“They shall not
pass”
The Spanish
Civil War and the Canadian Left
A review essay by David Orton
Renegades: Canadians In The Spanish Civil War
by Michael Petrou, UBC Press,
Vancouver, Toronto,
2008, 282 pages, paperback, ISBN:
978-0-7748-1418-8.
“For all their
human faults, and for all the ugly complexities in the war
they chose to fight, the Canadians who fought in
Spain had the moral
clarity to face the rising menace of fascism when
most of their
countrymen chose to look away. They joined a war of
which their
government and the RCMP did not approve. It seems
they were never
quite forgiven.” p. 180
Introduction
This book Renegades: Canadians In The Spanish Civil
War, with its strangely negative
title, started its life as a doctoral thesis at the
University of Oxford. The thesis was completed
in 2006 although the research began in 2002. I found
this book scholarly and well
documented. It has 30 pages of interesting
photographs which convey some sense of the
historical period when the world was focused on
Spain. We are told that almost seventeen
hundred soldier-volunteers from Canada went to fight
in the Spanish Civil War, this
included nine women, and more than four hundred were
killed there. This is an astounding
death rate, which took place under the moving
Spanish anti-fascist slogan “No Pasaran”
(“They shall not pass”).
The author, Michael Petrou,
acknowledges building on the work of other writers on this
topic but this historical study we are told, “breaks
significant new ground, in part because
of its extensive use of recently declassified
documents from the archives of the Communist
International in Moscow.” (p. 6) A large part of the
book because of this access, and the
perspective of the author, seems to focus on what
might be called “dissension and
discipline in the ranks.” The overall impact of this
focus – protestations notwithstanding as
in the above quotation – is to undercut the moral
stature of those Canadians who fought
and died in Spain. Michael Petrou says he is trying
in this book to counter “a one-
dimensional and rather unrealistic image of
volunteers in the International Brigades as brave
and selfless anti-fascists fighting in a utopian
army untarnished by cruelty and fear.” (p. 136)
Nothing like setting up a straw person to demolish
and to justify one’s own actions. Yet
much more than this is that the author does not try
to understand what it means to “think
like a communist” and remains a prisoner of the
limitations of his own bourgeois culture.
For him capitalist societies are equated with
democratic societies, no questions asked. So
Petrou’s observations in this book become,
unfortunately, often anti-communist and
predictable. He has no trouble asserting for the
reader, right at the beginning of his book,
that the Soviet Union wanted to “prolong” the
Spanish Civil War in order to better prepare
to eventually fight Nazi Germany and this is why
sufficient arms were not provided to the
Republican side. (See Preface, xvi) I find this an
astounding assertion.
Petrou is a “senior writer” with Macleans, a mainstream magazine in
Canada, which
seems to have tilted to the Right, perhaps
symbolized by the appointment of Andrew
Coyne as National Editor. This magazine has carried
promotional advertising for Renegades
(May 5th, 2008). There is an enthusiastic
endorsement of this book in the advertising by the
prominent Canadian military historian and Afghan war
hawk Jack Granatstein. He tells us
that this is “The best and most complete account of
Canadians in the Spanish Civil War we
are ever likely to get.” Grants from the Canadian
government and financial support from the
Canadian War Museum, Canada’s “national museum of
military history”, helped finance the
publication of this book by UBC Press. The Museum,
which along with UBC Press, is
prominent in the Macleans'
advertising promotion, would be seen by some, including myself,
as a conservative defender of the ‘official’
meritorious view of Canada’s military history past
and present – as in
Afghanistan.
There are three main reasons for
writing a review of this book, from my perspective:
1) The first reason is that I
have always admired those Canadians who, against the
opposition of their government, went to fight
fascism in Spain in the 1930s. I have desired to
learn more about who they were and what motivated
them. I have fantasized that if I had
been “of age” in the 1930s, would I have found the
courage to have gone to Spain? The
Canadian doctor Norman Bethune has long been a hero
of mine, for his mobile blood
transfusion work during the Civil War in Spain and
for his general medical service in
revolutionary China. I often wondered about what
kind of person in Canada would leave
their country to take up arms in a foreign land, and
the power of his or her political
convictions in the economic deprivation of the
1930s? According to this book, the most
accurate database of Canadians who fought in Spain
contains 1,681 names. (See p. 13)
I hoped this book would give information on the
social backgrounds of the Canadian
volunteers. Renegades does not
disappoint in this regard.
2) The second reason for
reviewing this book is that I wondered whether or not an
academic author today, after the passing of the
official Cold War (more realistically
viewed as a Western response going back to the
Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia
than just post Second World War), could handle this
topic of the Spanish Civil War
without reflecting the anti-communist prejudices of
Canadian and, more generally,
Western societies. Such prejudices have generally
been reflected in studies of what are
seen as the Communist “other.” Al Gore reminded us,
if we needed a reminder, in his
1993 book Earth in
the Balance: “Opposition to communism was the principle
underlying almost all of the geopolitical strategies
and social policies designed by the
West after World War II.” (p. 271) Frances Stonor
Saunders in her 1999 book
The CIA And The World Of Arts And Letters, a
work of quite impressive research,
shows the involvement of the CIA in shaping Western
culture in an anti-communist
direction. The Agency used major writers, poets,
musicians and painters, who let their
talents be mobilized, for US foreign policy goals
under the banner of “artistic freedom”,
as opposed to the “party line” of communists inside
and outside of the Soviet Union.
