A rising class struggle after Spain’s Republic was first formed in 1931 culminated in 1934 insurrections in Asturia and Catalonia as responses to monarchist and fascist threats to the new Republic. A major force in those events was the Workers’ Alliance founded on the initiative of the Bloque Obrero y Campesino. Beginning as the Catalan section of the Spanish Communist Party led by Jaun Maurin, later the Iberian Communist Federation and aligned with the so-called ‘Right Opposition’ internationally forming the Workers and Peasants Bloc in 1931. That Bloc would unite Andreu Nin’s Left Opposition to establish the P.O.U.M. in 1935.

‘Armed Clashes in Spain as Civil War Begins’ by R.B. (Rosalio Negrete) from The Militant. 7 No. 4. October 6, 1934.

Workers Conduct Militant Struggle Against Fascism

The Spanish working class has answered a threat of fascist rule by the declaration of a revolutionary general strike.

The political crisis, long developing, came to a climax this week when the Samper government presented its resignation at the opening session of the Cortes. A new government has been formed under the “radical republican” Lerroux, representing a coalition of the blackest reactionary elements of the country, with the inclusion of Fascists (Popular Action) in three ministries.

Armed Clashes

Everything is tied up throughout Spain, armed clashes have taken place, the country is being placed under martial law. As this issue of the Militant goes to press, the death toll has reached 50. The National Army and the Assault Guards are mobilized for suppression of the strike, which is already being carried over into insurrectionary action in several provinces. The miners of Asturias are in open revolt in a body, and appear to be well supplied with rifles, ammunition and even with machine guns.

Workers of every tendency in the labor movement are fighting side by side in the streets against the fascist danger now clothed in the vestments of governmental authority. It is reported that the Socialist Party has seized one of the country’s largest munition plants. With their backs to the wall and the lessons of Germany and Austria still fresh in their minds, Socialists, Syndicalists and Communists of Spain are fighting with a determination that cannot but inspire every class conscious worker throughout the world.

Socialist Party Appeal

In its issue of October 4, El Socialista, central organ of the Socialist Party, says editorially: “All who, as workers, are in our ranks, must add their strength to the common cause. The gravity of the moment requires absolute subordination. Victory is closely linked to discipline.” However, in spite of the Socialist Party’s assumption of the right to undisputed leadership, its own criminal negligence and conscious sabotage of the building of the National Workers’ Alliance as a united front movement of all organizations and tendencies, as well as their refusal to give full support to partial struggles during recent months, will be the principal source of weakness in the present movement. It will be necessary to translate the unity of action of the workers, as expressed in the present revolt, into a well-knit united front between the different organizations and tendencies, if the class is to realize its opportunity and not waste its energies. As the only existing united front of this character, the provincial Workers Alliances must strive to become the national center of the class war.

World Labor Must Aid

Meanwhile it will be the duty of all workers and all working class organizations to give their whole hearted support in action, to the efforts of the Socialist Party, while not failing at the same time to point out its political and tactical errors, in an effort to correct them. Ex-premier Manuel Azana, left petty bourgeois republican, has broken with the national government and now maintains himself in readiness, according to current rumors in Spain, to head a liberal regime to be proclaimed in Catalonia. It will be the task of the Workers Alliance of Catalonia at this juncture to raise the issue of national autonomy against the semi-fascist central authority, at the same time tying up the struggle for national emancipation with the revolutionary movement of the workers and peasants of all Spain.

In this life and death struggle, the fate of Western Europe and, in a sense, of the entire world, will be vitally affected. Workers of all countries should organize united front movements in support and defense of the Spanish revolution.

***

Spanish Workers Destiny Hinges on Militant Action by R.B.

The Spanish Revolution began in the spring of 1931 with the overthrow of the monarchy and was carried to great heights by the mass action of the workers and peasants. Its further progress was checked by the betrayal of the Socialist party leaders, who at the time shared power with the Republicans and the sectarian putschism of the anarchists. Between them they objectively prepared the way for the present rightist regime.

With the setting in of reaction in 1933, the political forces of the nation gravitated to both extremes. The Socialist party, in an attempt to rectify its past, has pushed its more conservative leaders to the background and forged ahead under a new banner–that of the Proletarian dictatorship. Important sections of the anarcho-syndicalist movement have oriented towards political action. On the other extreme the Catholic Popular Agrarian (Fascist) Party of Gil Robles has come to the fore, anxious to fulfill its historic role in Spain as has been done by the Fascist par ties of Italy and Germany.

Political Crisis in Spain

The last few weeks have witnessed the development of a serious political crisis in Spain. The right-centrist government of Samper is on the verge of complete collapse. Representing a minority of the Cortes, it has been unable to solve any of the pressing economic and political problems of the day. The Fascists are demanding the formation of a “majority” government which means that they would have to be included. Gil Robles openly announces that this would be only a temporary arrangement, and that the time when the Fascists will make a bid for complete power, is not far distant.

