Etiqueta: Partido Comunista de España

  • Nace el semanario La Batalla de Joaquín Maurín, «periódico del Sindicalismo revolucionario»

    El 21 de diciembre de 1922 … nació en Barcelona “La Batalla”, bajo la dirección de Maurín. En su presentación se decía: “”La Batalla” no es ni comunista ni anarquista es el periódico del Sindicalismo revolucionario”. Una nueva etapa se iniciaba. Barcelona era la Meca del anarcosindicalismo. “La Batalla” se abrió paso; lentamente fue ensanchando su influencia, penetró en las barriadas obreras. Poco a poco se constituyeron Comités Sindicalistas Revolucionarios en el seno de los sindicatos confederales.

  • Detenidos Maurín y el comité ejecutivo del PCE

    A mediados de enero de 1925 se detuvo a Maurín. Perseguido a tiros por la policía, fue herido de bala en una pierna. Conducido a Montjuic, ocupó el calabozo donde estuvo Francisco Ferrer (i Guardia). Unos meses después intentó evadirse. Pero, al caerse en el recinto, la herida de la pierna se reblandeció y no pudo andar. Fue detenido de nuevo. Con la detención de Kim, “La Batalla” fue suspendida por las autoridades.

  • La vuelta de Andrés Nin desde Moscú, entrismo trotskista

    In September 1930, [Andrés] Nin returned [from Moscow] to Barcelona… [Joaquín] Maurín hoped that he would enter the new party [Bloque Obrero y Campesino]. But Nin, with all the friendship that linked him to Maurín and the sympathy he felt for the new party, was too closely tied to Trotsky. The latter demanded that his Spanish followers preserver their identity and continue working within the official P.C.E., under the banner of the «Communist Opposition.»

    On October 23 1930, Nin wrote to Trotsky his impressions following his return to Spain. Excerpts from their correspondence, as translated and circulated by Trotsky’s «secretariat,» included Nin’s observations:

    Now we have: 1) the official [Communist] party [PCE], which has no effective force and no authority among the masses; 2) the Communist federations of Catalonia and Valencia, which have been excluded from the party and which, in reality, together with the most influential groups of [Asturias] and a few other places, constitute in fact an independent party; 3) the Catalan Communist Party [Partit Comunista Català], which has a good elite leadership, counts on a certain influence among the dock workers of Barcelona and dominates the workers’ movement in Lérida; and 4) the Left Opposition (Trotskyist) [Izquierda Comunista de España]. The latter has no force in Catalonia.

    A week later (November 12), Nin wrote to Trotsky regarding Maurín, who, «notwithstanding his hesitations, is very intelligent, and above all, a very honest comrade.» «La Batalla» seemed to him to be «confusionist» and he hoped Maurín would soon become a Trotskyist…

    At the end of December 1930, Nin also found himself in the Model Prison, arrested after the general strike in Barcelona…, and he wrote … an article for «L’Hora,» in which he defended the same point of view as Maurín on the necessity of the proletariat completing the bourgeois-democratic revolution.

    Nin found himself … between a rock and a hard place: he wanted to enter the party that was being set up, and he knew that within it he would find a good place, but at the same time, out of loyalty to Trotsky, he felt this entry should be undertaken to conquer the new party and convert it into a Trotskyist organization.

  • Como llenar el vacío dejado por la desaparición del poder constituido

    El 18 de juliol em trobava a Barcelona. De tant en tant em torno a preocupar quan llegeixo presentacions d’aquells fets històrics radicalment contràries a les que es van divulgar durant els quaranta anys del franquisme. Cap dels dos extrems no és veritat. El que va passar … consistia en la desaparició del poder constituït. Desapareixen els ressorts d’ordre públic. Trontolla el sistema judicial. A Barcelona s’apoderen del carrer els «incontrolats». La CNT s’apodera de les armes dels arsenals militars; els anarquistes es fan els amos del carrer. Les autoritats es converteixen en un factor purament nominal. El president Companys es posa al costat de les organitzacions obreres en armes, tot confiant que de mica en mica aniran entrant en la legalitat que els proposava mantenir formalment a través de la seva persona.

