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Education Bulletin Number 4 For Members Only
*x*k* ON THE UNITED FRONT — Leon Trotsky.
*axe SOVIETS: HIGHEST FORM OF THE UNTTED FRONT. (From WHAT NEXT) - Leon Trotsky.
*kk** THE LESSONS OF SPAIN: THE LAST WARNING - | Leon. Trotsky.
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ON THE UNITED FRONT
(Material for a Report on the Question of French Commmism)
By Leon Trotsky, from "The First Five Years of the Commmist International, " Volume 2, p.91, Monad Press Edition,
I. General Considerations on the United Front
1. The task of the Commmist Party is to lead the proletarian revolution. In order to summon the proletariat for the direct conquest of power and to achieve it the Commmist Party must base itself on the overwhelming majority of the working class; So long as it does not hold this majority, the party must fight to win it.
The party can achieve this only by remaining an absolutely independant organisation with a clear program and strict internal discipline, That is the reason .. why the party was bound to break ideologically amd,organizationally with the reformists and the centrists who do not strive for the proletarian revolution, who possess neither the capacity nor the desire to prepare the masses for revolution, and whe by their entire conduct thwart this work.
Any membersof the Communist Party who bemoan the split with the centrists in the name of “unity offorces" or "unity of front" thereby demonstrate that they do not understand the ABC of Communism and that they themselves happen to be in the Comm mist Party only by accident. 2. After assuring itself of the complete independence and ideological homogeneity of its ranks, the Communist Party fights for influence over the majority of the working class, This struggle can be accelerated or retarded depending upon objective circumstances and the expediency of the tactics employed.
But it is perfectly self-evident that the class life of the proletariat is not suspended during this period preparatory to the revolution. Claskes with industrialists, with the bourgeoisie, with the state power, on the initiative of one side or the other, rum their due course.
In these ckashes-- insofar as they involve the vital interests of the entire working class, or its majority, or this or that section-- the working masses sense the need of wmity in action, of mity in resisting the onslaught of capitalism or unity in taking the offensive against it. Any party which mechanieally counterposes itelf to this need of the working class for wity in action will unfailingly be condemed in the minds of workers.
Consequently the question of the united front is not at all, either in point of Origin or substance, a question of the reciprocal relations between the comm— unist parliamentary fraction and that of the Socialists, or between the Central Committee of the two parties, or between 1‘Humanite and Le Populaire. The problem of the mited front— despite the fact that a split is imevitable in this.epoch between the various political organisations basing themselves on the working class-- grows out of the urgent need to secure for the working class the possibility of a united front in the struggle against capitalism.
For those who do not understand this task, the party is only a propaganda society and not an organisation of mass action. 3. In cases where the Commmist Party still remains an organisation of a numerically insignificant minority, the question of its conduct on the massstruggle front does not assume a decisive practical and organisational significance, In such conditions, mass actions remain under the leadership of the old organisations which by reason of their still powerful traditions continue to play the decisive role.
Similarly the problem of the united front does not arise in comtries where —as in Bulgaria, for example-- the Commmist Party is the sole leading organisation of the toiling masses.
But wherever the Commmist Party already constitutes a big, organised, political force, but not the decisive magnitude; wherever the‘‘party embraces organisationally, let us say. one-fourth. one-third, or even a larger portion of the organised proletarian vanguard, it is confronted with the question of the united front in all its acuteness,
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li the party embraces one-third or one+half of th: proletarian vanguard, then the remaining half or two-thirds are organised by the reformists or centrists, It is perfectly obvious, however, that even those workers who still support the reformists and the centrists are vitally interested in maintaining the highest material standards of living and the greatest possible freedom for struggle. We must consequently so devise our tactic as to prevent the Communist Party, which will on the morrow embrace the entire tree-thirds of the working class, from turning into--and all the more so, from actually being— an organisational obstacle in the way of the current struggle of the proletariat.
Still more, the party must assume the initiative in securing unity in these current struggles. Only in this way will the party draw closer to those two-thirds who do not as yet follow its leadership, who do not as yet trust the party because they do not understand it. Only in this way can the party win them over. 4. If the Communist Party had not broken drastically aid irrevocably with the Social Democrats, it would not have become the party of the proletarian revolution. It could not have taken the first serious steps on the road to revelution. It would have for ever remained a parliamentary safty-valve attached to the bourgeois state, Whoever doés not understand this, does not know the first letter of the ABC of Communism, Tf the Communist Party didnot seek for organisational avenues to the end that at every given moment joint, coordinated action between the Commumist and the non-Communist (including the Social-Democratic) working masses were made possible, it would have thereby laid bare its own incapacity to win over-- on the basis of mass action-- the majority of the working class. It would degenerate into a Communist propaganda society but never develop into a party for the conquest of power, .
It is not enough to possess the sword, one must pive it an edge; it is not énough to give the sword an edge, one must know how to wield it.
After separating the Communists from the reformists it is not enough to fuse the Commmists together by means of organisational discipline; it is necessary that this organisation should learn how to guide all the collective activities of the proletariat in all the spheres of its living struggle. m This is the second letter of the alphabet of Commmisn, 5. Does the united front extend only to the working masses or does it also include the opportunist leaders?
The very posing of this question is a product of misunderstanding, If we were able simply ta wite the working masses around our own banner or around our practical immediate slogans, and skip over reformist organisations, whether party or trade wion, that would of course be the best thing in the world. But then the very question of the mited front would not exist in its present form, The question arises from this. that certain very important sections of the working class belong to reformist organisations or support them, Their present experience is still insufficient to enable them to break with the reofrmist organisations and join us. It may be precisely after engaging in those mass activities, which are on the order of the day, that a major change wil take place in this connection. That is just what we ate striving for. But that is not how matters stand at present, Today the organised proportion of the working class is broken up inte three formations.
One of them, the Communist, strives toward the social revolution and precisely because of this supports concurrently every movemsant, however partial, of the toilers against the exploiters and against the bourgeois state.
Another grouping, the reformist, strives toward conciliation with the bourgeoisie. But in order not to loose their influence over the workers reformists are compelled to, against the innermost desires of their own leaders, support the partial movements of the exploited against the exploiters.
Finally, there is a third grouping, the centrist, which constantly vascillates between the other two, and which has no independant significance.
The circumstances thus make wholly possible joint action on a whole number of wital issues between the workers united in these organisations and the unorganised masses adhereing to them, The Communists, as has been said, must not oppose such actions but on the contrary must also assume the initiative for them, precisely for the reason that the greater is the mass drawm into the movement, the higher its selfconfidence rises, all the more self-confident will that mass movemmt be and all the more resolutely will it be capable of marching forward, however modest - >? -
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= the initial slegems of struggle, And this means tliat lie grewth of the SSS] Gspects of the movement tends to radicaligze it, and treates much more fay- Orable conditions for the slogans, methods of strugele, and, in general, the leading role of the Communist Party.
The reformists dread the revolutionary potential of the mass movement; their beloved arena is the parliamentary tribume, the trade-union bureaus, the arbit— Tation boards, the ministerial ante-chambers, On the contrary, we are, apart from all other considerations, interested in dragging the reformists from their asylums and placing them alongside ourselves before the eyes of the strugglling masses, With a correct tactic we stand only to gain from this. A Commmist who doubts or fears this resembles a swimmer who has approved the theses on the best mehtod of swimming but dares not plunge into the water. 6. Unity of front consequently presupposes our readiness, within certain limits and on specific issues, to correlate in practice our actions with those of the reformist organisations, to the extent to which the latter still exptesses today the will of important sections of the embattled proletariat.
But after all, didn't we split with them? Yes, because we disagree with them on fimdamental questions of the working class movment. 4nd yet we seek agreement with them? Yes, in all those cases where the masses that follow them are ready to engage in joint struggle together with the masses that follow us and when they, the reformists, are to a lesser or greater degree compelled to become an instrument of this struggle.
But won't they say that after splitting with them we still need them? Yes, their blabbermouths may say this. Here and there somebody in our own ranks may take fright at it, But as regayds the broad working mhasses—- even those who do not follow us and who do not as yet understand our goals but who do see two or three labor organisations leading a parallet existence—- these masses will draw from our cotiifict this conclusion, that despite the slpit we are doing everything in our power to facilitate unity in action for the masses, 7. A policy aimed to secure the united front does not of course contain automatic guarantees that wnity in action will actually be attained in all instances. On the contrary, in many cases and perhaps even the majority of cases, the organisational agreements will be only half-attained or perhaps not at all, But it is necessary that the struggling masses should always be given the opportumity of convinwing themselves that the non-achievement of wmity in action was not due to our formalistic irreconcilibity but to the lack of real will to struggle on the part of the reformists.
In entering into aggreements with other organisations, we naturally obligate ourselves to a certain discipline in action. But this discipline cannot be absolute in character. In the event that the reformists begin putting brakes on the struggle to the obvious detriment of the movement and act counter too tie pitunti: a ath She moods! fey i one masses, we as an independant organisation “always reserve the right to lead the struggle to the end, and this without our temporary semi-allies.
This may give rise to a-new sharpening of the struggle between us and the reformists. But it will no longer involve a simple repetition of one and the same set of ideas within a shut-in circle but will signify-- provided our tactic is correct— the extension of our influence over new, fresh groups of the proletariat. 8. It is possible to see in this policy a rapproachement with the reformists only from the standpoint of a journalist who believes that he ride himself of reformism by ritualistically criticizing it without ever leaving his editorial office but who is fearful of clashing with the reformists before the eyes of the working masses and giving the latter an opportunity to appraise the Commmist and the reformist on =e equal plane of the mass struggle, Behind this seemingly revolutionary fear of ' ‘rapproachement" there really lurks a political passivity which seeks to perpetuate any i} der of things wherein the Commmists and reform ists each retain their own rigidly demarcated spheres of influence, their own audiences at meetings, their own press, and all this together creates an illusion of serious political struggle.
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9. We broke with the reformists and centrists in order to obtain complete freedom in criticizing perfidy, betrayal, indecision and the half-way spirit in the labour movement. For this reason any sort of organisational agreement which restricts our freedom of criticismm and agitation is absolutely wacceptable to us. We participate in a united front but not for a single moment become dissolved in it. We function in the united front as an independant detachment. It is precisely in the course of struggle that broad masses must learn from experience that we fight better than the others, that we see more clearly than the others, that we are more audacious and resolute. In this way, we shall bring closer the hour of the united revolutionary front under the undisputed Commmist leadership.
