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ECLATANTE VICTOIRE
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l
 FASCISM/
ANTIFASCISM

by J. Barrot

BLACK CAT PRESS

 ¡
t

Black Cat Press would be glad to have your

opinion of th1s pamphlet and any suggestions
you may have for future publications.. Please
send your comments to P.O. B<:>x 11261, Ed­
monton, Alberta, Canada. Write to the same
address for a free catalogue of publications. ·

Cover pboto: a May Day rally during the

Popular Front era.

PRINTED & PUBLISHED BY BLACK CAT PRESS

EDMONTON 1982
Translator's introduction
The text presented here is the first part of the introduc­
tion to a collection of writings by Italian left communists
on the Spanish Civil War ("Bilan" --contre-révolution en
Espagne, ed. J. Barrot, U.G.E. 10/18. Paria. 1979. pp. 9-
4 7). The tiny Italian ultra-left was a pathetic remnant from
the failed proletarian revolutions in Central Europe after
World War l. Early victima of both fascism and Stalinism.
the Italian ultra-J.eftists had the misfortune to f ollow a
leader, Amadeo Bordiga, who virtually ignored them.
Forced into emigration in France and Belgium. the Bor­
digists refined their ideas about tbe meaning of commun­
ist revolution and during the thirties developed a powerful
critique of antifascism.
Jean Barrot.has revived this critique and applled it to
contemporary politics. In doing so he exhibits ali tbe weak­
nesses of left communism (dogmatic Marxism, positivist
economice, obsolete class analyses, contempt for tbe work­
ing class, visceral hatred of social democracy). Never­
theless we are reproducing this text because of its uncom­
promising view of the State. Barrot has a very simple
message which he hammers away at again and again: tbere
is no revolution witbout destruction of tbe State; liberal
democracy and fascism are alternative forma of the capi­
talist State; therefore it malees no sense for proletarians to
struggle for one form of the State against the otber. For
Barrot, fascism is long dead but its nemesis, antifascism
continues to tbrive, diverting the proletarians from their
real interests.
Barrot accuses ene anarchists. not unjustly, of botb
o ver-estimating and under-estimating the State. In the case
of Spain, the anarchists, while considering the State to be
their principal enemy, failed to destroy it be-cause, accord­
ing to Barrot, they failed to understand tbe relation between
tbe State and society.
Tbe main· text has been translated more or less intact
but tbe notes bave been beavily edited witb tbe �emoval
of most references to (undeservedly) obscure publications
in French. Sorne comments on terminology are necessary.
ucommunism" refers exclusively to tbe final outcome of
proletarian revolution wben tbe law of value is completely
overtbrown and capitalist relations of production elimina-

3
ted. Barrot considere Marxist-Leninist social systems to'
be State capitalist ..,Democracy" denotes a liberal capi­
•

talist or parliamentary political system. Tbe "Lett•• is

identified with the official Communist and Socialist parties
and the "extreme Left" with revolutionary Marxista who
have broken with Leninism. Barrot's concept of "party"
has nothing in common with Leninism--it is the "spon­
taneous· organization of the revolutionary movement cre­
ated by capitalism.''

Other works by Jean Barrot include:

Le mouvement communiste, Cbamp Libre (1972).

Communisme et guestion Russe, La T@te de Feuilles (1972).
Eclipse & Re-emergence Of tbe Communist Movement (witb
F. Martin), Black & Red U974).
La Lé ende de la auche au ouvoir: Le F ront o ulaire
wt ors su
• a
(1973).
La Gaucbe communiste en Allema 1918-21 (witb D.
Authier), Payot (1 7 •

·4
TOTALITARIANISM & FASCISM
The horrors of fascism were not the ftrst of their kind , nor were
they the last . Nor were they the worst , no matter what anyone says1•
These horrors were no worse than "normal 11 massacres due to wars,
famines , etc . For the proletarians, it was a more systematic version
of the terrors experie nced in 1 832, 1 848, 1 871 , 1 919, • • • How­
•

ever, fascism occupies a special p lace in the spectac le of horrors .

Thts time around , indeed , sorne capitaltsts and a good part of the
polttical c lass were repressed , along with the leadership and even
the rank-and-fi le of the official working e lass organizations . For
the bourgeoisie and the petit bourgeoisie , fascism was an abnormal
phenomenom, a degradation of democratic values explicable only by
recourse to psychological �xplanations . Liberal antifascism treated
r,:
fascism as a rverston of Western civi ltzation , thereby generating
an obverse e et: the sado-masochistic fascination with fascism as
manifestad by the col!ectlon of Nazi bric-a-brac . Western human­
ism never understood that the swastikas worn by the He 11's Ange Is
reflected the inverted image of its own vision of fascism . The logic
of this attitude can be summed up :_if fascism is the u ltirnate Evi l ,
then let's choose evi l , let's invert a l l the values . This phenomenom
is typica l of a disoriented age .
The usual Marxist analysis certain ly doesn't get bogged down in
psychology . The i nterpretation of fascism as an instrument of big
businessthas been c lassic. since Danie l Guérin� But the seriousness
of his analysis conceals a central error . Most of the 11marxist 1 1 stud­
ies maintain the idea that, in spite of everything , fasclsm was
avoidable in 1 922 or 1933. Fasctsm is reduced to a weapon used by
capitalism at a certain moment . Accordtng to these studies capital­
ism wou ld not have tumed to fascism if the workers' movement had
exercised sufficient pressure rather than displaying its sectarianism .
Of course we wou ldn't have had a 1 1revo lution ,11 but at least Europa
would hove been spared Naziism, the camps, etc . Despite some
very accurate observations on social c lasses, the State , and the
connection between fascism and big business, thls perspectiva suc­
ceeds in missing the point that fascism was the product of a double
fai lure: the defeat of the revolutionaries who were crushed by the
soeia l democrats and their liberal al lies; fo llowed by the fai lure of
the liberals and socia l democrats to manage Capital effective ly .
The nature of fascism a nd its rise to power remain incomprehensible·

5
 without studying the c lass struggles of the precedi ng period and
their limitations. One cannot be understood without the other. lt's
not by accident that Gu6rin is mistaken not only about the signifi­
cance of fascism, but also about the French Popu lar Front, which
he regcrds as a "missed revo lution •11
Paradoxically , the essence of antifascist rnystification is that
the democrats conceal the nature of fascism as much as possible
whi le they display an apparent radicalism in denouncing it here ,
there , and everywhere . This has been going on for fifty years now .
Boris Souvarine wrote in 1925:3
"Fascism here , fascism there . Action Francaise�that's fas­
cism . The Nationa l Bloc-that's fascism • • • • Every day for the last
six months, Humanité serves up a new fascist surprise . One day an
enonnous head line six columns wide trurnpets: SENATE FA SCIST TO
THE CORE . Another time , a publisher refusing to print a commu­
nist newspaper is denounced : FASCIST BLDW • • • •

"There exists today in France neither Bo lshevism nor fascism ,

any more than Kerenskyism . Liben& and Humanit-6 are blowing hot
air: the fascism they conjure üp'Tofus is not viable , the objective
conditions for its existence are not yet realizad • • • •

"One cannot leave the fle Id free to reaction . But it is unne­

cessary to baptise this reaction as fascism in order to fight it. 11
I n a time of verbal inflation , 11fascism'1 is iust a buzz word used
by leftists to demonstrate their radicalism. But its use indicates both
a .confusion and a theoretical concession to the State and to Capital.
The essence of antifascism consists of strugg ling against fascism
while supporting democr � ; in other words , of strugg ling not for
the destruction of capitáiim , bu t to force capita lism to renounce
tts totalttarian form . Socialism being identified with total democ­
racy , and capitalism wtth the growth of fascism, the opposition pro­
letariat/Capita l , communism/wage labour, proletariat/State , iS
shunted aside in favour of the opposition 11democracy11/11fascism,11
presentad as the quintessence of the revolutionary perspectiva • An­
ttfascism succeeds on ly in mixing two phenornena: 11fascism11 prop­
erly so-cal led , and the evolution of Capita l and the State towards
totalitarianism. I n confusing these two phenomena , tn substituting
the part for the whole , the cause of fascism and tota litarianism is
rnystified and one ends up reinforcing what one seeks to combat.
We cannot come to grips w1th the evolution of capital and its
totalitarian forms by denounctng 11 latent fascismf' fascism was a par­
ticular,episode in the evolution of Capital towards tota litarianism,
an evolution in which dernocracy has p layed and sti l l p lays a role aa
counter-revolutlonary as that of fasctsm . lt is a misuse of language

6
to speak toclay of a non-violent, 11friendly 11 fascism which would
leave intact the tradittonal organs of the workers' movement . Fas­
cism was a movement limitad in time and space . The situation tn
Europe afier 19 18 gave it its original characteristics which will
never recu- .
Baslcally , fascism was associated wlth the economic and politi­
cal unification of Capital , a tendency which has become general
stnce 1914. Fascism was a particular way of realizing this goal in
certain countries--ltaly and Germany-where the State proved itself
incapable of establishing order (as it is understood by the bourgeoi­
sie), even though the revolution had been crushed . Fascism has the
following characteristics: ( 1) it is born in the street; (2) it stirs up
disorder whi le preaching order; (3) it is a movement of obsolete mid­
dle classes ending in their more or less violent destruction; and (4) it
regenerates from outside the traditional State which is incapable of
resolving the capitalist crisis .
Fascism was a solution to a crisis of the State during the transi­
tion to the total domination of Capital ovar society . Workers' orga­
nizations of a certain type were necessary in order to subc:lue the re­
volution; next fasctsm was required in order to put an end to the sub­
sequent disorder. The crisis was never really overcome by fascism:
the fascist State was effective only in a superficial way, because it
rested on the systematic exclusion of the working class from social
life . This crisis has been more successfully overcome by the State in
our own times . The democratic State uses ali the tools of fascism, in
fact , more , because it integrates the workers' organizations without
annihilating them . Social unification goes beyond that brought about
hy fascism , but fascism as a specific movement has disappeared. lt
corresponded to the forced discipline of the bourgeoisie under the
pressure of the State in a truly unique situatton .
The bourgeoisie actually borrowed the name 11 fascism11 from wor­
kers' organizations in ltaly which often called themselves "fasces . 11
lt 's significant that fascism defined itself first as a form of organiza­
tion and not as a program . lts only program was to unite everyone
into fasces, to force together al i the elements making up society:
11Fascis111 steals from the proletariat its secret: organization
• • • •

