Revision 6 : Post from the Camps [1 August 1939]

REVISION                                                  MONTHLY REVIEW PUBLISHED BY A GROUP OF YOUNG REVOLUTIONARIES

POST FROM THE CAMPS

(ARGELES, BARCARES, GURS, SAINT-CYPRIEN, VERNET D’ARIEGE, etc..)

All correspondence should be addressed to Dumont René, Post Box 48, 19-21 Rue d’Alleray – Paris (15th)

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS BULLETIN

No 6

This issue, ONE FRANC fifty                1 August 1939

Almost a year ago now we were obliged to suspend publication of REVISION. Soaring printing costs, successive set-backs for the workers’ movement and the weakening of our team were the reasons.

We cannot even dream of carrying on with such work the way we started out with it. We therefore decided to wind up REVISION, refund current subscribers and devote our efforts to activity within the workers’ organizations.

The Spanish Revolution’s death throes rather modified our intentions.

We had reckoned that the ending of their military and political responsibilities was going to allow Spanish militants to explain themselves and draw the lessons from the lost revolution.

Not a bit of it. Among the emigres, confusion still reigns and, through such confusion, the least advisable stances have finally been shown in their true colours.

Some time ago we managed to come into contact with some Spanish militants who had already espoused clear-cut positions in Spain and who, here in France, were attempting to draw a more complete lesson from events in which they had occasionally been the protagonists and, all too often, the victims.

For a variety of reasons those comrades are utterly bereft. It seemed to us that if we could afford them a platform, no matter how feeble it may be, our efforts would not be in vain. 

Which it why it occurred to us to turn REVISION into a voice for the Spanish refugees in whom we find political and moral concerns not so far removed from our own.

REVISION will thereby be continuing in the form of a periodical bulletin at the disposal of the progressive and honest tendencies that’ seem to be emerging among the Spanish emigres and which therefore cannot but interest us and enlighten our French comrades. 

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Printer-manager:  L. FEUILLADE, 70 Rue Nollet, Paris (17th)
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We will see to some of the drafting of this bulletin because, albeit far removed from the Spanish experience, we too have managed to draw certain lessons from it.

Given that at no point was this form of publication envisaged when we were canvassing financial support from the comrades who found our efforts interesting, WE SHALL BE REFUNDING SUBSCRIBERS FOR THE ISSUES OWED THEM ON A PRO RATA BASIS. We would merely ask subscribers who wish to be reimbursed to so advise us. As for the rest, we shall furnish them with his bulletin until such time as their subscription expires.
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A NECESSITY. This bulletin.

In fact, several thousand revolutionaries are interned in the camps, prey to the whims of the police agencies of “French democracy” and their personal lives poisoned by Stalinist chekas. Whilst a lot of individual and collective effort has gone into attempts to assist the former militians by sending them provisions and medicines, little has been done to sustain intellectual effort in their ranks and the class consciousness that prompted them to take part in the Iberian revolution.

Most of the big organizations have lost touch with their members. The Communist Party and the politicians attached to it only look after them in search of the human material against the eventuality of an imperialist war. 
Those who so masterfully presided over the counter-revolution and the rout are bloviating abroad or living comfortably off the coffers carried off into their well-advertised exile. Even the revolutionary minorities are little inclined to hear from the refugees who would call them to account. However, in the overall collapse of the international workers’ movement which is sliding towards war and treason, it is the camps and the prisons that hold the best workers from the social struggle. 

They are a hundred times stronger than the mammoth organizations that will collapse under the first assault just as they did everywhere in 1914, just as they did in Germany in 1933, undermined by war-mongering and consorting with the ruling classes. 

They are fortified by the manifold experiences and tested by their participation in the fighting; and whilst their doctrines and tactics have had their mystical cachet banished by reality, it is among them that the experience has had the longest reach. 

It is to them that we turn, to them that we put our request that they speak up, write and recount what they have seen and what they have lived through.

May the overhaul of socialism arise from the determination and thoughts of imprisoned and interned revolutionaries and its power will far exceed any to be found in books, theses and speeches.

