As many disillusioned communists later acknowledged, the greater the lie, the greater the effect, because only a committed anti-communist could disbelieve it. The Spanish Republic was infected by the grotesque Stalinist paranoia of the NKVD, yet some Russian historians have recently argued that events in Spain also served to accelerate the ‘mincing machine’ of the Great Terror back in the Soviet Union. In any case, faced with the barrage of communist lies, any question of republican unity was now dead, whatever the gains in central government control and the restoration of military discipline.
Franco was, of course, delighted with the turn of events in Barcelona, even though the nationalists had not profited from it in military terms. He claimed in an empty boast to Faupel that ‘the street fighting had been started by his agents’, and Nicolás Franco also told the German ambassador that ‘they had in all some thirteen agents in Barcelona’.16
The virtual collapse of CNT and POUM influence allowed the judicial system in Catalonia to be reorganized. Joan Comorera, the communist councillor of justice, introduced Special Popular Tribunals, which were more like military tribunals. The following month, under the authority of the central government, a Special Tribunal for Espionage and High Treason was set up. Of the many thousands accused of taking part in the ‘events of May’ and arrested, 94 per cent were freed by the ordinary popular tribunals, but only 57 per cent by Comorera’s variety.17 At the same time, there were many political prisoners locked up with the common prisoners. Others were detained by the communist-run counter-intelligence service, the DEDIDE, which became the Servicio de Investigación Militar. They were held in a number of secret prisons, including the Palacio de las Misiones, Preventorio C (the ‘Seminario’), Preventorio G (convent of the Damas Juanas), as well as the state prison on the Calle Déu i Mata. There were also labour camps holding 20,000 prisoners.18
While the communists blamed the disturbances on ‘Trotskyist-Fascist’ provocations, the CNT and the POUM accused the PSUC of having planned the attack on the Telefónica to provoke a revolt and crush their opponents. The timing was perfect for the communists, by then desperate to get rid of Caballero and longing to crush anarchist power in Catalonia, which they estimated was weakening rapidly. But this is far from certain. If this had been the case, the communists would have mustered a far greater force in Barcelona well in advance and, according to Companys, armed police in the city on 3 May numbered no more than 2,000.
In any case it was a defeat for the CNT and the POUM. Their newspapers now faced a strict censorship. The POUM in particular was unable to reply to the barrage of invective, however ludicrous. They were accused even of planning the assassination of Prieto and the communist General Walter, ‘one of the most popular commanders in the Spanish army’. The very brazenness of the lies had an initial effect of disorientating people. They were tempted to believe what they heard on the grounds that nobody would dare to invent such allegations. Jesús Hernández, the communist minister who turned against the Party after the war, said with some exaggeration, ‘If we were to decide to show that Largo Caballero, or Prieto, or Azaña, or Durruti were responsible for our defeats, half a million men, tens of newspapers, millions of demonstrators, and hundreds of orators would establish as gospel the evil doing of these citizens with such conviction and persistence that in a fortnight all Spain would agree with us.’ However, several of the Spanish communist leaders were uneasy at the brash tactics insisted upon by their Soviet and Comintern advisers.
La Pasionaria realized that such methods were ‘premature’ in Spain, where the communists did not have a total control of the media.
