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View Full Version : Spanish Civil War, PCE, POUM, CNT, George Orwell



kilgram
12-20-2013, 06:21 PM
Extract of the story (http://historicphotographs.blogspot.com.es/2013/04/marina-ginesta-of-juventudes-comunistas.html)
MARINA GINESTÀ OF THE JUVENTUDES COMUNISTAS, AGED 17, OVERLOOKING BARCELONA DURING THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR - 21 JULY 1937

A year earlier, Generalissimo Francisco Franco launched a military coup against the Second Spanish Republic (declared 1931). After the immediate resistance (by socialists, Marxists, anarchists, and republicans), the anarchists (CNT-FAI militias) controlled Catalonia until the PCE eventually influenced the Republican government into attacking the anarchists and P.O.U.M. ("Party of Marxist Unification" - anti-Stalinist Marxists) during the Barcelona May Days (1937) and suppressing the anarchist Spanish Revolution begun when the anarchy-syndicalist labor union (the CNT, 1.5 to 2 million workers strong) seized arms from the state to fight off Franco. Barcelona fell to Franco on the 26th of January, 1939.

The photograph was taken on top of the Hotel Colón.

Anyone interested in the Spanish civil war should read Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. It is a nonfiction memoir of his time fighting against the fascists in the Spanish civil war. He initially fought alongside the communists, but their treatment of the anarchists soured his opinion of them and largely influenced his later novels. here are two main ideological currents of communism - Marxism and anarchism. There were also two Marxist groups, the PCE (aligned with the Soviet Union) and the P.O.U.M. (not aligned with the Soviet Union). Orwell fought with the P.O.U.M. for the whole time, though he later wished to fight for the CNT-FAI anarchists to which they were allied. The P.O.U.M. and the CNT-FAI, though representing different strains of communism (Marxism and anarcho-syndicalism, respectively), stood together until the bitter end. The CNT-FAI was much larger and controlled Catalonia, and so the P.O.U.M. often played a support role, but was suppressed even more harshly than the CNT-FAI by the "Stalinist" PCE. So Orwell fought with Marxist communists (P.O.U.M.), allied to anarchist communists (CNT-FAI), and had his militia betrayed and suppressed by communists (PCE). This was the beginning of his disdain for Marxism-Leninism (and the case of Stalin in particular), but he remained a libertarian communist (somewhere between libertarian Marxist and anarchist) all his life. In Animal Farm, the pig Napoleon (a stand-in for Stalin) is clearly the villain in the end, but it is his similarity with the humans that came before that condemns him; Orwell saw Stalin as too similar to the liberals, capitalists, and imperialists, especially in his handling of alliances with respect to the Spanish Civil War. He wrote 1984 as a warning to the left as to what to be ever vigilant for during the revolution, so that it would liberate and not oppress.

Well, I post this, to show how the Communism, even the Marxist is no so simple and also to show a part of the Spanish history from the point of view of the ex-members of the POUM and the CNT.

All that is in different letter and colour(gray) is copy&paste from the website that I linked in the beginning.

Peter1469
12-20-2013, 06:51 PM
Interesting. I never studied the Spanish Civil War as it was overshadowed by other events.

kilgram
12-20-2013, 06:54 PM
Interesting. I never studied the Spanish Civil War as it was overshadowed by other events.
The Spanish Civil War can be considered a Second World War in small scale. It was the preludium of what was going to come.

Just there was a difference in the Spanich Civil War, there was four blocks instead of the three that existed in WWII.

Spanish Civil War Blocks:
- Winner: Franco: Fascists
- Losers: Anarchists and POUM: Explained in this post
PCE: Stalinists
Democrats: Republicans

WWII
- Allied forces: That would be the equivalent to the Republicans
- Axis Forces: Nazis and Fascists the equivalent to Franco
- URSS: Stalinists

The only side that didn't exist in the WWII was the Anarchists and POUM.

Peter1469
12-20-2013, 07:24 PM
I remember that the Germans tested some of their new war machines in the Spanish Civil War, particularly its dive bombers.

kilgram
12-20-2013, 07:30 PM
I remember that the Germans tested some of their new war machines in the Spanish Civil War, particularly its dive bombers.
Yeap. For example the bombing of Guernica. Maybe you've seen it as a painting of Pablo Picasso.

The Spanish Civil War (hereinafter referred as SCW) was a test bank of many things that later were used in the WWII.

LOL. Fucking translation, I am starting to use the language of Agreements xD.

Germanicus
12-20-2013, 08:32 PM
The thing that stands out to me was that the support given by Germany and Italy was open and honest. But the filthy pommies and the sneaky low Russians gave support in a sneaky and unofficial way to the other side.

God I hate Orwell. BBC employee scum capitalist propagandist.

Mister D
12-20-2013, 09:36 PM
5014

kilgram
12-21-2013, 07:18 AM
5014
You don't want to know what I thought when you I saw this.

Mister D
12-25-2013, 05:07 PM
You don't want to know what I thought when you I saw this.

You don't want to know what I thought when you said you didn't care about your nation or your people.

kilgram
12-25-2013, 05:22 PM
You don't want to know what I thought when you said you didn't care about your nation or your people.
I didn't say people. I said nation.

I said that the people is the only thing I care.

Mister D
12-25-2013, 05:27 PM
I didn't say people. I said nation.

I said that the people is the only thing I care.

Your people and your nation are the same thing.

kilgram
12-25-2013, 05:32 PM
Your people and your nation are the same thing.
No, my people and nation are not the same thing. The people are all equal, indifferently where they come from.

For example, I don't share the same language with many other Spanish people. My language is Catalan. I have other cultural treats than many Spanish people. I have more in common with a metalhead of Germany than with some Spanish people.

Mister D
12-25-2013, 05:34 PM
No, my people and nation are not the same thing.

For example, I don't share the same language with many other Spanish people. My language is Catalan. I have other cultural treats than many Spanish people. I have more in common with a metalhead of Germany than with some Spanish people.

I'm referring to historical communities not modern nation states. Spain includes several nations.

Newpublius
12-25-2013, 11:39 PM
The thing that stands out to me was that the support given by Germany and Italy was open and honest. But the filthy pommies and the sneaky low Russians gave support in a sneaky and unofficial way to the other side.

God I hate Orwell. BBC employee scum capitalist propagandist.

well, one WWII what if is a more active Spain. Spain remained neutral giving the Germans I think one division to fight against the Russians. Strategically though, closing the Straits of Gibraltar?

What would the ramifications of that have been?