Workers Solidarity Movement

WAR AND REVOLUTION

In the first issue, there is an article on page 4 with the very title "war and revolution". Here are the main passages.

WHO WERE THE FRIENDS OF DURRUTI

We saw, in part one, that opposition began to show itself against the lawyers who were, to a greater or lesser extent, accustomed to ministerial collaboration. Notably the Catalan Libertarian youth had declared their refusal to "become accomplices by staying silent" and they had even added "we are ready to return to illegal existence if necessary..."

THE REPUBLIC OF 14 APRIL 1931

It is absolutely necessary - the Friends of Durruti tried to point out - to find a path which allows revolutionaries, without compromising and without falling into an unprincipled anti-fascist front, to have a practical strategy of struggle which unifies the proletarian forces against the violent blows of the reaction, militarism and fascism. One understands why the Friends of Durruti, should have given such importance to the so-called choice 'war or revolution'

But, before addressing the events and their analysis, we must lay out, as briefly as possible, the composition of the forces present on the "antifascist" side, in order to assist the journey of the non expert reader across what one author has called the "Spanish Labyrinth". The bibliography which we give will allow one to find fuller information.

Barcelona, May 1937. The first issue of 'The People's Friend', the organ of the Friends of Durruti, appeared. The police repression of the Republican state had just crashed against the fighters of the barricades who had responded to the stalinist provocations by retaking the road of revolution. But while the combattants of the revolution were taking the fight to the forces of repression of the Catalan Generalitat and of the central state, the anarchist 'leaders' of the CNT-FAI, having become ministers of the bourgeois government, asked the victors of the barricades to lay down their arms, to have faith in their 'leaders' to settle the conflict and to reunite the anti-Franco forces.

George Fontenis' study seems useful to me, indeed I would go so far as to say it is valuable, not only as it teaches a better understanding of the Spanish Revolution of 1936-7 but it also provides a more extensive interpretation of the notion of libertarian communism itself.

Starting in Solidarity Books on Thursday the 16th of June is a reading group for Karl Marx's Capital (or 'Das Kapital' in the original German) Volume 1. For 13 Thursdays we will work our way through the book with the help of David Harvey's 'Capital' lecture series, available here: http://davidharvey.org/reading-capital/. Whatever your politics, you're welcome to come along and engage with this massively important piece of work.

In the 1930's Europe was experiencing one of its' worst ever slumps. The Wall Street crash came in 1929 and its repercussions were felt far and wide. Spain was no exceptionBy 1936 unemployment had gone over 30% in many of the towns and cities Out of a total workforce of three million, one million were out of work. There was no dole and as prices rose by 80% in the five years up to 1936, many encountered severe hardship.

1931

April Republic proclaimed. Alfonso XIII goes into exile.
June Election of Republican/Social Democratic government.

1932

November Right wing electoral victory, beginning of Bienno Negro.

1934

October United but isolated workers rising in Asturias crushed by the army.

CNT (Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo) - anarchist-Syndicalist trade union founded in 1911. The most militant and revolutionary union. Sought to organise all workers into one big union. Based itself on the ideas of anarchism and revolutionary syndicalism.