"Towards a Fresh Revolution" by The Friends of Durruti Group (July 19th)

July 19th

The tragedy of Spain knows no end. The most vivid pens fail to describe the tragedy of a people whose bodies and minds are scarred by past and present horrors.

Our writers cannot accurately reflect the calvary of a race that appears to have been born to suffer.

In February 1936, the sad picture of this Spanish scene was at its blackest. On that date Spain was one vast detention camp. Thousands of workers were behind bars.

We stand on the eve of July. We must call to mind the events that paved the way for the army rebellion.

The policies of the black biennium were bankrupt. Gil Robles had not slaked the appetites of his followers. A conflict had arisen between Alcala Zamora and the Chief of Popular Action. The Jesuits were supporting the president of the Republic. He was their new hope: not for nothing had he raised the banner for constitutional reform and religion. How long the Cortes would last was uncertain. The Radicals had broken away from the Rightist bloc, feeling quite estranged from the heart of the nation. Stormy sittings matched a policy that was base, repugnant and criminal in its crudity.

The proletariat was beginning to make itself felt in a more befitting manner. Monster rallies held in the Stadium in Madrid, in Barcelona and in Valencia commanded huge crowds. That these exhibitions of determination and the spirit of revolt served to renew the credibility of an old reactionary figure such as Azana is something to be regretted. It was an error which would have to be paid for later on with interest. Alcala Zamora thought he was in control of the situation. The Cortes was dissolved. Franco, Goded, Cabanellas, Queipa de Llano, Mola - these were Zamora’s puppets. He chose a financier - bandit, one Portela Valladares, to carry his plan into effect.

The resources of the State failed the Galician cacique. In spite of electoral malpractice and the ministry’s list of approved candidates, the results of the February elections failed to set the Holy See’s mind at rest.

Finding his plans frustrated, Alcala Zamora urged Portela to proclaim a state of emergency. Portela did not dare. He realised that the people of Spain were on the streets and recommended that Azana be sent for. He was right. The politician from the red biennium was to be a temporary sedative. That was precisely what the reactionaries were after at that point... a breathing space during which to put the final touches to preparations for the revolt by the generals who frequented the Plaza de Oriente.

The successful elections of February failed to open the eyes of the Socialists. The monster rallies to protest against the numbers imprisoned, the enthusiasm for the release of the prisoners taken during the great drama of October... all this suggested nothing new to them. They stuck to their old ways. A new Cortes. A fresh election for the presidency of the Republic. They kept Alcala Zamora’s plans and his scheme for handing control over to the military and not to the people.

But the proletariat had learned the harsh lesson of the two biennia, they had lived through. They dashed headlong into the streets. Firebrands set religious centres ablaze. The clamour from the imprisoned defied their walls. City and country were equally aroused.

The ignorance of the social democrats postponed the outburst by the people. Fortunately, after five months, the Rightists’ lack of sophistication and their failure to appreciate the truly counter-revolutionary roles of Azana and Prieto, brought the issue on to the streets.

There was sporadic violence from February to July. Yet again workers’ blood was spilled. The strike by the building unions in Madrid - and a clash in Malaga exposed the cretinism of the February politicians.

Boldly the Right mobilised for an attack on the situation emerging from the emotion-filled elections. Fascists killed the coward’s way, arousing hatred by their surprise attacks. There was a vague feeling that the black Spain was planning something. The talk was persistently of army mutiny.

There was no doubt. The proletariat was setting out along the road to July. The government took a back seat. Faced with a choice between fascism and the proletariat, they opted for the former. To cover his tracks, Number One traitor, Casares Quiroga would threaten the Rightists from the government benches, inciting them to take to the streets.

Calvo Sotelo’s murderer brought things to a head. When rumour had it that the army would be invading the streets at any moment the rumours seemed probably true. But did those in government take any preventive measures? Franco was in command in the Canaries, Goded in the Balearics, Mola in Navarre... Why was the whole bunch not dismissed? The fascists could also rely on powerful allies in government circles!

On July 17th, that nemesis we had been warding off for some time unmasked itself. In the Balearics, in Morocco, in the Canaries, the officers were in open revolt.

What was done to bring the rebellion to an abrupt halt? What did the government of that scum, Casares Quiroga do? Shut itself up in complete inertia. Concealed the gravity of the situation from the people. Imposed a rigorous censorship. Refused weapons to the proletariat.

