Dear Comrades,

I refer readers to the international Spartacist tendency comment upon my article 'Stalinism and Spain' in Revolutionary History No.2. The reason why my article did not contain a critique of popular frontism and the politics of the POUM are two-fold. Firstly it was concerned with the connection between Stalinist repression in Spain during the Civil War and the dictates of Soviet foreign policy. The Popular Front was, of course, mentioned, as it was a key aspect of Stalinist policy but, to lead on to the second point, it and the politics of the POU M were discussed in the articles in the journal by Pierre Broué, Keith Hassell, Walter Held and Hugo Oehler.

I had no intention 'to amnesty' (as the Spartacist comrades put it) the POUM or any other non-Stalinist organisation. For the record, I am in full agreement with Trotsky's criticisms of the POUM, Georges Vereeken, Victor Serge, the Anarchists, etc, etc.

As for the charge of Stalinophobia, well, if trying to explain the rationale behind the Stalinist terror - let us call it that - in Spain against anyone who stood to their left, is 'Stalinophobia', then I plead guilty. Perhaps readers would like to pass judgement upon Leon Trotsky, whom I shall now quote.

In his famous 1937 pamphlet The Lessons of Spain - the Last Warning, Trotsky wrote that the bourgeois republicans 'wished to keep the revolution within bourgeois limits' and added;

'Stalin with his munitions and his counterrevolutionary ultimatum was a saviour for all these groups. He guaranteed them, so they hoped, military victory over Franco, and at the same time, he freed them from all responsibility for the course of the revolution.' (L Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution (1931-39 ( p312)

Hence we can understand their toleration of the GPUs activities.

'If they had no other choice, as they affirm, it was not at all because they had no means of paying for aeroplanes and tanks other than with the heads of the revolutionists and the rights of the workers, but because their own 'purely democratic", that is, anti-Socialist, programme could be realised by no other measures save terror. When the workers and peasants enter on the path of their revolution... then the bourgeois counter-revolution-democratic, Stalinist or Fascist alike-has no other means of checking this movement except through bloody coercion, supplemented by lies and deceit. The superiority of the Stalinist clique on this road consisted in its ability to apply instantly measures that were beyond the capacity of Azana, Companys, Negrin and their left allies.'(Ibid, pp312-313)

Yes, the Stalinists were the key force in the maintenance of the bourgeois republic, without their use of the methods of Franco' (please note), the bourgeoisie would not have survived:

'The hounding of "Trotskyists", POUMists, revolutionary Anarchists and left Socialists; the filthy slander, the false documents; the tortures in Stalinist prisons; the murders from ambush - without all this the bourgeois regime under the republican flag could not have lasted even two months. The GPU proved to be the master of the situation only because it defended the interests of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat more consistently than the others, ie, with the greatest baseness and bloodthirstiness.' (ibid, p314)

It is obvious, therefore, whatever the betrayals or vacillations of other political forces in the Spanish republic (all of which received Trotsky's stern criticisms), he saw Stalinism as the crucial element in the defeat of the Spanish revolution.

Will Trotsky now be found guilty of 'Stalinophobia?

Fraternally,

Paul Flewers