Barcelona conference (1989)

From the January 1989 issue of the Socialist Standard

Late last year there took place in Barcelona an international conference on the future of society. The idea was for a large number of speakers from across the world to take part in a week of discussion and debate on the question of social change. Contributors were to be of diverse political persuasions, so that the outcome would be representative, and conferences would be continued annually in different parts of the world over five years, returning to Barcelona in 1992. This first conference was timed to mark the twentieth anniversary of the events of 1968, and the radical pronouncements in the advance programme appeared promising, speaking enthusiastically of “a change in civilisation", "models for the future" and even the need to "transform society".

Having been offered the opportunity to take part in all of the seminars and debates. and to address one of the sessions, I was quite willing to see of what use this forum could be in the urgent task of propagating socialist ideas. This was in spite of the fact that speakers included certain philosophers of the "New Right”; unlike some political dim-wits of the Left who refuse to debate with those they allegedly disagree with, socialists are prepared to discuss and debate with political opponents of all persuasions. This is a point of principle based on our view that socialist revolution can only come with the winning over of a clear majority to our ideas. We can and must defeat in argument all kinds of antiquated myths which are peddled by many workers on behalf of their employers.

On arrival at the conference, however, all of my worst fears were confirmed. Although originally organised by a small group of ex-Trotskyists based around the University, the event had grown and begun to attract major sponsorship in a way that verged on the sinister and would have been comical had the wasted opportunity not been so obvious. The sponsors, it turned out. included the Sony Corporation, various banks and even government bodies. These financial institutions clearly knew a thing or two about buying off dissent, but with this intellectual mob the process clearly came pretty cheaply. Even the grandiose conference auditorium itself was situated in a bank!

The conference was opened by speeches full of pious waffle from non-entities such as a government minister and the Chairman of the bank in question. Anyone attending, other than the hundred or so invited speakers, had to pay ninety dollars just to take part. Almost all the main participants were senior academics of various disciplines. Lively debate was prevented by methods ranging from restricting to a few minutes at the end of a session, questions from the floor" to the outright censorship of taking points in writing for selection by the platform speakers.

Despite all these and other limitations, I was able to ensure that the genuine expression of socialism was heard loud and clear in several of the sessions, as well as in the text presented at one of the seminars (see separate article). It is, however, worth considering in detail some of the nonsense spoken, as this proved in the end to be a classic example of the chaos which results when capitalism's apologists try to give the system a new lease of life by discussing so-called 'alternatives” within it.

At the outset, the excited auditorium of two hundred or so were warned by an anthropologist called Buxó not to contemplate any return to the structures or values of primitive anthropological forms: far better no doubt to stick with the civilised certainties of the bomb and the dole queue. Lester Ruiz from New York spoke of the "deconstructivist" efforts facing us all, and the need for spiritual transformation. An ex-Communist party member from Paris called Garaudy stated that millions were dying of hunger while wheat is destroyed, but then showed his reluctance to leave the CP behind by singing the praises of Gorbachev and declaring his conversion to Islam. A born-again Christian called for a "mixed economy" with “God at the centre and love at its heart". A Communist Party member and philosopher from Georgia, Merab Mamardashvili, spoke of the need for metaphysical rebirth and mourned the passing of the “pre-revolutionary spirit" of Tsarism, while insisting that as a Marxist and Party member, he knew what he was saying and “allowed" himself to say it. "The capitalist system does not exist", he went on, and “life, in the strict sense of the term, is impossible". Even the simultaneous-translation interpreters were in stitches of laughter at this learned philosopher's ramblings. which culminated with the classic plea (quoted here verbatim) that: "I hope you understand me because I have difficulty in understanding what I’m saying myself". This comment would make a fitting epitaph to much of the pompous event itself. Meanwhile, students and scholars in the aisles scribbled notes furiously and the next philosopher was helped to the stage.

