TROTSKY: Trade Union Unity ONDAGE THEMILITANT Revolutionary Progress in Spain Published Iwice (Opposition)
a Month by the Communist League of Ameri ca NEW YORK, MAY 15, 1931 VOL. IV, No. 10 (Whole No. 69 PRICE CENTS THEWEEKLY BY JULY 1st!
The Militant and the Events in Spain The Tasks of Spanish Communists What Is Happening in Spain?
The Militant is happy to present to oned by the reaction soon after his its readers the following two articles arrival in Spain, and immediately upAt the recent meeting of our national on his release threw himself into the on the events in Spain. The Right committee, it was decided to advance the wing and the Centrist press are so revolutionary activity to which he has date originally set for the conversion of deroted most of his life. In his perthe Militant into a weekly. By this deci deeply imbedkled in their own nation son is once more embodied the truth sion, the first issue of the Weekly Militant al narrownes that the progress of the that those whom Stalin calls Trotwill be out on July First.
Spanish revolution unfolds itself withskyist counter revolutionists are in The need for the Weekly is now more cut either exposition or explanation the vanguard of the real struggle for in their columns. The proletarian imperative and unpostponable than ever beproletarian emancipation.
fore. The tasks of the Left Opposition revolutionists, however, are following Our correspondent from Barce.
are rapidly multiplying, and the publicathe Spanish situation wth breathless lona. who gives such a vivid picture interest and the highest hopes.
tion of our paper as a seini monthly makes of the state of mind of the rebellious it difficult to reflect the progress of the The article by our comrade Nin workers and students, is comrade acquires special significance by the Jacques Obin, a militant in the French labor and revolutionary movemnts measure up to these tasks. In the United fact that its author, now so active in Left Opposition. The Militant expects the revolutionary movement of Spain, States the signs of labor re awakening, of to be able to publish additional corits resistance to the savage offensive of the and proletarian Barcelona in particu respondence from Spain by comrade capitalist class, are increasing in every part lar, was recently expelled by Stalin Obin so that its readers may be kept ist edict from the territory of the informed regularly on the events as of the country. The militancy of the KenSoviet Union. This disgraceful action tucky miners. the revolt of the miners in they proceeel.
Illinois, the strikes in Pennsylvania and was executed because of comradle Our hearts are with the revoluNin unfagging devotion to the cause now the strike of the Mansfieid steel worktionists in Spain who have before of revolutionary internationalism and them the possibilities of advancing ers these are some of the indications of what is ahead.
his adherence for years to the Left humanity to more magnificent Opposition. Denounced by the Stal stage in its history. Our salute to Beyond the boundaries of the United inist functionaries as a counter rer the dawn of the proletarian revoluStates, too, events of international signiolutionist. our comrade was impris. tion in Spain. ficance are unfolding before our eyes. In Spain, the proletarian revolution is moving up on the order of the day. Latin America continues in turmoil. India and China are still in the throes of unsettled political convulsions. The crisis deepens in the Europea En countries. In the Soviet Union. LETTER FROM BARCELONA all the elements of a new situation are The correspondents of the foreign press maturing which may be of decisive signiextremely profound among the proletarian give two contrary versions of the forces inases.
ficance for the whole world. Everywhere, Not a day can be passed in Barcein the Communist movement in the present lona without observing them (unless one the class struggle is pregnant with violent events in Spain. According to one, the clashes between the last days of bourgesees only what he wants to see. It is Spanish Communists directly threaten the enough to take a walk on the Ramblas, in ois society and the first days of socialism.
provisional government of the bourgeois the center of Barcelona, and to glance at Almost nowhere is the labor movement republic; except for the monarchy, any other the newstands and book stalls at a distance at the high level of preparedness required régime would be condemned, they say, to of 20 yards from each other all along these from it by the situation. Almost everyfall in a short while into the hands of where, the official Communist movement, vast Barcelona boulevards. Bolshevik agitators and emissaries from the vanguard of the working class, is not Among the multitude of books which Moscow. and all of Spain doomed to anaronly suffering severely from the ravages cover these stands, you will find an enorchy and disorder.
of Stalinism, the inability to measure up mous amount of books and pamphlets on According to the other, the Communist Soviet Russia.
to its historic tasks, to absorb the disconon the October revolution peril is completely non existent. They tentment of the masses and guide it into and on Communist doctrine.
judge according to the membership of the revolutionary channels. All the greater is Among the political and social literaofficial Communist Party of Spain; accordthe need, therefore, for a wider sphere of ing to the rotes obtained by the ture, there are far more books on Russia action for the Left Opposition which has and on the proletarian revolution than on in the elections of April 12 (a hundred in come into existence to regenerate the ComSpain and its bourgeois revolution.
Jadrid. 176 in Barcelona. according to munist movement on the foundations laid the extremely weak and little followed deA very gratifying fact for the Left for it by the great masters of the proletarmonstrations of the Opposition: this exceptional interest for lan revolution: Marx, Engels, Lenin and everything that comes from the Trotsky.
