Source: Spanish Revolution, Vol. 1 No. 8, December 9, 1936, p.3 and 7;
Transcribed: by Revolution's Newsstand.
Due to the dissociation of the Soviet Union from the non-intervention pact and their expressed willingness to support the antifascist cause in Spain, the Communist and Socialist parties have gained considerably in prestige during the last few weeks. Until the Russian question became primordial in presenting the possibility that a foreign power might be willing to give the Spanish people help, the IInd. and IIIrd. Internationals were not a very decisive factor in the struggle in Catalonia. Now they have been able to take up stronger positions, shielded by the promise of Russian arms.
Their first step has naturally been to define their position in opposition to the P.O.U.M. with the greatest clarity. Their defamation campaign against the P.O.U.M. has been growing for some time now, as we pointed out in our last number of the "Spanish Revolution", but last week they received the official reinforcement of the Soviet representatives in this country.
Last Saturday November 28th the majority of the newspapers of Barcelona published the following note which had been circulated to the Barcelona press with the formal request that it should be inserted in all publications:
"One of the manoevres of a press sold to international fascism consists in calumniating the representatives of the Soviet Union accredited to the Government which, at the present time is directing the foreign affairs and the home policy of the Spanish Republic. The ends which the servants of fascism have set themselves in making such insinuations are obvious. In the first place, they wish to diminish the prestige of the Spanish Republican Government. In the second place they wish to weaken the feeling of brotherly solidarity which daily grows stronger between the people of Spain and the people of the Soviet Union and on which the antifascist struggle is chiefly based. In the third place they wish to reinforce the disorganisational tendencies of certain uncontrolled and irresponsible groups which are undermining the united Republican front: Among the organs of the Catalan press there appears to be a paper which has undertaken the task of supporting this fascist campaign. In its number for November 27th "La Batalla" tried to furnish material for the above-mentioned fascist insinuations. The Soviet Consul General in Barcelona rejects the lamentable inventions published in this newspaper with the greatest disdain."
The immediate reason for this rash attack against our P.O.U.M. newspaper, "La Batalla", was our editorial concerning the P.O.U.M.’s exclusion from the Madrid Defence Junta. In this article we stated that the opposition to our party’s participation in the Junta came from "the Soviet Embassy, which, together with the Soviet Consul at Barcelona, inspires the campaigns of insults and lies which is being waged against us."
Our party wrote a reply to this letter, in which we stated that the fact that the Soviet representatives intervened in the campaign is proved by the coincidence of the note with the publication of a series of lying charges against us in "Treball", organ of the P.S.U.C., which is completely under the sway of Moscow. This campaign is translated word for word out of the Russian press. "We do not considerer," said our reply, "that it is necessary for us to answer the charge that we are fascists agents and enemies of the U.S.S.R. The working-class knows us well and realises that the P.O.U.M. has taken its place in the fight from the very first, that we have lost our most militant members in this struggle that entire sections of our party have been physically exterminated by Franco’s hordes, that 70 members of the Madrid section perished in Sigüenza Cathedral, and that we used to defend the U.S.S.R. at a time when the present leaders of the P.S.U.C. were attacking defaming it."
"The present campaign against us constitutes a danger that must be avoided at all costs. It would break the united workers’ front which is necessary to the victory over fascism, and it might end in a provocation that would lead to armed encounters…We shall not cease nor even slacken our work of pushing forward the revolution to its final consequences, and that is a more effective defence of the Soviet Union than the tactics of confining our revolution within the limits of the capitalist democratic republic, or deporting, gaoling and shooting the old Bolshevik guard…"
This reply, truthful and just as it was, we sent to all the newspapers which had published the letter from the Soviet Consul, with the request that, in the interests of revolutionary fairness, they should give it the same publicity. Our article appeared in "La Batalla" only. Other newspapers had been ready and willing to print it, but we received information that the Soviet Consulate had demanded that it be banned.
However, this was not all. Further measures, of an even more official character, were to be taken against our party. During the weekend of our conflict with the Soviet Consulate, our party held a most successful meeting, attended by thousands of workers amid the greatest enthusiasm, at which the speakers, MacGovern, of the I.L.P. and Deisel of the S.A.P. (an account this meeting is given elsewhere in this bulletin). The meeting therefore was of international interest, but in spite of this the "Official Monday News" which is supposed to devote a portion of its space to the activities of every party impartially, omitted any mention of the meeting. Full accounts were given of lesser and much more unimportant meetings held by other parties. No reply was vouchsafed our enquiry as to the wherefore of this coldshouldering. A deliberate snub had been administered not only to the P.O.U.M. but to our English and German comrades.
But while our Catalan position is being menaced in this way, our situation in Madrid has changed for the better: During their recent visit to Madrid, our comrades Gorkin and Andrade, of the P.O.U.M. Executive Committee visited the C.N.T. and the Executive Commission of the Socialist Party. They had supported the claims of our party to be included in the Madrid Defence Junta. Who was it then who had opposed our entry? It was certainly not the Republican nor the Socialist party, but the Communist party and the Stalinist Youth movement, obeying the dictates of Moscow.
The immediate results of the visit of our comrades Gorkin and Andrade and their enquiries into the case were that Madrid Defence Junta has asked our party to take an active part in the Council of Propaganda belonging to the Junta. Our committee has named comrade Dositeo Iglesias to undertake this work. At the preliminary meeting between the representatives of all the workers parties and organisations, comrade Iglesias demanded the revolutionary right for every party to express its own point of view on all problems touching the Spanish revolution. This right was granted.
The P.O.U.M. Madrid Committee has put 25 comrades at the disposal of the Propaganda Council, 15 painters and designers, the P.O.U.M. broadcasting station, our party’s own press and various cars which we possess.
We have also been asked to send a delegate to that branch of the Ministry of Works which is occupied at the task of building fortifications. Comrade Antonio Uya has been entrusted with this charge.
Thus some slight justice is at last being done to the efforts of our party in Madrid in the war and the revolution. But we wish it to be understood that for nothing and no one will we give up our liberty of judgement and our independence of organisation which we use in the service of the Spanish and the world proletariat. For we consider, faithful in this as in all to the tradition of Marx and Lenin, that if material arms are precious, then the moral arm of freedom of thought is much more so. leading as it does to the choice of the true political line which will guide us all towards revolutionary emancipation.