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
Related historical events
- 1936–1939The Spanish Civil WarGeneral Secretary of the POUM and Minister of Justice of CataloniaRallied the anti-Stalinist left on the line that the war and the revolution were one thing, and as justice minister institutionalized the popular tribunals. He was arrested and killed when the party was outlawed in June 1937.
- 1937–1938The Great PurgeTarget of an overseas operationThe Spanish POUM leader was abducted by Republican security police and killed in a 1937 operation involving the NKVD.
Moscow Years and the Left Opposition
When Nin arrived in Moscow in 1921 as a CNT delegate, he was deeply moved by the Russian Revolution and converted to Marxism. He remained in the USSR for nine years, working in the Profintern secretariat, joining the RCP(b), and even being elected a deputy of the Moscow Soviet. During this period he grew close to Trotsky, serving as his secretary and emerging as a key figure in the Left Opposition against Stalin's bureaucratic line. In 1926 he was removed from his Profintern post and placed under surveillance for his opposition activity; he then spent four years seeking permission to leave the USSR with his wife Olga Tareyeva and their two daughters, Ira and Nora. When Nin finally returned to Spain in 1930, he was one of the few Western European Bolsheviks fluent in Russian, enough to translate the Russian classics directly into Catalan.