The Anarchists in Spain : A Reply To Emma Goldman

By Ethel M‘Donald

Barcelona, 20th August, 1937.

This is an experiment. Let me know immediately if you receive this letter. My former method of writing to you no longer exists and getting news to you is becoming a very big problem indeed. It is a terrible feeling to know that you have to be careful of everything that you say and even then not to be sure that that will be alright. Such is censorship.

I have just been reading the issue of ‘Spain and the World’ for 2nd. July which makes very interesting reading. In it there is an article from the pen of Emma Goldman and I think that as an experiment in the art of being on both sides of the fence at the same time, it is perfect.[1] I do not say that because one does not accept the position of the official element of the CNT-FAI, one must necessarily defend the position and action adopted by a certain section of the French Anarchists. But at last one must make up his mind with reference to the stand taken by the CNT-FAI. To explain why the CNT took the stand it did, does not excuse it, if it was wrong, from taking that stand. And if, as Emma says, she foresaw all that would take place from the moment when the Anarchists entered the Ministries, then she had no right to be so willing to be the official element of that organisation in Britain but should have continued to criticise the Anarchists in order that the world would hear the opposition point of view. Not all the foreign comrades present in Barcelona agreed that the concessions made by the CNT-FAI were the first wrong step taken in the rise of the Revolution. Some did and on all occasions put forward their point of view. But it is also true that certain of these comrades who spoke against the CNT position were gradually eliminated by the persons in charge of the foreign propaganda here in Barcelona. That is, not by the Spanish comrades, but by those foreign comrades who, according to Emma, foresaw what would happen. 

I also believe that the leaders of the CNT did not wilfully betray the movement but what does that matter. The fact remains that the revolutionary spontaneity of the workers was wasted during the May Days by the hesitating and unanarchist behaviour of those persons who were in the position to lead but who in fact proved themselves less revolutionary than the mass of the people. The explanations put forward by them for this behaviour are perfectly logical. If the workers had gone forward in the May Days and taken complete control throughout Catalonia there is no doubt that there would have been direct intervention against this on the part of England and France. It is also highly probable that there might have been disruptions between the alleged anti-fascist sections at the fronts. But would all this have had the same serious result as has had the criminal cooling-down of the revolutionary ardour of the people? And by our capitulation, have we maintained the anti-fascist front? Surely it is obvious to all. To-day there is serious trouble in the anti-fascist front. Because of our weakness the Communist Party are now going to every length they can to eliminate the Anarchists and drive every foreign revolutionary from the country. To-day we are in the position of the Anarchists before the revolution – we speak in whispers, we have to be careful where we utter our opinions, we are not sure if the person sitting next to us is a police spy or not. Each day more and more comrades are arrested, many of whom have fought and been wounded at these very same anti-fascist fronts.

No! If the Anarchists had gone forward they could have assumed their rightful place as the true voice of the libertarian people of Spain. But the leaders stilled the urge of the people and now, as I have said, there exists, more or less, a dictatorship based on the Russian variety. In a social revolution can we expect to have non-intervention on the part of the outside governments? Surely, at least, we should know that much. That whenever there is a revolution, there also will there be foreign intervention. At the anti-fascist front what have we done? Sabotage of these anarchist and revolutionary battalions who were struggling, not for a democratic republic or for a Communist Party dictatorship, but for the social revolution. I have written you before of the treatment to which the comrades in these battalions are subjected and of the efforts that are made, with some success, and the tricks that are employed to bring about their disintegration. The anti-fascist front is being broken up, not by the Anarchists, but by our Communist Party and Republican friends. With all the compromises made, we have gained nothing. We gave in to militarisation. Has this yielded such great results? Are we advancing? Has the bombing of towns and the murder of innocent people ceased?