These two versions are equally tendencious; the first seeks to justify the crimes is manifested above all for the works and With the semi monthly, we are greatly of the monarch and to get a little credit the revolutionary life of our comrade Trothandicapped. From every issue are sky. There is not a newstand on the Rabfor it abroad; the second unreservedly de compelled by our limited space to omit a las, not a bookstore in all Barcelona fends the new régime of the big Spanish considerable amount of material. The without a dozen books and pamphlets by bourgecisie and wants to make it easier Militant as a weekly will remedy this de comrade Trotsky. Almost all the publicafor it to consolidate itself definitely withfect to a large degree. Our plans are not tions are brought out here in colors, and out disturbances or convulsions. Both veronly to double the efficiency of our morewith the portrait of the author on the sions deliberately make more or less of a ment by doubling the appearance of our cover. Well! the picture of Trotdigression from reality. The bourgeois organ, but of improving the contents of sky is shown on the Ramblas almost as journalists do not see, and frequently can.
the Militant to the best of our abilities.
frequently as the pictures of Macia and not see. the perspectives of the social move With the aid of our comrades, of our conthe two mutineers of Jaca who were shot: ment and the subterranean forces which are tributors, we aim to make the Militant even Galan and Hernandez, the most popular being born in the exploited masses and acmore distinctly than before the outstanding heroes in Spain.
culuulating there.
revolutionary Marxist journal in the counThe two following examples will shoty try. We feel confident that it can be done Less than anywhere else can the state you, each in its own way, how great is the if the comrades everywhere come to our of mind of the exploited masses in Spain popularity of comrade Trotsky in Spain.
aid with the special efforts that are now rebe judged according to the forces and the group of Stalinists Madrid, who quired.
militancy of the Communist party.
are engaged in publishing withore great We will publish the first issue of the THE INTEREST IN MOSCOW success and above all without substantial Weekly on July First. The intervening AFFAIRS material prout, wanted to make a little time is not very great It means that all money by publishing a pamphlet, which efforts must be concentrated in the coming When the Barcelona correspondent of might assure them an incontestable sue weeks not only to make possible the apLe Petit Parisien says, for example, that cess. This group of hundred percenters pearance of the Weekly, but to insure its no more than 1, 000 Communists are to be did not hesitate very long to select (withmaintenance. For this we require: counted in the whole country and that in out any authorization) the pamphlet of That the fund for the Expansion Spain, consequently, there is the most ab Trotsky on the Spanish Revolution.
solute disinterest in Moscow affairs. he But in order to centralize the political efProgram be raised immediately One Thousand Dollars.
shows that he is irremediably myopic from fect that this pamphlet would hpve for the political point of view. In Barcelona That redoubled efforts be Stalinism and the leaders of the they exerted and throughout Catalonia, to speak only of simply took out the passages of this study to increase the circulation of the Militant, the most important industrial part of where comrade Trotsky polemicizes against guaranteeing a wider circle of readers and Spain, there is an enormous interest in the mistakes of the and the stupsupporters. Moscow affairs. The sympathies with idities of its leaders. That a sounder basis be put under the with the October revolu On the occasion of what might be (Continued on page 8)
tion, and in general, with Communism, are (Continued on page 5)
By ANDRES NIN Having exhausted every resource to maintain himself upon a throne that has been tottering for years, Alfonso of Bourloon found himself compelled to quit the country on April 14. The monarchy fell to pieces at one blow, nobody absolutely nobody stood up to defend it. It really fell like a rotted fruit. And the republic was proclaimed all over the country without combat, without the spilling of blood, in an immense eruption of delirious enthusiasm.
This circumstance has only still further stimulated the democratic illusions of the masses who naively imagine that the victory over the monarchy was obtained thanks to the municipal elections of the 12th. This illusion is also shared by the anarcho syndicalist elements of the National Confederation of Labor. Thus, Pestana declared a few days ago in a trade union mectings that the recent events had demonstrated the possibility of a peaceful evolution, without violence, towards libertarian Communism. and Solidaridad Obrera, the cfficial organ of the of wrote literally on April 23: Under a régime of liberty. the blocdless revolution is still more possible, still easier than under the monarchy.
THE REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT Thanks to this state of mind of the masses, the provisional government of the republic has been able to carry out with impunity a policy whose guiding thought is to maintain the status quo as far as possible, that is, to contine itself in substance to a change of label. Its essential interest consists of maintaining under the republican banner everything that threatened to fall to pieces under the monarchy. In reality, the proclamation of the republic is a desperate attempt of the most clearsighted part of the bourgeoisie and the large landowners to preserve their privileges. From this point of view, the composition of the provisonal government is extremely significant: the presidency is in the hands of Alcala Zamora, landowner and fervent Catholic, one of the most typical representatives of feudalism and of absolutist and reactionary unitarianism; the portfolio of finances is held by the social democrat Prieto, intimately linked with Basque finance capital; the minister of economy. Nieolan Olwer, is the representative of the Catalonian Bank; finally, at the head of the ministry of labor is Largo Caballero, socialist leader, former Councillor of State under the dictatorship, secretary of the reformist trade union center, the General Union of Workers, whose task in the government is quite clear: to stifle the labor movement, to tame it for the greatest profit of the consolidation of bourgeois exploitation under the republican form.
It is obvious that such a government cannot solve a single one of the fundamental problems of the democratic revolution; the problem of the land, of nationalities, of the relations between church and state of the transformation of the apparatus of the old régime, of the struggle against reaction.
In its first official declaration, the provisional government expressed itself in terms which show clearly that it is prepared to leave intact the foundations of the large landed estates. In this regard, it only formulates one very precise assertion. Private property guaranteed by law and it can be expropriated only for reasons of public utility and with a corresponding indemnity. As solution, the note confines itself to giving the vague promise that the agrarian law must correspond with the social function of the land.
It is clear that the republie has not (Continued on page 5)
we to a