Il, Groupings in the French Labor Movement,
10.1f we propose to analyze the question of the wited front as it applies to France, without leaving the ground of the foregoing theses which flow from the entire policy of the Communist Intemational, then we must ask ourselves: Do we have in France a situation in which Communists represent, from the standpoint of practical actions, an insignificant magnitude (quantite negligeable) ? Or do they, on the contrary, encompass the overwhelming majority of organised workers? Or do they perhaps occupy an in-between positions? Are they sufficiently strong to make their participation in the mass movement of major importance, but not strong enpugh to concentrate the undisputed leadership in their own hands?
It is quite ancontestable that we have before us precisely the latter case in France. ll.in the party sphere the predominance of the Commmists over the reformists is overwhelming. The Communigt organisation and the Communist Press surpass by far in numbers, richness and vitality the organisation and press of the socalled Socialists, This overwhelming preponderance, however, far from secures to the French Commmist Party the complete and wchallenged leadership of the French proletariat, inasmuch as the latter is still strongly wder the influence of antipolitical and anti-party tendencies and prejudices, the arena for whose operation is primarily provided by the trade wiicns, 12.The outstanding peculiarity of the French labor movement consists in this, that the trade uions have long served as an integument or cover for a peculiar anti-parliamentary political party which bears the name of syndicalism. Because however the revolutionary syndicalists may try to demarcate themselves from politics or from the party, they can never refute the fact that they themselves constitute a political party which seeks to base itself on trade union organisations of the working class. This party has igs own positive, revolutionary, proletarian tendencies, but it also has its own extremely negative. features, namely, the lack of a genuinely definitive program and a rounded organisation. The organisation of the trade wmions by no means corresponds with the organisation of syndicalism. In the organisational sense, the syndicalists represent amorphous political nuclei, grafted upon the trade unions, The question is further complicated by the fact that the syndicalists, like all other political groupings in the working class, have split, after the war, into two sections: the reformists who support bourgeois society and are thereby compelled to work hand in hand with parliamentary reformists; And the revolutionary section which is seeking ways to overthrow bourgeois society and is thereby, in the person of its best elements, moving towards Commmism.
It was just this urge to preserve the unity of the class front which inspiered not only the Commmists but also the revolutionary syndicalists with the absolutely correct tactic of fighting for the wmity of the trade union organisation of the French proletariat. On the other hand, with the instinct of bankrupts who sense that before the eyes of the working masses they cannot in action, in struggle, meet the competition of the revolutionary wing, Jouhaux, Merriheim and Co. have taker the path of split. The colossally important struggle now wifolding throughout the entire trade wmion movement of France, the strugele between the refermists and the revolutionists, is for us at the same time a struggle for the wmity of the trade wmion organisation. and the trade union front. = A -
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EIT. The Trade Union Movement and the United Front
13, French Communism finds itself in an extremely favourable position Precisely with regard to the idea of the mited front. In the framework of political organisation, French Communism has succeeded in conquering the majority of the old Socialist Party, whereupon the opportunists added to all their other political credentials the quality of "Dissidents" that is, splitters. Our French Party has made use of this in the sense that it has branded the social-reformist organisation with the label of Dissidents(splitters), thus singling out the fact that the reformistrs are disrupters of wmity in action and unity of organisation alike, 14. In the field of the trade wicn movement, the revolutionary wing and above all the Communists cannot hide elther from themselves or their adversaries how profound are the differences between Moscow and Amsterdam--diffetrences which are by no means simple shadings within the ranks of the labor movement but s reflection of the profoundest contradiction which is tearing modern society apart, namely, the contradiction between the bourgeaisie and the proletariat. But at the same time the reveiutionary wing,1.e., first and foremost the conscious Communist eleements, never sponsored, as has been said, the tactic of leaving the trade unions or of splitting the trade union organisation, Such slogans are characteristic only of sectarian proupings of "localists,” of the KFAPD, of certain "Libertarian" anarchist grouplets in Brance, which never wielded any influence among broad working masses, which neither aspire nor strive to gain this influence but are content with small churches of their own, each with its rigidly demarcated congregation. The truely revolutionary elements among the French syndicalists have felt imstinctively that the French working class can be won on the arena of the trade wuion movement only by cownterposing the revolutionary viewpoint and the revolutionary methods to those of the reformists on the arena of tiass action, while preserving at the same time the highest pessible gdepree of mity in action, 15, The system of cells in the trade uniot organisations adopted by the revolutionary wing signifies nothing else but the most natural form of struggle for ideological influence and for mity of front without disruting the wiity of organisation, 16. Like the reformists of the Socialist Party, the reformists of the trade union moyvemmet took the initiative for the split, But if was precisely the experience of the Socialist Party that largely inspired them with the conciu- Sion that time worked in favor of Communism, and that it was possible to counteract the influence of experience and time only by forcing a split. On the part of the ruling CGT(French Confederation of Labor) clique we see a whole system of measures designed to disorganise the left wing, to deprive it of those rights which the trade unions stetutes afford it,and,finally, through open expulsion-- counter cto all statutes and regulations-- to formally place it outside the trade union organisation, On the other hand we see the revobutionary wing fighting to preserve its rights on the grouds ef the democratic norms of workers" organisations and resisting with all its might the split implanted from above by appealing to the rank and file for wmity of the trade union organisation, 17. Every thinking French worker must be aware that when the Communists comorised one-sixth or one third of the Socialist Party they did not attempt to split, being absolutely certain that the majority of the party would follow them in the near future, When the reformists found themselves reduced to onethird, they split away, nursing no hopes to again win the majority of the proletarian vanguard.
Every thinking French worker must be aware that when the revolutionary elements were confronted with the problem of the trade wmion movement, they. still an insignificant minarity at the time, decided it in the sense of working in common organisations, being certain that the experience of the struggle in the eonditions of the revolutionary epoch would quickly impei the majority of the
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unionized workers to the side of the revolutionary program. When the icivurmists, however perceived the growth of the revolutionary wing in the trade mions, they-nursing no hopes of coping with it on a competitive basis-- resorted immediately to the metheded of expulsion and split.
Hence tlaw conclusions of the greatest importance:
Firat, the full depth of the differences which reflect, as has been said, the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, becomes clarified.
Secondly, the hypocritical "democratigm”-of-the opponents ef proletarian dictatorship are averse to tolerating methods of democracy, not only in the framework of the state. but also in the framework of workers’ organisations, Whenever the latter tom against them, they either split away themselves, like the Dissidents in the party. or expel others, like the clique of Jouhaux+dimoulin, “It is truely monatrusug to suppose that the bourgeoisie would ever agree to permit the struggle against the proletariat to come toa decision within the: framework of democracy when even the agents of the bourgeoisie inside the trade mion and political organisations are opposed to solving the questions of the Pabour movement on the basis of norms of workers’ democracy which they themselves woluntarily adopted 18. The struggle for mity of the trade witon organisation and trade tiem acticn wil. remain in the future as well one of the most important tasks of the GSmmunist Farty-- a 6&truggie fot only in the sense of constantly strivimg to unite @ver larger numbers of workers around the program and tactics of Communism, but also sense that the Commumist Party--on the road to the realization of this goal=—"Both directty and through Communists in the trade unions, strives in actiseto redtise to 4a Minimem these obstacles which are placed before the workers’ movement by @n otpanisational split.
If tn spite of all our efforts to restore uity, the split in the CGT becomes sealed in the immediate future. this would not at all signify that the CGT Unitaire regardless of whether half or more than half of the omionized workers join it In the next period, will conduct its werk by simply ignoring the existence of the cefcrmist CGT. Such s policy would render difficult in the extreme“- if not exclude altogetnher-- the possibility of coordimated militant actions of the prol- @tariat, and at the same time would make it extremely easy for the reformist CCT to play. in the interests of the boutgeoisie, the role of Exe Li Civiqueti) as tegards strikes. demonsfrations,etc.; and it would simultaneously provide the reformist CGT with a semblance of justification in arguing that the’ revolutionary CGTU provekes inexpedient public actions and must hear full responsibility for them, [lt is perfectly self-evident that in all cases where circumstances permit, the revolutionary C&TU will, whenever it deems it necessary to undertake some campaign, openly address itself to the reformist CGT with specific proposals and demands for a concrete plan of coordimated actions, andsbring to bear the préssure of labors public opinion and expose before this public opinion each hesitating and evasive step of the reformisté.
In this way, even in the event that the split of the trade tion otganisation becomes permanent, the methods of struggle for the wnited front will preserve all their meaning Lo. We can, therefore, state that in welation to the most important field of the labor mevement-- the trade wunions-- the tactic of the wited front demands Chat those methode, by which the strugele against Jouhaux and Co. has already been conducted on our side, be applied more consistently, more persistently and res#lutely than ever before, is ie
TV. The Political Struggle and the United Front
20, On the party plane there is, to begin with, a very important difference from the trade wmions in this, that the preponderance of the Communist Party over the Socialist. both in the point of organisation and the press, is overwhelming. We may consequently assume that the Communist Party, as such, is capable of securing the unity of the political front and that therefore it has no impelling reasons for addressing itself to the organisation of the Dissidents with any sort of proposals for concrete actions. This strictly businesslike and legitimate method
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| ef posing the question, on the basis of verbal: radicalism, must be appraised on ts substantive merits. 21. If we take into account that the Communist Party numbers 130,000. members, while fhe Socialists number 30,000, then the. encrous success of Communist ideas in France become apparent. However, if we take into accomt the relation between these figuees and the numerical strenght of the working class as a whole, together with the existence of reformist trade unions and of anti*Communist tendencies within the revolutionary trade unions, then the question of the hegemony of the Communist Party inside the labor movement will confront us as.a very difficult task, still far from solved by our numerical superiority over the Dissidents, The latter may mder certain conditions prove to be a much more important cowter-revolutionary factor within the working class than might appear, if one were to judge solely from the weakness of their organisation and the insignificant circulation and ideological content of their paper, Le Populaire. 22, In order to evaluate a situation, it is necessary to take clear cognizance of how this situation tock shape. The transformation of the majority of the old Socialist Party into the Commmist Party came as a result of a wave of dissat~isfaction and mutiny engenedered in all countries in Europe by the war. The example of the Russian revolution and the slogams of the Third International seemed to point a way out. The bourgeoisie, however, was able to maintain itself throughout 1919-20 and was able, by means of combined measures, to establish on postwar foundations a certain equilibrium, which is being undermined by the most terrible contradiction and which is, heading towards vast catastrophes, which m meanwhile provides relative stability for the current day and for the peried im ediately ahead. The Russian revolution, in surmounting the greatest difficulties and obstacles created by world capitalism, has been able to achieve its socialist tasks only gradually, only at the cost of an extraordinary strain upon all its forces. As a result, the initial flood-tide of vague, uncritical, revolutionary moods has been unavoidably superseded by an ebb. Only the most resolute, audacious and youthful section of the world working class has remained under the banner of Commmnisn.