There was still time, between July 17th and July 1 9th, to compel the militarists to capitulate. But a highly suspect, suicidal attitude prevailed. Casares Quiroga is Mola’s accomplice. He kept him on in Pamplona, even after he had proclaimed himself openly in revolt against the results of the February elections, and regardless of the protection he was extending to all the conspirators on the Right.

The treachery by the Left is obvious. No arms were given to the people, because the bourgeois democrats were afraid of the proletariat. In Zaragoza the attitude of governor Vera Coronel, who prevaricated with the workers’ representatives in negotiations, helped the fascists to victory. And in Valencia, when all of Spain was already plunged into fighting, the rebels were allowed to remain in their barracks.

At this historic, blood-soaked hour, it is not with mealy mouths that we charge those Republican politicians who acted openly in favour of fascism out of their fear of the working class. We accuse Azana, Casares, Quiroga, Companys, and the Socialists, all the farceurs from the Republic which, built on a one act sketch in April, has laid waste the homes of the working class. And this is happening because of the failure to make the revolution at the correct time.

The people had to go and look for weapons. They took them by right of conquest. Gained them by their own exertions. They were given nothing; not by the Government of the Republic, not by the Generalitat - not one rifle !

On July 19, as on other great occasions before the proletariat took up its positions in the streets. For some days it had been keeping a close vigil on the streets of every settlement in Spain. In the capital city of Catalonia, memories of glorious past struggles were being conjured up.

The first weapons were seized by workers from some supply ships Iying at anchor in the port of Barcelona, the “Manuel Arnus” and the “Marques de Comillas.”

As dawn broke on July 19, the militarists surged on to the streets facing an attack from the Catalan people, who stormed barracks and fought on until the last fascist redoubt had been taken.

The Catalan proletariat saved the proletariat of Spain from fascism. Proletarian Catalonia became a beacon shedding its light over all of Spain. No matter that the agrarian regions of Spain are in fascist hands we, the workers of the industrial zones, will redeem our comrades from the captivity which has befallen them.

In Madrid, the pattern was the same. No arms were distributed there, either. They were won in the streets. The proletariat fought and stormed the Montana barracks, overwhelming the soldiery. And then, with shotguns and whatever else they could get their hands on, the workers set out for the Sierra de Guadarrama to cut of the advance of General Mola. With the Navarre brigades behind him, he was preparing to conquer the capital city of Castille.

Fascism was routed in the North, in Levante and in a number of places in Aragon, Andalusia and Extremadura. But elsewhere in the peninsula the workers were disarmed and had to contend with leftist governors who eased the way for the Spanish fascists.

Casares Quiroga made way for a government under Martinez Barrio. This politician, who torpedoed the April Constituent Cortes, was coming into power in order to reach an understanding with the fascists and hand power over to them. Swift reflex action by the working class aborted one of the most infamous acts of treachery ever conceived. If this treachery was never implemented, it was only for lack of time. The politicians, beginning with Azana must pay for this vile manoeuvre with their heads. This initially pessimistic outlook and the suggestion of surrender circulating in official circles, were cancelled out by the ferocity of the proletariat. Giral replaced Martinez Barrio.

We have presented an anecdotal outline of how events developed. But it behoves us to dwell a little longer on July and to examine what sort of revolution was achieved in those days of glory.

There has been a lot of theorising about July. The bourgeois democrats and marxists insist that the popular explosion in July must be classified as a legitimate act of self-defence by a proletariat which saw itself under attack from its worst enemy. Taking this as their basic thesis, the argument then is that July cannot be deemed a typically revolutionary, class phenomenon.

This thesis from our opponents is a fallacy. Revolutions do break out unforeseen, but they are always preceded by a long period of gestation. April opened one era, closed another. And right in the foreground of the April era, and still there today the working class continues to occupy the advance positions of the revolution. Had it not surged head long on to the streets in July, the proletariat would have done so at some other point, but it would not have desisted from its noble undertaking - to free itself of the bourgeois yoke.

From the petit bourgeoisie comes an allegation that we were - all of us, all shades of opinion - out in the streets. But we must remind them that, but for the CNT and the FAI rushing to where danger was greatest, there would have been a repeat performance of the comic opera in Barcelona in October.

