Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
1936-39
Author(s): Robert W. Kern
Source: Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 11, No. 2/3, Special Issue: Conflict and
Compromise: Socialists and Socialism in the Twentieth Century (Jul., 1976), pp. 237-259
Published by: Sage Publications, Ltd.
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Journal of Contemporary History, 11 (1976), 237- 259
AnarchistPrinciplesand Spanish
Reality: Emma Goldman as a
Participantin the Civil War1936-39
Robert W. Kern
237
238 Journal of Contemporary History
Perhaps the reason for this was her announced opposition to political
reprisals, which had been heaviest in the outlying districts.16 Finally
she did get permission to visit several in her travels through Aragon to
Valencia and Madrid.17 She satisfied herself that anarchists had not
conducted massacres, and defended the CNT and FAI on this point
to reporters from the United Press and the Manchester Guardian.18
In any case, her faith restored, she gave several talks on the anarchist
radio station and on 8 October addressed 16,000 at a Barcelona rally
sponsored by Juventudes Libertarias, the youth section of the FAI.
Her speech attacked the misrepresentations that anarchism was a
chaotic theory. She concluded enthusiastically: 'in the face of danger
and death you are demonstrating that anarchism is the most
constructive social philosophy worth living, fighting, and if need be,
dying for.'19 She later commented, apropos the speech: 'Ah, if I only
knew Spanish.'20
Such euphoria did not last. During these first few weeks, Goldman
learned little about anarchist problems. Neither her travelling
companion, H.E. Alperine Kaminski, nor her translator, a Mrs Adams,
knew the situation well.21 Only gradually did she piece together the
two main controversies that divided the movement. The principal
one placed Nettlau, Souchy and Riidiger on one side in support of the
CNT and FAI against Alexander Schapiro, executive secretary of the
AIT and an outspoken critic of Spanish anarchism.22 This quarrel
had begun after the January 1933 FAI-led revolts at Casas Viejas
and Barcelona. Twice later, in October 1934 and February 1936, the
AIT again criticized the tactical errors of the Spaniards when they
failed to support the Asturias insurrection or voted for popular front
candidates.23 Another controversy revolved around the 'anarcho-
bolshevism' of the FAI. Schapiro, distressed by their violence and
anti-syndicalism, interpreted FAI philosophy as a denial of all that
anarchism had once meant.24 Nettlau, to the contrary, felt anarcho-
bolshevism, or 'libertarian communism', was a lineal and logical
descendant of classical anarchism.25
If this were true, the traditionalists rebutted, what explained the
reformist policies of Spanish anarchism after July 1936? Having
abandoned strict observance of the doctrine, they now belonged
to two pseudo-governmental bodies, the Comite central de milicias
antifascistas de Catalufa and the Council of Aragon.26 Although
the Spaniards came dangerously close to violating the apolitical nature
of anarchism by taking a principal role in each, the AIT reluctantly
accepted their participation as a part of the struggle against fascism.27
240 Journal of Contemporary History
They soon revoked this approval, however, when the new socialist
premier Francisco Largo Caballero asked the CNT and FAI to fill
several ministerial positions in the popular front cabinet. The anarchists
countered by proposing the creation of advisory boards attached to
each ministry which would be staffed, at least in part, by members
of the movement. Their only stipulation was that the central
government promise not to intervene in the social revolution.28 But the
AIT lost its temper at this flirtation with political collaboration.29
Souchy, who had recently been named AIT representative in Spain,
came under attack for tolerating such a policy and was replaced at
the end of the year by Pierre Bresnard, a French syndicalist.30 Paris
despaired of finding any consistent principles in the Spanish
movement, and indeed the circumstances created by the civil war made
this almost impossible. The anarchists were on uncharted ground.
