again by the republican reaction to Franco's rebellion.
The mass of the propertied classes went over to the fascists. Even the few bourgeois figures who remained with the republic showed that they were more afraid of a socialist revolution than of a fascist triumph. As Borkenau described it: in 1933 The ruling group disintegrated immediately. Casares Quiroga broke down. Martinez Barrios took olice, and saw nimsel between the alterna tive of arming the workers or surrendering to the Sanchez Roman, resolutely refused arms to the generals •ne and as vinister or tee integor trade unions, which implicitly meant surrender to Franco.
Had the conduct of affairs been left to the republican politicians, the fascists would have come to power in Spain, as in Germany, without a fight. spontaneous uprising of masses in city after city that prevented this. Barricades were erected, armories seized, and garrisons stormed. The civil war had begun.
George Orwell, who fought against the fascists in Spain, wrote of the masses' sponse to the fascist uprising. The trade unions took over all transportation, public utilities, and big industrial plants. Factory committees were elected by the workers, and workers militias rapidly conquered all four Catalonian provinces. Under workers control, industry was converted for war production.
Borkenau said of this:
Neither the anarchists nor the socialists took Government office. But they alone retained real power in their respective strongholds, and exerted it inrouen the detence committees erested in the days of the street-fighting.
It was the believed that they - strategic spots were by DAVI The rising of the socialists and anare have achieved: in ha seven largest towns hands of the problems were. Coul they make of it?
Even with the 01 tne Stalinists and Sc continued to insis the capitalist gove At first the attempts of the P