Subject: Re: ajoda #36 - Gonzalez article - retry Anarchy: a journal of desire armed. #36, Spring 1993 anticopyright - Anarchy may be reprinted at will for non-profit purposes, except in the case of individual copyrighted contributions. ESSAYS @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ THE POLITICS OF BETRAYAL: Part Two of Life in Revolutionary Barcelona By Manolo Gonzalez Although the events in May had rattled the nerves of the FAI-CNT (1), the movement toward the collectivization of the economy of Catalonia and Aragon continued to develop in 1937. It was the result of many years of study, indoctrination and the power of the people in arms. The Republic since 1931 had done very little to transform Spain into a modern society. The Communists' most immediate concern was to uphold the interests of the Soviet Union. The Comintern line of the Popular Front had some electoral suc- cesses in Spain, France, Chile and, in a minor role, in the U.S.A. But as a force for social and political change it was obvious: the Comintern was nothing more than an extension of the foreign policy of the USSR. A shocking revelation was Stalin's support for the hoodlums of Chiang Kai-shek and his mafia in the Kuomintang, al- though there were among the International Brigades several Chinese volunteers, recruited in France. As fate would have it, at this same moment in history Mao and his Liberation Army were in the middle of the Long March. At my age, though, I was more interested in the military operations in Spain than in world politics and economic dynamics. I hung two maps on the wall of my room. One of Spain and another of Catalonia-Aragon. Pins with miniature red and black flags covered ``our territory.'' The fascists were yellow arrows. All the south of Spain was yellow. My mother was still grieving the murder of Federico Garca Lorca in Granada. During the early years of ``La Carreta,'' the roving theater company organized by Lorca, she had worked as a stage hand and a puppeteer. My father visited us whenever he had a furlough, or when called back into Barcelona by the FAI-CNT. ``Ah! it is so good to be here,'' he used to exclaim. ``There is still the joy of an equalitarian society, and optimistic vision of the future. In Madrid all is salutes, militarism, intrigues and politics. Goddammed politicians! Even some anarchists who should know better are in the Cabinet now!'' He was referring to the inclusion in the Catalonian government of a CNT trio, Francisco Isgleas, Diego Santillan, and Pedro Herrera. The participation of the CNT people was severely criticized among the FAI cadres. The POUM (2) was excluded from any position in the government. Of course my father's indignation was rather disingenuous. The CNT had compromised its integrity by participating in the Republican government of Premier Largo Caballero, the so-called ``Lenin of Spain.'' Juan Lopez, Juan Peir, Federica Montseny and Juan Garcia Oliver, people of long libertarian tradition, succumbed to the imperatives of the civil war. They got a bitter disappointment when they realized that Largo Caballero's inclusion of the CNT in his cabinet was a ploy to cover up the cowardly and precipitous escape of the Republican government from Madrid to Valencia. The Republicans, experts in political ambushes and chicanery, used the presence of the CNT to prevent the creation of a federalist libertarian republic they though might be installed in retaliation for their embarrassing galloping. Later the Communists manipulated the resignation of the CNT. And of course they kicked out Largo Caballero and brought in Negrn. THE COLLECTIVE ECONOMY My father's feelings about the climate of solidarity and the temporary abolition of class animosity was due to the energetic implementation of the anarchists' program for the collective economy. Many industrialists decided to stay in their enterprises and continue production under the workers' control. Many years later, historians like Hugh Thomas and Ronald Frazer would note that the industrial output of Catalonia lost very few hours of production under the collectivized system. But where the collectivization was most successful and created a true climate for social justice was in the agriculture of Catalonia and Aragon. Ironically, to the later chagrin of the Communists the decree of October 7 of 1936 issued by Communist Minister of Agri- culture Vicente Uribe gave legal basis for the peasant unions of the CNT and UGT (3) to expropriate the land. Literally hundreds of years of exploitation and misery were erased by the insurgency of the peasants in arms. Dozens of small towns and villages were in control of committees of share-croppers and itinerant farm workers. Once the priests and the landowners were expelled or executed all kind of experiments started, blueprints for a new society. Marriages were recorded by the husbands and wives themselves. The mayor and civil register clerk as representative of the State were eliminated. Money was abolished and in many cases there were a large number of vouchers, local ``people's Pesetas,'' that were accepted for all the essentials of everyday life. A friend of mine, a young refugee from Zaragoza, had a handful of ``proletarian