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

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СКАЧАТЬ annoyance about the fact that, since Carrillo, Cazorla and Serrano Poncela had formally joined the PCE, the JSU executive now had eleven Communists to four Socialists.138 It was hardly surprising, given the primordial role of the Soviet Union in helping the Republic, that Carrillo should express such enthusiasm for the Communist Party. It would not be long before he would clinch his betrayal of his erstwhile patron.

      In the light of Largo Caballero’s incompetence as a war leader, the PCE was increasingly determined to see his removal as Prime Minister. Within barely a month of the JSU conference, the opportunity arose with the disastrous fall of Málaga to rebel forces on 8 February. The disaster could be attributed to Largo Caballero’s mistakes as Minister of War and those of his under-secretary, General José Asensio Torrado. By mid-May, mounting criticism had forced Largo Caballero to resign and he was replaced by the Treasury Minister, Dr Juan Negrín. An internationally renowned physiologist, the moderate Socialist Negrín shared the Communist view that priority should be given to the war effort rather than to revolutionary aspirations. An early contribution to the process of undermining Largo Caballero’s reputation was made by Carrillo when, in early March 1937, he headed a delegation from the JSU to an amplified plenum of the Central Committee of the PCE. In his speech, he was especially savage in his criticism of the POUM. What entirely undermined his constant claims about the JSU’s independence was his hymn of praise to the Communist Party. Moreover, the way he referred to his pride in leaving past mistakes behind must have galled Largo Caballero: ‘Finally, we found this party and this revolutionary line for which we have fought all our life, our short life. We are not ashamed of our past, in our past there is nothing deserving of reproach, but we are proud to have overcome all the mistakes of the past and to be today militants of the glorious Communist Party of Spain.’ His remarks on his reasons for joining the PCE were even more devastating for Largo Caballero. He referred to ‘those who, when the rebels were nearing Madrid, set off for Valencia’. He went on to say that ‘many of those who today are attacking the JSU were among those who fled’.139

      Despite the prominence that came with his earlier position in the Junta de Defensa de Madrid and now as leader of the JSU, Carrillo’s role within the Spanish Communist hierarchy was a subordinate one. He accepted this, doing as he was told with relish. At that March 1937 meeting, he was made a non-voting member of the PCE’s politburo. He attended and listened but took little part in the discussions – being, as Claudín put it, ‘simply the man whose job it was to make sure that the JSU implemented party policy. He did not belong in the inner circles where the important issues were discussed and debated by the delegates of the Comintern (Palmiro Togliatti, Boris Stepanov, Ernst Gerö, Vittorio Codovila), by the top Soviet diplomatic, military and security staff and by the most prominent leaders of the PCE (José Díaz, Pasionaria, Pedro Checa, Jesús Hernández, Vicente Uribe and Antonio Mije).’ Carrillo himself believed at this stage that he was simply not trusted enough to be admitted to these top-secret meetings and was determined to achieve that trust. Accordingly, he was careful to maintain excellent relations with the Comintern representatives, especially with Togliatti and Codovila, the man he regarded as his mentor. Codovila was certainly satisfied with the progress made by his pupil.140

      The extent to which Carrillo had transformed himself into ‘his master’s voice’ was confirmed at the JSU National Committee meeting on 15–16 May 1937 – just as Largo Caballero was being removed from the government. Carrillo roundly criticized Largo Caballero’s supporters within the organization and called for their expulsion. Indeed, throughout 1937 and 1938, together with Claudín, Carrillo presided over the systematic elimination of his erstwhile Caballerista allies from the JSU. Claudín’s efforts earned him the nickname of ‘the Jack the Ripper of the JSU’ (el destripador de las juventudes). This process would return to haunt the PCE leadership at the end of the war.141

      The importance of Carrillo’s position derived from the fact that the mobilization of the male population, in which the PCE played a key role beginning with the creation of the Fifth Regiment, relied on the continued expansion of the JSU. Its members filled the ranks of the Fifth Regiment and then of the newly created Popular Army as well as those of the Republic’s rearguard security forces. For most of the time during 1937 and 1938, Carrillo devoted himself to building up the PCE’s most valuable asset. However, because he was of military age and should have been in a fighting unit, it was arranged for him to meet his obligations by spending brief periods attached to the General Staff of the commander of Fifth Army Corps, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Modesto. He claimed later to have witnessed parts of the battles of Brunete, Teruel and the Ebro. This later provoked outraged jibes by General Enrique Líster. It is almost certainly the case that any visits to the battle front were made in order to check on the JSU’s many political commissars. However, Carrillo’s subsequent attempts to fabricate an heroic military career in response to Líster’s accusations of cowardice were perhaps unnecessary. He could legitimately have argued that he had made a substantial contribution to the Republican war effort through his work in terms of the political education of the great influx of new recruits.142

      Indeed, he worked hard to bring both Republican and anarchist youth organizations under the umbrella of the JSU. At every turn, his loyalty to the Spanish Party and the Comintern was unquestionable, symbolized by the large portrait of Stalin that dominated his office. In April 1937, he drafted and presented in Paris an application for the entry of the JSU into the International Union of Socialist Youth, from which, three years earlier, he had removed the Spanish Socialist Youth (FJS). In Britain, France and other democratic countries, the Socialist youth organizations were putting pressure on their respective governments to support the Spanish Republic. It made perfect sense in terms of the Republican quest for international support for Carrillo to try to take JSU into the organization. He later claimed that the idea for this initiative was entirely his own. Since, as he later admitted, a key element of his initiative was to work towards the unity of the Socialist and Communist Youth Internationals, the idea received the approval of the KIM hierarchy. As the creation of the JSU showed, this would be the first step to a Communist take-over of the larger Socialist organization. The initiative led to the JSU being provisionally admitted to the International Union of Socialist Youth and generated the expected increase in support for the Republic.143

      He was rewarded for his loyalty by being made the object of a carefully constructed personality cult. He was referred to as the ‘undisputed leader of the youth of Spain’ and as ‘the rudder and great guide of our great Youth Federation’. On the first page of the JSU journal Espartaco, there was a photograph of Carrillo accompanied by a description of him as ‘the leader beloved of all the young masses of Spain, the solid creator of, and the key to, the unity of the JSU. He, along with the executive committee, channels with a safe and steady hand the enormous strength of the young generation that is fighting for the independence of Spain.’ In July 1938, the JSU newspaper Ahora carried a photograph under which the caption was ‘Our secretary general … beloved leader of Spanish youth, whose intelligent and selfless efforts have enabled him to lead the struggle and the labour of our country’s youth in the fight for the independence of the motherland.’ Not long afterwards, Claudín was to be found referring to Carrillo in identical terms. There was some ribaldry in other organizations about the interruptions to the war effort constituted by great public meetings in which it was not clear if the purpose was to raise the morale of the young militants or to massage Carrillo’s ego.144

      In April 1938, Franco’s forces had reached the Mediterranean and split the Republican zone in two. By the summer, the Republic was edging to defeat, with Valencia under direct threat. The Prime Minister, Juan Negrín, decided to mount a spectacular counter-offensive to stem the continual erosion of territory. To restore contact between the central zone and Catalonia, an assault across the River Ebro was planned by his chief of staff General Vicente Rojo. In the most hard-fought СКАЧАТЬ