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Speaker 2: So one of the really interesting things that happened among
the socialists is that they got a lot of they
began amassing their own weapons and munitions. The amassing of
like dynamite stockpiles and blasting charges from the miners is
really important. Yeah, the Asturian miners, although they had a
huge anarchists bent, they were still incredibly important in the
Republican military as sappers and like shock troops because of
their familiarity with explosives.
Speaker 3: Truly, because just during the Revolution of October, figures I
have it here, Figures said that they destroyed fifty seven
bridges just in one month. Yeah, and for those that
said that might set oh, but they were like enoughing Burger.
They had an army that was twenty thousand strong and
they were planning on moving on Madrid, and because everyone
in Madrid was afraid of them, they just sent the
army to just swep them up because they said, okay,
they might move on Madrid, but we don't know it.
And they said, we will move on Madrid.
Speaker 2: So the interesting thing is this was a this was
a mess. And this is on the tail end of
the basically Preeto being pursued because he was the front
man for a big order of weapons that were brought
in from overseas, so he had the fleet of France.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his flight is funny, I will say, very very funny.
Speaker 2: He waddles to the border.
Speaker 3: No, they essentially at first he was hiding in the
home of a friend. Then he went to the home
of another friend because he was afraid they will find
him there. And he calls for like a sergeant on
the air force to and tell him, Okay, I have
to flee the country.
Speaker 4: You have to help me.
Speaker 3: And the guy arrives. They check him in the back
of his car, but he doesn't want to get in
the in the goddamn it, I forgot the word the
trunk of the car because it is too hard. So
they have to bring like the cushions of a sofa
for him to be comfortable. And they drive to the border,
and because the driver is the is the sergeant of
the air force, they just let him through and he
flees to to Paris.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: It's interesting because he at the first sign of trouble,
he just dipped out while Largo Calero, knowing that he
handed orders. He did a lot of speeches and all that.
Speaker 4: He remained in Spain.
Speaker 2: Huh. Interesting, So a lot is happening in this period.
There's a law of amnesty that is signed in the
summer of nineteen thirty four, and the original intent supposedly
was to pardon the people who were involved in the
sun Hurjada, the nineteen thirty two basically coup attempt. The
General san Juro tried to spearhead. But then it evolved
into sweeping pardons for all kinds of political agitators.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it essentially evolved into that because it was a
law with retroactive effect that said that political activities and agitation,
proclamations and insurrections were essentially Nolan Boyd from this date backward. Yeah, everything,
So it was not as specific, it was everything.
Speaker 2: And then, as you pointed out, this is when you know,
this is right on the tail of this is when say,
the demands to have some positions there. You know, even
though the left was totally opposed to allowing them into
any government organs, not only.
Speaker 3: The left but also the center, the Republicans, the people
of the center except the center right were opposed because
they said, how are we going to let an enemy
of the republic within it?
Speaker 2: Yes, so that triggers the revolution of October nineteen thirty four,
which you pointed out, the Austorians going ham, the army
goes in and Largo Cabierro, is involved in leadership of
the socialist uprising, is arrested by the Republic. In November,
there were again mass arrests. More than twenty thousand people
were arrested in relation to this uprising. Again, this is
among the socialist communists and anarchists, and the Republic is like,
we can't really tolerate this, but the government doesn't really
have substantial material evidence against the leaders of these parties.
And Largo Kabierro's trial is brought to the Supreme Court.
The High Prosecutor of the Republic, Marcellino Valentin Gamazzo, calls
for Largo Kabiro to be you know, serve a term
of life in prison. There's a long trial and then interestingly,
he's cleared of all charges thanks to that law of
Amnesty of nineteen thirty four, because all of his well
documented demands for war and violence had become legally inadmissible
in court. Because of that law of amnesty. We have
a we can touch on the speech that he gave
in nineteen thirty three, which was frankly the clearest explanation
of his intent or like his willingness to where he
could take things.
Speaker 3: I mean, I have here a quote he gave in
nineteen thirty one. By the way, it is important that
he said, this attempt of dissolving the courtes for lack
of majority would be assigned the Pisoi and the Ujete.
The Jugit team would take us a provocation to start
a new revolutionary movement. I cannot accept that possibility.
Speaker 4: It would be like.
Speaker 3: Challenging the party and forcing us to start the civil
war in nineteen thirty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he echoes those terms in his thirty three speeches. Yes,
so again that's legally an admissible because of this law
of amnesty. So he's released from jail in December of
nineteen thirty five. The High Prosecutor resigns in disgust, but
he is not forgotten by the socialists. So this is
right when that center right coalition government is about to collapse.
Speaker 3: Yes, what happened is that Alexandro Leroux was involving two
corruption scandals like very quickly in just a month, and
that caused a huge crisis within the party. And seeing
that essentially Hill robably said Okay, if this guy cannot
be the president, I'll be the president. And Nicetoo, which
was the president of Parliament, said no, So he dissolved
the courtes and for new elections.
Speaker 2: That was what happened, and that brings us into these
spring elections of nineteen thirty six. Yes, very quickly, which
is what triggers you know, this is everything is just
accelerating at this point. And so Largo Cabierro in his campaigns,
his campaign speeches as he's essentially saying we need to
utterly remove the right from having any power and getting
a little more aggressive, like we have to crush the bourgeoisie.