Liberalism is ali ideology with no organization; fasctsm is al i orga­

nization with no ideology . 11 (Bordiga)
Dictatorship is not a weapon of Capital , but rather a tendency
of Capital which materializas whenever necessary . To return to par­
liamentary democracy after a period of dictatorsh ip , as in Germany
after 1945, signifies only that dictatorship is useless c�ntil the next
time) for tntegrating the masses into the State . We are not ·cfenying

7
 that democracy assures a gentler exploitatton than dictatorship: any­
one would rather be exploited like a Swede than ltke a BrasilJan.
But do we have a CHOICE? Democracy wtll transform itself into dic­
tatorshlp as soon as tt is necessary. The State can have only �
function, whlch it can fulftll either clemocratically or dictatorially.
One might prefer the first mode to the second, but one cannot bend
the State to force lt to remain democratic. The political forrns which
Capital gives itself do .not depend on the action of the working class
any more than they depend on the intentlons of the bourgeoisie. The
Welmar Republlc capltulated before Hitler, In fact, it welcomed him
wlth open arms. And the Popular Front in Franca did not 11prevent
fascism" because Franca in 1936 dld not need to unify its Capital or
reduce its middle classes. Such transformations do not require any po­
litical choice on the part of the proletariat.
Hitler is disparaged for retaining from the Viennese social democ­
racy of his youth only its methods of propaganda. So what? The "es­
sence" of socialism was more to be found In these methods than in
the dtstirteuished writings of Austro-Marxism. The comrnon problem
of social clemocracy and Nazitsm was how to organi:ze the masses and,
if necessary, repress them. lt was the socialists and not the Nazis
who crushed the proletarian insurrections. (This does not inhibit the
current S.P .D. , in power again as In 1919, from publishing a postage
stamp in honour of Rosa Luxemburg whom it had murdered in 1919.)
The dictatorship always comes after the proletarians have been de­
feated by democracy with the fielp of the unions and the parties of
the Left. On the other hand, both socialism and Na:ziism have con­
tributed to an improvement (temporary) in the standard of living. Like
the S.P. D . , Hitler became the instrument of a social movement the
content of which escaped h im. Like the S.P. O. , he fought for power,
for the right to mediate between the workers and Capital. And both
Hitler and the S.P . D . became the tools of Capital and were discard­
ed once the Ir respective tasks had been accomplished.

ANTIFASCISM : THE WORST PRODUCT OF FASCISM

Since the fase ism of the inter-war period, the term "fase ism 11 has
rematned in vogue. What political group has not accused its adver­
sarias of usil"lg "fascist methods11? The Left never stops denouncing
· resurgent fascism, the Right does not refrain from labelling the
P.C.F. as the "fascistic party." Signifying everything ancl anythlng,
the word has lost its meaning since tnternational liberal oplnfon de-

8
 cribes any strong State as 11fascist.11 Thus the i l lusions of the fascists
of the thirties are resurrected and presentad as confeJll>orary reality .
Franco c latmed to be a fascist ltke his mentors, Hit ler and Mussolini ,
but there was never any fase ist 1ntemationa1 .
lf today the Greek colonels and O.i lean genera Is are cal led fas­
clsts by the dominant tdeology, they neverthe less represent variants
of the capitalist Sf ATE . App lying the fascist labe l to the State is
equivalent to denouncing the parties at the head of that State . Thus
one avoids the critique of the State by denouncing those who direct
it. The leRists seek to authenticate their extremism with their hue
and cry about fascism, whi le neg lecting the critique of the State . I n
practice they are proposing another form o f th e State (democratic or
popular) in p lace of the existing form .
The term 11fascism 11 is sti l l more irrelevant in the ad vanced cap­
talist countries, where the Communist and Socialist pcriies wi l l p lay
a central role in any future ''fascist" State which is �rectad against
a revolutionary movement . I n this case it is much more exact to speak
of the State pure and simp le , and leave fascism out of it . Fascism ·

triumphed because its principies were generalized: the unification of

Capital and the efficient State . But in our times fascism has disap­
peared as.such , both as a political movement and as a form of the
State . I n sp ite of soma resemblances, the parties considered as fas­
cist since 1945 (in France , for examp le , the R .P .F . , pouiadism, to
sorne extent today the R . P . R . ) have not aimed at conquering an im­
potent State ffom the outside1
To insist on the recurring menace of fascism is to ignore the fact
that the real fascism was poorly suited to the task it took on and
fai led: rather than strengthening German nationa l Capital, Nazitsm
ended by dividing it in two . Today other forms of the State hove
come tnto being , far removed ffom fascism and ffom that democracy
we he ar constantly eu log ized .
With World War 11 , the mythology of fascism was enriched by
a new e lement . This conflict was the necessary so lution to problems
both economic (crash of 1929) and social (unruly working c lass
wh ich , a lthough non-revolutionary , had to be discip lined) . World
War 11 could be depicted as a war against totalitarianism in the form
of fascism . This interpretation has endurad , and the constant recal l
by th e victors o f 1945 o f the Nazi atrocities serves to ¡ustify the war
by giving it the character of a humanitarian crusade . Everything ,
even the atomic bomb, cou ld be ¡ustified against such a barbarous
enemy. This justification is, however , no more credible than the
demagogy of the Nazis , who c laimed to strugg le against capitalism
and Western p lutocracy . The 11democratic 11 forces inc luded in their

9
ranks a State as totalitarian ancl bloody as Hltler's Germany: Sta lln's
Soviet Unlon, wlth 1ts penal code prescribing the death penalty from
the age of twelve . Everyone knows as we l l that the A l lies resorted
to simi lar methods of terror ancl extermtnatton whenever they saw the
need (strategic bombing , etc . ) . The West walted until the Cold War
to denounce the Soviet camps. But each capitaltst country has had
to deal with its own specific problems. Great Britain had no A lgerian
war to cope with, but the partition of India c laimed mi l lions of vic­
ttms. The U. S.A. never had to organlze concentration camps5 in
order to sHence its workers and dispose of surp lus petits bourgeols,
but it founcl its own colonia l war in Vietnam. As for the Soviet Un­
ion , with its Gulag which is today denounced the world over, it was
content to concentrate into a few decades the horrors spread out over
several centuries in the o lder capitallst countrles, a lso resu lting in
ml l lions of victims fust in the treatment of the Blacks a lone. The de­
ve lopment of Capital carr ies with it certain consequences, of whlch
the main ones are: (l)domination over the working c lass, involvlng
the destructlon, gentle or otherwise, of the revolutionary movement;
(2) competltion with other nattonal Capitals, resulting in war . When
power is he ld by the 11workers111 porties, only one thing is a ltered :
workerist demagogy wtl l be more conspicuous, but the workers wl l l
not be spared th e most severe repression when this becomes necessary .
The triumph of Capital is never as total as when the workers mobi lize
thernselves on its behalf in search of a "better llfe. 11
I n order to protect us from the excesses of Capttal, antifasctsm
as a matter of course invokes the intervention of the State . Paradoxi­
cal ly, antifascism becomes the champton of a strong State; for ex­
ample , the P .C. F . asks us:
11What kind of State is necessary In Frané:e today? • • • Is our
State stable ancl strong , as the President of the Republic c laims?
No, it is weak, it is impotent to pul l the country out.of the soctal
ancl politlcal crisis In which lt is mired. In fact it is encouraglng
disorder. 116
Both dictatonh ip ancl democracy propose to strengthen the State,
the former as a matter of principie , the latter in order to protect us
--ending up in the same result . Both are working towards the sarne

�
goal : totalttarianism. In both cases it Is a matter of making everyone
rttcipate tn soctety : "from the top down 11 for the dictators, 11from
.
e bOttom up 11 for the democrats.
·

As regards dictatorship ancl democracy, can we speak of a strug­

g le between two le>Cfological ly differentiated fractions of Capital?
Rather we are dealtng with two different methods of regimenting the
proletariat, either by integrating it forcibly, or by bringing it to-

10
gether through the mediation of its "own " organizations . Capital
opts for one or the other of these solutions according to the needs of
the moment . I n Germany after 1918, social democracy and the un­
ions were indispensable for control ling the workers and isolating the
revolutionaries . On the other hand , after 1929, Germany had to
concentrate its industry , e liminate a section of the middle c lasses,
and discip line the bourgeoisie . The same traditional workers' move­
ment , defending pol itica l p luralism and the immediate interests of
the workers, had become an impediment to further deve lopment . The
' 'workers' organizations" supported capitalism faithfu l ly , but had
kept their autonomy; as organtzations they sought above a l l to per­
petuate themse lves . This made them p lay an effective counter-revo­
lutionary role in 1918-1921, as the fai lure of the German revolution
shows . In 1920 the social democratic organizations provided the first
examp le of anti-revo lutionary antifascism (before fascism existed in
name)? Subsequently the weight acquired by these organizations,
both in society and in the State itse lf, made them p lay a role of so­
cia l conservatism, of economic Malthusianism . They had to be e limi­
nated . They fu lfi l led an anti-communist function in 1918-1921 be­
cause they were the expression of the defensa of wage labour as such;
but this same rationa le required them to continue to represent the im­
mediate interests of wage earners, to the detriment of the re-organi­
zation of Capital as a who le .
One understands why Naziism had as its goal the violent des­
truction of the workers' movement , contrary to the so-ca l lad fascist
porties of today . This is the crucia l difference . Social democracy
had done its job of domesticati ng the workers we 11, too we 11. Socia 1
democracy had occupied an important position in the State but was
incapable of unifying the whole of Germany behind it. This was the
task of Naziism , which knew how to appea l to a l l c lasses , from the
unemp loyed to the monopoly capita lists .
Simi larly, the Unidad Popu lar in Chi le was able to contro l the
workers, but without gathering the whole of the nation around it.
Thus it became necessary to overthrow it by force . On the contrary,
there has not (yet ?) been any massive repression in Portuga l stnce
November 1975 , and if the current regime c laims to be continuing
the "revo lution of the officers,1 1 it is not because the power of the
working c lass and democratic organizations prevent a coup d 16tat
from the Right . Left wing parties and unions hove never prevented
any such thing, except when the coup d 16tat was prematura, e .g .
the Kapp putsch in 1920 . There is no White terror in Portugal be­
cause it is unnecessary , the Socialist Party up to the present time
unifying the whole of society behind it .