This does not mean naturally that those broad circles of the proletariat who have been disillusioned in their hopes for immediate revolution, fer swift radical transformations,etc., have wholly returned to the old prewar positions, No, their dissatisfaction is deeper than ever before, their hatred of the exp loiters is fiercer. But at the same time they are politically disorientated, they do not see the paths of struggle, and therefore remain passively expectant— giving wise to the possibility of sharp swings to this or that side, depending on how the situation unfolds.
This big reservoir of the passive and the disoriented can, under a certain combination of circumstances, be widely utilixed by the Dissidents against us, 23. In order to support the Communist Party, faith in the revolutionary cause, will to action and loyalty are needed. In order to support the Dissidents, disorientation and passivity are necessary and sufficient. It is perfectly nat~ ural for the revolutionary and dynamic section of the working class to effuse from its ranks a much larger proportion. of members for the Commmist Party than the Passive and disoriented section is able to supply to the party of the Dissidents, The same thing applies.to the press. The elements of indifferentism read little. The insignificant circulation and content of Le Populaire mirrors the mood of a certain section of the working class, Thefact that completely ascendancy of the professional intellectuals over the workers prevails in the party of the Dissidents runs nowisr counter to our diagnosis and prognosis. Because the passive and partially disillusioned, partially disoriented worker~masses are an ideal culture medium, especially in France, for political cliques composed of attormeys and journalists, reformist witch-doctors and parliamentary charlatans. 24, If we regard the party organisation as am operating army, and the unorganised Mass of workers as the reserves, and if we grant that our operating army is three to four times stronger than the active army of Dissidents,then,wder a certain eoubination of circumstances, the reserves may prove to be divided between ourselves and the socila-reformists in a proportion much less favorable to us,
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25. The political atmosphere of France is pervaded with the idea of the “Left Bloc , After = new period of Poincaresism which represents the bourgeoisie's attempt to serve up to the people .a.warmed-over hash of the illusions of victory, 4 ke fist reaction may quite likely set.in among bread circies of bourgeois iecy i,*,. first and foremost ameng the petty houtgecisie. The hope for miyersal pacification, for agreement with Soviet Russia, obtaining raw materials and payments from her on’ advantageous terms, cuts in the burden of militarism, and so m—-in brief, the 11insery pragram of democratic pacifism--can become for a while the program of a ‘Left Bloc,” -superseding the National Bloc.
From the standpoint .of - the development of the revolution in France, such a hange of regimes will be .a.step forward only provided the proletariat does not fail prey te any extent:to the illusions.of petty beurgecis: pacifism, 26, Reformist™Dissidents are the agency of the “Left Bloc" within the working “lass, Their successes will be che greater, all the leas the working class as a wnole is seized by the idea and practice of the wiited front agaimst the bourgeoiaie, Layers of workers, disoriented by the war-and by the tardiness of the revolution, mey venture to support the "Left Bloc” as alesser evil, in the belief that they do not thereby risk anything at all, or because they see no other road st presenc., 27, One of the most reliable mehtods of counteracting inside the working class the moods and ideas of the “Left Bloc,“ise., a bloc between the workers and. a certain section of the bourgeoisie against another section of the bourgeoisie, Ls through promoting persistently and resolutely the idea of a bloc between all the séctions of the working class against the whole bourgeoisie. 28, In relation ©5 the Dissidents this means that we must not permit them to AecUpY with impunity an evasive, temporizing position on the questions relating to the labor movement. and to use platonic declarations of sympathy for the i..! wotking class as a cever for utilizing the patronage of the bourgeois oppressors, Ia &ther words, we can and must, in all suitable instances, propose to the Dissidents 2 specific form of joint aid to strikers, to locked ~out workers, unemployed. war invalids.etc.,etc., recording before the eyes of the masses their respomses to our precise proposals, and in this way driving a wedge between them and certain sections of politically indifferent or semi-indifferent.masses on whom rhe ceformists hope to lean for support under .certain favorable conditions. 24, This kind of tactic is all the more important in view of the fact that a Dissidents are wmquest lonably Sila Gp intimately with the reformist CCT. and together witn: the latter constitute the two wings of the bourgeois agency inside the labor movement, We take the bifensé ve both on the trade wiion and political fields simultaneously against this two-fold agency, applying the very same tactical methods, 30, The impectable and egitationally extremely” persuasive logic of our conduct is as fellews: "You, the refermists of trade wnienism and socialism,” we say them before the eyes of the masses,"havye split the trade unions and the party far the sake of ideas and methods which we consider wrong and criminal, We demand that you at least refrain from placing a spoke in the wheel during the partial and unpostponable comcrete tasks of the working class in’ struggle and that you mske possible tmiity in action. Im the given concrete situation we propose such aid such a program of struggle.” 31, The indicated method could be similarly employed_and not without success in relation to parliamentary and mumicipal activitiess We say to the masses, "The Dissidents, because they do net want the revolution, have split the masa of workers. tt would be insanity to count upon their helping the proletariam revolution. But we are ready, inside and outside parliament, to enter into certain practical agreements with them, provided they agree, in those cases where one must choose between the known Interests of the bourgeoisie and the definite demands of the proletariat, to support the latter in action. The Dissidents can be capable of such a¢tions only if they renounce their ties with the parties of the bourgeoisie, that is, the “Left Bloc” and its bourgeois discipline.”
Tf the Dissidents were capable of accepting these conditimms, then their worker-followers would quickly be absorbed by the Commmist Party... Just because of this, the Dissidents will not.agree to these conditions, Im other
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words, to the clearly and presiaeiy posed question whether they choose a bloc with the bourgeoisie er a bloc with the prol@étariat** in cbvheréete and specific conditions of struggle-- they will be compelled to reply that they prefer a bloc with the bourgeoisie, Such an answer will not pass with imptnity among the proletarian reserves on whom they are counting.
VY. Intemal Tasks of the Communist Party
32, The foregoing policy presupposes, naturally, complete organisational independence, ideological clarity and revolutionary firmmass of the Commmist Party itself.
Thus,for example, it would be impossible to conduct with complete success a policy aimed at making hateful and contemptible the idea of the “Left Bloc" among the working class, if im our own party ranks there are partisans of this "Left Bloc" bold enough openly to defend this projected pregram of the bourgeoisie. Unconditional and merciless expulsion in disgrace of those who come out in favor of the idea of the "Left Bloc” is a seli-wnderstood duty of the Communist Party. This will cleanse our policy cf all elements of equivocation and welarity: this will attract the attention of advanced werkers te the acute character of the issue of the "Left Bloc" and will demonstrate that the Communist Party does not trifle with the questions which imperil the revelutienary wmity im actien of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. 33. Those who seek to use the idea of the wmited frent for agitating in faver of wnification with the reformisis and Dissidents must be mercilessly ejected from cur party,inasmuch as they serve as the agency of the Dissidents in our ranks and are deceiving the workers concerning the reasons for the split and whe is really responsible for 1t. Instead of correctly posing the question of the possibility of this cr that coordinated, practical action with the Dissidents, despite their petty bourgeois and essentially counter~revolutionary character, they are demanding that our own party renounce its Commumist program and revolutionary methods. The ejection of such elements, mercilessly and in disgrace, will best demonstrate that the tactic of the workers’ united tcont in no way resembles capitulation to or reconciliction with the reformists. The tactic of the united Frent demands from the parcy compiete freedom im maneuvering, flexibiliry and resoluteness. To make this possible, the party must clearly and specifically declare at every given moment just what its wishes are, just what it 1s striving for, and it must comment authoritatively, pefore the eyes of che messes, on its own steps and proposals, 34. Hence flows the complete inadmis2ibility for individual party members to issue on their vwi responsibility ard risk political publications im which they counterpos thei> own slogams, meth is of acticn and proposals to the slogans, methods of action and propesals of the party. Under the cover of the Communist Party and consequently also inside that milieu which is influenced by a Communist saver.i.@-. in a workers’ milieu, "hey spread from day to day ideas hostile to us, er they sow confus’on «od skeptis sm which are even more pernicious than awowedly wostile ideologies, Periodicals of rnis type, togehher with their editors, mist ce aod for all be placed oureid: ‘1e party and the entire working-class France wast learn about this from crtic'2#: which mercilessly expose the petty~bourgeois augegiers who operate under a Commuaist flag. >. From wiat has beer said, it likewise follows that it is completely inadmissible ver the leading party publications to carry side by side with articles defending the asic concepts of COMMUN sm, a@ther articles disputing these concepts or denying them. a5hocluteiy impermissible is a continuation of a regime in the party press under =) ch the mass of worket-readers find, in the guise of editorials in leading jaa ist periodicals, articles which try to turn us back to positions of tearfA (pacifism and which propogate among workers a debilirating hostility toward golutionary violence in the face of the triumphant violence of the bourgeoisie. the guise of a struggle against militarism, a struggle is thus being conducted ist the ideas of revolution. if after the experience of the war and all the subsequent events, especially ssia and Germany, the prejudices of humanitarian pacifism have still survived : Commmist Party; and if the party finds it advisable for the sake of complet- - fo
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Ral ep ke od ah ree *iy liquidating these prejudices teepen 2.disrusmien.en this questien. even in that case, the pacifist with their prejudices cannet ceme-ferward im such a discuss- LO] #8 am @qual terce but must be severely condemed by the autheritative voice of the party, in the name of tts Central Committee. After the: Central Committee decides that the discoussien has been exhausted, a1 attempts te spread the debilit-— ating idees of Tolsteyanism and other detiesiof pacifism mast unquestionably bring expulsion fromthe party. 36. An oble- tion might, hewsver, be raised that se lenge as the werk of cleansing the party ef ancient prejudices and ef attaining internal cehesien. remains ucompleted, 1€ would be dangerous to place the party in situations where it weuld come inte close p Proximity with retormists and nationalists. But such a point of view is false. Naturally it 12 undeniable that a transition from broad propagandist activity to direct participation in the mass movement carries witb it new.diffienities and: therefore dangers fer the Commumist Party. But.it is completely wrong to suppose that the party can be prepared for all tests without directly perticipating in strugeles, without directly coming in contact with enemies and adverseries,..0n the centrary, onivy in this way can @ genuine, nen-fictitious intemal. cleaning and fusing of the Party be achieved. It is quite -pessible that some @lements in the party and’ in the trade unten bureaucracy will feel themselves driwn more closely to. the refermists, from whom they have accidentally split, than tewards us. The loss of such campfollewers will net be a liability but an asset. and it will be compensated a hundvedfold by the influx of those working men and women who still feilew the refermists teday. The party will in consequence become mare homogenesus, more resolute and more proletarian,
Vi, Party Tasks im the Trade thion Movement,
37, Absolute clarity on the trade imion question is a task of first-tate impertance, surpassing by far all the ether tasks before the Commimist Party of France.
