Spanish Civil War - whose side do you support?

What party/organization/group do you sympathize with in the Spanish Civil war?

Anyone opposing the fascist swine.

The Republicans.

Also what indigo said.

Indigo wrote:

D: All of the above. Except, of course, the fascists.

This. It was a shame that the Republican consensus degenerated into rivalry and secured the Republican's defeat.

Anyone who will fight the two headed snake of National Socialism and Stalinism.

Both the Stalinists and the POUM/Anarchists were wrong.

The Stalinists were wrong to insist on the cross-class strategy (in practice subordinating the working class to the politics of the Republican bourgeoisie) and in opposing immediate workers control and collectivisation and in their overly aggressive approach the other left factions.

The POUM and anarchists were wrong to break with discipline and effectively trigger a civil war not only among the Republican forces but within the workers movement. They were also unpragmatic and ridiculously cloudy in their thinking about the possibility for immediate revolution.

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Anyone who will fight the two headed snake of National Socialism and Stalinism.

Seriously, that's like the Third Period taken beyond the point of absurdity.

I voted other. I, as I'm American, rather than Spanish, would have supported the international brigades. But I suppose that I should have voted Stalinist, as from what I just read, in the above linked article, those were the ones whom headed the brigades. Learn something new everyday. Not everyone whom fought in the brigades was a Kremlin lead Communist. Some weren't even Communists at all. And here in America, the media likes to act like the voluteers were just anti-fascist left-liberal idealists. So I did not know that the Comintern sponsored them, until now.

To be fair, the brigades had all sorts of people in them. Anarchists, communists and various anti-fascists

Shigalyov wrote:

It's funny how most of you guys say "everyone except the fascists" then vote for the PCE.
Wouldn't you vote "other"?

I did but I don't know about the others.

I wonder whom was the one who voted Fascist?

CNT-FAI and POUM, without a doubt.

Whitten wrote:

The POUM and anarchists were wrong to break with discipline and effectively trigger a civil war not only among the Republican forces but within the workers movement. They were also unpragmatic and ridiculously cloudy in their thinking about the possibility for immediate revolution.

The Stalinists started the damn intra-Leftist civil war. There's no fragging excuse for subordinating workers' militias to bourgeois power. PCE should have sided with the revolutionaries and not with the leftist petty-bourgeois. All that orthodox Stalinist nonsense of first win the war then make the revolution was class-defeatist bullshit.

A civil war is precisely the perfect moment to launch a revolutionary programme. There's chaos all-round, the bourgeois security apparatus has crumbled, workers are armed and organized under their own leaderships. The Republican government depended on the Soviets for weapons and aid: They could have been forced to accept worker control over the armed forces. Then, instead of backstabbing their fellow revolutionaries, the Soviets could have backstabbed the Republicans.

To their shame (and our misfortune) they did not.

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There's no fragging excuse for subordinating workers' militias to bourgeois power.

Yes, because the disorganized and fractured milicias did great against the Fascists.
Certainly they fought bravely in hundreds of cities and tows and heroically defended Madrid ( *although it is said that the city would have fallen had it not been for the Assault Guards *), but from what i read they spent a lot of time on the Aragon front for example (where POUM and CNT had some 50k soldiers) sitting in the trenches and doing nothing.

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PCE should have sided with the revolutionaries and not with the leftist petty-bourgeois. All that orthodox Stalinist nonsense of first win the war then make the revolution was class-defeatist bullshit.

Yes, because it would have been great to start collectivizing in the midst of a civil war.
In the Ukraine they already had something close to a civil war breaking out in the 30s. Doing that would push all but the poorest peasants over to the Fascists.

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A civil war is precisely the perfect moment to launch a revolutionary programme. There's chaos all-round, the bourgeois security apparatus has crumbled, workers are armed and organized under their own leaderships.

I don't understand. Franco had a professional army helped, armed and supplied by fascist powers, the milicias didn't even have rifles for most of their members. The Republican Armed forces were also in utter disarray in that earliest period.

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The Republican government depended on the Soviets for weapons and aid: They could have been forced to accept worker control over the armed forces. Then, instead of backstabbing their fellow revolutionaries, the Soviets could have backstabbed the Republicans.

