Including the Civil War in Spain, Felix Morrow, Pathfinder Press 1974 ISBN 0-87348-402-9. First Published 1936 and 1938 by Pioneers Publications

Felix Morrow, a leader of the United States’ based Socialist Workers Party gives an excellent account about what was happening in Spain that was written by an eye witness who was both a participant and observer during the Spanish Civil War. He gives a detailed account about how the Stalin backed Spanish Communist Party was more interested in physically eliminating their political enemies in the Spanish Republic than fighting the Fascist menace. Morrow gives a blow by blow account about how the revolution was destroyed from the inside out. Although he has a sneaking admiration for the anarchist CNT and FAI his main sympathies lie with P.O.U.M (Workers Party), a relatively small Trotskyist Party that played a role in the Spanish revolution.

Stalin, paranoid about Trotskyism, used the Spanish Communist Party and many of the communist members of the International Brigades to destroy what he believed was the dominant threat to his rule in the Soviet Union. The Spanish Civil War was a backdrop in his international efforts to wipe out Trotsky’s supporters off the face of the planet. Once the threat from P.O.U.M was eliminated Stalin, through the Spanish Communist Party, turned his attention to the CNT and FAI. The Spanish Civil War as George Orwell pointed out in Homage to Catalonia was lost because of the Stalinists’ role in the revolution not because of the fascist counter-revolution.

More anarchist militants died as a direct result of Communist treachery than they did as a result of the Phalangists actions during the Civil War. The disappointing aspect about Morrow’s account is that although he gets his facts right about what happened, his solution highlight the limitations of a Marxist analysis based on creating a dictatorship of the proletariat through the actions of a vanguard party. In Morrow’s opinion the creation of a vanguard party was all that stood between defeat and victory in the Spanish Civil War. I find it hard to believe a man with so much insight into what was actually happening was so blinkered by ideology he was promoting the same ideas as a solution to the problems encountered during the Civil War as Stalin’s supporters in Spain were promoting.

The abolition of the state not the capture of the state by a vanguard party is the aim of all anarchists. Vanguard parties irrespective of whether they call themselves socialist or communist always put the interests of the party before the interests of the people they lead.

Felix Morrow’s pamphlets are a valuable source of primary information about what was happening in Spain during the Civil War. His analysis should be consigned to the dustbin of history. He broke with the Socialist Party of America during World War Two. I can't help wondering what happened to him and whether he changed his analysis as a result of his break with the SWP.

Try a radical bookshop or your library if you want to get hold of this firsthand account of the political machinations which led to the demise of the Spanish Popular Front government in Spain during the Civil War. Thanks to James from Frankston for lending me his copy of Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain to read and review.

Also published in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review No.951. http://anarchistmedia.org/weekly.html

A complete copy of the book is available on the web

It must also be mentioned that Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, fought with the POUM as part of a contingent organised by the British Independent Labour Party (there's a recent article on their website) - the very organisation which was described promoting an Isocracy in its founding essays.

A copy of Homage to Catalonia is available at the George Orwell archive.

Negras tormentas agitan los aires / nubes oscuras nos impiden ver / Aunque nos espere el dolor y la muerte / contra el enemigo nos llama el deber.

El bien más preciado / es la libertad / hay que defenderla / con fe y valor.

Alza la bandera revolucionaria / que llevará al pueblo a la emancipación / Alza la bandera revolucionaria / que llevará al pueblo a la emancipación / En pie el pueblo obrero a la batalla / hay que derrocar a la reacción

¡A las Barricadas! ¡A las Barricadas! / por el triunfo de la Confederación./ ¡A las Barricadas! ¡A las Barricadas! / por el triunfo de la Confederación.