The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939

In Barcelona the population was by now on the edge of starvation. The ration, if obtainable, was down to about 100 grams of lentils per day as winter approached. People collapsed from hunger in the bomb-scarred streets and diseases such as scurvy increased. The propaganda broadcasts sounded increasingly hollow to their ears. They kept going only because there seemed to be no alternative. Workers weak from lack of food carried on in factories with virtually no electricity or raw materials for the same reason that the army kept fighting: it was less painful than thinking about the consequences of stopping.

In late November and early December Negrín’s government issued more mobilization decrees. They served little purpose because there were no spare weapons. Many of the new conscripts went home again, despite the shooting of deserters. Only a tiny proportion were caught because the administration was unable to cope with the new intake.

Even the army, where morale was usually higher than in the rearguard, looked beaten before the battle of Catalonia began, though this did not mean that they could not once again astonish the enemy with actions of brilliant and ferocious resistance. Apart from having lost some 75,000 men on the Ebro, the republican forces in Catalonia had little equipment left. The Army of the Ebro and the Army of the East, with an estimated total strength of more than a quarter of a million men, were left with only 40 tanks, fewer than 100 field guns, 106 aircraft (of which only about a half were serviceable, due to a shortage of spare parts) and only 40,000 rifles to face the nationalist onslaught.

Soviet advisers, meanwhile, appear to have been taking things easily. Perhaps they thought that with the Republic’s imminent defeat, they would not be in Spain for much longer and should therefore enjoy their ‘holiday’ while they could. ‘Things are still the same with me,’ an interpreter wrote home, ‘that is, things are very good. I’ve turned into an inveterate gambler (dominoes), we play “goat” in the evenings. We listen to the gramophone…My appetite clearly isn’t normal (it is too great)…One takes a nap after lunch, for an hour or two, that’s why I’ve put on weight…I am reading a lot here.’¹⁹

Negrín, however, was thinking about the future, but not discussing anything with his ministers. As Gerö pointed out to Dimitrov, ‘the ministers complain that they cannot see Negrín and cannot resolve questions about their departments with him.’²⁰ In fact, Negrín appears to have been seeing only leading communists and Soviet officials. In an interview on 17 November with Marchenko, the Soviet chargé d’affaires, Negrín raised ‘the question of our neighbouring workers in Spain’, a euphemism for the NKVD. He said that ‘a connection between Comrade Kotov and his workers with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the SIM was inexpedient. He proposed that Comrade Kotov maintain an indirect connection with him, Negrín, because he is creating a special apparatus attached to him. The fact that Negrín, who is always extremely delicate with regard to our people, considered it necessary to make such a remark undoubtedly indicates the great pressure on him from the Socialist Party, the anarchists and especially the agents of the Second International concerning the “interference” of our people in police and counter-intelligence work.’²¹

At another meeting on 10 December, Negrín outlined his far from democratic vision, which was entirely in agreement with communist policy. He had discussed with Díaz and Uribe the idea of ‘a united national front, which seemed to him to be a sort of distinctive new party. This idea came to him after he lost faith in the possibility of uniting the socialist and communist parties…The most that might be expected is that the Socialist Party will be absorbed by the Communist Party at the end of the war.’ Negrín realized that to ‘depend on the Communist Party is unfavourable from the international standpoint. The existing republican parties have no future. The Popular Front does not have a common discipline and is torn apart by inter-party struggle. What is needed, therefore, is an organization that would unify all that is best in all of the parties and organizations and would represent a fundamental support of the government…There is no returning to the old parliamentarism; it will be impossible to allow the “free play” of parties as it existed earlier, for in this case the right might once again force its way into power. This means that either a unified political organization or a military dictatorship is necessary. He does not see any other way.’²² Negrín’s plan for a ‘National Front’ party was more or less a left-wing counterpart to what Franco had achieved with his Movimiento Nacional.

The Fall of Catalonia