In Catalonia, the organised workers in the CNT predominate. If there are any who deny that, it is through ignorance or an attempt to ignore the history of the CNT on Catalan soil.

The July revolution drew its impetus from the workers and, as such, was a class revolution. On the streets and at a theoretical level, all the petit bourgeoisie did was to act as an after thought, nothing more.

But there are other equally important considerations, perhaps more so. The memory of the political conditions which capitalism caused in the XVIIth, XVIIIth and XIXth centuries has grown vague. What is more petit bourgeois democratic illusions on what earlier bids - like 1873, or April - brought about have been shattered. After February the only type of revolution possible in Spain was social revolution - such as that which blazed with such splendour in July.

April was decisive. It was enough to prevent our falling into the same error. By which we do not mean only the repression of which we were the targets. We shall confine ourselves solely to the nonsensical argument put forward by the Marxists.

How do we account for the fact that in the July revolution we saw a repetition of the errors we have criticised hundreds and hundreds of times? How come we did not hold out for social revolution in July? How come workers’ organisations failed to assume maximum control of the country?

The vast majority of the working population stood by the CNT. Inside Catalonia, the CNT was the majority organisation. What happened, that the CNT did not makes its revolution, the people’s revolution, the revolution of the majority of the population?

What happened was what had to happen. The CNT was utterly devoid of revolutionary theory. We did not have a concrete programme. We had no idea where we were going. We had lyricism aplenty; but when all is said and done, we did not know what to do with our masses of workers or how to give substance to the popular effusion which erupted inside our organisations. By not knowing what to do, we handed the revolution on a platter to the bourgeoisie and the Marxists who support the farce of yesteryear. What is worse, we allowed the bourgeoisie a breathing space; to return, to re-form and to behave, as would a conqueror.

The CNT did not know how to live up to its role. It did not want to push ahead with the revolution with all its consequences. They were frightened by the foreign fleets, claiming that Barcelona would come under fire from ships of the English fleet.

Has any revolution ever been made without having to overcome countless difficulties? Is there any revolution in the world, of the advanced type, that has been able to avert foreign intervention?

Using fear as a springboard and letting oneself be swayed by timidity, one never succeeds. Only the bold, the resolute, men of courage may attain great victories. The timid have no right to lead the masses.

When an organisation’s whole existence has been spent preaching revolution it has an obligation to act whenever a favourable set of circumstances arises. And in July the occasion did present itself. The CNT ought to have leapt into the driver’s seat in the country, delivering a severe coup de grace to all that is outmoded and archaic. In this way we would have won the war and saved the revolution.

But it did the opposite. It collaborated with the bourgeoisie in the affairs of state, precisely when the State was crumbling away on all sides. It bolstered up Companys and company. It breathed a lungful of oxygen into an anaemic, terror-stricken bourgeoisie.

One of the most direct reasons why the revolution has been asphyxiated and the CNT displaced, is that it behaved like a minority group, even though it had a majority in the streets.

With this minority outlook the CNT has not been able to make its plans prevail; it has found itself continually sabotaged and trapped in the web of a confused, deceitful policy. Inside the Generalitat, as well as the Town Council, we had fewer votes than other groups, even though we had far more members. And, what’s more, we were the ones who conquered the streets. Why have we given them up so crassly?

On the other hand, we would assert that revolutions are totalitarian, no matter who says otherwise. What happens is that the various aspects of revolution are progressively dealt with, but with the proviso that the class which represents the new order of things is the one with most responsibility. And when things are done by halves, we have what presently concerns us, the disaster of July.

In July a Committee of Antifascist Militias was set up. It was not a class organ. Bourgeois and counter-revolutionary factions had their representatives on it. It looked as if this Committee had been set up as a counter-balance to the Generalitat. But it was all sham. Control patrols were organised. They were men of the barricades, men of the streets. Factories, workshops and businesses were taken over and the latifundists tackled. Defence committees and supply committees were established in each locality and municipality.

Sixteen months have rolled past. What remains? Of the spirit of July, only a memory. Of the organisms of July, a yesterday.

But the machinery of politics and the petit bourgeoisie lingers on, intact. The undergrowth of some sectors, maintained solely by the backs of the workers, lingers on in the Plaza de la Republica in the Catalan capital.