Chris Dillow: The politics of death

Chris Dillow investigates The politics of death.

Neither response, though, is what we get. Instead, when Aditya Chakrabortty said on Question Time last week that the government is “send[ing] disabled people to their deaths” the reaction was as if he’d spat in the church’s collection plate (9 mins in).

Which in a sense he had. Aditya had the bad manners to point out that politics is a matter of life and death — at least for the poor — thereby puncturing his audience’s illusion that it is just a cosy little debating game in which the only costs are that a few MPs move down the career ladder. I had hoped that the Grenfell disaster would destroy this illusion, but it seems the imbecilities of posh folk don’t die as quickly as do the poor.

Emphasis Mine

We live in a political and economic system (Capitalism) in which winners are celebrated and the losers are forgotten. Every day Capitalism exists, we are compilicit in mass murder.

Indeed, the obliviousness of the death of poor leads the celebration of death under Fascism. As Miguel de Unamuno said:

Just now I heard a necrophilous and senseless cry: 'Long live death'. And I, who have spent my life shaping paradoxes must tell you as an expert authority, that this outlandish paradox is repellent to me. Let it be said without any slighting undetone. He is a war invalid. So was Cervantes. Unfortunately there are too many cripples in Spain now. And soon there will be even more of them if God does not come to our aid. It pains me to think that General Millan Astray should dictate the pattern of mass psychology. A cripple who lacks the greatness of Cervantes is wont to seek ominous relief in causing mutilation around him. General Millan Astray would like to create Spain anew, a negative creation in his own image and likeness; for that reason he wishes to see Spain crippled as he unwittingly made clear.

Emphasis Mine

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The POUM: Those who would?

Doug Enaa Greene discusses The POUM: Those who would?.

In the end, the revolution in Spain was lost not during the May Days of 1937, but long before. While the POUM arguably possessed a revolutionary program of victory, they had made a number of strategic errors before the war which isolated their influence to Catalonia. And during the war itself, the POUM's policies were two-faced: looking toward the Popular Front and for revolution. This was not helped by their ineffective leadership and their lack of allies.

The anarchists by contrast had the potential mass influence and zeal to carry a revolution across Spain. However, their own doctrine prevented them from doing what was necessary in order to win. At the moment when victory was possible, and power was in their hands, they threw it away. The Spanish Civil War also threw up new problems that anarchism couldn't comprehend. It showed that the path to victory was not as easy as abolishing the state and proclaiming libertarian communism. Rather, a state was needed to plan production, organize the war effort and mobilize the populace. And despite the later myth-making, the Spanish anarchists recognized this in practice when they joined the Generalitat and Republican government to prosecute the war.

And in light of the fact that neither of the options proposed by the POUM or the anarchists were viable options — whether through lack of will or ability — that left only the Communist Party's strategy. The PCE, whatever other mistakes they may have made, clearly recognized that a centralized regular army was needed to win the war. And in light of everything, they possessed both the means and the will to put their plans into action.

Emphasis Mine

The Spanish Civil War is seen as a battle between the ideals of Bolshevikism and Anarchism. It is also a lesson in not compromising the strategy of armed insurrection in order to seize state power.

Popular fronts are a means of drawing workers and others into active politics, and for various political parties to explore ideas and actions in common. But they are not a means of waging a revolution.

The lessons of Russian Revolution cannot be directly applied to other revolutions. There are general lessons like democratic centralism, and soviets. There are the particular lessons, relevant to Russia, of how to approach and involve the peasants.

The success of the Boliveran Revolution in Venezuela is due the radicalisation of the armed forces, and the capture of state power through the electoral process. The former allowed the latter to happen. Yet, this revolution is not secure because the economic power is divided in Venezuela thereby contributing to a prolonged period of dual power.

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A House Divided

Billmon explores the issue of A House Divided. He considers the differences in US politics to be based on culture. He admits that this is a great simplication. He also considers what happened during the Spanish Civil War to be similar to the strains experienced by the USA now.

