The Spanish Civil War and the Death of Andreas Nin of POUM

[C. Flower]

You'd need to know the history to understand.

I recommend you start with the chapter XVI Genesis of a Fifth Column from The Great Conspiracy: the secret war against soviet Russia by Albert E Kahn and Michael M Sayers ... and read on from there.


http://www.shunpiking.com/books/GC/GC-AK-MS-chapter16.htm


I'm hoping that this is a joke. It's hard to know where to start on it, but to start with the reference to Nin, the Spanish anarchist leader, having worked for the Nazis, is an obscene travesty.

To get an idea of who the Spanish anarchists of the time of the civil war were, "you need to know the politics to understand". Trotsky of course was a severe critic of Nin's politics but described him as "an old an incorruptible revolutionary". But the torture and murder of Nin was down to Stalin.

This is a short and very lively description of what happened in Spain between Stalinist, Anarchists and Trotskyists who were engaged in fighting the fascists, written by someone who as an anarchist child/youth and who lived through the conflicts.

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Manolo_Gonzalez__Life_in_Revolutionary_Barcelona.h tml (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Manolo_Gonzalez__Life_in_Revolutionary_Barcelona.h tml)



By June of 1937 the NKVD-prede-cessor of the Russian KGB-had moved in force into Barcelona.. June 16 Andres Nin was arrested and moved to a secret jail in Madrid. On instructions of Stalin he was asked to `confess' crimes and to be a fascist agent. Tortured to death, his body was never found. After Nin most of the leadership of the POUM was jailed, executed or forced into exile.
George Orwell, a member of the POUM militia, barely escaped arrest and had to leave Spain. His book Homage to Catalonia was one of the first to denounce the Communists' role in the betrayal of the Spanish revolution.
Among my parents' friends and the FAI-CNT a wave of indignation helped mobilize militias, the press and international public opinion against the crimes in Catalonia. I heard about the murder of Camillo Berneri, an Italian anarchist philosopher; he was arrested in a hotel, taken to the subway near Lacayetana and gunned down. A few days later in the Urquinaoa Square a boy, grandson of the anarchist educator Francisco Ferrer, was murdered. A friend of my father, Domingo Ascaso, brother of Paco, a Commander in the Madrid front, was killed in jail. The most terrible crime of those days was the execution of about thirty members of the Libertarian Youth. They were shot at the Moncada cemetery, and left in an open grave.
The central government in Valencia not only wanted to stop the collectivization, but also to comply with the directives of Stalin to annihilate the Trotskyites. It was part of the price exacted from Spain for the military aid. The gold reserves of the country went to the Soviet Union.
The militias were abolished and many battalions incorporated into the People's Army. Women were not permitted on the battlefield. My mother stayed at home now; she hid her rifle, pistol and ammunition.



http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/jan2009/spa2-j27.shtml





When a ceasefire was eventually agreed, it proved to be the prelude to a bloody purge of all opposition elements in Barcelona and elsewhere in Spain. The POUM was accused of having organised a putsch in collusion with the German, Italian and Francoist secret police. Its press was banned, Nin was arrested and the organisation outlawed. The leaders of the POUM were taken to a Stalinist prison in Madrid—a former church in Calle Atocha.
Nin himself was separated from the others and taken to Alcalá de Henares, where he was interrogated for three days. When he refused to confess to being a fascist agent, he was tortured to death. His body was buried on the outskirts of the town. The GPU then ordered German International Brigade volunteers to storm the prison where Nin had been held. To give the impression that the Gestapo had come to release him, they left Nationalist bank notes, Falangist badges and false documents behind them.
After Nin's death, Trotsky described him as "an old and incorruptible revolutionary." The members of the POUM, Trotsky said, "fought heroically on all fronts against the Fascists in Spain." But in joining the Popular Front, participating in the Popular Front government of Catalonia and refusing to call for the workers to take power in Catalonia in May 1937, Nin had committed a betrayal that proved fatal not only to himself but to the Spanish revolution.



Time Magazine reported on the post-hoc Trial of Nin carried out by the Spanish Government.

The prosecutors were keen to fit nine Poumists on trial up as fascist supporters



The prisoner known as Gorkin or Gómez, a revolutionist of several aliases, made most news in court. "Did you know any agents of the Nazi Gestapo?" asked the prosecutor, who was trying to prove that the P.O.U.M. was not really Marxist but Fascist. "No, I did not know any of the Gestapo," said Revolutionist Gómez, adding with the authentic Spanish touch, "but if I had known one I would have killed him."



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,883776,00.html#ixzz16fmrqQc4

[Sam Lord]

I'm hoping that this is a joke. It's hard to know where to start on it, but to start with the reference to Nin, the Spanish anarchist leader, having worked for the Nazis, is an obscene travesty.



I thought all the POUM leaders had been put on trial by the Republican government on such charges. I know it was a distraction for the Republicans from fighting the fascists but they obviously thought it necessary ... so probably not such a big joke at all.

Bty, I didn't know that Nin was an anarchist. I had always thought that he was of the Trotskyite orientation ... thought not always inclined to follow orders.

[C. Flower]

I thought all the POUM leaders had been put on trial by the Republican government on such charges. I know it was a distraction for the Republicans from fighting the fascists but they obviously thought it necessary ... so probably not such a big joke at all.

Bty, I didn't know that Nin was an anarchist. I had always thought that he was of the Trotskyite orientation ... thought not always inclined to follow orders.

So, you don't think he was working for the Nazi 5th column...?

[C. Flower]

I thought all the POUM leaders had been put on trial by the Republican government on such charges. I know it was a distraction for the Republicans from fighting the fascists but they obviously thought it necessary ... so probably not such a big joke at all.

Bty, I didn't know that Nin was an anarchist. I had always thought that he was of the Trotskyite orientation ... thought not always inclined to follow orders.

Something more detailed on Nin, and from a different perspective -

http://www.microsofttranslator.com/bv.aspx?ref=SERP&br=ro&mkt=en-IE&dl=en&lp=ES_EN&a=http%3a%2f%2fwww.segundarepublica.com%2findex.ph p%3fopcion%3d2%26id%3d4

He started as an anarchist, and then was an anti-Stalinist communist/trotskyist, but Trotsky had fundamental disagreements with him and the political decisions he made.

Edit: The POUM was aligned with the centrist ILP and was not a Trotskyist party, although Nin had been personally influenced and close to Trotsky: -

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jul2004/cata-j03.shtml

[Sam Lord]

So, you don't think he was working for the Nazi 5th column...?

I know they were all charged by the Republican government with high treason, espionage and so forth. And convicted, I believe. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the charges.

The POUM was always considered essentially a Trotskyite organisation to my knowledge. It certainly was grounded in that current. Orwell was with it, as you have indicated earlier, which speaks volumes. Animal Farm is on the high school curriculum of every english speaking (capitalist) country in the world today .. and not for it's literary merit. :)

[C. Flower]

[QUOTE=Sam Lord;97900]I know they were all charged by the Republican government with high treason, espionage and so forth. And convicted, I believe. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the charges.


Dear oh dear. But somehow I doubt that reason comes into it.

You didn't answer my question yet. Do you think he was a Nazi 5th columnist?

In my view the accusation that Nin was a Nazi is farcical, given his political positions and history. And I'm not speaking as someone who agrees with his politics.


The POUM was always considered essentially a Trotskyite organisation to my knowledge. It certainly was grounded in that current.