Naturally the legend spread by the reformists that plans are afcot to subordinate the trade unions crganisationally to the party must be wmconditionally denounced and exposed, Trade wnions embrace workers of different political shadings as well aS non-paitty men, atheists as well as believers, whereas the party unites political cothinkers on the basis of a definite program, The party has net and cannot have any instrumental tbies and methods for subjecting the trade wiiens te itself frem the out side, The party can peatl onfluence im the life of the trade imions enly to the extent that its members work in the trade unions and carry sut the party: psint of view there. The influence of party members in the trade uniens waturaiiy depends on their numerical strenght end especially on the gegree to which they are able to apply party principles correctly, censistently and expediently te the: needs of the trade uiiek: movement, The party has the right and the duty to aim te “tenquer, aleng the road above outlined, the- decisive influence in the trade uiien organisetion, .1t-.can achieve this geal only provided ‘he work sf the Commmists in the trae tuniets is wholly and exclusively harmenited with the principles sf the party and is invarishty conducted imder Its control, 38, The minds si 211 Communists must therefore be completely. purged of reformist prejudices, in accordance with which the party i+ regarded as-a-pelitical parlia— mMentery organitation of the proletetiat, and nothing more, The Communist Party is the organisation of the proletarian vanguard for the ideological fructification of the labor movement and the aesumption of leadership in ail spheres first and Foremest in the trade unions. While the trade unions are net subordinate to the party but wholly autonomous organizations, the Commumists inside the trade unions, eon the other hand, cannot pretend to any kind of autenomy in their trade union activity but must act as the transmitters of their partys" program and tactics. To be most severely condemmed is the conduct of those Commmists who not only fail to fight inside the trade unions for the influence of party ideas but actually ceunt= @ract such a struggle 1a the name of a principle of “autonomy” which they apply absolutely Falsly. As a matter of fact, they thus pave the way for the decisive influence in the trade unions of individuals, groups and cliques, bewund neither by & definite program nor by party organisations, and who utilise the formlessness of idealogical groupings and relations in order te keep the organisational apparatus in theit sm hands and secure the independence of their own clique frem any actual control by the workers’ vanguard. _ as
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While the party, in its activity inside the trade unions, must show the greatest attentiveness and caution toward the non=party masses and. their’ conscientious aid honest representatives; while the party must, on the’ basis of joint work, syst~ematically and tactically draw closer to the best elements-of: the trade tmion move- Gent—including the revolutionary anarchists who are capable of learning--the party Cam ,on the contrary, no longer tolerate in its midst these pseudo-Commmists who Biilise the status of..party membership only in order all the more confidently to promote anti-party influences in the trade tmnions. 39. The party through its own press, through its own propagandists and its members in the trade’ wniens must submit to constant and systematic criticism the shortcomings a4 the revolutionary syndicalism for solving the basic tasks of the proletariat. The party must tirelessly and persistently criticize the weak theoretical and practical sides of syndicalism, explaining at the same time to its best elements that the only correct road for securing the revolutionary influence on the trade unions and on the labor movement as a whole is the entry’ of revolutionary syndicalists into the Communist Party: their participation in the working out of all the basic questions of the mowement, in drawing the balance sheet of experience, in defining new tasks, in cleansing the Commmist Party itself and strenthening its ties with the working masses. 40. It is absolutely indispensible to take a census of all the members of the French Communist Party in order to determine their social status (workers,civil employees,peasants,intellectuals,etc.); their relations with the trade unien movement({do they belong to trade unfons--do they participate in meetings cf Communist and revolutionary syndicalists? do they carry out at these meetings the decisions of the party on the trade wunions?etc.); their attitude toward the party press (what party publicatiohs do they read?), and so on.
The census must be so conducted that its chief aspects can be taken into account before the Fourth World Congress convenes,
March 2, 1922.
Notes: (1)La Ligue Civique was a bourgeois anti-labor, strikebreaking organisation in France,
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Verbal genuflectiens before the seviets are equally as fashienable in the ‘left' circles as the misconception of their historical function. Most often the soviets are defined as the organs above parties and embracing the entire class becomes extremeof struggle for power, as the organs of insurrection, and finally, ly urgent. To crystallize this need into a form—that ls the historic destny of the soviets, That is their great function. as the organs of dictatorship. Formally these definitions are correct. But they do not at al! exhaust the historical function Under the conditiona of a revolutionary situation they arise as the highest organized expreasion of proletarian unity. Those of the soviets. First of all they do not explain why, In the THROUGH THE UNITED FRONT TO THE SOVIETS AS THE HIGHEST ORGANS OF THE UF. struge'e for power, precisely the sovicts are necessary. The who haven't understood this, have understood nothing in mat answer to this question is: Just ag the trade union is the ruters relating to the problem of the soviets. Thaclmann, Neudimentary form of the united front in the economic struggle, mann, and Remmele may keep on writing articles and uttering eo the soviet is the highest form of the united front under the speeches about the future "Soviet Germany” without end. By conditions in which the proletariat enters the epoch of fighting their present policies they are sabotaging the inception of the for power, (Struggle Against Fascism in Germany P193). sovieta In Germany.
The soviet in itself possesses no miraculous powers. It is the Removed from the actual sphere of action, unable to gather class representation of the proletariat, with all of the latter's direct impressions from the masses or to place a hand daily strong and weak points. But precisely and only because of on the pulse of the working class, it is very difficult to forethis does the soviet afford to the workers of divers political cast the transitional forms which will lead in Germany to the trends the organizational opportunity to unite their efforts in creation of soviets. In another connection I offered the hythe revolutionary struggle for power. In the preserit prerevopothesia that the German soviets may arise as an expanded lutionary environment it 1s the duty of the most advanced form of the factory committees: in this, 1 leaned chiefly on the expetience in 1923. But of course that is not the only way.
German workers to underatand most clearly the historical func- Under the pressure of want and unemployment on the one tion of the sovieta as the organs of the united front. hand and the onset of the fascists on the other, the need for Could the Communist Party succeed, during the preparatory revolutionary unity may all at once come to the surface In epoch, in pushing all other parties out of the ranka of the the form of soviets, skipping the factory committees. But whichworkers by uniting under its banner the overwhelming majorever way the soviets arise, they cannot become anything save ity of the workers, then there would be no need whatever for the organizational expression of the strong and weak sides of sovieta. But historical experience bears witness to the fact that the proletariat, of its inner contradictions and the general urge there is no basis whatever for the expectation that in any single to overcome them; in short, the organs of the united front. country—in countries with an old capitalist culture even leas The Social Democracy and the Communist Party divide in than in the backward ones—the Communist Party can succeed Germany the Influence over the working class. The Social in occupying such an undisputed and absolutely commanding Democratic leadership does its best to repel the workers from position in the workers’ ranks, prior to theproletarian overturn. itself, The leadership of the Communist Party strives with all Precisely in Germany today are we shown that the proleits might to counteract the influx of the workers. As a contariat Is faced with the task of a direct and immediate struggle sequence we get the formation of a third party and a comparafor power, long before it has been completely united under tively slow change in the correlation of forces in favor of the the banner of the Communist Party. The revolutionary situa- Communists. But even if Communist Party policies were ention itself, Lf approached on the politcal plane, arises from the (From What Next). tirely correct, the workers’ need for a revolutionary unification fact that all groups and layers of the proletariat, or at least of the class would have grown incomparably faster than the their overwhelming majority, are seized with the urge to unite preponderance of the Communist Party within the class. The their efforts in changing the existing regime. This does not need of creating soviets would thus remain in ite full scope. mean, however, that they all understand how to do It; and The creation of the soviets presupposes that the diierent still less that they are ready at the very moment to break with parties and organizations within the working class, beginning their parties and to join the ranks of the Communists. The with the factorics, become agreed, both as regards the very political conecience of the class does not mature so methodicalnecessity for the soviets and as regards the time and methods ly and uniformly; deep inner divergences remain even in the of their formation. Which means: since the soviets, in themrevolutionary epoch, when all processes develop by leaps and selves, represent the highest form of the united front In the bounds. But, at the same time, the need for an organization
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198 The Steuggle Againat Fascism in trermanrg ’ st What Seolt Loo a a | a a ae with all their faults and weaknesses, must be combined le. .
