Hello Comrade!

I learned something about censored revolutions this week. While it's common knowledge that we know little about the happenings of May 1968 in Paris (when the workers, students, and politicians united to shut down Paris for nearly a month) we know even less about the Spanish revolution opposed to Franco on the brink of World War II.

First it was never called a "revolution."

It was called a war against Fascism in the name of democracy. On the one side there was Franco, charging ahead not even so much under the flag of Fascism (though he did have support from Mussolini). Franco was much more interested in returning to Feudalism. He wanted to be king. The opposing side was much more complex.

The opposing side consisted of four camps: The reigning government, the communists, the anarchists, and the socialists.

When the war started it was the anarchists who armed the people, ran the streets, and the socialists and communists who united the trades people. Ultimately it was the anarchists who kept Franco out of Barcelona as they had been hording weapons and preparing for revolution for some time. For a period of six months to a year the workers controlled much of Spain. Service people stopped accepting tips, the peasants took over the farmland, and the various militias had no traditional hierarchy. Everyone made the same pay. Everyone had the same privileges. And people in command took no liberties beyond organizing the troops and channeling orders for attack.

While the government had an army it was mostly ineffectual and it was those various militias the P.O.U.M (socialists), the C.N.T / F.A. I (the anarchists), and the P.S.U.C. (the communists) who continued to hold off Franco in 1936 and 1937.

The Russian Communist Party had an interest in Democracy in Spain. The Russian Communist Party had an interest in most European Democracies to remain so. And it was the Russian Communist Party that ultimately supplied the resistance movements in Spain with arsenal to fend off Franco. This was not so noble, I assure you.

At about the time weapons began to arrive in Spain so did the hushing of the word revolution. And the leaders of the various militias were openly divided on the purpose of the war. It became necessary, according to some, to suppress the word revolution for fear of alienating the middle class and dividing the whole of the resistance movement, which in the foreign press was only ever called a fight for democracy. This just wasn't true. For the bulk of the armies, and more importantly, the people of Spain, it was not about democracy at all. It was about equality, which many of you might realize is very different from modern notions, or practice, of democracy. It was about revolution. And for a short time they succeeded. As the war went on the P.S.U.C (the communist party) began to change their literature and develop closer allegiance to 'the government' army and the workers who were controlling the streets and industry gradually had to give up their guns (or suffer arrest) so that the government army "could continue to fight Franco." Not giving up your arms meant you were supporting Franco, somehow. This ultimately meant the disarmament of the other two factions. Because the anarchists were quick to realize that they would soon become illegal they also began to temper their literature and build a relationship with the government. They both agreed "Fight for democracy now and revolution later."

The anarchists and the communists more or less allied against the socialists who in June of 1937 were officially declared traitors. The internal and foreign press charged them with being spies for the fascist regime, presumably because the P.O.U.M never bothered to change its party line, soften its stance, or ally with the government. Thousands of P.O.U.M militiamen and women, who were just volunteers, were imprisoned and killed.

There are interesting questions here. As far as the workers were concerned this fight for democracy now and revolution later meant there would be no revolution. It's a bait and switch tactic that is as familiar in today's corporate politics as it was 60 years ago in the Spanish war. I'll give you a little now and then more later. But later never comes. Most of us get distracted and forget we wanted anything else anyway.

It also sheds some light on the nature of ideologies versus greed. Stalin needed democratic nations to support his empire. He wasn't concerned with spreading communism throughout the world, he was concerned with being left alone to be king and torture his citizens who disagreed. All of the world leaders at the time presumably knew this and didn't care, so long as Russia didn't drop any bombs on the rest of us.

It also says a lot about journalism. There were countless self-conflicting lies told to the world about what was happening in Spain. Some of these lies I'm sure were just ignorance. Ignorance as journalists accepted stories from people who talked to so and so who talked to so and so, none of them actually present at the reported account, and dumb enough to believe that things are always as they appear. Others obviously ignored the truth to promote personal political agendas and career goals.

Most importantly, to me, this story points out the problem with political ideals and labels in the first place. Just because you are fighting for 'the anarchists' does not mean you are pushing forward an anarchist ideology, or even one you agree with, and the same is more obviously true for communism. These isms allow us to blanket ourselves in words as opposed to actions.

Last month I was interviewed for someone's research on ex-dot.com employees. When I told the student how pleased I was to be taking a class with Christopher Hitchens they balked disdainfully, "Oh, he's pro-war." Ah, what a good liberal. Hitchens gets in a fight with the ultimate liberal flag waver, Chomsky, and talks about moral responsibility and suddenly he's Pro-war? Incidentally, Hitchens is Pro-Justice, not Pro-war. And in his mind justice might involve killing some people from time to time. (I don't have to agree).

The glib line "I would never be a part of any club that would have me" was absolutely right. Changing the world is as about building careful groups not on Isms, but on mutually agreed goals and actions.

Don't get suckered.

You can read this version of the Spanish war in George Orwell's "Homage to Catalonia." It's a great read and admitted, by the author several times, biased.

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