Yes, the POUM was Trotskyist or close to Trotskyist in character, ( EDIT; Please note the previous post: POUM was a Left Party aligned with the ILP, not Trotskyist) but, as I said, there were some pretty fundamental disagreements between Trotsky and Nin, particularly over Nin's participation in Government.


Orwell was with it, as you have indicated earlier, which speaks volumes. Animal Farm is on the high school curriculum of every english speaking (capitalist) country in the world today .. and not for it's literary merit. :)

The first time I've ever seen it suggested that "Animal Farm" has anything to do with Trotskyism. Have you read it? Or anything by Trotsky ? Orwell wandered into POUM by default and was not a Trotskyist. Poum was not a Trotskyist party, but was 100% an anti-fascist party.
If it comes down to lack of literary and historical merit, the item you linked by Kahn, suggesting that it would give people a good grounding on Trotsky, would take the biscuit. :) I'm genuinely shocked that you would think it carried any weight. And how would these "not invented":p allegations fit in, politically, with "In Defence of the Russian Revolution" ?

Are you for or against the expropriation of the landlords and factory owners, which is what the anarchists in Spain did ? Isn't that what it's fundamentally all about ? The only problem I can see is that they weren't able to defend those gains.

The bottom line was that the Popular Front strategy, and the pushing back of the anarchists and trotskyists, was counterproductive in preventing fascism coming to power and all the gains of the unfolding Spanish revolution were crushed. The damage is still there.

How interesting I find it that none of the Trotskyist Party members here are taking part in this debate. Where are they ??

[C. Flower]

I know they were all charged by the Republican government with high treason, espionage and so forth. And convicted, I believe. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the charges.

The POUM was always considered essentially a Trotskyite organisation to my knowledge. It certainly was grounded in that current. Orwell was with it, as you have indicated earlier, which speaks volumes. Animal Farm is on the high school curriculum of every english speaking (capitalist) country in the world today .. and not for it's literary merit. :)

This discussion is taking me to sources that I was not aware existed. I was wondering how people knew that Nin had been tortured to death, given that the authorities denied that he was even dead.

The piece in Spanish linked to a previous post mentioned an NKVD man,
Jesus Hernandez, who had given evidence about Nin's death.

It turns out he wrote a book, published in Spanish and French:


the memoirs of Jesús Hernández, published in 1953 in Mexico as Yo fuí un ministro de Stalin (I Was a Minister of Stalin)


http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/pages/Pamph/NKVD.html




At the time of the Civil War, Hernández was a leading figure in the Spanish Communist Party (PCE), which he had joined in Bilbao at its foundation in 1920 while still in his teens. He spent the early 1930s in Moscow as a member of the Executive Committee of the Communist International, before returning to Spain to become one of the sixteen Communist deputies elected to the Cortes in February 1936. He was a Communist minister in the Popular Front governments of both Largo Caballero and Negrín and was then appointed commissar-­general of the Republican armies of the centre and south.
Throughout the Civil War Hernández acted publicly as a loyal exponent of Comintern strategy. Following the rebellion by Generals Franco and Mola in July 1936, he was quick to deny that the Spanish Communists had any revolutionary aims, even in the long term. Writing in August 1936 in the PCE daily Mundo Obrero, he declared that it was ‘absolutely false that the present workers’ movement has for its object the establishment of a proletarian dictatorship after the war has terminated.... We Communists are the first to repudiate this supposition. We are motivated exclusively by a desire to defend the democratic republic’.2 And this at a time when the democratic republic had pretty well collapsed. The government was powerless, the bulk of the repressive state apparatus had gone over to Franco, military resistance to the fascists was in the hands of the armed working class, workers had taken control of factories, transport and communications, and peasants were seizing and in many cases collectivising the land – a revolutionary situation if ever there was one.
Hernández’s differences with the PCE developed only after Franco’s victory. Following the death of general secretary José Díaz in 1942, Hernández challenged Dolores Ibárruri (La Pasionaria) for the party leadership. He failed, and consequently was expelled from the PCE in 1944. Later, impressed by the Yugoslavs’ defiance of Stalin, he set up an Independent Spanish Communist Party based in Belgrade, but it never gained any influence. He died in exile in Mexico in 1971.
The central theme of Hernández’s memoirs, reflecting the author’s then Titoite sympathies, is the need for Communist parties to determine their own actions in accordance with the situation in their own countries. So, although he condemns the way in which intervention by NKVD and Comintern agents in Spain undermined the authority of the national leadership, he does not offer the sort of fundamental reassessment of the Communists’ Popular Front strategy made by another former party leader, Fernando Claudín, in his book The Communist Movement.3 The frame-up of the POUM is itself depicted by Hernández as arising exclusively from Stalin’s need to justify the extermination of his opponents within the Soviet Union. He ignores the fact that the PCE’s commitment to re-establishing the power of the bourgeois state and defending the rights of capitalist property necessarily involved the suppression of those like the POUM who, however inconsistently, opposed the destruction of the revolutionary gains made by the Spanish working class in July-August 1936.
Nevertheless, Hernández does provide a detailed inside account of developments within the PCE leadership and the Republican government. His exposure of the role of the Soviet security service, the NKVD, in framing the POUM as a fascist organisation and murdering its leader Andrés Nin4 is of particular importance. Hernández’s tribute to the courage of Nin, who despite the most appalling tortures refused to sign the false confession which would have led to the deaths of his comrades, would alone justify reprinting this account. As Hugh Thomas wrote of Nin’s murder in his hook The Spanish Civil War, ‘the crime reverberates through the years, as do all the contemporaneous crimes in Russia’.5
At the time, needless to say, the Communist Party of Great Britain gave wholehearted support to the frame-up and suppression of the POUM. In 1938, just before the surviving POUM leaders were put on trial for espionage, the Communist publishing house Lawrence and Wishart issued a pamphlet by the French Stalinist journalist Georges Soria entitled Trotskyism In the Service of Franco: A Documented Record of Treachery by the POUM in Spain. This included excerpts from and photographic reproductions of documents forged by the NKVD in order to implicate the POUM in a Falangist spy ring. With regard to Nin’s murder, Soria claimed that the POUM leader was freed from prison by fellow fascists and had then disappeared. ‘From that moment’, according to Soria, ‘in spite of the most intensive search by the police, no trace of Nin has been found and no one has any idea where he is, whether he is a refugee in one of the foreign embassies which provide such generous hospitality to the Fascists of Franco’s Fifth Column; or whether he managed to get through to the rebel territory and preserve his anonymity in order not to compromise his friends who are in Republican jails.’6
British Communists today, most of whom would now recognise Stalin’s purges in the Soviet Union for the atrocities they were, still baulk at confronting the truth about Stalinist atrocities in Spain. Back in 1976, it is true, Monty Johnstone was prepared to accept that ‘NKVD agents were sent into Spain and carried out measures of repression against honest revolutionaries, such as Andrés Nin’.7 More typical, however, was the Our History pamphlet on the Spanish Civil War, published around the same time, in which Johnstone’s fellow CPers Nan Green and Alonso Elliott referred dismissively to ‘stories about "NKVD agents" in Spain’ and opined that ‘most of them are apocryphal’. Concerning Nin’s murder, these writers stated blandly that it took place following ‘his disappearance in mysterious circumstances’.8 Noreen Branson, in the third volume of the official history of the Communist Party of Great Britain, agreed that Nin was ‘almost certainly executed’ but was similarly reticent about naming the authors of the crime.9
More recently, in the course of a debate over Land and Freedom, Jeff Sawtell of the Morning Star repeated the fairytale about Nin’s ‘mysterious’ disappearance and added that, while it was ‘not inconceivable’ that he had been ‘executed as a traitor’, the argument that the NKVD was responsible for Nin’s death was the product of ‘anti-Sovietism’.10 Frank Graham, a former International Brigader who reviewed Loach’s film in the New Worker, went so far as to applaud the fact that Nin was ‘executed for treason’ and that ‘several hundred members of the POUM who were secret members of the Falange suffered the same fate’.11 If nothing else, this pamphlet should consign such disgraceful nonsense to the dustbin of historiography.
It would, of course, be naive to rely completely on the accuracy of Hernández’s version of events. His verbatim reconstruction of conversations which took place a decade and a half earlier, and which he can have remembered only in general terms, is clearly open to question. Hernández also had obvious reasons for exaggerating his own opposition to Moscow’s crimes in Spain – as we have seen, in his public activity during the Civil War there was no hint of any differences with the official party line. And he undoubtedly had scores to settle with former comrades like Pasionaria who denied him what he regarded as his rightful position as PCE general secretary and then threw him out of the party.
However, for those who would reject Hernández’s memoirs as the work of an embittered ex-Communist intent on slandering the movement he once led, it should be added that recent research has confirmed his account of the NKVD’s role. In 1992 two journalists from a Catalan TV station, who were preparing a documentary on Nin’s assassination, discovered in the KGB archives in Moscow two letters from Alexander Orlov, the NKVD chief in Spain. One letter, dated 23 May 1937, explained how the material linking Nin with the fascists would be fabricated; the other, dated 24 July 1937, gave details of NKVD and PCE involvement in the torture and killing of Nin. The following year John Costello and Oleg Tsarev published their book Deadly Illusions, which dealt in detail with Orlov’s career, and quoted at length from both letters.
In his letter of 23 May, Orlov informed Moscow that a genuine fascist spy ring had been uncovered and documents seized, which he proposed to use as a basis for forging evidence against the POUM. He wrote that he and his agents had ‘composed the enclosed document, which indicates the cooperation of the POUM leadership with the Spanish Falange organisation – and, through it, with Franco and Germany. We will encypher the contents of the document using Franco’s cypher, which we have at our disposal, and will write it on the reverse side of the plan of the location of our weapons emplacements in Casa del Campo which was taken from the Falangist organisation’. This message would be written in invisible ink as would a few lines added to another document. ‘A special chemical will develop these few words or lines, then we will begin to test all the other documents with this developer and thus expose the letter we have composed compromising the POUM leadership.’ The second letter, written after Nin’s murder, even identified roughly where the victim’s body lay. Nin, the newspaper El País reported, was to be found neither in Salamanca nor in Berlin. The NKVD had buried his mutilated corpse off the highway between Alcalá de Henares and Perales de Tajuña.12
Although Hernández’s book has been a major source for historians of the Spanish Civil War and the PCE, it has never been published in English. The sections reproduced here were serialised during 1953 in Labor Action, the US socialist paper published by Max Shachtman’s Workers Party.13 The translation has been checked against the Spanish text and amended. Explanatory notes have been added.

