The Black Spectre of War – Emma Goldman (1938)

_{Captain Jack White, Ethel Mannin and Emma Goldman,
London, 1937}

From ‘Spain and the World’, Vol. II. No. 34 (Supplement), London, May, 1938

Again the European sky is black and sinister with impending war. The powers that breathe war and their allies who grow rich on the implements of death and destruction are again competing with each other. The cry for armaments, more deadly machines, more devastating explosives, greater man-power, a mightier navy, again rend the air. The shibboleths used in the last world conflagration to deceive the masses are again to serve the war-mongers of the day in their conspiracy to lead the masses to slaughter. “The War to end War,” “the War for Democracy.” What a lying face was hidden under the hideous mask of democracy.

We who had fought the Great war had never for a moment been deceived in the din and tinsel that loudly proclaimed the alluring motives stressed by the war apologists. We knew too well that the aftermath of the war may prove more terrible than the ghastly thing itself, yet even we did not imagine the monstrosities that will arise out of the four years horrors.

Yet here we are in the throes of Fascism and National Socialism. The most frightful world menace came quick enough on the heels of the war. Gaunt and hideous it has infested a large part of Europe, devastating all social and human values, and savagely exterminating those in their way.

Fascism and National Socialism and all the frightfulness they imply are the direct legacy of the last war. Their thirst for blood, their will to murder, their sadistic trend to the vilest deeds have found their innings in the world carnage. And so have their dupes whom the trenches and the battlefield have twisted out of human semblance. Brutalized and degraded they have been caught in the blood-drunk obscene orgy of Fascism and National Socialism. For in these ranks alone, millions of war derelicts are finding an outlet for their accumulated hatred and vengeance, for the forces that had driven them to the battlefield.

To be sure there is a danger of greater awareness to the malignant growth all wars for conquest and loot have brought in their wake.

But their clamour for peace is only bringing nearer and nearer the black spectre of war which will again engulf the world in a new sea of blood and tears.

One of these perfectly senseless ideas of peace entertained by many well-meaning people outside the charlatans at the helm of the State is non-intervention in Spain. Today, even the most weak mentally are beginning to grasp the fact that non-intervention in anti-Fascist Spain has been the greatest loan to the Fascist side and has already prepared the stakes of the coming conflagration. The villains in this world drama are the democratic countries, England and France. They have, and are still, playing the most despicable role.

It can at least be said of the Fascist megalomaniacs, Mussolini and Hitler, they have openly and brazenly boasted of their alliance with Franco. Nor have they minced matters in the support they have given him in arms and men to better enable their hireling to crush the Spanish people. The hypocritical measures were left to the British and French democracies. The National Government, originally supported in the non-intervention policy by the British Labour Party, and the old Socialist Blum supported by the Popular Front, under cover of their love of peace, have worked right into the hands of Franco and incidentally have paved the way for a new war, more devastating than the last. In other words the democratic countries and the workers’ “fatherland” have outdone Judas in their black treachery of the heroic Spanish people.

No, not for the pitiable biblical 30 pieces of silver are they helping to crucify the Spanish workers and peasants; their stakes are higher, much higher. Nothing less than the rehabilitation of their imperialist power and wealth will satisfy these pseudo-democrats. It is for this and this alone that Spain is permitted to bleed to death, and the rest of the world brought closer to the nightmare of another world holocaust.

However the end of Spain is not yet. Those who now glibly insist that the anti-fascist forces have lost simply do not know the Spanish people. They do not have the slightest inkling of their fortitude, their courage, their utter fearlessness of death. Moreover they do not know the personnel of the National Confederation of Labour (C.N.T.) and the Anarchist Federation of Iberia (F.A.I.). These men and women were not only the first in the whole world to rise against the military and fascist conspiracy on July 19th, 1936, they were also the first in any revolutionary period to begin a magnificent constructive work.

In defence of this grandiose achievement and because liberty to them is the most dominant driving force, the C.N.T.-F.A.I. will make no peace with Fascism. Their flaming faith, their burning enthusiasm and their iron determination to fight to the last man permeates every letter that comes to us from Spain. Such a people cannot possibly be conquered. No matter the outcome of the unequal battle now reaching the most crucial period it will not crush the Spanish masses.

Again and again they will rise in defence of their revolutionary gains, in defence of their libertarian ideal.