money.'' We decided to try it in a cooperative shop to buy molasses and stalks of sugar cane. To my surprise it was gladly accepted. The shopkeeper had business with the village that issued the revolutionary currency. But we were politely turned down when we offered to pay for our cinema tickets with the symbol of the rural revolution. Although salaries still were basically the only income of the Catalonian working class, their standard of living went beyond their income. New benefits were implemented like free education, health insurance, and for the first time in Spain a system to compensate for industrial accidents, including death benefits for widows and orphans. A VALLEY IN SPAIN CALLED JARAMA On November the 7th of 1936 the frontal assault of the fascists to capture Madrid was defeated. I moved my red and black flags a few inches away from Madrid. The Republic decided to counterattack to avoid cutting off the capitol from the rest of Spain, especially from Valencia where the government had moved. The arrival of arms from the Soviet Union, the formation of the International Brigades and the highly motivated militias of the UGT and the CNT made up a powerful military force that would be used by the council of defense of Madrid. Two professional army men, Rojo and Miaja, gave the necessary technical advice to the People's Army. Although the fascists had been repelled in the streets of Madrid, the capitol was still in danger. Franco's artillery reached most of the city, and of course the Nazi and Italian planes bombed the civilian population almost daily. It was decided to attack the fascists in the area near the Valencia highway. Battalions were assigned to specific objectives near Casa de Campo and Jarama. At that time the volunteers of many nations were positioned in ways to strengthen the young Spaniard recruits and the rather green workers' militias. The Europeans had military experience, especially the Austrians, Poles and Germans. But the Americans were still in training. They called themselves the Lincoln Battalion, under the command of Robert Merriman, a young professor from the University of California at Berkeley. On February 17th Merriman was alerted to be ready to go into battle. He had time only to train his men in the use of their rifles. The weather was miserable; rain pelted the young volun- teers. It was freezing cold. The Americans were moved closer to the front in trucks. Slowly they moved near enough to hear the din of combat. The Americans together with the British and Canadians were assigned to the counterattack of the Loyalists. In charge of planning the operation were General Gal and Colonel Vladimir Copi, a couple of Soviet mercenaries. Merriman was told his attack would be supported by artillery, tanks and the 24th Brigade of the regular Spanish Army. But behind the military plan, was one of those Byzantine plots, probably concocted by Andr Marty, the paranoid head of the International Brigades, a soul brother of Stalin. ``Copi disliked Bob,'' remembered Marion Merriman, wife of the American Commander, ``Copi was arrogant, stubborn and politically immature. I disliked him intensely. He was a prima donna of a soldier. He strutted around in high polished boots, wore a pistol on his hip, carried map and binocular cases.'' Besides the animosity of Marty, and probably Stalin, toward the Americans, Merriman was not a Communist. Commander Bob Merriman would later disappear on the Aragon front, under strange circumstances. The battle had been going on for ten days when the Americans were ordered to move. The promised support never arrived. Copi insisted on the attack; Merriman was awaiting the support of planes and tanks. He had serious doubts about the military expertise of Gal and Copi, but was pushed by the presence of several British officers with direct instructions to proceed with the attack. Amid contradictory orders the Americans were sent to the battlefield. Several months later my father related the disaster to a group of Catalonians. I was reading Catalunya a newspaper in Catalan. Castillian was still hard for me. ``Palitos, come here you have to learn this,'' said my father while narrating the plot against the Americans. ``And to the attack they went. Oh! the gallant boys. They attacked the enemy. They charged with bayonets and grenades. They confronted death singing songs of freedom, and died with their fists high in a last gesture of defiance, certain of the final victory.'' My father knew the price of all that gallantry. Of about 450 Americans, 160 were killed. Bob Merriman was wounded. Gal and Copi escaped behind the lines. In a final irony, they were recalled to Moscow and shot. After World War Two Marty was expelled from the French Communist party. A few years later in France I found a collection of songs from the Spanish Civil War. Among them there was a remembrance of Jarama. ``There's a valley in Spain called Jarama It's a place we all know too well For 'twas there that we wasted our manhood, And most of our old age as well'' The music was ``Red River,'' an old ``old west'' American tune. In March of 1937 a new offensive on Madrid was initiated by the Italian fascists. They based the attack in Guadalajara, about 