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

In fact, the Spanish communists were far from happy that Largo Caballero, the man they had so recently lauded as ‘the Spanish Lenin’, was now leading the government. They reported to Moscow on 8 September that ‘despite our efforts, we were not able to avoid a Caballero government’. They had also tried, following Comintern orders, to evade being included themselves, but ‘everyone emphatically insisted on the participation of communists in the new government, and it was impossible to avoid this without creating a very dangerous situation. We are taking the necessary measures to organize the work of our ministers.’⁹

Marty, meanwhile, knew that communist power did not have to reside within the council of ministers. It lay in infiltrating the army and the police, as well as in its propaganda methods. ‘The political influence of the Communist Party has exceeded all expectations…Only our party knows what must be done. The slogans of the party are quickly taken up and reprinted by all the newspapers…Our party supplies cadres for the police…The main strength of the army has been directed towards the creation of what has become the pride of the People’s Army–the 5th Regiment of the militia. The 5th Regiment, enjoying well-deserved military glory, numbers 20,000 warriors. All the commanders of the regiment are communists.’ The aptly named Comrade Checa, the party official responsible for the army and the police, gave ‘directives for conducting the interrogation of those under serious arrest’.¹⁰

President Azaña, who remained as a figurehead of liberal parliamentarianism, objected to the inclusion of communists in the government, but Azaña was increasingly isolated and Caballero’s will prevailed. The two communist ministers accepted their posts only after instructions to do so from Moscow. Jesús Hernández became minister of education and Vicente Uribe was given the agriculture portfolio; Alvarez del Vayo, whom Largo Caballero did not yet know to be a communist supporter, became foreign minister.

Caballero’s government also included three of his left socialist supporters and Prieto with two of his social-democrat followers, one of whom, the future prime minister Juan Negrín, became minister of finance. Largo Caballero kept the ministry of war for himself and gave Prieto the air force and the navy. There were also two republican left ministers (one of whom was José Giral), one Catalan Esquerra, one Basque nationalist and two representatives of the centrist Republicans.¹¹

Caballero had invited his old rivals, the anarchists, to join the governing coalition to broaden the representation of the anti-nationalist groups. The anarchists made the counter-proposal (which was not accepted) of a National Defence Council with Largo Caballero as president, five CNT members, five from the UGT, four liberal republicans and no communists. Such a structure was no more than a euphemism for government and thus a sop to their conscience. They had tacitly admitted the necessity of central co-ordination and collaboration in conventional war. No anarchists, however, joined the government.

The committees started to be given new names and, although most of the original delegates stayed on, they gradually submitted to control from above. A new form of political parity also crept into the municipal councils which replaced the local committees. This distorted their reflection of local political strengths, especially in Catalonia, and assisted the communists, who gained more representation than the actual size of their following justified.

In Valencia the Popular Executive Committee, which had so contemptuously waved aside Martínez Barrio’s delegation from the previous Madrid government, acknowledged the new one on 8 September. But the Comintern envoys were furious when a ‘very popular anarchist from Valencia’ declared at a mass meeting in Madrid on 25 September, ‘There is one party that wants to monopolize the revolution. If that party continues its policy, we have decided to crush it. There is a foreign ambassador in Madrid [the Soviet envoy, Marcel Rosenberg] who is interfering in Spanish affairs. We warn him that Spanish affairs concern only the Spanish.’¹²

The effective administration in Catalonia, the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias, merged with the Generalitat in a new government on 26 September. It was led by Josep Tarradellas and all the workers’ organizations and all the parties of the Popular Front were represented. This brought together the anarchist CNT, the communist PSUC and the anti-Stalinist POUM. It marked the first outright acceptance of government by the anarchists. They compromised their principles because they knew that the Madrid government would otherwise continue to starve their self-managed collectives of credits and currency for raw materials.