Now a lecturer at Auckland University, he was speaking to the Anarchist Association.

Droescher went to Spain as a "non-political radical." as he described himself. A German, he detested the Nazi regime but was himself politically unaligned. When the Civil War broke out his sympathies lay with the opponents of fascism—including liberals, radicals, socialists of many varieties, communists and the arnarchists, who at the height of their power numbered about two millions.

Like author George Orwell, he enlisted with the POUM—a Marxist group with trotskyite sympathies. His platoon was attached to an anarchist column—an ideology introduced to Spain by an emissary of the famous, revolutionary. Michael Bakunin.

The great mass of the Spanish workers enlisted in the CNT whose adherence to syndicalis' principles (worker control in todays parlance) forced Marx to terminate the International. This anarchist-inspired trade union was; Spain's largest, but its greatest strength was in Catalonia. Where most of its million members wen concentrated.

Increasing communist influence brought about a suppression of the POUM and Droescher found himself fully incorporated with the anarchist column.

A student, he was appointed as a teacher and thus afforded a position of independence from which he could form impartia' Judgments of anarchism.

What did they believe in? They were, on the one hand, inspired by a tremendous hatred of Roman Catholicism which had so hypo critically overthrown Christianity while, on the other hand, they embraced the principles of mutual aid.

Principles

On the factories they implemented the revolutionary principles of liberty, equality, fraternity and these factories functioned more smoothly than they ever die under capitalist administration.

The villages may have suffered from lack of normal supplies but the liberty of administering then own affairs sufficed the peasants who took an immense pride in working out their own futures.

The anarchists were the largest unit on the anti-fascist side but they were infinitely more tolerant than the communists and socialists.

When the latter controlled i particular industry the anarchists did not use their overwhelming strength to force uniformity. In stead, they pursued their principle: of liberty, allowing both communists and socialists to enforced their decrees in their respective industries.

Thus their own principles offer made it possible for the authoritarian socialists and communists gain advantages which the atter denied their rivals when hey were in a majority Droesche added.

The communists were ruthless in suppressing opponents and all but wiped out the tiny trotskyite groups. With the anarchists they had to pursue more diplomatic methods.

When the first shipments of Russian arms arrived purchased with Spanish gold none of the poorly armed anarchist group received supplies which were wholly directed to the regular Army of the central government.

Droescher fully supported writers like Orwell and Gerald Brenan. Who insisted that in Spain the communists were both reactionary and conservative.

They won the army officers, the wealthy peasants, the industrialists and middle classes to their side by insisting on maintaining their privileges and position in society. Even the church was protected by them.

In Spain the church was the bastion of the old order. The anarchist masses remained in tensely spiritual, he continued, but felt the church had betrayed them. Seville's bishop drew substantial incomes from the brothels of the city.

When the anarchists assumed control they conducted propaganda campaigns to encourage the women to abandon a life of Vice for one of free love. The paradox was that these apostles of free love were rather puritanical—what they sought was the abolition of prostituted love whether in marriage or brothel.

This was all part of the revolutionary movement the anarchists embodied. They wanted to sweep aside the old corrupt Spain and introduce a society inspired by mutual aid together with a material equality which wou'd make a classless society a reality. Droescher affirmed that this inspired fraternity won him to anarchism.

The importance of Spain in history is that it was the first country in which some millions of people adopted the anarchist philosophy and when they put it into practice in the revolution they made it work.

The communists were a small minority group when the war broke out. They became a major force by consolidating the anti-revolutionary elements on the government side and by making full use of the Russian shipments.

Yet, Droescher pointed out they failed to realise that Franco could not be beaten without the fervour which they did their best to stifle Never was it clearer to him that the difference between fascism and communism was a difference in name only.

The end of the war was already in sight before the communists were in power one month. The mass of the people saw no advantage in fighting to replace our tyranny with another.

The anarchist columns at the front remained without supplies and started to leave for Barcelona.

Droescher said he had left before the end as did hundreds of thousands of Spaniards who preferred exile to Franco's dictatorship.

After the second world war he made a brief visit to Catalonia to learn that thousands of his comrades who remained had been liquidated following the fascist triumph. The inevitable senility which characterised Spanish tyrannies lent an atmosphere of liberalism to the post-war regime