The crisis of the Republic grew worse in the meantime. Caballero
had no intention of tinkering with the structure of government in
the midst of Armageddon. His offer to the anarchists remained open
during October while communist influence, taking advantage of the
stand-off, increased each week in Madrid. Soviet insistence on a broad
anti-fascist coalition, devoid of revolutionary features to attract support
from the middle classes of western Europe, clashed with the anarchist
revolution already in progress. This new rivalry with the communists
threatened, above all, to starve the anarcl}ist military effort already de-
pleted by diversions to the Madrid front caused by the rapid Nationalist
advance from the south.31
Spanish anarchist leaders, including Horacio Prieto, secretary of
the CNT, Federica Montseny and Juan Garcia Oliver, two influential
FAI militants, met a number of times in September and October to
debate the alternatives. If they refused to join the cabinet, the
communists undoubtedly would take power and attack the revolution
from the north. If the anarchists seized the Republic themselves,
the anti-fascist war effort might receive even less international support
than before.32 There seemed to be no way out, and so reluctantly the
CNT and FAI ignored AIT objections and joined the popular front
cabinet on 4 November. Prieto, Montseny and Garcfa Oliver and
another syndicalist, Juan Lopez, assumed the portfolios of the
ministries of industry, sanitation, justice and commerce and plunged
the international anarchist movement into deeper crisis.
Goldman was caught in the middle. Bresnard and Montseny each
sought her support, but she disliked them both. 'I am afraid Federica
has something of the politician in her,' she wrote Rocker.33 She was
Kern: Emma Goldman and the Spanish Civil War 241
highly suspicious, but she did not yet have enough facts to make a
personal commitment. Thus for a time she went on maintaining that
the Spanish anarchists were fighting fascism to win a war and not to
establish or support a government.34 Occasionally she even sought
to explain away entirely the spectre of anarchists joining a
government:
I would despair utterly if I had not learned to understand the psychology of
our Spanish comrades. They are a different breed... Anarchism to them
was never a cold and grey theory [as it isl for a lot of misfits who come to
us in every country. And because anarchism is such a living force to them
I am not so uneasy about their entry into the cabinet as I would be with
comrades of any other country. I am certain that if they win the war the
government will mean a mere scrap of paper to them and they will tear it
to bits .. .35
but just as they were becoming uppermost in her mind, she came into
contact with Diego Abad de Santillan, the FAI delegate on the Catalan
economic council.43 It was her first close friendship with a Spanish
anarchist, and Santillan, who spoke English and knew both sides of the
controversy, argued that collaboration, bad as it was, did not outweigh
the accomplishments of the revolution. Anarchists had systematically
organized hundreds of communes, promoted industrial collectivization
and built an army which now controlled a fourth of Spain.44
Collaboration simply bought time to develop a capacity to protect their
gains from communist attack.
Santillan stopped Goldman from becoming a more outspoken critic
than she already was, although during December when absorption of
the anarchist militias into the regular republican army began, she did
speak out again. The revolution should not disarm itself as long as
communists still occupied high military offices. However, she said it
quietly, almost as if she was resigned to further violation of principle.45
Actually, a decision had been reached. She would go to England and
work for the revolution abroad.46 Only by obtaining the broadest
possible international support for the Spanish Civil War could the
anarchists hope to succeed. Behind this statement were many unvoiced
doubts and bitter unhappiness over the course of events as well as a
fear of Soviet aid.
The veteran of Spain arrived in London on 3 January 1937. A week
later, interviewed in the Freedom Press bi-monthly Spain and the
World, she was non-committal on the controversial aspects of anarchist
policy, more outspoken on the lack of emancipation among Spanish
women and determinedly optimistic about the eventual outcome of the
war.47 She plunged into work with the Independent Labor Party (ILP),
the Friends of Spanish Democracy and the Spanish Medical Aid Society
to stage a series of benefits.48 These continued throughout the summer
and obtained a fair amount of money and publicity for the cause. She
supervised all the details amidst a 'smug and self-satisfied...