How do you pronounce bourgeoisie in Spanish bourges of burges? Okay,
that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Regarding the election, have a very very short quote here,
he said in twenty third of January, for us to
not repeat again the events of fourteen of April, where
the people showed their enthusiasm but not their justice, it
is necessary for the people on the right to know
firsthand what popular justice is and to be punished for
their inexorable failures.
Speaker 2: Incredible, and he essentially said, we won't accept an electoral
defeat of the left that would result in a civil war.
Again he said several times, yes, totally, Like he's totally saying, like,
even if they are legally elected, we won't accept it.
It's unacceptable to us, and we will.
Speaker 1: Go to war.
Speaker 2: Yet the official framing this is from he becomes the
president of the Prime Minister rather of the Republic. And
you know, but again it's this right wing extremists. Who
are the ones that are that are out of line. Yeah,
so they win in a popular Front election, which is
essentially a vast coalition of left wingers where everyone agrees
you're going to vote for the Popular Front candidate. There's
a great deal of violence, coercion, destruction of property, and
very obvious electoral fraud in many places the let's see
so interestingly, so Asaigna ann acts the state of Emergency
to halt local elections that are planned for April, he
suspends the constitution. And I characterize this as creating a
state of anarcho tyranny where the left is permitted to
run rampant while the right was essentially legally helpless. The
Declaration of Largo cabiiro that like they're delegitimizing and crushing
the left, or excuse me, crushing the right is actually
taking place under the elue of it being a legitimate
government activity to do this.
Speaker 3: But you have to consider that Athania did not do
it because he wanted to crush the right wing or
he wanted to aid the socialists. He just did it
because he didn't want to lose his seat. It's essentially
that because if the right one again, the Republic was done. Yeah,
and he didn't want that to happen. So he would
rather have the left run rampant in Spain than to
let his vanity project be destroyed. And he knew that
if he acted against the acts of the left, the
coalition would be destroyed, new elections, the right would win
and they would eventually destroy the Republic.
Speaker 2: Which is a fair point. The right was completely opposed
to the Republic at this point in time, like they
felt that it was you know, illegitimate from the start.
And I think we've shown how illegitimate it was, you know,
through you know, many other podcasts, but this one in particular.
The way that the left behaves at this point, as
they say, we don't care like any right wing election
is illegitimate because we say it is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, happens too often.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting because in the spring of nineteen thirty six,
Largo Caballero basically there's a rift between him and more
moderate people within the PSOE, although Largo Kabiiro retains the
support of their power base. Really he's still very popular.
He's this very seasoned senior leader within the party. He
proclaims a desire to formally join the Communist International as
well as to formally establish a relationship with the Soviet regime. Again,
this is before the military uprising, and then during his
speeches and political events in this period he displays portraits
of Stalin communist flags and he closes every event by
singing the International. Again, this is just a left wing
elected republic. He had become the de facto PSCOE Party
leader and the more moderate socialists or sidelined completely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mainly Juliambistato. He was the main preponderant who, by
the way, I forgot to point this is in response
to the revolution of October he said, and I quote verbatim,
let it be known that the fascist threat is not
represented by Thida but by Largo Cavallero and his supporters
then nurture it.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Bestato was since the beginning opposed to the communists,
and he was relegated to complete irrelevancy very quickly.
Speaker 2: So the military uprising happened July seventeenth, nineteen thirty six.
Largo Cabeiro was made the leader of the Republic in
September of nineteen thirty six at the age of nineteen,
at the age of sixty seven.
Speaker 3: Excuse me, yes, before before he took he took possession.
There was the two other presidents. By the way, when
the uprising took place, casares Ki Roga essentially resigned and
Diego Martinez Barrio to the the presidency. He tried to
negotiate with the sublebated generals. He failed and he resigned.
And the new one, Josse Hiral, was the guy that
disbanded the army and handed weapons to the population, and
when he saw that the country, the Republic, was in
complete anarchy, he also resigned.
Speaker 2: Oops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean a lot of the Republicans were expecting
that by disbanding the army they sublebated would like stop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that the uprising would just disappear. Because they had
declared the army disbanded.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but what it did is that a lot of
in the sized officers and soldiers defected because I have
no more obligation to you, bye bye.
Speaker 2: And and this it's really important to understand that like
right right at the time of the uprising, uh, the
the deals that the that the anglophone world, the British
and Americans, that the the business deal that they had
with Spain and the military in particular as it related
to like trucks and fuel and tires and things of
that nature. Immediately British all the British and American companies said,
we recognize that the Spanish nationalist, the military uprising, the
rebel forces as the people that we have to deal with,
and so we will provide this to them on credit.
So there was no there was no tether between the
Republican government and the military and their kind of key
sources of these supplies from outside of the country. It
was over like right at the jump, and so there
was nothing they could do about that at this point.
Largo Cabiiro was only the leader of the republic for
eight months. He would stay in power until May nineteen
thirty seven. But the interesting thing is that he he
essentially attempted direct control of the entire army. But the
records of this are very unclear. There there's a there's
a distinct lack of documentation, probably burned long ago, you know,
at some point at this that or period that.
Speaker 3: Or essentially, there are multiple sources that said that he
did this. Another one said, Oh, he didn't do it,
but he knew it. Another said, oh, he didn't do
it and he didn't know about it, but he was
informed later.
Speaker 4: It's a lot of.
