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Replay: How Land and Freedom Sparked a Resurrection of Old Hatreds

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Replay: How Land and Freedom Sparked a Resurrection of Old Hatreds Ho 1 Replay: How Land and Freedom Sparked a Resurrection of Old Hatreds Socialist Periodicals Defend Ken Loach’s Film from Communist Attacks “In this era of triumphalist market economics, it is wonderful to see a film dealing with a revolution 60 years ago greeted with such emotion, even fervor. 1” – Martine Vidal Socialists and Communists have a long history of strained relations. Their various alliances proved extremely tenuous, and the inevitable disintegration of these marriages always ended in vitriolic abuses of the other. Sixty seven years after George Orwell published Homage to Catalonia , a book both Communists and Socialists name as inspiration for Land and Freedom , the enmity still runs strong. A juxtaposition of reviews from each camp reads like a dialogue from 1939. Socialists celebrate Loach’s film as revelatory: “The great value of Loach and Allen’s film lies in its critique of Stalinism from the left .” 2 Communists condemn it as “add[ing] to the difficulties in today’s struggle against resurgent fascism and racism. 3” Both sides of this interminable debate turn to history for proof, but each accepts a different history. The resultant “debate” consists principally of renewed name-calling. While the dispute may prove unending and the differences irreconcilable, “the lessons from that struggle … are as true and relevant today as they were in 1936. 4” The release of Land and Freedom provoked “a fierce debate … between Stalinists and survivors of Stalinist repression. 5” Already, the label “Stalinist” colors the debate, defining the 1 Martine Vidal, “Land and Freedom,” New Politics , Vol. 6, no. 1, Summer 1996. 2 World Socialist Web Site, “Ken Loach’s Land and Freedom : The Spanish Revolution Betrayed,” October 23, 1995, http://www.wsws.org/arts/1998/aug1998/land-96.shtml. 3 Bill Alexander, “Loach’s Film Distorts History,” Morning Star, October 7, 1995. 4 Alexander. 5 Peter Boyle, “Telling the Truth About the Spanish Civil War,” Green Left , Issue 215, December 12, 1995. Ho 2 sides with a distinctly negative tint. Let us define the debaters, then. Party-line Communists, particularly in Britain, voiced the loudest criticism of the film while Socialists leapt to its defense. One flurry of responses took the character of a direct debate, employing sardonic, bitterly barbed language on both ends. Jeff Sawtell’s article in the Communist Review expressed “the weight of my bitter disappointment, frustration and anger after seeing Ken Loach's film Land and Freedom , which purports to be about or, at least set, in the years of the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. 6” The Socialist journal What Next? struck back with unbridled insult to both Sawtell’s sources and intelligence: Whatever expertise [Sawtell] may possess in the field of cinematography certainly doesn’t extend to the historiography of the Spanish Civil War…. Indeed, despite the arrogant, know-it-all tone he adopts in the article and his inclusion of some obscure-looking footnotes to give the impression of erudition, it would seem that he has read precisely one publication on the subject – the 30-page pamphlet Spain Against Fascism…. 7 Their differences reanimate the spectre of the failure of the Spanish Civil War, the disbelieving why both leftists feel. In effect, both writers attempt to grapple with Franco’s victory through scapegoating, explaining away the defeat of the Popular Front with references to infighting – blaming Stalin – or imperialism – blaming the noninterventionist powers. Sawtell avows that the Soviet Union did everything in its power to help the Republican government, quoting La Pasionaria, Dolores Ibarruri’s tribute to that state. He charges the defeat as a result of “an unholy alliance, that of the capitalist states, the fascist states, the treacherous 6 Jeff Sawtell, “Land and Freedom: Ken Loach’s Distortion of the Spanish Civil War,” Communist Review , Summer 1996. 7 Robert Pitt, “ Land and Freedom: A Reply to Jeff Sawtell,” What Next? Marxist Discussion Journal, 1996, http://www.whatnextjournal.co.uk/Pages/History/Loach.html. Ho 3 Spanish military and the splitting activities of the 57 varieties of ultra-leftism. 8” Casting the blame even further afield, he then cites the Nazi ambassador to Franco as saying “the street fighting had been started by his (Franco's) agents.9” In What Next?, Bob Pitt disagrees entirely. “As the film so movingly demonstrates, this struggle was betrayed by counter-revolutionary forces within the Republican camp itself, the most consistent and ruthless of whom were the Communists. 10 ” Stalin, not Hitler, he asserts, “destroy[ed] the democratic gains of July-August 1936. 11 ” Pitt was not unique in conjuring up the evils of Stalin and employing a perverse resurrection of red-baiting in Stalinist-baiting. Peter Boyle similarly branded those offended by the film as “Stalinists [who] insisted that the revolution had to keep the support of Spanish capitalists. 