Solidarity with Spain in Kolkata, 1936

The worker’s movement in Kolkata (Calcutta) responded to the left internationalist appeal for solidarity with Republican Spain during the early months of the Spanish Civil War.  On 9 August 1936, at the maidan (open space) adjacent to Ochterlony Monument – today the Martyrs’ Monument - a time-honoured spot for public meetings, shown in this photo, a trade union rally involving 24 organizers and about 50 workers, was celebrating ‘Spain Day’ in Kolkata.

Despite meanings lost in the distance from the speaker’s mouth to the police observer’s ears and notebooks, the descriptions provided the reports of Intelligence Branch of Bengal Police and Special Branch of Calcutta Police indicate that a wider worldview on the connections between capital, empire-building and fascism was being disseminated by leftwing labour organizers. They were aiming to motivate and educate the workers who were already forming militant unions to push forward their economic and political demands.

At the first rally in support of Spain held on 9 August 1936 by All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), a Special Branch operative reported that several ‘labour parties of Calcutta’ were in sympathy with the communists of Spain who were fighting a war with the fascists. The placards championed the Popular Front government in Spain, demanded an end of abuse faced by political prisoners in colonial jails in India, condemned an incident of firing on protestors in French Pondicherry and exhorted workers of the world to unite against fascism and counter-revolution in Spain. Labour, inter-provincial and anti-imperialist campaigns were thereby incorporated within the campaign in support of Popular Front in Spain. The meeting was punctuated with slogans in Hindustani and Bangla: ‘Victory to the Red Flag’, ‘Victory to the Worker’s Party’, ‘Victory to the Workers of the World’, ‘Victory to a government of Workers and Peasants’, ‘Victory to worker’s unity’, ‘May Imperialism be destroyed’ and ‘Inquilab Zindabad’ (Long live Revolution). 

In the early evening of 12 August 1936, Spain Day was observed at Sraddhananda Park under the auspices of AITUC.  The crowd was expected to be larger than three days earlier. A poster hanging on the railing of the park proclaimed: ‘Down with Fascist Counter-Revolution’. About 50 people had initially assembled, but their ranks swelled gradually to 200. At around 5.55 PM, Sibnath Banerjee, speaking in Bengali, remarked the capitalists had rebelled against a worker’s government in Spain. What was happening there will happen in India in the future. Capital will wage a life and death struggle against workers and peasants to keep them from attaining prosperous living conditions. The outcome of the conflict in Spain was bound to exercise an impact on international politics and India and its people could not remain unaffected. Shamsul Huda, speaking in Bengali, said the imperialists and the fascists were joined together in a conspiracy to destroy the workers and peasants’ government in Spain. The working masses of India must support the Spanish government. To establish the rule of workers and peasants in this country, the people of India who have been exploited, oppressed and had their blood sucked for 150 years, must resist fascism and imperialism. Others, also speaking in Bengali, connected the starving conditions in the country with the working of banks, capital and imperialism and supported Spain’s struggle against fascism.

SC