----- Original Message ----- From: Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, December 12, 2002 5:28 PM Subject: Re: Weak Links?
> At 7:35 PM -0800 12/12/02, Anthony Tothe wrote:
> > > >In fact, there has been not a single communit revolution in an
> >> >industrial democracy - all such revolutions took place in backward,
> >> >rural societies which further underscore their essentially peasant
> >> >character. The only "revolutionary" force that managed to subvert an
> >> >industrial democracy is fascism. With that track record, praying for
a
> >> >revolutionary overthrow of a capitalist society is a scary thing,
> > > >indeed.
> >
> >And how do you, or anyone else, describe Spain during the Revolution?
>
> Wasn't the most important and most contentious issue in the Spanish
> Civil War -- for anarchists, Marxists, and fascists -- the agrarian
> question?
Well it was certainly important..as it is in many revolutions. There is usually horrible land distribution between a small elite that controls most of the land and the rest of the population. My question was regarding say what took place in Barcelona-the take over of factories and the the transist system as an example- and how this relates to the original point made by Wojtek, I think, that "there has been not a single communist revolution in an industrial democracy." I guess that is fair enough because I don't think I would describe what took place in Spain as a communist revoultion. Depends on how you define the term.-Tony
>
> ***** Campesino, defiende con las armas al gobierno que te dio la
tierra.
>
> ...[Peasant, defend with weapons the government that has given you
> the land... From the decree of October 7, 1936]. Signed: Renau.
> Ministerio de Agricultura. Gráficas Valencia, Intervenido U.G.T.
> C.N.T. Lithograph, 4 colors; 153 x 103 cm. [Yoshie: Take a look at
> the poster at
> <http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/snakepost.html>.]
>
> The artist Renau incorporated into his work part of the text of a law
> by which the land belonging to all those associated with the military
> rebellion was turned over to local peasants and day-laborers. The gun
> held by the muscular peasant is inscribed with the word decreto
> (decree). Curled around it, and run through by the bayonet, is a
> wounded snake, identified as the propietario faccioso (factious
> landlord). The use of this animal surely stems from the traditional
> use of snakes as symbols of evil, most notably in the case of the
> expulsion of Adam and Eve. The decree confiscating the land is
> presented in this poster as a weapon with which to defeat one group
> which had supported the military uprising that led to the Civil War:
> the land-owners. This decree was one of the most important efforts in
> the area of land reform during the war. It resulted in the transfer
> of nearly one-third of Spain's arable soil to about 300,000 peasants.
> Vicente Uribe Galdeano, the Minister of Agriculture mentioned in the
> text, occupied the Ministry in the cabinets headed by Francisco Largo
> Caballero and Juan Negrín, from September 4, 1936 to nearly the end
> of the war. He was one of the most important Marxist theorists in
> Spain and a leader of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE). As Minister
> of Agriculture, Uribe opposed the collectivization advocated by the
> anarchist and socialist trade-unions, and upheld a policy of more
> moderate agrarian reform which favored peasant proprietors and tenant
> farmers.
>
> The issue of agrarian reform was one of the most contentious problems
> faced by the Spanish Second Republic from its birth in 1931. A symbol
> of its importance was the renaming of a street in Madrid during the
> Republican period as "Agrarian Reform Street." It has also been seen
> as one of the main reasons for the outbreak of the war which began in
> July 1936. According to one historian, the war "was initiated [by the
> right-wing military rebellion] for the benefit of the large property
> owners, and they were the winners." The basic problem was the uneven
> distribution of land: traditionally in Spain there existed large
> (more than 100 hectares), unproductive estates and numerous landless
> laborers, especially in the southern and southwestern regions of the
> country. This resulted in frequent conflicts and violence, including
> crop burning and robbery. The agricultural problem remained in the
> forefront during the years of the conflict, and was used by the
> government and other organizations in their efforts to secure a
> popular following, as this and similar posters show.
>
> This poster is signed by Josep Renau, one of the most important
> artists represented in the Southworth Collection. A member of the
> Spanish Communist Party, he was active during the war both in art and
> in politics. On September 7, 1936, when he was only twenty-nine years
> old, Renau was named Director General of Fine Arts in the central
> government; in that post, he was in charge of safeguarding the
> artistic treasures of Spain. He was also one of the figures
> responsible for organizing the Spanish Pavilion in the International
> Exhibition held in Paris in 1937 (for which Picasso painted
> Guernica). In a letter written in 1974, Renau dated this poster to
> 1936. It was therefore designed and printed between the date of the
> decree, October 7, 1936, and the end of that year. Since it was
> printed in Valencia, it was probably issued after the government left
> Madrid for Valencia on November 6. In the letter mentioned above,
> Renau says about this poster:
>
> It is one of my worst posters. I made it in a hurry, in less than
> twelve hours, and the texts were added in the printing house. As can
> be seen, both the lay-out and the types of letters used are terribly
> bad. What could we do! It was the war. However, it is a true
> historical document: the official poster of the only and authentic
> agrarian reform that our unfortunate history has known. Aside from
> the extraordinary format, a very large edition was printed (I do not
> remember the exact numbers). It was posted even in the smallest towns
> throughout the territory controlled by the government of the
> Republic. Considering the stage of the mass-media at the time, this
> poster was the most useful means of informing and mobilizing the
> poorest peasantry in defense of the Republic. It was also the most
> efficacious way of increasing agricultural production in order to
> insure the provision of food to the front of the antifascist armed
> struggle.
>
> Viewers today should not feel bound by the opinion of the artist
> about the quality of this poster; it remains an image of striking
> power. While the layout may be considered awkward, it may also be
> given a positive reading: the competing images of the
> larger-than-life laborer, the wounded snake swirling around the gun,
> and the hand with the sickle imbue the image with an unresolved
> tension which heightens the impact of each individual element. The
> strident colors, especially in the lower section, add a suggestion of
> fire-like heat that contributes to the compelling call made in the
> poster.
>
> <http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/speccoll/visfront/snake.html> *****
> --
> Yoshie
>
> * Calendar of Events in Columbus:
> <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html>
> * Anti-War Activist Resources:
<http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html>
> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/>
> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>
>