Problemas de la colectivización

Sunday, 30 November 1936: A discussion with POUM representatives on the Economic Council. Factories with over 50 workers have been collectivised. Those with less than 50 are under workers’ control.

The PSUC, as a front for the Esquerra, supports compensation for expropriated owners. The POUM and the CNT reject compensation completely. (Compensation would be paid out in some sort of promissory notes, which would yield an interest rate of three or four per cent.)

Factories with fewer than 50 workers can also be collectivised if they are important for the war effort, or if the owner has fled. Small employers quite often continue to work in their factories as employees. Decisions about production are made by the staff, though in some cases they have to approved by the Economic Council.

At the head of each industry is an Industrial Board, made up of four UGT, four CNT, four representatives from factory councils, and one delegate from the government. These are the main problems being faced at the moment:

1. The supply of raw materials, especially cotton and coal.
2. The difficulties of selling the goods of some industries because of the collapse of the Spanish market and the paralysis of foreign trade.
3. Small businessmen are getting credit to pay wages, but are having problems getting money to buy the necessary raw materials.
4. Many workers tend to treat the factory as the particular property of the employees. In future the profits or gains of all factories will be pooled so that the deficit firms can be supported by the surplus profits of the others.

The POUM delegate did not want an inflation of the economy but it appears inevitable. He told us in confidence that the Basque government has let it be known that they will not stand for any expropriation of firms and factories in the Basque country as has happened in Catalonia.