intelligencia' more Stalinist than libertarian when it was politically
interested at all.49 Many of her appeals to well-known English
intellectuals turned out badly. Harold Laski, for instance, replied to
one of her letters: 'I fear we should not agree even now about Soviet
Russia...' to which she answered: 'I do not intend to take up your
valuable time or mine to talk on Russia. It is talking against itself
louder than I could do.'50 On top of this, an alleged communist
absconded with the benefit funds, administrative problems cropped
up in the purchase of supplies for Spain and difficulties with the ILP
Kern: Emma Goldman and the Spanish Civil War 243
began; but they absorbed her time and made her feel a part of the
struggle.51
Despite all this work, Goldman found herself debating anarchist
principles more than ever. Early in January she felt 'the so-called
Popular Front hangs by a straw...'52 A little later, when Santillan
spoke out against the communists, she thought the breaking point
finally had been reached.53 When nothing happened, she fell back
on her old argument that:
while the CNT/FAI have made concessions contrary to their ideas, they
never cease to insist they are fighting fascismnot as a means to re-establish
a democratic governmentbut in defense of the revolutionand with deter-
minationto build a new economiclife with anarchistideas.54
The closing of the newspaper was entirely the fault of the AIT
244 Journal of Contemporary History
It has been said here that our comradesin every country have contributed
handsomely in men and money to the Spanish struggle and they alone should
be appealed to. But there is no anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist movement
outside of Spainand to a smallerdegreein France.. and Sweden.90
This theme dominated her thoughts for months to come. It was a sad
realization that the movement she had spent her life working for stood
on the verge of collapse. More important, it put her recent bitter
memories of Spain in perspective.
Until the conference, she had been alternately optimistic about
CNT and FAI chances in the civil war and hostile to the behavior of
some anarchists. In Paris, however, these conflicting emotions were
soon overshadowed by a new sense of pessimism and futility. The
change was triggered by a CNT motion that the AIT call upon the
Second and Third Internationals for a common stand against fascism.
As she wrote Rocker a few days later:
It was a thunderclap from a clear sky, for I never expected the CNT would
ever suggestsuch a preposterousidea. Just think of it, the ThirdInternational,
which in point of fact is no longer in existence and Stalin has even put on the
dung heap, is to be approached by the AIT. As to the Second International,
you know as well as I, what a treacherous institution it has been since the
World Warand how it would again betray the workers if need be.91
paralyzed international anarchism and made it lose its resolve. The only
exception to this was the case of the Spaniards who, as the only
functional organization left in AIT ranks, had experimented with new
tactics. Yet other anarchists criticized their efforts to the point where
the CNT and FAI were forced to rely instead upon the popular front.
The lesson seemed to be that there was nothing wrong with the
traditional anarchist ideology, but it had to be dynamic enough to
counter the aggressiveness of elite communist leadership. This was where
the movement had gone wrong.
Unfortunately she had never been a strong theorist, and now aged
70, tired from her travels and still working too hard, it was difficult
to prescribe a new course. What she finally settled upon was the
encouragement of demonstrations by independent non-communist
unions and other libertarian radicals against both communism and
fascism. The Amalgamated Engineers Union and the Glasgow Anti-
Parliamentary League figured in her plans as nuclei for a program of
direct action.94
Goldman personally toured Scotland during March 1938 speaking
in union halls and old ballrooms to expose the destruction of Spain
as a nation by fascism and the dismemberment of anarchism as a
movement by communism. She linked both of them in her speeches
as the latest evolutionary forms of the state which could no longer
survive without use of totalitarian tactics or a fictitious belief in a
dictatorship of the proletariat. The communists, whom she knew best,
came off worst. Catering to the strong Protestantism of the Scots,
she denounced the USSR as an example of the 'Socialist Catholicism
Marx left the world'.95 Stalin and Trotsky represented the Jesuit
Order while the anarchists were the persecuted heretics. The speeches
went from bad to worse, and the Scots did not respond to her wild
rhetoric. By the middle of the month she called the tour a flop.96
After British fascists broke up a meeting she returned to London,
her attempt to provoke direct action quite unsuccessful.
Financial and health problems prevented another tour in May,
but she still struggled to express her ideas. Two points were
particularly important by mid-1938. Firstly, above all, the Spanish
anarchists had to avoid further concessions 'which give the impression
outside Spain that they have forfeited their ideas and their
traditions'.97 If necessary, underground opposition to collaboration
should be encouraged. Secondly, the Negrin government, 'in raising
the cry that the Spanish people are fighting for democracy ... have
blind-folded the workers in the rest of the world.'98 The war in Spain
250 Journal of Contemporary History
NOTES
1. The history of the FAI and CNT are in Jose Peirats, La CNT en la
revolucion espanola (Toulouse: Ediciones CNT 1951-53), 3 vols, and Los
anarquistas en la crisis politica espanfola lBuenos Aires: Editorial Alfa 1964). More
252 Journal of Contemporary History
who became the foremost early bibliographer and historian of anarchism. His
work concentrated upon the life of Bakunin and also on early Spanish anarchism.
