JOAQUIM MAURIN 1893-1973 the Spanish Revolutionary Marxist Movement

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Published by ILP Square One Publications, Leeds. Printed by National Labour Press, 49 Top Moor Side, Leeds LSH 9L P '% l‘\

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JOAQUIM MAURIN 1893 — 1973

LIFE & DEATH OF A SPANISH REVOLUTIONARY

by DON BATEMAN \

I There died in New York at the end of 1973 (and almost unnoticed by the world’s press) a Spanish socialist leader who, without a doubt owed his survival during the Spanish War to the fact that he was captured by Franco in July 1936.

Joaquim Maurin was to spend over ten years in Spanish prisons before he was released. He was tried at the end of the Spanish Civil War and charged with having written his classic book ‘THE SECOND REVOLUTION’. Although written before the outbreak of the Civil War he received a thirty-six year sentence from the court. His next book was to be ‘TEN YEARS IN FRANCO’S PRISONS’ published in New York after he emigrated there as a refugee.

Like his comrade, Andres Nin (who was later to be murdered in Spain by Stalin’s agents) Maurin was a teacherwho early in life linked up with student political movements in Spain and by 1918 was giving lectures to working class audiences on the impact of the Russian Revolution. He had studied at the College of Education in Huesca - which by a coincidence was later to be besieged by the Lenin Division of the POUM militia (of which the I.L.P. contingent formed a part) in 1937. With a group of other students he founded a newsheet ‘EL TALION’ which brought Maurin into conﬂict with the authorities and he sought refuge in Lerida where he taught at the Liceo Escolar and established relation- i ships with a group of militants in the trade union movement. A © Copyright Independent Labour Party 1974 > I In 1919 he attended the C.N.T. (Congress of National Labour Confederation) l which was being held in the Comedy Theatre in Madrid and he came in his military uniform when doing his military service. This was an unusual sight r which prompted Segui to comment that “at last we have a congress of workers and soldiers..... ”.

MOSCOW After completing his military service he joined the C.N.T., the syndicalist trade union movement in Spain. In the spring of 1921 he was elected to represent the C.N.T. in Moscow at the founding Congress of the Red International of Trade i Unions. Victor Serge, who was also present has told us in his memoirsl of the 1 .‘ impact which Nin and Maurin had upon him. _ “two young men from the Spanish delegation gave us pledges for the future which they were destined to fulfil at tremendous cost; Joaquim Maurin and Andres Nin. I have always believed that human qualities find their physical expression in a man’s personal appearance. A single glance was enough to tell the calibre of Maurin the teacher from Lerida and Nin the teacher from Barcelona. Maurin had the bearing of a young cavalier from a Pre-Raphaelite painting; Nin behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, wore l an expression of concentration which was softened by his obvious enjoy- ment of life. Both of them gave their lives to the Cause. Maurin destined to an unending succession of jails; Nin to a horrible death during the Spanish Revolution. At this time the overwhelming impression they con- veyed was one of idealism and a thirst for learning.”

The Russian Revolution had a much greater impact upon the syndicalists than it did upon the socialists, for the impression had been created that the soviets or workers’ councils really ruled Russia and at the C.N.T. 1919 annual conference 3 I

I I I af libertarian philosophy amongst the Spanish working class did not lend itself to they approved a resolution which gave full support to the principles of ‘The the rigid imposition of despotic policies from Moscow and the splits were fore- First International, Bakunin and the Russian Revolution because of its revolutio- seeable. nary character’. This glorious hotch-potch could only have been conceived in blissful ignorance, for the First International of Marx and Engels split upon the When the Comintern adopted the ‘ultra-left’ policies which characterised socialists issue of the anarcho-syndicalist ideas of Bakunin, and the Russian Revolution was and labourite-reformists as the major enemies of the working class, they created a already beginning to devour any Bakuninites who tried to show their heads above situation where mass action by a united working class was impossible. As a result ground? It was the ‘syndicalist communists’ represented by Nin and Maurin who of this they had lost any kind of leading role in working class politics. Because of I won control of the C.N.T. and went to Moscow and in Maurin’s own words their sectarian policies they had faded into insignificance. ‘The Spanish syndicalist movement underwent a veritable transformation’. In 1920 a previous delegation led by Angel Pestana had gone to Moscow to report Right up to and after the coming to power of Hitler they pursued this ‘social upon conditions. Pestana bitterly opposed the 21 Points which the Russians fascist’ policy and rejected all ideas of working class unity against fascism. There insisted must form the basis of affiliation to the Communist International and he is plenty of evidence showing the tactical alliances which took place in Germany was appalled by the persecution of the anarchists in Russia and the savagery before 1933 between the Nazis and the Communists against the Social Democrats which had been shown in suppressing the Kronstadt rising of the sailors of the and in Spain they pursued similar policies. According to General Krivitsky, (the Russian NKVD agent operating then in Spain but who later defected) the official 1 Red Fleet who were guilty of demanding ‘soviets without Bolsheviks’3Pestana had no chance of putting his views across to the C.N.T. for he wasjailed by the Spanish Communist Party had only 800 members in 1931 at the founding of the ‘. Spanish authorities as soon as he returned. Upon his release from prison Pestana Republic and at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936 it had only 3,000 members. succeeded in carrying the Congress against affiliation to the Comintern. Nin It was so insignificant a force under the right-wing dicatorship of Primo Rivera stayed in Moscow to work for the Red International of Trade Unions and Maurin that he did not trouble to suppress it or its publications. At the 1933 elections became General Secretary of the C.N.T. and edited its paper ‘Social Struggle’ the C.P. had only one M.P., Doctor Bolivar in Malaga who had a considerable which ceased publication in 1922 after a series of running battles between the local following for his medical work amongst the poor of the city. old anarcho-syndicalist wing and the new Moscow-orientated Marxists. He then I helped to found and was first editor of ‘LA BATALLA’ in 1922; this paper When Alfonso and the monarchy was ousted in 1931 this was a symbol of the I continued to be published in Barcelona legally, illegally and semi-legally in essential weakness of the Spanish state and social system. The monarchy had various phases of political life until it was forcibly suppressed by the Spanish become such an embarrassment that the newer forms of Spanish capitalism felt I : Communist Party and NKVD agents of the Russians in 1937 during the Civil War. it was undermining their own power. Little was changed; as Maurin himself obser- Within two months even of this suppression it was again appearing illegally and it ved ‘The Republic did not really constitute a revolution; the old ruling classes is today published in Paris. In the middle twenties many of the writers and were never defeated —they conducted a strategic retreat’. At this time Nin and I distributors of the paper were arrested and a rigorous military censorship produc- Maurin both went to Moscow to conduct their case against the extreme sectarianism I1| I ed systematic persecution. In 1925 Maurin was arrested for the second time and of Comintern policy. They felt that the policy of ‘social fascism’ was weakening |I I

