{"id":417,"date":"2026-06-04T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/?p=417"},"modified":"2026-06-12T18:45:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T15:45:15","slug":"90-years-since-civil-war-in-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/2026\/06\/90-years-since-civil-war-in-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"The masses were ready to pay any price to ensure that ‘fascism shall not pass’, so what went wrong?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year, amidst struggles against imperialist wars, against the strengthening of the far right globally, and against Trumpist reaction, we mark the 90th anniversary of the dramatic events of the Revolution and Civil War in Spain. That war immortalised the slogan \u2018Fascism shall not pass!\u2019 (No pasar\u00e1n<\/em>) \u2014 which continues to echo in demonstrations here locally and worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upheavals left a revolutionary legacy of mass mobilisation and uprising of the working class against the fascist counter-revolution and against the capitalist system that nurtured it. That legacy will be marked by a series of commemorations and tributes, articles, seminars, and cultural events, and will continue to spark political debates in Spain and in left-wing circles worldwide, remaining relevant to the burning political questions in the current era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historical experience of the Spanish Revolution and of the rise and fall of the Republic and the Popular Front government in Spain continues to be part of political discourse globally in countries where populist right-wing and far-right forces are raising their heads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Popular Front coalitions came to power in the shadow of the threat of fascism, in 1936 in Spain and France, and in 1938 also in Chile.\u00a0This refers to the concept of socialist left-wing forces from the workers\u2019 movement participating in a coalition with capitalist forces in the struggle for state power, allegedly as an emergency measure to halt fascism. The concept is also linked to a \u2018stages approach\u2019, according to which the struggle must initially be conducted separately for democracy and national independence within a capitalist framework, ahead of a future stage in which conditions will allegedly ripen to also struggle for the implementation of a socialist programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In France, following the dramatic strengthening of the far right in the European Parliament elections two years ago, an electoral alliance was formed under the name the New Popular Front (Nouveau Front Populaire<\/em>), initiated by figures from the left-wing movement LFI led by M\u00e9lenchon. This was an attempt to connect with the historical memory of the anti-fascist struggle as part of an appeal to the deep desire of the masses in France to see a broad front of struggle that succeeds not only in blocking the far right at the ballot box, but in striking a blow against its strengthening in society as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the local level, references to the Popular Front in Spain arise in discussions on strategy for the struggle against the Israeli far right and against the aggression of Netanyahu\u2019s capitalist government of death, against the backdrop of the ongoing war crisis, the war of annihilation in Gaza, the deepening of the occupation, and the expansion of Kahanist-fascist settler terror. In Al-Jabha\/\u1e24adash, for example, they return to this experience in discussions on the role of the left and the Joint List ahead of the upcoming elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the balance sheet of the historical experience demonstrates that the desire, justified in itself, for a powerful and broad struggle that succeeds in uniting mass layers against the far right is not enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International Solidarity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The dramatic upheavals in Spain in 1936 drew global attention. Shortly after the formation of the Popular Front government, General Franco\u2019s fascist coup began, marking the start of the Civil War, which was met with a mass uprising. In retrospect, the Civil War was perceived as the \u2018dress rehearsal\u2019 for the Second World War. But in real time, the masses around the world saw the anti-fascist struggle in Spain as the last chance to halt the descent into global war and to inflict a defeat not only on Franco\u2019s Falanges, but also on his allies in the form of the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany. Spain \u2014 alongside France \u2014 became a key arena in the struggle against the rise of fascism. And in fact, a decisive arena in the clash between the forces of revolution and counter-revolution on a regional and even global scale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tens of thousands of workers from all over the world volunteered to travel to Spain and take up arms to halt the fascist forces. The mobilisation was organised within the framework of the Comintern\u2019s International Brigades (the \u2018Communist International\u2019, then controlled by the Stalinist USSR), and within the militias of the anarchists and those of the POUM. The women who volunteered insisted on doing so even in the face of harsher acceptance conditions due to gender-based discrimination and prejudice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most volunteers came from France or from among exiles fleeing the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. It is also worth noting the presence of volunteers from the USA and Latin American countries, and especially from North Africa and the Middle East. This included fighters from \u2018Mandatory\u2019 Palestine \u2014 Arabs and Jews, mostly members of the Palestinian Communist Party (PCP).