I myself, as reviewer, write as someone whose
background does include having been
a member of a Marxist-Leninist organization in
Canada in the late 1960s and early
1970s. (According to the 1978 book by Lorne and
Caroline Brown, An Unauthorized
History of the RCMP, pp. 122-123, the RCMP
tried unsuccessfully to enlist the
co-operation of Regina university authorities in
preparing a case against myself for
“sedition,” based on remarks I had made at a
university seminar in November 1969
on the topic “Revolt vs. the Status Quo.”)
3) The third reason has to do
with contemporary eco-politics. This is an ongoing
exploration by myself and others, of what it means
to be part of the ecological or
ecocentric Left today within the overall philosophy
of deep ecology, and in an ecosystem
being rapidly undermined by industrial capitalism.
What is an inclusive Left? More
particularly, what constitutes the “left” part of
the theoretical tendency left biocentrism,
has become of some urgency to resolve. This given
that a number of ecocentric activists
and writers are aligning with this tendency and are
sometimes having trouble leaving
behind “left” conflicts and internal battles from
the past with which they have previously
identified. We cannot afford the luxury of a
“take-no-prisoners” attitude in intellectual
exchanges among those who claim to be ecocentric and
also on the Left.
DISCUSSION
Reading this book had an
unintended consequence for me which was to show the strong
influence of the Canadian Communist party in our
country at the time of the Spanish Civil
War. It was this party, according to Michael Petrou,
which was responsible for organizing
the sending of 1700 Canadian volunteers to Spain.
This was no mean feat, when the
government of the day (and its security arm the
RCMP) was hostile to such endeavours.
Recently Gerald Caplan, one of the ideologues for
social democracy – or what he also calls
“democratic socialism” or the “democratic left” in
Canada – wrote an essay in The Globe
and Mail (July 19, 2008) marking the “75th
Anniversary Of Socialism In Canada.” There
was no mention in the essay by Caplan of the Spanish
Civil War, but there was mention
and celebration of The Regina Manifesto, adopted at
the founding convention of the
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1933.
The CCF much later was to
become the New Democratic Party (NDP). The CCF seems
to have had minimal influence
in sending volunteers to Spain, and it is perhaps
significant that Caplan in his article describes
the CCF as a “left-wing anti-communist movement.” Renegades serves to
remind us of the
radical working class influence of the Canadian
Communist Party in the 1930s compared to
its social democratic opponent, the CCF.
Chronology
of events
Renegades
provides a useful two-page chronology of dates and events in Spain from
April
1931 to April 1939. In April 1931, the
Second Spanish Republic came into being following
the abdication of the then king. In February of
1936, the Popular Front (the anti-fascist and
Left side) won a general election by a slender
majority of the votes that were cast. (According
to The Spanish
Civil War by Hugh Thomas, the general election results meant the
Popular
Front elected 263 deputies with 34.3 percent of the
popular vote, the National Front elected
133 deputies with 33.2 percent, and the Centre ,
which included Basque nationalists, elected
77 deputies with 5.4 per cent [p. 156].) In
July of 1936 the Spanish Civil War began.
During the civil war, the two contending sides were
usually called the Nationalists and the
Republicans. The chronology lists key dates from a
Canadian perspective, for example January
of 1937 when the first Canadian volunteers enlist in the
International Brigades, and the dates
of various battles and retreats where Canadians were
involved. (Norman Bethune was in Spain
by November 1936.) In September of 1938 the
International Brigades were withdrawn from
the battle lines. In January of 1939 large numbers
of Canadians began leaving Spain. In March,
the Nationalists entered the capital Madrid, and in
April of 1939 General Franco declared the
civil war as over.
General
The Spanish struggle was clearly
a precursor to the Second World War, which commenced
a few months after April 1939, when General Franco
claimed total military victory. It was
always a bit of a puzzle to me how in the 1930s
countries like Canada, the United States,
England and France declared a non-intervention
policy on the Spanish Civil War and
consequent arms embargo. Yet I know from my reading
and observations of history, that
if there is an ultimate “choice” for any capitalist
society, between supporting fascism or
communism, fascism will normally win out. (Unless it
is a matter of national survival as
in the Second World War, when temporary alliances
between the late Soviet Union and
the West were in order.)
In the 1930s Spain there was the
contrast between the Popular Front (which came to include
communists in government – a first for Western
countries) and the “National Front” (which
included fascists). It was ultimately a no-brainer
for the West in whom to politically support.