Maximilien Rubel, who has written several times to the Letters column of the Socialist Standard, chided the conference for ignoring the threat of nuclear war and pointed out Marx's recognition that the majority most affected by social problems must act to end their cause — the market system itself. He spoke against the state capitalist Russian Empire and attacked in advance next year's Paris celebration of 1789. adding that rather than “indulge in vanity of inventing new cultures", the speakers should declare themselves against “the insane nihilism of the political barbarians" who own and control the world. Rubel also pointed out that 1968 was a useless starting point unless it was recognised as a complete failure. Like others who spoke some sense or showed tell-tale signs of having ventured beyond their studies during the past year, he was patronised and dismissed by both the organisers and the majority present.

While these enthusiastic “experts" pontificated in a bank, the streets of Barcelona overflowed with some of the worst poverty in Europe. We were surrounded by social problems of which many speakers seemed ignorant, as they shunned as too “political" any talk of the majority repossessing the earth as the necessary prelude to any real social change. An official survey in the old quarter of Barcelona in 1985 found 25 per cent of the children there suffering malnutrition and more than half of the families living in sub-standard housing. Life expectancy was ten times lower than in other districts. These and other statistics were lucidly presented in a television documentary shown late last year (Cities Fit to Live In: Salud. Barcelona, TVE Barcelona/ Channel Four, November 1988), which ended with this refreshing piece of honest commentary:

  In the nineteenth century, Barcelona fought to demolish the stone walls hemming her in. The challenge she faces today is to bring down the invisible walls that divide one citizen from another, and to set all her citizens on an equal footing. Only then will it be possible to talk about health as a state of total physical, mental and social well-being, and not simply an absence of illness.

Clifford Slapper

Backwaters of History - 10 (1954)

From the August 1954 issue of the Socialist Standard

Barcelona 1937

Just before three o'clock on the afternoon of May 3rd, 1937, three lorries were threading their way through the streets of Barcelona, heading for the huge Plaza Plaza Cataluña in the centre of the city. They emerged into the Plaza, pulled up outside the Telephone Building and a body of police guards climbed out. Their leader, Rodriguez Salas, Commissioner of Public Order, went into the building, accompanied by a few guards. As he climbed to the first floor of the ten-storey building shots were fired from the windows of the upper storeys. Reinforcements of police were rushed up and a cordon was thrown round the building; thousands of people gathered in the Plaza whilst excitement ran through the streets to all corners of the city. The tension that had gripped Barcelona during the past few weeks now broke out into street fighting.

Far away, around Madrid and in other parts of Spain, Spanish Government forces were fighting desperately against the armies of the rebel General Franco. The Government forces were re-inforced by the International Brigades whilst  Franco was assisted by arms and troops  from Germany and Italy. But the fighting in Barcelona was not the outcome of a Fascist rising; that had occurred and had been subdued a year before.

Barcelona is the principal town in the Spanish province of  Catalonia. It has a long history of revolt, insurrection and rebellion. In 1931 a Catalan Republic was proclaimed, the Spanish Republican Government issuing a decree whereby the Catalan Government was given a free hand in the organisation of the four provinces forming Catalonia, which thus became autonomous in respect of its own domestic affairs.

The Fascist insurrection which had broken out against the Republican Government of Spain in July, 1936, had met with success in some districts but had collapsed within forty-eight hours in Barcelona. Army officers had marched out the troops from the Atarazanas Barracks in Barcelona and deployed them in the streets and in the Plaza de España and the Plaza Cataluña. They occupied the Telephone Building and the Hotel Colon opposite.

In the Calle Cortes and the Via Layetana the troops were resisted by small detachments of police and civil guards. In a very short time the whole of the population of Barcelona, men, women and children, joined in the fight. Barricades went up, buildings were seized, roofs and strategic positions occupied, machine-gun nests were established and the battle spread all over the city. As soon as the troops realised that they were being used by their officers to effect a coup-de-main, they broke ranks and fraternised with the people. From that moment the Fascist cause was lost in Barcelona, for a year or two at least.

