:warren-snake-green:?
Was the lib a lib for siding with the libs in order to undermine the libs in the Spanish liberal war?
Stalin did not 'side with' the Republicans.
Keeping the Left Republicans in government was about laundering a revolutionary state as a normal parliamentary democracy. They were only there at the pleasure of the Socialists and Commies.
While this strategy was supposed to ellicit international aid that didn't materialize, it wasn't a horrible idea to maintain the pretense. the lack of Anarchist presence in the government was mostly from the Anarchists' antistatism, but they did enter the government anyway
Yeah, it was a nice idea but ultimately the wrong decision since the west blockaded the Republic anyway.
I know literally nothing about what actually happened there with Stalin, but based on your leading question:
Yes, siding against the Anarchists was a shit idea if Stalin really did that.
Undermine the anarchists how? I never understood the anarchist's plan in the spanish civil war.
Revolutionary Left Radio did an episode on the Spanish Civil War, and from what I can remember the Comintern didn't want the anarchists to be successful because they were trying to run communists in elections in Europe and they thought if there was a full-blown revolution in Spain it would anger the other European governments and they would be banned from running.
At first they just undermined the anarchists by only giving them very weak support, not letting them have weapons, etc. Then eventually things came to a head and the Bolsheviks decided they needed to take full control of the Republican forces so they attacked the anarchists and started killing and jailing them. Apparently this infighting is one of the reasons that Spain was lost to the fascists.
At first they just undermined the anarchists by only giving them very weak support, not letting them have weapons, etc.
I can't agree with calling that undermining. It's just not giving full support to the anarchists. The second part is more valid but the anarchist groups were often squatting on vital military infrastructure or even outright looting.
I'll have to listen to that podcast. My perception of the anarchist plan in the SCW was that they wanted to create perfect anarchist communes that would then be destroyed piecemeal by the fascists. We'll see if that changes.
The anarchist militias were reasonably effective, and with support might have been quite successful. But no one comes out of the SCW looking particularly good.
Stalin greatly underestimated western antipathy to even moderate socialism and threw potential allies into the cold for nothing, and the radical factions of the Anarchists absolutely were damaging the war effort. Fuck-ups all round.
It was never the time for revolution should have been the USSR's motto. At least Mao, for all of his faults, worked with Anarchists once.
What do you think the Anarchists were doing fellating themselves? They put out international cries for help. If Stalin was an internationalist like he claimed, he wouldn't have stabbed them in the back. The time for revolution was clearly there, he just didn't want a secondary socialist power to offer a real alternative to state rule.
Maybe prioritise fighting fascists first?
Please explain why, if ‘the time for revolution was clearly there’, the anarchist leadership instructed the radicals to stand down and focus on the war during the May Days?
Do you not see how these claims contradict each other? You're mad I criticized daddy Stalin and any argument will do. Done with you. That style of argument is toxic and I want no part of it. It's shit flinging.
That's just what I remember from the podcast episode, and it's been a few years since I listened to it.
Seems like it should be the other way around. Shouldn't people go along with the guys providing all the tanks and planes, and not just say "help us do a thing you don't wanna do"?
Except this was literally Stalin providing the tanks and planes, to the elected left-wing government. It's like if Allende asked Castro to send Cubans with guns to protect him, and then a bunch of randos decide they'd rather just do a no unjust hierarchies while Pinochet was taking over and act surprised when they aren't treated like comrades or whatever.