25 miles from the Capital. This time the fascists confronted the 14th division, along with other shock troops of the Republic. Cipriano Mera was the CNT commander of the central forces. A great organizer, disdainful of the military `experts' and wise to the tricks of the Communists, he announced that his troops would decide the moment of attack, He wanted to avoid another carnage like Jarama. When Mera saw the Russian tanks advancing and Lister and El Campesino launching their attacks, the anarchists in an irre- sistible charge terrorized the Italians. Many anti-fascist Italians, anarchists and socialists, fought in Guadalajara, among them Pietro Nenni, future Prime Minister of Italy. REPRESSION AND COUNTERREVOLUTION By June of 1937 the NKVDpredecessor of the Russian KGBhad moved in force into Barcelona. June 16 Andrs Nin was arrested and moved to a secret jail in Madrid. On instructions of Stalin he was asked to `confess' crimes and to be a fascist agent. Tortured to death, his body was never found. After Nin most of the leadership of the POUM was jailed, executed or forced into exile. George Orwell, a member of the POUM militia, barely escaped arrest and had to leave Spain. His book Homage to Catalonia was one of the first to denounce the Communists' role in the betrayal of the Spanish revolution. Among my parents' friends and the FAI-CNT a wave of indignation helped mobilize militias, the press and international public opinion against the crimes in Catalonia. I heard about the murder of Camillo Berneri, an Italian anarchist philosopher; he was arrested in a hotel, taken to the subway near Lacayetana and gunned down. A few days later in the Urquinaoa Square a boy, grandson of the anarchist educator Francisco Ferrer, was murdered. A friend of my father, Domingo Ascaso, brother of Paco, a Commander in the Madrid front, was killed in jail. The most terrible crime of those days was the execution of about thirty members of the Libertarian Youth. They were shot at the Moncada cemetery, and left in an open grave. The central government in Valencia not only wanted to stop the collectivization, but also to comply with the directives of Stalin to annihilate the Trotskyites. It was part of the price exacted from Spain for the military aid. The gold reserves of the country went to the Soviet Union. The militias were abolished and many battalions incorporated into the People's Army. Women were not permitted on the battlefield. My mother stayed at home now; she hid her rifle, pistol and ammunition. The government moved to Barcelona at the end of 1937. In March of 1938, Barcelona was bombed by German and Italian planes. By the middle of 1938 a negotiated peace agreement, in which the Republic could either save territory or be part of a transition government, was the most we could hope for. The animosity between the central government and autonomous regions of Catalonia and Aragon was deepening, mostly on the issue of a strategy to end the war. The western democracies, already alarmed by the presence of the Red Army in Spain, were now repelled by the repression and the assassinations of the leaders of the POUM. Still all during 1937-38 the Republic confronted the superior forces of Franco, the Moroccan mercenaries and its other allies, the Nazis and Italian fascists, in a series of battles: Brunete, Belchite, Teruel in which the flower of the Spanish working class was decimated. All Republican offensives had to stop due to the lack of ammunition, planes and tanks. The Soviet Union doled out its military aid on the exaction of political payment: atrocities against the opposition to Stalin. The last offensive in the Ebro cost the lives of about 18,000 Loyalists. The battle was fought between July and September 1938. It too failed for lack of war materiel. The trials of the old Bolsheviks had started in Moscow. Hitler and Stalin were soon to seal their friendship in a pact. Negrn decided to appease the western democracies by removing the International Brigades from Spain. He hoped this would pressure the Nazis and Italian fascists to stop their intervention. Barcelona gave an emotional farewell to the Internationalists. On November 15 of 1938, in a last parade through the streets of Barcelona, under the colors of many nations the volunteers left Spain. But not all. About 6,000 Germans, Austrian, Czechs and other men without a country to return to stayed to ``die in Barcelona.'' I made an entry in my diary. ``Went to say good bye to the I.B.'s. Threw geraniums. I went with Libertad.'' Libertad was my friend. We shared a passion for cinema and American jazz. We satisfied our addictions with French movies and the radio transmissions of Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and Django Reinhardt. We also managed to collect phonograph records. Eventually we accumulated about a hundred 78s. My parents' tastes were toward Stravinsky and Flamenco, and they frequently demanded I tone down the record player. INTO EXILE I lost all interest in the conflict when I realized we had lost the war and the revolution, just as my father had predicted. I folded my maps and replaced them with photos of jazzmen and Libertad and me in the Ramblas, on the beach and