WHAT WE ARE GOING TO TRY TO DO

POST FROM THE CAMPS intends to publish on a fortnightly basis:
    1) A short review of the main features of political and social life in France, Spain and elsewhere;
    2) An article dealing with a current issue.
    3) Information regarding the camps, the emigrés and the repression.
    4) Testimonials and accounts from militians
    5) Communiques from the “Friends of Durruti”.

SCANDALS OF THE EMIGRATION

We must put paid to the scandals of the Spanish emigration. Such scandals are many.

    1. For a start, there is the scandal of French democracy’s hospitality. Not that we ought to be surprised and we shall not labour the point, as much has been said about it already on every side. Concentration camps, forced labour, imprisonment – no more than we had been expecting of bourgeois democracy. 

    2. Secondly, the properly Spanish scandals wreaking havoc among the emigres. It is no secret that one organization, the SERE, a faithful reflection of the Spanish Popular Front (from republicans through to anarchists) has, in theory, been busy helping the Spanish emigres. Now, in terms of aid, that organization has confined itself to faithfully paying erstwhile high dignitaries of the Spanish Republic (July 1936 to March 1939). Whereas a general who is an émigré receives a monthly stipend of 1,700 francs, an ordinary émigré of our acquaintance, receives nothing. Not that “French democracy” is on its own. Spanish “democracy” is its equal.

    3. But these are not the gravest scandals: we know what to expect of a French democracy and we did not expect much from Spanish democracy.

But for such methods to be found in the ranks of those whom we might regard as our own, is the last straw.
Our comrades are familiar with the SIA international organization (driven and controlled by anarchists). Now, the Spanish section systematically refuses aid to anarchists who commit the offence of not venerating Oliver, Montseny or some other figure of note. Any criticism targeting the leaders of the Spanish anarchist movement is sanctioned categorically by the denial of assistance. They are out to whittle away the growing opposition to “anarchist” reformism by starving it out. 

And we do not say that lightly. Some comrades from the ‘Friends of Durruti’ were denied aid for a simple non-conformist article published in LE REVEIL SYNDICALISTE. There are grounds for asking whether such practices should exist within the workers’ movement.

A pretty similar blockade has been ordered against the minority from the POUM

    4. The most recent scandal that may well outstrip all the others is political in nature. A certain number of comrades asked the CNT National Council to break with the Spanish Popular Front, which is to say, to claim back its freedom vis a vis the assassins of the Spanish Revolution: NEGRIN and his clique. Remember that the anarchist comrades have long been explaining away compromises with the bourgeois republicans and stalinists in terms of the “weapons blackmail” practised by the latter.

Now, that blackmail no longer applies. Yet the Spanish Popular Front still stands. Why?

We have grounds for anxiety there.

As we can see the scandals are numerous. There are others too, which we will reveal as they come to our attention.

We do not claim that we can end them by means of our meagre forces. But those to blame for the scandals may rest assured that we will pursue these matters relentlessly until such time as they give us an answer.

THE EVOLUTION OF FRENCH DEMOCRACY

The orders-in-council represent a step in the direction of the fascist-ization of France. Workers’ rights are under attack. One after another, collective bargains are being denounced. In the new arrangements, the bosses, in concert with government measures, are out to eradicate the benefits offered by those contracts, retaining only the anti-worker discipline.

Personal freedoms too are under rude attack. The right to change factory is denied workers employed in national defence. Surveillance and informing have been stepped up. Work rates have been increased and workers are left with no lawful weapon other than platonic protests that the employers deride. Employees and civil servants are finding the 40 hour week being replaced by 45 hours, on the same terms

Finally, military parades, preparations for war, official propaganda about increasing the population numbers and defending them [ie ‘the French’] to accelerate France’s march in the direction of an “un-bloody” fascism rooted in capital’s difficulties in surviving the great post-war depression and its need to make ready for the upcoming slaughter.

French bourgeois democracy is now merely a vestige of the past.

After the “welcome” camps for the Spaniards, here come the concentration camps (Rieucros) for foreign undesirables.  It will doubtless not be long before there are camps for all undesirables, foreign or French.

So enough of the bourgeois cant about DEMOCRACY. Freedom and relative well-being have never been awarded to the proletariat by the bourgeoisie other than as a temporary easement. French bourgeois democracy is preparing to murder the country’s proletariat just the way that Spanish bourgeois democracy did its own.