The political stance of an alleged neutrality
clearly favoured the insurrectionist fascist
“Nationalist” forces led by Franco and supported
militarily by Germany and Italy. Apparently,
according to the author, the Army of Africa, led by
Franco had the services of Hitler’s air
force to ferry them to the Spanish mainland. (p.6)
This was a crucial intervention for the side
of the fascists right at the beginning of the Civil
War. The military insurrection was launched
against an electorally legitimate Popular Front
Republican government, which was eventually
supported militarily by the Soviet Union. The
Popular Front government was elected with a
majority of votes cast in February 1936, in the last
elections held before the military uprising
of July 1936. The basic close divisions in Spanish
society shown in the election results
provided a social base for the term “Fifth Column”
which was born in Spain among the
citizenry. This term remains today as descriptive of
those citizens who conceal their political
allegiances, only contributing perhaps non
personally detectable sabotage, until the time is
seen as ripe to declare oneself, to what is seen as
an eventual winning side in a civil war
conflict.
This book has a number of
progressive aspects which expands our knowledge, as this
review tries to bring out, particularly in the
social portrait of those Canadians who went to
Spain. The question of enhancing our “understanding”
of the Spanish Civil War, Jack
Granatstein’s endorsement notwithstanding, is
another matter. Some ambivalence in the
moral certainty on the part of the author did became
apparent, as in the following
“moment of truth” when Petrou interviews Maurice
Constant – a communist dying in a
palliative care bed in a Canadian hospital. The
author was pressing Constant:
“To tell me more about the role of the Communist
Party in the International Brigades
and his relationship with the party. It is an
important issue, but for decades Franco
apologists dismissed foreign volunteers in Spain as
Stalin’s dupes, and Constant was
clearly getting sick of discussing the topic.” (p.
187)
Petrou goes on to say, on
reflecting about this interview, that he was “accusatory”
towards Maurice Constant and not “reassuring.” He
admits that he came to later
regret this and that he did not tell Constant “that
what he did was brave and good.”
(p. 187) But, notwithstanding this instance of
self-critical moral reassessment, the
author never really gives the positive argument from
the communist side in this book.
This example is the closest that the author comes to
calling his own taken-for-granted
values into question. I found the account of this
interview an extremely revealing
incident.
The author has some progressive
anti-fascist sentiment which peaks through from
time to time, but overall this is subordinated to an
anti-communist agenda. So Petrou
looks for that which will discredit the communist
cause at the time of the Spanish
Civil War. He brings to this task the basic
assumptions of bourgeois society about
itself – for example a capitalist society equals a
democratic society, and basic
anti-communist assumptions, about what I have called
the communist “other”.
Petrou proves incapable of giving the argument from
the communist point of view.
His claim to present the negative side of Canadian
involvement in Spain, particularly
though access to newly accessible Comintern records,
in order to present a more
balanced historical picture, falls flat, because he
seems to have little understanding
of why communists and their supporters conducted
themselves in certain ways. So
the many stupidities from the communist side which
are presented, and the tales of
desertions and requests to go home for the Canadians
and other international
fighters have no real political context.
Social
Composition of Canadians
“In 1928,
Number 1 Northern, Canada’s highest grade of spring wheat,
sold for $1.03
a bushel. Four years later the price per bushel had dropped
to 29 cents.”
(p. 29)
In the 1930s Canada was in
economic depression. The quote above about the drop
in the price of spring wheat is one revealing
indicator of the miserable state of the
economy, with massive unemployment in Canada and
desperate workers on the move
all over the country seeking non existing
self-sustaining work. A fifty-page Appendix in
this book lists the Canadian Volunteers who went to
Spain by alphabetical name, home,
ethnicity, date of birth, occupation and final
status. The work in this Appendix is a
major contribution to our understanding of the
Canadians who went to Spain. The
majority of Canadian who fought were part of the
International Brigades. Eventually
a Canadian contingent was organized called the
MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion. The
point is made that the military and political
leadership of the Mac-Paps “‘was
overwhelmingly American.’” (p. 109) These Brigades
first appeared in Spain in
November of 1936. The fascist side in the Civil War
often shot captured members of
the International Brigades.
Petrou shows that 78 percent of
the almost 1700 Canadian volunteers in Spain were
immigrants to Canada and the vast majority were
workers. The two most dominant
occupations were miners (136) and lumberjacks (111).
The author says that 56 of the
volunteers were French Canadian, mainly from Quebec.
From the data presented it
seems that only two of the volunteers were
aboriginals. Apparently only 32 of the
volunteers were known to have had some form of
higher education and these
volunteers were often Jewish. The author makes the
point that the British and US
contingents to Spain had a considerable more
“educated” component than the
Canadians. Communists made up 76 percent of the
Canadian contingent in Spain,
this included full party membership or membership in
the youth wing. Apparently
this party membership was quite similar to the US,
French and British volunteers
who went to Spain on the side of the Republic. The
youngest volunteer from
Canada was sixteen and the oldest fifty-seven while
the average age was thirty-two.
