Just one very important point - Hope not hate acrimoniously split from Searchlight months ago. If you check the Searchlight site, you'll see that Hope not hate can validly be criticised for a lot more than this.

Check your facts before you post.

I certainly wouldn’t have responded to this review on the Stalinist-rump/Special Branch front that is the ‘Searchlight’ website (creating an atmosphere of trust within the anti-fascist movement indeed!), but as you have run with it on Indymedia UK I felt I should add my ha’penny worth to the discussion on Paul Preston’s excellent book ‘The Spanish Holocaust’.

As Nostromo says, some cenetistas and so-called ‘anarchists’ supported the Republican government wholeheartedly (at the expense of their so-called principles and flying in the face of the Confederation’s anti-statist, anti-capitalist and anti-party political and parliamentary ethos), others opposed governmental and party political alliances and pacts in the belief that the only way to defeat fascism was to pursue the social revolution. No argument there then; the question for anarchists should be how that process was de-stabilised. My personal belief is that it was derailed and destabilised precisely because of the actions and Machiavellian manoeuvres of these ‘strategically sophisticated pragmatists who were willing and able to pursue their ideals within the context of (relatively speaking) mainstream politics’.

As for the criticisms of Paul Preston’s new book ‘The Spanish Holocaust’ — that he somehow ‘toes the Popular Front party line’ and, as one person accused him of in the Middle Aged Working Class Anarchists Facebook page, ‘Preston trots out the same old slurs about anarchists (the incontrollables) doing all the killings of fascists in the republican zone that the commies and socialists were (falsely) claiming at the time . . .’ — I posted the following response:

Unfortunately, Lewis, what you refer to as Preston’s ‘slurs’ against the anarchists is true — at least to an extent — which is a theme explored in the third volume of Farquhar McHarg’s ‘Pistoleros!’. Membership of either the CNT or the FAI (or both) during the SCW (and subsequently) did not and does not automatically endow virtue; it did, however, sometimes — certainly in the period 1936-1939— provide protection and cover for criminals, lowlifes, and fascists caught in the Republican Zone. Additionally, the power it conferred on some militants (with previously impeccable records) soon exposed their essentially authoritarian – and, occasionally – psychopathic tendencies. Their behaviour during the SCW — and after, in exile – cannot or should not in any way be condoned or excused by the fact that they described themselves as anarchists or anarcho-syndicalists. I am referring here, specifically, to Dionisio Eroles y Battlle (CNT-FAI head of the Generalitat/Barcelona police and security service 1936-1937); Aurelio Fernández Sanchez (CNT-FAI head of the Control Patrols), Manuel Escorza del Val (CNT-FAI head of the CNT-FAI Intelligence and Security Service); Justo Bueno Pérez (one of del Val’s top hitmen); Felipe Sandoval (another assassin); Jaime Riera (FAI Investigation Service), to name but a few of the more prominent ones. These people and their acolytes didn’t just target fascists, they were the unquestioning creatures of both the Catalan Regional Committee of the CNT and the National Committee of the CNT in Madrid who were targeting for assassination their own so-called ‘uncontrollables’, i.e. militants such as Antonio Ortíz (leader of the second militia column out of Barcelona and later of the 25th Army Division) and Joaquín Ascaso (of the Council of Aragón), men and women who dared to challenge or question the collaborationist and anti-anarchist policies of the ‘prominent’ leaders of the CNT committees, particularly Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez and Federica Montseny, both of whom who bear ultimate responsibility for much of what happened on their watch.

Apart from provocateurs and plants such as Bernardino Alonso, the CNT-FAI head of the Republican Ministry of War’s ‘Special Services Counter-Intelligence Brigade, who was later exposed as a Soviet asset working for Alexander Orlov, there is also the largely unaddressed and sensitive question of the huge number of ‘false anarchists’ and false anarcho-syndicalists’, fascists and rightists who affiliated to the CNT and the FAI for protection after July 19 1936 after being unexpectedly caught in the Republican Zone. These included the famous ‘Fifth Columnists’. For example, a number of Melchior Rodríguez’s cabinet (MR – the ‘Red Angel’, an anarchist and a former bullfighter with an impeccable reputation who became Director General of Prisons during the SCW — and who saved the lives of thousands of fascist prisoners — and the last Republican Mayor of Madrid) turned out to be leading fascist fifth columnists, including his driver Rufo Rubio and his Chief of Services, Juan Batista.