On the other hand, that America is now divided neatly into increasingly hostile cultural camps is generally treated as received wisdom. But culture is a tricky word, hard to define, and not really amenable to the kind of short-hand stereotypes (rural rednecks listen to Garth Brooks while urban liberals sip mocha lattes) that journalists like Tierney exist to propagate.

In his book The Cousins' Wars, Kevin Phillips suggested that there is indeed a deep-seated duality to Ango-American politics and culture that can be traced back as far the English Civil War. It separates high church Anglicans from low church dissenters, Puritans from Cavaliers, and merchant and financial elites from landowning and military ones. Every hundred years or so (1642, 1776, 1861) these opposing tendencies have a go at each other.

One could, I suppose, add the domestic disturbances of the late 1960s to that list. But, as the '60s demonstrated (in both senses of the word) American society and culture have changed radically since the days when British and American cousins fought their wars. So have the opposing camps. The great influx of eastern and southern immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the realignment of the South, the Vietnam War, feminism, gay liberation -- all these have stirred the melting pot, creating new alliances, new interests and, not least, new hatreds and resentments.

If I had to boil our modern kulturkampf down to two words, they wouldn't be blue and red, they would be "traditionalist" and "modern." On one side are the believers in the old ways -- patriarchy, hierarchy, faith, a reflexive nationalism, and a puritanical, if usually hypocritical, attitude towards sexual morality. On the other are the rootless cosmopolitians -- secular, skeptical (although at times susceptible to New Age mythology) libertine (although some of us aren't nearly as libertine as we'd like to be) and less willing to equate patriotism with blind allegiance, either to a flag or a government.

These differences can also be explained by class war. The dates he mentioned were events in the struggle between Capitalism and Feudalism, and between Capitalism and Slavery.

The old ruling class does not go quietly. They hang on tenanciously to their power.

The Spanish Civil started out as a war between the Feudal landlords and the Capitalists allied with the Socialists and Anarchists but ended up as a war between the Feudalists and the Communists.

The regional differences in the US and in Spain are based on the degree of industrialisation. The more industry, the greater the influence of the Capitalist is.

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Miguel de Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo, the rector of the University of Salamanca in 1936, gave the following speech to an audience of fascists (including Franco's wife):

All of you are hanging on my words. You all know me and are aware that I am unable to remain silent. At times to be silent is to lie. For silence can be interpreted as asquience. I want to comment on the speech, to give it that name, of General Millan Astray, who is here among us. Let us waive the personal affront implied in the sudden outburst pf vituperation against the Basques and Catalans. I was myself, of course, born in Bilbao. The bishop, whether he likes it or not, is a Catalan from Barcelona.

Just now I heard a necrophilous and senseless cry: 'Long live death'. And I, who have spent my life shaping paradoxes must tell you as an expert authority, that this outlandish paradox is repellent to me. Let it be said without any slighting undetone. He is a war invalid. So was Cervantes. Unfortunately there are too many cripples in Spain now. And soon there will be even more of them if God does not come to our aid. It pains me to think that General Millan Astray should dictate the pattern of mass psychology. A cripple who lacks the greatness of Cervantes is wont to seek ominous relief in causing mutilation around him. General Millan Astray would like to create Spain anew, a negative creation in his own image and likeness; for that reason he wishes to see Spain crippled as he unwittingly made clear.

This is the temple of the intellect, and I am its high priest. It is you who profane its sacred precincts. You will win, because you have more than enough brute force. But you will not convince. For to persuade you would need what you lack: reason and right in your struggle. I consider it futile to exhort you to think of Spain.

pp.120-121
Antony Beevor
The Spanish Civil War
Cassell
UK:1999

Emphasis Mine

An alternative version of this speech is given at Miguel de Unamuno, reply to speech made by Millán Astray, in Salamanca (12th October 1936) and another version is at Argument with Unamuno.

Would any of us have the balls (or ovaries) to say these things in the midst of fascist militia? I could say these things but no one would understand me! Perhaps there is an advantage to having a stutter after all.

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