in the May 1st parade. The childcare center had now become a refuge for many adults who were disgusted by the repression in Barcelona and who wanted to dedicate time and effort to their families. My mother was seriously involved in the theatrical activities of the center. My father was moved to the front of Aragon, a rather quiet area but soon to explode in the final offensive of General Yage, the fanatical Catholic ally of Franco. Barcelona, my city, would fall to the fascists at the end of January of 1939. The revenge on Catalonia was horrific. In the first week of occupation the fascists executed over 10,000 men and women. Mostly anarchists. Quietly my parents decided to go into exile in France and then to Latin America where we had relatives. Other anarchists, writers and intellectuals, already on the death list of Franco and the Communists, agreed to a plan to escape. But before leaving, the people in the childcare collective decided to offer a program never to be forgotten. For a couple of weeks, while our curiosity reached a rare level of expectation, my mother and other puppeteers were rehearsing, writing and trying voices. A finely handcrafted array of puppets was created out of vats of papier-mch. Collections of miniature weapons, lances and swords were accumulated. On a certain Saturday a neatly printed program announced the presentation of a four-act production of Hamlet. The program included a summary of the plot, and notes about the lights and stage. The stage was new and the technical accomplishments were an achievement of great pride. About two in the afternoon people started to arrive. All the puppeteers and voices were already out of sight. We children were given the front rows. We could almost touch the mystery and excitement. After a short musical introduction, performed on two guitars and a drum, the hall was darkened and simultaneously the stage was illuminated, provoking exclamations. Soft white lights, subtle colors and contrasting shadows enhanced the proscenium. And very slowly, as though moved by a breeze, the curtains opened to reveal the castle of Elsinore. The audience was mesmerized when amid the thinnest of bluish veils the ghost of Hamlet's father appeared above the esplanade. We were caught up in the illusion of the supernatural. Hamlet, that solemn, neurotic Prince of Denmark, revealed himself a revolutionary hero, a defender of the people, a challenger of hedonistic and venal rulers. But this Hamlet too gradually convinced us of his love for Ophelia and we were drawn into the inexorable perfidy of the politicians who would betray both of them. Gertrude the Queen, sensual of voice, elegant of movement and so fascinatingly ambivalent, so enraging to Hamlet. The King, never a doubt in him, lustful, crude, voracious for wine and food. We children relished his jokes and jeered at Hamlet's brattish ripostes. Every nuance and sarcasm was enhanced to our intense delight. In Polonious, idiotic, sentimental, senile we recognized the delusions of the European middle classes: the same platitudes, the same wisdom of selfish individualism we had been brought up to despise. When Hamlet is asked by Polonious ``What are you reading, my lord.'' He answers: ``Words, words, words.'' We roared and screamed with pleasure. ``My lord'' was one of the many nicknames given to the President of the Republic, Azaa, an erudite, but pompous and overblown orator. ``Words, words, words'' was how we ridiculed his speeches. The casual killing of Polonious symbolized our contempt for the bourgeoisie. The puppets were magically alive. Such ease, such individuality. The soliloquy was recited as the inner metaphysics of anarchism, our contradictions and concerns with moral issues. We children and adults alike were immersed in the anguish of this hero puppet, dressed in black, a fragile reminder of our own pain at the threshold of exile. For all of us in that moment it was our truth: ``...to be or not to be?'' We all had our answer. I, too. I wanted to be. I wanted to love. The tension grew unbearable. Then, surprise, there was an intermission. The children ran to get snacks of bread and molasses. I had to look behind the stage. My mother was exhausted. She waved and threw me a kiss. We rushed back to our seats. This time my friend Libertad was next to me. Now we were back in the conspiracy, the malevolence, the deals. But Hamlet, the good tribune, noble, generous, proclaimed justice and revolution. Horatio cried out the moral conscience of the people. Now we hated the King, he had to die. When the final duel came, we screamed ferociously for Hamlet. The clash of the swords was real, sparks jumped between the duelists. The voices were excited, full of power. A cry of horror arose when Hamlet was stabbed with the poisoned sword. ``Treason...treason,'' we shouted. ``He's faking...he has to get up...come on!... fight back, kill the bastards!'' Slowly Hamlet died in the arms of Horatio, although he had time to exhort every- body to the barricades and overthrow the monarchy. Our little puppets. How passionately they had loved. How nobly they had died, even as their little bodies convulsed with pain. The final scene mobilized the people. Union banners, miniature