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

At dawn on Thursday, 6 May, the CNT-FAI leadership proposed a pact with the government. They offered to take down the barricades and order a return to work on condition that the assault guards were withdrawn and did not carry out reprisals. The Generalitat replied positively at five the next morning. Solidaridad Obrera made a general appeal: ‘Comrades of the government forces, back to your barracks! Comrades of the CNT, back to your unions! Comrades of the UGT and the PSUC, also to your centres! Let there be peace.’ But the communist publication El Noticiero Universal, referring to the leaflet of the Friends of Durruti, attacked ‘the criminal Trotskyism’ which had encouraged the anti-fascists of Catalonia to fight among themselves. Other communist publications also raised the temperature with similar attacks.

On Friday, 7 May 150 trucks, bringing 5,000 assault guards and carabineros, reached Barcelona. The regional committee of the CNT appealed over the radio for everyone to assist in the re-establishment of law and order. There were the odd shots, but the barricades began to be taken down. But the PSUC and the Assault Guard did not give up their positions and carried out violent reprisals against libertarians.

The libertarians had not won even a pyrrhic victory. Companys had repudiated Rodríguez Salas’s attempted seizure of the telephone building and removed Aiguader from the government, but in fact both the libertarian movement and Companys suffered a defeat, while the communists had also gained the lever they wanted to force Largo Caballero from power.

The moral outrage of the communist press knew no bounds when expressing the Party line of Trotskyist treason. This was also reflected in the reports to the Comintern in Moscow, which claimed that the disturbances had been planned well in advance. One Comintern representative claimed that the events in Barcelona were simply a ‘putsch’, and added that there were ‘very interesting documents proving the connection of the Spanish Trotskyists with Franco…The preparations for the putsch began even two months ago. This is also proved.’¹¹

‘We have succeeded in revealing close connections’, wrote another, ‘between Gestapo agents, agents of OVRA, Franco’s agents living in Freiburg, Trotskyists and Catalonian fascists. It is known that they have systematically transported weapons and machine-guns over the frontier of Catalonia and that Spanish fascists have sent valuable objects from Catalonia abroad as a payment for these weapons…The fact that the rebellion in Catalonia was quickly suppressed is regarded by fascist organs as a great failure.’¹² Another report stated, ‘There isn’t the slightest doubt that people from the POUM are working for Franco and Italian and German fascists.’¹³

At times, the Stalinist delusion appears to have developed into wishful fantasy. ‘Some most repulsive looting has started in a number of places,’ another report said. ‘Gangs of Trotskyist-bandits took all the scarce supplies that the civilian population had, and all their more or less valuable belongings. Those Spanish people who had weapons in their hands replied to this immediately. The Trotskyist traitors were literally wiped out within a few hours.’¹⁴

Orlov’s NKVD officers were sent to Barcelona to investigate and report back. They soon concocted an even more grandiose conspiracy theory of the sort which was already becoming the norm under the Stalinist terror, known in the Soviet Union as the yezhovschina, after the head of the NKVD. ‘While investigating the rebellion in Catalonia, organs of state security discovered a large organization committing espionage. In this organization Trotskyists were working in close cooperation with the fascist organization “Falange Española”. The network had its branches in army headquarters, at the war ministry, the National Republican Guard, etc. Using secret radio stations, this organization was passing to the enemy the information on the planned operations of the republican army, on the movements of troops, on the location of batteries, and directed air attacks using light signals. A plan was found on one of the members of this organization, with marked targets that fascists planned to bomb, and the following message was written in invisible ink on the reverse side of the map: “To the Generalissimo. We are able at the present time to inform you on all that we know about the situation and movements of red troops. The latest information broadcast by our radio station shows a great improvement in our information service.”’¹⁵