Robert Pitt, May 1996



"Treat a Trotskyist as you would a Nazi" CPGB pamphlet of the 1940s.

http://dscalm.warwick.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=(Altrefno='MSS.15/5/2/1')

Trotsky's reply to the Moscow Trials accusations against him, along the lines of the Kahn article -

http://dscalm.warwick.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=(Altrefno='MSS.292/947/58')

[Sam Lord]

Dear oh dear. But somehow I doubt that reason comes into it.



You think the the Republican government charged them in a burst of insanity? I would have thought refusing to integrate your militias into the regular army, seizing important channels of communication like the Telephone Exchange in Barcelona, resisting the popular government by force of arms, etc. would have had more to do with it. It would have been impossible for the republicans to fight a war with these peple running around doing what they liked behind the lines.





You didn't answer my question yet. Do you think he was a Nazi 5th columnist?




I have not seen the evidence but there is no doubt that his actions were objectively beneficial to Franco and his foreign backers. No one can believe that the fascists would not have been delighted to see armed conflict taking place between trotskyites/anarchists and the Republican government. The Republicans were the legitimate government at the end of the day ... and while they may not have been implementing the political programme the ultra left would have wished they were engaged in a fight to the death against fascism and that was the predominantly important task of the time.

At the same time I am puzzled by the haste with which you, of all people, would reject the possibility that Franco or his backers could have had a hand in the events in Barcelona. I know that if on last Staurdays Trade Union march a small group of people had suddenly unfurled a red banner, proclaimed "Communism now" and proceed to violently attack the Gardai you would be the first on here talking about false flag operations.:)



The first time I've ever seen it suggested that "Animal Farm" has anything to do with Trotskyism. Have you read it? Or anything by Trotsky ? Orwell wandered into POUM by default and was not a Trotskyist. Poum was not a Trotskyist party, but was 100% an anti-fascist party.


I had no choice but to read it ... like millions of other defenceless students.:)

I didn't say that Orwell was a Trotskyite only that this rabid anti-communuist and agent of imperialism felt at home in the POUM. It is also fair to note that a great deal of opinion on the Spanish Civil war in the English speaking world is formed by "Homage To Catalonia". However, I would suspect that the overwhelming view of historians of the conflict is at odds with his position and yours and would be understanding of the position of the Republican government.



Are you for or against the expropriation of the landlords and factory owners, which is what the anarchists in Spain did ? Isn't that what it's fundamentally all about ? The only problem I can see is that they weren't able to defend those gains.


As me ma used to say, "There is a time and a place for everything".

I was never a big advocate of "socialism in one city" in any case:) ... as much as I love Barcelona.



The bottom line was that the Popular Front strategy, and the pushing back of the anarchists and trotskyists, was counterproductive in preventing fascism coming to power and all the gains of the unfolding Spanish revolution were crushed.


Please. The anarchists and trots were nowhere near as significant as you would like to believe. Your knowledge of the war must be formed by reading Trotskyite tracts posted on line. I would suggest you buy yourself a serious historical study of the conflict. That "bottom line" made me think of Lenin's brilliant title "Left wing communism - an infantile disorder."



How interesting I find it that none of the Trotskyist Party members here are taking part in this debate. Where are they ??

They are eyeing up Dail seats at the moment. Not a good time to be defending armed adventurists. :) :D

[C. Flower]

Sam Lord;98251]You think the the Republican government charged them in a burst of insanity? I would have thought refusing to integrate your militias into the regular army, seizing important channels of communication like the Telephone Exchange in Barcelona, resisting the popular government by force of arms, etc. would have had more to do with it. It would have been impossible for the republicans to fight a war with these peple running around doing what they liked behind the lines.



It was your blanket acceptance - "no doubt in the veracity of all the charges" - with regard to a war time trial with which you are not familiar, which made me feel this whole discussion might be on shaky ground. Like yourself I only had broad brush notions of this important part of the history of communism until this debate, which is an opportunity to understand what happened in Spain and reassess it based on available evidence rather than on long-adopted doctrinaire positions. There is a lot more evidence available now, partly in the Soviet archives and also as you say in published work by historians, than there was at the time Kahn referred to Nin as a fascist 5th columnist back in the 1950s.

