Felix Morrow - Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain

Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain
Felix Morrow

Source: New Park Publications Limited.
First Published: 1938.
Wellred version: Formatting, spelling and footnotes reworked. Based on a comparison of material from the Marxists Internet Archive and the 2012 Wellred print edition.

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Ebook produced by Martin Swayne. Smashwords edition, published January 2021.

The publication of a new Spanish edition of Felix Morrows classic book Revolution and Counter-revolution in Spain is an occasion to celebrate. When I was in Spain in the 1970s as an active participant in the revolutionary struggle against the Franco dictatorship, one of the first initiatives I took was to get this important work translated into Spanish (it was completely unknown in Spain at that time). We circulated it in a rather primitive duplicated format, in which it was passed from hand to hand until the pages were falling to bits.

I recall that it made a profound impact on people at that time, and I am sure that its impact will be no less now. Four decades after the fall of the hated dictatorship a new generation of young fighters is being forged in the fire of the class struggle. I write these lines only a few days after a huge demonstration in Madrid protesting against the vicious austerity policies of the right wing PP government.

On July 17th 1936 fascist and Monarchist officers based in North Africa proclaimed a military rebellion against the Republican government. But this was the inevitable result of a process that had begun five years earlier when the reactionary Bourbon Monarchy fell like an overripe fruit and the masses came onto the streets to proclaim the Republic on April 14, 1931. With the precision of a master surgeon, Felix Morrow traces this process step by step through all its stages, laying bare the class mechanics that lay behind it.

Morrow explains how the bourgeoisie was incapable of solving the problems of Spanish society. Like the Russian bourgeoisie it had developed too late to accomplish the progressive role that had been played by the French bourgeoisie in the 18th century. The Republican and Liberal bourgeois lived in fear of the workers and peasants who were pressing for their own demands. Once the Spanish ruling class understood that they could no longer rule through democratic means, they prepared for the overthrow of the government.

With a wealth of detail and quotes from contemporary newspapers, Felix Morrow exposes the unwillingness and complete incapacity of the Republicans to fight the fascists from the very beginning. When the fascist officers launched their counterrevolutionary rebellion against the Republic, they deliberately suppressed the news and refused to arm the workers. This was no accident. It flowed from their class point of view. The Republican bourgeois were more afraid of the workers than they were of the fascists.

But the victory of Franco was not inevitable. What was lacking in Spain was the presence of a genuinely revolutionary party and leadership that was prepared to go to the end. In Russia in 1917 that role was fulfilled by the Bolshevik Party under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky. The tragedy of the Spanish Revolution was that no such party existed. In the moment of truth all the existing leaderships betrayed the Revolution and handed the workers and peasants to the tender mercies of the fascists.

Today, many people on the left confuse the popular front with Lenins idea of a united front. This is a very serious mistake. In reality the popular front has nothing to do with a united front, a workers or left front. It represents a policy of class collaboration, which subordinates the workers parties to the parties of the liberal bourgeoisie. Lenin originally put forward the idea of a united front as a united front for action between workers parties (Socialist and Communist) against the bourgeois parties. It was the Mensheviks, not the Bolsheviks, who advocated a democratic front between the workers parties and the parties of the so-called progressive and liberal bourgeoisie a policy which Lenin vehemently denounced.

In 1917, Lenin broke with Kamenev and Stalin when they advocated critical support for the bourgeois-liberal provisional government, demanding that the workers and peasants take power into their own hands (All power to the Soviets). The popular front in Spain was based not on Lenins conception but that of the Mensheviks, and it had disastrous results.

In 1936 the Socialists and Communists united, not with the progressive bourgeoisie but with the shadow of the bourgeoisie. The real capitalists, bankers and landlords had in the main fled to the side of Franco at the beginning of the civil war. The only social force which remained to fight against fascism was the workers and peasants. After the victory of the Popular Front in 1936 the working class, which had learned to distrust the liberals through bitter experience between 1931 and 1933, immediately moved into action. Within days, by direct action they carried out the Popular Front programme from below. There were constant clashes between workers and employers. The peasants began to seize the land. But whereas in Russia the land was divided up into small peasant property, in many areas of Spain the peasants established collectives. The reaction grew more and more alarmed.

Behind the screen, under the protection of the Popular Front government, the conspiracy of the Generals, monarchists and fascists began immediately. The Popular Front Government did not take any action against the Fascist Army Officers. How could they when it meant the destruction of the state machine on which the ruling class relies? While the government did nothing, the big capitalists, unleashed their reserve weapon: the Fascist bands against the organisations of the working class, supplying them with funds and arms. Had it depended on the liberals, the fascists would have won without a struggle.

Fortunately, the masses took matters into their own hands. When the fascist generals tried to broadcast their call to mutiny to mainland Spain the message was intercepted by the radio operators in the Spanish fleet. The crews upped anchor, radioed Madrid to warn the government and threw their officers overboard. It was the working class that saved the situation. Socialist, Communist and Anarchist militias and their comrades in the army and navy led the counterattack against the fascist onslaught. Under the inspiring slogan of the Asturian Commune, Union de Hermanos Proletarios, they fought with ferocious bravery and saved the situation.

The great majority of the landlords and capitalists supported Franco and had fled to the National zone. But the Republicans acted as a reactionary brake on the movement of the masses. They feared the workers and peasants much more than the fascists, to whom they were quite prepared to capitulate. Therefore the only correct policy would have been to break with the bourgeois Republicans and form a workers government based on the Socialists, Communists and the CNT. The only way to defeat Franco was by linking the military struggle against fascism to the revolutionary struggle for the liquidation of the economic dictatorship of the landlords and capitalists.