Nettlau lived for long periods in Spain, where he was a close friend of Federico
Urales, publisher of Revista Blanca, an anarchist quarterly, and his daughter,
Federica Montseny, one of the foremost young anarchists in the movement. For
a brief account of Nettlau's life, consult the Bulletin of the Institute of Social
History (Amsterdam), May 1950, I, 25-29. His most recently published work is
La Premiere Internationale en Espagne 1868-1888 (Amsterdam: Reidel 1968).
Augustfn Souchy (1894- ) is a German who became one of the early followers
of Gustav Landauer. He participated in the Munich revolution of 1919 and
subsequently fled to Switzerland and the USSR. E.G. met Souchy there in 1920
and travelled with him to Germany two years later when most foreign anarchists
left Russia. He became a secretary of the AIT in 1924 and his work in Berlin
brought him into contact with a number of Spanish anarchists who had fled
the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. He survived the Spanish civil war and his most
recent book is Anarcho-Syndikalisten uber Biirger-Krieg und Revolution in
Spanien (Darmstadt: Marz Verlag 1969).
10. Helmut Rudiger (1896- ), born near Chemnitz, edited the Syndikalist
in Berlin during the Weimarperiod. As one of the best jouranalists in the anarchist
movement, he did a great deal of pamphlet writing. After 1933 he moved to
Spain, survived the civil war and took up residence in Sweden. See Rocker,
op. cit. note 8, 129-30.
11. Rudolf Rocker (1873-1954), another German, studied with Nettlau
and became deeply involved in various European movements. A critic of the
German Imperial government, he spent the pre-first world war period in London
where he learned Yiddish in order to run a Jewish newspaper in the East End.
After the war he returned to Germany and became one of the most influential
members of the syndicalist movement. The rise of Hitler forced him to flee and
in 1934 he entered the United States. Rocker's well-known book, Anarchbo-
Syndicalism (New York: Grossman 1938) was his particular contribution to the
anarchist cause during the Spanish Civil War. He remained in the USA after 1939
writing his autobiography: La juventud de un rebelde [1873-95]. En la borrasca
[1895-1918], and Revoluci6n y regresi6n [1918-50] (Buenos Aires: Editorial
Tupac 1952). The translator was Diego Abad de Santillan.
12. E.G. to Stella Cominsky Ballentine, 22 August 1936, E.G. coll., XXVI;
E.G. to Rudolf Rocker [hereafter abbreviated as R.R.]. ibid; and E.G. to Milly
Rocker, 29 September 1936, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
13. E.G. to John Haynes Holmes, 5 January 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
Holmes was pastor of the New York Community Church. The reference was
to her financial problems, inability to return to the United States, etc. See
Drinnon, op. cit. note 4, 285-98.
14. E.G. to John Cooper Powys, 22 February 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
Powys, an English novelist, met E.G. in Chicago 20 years previously and was
one of her few English friends when she first went there in 1924.
15. E.G. to Milly Rocker, 29 September 1936, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
16. E.G. to R.R. 1 October 1936, ibid, and E.G. to Stella Cominsky
Ballentine, 19 October 1936, ibid. Neither the workers' committees nor the
collectivized industries have been studied intensively. One primary source is the
work of Abad de Santillan [Sinesio Garcfa Fernandez]. He edited two periodicals
254 Journal of Contemporary History
Costa 1928), 82-87. Greater details on the strike can be found in Alberto Barcells,
El sindicalismo en Barcelona (1916-1923) (Barcelona: Editorial Nova Terra
1965).
25. Max Nettlau, 'Communismo autoritario y communismo libertario', La
Revista Blanca (1 February 1928), VII, no. 113, 513-17; (15 February 1928),
VII, no. 114, 545-50; (1 March 1928), VII, no. 115, 577-79. His ideas were
restated in 1936 by Issac Punte, 'Los dos interpretaciones fundamentales del
socialismo', Tiempos Nuevos (May 1936), III, no. 5, 210-16, and by Diego Abad
de Santillan, 'Comunalismo y comunismo', Tiempos Nuevos (June 1936), III,
no. 7, 260-64. Libertarian communism shifted away from syndicalist union
organization to a commune based society as its basic characteristic. Anarcho-
bolshevism substituted affinity groups for the mass union in syndicalist practice.