Another small example is that of the Toledan village of Miguel Esteban in which, after the war, the Guardia Civil reported that membership of the local CNT unions ‘consisted mainly of right-wingers’ (elementos de derecha). Another indication that these were ‘false anarchists’ was the fact that after Franco’s victory they were neither arrested nor their property seized as happened with other Republicans. The village of Miguel Esteban wasn’t the only one in which fascists and rightists sought cover by affiliating to the CNT. Workers in the villages of La Mancha tended to be affiliated to the UGT, PSOE, PCE, FNTT or the FETT so it would have been easier for rightists to claim to have been harbouring CNT sympathies — if only to explain their previous lack of involvement in socialist or Communist Party activities.

As for Paul Preston’s so-called ‘toe-ing the Popular Front party line’, I certainly don’t believe that to be the case. He is a man of integrity — who tells it as he sees it — and an exceptionally meticulous and stimulating historian (whether one agrees with his analysis or not) who has dedicated his academic career and much of his personal life to exposing the brutal and vicious nature of Francoism, the Franco regime and its consequences. I should also add that it was Paul Preston who organised much of the funding for the publication, in English, of Peirats’s three volume ‘The CNT in the Spanish Revolution’. It was also Paul Preston who arranged the Spanish translation and publication of my own book, ‘We, the anarchists…’, into Spanish. Hardly the actions of someone who is obsessively ‘anti-anarchist’.

A post of a quality and authority rarely seen on Indymedia. What a pleasure to read.

1. OK, Sonia Gable posted on the Searchlight Magazine website (4 March 2012) describing "the split between HNH and us" but stating that "we wish no harm to HNH" as "there is room in the antifascist movement for different views". So apologies for that mistake, but it's not like either group shouted their split from the rooftops, and HNH are still connected to Searchlight Educational Trust (as opposed to Searchlight Magazine) so in that respect the wording of the post above is still accurate (it depends which Searchlight you're referring to - oh dear, how confusing). IF it is true that the split was in part caused by HNH "passing of what had been an internal false accusation against me to a third party, Charlie Flowers, who published it" however, that's very strange, because Indymedia posts have been warning Anti-Fascists not to trust that nuthatch Charlie Flowers for ages, and if HNH have got involved with Flowers then they've made a serious mistake...

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/10/464120.html?c=on

2. When HNH / Searchlight were still all one and the same group, I never appreciated their sniping against Anarchists, but, historically, I also feel the time ex-AFA and militant Anarchists spent moaning about them is mostly energy that could have been better spent campaigning against the BNP. Either way, if HNH had stood down and left recent campaigns against the BNP to ex-AFA and Antifa etc, the BNP would almost certainly have at least one elected MP by now, might well control Barking & Dagenham Council, would be rolling in money and cock-a-hoop with enthusiasm and confidence - sorry, but it's true - so let's keep things in perspective.

3. As for the issue about Spain and Anarchist "pragmatists who were willing and able to pursue their ideals within the context of mainstream politics", this issue is important because it's still relevant to Anarchism today; and thanks to Stuart Christie for responding, not least as someone who actually tried to help off Franco (you have my profound admiration), and as someone who can claim to be well-informed about all this. As to the thorny subject of atrocities committed by what I hope were a tiny minority of Anarchists, which, most serious as they were, were dwarfed by the brutality of the Franco regime and by the violence of the oppression Anarchists had risen up against in the first place, this too is still an issue, because, bluntly, then as now, any moron can call themselves an Anarchist, and nutters and opportunists severely limit the success of the Anarchist movement. As to your opposition to the Anarchists who got involved with mainstream-ish politics Stuart, you say one of the four Anarchist ministers mentioned in the main post - Federica Montseny - bore "ultimate responsibility" for assassinations of other Anarchists, but, even if that is true, one out of 4 would not prove that involvement in mainstream politics was, overall, wrong. You know alot more about this than I do, but so far you've not proved your point. And, speaking of pragmatism, according to the old Channel 4 doc on the Spanish Civil War, the Fascist uprising was initially defeated in Barcelona by Anarchist militants working fighting side-by-side WITH the local police against the Fascists!

More important however, the argument that seems to be put forward most often is that Anarchist "uncontrollables" were one reason why (so I believe) the French and British governments refused to sell arms to the Republican government, which, when the bullets ran out, led to the Soviets stepping in, in effect trading Russian weapons for control of the war against Fascism. I might be wrong about that but I'd be very interested in your opinion if you read this Stuart.

... is not to be trusted, ever. If HNH work with this jerk they need their fucking heads examined

BTW, when Charlie Flowers was holding his megaphone, Guramit Singh said (quote) "all Muslims should burn in fucking hell!"

