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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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That's just what I remember from the podcast episode, and it's been a few years since I listened to it.
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.
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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.
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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.
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