The government found itself in a peculiar situation when the dust had settled after July 19th. While it remained the government it had no way of exercising its authority. Most of the army had openly rebelled against it. Where the rebellion had been defeated the army was disbanded and the workers now had the arms. The trade unions and left-wing organisations immediately set about organising these armed workers. Militias were formed and these became the units of the revolutionary army. Ten days after the coup there were 18,000 workers organised in the militias of Catalonia. The vast majority of these were members of the CNT. Overall there were 150,000 volunteers willing to fight whenever they were needed. This was no ordinary army. There were no uniforms (neck scarves usually indicated what organisation a militia member belonged to) or officers who enjoyed privileges over the ordinary soldiers. This was a revolutionary army and reflected the revolutionary principles of those in its ranks. Democracy was control. The basic unit was the group, composed generally of ten, which elected a delegate. Ten groups formed a century which also elected a delegate. Any number of centuries formed a column, which had a war committee responsible for the overall activities of the column. This was elected and accountable to the workers. Columns generally had ex-officers and artillery experts to advise them — but these were not given any power. Workers joined the columns because they wanted to. They understood the need to fight and the necessity of creating a “popular army”. They accepted discipline not because they were told to but because they understood the need to act in a co-ordinated manner. Members accepted orders because they trusted those who gave them. They had been elected from their own ranks. Militias were aligned with different organisations and often had their own newspapers. These were political organisations that understood the link between revolutionary politics and the war. The militias formed in Barcelona lost no time in marching on Aragon where the capital, Saragossa, had been taken by the fascists. The Durruti Column, named after one of the leading CNT militants, led this march and gradually liberated village after village. The aim was to free Saragossa which linked Catalonia with the second industrial region — the Basque Country, which as well as being a source of raw materials had heavy industries and arms manufacturing plants. The Durruti column showed how to fight fascism. They understood that a civil war is a political battle, not just a military conflict. As they gained victory after victory they encouraged peasants to take over the land and collectivise. The Column provided the defence that allowed this to be done. The peasants rallied to them. They fed the worker-soldiers and many of them joined. Indeed Durutti had to plead with some of them not to join so that the land would not be depopulated and the task of collectivisation could be carried through. As the anarchist militias achieved success after success ground was being lost on other fronts. Saragossa, though, was not taken and a long front developed. The militia system was blamed for this. The Stalinists said the workers were undisciplined and would not obey orders. They accused the anarchists of being unwilling to work with others to defeat the fascists. Of course this was nonsense. The anarchists continually called for a united war effort and even for a single command. What they did demand, though, was that control of the army stayed with the working class. They did not believe that establishing a united command necessitated re-establishing the old militarist regime the officer caste. The major problem facing the militias was a lack of arms. The munitions industry had been cut off and the workers in Barcelona went to great lengths to improvise. Arms were made and transported to the front but there were still not enough of them. George Orwell (who fought in one of the POUM militias) described the arms situation on the Aragon front. The infantry “were far worse armed than an English public school Officers Training Corps, with worn out Mauser rifles which usually jammed after five shots; approximately one machine gun to fifty men (sic) and one pistol or revolver to about thirty men (sic). These weapons, so necessary in trench warfare, were not issued by the government.... A government which sends boys of fifteen to the front with rifles forty years old and keeps its biggest men and newest weapons In the rear is manifestly more afraid of the revolution the fascists”. And how right he was. An arms embargo was imposed by Britain preventing the sale of arms to either side, but not until mid-August. The government which had 600,000,000 dollars in gold, could have brought arms. Eventually this gold was sent to Moscow in exchange for arms but when they arrived there was a systematic refusal to supply the anarchist-controlled Aragon front. The arms that did arrive were sent only to Stalinist-controlled centres. A member of the war ministry referring to the arms which arrived in September commented “I noticed that these were not being given out in equal quantities, but there was a marked preference for the units which made up the Fifth Regiment”. This was controlled by the Stalinists. The Catalan munitions plants, which depended on the central government for finance were compelled to surrender their product to such destinations as the government chose. This withholding of arms was fundamental to the strategy of the Stalinists and their allies in government for breaking down the power and prestige of the CNT. The communists wanted to undermine the militias in their efforts to have the regular army restarted. But more of this later. This lack of arms did not only affect the Aragon front. Irun fell because of the shortage of weapons. One reporter described it. “They fought to the last cartridge (the workers of Irun. When they had no more ammunition they hurled packs of dynamite. When the dynamite was gone they rushed forward barehanded while the sixty times stronger enemy butchered them with their bayonets’. In Asturia the workers were bogged down trying to take Oviedo armed with little more than rifles and crude dynamite bombs. Although a few planes and artillery pieces were begged for, the workers were turned down. Again the government’s fear of revolutionary workers took precedence over defeating the fascists. It is a common lie that the militias, supposedly undisciplined and uncontrollable, were responsible for Franco’s advance. All who saw the militias in action had nothing but praise for the heroism they witnessed. The government made a deliberate choice. It chose to starve the revolutionary workers of arms, it decided that defeating the revolution was more important than defeating fascism. | Contact To join the column, simply leave your steam profile link in this thread with a short introduction of yourself and your desired name in the game. We will invite you to our steamgroup. (https://steamsignature.com/group/default/Columna-Durruti.png) (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Columna-Durruti) (https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Farainfo.org%2Fwordpress%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2012%2F10%2FMilicianos-en-el-frente-de-Guadarrama..jpg&hash=a21e5456b518ba6cdfc6b9bbb62cf6d7f3aa4fd0) (https://www.fsegames.eu/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.estelnegre.org%2Fdocuments%2Fmartinezperez%2Fmartinezperez02.jpg&hash=1237a085360137a1fbd6efa3f16833fdfbaef75d) |
I vote me as boss.
Good luck. :D