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

16 A project of close collaboration between the PSOE and the Spanish Communist Party was first put forward by Ramón Lamoneda on 26 December 1936. This proposal consisted of creating a joint supervisory committee. See Graham, Socialism and War, p. 75.

17 Treball, 22 December, 1936. For the food supply situation in Barcelona, see E. Ucelay da Cal, La Catalunya populista. Imatge, cultura i politica en l’etapa republicana 1931–1939, Barcelona, 1982.

18 Treball, 8 April 1937.

19 Solidarid Obrera, 8 April 1937.

20 La Batalla, 11 April 1937.

21 See L. Trotsky, La revolución española 1930–1940, Barcelona, 1977, vol. i, p. 333.

22 Elorza and Bizcarrondo, Queridos camaradas, p. 364.

CHAPTER 23: The Civil War within the Civil War

1 See J. Pous and J. M. Solé, Anarquia i república a la Cerdanya (1936–1939), Barcelona, 1988.

2 Many suspected that the killing was a communist provocation, arguing that Roldán Cortada objected to the PSUC attacks against the CNT and the POUM. See Thomas, The Spanish Civil War, 2003, p. 635; José Peirats, Los anarquistas en la crisis política española, Buenos Aires, 1964, pp. 241–3; and Felix Morrow, p. 87.

3 Bolloten, p. 557.

4 ‘Kein Wagen, der nicht zur CNT gehörte dürfte passieren und mehr als 200 Polizisten and Sturmgardisten wurden entwaffnet’ (12 May 1937, RGASPI 495/120/259, p. 4).

5 Orwell, Homage to Catalonia.

6 García Oliver’s address was astonishingly emotional and sentimental. He spoke twice of bending over the dead ‘to kiss them’. The libertarian rank and file referred scornfully to his speech as ‘the legend of the kiss’.

7 Gabriele Ranzato says that Berneri and Barbieri were killed probably by communists, but that one cannot rule out the theory of García Oliver that they might have been killed by agents of Mussolini’s secret police, the OVRA (L’eclessi della democrazia, p. 453). The simultaneous killing of prominent Catalan anarchists would, however, suggest that these crimes were more likely to have been the work of communists.

8 In an interview with John Brademas, Anarcosindicalismo y revolución…, p. 246.

9 Casanova, De la calle al frente, p. 222.

10 Personal account of Hidalgo de Cisneros in Bolloten, p. 570.

11 RGASPI 495/74/204, p. 129.

12 RGASPI 495/120/259, p. 117.

13 Ibid., p. 118.

14 RGASPI 495/120/261, p. 4.

15 Ibid., p. 6.

16 Faupel to Wilhelmstrasse, 11 May 1937, DGFP, p. 286.

17 For the establishment of republican justice in the face of revolutionary disorder see Franc¸ois Godicheau, La guerre d’Espagne. République et Révolution en Catalogne (1936–1939), Paris, 2004. Of the 3, 700 ‘anti-fascist prisoners’ still in jail in January 1939, 90 per cent were from the CNT-FAI.

18 The Pueblo Español (Montjuich), Vandellós, L’Hospitalet de l’Infant, Omelles de na Gaia, Concabella, Anglesrola and Falset. Franc¸ois Godicheau, ‘Los hechos de mayo de 1937 y los “presos antifascistas”: identificación de un fenómeno represivo’ in Historia social, n. 44, 2002, pp. 39 and 55, and La guerra civil a Catalunya (1936–1939) vol. ii, pp. 212ff.

19 JoséDíaz, Tres años de lucha, p. 433.

20 Helen Graham argues convincingly that the Spanish Communist Party and the republicans had worked closely together, with the joint aim of opposing Largo Caballero (Socialism and War, p. 91).

21 Ibid., pp. 100–2.

22 RGASPI 17/120/263, p. 32.

23 The other main portfolios were José Giral, minister of state; Bernardo Giner de los Ríos, public works; and Jaime Aiguader, minister of work and public assistance.

24 Diarios completos, pp. 959–60.

25 For the POUM and the Nin affair see Francesc Bonamusa, Andreu Nin y el movimiento comunista en España(1930–1937), Barcelona, 1977, and Elorza and Bizcarrondo, Queridos camaradas.

26 Diarios completos, p. 1054.

27 Diego Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos la guerra, Buenos Aires, 1940. See J. Pous and J. M. Solé, Anarquia i república a la Cerdanya (1936–1939), Barcelona, 1988.

CHAPTER 24: The Battle of Brunete

1 RGVA 33987/3/969, p. 266.

2 R. Salas Larrazábal, ‘Génesis y actuación del Ejército Popular de la República’ in Carr (ed.), Estudios sobre la República y la guerra civil española, p. 222.