Have To Keep The Peasantry Engaged

The unexpected side effect of Stephen Koch's The Breaking Point was that it made me want to learn about the Spanish Civil War. Fortunately, my dad has several books on that topic sitting next to each other on the shelves. I started with gerald Brenan's The Spanish Labyrinth, only to learn the book stops right before the Civil War started, but does cover the various political struggles in the country over the previous 150 years or so. But without knowing much about the civil war itself, all the discussion of the disagreements between the Anarchists and Socialists didn't mean much. I turned to Franz Borkenau's The Spanish Cockpit, which isn't precisely an overview of the conflict, but he does give an idea of what it was like in the republic-controlled parts of Spain during the summer of 1936, and the early months of '37.

The one thing both authors bring up is what I allude to in the title. The Republic, and before its establishment, the parties which comprised it, fail to keep their strongest resource in a state of high energy. Both authors make reference to earlier conflicts where it was the lower classes that did the work in armed conflicts, when the army and upper classes were either too incompetent, or on the side of the enemy, such as invading French armies. While the various labor parties had some success with drawing factory workers and miners to theri cause, they frequently failed to entice the peasants working the land, whether they owned a small plot wich barely sustained them, or if they were essentially hired help of the large estate owners. When the army and the other insurgents rose up against the government, those people eagerly came to the Government's aid. But that faded over time, in part because the Republic failed to do anything to demonstrate how it was better to have them in charge than the old guard.

There's a lot of talk of collectivization of farm land, mostly by the Anarchists, but they can't get it implemented across the board. So in some places the large estates have been expropriated (which means the owner was probably killed) and all the peasants of the village work it together. In other places, though, that land is held by some committee, and the peasants work it for the same wage they did under the old owners. In some cases the land isn't being used at all. From the peasant perspective, nothing has changed, and while they have no love for Franco, the army, or the Church* and won't rush to join their side, they also aren't as eager to volunteer to fight for the Republic, either. They go to a passive state, where they'll do as commanded, but there's no eagerness. The moment to harness their energy has been lost.

Of the two authors, Brenan is probably the more informative overall, as he'll devote entire chapters to the history of one party, while Borkenau has the easier style to read. Which makes a a certain amount of sense, as he went to Spain as a journalist, and his first trip is repeated as a series of diary entries. Even though it was a disappointing to reach the end of Spanish labyrinth and realize he would discuss the war at all, the amount of information he provided about the back-and-forth leading up to it over the decades made up for that. I was especially interested in the idea of the Anarchists as an organized political movement that eschews involvement in politics (until it's do that or be crushed, of course). The idea that there different sections of the group would meet, and each one would decide whether it was in their group's best interest to get involved in a particular strike or not. As Brenan points out, whhile it meant they'd never be organized enough to actual bring about total social revolution as they wanted, is also made it exceedingly difficult to destroy them entirely, since they would never all come out at once.

Both authors do engage in some generalizations about Spaniards, which I'm leery of accepting. Brenan suggests the Spanish have a belief that all it will take is one big event and viola! communismo libertario, when naturally that will be only the first step. Doesn't sound all that different from a lot of present day Americans, who don't have the patience for long, drawn-out solutions, and except things to be fixed in one stroke. It seems more likely that belief is derived from a sort of youthful exuberance, or ignorance of history, rather than any inherent Spanish trait. Borkenau tries to make a point that Spain lacks the nationalism of the rest of Europe, which he describes as a modern, 20th century sort. Except he says the core of that nationalism is the desire to be more powerful politcally and economically than one's neighbors. I was under the impression that had been a standard facet of Europe since at least the 1500s, when countries like England and, oh yes, Spain, where running around trying to claim half the world as theirs in a rush for money and power. It's certainly not something excllusive to the 1900s.

* Both authors point out that in much of the country the Church lost the lower classes long ago, by deciding they'd best pander to the wealthy. There were exceptions (Catholic churches in the Basque region seemed to retain the connection with their community), but by and large the people realized the Spanish church didn't give a damn about them, moreover, that it sided with those who wanted to keep the people down, and responded accordingly.