12 ” The World Socialist Web Site continues along this line, applauding the film’s “determination to expose decades of lies by the Stalinists and to respond to the post-Soviet falsifiers…. 13 ” One of those who would be labeled a brain-washed “Stalinist” by this tactic is Bill Alexander. In his opinion, “the Soviet Union did all that was humanly possible to do in the conditions prevailing at that time. 14 ” His blame does not align directly with Sawtell’s, but with “those who enforced the policy of 'non-intervention',” expanding on this assertion with the somewhat incredible claim: “If help had been given to the Spanish Republic by the government of [Great Britain] … then World War II would not have happened. 15 ” Wilebaldo Solano, former General Secretary of POUM, counters “anti-Franco unity was broken by the policy which Stalin 8 Sawtell. 9 Sawtell. 10 Pitt. 11 Pitt. 12 Boyle. 13 World Socialist Web Site. 14 Lalkar, “International Brigader condemns Land and Freedom ,” March/April 1998. 15 Lalkar . Ho 4 imposed on the PCE and PSUC…. 16 ” As is quite plain, the debate hinges on purely conjectured events. The Worker’s Party of Marxist Unification (P.O.U.M.: Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) and the death of its leader Andreu Nin occupies a central role in the discussion. Sawtell brushes aside the claims of Nin’s assassination by Soviet intervention as “unsubstantiated, 17 ” and Pitt is quick to provide proof otherwise 18 . Santiago Carrillo, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), found fault with Land and Freedom for demeaning one of the “greatest epics of the fight for freedom in this century” to the bickering between the POUM and the PCE 19 . Loach shot back immediately during a screening of his film in Barcelona the following day, “I am glad that Carrillo has written an article against my film, because this demonstrates that the communists [by way of the PCE] haven’t learned anything in 60 years. 20 ” A mere week later, Wilebaldo Solano replied to Carrillo with his own article in El Pais , whose title: “Stalinism Forgotten?” purposefully mocked Carrillo’s original article: “Fascism, Forgotten.” Solano defends Loach, who “has done nothing more than remove the veil from an epoch [of history]. 21 ” Serious discussion about the film derails once again into petty name-calling and reliance on highly subjective histories. Even Pitt, who states at the beginning of his article “that it is wrong to refer to comrades from the official Communist movement… as ‘Stalinists’” gets in on the fun, employing the label “Stalinist-bourgeois counter- revolutionaries 22 ” 16 Wilebaldo Solano, “El Estalinismo Olvidado?: Polémica sobre Tierra y Libertad ,” trans. Terrence Ho, El Pais , April 14, 1995. 17 Sawtell. 18 Pitt. 19 Santiago Carrillo, “El Fascismo, olvidado,” trans. Terrence Ho, El Pais , April 6, 1995. 20 El Pais, “Ken Loach recuerda que Carrillo llamó fascistas a sus compañeros trotskistas,” trans. Terrence Ho, April 7, 1995. 21 Solano. 22 Pitt. Ho 5 George Orwell generates marked division between Communists and Socialists. Nearly every article cited in this paper mentions his name, his experience in Spain, and his Homage to Catalonia . Socialists turn to it for proof – the irrefutable proof of experience. Peter Boyle quotes it to describe the heroism of Spanish workers. 23 Bob Pitt offers Chapter 11 of the book as evidence of the weapons situation in Barcelona. 24 Martine Vidal draws a direct comparison between Orwell and David, the film’s protagonist, noting further that “booksellers have been doing a brisk business… especially [on] George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia 25 ” due to the interest generated by the film. Even the Communist Sawtell uses Orwell’s text as a source of veracity to comment on the inaction of the Aragón front. The International Brigader Bill Alexander, however, treats Orwell differently. “Why is Orwell being taught in the schools as if he were a great author? It can only be that the ruling circles in imperialist countries want to lower people's vigilance against fascism. 26 ” Alexander switches to the defensive on the issue of the International Brigade, which he accuses Land and Freedom of slandering, citing the heroic defense of Madrid he thinks the film pointedly ignored 27 . Sawtell joins Alexander’s indignation that Loach, “to add insult to his injury… dismisses the heroic International Brigade as nothing but jack-booted stooges of Stalin. 28 ” Pitt’s rejoinder weakly defends Loach and Allen’s depiction. Unwilling to insult the Brigade outright, he quotes Trotskyist Manuel Casanova: “‘They knew not what they were doing. 29 ’” 23 Boyle. 24 Pitt. 25 Vidal. 26 Lalkar . 27 Lalkar . 28 Sawtell. 29 Pitt. Ho 6 Finally, the film’s funding drew both sympathy and criticism from the opposing reviewers. The Socialists compare the scant £2.5 million used to make the film to Hollywood’s standard $30-40 million 30 .
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