His father refused to comply and left for Barcelona where, for a time, he went into hiding. But he was never troubled, no one went after him, and he soon returned to Badalona to live.5
Receiving 10 pesetas a day – half his previous salary – like all the other workers, his son continued in the mill as a manager, supervising production, taking up complaints from clients, trying to find customers. Relations between him and the mill committee, which was in charge, were mutually respectful.
—Meanwhile, the workers went on working just the same. There were about sixty women and eight men. To them it made no difference, in the last analysis, who was putting the pressure on, whether owner or committee. It was they who knew how to do the job. What made a difference was how things worked higher up. The relationship between different economic sectors, the overall economic situation – and it was there that chaos really existed …
CANET observed with amazement that when the mill committee went to Barcelona on business they hired a taxi. He and his father before the war had always gone by train. They didn’t own a car.
There was no doubt in his mind that the enterprise was going to flounder. The workers, in his view, were totally naive when it came to running a business.
—It’s something you don’t learn overnight, it comes to you from experience, or perhaps it’s innate. I felt as though I were someone who could read, read the writing on the wall, while those on the committee were illiterate …
He had suggested earlier to his father that they flee. ‘I have done nothing, I have no reason to leave,’ his father replied; and so they had stayed.
As the factory went onto short-time as a result of shortages of raw materials, CANET volunteered for the Pyrenean regiment formed mainly of Catalan nationalists. The local anarchist committees which (until the May events) controlled the borders, attacked the regiment when it was sent to the frontier area to train, taking some of its commanders as hostages. The Generalitat informed the regiment that it was powerless to intervene.
—If there was nothing the government could do, what could we do? I decided the only thing was to get out. One only fights if one has got something to fight for. I wasn’t an anarchist, I wasn’t a communist, the republic of 1931 in which I believed was no longer the republic that existed after July 1936.I could see no reason to continue fighting for it. I wouldn’t have left simply because of what was happening in the factory. If that had been the case, I should have escaped to the other side and fought to restore our property rights. I couldn’t do that. Money wasn’t the most important thing; ideals mattered more. And my political ideals were simply no longer represented by Catalonia as it was …
He and a cousin, both skilled mountaineers, packed haversacks, took their skis and set off. In a blinding snowstorm, they crossed a mountain pass into France far from any military post. From there CANET made his way to America and to a new life – a neutral in the struggle.
As the war progressed, there were other causes of disaffection. One outcome of the May events had been the central government’s progressive takeover of the Generalitat’s functions, especially in matters connected with the war effort. Josep ANDREU ABELLO, Esquerra deputy and president of the Barcelona High Court, believed that this was a major error which sapped Catalan resistance.
—The Generalitat’s powers were being steadily eroded until, in the end, they were virtually reduced to nil. As a result, large numbers of Catalans came to believe that this was no longer their war. The great spirit which had moved the masses at times of crisis suddenly began to disappear. A sense of defeat permeated the hearts of most Catalans; added to which were the air raids, the hunger, the overall war-weariness …
ANDREU ABELLO noted that the working class had a great deal more optimism that the war could be won than did people like himself in positions of authority.
—That was the problem. While we were probably better informed and could hardly be optimistic, the masses – with their greater simplicity – were preparing for the revolution after the conflict; in this confusion we were losing the war …
Not that it was being lost because of the revolution; it would have been lost anyway, he thought. The parliamentary democracies’ failure to rally to the republican cause had assured defeat from the very first day. The failure was hardly surprising. The war, the last ideological war, coincided with the nadir of democratic ideology. Daladier, Reynaud hadn’t an ounce of ideology, in his view. As for Chamberlain, he displayed an English tranquillity-seeking egoism which betrayed his lack of understanding of what was at stake – even for Britain’s own prosperity.
—The majority of French and English lived through our war with an indifference and lack of generosity that left us entirely unsupported. It was a terrible thing …
Food was by now a constant preoccupation; nobody starved, but people were going hungry. Some curious advantages accrued from this unhappy situation, as Joan GRIJALBO, the UGT bankworker who was serving on the economics council, recalled. He occasionally returned to his former bank to look at its state of affairs. He could remember the time in 1935 when, to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary, the bank had given a banquet and he had spoken on behalf of the employees. They were devoted to the bank’s future, he said, but they had many concerns which the union was taking up: wage rises never happened spontaneously or miraculously. ‘I recommended to the bank’s directors that they bear in mind the concept of social justice. At that, as one man, they walked out of the hall.’ The Spanish bourgeoisie, he reflected, was the most reactionary in Europe. ‘It wanted to continue to live well by refusing to allow the proletariat’s standard of living to rise to European levels.’
As he went over the bank’s accounts, he was amazed to see the way people continued to save. Catalans had one of the highest per-capita savings rates in Europe during the war, he calculated. But there was one firm which was on the verge of bankruptcy: a bicarbonate of soda company.