While the present course of the party is in fact directerl towards & great antifascist defensive unions. What does this mean? We ne ; supplanting the soviets by the party, Hugo Urbahns, loath may cispense with lengthy theoretic explanations; history ilse’’ to miss the oppurtunity to add to the confusion, is preparing proved a severe teacher in these questions to the German works,” to supplant the party by the soviets. According to a Sozialing class: the formless hodgepodge united front of all workera!istache Arbeiter Zettung dispatch, Urbahns, in refuting the organizations was paid for by the German working class at pretension of the Communist Party to the leadership of the the price of the lost revolution in 1918-1919." In truth, An working class, said at a meeting in Berlin, in January, "The unsurpassable sample of superficial verblage! leadership will be kept In the hands of the soviets, elected by In 1918-1919, the united front was realized primarily through the masses themselves and not in accordance with the desires the soviets. Should the Spartacists34 have entered the soviets or at the discretion of the one and only party, (Violent ap or shouldn't they? According to the exact meaning of the pasplause.)" One can easily understand that by its ultimatism — sage cited, they should have remained apart from the soviets, the Communist Party irritates the workers, who are ready Rut since the Spartacists represented only a small minority to applaud every protest against bureaucratic presumption. of the working class, and slnce they could in no way substi- But this does not alter the fact that Urbahns in this question tute for the Secial Democratic soviets their own, then their as well has nothing in common with Marxism. No one will isolation from the soviets would have meant simply their isolafainsay that the workers will elect the soviets "themselves." tion from the revolution, If the united front was "formless" and But the whole question lies in whom they will elec We must a “hodgepodge,” the fault lay not with the soviets, as the enter the soviets together with all other organizations such as organs of the united front, but with the political condition of they are, “with all their faults and weaknesses.” But to avow ee the working class itself; with the weakness of the Sparthat the soviets "by themselves" are capable of leading the takusbund: and with the extremes power of the Social Democstruggle of the proletariat for power—is only to sow abroad racy. The united front, in general, is never a substitute for a vulgar soviet fetishism. Everything depends upon the party strong revolutionary party; itean only aid the latter to become that leads the soviets. Therefore, in contradistinction to Urstronger. This applies fully to the soviets. The weak Sparcbahns, the Bolshevik-Leninists do not at all deny the Comtakusbund, by its fear to let slip the extraordinary occasion, munist Party the right to lead the soviets; on the contrary, was pushed into taking ultraleft courses and premature demonthey say, "Only on the basis of the united front, only through strations. Had the Spartacists kept apart from the united front, the mass organizations, can the KPD conquer the leading a ee ee that is, the soviets, these negative traits would undoubtedly position within the future soviets and lead the proletariat to have been yet more sharply pronounced. the conquest of power,"
Can it be possible that these people have gathered nothing at all from the experience of the German revolution in L918- 1919? Have they at least read Left-Wing Communism’? Truly, the Stalinist regime has caused a mental havoc that is horrifying! After bureaucratizing the soviets in the USSR, the epigones look upon them as a technical weapon in the hands of the party apparatus. Forgotten is the fact that the soviets were founded as workers’ parliaments and that they drew the masses because they offered the possibility of welding together all sections of the proletariat, independently of party distinctions; forgotten is the fact that therein precisely lay the great educational and revolutionary power of the soviels. Everything is forgotten; everything is jumbled and distorted. O, thrice-cursed epigonism!| The question of the interrelationship between the party and the soviets is of decisive importance for revolutionary policy, = a |
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Partlie Chol Wier oa? and virtually reduce ite significance to zero. Actually two cocteines i the ao called republican camp Inught—- Menshevism and Holshevism.
According: to the Socialists and Stalinists, ie., the Mensheviks of the firat and second instances, the Spanish revolution was called upon to solve only its “democratic” tasks, for which a united front with the "democratic" bourgeoisie was indispensable, From this point of view, any and all attempts of the proletarial to go beyond the limits of bourgeois democracy are not only premature but also fatal. Furthermore, on the agenda stands not the revolution but the struggle against the insurgent Franco.
Fascism, however, ls not feudal bul bourgeols reaction. A successful fight against bourgeois reaction can be waged only with the forces and methods of the proletarian revolution.
Menshevism, itself a branch of bourgeois thought, does not have and cannot have any inkling of these facts, 75 THE LESSONS OF SPAIN:
The Bolshevik point of vlew, clearly expressed only by the young sectiun of the Fourth International, takes the theory of THE LAST WARNING permanent revolution as its starting point, namely, that even purely democratic problems, like the liquidation of semi-leudal land ownership, cannot be solved without the conquest of pow- December 17, 1937 er by the proletariat; but this in turn places the socialist revolution on the ugenda. Moreover, during the very first stapes Menshevism and Bolshevism ia Spain of the revolution, the Spanish workers themselves posed in All general staffs are studying closely the military operations in Ethiopia, in Spain, In the Far Kast, in preparation for the practice not merely democratic problems bul also purely sogreat future war. The battles of the Spanish proletariat, heat cialist ones. The demand not to transpress the bounds of bourlightning flashes of the coming world revolution, should be geois democracy signifies in practice nai a defense of the demono less attentively studied by the revolutionary staffs, Under cratic revolution but a repudiation of it. Only through an this condition and this condition alone will the coming events overturn in agrarian relations could the peasantry, the great not take us unawares, mass of the population, have been transformed into a power- Three ideologies fought—with unequal forees—in the soful bulwark apainst fascism. Bul the landowners are intimately ealled republican camp, namely, Menshevism, Bolshevism, and bound up with the commercial, industrial, and banking bouranarchism. As regards the bourgeois republican parties, they geoisie, and the bourgeois intellipenisia that depends on them. were without either independent Ideas or independent political The party of the proletariat was thus faced with a choice besignificance and were able ta maintain themselyes only by tween going with the peasant masses or wiih the liberal bourclimbing on the backs of the reformists and Anarchists. Moregeoisie. There could only be one reason to include the peasover, it ig no exaggeration to say thal the leaders of Spanish antry and the liberal bourgeoisie in the same coalition at the anarcho-syndicalism did everything to repudiate their doctrine same time: to help the bourgeoisie decelve the peasantry and thus isolate the workers. The agrarian revolution could have From Socialist Apnec!, lanuary 8 and 15, 1934, in a translation been accomplished only agains! the buurgeolsie, and therefore from the Russlan by John G, Wright.
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Os The Soamed Heooloation (iid oh Pare HE Cink War iy onty through novessures of the dictatorship et the prolelarciar In such a parallelogram, we know thut the resultant t¢ shorter, There ts no third, intermediate regime. the mare the component forces diverice fram each other, When From the atmmcdpoint of theary, the most astunishing thing politica! allies tend to pull in opposite directions, the resultant ~ about Stalin's Spanish policy is the utter disregard for the ALC may prove equal to sera. of Leninism. After a delay of several decadea—and what de- A bloc of divergent politteal groups of the working class cades!—the Comintern has fully rehabliltated the doctrine of is sometimes completely indispensable for the solution of com- Men-evism. More than that, the Comintern has contrived mon practical problems. In certain historical circumstances, toren’ + jhis doétrine more *conslatent” and by that token more auch a bloc is capable of attracting the oppressed petty-bourabsurd. in czntlat Russie, on the threshold of 10U5, the for geols masses whose interests are close to the interests of the mula of “purely democratic revolution" had behind it, In any proletariat The joint force of auch a bloc can prove tar strongcase, immeasurably more arguments than in 1007 In Spain. er than the sum of the forces of each of its component parts, li is hardly astonishing that in modern Spain "the liberal labor On the contrary, the pollilcal alliance between the proletariat policy" of Menshevism has been converled Into the reactionary and the bourgeoisie, whose interesta on basic questions in anti-labor policy of Stalinism. At the same time the doctrine the present époch diverge al an angle of 180 degrees, os 4 ef the Mensheviks, this carleature of Marxistn, has been congeneral rule is capable only of paralyzing the revolutionary verted into a caricature of itself. force of the proletariat, Civil war, in which the force of naked coercion is hardly effective, demands of its participants the spirit of supreme self- "Theary” of he Popular Front 1 would be naive, however, to think that the politics of the abnegation. The workers and peasants tan assure victory Comintern in Spatn stem from a theoretical “mistake.” Stalinonly if they wage a struggle for their own emancipation. Under ism is not gutued by Marxist theory, or for that matter by these conditions, to subordinate the proletariat to the leaderany theory at all, but oy the empirical Interests oi the Sowler ship of the bourgeoisie means beforehand to assure defeat bureauccacy. In their intimate cireles, the Soviet evnles mock in the civil war. Dizvitrov's ilosophy" of the Popular Front.#2 But they have These simple truths are least of all the products of pure at their dispo- il for deceiving the masses large cadres of proptheoretical analysis, On the contrary, they represent the unarpstare of thia holy formula, sincere ones and cheats, simpleassailable deduction fram the entire experience of history, betows and charlatans, Louis Fischer, with his ignorance and ginning at least with 1848. The modern history of bourgeols eniugm: = with his provincial rationalism and congenital dealsoclety is Filled with all sorts of Popular Fronts, i.e¢., the most diverse political combinations for the deception of the toilers, ness to cevoiution, is the most repulsive representative of this The Spanish experience is only a new and tragic link In thls unattricu: \cotherhood.? "The union of progressive forces!" chain of crimes and betrayals. "The triumph of the idea of the Popular Front!” "The assault of the Tru‘skyists on the unity of the antifascist ranks!" . , . Who will oeligve that the Communist Manifesto was written Alliance with the bourgeoisie'’s shadow Politically most striking is the fact that the Spanish Popular ninety years ago?
Front lacked in reallty even a parallelogram of forces. The The theoreticians of the Popular Front do not essentially go beyond the first rule of arithmetic, that is, additton: "Combourgeoisie's place was occupied by its shadow, Through the muniats” plus Socialists plus Anarchists plus liberals add up medium of the Stalinists, Socialists, and Anarchists, the Spanish to a total which is greater than their respective isolated numbourgeoisie subordinated the proletariat to itself without even bers. Such is all their wisdom. However, arithmetic alone does bothering to participate In the Popular Front. The overwhelmnot suffice here, One needs as well at least mechanics, The ing majority of the exploiters of all political shades openly law of the parallelogram of forces applies to politics as well.
Went over to the camp of Franco, Without any theory of "per-
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=16
manebt revolution" ,the Spanish bourgecisie umderstood from the outset that the revoluti onary Mass movement,no matter hew it starfs,is directed against private ownership of land and the massa means of preduetion,and that it is utterly impossible to cope with this movement by democratic: measures. JL. That is why only Significant debris from the possessing classes remained in the ie republican camp:Messrs.Azana,Companys,and the like -political attorneys of the bourgeoisi but not the bourgeoisie itself.Having staked everything itself on a military dictatorship the possesing classes wereable,at-the same time,to make use of their political representatives of yesterday in order’to paralyze,diserganise,and afterwards strangle the socialist movement of the massesnin“republican'" territory. Without in the slightest degree representing the Spanish bourgeoisie,the left republicans still less represented the workers and peasants, They represented no one but themselves. Thanks however to their allies - the seeialists,Stalinists,and Anarchists - these political phantems played the decisive role on the revolut ion- How?Very simple.2By incarnating the principles ofl"democratic revolution’that is the inyiolability of private property.
