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Stalinist Spanish Civil War Artwork Vandalized on San Francisco's Embarcadero

Workers Memory Project | 28.07.2008 04:02 | Analysis | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | World

Propaganda of the deed to commemorate the beginning of the Spanish Civil War the right way...

July 19th was the anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 -- the beginning of the last significant attempt at an anti-capitalist revolution in the period of revolutions that began in Mexico in 1915 and accelerated after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The revolutionary movement in Spain was defeated by a pro-capitalist counter-revolution spearheaded by the Stalinist Soviet Union and it's global puppets and public relations hacks. (See George Orwell's 'Homage to Catalonia' for the best brief introduction to the events surrounding the revolution and counter-revolution in Spain in 1936 - 1937.)

A public art work celebrating the role played by the Abraham Lincoln Battalion, the US dupes of and cannon fodder for the Stalinist counter-revolution in Spain, was dedicated this past May on San Francisco's Embarcadero, behind the fountain on Justin Herman Plaza, at the foot of Market Street.

Sometime during the week preceeding July 19th, some person or persons unknown gave this monument to one of the big lies of 20th century history, an example of the anti-fascism ideology of the Popular Front period, an appropriate makeover. The Stalinist art work was grafittied with the message, "Viva Durruti Y Orwell," in what appears to be red and black spray paint.

Workers Memory Project


"...If only to make them cry, let us remind the retarded devotees of the anarchist-Marxist feud(6) that the CNT-FAI — with its dead weight of anarchist ideology, but also with its greater practice of liberatory imagination — was akin to the Marxist KAPD-AAUD (Communist Workers Party of Germany-General Workers Union of Germany) in its organizational arrangements. In the same way as the German Communist Workers Party, the Iberian Anarchist Federation saw itself as the political organization of the conscious Spanish workers, while its AAUD, the CNT, was supposed to take charge of the management of the future society. The FAI militants, the elite of the proletariat, propagated the anarchist idea among the masses; the CNT did the practical work of organizing the workers in its unions. There were two essential differences, however, the ideological one of which was to bear the fruit one could have expected of it. The first was that the FAI did not strive to take power, but contented itself with influencing the overall policies of the CNT. The second was that the CNT really represented the Spanish working class. Adopted on 1 May 1936 at the CNT congress at Saragossa, two months before the revolutionary explosion, one of the most beautiful programs ever proclaimed by a revolutionary organization was partially put into practice by the anarchosyndicalist masses, while their leaders foundered in ministerialism and class-collaboration. With the pimps of the masses, García Oliver, Secundo Blanco, etc., and the brothel-madam Montseny, the antistate libertarian movement, which had already tolerated the anarcho-trenchist Prince Kropotkin, finally attained the historical consummation of its ideological absolutism: government anarchists.(7)

"In the last historical battle it was to wage, anarchism was to see all the ideological sauce that comprised its being fall back into its face: State, Freedom, Individual, and other musty ingredients with capital letters; while the libertarian militians, workers and peasants were saving its honor, making the greatest practical contribution ever to the international proletarian movement, burning churches, fighting on all fronts against the bourgeoisie, fascism and Stalinism, and beginning to create a truly communist society..."

Rene Reisel, Preliminaries on Councils and Councilist Organization.
taken here from 'The Situationist International Anthology,' at
 http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/12.councils.htm


FOOTNOTES:

1. The US left-liberal protest ghetto websites  http://www.indybay.org and  http://www.nyc.indymedia.org have systematically censored posts in favor of the graffiti attack on the SF Embarcadero's Stalinist Big Lie Artwork. Stalinism is now dead everywhere -- except in a few pieces of easily-targeted public sculpture, and in the practical acts of some deceitful liberals at  http://www.indybay.org and  http://www.nyc.indymedia.org

2. An academic named Peter N. Carroll, quoted offering fulsome syrupy praise to the veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion on one of the panels of the Stalinist Big Lie monument, has also been making a nuisance of himself in connection to this.

