To the Editor:
Though Stalin is dead, his spirit seems to be alive—of all places in the columns of COMMENTARY. In his review of Professor Gabriel Jackson’s excellent book on the Spanish Civil War [Aug. ’65], Mr. Allen Guttmann writes: “When Caballero . . . refused to sacrifice the social revolution to the war, the moderates, with the strong support of the newly-influential Communists, forced him out and replaced him with Juan Negrín, an eminently decent and even noble man who preached resistance and restraint.” If Mr. Guttmann would consult another book, which he also praises, La Révolution et la Guerre d’Espagne by Broué and Témime, he might learn that Negrín, far from being decent, noble, and restrained, placed Communists in command everywhere, but ruthlessly persecuted their enemies, and in all situations behaved as though he were their Quisling. Perhaps—given the abandonment of the Spanish Republic to France and England—he had no choice but to rely on the Russians; but that explanation differs from the one Mr. Guttmann borrows from the Communists.
They are the source also for Mr. Guttmann’s characterization of Caballero and for his version of Caballero’s fall. The truth is that Largo Caballero was not overthrown by the moderates with some help from the Communists, but by order of Stalin with some help from his personal enemies in the Socialist party. He had dared to differ with the Russian generals and he had refused, not to “sacrifice the revolution to the war” but to outlaw the Trotskyites. Far from refusing to sacrifice the revolution to the war, he had restored the state, which had crumbled to pieces, and built an army where there had been nothing but militias. Moreover, he had induced the syndicalist leaders to share in the responsibility of government, much to the dismay of their anarchist compañeros. The question was not one of choosing between revolution and war but rather, whether the forces which were defending the Republic and had contributed to the rebuilding of the state, should also have their share in the conduct of the war and, indeed, in the reorganization of its economy. The Stalinist lie—that the trade-union leaders whom Negrín forced out of the government wished to sacrifice the revolution to the conduct of the war—is refuted simply by their conduct in government between November 1936 and May 1937. But it was on this lie that the Communists rested their claim that their methods alone were able to save the Republic. Since Mr. Jackson in his book explicitly refutes this claim, it is rather surprising that his reviewer should revive it by indirection.
It is regrettable that Hugh Thomas in his best-selling history should also have contributed to the spreading of the Stalinist myth; but he has an excuse which Mr. Jackson and Mr. Guttmann do not have—his bias for military history made him more vulnerable to the Communist claims in that field. This almost accidental dependence on Communist sources, however, has resulted in a blunder which every admirer of the Spanish resistance must resent deeply. . . .
On what premise is this assumption based? Some people thought that Negrín was persona grata in London, and that he might win British support for the Republic once he stopped the revolution. But that is precisely the thing which he did not do and which did not happen. He threw the trade unionists out of the government and allowed religious services to be held in private, but he was saddled with the Communists and he never won the city over. Instead he whipped the Republican army into battles which even Messrs. Thomas and Jackson, his admirers, judge to have been ill conceived.
Henry M. Pachter
New York City
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Mr. Guttmann writes:
Mr. Pachter suggests that I am a Stalinist or, at best, a rather passive borrower of Communist interpretations of the Spanish Civil War. Two days before I received a copy of his odd letter, I learned from Herbert Aptheker’s column in The Worker that I am a Red-baiter who has “polluted” the air with anti-Communism. Such, I suppose, are the joys of an academic life.
The coincidences of my correspondence do not, of course, answer Mr. Pachter’s objections to my review. An important part of Jackson’s achievement is that he, like Broué and Témime, analyzes political complexity with clarity and acuteness, and without easy comparisons to Quisling and to Stalin. I greatly respect Broué and Témime for their view of the relative merits of Largo Caballero and Negrín, I am impressed by Burnet Bolloten’s documentation of the machinations of Spanish and foreign Communists, I am very much moved by Largo Caballero’s own memoirs (Mis Recuerdos), but I am nonetheless persuaded by Jackson’s assessment. To win the war, Negrín was ready, as Largo Caballero was not, to sacrifice the social revolution already achieved as well as the revolution hoped for. The sacrifice was, as I indicated in my review, in vain. Spain was a tragedy and not a melodrama.
Perhaps, in the single paragraph I devoted to Giral, Largo Caballero, Negrín, and Casado, I should have indicated that authorities differ passionately in their characterizations of the men who led the Spanish Republic. The point seemed too obvious and a 1,500-word review did not seem the appropriate place for a survey of the historical literature and a detailed revaluation of policy. If I misconceived my role as reviewer, I apologize for . . . my undocumented assertions. I do wish, however, that Mr. Pachter had read my own pro-Republican, anti-Communist book on Spain before his indignation got the better of him.
