Thalheimer: Visita a una granja colectiva en Lérida, vuelta a París

Tuesday 2 December 1936: In the morning visited ‘Good Homeland’, about 20 kilometres from Lérida. This property consists of several thousand hectares. There are large vineyards which produced between 5000 and 6000 hectolitres of wine this year. There are timber plantations (poplars) for the paper industry, and corn fields. Even before the uprising there was a POUM rural workers’ group of around 30 members. About 150 people are employed on the farm. After the uprising the property was confiscated and collectivised. The POUM sent five people to help run the place. They have a former accountant here, a POUM member from Barcelona. The different branches of production have workers’ commissions in charge. Wine is produced using modern methods — hydraulic presses made in Germany, huge cement cisterns, distillation equipment which manufacture alcohol from hops, cooling equipment, chemical laboratories, etc. Every year between 5000 and 6000 litres of alcohol are produced.

The wages of rural workers have been raised to between seven and 10 pesetas a day. There is a shop and a café, both run by workers. The owner had built a huge church for one and a half million pesetas on the farm. This is now used as a silo. Nuns used to teach at the school, but they have been kicked out and replaced by a secular teacher.

The farm house is an old castle with a high tower, from which a view stretches far into the distance. It is very modern inside. The rural workers live in miserable little houses, each with a tiny back garden. They will be rebuilt next year. Most of the furniture stayed in the castle, excluding the material that was sent to the front — beds and so on. You get the impression that the farm is successful under the new regime too. Difficulties could arise because only a tiny amount of capital (80 000 pesetas) was confiscated along with the farm. The owner was one of the big bourgeoisie and owned some more property near Barcelona, where some of the wine from the ‘Good Homeland’ was made into sparkling wine.

The farm continues to produce the usual sparkling wine, red wine (tinto) and, from special grapes (16 to 18 grad) the so-called vino rancio, a wine which is exposed to sunlight for long periods of time. According to the farm director, it is not from wine production that the greatest return is yielded but rather from the cereal harvest. Some of the cattle were handed over for the front. The management of the farm is based on a system of mutual agreement and is directed by the Economic Council of the government. The farm has not been split up. I was told that much of the surrounding land was made up of similar large businesses, and that it was unnecessary to divide up the farm.

Tuesday evening: Left Barcelona. Reached Figueras at 12 o’clock. Left Figueras early on Wednesday morning, crossed at Port-Bou to reach Perpignan. The French customs offices are about a kilometre from Port-Bou towards Cerbère. The French Customs were obviously quite sympathetic to the cause, as there was no customs search and just a brief passport control. In the clear sunlight we could see the snow covered mountains of the Pyrenees outside Perpignan, and below them vineyards, huge timber plantations, etc. On the journey from Port-Bou to Cerbère and from Cerbère to Perpignan many of the labourers who were working on the roads and so on greeted the car with a clenched fist. Reached Perpignan at 2.43. Paris Thursday morning at seven o’clock.