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the Zionist parties of the time, including those trying to present themselves as \u2018socialist\u2019, opposed sending volunteers. It was Ya\u02bfakov \u1e24azan, a leader of the\u00a0HaShomer HaTza\u02bfir<\/em>\u00a0movement, who coined the slogan \u2018\u1e24anita before Madrid\u2019 (\u1e24anita refers to a Zionist settlement outpost that was established during that period in the northern Galilee).[1]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0Yet according to various estimates, 150\u2013300 young Jewish men and women joined the International Brigades,[2]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0defying Zionist nationalist propaganda that called for their mobilisation for the purposes of the settlement project and national dispossession, and for the suppression of the Great Arab Revolt that also broke out in 1936.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local mobilisation was, as mentioned, cross-national. One of the more well-known Palestinian volunteers in the Brigades was the communist Mu\u1e25ammad Najati \u1e62idqi. He confronted right-wing voices among the local Arab elite who called for supporting Franco\u2019s phalanxes \u2014 which recruited, among others, in Morocco from the population subjugated under Spanish colonialism \u2014 allegedly as a move against British imperialism, which was supposedly on the side of the Republican government in Spain. The British Mandate authorities, which violently suppressed the Great Arab Revolt, persecuted and imprisoned \u1e62idqi for a period of two years, but he opposed the logic that \u2018the enemy of my enemy is my partner\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one of his articles, published during the Spanish Civil War in the socialist newspaper\u00a0The Vanguard<\/em>\u00a0(\u0627\u0644\u0637\u0644\u064a\u0639\u0629<\/em>) printed in Beirut, \u1e62idqi wrote: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2018I was an Arab volunteer that had come to defend the Arabs\u2019 freedom on the front in Madrid. I had come to defend Damascus in Guadalajara, Jerusalem in Cordoba, Baghdad in Toledo, Cairo in Andalusia.\u2019[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Although the Communist parties of the time, under the direction of the Kremlin, turned to emphasising a national-democratic agenda at the expense of class internationalism and socialism, \u1e62idqi actually expressed an appeal to the masses in the Middle East to support the revolution in Spain out of an understanding that its success would give a tremendous impetus to anti-colonial movements \u2014 and that the liberation of the Arab nation from the yoke of imperialism and the social liberation of the masses in the region are fundamentally part of a global struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, \u1e62idqi\u2019s efforts were not suitable with the policy of the Republican government in Madrid, which refused to recognise the right to self-determination for Morocco and denied even the possibility of autonomy. This stemmed from its aspirations to appease French and British imperialism, which were then facing rebellions in regions under their control in North Africa. Despite this, the capitalist classes in France and Britain preferred to continue a policy of \u2018non-intervention\u2019 while the Italian and German fascist regimes intervened militarily with full force, including horrific bombings of population centres. The bombing of the town of Guernica by the Nazi German air force was immortalised in Picasso\u2019s timeless painting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Guernica<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(1937) by Picasso exhibited in the\u00a0Museo Reina Sof\u00eda\u00a0in\u00a0Madrid<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Elections, Coup, Revolution\u2026 and Repression<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Although it was not the intention of its leaders, the coming to power of the Popular Front government in the democratic elections of February 1936 \u2014 the first in Spain in which women secured the right to vote \u2014 opened a new chapter in the revolutionary struggle of the working class and the peasantry, as well as of the feminist movement, the oppressed nationalities within the Spanish state, and the masses subjugated under Spanish colonialism in North Africa. A wave of workers\u2019 strikes and struggles by landless peasants erupted immediately after the elections, and far-right elements were forcefully driven from the streets, out of a mass understanding that the far right cannot be obstructed solely through the ballot box, and that the rule of capital will not volunteer concessions and rights without a struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within five months, in July, the fascist coup led by Franco began, receiving support from the overwhelming majority of the capitalist class in Spain, the large landowners, and the heads of the Church. Although the coup was organised in response to the rise of the Republican government, in essence, it was directed against the growing power of the working class in Spain and against its aspirations for a revolutionary socialist transformation. In practice, the government\u2019s policies \u2014 which did not challenge the rule of capital and not even the power of the Church and the senior officer corps \u2014 did not inherently constitute a danger from the perspective of the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fascist coup was met, as mentioned, with a mass revolutionary uprising on 19 July. In Barcelona, the official unions and workers\u2019 organisations, alongside spontaneous workers\u2019 formations and militias established in the heat of the events, practically began to seize power from the ruling class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The leaders of the parties participating in the Popular Front government opposed the development of the seizure of government buildings, military bases, and most importantly, the land and factories, by peasant