Carroll's e-mail address is:
"Carroll Ferrary"


3. And a final point of clarification, for any cops and leftist snitches reading this:

The Workers Memory Project does not necessarily take credit for this act of revolutionary propaganda against one of the most prominent examples of counter-revolutionary Stalinist public art in the contemporary English-speaking world, a small act of solidarity with all the revolutionaries murdered by Stalinist butchers during the Spanish Civil War -- but we enthusiastically applaud this action.

And if we were going to do something like this, this is exactly what we would have done.

San Francisco's Stalinist Embarcadero monument is in a perfect location for repeated revolutionary communist re-vandalization. It can be transformed into a living memory to the attempted social revolution in Spain and an ongoing reminder of the role played by the Stalinist counter-revolution in the bloody defeat of the authentic communist movement of the twentieth century.


Spray-paint graffiti tips:
The San Francisco Embarcadero monument to the Stalinist counter-revolution in the Spanish Civil War is three rows of stone panels in a single structure. The bottom two rows are invisible to cars driving by on the Embarcadero, for example police vehicles. The bottom two rows are more or less level with the gaze of most people who will walk past, and are the best place to post your message.

Any legal hassles that come one's way from doing what's right to the SF Embarcadero's Stalinist artwork will be the same if the person doing the graffiti does a good job or a bad one. So do it right. As soon as the paint begins to hit the surface, be calm, go slow; make the letters fat and dark. If you want to be a perfectionist, do the letters first in red, and then go over them again in black. The results will catch the eyes of passerbys much more effectively.

Workers Memory Project

Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

are you on drugs?

28.07.2008 15:54

The 2nd republic was founded 14th April 1931.

By the time Franco was named as leader of the military coup d'etat against the legitimate republic in 1936 - it had been abandoned by many of its initial supporters as a mere bourgois exercise.

Yet you call it what would become known as the civil war "the beginning of the last significant attempt at an anti-capitalist revolution" and not only cite Orwell but give the date 1936.

Perhaps you should read Orwell again & even try wikipedia too.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Spanish_Republic


republican


No, but you must be...

28.07.2008 17:16

No one, other than you, apparently, considers the Spanish Revolution to have commenced with the replacement of the monarchy by the republic in 1931.

July 19th, 1936 is the date that the protracted revolutionary upheaval commenced, although there had been a number of smaller proletarian risings earlier; Asturias, Casas Viejas, ect.

So now you stand corrected. 'Republican,' indeed...

workers memory project


Revolutions begin months even years before the minutes are taken my friend.

28.07.2008 19:30

Very interesting stuff you come out with when prompted to be specific. & might I add : less snotty than an anti-speciesist.

But you seem to confuse proper dates and resolutions and minutes on the records with what actually happened on the ground, both before and after the coup d'etat in what was and is a very diverse state, at times with common purpose and at times utterly parochial.

I can't quibble the unions made their decisions to reject Franco on that day. It's hardly surprising though is it?

But I do argue that anarcho-syndicalist conscienceness and more importantly the decision to take up arms and form militias was a parallel process to the perceived decadence of the 2nd Republic. the "fets de Maig" which opened the rift between Catalans and Madrid could be seen as the beginning of a process which ensured that the FAI wasn't the only group with guns ready to go to the front line _or any line_ in 1936. & I can't but stress enough to you, for not only what we now in hindsight sharpened by the historic fact the war was the prelude to ww2 and fascism and the cold war etc..., They really didn't have the same perspective on their reasons for "being revolutionary" than we give them now, or others gave them then. Of course they opposed a military coup. They had opposed all the other ones before as well.

Those few days saw local barracks and police stations and the component armed groups of the Spanish state take sides. You can't ignore the fact that even though Catalonia was 100% opposed to Franco (including its stationed army) that the working class were acting as one unit and engaged in one struggle, hoping for one revolution, trusting one ally, fearing one future, escaping one past...,

They were not.

I know - I've talked to quite of few of those who are still left.
They are mostly on drugs now "bless 'em". But it helps them along with it.

Tell us more please!

Respect & Solidarity. (sincerely)

everyone can read Orwell's "Homage" for free online here :-
 http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0201111.txt
& while you're at it, read "The Lion & the Unicorn : Socialism and the English Genius"(1941) too.
 http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300011.txt





hmmm.


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