The issue of participation in, or reliance on, bourgeois democratic government by revolutionaries is still very live, so it's not just an idle pursuit. I'm inviting you to look at this afresh, based on the best evidence that we have and also to bring your own experience in theory and practice to bear on it.


I have not seen the evidence but there is no doubt that his actions were objectively beneficial to Franco and his foreign backers. No one can believe that the fascists would not have been delighted to see armed conflict taking place between trotskyites/anarchists and the Republican government.

Well, you have seen evidence from Soviet archives in my previous post that he was fitted up by the NKVD, tortured and murdered, but you haven't responded to it. The fighting between different elements of anti-fascist forces was beneficial to the fascists: that's one thing we can agree on. That is no way evidence that Nin was a fascist agent and doesn't tell us anything about the causes of the fighting.


The Republicans were the legitimate government at the end of the day ... and while they may not have been implementing the political programme the ultra left would have wished they were engaged in a fight to the death against fascism and that was the predominantly important task of the time.

I'm surprised to find you offering up the legitimacy of a bourgeois parliamentary government as determining "at the end of the day" the approach that should be taken by communists. You're definition of ultra-left would exclude everyone to the left of the Labour Party here. When you say "the Republicans" - is it these are the people you are talking about ? -


In February 1936 the parties of the Popular Front won a majority of seats in the elections to the Spanish parliament, the Cortes. The Popular Front had been formed with a very limited purpose – it was a temporary electoral alliance, designed to secure the defeat of the Right, and was emphatically not intended to establish a Popular Front government incorporating all the Republican parties, working class and bourgeois. The coalition that took office as a result of the Popular Front’s election victory was based purely on the bourgeois parties – the Republican Left, Republican Union and the Catalan nationalist party, the Esquerra. The Socialists, who had learned from their experiences as a junior partner in the Republican government of 1931-33, restricted themselves to voting with the government in the Cortes against the Right, and resisted attempts to incorporate them into the administration.

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/history/Loach.html

"Handle with care" would be my view of any alliance with or dependence on these parties and I guess you would say the same to anyone contemplating working with their modern equivalents in Ireland or elsewhere.

The fight to defeat fascism was only part of the important task for communists as their perspective was also that the working class and peasantry should take and hold on to power. The two should not be seen as exclusive of eachother or related in a predetermined way - it's something to be worked out in the course of struggle, in the conditions of time and place.


At the same time I am puzzled by the haste with which you, of all people, would reject the possibility that Franco or his backers could have had a hand in the events in Barcelona. I know that if on last Staurdays Trade Union march a small group of people had suddenly unfurled a red banner, proclaimed "Communism now" and proceed to violently attack the Gardai you would be the first on here talking about false flag operations.:)

I don't reject it at all, I think there is evidence that there was false flag activity in Barcelona - including deaths of two particular Trade Union leaders. But by your argument, participation in the march in Dublin on Saturday would have been wrong.

You give a pretty accurate description of what did happen after the march, by the way (apart from the "Communism Now" slogan :)), in my view and that of the WSM reporters who were present at the Dáil.


I had no choice but to read it ... like millions of other defenceless students.

I suffered too. I also suffered walking around various galleries of "Soviet Art" in Eastern Europe.:eek: Bad art is distressing and none more so than bad political art. The civil war in Spain attracted all kinds of young men: I could find you some very unappetising examples of Communist Party members and their post war activities, if you really think that this would advance the discussion at all. I knew one (didn't go to Spain, but otherwise prominent) who ended up as the "Keeper of the Queen's Pictures".:confused: The vast majority of men and women who went to Spain to fight the fascists did so with great courage and self-sacrifice, whether they were in the International Brigade, or with POUM or in any other way. Orwell himself was shot in the neck.


I didn't say that Orwell was a Trotskyite only that this rabid anti-communuist and agent of imperialism felt at home in the POUM. It is also fair to note that a great deal of opinion on the Spanish Civil war in the English speaking world is formed by "Homage To Catalonia". However, I would suspect that the overwhelming view of historians of the conflict is at odds with his position and yours and would be understanding of the position of the Republican government.

Are you saying that my position is the same as Orwell's ? That certainly is not the case. I'm not basing anything on "Homage to Catalonia" one way or the other and can't see how waving Orwell about is anything other than a distraction.

Please would you supply information on some of these historians, for and against, as the one link you've offered so far is a 1950s agitprop hatchet job bereft of factual information and contradicted by recent scholarship.



As me ma used to say, "There is a time and a place for everything".

Hmm. without disrespect to your ma, I think you would agree that there are some things that should never be given time or a place.



[QUOTE]Originally Posted by C. Flower http://www.politicalworld.org/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.politicalworld.org/showthread.php?p=97926#post97926)
Are you for or against the expropriation of the landlords and factory owners, which is what the anarchists in Spain did ? Isn't that what it's fundamentally all about ? The only problem I can see is that they weren't able to defend those gains.

I was never a big advocate of "socialism in one city" in any case:) ... as much as I love Barcelona...

I'm not talking about Barcelona, 1937 - it was you that introduced it. It was in 1936 that the Spanish working class went into action.

These issues we are discussing are covered in two opposing articles sparked off by the Loach film - both of which are worth reading. They cover the same issues as you do in your post.


The election of this liberal bourgeois government lifted the repression that had descended on the Spanish labour movement following the defeat of the 1934 Asturian uprising. Thousands of working class militants who had been imprisoned were set free, and the class struggle took off in no uncertain terms, with a wave of industrial action by the anarchist and socialist trade unions (CNT and UGT) and mounting conflict in the agrarian areas, where the rural poor took up a struggle against the landlords, in some cases engaging in illegal land seizures.

In his study The Communist Movement, Fernando Claudín (a leader of the Communist youth during the Civil War) quotes the following illuminating passage from The Spanish Proletariat and the National Revolutionary War, by the Soviet historian K.L. Maidanik, which describes the response of the masses to the February election victory:

"they took control of the streets and, without waiting for the government’s decisons, began to implement the People’s Front programme from below, using revolutionary methods.... They released political prisoners, they compelled employers to re-engage workers they had dismissed for political reasons, and they began, in March 1936, to take over the land. In the middle of the same month began a wave of strikes caused by hunger, unemployment and Fascist provocation. The strike movement grew from month to month. Factories and workshops, mines and building-sites were paralysed, businesses closed down. In June and July an average of between ten and twenty strikes every day was recorded. There were days when the number of strikers amounted to 400,000 or 450,000. And 95 per cent of the strikes that took place between February and July 1936 were won by the workers. Great workers’ demonstrations marched through the streets, demanding bread, work, the suppression of Fascism and total victory for the revolution. The first collective enterprises were set up. Meetings of tens of thousands took place, at which workers applauded with enthusiasm speakers who announced that the end of capitalism was at hand and called on them to do as they did in Russia. From strikes the workers escalated to occupation of enterprises that their owners had closed down. Their occupation of the streets, of enterprises and estates, and their ceaseless strikes urged the proletariat of towns and country on towards the highest forms of political struggle."

http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/history/Loach.html


Please. The anarchists and trots were nowhere near as significant as you would like to believe. Your knowledge of the war must be formed by reading Trotskyite tracts posted on line. I would suggest you buy yourself a serious historical study of the conflict.