‘II I wounded in the leg after trying to escape from the police. Some months later he the working class unity they were trying to forge. The reason for the small num- attempted to escape from the Modela Prison but fell and hurt the same leg and bers of C.P. membership was that all the founding members who had left the was recaptured. In 1927 he was released from prison and went into Exile in Paris. Spanish Socialist Party had already returned. Unsuccessful, they returned from Moscow and formed an opposition group which linked-up with the Communist

..T____ By the autumn of 1930 the situation had eased and he was able to return to Opposition in Moscow. They played a part in the redistribution of land after the

I I Barcelona where he worked on his book ‘THE MEN OF THE DICTATORSHIP’ Catalonian rising in 1932 of the Anarcho-Syndicalists, but after the 1933 elections I and he re-started ‘LA BATALLA’ as a regular publication. The stability did not Andres Nin broke with Maurin because he disagreed with the policy of co-opera- last for very long of course and the failure of the General Strike and the insurrec- tion with the Spanish Socialist Party. Nin stayed with the Communist Opposition .I tion led by Jaca de Galan and Garcia Hernadez led to Maurin being re-arrested S and Maurin formed the B.O.C. (Workers and Peasants Bloc). for a period. THE WORKERS & PEASANTS BLOC I THE SPANISH COMMUNIST PARTY Maurin had a considerable following in the Communist Federation of Catalonia III The history of the Spanish Communist Party is one of constant splits, sectarian and in 1931 the Federation had broken with the official Communist Party on the question of ‘Red Unions’ and sectarianism. Maurin made approaches on their battles and feuds- The iron hand of Moscow and the rigid application of vacillatin8 policies throughout the twenties and thirties produced a situation where some of ' behalf to the official Catalan Communist Party with a view to the creation of a the outstanding leaders of the world communist movement severed their connec- formal united organization and in 1933 the B.O.C. was the product of this union. tions with the Spanish C.P. at frequent intervals. Maurin was the General Secretary of the B.O.C. and it had an imposing galaxy of local leaders who were trusted and respected by the working people of There had always been a separate Communist Party in Catalonia and one which Catalonia. Gorkin (who had also worked in Moscow for the Comintern) and had contained some of the finest elements of the movement. The long tradition Portela, played a leading part in the movement, which rapidly became very 4 5 influential. They ran educational programmes inside the trade unions and the co-operatives using the Atheneums which were rather like our Mechanics liberalism in one fell swoop. Those who lived through this period in Britain will remember that the Popular Front Campaign was preceded by the Unity Campai- Institutes. Its strength was of course in Catalonia where they had 25,000 members. gn. This was based upon a left-wing socialist programme of the Communist Party, I.L.P. and Socialist League of Stafford Cripps. This was gradually changed The B.O.C. was at issue with the Comintern on the sectarian ultra-left perspective. by the C.P. into a ‘Popular Front’ campaign based upon a blatantly reformist They refused the directive to form ‘red unions’ on a breakaway basis and their programme supported by ‘progressive Tories’ such as the Duchess of Athol]. It members retained membership of the U.G.T. (General Workers’ Union) and was openly based upon a foreign-policy alliance with Russia and a putting into C.N.T. The majority of them were in the C.N.T. In addition, they had considerable cold storage of all demands for the social revolution. The I.L.P. and many Catalan separatist sympathies. Apart from the language and cultural issues, the members of the Socialist League left the campaign forthwith and leading liberals more advanced industrialisation of Catalonia made it a progressive and economic- took their places. In Spain the transition was an even more rapid one, for the ally viable force. It also enabled the revolutionary left to draw upon the resources niceties of British Parliamentary democracy required a little more finesse. The of traditional Catalan separatism which was represented by the Esquerra. The ziny, Spanish Communist Party recognized that in such an alliance it would be Popular Front government recognised this factor and the Catalan Generality or swamped by the mighty Socialist Party and the influential ex-Communists of Provincial Government was a direct outcome of it. On the other hand the Com- the Workers’ Alliance. Their tactic therefore became one of scotching the munist Party with its rigid centralism never favoured such devolution of power. Workers’ Alliance demands by proposing to the Socialist Party a fusion of the In addition, their political strength did not lie in Catalonia and it was a tendency two organizations which would make it possible for the smaller, but more therefore which they could not hope to control. tightly disciplined C.P. to dominate it at its base.