There can be no democracy in a country where two opposing classes have a direct interest in the ownership of power. The bourgeois class clings to it all the tighter because it feels itself incapable of guaranteeing it. The working class responds all the more directly as it sees power as within smelling distance but eluding it.

There is no further collaboration possible between two classes who have reached that stage of the struggle. One or the other must subjugate or crush the other.

The dream of democracy, through the catastrophic experience of the FRENCH AND SPANISH POPULAR FRONTS has stayed the proletariat from crushing the bourgeoisie in both countries.

The proletariat must be prepared morally and materially for this new phase of the “final struggle” which can only be resolved through the subjugation of the proletariat (primarily in an imperialist war) or through its victory. 

For that reason, we must cut ties with those who had a hand in the compromise with the bourgeoisie, to wit, in the sabotaging of the Spanish and French workers’ movements.

The French-Spanish Group of “The Friends of Durruti”

We demand:
The election of an administrative council for the emigres’ solidarity agencies. – Said administrative council will be tasked with equitable distribution of aid to refugees rather than restricting this to the bureaucrats and their proteges. To our way of thinking, the libertarian movement’s militants must make the greatest effort in that direction.

We demand
The opening of discussions on the basis of the positions espoused by the leaders of the CNT-FAI – at the time of three important events in the Spanish Revolution:
    1) The 19 July rising and collaboration with bourgeois factions.
    2) The events of May ’37.
    3) The stance adopted by anarchist individuals at the time of the capture of Madrid, and their collaboration on a Defence Council. 

To our way of thinking, the militants of the CNT-FAI must insist that these issues are discussed and that full freedom is guaranteed for the publication and propagation of different viewpoints in an organ that it will be up to the CNT to establish. 

The Spanish comrades who contribute to this bulletin are bereft of all assistance:

Help them. 

Apply to us for subscription lists.

Payment by postal order. – L.FEUILLADE …. PARIS
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A BRAND-NEW PHASE
WE ARE WHO WE ALWAYS HAVE BEEN

We need not go into the reasons why the war was lost. Long before that catastrophe, our group spoke out in public about the corrosive factors within the antifascist people. 

On occasions prior to May, we the “Friends of Durruti” stated that if the revolution was overwhelmed and unless the spirit of revolution underpinned the feelings of the combatants, the loss of the war was inevitable.

Which proved to be the case. The front collapsed. The rearguard collapsed. The labouring, suffering people no longer felt represented by a government that nurtured insatiable appetites. 

Popular Front policy was characterized by persecution of the proletariat, by unrestrained corruption and bureaucratic avarice, by criminality, by thievery and by sordid conduct enshrined in law. 

Despite our determination, in the May events we failed to bar the way to stalinism and all the straw men posing as republicans, socialists or anarchists who helped lay the groundwork for the catastrophe. But today we find ourselves facing a brand-new phase.  Only one view of the politics that brought our Spain to such grief survives. A number of gentlemen get together who deem themselves a government and likewise the standing Diputacion of the Cortes. In political terms, they represent nothing. They are a nasty memory constantly hanging over us like a nightmare. 

Even though the Popular Front is a myth, the iniquitous fact is that the Spanish treasury is in its power and they administer it according to their pleasure and whim.  The money is shared out between the bureaucrats, the ministers, the deputies and the high-ranking Army officers. Whereas the combatants and workers perish of hunger and impoverishment in the concentration camps and as emigres.

We must rise above this moment of pain and injustice. We must again dress ourselves up in the morality of the July events and May events in order to unmask all the bloodsuckers of politics, be they tricoloured, red or red-and-black.

We must not be found wanting. Let us unite our efforts. Let us coordinate our energies. There is a place within the “Friends of Durruti” for all revolutionary workers prepared to grapple with those who caused the defeat we endured and insist upon fair treatment for the workers and fighters now living outside their country.

We of the “Friends of Durruti” are alive to the historical responsibility of the day. We know that sooner or later minds must turn again to Spain, but for today, let us flesh out our position in opposition to the Popular Front’s noxious politics. 

