June 1939 (Hamas’ hostages in perspective)

However, it is possible and even probable that our moralist will refuse to say candidly that which is and will attempt to beat about the bush: “To kill at the front is one thing, to shoot hostages is something else again!” This argument, as we shall shortly prove, is simply stupid. But let us stop for a moment on the ground chosen by our adversary. The system of hostages, you say, is immoral “in itself”? Good, that is what we want to know. But this system has been practised in all the civil wars of ancient and modern history. It obviously flows from the nature of civil war itself. From this it is possible to draw only one conclusion, namely, that the very nature of civil war is immoral. That is the standpoint of the newspaper La Croix, which holds that it is necessary to obey the powers-that-be, for power emanates from God.

And Victor Serge? [1] He has no considered point of view. To drop a little egg in a strange nest is one thing, to define one’s position on complex historical problems is something else again. I readily admit that people of such transcendent morality as (President Manuel) Azaña, Caballero (see below), Negrín (see below) and Co. were against taking hostages from the fascist camp: on both sides you have bourgeois, bound by family and material ties and convinced that even in case of defeat they would not only save themselves but would retain their beefsteaks. In their own fashion, they were right. But the fascists did take hostages among the proletarian revolutionists, and the proletarians, on their part, took hostages from among the fascist bourgeoisie, for they knew the menace that a defeat, even partial and temporary, implied for them and their class brothers.

Victor Serge himself cannot tell exactly what he wants: whether to purge the civil war of the practise of hostages, or to purge human history of civil war? The petty-bourgeois moralist thinks episodically, in fragments, in clumps, being incapable of approaching phenomena in their internal connection. Artificially set apart, the question of hostages is for him a particular moral problem, independent of those general conditions which engender armed conflicts between classes.

Civil war is the supreme expression of the class struggle. To attempt to subordinate it to abstract “norms” means in fact to disarm the workers in the face of an enemy armed to the teeth. The petty-bourgeois moralist is the younger brother of the bourgeois pacifist who want to “humanize” warfare by prohibiting the use of poison gases, the bombardment of unfortified cities, etc. Politically, such programs serve only to deflect the thoughts of the people from revolution as the only method of putting an end to war.

The Dread of Bourgeois Public Opinion

Entangled in his contradictions, the moralist might perhaps try to argue that an “open” and “conscious” struggle between two camps is one thing, but the seizure of non-participants in the struggle is something else again. This argument, however, is only a wretched and stupid evasion. In Franco’s camp fought tens of thousands who were duped and conscripted by force. The republican armies shot at and killed these unfortunate captives of a reactionary general. Was this moral or immoral? Furthermore, modern warfare, with its long-range artillery, aviation, poison gases, and, finally, with its train of devastation, famine, fires and epidemics, inevitably involves the loss of hundreds of thousands and millions, the aged and the children included, who do not participate directly in the struggle.

People taken as hostages are at least bound by ties of class and family solidarity with one of the camps, or with the leaders of that camp. A conscious selection is possible in taking hostages. A projectile fired from a gun or dropped from a plane is let loose by hazard and may easily destroy not only foes but friends, or their parents and children. Why then do our moralists set apart the question of hostages and shut their eyes to the entire content of civil war? Because they are not too courageous. As “leftists” they fear to break openly with revolution. As petty bourgeois they dread destroying the bridges to official public opinion. In condemning the system of hostages they feel themselves in good company against the Bolsheviks. They maintain a cowardly silence about Spain. Against the fact that the Spanish workers, anarchists, and POUMists took hostages, V. Serge will protest … in twenty years.

Notes on the Spanish Revolution

[1] Anarchist, who joined the Bolsheviks after the revolution in 1917 but denounced Trotsky on the Spanish Revolution.

Here we clarify some points on the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39 by quoting the US Ambassador and explaining who the characters mentioned by Trotsky were in this extract from his article.

Foreign relations of the United States diplomatic papers, 1937.  The Ambassador in Spain (Bowers), then in France, to the Secretary of State, St. Jean de Luz, December 2, 1937 reported:.

“It must be borne in mind that for four years Largo Caballero’s extremism has demanded a “dictatorship of the proletariat”, and that he has been feared by all the Republicans and all the friends of democracy in Spain as we understand democracy. Nothing could be more absurd than for moderates to complain over the displacement from the Government of the outstanding apostle of extremism and of a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Even before the War Azaña quarrelled violently with Caballero because of his extreme views and policies. And for a year before the [Page 461] war the quarrel of Caballero and Prieto was an historic feud, and because of Caballero’s extreme views. There is not a scintilla of doubt that Caballero’s removal was dictated by the moderate Republican and Socialist as well as the Communist party.”

So the US Ambassador Claude Bowers was very sympathetic to the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) ‘moderates’ and the Communist Party, whom he correctly understood to be opposed to the revolution itself and the more leftist revolutionary positions of Prime Minister Largo Caballero, leader of the PSOE. Washington refused Bowers’ request to arm the Spanish Republic; Hitler and Mussolini were arming Franco. Caballero had declared, that, “a union of Iberian Soviet republics – that is our aim… I shall be the second Lenin” (March 1936).

However he capitulated to the Popular Front ideology, becoming its leftist Prime Minister. The Communist Party forced his resignation following their counterrevolution on the Dios de Mayo (May Days) in Barcelona in May 1937. He was replaced by their choice, the far more ‘moderate’ (counter-revolutionary) Juan Negrín, also of the PSOE. ▲

So the US Ambassador Claude Bowers was very sympathetic to the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) ‘moderates’ and the Communist Party, whom he correctly understood to be opposed to the revolution itself and the more leftist revolutionary positions of Prime Minister Largo Caballero, leader of the PSOE. Washington refused Bowers’ request to arm the Spanish Republic; Hitler and Mussolini were arming Franco. Caballero had declared, that, “a union of Iberian Soviet republics – that is our aim… I shall be the second Lenin” (March 1936).