English translation in The Spanish Revolution, Vol. 1 No. 9. December 23, 1936, p. 2.
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The course of the events through which we are living has shown us once again the correctness of our interpretations of the nature of the Spanish civil war and the Revolution.
We said, even before July 19th, that what was taking place in our country was not a struggle between fascism and democracy, but an aspect of the huge struggle begun throughout the world between capitalism and the working class. Capitalism cannot overcome the deep differences which exist within itself by the traditional measures of democracy. The only way temporarily to overcome them was violently to destroy the social gains won by the working class within the democratic regime. It was necessary to cut down salaries, lengthen work ng hours and destroy the workers’ parties and their trades unions.
Events have thoroughly confirmed our predictions. Four months after the electoral success of the left elements, the fascist rising broke out.
The electoral successes produced a rebirth of democratic illusions in many minds. Do you realise people were saying: 'Now it is possible to overcome reaction by means of the vote’? But we replied: Don’t deceive yourselves. The present situation is only a transitory solution. It does not by any means signify that the struggle is over. The exploiting classes will not peacefully resign themselves to losing their privileges, and if the case should arise, they would have small regard for electoral triumphs and turn to violence.
Facts have proved us right. The capitalists learned the October lesson. The Spanish workers acquired fuller class-consciousness. Like the Asturian miners, they showed that they were beginning to understand that insurrection was the only road towards the installation of socialism. It is in order to avoid this that the reactionaries made their attempt at what we may call preventative counter-revolution.
But then the unexpected occurred; the proletariat reacted with exemplary courage and the workers, almost without arms, fought and beat fascism in the leading towns. On the 19th of July, the armed proletariat sprang to attack the forces of feudalism and the capitalist regime. And the workers will not abandon their arms until capitalism has been totally destroyed.
At the present moment there are parties and organisation which style themselves working class and whose object is to put the brakes on our revolution in order to keep it within the limits of bourgeois democracy. There are certain organisations which consider it a provocation to state and uphold the fact that there can be no return to that state of affairs which was buried forever on July 19th.
They maintain that the armed Spanish proletariat is fighting for the democratic Republic. In face of this mistaken policy the P.O.U.M. firmly maintains that no matter how improve and advanced the democratic Republic might be, we would never consent to return to it.
It has also frequently been said that first we must win the war and later there will be time for the Revolution. This is another false slogan. The civil war and the revolution are inseparable. At the end of the war it should be no longer possible for the worker or the peasant to find himself back at his old post, working under the same boss as before the fascist rising.
Do those who talk of building a future social life after our victory in the war really understand the true economic and social position of the country during the civil war? The capitalists have taken flight. The big landowners have been expelled from their estates. Numbers of businesses have been taken over by the workers. In the face of these facts, to say that the Revolution will follow the war means that expropriations spontaneously carried out by the people can occur without a profound process of socialisation, or else that at the end of the war these properties and businesses will have to be given back again to their former owners.
The economy, as it stood prior to the revolution, has been destroyed. The civil war, the blockade by the foreign power and other factors besides, necessarily leave us with a limited number of resources. In this situation, who is able to organise the economy with regard to the exigences of the present time.
Certainly not. Only with the economy in the hands of the people directed by a revolutionary working-class government will we be able to meet the necessities of the moment.
The economy must not be left in the hands of capitalist parasites.
The characteristics of the movement before July 19th were the hegemony of the middle-class parties and the submission of the workers and peasant masses to the policy of these parties. The 19th of July represents a change, a fundamental displacement of the centre of gravity of our policy which had really begun as early as October 1934 in the Asturias. This change of political hegemony in favour of the workers’ organisations and working-class concepts is the key to the present situation, and its most important and significant characteristic. In this situation, there is a danger that the middle-class parties and the policy they represent may attempt to regain their hegemony. This must be avoided at all costs.
We are definitely partisans, in the present revolutionary process, of making use of the collaboration of the advanced middle-class parties of our country. The artisans and the peasants with small holdings are actually progressive forces and must be taken into account. But no middle-class party could direct the revolutionary movement. The revolutionary middle class must understand that its role is to allow itself to be guided by the working class, which constitutes the truly revolutionary class of our times.
There are various important problems of the revolution which must be dealt with. In the first place, there is the necessity for a greater coordination and centralisation of all forces. We must combat and avoid the localist, corporative sense of some initiatives. There are factory committees, for instance, who believe themselves to be an independent force apart from the revolutionary whole, and who are occupied exclusively with themselves and the interests of the industry or commerce under their control. Among other fatal consequences, this leads to a senseless waste of energy and fruitless work.
Of course, those working in a factory or shop must take an interest in its workings. But no one must forget, even for a second, that the higher interests of the whole working class come before the particular interests of a committee, a business or a branch of industry.
The next vital problem is the question of the army. Every homage should, of course, be paid to the courage and fighting spirit and willingness to sacrifice themselves, of which the workers’ militias have given proof from the beginning, fighting fascism and holding it back. But we must realise that we are facing an organised army which has every modern instrument of war at its disposal, given it by foreign fascist powers. If the workers militias are lacking in organisation and discipline all their valor will be in vain. The only thing to beat the disciplined fascist army is another disciplined army. In the new red army we accept the collaboration of the military technicians, but it must be given and used in a revolutionary sense and must be controlled solely by the working class.
With regard to our position and the policy of the Soviet Union, in spite of everything the Communist International leaders have said against us, we are the first and best friend of the Russian Revolution. To limit the movement here within the bounds of the democratic Republic is to adopt an attitude against the principles of the Russian Revolution. The Russia Revolution cannot place its confidence in the League of Nations nor in alliances with capitalist and Catholic Powers. The only hope for the U.S.S.R. lies in the international working class. The only friends which the U.S.S.R. possesses are the revolutionary workers throughout the world. In spite the attitude of the official communists, the P.O.U.M. will always be ready and willing to take up its post in defence the Russian revolution.
Once again, in conclusion, it must be borne in mind that the unity of the working class is essential for the good of the revolution. Our party has been slandered, but we have firmly decided to continue the struggle, and fight for the dignity our party and the whole Spanish working class.
Last updated on 23 October 2024