We stand by the arguments we championed inside Spain. We welcome class struggle. We are opposed to any collaboration with the petite bourgeoisie. We have not wavered. Let us embrace the meaning of the historic May events.

We are CNT-FAI militants. We are opposed to the reformism of the Libertarian Movement’s leaders who, in emigration, abide by the same policy line as they did inside Spain.

We bow to none in defending our organizations, but we want to build a Libertarian Movement free of the reformists who drowned the revolution and destroyed the CNT and the FAI inside Spain.

We are still in the breach:

WE ARE WHO WE ALWAYS HAVE BEEN

The FRENCH-SPANISH GROUP
 of “The Friends of Durruti” 
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THE SPANISH TRAGEDY

Émigré workers demand justice

The comrades from the concentration camps vigorously protest

An Open Letter to the Libertarian Movement’s National Committee

We, the under-signed comrades vigorously protest at the usage made of the SERE funds for the exclusive benefit of bureaucrats. 

Our understanding is that the millions that the Popular Front government brought out of Spain belong to all revolutionary workers rather than to the bureaucrats that were enjoying huge privileges even inside Spain.

The fact is that the bureaucracy is still “stuffing its face” and the émigré workers, combatants and militants from the revolutionary organizations are under the lash of hunger and poverty.

We appeal to the opinions of labour worldwide to denounce the shame and disgrace inflicted upon Spanish workers in the midst of tragedy. Our aim is to expose the authors of the thievery being practised with the money that belongs to those of us who fought in the trenches, laboured in the factories and workshops and fields and those of us who managed to defeat the mutinous generals in July 1936. But before turning our fire on the founders of the SERE, we want to draw the attention of the Libertarian Movement’s National Committee so that its representatives in SERE can raise the matter of aid’s being extended to all emigres and, in the event of their not being successful in that, we insist that our representatives step down immediately from the SERE Council. 

Should the Libertarian Movement’s National Committee not be ready to adopt of vigorous and dignified stance, then the militants, groups and revolutionary workers generally who have appended their signatures to this document, are ready to turn on anyone if this issue of solidarity is not elevated to a wider and more honest level.

The right to life is more sacred for the decent membership that for a greedy, banal bureaucracy. It is not a mater of words. We await deeds. If we are refused bread whereas the same old bloodsuckers carry on sharing our substantial salaries, we will look to the world’s workers for any apology.

This letter was endorsed by the “Friends of Durruti” Group

At the foot of the letter are the signatures of comrades from the CNT-FAI from the Barcares, Gurs, Septfonds, Ville Pompouno, Saint Cyprien camps, plus other comrades living in emigration.
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DOCUMENT ISSUED BY THE CONCENTRATION CAMPSACTING LIAISON COMMISSION TO THE STANDING DIPUTACION OF THE ERSTWHILE SPANISH REPUBLICAN CORTES

Sir Deputies:

Word has reached us that you are planning to meet shortly. Before then, however, allow us to express to you the irked and disagreeable word from the concentration camps, those hellish poverty traps, where thousands upon thousands of Spanish workers are ailing and dying – given that it would be too sarcastic to speak of their living there. We have spent upwards of five months locked up in these punishment camps. Surrounded by gendarmes and barbed wire. Barefoot and half naked. Malnourished. Sleeping on wet, rotting straw or on the sands of the beach. Treated like livestock. Cut off from our families, humiliated and derided. Without current prospects and any hope or prospects for the future.

    • We are treated like the losing side in the Spanish civil war. As the vanquished. Every act is intended to persuade us of this. For which reason we have raised no protest thus far. Because we are not the sort to carp and humiliate ourselves. And because we have enough courage to bear our wretchedness with the same pride with which, yesterday, we took up our rifles.

    • Lest this stance on our part be mistaken for some alleged ignorance or tacit endorsement of what is going on outside the camps. Barbed wire may cut us off from the outside world materially, but it cannot stop us from getting wind of the good and the bad going on within the ranks of the Spanish emigres.