Good comments

Hopefully it'll work this time

Hi, I really don’t want to get into an open-ended debate on the subject as most of this is dealt with in greater detail in volume 3 of Pistoleros! I’d just like to say that I picked out Montseny and Mariano Rodriguez Vazquez in particular because in my view those were two particularly despicable members of the National Committee of the CNT, and of the gang of reprobates who constituted the later so-called Executive Council of the MLE (Spanish Libertarian Movement). The others, including Juan Garcia Oliver, weren’t much better!

Montseny herself stated (later, in exile, when it suited her own devious purposes and agenda – which was to undermine the CNT in the Interior and the libertarian urban and rural guerrilla groups) that Franco’s victory had been ‘entirely due to the CNT abandoning its fundamental anarchist principles and collaborating with government’ — which was rich coming from her and her partner Germinal Esgleas as it was something they had lobbied for strongly — and been complicit in — throughout the period 1936-1939, especially after Negrin came to power in 1937 following the ‘Events of May’.

As for the fascist uprising in Barcelona being defeated by anarchist militants fighting ALONGSIDE the Barcelona police and other organs of the Catalan security service, I think you’ll find that the initiative to resist the uprising was entirely that of the CNT Defence Committees, the rank and file action groups, who had been preparing for such an eventuality weeks prior to it happening – AND, on the day, in the face of deliberate obstruction from Barcelona’s police chief (Escofet); many of these characters (resistants of the last minute) only threw in their lot with the workers organisations because by that time they had no option, the uprising had effectively been defeated at that point and they had nowhere to run.

With regard to the so-called ‘uncontrollables’, that term of abuse only really came into play in the build-up to May 1937. (Soviet aid – with strings – started arriving in October 1936 by the way.) The reason the British refused to supply arms to the Republic (with the excuse of the Non-Intervention Pact) was because they supported the Francoists and they were desperately afraid of socialisation (in fact in July 1936 the British Consul in Barcelona handed Mariano Rodriguez of the CNT a list of almost 80 British companies that were NOT to be interfered with, i,e, socialised – and the craven bastard agreed without so much as a hint of resistance) – it had bugger all to do with ‘uncontrollables’ (i.e. the rank and file!).

Nostromo is understandably confused about the increasingly acrimonious split between Searchlight, meaning the magazine, and Hope Not Hate, which is still allied with the separate body Searchlight Educational Trust. However Searchlight Educational Trust does not control Hope Not Hate; in fact there is little evidence that Searchlight Educational Trust does anything much under its own name. The recently published report, "From Voting to Violence" ( http://www.channel4.com/media/c4-news/images/voting-to-violence%20(7).pdf), is "printed and promoted by Searchlight Educational Trust" but is stated to be a Hope Not Hate report. All very puzzling but nothing to do with Searchlight magazine.

More information about the split can be found on this site at  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2011/11/488185.html (also, and with a correction, at  http://www.borderland.co.uk/index.php/13-searchlighthopenothate/searchlight-hope-not-hate/112-no-hope-lots-of-hate-civil-war-breaks-out-amongst-the-searchlight-gang), though even that article leaves a lot of questions unanswered.

I just read the review of the Preston book on HNH website. They have hardly misrepresented the book.

To anyone that has had the misfortune to meet Gable in person it is obvious the man has been not in the best mental health for a good few years. I met him in Dagenham in 2010 having been compelled to work for both Searchlight and UAF against the BNP threat. He is a rather sad little old man and not the great bogey man he has been built up as. The Searchlight staff avoided being in the same room as him. I felt quite embarrassed for him not least because his supposed staff did not have the decency to even lock him in a cupboard away from the general public.

According to a man in the AWL (of all people) Gable and his wife are now running a second rate operation out of their living room surrounded by a few Stalinists like the NCP's Daphne Liddle and a bunch of other cranks who also appear to be linked to Harry's Place including the racist Terry Fitz! Their hatred for HNH is all that gets them out of bed in the morning.

Another acquaintance tells me that the Charlie Flowers problem for Gable could actually be a case of Mr Flowers being one of Gable's errant moles. I'm told that Lowles removed Gable from his position as intelligence chief in 2010 and the poor old man has been sitting in his living room plotting against Lowles & co ever since. By all accounts this month's Searchlight had an injunction on it because Gable initially also named another one of HNH's high ranking moles in the BNP and mailed advance copies to the European antifa network who reported it back to Lowles. Make of that what you will!!