and workers\u2019 organisations, alongside the mass arming. The mass anti-fascist struggle, which developed into a revolutionary process against the rule of capital in society, went much further than the limited programme of change that those leaders had drafted while insisting on maintaining capitalist property relations. They had agreed in advance that the demand for the expropriation and transfer of banks, large corporations, and land to public ownership and democratic workers\u2019 control would be rejected outright. When the masses stormed to expropriate control over these social assets \u2014 many of which were anyway owned by capitalists who had supported the fascists and fled the country \u2014 the ministers of the Popular Front government not only tried to block initiatives from below, but resorted to force to thwart them on the pretext that ensuring a military victory over Franco required maintaining \u2018order\u2019 on the Republican side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revolutionary masses in Spain very quickly faced a dual task: repelling the military assault of the fascist counter-revolution, and simultaneously blocking the attempts of the Republican government to intervene to save the social order that had spawned fascism \u2014 the capitalist order of exploitation, poverty, and political oppression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In terms of the fundamental policy practically advanced, the Republican government was not on the side of the masses. It was a pro-capitalist government, despite the fact that the official leaderships of the workers\u2019 movement in Spain participated in it, including its parties \u2014 the Stalinists, the Social Democrats, but also the POUM and the anarchists. In the name of \u2018unity against fascism\u2019, the leaders of those parties found themselves in varying degrees of collaboration with repressive measures taken by the capitalist Republican government against the most revolutionary layers of the working class, whom they claimed \u00a0to represent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u2018Communist Party\u2019, under direct orders from the Kremlin, led the most hawkish line against the left opposition that had developed within the working class. At a certain stage, Stalin conditioned all military and economic aid from the USSR on the suppression of the socialist opposition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The actions of the Republican government, under the guise of acquiring arms and international support to ensure military victory against fascism, undermined the workers\u2019 ability to do exactly that \u2014 to defeat General Franco\u2019s coup and fracture its social base of support, especially among sections of the poor peasantry, which hungered for social reforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unity in the Anti-Fascist Struggle<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Following Hitler\u2019s rise to power in 1933, the working masses in Spain clearly understood the need for a united front of their organisations against the threat of fascist counter-revolution \u2014 which was identified in Spain at that stage mainly with CEDA and Gil Robles. Such unity found expression in the Workers\u2019 Alliance (Alianza Obrera<\/em>). This organisation was formed in 1934 in defiance of the accommodating reformism of the leaders of the \u2018Spanish Socialist Workers\u2019 Party\u2019 (PSOE), the refusal of the leaders of the anarcho-syndicalist movement and the CNT (National Confederation of Labour) to intervene in the political struggle, and the approach of the leaders of the \u2018Spanish Communist Party\u2019 (PCE), who until then argued that there was no difference between fascist forces and other right-wing forces, nor even social-democratic forces. The establishment of the Workers\u2019 Alliance was a step forward for the class struggle, although not without its limitations, paving the way for the Asturian miners\u2019 uprising that year, and for a series of strikes and mass actions that smashed Robles\u2019s movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the Popular Front of 1936 was not a continuation of the Workers\u2019 Alliance of 1934. It represented a break from the idea of the united front of the workers\u2019 movement, replacing it with an alliance with the parties of the liberal republican bourgeoisie, in the form of Manuel Aza\u00f1a\u2019s Republican Left. The joining of working-class unions and parties into a joint political bloc with capitalist parties dictated a \u2018common\u2019 platform, which restricted the actions of the workers\u2019 movement to what was acceptable from the standpoint of the owners of capital and their lackeys.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formation of the Popular Front in Spain was directly linked to the Stalinist political counter-revolution in the USSR, which also led to the complete Stalinisation of the Comintern. Under Stalin \u2014 after he had sabotaged the struggle against the rise of the Nazis in Germany \u2014 the Comintern aggressively pushed, from 1935 onwards, for the establishment of a Popular Front with the \u2018democratic\u2019 bourgeoisie. This was not in spite of the limitations such a front imposed on the workers\u2019 movement and on the struggle for socialism, but precisely because of them. At that time, the interest of the totalitarian bureaucratic caste represented by Stalin was to portray themselves as reliable partners for French and British imperialism, by removing the horizon of socialist revolution from the agenda of the \u2018Communist Parties\u2019 that were under his tight control \u2014 in France, in Spain, and everywhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kasper Brask\u00e9n, in an article published this year in the magazine\u00a0Jacobin<\/em>\u00a0to mark 90 years since the Popular Front government in Spain,[4]<\/a><\/sup>\u00a0which presents a common view in social-democratic circles, polemicises with \u2018the Comintern\u2019s far-left critics, including Trotskyists\u2019<\/em>, who \u2018interpreted the Popular Front as a devastating betrayal of revolutionary politics\u2019<\/em>. In the same article, Brask\u00e9n admits that \u2018In all cases, the Popular Front emerged as a balancing act to harmonize the interests of labor and capital\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reality, the fundamentally opposed interests of labour and capital \u2014 of the exploited class and the exploiting class \u2014 could not be balanced or harmonised in times of peace, and certainly not in times of crisis, war, and revolution.