Again, please recommend a few titles of such serious historical studies. I'm not claiming special expertise here, I'm doing the best I can with what is available to me. The material I've linked here so far has been from a variety of sources, all referenced, and is not refuted by you.


That "bottom line" made me think of Lenin's brilliant title "Left wing communism - an infantile disorder."

Ownership and control of the means of production by the working class was a given "bottom line" for Lenin and is for Marxists in general. "Left Wing Communism" is about the compromises that we should and shouldn't make to get there, not about where we are going.

It's a book that I've re-read this year. Wonderful stuff on what forms of action should be adopted, when and how to take part in establishment organisations, and how to be open to new political forms and to the unexpected. Nowhere does it suggest that the bottom line is anything other than the working class taking power.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch04.htm


There are different kinds of compromises. One must be able to analyse the situation and the concrete conditions of each compromise, or of each variety of compromise. One must learn to distinguish between a man who has given up his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to lessen the evil they can do and to facilitate their capture and execution, and a man who gives his money and fire-arms to bandits so as to share in the loot. In politics this is by no means always as elementary as it is in this childishly simple example. However, anyone who is out to think up for the workers some kind of recipe that will provide them with cut-and-dried solutions for all contingencies, or promises that the policy of the revolutionary proletariat will never come up against difficult or complex situations, is simply a charlatan.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/ch10.htm

Is there a particular way you think it can help in this discussion ?

[Design for Life]

An influx of new members, an election campaign and multiple demonstrations is just the time to do more thinking and reading about one's history.

There seem to be two tendencies among the parties in Ireland that talk about social revolution - one of which smells a whiff of election to the Dáil and is enticed, but not in an altogether good way. Joe Higgins in his speech after the ICTU march stressed the potential for a strong Parliamentary bloc of lefts, after the next GE. There was no extra-Parliamentary strategy presented beyond more demonstrations, a one day General Strike and workplace and party work. Richard Boyd Barrett called for an Iceland-style rolling demonstration to bring down the Government and also supports a one day General Strike but with, so far as I could hear, no clear perspective after that. Sinn Fein is also relying on Parliamentary politics.
On the other hand, there are the anarchists, particlularly the WSM, who present lively propoganda and street demonstrations. I haven't yet read what they say should be done, (although it doesn't of course include elections. ) so I won't comment, beyond saying: refer to "Left Wing Communism" for a good critique.

Louise Minihan for éirígí clearly called for social revolution, with a "share the wealth" message that is imo slightly populist (system change is more than a share out). eírígí has been much involved in the ground work of constructing its young organisation, and now need in my personal opinion to turn out and get involved in every sphere of action in which the working class is involved. It seems likely that they will do this within the limits of their present resources. It is too soon, until they adopt their programme and structures, to know exactly what they will be, but there seems to be the potential and the intention there to form a revolutionary party.

They don't seem to intend to stand a candidate in the election. That might be a good decision if resources are genuinely not there, but standing a single candidate would provide a good amount of publicity for their politics and would show a willingness to get stuck in to every arena and to give leadership.

It seems to me that it's absolutely right at this stage to take part in the next General Election, to use it as a platform, whilst warning that lasting solutions to Ireland's predicament are not going to be got out of it. It's not inconceivable though that there might be at some stage a Parliament so toxic and antidemocratic that it should be boycotted. The issues are very similar to ones discussed in relation to Tony Gregory, but the times are much more volatile and unpredictable and the potential much greater, as was the case in Spain.

The question of sincerity much be brought up in response to constant demands for marches & strikes and little else. Where to after a march or after a strike? Either they don't have an answer or are not being truthful about their intentions.

There appears to be a vacuum in the political scene. A gap between the rhetoric and the safe middle populist ground. In between there are some facts, many of which I think Kathleen Lynch did a good job at outlining on TV3 last night.

The "revolutionary left" seem to be opposed to the Spirit Level diagnosis of our societies, they seem to be opposed to Fintan O'Toole's contributions & I assume they're opposed to www.politicalreform.ie (http://www.politicalreform.ie) by Elaine Byrne et al.

Meanwhile back at the ranch Fine Gael&Labour carry on business as usual not trying to upset the natives with any talk about inequality or anything.

It wouldn't surprise me if they're doing secret deals as we speak.

Way off topic all the same, soz.




I didn't say that Orwell was a Trotskyite only that this rabid anti-communuist and agent of imperialism felt at home in the POUM. It is also fair to note that a great deal of opinion on the Spanish Civil war in the English speaking world is formed by "Homage To Catalonia". However, I would suspect that the overwhelming view of historians of the conflict is at odds with his position and yours and would be understanding of the position of the Republican government.



I was never a big advocate of "socialism in one city" in any case:) ... as much as I love Barcelona.



Please. The anarchists and trots were nowhere near as significant as you would like to believe. Your knowledge of the war must be formed by reading Trotskyite tracts posted on line. I would suggest you buy yourself a serious historical study of the conflict. That "bottom line" made me think of Lenin's brilliant title "Left wing communism - an infantile disorder."



They are eyeing up Dail seats at the moment. Not a good time to be defending armed adventurists. :) :D


I picked this up in the library the other day for a read: The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939: Amazon.co.uk: Antony Beevor: Books

Do you approve?

[C. Flower]

There has been no objection, so I'm going to split the thread.

Sam Lord I know is busy, but has not answered the requests for recommendations on something he feels is scholarly and reliable to read on the Spanish Civil War and Popular Front. He has left us only with his recommendation of a sad 1950s Stalinist tract full of inventions. The links I've supplied are also in the main from sources supportive of or controlled by CP members, or quote their views, in the vain hope that SL might read them. This limited information has whetted my appetite for more.

I guess many people have read Orwell - I always struggled with it myself. "Down and Out in London and Paris" was more interesting.

[Sam Lord]

I picked this up in the library the other day for a read: The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939: Amazon.co.uk: Antony Beevor: Books (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battle-Spain-Spanish-Civil-1936-1939/dp/0297848321)

Do you approve?

I have not read it but I believe he puts the anarchists up front and centre which is a fairly bizarre approach to a historical account of the period and would suggest an ideological axe being ground. Not necessarily an anarchist one I would hasten to add.

[Sam Lord]

There has been no objection, so I'm going to split the thread.

Sam Lord I know is busy, but has not answered the requests for recommendations on something he feels is scholarly and reliable to read on the Spanish Civil War and Popular Front. He has left us only with his recommendation of a sad 1950s Stalinist tract full of inventions. The links I've supplied are also in the main from sources supportive of or controlled by CP members, or quote their views, in the vain hope that SL might read them. This limited information has whetted my appetite for more.

I guess many people have read Orwell - I always struggled with it myself. "Down and Out in London and Paris" was more interesting.

I have been very busy it is true, but I have to say at the same time that the unexplained disappearance of some Trotskyite in Spain 70 years ago probably ranks around one million and one on the list of things which interest me. It entirely baffles me that someone would think it worth a thread.

There were probably a couple of hundred thousand people executed in Spain in that period. The vast majority of these were of course killed by the Fascists but even behind republican lines there were probably twenty or thirty thousand executed (and I am sure the POUM had their firing squads as well). Amidst all this carnage if you identified all those affiliated to Trotskyite or Anarchist organisations who were executed for various reasons (probably good) by the Republican government (or allegedly killed) you would probably come up with two or, at the very most, three dozen individuals. Yet Trotskyites would have you believe that the essential feature of the period was some sort of crazed persecution of decent Trotskyites by bad Stalinist and that the whole outcome of the war hinged on this. It staggers the imagination. In my opinion it was a weakness (if a minor one ) of the popular government that they did not deal more harshly with certain elements, particularly all the dodgy foreign Trots like Willy Brandt who were in Spain, not to shoot at fascists but to "advise" the POUM.

