The Spanish Civil War (36 page)

A characteristic example of what happened was the collectivization of the Barcelona cinemas: all the auditoria were grouped in a single enterprise, directed by a committee of seventeen men, of whom two were elected by a general assembly of workers, the others by workers of the different professional groups within the industry. Members of the committee received their normal salary but dropped their normal work, devoting themselves to administration. A three-quarters majority of the general assembly of workers was necessary to secure a dismissal. A month and a half of annual holidays were proclaimed, including two weeks in winter. During illness, a worker would get full pay, and permanent invalids, 75 per cent of their old salary. Profits would be devoted to building a school and a clinic.
²

The revolution in Barcelona had other shapes too. As in Madrid, no one was to be seen in middle-class clothes. To wear a tie was to risk de
tention.
Solidaridad Obrera
even denounced the Russian foreign minister Litvinov as a bourgeois because he wore a hat. (The anarchist Hatters Union registered a protest.) Almost all the fifty-eight churches of Barcelona save the cathedral (preserved by order of the
Generalidad
) were burned. Some were ruined, others, such as the lovely Santa María del Mar, merely damaged. Much valuable petrol was wasted in an attempt to burn Gaudí’s unfinished ‘
Sagrada Familia
’, which was, alas, made of cement. By early August, whatever excitement there had been earlier at such scenes had died, and the destruction was carefully limited by the fire brigades. Church schools were shut: ‘The revolutionary will of the people has suppressed schools of confessional tendency. Now is the turn of the new school, based on rationalist principles of work and human fraternity.’
¹

After the murder of Desiderio Trillas, president of the UGT dockers—presumably killed by anarchists—the FAI and CNT joined with other parties in denouncing the crime. Together, they threatened death to any who carried out indiscriminate shootings or looting: ‘the Barcelona underworld is disgracing the revolution’. The FAI ordered its members to be vigilant so as to ‘Smash the riff-raff! If we do not, the crooks will smash the revolution by dishonouring it.’
²
Several prominent anarchists were even shot, such as José Cárdenas, of the construction workers of Barcelona, and Fernández, president of the food syndicate, for having failed to ‘overcome a moment of confusion and weakness’ and killed a man and a woman who years before had denounced them to the police.
³
But at night, on the road out of Barcelona towards the Tibidabo mountain, shots continued to be heard. ‘Fascists’ continued to be arrested. A well-known Left independent deputy, Angel Samblancat, had, in the first days of the revolution, swept into the Palace of Justice at the head of the CNT-FAI militia, thrown out of the window legal documents, contracts, leases, crucifixes, and killed many lawyers and judges. Soon afterwards, however, Samblancat installed a revolutionary committee of justice, whose first act was to recall the old officials and secretaries of the court.

The anarchists’ domination in Catalonia placed them in an uneasy alliance with the Catalan government in what Azaña was to describe as ‘a plot to annul the Spanish state’. The advance of Barcelona’s militias, anarchists at their head, into Aragon, might be represented as a responsible defence of the central government. But there was no discussion about such offensives with the ministry of war in Madrid. There were other changes: given the weakness of the government in Madrid, the
Generalidad
was able to take over, without protest, the customs and the frontier guards, the railways and the docks, security at hydro-electric plants, the fortress of Montjuich and the Bank of Spain—even the right to issue money and pardons. All these powers, under the Catalan statute, belonged to Spain. Now, under the pretext that they were in danger of being usurped by the FAI, the
Generalidad
took them over. The University of Barcelona was rechristened the University of Catalonia. The
Generalidad,
in Azaña’s words, ‘took advantage of the military rebellion to finish with the state’s power in Catalonia and then sought to explain everything by saying that the state did not exist’.
¹
One Esquerra politician, José Tarradellas, thought that, since Catalonia had successfully defended herself against the military rising, she could wash her hands of Spain.
²

