The Catholic Church and the Spanish Workers (1936)

From the October 1936 issue of the Socialist Standard

As the civil war drags on through its third month, many things stand out even more clearly than at the beginning. The rebels lack popular support in most parts of Spain but the outcome does not depend on popular support. It is fighting strength that counts. Correspondents of several British newspapers, including the Times (August 26th and September 4th), have reported that a majority of the conscript soldiers in the rebel armies, and the mass of workers and peasants behind the rebel lines would be . disposed to desert to the Government side if given the opportunity. The rebel commanders, however, take care not to let the opportunity arise and when, as happened in the Alcazar at Toledo, rebel men, women and children tried to give themselves up, the rebel commanders did not hesitate to slaughter them, women and children as well as men—“a fusillade from the insurgents cut them down”—so wrote an eyewitness, Mr. Harold Pemberton, correspondent of the Daily Express (September 21st). The rebels dare not rely on conscripts but they can rely on their mercenary Moorish troops for as long as the money lasts. The position, therefore, is that the Government forces are being slowly strangled under the combined pressure of foreign Governments, mercenary troops, and lavish supplies of money and munitions. If the money and the munitions continue then the rebels will prove, as has been proved before, that a military force can, for a time at least, dragoon a hostile civil population by sheer ruthlessness. How ruthless the Military-Catholic rebels are has been exposed in an earlier despatch from Harold Pemberton, published in the Daily Express on August 27th.

Basing his statements on what he had actually seen with the rebel armies, he wrote: —

While the Communists are committing atrocities, the rebels are killing wholesale, mathematically and methodically—as a military expedient. No one must be left alive as a possible threat to the rear of their motorised columns. There is no attempt at a trial. Killings in Seville average 30 to 40 a day. After Merida was captured 1,000 were killed. Village killings average 10 to 15 a day—until the supply of victims is exhausted. It is estimated that there will be half a million deaths before peace comes . . . On leaving Merida with Photographer Tovey we were offered “Communist ears” as souvenirs.

It is no wonder that the rebels in due course expelled a number of British journalists, including the correspondents of the Times, Morning Post and Daily Express. They were anxious that the world should not know how they carried on their fight for “ patriotism and religion.”

It is well that workers should take notice of this further example of the ruthlessness of a propertied class fighting to retain its privileged position. The lesson to be learned from it is not that workers should try to emulate their savagery but that we should realise that while power is in the hands of a panic-stricken ruling class they will stop at no atrocity to gain their ends.

The Catholic Church Commits Suicide

Forefront among those who glory in the rebellion, justify the rebel atrocities, or seek to blacken the Government with misrepresentations are the Catholic Church in Spain, the Pope, and the bulk of the prominent Catholics in England along with their Press. The Universe has vied with the Daily Mail in gutter journalism. The Catholic Bishops, like Bishop Amigo of Southwark, have assisted in a widespread campaign to whitewash the rebels. Bishop Amigo was able to discover that they and their Moorish mercenaries “are fighting for God and their country” to prevent its “total destruction" (Manchester Guardian, September 4th). The Catholic Tablet, wholeheartedly on the side of the rebels but above the disreputable behaviour of such papers as the Universe, was nearer the truth when it admitted (August 1st) that the rebellion was begun by the rebels for “economic and class reasons ” and could be broadly described “as a class war.” The Tablet, however, was more far-seeing than Bishop Amigo, and has backed the rebels with a certain amount of misgiving: fortunately, a well-founded misgiving, for the civil war is going to do the Catholic Church in Spain more harm than 30 years of propaganda. Whether the rebels win or lose there are millions of Spanish workers and peasants who will never forget that when they tried to climb out of hideous poverty the Catholic Church helped the landowners and military leaders to grind them down again, by force of arms and with the aid of Moorish troops and every device of modern warfare. For every Spanish worker who hated the Catholic Church before the rebellion for its century-long exploitation of the poor and defence of oppression, there will be ten in future.

One Catholic and Protestant lie needs to be nailed down, that is that the Government forces wantonly organised attacks on non-combatant Priests and Nuns. The Catholic Church right from the beginning openly sided with the rebels and gave them every material and other support in its power. Does the Catholic Church, in face of that, really expect to enjoy the rights of a neutral? And having taken the side of the rebels against the Government and its working-class supporters, does the Catholic Church expect to be received everywhere with open arms? Nevertheless there has not been a scrap of published evidence that the Spanish Government encouraged or condoned any such attacks. Where attacks were made they were the actions of individuals or groups, blindly hitting out at those whom they regarded as their enemies.

One argument used by the defenders of the Pope is that he protests always and everywhere against attacks on Priests. It is only a pretence, as can be shown from very recent history. Where and when did the Pope ever protest against the killing of Abyssinian Christian Priests by the Pope’s friends, the Government of Italy? It was reported in the Daily Telegraph on September 2nd that the Bishop of Dessie “has been shot by a firing squad on the market-place, the chief square of Addis Ababa.” His crime was precisely that of many Spanish Priests, “inciting a group of Abyssinian warriors ” to resist the Italians. When and where did the Pope protest? Or the Universe? Or the Daily Mail?

Before leaving the subject of the Catholic Church it must be said that a minority of Catholics in this country who saw the economic and class character of the Spanish conflict have resisted the mass pressure of the Catholic authorities and have continued to stand on the side of the republicans. In view of the difficulties of their position the fact that they stood their ground deserves recognition.

A wider problem, of which the reactionary nature of the Catholic Church is only a part, is the power of the capitalist Press and political parties to stampede large numbers of workers whenever an issue affecting property rights arises.. The trade unions which voted money for the relief of the victims of the rebellion were immediately faced with opposition from members misled by the Rothermere newspapers and others of like character. In passing, it is important to notice that condemnation of the Daily Mail did not come only from sources sympathetic to the Spanish Government but also from the Conservative Spectator, which charged the Mail with exhibiting ”a colour-blindness which leaves atrocities invisible except when Reds commit them.”

There is only one remedy for the evil of lying, propaganda. Changing the policy of those who control the Press is out of the question. All that can be done is the slow work of enlightening the workers, teaching them to discriminate and apply their own critical judgment to everything presented to them. Only when the workers are immune to the effects of lying propaganda—and not before— will the evil cease.

One lesson taught again by the events in Spain, that can never be emphasised too strongly, is the danger of going ahead in advance of what is justified by the degree of understanding and unity achieved by the mass of the population. The Spanish workers were, and still are, divided by their outlook, and by their allegiance to rival organisations. This encouraged the rebels to begin the rebellion and now, day by day, it enables them to win battles owing to the terrible lack of co-ordination among the Government militias, born of mutual mistrust as well as of inexperience. One ominous feature is that the Spanish Fascists are now setting out to win over the Syndicalists to their side. Imitating Mussolini, who successfully won over thousands of Syndicalists to the Fascist ranks in Italy, the Spanish Fascists are calling their Movement a National Syndicalist one, and giving it aims such as those Hitler used with big effect to gain working-class support in Germany. They appeal, particularly, to the Syndicalists’ traditional opposition to Parliament and political action. Should this succeed, Spain may sooner or later go Fascist with the backing of large numbers of workers, as did Italy and Germany. Here, again, the only remedy is the slow one of Socialist education, and until the necessary preparatory work has been performed any attempt to force the pace spells reaction—on top of failure—from which it may take years to recover.

Edgar Hardcastle