us to move closer to the realisation of a real workers’ and peasants’ government.
Unfortunately, there is a fair amount of confusion about what this workers’ and peasants’ government would actually be. It is generally conceived of as a government of workers’ representatives, political as well as trade union, within the confines of the bourgeois state. Let us suppose that it was talked about in the editorial as if it were a question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Let us take the liberty of making a few remarks upon this subject. It is declared in La Batalla that a solution within the bourgeois state (a CNT-UGT government) is urgent, and that we should then proceed to the establishment of a truly proletarian government. Inasmuch as it concerns the course of our revolution, this is equivalent to the position of the Stalinists.
Against the false position of the Stalinists, who say “defeat Fascism first, and then make the revolution”, Marxists have intransigently maintained that you cannot separate these two tasks from one another. Subjective conditions demand a proletarian revolution today, and allowing yourself to believe that it can be postponed to tomorrow means to betray the interests of the working class. Since the objective conditions demand an implacable social revolution, Marxists cannot be in favour of a government that would not be the dictatorship of the proletariat. The character of the revolution and the forms of government for which we ought to struggle are only two aspects of the same problem. Fundamentally, there is no difference between the false position of Stalinism and that expressed by La Batalla on 20 May.
There cannot exist a progressive bourgeois government during the period of declining capitalism. The dilemma that is posed is: Fascism or Socialism. All bourgeois governments have a reactionary content. The same can be said of any party that is not Marxist. The party of the proletariat in our time cannot use the word ‘progressive’ whilst referring to certain bourgeois governments or to the political parties of the bourgeoisie. If they are progressive, that can only mean one thing, that they are instruments for holding back the proletariat in struggle, but have progressive methods of doing so. Exploiters use various methods of struggle against the working class. A progressive bourgeois government can only mean a more effective and more subtle method to frustrate and mislead the proletariat.
The leaders of the UGT and the CNT have already shown in action, and actions speak louder than words, that they are enemies of the proletarian revolution. That has been demonstrated by their previous actions in government and in the streets of Barcelona during the May Days. Isn’t it thanks to the CNT leaders that the Esquerra and the PSUC were able to eliminate the conquests of the revolution in Catalonia? Was it not Largo Caballero, the most influential leader of the UGT and the Minister for War, who abandoned the Aragon front to its fate? Was it not the united leaderships of the CNT and the UGT who renounced the revolution and opened the way for the counter-revolution? Will they change now, or much later when having the fate of the revolution in their hands, they will have betrayed it?
Their policy consists of separating the war and the revolution, which is the same as strangling the revolution and losing the war. And our leadership is proposing a coalition of these two reformist bureaucracies as ... a progressive step!?
Faced with our criticism of the slogan of a UGT-CNT government, we are mindful that our Executive Committee will appeal to the Russian Revolution. During the period of Kerensky Lenin launched the slogan “All the responsibility of power to the Mensheviks”, who at that time were a minority in the government, whereas they represented a majority in the Soviets. If we remind them of this explanation, perhaps they will seek refuge behind the formula of Trotsky, who in 1934 called for a Blum-Cachin (Socialist-Stalinist) government for France.
Lenin launched his slogan when organs of dual power existed. The Mensheviks were in a majority in the Soviets thanks to their great influence over the working class, whilst they were in a minority in the government. It was necessary to push them into power in order to force their contradictions and their anti-revolutionary character into the open. This permitted the Bolsheviks to free the Soviets from the influence of the Mensheviks, and bring to light their betrayals within the government. In such circumstances, with the existence of dual power, and with the sole aim of exposing the reformists, Lenin’s slogan was correct. But there is no dual power in Spain, since the reformist leaders have liquidated it at birth. Proposing a UGT-CNT government today means assisting reformism in fresh betrayals tomorrow, because the same bourgeoisie on which it depends and to whose needs it responds is yet again endeavouring to use these leaders to behead the new proletarian revolution that is to come.
Enough of centrist politics, and enough of reformist formulae. For a clear Marxist activity and for the victory of the proletarian revolution it is necessary to avoid spreading confusion amongst the masses, it is necessary to work effectively for the creation of organs of the second power, and it is indispensable to reorganise the party on the proper political basis.
Cell 72, Fifth Barcelona District of the POUM, May 1937