The first shots were fired at five o'clock on the morning of Sunday, July 19th, and by Monday evening, except for some desultory sniping from the roofs, the battle was over.

A general strike all over Spain had been called in a radio announcement by Largo Caballero, President of the Union General de Trabajadores (General Workers' Union led by Labourites and Communists). When the fighting was over in Barcelona the strike still held. All shops, cafes, workshops, factories, etc., were closed, and dead bodies lay out in the streets amongst the battle-scarred buildings.

The various trade unions and political parties set about re-organising and recruiting their militias, at the same time taking over the control of the city and surrounding district. Public eating-houses were opened, supplies were arranged, transport requisitioned and a system of passes and permits out into operation. Most goods were obtainable except cigarettes; looting was nil. Each of the trade unions and political parties took a prominent building for its headquarters and the red and black flag of the Confederation Nacional de Trabajo (Anarchist Trade Union) and the red flag of the Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista (party of united Marxists) flew from factories, printing establishments, municipal offices, hotels and the buildings of other industrial undertakings. The proprietors of cafes, hotels and industries, were given an opportunity to work at some suitable task, side by side with their erstwhile employees, on a co-operative basis. If they declined they were dismissed.

During the struggle against the Fascist rebels and immediately after, thousands of workers flocked to join the "left" political parties without any definite understanding of the political principles involved. The enthusiasm of was immense. The Olympic Games teams, due to perform in Barcelona at that time, paraded through the city. The Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Anarchist organisation) became the most popular party. The differences between many of the organisations that existed became indistinct and there was much federating and amalgamating. All the major organisations had their own armed militia and a Militias Committee was set up with representatives from each. A Supplies Committee was formed in a similar way. As these committees commanded the only armed force remaining in Barcelona, they assumed most of the governmental power.

The official Catalonian Government was composed of Liberal Nationalists, moderate Labourites and Communists. Public services such as education and the administration of justice were left in the hands of this government whilst the committees made decisions on other matters, but in order to re-assure foreign governments, the committee's decrees were sent to the government to be officially stamped.

This dual form of control caused complications and it was eventually decided to solve the problems by reconstructing the official government so that it included representatives of all the workers' parties and the trade unions. Both the anarchists, who were anti-parliamentarian, and the P.O.U.M., which was opposed to the united front, entered this new government. On July 31st, the new government was formed with Luis Companys, a Liberal, as president. Almost immediately conflict broke out between the various political groupings. The Anarchists and the P.O.U.M. wanted to keep military power in the hands of their own organisations, whilst the Labour and Communist parties claimed that all armed forces should be under governmental control.

The Communists were anxious for support from Russia which the Russian Government was prepared to give providing such support did not conflict with its foreign policy of seeking friendly relations with Britain and France. Labourites and Communists, urged by the fear of foreign intervention in the civil war, argued that the war against Franco must take precedence over all other considerations. They called for the disbanding of the workers' armed patrols and the surrender of all arms to the government.

Towards the end of April 1937, the situation became tense. Parties accused one another of being "Fascist spies" or "Fifth Columnists." In an endeavour to discredit one group or another and to alienate support from opponents, acts of sabotage were perpetrated which endangered the success of the war against Franco. On April 25th, Roldan Cortada, leader of a Labour Youth Movement, was murdered by persons unknown near Molins de Llobregat, a suburb of Barcelona. Two days later the anarchist mayor of Puigcerda, Antonio Martin was shot and killed. Each faction looked accusingly at the others. On May 1st, all May Day demonstrations were banned for fear of disturbances. Then came the incident at the Telephone Building on May 3rd.

The Telefonica building had been in the hands of the Anarchists since they first occupied it in the early days of the Fascist uprising and they had a sentimental attachment to it. The government claimed that the Anarchists were tapping the telephone the telephone lines but the manner of government police occupation of the Telefonica on May 3rd was undoubtedly provocative.

