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Gerra Zibila: "Viva Trotski" milizianoen blindatu batean

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La coalición republicano-socialista gobernó las colonias españolas en Marruecos, como lo había hecho la monarquía, a través de la Legión Extranjera y de los mercenarios nativos. Los socialistas argumentaban que cuando las condiciones lo justificasen extenderían la democracia a Marruecos y le permitirían beneficiarse de las mejoras de un régimen progresista.

Trotsky y sus partidarios calificaron la posición socialista de acto de traición a un pueblo oprimido. Pero, incluso por la seguridad de las masas españolas, Marruecos debía ser liberado. Los especialmente viciosos legionarios y mercenarios que allí se criaban serían la primera fuerza en ser utilizada por un golpe reaccionario, y Marruecos su base militar para la reacción. Los obreros mismos debían luchar por la retirada inmediata de todas las tropas y la independencia de Marruecos, e incitar al pueblo marroquí a conseguirla. La libertad de las masas españolas estaría en peligro mientras las colonias no fuesen liberadas.

La solución a la liberación nacional de los pueblos catalán y vasco era similar a la de la cuestión colonial. (...)

—F. Morrow ; The Civil War in Spain — Towards Socialism or Fascism? (Pioneer Publishers, New York) https://www.marxists.org/archive/morrow-felix/1936/09/civilwar.pdf

Faxismoaren 5. zutabea / La 5ª columna del fascismo

FRONTE POPULARRA / EUSKAL BURGESIA, FAXISMOAREN 5. ZUTABEA

 

 “Jabetza sakratuagoa zen beraientzat

  faxismoaren aurkako borroka baino”

“The absolute uniformity of the Basque policy of surrendering all industrial cities intact has no counterpart in any modern war, not to speak of civil wars!”

Milizianoak Alegian

POPULAR FRONT SURRENDERS SANTANDER

(by Felix Morrow)

 

Socialist Appeal

(organ of the Socialist Party of New York,

Left Wing Branches)

4. zenbakia,  1937ko irailaren 4a

S

antander, last Biscay port of the Loyalists, was surrendered on August 26 [1937] by the Basque general staff without the slighetst attempt to defend it. Santander fell into the hands of Franco intact, its port and factories ready for use by the Fascists. The same thing had happened in Reinosa, manufacturing town and key to Santander’s defenses, a few days earlier. Instead of war to death against fascism, the Negrin goverment’s appointees miserably capitulated. Not even the military supllies were destroyed. Even before the fascist troops arrived in Santander, yesterday’s “loyal republican police”, the National Republican Guards, as well as armed fascist civilians, were patroling the streets and disarming Asturian militiamen.

            A revealing light is thrown on the conduct of the Basque Government by a Times dispatch of August 25 [1937]:

“At the time of the fall of Bilbao [Bilbo] the Basques freed all their hostages except seventeen. Now these are considered to be in the gravest peril as the Basques admit that it is no longer possible to protect them from extremist elements (the Asturian miners) in Santander.

“When the British Embassy agreed to take off the hostages it would also evacuate the Basques who have been guarding them as well as any remaining members of the Basque Government...

“It is hoped that the whole maneuver will be carried out before the more violent elements in Santander are aware of what is happening.”

Play Fascist Game

The next day the British battleship “Keith”, with Basque and Fascist representatives aboard “rescued” the Basque officials and the seventeen fascists! Instead of going to the Asturian port, Gijon, to which the real fighters against fascism were sailing for the last stand against Franco, the Basque President Aguirre [Agirre], a his cohorts, prefered to leave Spain, paying for the voyage by releasing seventeen important Fascist prisoners! Such is the quality of the “antifascism” of the liberal  bourgeoisie.

            That the Basque bourgeoisie would not fight to the death against Franco was apparent as early as September, 1936, when they abandoned the factories of San Sebastian [Donostia] intact to the enemy. The same thing has happened in the case of every city in the Biscay provinces. Rather than conduct an intransigeant struggle involving demolition of bourgeois factories and buildings, the bourgeoisie preferred to abandon the cities, one by one. Property was more sacred to them than the struggle against fascism. If the property were destroyed, it would be irretrievably lost. But if they surrendered it intact and Franco was victorious, Franco, believing in private property, would certainly want to conciliate the property-owners when the war was over, even if they had been on the wrong side for a time..... Apart from this certain prospect, there may even have been an understanding on this point with Franco; the absolute uniformity of the Basque policy of surredering all industrial cities intact has no counterpart in any modern war, not to speak of civil wars! [...]

