Revolutionary Catalonia - Divisions in The Government and Anarchist Movement

Divisions in The Government and Anarchist Movement

In spite of the continued attacks by the PCE, the CNT eventually agreed to sign a pact of cooperation with the now Communist dominated UGT (the PCE had infiltrated the UGT and ousted Largo Caballero from his position in its executive). The pact was supposed to guarantee the legality of the remaining collectives and of worker's control, while at the same time recognizing the authority of the state on matters such as nationalization of industry and the armed forces. In reality, the collectives were never granted legal status, while the agreement served the further divide the anarchist movement between the anti-statist and collaborationist camps.

On March 7, 1938, the Nationalist forces launched a massive offensive in Aragon. They succeeded in smashing the Republican defenses so thoroughly that their forces had reached the Mediterranean coast by 15 April, splitting the Republican territory in two. Catalonia was now cut off from the rest of the Republican territory.

By 1938 the Communist party was also in control of the newly created Military Investigation Service. The SIM was virtually dominated by Communist party members, allies and Soviet agents such as Aleksandr Mikhailovich Orlov and used as a tool of political repression. According to Basque nationalist Manuel de Irujo, "hundreds and thousands of citizens" were prosecuted by SIM tribunals and tortured in the SIM's secret prisons. Repression by the SIM as well as decrees which eroded Catalan autonomy by nationalizing the Catalan war industry, ports and courts caused widespread discontent in Catalonia amongst all social classes. Relations worsened between the Generalitat and the central government of Negrín, now based in Barcelona with the resignation of Jaime Aiguadé, representative of the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) party in the government and Manuel de Irujo, the Basque Nationalist minister. There was now widespread hostility amongst Republicans, Catalans, Basques and Socialists towards the Negrin government. As the Communists were forced to rely more and more on their dominance of the military and police, morale declined at the front as countless dissenting anarchists, republicans and socialists were arrested or shot by commissars and SIM agents.

Meanwhile, there was now a growing schism within the CNT and the FAI. Leading figures such as Horacio Prieto and minister of education Segundo Blanco argued for collaboration with the national government. Dissenting anarchists such as Jacinto Toryho, the director of Solidaridad Obrera and FAI delegate Pedro Herrera were harshly critical of this policy. Toryho was removed from his position by the CNT national committee on May 7, 1938. Two months before the fall of Catalonia, a national plenum of the libertarian socialists was held in Barcelona between 16 and 30 October 1938. Emma Goldman was in attendance and she defended the FAI in "opposition to the growing encroachment of the Negrín government on the libertarian achievements". According to José Peirats, Horacio Prieto argued for an "undisguised reformism bordering on Marxism," and that "truly effective action" was only possible through "organs of power." He also criticized the naivete of the anarchists and its "lack of concrete plans."