The Spanish Revolution. Vol. 1, no. 4

              Vol.1  N.o4   Barcelona, November 11, 1936   Please reprint
THE SPANISH REVOLUTION
WEEKLY BULLETIN OF THE WORKERS' PARTY OF MARXIST UNIFICATION OF SPAIN
P.O.U.M.
AGENTS FOR ENGLAND:
The I.L.P. 
The Marxist League. 
The Socialist League. 
PRICE IN ENGLAND: 2d.
AGENTS FOR U.S.A. :
Y.P.S.L.
The Labor Book Shop
PRICE IN U.S.A. : .05
EDITORIAL OFFICE: "THE SPANISH REVOLUTION"
10, Rambla de los Estudios 
BARCELONA
CONTENTS
1: The C.N.T. and the Madrid Goverment. 2: Manifesto of the Womens' Secretariat of the P.O.U.M. 3: Manifesto of the Socialist Youth of Mexico. 4: The Stalinists and the Spanish Revolution. 5: The Military Situation. 6: The New Municipal Organization in Catalonia. 7: Concentration Camps in the Canary Islands. 8: The New School. 9: Information Bureau
The C.N.T. and the Madrid Government
During the last twenty-four hours an event of such importance has taken place that the whole face of the Spanish situation may be changed. We refer to the entry into the Madrid government of three responsible members of the C.N.T. and the F.A.I.
The collaboration of the anarcho-syndicalists in a government, even to the extent of abandoning the scruples which they showed as to name at the time of taking part in the Council of the Generality of Catalonia, means that, although our Anarchist comrades may not be giving up their libertarian principles, they are at least allowing them to be modified by reality.
We would congratulate the anarchists if we thought that they had taken a step towards the path which would lead them to collaborate with other workers' organisations for the establishment of a proletarian regime without petty bourgeois admixture. If this rectification had come at the proper time, the objective circumstances in Catalonia would have been such that it would have been possible to form an entirely working class government for an earlier victory over fascism and for the realisation of the revolution.
As it is, we greet the entry of our comrades of the C.N.T. and the F.A.I. into the Madrid government with pleasure but without complete satisfaction. Up till now we have given our support to the idea of their entry, and have joined with them in their attitude. Now we fear that the hasty solution found to the difficulty — due to the strong pressure of the fascists on Madrid — will not make of the new Government at Madrid the Government needed for the revolution, but only a broader Popular Front Government.
When the government of the Generality of Catalonia was formed we were not satisfied. We desired the formation of a workers' government based on the revolutionary organisations of the masses. However, we accepted a place in the Council because it was formed by a workers' majority, and because it made a declaration in its entirety that it would do nothing to put a brake on the revolutionary impulse of the proletariat, but would, on the contrary, guide it towards the revolution. As we have said before, the day it forsakes the path of this policy, our collaboration will come to an end, since for us it is not merely a question of sharing out ministerial appointments (if it had been, we should never have accepted the proportion allotted to us), but a question as to whether it was possible or not to give a greater impetus to the revolution from the Government of Catalonia by affirming the positions we had already gained.
On the constitution of the Madrid Government, the same circumstances as those attendant upon our entry into the Council of the Generality with the C.N.T. and the F.A.I. have not been forthcoming. Neither the government itself, nor the president in its name, have made any declartion of a change from its position in the defence of bourgeois democracy. They have not announced any change in their critical attitude towards Catalonia, or against the continued existence of an army which gives such preponderance to the military caste.
The C.N.T. itself has of course made a declaration of principles in face of this collaboration.
"English is hard to understand, isn't it?"
"Yes, for instance, take "neutrality"; you spell it one way, and pronounce it another and it means something quite different."