11
 Whether it admits it or not , antifascism has become the necessary
form of both working c lass and capita list reformism . Antifascism u­
nites the two by c laiming to represent the true ideal of the bourgeois
revolution betrayed by Capita l . Democracy is conceived as an e le­
ment of socialism, an e lement already present in our society . Socia l­
ism is envisaged as tota l democracy . The strugg le for socia lism wou ld
consist of winning more and more democratic rights within the frame­
work of capita lism . With the help of the fascist scapegoat , democrat­
ic gradua lism is revita lizad . Fascism and antifascism have the sama
origin and the same program , but the formar c laimed to go beyond
Capita l and c lasses, wh i le the latter tries to attain the "true" bour­
geois democracy wh ich is end lessly perfectible through the addition
of stronger and stronger doses of democracy . I n reality , bourgeois
democracy is a stage in the taking of power by Capita l , and its ex­
tension into the 20th century has resu ltad in the increasing isolation
of individua ls. Born as the i l lusory so lution to the problem of the
separation of human activity and society , democracy wi l l never be
able to reso lve the problem of the most separated society in the
whole of history. Antifascism wi l l always end in increasing totali­
tarianism; its fight for a 11democratic 11 State wi l l end in strengthen­
the State.
For various reasons, the revolutionary analyses of fascism and
antifascism , and in particu lar the ana lysis of the Spanish Civi 1 War ,
wh ich is a more comp lex examp le , are ignored , misunderstood , or
regularly distorted . At best, they are considerad as an idea list per­
spectiva; at worst , as an indirect support of fascism . Note , they
say, how the P .C .I. he lped Musso lini by refusing to take fascism
seriously , and especia l ly by not a l lying itse lf with the democratic
forces; ot' how the K . P. D. a l lowed H it ler to come to power wh i le
treating the S . P .D . as the principal enemy . In Spain , on the con­
trary , one has an examp le of resoluta antifascist strugg le , which
might have succeeded if it hadn't been for the deficiencias of the
Sta linists-socialists--anarchists (cross out the appropriate names) .
These statements are based on a distortion of the facts.

ITALY & GERMAN Y

In the forefront of the counter-truths , one finds a distorted ac­
count of the case where at least an important section of the prole­
tariat strugg led against fascism with its own methods and goals: l ta ly
in 191 8-1 922 . This strugg le was not specifica l ly antifascist: to

12
 struggle a gainst Capital meant to st rugg . le against fascism as we l l as
a gainst parliamentary democrac y. This episode is si gnificant because•
the movement in question was lead by communists , and not by re­
form socialists who had ¡oined the Comintem , e . g. the P . C . F . , or
by Sta linists competin g in nationalist demagoguery with the Nazis
( l i ke the K. P . D. with its ta l k of "national revo lution" duri ng the
early thirties) . Perverse ly , the proletarian characte r of the struggle
has a l lowed the antifascists to re¡ect everything revolutionary about
the lta lian experience : the P. C. I . , lead by Bordi ga and the left
communists at �he time , is charged with favou ring the coming to po-
. wer of Musso lini . Without romanticizing th is episode , it is worth
studying because it shows without the sli ghtest ambi guity that the
subsequent defeatism of the revo lutionaries regarding the wa r of
"democracy 11 vs . 11fascism 11 ( Spanish Civi l War or World War 11) is
not an attitude of purists insisting on ly on "the revo lution11 and re­
fusing to budge unti 1 the Great Day . This defeatism was based quite
si mp ly on the d i sappearance , during the twenties .and thi rties, of the
proletariat as an historica l force , fo l lowing its defeat after it had
partia l ly constituted itse lf at the end of World War 1 .
The fasc ist repression occurred oril y after the proletarian defeat.
lt did not destroy the revolutionary forces which only the traditiona l
workers' movement cou ld master by meth ods both direct and indirect .
The revo lutionaries were defeated by democracy , which did not
shrink from recourse to a 11 the means avai lable , ' i nc ludin g mi litary
action . Fascism de stroyed on l y lesser opponents, inc luding the re­
formist workers' movement which had �be-c ome an impediment to
further deve lopment . lt is a lie to depict the coming to power of
fascism as the resu lt of street fi ghts in which the fascists defeated
the workers .
I n l ta ly , as in many other countries, 191 9 was the de cisive
year, when the proletarian strugg le was defeated by the direct ac­
tion of the State as we l l as by e lectora l po litics . Up to 1922 , the
State granted the greatest freedom of action to the fa scists: lenience
in iudicia l proceedings, uni latera l di sarmament of the workers , oc­
casional armed support, not to mention the Bonomi memorandum of
October , 1 921 , which sent 60 ,000 officers into the fascist assau lt
groups to act as leaders . Before the armed fascist offensive , the
State appealed • • • to the bal lot box . During the workshop occu­
pations of 1920 , the State refrained from attac kin g the pro letarians,
a l lowing their struggle to exhaust itse lf with the he lp of the
C, G . L. , l wh ich broke the stri kes. As for the 11democrats ,11 they did
not hesitate to form a "nationa l bloc 11 (li �rals and ri ghtists) inc lud­
ing fascists , for the e lections of May, 1 921 . During June -Ju ry:--
_
13
 1921 , the P . S . I . conc luded a use less and phoney ''peace pact " with
the fascists .
One can hard ly speak of a coup d'&tat in 1 922: it was a trans­
fer of power . The 11March on Rome 11 of MJssolini {who preferred to
take the train) was not a means of putting pressure on the lega 1
government but rather a publicity stunt . The u ltimatum which he
de livered to the government on October 24 did not threaten civi 1
war: it was a notice to the capitalist State {and understood as such
by the State) that henceforth the P. N . F . was the force most capable
of assuring the unity of the State . The State submitted very q u ickly .
The martia l law dec larad after the fai lure of the attempt at compro­
mise was canee l led by the King , who then asked MJSso lini to form
the new government (which inc luded liberals) . Every party except
the P . C. I . and P. S . I . carne to terms with the P . N . F . and voted
for M.Jsso lini in parliament . The power of the dictator was ratifled
by democracy . The same scenario was reproduced in Germany . H it-
ler was appointed chance l lor by Presi dent Hindenburg (e lected in
1932 with the support of the socia lists who saw in him • • • a bu lwark
against Hitler) , and the Nazis were a minority group in Hitler's
first cabinet . After sorne hesitation , Capita l supported Hitler since
it saw in him the politica l force necessary to unify the State and
hence society. (That Capita l did not foresee certain subsequent
forms of the Nazi State is a secondary matter . )
I n both countries , the 11workers1 movement 11 was far from being
vanquished by fascism . l ts organizations , total ly independent of the
proletarian social movement , functioned on ly to preserve their in­
stitutiona l existence and were ready to accept any po litica l regime
whatever, of the Right or of the Left, which wou ld tolerate them .
The Spanish P.S . O . E . and its labour federation (U.G . T . ) col lab­
orated between 1923 and 1 930 with the dictatorship of Primo de
Rivera . I n 1 932 , the German socia l ist unions , through the mouths
of their leaders , declared themse lves independent of any po litica l
party and indifferent to the form of the State , and tried to reach an
understanding with Sch leicher (Hitler's unfortunate predecessor) ,
then with H itler, who convinced them that Nationa l Socia lism wou ld
permit their continuad existence . After wh ich the Ge.rman unionists
disappeared behind the swastikas at the sama time that Mray 1 , 1 933 ,
was transformed into the "Festiva l of German Labour • 11 The Nazis
proceeded to dispatch the union leac:lers into prisons and camps,
wh ich had the effect of bestowing on the survivors the reputation of
being resoluta "antifascists" from the flrst hour.
I n ltaly , the union leaders wanted to reach an agreement of
mutual tolerance with the fascists . They contactad the P . N . F . late

14
 ·
in 1 922 and tn 1 923. 9iortly before Mlssolini took power, they de-
c lared :
"At this moment when political passions are exacerbated and two·
forces alien to the union movement {the P . C . I and P .N.F . ) are bit­
terly vying fer power , the C. G. L. 'feels its duty is to warn the wor­
kers about the i nterventions of porties or political regroupments aim-.
ing to involve the proletariat in a struggle from which it must remain
absolute ly aloof if it does not want to compromise its independence . 1 1:
On the other hand , there was in February , 1 934 , in Austria,
armed resistance by the le� of the Socia 1 Democratic Party against
the forces of a State wh ich showed itself increasingly dictatorial and·
conc i liatory towards the fascists. This strugg le was not revolutionary
in character , but arose from the fact that there had been practica l ly
no street battles in Austria after 1 91 8 . The most pugnacious prole­
tartans {a lthough not communists) had not been beate n , and had re­
mained within social democracy which thus preservad some revolu­
tionary tendencias . Of course this resistance broke out spontaneous­
ly , and did not succeed in coordinating itse lf.
The revolutionary critique of these events does not a1Tive at cin
11al l or nothing 1 1 conc lusion , as i f one insisted o n fighting only for
"the revolution" and on ly at the side of the purest and toughest
communists . One must strugg le , we are told , fer reforms when it is
not possible to make the revolution; a wel l-led struggle for reforms
prepares the way for the revolution: who can do more , can do less;
but who cannot do less, cannot do more; who does not know how to
defend hhnse lf, wi l l not know how to attack, etc . All these gener-.
a lities are missing the point � The polemic among tv\arxists, since thé·
Second l nternational , is not concerned with the necessity or worth­
lessness of communist participation in reformist strugg les, which are
z
in any case a ality . l t is a matter of knowing if a given struggle
p laces the wo ers under the control {direct or indirect) of Capital
and in particular of its State , and what position the revolutionaries
must adopt in th is case . For a revolutionary , a 11strugg le 11 {a word
leftists de light in) has no va lue in itse lf; the most violent actions
have often ended in constituting parties and unions which have sub­
sequently proved to be enemies of communlsm . Any strugg le , no
matter how spontaneous in origin or how energetic , which puts the
workers under the dependence of the capitalist State , can have only
a counter-revolutionary function . The antifascist strugg le , wh ich
c laims to search for a lesser evi l {better to have capitalist democra­
cy than capitalist fascism), is like abandoning the frying pan for th&
fire . Wioreover, in p lacing onese lf under the direction of a State ,
one must accept a l l the consequences including the repression which
it wt l l excercise, if required, agatnst the workers and revolution­
aries who want to go beyond antifasctsm .
Rather than holding Bordiga and the P . C . I . of 1921-1922 re­
sponsible for the tÍ'iumph of MJSso lini, one wou ld be better adv�sed
to question the perpetua! feebleness of antifascism, whose record is
overwhe lming ly negativa : when dtd antifascism ever prevent or even
slow down tota litarianism? World War 11 was supposed to safeguard
the existence of democratic States, but parliamentary democracies
are today the exception. In the so-cal led socialist countries, the
disappearance of the traditiona 1 bourgeoisie and the demands of
State capita lism have resu lted in dictatorships wh ich are in no way
preferable to those of the former Axis countries . There are those who
cherished i l lusions about China, but little by little the information
avai lable confirms the tv1arxtst analyses already published8 and re­
vea ls the existence of carrps, the reality of which is sti l l denied by
the Maoists • • • just as the Staltnisti; have denied the existence of
the Soviet camps for the last 30 years . África , Asia, and Lati n·