—Nobody was buying its product any longer because no one was suffering from indigestion …
* * *
Episodes 11
Imbroglios
Food supplies were Joan MANENT’S major concern as CNT mayor of Badalona, the industrial town of some 80,000 inhabitants 8 km up the coast from Barcelona. Agricultural production within the city limits had virtually collapsed. The CNT agrarian collective had failed. The half dozen day-labourers who were in the CNT – members of the food workers’ union, for there was no anarcho-syndicalist agricultural union – had expropriated most of the twenty-odd large owners’ lands and had tried to do the same to the some 400 smallholders. CNT union leaders in the town had prevented them taking over the latter who, in the main, belonged to the Esquerra’s rabassaires (smallholding peasants’) union.
—Not only that, the day-labourers ran the collective so badly that some of the rabassaires who wanted to join the CNT were put off and joined the UGT instead. We sent a couple of well-prepared militants to administer the collective, but they refused to stay, seeing that it was going to lead to a shoot-out. Even the FAI opposed the way the labourers were running things. In the end we managed to get them thrown out and sent to the front, but by then the damage was done …
On the other hand, a UGT agricultural collective, formed in part from large holdings and in part from the plots of smallholders who wanted to join, and run by a couple of former CNT members who had left because they had come to blows with those who had been running the CNT collective, functioned very successfully, in MANENT’S opinion. ‘It was paradoxical, perhaps; but then all revolutions are like that –’
The food problem, none the less, remained acute. And it was made more so by some of the industrial collectives; amongst them, the important Cros chemical factory, now a collective working flat out for the war effort. Operating an exchange system, the factory’s 2,000 workers received food supplies for every so many tons of fertilizers they produced.
—Over and above their ordinary rations, each worker might get about 15 kil
os of food a fortnight from their exchanges. The same was true of the other chemical- and metalworkers in the town. There was great discontent among the rest of the population at this inequality …
MANENT organized a meeting of collectives and consumer cooperatives and insisted that all food supplies should be handed over to the CNT supplies committee to be equitably distributed among the whole population.
—The CNT unions were agreed; but the workers refused. It wasn’t the first time I encountered the egoism of individual collectives …
Appointed mayor in July 1937, after the anarcho-syndicalists had refused to participate in the new Negrín government – he had been private secretary to Joan Peiró, the CNT industry minister until then – he had found the town hall in a serious financial plight. It had insufficient funds to pay even its own staff, and had to appeal to the Generalitat for funds.
—The reason was that there was no income. The collectives refused to pay any taxes – not a soul would pay a céntimo. There we were trying to live libertarian communism while people forgot their duty to the collectivity. It was a proof of the irresponsibility which many people displayed. Each collective, as I soon saw, only too frequently thought first of its own interests … 6
MANENT threatened to resign unless the food situation were put on an equitable footing. The CNT national committee secretary, Mariano Vázquez, had to come to ask him to continue at his post. Nothing was achieved to change the food situation.
The arrival of the central government in Barcelona brought a new problem. An attempt by the Generalitat to take over a TB sanatorium being run by the CNT-led municipality in a former monastery had been staved off without too much difficulty. But when the central government decided to take it over – Negrín’s niece was a patient there – the matter became more complicated.
The sanatorium was set up in the monastery during the revolution as the result of a long-standing anarcho-syndicalist claim. During the republic the Carthusian monks had suggested to the municipality that they would look after the town’s TB patients – a disease with a relatively high incidence in Badalona – if the municipality would meet the medical expenses. A disused building above the monastery could be used for the purpose. A week after the October 1934 insurrection, all the patients had been returned to the Badalona hospital without warning. The CNT demonstrated, demanding that the monastery itself be taken over as a sanatorium.
In July 1936, as soon as the military uprising was crushed, some 2,000 people attacked the monastery, burning its pharmaceutical laboratory and nearly burning its library, reputedly the third most important in Catalonia for its incunabula. The CNT dispatched men to prevent it.
—But we were unable to prevent the crowd bringing thirty-eight monks, including the prior, down to Badalona to kill them. Two were killed and two wounded en route. Seeing men armed with pikes bringing the monks in I thought I could see the guillotine waiting in the square, so much did the scene remind me of the French revolution …
He and other CNT leaders had taken precautions, assembling 200 of their militants in the square where the mob was threatening to kill the monks. Pistol in hand, the militants arrested the crowd’s ring-leaders, and took the monks back to the monastery.
—‘You call yourselves the Anti-Fascist committee, you’ve taken over the townhall and now you’re saving monks. How can you act like this?’ The crowd couldn’t understand what was happening …
Within a few days, the committee realized it could not adequately protect the monks, among whom there were many foreigners – French, English, Japanese, etc. Committee representatives went to see President Companys and asked him to repatriate the monks in order to avoid an international incident.
As soon as this was done, the local CNT set about realizing its aim of converting the monastery into a sanatorium, knocking four cells into one to make wards, bringing in new beds and equipment, including an X-ray machine, and appointing CNT guards to protect the place. The latter also worked in the vegetable gardens which kept the sanatorium self-sufficient in food and provided a surplus for the aged and orphans in Badalona.