Speaker 3: Confusion, and at the end of the day, you really
don't know exactly what happened, like with the Gold of
Moscow or the execution of Primo de Riberta, because there
is multiple people that say that, oh, he authorized it,
Oh he didn't do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And and this is where the breakdown of like
the people who attempt to own the narrative or direct
the narrative on the subject the Spanish Civil War, it
always falls apart because during this period, the you know it,
there was there was a very strong like republican government
narrative that kind of shifted as soon as the Soviet
control of it was so obvious and so they started
ret conning that you know, all these kind of state
socialist parties and more moderate you know people were it
was it was taken over. That's kind of an or
Well orientation or like the anarchic you know, they scapego
the anarchists. And then in the sixties later sixties, you know,
they you know, especially when the left and the hard
left turned against the Soviet Union, they started attempting to
resuscitate the anarchists. And then in the nineties and aughts,
like you have Anthony Bevore, who is a you know,
he's essentially playing choose your own Spanish Civil War and
you know, saying, well, really like ideologically the anarchists, and
like there were the subset of like cool anarchists that
were that were really kind of just libertarians and hippies
and like they were the really good guys, but just
all these bad people and extremists for the problem. It's
it's totally ridiculous.
Speaker 3: Well, the way you said it explains why there was
a resurgence in terrorist activity in the sixties in Spain.
A lot of anarchist groups started to just sprout around here.
It was also the time when Etta was born.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right, that's right. So Largo Cabiro, again, as
you pointed out, the army was essentially disbanded. There were
all these militias and random political parties and and people
who were armed. Uh, you know, the workers were armed, right,
they just opened up the arsenals to them. They had
no idea what they were doing. So Largo Cabeiro attempted
to centralize the army command and then put professional soldiers
in charge of the leftist militias and like incorporate them
into the army, which really it took some time for
that to happen, but they really started, you know, having
success in that area in the spring, which is around
the same time that the that the right did the
same thing where they where they unified. Yeah, with all
the militias under the under the central command of the army.
Speaker 4: Yeah, with the CREO unification.
Speaker 2: Indeed. And then but to back up a little bit,
the Soviet Union did. As we pointed out that there
was not only a proclaimed relationship directly between the Spanish
Republican government and the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union
their policy was that like the Republic would fall without
the aid of the Soviet So by mid September nineteen
thirty six, the first shipment of military material and personnel
quote unquote advisors, but literally like first round, you know, equipment, operators,
armored cars, tanks, aircraft, and then a hodgepodge of some
good weapons and some like a lot of crap, frankly flowed,
as well as the implementation the institution of the international
Brigades managed by the Communist Inner National And we're flowing.
Speaker 3: And talking about the Communist International. The General Secretary of
the of the International, Gregory Dimitrov, sent the twenty three
of July instructions to the Communist Party of Spain, and
I read exactly, at the present we should not undertake
the task of creating soviets and establishing a proletariat dictatorship
in Spain. That would be a fatal mistake. Thus we
proclaim that we must act under the guise of defending
the republic.
Speaker 2: Indeed, and this balancing act is really well explained or contradiction,
I should say, is really well explained by some other
material that we have in here. There's testimony from Alexander Orlov,
who is the leader of the NKVD in Spain and
then Soviet ambassador Rosenberg was serving as a political liaison.
There's all kinds of really interesting confessions that Orlov made
after you defected to the US. He provided testimony to
the Eastland Senate Judiciary Committee in nineteen fifty seven that
are like very good records of what Stalin's secret police
were doing in Spain, and you know, essentially reinforcing you know,
the testimony about what was going on in Spain under
the NKVD and the sim you know, what the communist
political parties were doing in Spain to everyone. And what
I want to do is jump down past you know,
the gold that went to Moscow, like when all of
the precious metal reserves were sent out of Spain, seventy
two point six percent to Moscow, the remainder going to
France for arms purchases, a total joke, and just the
nkv D going wild and just killing all kinds of
people that if you'll recall the prosecutor who had led
the prosecution of Largo Caballero in nineteen thirty five, Marcellino
Volentin was executed, you know, in a very like haphazard way.
Judges who didn't play ball to the degree, and a
lot of times it was just revenge, not even trying
to get them to do anything. But there was a
big cleanup. One hundred and twenty eight judiciary magistrates were murdered,
two members of the Supreme Court were murdered. And sometimes
it was done very haphazardly by just squads. Other times
they were like arrested and then executed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot of the early executions were just impromptu.
The militia arrives, they take you to a desolate place
and they.
Speaker 4: Just shoot you.
Speaker 3: As the war dragged on, they became more subtle about it.
Speaker 2: And so here's where I wanted to reinforce the point
you made about the official Soviet position. And this is
a letter from stalin December nineteen thirty six as to
what Largo Caberro's job was and where their framing came from.
I'm just going to quote here and read for a bit.
We consider that it is our duty within our capabilities
to aid the Spanish government. You lead the fight of
all workers and the forces of democracy against the military
fascist army that are nothing more than a tool of
the international fascist forces. Remember, at this point the Germans
had provided airlift, and the Germans and Italians had provided airlift,
and there was This was just the very beginning of
you know, military aid and forces from Germany and Italy
going into into Spain as well, just very beginning of it.
The Spanish revolution is taking a much different path than ours.
The vastly different social, historical, and geographical conditions determine it.
The international climate is vastly different than the one in
the Russian Revolution. It is quite possible that the parliamentary
way is a far more efficient revolutionary process in Spain
than it was in Russia, although Largo Carbeiro disagree. It
all point out you should pay special attention to peasants
due to the significance they have in a country like Spain.