America live under one party. systems or mi litary dictatorships. One

is horrified by the Brasi ltan tortures, but Mexican democracy did
not shrink from firing on demonstrators in 1 968 , ki l ling 300 . At
least the defeat of the Axis powers brought peace • • but only for
•

Europeans, not for the mi llions who have died since in incessant
wars and chronic famines . I n short, the war to end a l l wars and
totalitarianism was a fai lure .
The rep ly of the antifascists is automatic : it's the fau lt of Amer­
ican or Soviet irrperialism, or both; in any case, say the most
radical, it's because of the surviva l of capita lism and its attenclant
misdeeds . Agreed . But the problem remains . How could a. war cre­
ated by capitalist States hove any other effect than the strengthen­
ing of Capital?
The antifascists {especial ly the "revolutionaries") conc lude ex­
actly the opposite, cal ling for a new surge of antifascism, wh ich
must continua! ly be radicalized so it progresses as far as possible .
They never desist from denounctng fascist "revtva ls" or "methods,11
but they nevar deduce from th is the necessity to destroy the root of
ti\e evi l : Capita l . Rather they draw the reverse conclusion that it is
necessary to return to "true " anttfascism, to proletarianize it, to
recommence the work of Sisyphus consisting of dernocratizing capi­
ta lism . Now one may hate fascism and love h umanitarianism, but
nothing wi l l change the crucial point: (1) the capitallst State (and
that means every State) is more and more constrained to show itself
as repressive and totalitarian; (2) all attempts to exert pressure on
them so as to bend them in a direction more favourable to the wor-

16
kers or to "freedoms," wi l l end at best in nothing, at worst {usual ly
the case) by retnforcing the widespreacf i l lusion that the State is an
arbiter over soctety , a more or less neutral force which is above
c lasses . Leftists are quite capable of end lessly repeating the c lassic
Marxist analysis of the State as an instrument of c lass domination
and at the sama time proposing to 11use11 this same State . Stmi larly ,
lefttsts wtl l study Marx's writings on the abolition of wage labour
and exchange , and then turn around and deplct the revolution as an
u ltra-democratization of wage labour .
There are those who go further . They adopt part of the revolu­
ttonary thesis in announcing that since Capital is synonymous with
11fasctsm ,11 the strugg le for democracy against fascism imp lies the
struggle against Capital itse lf. But on what terrain do they fight?
To fight uncler the leadership of one or more capitalist States-be­
cause they have and retain control of the strugg le-is to ensure de­
feat in the struggle against Capital . The strugg le for democracy is
not a short cut a l lowlng the workers to make the revolution without
rea lizing lt . The proletariat wi l l destroy totalitarianism only by
destroying democracy and a l l political forms at the same time . Un­
tt l then there wil l be a succession of 11fascist11 and "democratic 1 1
systems in time and in space; dictatorial regimes transforming them­
se lves wi l ly ni l ly into democratic regimes and vice versa; dictator­
sh lps coexisting with democracies, the one type serving as a con­
trast and se lf-iustification for the other type .
Thus it is absurd to say that democracy furnishes a social system
more favourable than dictatorship to revolutionary activity , since
the formar tums immediately to dictatorial means when menaced by
revolutton; a l l ·the more so when the 11workers' parties11 are in pow­
er . l f one wtshed to pursue antifascism to its logical conc lusion ,
one wou ld have to imitate certain left li berals who te l l us: since
the revolutionary movement pushes Capital towards dictatorship ,
let us renounce a l l revolution and content ourselves with going as
far as posslble a long the path of reform--so long as we don't fright­
en Capita l . But this prudence is itse lf utopian , because the "fas­
cisization" it tries to avoid is a producf not on ly of revolutionary
action, but of capita list concentration . We can argue about the
timing and the practical results of the participation of revo lution­
aries in democratic move�nts up to the beginning of the 20th· cen­
tury , but this option is exc luded once. Capital achieves total domi­
nation over society , for then only one type of politics is possible :
democracy becomes a mystiflcation and a trap for the unwary . Eve­
ry time the proletarians depend on democracy as a weapon against
Capita l , it escapes from their control or is transformed into its op- .

17
posite • • Revolutionaries reiect antifascism because one cannot
• •

fight exc lusively against ONE political form without supporting the
others, which is What antifascism is about .itrictly speaking, the
error of antifascism is not in strugg ling against fascism but in giving'
precedence to this struggle, which renders it ineffective . The re­
vo lutionaries do not denounce antifascism for not 11 making the re­
volution ," but for being power less to stop tota litarianism, and for
reinforcing , voluntari ly or not, Capital and the State .
Not only does democracy a lways surrender itse lf to fasctsm,
practica l ly without a fight, but fascism also re-generates democ­
racy from itse lf as required by the state of socio-political forces.
For example , in 1 943 , ltaly was obliged to ¡oin the camp of the
victors, and thus its leader, the "dictator11 Mussolini , found h i m­
self in a minority on the Fascist Grand Council and submitted to
the democratic verdict of this organ . One of the top fascist offi­
cia ls, fiAarshal Badog lio , summoned the democratic opposition and
formad a coa lition government . Mussolini was arrested . This is
known in lta ly as the ''revolution of August 25, 1 943 .11 The demo­
crats hesi tated , but pressure from the Russians and the P, C . l.
forced them to accept a government of nationa 1 unity in Apri 1,
1944, directed by Badog lio , to which Tog liatti and Benedetto
Croce belonged. In June , 1 944 , the socialist Bonomi formed a
ministry which exc luded the fascists . This established the tripartite
formu la (PCI - PSI - Christian Democracy) wh ich dominated the
first years of the post-war period . Thus we see a transition desired
and partly orchestrated by the fascists . In the sorne way as democ­
racy understood in 1 922 that the best means of préserving the State
was to entrust it to the dictatorship of the fascist party, so it was ·

that fascism in 1 943 understood that the only way of protecting the
integrity of the nation and the continuity of the State was to re­
tvrn the latter to the control of the democratic porties . Democracy
metamorphoses itself into fascism, and vice versa, according to the
circumstances: what is involved is a succession or combination of
political forms assuring the preservation of the State as the guaran-
tor of capita lism . l.et us note that the 11return11 to democracy is far
from producing in itse lf a renewal of c lass strugg le . In fact the
workers' porties coming to power are the first to fight in the name
of national Capital . ··thus the material sacrtfices and the renuncia­
tion of e lass strugg le, ¡ustified by the necessity of 11defeating fas­
clsm first,11 were imposed after the defeat of the Axts, a lways in
the name of the ideal of theifesistance . The fascist and antifascist
ideologies are each adaptable to the momentary and fundamental
interests of Capital, according to the circumstances .

18
 From the beginning, whenever the cry goes up 11fascism wi l l not
pass 11-not only does it a lways pass, but in such a grotesque man­
ner that the demarcation between fascism and non-fascism fol lows
a l i ne in constant motion . For example, the French Left denounced
the 11fascist11 danger after May 1 3, 1 958, but the secretary-general
of the S . F . 1 . 0 . col la�rated in writing the constitution of the
Fifth Republic .
Portuga 1 and Greece hove offered new exa111> les of the auto­
transformation of dictatorships into democracies . Under the shock
of external circumstances {colonia l question for Portugal, Cyprus
conflict for Greece), a section of the mi litary preferred to dump
the regime in order to save the State; the democrats reason and act
exactly the same when the 1lfascists11 bid for power . The current ·

Spanish Communist Party expresses precisely th is view {it remains

to be seen whether Spanish Capital wants and needs the P . C . E . ) :
" Spanish society desires that everything be transformed in such
a way that the norma l functioning of the State is assured, without
io lts or socia l convulsions . The continuity of the State demands
the non-continuity of the regime . 11
There is a transition from one form to the othar, a transition
from which the proletariat is exc luded and over which it exercises
no contro l. l f the proletariat tries to intervene, it ends up integra­
ted into the State and its subsequent strugg les are ali tha more dif­
ficu lt, as the Portuguese case c laarly demonstrates .

C H ILE
lt is probably the examp le of Chi le which has done the rnost to
revitaliza the false opposition democracy/fascism . This case i l lus­
trates ali too we l l the mechanism of the triumph of dictatorship,
involving in this instance the trip le defeat of the proletariat.
Conte�orary to the evants in Europa, the Chi lean Popular
Front of the th irties had already designatéd its enemy as the 1101i­
garchy ." The strugg le again.st o ligarchic control of the legislatura,
presentad as a stifling of the most conservativa forces, faci litated
the evolution towards a more centralizad, presidential system with
reinforced State power, capable of pushing reforms, i .e . industrial
development . This Popu lar Front {whic� lastad assential ly from 1 936
to 1 940) corresponded to the con¡uncture of the rise of the urban
middle c lasses {bourgeoisie and wh ite col lar worker-s) and working
_c lass strugg les . The worktng c lass was organizad by tha socialist