They worked secretly and with such violence that critics compared them with the
old Bolshevik party in its role as the vanguard of the proletariat.
26. The militia committee was composed of all loyalist parties in Catalonia
and replaced the legislative branch of government. Most matters relating to the
war and revolution came before it. Santillan, Por que perdimos.. ., op. cit.,
70-72. The Council of Aragon was formed by the CNT and FAI on 15 September
1936 to act as an advisory board over the territory captured by Durruti. It
became semi-autonomous in December, but although communists also
participated in it, it was abolished on 11 August 1937 because the anarchists
were so closely identified with it. Ibid., 288-96. The militia committee was
weakened in November and December 1936 and all but disappeared in May 1937.
27. See Peirats, Los anarquistas . .., op. cit. note 1, 113-18.
28. Brademas, op. cit. note 1, 354, gives an account of the negotiations.
29. The AIT reaction is found in Rocker's notes, R.R. coll., folder 1, file 1.
30. A review of these charges are in the minutes of the AIT Congress, Paris,
7 December 1937, R.R. coll., file 1, folder 3, 29-30.
31. Abel Paz, Durruti, Le Peuple en Armes (Paris: Editions de la Tete de
feuilles 1972), 396401, reviews the anarchist military problems. At one point,
the financial situation was so desperate they contemplated stealing the gold
reserves of the Bank of Spain.
32. Horacio Prieto, a syndicalist from Valencia, became secretary of the CNT
in 1933 and remained in that capacity until November 1936 when he was replaced
by Mariano Vazquez. E.G. called him 'a reformer if there ever was one'. E.G. to
R.R. 10 February 1939, R.R. coll., E.G. file. Federica Montseny (1905- ) edited
Revista Blanca and wrote a series of short novels with strong social themes. As
one of the original founders of the FAI in 1927, she took a major r6le in its
activities until 1939. Shirley Fredricks, 'Social and Political Thought of Federica
Montseny, Spanish Anarchist, 1923-1933', (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,
Department of History, University of New Mexico 1972). Juan Garcfa Oliver
(1901- ) was an unskilled worker who joined Durruti in the 'Solidarios' terrorist
group. They robbed banks and carried out several assassinations in Spain during
the early 1920s. Jailed or exiled from 1923 to 1931, he emerged as a skilled FAI
leader, was severely wounded in the fighting of January 1933, and along with
Durruti and others led anarchist forces in the battle for Barcelona in July 1936.
Little biographical work has been done on him, and he has not written his
memoirs. Some information, however, can be found in Ricardo Sanz, El
sindicalismo y la politica: Los 'Solidarios' y 'Nosotros' (Toulouse: Imprimerie
256 Journal of Contemporary History
Dulaurier 1966), 97, passim. Garcia Oliver's own article, 'Pages in Working Class
History', Spain and the World (London), 26 August 1938, 3, summed up the
dilemma of November 1936 better than most accounts.
33. E.G. to Mollie Alperine Kaminski, 19 January 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII
D, and E.G. to R.R. 1 October 1936, R.R. coil., E.G. file.
34. E.G. to Thomas Bell, 8 March 1937, E.G. coil., XXVII D.
35. E.G. to Mollie Alperine Kaminski, 19 January 1937, ibid.
36. E.G. to R.R. 18 November 1936, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
37. E.G. to John Haynes Holmes, 5 January 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
38. E.G. to R.R. 3 November 1936, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
39. E.G. to R.R. 18 November 1936, ibid.
40. E.G. to R.R. 3 November 1936, ibid. Arthur Lehring, a Dutch anarchist,
became an important figure in the Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale
Geschiedenis and an editor of the Bakunin papers. See Michel Bakounine et
Italic, 1871-1872 (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1961) and Michel Bakounine el les conflits
dans 'Internationale 1872 (Leiden: E.J. Brill 1965), among others. Camillo
Berneri (1886-1937) was a university professor who broke with the Italian
socialist party during the first world war to work with Enrico Malatesta. He joined
the Union anarchiste italienne and edited La Rivolta and Umanita Nova for them.
He was exiled from Italy in 1926 for anti-fascist activity and went to France. He
arrived in Barcelona in June 1936 and founded an Italian language paper, Guerre
di Classes. Many of his articles in it were later collected in Guerre de classes en
Espagne (Montpellier: Les Cahiers de Terre Libre 1938).
