Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
In retrospect, Berneri's ideas seem quite reasonable. Oelegarions of
Moroccan nationalists did in fact approach the Valencia government asking for
arms and materiel, but were refused by Caballero, who actually proposed territorial
concessions in North Africa to France and England to try to win their
suppOrt. Commenting on these facts, Broue and Temime observe that these
policies deprived the Republic of "the instrument of revolutionary defeatism in
the enemy army," and even of a possible weapon against Italian intervention.
Jackson. on the other hand. dismisses Berneri's suggestion with the remark that
independence for Morocco (as for that maHer, even aid to the Moroccan
nationalists) was "a gesture that would have been highly appreciated in Paris
and London." Of course it is correct that France and Britain would hardly have
appreciated this development. As Berneri points out, "it goes without saying
that one cannot simulcaneously guarantee French and British interests in
Morocco and carry out an insurrection." But Jackson's comment does not
touch on the central issue, namely, whether the Spanish revolution could have
been preserved, both from the fascists at the front and from the bourgeois­
Communist coalition within the Republic, by a revolutionary war of the sort
that the left proposed-or, for that matter, whether the Republic might not
have been saved by a political struggle that involved Franco's invading Moorish
troops, or at least eroded their morale. It is easy to see why Caballero was not
attracted by this bold scheme, given his reliance on the eventual backing of the
Western democracies. On the basis of what we know today, however, Jackson's
summary dismissal of revolutionary war is much too abrupt.
65
Furthermore, Bertoni's observations from the Huesca front are borne our
by much other evidence. some of it cited earlier. Even those who accepted the
Communist strategy of discipline and central control as necessary concede that
the repressions that formed an ineliminable part of this strategy "tended to
break the fighting spirit of rhe people. "IIO One can only speculate, bur it
seems to me that many commentators have seriously underestimated the significance
of the political factor, the potential strength of a popular struggle to
defend the achievements of the revolucion. It is perhaps relevant that Asturias,
the one area of Spain where the system of CNT-UGT committees was not
eliminated in favor of central control, is also the one area where guerrilla warfare
continued well after Franco's victory. Broue and T emime observe !!! that
the resistance of the partisans of Asturias "demonstrates the depth of the revolutionary
eian, which had nor been shattered by the reinstitution of state
authority, conducted here with greater prudence." There can be no doubt that
the revolution was both widespread and deeply rooted in the Spanish masses.
It seems quite possible that a revolutionary war of the sort advocated by
Berneri would have been successful, despite the grearer mili(ary force of the
fascist armies. The idea that men can overcome machines no longer seems as
romantic or naive as it may have a few years ago.