Shooting broke out in all parts of Barcelona; practically all workers ceased work; trade union offices and political party headquarters were sandbagged; barricades were erected and machine guns placed. Luis Companys issued an order to disarm the workers' patrols but the police could not finish what they had started. The news and the trouble spread to other towns in Catalonia.

"The details of the street fighting which lasted from May 3rd. to May 7th, and cost some 950 dead, some 3,000 wounded and millions of pesetas' worth of ammunition in the worst street fighting in Europe since the Paris Commune, are still open to dispute. The general line is not."

(Civil War in Spain, by Frank Jellinek, page 545.)

The Anarchist leaders protested that they were not responsible for the fighting and, together with leaders of all other parties, appealed over the radio for a cease fire with orations that "drew tears but not obedience." (Jellinek). The Anarchist trade unions issued an order to return to work, but fighting continued. Leadership in the fighting passed into the hands of the youthful enthusiasts of the smaller extremist organisations on both sides.

The Spanish Republican Government, which had moved to Valenica from Madrid, now sent General Pozas, with 4,000 police, to take over the military governorship of Catalonia. Armed police and soldiers withdrawn from the front at Jarama, arrived in warships at Barcelona harbour. The British warship, Despatch, headed full steam for the city. The fighting subsided but an occasional incident it to flare up in odd places. The Valencian police finally suppressed all resistance ruthlessly. The rising faded out and Catalonian independence went with it. Franco finally conquered Barcelona, to which the Spanish Government had withdrawn, on January 26th., 1939, after months of heroic defence and terrific slaughter by air bombardment and naval blockade.

No capitalist government, whatever its composition, be it Liberal, Labour, Communist, Anarchist, or any mixture of them, can allow the armed forces of the state to pass out of its control. An armed working class is a menace to the system. In class society the dominant class must have at its disposal the power to maintain "law and oder" amongst the class that it dominates, even when it is divided within itself.

Bibliography:
"Civil War in Spain," by Frank Jellinek
'The Truth about Barcelona," by Fenner Brockway
"The Truth about the Barcelona Events", by Lamda
"Murder in Spain," by Roberto (Article in International Review, June, 1937)
"Spain", International Press Correspondence Special Edition, May, 1938

W. Waters

BARCELONA! (1909)

From the September 1909 issue of the Socialist Standard

The workers of Catalonia and of the industrial city of Barcelona have risen in revolt against their oppressors—and have been crushed. A shady mining concern with international capitalist interests involved had been established in the territory of the Riff tribes of Morocco, close by the town of Melilla, which is occupied by the Spaniards. The natives, suspecting that this forbode them no good, took steps to turn out the invaders, the representatives of the modern enslavers, the international capitalists. As a consequence the Spanish workers were called upon to turn out and, at the risk of life and limb, protect their masters property—were ordered to go to Africa and massacre a foreign people with who they have no quarrel. Now Barcelona, at least, has, like Paris, the revolutionary tradition, and there has been plenty of anti-militarist, direct-action, aye, Anarchist propaganda, there. Doubtless also many of its toilers argued that, since lives must be risked, 'twere better to risk them fighting the real enemy at home, the monopolisers of the means of life, rather then in fighting the brown-faced Moors against whom they had no enmity. And so after speeches and strikes came barricades. However, modern artillery and magazine rifles, handled as these were by often unwilling soldiers, made short work of all these and there is now a further collapse of "direct action" to record. Hitherto the Spanish workers, very generally, disdained Parliamentary action. Perhaps events will show them the need for using the means to hand, namely, the political machinery, however backward that machinery and however difficult the obstacles may be. It is good to note the spirit of revolt in the Spanish workers. When they have got over their present Anarchistic tendency they will make rapid strides, like the quick-witted people they are, to their freedom in Socialism. 

H. J. H.