\u00a0Subordinating the working class to the interests of capital<\/strong>\u00a0by negating the most basic demands of the workers is indeed fundamentally a \u2018devastating betrayal\u2019, exacting heavy prices, including in human lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The workers\u2019 movement was forced to \u2018put aside\u2019 until an unknown future its demands for increased unemployment benefits, for the redistribution of land from the tycoons to the landless peasants, and the expropriation of resources from the capitalists, including control over the banks, during a worsening international and local capitalist crisis. The cost of the crisis was rolled onto the shoulders of the workers and the poorest layers of the peasantry, who even suffered from starvation. The consequences only strengthened the basis for the populist appeal of fascists to those layers with the slogan \u2018What has the Republic given you to eat?\u2019 \u2014 and with a promise to extricate them from the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of examining the lessons of the Spanish Revolution, it is necessary to examine the social-class character of the Popular Front coalition, and its role in the context of a fundamental social crisis, and a process of social revolution and counter-revolution that unfolded in Spain and beyond. In practice, the Popular Front in Spain was utilised to compel the workers\u2019 movement to abandon, in the name of \u2018unity against fascism\u2019, its fundamental and urgent political demands at the time in favour of maintaining the alliance with capitalist forces. And this concession had catastrophic consequences, paving the way for the victory of the fascist counter-revolution in Spain and for a dictatorial regime that lasted until General Franco\u2019s death in 1975.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To pull the political center to the left?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Brask\u00e9n argues that \u2018Perhaps unjustly, the Popular Front today is primarily remembered as a defence mechanism against fascism and the far right, but it should equally be seen as a powerful means to pull the political center to the left\u2019<\/em>. The truth is that this same front was a means to pull the workers\u2019 parties to the right, which also turned it into a failed defence mechanism against fascism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018[T]he worst and most reactionary form of utopianism is the idea that it is possible to struggle against fascism without overthrowing the capitalist economy\u2019<\/em> \u2014 this is how Leon Trotsky, one of the leaders of the original socialist revolution in Russia and the founder of the Fourth International (those whom Brask\u00e9n calls \u2018Trotskyists\u2019), summed up the experience of the Popular Front in Spain. Trotsky closely followed the Spanish Revolution and Civil War, debating their course with leaders of the workers\u2019 movement in Spain and internationally, analysing them in numerous writings. He treated the dramatic events as a political test for ideas and political forces, and leaders, far beyond the borders of Spain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a historical debate that remains relevant. The current proponents of the historical Popular Front of Spain, particularly from among \u2018Communist\u2019 parties that continue certain aspects of the Stalinist political legacy, use the historical example to promote a long-term political alliance between left-wing forces and capitalist parties from the \u2018centre\u2019, as a response to the threat posed by far-right and populist right-wing forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A local example of this can be found, for instance, in the reference by former MK Dov Khenin in an article he published in 2017, during the early consolidation period of the Standing Together movement:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018Coping with the dangers must be aided by the experience of the past. The 1930s were not only a period of the rise of fascism, but also the days of the Popular Front \u2014 an inspiring stand against it\u2026 To understand it, we must address both words. The word Front expresses a broad partnership between liberals, socialists, and communists, which was created in the 1930s in France and Spain, and later translated into an anti-Nazi alliance of states in the Second World War. The word Popular dictates that an alliance of elites will not succeed against fascism, but rather what is needed is a front that speaks to the people and from within the people, and expresses the popular distresses, angers, and desires \u2014 instead of these being appropriated and hijacked by the right.\u2019[5]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Albeit, the Popular Front was not an \u2018alliance of elites\u2019, \u00a0it was\u00a0an alliance\u00a0with<\/em>\u00a0the elites, led by the elites, for the preservation of the interests of the elites.