READING THE RUNES New Perspectives on The Spanish Civil War ...

<strong>New</strong> <strong>Perspectives</strong> On The Spanish Civil WarPOUM’s governmental suppression in 1937. Tragically, thePOUM’s co-founder, Andreu Nin i Pérez (1892-1937), aprominent Catalan writer and labour figure, and conseller(minister) of justice in the revolutionary Catalan Generalitat(regional government) of 1936, was murdered by Stalinists.The appointment of an alleged and unrepentant “Trotskyite” tothe justice portfolio in Catalonia at the onset of the worstMoscow purge trials was a powerful repudiation of the claimsof the Russian authorities and must have been perceived bythe Stalin leadership with exceptional horror. While the POUMwas not Trotskyist in official terms, its anti-Stalinism kept itvery close to the Trotskyist movement, some Trotskyists foughtin its ranks, and it did not denounce Trotsky or his acolytes inthe Stalinist manner. But the full roster of POUM, Trotskyist,and anarchist victims in Spain, killed within the country, orkidnapped and liquidated elsewhere by Communists, wasprobably no more than 30 people. Trotskyist claims aboutwholesale murder of the POUM and anarchists seem to havereflected spite, in that the POUM had rejected the politicaladvice of Trotsky and his few Spanish, as well as hisinternational, followers. More important, however, both thePOUM and, unquestionably, the anarchist movement, weredeeply rooted in Catalonia and could not be done away witheasily.The third historical error, which continues to be repeated, isthe belief that Nin himself, a Soviet functionary from 1921 to1930, was a “secretary” for, or otherwise attached to the staffof, Leon Trotsky during the latter’s period of stateresponsibilities. 3 Nin occupied a high post in the RedInternational of Labor Unions (Profintern) as well as serving inthe leading structures of the CI and the Spanish CommunistParty. During the internal struggle in the Russian CommunistParty (Bolsheviks) he became a member of an InternationalCommission of the Oppositional Center, but did not workdirectly with or under Trotsky. Victor Serge recalled, “InMoscow I took part in the International Commission set up bythe Oppositional Centre, together with [Grigori] Zinoviev’sspokesman [Moisei Markovich] Kharitonov, Fritz Wolf (whosoon capitulated, which did not stop him being shot in 1937),Andrés Nin, the Bulgarian Lebedev (or Stepanov, a clandestineOppositionist who betrayed us and later worked as aComintern agent during the revolution in Spain) and two orthree other militants whose names I have forgotten.” 4115