—F. Morrow

·         http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/socialist-appeal-1937/sep-04-1937.pdf

http://www.icl-fi.org/espanol/spe/36/espanola.html

BASQUE CHIEFS FEAR WORKERS (Socialist Appeal)

ASTURIAR PROLETALGOAK EUSKAL HERRIA DEFENDITU ZUEN, EUSKAL NAZIONALISTEK FRANCORI OPARITU ZIOTEN

Milizia proletarioa; Bilbo, Bizkaia.

POPULAR FRONT SURRENDERS SANTANDER

(by Felix Morrow)

Socialist Appeal

(organ of the Socialist Party of New York, Left Wing Branches)

4. zenbakia,  1937ko irailaren 4a

Basque Chiefs

Fear Workers

 

[...] the absolute uniformity of the Basque policy of surredering all industrial cities intact has no counterpart in any modern war, not to speak of civil wars!

Double Treachery

The "iron ring" defending Bilbao had been built months previously under the direction of an engineer who had shortly escaped to fascist territory. The fascists, then, had the plans of the fortifications and could skirt and flank them, as they actually did. But the treachery of the engineer was only made public after fascists had broken through the fortifications; it was then adduced as the alibi of Basque goverment. But months had intervened since his flight. Why was nothing done to construct a new system of fortifications in the interim?

Furthermore, no offensive was begun on the central front to force Franco to divert troops from the Basque front. Nor were airplanes sent from Madrid, then quiet, to defend Bilbao. Why? Had the Negrin goverment information which made it certain that Bilbao would surrender? Was it, perhaps, a party to the decision? Certainly no other hypothesis explains the passivity of the Negrin Goverment during the march on Bilbao during June.  The Stalinist alibi that the Negrin cabinet (established May 27) had not had time to organize a campaign on the Madrid or Aragon fronts is absurd on the face of it; no military man worth his salt would deny that three weeks —not to speak of preparations by the Caballero cabinet in which the Prieto-bourgeois-Stalinist forces had the commanding voice— was enough to organize a large-scale offensive.

Our suspicions are completely justified by the manner in which Bilbao surrendered. No attempt was made to defend the city. Not a single factory or wharf was damaged by fascist shells before its fall. The Asturian miners managed to dynamite some of the bridges; but when sought to destroy supplies which were being left behind, and factories manufacturing war-materials, they were driven out of the city at gun-point, or, worse, disarmed by National Republican Guards and Basque soldiers of the regular army and held so that thet might fall into hands of the fascists! The Guards “maintained order” until Franco’s forces arrived; patrolled the streets while the fascists troops marched in; then most of them donned Carlist red berets and went to work for Franco!

These unquestioned facts do not come from any private source. Most of them were reported by regular news-correspondets, including the London Times’ G. L. Steer, a Loyalist sympathizer. Neither here nor abroad did the Stalinists deny these facts. They “ingnored” them as did the Negrin goverment. With the result that the Basque Goverment has consumated its treachery by similarly surrendering Santander and fleeing the country. This outcome was inevitable: for the "liberal" bourgeoisie has no basic stake in fighting fascism. As agents and partners of British and French capital in Spain, the Basque bourgeoisie had no enthusiasm for joining Franco, with his German and Italian commitments. But more than they hated Franco, they hated the masses of the UGT and CNT. They supported Prieto and the Stalinists in reconstructing the bourgeois state, in depriving the workers of the conquests they had won in crushing the fascists in the chief cities. But despite all repressions, the bourgeoisie had no guarantees that a victory over Franco would nor galvanize the working class into taking complete power. Against this eventuality only Franco could guarantee them.

Nothing learned

Neither the treachery of the Basque bougeoisie, nor the continued blockade of Franco and English imperialism, serve to convince the bourgeois-Prieto-Stalinist bloc that their course is false. Nothing can convince the Peoples Front coalition of this. They are determined to win, if at all —and not a few of the goverment leaders prefer a compromise with Franco to the possible dangers of proletarian power after victory— on the basis of so thoroughly consolidating a bourgeois regime that Anglo-French imperialism, reassured, will come to their aid. [...]

—F. Morrow, Socialist Appeal (1937-9-4)

 http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/themilitant/socialist-appeal-1937/sep-04-1937.pdf

"Grupo de dinamiteros vasco"

http://www.icl-fi.org/espanol/spe/36/espanola.html
 

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