cannons, signs proclaiming workers' unity, a contingent of FAI-CNT and, finally, Hamlet, covered by a red and black flag. We children stood up, we raised our arms and clenched our fists high above our heads. It was a furious, solemn homage to the hero of the people. In December 1937 the childcare closed. The ex-nuns, through the influence of the Quakers, were given asylum in England. Many children were sent to Sweden. Nobody in our center wanted to send their sons and daughters to the Soviet Union. My parents told me, ``We stay together. To the end. We live or die, but we stay together!'' The ``fifth column,'' automobiles with armed fascists, started to roam Barcelona, shooting people, attacking unions and offices of the leftist press. Priests again were seen lurking here and there around Barcelona. I invited Libertad to tea in my house. She came with a jar of plum jam. My mother made us tea and served some cakes made of rice flour. Then we played records. We sang along to Ellington lyrics and cried to ``Solitude.'' When Armstrong sang ``I can't give you anything but love,'' we held hands and knew much about love. Rataplan, my cat came to play with us, and bestowed his favors with unusual impartiality. We went out to the patio. The weather was already cold. My plants were ready for hibernation. Some swallows, flying low, made passes over our heads. Night was coming and we knew we had only a little while to say good-bye. Libertad's father arrived to escort her home. The streets were dangerous now. He had a pistol under his arm in a sling like a gangster and a revolver in the pocket of his jacket. For a last few moments my friend and I were alone together in a corner of the house. ``Palitos, don't look so gloomy,'' she told me. ``We are alive, we will survive.'' Then she kissed me. First on my cheek, then on my lips. I responded the best I could. Her father came to help her with her coat. ``See you in France, Palitos,'' Libertad turned and gave a little wave as she walked out the door. In the middle of January of 1939 my parents and some other friends managed to capture two G.M. trucks. Everybody carried a weapon. My mother carried her old pistol. We left Barcelona in the dark, at a furious speed. Far away we could hear the rumble of artillery. At every turn of the road we found people moving toward France. The trucks climbed the Pyrenees slowly and with great difficulty. The road was icy, slippery. We walked the final trek to the border with France. The French had stationed Senegalese troops to control the refugees. I liked the guards with their black faces and red colonial kepis. An entry in by diary ready: ``January 29. We crossed the border. Cold but sunny. Can't walk much, frostbite.'' Spain was behind us now. After W.W.II I came back to France to attend university. I met Libertad again. We had survived. In July of 1986 I returned to Catalonia. It was the 50th anniversary of the Civil War. Barcelona had changed. The infamous Mayor Josep Maria de Porcioles, a Franco favorite who probably hated Catalonia, had destroyed the most interesting views in the city and left developers from Madrid free to construct modernistic buildings without character or elegance, just simple greed. Industrial slums, blocks of apartments like the sad, grey projects of Moscow, had been erected in a period of twenty years. Franco had managed to degrade Barcelona. So now a plan to restore the old neighborhoods was in full swing. Our house was still more or less intact, but the street was full of porno shops and `American' bars. Cars were parked in chaotic clusters everywhere on the sidewalks. The veterans of the Lincoln Battalion visited some battlefields. I met Steve Nelson, the Commander of the right wing in the attack on Brunete. We took an air conditioned bus looking for the town. It was a hot, dry summer day. Brunete had a new highway, and auto- mobiles of European tourists speeded through at full blast. Steve guided me to the streets where the battle had been the worst, where hundreds of men fell in hand to hand combat. Steve pointed out a field near an old wall. ``There is where Oliver Law died.'' He was the Captain of the Battalion, the first Afro-American to lead white men into battle. Seated in an open cafe we had French sodas, bread and chorizos. We talked about America, when suddenly Steve said: ``You guys,'' meaning the anarchists, ``were so full of fire, so full of passion. You had such a rare nobility. It took me a couple of years in an American jail, the confessions of Kruschev and a bro- ken heart before I finally left the Communist Party. Ah!, but Spain...Barcelona...the FAI-CNT...that was life. The romance of my youth. Nothing has ever touched it. I would not have missed it for anything in the world.'' Notes 1. The FAI-CNT was the Iberian Anarchist Federation in alliance with the anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Workers. 2. The POUM was the Workers Party of Marxist Unification, a small revolutionary anti-Bolshevik party allied with the revolutionary anarchists. 3. The UGT was the Socialist-controlled General Union of Workers, a non- libertarian and less radical rival of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT.