On 9 May, just after the ceasefire in Barcelona, JoséDíaz of the Party’s central committee advanced their strategy of deposing Largo Caballero and dealing ruthlessly with the POUM. ‘The fifth column has been unmasked,’ he declaimed, ‘we need to destroy it…Some call themselves Trotskyists, which is the name used by many disguised fascists who use revolutionary language in order to sow confusion. I therefore ask: If everyone knows this, if the government knows it, then why does it not treat them like fascists and exterminate them pitilessly? It was Trotsky himself who directed the gang of criminals that derailed trains in the Soviet Union, carried out acts of sabotage in the large factories, and did everything possible to discover military secrets with the object of handing them over to Hitler and the Japanese imperialists. And, in view of the fact that all this was revealed during the trial…’ With these words the communists revealed their plans for a spectacular arraignment of the POUM. A renewed attack on the POUM by Trotsky’s Fourth International was, of course, ignored by the Stalinists who were determined that their label should stick.19
At a cabinet meeting on 15 May (two days before measures introduced by Largo Caballero against communist infiltration of the commissar department became effective) the communist minister, Uribe, demanded on Moscow’s orders that the POUM be suppressed and its leaders arrested. Largo Caballero refused, saying that he would not outlaw a working-class party against whom nothing had been proved. The anarchist ministers backed him and proceeded to charge the communists with provoking the events in Barcelona. Uribe and Hernández walked out, followed by the right socialists Prieto and Negrín, the Basque nationalist Irujo, A
´ lvarez del Vayo and Giral.20 Largo Caballero was left with the four anarchist ministers and two of his old socialist colleagues.
Azaña had been warned by Giral eight days earlier that the social democrats and liberals would back the communists at the next cabinet meeting. They took this decision partly because they identified with the communist policy of increased central government power and partly because they felt that any other course would put the Republic’s arms supply at risk. Prieto insisted that as the coalition was broken, Largo Caballero must consult the president, but Azaña wished to avoid any complications. He told Largo to carry on so that continuity of planning might be maintained on the Estremadura offensive, which was due to be launched later in the month. The anarchist press joined their leaders in supporting Largo Caballero and his ‘firm and just attitude which we all praise’. But without Soviet approval of the government there would be no arms. Largo Caballero had not appreciated his growing isolation. He knew about A
´ lvarez del Vayo; he may well have suspected Negrín; but, although he had quarrelled frequently with Prieto, he never expected him to come out on the communists’ side.
When, on 14 May, Azaña asked Largo Caballero to continue as prime minister, the old unionist knew that he would not be able to form another administration with the existing distribution of ministries. He therefore returned to the idea of a basically syndicalist government. This was similar to the National Defence Council, which the anarchists had proposed the previous September, with Largo Caballero at its head and the bulk of the ministries split between the UGT and the CNT. He had resurrected the idea in February, when he first became alarmed at the growth of communist influence, but Azaña had angrily rejected the proposal. Soviet control of their arms supply made the proposal totally impracticable. Largo Caballero was therefore allowed to continue only if he gave up the war ministry, as Stalin wanted. This he refused to do, believing that his presence there was the last barrier to a communist coup.
On 17 May Largo Caballero resigned, the final point in a long governmental crisis. Some historians argue that the origins of the ministerial crisis of May 1937 went back to the rising of October 1934 and that Caballero was not destroyed by the communists, but by the split with the moderate wing of the socialist party.21
The communists had approached Negrín at the end of the previous year and obtained his agreement to be the next prime minister.22 General Krivitsky, the NKVD defector, claimed that this had first been prepared the previous autumn by Stashevsky. The other important communist renegade, Hernández, asserts that the decision was taken at a Politburo meeting early in March when foreign communists including Marty, Togliatti, Gerö and Codovilla outnumbered Spanish Communist Party members. Prieto and the liberal republicans agreed with their choice, and Azaña asked Juan Negrín to form an administration on 17 May.