It would be advisable to issue decrees relative to agrarian
patterns and to taxation in order to protect the interests
of these workers. It would also be advisable to draw
these peasants toward the armed forces and build with them
a guerrilla army to fight in the rear of the
fascist army. As well, it would be convenient to draw
towards the government the petty and middle bourgeoisie from the cities,
or if possible, allow them to remain neutral. As long
as they favor the government and protect them against confiscations
by ensuring within your means free take trade and commerce.
You must not reject the leaders of the Republican parties.
On the contrary, you should draw them in and associate
them with the common efforts of the government. You need
to avoid being seen as a communist republic by the
enemies of Spain. To dismantle their declared intervention fueling their
rightful claims would be the worst danger for the Spanish Republic.
You must seek the chance to declare, through all means
available to the government that you will not tolerate the
violation of rights against the property or legitimate interests of
foreigners in Spain. So this is Stalin telling Largo Kabeiro,
you know how his revolution is going to be, that
you know you can't. You can't do this now you can.
What you need to do is put on the facade
that this is a functional democratic government, because we need
other European countries to come to the rescue of the
republic via military aid or direct intervention. Then after the
war is won, you can implement your revolution. You can
implement your communist regime or socialist regime. So interestingly, Largo
kabiiro formally replies in January of ninethineteen thirty seven and
essentially says, I agree with your recommended strategies. And then
he says, quote, whatever may be the future of the
parliamentary form, it does not possess among us, or even
among the Republicans enthusiastic defenders. So at this point the
republic and the Republicans saw the Republican model of government
as a failure.
Speaker 3: In fact, most center and center right politicians started to
support the uprising, started to support the Nationals.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so I'm going to skim a little more here.
Largo Cabeiro agreed with like the PCE and the Soviets
that yes, I'll displace the anarchists. But then he realized,
by the end of January nineteen thirty seven, already and
along with members of his cabinet, that the Communists were
leveraging his cooperation to destroy the power of all the
non communist leftist parties as well as to suppress their
influence among the public by incarcerating and murdering their leaders.
So that you know, Stalin's Stalin's forces as well as
their their Spanish allies in the Spanish Communist Party are
essentially violating the terms of what they said that they
were doing on the ground at the low level, but
they're keeping a handful of figureheads up at the top
while wasting everyone who goes against them. And the crazy
thing is in the militias and in the military, in
the army, out in the field. This was incredibly violent.
It was incredibly violent, and uh and continued to be
so so so Largo Carbierro uh recognized that despite all
this framing that, you know, the the PCE and Rosenberg,
the Soviet ambassador, we're just hammering him. Just do what
we say, Just do what we say, Just do what
we say, Just do what we say. And so, you know,
it's really interesting that he realized that he was nothing
but a puppet at this point. And uh, interestingly, uh
he decided to resist by expelling Rosenberg from Spain and
sending him back to the Soviet Union the in rather
than a direct confrontation with him and his party and
the government. The response from the Soviets and the PCE
is to go after you know, the quote unquote Trotsky POUM,
the Marxist Unification Workers Party, which was the party that
Orwell was, you know, associated with just because of his
international connections and Largo Caviro refused to move against them
because he saw them as an integral part of that
leftist coalition in Catalonia where they were just barely hanging
on by a thread, keeping them working with the central government.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because a.
Speaker 3: Thing that not a lot of people know is that
in Catalonia, it was because the anarchists were the main
ruling force there. They instorted it kind of a system
of like libertarian anarco communism. It's hard to it's hard
to define, like they abolish private property money. If you
needed something, you could you could demand it from the government.
It was all over the place, and it was at
the beginning it was enforced mainly by Ruti and the
Ruti column as they advanced agon but in Catalonia it
was mainly enforced by the agents of the CNT and
the POEM were also an integral part of the government
in Catalonia.
Speaker 2: And the the need to hold this coalition together this
you know, this Catalonia was already on the verge of
yeah break.
Speaker 3: Another civil war was brewing up.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, exactly, so the the Soviets and Communists claimed
that the POUM were in contact with Franco spies and
were essentially uh, you know, Franco Wist collaborators, if not fascist,
you know, secret fascists themselves, which is obviously ridiculous. But
the whole, the whole idea here is that they're whittling
away this, this coalition and the authority that Largo Capilero held.
And so in the events of May when they basically
there was a civil war in Barcelona when they went
after the the CNT and the p o u M, uh,
the you know this, this really did it and the
the anarchists fought against the Communists more than the p
o u M did in terms of like sheer numbers.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Again, a lot of it being ideologically driven as well
as understanding what the Soviets were and what the Communists
were and always having been opposed to them for for
decades frankly in in their in their idiology, and so
this was used by the Communists to really be an
excuse to go after even more people who are their
enemies and the party. They took care of the POUM.
They essentially liquidated the leadership in horrific ways, andresen was
played alive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was arrested, they moved, they moved him to
Madrid for interrogation, and then they proceeded to torture him
and he died during the torture.
Speaker 2: And this was really the way that they operated with
all of their enemies, totally illegitimate system. So Largo Cabierro
like he knew the gig was up, but he was
pressured too and ultimately ended up resigning in May nineteen
thirty seven to May sixteen.
