The fourth post in the series transcribing Andreas Nin’s ‘Struggle of the Trade Unions Against Fascism; contains chapter IV on Spain, and V on Argentina. Links to the complete text of the pamphlet here..

‘Fascism in Spain’ and ‘The Argentine Fascisti’, Parts Five and Six of ‘ The Struggle of the Trade Unions Against Fascism’ by Andreas Nin. Labor Herald Library No. 8. Trade Union Educational League, Chicago. October, 1923.

V. FASCISM IN SPAIN

‘”THE elements constituting the basis of Spanish Fascism are: (a) the Somaten, (b) the Free Unions, (c) the Citizen Guard, (d) the Requeres, (e) the Defense Committees. Traditionally, the Somaten was a sort of rural police which engaged in the pursuit of male- factors. Its great majority was composed of petty-bourgeois and peas- ants who joined voluntarily. It only functioned when circumstances demanded.

Towards the end of 1918, the bourgeoisie, alarmed by the growth of the revolutionary labor movement, organized the Somaten in the large cities and particularly in Barcelona, the center of the revolutionary movement. The Somaten is under the orders of the Captain General, that is to say, the military commander of the district. It is commanded by military officers. Its members perform the functions of strike-breakers, police, and white guards.

Since March, 1919, when the Somaten made its apperance on the occasion of the great general strike in Barcelona, it has played an important role. It replaces strikers, does patrol duty, searches and ex- amines passersby, and secures arrests. Its members often murder working-class militants.

In Barcelona alone, the Somaten has 12,000 members. It has recently perfected its organization to a considerable degree. Its members are armed with Winchester rifles, and they also have machine guns and armoured cars. They have organized a complete spy-service, and have a central bureau where are piled the police records of all revolutionary elements.

The “free unions” were organized towards the end of 1920. They are unions only in name, being really bands of assassins, recruited from among the most debased social elements. The members of these bands are furnished with permits to carry arms, furnished by the police. They have killed scores of our best militants. Not only are they not molested by the police, but they even receive protection from them. Quite often the police, members of the Somaten, and the free unions, take part together in attacks upon the workers.

As a consequence of the combined action of the authorities and the “free unions,” the trade unions were completely crushed. It was then that the “free unions” really commenced seriously to organize as such. Groups of them presented themselves in the factories and, revolvers in hand, forced the workers to join the “free unions.” They succeeded in obtaining the membership of several thousands of workers in this way, but it was purely a nominal membership.

In fact as soon as constitutional guarantees were restored, the workers deserted the “free unions” en masse, and joined the revolutionary unions. During two or three months the “free unions” ceased their outrages. But the bourgeoisie of Barcelona, fearing the renewal of the revolutionary working-class movement, engineered the reappearance of the White Terror. For some months not a day has passed without the murder of working-class militants by the “free unions.”

The Citizen Guards, established in 1917, has aims similar to those of the Somaten and the French Civic Unions; but it is numerically weak. It exists in several cities, notably in Madrid and Saragosa, but so far has not played an important role.

The Requetas is an organization of the youth of the ultra-reactionary Carlist Party. They are organized on a military basis, and have murdered several of their political adversaries. They sometimes work together with the “free unions.”

The Defense Committees, composed of army officers and founded in 1917, are a sort of secret power which exercises control over various political organizations of the country. Profoundly dissatisfied with the Government, and especially with its policy in Morocco, the Defense Committees threaten to engage in wider action. They are also the inciters of practically every form of persecution against the workers.

Anarchist Tactics Fail

The Spanish Anarchists, leading the National Confederation of Labor whose members have been particularly the victims of the White Guards, find no tactics with which to oppose this terror, except through attacks upon individuals. The consequences of this have been disastrous. An outrage committed by one side necessarily implies reprisals from the other. Thus terrorism continues indefinitely.

The workers are very dissatisfied with the tactics of the Anarchists, and daily manifest more sympathy for the R.I.L.U. followers who advise them that the most efficacious method of opposing Spain’s growing Fascism is through mass action, the united front, and the organization of proletarian self-defense bands.

VI. THE ARGENTINE FASCISTI

IN 1915, the Argentine bourgeoisie commenced to organize to beat back the rising wave of revolution. In this year the National- Industrial Association was founded. Capitalists, petty and large employers, landlords, shopkeepers, and others, are all obliged to belong to this organization under threat of boycott. Every member of the Association is compelled to pay a high entrance fee and a monthly contribution, for the purpose of forming a treasury with which to resist the attacks of the working class. No employer has the right to enter into separate agreements with his workers, or to make any arrangements with them, without the preliminary authorization of the Executive Committee.

On the initiative of the Association there was founded, also in 1919, the Patriotic League, an organization of White Guards, with local sections in all towns of the republic. In the capital and other large cities these are again divided into sub-sections, each one with its own corps. These corps are engaged in harassing the workers, in systematic organization of espionage within working-class organizations, and the supply of strike-breakers. The League has founded technical schools for the training of the latter; and it also possesses a school for its propagandists and agitators. All members of the League are permitted to carry arms. The Government grants the League full liberty of action, as well as moral and material support.

In all strikes the League leaves the traces of its sanguinary labors. Many militants have been killed. In the interior of the country, incendiarism and murder committed by members of the Patriotic League become facts of daily occurrence. At the present moment the League is increasing the number of its outrages. In January, 1923, a number of members of the League entered the head-quarters of the paper-box makers of Buenos Aires, who were on strike, and wounded a member who was guarding the door.

For the development of a Fascist movement of the importance of that in Italy, one of the most fundamental elements is missing in the Argentine, namely, a larger number of small landholders and industrial petty-bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the social-economic condition of the country, and especially the extraordinary instability of the mass of agricultural workers who are scattered over immense plains, is propitious for the actions of bands, composed of landlords, students, and the petty-bourgeoisie of the towns.

In the large towns, however, the working class is more combative. If it were only well-organized and disciplined the Fascist movement would have no chance of success against it in any case, we do not believe that there will develop in the Argentine a large movement capable of taking over the State power. The development of a pseudo-Fascist movement would also depend upon the success of Fascism in Europe, the political and social events of which always have an immediate echo in Latin-America.

The Labor Herald was the monthly publication of the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), in immensely important link between the IWW of the 1910s and the CIO of the 1930s. It was begun by veteran labor organizer and Communist leader William Z. Foster in 1920 as an attempt to unite militants within various unions while continuing the industrial unionism tradition of the IWW, though it was opposed to “dual unionism” and favored the formation of a Labor Party. Although it would become financially supported by the Communist International and Communist Party of America, it remained autonomous, was a network and not a membership organization, and included many radicals outside the Communist Party. In 1924 Labor Herald was folded into Workers Monthly, an explicitly Party organ and in 1927 ‘Labor Unity’ became the organ of a now CP dominated TUEL. In 1929 and the turn towards Red Unions in the Third Period, TUEL was wound up and replaced by the Trade Union Unity League, a section of the Red International of Labor Unions (Profitern) and continued to publish Labor Unity until 1935. Labor Herald remains an important labor-orientated journal by revolutionaries in US left history and would be referenced by activists, along with TUEL, along after it’s heyday.

Link to PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/tuel/08-Struggle%20of%20TU%20vs%20Fascism.pdf