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 revolutionary who pursued workers' unity across communist divisions
After his arrest in 1936, Maurín remained in prison throughout the war, leaving the POUM under Andreu Nin's leadership in his absence.
Joaquín Maurín was a Spanish communist politician and labor activist who sought a mass revolutionary politics rooted in Catalonia. He led the Workers' and Peasants' Bloc while breaking with the Communist Party's Stalinist line, then co-founded the POUM with Andreu Nin in 1935 and became its first general secretary. Trapped in the insurgent zone when the military uprising began in 1936, he was arrested and spent the Civil War in prison, leaving Nin to lead the party in his absence. After his release and exile, he worked in New York as a writer and news-agency organizer, documenting the experience of the Spanish revolution.
Career timeline
- 1914–1920Taught in Lleida and joined the CNT
- 1920–1922Lleida CNT secretary and editor of Lucha Social
- 1921–1922Provisional secretary of the CNT national executive
- 1924–1930Organizer of the Catalan-Balearic Communist Federation
- 1931–1935General secretary of the Workers' and Peasants' Bloc
- 1935–1936Co-founder and first general secretary of the POUM
- 1936Popular Front deputy for Barcelona
- 1949–1973Founder of the American Literary Agency and writer in New York