In terms of the overall Civil War the POUM and what happened to it was entirely insignificant. Yet the likes of Orwell and Loach would have you believe the Civil War hinged upon it. At their height the POUM possibly had a militia of around 9,000 in a conflict that saw some half a million casualties. Even the International Brigades were over 30,000 while the Italian fascists alone had some 70 - 80 thousand men in the field. I don't know the size of Franco's army but by the end of the war it must have been several hundred thousand strong. The POUM was really nothing in terms of the scale of the conflct. And even when the organisation was suppressed and the leadership put on trial the vast majority of the militia was integrated, quite happily I believe, into the republican army. So there was no real loss, however marginal to the fighting strength of the government forces.

Of course the Trots would have you believe that by being allowed to continue doing whatever they were doing behind republican lines they would have brought about the socialist revolution and ensured the defeat of fascism. This is palpably ridiculous. They were a small number of people who had influence in a small part of Spain (if you want to call Catalonia part of Spain) but even there their influence was far less than the Anarchists for example. One can only imagine what this socialist revolution would have looked like or where the planes necessary to counter the luftwaffe would have come from for that matter.

All in all the history of the Trotskyites in the anti-fascist struggle of the period was a disgraceful one. When the sad Stalinists were carving out a glorious place for themselves in the history of mankind by leading the resistance in the occupied countries across Europe the Trots adopted the positions that [1] you could not kill German soldiers because they were fellow workers (though they were happy to shoot at republican workers in Spain:) ) and [2] that fascism could not be defeated without a workers revolution and that the real enemy was at home. Beneath contempt really ...

It always used to be some ultra left bs to cover up service to the ultra right but I notice today we also have social democratic Trotskyites. This new phenomenon I will need to think about some time when there is nothing more edifying in the universe.

[C. Flower]

I have been very busy it is true, but I have to say at the same time that the unexplained disappearance of some Trotskyite in Spain 70 years ago probably ranks around one million and one on the list of things which interest me. It entirely baffles me that someone would think it worth a thread.

There were probably a couple of hundred thousand people executed in Spain in that period. The vast majority of these were of course killed by the Fascists but even behind republican lines there were probably twenty or thirty thousand executed (and I am sure the POUM had their firing squads as well). Amidst all this carnage if you identified all those affiliated to Trotskyite or Anarchist organisations who were executed for various reasons (probably good) by the Republican government (or allegedly killed) you would probably come up with two or, at the very most, three dozen individuals. Yet Trotskyites would have you believe that the essential feature of the period was some sort of crazed persecution of decent Trotskyites by bad Stalinist and that the whole outcome of the war hinged on this. It staggers the imagination. In my opinion it was a weakness (if a minor one ) of the popular government that they did not deal more harshly with certain elements, particularly all the dodgy foreign Trots like Willy Brandt who were in Spain, not to shoot at fascists but to "advise" the POUM.

In terms of the overall Civil War the POUM and what happened to it was entirely insignificant. Yet the likes of Orwell and Loach would have you believe the Civil War hinged upon it. At their height the POUM possibly had a militia of around 9,000 in a conflict that saw some half a million casualties. Even the International Brigades were over 30,000 while the Italian fascists alone had some 70 - 80 thousand men in the field. I don't know the size of Franco's army but by the end of the war it must have been several hundred thousand strong. The POUM was really nothing in terms of the scale of the conflct. And even when the organisation was suppressed and the leadership put on trial the vast majority of the militia was integrated, quite happily I believe, into the republican army. So there was no real loss, however marginal to the fighting strength of the government forces.

Of course the Trots would have you believe that by being allowed to continue doing whatever they were doing behind republican lines they would have brought about the socialist revolution and ensured the defeat of fascism. This is palpably ridiculous. They were a small number of people who had influence in a small part of Spain (if you want to call Catalonia part of Spain) but even there their influence was far less than the Anarchists for example. One can only imagine what this socialist revolution would have looked like or where the planes necessary to counter the luftwaffe would have come from for that matter.

All in all the history of the Trotskyites in the anti-fascist struggle of the period was a disgraceful one. When the sad Stalinists were carving out a glorious place for themselves in the history of mankind by leading the resistance in the occupied countries across Europe the Trots adopted the positions that [1] you could not kill German soldiers because they were fellow workers (though they were happy to shoot at republican workers in Spain:) ) and [2] that fascism could not be defeated without a workers revolution and that the real enemy was at home. Beneath contempt really ...

It always used to be some ultra left bs to cover up service to the ultra right but I notice today we also have social democratic Trotskyites. This new phenomenon I will need to think about some time when there is nothing more edifying in the universe.


It was yourself who brought up Nin and the role of Trotskyists in the civil war - claiming he was a nazi 5th columnist associated with Trotsky. You offered this up to the world as evidence of what Trotskyism is. You have been shown that, going by the files of the GPU and every witness on the record, all of them CP members, that he was set up as a Nazi by the GPU and tortured to death. Also that he was not a Trotskyist. You claim that there is an overwhelming number of works by reputable historians that support your view of the Spanish Civil War. People here have asked for a recommendation of even one, but so far you have offered nothing.

No amount of bluster, nor the field full of straw men in your last post, can cover up that you don't provide any source whatsoever for any of the claims that you make in your post and that you are anxious to move on, without admitting that you were wrong, from the one matter of fact that has been established - the fact that Nin was victim of false accusations, was set up and was tortured to death by the GPU. It gives me no confidence that anything else you say on this has a basis in fact.

And to throw in to the middle of that stuff, the millions of communists who died fighting fascism.....to bolster unproven points...

I would also really appreciate any serious historical sources you can recommend, to provide some kind of shared knowlege and understanding that could provide the basis of a proper discussion. If you're too busy to take part, that's understood, but I would like to read more and so would others. I would be happy to broaden the scope of this thread and change the title. Spain offers enormous lessons to us that surely are entirely relevant to us now?

[Sam Lord]

It was yourself who brought up Nin and the role of Trotskyists in the civil war - claiming he was a nazi 5th columnist associated with Trotsky.

Really? I actually recommended a book to someone that details the attempts of western imperialism to overturn the revolution in the Soviet Union over many decades. That is all. I have not read this book for many years but I doubt that more than a sentence or two in it is devoted to Nin. It was you who chose to read some part of this book and then start banging on about poor Nin.



You have been shown that, going by the files of the GPU and every witness on the record, all of them CP members, that he was set up as a Nazi by the GPU and tortured to death.


I have really been shown nothing. You made reference to some files that have been recently "unearthed" in Russian archives that purport to prove something but I would give these no credibility. There is practically an industry in Russia today producing dodgy documents allegedly "unearthed" in the archives. It has become a joke. Why anyone would bother going to all the trouble to set up a person they were going to disappear is beyond me entirely. If it was me I would just have disappeared them. I don't take the "memoirs" of disgruntled ex-communists with scores to settle too seriously either.

I am not discounting the fact that Nin may have been executed. I don't really know. What I do know is that at end end of the day it does not bother me if he was. There was good enough reason for it.