    La gent que no pot fer res més es queda a casa i acumula provisions per alimentar-se el major temps possible. Els que tenien capacitat econòmica i oportunitat de marxar, se’n van anar. Dintre d’aquest últim grup hi poso els polítics. La major part de polítics caracteritzats, inclosos els d’esquerra, van desaparèixer. Posteriorment, van ser nomenats ambaixadors, comissionats a l’estranger, delegats, etc. En alguns casos van tornar un cop aclarida la situacio.

    Va emergir la figura de Tarradellas, perquè era el polític que al moment de la insurrecció militar es va posar materialment a la disposició del president Companys. Eren adversaris, però no disposava de cap altre polític a les seves ordres. La situació dels dos personatges durant els primers mesos va ser tremenda. Havien de formar govern–sense portar fusell ni pistola–amb els que en portaven. Anaven amb barret i corbata, quan l’uniforme del moment era la granota (o «mono»). Els podien matar allà mateix en qualsevol moment, i ho sabien.

    Van matar molta gent. Assassinaven la llibertat en nom de la llibertat; s’abandonaven els principis morals en nom dels principis morals; es barrejaven el coratge i la covardia… Es van produir aquests fenomens estranyíssims de matar per gust, de matar per matar, per satisfer els instints més baixos de determinades persones…

    El Partit Comunista, prácticament inexistent abans d’esclatar la guerra a Catalunya, es va erigir en el partit de l’ordre, de l’autoritat. La gent va desitjar que arribessin els comunistes, que manessin i es fessin obeir.

  • Companys deniega permiso a los anarquistas para conmemorar el aniversario del inicio de la Guerra Civil

    Catalonian anarchists supporting the Leftist Government of Premier Dr. Juan Negrin asked leave to stage anti-Fascist rallies and parades on the first birthday of Spain’s civil war last week, but were sternly repressed. Catalonia’s President Luis Companys cared to risk no street riots among his Communist, Anarchist, Socialist and Republican supporters, and anyhow Leftist Spain was grimly straining every resource in its first large offensive of the war.

  • Última parada de las Brigadas Internacionales en Barcelona

    Hoping to stir the League of Nations to order out the German and Italian troops in Franco’s army, Negrín sent home the International Brigades. On November 15, the foreign volunteers who were still alive paraded through Barcelona, while Negrín gave them thanks and La Pasionaria saluted them: «You can go proudly! You are history! You are legend!» Mussolini in response withdrew some Italian soldiers but left the majority in Spain. Hitler heeded Franco’s pleas for more arms on condition that Germany get critical Spanish mining rights.

  • Los líderes republicanos escapan del hambre, los campos, las ejecuciones

    SPAIN: Outside, Inside

    When Miguel Primo de Rivera was dictator of Spain from 1923 to 1930 many Spanish Leftist leaders cooperated with the dictatorship even though they fundamentally opposed it. Last week those opposed to Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s regime felt safest outside the country.

    Former Republican Premier Dr. Juan Negrin, Foreign Minister Julio Alvarez del Vayo, onetime Defense Minister Indalecio Prieto, General Jose Miaja and a whole host of lesser fry were in Mexico arranging for transfers of refugees. Communist Deputy Dolores Ibarruri («La Pasionaria») and Colonel Juan Modesto were in the Soviet Union. Famed Colonel Enrique Lister, onetime stonemason, leader of Madrid’s famed Communist Fifth Regiment, was thought to be in hiding in France; openly there were President Manuel Azana, onetime Premier Jose Giral, General Vicente Rojo, onetime Premier Francisco Largo Caballero, Catalonian President Luis Companys, Basque President Jose Antonio de Aguirre.

    Whittling
    Also in France still were 350,000 ordinary Spanish refugees encamped en the beaches in southern France. About 90,000 of the original 500,000 refugees who crossed over the border last February have returned to Spain, and last week about 400 daily were going back to their homes. Some 9,000 former soldiers of the Spanish Republican Army have joined the French Foreign Legion and have been sent to Morocco; aviators, antiaircraft gunners, mechanics, technicians and chauffeurs are being taken into French military organizations. French arms factories have been examining daily about 250 Spanish munitions workers, and giving employment to an average of 75. Two shiploads of 1,000 refugees apiece have gone from France to Mexico, and a third ship carrying several thousand is scheduled to leave this week. Mexico expects to take about 20,000 Spanish refugees this summer. The Basques have also chartered a ship to take their refugees to Mexico, Colombia and Chile.