Speaker 3: Important and important to note that Largo Colero his resignation,
the main, the main, the key component of his resignation
was in the Letho Prieto, who stabbed him in the
back in order to get rid of him. He was
a key because the moderates in the Socialist Party went
against against against Largo Cavallero.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting, but but it's so strange because they're
essentially it's it's it's a reaction to a situation that
the moderates themselves aren't going to be able to keep control. Yeah,
but keep under control either, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But the thing is that the moderates actually thought, Okay,
if we get rid of Largo Caballero, who is a
radical and he's driving into this. Maybe we can fix
it with a moderate candidate. They proposed Prieto, but he
was rejected and they chose one Negatine. It was arguably
worse than Largo because he accurently collaborated with the communists willingly.
Speaker 2: Like, enthusiastically even, Yeah.
Speaker 3: To a certain degree, he did. And he also did
the thing. He crushed the Catalonian independent government and he
jailed absolutely everyone involved with it as well. So he
was harsh. He was harsh, and he did everything he
could to keep the communists behind him.
Speaker 2: So that the interesting thing is Largo Cabilero is removed
from the government and his leadership position in the PSOE.
He was still a member of the UGT Labor Union
at this point, and my underst standing is that he
ended up going to Catalonia because it was safer for him, essentially,
Is that.
Speaker 3: Correct, Yes, he went to Barcelona essentially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so he became a vocal opponent of the
communists and was calling out what was taking place in
Not long later, in autumn of nineteen thirty seven, he
was expelled from the UGT Labor Union they claimed that
he was not paying his party dues. Then he was arrested,
put under house arrest all of his funds, documents and
properties that he had earned, you know, while working in
the UGT. Again, remember he had been been a politician
for what thirty five.
Speaker 3: Years, between thirty and forty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so they took everything and he was essentially penniless.
The UGT was essentially banded at this point or dismantled it,
and he was just stuck there, you know, unable to
really do anything. So of course this is you know,
it isn't long until the nationalists were advancing on Catalonia.
So in January nineteen thirty nine, after the Battle of
the Ebro broke the military around Catalonia, he and many
many other people fled Barcelona for the French border. And
he just had nothing at this point. And so he was,
you know, dependent on the goodwill of wealthy friends and people,
you know, keeping his head above water. He did not
steal with a huge you know, he didn't steal away
with a big fortune seized from you know, illicit activities.
Speaker 3: Unlike two other people that I know about.
Speaker 2: Preeto was one and Negarin was the other and was
the other.
Speaker 3: Creato essentially stole like fifty million dollars from Negreen because
niggering Santa yacht with stolen goods to Mexico and they
were in transit when the republic fell and they re
crude even knew what to do with everything. So Preeto
took the advantage and seized the money. Wild Yeah, And
essentially after the war, each one had their own organization
and they were they were like, I have letters that
they sent each other, and you can you can feel
that seething resentment they have for each other reading those letters.
Speaker 2: It is insaneious, that's hilarious. So at this point, you know,
Largo Cabierro is stuck in France. There are people advocating
that he, you know, relocated to South America, like so
many people in this Spanish Republic did. The anarchists did
a lot of them went to Mexico. And one, on
the one hand, he like really couldn't afford to do it,
but he also didn't want to be that far away
from Spain. So, uh, you know, Germany invades France, Largo
Kabierro was apprehended by French authorities. A lot of other
high profile you know, Republican political figures were also imprisoned. Interestingly,
so that the Franco regime UH demanded a return of
all of their uh you know, political opponents so they
could be tried for their crimes against the nation. But
the French authorities did not do so.
Speaker 3: But the thing is that the French for it is extralated.
Speaker 2: Some Yeah, that's a good point, like Lewis.
Speaker 3: Companies, which was the president of the Catalonian of the
Catalonian Independent regime, and they just hand him over with
little van Fur But they didn't do it with Largo
Cavallero or Frederica Monceni and also other anarchists and socialists
that were living in France.
Speaker 4: It's it's very peculiar, and.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things where we don't seem to
have good explanations as to why why the one and
not the other.
Speaker 3: Understand regarding Companies, I have a theory, it's a little
bit her brain, and it is essentially because the French
really don't like the Catalonian independentists because they have pretensions
to land in France.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, because of historical patterns from hundreds of years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if not and I think they handed him over
kind of because of that.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, That makes sense. Yeah, there's what it's about.
A forty kilometer wide strip of the Mediterranean and north words.
That is the old Catalonian kingdom.
Speaker 3: That's well, not not kingdom. Catalonia was never a kingdom.
It was a county that were vassals.
Speaker 2: That's that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it is essentially that they have pretensions to
that land in France and also to the south in Balencia.
It is a I mean complicated.
Speaker 2: I never told you this, but when I was in Spain,
you know, many moons ago, I was on a bus
from Barcelona headed down to because I was going to
go to Cadiz and yeah, and so it was really
it was really funny because there was a very loud
Catalan woman on the bus and she started arguing with
a bunch. She was talking very loudly about how the
Catalans invented everything, and so people are laughing, and the
funniest thing was that she claimed that they invented opera,
and everyone's laughing and they're like, that's so ridiculous. And
then she started singing opera and she had a beautiful voice,
and she like immediately captivated everyone and within like twenty
seconds everyone was applauding. It was it was absolutely hilarious.
It was absolutely hilarious.
Speaker 3: I mean, with that attitude, it's kind of a general
attitude that some Catalonians have, and it's the reason why
a lot of people.
Speaker 4: In Spain an't like them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, even because well a little bit of sides track.
A lot of people right now in Spain hate Catalonians
a lot because of something the government is doing. I
won't go into details because it's a very long topic.