The B.O.C. made no attempt at an analysis of Russian events. Unlike Nin and his This policy reached its apogee in Catalonia in 1936 when the P.S.U.C. was group (which had allied themselves with the Left Opposition of Trotsky) they formed. This was the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia which was actually the had not made any assessment of the deterioration of the Comintern and its Communist Party under another name. This manoeuvre gave the C.P. respectability degeneration into an instrument of Stalin’s foreign policy. Their paper ‘LA and an entry into international socialist circles. The cries for ‘unity’ were always BATALLA’ revealed this and it was a fatal error. Looked at with the hindsight accompanied by hailing the model which had been achieved in Spain where the of today and the knowledge we possess, young people may well wonder at this ‘working class movements had achieved a common cause’. The P.S.U.C. was the ignorance. It must be appreciated that it was a situation reflected throughout high-water mark of the C.P. ‘front’ organizations. left-groups in most countries. The Independent Labour Party in Britain and the S.A.P. in Germany were typical of this tendency; they still entertained illusions _.__:_ This change of the Party line led the Communist Party to support Azana as head about the Russian regime and were hesitant to offer the slightest criticism. When of the Popular Front government from February after his election as President. they protested about the purgings, judicial murders and general barbarism their He had previously been Minister of War in 1931 and later Premier in the 1931- voices sounded a note of apology. Nin, Andrade and the Left Opposition had no 1934 coalition. In this period the Communist Party had branded him as a fascist such reservations, for they had accepted Trotsky’s basic analysis of the Soviet ...... later to be hailed as a supreme anti-fascist. The victory of the Popular Front State. in February 1936 was accompanied in Catalonia by a developing revolutionary situation as the prisons were stormed, the inmates liberated and the land and THE WORKERS’ALLIANCE factories taken over by workers’ committees which began to run the enterprises. Not since the days of ‘war communism’ in Moscow and Leningrad in 1917 had The coming to power of Hitler and the threat of fascism inspired Maurin to build such a flowering of libertarian socialism been seen. an Anti-Fascist Workers’ Alliance (the A.O.A.) and he made approaches to Largo Caballero, leader of the Socialist Party for an open arrangement of mutual co- ' THE FOUNDING or P.0.U.M.5 operation. This met with incredible opposition from the small rump of the official Communist Party on the grounds that it was a sell-out to the ‘traitors of In 1935 Maurin and Nin had come together to form the P.O.U.M. (Workers’ social democracy.’ If in the McCarthyite period in the U.S.A., men were conde- Party of Marxist Unity) from the Communist Left and the Workers and Peasants mned for having been ‘premature anti-fascists,’ it must be remembered that the Bloc. They had initially 8,000 members but this quadrupled in the months same charges were levelled by the Comintern which originally rejected working- leading up to the Civil War in July 1936. The small group of orthodox Trotskyists class unity to prevent the inroads of fascism and sponsored it only when it had left the P.O.U.M. and adopted the name of Bolshevik-Leninists but it is doubt- become an adjunct of Russian foreign policy. 1_ _dg._,__,_____ ful whether they ever had more than twenty members. Their influence was minimal and the only thing they held was an intellectual position. When the Russian change took place, the Communist Party somersault was violent and immediate. They had previously attacked the Workers’ Alliance as In its inception P.O.U.M. did not really consider itself to be a polished revolut- ‘the rallying point of reactionary forces’ and ‘the holy alliance of the counter- ionary party but the pre-cursor of one. It had drawn together the finest elements revolution’ but their somersault was traumatic and immediate by demanding in the Spanish revolutionary movement and Nin and Maurin drafted its program- the Workers’ Alliance be broadened; from ultra-sectarianism they moved to ultra- me and popularized it in a short pamphlet ‘WHAT POUM IS AND WHAT IT 6 7 ‘II II I. WANTS’. The original elements of the Spanish Communist Party had rallied to This fundamental rift with Trotsky has not prevented ‘official’ historians of the its ranks and in the industrial areas it had a solid base. It was the foremost Spanish Civil War (such as Professor Hugh Thomas in ‘The Spanish Civil War’) TI workers’ party in Catalonia and had a prominent role in the Basque country, the from adopting the Communist Party label of ‘Trotskyist’ when describing the II ~III Asturias, Galicia and Madrid. The Trotskyists in this period had adopted what P.O.U.M. political position. became known as the ‘French Turn’ by sending their members into the mass social-democratic parties as a means of ending their own isolation. In Spain this THE FRANCO REBELLION was totally absurd for a mass revolutionary party was emerging, Nin and Maurin Maurin used Parliament as a platform for attacking the complacency of Azana rejected Trotsky’s advice. and the Republic, for not having taken action against the openly-avowed fascist Generals who were showing their intentions of leading a revolt. He named THE POPULAR FRONT ELECTION Franco, Mola and Ouiepo de Lano as leading lights. Delivered two months before the rising this was to be a prophetic speech but it did not stop the Com- When the Popular Front electoral lists were prepared, P.O.U.M. had the choice munist Party, at a later stage from taking passages out of context and branding III of either taking part in this great campaign (which was inspired by the idea of I it as an attack upon the Republic itself. The Popular Front government had liberating the 30,000 political prisoners who had been jailed following the actually come to power with a promise that it would deal with the crimes of I defeat of the 1934 revolution), or of isolating itself from a developing mass those responsible for the atrocities which had been committed when the workers’ I movement. For the atmosphere of the period to be understood it must be appreciated that even the Anarchists, for the first time, did not urge their rising in 1934 was so bloodily suppressed. It took no such action and it actually I restored General Mola back to a full Generalship, despite the fact that he had been I supporters not to vote. The prospects of liberating imprisoned comrades had .I one of the most reactionary leaders of Berenguer’s dictatorship and he had dashed ‘I become an emotive factor. The P.O.U.M. took part in the electoral campaign I I I and Maurin was elected as a Deputy in Barcelona. There was a great element of away with the monarch when Alfonso was unseated. The rebel Generals had ballot-rigging practiced by the official Communist Party, working on its newly given plenty of notice of their intentions and contact had already been established adopted allies the Republicans and Spanish Socialist Party and P.O.U.M. was with Mussolini in the quest for arms and money. When the rising took place in selected as the target for isolation when selecting the single-list of Popular Front July 1936 Maurin was in Galicia attending a meeting of the newly-formed P.O.U.M candidates.6 The Madrid Electoral Commission of the Front for example, Federation there in Santiago de Compostela. The P.O.U.M. star was rising and its inﬂuence was spreading outside the areas of old industrial militancy. He was named Nin as the candidate for Teruel, a city where P.O.U.M. had little strength, caught in a period of uncertainty which gripped most areas of Spain, and he 4_,_____ despite petitions which were tabled asking that he be a candidate for Castille or apparently learned the news from a newspaper in a railway train. It should be the Asturias, where he and P.O.U.M. had great strength and popularity. In its 'l. remembered that information spread much more slowly and inaccurately than main base of Lerida, P.O.U.M. was denied a candidate and in the great bastion {II today, for there was no T.V., or portable transistor radios; such radio sets as -‘ti of Catalonia the Republicans, Socialists and official Communist Party came I. existed were expensive and rare in Spain. ii together to deny them candidates; only Maurin emerged in Barcelona. The