In the 1960s we are told the CBC did dozens of
interviews of veterans of the
Spanish Civil war but they were never broadcast. For
the author these interviews
“are an excellent resource” but he does not question
why these interviews remained
in the archives and were not made known to the
Canadian public. (p. 7)
Today in Canada the Communist
Party is quite marginalized and has little influence
on the political affairs of this country. But this
was certainly not the situation in the
1930s and this book serves to remind those who do
not know of this fact. Every
volunteer who went to Spain was funded and organized
by the Canadian party.
Why did the volunteers ally with the party?
“They
gravitated to the Communist party because no other organization
campaigned so
aggressively on behalf of the down-and-out or appeared to
be willing to
stand up to fascism.” (p. 48)
I believe the contribution of Renegades is to bring
together a good picture from
various sources of the social composition of the
Canadians who went to Spain and
to present the documentation for this. Any reader
with some social sensitivity and
knowledge of the terrible economic conditions of the
depression, can only admire
those who had so little and yet were prepared to
fight and if necessary to die to
try and stop the spread of fascism in Spain. I do
think there should have been more
face to face interviews with the remaining veterans
from Spain in preparing this book.
The author speaks of 12 veterans that he spoke to,
and some of these only seem to
have been telephone interviews.
Dissension
and Ideological Constraints
I find the title of this book
quite inexplicable although it certainly conveys moral
ambivalence and serves perhaps to indicate this
about the author’s stance towards
his subject matter. Are those who went to Spain in
the 1930s, to fight for the Republic
“renegades” to the existing bourgeois society, which
most of them had no economic
stake in? Why are they not anti-fascist heroes and
role models? Is this puzzling name
an example of the objectivity which the author
Michael Petrou tries to claim for
himself in writing this book and of presenting a
fuller picture, warts-and-all, of the
Canadians who fought in Spain?
While the author has to
acknowledge the positive work done by the Canadian
Communist Party in the 1930s in order to explain why
Canadians went to Spain, much
of this book (about one quarter of the written text)
unfortunately fits a “discredit
communism” agenda accompanied by disparaging
language. This is unveiled in the two
chapters of Part 3 of the book “Discipline in the
International Brigades”; and in two of
the three chapters in Part 4 of the book entitled
“Renegades” dealing with William
Krehm, a Trotskyist, called “The Idealist” by the
author; and in the chapter on Norman
Bethune, where disparaging material on Bethune and
on his then Swedish girlfriend is
presented. Bethune we are told was in Spain for less
than six months. (p. 166) Krehm,
who met up with George Orwell in Barcelona cafes,
worked with POUM in Spain, the
Trotskyist-inclined Partido Obrero de Unificacion
Marxista. Although it was part of the
Republican side, this was a party “that fiercely
opposed the brand of communism
espoused by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union.” (p.
71) Krehm is described by the
author as part of the “radical anti-Stalinist left
in Canada” (p.148). In Spain, he was
eventually arrested and jailed by the security
forces of the Republic for espionage.
But for Michael Petrou, Krehm was “unjustly accused.
(pp.6-7) After he returned
from Spain, Krehm went on speaking tours of Canada
and the United States about
his experiences in Spain, sponsored by
“anti-communist groups.” (p. 157) In a
recorded CBC interview quoted by Petrou, William
Krehm’s politics are made
quite clear:
“‘Of course,
one is for the defeat of Franco,’ Krehm said in 1965. ‘But one
is also
against having the worse aspects of the Franco regime painted red
and
established in Spain.’” (p. 149)
This shows that it was not only
groundless paranoia that it was difficult for
communists seeking popular front unity in Spain to
unite with Trotskyists.
I believe that it is necessary to
have a look at some of the unacknowledged
ideological constraints or taken-for-granted
assumptions of the author in assessing
the communist “other” which have influenced the
analysis in this book.
Trotskyism
and Stalinism
Perhaps it is necessary to say
something about Trotskyism and Stalinism in order
to understand the internal politics within the
Republican side as it concerned “popular
front unity” and the communist contingent. This
unity did not include the acceptance
of Trotskyism or Trotskyists by communists who
followed the leadership of Stalin
or the acceptance by followers of Trotsky of those
who aligned with the Soviet Union
led by Stalin. The author does not explain this
hostility but clearly sides with
Trotskyists in the Spanish Civil War.
Trotsky, despite his considerable
theoretical contributions, did call for a new
“revolution” in the Soviet Union in the 1930s, and
set up the Fourth International in
1938, in opposition to the Communist 3rd
International. These positions must have
found favour with capitalist societies, terrified by
the emergence of a Soviet Union.
Also, Trotsky called for international proletarian
revolutions – a worldwide
permanent revolution – thus directly opposing
the “socialism in one country” of the
Soviet Union. Traditional Marxist theory would have
had the communist revolution
first appearing in the most ‘advanced’ capitalist
countries with the largest concentration
of workers, disciplined and organized by Capital
into large concentrations in urban
settings. Russia did not meet this theoretical
expectation being predominantly rural
and peasant based.
“Trotskyism” seems to have had
great appeal for intellectuals around universities,
was much looser organizationally, and placed less
demands in a collective sense upon
its participants. Trotskyists have a reputation for
splitting into various ideological factions.