Speaker 2: Maybe another time, yes, So okay, So at this point,
Largo Cabierro is not sent to Spain. However, he is
handed over to the Gestapo and is imprisoned eventually in
the Sachsenhausen concentration camp at age seventy one and in
poor health, and he spends the next several years in
the prison hospital until he's liberated by the Red Army
in nineteen forty four. At this point, he is just
like broken com Yes, he dies of kidney failure in
January nineteen forty or excuse me, in March nineteen forty six,
well renal colic and is utterly. He's been utterly impoverished
and living in just horrible conditions for you know, about
six years, five or six years at this point. And
he was buried in Paris, but in nineteen seventy eight,
in the post Franco Pact of Forgetting Era, he's reinterred
in Madrid.
Speaker 3: A lot of exiles, Suspanish exiles. It happened that with
them they died in South America, or they died in
France and they asked to later be interred in Spain.
It happened with way too many of them.
Speaker 2: And I and I think that you know, you made
he made some interesting observations to wrap this up about.
You know, he was no Dolores Ibruri, who was just
a loathsome psycho. He was. You can see, you can
see how he got radicalized. You can, and you can
be a little more sympathetic given you know, the way
that he grew up. You know, his hard life, the
conditions that he just had to like deal with on
a regular basis, and frankly, his very it seemingly earnest
attempts to like work with the system peacefully. And you know,
he had some small, some small successes, but they were
very small successes, and he just became bitter and more
radical and jaded as time went by. But it's the
interesting the most interesting thing to me is I just
get this impression from everything that he almost thought it
was a waste, like and he never wrote memoirs. He never,
you know, he wasn't uh, you know, we have we
have memoirs from pretty much the entire leadership of the
CNT and they're really interesting. But like Largo Cabierro, you know,
only biographers can take him on because we have his
speeches and we have the testimony of other people. But
he just seems like he became a very different man
over time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can see that change essentially with the with
the dictatorship, with the with his refusal to work with
the government.
Speaker 4: That is kind of.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like he saw that whenever he tried,
whenever he tried to concede to aid or to collaborate
with the government, someone would put a roadblock in front
of him. It's the impression that he gives me that
no matter what he proposed, even field was good or
maybe others considered misguided or something like that, he saw
that there was always someone out to prevent him from
achieving his goals, and it's probably a good part of
what drove him towards being more radical in general.
Speaker 2: And I think we can wrap this up by quoting
from his nineteen thirty three speech and his infamous November
nineteen thirty three speech in Badajos, where this is. Remember
this is in the campaign season. He was a member
of the provisional government, he was the head of the
Ministry of Labor. But they also saw this looming like
right wing victory that would destroy not only the republic,
but there aspirations to implement a socialist regime. And so
the really interesting thing here is that I'm trying to
find that the best spot to jump off on. Yeah, okay,
here it is. So this is where we see a
lot of the kind of bitterness in this speech. So
I'm going to jump ahead and explain his position here
from this speech. Quoting, he says, the Spanish people have
seen that rather than be thankful for their peaceful ways,
the enemy comes back to enslave them. Do not be
surprised that history repeats itself and we must return to
a revolutionary movement, a violent one, and the blame will
be upon them. The Socialist Party joined the Provisional Government
as a minority with a duty to fulfill. We have
accomplished all all of our objectives. Funny, even more, we
allowed some of our political fellows to not fulfill theirs
and for all the sake of the republic, so it
wouldn't fall like the first one from the nineteenth century.
I should say. Back then, we thought that we were
the backbone of the republic and it was our duty
to consolidate it, and that is why we accepted the
decision that the Provisional Government would immediately reconvene the core tests.
That was the second mistake of the Spanish Republic. In
other words, here's this republic. We're going to put in
place republican you know, principles in our republican form of government.
So he's you know, talking out both sides of his
mouth right here. We prematurely joined the coretest before carrying
out our revolution, only to be cast out by the parliament.
Nobody will be surprised if, in similar circumstances the people
join a premature call to parliament only to be out
once more. So he's essentially saying, in this election period,
like we're wasting our time by voting for parliamentarians and
working with a parliamentarian government. Protests against us were only
levied when we began to implement social laws or social reforms.
Did they think that we were in the government to
defend partisan interests. Wasn't our duty first and foremost to
triumph for the working class? That is what we did.
But our legislation wasn't enforced, and yet we tolerated it,
And then we tolerated the obstruction of our reforms in parliament.
Later on we tolerated all this, convinced that the Republic
was necessary for the working class to go above and beyond.
And that's when the campaign of lies and slander began,
a campaign carried out by those who very soon will
come begging us for help to defend the republic. And
I will ask them, why are you attacking us if
you will soon be us for help. Think about it.
Don't you see that they represent nothing in Spain? You
do not represent anything because you aren't backed by the
conscious working masses. Think because I will say that the
republic will not stand without the socialists, and you cannot
rule without the socialists. You made the mistake of rushing
into elections because you thought that the votes in our
favor were from the Republicans. But as soon as parliament
was dissolved, you realize this was false, that the working
classes with the Socialists more than ever, and if you could,
you would not hold elections because you know that the
Socialists would gain even more seat in parliament. So how
interesting is it that he's complaining not about the right wing,
but he's talking about the left Republicans styming and being
the chief opposition to the socialists. We have a similar
talking points on the right that the enemy of like
are thinking is conservatives. It's incredible and incredibly interesting parallel.