If only the workers of the world on this First of May — Labour’s demonstration of strength, would come to the rescue of their Spanish brothers. Not by lip-service only, or by some small contributions. Nothing but direct action can check the march of Franco. Direct action in the form of a general strike, in a boycott of all materials sent to Franco will save anti-fascist Spain.

In thus giving real aid to the gallant Spanish workers and peasants, the International Proletariat could, if it but willed, kill two monsters with one stroke, check the growing menace of Fascism and pull the props from under the capitalist system, that is at the back of every war and is drawing ever nearer the black spectre of the next war.

_{Emma Goldman holds a banner and speaks to onlookers
about the Spanish anarchists at a May Day rally
in Hyde Park, London, May 1, 1937}

For Democracy – Charles M. Sandwick

Republished in the anarchist newspaper ‘Spain and the World’, Vol. II. No. 34 (Supplement), London, May, 1938, from the ‘Bucks Labour News’

Excuse me, Comrade:
I am about to disembowel you —
It’s for Democracy, you know.
I have to hate you, Comrade:
I could not do this frightful thing
If I had not learned to hate you.
You see, Comrade,
Your boss is a Fascist:
But mine, Comrade,
Mine is a Democrat.
That is why, Comrade—
That is why I am about
To plunge my bayonet into your belly
And scatter your guts upon the earth.
This is a good war, Comrade:
The Comintern say so.
My boss says so, too.
Everybody says it’s a good war.
Democracy must be saved, you know.
Of course, the workers can’t strike
any more;
Men are being conscripted for the war;
And those who don’t like it
Can’t shoot off their mouths;
But that isn’t Fascism!
Oh my, no!
That’s Democracy in an emergency.
You keep your damn’ mouth shut
When Democracy faces a crisis.
So when the hot iron sears your guts
And I twist it, so,
Excuse me, Comrade:
That’s for Democracy!

Charles M. Sandwick

Anarchism — A Philosophy Of Action

Capt. J.R. White’s View

Highest Reason Incarnate in Action

From ‘Spain and the World’, London, February 5th, 1937

The following is the speech made by Captain White at the Meeting held at Conway Hall, January 18th under the auspices of the London Committee of the CNT-FAI.

We believe it should be of interest to readers as it is written by a man who though not an Anarchist, feels that there is something in that philosophy which attracts. We suggest that the attraction is due to the fact that Anarchism is based on human justice, Freedom and Equality; necessary conditions if we are to live as human beings and not as inanimate objects. – [Spain and the World] Editor

Our comrade, Emma Goldman, is an anarchist and I should like to give a word of explanation why I stand beside her on this platform. I want to sketch in what, as I understand it — and my knowledge of theoretic anarchism is as yet very small — is a fundamental of anarchist philosophy. I believe, then, I am right in saying anarchism is a philosophy of action, because it is pre-eminently the philosophy of individual spontaneity.

Every free and spontaneous individual knows that it would be highly desirable and convenient if knowledge could always precede action, and we could advance rationally step by step to a foreseen goal; life, and especially the deeper aspects of life, will not permit this; in the deepest crises and conflict of life, whether individual or social, action has to precede knowledge, and if we wait too long to calculate results and fail to obey our emotional impulses to stand for what is right, or resist intolerable wrong, regardless of consequences, we miss the psychological moment; somehow we are devitalised by our own prudence, and we are left to face wrong, more deeply entrenched by our inaction, with less “elan vital” in our ourselves to give us assurance of future victory.

Reason, or rather the passive attempt to calculate consequences without creatively contributing to them by the magic of the deed, has betrayed us. The highest reason is incarnate in action and often cannot explain itself till after the actions. Reason is latent in the pent-up emotion that drives to action. It is emotional reason, creative reason; the other kind of reason is dead.

At moments of revolution, the higher emotional reason is especially necessary, because it breaks through the old forms which are the premises of the dead reason; it creates new forms, which have their seed primarily not in the mind but in the heart of man. He may not be able to foresee or define the new forms; but he knows the old forms are dead and will destroy his heart and spirit unless he bursts through them.