19
 labour federation (decimated by repression); by the anarcho-syndi­
calist C. G. T . , influe.nced by the 1. W. W. and rather weak (20 to
30 thousand rnembers out of a total of 200,000 unionized); and es­
pec ia l ly by the federation under Communist Party influence . The
unions of white col lar workers had ca1Tied on strikes in the twen­
ties as fierce as those of the i ndustrial workers excepting those
two bastions of working c lass militancy: the nitrate ( later' copper)
and coal industries Although insisting on agrarian reform, the
•

socia list-Sta linist-Radical coalition did not succeed in i mposfog

it on the oligcirchy . The coalition didn't do much to recover the
wealth lost to foreign exploitation of natural resources (primari ly
nitrate), but engineered a ¡ump in i ndustrial production such as
Chi le has never known before or since . By means of institutions.
simi lar to those of the New Deal , the State secured the ma1or pói'­
tion of investments ancl introduced a State capitalist structure ,
concentrating on heavy inclustry and energy . Industrial production
increased during this period by 10% per annum; from this period to
1960, by 4% per annum; ancl during the sixties , by 1 to 2% per
annum . A re-unification of the socia list and Stalinist labour fe­
derations took p lace at the end of 1936 and weakened stt 1 1 more
the C.G .T . ; the Popular Front wiped out anything truly�subversive .
As a coa lition, this regime lastad unti l 1940, when the Socialist
Party withdrew . But the reAime was able to continue unti l 1947 ,
backed by Radicals and the Communist Party as we l l as the inter­
mittent support of the fascist Phalange (rightist ancestor of Chi lean
Christian Democracy and the party of origin of Christian Dernocrat
leader Eduardo Frei 9). The Communist Party supported the regime
until 1947, when it was outlawed by the Radicals .
As the leftists always te l l us, Popular Fronts are also products
of working c lass struggle , but of a struggle which remains within
the framework of capltalism and pushes Capital to modemize itse lf.
After 1970, the Unidad Popular gave itself as a goal the revitaliz­
ing of Chllean national Capital (which the P . o . e . had not known
how to protect during the sixties), whi le i ntegrating the worker-s .
In the end the Chi lean proletariat was defeated three times over .
Firstly , by dropping thetr economic struggles to array themselves
under the banner of the forces of the left , accepttng the new State
because it was supported by the 11workers' " organizations . Allende
responded in 1971 to this question:
"Do you th ink it possible to avoid the dictatorshlp of the pro­
letariat?11
"I think so: it is to this end that we are working . "'º
Sec<:>ndly , in suffering repression at the hands of the mi lttary

20
after the coup d 'état, contrary to what the leftist press said about ·

"armed resistance •11 The proletarians had been disarmed material ly'
and ideological ly by the government of Al lende. The latter had
forced the workers to surrender their arms on numerous occasions .
lt had itself initiated the transition towards a mi litary government
by appointing a general as Minister of the I nterior. In p lacing
themse lves under the protection of the democratic State, whic:h
was congenita l ly incapable of avoiding tota litarianism {because
the State is above a l l for the State--democ:ratic or dictatorial­
before it is for either democracy or dictatorship), the proletarians
condemned themse lves in advance to paralysis in the fac:e of a
coup from the Right. An important accord between the U . P . and
'the p o. c. affirmed :
•

''We desire that the police and the armed forces continua to
guarantee our democratic order, which i mp lies the respect of the
organized and hierarchical structure of the army and the polic:e."
However the most ignoble defeat of a l l was the third. Here one
must bestow on the internationa l extreme l.eft the medal which it
deserves . After having supported the capita list State in order to
push it further, the Left and the extreme L.eft posed as prophets:
"We warned you: the State is the repressive force of Capital •11 The
same ones who six months earlier had stressed the entry of radical
e lements into 'the army or the infi ltration of revolutionaries i nto the
whole of political and socia l life, now repeated that the army had
remained "the army of the bourgeoisie ,11 and that they had known it
al l along• • • •

Evidently searching first to justify their inextricable fai lure,

they made use of the emotion and shock causad by the coup d 'état
in oa:_der to stifle the attempt by sorne proletarians (in Chi le and
e lsewhere) to draw lessons from these events. 1nstead of showi ng
what the U . P . dtd and what it could not do, these leftists revived
the sorne o ld po litics, giving it a left wing tinge . The photo of
Al lende grasping an automatic weapon during the coup became
the symbol of left wing democracy, fina l ly resolved to fight effec­
tive ly against fascism . The bal lot is O. K . , but it's not enough :
guns are also necessary--that's the lesson the Left draws from
Chi le. The death of Al lende himse lf, sufficient "physical 11 proof
of the fai lure of democracy, is disguised as proof of his wi l l to
strugQle.
"Now, if in the performance their interests prove to be uninter­
esting and their potency impot.ence, then either the fau lt lies with
pemicious sophists, who sp l it the indivisible peop le into different
hosti le camps, or the army was too bfütalized and blinded to com-

21
prehend that the pure aims of democfacy are the best thing for it
itse lf
• • • • In any case, the democrat comes otJt of the most disgrace­
fu1 defeat ¡ust as immacu late as he was innocent when he went i nto
it • 11 (Marx)11
As for inquiring i nto the nature of the U .P . , i nto the content
of this famous struggle (by bal lots one doy, by bu l lets the next),
in short, into the nature of capitalism, comrnunism, and the State,
we 11 that is another matter, a luxury one cannot afford when "fas­
c ism attacks .11 O ne cou ld a lso ask why the industrial "cordons "
scarce ly budged . But now is a time for pul ling together: defeat
brings the antifascists together even more sure ly than victory.
Converse ly, regarding the Portuguese situation, .one must avoid a l l
criticism under th e pretext o f not doing anythi ng to hinder the
"movement •11 In fact one of the first dec larations of the Portuguesa
Trotskyists after Apri l 25 , 1 974, was to denounce the 11u ltra-left­
ists 11 who did not want to p lay the game of dernocracy .
I n short, the i nternational extreme Left was united in obstruct­
ing the decipherment of the Chi lean events, in order to detach the
proletarians sti l l further from the comrnunist perspective. I n th is
way the Left is preparing the return of Chi lean democracy on the
day when Capital has need of it again .

PORTUGAL
Although it remai.ns susceptible to new developments, the Por­
tuguesa case presents an insoluble ridd le on ly to those (the most
numerous) who don 't know what a revolution is . Even sincere but
confused revolutionaries remain perp lexed before the col lapsa of
a movement which appeared to them so substantial a few months
earlier. Thi's incomprehension rests on a confusion . Portugal i l lus­
trates what the proletariat is capable of doi ng , demonstrating once
again that Capita l must take account of it. Proletarian action may
not be the motor of history, but on the political and socia l p lane
it constitutes the keystone of the evo-iution of any modern capital­
ist country . However, th is irruption on the h istorical scene is not
automatical ly synonymous with revolutionary progress . To mtx the
two theoretical ly is to confusa the revolution with its opposite. To
speak of the Portuguese revolution is to confusa revolution with a
re-organization of Capital . As long as the proletartat remains
within the economic and pol itical limits of capita lism, not Qn ly
does the basis of society remain unchanged , but even the reforrns

22
obtained (political liberties and economic demands) are doomed to
an ephemera l existence . Whatever Capital concedes under pres­
sure from the working c lass can be taken back, in whole or in part,
as soon as that pressure is relaxed : any movement condemns itse lf
if it .is limitad to a pressure on capitalism . So long as proletarians
act in this way, they are ¡ust banging their heads against the wa l l .
The Portuguese dictatorship had ceased to be the form adequate
for the deve lopment of a national Capita l, as evidenced by its in­
capac Úy to settie the colonia l questio n. Far from enriching the
r_ne�olis, the colonies destabi lized it . Fortunately, ready to
-fight '1fascism," there was • • the army The so le organizad force
•

in the country, on ly the army could initiate change; as for carry­

ing it through successful ly, that's another matter . Acting accord­
ing to habit, blinded by their role and their c laims to power with in.
the framework of Capita l, the l.eft and the extreme Left detectad
a profound subversion of the army . Whereas previously they had
seen the officers only as colonial torturers, now they discovered a
People 's Army. With the aid of sociology, they demonstrated the
popular origins and aspirations of the mi litary leaders which a l leg­
edly i nc linad them towards socialism. l t remained to cu ltivate the
good intentions of these officers, who, we were told, asked only to
be en lightened by the i'Marxists ." From the P. S . to the most extreme
leftists , the whole world conspirad to conceal the simp le fact that
the capitalist State had not disappeared, and that· the army remained
its essential instrument.
Because sorne slots in the State apparatus were made avai lable to
working c lass mi litants, we were told the State had changed its func­
tion . Because it expressed itse lf in popu list language, the army was
considerad to be on the side of the workers . Because re lative freedom
of speech prevai led, "workers' democracy " (foundation of socialism ,
as everyone knows) was judged to be we l l established. Certain ly
there were a series of warni ng signals and renewals of authority where
the State exhibited its old se lf. There again, the Left ancl the extreme
l.eft drew the conc lusion that it was necessary to exert sti l l more pres­
sure on the State, but. without attacking it, out of fear of p laying in­
to the hands of the "Right." However, they fulfi l led precise ly the
program of the Right ancl in doing so added something of which the
Right is general ly incapable : the integration of the masses. The open­
ing up of the State to influences "from the l.eft11 does not signify its
withering away, but rather its strengthening . The Left p laced a popu­
lar ideology and the enthusiasm of the workers in the service of the
construction of Portuguese national capitalism .
The al liance between the Left ancl the army was a precarious one .

23
The Left b-ought the masses, the army the stabi lity guaranteed by the
threat of its weapons. lt was necessary for the P . C . P . and P . S . to
control the masses carefu l ly . I n order to do so, they had to grant ma­
terial advantages which were dangerous for a weak capita lism . Hence
the contradictions and successive po litical rearrangements . The "wor­
kers' 11 organizations are capable of dominating the workers, not of
de livering to Capital the profits it requires . Thus it was necessary to
resolve the contradiction and re-establish discip line . The a l legad re­
vo lution had served to exhaust rhe must reso lute , to di scourage the
others, and to i so late , i ndeed , repress, the revo lutionaries . Next the
State i nterve ned bruta l ly , demonstrating convincing ly that it had nev­
er disappeared. Those who attempted to conquer the State from within
succeeded only in sustaining it at a critica l moment. A revolutionary
movement is not possible in Portuga l , but is dependent on a wider
context, and in any case wi l l be possible only on other bases than the
capita list-democratic movement of Apri l , 1 974 .
The workers' strugg le , even for reformist goa ls, creates difficulties
for Capital and moreover constitutes the necessary experience for the
proletariat to prepare itself for revolution . The strugg le prepares the
future : but this preparation can lead in two directions-nothing is au­
tomatic--it can just as easi ly stifle as strengthen the communist move­
ment. Under these conditions it's not sufficient to insist on the 11au­
tonomy 11 of the workers' actions. Autonomy is no more a revo lutionary
principie than 11p lanning 11 by a mi nority. The revo lution no more in-
si sts on democracy than on die tatorsh i p.
Only by carrying out certain measures can the proletarians retain
control of the strugg le. lf they limit themse lves to reformist action,
sooner or later the strugg le wi l l escape from their contro l and be taken1
ovar by a specialized organ of the syndica l type , wh ich may ca l l it­
se lf a union or a 11committee of the base .11 Autonomy is not a revo lu­
tionary vi rtue in itse lf. Any form of organization depends on the con­
tent of the goa l for which it was created . The emphasis cannot be put
on the se lf-activity of the workers , but on the communist perspectiva ,
the realization of which alone effective ly a l lows working c lass action
to avoid falling under the leadership of traditiona l porties and unions.
The content of the action is the determining criterion : the revo lution
is not just a matter of what the 11majority 11 wants . To give priority to
workers' autonomy leads to a dead end .
Workerism is sometimes a healthy response , but is inevitably ca­
tastrophic when it becomes an end in itse lf. Workerism tends to con­
jure away the decisiva tasks of the revo lution. I n the name of wor­
kers' 11democracy ,11 it confines the proletarians to the capitalist en­
terprise with its problems of production (not visua lizing the revolution

24
as the destruction of the enterprise as such ) . And workerism mystifies
the problem of the State . At best, it re-invents "revolutionary syn­
dicalism .''

