Chomsky on Anarchism.pdf - Zine Library

CHOMSKY ON ANARCHISM
C.N.T.-EA.L, 1937). There is an excellent and sympathetic summary by the Marxist
scholar Karl Korsch, "Collectivization in Spain," in Living Marxism, Vol. 4 (April
1939), pp. 179-82. In the same issue (pp. 170-171), the liberal Communist reaction
to the Spanish Civil War is summarized succinctly, and I believe accurately, as
follows: "With their empty chatter as to the wonders of Bolshevik discipline, the
geniality of Caballero, and the passions of the Pasionaria, the 'modern liberals' merely
covered up their real desire for the destruction of all revolutionary possibilities in
the Civil War, and their preparation for the possible war over the Spanish issue in the
interest of their diverse fatherlands ... what was truly revolutionary in the Spanish
Civil War resulted from the direct actions of the workers and pauperized peasants,
and not because of a specific form of labor organization nor an especially gifted leadership."
1 think that the record bears Out this analysis, and 1 also think that it is this
fact that accounts for the distaste for the revolutionary phase of the Civil War and its
neglect in historical scholarship.
61 An illuminating eyewitness account of this period is that of Franz Borkenau, The
Spanish Cockpit (1938; reprinted Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 1963).
62 Figures from Guerin, L'Anarchisme, p. 154.
6 3 A useful account of this period is given by Felix Morrow, Revolution and COllnter­
Revolution in Spain (I 938; reprinted London, New Park Publications, 1963)
6 4 Cited by Camillo Berneri in his "Lcnre ouvene a la camarade Frederica [sic]
Molltseny," Guerre de classes en Espagne (Paris, 1946), a collection of items translated 85
from his journal Guerra di Classe. Berneri was the outstanding anarchist intellectual
in Spain. He opposed the policy of joining the government and argued for an alternative,
more typically anarchist strategy to which I will return below. His own view
towards joining the government was stated succinctly by a Catalan worker whom he
quotes, with reference to the Republic of 1931: "It is always the old dog with a new
collar." Events were to prove the accuracy of this analysis.
Berneri has been a leading spokesman of Italian anarchism. He left Italy after
Mussolini's rise to power, and came to Barcelona on July 19, 1936. He fo rmed the
first Italian units for the antifascist war, according to anarchist historian Rudolf
Rocker (The Tragedy of Spain rNew York, Freie Arbeiter Stirn me, 19371. p. 44 ). He
was murdered, along with his older comrade Barbieri, during the May Days of 1937.
(Arrested on May 5 by the Communist-controlled police, he was shot during the following
night.) Hugh Thomas, in The Spanish Civil U'&r, p. 428, suggests that "the
Thomas' book, which is largely devoted to military history, mentions Berneri's murder
bur makes no other reference to his ideas or role.
Berneri's name does not appeat in Jackson's history.
65 Burnen Bolloten, The Grand Camouflage: The Communist Conspiracy in the Spanish
Civil Wa r (New York, Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., 1961), p. 86. This book, by a UP
correspondent in Spain during the Civil War, contains a great deal of important documentary
evidence bearing on the questions considered here. The attitude of the
wealthy farmers of this area, most of them former supporters of the right-wing organ