41. Ibid, 7. Berneri's article was also translated into English and reprinted in
Spain and the World 4 June 1937, 1-4.
42. E.G.'s unpublished obituary of Buenaventura Durruti, R.R. coll., E.G.
file. Durruti (1896-1936) was born in Leon of a working-class family. His ever
deeper involvement with anarchism began in the railway strike of 1917. He
became one of the major figures in the Solidarios group until the Primo
dictatorship sent him into exile. He and his friend Francisco Ascaso went first to
France and then to South America, where they made an epic trip from Cuba to
Argentina, usually pursued by the police for their many bank robberies. Back in
France, he was accused of attempting to assassinate the Spanish king during a
state visit to Paris and sentenced to death. The French left protested so strongly
that he was eventually pardoned and expelled from the country. Durruti returned
to Spain in 1931 and was active in the anarchist risings that punctuated the Azana
and Lerroux ministries. He became the commander of the army of Aragon in
August 1936 and although his forces initially fought well, they could not capture
Saragossa and became bogged down outside the city. Durruti and 5000 of his men
arrived in Madrid on 12 November to help in the defense of the city against the
nationalists. He was killed, probably by a nationalist sniper, on 20 November in
University City.
43. Diego Abad de Santillan [ Sinesio Garcia Fernandez] (1892- ) was born
in Spain but moved to Argentina as a child. He returned to attend university in
Madrid where he was caught up in the intellectual ferment caused by the
Generation of '98. His graduate thesis, Psicologsa del pueblo espanol (Madrid:
Librerfa de Antonio Pabinos 1917) argued strongly for reform. The same year,
however, his arrest in the railway general strike introduced him to anarchism and
upon his return to Argentina he joined the Federacion Obrera Regional Argentina.
Kern: Emma Goldman and the Spanish Civil War 257
He wrote for its newspaper La Protesta and in 1923 represented the FORA at
the founding of the AIT. The Uriburu dictatorship exiled him in 1931 and he
went back to Spain as soon as the Second Republic was proclaimed in April.
Active in the FAI, many of his contributions were theoretical, and his book,
El organismo economico de la revoluci6n. Comb vivimos y como podriamos vivir
en Espana (Barcelona: Editorial Tierra y Libertad 1935) perhaps best expressed
the new ideas of the group. For details of Santillan's relationships with other
foreign anarchists, see Rocker, op. cit. note 8, 175-76.
44. E.G. to R.R., 17 March 1939, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
45. According to 'Emma Goldman's Impressions', Spain and the World,
(London: 8 January 1937) 3. Also see E.G. to Alexander Schapiro, 2 May 1937,
E.G. coll., XXIX, where she describes the hours spent criticizing militarization to
Santillan, Montseny and Garcia Oliver 'only to have them explain it away'.
46. Goldman had obtained an English passport through her marriage of
convenience to James Colton in 1925. Drinnon, op. cit., 256-7.
47. 'Emma Goldman's Impressions', Spain and the World,(8 January 1937)
3. This bi-monthly publication of Freedom Press, edited by the young Italian
exile David Recchioni, soon became Goldman's chief voice in London.
48. The Independent Labour .Party, founded by Keir Hardie in the late
nineteenth century, disaffiliated from the Labor Party in 1931 over J. Ramsay
MacDonald's participation in the National Government, a coalition of all parties.
It moved further to the Left until close to the Trotskyite Fourth International.
The memoirs of a leading ILP'er, Fenner Brockway, Inside the Left (London:
Allen & Unwin 1947), 294-322, give good coverage to Spain.
49. E.G. to Margaretde Silver, 24 May 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
50. Harold Laski to E.G. 26 January 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII A; E.G. to
Harold Laski, 28 January 1937, ibid.
51. E.G. to Donald Darling, 10 January 1937, E.G. coll., XXVIII A; E.G. to
Augustin Souchy, 9 March 1937, ibid. and 3 April 1937, E.G. coll. XXVII D,
in which she criticized Santillan's economic work; and E.G. to Pedro Herrara,
11 February 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
52. E.G. to Mark Matseny, 5 January 1937, E.G. coll., XXVIII C. Matseny
was active in the publication of the American anarchist publication Freie Arbeiter
Stimme in New York City.