Also, Trotskyists never had political power in any
country where they could implement
their ideas. So, in a communist sense, this allowed
for full reign to hold forth “sideline”
commentaries which continue to this day among those
strongly influenced by Trotsky.
Upholding “Stalinism” as a pejorative term, as
Trotskyists do, seems to override
anything which could be considered positive in the
former Soviet Union. This is a position
which fits an anti-communist agenda and, more
importantly fits a basic position of
maintaining the dominance of Capitalism. This helps
agitate against the need for the
fundamental social redistribution of human-created
wealth, a central appeal of
communism and something which will be needed in a
post capitalist ecocentric and
socially just society.
The term “Trotskyist”, meaning a
follower of Trotsky, is not normally seen as having
negative connotations, but “Stalinist”, a follower
of Stalin, becomes a pejorative term in
the West, particularly by present or former
Trotskyists.
For some Marxists in the West,
the use of “Stalinism” as a supposed descriptive
category – meaning all the real and imagined evils
associated with the “actually existing
socialism” in the former Soviet Union and former
countries under its influence could be
opposed, yet a basic support or sympathy for
dialectical materialism and Marxism could
still be maintained as a theoretical position.
Anarchism
“I believe
that anarchism should be part of the "left" in left biocentrism.
Anarchists can
be left biocentrists and deep ecology supporters. But it
would be wrong
to say the future society will definitely be ecoanarchist
in organization, and
that an ecocentric consciousness requires this. It
should remain
as an open question. In this way, anarchists and non-
anarchists can
join socialists, non-socialists and others, in helping define
what a deep
and pluralistic left biocentrism should be for our times, and
creatively
respond to the unfolding future.” Orton, “Deep Ecology and
Anarchism”,
Green Web Bulletin #72, March 2001.
I am sympathetic to much of
anarchism but do not consider myself an anarchist.
Anarchism was very influential in the Spanish Civil
War, particularly in the early stage.
A number of people who consider themselves left
biocentrists would also self-describe
as anarchists. There was a bitter “internal” dispute
in Spain between anarchists and
communists. As I have written elsewhere (Green Web
2001 Bulletin #72,
“Deep Ecology and
Anarchism”), the fundamental conflict between anarchists and
communists in Spain, were differences over whether
to immediately implement the
anarchist social revolution or, to postpone this in
the interest of building a disciplined
army and the widest coalition possible, and, to
defeat Franco and the generals who
were in revolt against the Republican government.
Notwithstanding George Orwell’s
Homage To Catalonia,
my own allegiance in this dispute, based on past reading
about Spain, would have been with the communist
side. In Civil War Spain, unless
Franco was defeated, there could not be the social
revolution desired by the anarchists.
(Orwell’s eventual move to the Right and his
betrayal of past progressive credentials
is best symbolized for me by the 35-person list of
“suspected fellow travellers” he
gave to the British intelligence service which
included names like Kingsley Martin,
Paul Robeson, J. B. Priestly and Michael Redgrave,
see Frances Stonor Saunders,
The Cultural Cold War: The CIA And The World Of Arts
And Letters, pp.
298-299.) Today many greens and environmentalists
would describe themselves as
anarchists. Very few greens in my experience speak
of being influenced by Trotskyism
or of themselves as followers of Trotsky.
As the Soviet Union became the
overwhelming weapons’ supplier to the Republicans,
with Germany and Italy supplying the Nationalist
fascists in Spain, plus the alleged
'neutrality' of the bourgeois democracies, communist
influence grew rapidly, as in the
military defense of Madrid, and anarchist support
declined. Forces outside of Spain,
and the approaching Second World War, clearly
severely impacted the struggle within
Spain.
Proletarian
Internationalism
The slogan that “the working
class or proletariat has no country” brings up perhaps
the primary loyalty for a communist and how
“national”
concerns could come to play
second fiddle. The fact that about 40,000
international volunteers went to Spain to
fight on the side of the Republic, the majority of
whom were communists, is an
example of proletarian internationalism in practice.
These volunteers were not paid
to go to Spain. For national communist parties, like
the Canadian party, the Soviet
Union was seen as the center of the coming world
proletarian revolution, whereas
for bourgeois societies it became the focal point
for attacks to undermine communism –
for example, the interventions by various capitalist
societies at the time of the Bolshevik
revolution on the side of the counter-revolution.
(The RCMP even sent a contingent to
Russia to oppose the Bolshevik revolution.) The
defense of the Soviet Union, from a
communist perspective, could seem to make it
necessary in situations of conflicting
interests to subordinate the interests of national
communist parties to those interests
seen as crucial for the survival of the Soviet
Union. But for Petrou, the Canadian
Communist Party’s actions at the outbreak of the
Second World War showed “its
subservience to Moscow.” (p. 174) Yet it is also
clear that national communist parties
could fairly easily become “lackey” parties of the
Soviet Union, unless this balancing
act of competing interests
was properly addressed. Understanding “proletarian
internationalism” makes it easier to understand
those communists who became so-called
spies or traitors to their own national governments
for ideological not financial reasons.