On 9 August, an anarchist meeting was held at the Olympia Theatre in Barcelona to protest against the conscription by the Madrid government of the 1933 and 1934 classes of reserves to serve under regular officers: ‘We cannot be uniformed soldiers. We want to be militiamen of liberty. To the front, certainly. But to the barracks as soldiers not subject to the popular forces, certainly not!’
³
But the
Generalidad,
fearing the consequences of legalized political armies, caught up in a maze of conflicting arguments, supported the idea of keeping the regular army, with officers named from above, and their political faith obscured. Companys was supported, on this, by the new united socialist party of Catalonia (PSUC). Though a socialist, Juan Comorera, became secretary-general of this party, the communists, by their supe
rior efficiency, ruthlessness, and skill, dominated it. The PSUC even affiliated itself to the Comintern. Comorera, a blacksmith’s son who had emigrated to Argentina in the twenties and returned in the thirties, had been Councillor for agriculture in the
Generalidad
in 1934 and had helped move the
rabassaires
to the Left in that year. He soon became a communist and even, within months, a member of the central committee of the Spanish communist party, along with another ex-socialist PSUC leader, Rafael Vidiella.
¹
The Barcelona UGT, also under communist influence, increased its membership from 12,000 on 19 July to 35,000 at the end of the month, partly because of the help afforded by a party, or union, card to gain food, partly because of the urge towards association in revolutionary circumstances.

The PSUC favoured an ‘army system’ rather than a militia, since they had organized followers, and since their chief hope of influence was by infiltration into the officially recognized government. Formally, however, communist policy in Barcelona, as in Madrid, was that nothing should be done to jeopardize the winning of the war, while ‘political adjustments between comrades’ should await victory. The PSUC thus gave full support to the
Generalidad
over several reforms—the 15 per cent rise in wages, the return by the pawnshops of all articles pledged for less than 200 pesetas, and a forty-hour week. (Malraux in his novel
L’Espoir
has a vivid account of the noise in Barcelona caused by the return, and sudden use, of the many sewing-machines previously in pawnshops.) The PSUC also made economic claims on behalf of the widows of dead fighters. All their attitudes were reformist, and conciliatory, in the sense that they were intended to improve conditions within the society that existed; the new world could wait.

On 31 July, Companys elevated himself from being formally president of the
Generalidad
—that is, the Catalan government—to become ‘president of Catalonia’. That was one more step towards Catalan sovereignty, one more again upon which he did not consult the government in Madrid. Three members of the PSUC (Comorera, Vidiella, Ruiz) were asked to join the reconstituted
Generalidad
under Juan Casanovas, previously the president of the Catalan parliament. The
anarchists threatened to leave the Anti-Fascist Militias Committee if the PSUC were to enter the government. The PSUC men withdrew and the
Generalidad
for the time being remained composed of nine Esquerra members, and one each from the
rabassaires
and the more rightwing Catalan Action. ‘I hand over the government to you,’ Companys said grandly to Casanovas, who replied, ‘You hand over nothing, since there is nothing.’
¹
The government tried to disarm anarchist militiamen in the ‘patrol controls’: an action which was furiously resisted by the CNT. ‘Comrades,’ the FAI, meantime, generously appealed on 5 August to the PSUC, ‘together we have beaten the bloody beasts of fascist militarism. Let us be worthy of our victory by maintaining our unity of action until the final triumph. Long live the Revolutionary and Anti-Fascist Alliance.’ Powerless in itself, the Catalan government, during the next weeks, by its endorsement of the Anti-Fascist Militias Committee, continued to encroach substantially on the authority of the government in Madrid. When, some weeks later, Prieto (by then a minister) visited Barcelona, Colonel Díaz Sandino, Catalan counsellor of defence, greeted him as if he were a statesman of a foreign power.
²

Standing apart in Catalonia from anarchists, Esquerra and PSUC were the POUM, the anti-Stalinist revolutionaries led by Catalan ex-communists. Their numbers also grew greatly. Some joined this party believing that it represented a mean between the indiscipline of the anarchists and the strictness of the PSUC. Foreigners in Barcelona joined the POUM in the supposition that it embodied a magnificent Utopian aspiration. Franz Borkenau noted the enthusiasm among these émigrés, who enjoyed the adventure of war and had faith in ‘absolute success’. The POUM, with new headquarters in the Hotel Falcón in the Rambla, concentrated on pushing its comparatively unfamiliar name before the public, painting its initials in large letters on motor-cars and buses, and agitating for ‘a government of workers only’. Though one of the founders, Maurín, was presumed (falsely) dead in nationalist Spain, the other leaders, who were ex-communists from the twenties—Nin, Gorkin, Andrade, Gironella—spoke frequently. The POUM youth movement, the JCI (Juventud Comunista
Ibérica), seemed the most radical of all the Left’s private armies and called continually for the ‘formation of soviets’, while ruthlessly killing ‘enemies of the people’.