The Bolsheviks learned in 1918 that in order to defeat a professional army you have to professionalize your own forces too. That's why thousands of ex-Tzarist officers were (sometimes even against their will) recruited in the Red Army.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guardia_de_Asalto
As noted by a Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) militant who also participated in the Siege of Madrid,[2]

"The guards were the only efficient police corps created by the republic, and in Madrid they were a revolutionary force made up almost exclusively of socialist youth or other left-wingers. Their importance in the fighting that was about to come was equally decisive; it was they who, in the first couple of months, virtually saved Madrid.... In the actual fighting it was the assault guards who again took the brunt, so much so that I can truthfully say that virtually not one Madrid assault guard or officer remained alive after six months."

Loz wrote:

Yes, because the disorganized and fractured milicias did great against the Fascists.

Certainly they fought bravely in hundreds of cities and tows and heroically defended Madrid ( *although it is said that the city would have fallen had it not been for the Assault Guards *), but from what i read they spent a lot of time on the Aragon front for example (where POUM and CNT had some 50k soldiers) sitting in the trenches and doing nothing.

The organized and coordinated workers' militias saved Catalonia from the fascists. They then pushed to the goddamn gates of Zaragoza. Had the Soviets supplied them adequately, they'd have taken Zaragoza. Had Zaragoza been taken, Huesca would have been regained, and then the Republic would have been able to prevent the Fascists conquering Euskal Herria.

Basically, when the Fascists split the Republican zone, the dudes who coulda prevented it were none other than the FAI.

Loz wrote:

Yes, because it would have been great to start collectivizing in the midst of a civil war.

In the Ukraine they already had something close to a civil war breaking out in the 30s. Doing that would push all but the poorest peasants over to the Fascists.

The FAI did collectivize the liberated territories in Aragon, and the Aragonese peasants didn't go fascist.

Loz wrote:

I don't understand. Franco had a professional army helped, armed and supplied by fascist powers, the milicias didn't even have rifles for most of their members. The Republican Armed forces were also in utter disarray in that earliest period.
The Bolsheviks learned in 1918 that in order to defeat a professional army you have to professionalize your own forces too. That's why thousands of ex-Tzarist officers were (sometimes even against their will) recruited in the Red Army.

This is true. Still, unifying the militias under the auhtority of liberal bourgeois officers was a very bad idea. The whole army should've been put under workers' control: It's all right to join forces in a proletarian army, it's not all right to subordinate themselves to the bourgeois government. The Liberals were in no position to cut a deal with the Fascists, they were stuck with the Soviets no matter what.
As for the Guardia de Asalto, they fought bravely: They're the only police corps in Spanish history that wasn't a bunch of worthless right-wing vermin.

I see, thanks for the responses.
Can you explain to us, though, how come that Moors and other Africans put themselves into the service of Fascism so eagerly?
Why didn't they, as colonial and oppressed peoples, join the Republican side or at least abstain from going to war?

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The FAI did collectivize the liberated territories in Aragon, and the Aragonese peasants didn't go fascist.

What was the situation with land distribution in Aragon? Were there "middle peasants" (serednyaki)?

Loz wrote:

I see, thanks for the responses.
Can you explain to us, though, how come that Moors and other Africans put themselves into the service of Fascism so eagerly?
Why didn't they, as colonial and oppressed peoples, join the Republican side or at least abstain from going to war?

Those Moors and Africans were mercenaries working for the Spanish military since the Moroccan Wars: Spain had been recruiting them since the turn of the century. The african clique of officers and chiefs was particularly reactionary: Virtually all of'em joined the uprising and took their troops with them.

They didn't like neither set of Spaniards: They just went for the loot.

Loz wrote:

What was the situation with land distribution in Aragon? Were there "middle peasants" (serednyaki)?

Yes, there were. Only landlords' land was forcibly confiscated. For the middle peasants, official policy was to let them choose whether they'd join the commune or not. Those that did got access to the cooperative's goods. Those that didn't ("individualists", the CNT called'em) cultivated their own land and had to trade with the cooperative... Or go outta the collectivized area in order to trade, 'cause anarchists collectivized the service industry.

It was all a little chaotic 'cause the chain of command was often fuzzy and local militia commanders had too much leeway about applying the decisions of the CNT-FAI leadership (ie the militia collectivized some towns fully, others partially and others not at all for no particular reason) but they were doing the Right Things .

Political Interest wrote:

Anyone who will fight the two headed snake of National Socialism and Stalinism.

Because equating Marxism-Leninism to fascism makes so much sense.

My support goes to all antifa in the Spanish Civil War, anyway.