Non-Intervention A Verbal Screen

Nothing has been sadder to watch for the past five or six years than the way in which fascism has gained victory after victory by acting from its evil heart, while socialists and democrats reasoned and talked; in Germany and Austria. Fascism waited its moment and struck, quite regardless of the pathetic faith of its opponents in the compelling rightness of democratic theories. In the international parleys about Spain, talk of non-intervention has been noting but a verbal screen for armed fascist intervention on an even larger scale.

We have to look to the internal struggle in Spain for the first real meeting of fascist action by revolutionary action, first in the magnificent struggle of the Asturian miners, so ruthlessly suppressed, and later on the July 19th of last year in the historic defeat of the fascist coup by the workers of Barcelona. At last the philosophy of action of the fascists had met a revolutionary philosophy of action strong and direct enough to master it. In one day fascism was conquered in Barcelona. Machine guns and batteries of artillery were taken by the invincible rush of the people dependent for the most part on nothing but their bare hands with about one rifle per 40 men. The guns were turned against the barracks, their walls were breached and their stores of arms captured while the rank and file of the troops joined the people. In three days fascism was liquidated in Catalonia.

In addressing an audience like this to make known the work of the CNT-FAI, it is a little difficult to puts one’s finger on points whether of theory or practice, which differentiate the Anarcho-Syndicalism or Libertarian Communism of Spain from, say, the more highly centralised system of Russian Communism. I have not the knowledge to descant on the points of theoretic difference, and, if I had it might be inadvisable to do so.

It might, however, be interesting to trace the historical foundations of anarchism in Spain and to indicate the roots of anarchist divergence from the brand of communism with which we are more familiar in this country. Mr John Strachey writing in the Left Book Club News of the working class movement of 1860 says, “it is a pity that into the new born movement of that date had strayed the brilliant, erratic, disastrous Russian aristocrat, Michael Bakunin. He became far more influential in Spain than the Marxists. He split the International and set a great section of the Spanish working class movement in the rigid anarchist mound.” Whether Mr. Strachey is right in speaking of the anarchist movement as “Rigid,” we will investigate later. I can only say that if I agreed with him I should not be on this platform now.

Out to Organise A New Spain

I want, if I can, to give you some notion of the respective characteristics of the authoritarian and libertarian groups in Spain, not in any spirit of invidious comparison, but to illustrate as far as possible the difference of outlook and temperament. Sir Peter Chalmers-Mitchell, writing in the Times of his experience in Malaga in the early days of Franco’s rebellion, mentions two points in comparing the UGT [General Union of Workers] and the CNT-FAI which are, I think, characteristic. Both, he says, organised Militias, but the former tried to attract recruits by promising them permanent service in the Standing Army afterwards, while the latter were bitterly opposed to all Standing Armies, and even their leaders refused to accept Commissions.

In their attitude to economics, he adds the former tended to concentrate on raising wages at the expense of capital, while the latter were out to organise a new Spain based on creative work.

Many impartial observers have spoken of the self-imposed discipline in the factories taken over and controlled by the workers, and realised that underlying this voluntarily discipline was great enthusiasm and revolutionary faith; hence the impression of dignity emanating form the workers.

While no doubt the voluntary discipline and the enthusiasm that begets it is not confined to the CNT-FAI, it is unquestionable that the policy of the Industrial Revolution simultaneous with the anti-fascist fight is the anarchist policy carried into practice in spite of the opposition of the P.S.U.C. [Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia]

As to the dignity emanating from the workers, I saw enough with my own eyes while in Spain to verify the proof of the reports I have quoted. I found Barcelona, a clean, well run, orderly city, with trams and trains running to the minute, restaurants and cinemas open, and all run as collectivised institutions by their courteous and efficient staffs. Never before had I met waiters and even shoe-blacks consistently refusing tips, so great is the self respect engendered in the workers by their new status of the collectivised owners of the industries they control.

We are then bound in justice to give to Anarcho-Syndicalism and the CNT-FAI the credit which is their due for the magnificent creative work which results from their philosophy, individual and social.

Of all the Spanish workers, we may we say, with Langdon Davies, “We turn in humility to the humble folk of Spain, Republican, Socialists, Communists, Syndicalists, Anarchists, who are groping in horror with their bare hands to save the Light from flickering out. We turn in anger to those in England who want the Light to die and we cry in words to which Spain is giving a new meaning: ‘No Passaran.'”

“They Shall Not Pass.”

J.R. White