this post was submitted on 09 May 2025
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The fascists won because
They had more foreign aid from nazi Germany and fascist Italy. The luftwaffa especially was a key advantage for the fascists as they had air superiority and were able to bomb republican positions with little cost. If France, the UK and the US had a backbone and sent aid the Republicans would have won.
They had more military expertise and discipline. Pluralism and anarchism are great in peace time but you can't win a war with them. The anarchist system was a wonder to behold in Catalonia, but they were never going to be able to spread it to the rest of Spain because they were never able to win a battle after the opening skirmishes in aragon. Say what you will about the communists, they had discipline and had proven there system can win a civil war in russia. If only they had a trotsky and lenin to competently lead the fight against fascism.
Did the communists go too hard on repressing the anarchists? Yes
Did the communist have a valid reason to suppress a movement about not following orders and leadership during a war? Yes
I would very much recommend reading Orwell’s Hommage to Catalonia.
Especially the Appendixes. Even though written before the war even ended he explains quite well how the arguments you make were quite meticulously crafted by the republican government’s ministry of propaganda, and broadcast to the communist press worldwide through soviet intervention.
At the end, Orwell comes to the chilling conclusion which is actually fairly common amongst historians, that the Stalinists saw the worker controlled revolution of Spain as more of a threat than both the bourgeois state of things and the Facists. Hence why the allied with the bourgeois liberals and rolled back the revolution.
Here’s a quote
Quotes I think illustrate the tension well
Went through the Wikipedia for it and read appendix 6. I still stand by my opinion that the anarchists were doomed by either fascist or communist hands due to there lack of discipline. Yeah everyone was aligned against the anarchists, but everyone was aligned against the bolsheviks in 1917 and they were still able to win a civil war and establish a government.
Most of the appendix I read was litigating the conflicts in Barcelona in May and how the communist press distorted and lied about what happened. I'm willing to accept the communists did a coup and tried to cover it up and blame it on the POUM. The question is whether that was the right strategic move given the circumstances, and Orwell recognizes this:
And elsewhere he emphasizes the difference between communists and anarchists:
In a war you need centralized military control to win, and war has never been won without a commander and a hierarchy below them controlling the troops. Orwell seems to be of the mind that a revolutionary discipline can be achieved through a sincere belief for a cause. This makes sense for a foreign volunteer who signed up for there belief in socialism, but your average person isn't motivated enough by ideology to voluntarily risk there life.
This is shown by the anarchists unwillingness to relieve Madrid. By the time of the POUM purge the Republicans were losing the war. What needed to be done was a mass conscription drive and then a push to relieve Madrid. The anarchists couldn't do that because conscription was authoritarian and a democratic militia is never going to vote to leave there defensive lines and go on the offensive as that would mean more danger and casualties. So they were content to man the front in aragon and not much else. Orwells account shows this.
I share Orwells love for the worker control and true democracy of Barcelona during the civil war, but I don't think that system can survive the realities of a civil war. I'd love to be proven wrong but I haven't found any evidence to the contrary. If you have one please let me know, it'd restore my faith in the ability of man to overcome oppression.
I'm not going to read the rest of your comment but starting it with "I read on Wikipedia" is a good way to make sure people don't listen to what you have to say if they have read primary sources.
I read appendix 6 and even gave some quotes from the source showing my point. I'm not gonna read the whole thing in a day to reply to a comment, most of it is his war memoir and has little to do with the discussion. Appendix 6 was the one talking about propaganda that op directed me to.