Also that he was not a Trotskyist.


Well, it depends on how you define things I guess. As I have said before the POUM was esssentially part of the Trotskyite current and this is why it was supported by Trots from all over Europe.



You claim that there is an overwhelming number of works by reputable historians that support your view of the Spanish Civil War. People here have asked for a recommendation of even one, but so far you have offered nothing.


The only view of the Spanish Civil war that I have stated to be pretty much accepted mainstream history is that the significance of the POUM in the conflict was marginal. I think that this can be discerned from any serious study of the conflict. Reading Trotskyite tracts on line however would give you a different impression.




No amount of bluster, nor the field full of straw men in your last post, can cover up that you don't provide any source whatsoever for any of the claims that you make in your post ...



I am not writing a term paper that requires footnotes and I am not sure what "claims" I made in my previous post that needed supporting. If I am wrong about the size and national significance of the POUM, for example, please feel free to correct me.





And to throw in to the middle of that stuff, the millions of communists who died fighting fascism.....to bolster unproven points...



What unproven facts? And I think pointing to the overall record and positions of Trotskyites in the period of the struggle against fascism was quite legitimate and relevent.




II would also really appreciate any serious historical sources you can recommend, to provide some kind of shared knowlege and understanding that could provide the basis of a proper discussion. If you're too busy to take part, that's understood, but I would like to read more and so would others. I would be happy to broaden the scope of this thread and change the title. Spain offers enormous lessons to us that surely are entirely relevant to us now?

You haven't even been able to get the history of this thread correct and it is right in front of you. I'm not sure what "shared Knowledge and understanding" about events in Spain several decades ago could possible be arrived at.

[C. Flower]

This is the history of the thread, to the best of my understanding -


Really? I actually recommended a book to someone that details the attempts of western imperialism to overturn the revolution in the Soviet Union over many decades. That is all. I have not read this book for many years but I doubt that more than a sentence or two in it is devoted to Nin. It was you who chose to read some part of this book and then start banging on about poor Nin.



You'd need to know the history to understand.

I recommend you start with the chapter XVI Genesis of a Fifth Column from The Great Conspiracy: the secret war against soviet Russia by Albert E Kahn and Michael M Sayers ... and read on from there.

http://www.shunpiking.com/books/GC/GC-AK-MS-chapter16.htm

You linked a specific chapter that lists off a list of allegations that named people were Imperialist agents, to demonstrate what your idea of trotskyism is, not as a general reference. Nin is the only one of them who I'd heard of. In order to get an idea of the accuracy/reliability of your source, I chose to see what other people said about Nin and his death.

Now it turns out that you can't remember what the book says and haven't read it for decades.

However, you dismiss the GPU files that describe how Nin was set up, without having any basis for dismissing them other than prejudice and a blanket assumption that they can't be right because they don't fit in with your decades old picture. Trotskyism gets blamed for Orwell and Loach (neither of who were Trotsykists) but the likes of Orloff who defected from the GPU to the FBI are shrugged off as nothing to do with the CP, just "disgruntled ex-communists".

I've never made any claims about the POUM being a big movement. I just sought to test the veracity of your source by looking at the one incident, Nin's death, which seems to be well documented. Yet another source, here -
http://www.jstor.org/pss/2493259

There are a number of different witnesses and accounts - they argue about detail, but agree about the set up, torture and murder. Some also suggest that men and arms who should have been at the front were detailed to hunt down innocents like Nin.


... Why anyone would bother going to all the trouble to set up a person they were going to disappear is beyond me entirely. If it was me I would just have disappeared them.
Perhaps because Nin had a unimpeachable reputation and track record as a revolutionary ? Why would you "disappear" someone who you believed was a Nazi agent and who should be subject to exposure in a public trial? And we know it was nothing to do with being too busy fighting fascism, as there were other trials of less eminent people, at the same time.


I am not discounting the fact that Nin may have been executed. I don't really know. What I do know is that at end end of the day it does not bother me if he was. There was good enough reason for it.

In that case, why the need for the set up ?


The only view of the Spanish Civil war that I have stated to be pretty much accepted mainstream history is that the significance of the POUM in the conflict was marginal. I think that this can be discerned from any serious study of the conflict. Reading Trotskyite tracts on line however would give you a different impression.

Perhaps it would, but its not something I've gone in to as yet. I would like to know which books you consider to be main stream history.


I am not writing a term paper that requires footnotes and I am not sure what "claims" I made in my previous post that needed supporting. If I am wrong about the size and national significance of the POUM, for example, please feel free to correct me


What unproven facts? And I think pointing to the overall record and positions of Trotskyites in the period of the struggle against fascism was quite legitimate and relevent.

Normally, I'd be happy to go off and read this up and get back to you. But in this instance, it seems possible that you might dismiss any source that conflicts with your current view. I would be happy, if possible, to read a book, or documents that you think historically reliable and authentic. Otherwise, the discussion would be stuck in a loop, with sources being dismissed on grounds of political affiliation

[C. Flower]

Someone kindly pmd me these suggested reading materials on the Spanish Civil War. In the interests of balance and debate (even if I am only debating with myself :) , I would like to read a properly researched and referrenced history from "the other side" (CP - Soviet Union). It seems improbable that either side got everything right, or that there is any perfect history available that avoids the pitfalls of bias and subjectivity (all being shaped to some extent by class standpoint), but a good read around the thing from all angles should produce some results in terms of understanding.




From a Marxist perspective:

Trotsky: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/xx/spain01.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1937/xx/spain01.htm)

Felix Morrow in his Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain
http://www.marxists.org/archive/morrow-felix/1938/revolution-spain/index.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/morrow-felix/1938/revolution-spain/index.htm)

From a non-Marxist perspective:’Storming heaven’ - Anthony Beevor

No link but review here:
http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2006/07/17review.html (http://www.socialistworld.net/eng/2006/07/17review.html)

[Sam Lord]

I picked this up in the library the other day for a read: The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939: Amazon.co.uk: Antony Beevor: Books (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Battle-Spain-Spanish-Civil-1936-1939/dp/0297848321)

Do you approve?

I think Helen Graham may perhaps be the most serious historian of the period writing in the english language. Her books on the subject are listed at the start of the article I have linked:

http://www.albavolunteer.org/2010/03/the-war-before-the-lights-went-out-an-interview-with-helen-graham/

[Trow]

Can anyone tell me if any of the lyrics in this song by the Manic Street Preachers is referring to The Spanish Civil War?

YouTube - Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next - Video

[Sam Lord]

"The song's theme is taken from the Spanish Civil War, and the idealism of Welsh volunteers who joined the left-wing International Brigades, fighting Francisco Franco's military rebels against the Spanish Republic. The song takes its name from a Republican poster of the time. A photograph of a young child killed by Nationalist bombs is shown under a sky of bombers with the stark warning "If you tolerate this, your children will be next" written at the bottom."

[Trow]

"The song's theme is taken from the Spanish Civil War, and the idealism of Welsh volunteers who joined the left-wing International Brigades, fighting Francisco Franco's military rebels against the Spanish Republic. The song takes its name from a Republican poster of the time. A photograph of a young child killed by Nationalist bombs is shown under a sky of bombers with the stark warning "If you tolerate this, your children will be next" written at the bottom."

Cheers for that detail, much appreciated.