I ‘ll I elections over, I’.(_).U.M. pressed ahead with its own revolutionary policies but II I It was in the vital first few days that the rebellion could have been nipped in the I -II already the Communist Party had shown its hand by singling them out as the I bud had the government acted promptly. The arming of the people would have major target for attack, and as the Spanish revolution forged ahead, the C.P. been decisive. With the trade unions clamouring for arms and the government recruited bourgeois allies who were to be their finest supporters in their defence denying them, the various army groups were disarmed in the big industrial cent- of private property. res by attacks upon the barracks by crowds led by the political parties of the — left. In the meantime the government wavered and attempted to do a deal with The P.O.U.M. attitude towards the Popular Front is best expressed in Maurin’s II I; the rebels. Uncertainty sapped the government of its resolution and it was II famous aphorism ‘we are for the Popular Front because we are against it’. The reduced to using the telephone for ringing up the cities and towns to discover attitude was not dissimilar to the ‘Labour to Power’ slogans of most of the which of them still accepted government authority. Maurin was trapped in Trotskyist groups at the 1974 elections in Britain. Once the Popular Front ,I Franco territory and he went underground with local P.O.U.M. members who Government had been elected, the people themselves hardly waited for the I supplied him with false identity papers and he grew a beard. Had he made a prisoners to be liberated; - they stormed the prison gates themselves as they dash for Barcelona when the news first broke it is possible he would have reached did in Portugal and carried out the inmates shoulder-high. P.O.U.M. then con- safety ...... and subsequent death with Nin.The government issued repeated tinued to develop its programme of calling for the taking over of factories and statements that the situation was well in hand and everything was under control large estates and it in no way compromised itself by defending the policies of the government. Trotsky vented all his polemical energy against P.O.U.M. for and Azana made his first contacts with the rebel generals. I"II having taken part in the election lists and despite the fact that they had forged their independence afterwards he characterised them as having ‘sold out’ to the TRAPPED IN FRANCO TERRITORY Popular Front and submerged their identity inside it. This was patently untrue I.- By the 19th of July Maurin was trapped like so many other people and as the and Maurin was singled out for special criticism because his break with Stalin II rebels moved into static areas with clearly-defined boundaries, all people with had been on a right-wing programme; he had not lined-up with the Left Opposi- suspected Republican sympathies were being rounded up and executed or im- tion, as did Nin. 9 8 prisoned. It was the period when old political scores were settled as informers overland across France to Barcelona. After being shot through the neck on the rushed to denounce their enemies. Within a month Franco had captured Aragon front, George Orwell was in the ‘Maurin Hospital’. A P.O.U.M. Brigade

;':|'l___r‘T“f‘—._TT_-____,II:,_____ Badaj oz and the ‘Times’ and ‘Guardian’ both reported ‘mass execution and took his name and so far as the world was concerned he was dead. Ia murder of government supporters by Moorish troops.’ The Generals had as their initial backbone the Foreign Legion, the Army in Africa, the hated Civil Guard In prebably one of the most moving personal chronicles of the war in which one and many of the local garrisons. Queipo de Lano boasted that he captured in twenty five of the Spanish propulation died, Fenner Brockway recounted how -0:--___-‘-_:_E£:'-- Seville by personal bluff, and the open support of Salazar rapidly established a he first met Maurin7, six months before the outbreak of the Civil War and of the .IJl II base in Portugal from which the rebel forces could operate and fan out into III impact which this penetrative and thoughtful man had upon him. Rumours II. -I Spain. It is estimated that in the vital first few weeks of the war 20,000 govern- I I began to reach England that he was still alive but Brockway dismissed them as

I II: ment supporters were murdered in an orgy of blood-letting. There is not a III wishful thinking on the part of Spaniards who refused to believe that he could single example of the civilian population rising-up and capturing power anywhere I-. die so easily. In August 1937 Maurin’s wife Jeanne, was lecturing in Britain at VII Ii for Franco; the reverse was the case. .I- an I.L.P. Summer School and she showed Brockway a letter addressed to her in I I her maiden name. The handwriting (under an assumed name) was unmistakeably In the big industrial areas the people rose and disarmed the army. At no time that of Joaquim. In this way he was able to send out a monthly letter from a did Fran co and his supporters make any statement which would halt the Franco prison until he managed to escape. He tried to make his way across the atrocities. Action was never taken against those who committed murders. This Fascist lines and into Republican territory but he was unfortunately recaptured. I was in contrast with Republican pronouncements against the burning of churches He was re-arrested and taken back to Jaca where he was put up on an identity and violence to priests. It could be said that more positive action against rebel parade in front of the special political section of the Barcelona police. As might supporters would have saved many areas for the Republic. In Madrid Franco be expected, this section of the Barcelona police had escaped from Republican t supporters flocked into the Foreign Embassies for sanctuary and the British I. territory and was now serving the rebel cause. One of these agents recognized him I. trebled the size of their Embassy buildings for this purpose by buying extra and he was thrown into prison in Zaragossa where he lay under sentence of death. houses. This news reached Jeanne from a reliable political source for P.O.U.M. like other I ‘II I left-wing parties still had contacts, however tenuous, with groups of members, In Barcelona and other areas of Catalonia, the P.O.U.M. militants along with the underground in Franco territory. She immediately made contact with Maurin’s C_.N.T. stormed the barracks, won over many of the troops, and militia units cousin,8 Ramon Iglesias,with whom he had always had a close relationship when were formed which fanned out into the rural areas liberating big tracts of ter- they were youngsters together. Their political perspectives and entire philosophies ritory and winning over the peasants by dividing up the large estates. This had had driven them apart as they grew older but she had no hesitation in invoking, been a major plank in the Popular Front programme but it needed the stimulus his aid. By a strange paradox, he had risen to be Bishop General in the Army and of the counter-revolution to generate the policy. he was based upon Toledo. He made powerful representations to the rebel Junta TI‘ which undoubtedly saved Maurin’s life. I-Iis case was based upon the fact that as Maurin in the meantime, under a new identity tried to get back to Huesca in I. a prisoner since the outbreak of the war he could not possibly have taken part in I, Aragon but he was arrested in Jaca. Fortunately he was not recognised and he the war for he had beenheld incommunicado. This story has of course been a II ‘II was held in prison under his new name. The P.O.U.M. leadership knew nothing well-kept secret for political reasons. The Communist Party had made P.O.U.M. It !‘I'. about his fate but recognized that the only way of possibly saving his life (if the main target of attack and, under Russian pressure had insisted that the I; indeed he still lived) was to announce that he had been shot by Franco forces. Republican government declare it illegal and arrest the leadership.9 They accordingly printed his obituary with tributes to his work and this was reprinted in the world’s press. THE STALINIST ATTACK ON POUM

