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

Negrín kept the ministry of finance as well as his new position of president of the council of ministers. Prieto was minister of defence, Julián Zugazagoitia minister of the interior, Giral foreign minister and Irujo, the Basque conservative, minister of justice. To hide communist influence according to Stalin’s instructions, the Party received just two minor portfolios: Jesús Hernández as minister of education and health, and Vicente Uribe as minister of agriculture.²³

The governing system of the Republic became what Negrín and the communists later described as a ‘controlled democracy’. This basically meant government from above in which the leaders of the main parties negotiated the distribution of ministries. Normal political life and argument was made difficult under war conditions, and contact between leaders and party members was severely restricted. Azaña complained at the lack of parliamentary debate and its result: ‘The newspapers seem to be written by the same person, and they don’t print anything more than diatribes against “international fascism” and assurances of victory.’²⁴ The infrequent proceedings of the Cortes were no more than the trappings of democracy. Only the surviving members from the Popular Front parties remained to take part in its cosmetic role.

Negrín tends to be portrayed either as a puppet of Moscow or else as a man who, recognizing necessity, tried to ride the communist tiger for the benefit of the Spanish Republic. Both interpretations are misleading. Juan NegrínLópez was born in 1892 into a rich upper-middle-class family in the Canary Islands. In his youth he showed sympathy for the autonomist movement in the Canary Islands and agreed with the PSOE’s federalist programme. He was, above all, convinced of his own abilities and there are signs that he felt unsatisfied with the seemingly effortless success of his medical career which, after studies in Germany, led to his becoming professor of physiology at Madrid University at the age of 29. He soon became more actively involved in politics and his talents were undoubtedly greater than those of the professionals. Like many men who are conscious of their ability, he showed himself to be a firm believer in hierarchy, an authoritarian with few scruples who knew what was best for others. Not surprisingly he soon acquired a strong taste for power, once it was offered to him. In his case it appeared to run parallel to gross tastes for food and sex rather than act as a substitute.

Negrín’s credentials and his ‘iron hand’ were applauded by official circles in London and Washington. Yet this government, which was welcomed by Churchill for its ‘law-and-order stance’, was to leave the NKVD-controlled secret police unhindered in its persecution of persons who opposed the Moscow line and to sacrifice the POUM to Stalin in order to maintain arms supplies in his determination to win the war.

On its first day, Negrín’s government agreed to the closing of the POUM’s La Batalla newspaper. Soviet and Comintern advisers were under great pressure to achieve results quickly. Lieutenant-Colonel Antonio Ortega, the new communist director general of security, took his orders from Orlov, not Zugazagoitia, the minister of the interior. On 16 June, when the POUM was declared illegal, the communists turned its headquarters in Barcelona into a prison for ‘Trotskyists’. The commander of the 29th Division, Colonel Rovira, was summoned to army headquarters and arrested. POUM leaders who could be located, including Andrés Nin, were also arrested. The wives of those who could not be found were taken in their place. These actions were given a veneer of legality by the retroactive decree a week later which created the Tribunals of Espionage and High Treason.