    • In addition to our wretchedness “rags, hunger and infestation with parasites”, we are witnessing the pilfering of millions being carried out those who persist in sincerely professing to be our representatives and the representatives of the Spanish people. We see the payment of fantastic salaries to high-ranking political office-holders, Army officers, police personnel, government bureaucrats and bureaucrats of the parties and organizations that faithfully and slavishly follow the policies of Negrin and his allies, the Stalinists.  We witness the control of and monopoly over émigré agencies by Communist Party personnel who joined with Negrin to found the SERE so as to have a free hand in their manipulation by using republicans, socialists and anarchists for cover. They have taken over the Mexican Legation in France, thanks to which would-be emigrants are subjected to the most nonsensical political and police questioning just to save ourselves and our families from the current plight, the requirement being that we profess support for NEGRIN and the communists, support that we can in no way feel. And, in short, we see the quiet and repulsive battle waged in the upper echelons of politics over the sharing out of what is left of the assets that belonged and belongs still to the Spanish people – a real competition between birds of prey over a rotting corpse. 

We know that the forthcoming next meeting of the Standing Diputacion should in essence revolve chiefly around these matters. Which is why we want the opinions of the camps made known to you before that date comes. 

We know that an out-and-out “gangster” story will emerge. That in Mexico there is the proposal, overseen by President Cardenas and former minister Indalecio Prieto, involving the far from negligible sum of 14,000,000 pounds sterling, which converted into francs, amounts to the fabulous figure of some 2,500,000,000 francs. 

For some months now, Mr NEGRIN has been manoeuvring and working to get that fortune handed over to him. To be added to the rest of the Spanish people’s treasury that he illegally dispenses at his whim. Recently, in a rush, he and Mendez Aspe headed off to Mexico to lay hands of that treasure. But it looks as if Prieto and President Cardenas have dug in their heels. That their minds are made up not to hand over those millions other than to what they call the lawful agencies of the Republic, meaning to yourselves, the Standing Diputacion of the Cortes. 

Having thus failed, Negrin and Mendez Aspe rushed back to Paris for an urgent meeting with your Diputacion to secure you assistance in what they had been unable to achieve for themselves. We can imagine what is to come next. As ever, Negrin and his godfathers, the Stalinists, will implement the now classic blackmail in order to ensure, once again, your compliance and that of the leaders of the Parties and trade union Organizations which you represent. A curious notion of what constitutes political honesty; taken together with the mutual distrust and brotherly lack of trust that prevails among you. The upshot being that no one dares to expose those here who, disguised as republicans, socialists and anarchists, act out the shameful roles of straw men just as they did in Spain, in return for a mess of potage. 

The word is that the majority of the Standing Diputacion is against Negrin and the communists, but the corruption process is too far advanced and we get the feeling that no one will dare concede, that on the one hand, they have the minimal courage and decency and, mistrustful of everybody, and the better to avoid the financial reprisals that any such act of personal dignity might trigger. 

To date, you have not shown any sign of determination. Not a single action on your part had, or has even tried, to reflect our worried anxiousness, the anxieties of those of us who, in Spain and elsewhere, have carried the weight of every burden. Your determination is linked to your bellies and your bellies are still in hock to Dr Negrin.

But never forget that the wealth of the Spanish people belongs to that unfortunate people alone, of which the men in the campos are right now the undisputed representatives.  Belongs to the men who spend hours sitting on the sand, delousing themselves and poring over their sores through the holes in their pants. And they alone are called upon to improve things and render them more humane and cleaner [illegible] emigrants. This we are bringing to your notice: the feelings in the camps. But the rest of the emigres should also have their say as well. It is high time that it was stated that among those emigres, only the chiefs eat. Class differences persist. Some emigres have cars whilst others are starving to death. 

LOOK AT COMORERA. HE HAS BEEN LIVING AT THE HOTEL TERMINUS (EASTERN PYRENEES) – AT 200 FRANCS A DAY. – NEGRIN BANQUETING IN NEW YORK AND TRAVELLING IN THE BEST CABIN ON THENORMANDIE’. – ALVAREZ DEL VAYO, TARRADELLAS, MARTI ESTEVE AND ALL THE BUREAUCRATS IN RECEIPT OF MASSIVE SALARIES.

There lies the key to the emigration.

