7. Counter-revolution and Dual Power¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter 7: Counter-revolution and Dual Power¶
This chapter dissects the opening phase of the Spanish Civil War, arguing that the initial counter-revolution was not merely Franco’s military rising, but the treacherous response of the bourgeois Popular Front government itself. Azaña’s regime, far from defending the Republic, sought to compromise with the fascists. It suppressed news of the uprising, replaced the prime minister with the right-wing Republican Martínez Barrios, and crucially, refused to arm the workers, preparing instead to make peace. This scheme collapsed only because the proletariat acted independently. In Madrid, Socialist Youth distributed arms and stormed the Montaña barracks; in Barcelona, the CNT and POUM seized depots; Asturian miners marched on the capital. This spontaneous mobilisation created a situation of “dual power”: the formal bourgeois government existed alongside the armed proletariat, whose true class enemy was now revealed.
The chapter contrasts the development of this dual power in different regions. In Catalonia, where the People’s Front was weakest, it was most decisive. The Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, dominated by the CNT, FAI, and POUM, directed the struggle, taking over transport, utilities, and industry. Factory committees demonstrated superior productivity, and in Aragon, militias roused peasants by seizing estates and burning property records. The Catalonian government existed only in name. In Madrid, however, the right-wing socialists and Stalinists ceded all power back to the bourgeois state. The Stalinists’ August 18 manifesto contained no social demands, and they supported the creation of a new regular army under direct bourgeois control, explicitly rejecting independent workers’ militias.
A fierce polemic is directed against this Stalinist position. The chapter cites Claridad’s refutation of the claim that a new army would complement the militias. Drawing on Lenin’s State and Revolution, it argues that substituting the militias with a regular army was a counter-revolutionary move to re-establish armed forces serving the exploiters. The Stalinists and republicans advocated disarming the rear, while the CNT, POUM, and Socialist Youth demanded retaining arms against bourgeois betrayal. The text exposes the Azaña-Giral regime’s continued censorship of the workers’ press, even confiscating Mundo Obrero. Caballero’s subsequent cabinet offered no programme differing from its bourgeois predecessor.
The chapter concludes by outlining the revolution’s necessary tasks: seizing land for peasants, granting freedom to Spanish colonies, and establishing workers’ control of factories. It calls for a National Congress of elected delegates from militia, factory, and village committees—a soviet—as the only authentic voice of the revolution. Stalinism, it argues, opposes this, sacrificing the Spanish revolution to the Franco-Soviet Alliance and the doctrine of “socialism in one country.” The revolution, it predicts, will forge a unified revolutionary party from the CNT, POUM, and left socialists. Citing Trotsky, it insists that victory requires destroying the old officers’ corps and ending the Popular Front to establish a Soviet Spain, which would spread revolution across Europe.