THE STALINISTS IN THE POPULAR FRONT
The reasons for the rise of the Spanish Popular frent and its inner mechanics are ’ perfectly clear.The task of the retired leaders of the left bourgeoisie consisted in checking the revolution of the masses and thus in regaining for themselves the lost ‘ confidence of the exploiters. “Why do you need Franco if we, the republicans,can de-the same thing?"The interests of Azana and Companys fully coin@ided at this central peint-witt the interets of Stalin who needed to gain the confidence of the French and British bourgeoisies by proving to them in action his ability to preserve "order" against “anarchy".Stalin neede d Azana and Companys as a cover before the workers:Stalin himself of course,is for socialism,but one ‘must take care not to repel the republican bourgeoisie'Azana and Companys needed Stalin as an experienced executioner,with the authority of a revolutionist Without him,so insignificant a crew could never nor would have dared attack the workers. - The classic reformists of the Second International ,long ago derailed by the course of the class struggle,began to feel a new tide of confidence,thanks to the support of Moscow.This support,incidentally,was not given to all reformists but only to those most reactionary.Caballero represented that face of the Socialist Party that was turned toward the workers’ aristocracy.Negrin and Prieto always looked towards the bourgeoisie.Negrin won over Caballero with the help of Moscow.The left Socialists and Anarchists,the captives of the Popular Front,tried,it is true, to save whatever could be saved of democracy.But inasmuch as they did not dare to mobilise the masses against the gendarmes of the Popular Frent,their efforts at the end were reduced te plaints and wails.The Stalimists were thus in alliance with the extreme right,avowedly bourgeois wing of the Socialist Party.They directed their repressions against the left —the POUM,the Anarchists,the “left"socialistsin other words,against the centrists groupings who reflected,even in a most remote degree,the pressure of the revolutionary masses. This political fact,very significant in itself,provides at the same time a measure of the degeneration of the Comintern in the last few years.I once defined Stalinism as bureaucratic centrism ,and events brought a series of corroborations of the correctness of this definition,.But it is obviously obsolete today.The interetsx of the Bonapattist: bureaucracy can no longer be reconeiled with centrist hesitation and vacillation.In search of reconciliation with the bourgeoisie ,the Stalinists clique is capable of entering into alliance only with the most conservative groupings among the international Labor aristocracy.This has acted to fix definitely the counter revolutionary characterof Stalinism on the intermational arena.
Counterrevolutionan eriorities of Stalinism. This brings us right up to the solution of the enigma of how and why the Communist Party of Spain,so onsignificant numerically andwith a leadership so poor in caliber, proved capable of gathering into its hands all reins of power,in the face of the -incomparably mere powerful organizations of the Socialists and Anarchists.The usual explanation that the Stalisists simply bartered Soviet weapons for power is far too Superficial.In return for mumitions,Moscow received Spanish gold.
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Part (ff Cred eur ald Ho ae Phe saaecet: ftevedegten (MaDe
Veraeding to the laws of the Capitalist market, this covers and tanks other than with the heads uf the revoluthonists and eveevthing. tlow then dal stalin contrive to get power it the the rights of the workers, but because their own “purely demo. cratic,” that is, antisocialist, program could be realized by bareate? ‘The customary answer ls that the Soviet government, having no other measures save terror. When the workers and peasraised ils authority in the eves of the masses by furnishing milants enter on the path of their revolution—when they selze tary supplies, demanded as a condition of its "collaboration" factories and estates, drjgg out the old owners, conquer power in the provinces — then ie counterrev olution — demdrastic measures against revolutionists and thus removed dangerous oppenents from its path. All this is quite indisputable o¢ratic, Stalinist, or fascist alike— has no other means of checkbut itis only one aspect of the matter, and the least Important ing this movement except through bloody coercion, supplemented by lies and deceit, The superiority of the Stalinist clique at that. Despite the “authority” created by Soviet shipments, the Spanon this road consisted in its ability to apply instantly meaish Communist Party rematned a small minority and met sures that were beyond the capacity of Agana, Companys, with ever-growing hatred on the part of the workers, Un the Negrin, and their left allies. other hand, It was not enough for Moscow to set conditions; Valencia had to accede to them. This is the heart of the matter, Stalin confirms in his own way the correctness of the theory Not only “Zamora, Companys, and Negrin, but also Cabaof permanent revalution lero, during his incumbency as premier, were all more or Two irreconcilable programs thus confronted each other on less ready to accede to the demands of Moscow, Why? Beihe territory of republican Spain. On the one hand, the procause these “endemen themselves wished to keep the revolugram of saving at any cost private property from the proletion avithin, bourgeois Hmilts.. Nelther the Socialists nor the tariat; and saving as fer as possible democracy from Franco; Anarfnists seriously appdsed the Stalinist program. They feared on the other hand, the program of abolishing private property a break with the bourgeoisie. They were deathly afraid of through the conquest of power by the proletariat, The first every revolutionary onslaught of the workers. program expressed the Interests of capitalism through the me- Stalin with his munitions and with his counterrevolutionary dium of the labor aristocracy, the top petty-bourgeois circles, ultimatum Was agfaviar all these groups. He guaranteed and especially the Soviet bureaucracy, The second program them, 5a they goped® ; ry Yictory ever Franco, and at translated: into the language of Marxism the tendencies of the the same time, them from all responsibility for the revolutionary mass movement, not fully conscious but powercourse of the revolution. They hastened to put their Socialist ful. Unfortunately for the revolution, between the handful of and Anarchist masks into the closet in*fhe hope of making Bolsheviks and the revolutionary proletariat stood the counteruse of them again after Moscow reestablished bourgeois democrevolutionary wall of the Popular Front, racy for them, As the finishing touch to their comfort, these The policy of the Popular Front was, in its turn, not-at gentlemen could henceforth justify their betrayal to the workers all determined by the blackmail of Stalin as a supplier of by the necessity of a military agreement with Stalin, Stalin arms, There was, of course, no lack of blackmail. But the on his part justified his counterrevolutionary politics by the reason for the success of this blackmail was inherent in the necessity of maintaining an alliance with the republican bourinner conditions of the revolution itself. For slx years, its social setting was the growing onslaught of the masses apainat geoisic.
Only from this broader point of view can we get a clear the regime of semifeudal and bourgeois property. The need picture of the angelic toleration which such champions of jusof defending this property by the most extreme measures threw tiee and freedom as Azafia, Negrin, Companys, Caballero, the bourgeoisie into Franco's arms. The republican govern- Garcia Oliver, and others showed towards the crimes of the ment had promised the bourgeoisie to defend property by "demotratic’ measures, bul revealed, especially in July 1936, tts GPU. [f they had no other choice, as they affirm, It was not complete bankruptey, When the situation on the property front at all because they had no means of paying for airplanes
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a14 The Spanish Henolution (hb aa)
Port Uf Cied War became even more threatening than on the military front, the 19, 1936, and May days of 1937) whi democrats of all colors, including thy Anarchists, bowed bethe contrary, with all their might drove fore Stalin: and he found no other methods In his own arcamp of the Popular Front, |¢., of the bat senal than the methods of Franco.
The Anarchists revealed a fatal la The hounding of *Trotskyists.” FOUMists, revolutionary Anthe lawa of the revolution and Its archists and left Socialists; the filthy slander; the false docthemselves to their own trade unior uments; the tortures in Stalinist prisons; the murders from permeated with the routine of pea _ gid by ignoring ambush— without all this the bourgeois regime under the rewhat went on outside the framewog® of the tray Puntons, among publican flag could not have lasted even two months. The the masses, among the political parties, md in the govern- GPU proved to be the master of the situation only because ment apparatus. Had the Andrchists beef revolutionists, they it defended the interests of the bourgeoisie against the prowould first of all have called for the cregfion of soviets, which letarlat more consistently than the others, Le.. with the greatest unite the representatives of all the toilgfs of city and country, including the most oppressed strataf who never joined the baseness and bloodthirstiness. In the struggle against the socialist revolution, wthe "demotrade unions. The revolutionary workers would have naturally crat" Kerensky at first sought support in the milltary dictatoroccupied the dominant position in Huse soviets. The Stalinists ship of Kornilov and later tried to enter Petrograd in the bagwould have remained an insignificant minority. The pralerage train of the monarchist general Krasnov, (in the other tariat would have convinced itself pf its own invincible strength, hand, the Bolsheviks were compelled, in order to carry the The apparatus of the ourgeolg state would have hung susdemocratic revolution through to the end, to overthrow the pended in the air. One strong blow would have sufficed ta government of "democratic" charlatans and babblers. In the propulverize this apparatus. The socialist revolution would have cess they put an end thereby to every kind of attempt at milreceived a powerful impetus, The French proletariat would itary (or "fascist”) dictatorship. not for long have permitted Léon Blum to blockade the pro- The Spanish revolution once again demonstrates that it is letarlan revolution beyond the Pyrenees, Neither could the impossible to defend democracy against the revolutionary mass- Moscow bureaucracy have permitted itself such a luxury, The es otherwise than through the methods of fascist reaction. And most difficult questions would have been solved as they arose, conversely, it is Impossible to eonduct a genuine struggle Instead of this, the anarcho-syndicaolists, seeking to hide from against fascism otherwise than through the methods of the "polities" in the trade unions, turned out to be, to the great proletarian revolution. Stalin waged war against "Trotskysurprise of the whole world and themselves, a fifth wheel in ism" (proletarian revolution), destroying democracy by the the eart of bourgeois democracy, But not for long; a fifth Bonapartist measures of the GPU, This refutes once again wheel is superfluous. After Garcia Oliver and his cohorts helped and once and for all the old Menshevik theory, adopted by Stalin and his henchmen to take power away from the workers, the Comintern, In accordance with which the democratic and the Anarchists themselves were driven out of the government socialist revolutions are transformed into two independent hisof the Popular Front. Even then they found nothing better toric chapters, separated from each other in point of time. to do than jump on the victor's bandwagon and assure him The work of the Moscow executioners confirms in its own of their devotion. The fear of the petty bourgeois before the way the correctness of the theory of permanent revolution, big bourgeois, of the petty bureaucrat before the big bureauerat, they covered up with lachrymose speeches about the sanctity of the united front (between a victim and the executioners} Role of the Anarchists The Anarchists had no independent position of any kind and about the inadmissibility of every kind of dictatorship, in the Spanish revolution. All they did was waver between Including their own, "After all, we could have taken power Bolshevism and Menshevism. More precisely, the Anarchist in July 1936, ,..° "After all, we could have taken power in workers instinctively yearned to enter the Bolshevik road (duly May 1937,..." The Anarchists begged Stalin-Negrin to rec-
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ALA We Spreenist Rewrite ¢ 269 fi, Part (ff Gio War S17 The Anarchist theoreticians, who after the great test of 1991. ofnize and reward their treachery to the revolution. A revolt 37 continue to repeat the old reicthionary nonsense about ing picture!