SPA I N : WAR OR REVOLUTI ON ?

Everywhere democracy was capitu lating before dictatorsh ip . Nore
correct ly, it was welcoming dictatorship with open arms . And Spain ?
Far from constituting the happy exception, Spain represented the ex­
treme case of armed confrontation between democracy and fascism
without changing the natQre of the strugg le : it is always two forms of
capita list deve lopment which are in opposttion, two political forms
of the capitalist State, two statist systems q uarre ling over the leg iti­
macy of the legal and norma l capita list State in a country. lv\oreover
the confrontation was violent only because the workers had arrayed
themse lves against fascism . The co"l> lexity of the war in Spain comes
from this double aspect: a civi l war (proletatiat vs . Capita l) trans­
forming itse lf into a capita list war (the proletarians supporting in both
ca"l>s rival capitalist State structures) .
After having given every faci lity to the 11rebels11 to prepare them­
selves, the Republic was goi ng to negotiate and/or sObmit, when the
pro letarians rose up against the fascist coup d'6tat, preventing its
success in ha lf of the coúntry . The Spanish War wou ld not hove been
un leashed withoút this aúthentic proletarian insúrrection (it was more
than a spontaneous oútbreak). Bút this a lone does not suffice to char­
acterize the whole Spanish War and subsequent events . lt defines on ly
the first moment of the strugg le, which was effective ly a proletarian
uprising . After having defeated the fascists in a large number of
cities, the workers he ld power . Such was the situation immediate ly
after their insurrection . But what did they proceed to do with this
power? Did they hand it back to the republican State, or did they use
it to go further in the direction of communism? They put their trust
in the legal government, i .e . in the existing, capita list State . A l l
their subsequent actions were carried out under the direction o f this
State . This is the central point . lt fo l lowed that in its armed strugg le
against Franco and in its socio-economic transformations, the whole
movement of the Spanish proletarians was p lacing itse lf square ly
within the framework of the capitalist State and could only be capi­
talist in natura . l t 's true attempts te go further took p lace in the
socia l sphere (we shal l speak further of thts); but these attempts re-

25
moined hypothetica l so long as the capita list State was maintained .
The destruction of the State is the necessary {but not sufficient) con­
dition for communist revo lution . I n Spain, real power was exercised
by the State and not by organizations I unions I col lectives I commit­
tees, etc . The proof of this is that the mighty C . N . T . had to submit
to the P . C . E . {very weak prior to Ju ly , 1 936) . One can verify this' by
the simp le fact that the State was able to use its power brutal ly when
required ( May , 1937) . There is no revolution without the destruction
of the State . Th is 11obvious11 tv\arxist truth , forgotten by 99% of the
11Marxists ,11 emerges once more from the �anish tragedy .
"lt is one of the pecu liarities of revolutions that iust as the peop le
see m about to take a great start and to open a new era , they suffer
themse lves to be ru led by the de lusions of the post and surrender a l i
the power and influence they hove so dearly won into the hands of
men who represent , or are supposed to represent , the popu lar move­
ment of a by-gone epoch ." {Marx )1 2
We cannot compare the armed workers ' "columns" of the second
half of 1 936 with their subsequent mi litarization and reduction to
the leve 1 of organs of the bourgeois army . A considerable difference
separated these two phases, but not in the sense that a non-revolu­
tionary phase fo l lowed a revolutionary phase .. First there was a phase
of stifling the revo lutionary awakening , during which the workers'
move ment preserved a certain autonomy , a certain enthusiasm, in­
deed , a communist demeanour we l l described by Orwe l l �3 Then this
phase , superficial ly revolutionary but in fact creating the conditions
for a c lassic anti-proletarian war , gave way natural ly to what it had
prepared .
The columns left Barcelona to fight fascism in other cities , prin­
cipal ly Saragossa . Supposing they were attempting to spread the re­
volution beyond the Republican zones , it wou ld hove been necessary
to revolutionize those Republican zones , e ither previously or simu l­
taneously •14 Durruti knew the State had not been destroyed , but he
ignored this fact . On the march his column , composed of 70% anar­
ch ists, pushed for col lectivization . The mi litia he lped the peasants
and taught them revo lutionary ideas . But "we have only one purpose :
to destroy the fase ists ." Durruti put it we 11: "our mi li tia wi 11 never
defend the bourgeoisie , they ¡ust do not attack it ." A fortnight be­
fore his death {November 21 , 1 936), Durruti stated :
"A single thought , a single ob¡ective • • : destroy fascism
• • • • .

At the present time no one is concerned about increasing wages or

reducing hours of work • • to sacrifica onese lf, to work as much as
•

required • • we must form a so lid block of granite . The moment has

•

arrived for the unions and politica l organizations to finish with the

26
 enemy once and for a l l . Behi nd the front, administrativa ski l ls are
necessary • • • After this war is over, let's not provoke, through our
•

incompetence, another c ivi l war among ourse lves • • • To oppor.e

•

fascist tyranny, we must present a single force: there must exist only
a sing le organization, with a sing le discipline • 11
The wi l l to strugg le can never serve as a substituta for a revolu­
tionary strugg le. Furthermore, politica l violenc:e is easi ly adapted to
capita list purposes (as recent terrorism proves) . The fascination of
11armed strugg le 11 quickly backfires on the proletarians as soon as they
direct their blows exclusively against a particu lar form of the State
rather than the State i tse lf.
·-Under different conc:litiorÍs the mi litary evolution of the antifas-
cist calll> (insurrection, fo l lowed by mi litias, final ly a regular army)
reca l ls the anti-Napoleonic gueril la war described by .lv\arx :
"By comparing th e three periods o f gueri l la warfare with the po­
litical h istory of Spain, it is found that they represent the respective
degrees into which the counter-revolutionary spirit of the Govern­
ment had succeeded in cooling the spirit of the peop le . Beginning
with the rise of whole popu lations, the partisan war was next carried
on by gueri l la bancls, of wh ich whole distri.c ts formad the reserve
¡¡¡
and terminah;td in c s francs contlnual ly on the point of dwi ncl ling
into banditti, or sin lng down to the level of standing regiments .11 15
The conditions cannot be ¡uxtaposed, but in 1936 as in 1808,
the mt litary evolution cannot be explained so le ly by 11techntcal º
considerations re. lated to mi litary art: one must a lso consider the re­
lation of the political and social forces and its modtfication tn an
anti-revolutionary sense. Let us note that the 11columns11 ºof 1936 did
not even succeed in waging a war of franc-tireurs and stal led be­
fore Saragossa . The compromise evoked by Durruti above-the neces­
sity of unity at any price-cou ld only give victory to the Republican
State first (over the proletariat) and to Franco next (over the Repub­
lican State) •

There was certainly the start of a revolution in Spain, but it

fai led as soon as the proletarians put their faith in the existing State .
lt scarcely matters what their intentions were . Even though the great
ma¡ority of proletarians who were ready to struggle against Franco
under the leadership of the State might have prefe1Ted to hang on to
real power in spite of everything, and supported the State only as a
matter of conventence, the determining factor is their act and not
their intention. After organizing themse lves to defeat the coup
d '6tat, after giving themselves the rudiments of an autonomous mi li­
tary structure (the mi litias), the workers agreed to p lace themse lves
under the directton of a coalition of "workers' organizations" (for
the most p� openly counter-revolutionary) which accepted the au­
thority of the lega l State . lt is certai n that at least some of the pro­
letarians hoped to retain rea l power (which they had effective ly con­
quered , though only for a short time ) , whi le leaving to the official
State on ly the semblance of power . This was truly an error , for which
they paid dearly .
[Sorne critics of the preceding analysis] agree with our account
of the Spanish war but i nsist that the situation remained "open " and
could hove evolved . lt was therefore necessary to support the auton­
omous movement of the Spanish proletarians (at least unti 1 /WJy ,
1 937) even if this movement had given itse lf forms quite inadequate
to the true situation . A movement was evolving , and it was neces­
sary to contribute to its ripeni ng . To wh ich the rep ly is that , on the
contrary , the autonomous movement of the pro letariat quickly van­
ished as it was absorbed into the structure of the State, wh ich was
not slow to stifle any radica l tendency . This was apparent to a l l by
mid-1 937, but the "bloody days of Barce lona" served only to unmask
the reality which had existed since the end of Ju ly , 1 936 : effective
power had passed out of the hands of the workers to the capita list
State . Let us add for those who equate fascism and bourgeois dicta­
torship that the Republican government made use of "fascist methods "
agai nst the workers . Certai n ly the number of victi rns was much . less
in comparison to the repression of Franco , but th is is connected with
the different function of the two repressions, democratic and fascist .
An e lementary division of labour: the target group of the Republican
government was much smal ler (uncontro l lable e lements, P . O .U . M . ,
left of the C � N T )
• • •

OCTOBER 1 91 7 & J ULY 1 936

lt's obvious that a revo lution doesn 't deve lop in a day . There is
always a confused and mu ltiform movement . The who le problem is
the abi l ity of the revolutionary movement to act in an increasing ly
c lear way and to go forward irreversibly . The comparison, often
badly made , between Russia and Spain shows this we l l . Between
February and October , 191 7, the soviets constituted a power paral­
le l to that of the State . For quite sorne time they supported the legal
State and thus did not act at a l l in a revolutionary manner . One
could even say the soviets were counter-revolutionary . But this does
not imp ly that they were fixed in their ways-in fact they were the
site of a long and bitter strugg le between the revo lutionary current