53. E.G. to Milly Rocker, 9 February 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
54. E.G. to Thomas Bell, 8 March 1937, ibid.
55. Burnett Bolloten, The Grand Camouflage: The Spanish Civil War and
Revolution, 1936-39 (London: Hollis & Carter 1961), 120-30, 189-244 covers
this period of struggle between anarchist and communist in great detail.
56. E.G. to Martin Gudell, 18 March 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
57. E.G. to Mark Matseny, 2 April 1937, ibid.
58. Mollie Kaminski to E.G., 14 January 1937, ibid.
59. E.g. to Mollie Kaminski, 19 January 1937, ibid.
60. Ibid.
61. E.G. to Alexander Schapiro, 23 February 1937, E.G. coll., XXVI.
62. Alexander Schapiro to E.G., 20 March 1937, ibid.
63. Max Nettlau to E.G., 2 April 1937, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
64. E.G. to Alexander Schapiro, 2 May 1937, E.G. coll., XXVI.
65. E.G. to R.R. 10 June 1937, R.R. coll., E.G. file. The origins of the May
258 Journal of Contemporary History
crisis are still in dispute, but the most recent work is the essay of Burnett Bolloten
in Raymond Carr (ed.), The Republic and the Spanish Civil War (Oxford: Oxford
University Press 1971), 13846.
66. The assassin of Berneri was never found, though the assassination was
assumed to be the work of the Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluiia which had
strong links with the communists. Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War(London:
Eyre & Spottiswoode 1961), 190-1, 424, 426. See also 'The Tragic End of an
Anarchist Fighter', Spain and the World, 11 June 1937, 3.
67. Undated and unaddressed draft, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
68. E.G. to R.R. 10 June 1937, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. Undated and unaddressed draft, E.G. coll., XXVII D.
72. Ibid.
73. E.G., 'Political perspectives in Republic Spain', Spain and the World,
10 December 1937, 5.
74. Ibid. Kurt Landau was a former member of the executive committee of
the Austrian Communist Party until he sided with Trotsky. In 1936 and 1937
he had tried to encourage 'Irotskyite politics in Spain. Andres Nin had begun his
political career as an anarchist. He was sent to the USSR after the Pestaiia mission
in 1922 and joined the Comintern until 1929 when he returned to Spain as a
Trotskyite. Nin became one of the founders of the Partido Obrero de Unificaci6n
Marxista. Both men were executed in prison while Goldman was still in the
country.
75. See Thomas, op. cit., 568, on the POUM trial.
76. The Council of Aragon is discussed in Santillan,Por que perdimos ...,
op cit. 288-96.
77. No copies of these speeches are extant, but they are discussed in E.G. to
Mariano Vazquez, 20 January 1938, E.G. coll., XXVIII B.
78. E.G. to Mariano Vazquez, 11 October 1937, ibid.
79. E.G. to Abe Bluestein, 25 January 1938, E.G. coll., XXVII A.
80. E.G. to Mariano Vazquez, 11 October 1937, E.G. coll., XXVIII B.
81. E.G. to Helmut Riidiger, 4 August 1939, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
82. E.G. to Pedro Herrara, 31 August 1939, E.G. coll., XXIX. Herrera was
the director of the SIA and dealt with Goldman often on matters of fund raising
and propaganda.
83. E.G.'s notes on the POUM trial, E.G. coll., XXVII A.
84. Montseny testified in favour of the POUM members on trial, as Santillan
told E.G., 14 March 1939, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
85. Walter Starrett to E.G., 28 November 1937, E.G. coll., XXVII A.
86. Abe Bluestein to E.G., 4 January 1938, ibid.
87. E.G. to R.R. 21 December 1937, ibid.
88. Draft of E.G.'s speech to the conference, R.R. coll., E.G. file.
89. Ibid.
90. Ibid.
91. E.G. to R.R., 21 December 1937, E.G. coll., XXVIII C.
92. E.G. to R.R., 22 February 1938, E.G. coll., XXVII A.
93. Abe Bluestein to E.G. 4 January 1938, ibid.
94. E.G. to J.C. Little, 8 April 1938, E.G. coll., XXVII,B.
Kern: Emma Goldman and the Spanish Civil War 259
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