The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

CNT proved “this organisation’s definitive break with the revolutionary class struggle”. 1076 The counterrevolution
of the ‘Spanish Noskes’ – as the GIC described the socialists and stalinists in an international leaflet –
was able to triumph. 1077
For the GIC the attitude of Spanish anarchism was not a betrayal; it was the logical outcome of anarchist
principles. There was no betrayal of anarchist principles, as certain ‘critical’ anarchist groups claimed: “The
reproach of foreign anarchists that the CNT has betrayed its anarchist principles is not valid. The CNT cannot do
anything else because it is not founded on reality; it had to join up with one of the forces on the ground”. 1078
The GIC, however remained strangely silent on the ‘Friends of Durruti’ group which condemned the policy of
the CNT and took part in the fighting in Barcelona on the side of the insurgents.
Despite some undeniable – but short-lived – initial hesitations on the significance of the ‘militias’, the GIC
ended up with a position on the war in Spain close to that of the Italian Communist Left. Like this latter, the GIC
proclaimed the primary necessity for the workers in Spain to destroy the Spanish republican state apparatus in
order to install the dictatorship of the workers’ councils. The GIC underlined – against the current – that the only
help to the Spanish workers would come, not from the ‘intervention’ of the ‘democratic’ bourgeoisie’, the supply
of weapons, but in the outbreak of class struggle in every country, in order to break the isolation of the workers
in Spain.
The no-compromise attitude of the GIC contrasted violently with that of the trotskyist groups of the time who
called their militants to the side of the Popular Front on the military fronts and to defend Spanish
‘democracy’. 1079 The positions of groups like Union Communiste in France and Hennaut’s Ligue des
Communistes Internationalistes in Belgium – who were more or less moving towards council communism were
much closer to those of trotskyism, even of the POUM, than of the GIC. 1080 These two organisations, like the
minority in Bilan, who were excluded for joining the militia, oscillated between ‘trotskyism’ and ‘councilism’,
without having a clear political coherence.
The much greater coherence of the GIC on the Spanish question was nevertheless accompanied by a certain
number of ambiguities linked to its conception of organisation.These ambiguities found expression in the
publication in the council communist press of positions foreign to the vision of the GIC, without any comment or
real criticism. The example of the publication by the PIC (see above) of a letter from a member of the GIC
engaged in the ‘militias’ on the Aragon front is typical. No comment, no political condemnation of this
individual ‘initiative’ accompanied the letter. It seems that the GIC avoided fundamental debates for fear of
asserting itself as a political organisation. Seeing itself as an informal, ‘open’ organisation, the GIC also
published, without comment, some texts from Union Communiste and the Belgian LCI on the question of Spain,
without a critique of these groups except on the question of the party. 1081 But this publication was presented as a
contribution to discussion. This was not the case when the GIC published in the German language international
review – Räte-Korrespondenz – a text, presented as coming from international council communists. This text
1076 ‚Revolution und Konterrevolution in Spanien’, in: Räte-Korrespondenz, No. 22, June 1937.
1077 Leaflet of May 1937: ‘Klassenoorlog in Spanje’ distributed in Holland and Belgium by the GIC, the Proletenstemmen
group – linked to the GIC –, the Belgian L.C.I. and the ‘councilist’ Union of International Council Workers (Internationale
Arbeiders-Raden-Vereeniging, or IARV) of Flanders.
1078 Räte-Korrenspondenz, No. 22, June 1937, idem.
1079 Cf. Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution 1931-39 (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1973): “Only cowards, traitors or agents of
fascism can renounce aid to the Spanish republican armies. The elementary duty of every revolutionist is to struggle against
the bands of Franco, Mussolini and Hitler.” (p. 242). “We are ‘defensists’ […] We participate in the struggle against Franco
as the best soldiers [of the Popular Front Army” (p. 289). “Everywhere and always, wherever and whenever revolutionary
workers are not powerful enough immediately to overthrow the bourgeois regime, they defend even rotten bourgeois
democracy from fascism” (p. 282). “In the Spanish civil war, the question is: democracy or fascism ” (p. 283).
1080 For the history of these groups see: Ph. Bourrinet, The ‘bordigist’ Current 1919-1999, Italy, France, Belgium, already
quoted.
1081 ‘Manifeste’ (title in French), by Union Communiste, PIC, No. 12, August 1937. Article by the LCI: ‘Algemene
beschouwingen over de Spaansche revolutie’, in: PIC, No. 13, Sept. 1937.
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