[Untón Reachliaras Mignal Marctala. depaltida Fisaublicanos Pascual Charcía…]

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Untón Reachliaras Mignal Marctala.

depaltida Fisaublicanos Pascual Charcía Santos, Imprenta del CarneaPopular Party, Andreas Nin and Juan Andrade.

This Popular Front differed from the French Popular Front in a number of details. Its leading names came not from the Socialist Party but from the bourgeois parties; and it received formal adherence of both the Stalinist CP and a party, the POUM, which, despite its own denials, was widely regarded in Spain as Trotskyist and even in its own eyes was "revolutionary" and anti-Stalinist.

The Popular Front agreement was signed in January 1936 and became the election manifesto of the Popular Front of the Left in the February elections.

It was an extraordinary political document, quite different from the manifesto of other similar coalitions.

Where other Popular Fronts produced manifestos which were a series of timid reforms made to sound extremely radical, the Spanish coalition issued a manifesto which explicitly set itself against any social reform which would threaten th rapitalist class.

Culmination

The Popular Front alliance which took shape in Spain at the end of 1935 was not new.

It was, for virtually all the parties to it, the culmination of policies which had been maturing since the overthrow of the monarchy.

For the bourgeois, liberal republicans like Azana, Cacares Quiroga and Companys, the Popular Front represented their last hope of keeping even a narrow foothold on political power which, posing as revolutionaries, they had (with the help of the PSOE leaders) usurped from the working class after the 1931 In the interval, the bourgeoisie, looking in horror at the growth of the revolutionary struggle of the workers and peasants, had turned almost unanimously towards either right-wing parties like the CEDA, led fascist groups. tacrict arnine.

By 1935 Azana and Co no longer represented any Front leaflet, The were also ance in de izquierdas Pos el Prototo Sartaltor teso Entrada Per el Fatizo Cosastitar dasde Bulsa, Sevilla 1 de febiero de i935.

February 1936 significant section of the bourgeoisie-they were, as Trotsky put it, the bourgeoisie's shadow.

This shadow fell right across the political landpolitical phantoms" who-because, as : Trotsky said, they incarnated "the principles of the 'democratic revolution' , that is, the inviolability of private property"gave the popular front its political colour.

Azana What should go into the election manifesto was entirely their decision-and the workers' parties accepted this.

They stood for, in Azana's words, "peace and In effect they were saying to their own class: we can do through compromise with the workers' parties what the right wing of the bourgoisie cannot do through confrontationdraw the teeth of the revolution and protect private property.

The Socialist Party was in some ways the kingpin of the Popular Front alliance.

It was by far the largest of the parties involved and carried •most electoral weight.

It was convenient for the PSOE leaders to disguise the fact but they could probably have got nearly as many votes on their own as they could as part of the Central Socialist leaders central to the allianother resnert -UNLIINI they were no strangers to political blocs with all the decided to form after the The Socialists had also known recent political alliances with the other participants in the Popular In 1933 and 34 they had formed the Workers' Alliances.

The initial aim of this policy, of which Largo Caballero was the principal architect, was to reduce the obviously suicidal divisions which existed in the workers' movement between the two main unions, the U.G.T. and the anarchist-dominated C.N.T.

The C.N.T., however, refused to join these alliances except in Asturias.

The forces which did join the Socialists and the UGT were the small "rebel" unions the Libertarian Sindicalist Federation and other unions expelled from the CNT.

Along with them came the centrist group the Workers and Peasants' Bloc (led by Maurin); and the Communist Left of Spain (the Spanish "Trotskyists" led by Nin and Andrade, who by then were moving rapidly towards a definitive break with Trotsky).

The workers' alliances could have been the framework for a policy of the workers' united front and in some places it moved in that direction.

Bourgeois groupings were explicitly excluded from membership of the Workers Alliances and they played a central role in organising the insurrectional strikes in Madrid, Barcelona and Asturias, which followed the admission of the rightwing CEDA to the government in October 1934.

But even before their defeat by the state the Workers Alliances were failing to develop into strong organs of the workThe Socialist leaders were plainly on the look-out for an alliance which also included forces on their right and which would provide them with an alibi for their unwillingness to lead the social revolution.

And in September 1934 the CP changed its sectarian line and joined the Workers' Alliances.

Though, in principle this should have strengthened them, in practice the Stalinist leaders brought with them the embryo of the class collaborationist annroach to nolitical alliTANAAAn TITO THATHAT M ances which was to be codified in Moscow at the policy, and fortified by the model already established in France, the CP appeared as the force with the most clear-cut vision of what kind of Popular Front it wanted to set up.

The party's Secretary-General Jose Diaz described the policy as follows:

"We wish to fight only ouN for democratic republic WIIn a broad sucidi cunten. huand annin! anntant There can be no question at the moment of a dictatorship of the proletariat or of Socialism but only of the struggle of democracy against fascism"

The importance of the Stalinists in the alliance was recognised by the other forces in an allocation of places in the electoral lists.

The CP had nearly 5 percent of the candidates which was still considerably more than the share of the TAta it 1:1-~1... +=. vole 1l was likely lo will independently.

To Trotsky, writing just two days before Franco's military rebellion:

"The question of questions at present is the Popular Front. The left centrists seek to present this question as a tactical or even a technical manoeuvre, so as to be able to peddle their wares in the shadow of the Popular Front. In reality the Popular Front is the main question of proletarian class strategy for this epoch. It also offers the best criterion for the difference between Bolshevism and Menshevism."

And in this "question of questions" the main forces which claimed to he revolMATITTOIA TIATIT AL Trint anas utionary in Spain showed definitively that they stood without any campaign to break the cross-class • alliance.

This change was to be consumated later when anarchists joined the Popular Front governments-first in Catalonia and then in Madrid in November 1936.

The other revolutionaries" to go decisively onto 530880/ the side of class collaboratinn LUI WOLE LIE IV VIVI. maro the DAIIN The POUM had been formed in September 1935 as a unification between Maurin's centrist Workers and Peasants Bloc and Nin's Communist Left-the former Trotskyists who had broken with Leninism and with the rest of the International Left Opposition.

The POUM joined the Popular Front, claiming when challenged that this was a mere tactical manoeuvre because the Spanish electoral law made it so difficult to stand indepenaeli canaluales. dant anadidator Trotsky retorted sharply that:

"This argument is worthless. Electoral technique cannot justify the politics of betrayal which a joint programme. with the bourgeoisie amounts to."

The POUM signed the reactionary, bourgeois programme of the Popular Front without protest.

It hoped to "persuade" its partners in the coalition of the superiority of socialism.

It made no call in its propaganda to break the coalition with the bourgeoisie.

In fact the POUM advocated that the unnrincinled liaison to be consumated by calling for: viks were in no position to made a direct appeal to the masses.

A small number of Trotskyists remained in the POUM where they unsuccessfully attempted to fight the liquidation of the POUM into the Popular Only in late 1936 did POUM demonstration Socialist party leuder Prieto they manage to establish an independent group, the Bolshevik-Leninist Group which after only a few months of existence was to be destroyed by state and Stalinist repression.

Among the anarchists and in the Socialist Party, too, there was some resistance to the Popular Front.

In a few areas attempts were made to set up "rebel" candidacies without • the participation of bourgeois candidates. But in no case did thev achieve anv success.

Continued next edition

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By John Docherty with the policies put forward publicly in 3½

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ers' united front, except in a very few towns.