Kronstadi,44 and who affirm that "Stalinism is the Inevitable In and of itself, this ‘self-justification that “we did not setce result of Marxism and holshevism," simply demonstrate by power not berause we were unable but because we did not this they are forever deacl for the revolution. wish to, because we were against every kind of dictatorship,”
You say thal Marxism ts in itself depraved and Stalinism ig and the like, contains an irrevocable condemmation of anits legitimate progeny? Hut why are we revolutionary Marxists archigm as an utterly antirevolutionary doctrine. To renounce engaged in mortal combat with Stalinism throughout the world? the conquest of power is voluntarily to leave the power with Why does the Stalinist gang see in Trotakyism its chief enemy? those who wield it, the exploiters. The essence of every revolution consisted and consists-in putting a new class In power, Why does every approach to our views or our methods of thus enabling it to reallze lis own program in life; [tis imaction (Durruti, Andrés Nin, Landau, and others)!5 compel possible to wage war and to reject victory, It is Impossible the Stalinist gangsters to resort to bloody reprisals? Why, on the other hand, did the leaders of Spanish anarchism Serve, to lead the masses towards insurrection withoul preparing for the conquest of power. during the time of the Moscow and Madrid crimes of the GPU, as ministers under Caballero-Negrin, that is, as servants of the No one could have prevented the Anarchtste after the conquest of power from establishing the sort of rewime they deem bourgeolale and Stalin? Why even now, under the pretext of fighting fascism, do the Anarchists remain voluntary captives necessary, assuming, of course, that their program is realizof Stalin-Negrin, the executioners of the revolution, who have able, Rut the Anarchist leaders (hemselves lost faith in it. ‘They demonstrated their incapacity to fight fascism? hid from power not because they are against “every kind of By hiding behind Kronstadt and Makhno, the attorneys of dictatorship"—in actuality, grumbling and whining, they supanarchism will deceive nobody.*! In the Kronstadt episode ported and still support the dictatorship of Stalin-Negrin— and in the struggle with Makhno, we defended the proletarian but because they completely lost their principles and courage, revolution from the peasant counterrevolution, The Spanish if they ever had any, They were afraid of everything: "isolation,” "involvement," "fascism." They were afraid of Stalin. They Anarchists defended and continue to defend bourgeois counterrevolution from the proletarian revolution. No sophistry will were afraid of Negrin. They were afraid of France and Engdelete from the annals of history the fact that anarchism and land. More than anything these phrasemongers feared the rev- Stalinism in the Spanish revolution were on one side of the olutionary masses, barricades while the working masses with the revolutionary The renunciation of conquest of power inevitably throws Marxists were on the other. Such Is the truth which will forever every workers’ organization into the swamp of reformism and remain in the consciousness of the proletariat! turns it into.a toy of the bourgeoisie; it cannot be otherwise In view of the class structure of society. In opposing the goal, Rale of the FOUM the. conquest. of power, the Anarchists could not in the end The record of the POUM is not much better. In point of fail to oppose the means, the revolution. The leaders of the theory, it tried, to be sure, to base itself on the formula of the CNT and FAI not only helped the bourgeoisie hold on to the permanent revolution (that is why the Stalinists called the shadow of power in July 1996: they also helped It to reestablish POUMists Trotskyists). But the revolution is not satisfied with bit by bit what it had lost at one stroke. In May 1937, they theoretical avowals, Instead of mobilizing the magses against sabotaged the uprising of the workers and thereby saved the the reformist leaders, including the Anarchists, the POUM tried dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Thus anarchism, which wished to convince these gentlemen of the superioritles of socialism merely to be antipolitical, proved in reality to be antirevolu- Over capitalism, This tuning fork gaye the plich to all the tionary, and in the more critical moments — counterrevolutionarticles and speeches of the POLM leaders, In order not to ary.
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Sea | S14 The Spanish Revolution (19s rea Part UE Cre War 319 at quarrel with the Anarchist teaders, they did mal form their owi ists, they would have answered the first piece of blackmall nuclei inside the CNT, and in genecal did not conduct any from Moscow nol only by continulng the socialist offensive but kind of work there. To avold sharp conflicts, they did nu also by exposing Stalin's counterrevolutionary conditions becarry on revolutionary work in the republican army. They fore the world working class, They would have thus forced the built instead “their own" trade unions and "their own" militia, Moscow bureaucracy to choose openly between the soclallat which guarded “their own" institutions or occupied "their own" revolution and the Franco dictatorship. The Thermidorean busection of the front. reaucracy fears and hates revolution. But It alao fears being By isclating the revolutionary vanguard from the class, the strangled in a fascist ring. Besides, it depends on the workers. POUM rendered the vanguard impotent and left the class with- All indications are that Moscow would have been forced to supout leadership. Politically the POUM remained throughout far ply arms, and possibly at more reasonable prices. closer to the Popular Front, for whose left wing it provided the But the world does nol revolve around Stalinist Moscow, Durcover, than to Bolshevism, That the POUM nevertheless fell ing a year and a half of civil war, the Spanish war industry vittim to bloody and base repressions was due to the failure of could and should have been strengthened and developed by the Popular Front to fulfill its mission, namely to stifle the socialist revolution —excepl by cutting off, piece by piece, its own converting a number of civilian plants to war production. This work was not carried out only because Stalin and his Spanish left flank. allies equally feared the initiative of the workers’ organizations.
Contrary to fits own intentions, the POUM proved to be, A strong war Industry would have become a powerful inatruin the final analysis, the chief obstacle an the road to the crement in the hands of the workers. The leaders of the Popular ation of a revolutionary party, The platonic or diplomatic Front preferred to depend on Moscow. partisans of the Fourth International like Sneevliet, the leader of It is precisely on this question that the perfidious role of the the Duich Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party, who demon- Popular Front was very strikingly revealed, It thrust upon the stratively supported the POUM in its halfway measures, its inworkers' organizations the responsibility for the treacherous decisiveness and evasiveness, in short, in its centrism,took upon deals of the bourgeoisie with Stalin. Insofar as the Anarchists themselves the greatest responsibility. Revolution abhors cenremained in the minority, they could not, of course, immediately trism. Revolution exposes and annihilates centrism, In passing, hinder the ruling bloc from assuming whatever obligations the revolution discredits the friends and attorneys of centrism., they pleased toward Moscow and the masters of Moscow: Lon- That is one of the most important lessons of the Spanish revodon and Paris. But without ceasing to be the best fighters on lution. the front, they could and should have openly dissociated them-: selves from the betrayals and betrayers; they could and should The problem of arming have explained the real situation to the masses, mobilized The Socialists and Anarchists who seek to justify their capitthem against the bourgecis government, and augmented their ulation to Stalin by the necessity of paying for Moscow's own forces from day to day in order in the end to conquer weapons with principles and conscience simply lie and lie unpower and with it the Moscow arms. skillfully, Of course, many of them would have preferred to And what if Moscow, in the absence of a Popular Front, disentangle themselves without murders and frame-ups. But should have refused to give arms altogether? And what, we every goal demands corresponding means. Beginning with answer to this, If the Soviet Union did not exist altogether? April 1931, that ls, long before the military Intervention of"
Revolutions haye been victorious up to this time not at all - Moscow, the Socialists and Anarchists did everything in their * thanks to high and mighty foreign patrons who supplied them power to cheek the proletarian revolution, Stalin taught them with arms. As a rule, counterrevolution enjoyed forelgn pahow to carry this work to its conclusion. They became Stalin's 'ronage. Must we recall the experience of the intervention of criminal accomplices only because they were his political co- French, English, American, Japanese, and other armies against thinkers, the Soviets ? tte caieiieeesied, 01 comme Had the Anarchist leaders in the least resembled revolution:
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oud The Spanish Revolution (£3 Lag)
Part (ih Cred War a2 1 tion and foreign interventioniats without military support feom revolution in the provinces won by them: the expropriation of the outside. Revolutions succeed, in the firat place, with the provisions, manufactured articles, and other stores on hand help of a bold social program, which gives the masses the pours and the transfer of these to the needy; the cecivision of shelter sibility of seizing weapons that are un their territory and disand housing in the Interests of the toilers and especially of the organizing the army of the enemy. The Red Army selzed families of the fighters; the expropriation of the land and agri- French, English, and American military supplies and drove cultural inventory in the Interests of the peasants; the establishthe foreign expeditionary corps into the sea. Has this really ment of workers’ control and soviet power In place of the been already forgotten? former bureaucracy, If at the head of the armed workers and peasants, that is, 6. Enemies of the socialist revolution, that is, explolting eleat the head of so-called republican Spain, were revolutionists ments and their agents, even if masquerading as “democrats,” and not cowardly agents of the bourgeolsie, the problem of "republicans," "Socialists," and "Anarchists," must be mercilessly Arming would never have been paramount, The army of Frandriven out of the army. co, Including the colonial Rifflans and the soldiers of Musso- 7. At the head of each military unit must be placed commislini, Was not at all Immune to revolutionary contagion.34 Surgars possessing irreproachable authority as revolutionists and rounded by the conflagration of the socialist uprising, the soldiers. soldiers of fascism would have proved to be an insignificant 8 In every military unit thete must be a firmly welded nuquantity. Arms and military "geniuses" were not lacking in cleus of the most self-sacrificing fighters, recommended by the Madrid and Barcelona; what was lacking was a revolutionary workers’ organizations. The members of this nucleus have but party! one privilege: to be the first under fire. 9. The commanding corps necessarily includes at first many allen and unreliable elements among the personnel, Their teat- Conditions for victory ing, retesting, and sifting must be carried through on the basis The conditions for victory of the masses ina civil war against of combat experience, recommendations of commissars, and the army of exploiters are very simple in their essence. testimontals of rank-and-file fighters. Coincident with this must 1. The fighters of a revolutionary army myst be clearly proceed an intense training of commanders drawn from the aware of the fact that they are fightIng for their full social ranks of revolutionary workers. liberation and not for the reestablishment of the old ("demo- 10. The stralezy of civil war must combine the rules of milieratic’) forms of exploitation. tary art with the tasks of the social revolution. Not only In 2. The workers and peasants in the rear of the revolutionary propaganda but also in military operations it is necessary to army as well as in the rear of the enemy must know and untake into account the social compaosiilon of the various miliderstand the same thing, tary units of the enemy (bourgeois volunteers, mobilized peas- { 3, The propaganda on their own front as well as on the ants, or as in Franco's case, colonia! slaves); and in choosing enemy front and in both rears must be completely permeated lines of operation, it is necessary to rigorously take into conwith the spirlt of social revolution, The slogan "First victory, sideration the social structure of the corresponding territories then reforms,” is the slogan of all oppressors and exploiters (industrial regions, peasant regions, revolutionary or reacfrom the Biblical kings down to Stalin, tionary, regions of oppressed nationalities, ete.), In brief, rev- _ 4, Politics are determined by those classeg.and strata that parficipate in the struggle. The revolutionary masses must have olutionary policy dominates strategy. 11. Both the revolutionary government and the executive 4 state apparatus that directly and tmmediately expresses their committee of the workers and peasants must know how to win will. Only the soviets of workers', soldiers’, and peasants’ depthe complete confidence of the army and of the toiling populauties ton act #8 such an apparatus. tion, 5. The revolutlonary army must not only proclaim but also 12. Foreign policy must have as its main objective the awak- Immediately realize In life the more pressing measures of social
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part 11E Cree War 424 422 The spans Reveloton (fog ao masses in the government, the peasanis stepped aside; the more ening of the revolutionary consciousness of the workers, the ws became exhausted, ceteat followed defeat, demoralization exploited peasanis, and oppressed nationalities of the whole ae apace. All this was not difficult to foresee from the beginworld, ae of the civil war. By setting itself the task of rescuing the capitalist regime, the Popular Front doomed ltself to military Stalin guaranteed the conditions uf defeat defeat. By turning Bolshevism on ils head, Stalin succeeded == The conditions for victory, as we see, are perfectly plain. completely in fulfling the role of gravedigger of the revolution.