To come back. Emma is not in agreement with the position adopted, but where did she criticise our comrades of the CNT? Had the criticism been public it might have had some effect on the trend of the Spanish Revolution through making the workers in Britain conscious of the difficulties with which the Anarchists were faced and so making the workers act that the compromises would have been out of place. But Emma becomes sentimental and harks on the old tale: ‘Which one of us has been consistently true to his ideas?’ She cites Kropotkin and the anti-Anarchist stand taken by him during the Great War. But even with that, says Emma, no one would have thought of charging Kropotkin with treachery and corruption. Well, I am not sure. Kropotkin was charged with treachery. And it seems to me that a man or woman who has constantly urged opposition to war and who, at the first opportunity that is presented to prove his words, fails, that person is certainly guilty of treachery. How many developed an opposition to war by the words of Kropotkin? And how many became Anarchists and opposed to government and lack of faith in the workers through the propaganda conducted by those very same persons who denied their old work by their behaviour after the Spanish Revolution commenced? No matter how ugly the term may, be, it is nothing less than treachery. And as such should be denounced.

And from the Anarchist point of view since when did the struggle in Spain become but an anti-fascist war?

Emma says: ‘What about ourselves? We were against the world war and some of us went to prison for our opposition to it. Yet we immediately rallied to the support of the anti-fascist war. We did so because we consider fascism the greatest menace in the world, the poisonous contagion which disintegrates all political and social life. The fascist countries as well as the Russian dictatorship certainly prove this. One can still breathe in democratic countries, little democracy though they may have. One can still raise one’s voice against every political abuse and social iniquity. One still has a certain amount of security to one’s life and limb. All this is obliterated by Fascism.’

As Anarchists we are opposed to war. We are opposed to imperialist war, to wars for spoil and plunder, to wars that use the working-class merely as cannon fodder for the purpose of increasing the wealth of one or another ruling class. And as Anarchists we ought to understand that Fascism is not something new, some new force of evil opposed to society, but is only the old enemy, Capitalism, under a new and fearful sounding name. Capitalism is the ‘greatest contagion which disintegrates all social and political life.[‘] There are still but two classes in society; those who have and those who have not; the rich and the poor, the persecutors and the oppressed. But this is waived aside and the menace ‘Fascism’ is waved before the nose of the working class and under the guise of ‘Anti-Fascism’ elements are admitted to the working class movement whose interests are still diametrically opposed to those of the workers. Spain proves this. Here in the ‘Anti-Fascist’ movement we have gathered all the petty bourgeoisie and all the reactionary elements. Anti-Fascism is the new slogan by which the working class is being betrayed. Our stand, as Anarchists, with regard to the Spanish Revolution was taken, or should have been taken, not because we were Anti-Fascists but because we are social revolutionaries. We did not give our support to the Anti-Fascist war as such but to the social revolution that commenced in Spain on July 19th, 1936.

We supported the workers of Spain then, and to-day it is those same workers who need and expect our support. And our support only goes to groups and organisations to the extent that those groups are the revolutionary voice of the masses. 

Let us be frank. The workers were betrayed in May. They were betrayed because they forgot that always they should go forward disregarding obstacles that are placed in their way and the voices that try to dissuade them. July 19th was possible because of that understanding. The May Days have given rise to a trail of persecution and oppression because of their forgetfulness. All of the people are revolutionary at one time only very occasionally, and anyone, under no matter what pretext or excuse who wastes such periods should never again be in the position to do the same under different circumstances. Let us agree that they betrayed unconsciously, but let us see that they will never be able to do it again. For before the anger of the revolutionary workers, everything is swept aside. In May the Anarchists could have taken all. But only when the new upsurge of the masses comes will that be shown.

(The above letter from Ethel MacDonald was posted secretly in Barcelona on August 20th; was received in Glasgow on October 13th. It is published in the ‘Workers’ Free Press,’ as being the challenging organ of Anti-parliamentarism.

Only a personal paragraph describing the author’s precarious situation at that time in Barcelona is omitted.—Ed.)

From Workers’ Free Press, No.3, October 1937

Note
1, ‘Where I Stand’ appeared in Spain and the World, July 2nd, 1937. Goldman was responding to the statement ‘Et maintenant?’ [‘And now?’] by the Francophone Anarchist Federation (FAF) in Terre Libre, June 1937.