One day, some of the guards were cleaning old straw from an upper storey when they found a trapdoor. Beneath it were stairs. Fearing that someone might be hidden there, for two or three monks had escaped, they went down. In an underground room they found a stockpile of arms – about 100 Mauser and Winchester rifles with 100,000 rounds of ammunition. The rifles were packed in grease and labelled.
—We went to see the prior who was wounded in hospital. He denied all knowledge of the arms. But a monk who was also wounded told us the story. The rifles had been delivered by four men in donkey-drawn carts shortly before October 1934. The weapons were for the monastery’s defence and for use by right-wingers; but they had not been used. We found the men who had delivered them, and they confirmed the story. They had picked up the cargo of rifles from a ship which had unloaded them up the coast from Badalona …
The Generalitat’s attempt to take over the sanatorium was staved off by a proposal to accept patients from the whole district if the Generalitat would subsidize the cost. But the central government’s attempt, backed by a company of assault guards who arrived at the sanatorium, arrested all the CNT guards and took over, was another matter. MANENT immediately summoned the heads of all the police forces at his command. CNT militants, in conjunction with their forces, were going to retake it, he informed them.
—There was some hesitation on the police chiefs’ part. They had only some fifty men with which to face the assault guards. But I assured them that with our men we would be sufficiently strong. The police commander suggested he telephone the assault guard commander, but the latter replied that he had his orders and would defend the sanatorium to the death …
Seeing the impasse, a CNT member telephoned the Generalitat. Faced with the possibility of armed confrontation, President Companys suggested a compromise.
—The assault guards would be withdrawn, but the position of the sanatorium must be ‘legalized’. A public meeting, attended not only by Companys and other Generalitat officials but by prime minister Negrín himself, could celebrate it. ‘You’ll have to lay on a lunch for everyone, of course,’ he said. When the town councillors heard of the scheme, they all wanted to attend the banquet. ‘Yes, you shall attend,’ I said, ‘but Manent won’t – ’ When the day came, I shut myself in my bedroom, told my wife to tell everyone I had gone to Sabadell, and remained there until the affair was over …
It was just as well. That evening the libertarian youth of Badalona organized an enormous women’s demonstration. They marched on the townhall to protest that a banquet had been laid on for government ministers when there was hunger and suffering among the civilian population.
—It takes great diplomacy to deal with a mass of enraged women. I asked them to send in a delegation. They recited their protests. I told them I hadn’t attended the banquet. ‘We know that. All the same there are stocks of food in the municipal warehouse which aren’t being distributed – ’ I knew the real purpose of all this: it was an attempt to get rid of the councillor in charge of supplies, a member of the PSUC, who was a friend of mine for all that. I had a sudden brilliant idea. ‘We shall all march to the warehouse now, I and the town councillors with you, and inspect it. If there is a single gram more food there than there should be, you can hang me from the nearest tree – ’ ‘Manent, what have you promised them?’ one of the town councillors said. In truth, I was only half sure myself that everything was in order …
With the demonstration of women following, they set off. When they got there – ‘luckily for me’ – there wasn’t even a bacalao in the warehouse. Convinced, the women disbanded.
As a result of all this MANENT again tried to get agreement on the equitable distribution of food supplies.
—And again I failed. The parties and organizations all agreed in principle; but did nothing in fact. They were frightened of abolishing their members’ privileges. S
o I resigned as mayor …
* * *
New arrivals to Barcelona from battle zones often found the atmosphere of a rearguard city frivolous; despite the food shortages and even the air raids, the war – at least on the surface – seemed a long way off. The new arrivals’ impressionistic view was sometimes reinforced by a critical insight into the way things were being run.
Appointed commandant of the Barcelona transport commission, Rafael HERNANDEZ, socialist railwayman from Gijón7 who had managed to escape by ship from Asturias, found the railways running very badly. ‘The reason was that no one was in charge.’ There were no schedules, each train was a ‘special’ which meant that it had to go from station to station waiting for a clear line. He decided that this had to end.
—But there was no way of doing it. The station-masters were no longer in charge of their stations. Instead, there was a station committee, made up of guards and representatives of other railway personnel, and an engine drivers’ committee. If the latter decided against the former’s decision to run a train to the frontier, for example, it didn’t run …
A single person had to be in charge, HERNANDEZ believed. He found people who were willing to assume responsibility if they were backed by higher authority. Would he provide it? That was what he was there for, he told them. He summoned station-masters and sub-masters and told them it was their task to run a scheduled train service under his command. Anyone who opposed them would be thrown in gaol. If they failed in their duty it would be on their heads.
He found the railway workshops in a similar state of disarray. In one, the boilermaker who had been put in charge was laughed at by the engineers and technicians since he lacked all idea of what had to be done.
Blood of Spain_An Oral History of the Spanish Civil War Page 69