Faced with this situation, the Socialist Party, claiming to speak for the majority of the proletariat of Spain issued manifesto in El Socialista on Sept. 28 in which it is predicted that the decisive showdown with Fascism will take place during October. This manifesto reads in part as follows:

Socialist Party Manifesto

“Next month may well be our October. The maneuvers of the reactionaries should catch no one in the proletarian camp off his guard. We must be prepared for anything. The great army of workers of field and city should from this moment consider themselves mobilized, so that at the proper moment, everyone will know his post and his mission and carry forward his task without any wavering or doubt.” Declaring that the Socialist Party does not pretend to foresee the events of October, the manifesto adds, “But we do know that the horizon has not yet cleared. The rightists will attempt to get as far as they can. Days of difficult trial for us are ahead. Our preparations must not fail. Everything must be completely organized, no longer must anything be left for the morrow. We must have every detail prepared for our victory. Thus there will be no risk of awakening one day to find ourselves under a Fascist dictatorship.”

After stating that the party will not back out of the most costly sacrifices, El Socialista goes on to say. “Our responsibilities before the Spanish proletariat are enormous because there does not exist in Spain any other organized force with as concrete objectives as the S.P. The now weakened bourgeois parties will have to seek difficult twisting bypaths if they are to win but, on the other hand, the working class knows what it wants to achieve, and how to accomplish its ends.”

Aim to Conquer Power

The manifesto goes on to relate the efficiency with which the Spanish workers even today are collectively and successfully working the land, mines and enterprises of many industries that the capitalists were forced to abandon because of their inability to make profits. These enterprises are now functioning under the direction of the Socialist Union, which is pointed to as the model for the future workers’ state. The manifesto continues:

“We have our own army, already prepared for mobilization. We have our international policy, our plans for socialization, our ideas concerning the reorganization of institutes and universities, our own plans as to the banks. We have the masses of those who produce. The only thing we lack is power and therefore we must conquer it.

“The conquest of power is not and cannot be achieved by a minority but rather by the whole mass of working people. It is no longer possible to progress by democratic means beyond the point reached in the first two years of the republic. We must now take a much greater leap forward. If this leap is not made, not only will Social Democracy be lost, but we will fall into the abyss of white terror, repression and ignominy.”

Sabotage of United Front

An unfortunate circumstance in the present situation in Spain, is the fact that the Socialist party insists on its preparations to seize power unaided. Even if we recognize the hegemony of the Socialists over the majority of the proletariat, the very important minority which maintains its organizational and ideological independent should not be left out of account. The National Confederation of Labor, controlled by the anarcho-syndicalists, has a following of several hundred thousand of the country’s industrial workers, precisely those with the most militant traditions during past years. The Syndicalist Libertarians with their important trade union following in the Opposition unions, and the three communist groups, must all be taken into consideration in any serious attempt to carry through ä workers’ revolution.

But the leaders of the Spanish Socialist Party have consistently sabotaged every attempt to form the Workers Alliance on a national scale. This united front organization, from which the future Workers Councils of Spain may well emerge, is functioning efficiently in а number of provinces with the participation of organizations of different tendencies, but it appears to be the object of the Socialist leaders, to prevent interference as much as possible by the various labor minorities, organically allying themselves with these lesser groups only on a local scale in those regions where said groups constitute a considerable force.

The Minority Groups

The labor minorities, represented by the Communist Left (Bolshevik-Leninists). Iberian Communist Federation (Maurin group), Syndicalist Libertarians and the Opposition Unions, are exerting pressure to force the Socialist Party into a National Workers Alliance. The truly sincere revolutionary elements within the Socialist Party are aiding in this struggle. To sabotage the Workers Alliance at this time is to pave the way for defeat. Only a united front of all working class tendencies can defeat fascism and clear the way for the proletarian insurrection in Spain. Within the framework of the Workers Alliance, and in the course of the struggle, will be tested the theories and policies of each tendency, thus giving the best guarantee for a successful revolution.

Today, with reaction advancing throughout Europe and the world, the countries of Western Europe are next in order for the decisive struggle. A proletarian victory in either Spain or France would turn back the tied of Fascism. Such a revolution could not but immediately overflow the national boundaries, becoming international in character. All of Europe west of the Rhine would present a solid proletarian front against which the barbaric regimes of Hitler and Mussolini could not long stand. On the crest of the new revolutionary wave, a new international of labor, and a new, brighter perspective will be opened to the workers of the world.

The Militant was a weekly newspaper begun by supporters of the International Left Opposition recently expelled from the Communist Party in 1928 and published in New York City. Led by James P Cannon, Max Schacthman, Martin Abern, and others, the new organization called itself the Communist League of America (Opposition) and saw itself as an outside faction of both the Communist Party and the Comintern. After 1933, the group dropped ‘Opposition’ and advocated a new party and International. When the CLA fused with AJ Muste’s American Workers Party in late 1934, the paper became the New Militant as the organ of the newly formed Workers Party of the United States.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/1934/oct-06-1934.pdf