Catalonia as a whole and republican Aragon reflected the events in Barcelona. A political committee was formed in all
pueblos.
Power, as elsewhere, lay in the hands of the strongest party, regardless of formal representation. Thus the POUM predominated in the province of Lérida; the CNT elsewhere.
¹
Usually, a red flag, decorated with a hammer and sickle, would be hung outside the town hall, indicating the magnetic attraction of Russia to all the proletarian parties, not only to the communists. The railways and public services were run by committees of the UGT and CNT. In most places, all professional people and craftsmen had to take orders from the committee. Most churches were burned. In some places, particularly where the burning did not occur till August, and especially in the middle-class resorts along the Costa Brava, regret was marked. Borkenau observed sad women carrying to the pyres prayer-books, images, statues, and other talismans, which had been less an object of religious value than a part of familiar daily life. Only children seemed pleased, as they cut off the noses of statues before throwing them to the flames. The houses and land of the murdered or escaped bourgeoisie would be appropriated by the municipality. As elsewhere, the ruthlessness of the revolutionaries was tempered by streaks of generosity. For example, the French poet of the air, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, then a correspondent for
L’Intransigeant,
succeeded in persuading a village revolutionary committee to spare the life of a monk who had been hunted in the woods. This secured, the anarchists shook hands excitedly with each other, and also with the monk, congratulating him on his escape.
²

There were few large estates in Catalonia, and even anarchists were uncertain as to what should be done about the lands taken over. The eventual solution—not reached in most of Catalonia until the autumn—arranged that half the expropriated land should be run by the municipality, while the other half was divided among the poorer peasants. The Popular Front committee of the
pueblo
would receive half the
rents, while half would be remitted. Revolution was less than complete in Catalonia, since both the Esquerra and the UGT could support the smallholders. Still, there was even there a lack of foresight in the peasants’ treatment of bourgeois property. In Sariñena, between Lérida and Saragossa, where some members of the middle class (including the vet) had been spared, Franz Borkenau watched the destruction of all the documents relating to rural property. A bonfire was set ablaze in the main square, the flames rising higher than the roof of the church, young anarchists throwing on new material with triumphant gestures.
¹

An amazing range of social and economic experiment was tested in the countryside in Catalonia and Aragon as in Castile. In many places, for example, money was no longer in distribution. A careful account of what occurred at Alcora (Castellón) was given by an acute German observer, Hans Erich Kaminski:

Everyone can get what he needs. From whom? From the committee, of course. But it is impossible to provision 5,000 people from a single distribution point. Hence there are stores where, as before, one can satisfy one’s requirements, but these are mere distribution centres. They belong to the whole village, and their former owners no longer make a profit. Payment is made not with money, but with coupons. Even the barber shaves in exchange for coupons, which are issued by the committee. The principle whereby each inhabitant shall receive goods according to his needs is only imperfectly realized, for it is postulated that everyone has the same needs … Every family and every person living alone has received a card. This is punched daily at the place of work; hence no one can avoid working, for on the basis of these cards coupons are distributed. But the great flaw in the system is that, owing to the lack of any other measure of value, it has become necessary again to have recourse to money to put a value on labour performed. Everyone—the worker, the doctor, the businessman—receives coupons to the value of 5 pesetas for each working day. One part of the coupon bears the inscription ‘bread’, of which each coupon will purchase a kilo; another part represents a sum of money. But these coupons cannot be regarded as bank notes, since they can only be exchanged for goods and that only in a limited degree … All the money of Alcora,
about 100,000 pesetas, is in [the hands] of the committee. The committee exchanges the products of the community for other goods that are lacking, but what it cannot secure by exchange, it purchases. Money, however, is retained only as a makeshift …