<\/strong>\u00a0This fact found expression from the very stage of the \u2018common\u2019 platform. While the Popular Front election platform \u2014 agreed upon and signed by all the workers\u2019 parties, including the POUM \u2014 promised to release the masses of political prisoners who had led the 1934 uprising in Asturias and across Spain, it openly rejected all the other key demands of the workers\u2019 movement: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018The republicans do not accept the principle of the nationalisation of the land and its free distribution to the peasants [\u2026] The republicans do not accept the unemployment benefits requested by the workers\u2019 representatives [\u2026] The republican parties do not accept the measures for the nationalisation of the banks proposed by the workers\u2019 parties [\u2026] The republican parties do not accept workers\u2019 control.\u2019[6]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The rejection of those demands was consistent and continued throughout the days of the Popular Front until its surrender to Franco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From a relatively early stage, the Popular Front government ceased to credibly express \u2018the popular distresses, angers, and desires\u2019, as it was exposed as an obstacle to comprehensive social reforms, and certainly to a full socialist programme that would offer fundamental solutions to the crisis. Franco\u2019s forces relied on and exploited the decline in public trust in the Republican government, and in the morale and self-confidence among the masses of the working class and particularly the peasantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In December 1937, in an article titled \u2018The Lessons of Spain \u2014 The Last Warning\u2019, Trotsky explained that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In Spain, \u2018there was no lack of heroism on the part of the masses or courage on the part of individual revolutionists. But the masses were left to their own resources while the revolutionists remained disunited, without a program, without a plan of action. The \u201crepublican\u201d military commanders were more concerned with crushing the social revolution than with scoring military victories. The soldiers lost confidence in their commanders, the masses in the government; the peasants stepped aside; the workers became exhausted; defeat followed defeat; demoralization grew apace. All this was not difficult to foresee from the beginning of the civil war. By setting itself the task of rescuing the capitalist regime, the Popular Front doomed itself to military defeat.\u2019[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Historical Lessons<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Khenin, in a lecture he presented in 2011 entitled \u2018Learning from Experience: Coverage of Resistance to Fascism in World History\u2019[8]<\/sup><\/a>, claimed that \u2018a popular front can succeed\u2019<\/em> and that \u2018Spain was a success\u2019<\/em>. He tried to reconcile the contradiction between the claim of \u2018success\u2019 and the catastrophe of the victory of fascism thus: \u2018It is true that afterwards there was a civil war, in which there was foreign intervention by Italy and Germany and a policy of non-intervention by the Western countries, which allowed this regime to be drowned in blood, but the Popular Front in Spain succeeded.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trotsky at the time replied to such logic:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018It is simply ridiculous to justify the defeat by references to the military intervention of Italian fascists and German Nazis, and to the perfidious conduct of the French and British \u201cdemocracies\u201d. Enemies will always remain enemies. Reaction will always intervene whenever it can. Imperialist \u201cdemocracy\u201d will always betray. This means that the victory of the proletariat is impossible in general! But what about the victory of fascism in Italy and Germany itself? No intervention there. Instead we had there a powerful proletariat and a very large Socialist Party and, in the case of Germany, a large Communist Party as well. Why then was there no victory gained over fascism? Precisely because the leading parties tried to reduce the question in both these countries to a struggle \u201cagainst fascism\u201d when only a socialist revolution can defeat fascism.\u2019[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In this context, Trotsky also addressed the arguments \u2014 heard in the aforementioned lecture \u2014 that during the struggle against the danger of fascism there was no room for a \u2018purist\u2019 approach towards an alliance with the republican bourgeoisie:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2018All our forces must be centered on this immediate goal, etc., etc. Of course, of course! But tell us, pray, why during a struggle against fascism must the land belong to the landlords and the factories and mills to the capitalists, all of whom are in Franco\u2019s camp? Is it perhaps because the peasants and workers \u201chave not matured\u201d for the seizure of land and factories? But they proved their maturity by seizing on their own initiative the lands and factories. Reactionaries, who call themselves republicans, under the leadership of the Stalinists, were able to smash this powerful movement allegedly in the name of \u201canti-fascism\u201d, but in reality in the interest of bourgeois proprietors.