When the author of Renegades states “Up to
ten American veterans of the Spanish Civil
War later spied on the United States for the
Soviets,” (p. 41) this is presented as
treachery, not as coming out of ideological
commitment.
Discipline
and Democracy
“Most
volunteers who went to Spain were brave and were committed to fighting
fascism. They
were also human. Some were simply unsuited to fighting a war,
or at least
taking orders. Some drank. Poorly trained, poorly armed, and all too
often sent on
suicidal attacks by military incompetents, many deserted or asked
to go home...
These deserters were not the adventurers, criminals, and cowards
described by
the brigade’s commissars.” (p. 136)
The author lists the following
descriptions of Canadians returning from Spain, taken
from the files of the Comintern (Communist
International), to which he had access:
“The
evaluations of returning Canadians are filled with phrases such as
‘anti-party
element,’
‘politically confused,’ ‘politically weak,’ ‘disruptive,’ ‘shows
Trotskyist
tendencies,’
‘treacherous,’ and ‘potential fascist,’ (p. 118)
Petrou starts from a position
that communist party influence or control is anathema.
For the author communist thinking equates to
“Communist Party dogma.” (p. 45) He
criticizes – without having a clue – of what
it would mean to be a communist party
member and to fight in Spain, with all the
battlefield suffering and fear that this would
have involved. I do not want to white wash past
stupidities, of which there were plenty
of examples. But in this book there is no attempt to
explain the necessity of political
discipline from a communist perspective within the
International Brigades, particularly
in a chaotic war situation, where peoples lives are
continually on the line and those who
support fascism are sometimes just a couple of
trenches away. The fact that 117
Canadian volunteers out of 1700 who went to Spain
“deserted or were accused of
desertion”, and that this figure could be much
higher if all records could be accessed
(p. 120) is seen as very significant by this writer.
Yet battlefield realities could severely
test anyone’s political convictions. Interestingly a
footnote (p. 257, footnote 51), gives
270 British volunteers as having deserted.
Communist organizations are
structured according to what is called “democratic
centralism”, usually on a party-cell basis. In any
capitalist society, particularly in the
1930s, anyone who joined a party organization had to
be highly self-motivated. There
were few material rewards for joining such
organizations and often considerable grief
because one came to the attention of the security
agencies of the state who could make
life quite unpleasant. This was still true in the
late 1960s and 1970s in Canada as I can
testify from personal experience. The RCMP security
forces come off very lightly in
this book. There is even an acknowledgment for
assistance to the RCMP who
“verified” the many details pertaining to this
police force in this book. It seems that,
for Petrou, the secret police of capitalist
societies have a quite different nature to those
of societies where communists were in control of the
state, as in Soviet Russia, or very
influential, as in Republican Spain. In Spain,
Petrou writes of “The Republic’s feared,
communist-infiltrated secret police.” (p. 114)
Within communist organizations,
party loyalty and discipline is stressed and this can
easily come to undermine the “democracy” part of
“democratic centralism” so that
centralism from the leadership becomes over
emphasized. In a war situation, the stress
would be particularly on discipline. Even an
anti-communist book like that by the
British historian Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, acknowledged
the leading
fighting role of communists: “The most tenacious
advocates of the policy of resistance
remained the communists.” (p. 846) The Fifth
Regiment, organized by the Spanish
Communist Party, became famous for its fighting
abilities, as for example in the
defense of Madrid, where Franco’s army was held at
bay. Those who have paid some
attention to the Second World War saw the military
price paid by Hitler’s armies, as
they attempted to conquer the Soviet Union.
Yet without the stress of
contending ideas within any organization, intellectual dry
rot can set in, no matter the apparent ‘discipline’,
and empty formalism or sloganeering
becomes dominant in the internal life of the
communist organization. Those who do
not rock the intellectual/ideological boat and who
reflect the existing leadership positions,
tend to advance within such an organization. Much of
what then passes for intellectual
exchange can become without much thought content and
when directed against
dissenting views, basically punitive in intent. But
all of this criticism does not negate the
necessity for political education in an anti-fascist
army, and the Communist Party in
Civil War Spain saw this.
Ecological
Considerations
There is nothing about ecology or
ecological sustainability in this book, but in this
present time period, when ecocide not fascism is the
central problem the world faces,
there are some lessons from reading Renegades that can be
updated for the biocentric
left. Most of the books I have read concerning the
Spanish Civil War, including
Renegades, highlight the deadly
problems of disunity among the left in Spain as a
major factor in the defeat of the Republican side.
This is still very relevant today. We
need a principled unity on our side. As someone who
has been working with others
since the mid 1980s, to try and outline the left
biocentric theoretical tendency within
deep ecology, what constitutes the “left” within
left biocentrism has become of some
urgency to resolve in recent times. A number of
ecocentric activists and writers are
aligning with this ecocentric tendency and are
sometimes having trouble leaving
behind “left” conflicts and internal battles from
the past – which could have meant
being previously identified as Trotskyist, as
Anarchist, or as Democratic Socialist, or,
if non-Left, with a residual anti-communism which
seems part of socialization in
North America.