PREMATURE DEATH Internationally the Comintern used all possible efforts to vilify and pressurize I-1 . the P.O.U.M. leadership. They were hounded as ‘agents of fascism’ as were the On September 17th 1936 ‘The Times’ announced that Joaquim Maurin had Old Bolsheviks who were being liquidated in Moscow. Jeanne Maurin lived in been captured and executed after being allowed to write a last letter to his wife. Paris for a long period during the Civil War, acting as the P.O.U.M. information

\ I Whether this was simply psychological warfare by Franco who felt that such a and liaison officer with the international working class movement. When the story would spread alarm and despondency in the ranks of P.O.U.M. and other F“5-55?.--.'— open repression began against P.O.U.M. her home was raided by the French militants back in Republican territory, or whether the P.O.U.M. cover-story had Communists. Eight of them invaded her ﬂat, cut off the telephone, locked the gone full circle and been fed back to Franco is not likely to be discovered.The doors and proceeded to ransack her papers and books. They were looking for story was certainly encouraged death was Maurin’s best cover story. ‘evidence’ which could be used to prove that P.O.U.M. was in contact with Franco , . §I and international fascism. No such evidence could of course be found and it was As the ‘Aid for Spain’ Committees got under way in Britain and other western Ii then necessary for it to be fabricated back in Spain by the NKVD agents. I countries, Maurin’s international reputation was linked with the fund-raising. I I The Independent Labour Party in Britain collected money for the Spanish The leading NKVD agent in Spain was Orlov who has since defected and published I I. cause and the first ambulance they sent there was named after him and driven III details of the plot. This has been reinforced by the book ‘THE GREAT TREASON I 10 11 II published in exile, in Mexico by the leader of the Spanish Communist Party, who prominent fascist prisoners and he suggested that one of them, Senor Lucia, who was Minister of Information in the Republican government, Jesus Hernandez“) was also a member of the Cortes might be exchanged for Maurin.Irugo explained The Russian Ambassador, Rosenberg made representations to Largo Caballero, that recently the Government had discussed the exchange of Maurin and that the then Prime Minister, that action be taken against P.O.U.M. and its leadership. He Communists alone had opposed any such exchange. ‘Nevertheless he gave me sought the liquidation of the Party by telling Caballero that ‘Stalin was personally permission’ wrote McGovern 13 ‘to approach the British Foreign Office with the interested’ in such an operation, but Caballero would not listen to him. The authority of the Spanish government and to ask it to take steps to facilitate such operation was then carried out by under-cover agents of the Comintern and NKVD an exchange. He said he would accept any nominee of the insurgents in exchange The Russians used military and food supplies as a pressure-point upon the govern- for Maurin. Since I returned to Britain, news has come that the International Red ment and it stands to their credit that they resisted it. At a time when Zinoviev, Cross has been provided by the Spanish government with a list of fascist prisoners Kamenev, Smirnov and the other old Bolshevik friends of Nin and Maurin were who would be exchanged for Maurin. This confirms Senor Irujo’s promise that the being murdered in Moscow their counterparts in Spain were singled out for a government would be prepared to go ahead despite Communist opposition. We similar fate. Nin had, in August 1936, publicly defended them and the next wave enquired if it were true that a sister of Senor Diaz, Secretary General of the of arrests and trials were being prepared for I937. Ovseyenko arrived in Barcelona Spanish Communist Party had been exchanged for a fascist. We were informed as Russian Consul and the campaign of lies and slanders commenced in the that the Communist members of the government had pressed for an exchange publications of the Communist Party and the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia not only of his sister but of his mother also. The two women had in fact been which by now was under C.P. control. Like the old Bolsheviks back in Moscow safely exchanged for two prominent fascists in government prisons.’ the P.O.U.M. leaders were denounced as ‘agents of fascism’ who were in league with Francoll and the Stalinists forced the expulsion of Nin in December from By the middle of October 1937 international pressure had been mobilized to the regional government of the Generalitat. In May 1937 the Communists used I exert pressure on the Republican government to save the life of Maurin by I I their own troops and the police, (which by now they controlled through their agreeing to an exchange for a fascist prisoner. Negrin, Giral and other prominent nominee) to attack the headquarters of the telephone exchange which, since the members of the government committed themselves to an exchange outbreak of the war had been a P.O.U.M. and C.N.T. stronghold, held and The International Red Cross, the International Parliamentary Union and the administered by a workers’ committee. The attacks upon P.O.U.M. and its British and French Foreign Offices all agreed to use their good offices for the 1.: leaders by Russian controlled communist agents has been well chronicled in arrangement and similar pressure was put on Franco, who agreed that Maurin Orwell’s ‘HOMAGE TO CATALONIA’. 12 would not be sentenced without a trial. This was a tacit acceptance of the idea of an exchange. Communist Party pressure was exerted in the opposite direction, The warrants for the arrest of the P.O.U.M. leaders were signed by the Communist some of it being ruthless in its opportunism. C.P. newspapers began to print some Party Director General of Security, Colonel Ortega. He was compelled to sign of Maurin’s writings which had criticised the theoretical position of the Anarchists. them under pressure from Orlov the Russian N.K.V.D. Chief in Spain and he was I. This was deliberately done to alienate any sympathy which was being generated I under similar pressure from Orlov not to inform his superior, the Minister of the inside the C.N.T. but was a strange contrast to the C.P. propaganda which had Interior, of the events in advance. Nin himself was arrested by NKVD agents and equated P.O.U.M. and the Anarchists with plotting support for the fascists. ’._ taken to a secluded and private NKVD prison which was a large house on Spanish II territory. Hernandez has told the story of Nin’s torture and of the attempts to Nothing came of this attempt at an exchange; that was to be expected. Shortly extort a confession from him. A physical wreck from the beatings and inhuman I afterwards Irujo was deposed from his office as Minister of Justice as a result -I treatment, Nin still held out, no confession was extracted and he died under torture. His body was never found but the men who butchered him lived long of Communist Party pressure and he appeared as a witness for the defence when enough to defect and tell the truth. Diaz, Secretary General of the Spanish Com- the P.O.U.M. leaders were tried in Barcelona. =__.__=_:T.|-==-1.-_—=__ I munist Party died in Moscow after ‘falling from a window’ and he spoke of the I actions against Nin and P.O.U.M. as his ‘spiritual death’ P.O.U.M. leaders who Maurin’s life was saved by his early capture by the I’rHI1C0fOTC@S- AI H tilm.‘ when II the Communist Party was producing faked ‘evidence’ that P.O.U.M. was in I I had been arrested were tried and the charges of espionage were withdrawn; the r prisoners were cleared but the judgement was never allowed to be published by league with Franco (and leading members of the Spanish Communist Party have I‘. i. since provided the evidence of the faking) it would have been fatal to release the the censors of the Negrin government. Largo Caballero had by now been driven I I news that Maurin had a relative in a high position in Franco territory, and this I out because he was an obstacle to Communist demands. l was hidden for many years. The only news which leaked out was that he had I I THE I.L.P. CAMPAIGN FOR MAURIN’S LIFE received a ten-year prison sentence from a fascist court.

