quirk
04-19-2008, 08:06 PM
Lessons of People's War in Spain 1936-1939
The Spanish Civil War was the opening act of the Second World War in Europe. It was the military and political proving ground both for European Fascism, and for class-collaborationist policies that the old communist movement never outlived.
In one important respect, however, the Spanish War differed from the major conflict which was to follow. In Spain, the major capitalist powers united--despite their contradictions with one another--against the threat of proletarian revolution, a threat made real by the Asturias revolt of 1934. When the World War came, the lines were not drawn, as the imperialists had wished, with Hitler's Germany attacking the Soviet Union, with active or "neutral" support from the "democracies." Instead, the imperialists fought among themselves, leaving the Soviet workers to destroy Hitler virtually by themselves.
The History of the Civil war has long preoccupied red-baiters of all sorts, seeking to vilify Spanish communists, the Communist International, and Stalin. Anti-communist writers have produced almost as many pages of lies about the struggle in Spain as about the October Revolution. This article will be a brief attempt to exhume some of the lessons for the working class that have been buried under this mass of filth.
We will see that study of the war has practical value for communists of today on a number of points. We will see that the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) and the Comintern provided the only effective leadership--political and military--in the struggle against Fascism in Spain. The PCE, unlike all the groups of "left" creeps beloved of anti-communist writers from Orwell to Chomsky, was able to organize hundreds of thousands of working people into a powerful military force, despite the enormous material difficulties and their own weaknesses.
As for the errors of the PCE, they confirm major points of PL's line: (I) communists lose when they abandon the struggle for workers' dictatorship; (II) fighting fascism is critical for worker's victory; (III) nationalism and alliances with bosses are disastrous; (IV) "unity" with various phony left groups--Anarchists and Trotskyites--is as fatal as "unity" with bosses.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE:http://www.plp.org/pl_magazine/pws.html
The Spanish Civil War was the opening act of the Second World War in Europe. It was the military and political proving ground both for European Fascism, and for class-collaborationist policies that the old communist movement never outlived.
In one important respect, however, the Spanish War differed from the major conflict which was to follow. In Spain, the major capitalist powers united--despite their contradictions with one another--against the threat of proletarian revolution, a threat made real by the Asturias revolt of 1934. When the World War came, the lines were not drawn, as the imperialists had wished, with Hitler's Germany attacking the Soviet Union, with active or "neutral" support from the "democracies." Instead, the imperialists fought among themselves, leaving the Soviet workers to destroy Hitler virtually by themselves.
The History of the Civil war has long preoccupied red-baiters of all sorts, seeking to vilify Spanish communists, the Communist International, and Stalin. Anti-communist writers have produced almost as many pages of lies about the struggle in Spain as about the October Revolution. This article will be a brief attempt to exhume some of the lessons for the working class that have been buried under this mass of filth.
We will see that study of the war has practical value for communists of today on a number of points. We will see that the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) and the Comintern provided the only effective leadership--political and military--in the struggle against Fascism in Spain. The PCE, unlike all the groups of "left" creeps beloved of anti-communist writers from Orwell to Chomsky, was able to organize hundreds of thousands of working people into a powerful military force, despite the enormous material difficulties and their own weaknesses.
As for the errors of the PCE, they confirm major points of PL's line: (I) communists lose when they abandon the struggle for workers' dictatorship; (II) fighting fascism is critical for worker's victory; (III) nationalism and alliances with bosses are disastrous; (IV) "unity" with various phony left groups--Anarchists and Trotskyites--is as fatal as "unity" with bosses.
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE:http://www.plp.org/pl_magazine/pws.html