28
(represented especial ly , but not so le ly , by the Bo lsheviks) , and the
various conci liators. l t was only at the conclusion of this strugg le
that the soviets took up a position in opposition to the State !6 lt
wou ld have been absurd for a communist to say in February , 1 91 7:
these soviets are not acti ng in a revo lutionary manner, 1 sha 11 de­
nounce them and fight them . Because the soviets were not stabi lized
then. The conflict which ani mated the soviets over a period of
months was not a strugg le of ideas , but the reflection of an antago­
nism of genu ine interests .
"lt wi l l be the interests--and not the princip les-which wi l l set
the revolution in motion . I n fact it is precise ly from the interests ,
and from them a lone , that the princip ies deve lop; wh ich is to say
that the revo lution w i l l not be mere ly po l itica l , but socia l as we l l ."
(Marx)17
The Russian workers and peasants wanted peace , land , and demo­
cratic reforms which the government wou Id not grant . This antago­
nism exp lains the growing hosti lity , leading to confrontation , wh ich
divided the government from the masses . f.Aoreover, earlier c lass
strugg les had led to the formation of a revo lutionary mi nority know­
ing more or less (cf. the vaci l lations of the Bolshevik leadership
after February) what it wanted , and which organizad itse lf for these
ends, taking up the demands of the masses to use them against the
government . l n. Apri l 191 7, Lenin said:
"To speak of civi l war before people hove come to realize the
need for it is undoubted ly to lapse into Blanquism it is the
• • • •

so ldiers and not the capita lists who now hove the guns and rifles;
the capitalists are getting what they want now not by force but by
deception , and to shout about vio len ce now is sense less For • • • •

the ti me being we withdraw that slogan , but only for the time be­
ing .111s As soon as the majority in the soviets sh ifted (in September) ,
L.enin ca l led for the armed seizure of power • . . •

No such events happened in Spain . In spite of their frequency

and violence , the series of confrontations which took p lace after
World War 1 did not serve to unify the proletarians as a c lass . Re­
stricted to violent strugg le becaiJse of the repression of the reformist
movement , they fought incessantly , but did not succeed in concen­
trating their blows against the enemy . I n this sense there was no
revolutionary "party u in Spain . Not because a revo lutionary minor­
ity did not succeed in organizing itse lf: this wou ld be looking at the
problem the wrong way around . Rather because the strugg les, viru­
lent though they were , did not resu lt in a c lear c lass opposition be­
tween proletariat and Capita l . To speak of a uparty u makes sense
on ly if we understand it as the organization of the communist move-

29
ment . But this movement was a lways too weak , t�o dispersed (not
g;Ographica l ly , but in the degree to which it scattered its blows);
it did not attack the heart of the enemy; it did not free itse lf from
the guarclianship of the C . N .T . , an organization basica l ly reform-
ist as a l 1 syndical organizations are condemned to become 1 despite
the pressure of radica l mi litants; in brief, this movement did not or­
ganize itse lf in a communist fashion because it did not act in a com­
munist fash ion . The Spanish examp le demonstrates that the intensity
of the c lass strugg le--indisputable in Spain-does not automatica l ly
induce communist action , and thus the revo lutionary party to keep
the action going . The Spanish pro letarians were never re luctant to
sacrifice their lives (sometimes to no purpose) , but never surmounted
the barrier which separated them from an attack against Capital
(the State , the commercia l economic system) . They took up arms,
they took spontaneous initiatives ( libertarian communes before 1 936 ,
col lectivizations after) , but did not go further . Very quick ly they
yie lded control over the mi litias to the Centra l Committee of the
Mi litias . Neither this organ , nor any other organ which emerged in
this fashion in Spai n , can be compared to the Russian soviets . The
11ambi9uous position of the C . C . of the Mi litias ," simu ltaneously an
"important appendage of the Genera lidad " (Cata lan government)
and "a sort of coordinating committee for the various antifasc ist
mi litary organizations ,11 imp lied its integration into the State , be­
cause it was w lnerable to those organizations which were disputing
over (cap italist) State power .19
I n Russia there was a strugg le between a racjical minority which
was organized and capable of formu lating the revolutionary perspec­
tive , and the majority in the soviets . I n Spai n , the radica l e lements ,
whatever they may hove believed , accepted the position of the ma­
jority : Durruti sal l ied forth to strugg le against Franco , leaving the
State intact beh ind h i m . When the radicals did oppose the State ,
they did not seek to destroy the 11workers1 11 organizations which were
"betrayi ng 11 them (inc luding the C . N .T . and the P . O .U . M. ) . The
essential difference , the_ reason why there was no 11Spanish Octo-
ber ," was the absence in Spain of a true contradiction of interests
between the proletarians and the State . "Objective ly ,11 proletariat
and Capital are in opposition , but this opposition exists at the level
of princip ies, which doesn 't coincide here with reality . I n its effec­
tive socia l movement , the Spanish proletariat was not compe l led to
confront , as a block , Capita l and the State . In Spain there were no
burning demands, demands fe lt to be absolute ly necessary , wh ich
cou Id force the workers to attack the State in order to obtain them
(as in Russia where one had peace , land , etc . ) . Th is non-antago-

30
nistic situation was connected with the absence of a "party ," an ab- ·

sence wh ich weighed heavi ly on events , preventing the antagonism

from ripening and bursting later. Compared to the instabi lity in Rus­
sia between February and October, Spain presented itse lf as a situ­
ation on the road to norma lization from the beginning of August ,
1 936 . lf the army of the Russian State disintegrated after February ,
191 7, that of the Spanish State recomposed itse lf after Ju ly , 1 936 ,
a lthough in a new , "popu lar" form .

TH E PAR I S COMMU NE
O ne comparison (among others) demands attention and compe Is
us to criticize the usual Marxist view , wh ich happens to be that of
Marx h imse lf. After the Paris Commune , Marx drew his famous les­
son: 11the working c lass cannot simp ly lay hold of the ready-made
State machinery , and wie ld it for its own purposes . 1120 But Marx
fai led to establish c learly the distinction between the insurrectional
movement dating from March 1 8 , 1871 , and its later transformation ,
fi na lized by the e lection of the 11 Commune 11 on March 26 . The for­
mu la "Paris Commune 11 inc ludes both and concea ls the evolution .
The initial movement was certain ly revo lutionary , in spite of its
confusion , and extended the socia l struggles of the Empire . But this
movement was wi l ling next to give itse lf a po litical structure and a
capita list socia l content . I n effect the e lected Commune changad
only the exterior forms of bourgeois democracy . lf the buraaucracy
and the permanant army had becoma charactaristic features of the
capita list State , they sti l l did not constitute its essence . Marx ob­
servad that :
"The Communa made that catchword of bourgaois revo lutions ,
cheap government, a rea lity , destroying the two greatest sources of
expenditure : the permanent army and the State bureaucracy • 1121
As is we l l known , the e lacted Communa was large ly dominatad
by bourgeois republicans . The communists , cautious and few in num­
ber , had formerly been obliged to express themse lves in the repub­
l ican press, so weak was thair own organization, and did not carry
much weight in the life of the e lected Commune . As for the program
of tha Commune-this is the decisiva criterion-we know it prefig­
urad unique ly that of the Third Republic . Even without any Machia­
ve l lianism on the part of the bourgeoisie , the war of Paris against
Versai l les (very bad ly executed , and not by chance) served to drain
the revolutionary content and diract the initial movement towarcls

31
purely mi litary activity . lt is curious to note that Marx defined the
governmenta l form of the Commune above a l l by its mode of opera­
tion , rather than what it effective ly did . lt was indeed "the true
representation of a l l the hea lthy e lements of French society , and
therefore the true national government"--but a capital ist govern­
ment , and not at a 11 a "workers' govemment . '122 We sha 11 not be
able to study here why Marx adopted such a contradictory position
{at least in public , for the First lnternational , because he showed
himse lf more critical in privateH3 I n any case , the mechanism for
stifling the revolutionary movement ressembled that of 1 936. As in
1 871, the Spanish Republic used as cannon fodder the Spanish and
foreign radical e lements {natural ly those most inc lined to destroy
fascism) without ñghting seriously itse lí, without using al l the re­
sources at its disposa l . I n the absence of a c lass analysis of this
power {as in the examp le of 1871 ), these facts appear as "errors ,"
indeed 11treasons,11 but never in the ir own logic .

MEX I CO
Another para l le l is possible . During the Mexican bourgeois
revolution , the maior portion of the organizad working c lass was
for a time associated with the democratic and progressive State in
order to push the bourgeoisie forward and assure its own interests
as wage earners within Capita l . The "red battalions 11 of 1 9-1 5-1916
represented the mi litary a l liance between the union movement and
the State , headed at the time by Carranza . Founded in 1 912, the
Casa del Obrero Mundia l decided to "suspend the professiona l
union organization11 and strugg le a longside the Republican State
against "the bourgeoisie and its immediate al lies, the mi litary pro­
fessionals and the c lergy ." A section of the workers' movement re­
fused and vio lently opposed the C . O . M . and its a l ly , the State .
The C . O . M. "tried to unionize a l l types of workers in the con­
stitutiona list zones with the backing of the army . 1• The red battal­
ions fought simu ltaneously against the other po litical forces aspiring
to control the capita list State { "reactionaries") and against the
rebe l peasants and radica l workers�4
lt is curious to note that these batta lions organtzed themse lves
according to occupation or trade {typographers, rai lway workers ,
etc . ) . I n th e Spanish war, some o f the mi litias a lso carried the
names of trades. Simi larly , in 1832, the Lyon insurrection saw the
texti le workers organized into groups according to the h ierarchy of

32
labour: the workers were mustered into workshop groups commanded
by foremen . By such rneans the wage· earners rose up in arms as
wage earners to defend the existing system of labour against ilie
11encroachments11 (Marx) of Capita l . A difference in kind separates
the revolt of 1832 , directed against the State , from the Wexican
and Spanish exa� les where the organizecl workers supported the
State . But the point is to understand the persistence of working
c lass strugg le on the basis of the organization of labour as such .
Whether it integrates itse lf or not into the State, such a strugg le is
doomed to fai lure , either by absorption into the State or by repres­
sion under it. The communist movement can conquer only if the
pro letarians go beyond the e lementary uprising (even armed) wh ich
does not attack wage labour itse lf. The wage earners can only lead ·

the armed strugg le by destroying themse lves as wage earners .

