The Marxist who linked the Russian and Spanish revolutions, founder of the POUM
“The working class has solved the problem of the Church simply by not leaving even one of them standing.” — La Vanguardia, August 1936
Catalan Marxist revolutionary. After serving as CNT General Secretary, he joined Trotsky's Left Opposition in Moscow and later founded the anti-Stalinist POUM. He was also the first to translate Russian literature directly into Catalan.
Career timeline
- 1911Joined the Catalan federalist Republican Nationalist Federal Union
- 1914Moved to Barcelona; taught at a secular anarchist school
- 1917Joined the PSOE briefly, then the CNT; embraced revolutionary syndicalism
- 1920–1921General Secretary of the CNT
- 1921–1930Moscow: Profintern and Comintern work; joined the Left Opposition
- 1930Returned to Spain; founded the Communist Left of Spain (ICE)
- 1935Merged with Maurín's BOC to found the POUM
- 1936General Secretary of POUM; Minister of Justice of Catalonia
- 1937.06Arrested after the May Days; kidnapped and killed by the NKVD
A field commander of the defeated Republic
Of the militia commanders, one contemporary report noted: 'The only one who knows how to read a map is the one they call Modesto.'
Juan Modesto rose from organizing Communist militias to become one of the Republic’s principal commanders. Leading the Fifth Regiment and later the Fifth Army Corps, he embodied the wartime effort to turn fragmented militias into a regular army. As commander of the Army of the Ebro in 1938, he directed the Republic’s last major offensive, but a prolonged battle could not overcome its material and manpower disadvantage. After defeat, he lived in exile in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia and recorded his wartime experience.
Career timeline
- 1930Joined the Communist Party of Spain
- 1933–1936Organized the Antifascist Worker and Peasant Militias in Madrid
- 1936Organizer and early commander of the Fifth Regiment
- 1936–1937Commander of the 4th Division; promoted lieutenant colonel
- 1937–1938Commander of the Fifth Army Corps in Brunete, Belchite and Teruel
- 1938.04–11Commander of the Army of the Ebro during the Ebro Offensive
- 1939General and commander of the Central Army; went into exile in March
- 1944–1969Lived as an exile, serving in the Soviet Union and Bulgaria before settling in Prague