He's not even talking about the real enemies. He's talking
about being backstabbed by the moderate Republicans.
Speaker 1: That just sounds way too familiar.
Speaker 4: Way too familiar.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just it's just history doesn't repeat itself.
But it's a scripts. If the script works, do it
over and over again.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. And so this is really interesting. As he
closes it, I'm gonna skip ahead a tiny little bit
that he's essentially saying. He says, therein lies the mistake
of the Republicans. They believe that the political struggle is
separate from the economic struggle, and that the worker not
even collaborate with his boss and political activity. Now in
these elections they will realize a mistake that will cost
them dearly. That sounds pretty familiar right now. And then
he says, the candidates of the anti Marxist front is
composed of fascists, monarchists, conservatives and radical republicans. And I
ask you is there a difference between any of them? None?
Even worse. These last ones are the worst because the
radicals are the ones facilitating the return of the monarchy.
You don't have to look further than who defended March
in the Cortes March being.
Speaker 3: A banker, businessman, I'm as smuggler.
Speaker 2: Yes, who was a huge financier of the uprise.
Speaker 3: Even though during the Republic he played on both sides.
But it was when the socialist went after him that
he said, oh, I gotta save myself from these people.
Speaker 2: March is into a Spanish surname, is it?
Speaker 3: He is from Baliaris That's right? Yes, and important to
know he was originally a pig farmer.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 3: It is incredible that he got to the top of
a Spanish economy just as a pig farmer.
Speaker 2: Amazing. So there's all this stuff about the radicals collaborating.
Speaker 3: And by the way, the radicals here, it doesn't mean radicals,
it means the center right.
Speaker 2: The yes, the.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because a lot of people think, oh, well the radicals,
they are radical, but no, it's just a center right.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting because I had read some of his
speeches from like thirty years prior, and he was very radical.
He was talking about like raping nuns and like burning
the country to the ground and stuff like that. Totally wild.
How as soon as as soon as he became a
like a real serious political operator and manipulator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, LaRue was a journalist, so it shouldn't surprise.
Speaker 2: You all journeys.
Speaker 3: Like I told you, almost everyone in the Second Republic
was a journalist, almost everyone except on the right wing
everyone where all of them were lawyers.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, that's a that's a.
Speaker 4: Really good point. Was a lawyer.
Speaker 3: Kill Reubles was a lawyer, Primo Riverta was a lawyer.
Manuel Falcone was a lawyer, The Count Rodethna was a lawyer.
Speaker 4: Everyone was a lawyer. Incredible surprising.
Speaker 2: Well, let's bring this home. I will go through some
of the spiciest parts of this speech, and he says,
here we go at that moment, everyone will unite against us,
but we will tell them if you do not allow
workers to obtain their demands through parliament, you are casting
us out from the law. You're proving that the democratic
institutions are unfit to achieve our goals because the working
class will not be content with mere laws. From now on,
we will fight to take over political power. Don't let
our enemies twist our words, since I will speak frankly,
we are going for all political power in making these statements.
We are not content with just having two socialist ministers
in the government benches. That is not enough to govern.
And this comes from a man who has been a
minister for two and a half years. You don't rule
just by being a minister. You need more tools. Every
single minister must be socialist. We must take over the judiciary,
which is in the hands of the bourgeois, every single
enforcement agency of the state, but not the current tools
created by the monarchy, but the ones created by our
socialist regime. So he's essentially saying that the republic inherited
tools of the monarchy, that are still run by the
bourgeoisie and their collaborators. For a proper socialist regime, we
must have every agency and every tool within our grasp.
And some will say that is nothing more than the
dictatorship of the proletariat. But do we live in a
democracy today. Don't we live in a bourgeois dictatorship who
owns the army, law enforcement, and all other government institutions.
But the bourgeois even more, the bourgeois owned the machines,
the lands, the means of production, and when they see
the working class rebel against their oppression, they have the
tools to doom us to starvation and poverty. That is
why we declare we are not willing to continue this situation.
We want to hold all political power, much like the
Booois have done until now. And don't anyone dare say
that the working class doesn't know how to rule. So
it is incredible, it is absolutely incredible that he that
he comes right out, and then he goes on to
say we are attacked because we want to abolish private property,
and they are right, we do not hide our intentions.
We will destroy the regime of private property. We are
attacked because we are the enemies of the family, and
we answer, they are the enemies of the family. They
destroy working families by forcing women and children to work
long hours, exploiting their fathers and husbands, and doing them
to starvation. We as socialists, wish families could be as
we believe they should be, free from economic burden. Pretty appealing, Yeah,
very much, pretty appealing. And so you know, as you
go through this, you know, he really, he really says
that everyone here is basically saying, if we're barred from parliament,
we will turn against it. He says, our enemies have
already begun this war. Their voice Gil Roeblas says that
if they are barred from parliament, they will turn against it,
so be it. We respond, we are moving legally towards
the evolution of society. But if you wish so, we
will make the revolution violently. This our enemies will say
is inciting civil war. But let's be honest, we are
already in a civil war. What else is the constant
war between employers and workers which takes place every day.
We are in the midst of a civil war. Let's
not be blind to it. So, you know, despite everything
else that he says, where he's like we just need
to prepare and this is how we need to think
about things, etc. But really, what he's saying, what I
think is most important, is that he's saying, we don't
believe in the Republic. Our enemies don't believe in the Republic.
The only people who believe in the Republic don't really
believe in the Republican are just using it to you know,
to manipulate.
