The Last Stalinist: The Life of Santiago Carrillo. Paul Preston

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СКАЧАТЬ he was already a Communist in all but name. In 1974, he admitted that, on his return from Moscow, ‘I had begun to become a Communist. I did not join the Party immediately, although I began to collaborate with the Communists and was even invited to take part in meetings of the Central Committee. I had not yet joined because I was still hopeful of bringing about the unification of the Socialist and Communist parties.’55

      The procedure whereby the new executive committee of the JSU was appointed in September 1936 was extremely opaque. There were fifteen members, of whom seven were Communists, although several of the eight Socialists were so close to the PCE as made little difference. Carrillo became secretary general of an organization that, despite its name, constituted a massive advance of Communist influence.56 Those who perceived the creation of the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas as the loss of the FJS to the Third International coined the nickname ‘Juventudes Socialistas Urssificadas’ (USSR in Spanish being URSS).57

      When the military coup in Spain began on 18 July, Carrillo was in Paris where he had gone with Trifón Medrano and José Laín Entralgo to discuss with Raymond Guyot, the secretary general of the Communist Youth International, the problems posed by the meeting in Madrid with the comical German woman delegate of the Comintern, Carmen. In his memoirs, he recounted his heroic response to hearing of the military coup. In this version, for which there is no corroboration, all three immediately set off for the border. Crossing into Spain at Irún, they headed for San Sebastián and immediately got involved in an assault on an hotel where some rebel supporters had barricaded themselves in. Later, in a vain effort to reach Madrid, Carrillo and his companions spent some weeks fighting on the Basque front with a unit organized by the Basque Communist Party. Being extremely short-sighted, Carrillo was anything but a natural soldier. Eventually, they were able to cross into France and then back into Spain via Puigcerdà. The Communist veteran Enrique Líster claimed that the entire account was pure invention and that, during this period, Carrillo remained in Paris. Whatever the truth, it is clear that already, in those early weeks of the war, he was convinced that the only party with the sense of direction to take control of events was the PCE.58

      When he got back to Madrid at the beginning of August, the JSU was already trying to turn its pre-war militia structure into proper fighting units. Carrillo claims that he was made political commissar of the JSU’s ‘Largo Caballero’ battalion which was fighting in defence of the city in the sierras to the north. His heroic picture of that period of his life is somewhat undermined by Manuel Tagüeña, a much more reliable witness, who suggested that Carrillo was involved in political rivalries that undermined the efforts of the Italian Fernando De Rosa to link the various units.59 Certainly, his military career, if it took place at all, was brief. Given the vertiginous growth of the JSU, it was clear that Carrillo could be of most use in a political rather than a military capacity.

      The JSU was being inundated with new recruits and soon had more militants than the adult membership of the PSOE and PCE combined.60 At every level of society, the economy and the war effort, in industry and the nascent armed forces, JSU members were playing a key role. Accordingly, Carrillo was now working in Madrid on the practicalities of consolidating Communist control over this powerful new instrument. After prolonged hesitation, on 4 September 1936 Largo Caballero finally succumbed to Prieto’s arguments that the survival of the Republic required a cabinet backed by the working-class parties as well as the bourgeois Republicans. A true Popular Front government was formed in which Largo Caballero was both Prime Minister and Minister of War. It contained Communists as well as Socialists and Republicans. Two months later, on 4 November, with the Nationalist rebels already at the gates of Madrid, four representatives of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT would also join the cabinet.

      By then, rebel air raids were intensifying. Far from undermining the morale of the Madrileños, they did the opposite and provoked a deep loathing of the self-styled ‘Nationalists’. Virtually every left-wing political party and trade union had established squads to eliminate suspected fascists. With their tribunals, their prisons and their executioners, they were known loosely as checas. Their targets were those assumed to be rebel supporters within the capital. This included both imprisoned and as yet undetected right-wingers, all of whom in the frantic conditions of the besieged capital were indiscriminately regarded as ‘fifth columnists’. The name was inadvertently coined by General Mola, who in early October had infamously stated that he had four columns poised to attack Madrid but that the attack would be initiated by a fifth column already inside the city.61 On the basis of the massacres perpetrated in southern Spain by Franco’s African columns, it was believed that the rebels planned to kill anyone who had been a member of any party or group linked to the Popular Front, held a government post or was an affiliate of a trade union. Spine-chilling broadcasts from Seville made by General Gonzalo Queipo de Llano propagated fear and hatred.

      In the claustrophobia generated by the siege, popular rage focused on the prison population. Among those detained were many who were considered potentially very dangerous. As rebel columns came ever nearer to the capital throughout October, there was growing concern about the many experienced right-wing army officers who had refused to honour their oath of loyalty to the Republic. These men boasted that they would form new units for the rebel columns once they were, as they expected, liberated. Anarchist groups were already randomly seizing prisoners and shooting them. On 4 November, Getafe to the south of Madrid fell and the four anarchist ministers joined the government. Advancing through the University City and the Casa de Campo, by 6 November the rebels were only 200 yards from the largest of the prisons, the Cárcel Modelo, in the Argüelles district.

      In this context, the decision that Largo Caballero’s cabinet should leave for Valencia was finally taken in the early afternoon of 6 November. The two Communist ministers in the government, Jesús Hernández (Education) and Vicente Uribe (Agriculture), had argued the Party line that, even if the government had to be evacuated, Madrid could still be defended.62 General José Miaja Menent, head of the 1st Military Division, that is to say, Military Governor of Madrid, was placed in charge of the defence of the capital and ordered to establish a body, to be known as the Junta de Defensa, which would have full governmental powers in Madrid and its environs. In fact, Largo Caballero and the fleeing cabinet believed that the capital was doomed anyway. In their view, the Junta was there merely to administer its surrender. Indeed, when Largo Caballero informed him of his new responsibilities, Miaja turned pale, sure that he was being sacrificed in a futile gesture.63 Whether or not that was the intention, Madrid would survive the siege for another twenty-nine months.

      Until the battle for the capital was resolved, Miaja’s awesome task was to organize the city’s military and civil defence at the same time as providing food and shelter for its citizens and the refugees who thronged its streets. In addition, he had to deal with the violence of the checas and the snipers and saboteurs of the ‘fifth column’.64 The Junta de Defensa would thus be a localized mini-government made up of ‘ministers’ (whose title was Councillor – Consejero) chosen from all those parties that made up the central government. However, Miaja would turn first to the Communists in search of help. And they were ready and waiting.

      The two Communist ministers had immediately reported the cabinet’s decision to the PCE top brass, Pedro Fernández Checa and Antonio Mije. They were effectively leading the Party in the frequent absences of the secretary general, José Díaz, who was seriously ill with stomach cancer. Pedro Checa was already collaborating closely with the NKVD.65 The implications were discussed and plans made. Astonishingly, present at this historic meeting were Santiago Carrillo and José Cazorla, who were both, СКАЧАТЬ