All the above human-centered
categorizations have nothing to do with the ecological
problems which engulf us today. An ecocentric
revolutionary and united Left must
include not only socially progressive humans
committed to social justice for all (and not
determined in its thinking by various past political
flavours), but it must be a Left which
has learned the lessons of deep ecology and thus
includes most importantly, the interests
of species other than humans and the planet itself.
I do not believe an ecocentric left
should be anti-communist, as some of those who
are influenced by Trotsky today, along
with democratic socialists, would have us believe.
(See an early discussion about the
sweeping negativity of Trotskyism and the fixation
on ‘Stalinism’ in my New Catalyst
review in April 1989, of Werner Hulsberg’s book, The German
Greens.)
From my perspective, the
ecocentric left is non-communist but open, where appropriate,
to learning from societies like the former Soviet
Union, China or Cuba. The biocentric or
ecocentric left has to see itself as a being a
revolutionary left, as the late Australian deep
ecologist Richard Sylvan urged in his 1996 book, The Greening of Ethics: From Human
Chauvinism to Deep-Green Theory: “Deep
environmental groups should begin to
prepare, carefully and thoroughly, for revolutionary
action.” (p. 220) I personally think it
quite necessary to retain the word "revolution"
because it conveys the enormity of the social
changes that are needed to move to an ecocentric
society. Social tinkering will not cut it
when we are facing planetary ecocide and a culture
of extinction. From working with
environmentalists and electoral greens over many
years I have seen that there is major
resistance to describing the nature of the massive
social changes that are necessary to
exit the ecocide of industrial society. This is the
self-inflicted timorous curse taken on by
electoral Greens in Canada. It undermines the impact
of electoral politics where apparent
fear of “frightening” the voters makes Greens
continually bite their tongues. Before one
can have major social change, a base has to be built
in the society, and organizers have
to call it as it is, as preparation for building
support. Anti-communism fits a basic position
of maintaining the dominance of Capital. This is why
it has no place in my own view of
the basic tenets for a viable left biocentrism.
Furthermore, the fundamental redistribution
of human-created wealth globally, a central appeal
of communism, is something which is
absolutely needed for a post capitalist sustainable,
ecocentric and socially just society. So
the disunities of Civil War Spain on the Republican
side must be left behind and not
brought into contemporary eco-politics. Reading
Michael Petrou’s Renegades: Canadians
In The Spanish Civil War helps us see
this.
July 2008
Addendum
The
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion: Canadian Participation in the Spanish
Civil War
by Victor Hoar, with research associate
Mac Reynolds, The Copp Clark Publishing Company,
1969, 285 pages, paperback.
Comment
I only became aware of this book
by Victor Hoar from a reference in Renegades. I
obtained a second-hand copy of Hoar’s book, because
it is out of print. After reading it,
I felt the need for a supplement to my review of
Michael Petrou’s book, because of what
Hoar had to say, as contrasted to the views of the
author of Renegades. I also
believe
Hoar helps support some of my critique of
Petrou. At the time this book was written, Hoar
seems to have been an academic at the University of
Western Ontario in Canada, but
unfortunately there is no personal information given
about him in the book itself.
The reference in the index of Renegades says this about Hoar’s
book:
“This is only the fourth book to be written about
Canadians in the Spanish Civil War. The
first, The
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion by Victor Hoar, was not published
until 1969.
Hoar’s study was hampered by his inability to access
key archives in the Soviet Union.
But he assembled an impressive collection of
material and recollections from surviving
veterans; his book is still essential reading for
anyone interested in the topic.”
(Renegades,
p. 6)
The
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion is far better than Petrou’s book,
for giving a real
feeling of what it was like to be a Canadian
fighting in Spain on the anti-fascist side. It is a
blood- and guts- searing account of the various
battles where Canadians were involved. It
is also far more politically sophisticated than Renegades. Hoar comes through as
non-communist but, unlike Petrou, he is not
anti-communist. This is quite a distinction for
someone writing about the Spanish Civil War from a
hindsight perspective. Victor Hoar
does not try to score anti-communist points.
The book has 16 pages of photos
and an eight-page listing of those Canadians killed or
missing and presumed dead, which is noted as being
incomplete, pending further
information becoming available. This author is thus
not so “up to date” on the exact
numbers of Canadians who went to Spain as Michael
Petrou, who had the benefit of
access to new sources of data, such as the records
concerning the Spanish Civil War
from the former Soviet Union.
In The Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion, we
are told that ‘about’ 1250 Canadians
went to Spain. Yet the author carried out far more
personal interviews with Canadian
veterans of Spain than did Petrou. A list of “Taped
Interviews And Memoirs” indicates
that 33 personal interviews were conducted – plus
the accessing of previously taped
CBC interviews, like Michael Petrou did. (Hoar, pp.