[C. Flower]

http://www.songfacts.com/songimages/3623.jpg

[Summerday Sands]

Can anyone tell me if any of the lyrics in this song by the Manic Street Preachers is referring to The Spanish Civil War?

YouTube - Manic Street Preachers - If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next - Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWu-QOVekeU)

Fine song by a great Socialist band. It is indeed about the Spanish Civil War. The lines 'So if I can shoot rabbits then I can shoot fascists' were the words of a Welsh farmer who went to fight with the International Brigade.

Here's an acoustic version
YouTube - James Dean Bradfield - If you tolerate this

[Trow]

http://www.songfacts.com/songimages/3623.jpg

I take it these are German Bombers in the sky in this photo?

[Sam Lord]

I take it these are German Bombers in the sky in this photo?

I am not sure Trow. I have looked at pictures of the aircraft the Germans used in Spain and cannot see one that clearly matches. The wings appear very far forward. It is possible the republicans just used whatever photo of a bomber they had at hand... or is it an illustration?

The Condor Legion (German Air force in Spain) was comprised of:

One Bomber Group of three squadrons of Junkers Ju 52 bombers,
One Fighter Group with three squadrons of Heinkel He 51 fighters,
One Reconnaissance Group with two squadrons of Heinkel He 45 and He 70 reconnaissance bombers, and
One Seaplane Squadron of Heinkel He 59 and He 60 floatplanes.

You can have a look at these aircraft yourself online if you are interested.

[C. Flower]

Could be a graphic, rather than a photo. It's a very powerful image. The planes are arranged maybe to be an echo of a swastika ?

Why a Spanish poster in English ? Where were they used, does anyone know ?

[Trow]

Maybe i'm confused here but i heard before that during the time/or just prior to the second world war the ''authorities'' in Spain collaborated with the German/Nazis to bomb Basque seperatist regions. To test their bombers. Or that it was the Germans who suggested the idea.

Any clarity on this?

The bombers appearing too far wing forward could be becaue they are viewed in the dive bombing position/sweeping in for attack. Very graffic poster. Just trying to read the entire content.

[Sam Lord]

Maybe i'm confused here but i heard before that during the time/or just prior to the second world war the ''authorities'' in Spain collaborated with the German/Nazis to bomb Basque seperatist regions. To test their bombers. Or that it was the Germans who suggested the idea.



It was not the "authorities". Their was a civil war in Spain prior to the second word war as the result of a fascist attempt to overthrow the elected republican government. The Spanish fascists were supported by Mussolini and Hitler who sent soldiers and weapons. Among the things provided by Hitler was the Condor legion - an air force essentially.

They did bomb Basque cities, Guernica being one notorious example, but it was not just Basque cities. I think it it is true to say that the experience the Germans acquired in Spain was used by them to good effect in WW2.

[kozlov]

Obviously they were trying out their tactics in Spain, General Pavlov was shot for failing to understand the blitzkreig. Didnt Orwell fight in the P.O.U.M.:):)

[C. Flower]

Obviously they were trying out their tactics in Spain, General Pavlov was shot for failing to understand the blitzkreig. Didnt Orwell fight in the P.O.U.M.:):)

Wasn't Orlov in the GPU ? :D:D

[Trow]

Viva La Quinta Brigada.......YouTube - Viva La Quinta Brigada - Christy Moore [17/21]

[Sam Lord]

Wasn't Orlov in the GPU ? :D:D

Orlov, with whom you appear to have a peculiar fascination, was a member of the NKVD who operated in many countries by all accounts. You will see him commonly refererd to, for example, as the head of the NKVD in Spain during the Civil War.

Orlov defected to Canada in 1939 and quickly moved to the USA where it is alleged he lived incognito for 15 years. How it was possible for a Soviet defector to move from Canada to the US without the US authorities being aware has baffled many bright minds. It is not know what he was doing in this period or how he lived but I could make a good guess. Anyway, he emerged in 1963 to publish a book, "The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes" :). The FBI and the CIA expressed their utter shame at the fact that he had been living in the USA for 15 years without them knowing. :o Despite this he jointly published another book with the CIA in 1963 and they got him a well paying (but not too onerous) job in a University.

What is of interest to me is that in his tell all book about the crimes of Stalin Orlov, I am told, denies any NKVD involvement in the matter of the disappearance of Andres Nin.

I understand that Orlov is one of the principal sources of the claim that the 5th Column put on trial in the Soviet Union were tortured to confess.

[kozlov]

Orlov was a double agent, otherwise S.M.E.R.S.H.:mad:

[Mervyn Crawford]

Felix Morrow: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain.

Burnett Bolloten's various works.

Ann Talbot has wriiten some pieces on the World Socialist Web Site (www.wsws.org)

[Mervyn Crawford]

Christy Moore is sympathetic to the Stalinist position. Combined with his barren nationalism Moore is one of those cynics who wears his 'peoples'' credentials on his sleeve while giving the lie that the counter-revolutionaries are the defenders of struggle.

Of course, this makes his musical work dead to the core.

[Sam Lord]

Christy Moore is sympathetic to the Stalinist position.

I always wondered why I liked that song so much ....:)

[C. Flower]

Orlov, with whom you appear to have a peculiar fascination, was a member of the NKVD who operated in many countries by all accounts. You will see him commonly refererd to, for example, as the head of the NKVD in Spain during the Civil War.

Orlov defected to Canada in 1939 and quickly moved to the USA where it is alleged he lived incognito for 15 years. How it was possible for a Soviet defector to move from Canada to the US without the US authorities being aware has baffled many bright minds. It is not know what he was doing in this period or how he lived but I could make a good guess. Anyway, he emerged in 1963 to publish a book, "The Secret History of Stalin's Crimes" :). The FBI and the CIA expressed their utter shame at the fact that he had been living in the USA for 15 years without them knowing. :o Despite this he jointly published another book with the CIA in 1963 and they got him a well paying (but not too onerous) job in a University.

What is of interest to me is that in his tell all book about the crimes of Stalin Orlov, I am told, denies any NKVD involvement in the matter of the disappearance of Andres Nin.

I understand that Orlov is one of the principal sources of the claim that the 5th Column put on trial in the Soviet Union were tortured to confess.

Hard to credit that an esteemed member of Stalin's NKVD could become an FBI stool pigeon, but there you go....

I doubt that torture and murder of an esteemed leftist leader was his proudest moment, in terms of his personal credibility.

The NKVD sources were given way back on the thread here...
http://www.politicalworld.org/showpost.php?p=97934&postcount=7

To the best of my memory, because they don't suit your personal worldview, you dismissed them as forgeries.

[C. Flower]

‘75 Years on The International Brigades and Spanish Civil War’

Public Meeting – Friday 15 July @ 7pm
Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1

You are invited to a public meeting '75 years on - The International Brigades and the Spanish Civil War'' on Friday 15 July at 7pm in the Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. The meeting is organised by éirígí to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War and to remember the role of the International Brigades in the international fight against fascism and will be addressed by historians Emmet O'Connor (author of Reds and the Green) and Harry Owens (co-author with Bob Doyle of Brigidista).
Following the meeting there will be a full bar and dj playing ska, reggae and punk tunes

Press release forwarded from eírígí.

[C. Flower]

Great new cache of photographs from the Spanish Civil War via Electionlit.

http://museum.icp.org/mexican_suitcase/gallery.html

Some by Robert Capa - strangely reminiscent of Syria today.

http://museum.icp.org/mexican_suitcase/gallery_capa3.html#