Speaker 3: Us, or like I said, in the case of Athana,
is a vanity project.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so like none of these people, none of
these people believed in the Republic. I just don't. I
don't see a compelling case that there's like there was
there were real ideological true believers who are willing to
compromise at this point, I mean, who were promoting.
Speaker 3: The right, I mean at the beginning. At the beginning,
the army was willing to give the republic a shot.
But because the Republican politician didn't trust the generals and
officers from the monarchy and tried to make them band
to their will, they ended up pissing them off since
the very start. Because remember the Republic got instituted because
the army sided with them. Just remember they were willing
to give it a shot, and they were essentially stabbed
in the back.
Speaker 2: None of these people working in good faith with one another.
That's like the biggest thing that jumps out to me.
Speaker 4: Yes, because.
Speaker 3: I mean, I could talk at length about what happened,
because there is a lot a huge web of intrigues
between the politicians and the army during the Republic. And
one thing is, of course, you wonder, okay, why did
the men that essentially swore obedience to the presence of
the republic proclaim a coop the ta on two years
after after he essentially said Hail the Republic? Like you
gotta think because on Urho essentially at first he was
obedient to the to the Republic, but the Republicans didn't
trusted him and started closing his medic literary academies. They
they discharged him, they discharged him, they set him to reserve,
they stripped him of rank, and I mean, you see
that happening, and are you not going to be angry?
Speaker 2: Exactly, it's it's it's amazing.
Speaker 3: And they did the same with essentially almost all of
the sublebated generals. They did the same to them. Then
you wonder, okay, they hadn't coming because they pissed of
the people that they shouldn't.
Speaker 2: It's it's they couldn't help themselves. Is It's like everyone
thought it was the all patriots go moment, you know,
and and all the different factions were competing with one another.
Speaker 3: But you gotta you gotta think that. At first, the
army just came out of that period what they they
were at odds with the king, and they said, okay,
we're going to give a shot to these guys if
they don't mess with us too much, because politicians before
were messing a lot with the army. We're going to
give it a shot. And they discovered, unfortunately, that the
politicians of the Republic were even worth than the ones
before because between the religious laws, they also forced them
to to swear allegiance to the Republic. They foreclosed military academies.
They also raised the the requirements to access in certain
ranks in the army, like you needed to have a
college degree to reach certain ranks. It was huge, and
of course they needn't like and also that is not
counting all the new people that the Republic and also
the socialists and communists were shoveling in the army.
Speaker 2: That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really hope that people. You know, we're two hours,
fifteen minutes into this, Karl and I have done hours
on this subject, and I hope that people If people
haven't figured it out by now, I hope they can,
you know, really figuring it out now. Why this is
a subject we're talking about because you know, I'm sitting
here and listening to you guys have a conversation to you,
guys who know a lot more about the subject than
I do, and I'm just going, well, that's that's today,
that's today exact, that's relevant to today, that's relevant to today. Okay,
So you know, I guess the question comes down to,
is you have this information, it's happened before you get
an idea of where this can lead to, Well, what
do you do about it? And you know that's probably
not something we want to talk about on a podcast,
but you know, it's something that people have to start
thinking about.
Speaker 3: I mean, that is why I think this is the
articles that I've been doing are a public service announcement.
Speaker 4: You know, it is.
Speaker 3: It is an interesting period of time, but you have
to know, you have to know, and then you will.
Speaker 2: See absolutely well, Thank you again for not only writing
these pieces, doing all the work that you do to
find the material through Spanish sources, which we're just constantly,
you know, reading everything that we can find about this topic,
but we're constantly finding new stuff just has never been
in English, or or if it is, it's incredibly obscure
and out of print.
Speaker 3: I mean, in some cases even in the Spanish is obscure,
and I sometimes can only find part of the text
and not the full text. Like I've been trying to
find the instruction unity for serbadas the private instructions, which
were the the letter with the fundamentals for the sublivation.
I was trying to get them translated, but I only
can find only can find.
Speaker 4: Parts of it, not the full text.
Speaker 2: It's a shame, very very interesting.
Speaker 1: Well, it's still a valuable what you're doing here is valuable,
and yeah, we we appreciate it. You know, you can
you can only machine translate so much, you know, you
have to be able to the idiom Idioms are the
hardest thing to figure out when you're translating, which is
why I like German is one of those languages it's
almost impossible to translate into English.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and I'm thankful that it's it's appreciated, it's
it really motivates, motivates me to keep going.
Speaker 1: Awesome, awesome, Well, head on over to uh it's a
Carl Substack. It's got it open somewhere right here. But
that was it called again Carl. I thought I had Carl.
Speaker 2: All dot substack dot com. Yeah, a R L D
a h L dot substack dot com. And if worker
is the author of an article, I always lead with that.
But it's generally the now and then series is his series.
So we have another one coming up that I'll put
up this week.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That also took me a while to make because I
had to sift through quite a few a few things
while doing it. In some cases I had to like
hunt for them for the news articles, because I knew
there were some of them and I wanted to get
them done, get them there.
Speaker 2: Well, it's great that we have the Internet and not
only can we meet each other that way, but we
can find this incredibly important historical material. So yeah, thanks
again for your collaboration. Appreciate your time here. Well done,
by the way, Thanks so much, and I look forward
to working with you more.
Speaker 4: It will be my pleasure.
Speaker 1: All right, gentlemen, thank you very much. S.