Issuing body: G. Munis, on behalf of the Spanish section of the Fourth International
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Since the declaration of war, the political work of the Spanish Bolsheviks has been almost entirely suspended.
All our comrades are scattered among the concentration camps and labour battalions, and very few are working while at liberty. Opportunities for political contact between them are very rare. Each group has to work independently and discuss the problems that arise on its own. According to recent reports, our comrades in various camps have drawn up handwritten bulletins containing material for discussion on the war and on the POUM. The question of the nature of the Soviet state and of the defence of the USSR has also been discussed, wherever conditions have permitted. The reports mention resolutions in favour of the point of view of the Fourth International.
Despite these enforced conditions of political dispersal, our comrades maintain permanent personal contact with one another, and whenever a few Bolshevik-Leninists manage to meet, their immediate constitution as a political group gives them the advantage over any other political formation still in existence (POUM, anarchists, socialists). This has enabled us to win over at least a few POUM militants. Contact between the Spanish and French comrades is maintained by one of our militants who acts as a centre of direction and coordination.
This is certainly not an impressive record, but it does at least demonstrate the political homogeneity and militant spirit of our comrades. The POUM, with far greater financial resources and a far larger number of militants, has not been able to do any better. Its militants have been completely abandoned and some of them are unable even to maintain friendly relations with one another. As for that party, shortly after the declaration of war it joined the JARE, Indalecio Prieto's organisation, on the pretext of aiding refugees — which is plainly nothing but a cover. It effectively supports Anglo-French imperialism. No official declaration by the POUM on the war is known to exist. All the information reaching us from our comrades agrees that there exists within this party a tendency inclined to regard the restoration of the monarchy in Spain as a positive development. As with the socialists and republicans, such a tendency runs in the direction of support for the allied imperialisms who might stand to gain from a restoration. Thus, if not by its declarations then at least by its silences, the POUM is very far from having adopted an internationalist position. The presence of Gorkin at the congress of the American Socialist Party further accentuates its drift towards democratic imperialism.
In reality, all political tendencies are non-existent among the refugees living in France. In exchange for the right of asylum, the socialist and anarchist leaders pay France with their support, in consideration of which they become the creatures of the French government. As for the rank and file, the best fighters, most of whom are still in France, have been completely abandoned, which is driving them to hire out their services to the "democracies" in forced labour battalions. A section of the anarchist leadership, including former military commanders such as Garcia Oliver and Santillan, is attempting to set up a political party bearing all the hallmarks of the old reformist parties. The opposition encountered within their own ranks has delayed this enterprise. But the Spanish anarchists are undoubtedly heading for a major split, in the course of which I consider it possible to win excellent revolutionary militants over to our tendency. On one side there will be the working-class and revolutionary base of the CNT. The apolitical prejudices found among them are imbued with a profoundly revolutionary spirit, and the balance-sheet they instinctively draw of the Spanish events is, on the whole, not favourable to anarchist principles. In Mexico, in Santo Domingo and in France, we have contacts with anarchist workers who regard our activities with the greatest sympathy, take an interest in discussions with us, and are beginning to draw political revolutionary conclusions from their reflections on the Spanish experience. I think it worth mentioning my own personal experience, in Mexico City, with a leader of the anarchist youth with whom I had often had discussions in Barcelona after the May Days. His first words, on recognising me in one of the refugee premises in Mexico City, were to recall our discussion in Spain: "I have often thought about what you told me then, and I believe you were right" — those were his words. Anarchist principles have lost their hold over these comrades. Their entry into the Bolshevik camp is only a matter of time and of good work on our part. I consider that there is a serious prospect of winning over a considerable number of anarchist workers among the émigrés.
In Spain itself, contacts have begun to be re-established. We already have links in Madrid and Barcelona, for example, with comrades who have been imprisoned or held in Franco's concentration camps. In Madrid, all the comrades who have not been arrested have resumed their activity. They have contacts with the anarchists and discuss with them, but their situation is very precarious. Being known figures, most of them are obliged to live under false identities and cannot find work. In Barcelona, a young comrade is at risk of being condemned to death. He is of peasant origin, with excellent political qualifications. According to information supplied by comrade Carlini, who lived for eight months in Barcelona under the Franco regime, demoralisation of the proletariat is great, further accentuated by terrible living conditions worse than those of wartime. But the prevailing mood is one of passive hostility to the regime, and, in certain regions such as Asturias and Andalusia, of active hostility. This passive hostility extends even to certain elements of the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie. Proof of this is given by the fact that comrade Carlini was able to make the journey from Barcelona to the French frontier on foot, without money, asking the peasants for hospitality and for directions enabling him to escape the vigilance of the civil guard.
In the mountains of the provinces of Andalusia and Asturias there still exist numerous armed groups hostile to the civil guard, which carry out daring operations against fascist detachments. I have seen with my own eyes a proclamation by the Francoist authorities addressed to the "fugitives in the mountains," calling on them to surrender and to have confidence in "the clemency of the Caudillo." It seems evident that in certain small villages all the able-bodied men are in the mountains, and that the authorities are powerless to break the solidarity of the towns.
Although the Franco regime faces further difficulties which it is not necessary to enumerate here, this does not mean that its collapse should be expected in the near future. It is possible that the course of the European war will bring about the restoration of the monarchy, but in that event, as in the event of the consolidation of the Spanish Falange's system, everything gives us grounds to hope that the Spanish proletariat will be able to maintain a strong illegal movement against fascism. And, for our part, we must direct all our forces towards the creation of active illegal nuclei of the Fourth International.
We possess the fundamental factors needed to achieve this. Some capable militants have remained in Spain; there are excellent comrades among the émigrés. Moreover, the anarchist, socialist and even Stalinist sectors are sufficiently open to constructive critical work. The first stage, which consists of bringing together the principal comrades in Mexico City, is under way. It is upon us, and upon the solidarity of the international organisation, that the successful accomplishment of the subsequent stages depends. A strong Bolshevik-Leninist movement must be built among the émigrés, and ways must be found to penetrate into Spain. We need, as an immediate minimum, material aid enabling us to ensure the regular publication of our weekly paper. We shall take care of the rest ourselves, including our own economic subsistence.
It would be a mistake to underestimate the Spanish work because of the liquidation of the Spanish revolution. The revolutionary spirit of the proletariat lives on, and Spain will be the country in which illegal revolutionary struggle will reach its greatest intensity. On the other hand, an organisation is not built hastily on the eve of the revolution, but only at the end of a long period of struggles and victorious experience. We wish to restore, and we shall restore, in Spain the tradition of the illegal revolutionary struggle of Bolshevism. The Spanish proletariat will seize the first opportunity presented to it to break Franco's yoke. We must be ready, and for that we need the aid of the international organisation.
G. Munis, Spanish section of the Fourth International, New York, 27 April 1940.