    Little by little the number of refugees was being whittled down, but not fast enough to suit the French Government, which last week announced that it had spent $20,000,000 so far on the care and feeding of the Spanish refugees. In that expense lies, incidentally, the reason why France has been reluctant to return to Generalissimo Franco the $200,000,000 in gold which the former Republican Government left in French banks. The French have let it be known that they expect the Spanish refugee problem to be solved by September in one way or another.

    Justice
    While France made every effort to persuade the former Loyalists to go back home, much of the news that filtered through the tightly censored French-Spanish frontier was not calculated to encourage mass reentry. Eighteen permanent tribunals were said to be working in Madrid trying Loyalists; there were said to be 500 arrests in Barcelona and Madrid daily; 2,000 awaited trials in Madrid alone; 688 have been executed; 20,000 were in a concentration camp near Alicante. Although there were accusations still outstanding against 1,000,000 persons in former Loyalist territory, the police appealed to the public for more denunciations of those guilty of crimes against Rightists. It was calculated it would take another year before the dockets were cleared and Spain could do without her military tribunals.

    Relief
    A greater tale of woe was brought back from Spain to the U. S. last week by Alfred Cope, regional director in southeastern Spain of the American Friends Service Committee, the Quaker relief organization. Mr. Cope believed that some 500,000 Loyalist supporters were in concentration camps; he thought that at least 70,000 Italian troops remained in Spain, despite stories of withdrawals; he told one story of 20,000 Loyalist troops imprisoned in a bullring in Ciudad Real for 20 days with little food and not much water.

    More serious and more detailed were Mr. Cope’s charges that the Franco regime had seized six or seven shiploads of food that the Quakers sent to Spain for 100,000 half-starved children. As far as he could find out, the food went to the Army. In Murcia, he said, he turned over to the Spanish Social Auxiliary, the official Spanish relief organization, enough food to last the 1,000 children they were feeding there a month and three days. It was all gone in ten days.

    «While the food lasted, moreover, the official orders in the clinic were that the children had to sing the Franco Nationalist songs before they were fed,» said Mr. Cope. «We never asked them to sing Loyalist songs when the Loyalists held that territory, and we do not now like to ask them to sing Nationalist songs in thanksgiving for our food.»

    Upshot of the difficulties in Spain, Mr. Cope announced, was that the Quakers were pulling out. «It would simply be dishonest to continue in Spain to spend the money being collected abroad for this children’s relief,» he said. «Franco has assured us he would like to have us continue the work until we are ready to retire, but it is evident that he wants the food, not us. There is no way of being sure where the food is likely to go.»

    Oath
    Meanwhile, in Burgos, Generalissimo Franco moved to set up a «corporate state» on the model of Fascist Italy. A $70,000,000 subsidy was set aside to build up a merchant fleet to «display New Spain’s prestige in America and the Far East.» Curtailment of imports of gasoline, motor cars, machinery, motion picture films was announced. Syndical labor laws were ordered written, with labor unions being organized on the approved Fascist model. Strikes will be outlawed, the unions will be controlled by the Government. New contracts will be written for tenant farming, and the Spanish Phalanx’s program for redistribution of some large estates will be carried out.

    That the state will be a strictly authoritarian one could not be doubted after the oath which was sprung last week on the members of the Grand Council of the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista, the new Fascist substitute for Parliament. Raimundo Fernandez Cuesta, secretary general of Spain’s only party, demanded «blind obedience» to Generalissimo Franco, ended by proposing an oath: «We proclaim our inflexible will to obey unconditionally the orders of our Caudillo. As proof of that sacred promise, let the Councillors of the Falange swear with me before God always to obey the Caudillo and those who receive from him the power of commandment.» The Councillors swore.

  • Reacción barcelonesa a la Matanza de Atocha

    Protest Killing
    Workers On Strike in Madrid, Barcelona
    MADRID Spain (AP) – More than 65,000 workers went on strike in Madrid and Barcelona today to protest the machine gun killing of four leftists by gunmen believed to be rightist extremists.

    […]

    Some 30,000 workers at the Barcelona SEAT plant, Spain’s largest automaker, also went on strike to protest the attack on the lawyer’s office.

    […]

    The raid capped a day of violence in Madrid during which leftists [GRAPO] kidnaped a three-star general [Emilio Villaescusa] and a young woman [Maria Luz Najera] was killed in a clash between police and demonstrating students.