II WNUEL MAURIN .I When the P.O.U.M. leaders were being arrested and murdered, its newspaper shut ‘I I I down and the members were being subjected to terror tactics, the I.L.P. in I Fenner Brockway has given a fascinating account of Julian Gorkin and other 14 II I Britain sent one of its M.P.’s John McGovern to investigate the situation and try ‘IiI III P.O.U.M. leaders being invited to speak at I.L.P. meetings in Britain. At a time ‘IiI I to secure the release of their comrades. McGovern met in Barcelona, Senor Irujo, II when Franco’s agents, such as the Duke of Alba, were operating here with II I’ Minister of Justice and raised with him the possible exchange of a Franco prisoner for Joaquim Maurin, who was a member of the Cortes. McGovern had a list of impunity, Gorkin and his friends were not allowed to land and they were held in 12 13

Em'—‘—‘-—?— ll I custody at Croydon airport. Brockway rushed to Croydon in an attempt to ob- their servants in the Spanish Communist Party left a deep scar upon him. The tain permission for them to stay, but he was unsuccessful and the I.L.P. had to death of Andres Nin was a blow from which he never really recovered and he be content with publishing in pamphlet form the speeches they would have made. felt deeply the betrayal of the Spanish working class movement. The Spanish When he met them in the local police station,Gorkin was accompanied by a young Revolution had been sold out and treated as an exercise in Russian foreign policy. man who so resembled Maurin that for a moment Fenner Brockway thought he When Stalin wished to make an alliance with the West he became the defender must have escaped. It was actually Maurin’s younger brother Manuel who bore of private property in Spain and butchered those who wished to carry through an astonishing likeness to him and was himself an active leader of P.O.U.M. The the revolution. Prompt and constant supplies of Russian arms could have won group was deported back to Spain and Maurin’s brother returned to the front the war at an early date, before Hitler and Mussolini had committed themselves line where he fought with valour against Franco. He was then arrested by the too deeply. Not until they were sure that Russia and the West would not give Communist Party secret police in June (the fate of so many P.O.U.M. members) assistance did they give full and complete support to Franco. When Stalin and held in a special private prison out of the hands of the Republican govern- decided that the West would not make a pact with him, he cynically decided to wind up the Spanish Civil War. He did this by cutting off supplies and withdra- ment. By this time the police and judiciary had been taken over by Communists acting under Russian NKVD instructions. wing the lnternational Brigades. Ilya Ehrenberg has since made it quite clear that Stalin lost all interest in the Spanish War and his dispatches ‘often sent under conditions of hardship and danger were mutilated, censored or not even used.’ The young Manuel Maurin was tortured and died in September 1937 at the age of 32. He had been tried by a tribunal and acquitted but he was held in a C.P. Maurin gave everything in life to the Spanish Revolution; he had a mind of jail and his release was refused. Apart from the fact that he had been branded as intellectual brilliance which could have guaranteed him a bright career in conven- an ‘enemy of the people’ no reason was advanced for holding him but it is assumed tional politics. He chose the path of self-sacrifice. In his book ‘REVOLUTION that he had been brutally treated and his injuries were such that they would have AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN SPAIN’ he made it quite clear that it was spoken for themselves had he been freed. . Russian intervention in Spanish affairs which lost them the revolution and the Civil War. ‘From the moment in which the alternative was posed (beginning in After the military victory of the Franco forces the period of retribution commenced June 1937) between the Communist Party under the orders of Moscow or the and men and women were dragged from prison to answer for their political opposing military regime (reactionary but Spanish) the outcome of the Civil War beliefs and activities. Maurin was tried again on a charge of having written his was pre-determined.’ book ‘THE SECOND REVOLUTION’ before the civil war had even commenced. This was retrospective justice, but he received a jail sentence of thirty years. In STALIN MASSACRES HIS HENCHMEN

addition he was sentenced to the loss of all civil rights and personal property; ‘F that would have little effect upon him for he owned little in the way of material The men who, under his orders, had liquidated P.O.U.M., got short shrift from .‘\ possessions. 1 Stalin. Ambassador Rosenberg who had ordered the P.O.U.M. suppression and .1 murders, perished in Moscow in the Purges. The Consul-General in Barcelona I RELEASE Antonov-Oveseyenko, who had made the arrangements for Nin’s murder fell to || the same fate. Both were to be posthumously rehibilitated by Khruschev. Orlov I He served this sentence under conditions of great hardship and deprivation, but who had been in charge of the ‘interrogation’ defected to the States rather than

after ten years and 23 days he was released in 1946. The defeat of the Axis (to return to Russia and a similar fate.15 I which Franco had lent so much support — even to the extent of sending the Blue