In thelr aggregate they bear the name of the socialist revoluit ought to be added that the Spanish experlence once again tion. Not a single one of these conditions existed in Spain. The demonstrates that Stalin failed completely to understand either basic reason is—the absence of a revolutionary party. Stalin “the October Revolution or the Russian eclvil war. His slowtried, it is true, to transfer to the soil of Spain, the outward moving provincial mind lagged hopelessly behind the tempespractices of Bolshevism: the Politburo, commissara, cells, the tuous march of events in 1917-21, In those of his speeches and GPU, ete, But he emptied these forms of thetr sovial content. articles in 1917 where he expressed his own ideas, his jater He renounced the Bolshevik program and with It the soviets Thermidorean "doctrine" is fully implanted. In this sense, Stalin as the necessary form for the revolutionary initiative of the in Spain in 1937 is the continuator of Stalin of the March 1917 masses. He placed the technique of Holshevism at the service conference of the Bolsheviks. But in 1917 he merely feared of bourgeois property. In his bureaucratic narrow-mindediness, the revolutionary workers; in 1997 he strangled them. The he imagined that "commissars” by themselves could guarantee " yietory, But the commissars of private property proved capable opportunist had become the executioner. only of guaranteeing defeat.
The Spanish proletariat displayed first-rate military quallties. "Cini war in the rear"
But, after all, victory over the governments of Caballera and In its specific gravity in the country's economic life, in its Negrin would have necessitated a civil war in the rear of the political and cultural level, the Spanish proletariat stood on the republican army!—the democratic philistine exclaims with horfirst day of the revolution not below but above the Russian ror. As if apart from this, in republican Spain no civil war has proletariat at the beginning of 1917. On the road to its victory, ever existed, and at that the basest and most perfidious one — its own organizations stood as the chief obstacles. The comthe war of the proprietors and exploiters against the workers manding clique of Stalinists, in accordance with their counterand peasants. This uninterrupted war finds expression in the revolutionary functlon, consisted of hirelings, careerisis, deatrests and murders of revolutionists, the crushing of the mass if classed elements, and Jn general, all types of social refuse. The movement, the disarming of the workers, the arming of bour- | representatives of other labor organizations — incurable reform- @eois police, the abandoning of workers' detachments without ists, Anarchist phrasemongers, helpless centrists of the POLM— arms and without help on the front, and finally, the artificial grumbled, proaned, wavered, maneuvered, but In the end adapted themselves to the Stalinists. As a result of their Joint activity, restriction of the development of war industry.
Each of these acis is a cruel blow to the front, direct milithe camp of social revolution—workers and peasants — proved to be subordinated to the bourgeoisie, or more correctly, to tary treason, dictated by the class interests of the bourgeoisie. its shadow. It was bled white and its character was destroyed.
But “democratic” philistines—including Stalinists, Socialists, There was no lack of heroism on the part of the masses ar and Anarchists—regard the civil war of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, even In areas most closely adjoining the front, courage on the part of individual! revolutionists. But the masses as a natural and inescapable war, having as its task the safewere left to their own resources while the revolutionists reguarding of the “unity of the Popular Front.” On the other mained disunited, without a program, without a plan of action. hand, the civil war of the proletariat against the “republican” || The “republican” military commanders were more conecerded counterrevolution is, in the eyes of the same philistines, a crimwith crushing the social revolution than with scoring military inal, "fascist," Trotskyist war, disrupting... "the unity of the victories. The soldiers lost confidence in thelr commanders, the
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fn”: ee Part (if Cioil War 325 a24 The speck Rerotutoem PEE sy ad of the Popular Front surrendered the victory of the people antifascist forces.” Scores of Norman lhomases, Slajor Attlees, to the most reactionary and the most serious representatives Otto Hauers, Ayromskys, Malrauxes, and such petty peddlers of the bourgeoisie, A third victory, galned by the generals of Hes as Duranty and Louis Fiseher spread this slavish wiadom throughout our planet.’ Meanwhile the government of of the Popular Front, would signify their inevitable agreement with the fascist bourgeoisie on the backs of the workers and the Fopular Front maves from Madrid to Valencia, from Vapeasants. Such a regime will be nothing but a different form lencia to Barcelona. of military dictatorship, perhaps without a monarchy and “if, aa facts attest, only the socialist revolution is capable of crushing fascism, then on the other hand a successful upwithout the open domination of the Catholic church. _ Finally, it is possible that the partial victories of the republirising of the proletariat is concelvable only when the ruling eans will be utilized by the “diainterested” Anglo-French interclasses are caught In the vise of the greatest difficulties, Tlowmediaries in order to reconcile the fighting camps. It is not ever, the democratle philistines invoke precisely these difficuldifficult to understand that in the event of such a variant the ties as proof of the impermissibility of the proletarian uprising. final remnants of the "democracy’ will be stifled In the fraternal Were the proletariat to wait for the democratic phillstines to tell embrace of the generals Miaja (communist!) and Franco them the hour of their liberation, they would remain slaves forever. To teach the workers to recognize reactionary philis- (fascist!}). Let me repeat once again: victory will go either tines under all thelr masks and to despise.them regardless of to the socialist revolution or to fascism.
It is not excluded, by the way, that tragedy might at the the mask is the first and paramount duty of a revolutionist! last moment make way for farce. When the heroes of the The outcome Popular Front have to flee their last capital, they might, before The dictatorship of the Stalinists over the republican camp embarking on steamers and airplanes, perhaps proclaim a is not long-lived In its. egsence, Should the defeats stemming series of "socialist" reforms in order to leave a "good memory" from the polities of the, Popular Front once more impel, the with the people. But nothing will avail. The workers of the Spanish proletariat to a revolutionary assault, this time sucworld will remember with hatred and contempt the parties that cessfully, the Stalinist clique will be swept away with an iron ruined the heroic revolution. broom, But should Stalin —as is unfortunately the likellhood — The tragic experience of Spain Is a terrible — perhaps final — succeed in bringing the work of gravedigger of the revolution warning before still greater events, a warning addressed to to its conclusion, he will not even in this case earn thanks. all the advanced workers of the world. “Revolutions,” Marx The Spanish bourgeoisie needed him as executioner, but it said, "are the locomotives of history.” They move faster than has no need for him at all as patron or tutor, London and the thought of semirevolutionary or quarter-revolutionary Paris on the one hand, and Berlin and Rome on the other, parties. Whoever lags behind falls under the wheels of the locomotive, and consequently — and this ls the chlef danger — the ware in its eyes considerably more solvent firms than Moscaw. qt is~possible that Stalin himself wants to cover his traces in locomotive itself is also not infrequently wreeked. ‘Spain before the final catastrophe; he thus hopes to unload lt is necessary to think out the problem of the revolution the: responsibility for the defeat on his closest allies. After this to the end, to its ultimate concrete conclusions. It Is necessary Litvinov will solicit Franco for the reestablishment of diplomatic to adjust policy to the basic laws of the revolution, ie., to the movement of the embattled classes and not the prejudices relations.“0 All this we have seen more than once, or fears of the superficial petty-bourgeois groups who call Even a complete military victory of the so-called republican themselves "Popular" Fronts and every other kind of front. army over Genéral Franco, however, would not signify the During revolution the line of least resistance is the line of triumph of "democracy." The workers and peasants have twice greatest disaster. To fear “isolation” from the bourgeoisie is placed bourgeois republicans and their left agents in power: to incur isolation from the masses. Adaptation to the conservain April 1991 and in February 1936. Both times the heroes —_
a
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i a 2 ely a MI es a li gl de ae ci ‘
t
da fi The Socresh Reoody tion f ESA) Ay jive prejudices of the Jabor aristorracy is betrayal of the workers and the revolution, An excesa of "caution is the moat bantful luck of caution, This is the chief lesson of the de. struction of the most honest political organization In Spain, namely, the centrist POU'M. The parties and groups of the London Bureau obviously either do not wish to draw the nec. easary conclusions from the last warning of history or are unable to do so, By this token they doom themselves, By way of compensation, a new generation of revolutionists is now belng educated by the lessons of the defeats. ‘This generation has verified In action the lgnominious reputation of the Second International. [t has plumbed the depths of the Third International's downfall. It has learned how to judge the Anarchists not by their words but by their deeds. Tl is a great inestimable school, paid for with the blood of countless fighiers! The revolutionary cadres are now gathering only under the banner of the Fourth International. Born amid the roar of defeats, the Fourth International will lead the toilers to victory,