A surprising non-recognition

Non-recognition of governments is a rare occurrence, usually occurring where the formation of a government is viewed as illegitimate and there is an alternative legitimate government that possesses support but is not in control of that territory. Important examples of non-recognition of governments are:

1. The Soviet Government after the Bolshevik Revolution up to 1924
1. Some countries, like Japan and Yugoslavia, did not recognise the Bolshevik Government until the 1940s
2. East Germany outside the Soviet Bloc and West Germany inside it during the Cold War
3. The Peking Stalinist Government vis-à-vis the Taipei Government in China
4. The PDPA regime in Afghanistan (1978-1991) outside the Soviet Bloc
5. The Taliban in Afghanistan between 1994 and 2002

Even when strongly opposed, there are rarely even protest demands at times of intense class struggle for non-recognition of the most repressive governments. For instance, there were never working class demands in Western Europe to not recognise the Nazi regime in Germany or the Fascist regime in Italy. However, I have recently discovered that there was one case of non-recognition of a right-wing dictatorship in Europe, even if on a relatively small scale. Nine countries never recognised the Franco government as the legitimate government of Spain. Instead, these countries — Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, and the Stalinist regimes of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania, and Albania — viewed the Spanish Republican government-in-exile as the legal government of all Spain throughout Franco’s rule. Undoubtedly, the great majority of workers in Western European nations also privately viewed the Spanish Republican government-in-exile as the rightful government of Spain.

The critical question is why was Spain different in this respect from other democratic collapses — and perhaps even the Stalinist dictatorships?

The answer is that, unlike the Hitler, Mussolini and Dollfuß-Schuschnigg regimes, the Nationalists in Spain came to power as a result of a lengthy civil war rather than a technically legal coup. This meant that there was a much clearer alternative government than in Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy, or even Dollfuß-Schuschnigg Austria where a short civil war did occur. For another comparison, the Stalinist nations of Europe also never had viable alternative governments for the West to recognise, while the Whites in Russia were so fragmented even during the Civil War that there was never one clear alternative rightful government. Additionally, outside North America and Australia working class protest during the early 1920s was so intense that hosting a Russian government-in-exile would have increased the risk of spreading socialist revolution. In North America and Australia — especially the United States — there was little sympathy for Russians and the Orthodox Church was regarded as an alien culture, so it would have been difficult for a Russian government-in-exile to establish there either.

 

Thus, despite ruling classes’ extreme hostility towards socialism and Bolshevism, non-recognition of the Bolshevik Government in no case lasted so long as a few nations’ non-recognition of Francoist Spain. All this demonstrates how:

1. revolutionaries and right-wing dictators alike desire overwhelmingly to avoid any possibility that the outside world could view their government as illegitimate or unjust
2. the best way to avoid this possibility is to take power in a manner that prevents any clear alternative government from emerging
3. that if an alternative government does exist, there is a significant possibility that it will be recognised by some nation as rightful