Division to fight on the Russian Front) was a body-blow to the unstable Franco 1 The Red Army General who had been in charge of the International Brigades, \ v regime which feared the wave of revolution which was sweeping across Europe, General Kleber, (Lazar Stern) was liquidated upon his return after being removed prodded by Russian bayonets. It looked as though Franco might fall under from his command in 1937. Skoblevsky the Brigade Commander credited with leftist pressures from France, but he survived by giving ground. Under pressure the successful defence of Madrid was given a hero1s welcome upon his return to 1 from the western powers some prisoners of the civil war were released as an Moscow. Two days after receiving the Order Of Lenin he was arrested and shot. exercise in buying time. Maurin was one of them. The privations he had endured The two leading Russian military advisers in Spain, Grigorevich from the Army had left him a tired and sick man. He was broken by the years in prison and he and Smushkevich from the Air Force were both shot in 1941 Marshal Malinovski, later described his experiences in his book ‘TEN YEARS IN FRANCO’S PRISONS’. (later to become Soviet Minister of Defence) has described in’his book ‘UNDER He later retained his initial composure and dignity but not his health. He was older; he was shattered by years of terrible imprisonment and he was no longer THE FLAG OF THE SPANISH REPUBLIC’ Moscow 1965 how he received two commands to return to Moscow but avoided both of them. He finally obeyed Y! the man described by Willy Brandt as a ‘persuasive and militant phenomenon’ l.\| in his mem()i1'3_ 15 That IS Lll'ld€1‘S'[31’1d3bI6. the third one on pain of being branded as a defector ...... when the worst wave of the current purges had passed by. \1 ll In 1947 he left Spain for France and then went on to New York to join Jeanne |l 1"‘ and his family. For many years he wrote for the paper ‘ESPANA LIBRE’ (FY86 Jose Diaz the Secretary-ueneral of the Spanish Communist Party was either murdered or committed suicide in Moscow and Jesus Hernandez Member of the Spain) but the experiences of his comrades at the hands of the Russians and 11 I 15 \ 14

| I = l Central Committee of the PartY and Minister in the Republic Government survi- foreign policy; non-revolutionary and friendly towards Britain and France. The ved in Mexico to tell the story of the duplicity and the murders. Spanish Communist Party has split and split again since 1939. Many of its lteadersﬂlsgch JesusHernadez and El Campesinohave defected and spilled the Maurin outlived them all because Franco captured him but he lived through ten Bgntsﬁ Re o. icial rump came out against the Russian invasion of Czechoslovakia years of Hell. ' an e usslans Wtallated by Opening up diplomatic relationships with Franco. Even La Passionaria has been attacked by the pro-Moscow faction for her role in the Spanish War and as the thieves fall out, honest men are coming into their own

POSTSCRIPT There can be no salvation for the Spanish people without a radical change in the economic basis_of their society. As Franco shuffles off and the gaping cracks are The Franco rebellion in the early days, (when prompt action by the government §eve.aled,.papering over them will be of little use. Only radical changes more could have nipped it in the bud) secured its ﬂanks by the friendly benevolence daérgievaftllniiﬁ than this policies of the Spanish Communist Party will be able to of Salazar’s Portugal. This fascist regime provided lines of communication, arms forei eir pro ems. Party which takes its policies and attitudes from a and ports of entry for munitions, in the vital first few weeks of the war. Portugal _ gn power and one which 1S unscrupulous enough to shape those policies in was Franco’s first and most loyal friend. its own interests will not again secure the support of the Spanish people. Maurin made the position quite clear. The Spanish people will choose even a reactionary Fascist Portugal is today crumbling as the people sweep fascism away. By a government of its own people in preference to one which, however ‘progressive’ strange irony, it was the Army which swept away the fascist government and it 1S controlled from abroad. did so because the colonial wars were draining Portugal of her blood and the more enlightened sections of the Portuguese ruling class were not prepared to pay the price for an aggressive colonial regime. In Spain it was the army based upon colonial troops who put Franco into power. If the Republic had made a declaration of independence for Morocco the Moorish troops would have been more likely to heed the voice of nationalism. Their leaders even offered to lead a rebellion if the Republic would give them guarantees of independence. The Republic was prevented from so doing by the Russians and their Communist Party satellites who at all costs wished to retain the friendship of France. The liranco-Soviet Alliance signed by Laval was the cornerstone of Russian foreign policy. Political principles mattered little and the fate of Spain counted for nothing when French friendship was at stake. Imperial France would not tolerate anti-imperialist moves and the Moors continued to conquer Spain for Franco.

Spain and the Spanish working class were butchered in the interests of Russian foreign policy. As the sole supplier of arms to the Republic, Stalin was able to dictate his own terms. His terms were strategic positions in the Republican government, the control of the security services, and oversight of foreign policy (by maintaining the pro-Communist Alvarez del Vayo in office), the smashing of the Spanish revolution and the liquidation of the revolutionary anti-Stalinist parties. To accomplish these ends he sent in his own NKVD men, his generals and his ‘advisers’. They paid a high price for being there. They paid with their lives. Stalin covered-up his tracks by execution. The prestige of Russian arms and the denial of them to the Militia fighting on other fronts, all helped to build the Spanish Communist Party. What helped it most of all was the stampeding into membership of the Spanish bourgeoisie. The only Party which could protect their private property and stave off the revolution was the Spanish Communist Party. It became a mass party — of small shopkeepers, and the middle classes. Their non-revolutionary policies gave them .he kind of membership which has joined the British Liberal Party -— mildly progressive, trendy and an anchorage of the private-enterprise system.