Jack The Hat is clearly talking through his hat.

He says he was "compelled to work for both Searchlight and UAF against the BNP threat". How could anyone be compelled to do this. All campaigners were volunteers and as far as I know Searchlight and UAF never worked together.

Searchlight staff did not avoid being in the same room as Gable. For proof see the picture at  https://donate.hopenothate.org.uk/page/contribute/donate-for-hope, taken in the temporary office HNH set up in Dagenham for the 2010 election campaign. And Gable certainly doesn't look like a "sad little old man" or a man in poor mental health in that picture.

Searchlight magazine has published hard-hitting antifascist investigations and reports since the split with HNH, hardly a "second rate operation". Terry Fitz has nothing to do with Searchlight and the various new writers for the magazine are not cranks. Read their articles.

Gable could not have "named another one of HNH's high ranking moles in the BNP" because HNH hasn't got any moles in the BNP. Look at their website. HNH's "intelligence" consists of the inane ramblings of fascists on Facebook, there for anyone to read and extract, and stuff copied from fascist blogs.

As for Charlie Flowers, methinks Jack The Hat is Flowers himself, up to his usual shit stirring.

I'm not sure why someone from Searchlight has felt the need to attack me? As I now get both magazines I feel I can comment and now shall do. The Hope Not hate magazine had an exclusive on the BNP's Trafalgar club this month as well as a lot of sad rubbish about how great their new organisation is. And their website had an exclusive on a secret meeting between Andrew Brons and Paul Weston on it this morning. Those two things alone are far more impressive than anything on either UAF's or Searchlight's web sites/magazines lately although the UAF do have a woman who runs half marathons quite regularly on their web site making it probably the least up to date and relevant of all three organizations. Hardly the work of an organization with no moles. Nick Lowles runs the moles and has done for years.

The last two or three editions of Gerry Gable's Searchlight magazine make it quite obvious that he is writing it all on his own under assumed names and has spent the last three or four years locked in a dark room with absolutely no idea what is going on in the BNP or the EDL. The latest edition is also full of stuff taken from Facebook too so I find that one criticism rather strange. So short on news or useful or insightful articles is the magazine that Mr Gable has quite obviously increased the font size to stretch 400 words to a fill a page. There are hardly any photographs either but when there are photographs the captions omit to name the people photographed because Gable I'm told has no clue who is in them

As for Gerry Gable not being a sad old man. Yes do look at the picture... it is clearly there to embarrass the poor man who I did have some sympathy for after meeting him. He hardly looks like he can dress himself. Why else would they put it up?

I do feel compelled to help/work with any anti-Fascist cause. Unlike Lowles and Gable I do it for free. That is a compulsion. This is also the first time I have bothered to comment on the many threads doing the rounds about Gable/Lowles. Not being a sour type that help shall include Searchlight now as it clearly needs all of the help it can get.

Yes Gable does look like a simpleton in that pic. The man is more of a danger to himself than any fascist or antifascist for that matter.

That pic will now do the rounds no doubt.

Jack the Hat writes:

"Nick Lowles runs the moles and has done for years". Evidence for that?

"The last two or three editions of Gerry Gable's Searchlight magazine make it quite obvious that he is writing it all on his own under assumed names". Evidence for that?

"The latest edition is also full of stuff taken from Facebook too". One item on page 11. Two items about Charlie Flowers on p15. None of these presented as intelligence.

"So short on news or useful or insightful articles is the magazine …". Well that's a matter of opinion. I thought the articles on the New Right, BNP, Holocaust Memorial Day, EDL, race crime, Blood and Honour and various international articles all insightful and useful, as is the article on Charlie Flowers.

"… that Mr Gable has quite obviously increased the font size to stretch 400 words to a fill a page". Someone's having trouble counting.

"There are hardly any photographs either but when there are photographs the captions omit to name the people photographed because Gable I'm told has no clue who is in them". Just counted 42 photos, all with relevant people named.

Nuff said.

Its admirable the way you defend your husband but his magazine is seriously shit. Writing articles about men that slept with his wife is hardly journalism. The facts most certainly speak for themselves and how you ignore them here must cheer him up no end.

One Gable grasses up Communists and in bitterness and out of spite tries to grass up an Antifa(?) working inside the fash years later. Old habits die hard. Meanwhile the other Gable has/had sexual relations with the fash.

Do not adjust your sets. It all comes out in the end.

Owned.

Personal attacks are the last refuge of a person who has nothing intelligent to say.