IMP ER I ALI ST WAR

In order to have a revo lution, it is necessary that there be at
least the beginning of an attack against the roots of society : the
State and the economic organization . Th is is what happened i n
Russia starting from February 1 9 1 7 and acce lerating little by l ittle
• • •One cannot speak of such a beginning in Spain , where the
•

pro letarians submitted to the State . From the beginning , everythi ng

they did (mi litary strugg le against Franco , socia l transformations)
was carried out under the aegis of Capital . The best proof of th is is
the rapid deve lopment of those cctivities which the antifascists of
the 1.eft are incapable of exp laining . The mi litary strugg le quickly
turnad to statist bourgeois methods wh ich were accepted by the ex­
treme Left on the grounds of efficiency (and which were almost a l­
ways proven to be inefficient) . The democratic State can no more
carry on armed strugg le against fascism than it can prevent it from
coming to power peacefu l ly . lt is perfectly norma l for a bourgeois
Republican State to re¡ect the use of methods of socia l strugg le re­
qu ired . to demoralize the enemy and reconci le itse lf instead to a
traditiona l war of fronts, where it stands no chance faced with a
modern army , better equipped and trained for th is type of combat .
As for the socia lizatlons and col lectivizations, they ltkewise lacked
the driving force of communism , in particu lar because the non-des­
truction of the State prevented them from organizing an anti-mer­
canti le economy at the leve l of the whole of society , and iso lated
them into a series of precariously iuxtaposed communities lacking

33.
cornmon action . The State soon re-established its authority . Conse­
quently there was no revolution or even the beginnings of one in
Spain after August , 1936 . On the contrary the movement towards
revolution was increasing ly obstructed and its renewa l increasing ly
improbable . lt is striking to note that in May, 1937, the prole­
tarians again pu l led themse lves together to oppose the State (this
time the democratic State) by armed insurrection , but did not suc­
�
ceed in prolonging the battle to the point of ruptur with the State .
After having submitted to the lega l State in 1936, e pro letarians
were able to shake the foundations of th is State in May, 1937,
on ly to yie ld before the 1'representative 11 organizations wh ich urged
them to lay clown their anns. The proletarians confronted the State ,
but did not destroy it . They accepted the counse Is of moderation
from the P. O . U. M. and the C . N . T . : even the radicaJ g..Oup
11Friends of Durrutl 11 d id not cal l for the destruction of these coun­
ter-revo lutionary organizations .
We may speak of war in Spain , but not .of revolution . The pri­
mary function of th is war was to so lve a capitalist problem : the
construction of a legitimate State in �ain which wou ld deve lop its
nationa l ·Capita l in the most efficient mamer possible whi le inte­
grating the proletariat . Viewed from th is angle , the analyses of the
socio logical co�osition of the two opposing armies is largely ir-
re levant , l ike those ana lyses wh ich measure the 11pro letarian " char­
ac ter of a party by the percentage of workers among its members .

Such facts are real enough a nd must be token i nto account, bu t are
secondary in co�arison to the socia l function of what we are try­
ing to understand . A party with a working c lass membership which
supports capita l ism is counter-revo lutionary . The �anish Republi­
can army , which inc luded certain ly a great number of workers but
fought for capitalist ob¡ectives, was no more revo lutionary than
Franco 's army .
The formu la "imperia list war11 as app lied to this conflict wi l l
shock those who associate i�erialism with the strugg le for econom­
ic domination , pure and simp le . But the underlyi ng purpose of im­
peria list wars, from 1 914-1 918 to the present, is to reso lve both
the economic and social contradictions of Capita l , e liminati ng the
potential tendency towards the communist movement . lt scarce ly
matters than in Spain the war was not directly concerned with
fighting ·over markets . The war served to po.larize the proletarians
of the entire world , in both the fascist and democratic countries,
around the oppositlon fascism/antifascism . Thus was the Ho ly Al li­
ance of 1 939-1945 prepared . The economic and strategic motives
were not, however, Jacking . lt was necessary fot the opposing
 caqn, which were not yet we l l defined , to win themse lves a l lies
or create benevolent neutrals, and to probe the so lidity of a l lian­
ces. Also it was quite normal for Spain not to participate in World
War 11 . Spoin had no need to do so , having solved her own socia l.
problem by the double cruShing {democratic and fascist) of the .�role­
tarions in her own war; her economic problem was decided by the
vietory of the conservative ' capitalist forces whieh proceeded to limit
the development of the forces of production in order to avoid a socia l
exp losion . But again , contrary to a l l ideology , th is anti-capitalist ,
11feudaP1 fascism began to deve lop the Spanish economy in the six­
ties , in spite of itse lf.
The 1 936-1 939 war fulfi l led the sarne function for Spc;lin as World
War 11 for the rest of the world , but with the fol lowing important dif­
ference (which modified neither the character nor the function of the
conflict): it started off from a revo lutionary upsurge str0ng enó'ugh to
repu lse fascism and force democracy to take up arms against the fas­
cist menace , but too weak to destroy them both . But by not defeating
both , the revo lution was doomed , because both fascism and democ­
racy were potentia l forms of the legitimate capita list State . Which­
ever one triumphed , the pro letarians were sure to be crushed by the
blows a lways reservad for them by the capitalist State
·

• • • •

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DE FROIT POPULllRE 1
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35
Notes
(1) Public opinlon does not condemn Nazilsm s o mucb for ita horrors,
because since then other States--in fact the capltalist organization of
the world economy--bave proven to be just as destructive of human
Ufe, tbrough wars and artlflcial f amines, as the Nazis. Rather Nazi­
ism la condemned because it acted dellberately, because it was con­
sclously wlcked, because it � to exterminate the Jewa. No one
la responsible for f amines which decimate whole peoples, but the
Nazl8--t11ey wanted to exterminate.
In order to eradicate tbis absurd morallam, one must bave a ma­
terialist conception of tbe concentration campa. They were not the
product of a world gone mad. On the contrary, tbey obeyed normal
capitalist logtc applied in special circumstances. Both in thetrOrlgin
and in tbeir operation. the campe belonged to tbe capitalist world• • • •
(2) Daniel Guérin, Fascism and Big Business. New York (1973).
(3) ulletin communiste Nov. 27, 1925. Boris Souvarine was born in Kiev .
n 5 ut emigrated to France at an early age. A self-educated wor-
ker, be was one of tbe founders of tbe Comlntern and the P.C.F. but
was expelled from both organizations in 1924 for leftist deviations.
(4) Rassemblement du Peuple Fr�ais (R.P.F.), a Gaulllat party (1947-
1952). Poujadism, a right-wlng petty bourgeois movement of the 4th .
Republlc. Rassemblement pour la République (R.P.R.). a contempor­
ary Gaullist party.
(5) 100,000 Japanese were interned in campe In the U.S.A. during World
War n. but there was no need to liquidate them.
�
(6) umaulté, Marcb 6, 1972.
(7) he Kapp putscb of 1920 was defeated by a general strike, but the in­
surrection In the Ruhr whicb broke out immediately following and
wbicb aspired to go beyond the defense of democracy was repressed
on behalf of the State • • • by the army whtch bad just supported the
putsch.
(8) Simon Leys, Ihe ChaJrman's New Clothee• Mao and the Cutwrat Re­
yolution, London (1977).
(9) Tbla support ranging from tbe extreme rigbt to the left should not be
surprlaing. I�s common enough for Latin American Communist par- ·
ties to support m111tary or dictat9rial reg�es on the grounds tbey
are "progressiveº in tbe sense of supporting tbe All1es during World
War 11, developlng national capitallsm, or malcing concessions to tbe
workers. Cf. Victor Alba, Politice 8t the Labor Movement in Lattn
America. Stanford (1968). Maoista and Trotslcyists often behave the
same way, e.g. in Bolivia.
(10) Le Monde, Feb. 7-8 (1971).
(11) Marx, ¡he Efghteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, International,
New York (1972), p. 54.
(12) Marx 8t Engels. Collected Works AA. Lawrence 8t Wisbart, London
(1980), p. 340.
(13) George Orwen. Homaqe to Catalonia. London (1938).
(14) Abel Paz. purrud: The People Armed. Black Rose Books, Montráal
(1976).
(15) Marx 8t Engels. Collected Works ll• London (1980), p. 422.
( 16) Os(car Anweiler, The Soviets:, The Russian Workers. Peasants. and

36

i¡
 Soldiers Counclls 1905-1921, New York (1974).
( 1 7 ) Marx & Engels, Ecrits militaires, L'Herne (1970), p. 143.
(18) V .l. Lenin, Collected Works 24, Moscow (1964), p. 236.
(19) C. Semprun-Maura, RévoluttOñ et contre-révolution en Catalogne,
Mame (1974), pp. 50-60.
(20) Marx & Engels, Writings on the Paria Commune, Monthly Revlew,
New York (1971), p. 70.
(21) Ibid., pp. 75-76.
(22) Ibid., p. 80.
(23) Saul K. Padover, ed., The Letters of Karl Marx, Prentice-Hall
(1979), �p 333-335.
(24) A. Nunes, Les révolutions du Mextgue, Flam marion (1975), pp. 101-2.

Acronyms
Germany:
SPD Soztaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands
KPD Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands

Italy:
PCI Partito Comunista Italiano
PSI Partito Socialista Italiano
PNF Partlto Nazlonale Fascista
CGL Confederazione Generale del Lavoro

France:
PCF Parti Communiste Francrais
SFIO Section Francraise de l'Internationale Ouvriere

Chile:
UP Unidad Popular (electoral coalitlon of Socialist,
Communlst, and Radical parties with several
smaller groups)
CGT Confederacion General de Trabajadores

Portugal:
PCP Panido Comunista Portugues
PSP Partido Socialista Portugues

Spaln:
CNT Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo
PSOE Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol
POUM Partido Obrero de Unllicacion Marxista
PCE Partido Comunista de Espana
UGT Union General de Trabajadores
The strugg le for democracy is not a short cut a l lowing the
workers to make the revo lution without rea lizing it . The
proletariat wi l l destroy tota litarianism only by destroying
democracy and a l l political forms at the same time . Unti 1

the n there w i 1 1 be a succession of "fase ist 11 and 11demo­

crati c 11 systems in time and in space • • • •