Losing Sight of the Revolution

THe LAST WORK by the late English historian E.H. Carr;The Comintern and the Spanish Civil War represents the culmination of a lifetime of brilliant research on Russia and communism Deutscher. Wife of Trotsky biographer Isaac Deutscher, edits and introduces the book, left as an unfinished manuscript by Carr's death, and adds a "personal memoir" of its author, with whom she worked closely.

The book chronicles in excruciating detail the sordid Machiavellianism of the Comintern during Stalin's dictatorship, focusing on its already well--documented betrayal of the Republican Spanish government during the 1935-1938 civil war against Generslisimo Francisco Franco. It also shows that Stalin's idea of "socialism in one country" at the expense of the international resolutionary movement can lead only to the abandonment of worker democracy and the disintegration into state capitalism. Under state capitalism, communist countries must oppress their own workers in order to compete with capitalist nations. The Soviet Union had followed this path away from genuine socialism since Fenin's death and Itotsky's flight from Stalin, and Carr's evidence makes plain the price Spain paid for the USSR's actions.

The intent of the book is clear throughout it charts the submergence of the long cherished communist goal of world revolution into the much of Soviet internal affairs under Stalin According to Carr, the original plan for the defense of a fledgling Spanish socialist government against the rebel Fascists and the advancement of the communist movement there was scrapped in the name of political expediency. As Carr puts it in his conclusion, the "united front," which joined Spanish socialists and communists under Moscow's guidance, gave was to a "popular front," with which the Spanish left was ordered to embrace the petty bourgeoisie and promise not to impinge in property rights of rights or free trade.

Finally, this degenerated into a "national front," which tried to unify resistance against the fascists, who were aided to a considerable extent by the Mussolini's Italian government, by appealing to nationalist and patriotic sentiment. In making these compromises on its original goal, the communists sought to prove themselves bourgeois democrats: they ruthlessly persecuted substantial Trotskyist and anarchist segments of the resistance. These groups were crushed, and their gains since the advent of socialism largely rescinded.

At the same time, Carr notes, the Western countries that unconditionally condemned the rebellion did nothing to save the republic Using as an excuse false international non-intervention agreements, which were not heeded in the least by their German and Italian signatories. America, England and France refused to and the struggling Spanish government When pressed by their own workers movements, they branded the Spaniards communists, despite the latter's every effort to abandon their political goals in order to survive.

Because of Stalin's desire to attain a rapprochement with the West as the spectre of German and Italian militarism grew large the Spanish government became expendable Carr quotes a Soviet intelligence officer's account of a split in the Comintern between those that feared to provoke the animosity of France (these included Stalin), and those who felt that there was no moral choice but to come to the defense of the Republic These last Stalin branded as Protskyites.

But Spain was sacrificed, as Carr writes, to no avail Both the USSR and the West were busy worrying about Hitler, and outside of the usual declamations neither helped the Spanish.

In the fall of 1936, it appeared the war would be a triumph both for the Republic and for the idea of the popular front For the first time, communists were participating in a non-communist government. The anarchists, who had broad support among the lower classes, had finally consented to join the coalition, and were more importantly sending troops to fight the Fascists. Everything had taken a turn for the better, so it seemed. But in an attempt to hold the continued support of the bourgeoisie, the ruling group pleaded the necessity for "iron discipline" on the home front, and thus banned trade unions at the same time as the Cominterm press was exalting the merits of the anarcho-syndicalists of Catalan, who had "risen to the occasion" of the war.

Soon enough, the front began to disintegrate. Charges were made of unfair distribution of arms which short changed anarchist militia units. The Trotskyites and other groups opposed the conservative economic policies of the regime, and small military clashes were reported. As Stalin's purges got underway in the USSR, the Spanish government began to harass, threaten and even assassinate members of the left revolutionary groups.

In May of 1937, the anarchists and the Trotskyites rose up in Barcelona but were crushed after a desperate struggle. The government blamed the Trotskyites leaders and dupes who engaged in "conscious lying, conscious provocation conscious support for Fascism." The Comintern engineered a switch in leadership, from the revolutionary socialist Largo Caballero to the moderate Negrin According to Carr. "The revolutionary ardor so easily whipped up in the summer and autumn of 1936 to fire the struggle against Fascism, had given place to the cool calculations of diplomacy: Spain was a pawn on the Eruopean chess board."

Carr asserts and convincingly defends, the thesis that once the revolution was seen merely in strategic terms by the Stalinist Comintern, the people's cause was as good as lost. The Civil War was a microcosm of the failure of the Soviet state to follow through Mars's call for the uniting of the world's workers. Unfortunately, Carr Shows only a little sympathy for the Trotskyites forces who refused to see the necessary distinction between the progression of socialism and the defeat of Fascism. His argument implies the moral failure of any reasonably strategic socialist country, and this reflects a serious lack of consideration of Trotsky's writings on the subject. The Soviets did need to strike some sort of bargain with the West on the eve of World War II. But that does not mean they couldn't have supported the left socialist majority in Spain: was no Western support for either side as it was and there was nothing to lose besides the last semblance of sincerity the Comintern could maintain.