AID MUST BE ACCESSIBLE TO ALL REFUGEES

As stated, the [Spanish Republic’s] SERE only pays an allowance to bureaucrats. The rest of the émigré community receives not one penny. The aid organizations of the political parties and trade union organizations supply assistance on an individual basis, depending on the leaders of the Organization.

[ILLEGIBLE HERE]

The worker and fighters will remember all this jiggery-pokery. FOR US, THEY ARE NOT EASILY FORGOTTEN.

GAMBOA’s QUESTIONING

It is common knowledge among emigres that in order to get out to Mexico one needs to be a Stalinist and one must answer a flurry of questions from Gamboa and his wife. This couple inquire as to political affiliations, the émigré’s view of the course of the Spanish Revolution and personages associated with same. 

Embarkation is refused to a huge number of emigres. People are dispatched back to the camps. And an endless litany of outrageous acts is committed.

It is legitimate to wonder how long such infamous treatment to which the majority of us emigres are subjected is going to carry on for. Gamboa is Bassols’s lieutenant. They are lackeys of Stalin and are low-grade adventurers. 

Let us hope that passage to Mexico will not be dependent either upon political creed nor the malice of a bunch of scoundrels.

PRESIDENT CARDENAS DEMANDS THAT EVERY ÉMIGRÉ RECEIVE 300 DOLLARS

One of the conditions imposed by the President of the Mexican Republic is that every Spaniard should be paid 300 dollars upon arrival in Mexico.

That is a fair measure. Cardenas must have realized how unscrupulous the Stalinists and their cohorts are.
So far, the practice has been for a few francs or vouchers to be issued. It seems that a restaurant has been opened in Mexico. But this is just pathetic. The fair thing, given that, there being billions, the émigré Spaniards need not be allowed to sink into despair.

Ah! But the Popular Front leaders are awash in paper money. Vouchers are not good enough for them.

THE PEOPLE’S ARMY

Those who served in the People’s Army and fought on the front lines to the very end, those who made it feasible at the risk of their very lives, who brought out of Spain the millions now being siphoned off with their usual brazenness by Negrin and his clique, are obliged to beg for bread and to live on humiliations.

There is no point recalling the utter abandonment in which the Army was left upon entering France, by an inept and cowardly government that was unable to fend off a single humiliation, and failed or refused to ensure that an Army which had just been fighting valiantly for two and a half years against an enemy enjoying superiority of arms was treated with some respect at least. Which suffers in the camps surrounded by the most criminal abandonment: but some of them, unable to take it any longer, escaped from the camps and after a thousand dire straits made it to Paris, hoping to secure the assistance to which they had a legitimate entitlement. Some chance!

On approaching the SERE they were received by a staff member who put more or less the following questions to them: Were you a minister? – No. – A deputy then? – No. – High-ranking court officer? – No. – Or even director-general of something? – No. Because I was always in service in the front lines. – Man, you should have said so earlier; you are not entitled to anything. Because this mighty agency is known as the ‘Casa de los espanoles’ and it is solely for those who, on 19 July, were sitting at home waiting, fearfully, with a fear comparable only to their shamelessness; waiting for the share of the cake due to those who never glimpsed the front lines other than in newspaper photographs. 

Besides the SERE, look at the workers’ Organizations where things were even worse at the time: there is a form to be completed and then the effort to track down one of the major leaders of the Organization to get him to append his signature by way of endorsement; tracking him down is rather a daunting task and normally takes more than 15 days; but then it turns out that the bigwig leader is not acquainted with you and cannot endorse your form.

But the comrade from the Army is also unacquainted with the leader, not having set eyes on him during the two and a half years of fighting; he was not at his side in the trenches, nor by his side on the firing-step, sharing the rain and the cold and the danger and privations and rigours of the war, which is something of which he should be greatly ashamed. – Don’t know each other . – Form cannot be completed.

Whereupon he is doomed to impoverishment, degrading petitions, living hand to mouth, unable to regularize his status, indebted for his food to the generosity of other comrades who are also poor, also forgotten and also denied a seat at the sinister banquet at which what is left of Spain is gobbled down, but who do know how to share a crust with a comrade in arms.

