FILM SHOWING - Land and Freedom

Haringey Independent Cinema are showing Ken Loach's film land and Freedom on Thursday 21st July at 7.15pm, West Green learning Centre, West Green Road, London N15

" Told from the point of view of Dave, a British volunteer who journeys from Liverpool to fight in the brutal civil war that engulfed Spain in 1936, Ken Loach’s masterpiece neither romanticises the conflict nor diminishes the dilemmas of individuals caught up in it.

     Dave’s political journey starts out in the Communist Party. But, he goes on to fight with the Marxist POUM militia in a civil war within the civil war, in which the POUM sided with a glorious but short lived anarchist inspired revolution in the City of Barcelona, ranged against the increasingly repressive forces of Stalinism.  "

This film has attracted much controversy simply because of the May Events of 1937 in Barcelona, when a communist coup that led to the annihilation of left wing party the POUM, and severely weakened anarchist power in Catalonia. Supporters of the Spanish communists and the Popular Front government have attacked the film both for its politics and its alleged historical inaccuracy. In many ways Loach based his film on Orwell's view of events in Catalonia, and communists have been vituperative in thier condemnations of Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.(1) Another example is Martha Gellhorn, travel writer and journalist, who was with Ernest Hemingway in Madrid in 1936; both were life-long fellow travellers. She rubbished the film in a review published in the London Evening Standard on 5 October 1995. An exchange of views about the film, with both the communist view and the contrary view, can be found at the website of the Marxist journal 'What next' . A contemporary view of the events in Barcelona written by Liston Oak - a communist - can be found on this blog

(1) Bill Alexander 'Spain and Orwell' in Inside the Myth : Orwell : views from the left. London 1984.

Pamphlet published on this blog Spain and the World : Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War

New pamphlet on Workers' Control

The New World: perspectives on workers' control in revolutionary Spain 1936-39
Alan Woodward
Available from Housman's bookshop, Housmans, Peace House, 5 Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, London N1 9DX, UK

In Alan Woodward's new publication he looks at the whole tradition of workers' control, covering the libertarian tradition from the 1905 Russian revolution, and the theorists of the 1920s on to the Spanish revolution.
Looking at the Spanish revolution Alan examines all aspects of the cooperatives from transport, food production, and small workshops tothe health serivce and local government. The pamphlet is also a polemic against those socialists who are ideologically against workers' control.

It is an inspiring story of workers taking control of their own political and economic lives; as he says:

"The essence remains the same - to help the formation of a collective, open, federated, responsible society without repression by capitalism or its state. This allows maximum freedom for the individual and a fair permanent structure in which it operates. This is a New World many are seeking and your help in realising it is invited." (p65)

See also on this blog (online pamphlet):
 Spain and the World : Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War

Spain and the World: Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War (6)

Barcelona May 1937 : a contemporary view

The article below was written in May 1937 and published in the weekly periodical New Statesman and Nation (NSN). In many ways it is an extraordinary piece of political writing, firstly because of who the writer is and secondly that it should appear in the NSN.

Liston Oak was a member of the American Communist party and in 1936 went to Moscow to work on the English language daily Moscow News. While awaiting clearance for the post he went to Paris. For reasons that are not clear he used his contacts with the Comintern (Communist International) to move on to another job based in the offices of the foreign minister of the Spanish Republic, Alvarez del Vayo. Del Vayo was in charge of propaganda in the English speaking world and Oak was to be the Director of Propaganda for Britain and the United States. Part of his responsibility was to chaperone leading celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway around. Oak was therefore a committed communist and an apparatchik of the Comintern. He went to Valencia at the beginning of 1937, but quickly moved on to a new office that was opened in Barcelona. It seems highly likely that Oak knew what was happening, that is the disappearances and assassinations, and that the intrigues against the anarchists and the POUM were leading to a full scale assault. In fact Oak did something that was extraordinary considering his politics: he went to interview Andres Nin, the leader of the POUM, not once but twice! This would have marked him and meant his life would be in danger. Oak was aware of the situation and made plans to escape from Spain.

Another American writer who was in Spain at this time was John Dos Passos. He was in Spain for the same reason as Hemingway, to contribute in the making of the film Spanish Earth. Oak and Dos Passos know each other, as

MEETING : The Spanish Revolution 1936-39

Speaker is Brian Bamford from the Solidarity Federation [Manchester]: Trades Council secretary, building worker, writer, and editor of Northern Voices.

8 p.m. on Wednesday 20th July, at Wood Green Social Club, Stuart Crescent N22-
Just up the hill from Wood Green tube station, across the gardens and the WGSC is on your right.

Seventy-five years ago many of the Spanish people launched a spirited defence of their country against an attempted coup by right-wing Spanish Army generals, supported by German and Italian military power. The popular insurrection took a ‘leftward turn’ as the armed people began to take over factories, depots, farms, estates, municipal authorities – indeed the whole of most of east Spain. Militias with 100,000 volunteers including the famous Durruti column, marched against the Nationalists under Franco.

In the rear, regions of Catalonia, Aragon, etc., became a workers’ republic, as chronicled by George Orwell and others. In a social experiment that last nearly three years, the people were in control and business institutions were collectivised or ‘adjusted’ to the new world. This can be regarded as the foremost example of workers’ power the world had ever seen, and remains so today.

Sadly fascism – Franco, Hitler, Mussolini – had armed forces and air power to ensure the eventual defeat of the people. There were divisions among the defenders, many were anarchists while the socialists/communists held more orthodox left-wing views, but armed might won out anyway. And the ‘civil’ war became a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the world war against the Axis powers that began within a few months. However we still celebrate the 1936 libertarian revolution, the breathtaking courage of the Spanish people, and the vision of a workers’ New World, not forgetting the international volunteers who went to assist them.

Already published on this blog about the Spanish revolution
Spain and the World : Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War
Women in the Spanish Revolution

Spain and the World: Aspects of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War (5)

British Imperialism and non-intervention

The revolt of the sections of the Spanish army led by Franco in July 1936 left the British ruling class with a series of immediate dilemmas, the most important of which was to stay out of a war that had a potential to conflagrate and not to support the Republic a state that had shown itself incapable of stable government. The British ruling class hoped that Franco’s forces would be quickly successful and stable government that represented no threat to British interests would resume.

Leon Blum : Socialist Prime Minister of France's Popular Front Government

The establishment of the Non-Intervention Committee
Since the First World War Britain and France were in alliance and tended to follow the same diplomatic path. In 1936 a Popular Front government was elected in France consisting of Socialists, Radicals and Communists. This government had strong links with the Spanish Popular Front government in Spain and indeed contracts in place were for the provision of French arms and munitions for Spain. Immediately after Franco's revolt some aeroplanes and other munitions were dispatched to Spain on the order of the French premier Leon Blum. Blum had strong sympathies for Spain but found himself constricted in his actions by the attitude of the British, the possibility of a split in the French government with the Radicals clearly indicating their aversion to any support to Spain; and lastly the possibility of igniting mass protests against the PF government by the very large French fascist