The domestic policies of the Spanish Communist Party were a reflection of Stalin’s 16 17 pn-

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

REFERENCES BOC Bloque Obrero y Campesino. Workers and Peasants Bloc.

1. ‘Memoirs of a Revolutionary’ Victor Serge. Oxford University Press. 1963 CNT Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo. National Labour Confederation. The Syndicalist Trade 2. ‘The Second Revolution’ Joaquim Maurin. Barcelona. 1935 Union formed in 191 1 by anarchists on the model of the French C.G.T. 3. ‘The Kronstadt Commune’ Ida Mett. Solidarity. London 1967

4. ‘I Was Stalin’s Agent’ W.G. Krivitsky. London 1939 COMINTERN The Communist International 5. ‘Que Es Y Que Quiere El Partido Obrero De Unificacion Marxista’ Barcelona. 1969 Foreward by Wilebaldo Solano. 1972 Edition. FAI Federacion Anarquista Iberica. The Federation of 6. ‘The Spanish Revolution’ Wilebaldo Solano. Independent Labour Party. 1972 Spanish Anarchists formed in 1927. A revolutionary elite which functioned like a secret society and 7. ‘Inside the Left’ Fenner Brockway. George Allen & Unwin. 1942 controlled Anarchist activities inside the C.N.T.

8. ‘La Batalla’ Paris December 1973

9. ‘The Secret History of Stalin’s Crimes’ Orlov. New York. 1953 NKVD People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. The Russian Secret Police which adopted this name in 10. ‘La Grande Trahison’ Jesus Hernandez. Fasquelle. Paris. 1953 1934 in succession to the OGPU. l 1. ‘Trotskyism in the Service of Franco’ George Soria. Lawrence & Wishart. 1937 — a typical example of Communist Party attacks in the period. PCE Partido Comunista Espanola. Spanish Communist 12. ‘Homage to Catalonia’ George Orwell. Secker & Warburg. 1938 Party.

13. ‘Terror in Spain’ John McGovern M.P. Independent Labour Party. I938 POUM Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista. 14. ‘Inside the Left’ Fenner Brockway. George Allen & Unwin. 1942 Workers Party of Marxist Unification. 15. ‘In Exile’ Willy Brandt. Germany. 1966 PSUC Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluna. The 16. ‘The Great Terror’ Robert Conquest. MacMillan. 1968 and ‘Eve of War’ Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia formed in 1936 Ilya Ehrenburg. MacGibbon and Kee. 1963. Both give details of the This is really the Communist Party under another purges of the Russians who served in Spain. name and should be regarded as a ‘front’ organization

UGT Union General de Trabajadores. General Workers’ Union which worked with the Spanish Socialist Party. Formed in 1888 on the English model.

18 19 l"'§'§'-1 7 * _

THE BASQUE COUNTRY THE NATIONAL QUESTION AND THE LIST OF PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION

by Jose Maria Arenillas PRISON LETTERS TO SOPHIE LIEBKNECHT Rosa Luxemburg MARXISM OR LENINISM This essay, written in 1937 and published in Barcelona, appears here for the first (a new translation) Rosa Luxemburg time in English translation. The author, Jose Maria Arenillas was a member of P.O.U.M. (The Spanish Workers Marxist Uniﬁcation Party) the sister party of the THE SPANISH REVOLUTON I.L.P., and like the P.O.U.M. leader Andres Nin he was murdered by the Stalinists The Life of Andres Nin Wilebaldo Solano of the Communist Party. The P.O.U.M. Central Committee in exile in Paris reprinted the essay in 1969. This English edition carries an introduction especially ROOM AT THE BOTTOM Harry Goldthorpe written by Wilebaldo Solano, editor of the P.O.U.M. newspaper ‘La Batalla’. Solano was a leader of the P.O.U.M. Youth during the Spanish civil war. WHO IS THE PRINCIPAL ENEMY? Contradictions & Struggles in Franco’s forces had almost no support in the Basque country, yet their military Northern Ireland Anders Boserup success was rapid. The reasons for this lay in the differences in the social forces which opposed Franco. The very completeness of the ‘opposition’ meant that it WOMEN IN REBELLION ~ 1900 contained very different elements, the P.N.V. (the traditional Basque Nationalist Two views on Class, Socialism Party), for example, was in origin an anti-working class, racist and clerical party. and Liberation Mrs. Wibaut and The proposals of its main theoretician, Sabino Aranza, for the tratment of Lily Gair Wilkinson immigrants from other parts of Spain read like a draft of the Nazi Nuremburg Laws. It is not surprising that its alliance with working class forces was a weak THE IMPLICATIONS OF STUDENT one. UNREST N.A.T.O. THE WORKERS’ NEXT STEP Alistair Graham

THE SPANISH REVOLUTION THE BASQUE COUNTRY THE LIFE OF ANDRES NIN The National Question and the Socialist Revolution Jose Maria Arenillas

by Wilebaldo Solano STATE OWNERSHIP, WORKERS’ CONTROL AND SOCIALISM Walter Kendall

This pamphlet covers the political career of Andres Nin, one of the key figures in ‘ ll. JOAQUIM MAURIN 1893-1973 the Spanish Revolutionary Marxist movement. Born in 1892, Nin learned his The Life & Death of a Spanish politics in Russia and the international revolutionary movement. In 1930 after a Revolutionary Don Bateman struggle he left Moscow and returned to Spain where he was instrumental in founding P.O.U.M. (The Spanish Workers Marxist Unification Party). At the height of the Spanish Revolution Nin was arrested by the Stalinists tortured L Best Trade Terms I.L.P. Square One Publications, and eventually executed. 49 Top Moor Side, Leeds LSll 9LW. Wilebaldo Solano, author of this pamphlet, is Editor of the P.O.U.M. newspaper ‘La Batalla’.