May: Unpublished Letter to Max Nettlau from Emma Goldman

“Dear Comrade: Your letter of violent vituperation reached me soon enough…As regards your impatience with me, to put it mildly, I can only explain it by your complete reversal of mind and feeling. It is not so very long ago, not more that three or four years, when you showed no understanding of syndicalism — when you thought it more advisable for anarchists to ally themselves with liberal democratic elements rather than to busy themselves with bringing to life large economic organizations. Now you have no patience whatever with comrades who refuse to see in the leading anarchists in Spain demigods whose actions are not to be questioned. Don’t you consider this rather a plunge from your former attitude? Your former position regarding all Governments and their danger?

Now, while I am heart and soul with the struggle of the Spanish comrades, and while I have done my utmost to plead their cause, for which I would cheerfully give my life, I must insist that they are vulnerable: they have made terrible mistakes which are already bearing fruit. I hold Federica Montseny, García Oliver and several others of the leading comrades responsible for the gains made by the communists and for the danger now threatening the Spanish Revolution and the CNT-FAI. My very first interview with these two comrades had shown me that they were on the “borderline” of reformism. I had never met Oliver before, but I had met Federica in 1929. The change, since the Revolution swept her to the highest notch as leader, was only too apparent. This impression was strengthened every time I talked to her about the compromise she and the others had made. It was too obvious to me that these comrades are walking into the hands of the Soviet government. That in showing their gratitude to Stalin and his regime (though why they need gratitude in addition to the gold Stalin received for whatever he gave in arms, I do not know) dire results are sure to follow. Incidentally, it also meant the betrayal of our comrades in the concentration camps and prisons of Russia. I never saw a greater breach of faith with anarchist principles than the joint ”love-feast” of the CNT-FAI with the Russian satraps in Barcelona. It was a sight for the gods, to see García Oliver and the Russian Consul competing with each other in glowing tribute to the Soviet government, or the eulogies that appeared daily in Solidaridad Obrera. Not a word did the paper, or Oliver, or Federica have to say about the Russian people, about the fact that the Russian Revolution had been castrated and that Stalin’s henchmen are responsible for tens of thousands of lives. It was a disgraceful affair — unnecessary and humiliating! I have not written about this to anyone, dear comrade, although I felt indignation and could have cried out my contempt of the so-called leaders of the CNT-FAI.

Granted that to save the antifascist situation, arms from Russia were needed, but why was it necessary to make it more than a business deal for which Spain paid heavily in gold, and the CNT paid in loss of much of its position and its strength?

Surely no one with any clear vision could be blinded to the motive of Russia’s sudden interest, after three and a half months of antifascist struggle in Spain. Now the real motive is beginning to be recognized by the very people who sang hosanna to comrade Stalin; it was for no other reason than to get possession of Madrid and, if possible, to increase the armed communist forces in the rest of Spain, in anticipation of the “happy” moment when the anarchists can be exterminated as they have been in Russia. By right I should have given this to the public. I should have written all about this. My silence was, in a measure, consent to the betrayal of the comrades in Russia. I readily admit that. I did not do it because I did not have the heart to expose Federica and the others in our press outside of Spain. Yet you come along and throw brimstone and fire on my head because I dared, if you please, to explain some of the blunders of the leading members of the CNT-FAI in my statement…

Well, I am afraid we will probably not come to any understanding. You seem to feel about Federica and the Urales family as a mother does about her “chicks”, nobody must touch them even remotely. I myself admired them for years: I admire her brilliant oratorical abilities, but I can say she has feet of clay, and I can see no reason why it should not be admitted. She has gone terribly to the right, and wearing a revolver in the belt does not make it any more to the left. However, I am certain that the comrades, when they come to see that politicians, whether in pants or skirts, whether anarchist or socialists, must be watched. They will go from the fundamental principles as they always have done in the past …

Fraternally and affectionately — in spite of our disagreements

Emma Goldman”