278-279) It is the range and
number of such personal interviews with veterans,
plus the attitude Victor Hoar brings
to his work, which make his book superior to that by
Michael Petrou. Hoar’s book
was written as a “history” of the Mackenzie-Papineau
battalion. Mac Reynolds, the
research associate, says in the Preface about this
book ”that I hope and predict will
satisfy the men” of the battalion. (Preface, p. x)
Apparently Canada was the leading
foreign country in providing volunteers for Spain,
proportional to its then population
of about 12 million people. (p. 1)
Apart from the differences
mentioned above between the books by Hoar and
Petrou, there are two additional points to be made:
- The earlier book has a far more
appreciative awareness of the importance of
political commissars in the international brigades.
We can see this in the following
comment:
“The most sensitive position in each company,
battalion and brigade was that held
by the political commissar whose chief function it
was to unite the military and the
political commitments of the soldiers. So crucial
was this function that the
commissar shared equivalent rank and authority with
the military leader of the unit,
though in battle he was subordinate to the latter.”
(Hoar, p. 120)
But Victor Hoar is no apologist
and goes on to say:
“The great majority of the survivors of the
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion describe
these political officers in the most favourable
terms: brave, loyal men whose
position in battle was always in the vanguard. There
are a few dissenting opinions,
however, that should be noted. It is charged that
some of the commissars took
advantage of their rank and power to secure creature
comforts. It is also charged
that, as the war moved to a climax, the discipline
effected by these men became
excessively harsh. One Canadian reports that he was
sentenced to execution for
alleged anti-Semitism, and was only saved by the
intervention, paradoxically, of
another commissar.” (Ibid, pp. 121-122)
- Another area where Hoar’s
political awareness and academic objectivity was
shown would be his assessment of the Left in the
Civil War. He also had no
romantic view of the followers of Trotsky, unlike
Petrou. The long quotation which
follows, indicates the disunity of the Left for the
Republican side:
“From the outset it was apparent that the Second
republic would be jeopardized
not only by its obvious opponents on the Right...
but by the often eccentric position
of the left-wing movements, the Anarcho-Syndicalist
Confederación Nacional de
Trabajo (CNT), the Trotskyist Partido Obrero de
Unificación Marxista (POUM),
the Anarchist Federación Anarquista
Ibérica (FAI), and the Socialist Unión General
de Trabajadores (UGT).
“If the CNT and the UGT were agreed on the
objectives of a commonwealth of
the proletariat, they disagreed on tactics. The UGT
sought an orderly process, the
CNT favoured general strikes. The Anarchists
meanwhile declared for the
overthrow of any centralized government and the
return of authority to local
communes. Numerically superior in the district of
Catalonia, they added fuel to
that region’s aspirations for autonomy. The POUM was
openly anti-communist
and would exhaust itself during the next six years
in fighting the rise of the Spanish
Communist Party. The latter, which was to have such
a profound influence on the
subsequent wartime history of the Republic, numbered
only three thousand
members in 1933.” (Ibid, pp. 2-3)
The differences on the Left were
not only theoretical but led to actual fighting
between factions in Barcelona:
“Anarchists and members of the POUM, a predominantly
Trotskyist organization,
fought with government troops. The issue was
Catalonian sovereignty and the
consequences: over four hundred dead...” (Ibid, p.
89)
Victor Hoar does not call the
Spanish Civil War volunteers from Canada
“renegades,” but he does note, “The Canadian
volunteers have, over the years,
been treated as scoundrels... when they have been
noticed at all.” (Ibid, pp.
239-240) The designation of “scoundrel” or
“renegade” does not apply to this
author’s perspective, as he treats the veterans
sympathetically but without loss
of critical awareness. Hoar several times refers to
Maurice Constant (personally
interviewed), who is seen as having played an
important military role in Spain,
as “chief of brigade scouts” (p. 161). (It will be
remembered that Michael
Petrou’s moral certainty was shaken when he
interviewed Constant on his death
bed.) Constant, after returning to Canada, “was
appointed secretary of an editorial
commission which would compile information and
personal experiences for a
volume on the Canadian expedition to Spain.” (p. 238)
I believe that Hoar presents a
picture of the need for an inclusive Left, which is
non-communist but not anti-communist, and with which
I can identify. He also
shows and confirms that the CCF (the Co-operative
Commonwealth Federation)
played no major role in getting Canadians to Spain,
although individual members
did help out with accessing passports or in
fundraising.
There is only one criticism I
have of this book, which overall I feel extremely
positive about. This criticism concerns the use of
the term “totalitarian.” Hoar
speaks of the intervention of the “three
totalitarian powers” in the Spanish Civil
War. (Ibid, p. 6) I associate this term with the
Cold War in the West, used to
describe “them” as opposed to “us.” Or, what I
called in the Renegades review,
the Communist “other.” Here the use of
“totalitarianism” as a term fits the
equating of fascism and communism, which I have
always felt resonates with an
anti-communist agenda. This is quite out of
character with the even-handedness,
depth of understanding, and absence of
anti-communism shown in The
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.
August 23, 2008
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