Well now, those of us who did the actual fighting need to speak out against all these things which are a fact, a source of shame and a blight on those in charge of the Spanish émigré community. The Army that saw the ideal for which it had been fighting in the early days of the Revolution sidelined thrice, has found itself, first, humiliated and then abandoned.

Let this never be forgotten by us nor by all of those great warriors who were nowhere to be seen during the war; who spent their time raking in millions whereas we were earning scar tissue and who grew wealthy on our blood and, when the time comes, let us call them to account for their deeds.

On behalf of the dignity of the People’s Army

A GROUP OF OFFICERS

NEWS FROM SPAIN

Things are hotting up in Spanish politics. The monarchists and Falangists are squabbling over power. The monarchist faction enjoys the backing of a number of generals.

General Queipo de Llano has been sacked from the post he held in Andalusia due to his opposition to the policy backed by Serrano Suner. Franco’s brother-in-law is blindly obedient to orders coming from Mussolini, opposed by Queipo de Llano, Solchaga and Yague. Foreign policy is a major factor. France and England are manoeuvring to eradicate Italo-German influence from the Iberian peninsula.

At present the Rome-Berlin Axis has the upper hand. It looks as if Count Ciano’s orders, calling for the liquidation of the monarchists, are being carried out. They have been outplayed by the Falangists.

But the Franco government is in need of the financial aid that only the French and English bourgeoisie can supply. Once that aid comes through, General Franco will have to abide by whatever conditions they impose. At this moment meetings of monarchist agents have been held in Lausanne and Geneva and Alfonso XIII has been popping up in the pages of the big French newspapers again.

Is there to be a restoration in Spain? Will Franco stay on? Will Alfonso XIII or the Infante Juan be returning? Will the Rome-Berin Axis triumph or the Paris-London axis? We do not know. A range of factors are in play. We shall be monitoring developments.
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In Spain, the repression – shootings, leyes de fuga, concentration camps, prisons, crosses, barefoot pilgrimages to Zaragoza to visit the shrine of the Virgen del Pilar – continues. Candles, soutanes, hunger, wretchedness.

TRIPS TO MEXICO POSTPONED FOR A TWO-MONTH PERIOD

It is claimed that passages to Mexico have been suspended for a two-month period. We understand the reasons for that suspension. But we suspect that it has to do with a sordid political game and we shall denounce it when the time comes.

Let us hope that the SERE will step up the sailings. Winter is not yet come and it is high time that some solution was devised for our situation which is more than unbearable. It is vile that we should be subjected to such torture by penny-pinching.

WEIGHING UP THE EMIGRATION

The French minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Bonnet has supplied the following statistics:

500,000 Spaniards entered France.
249,000 have been repatriated
3,119 have left for Mexico
865 have left for the USSR
80 have left for Venezuela
100 have left for the Baltic nations
200 have left for Cuba
200 have left for Canada and Argentina

A further expedition to Mexico is being readied. And within a year Venezuela will admit two thousand Spaniards.

Several countries, including England, Chile, Uruguay, some South American states and North America have reserved their rights to be selective.

THE NEGRIN-PRIETO SQUABBLE

We know from the meeting of the Standing Diputacion of the Cortes that Negrin has been beaten but refuses to hand over the money.

WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH HERE IS A CASE OF GANGSTERISM

The SPANISH GOLD ON DEPOSIT WITH THE BANQUE DE FRANCE HAS BEEN HANDED OVER TO FRANCO
__________________________

French democracy has handed over 1,500,000,000 in gold francs over to the Spanish fascists. The French bourgeoisie has cast away the mask. Not that we are surprised.

TO THE SPANISH WORKERS AND FIGHTERS

THEFRIENDS OF DURRUTIGROUPING DEMANDS:      
    I. THAT THE POPULAR FRONT EX-GOVERNMENT AND FORMER STANDING DIPUTACION OF THE CORTES BE WOUND UP.
    II. THAT THE SERE BE DISBANDED.
    III. THAT THE EMIGRES IMMEDIATELY APPOINT AN ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL.
    IV. THAT THE SPANISH TREASURY BE HANDED OVER TO THE ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL.

Original at http://archivesautonomies.org/spip.php?article1405

Translated by: Paul Sharkey.