\u2019[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The claim that the Popular Front social coalition was successful in the struggle against fascism is\u00a0historically unfounded<\/strong>. It is liable to lead to political short-sightedness and erroneous conclusions also regarding the challenges in the current struggle against the threats of the far right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the current stage, although generally there are no mass parties of struggle based in the working class, an overly abstract approach to the question of political \u2018partnership\u2019 in the struggle against far-right threats can be dangerous. The questions of which forces align with one another, on what basis, and around which political programme and what course of action \u2014 remain fundamental. The logic of the Popular Front is applied in a variety of cases both regarding the idea of establishing a \u2018left-wing government\u2019, and in relation to more limited political coalitions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the State of Israel, for example, the socialist left must warn against \u2018democratic\u2019 political alliances with right-wing, pro-occupation, and pro-capitalist forces that justified and spurred on the war of annihilation in Gaza, such as Bennett, Lapid, and General Golan, who portray themselves as \u2018liberals\u2019 and \u2018democrats\u2019 in their eyes. Similarly, a distinction must be made between ad-hoc tactical cooperation, even with liberal forces, in order to block specific legislation or attacks, and broad political coalitions and long-term electoral alliances around a \u2018common\u2019 platform with capitalist political forces. Those who currently refer to the historical Popular Front as a successful model are promoting the concept of a common platform, which means joining together to advance a supposedly softened version of a nationalist capitalist agenda, which will pave the way for further severe crises, instead of advancing a substantive political alternative that promotes a struggle around a fundamental exit strategy from a systemic crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Memory is Political<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There is no doubt that on the 90th anniversary of the Spanish Revolution, socialists will cherish the heroism of the masses and the courage of individual revolutionaries. We will remember the tens of thousands of workers and peasants who sacrificed their lives in the revolutionary struggle for liberation and socialism. We will remember the rank-and-file comrades in the UGT, the CNT, and the POUM, who, despite the grave errors and betrayal by their leaders, continued to fight to the end \u2014 some falling in battle or in Franco\u2019s prisons, and others assassinated by Stalin\u2019s agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But memory must be political. It must serve as a pathway for learning the central lessons of the Spanish Revolution. Above all, the revolution demonstrated tragically that the vital determination expressed in the slogan \u2018Fascism shall not pass\u2019 is not enough in itself. Equally important is the insistence on ideological clarity and on principles in the struggle, including in the face of pressures to \u2018fall in line\u2019 with liberal forces, to \u2018downplay\u2019 socialist demands, and to \u2018postpone to a later stage\u2019 the struggle for socialism because of the \u2018gravity of the hour\u2019 and the \u2018looming threat\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A political alliance against the far right that places pro-capitalist elements and their political programme at the helm, and turns the socialist left into the tail end and the \u2018working hands\u2019 on the ground while the elites make the decisions, is liable to lead precisely to the strengthening of populist right-wing and far-right forces that will continue to masquerade as an alternative to establishment parties and ride on mass distress and societal antagonism toward representatives of the elites.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Spanish Revolution demonstrated, albeit in a negative way, the need not for a \u2018New Popular Front\u2019, but for a persistent and unapologetic socialist left. A socialist left that knows how to lead with the necessary political programme also collaborations and principledly harnessing liberal elements in order to strike a blow against the far right, without letting it be forgotten that the crisis of capitalism and the failure of liberal politics are the cause and context for its growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a>\u00a0Raanan Rein,\u00a0Cathedra<\/em>\u00a0179, September 2021, pp. 135\u2013156.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0Brodkin,\u00a0Yedioth Ahronoth<\/em>, October 1972, p. 14.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0Memoirs of a Palestinian Communist in the Spanish International Brigades<\/a>, Jerusalem Quarterly Issue 62, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0Kasper Brask\u00e9n,\u00a0The Promise and Tragedy of the Popular Front<\/a>, Jacobin, 23.02.2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0Dov Khenin,\u00a0The Left Must Go on the Offensive<\/a>, Haaretz, 13.02.2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a>\u00a0Manifiesto del Frente Popular<\/a>, El Socialista, 16 January 1936.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0Leon Trotsky,\u00a0The Lessons of Spain \u2014 The Last Warning<\/a>, December 1937.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a>\u00a0Dov Khenin, Learning from Experience: Coverage of Resistance to Fascism in World History<\/a>, 26.01.2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0Leon Trotsky,\u00a0On the Causes for the Defeat of the Spanish Revolution<\/a>, March 1939.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a>\u00a0Trotsky, 1939, Ibid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year, amidst struggles against imperialist wars, against the strengthening of the far right globally, and against Trumpist reaction, we mark the 90th anniversary of the dramatic events of the Revolution and Civil War in Spain. That war immortalised the slogan \u2018Fascism shall not pass!\u2019 (No pasar\u00e1n) \u2014 which continues to echo in demonstrations here locally and worldwide. The upheavals […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":422,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[66,64,62,60,61,65],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-theory-history","tag-anti-fascism","tag-popular-front","tag-spain","tag-spanish-civil-war","tag-spanish-revolution","tag-united-front"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417"}],"version-history":[{"count":50,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/socialiststruggle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}