The UGT worker-leader they called the Spanish Lenin, a prime minister broken between revolution and war
In November 1936 Largo Caballero appointed four CNT leaders to his cabinet: anarchists whose programme was the abolition of the state took ministerial office in one. One of them, the health minister Federica Montseny, was the first woman to hold a ministry in Spanish history.
A man who left school at seven, worked as a stucco plasterer and became a union leader. At the head of the UGT he was sentenced to life for the general strike of August 1917, and under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship he took a seat on the Council of State to keep the organization alive, a choice argued over for the rest of his life. As labour minister of the Second Republic he pushed through the eight-hour day in the countryside, and around the Asturias rising of 1934 he moved so far left that his supporters called him the Spanish Lenin. In September 1936 he became prime minister and war minister, and in November brought four CNT leaders into the cabinet, seating anarchists in a government for the first time; but he clashed continuously with the communists and the Soviet advisers over rebuilding a regular army and over the pace of the revolution. After the May Days of 1937 he refused to outlaw the POUM, lost his ministers and fell. In exile in France he was seized by the Gestapo and held in Sachsenhausen until the liberation of 1945.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1869Born to a poor family in Madrid; left school at seven and became a stucco plasterer
- 1890–1894Drawn into the UGT by a builders' strike; joined the PSOE in 1894
- 1917Sentenced to life for leading the August general strike; released the next year on election to parliament
- 1924–1930Councillor of State for labour under the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, keeping the UGT alive at the cost of a lasting controversy
- 1925Became the leading figure of both the PSOE and the UGT after the death of Pablo Iglesias
- 1931–1933Labour minister of the Second Republic; pushed through the eight-hour day in the countryside and other labour laws
- 1934–1935Moved far left, called the Spanish Lenin; jailed after the failed Asturias rising of October and then acquitted
- 1936.09.04Took office as prime minister and minister of war
- 1936.11Brought four CNT ministers into the cabinet and moved the government to Valencia
- 1937.05.17Refused to outlaw the POUM after the May Days and was forced out of office
- 1937–1938Pushed out of the UGT leadership as well
- 1939Went into exile in France with the defeat of the Republic
- 1943–1945Seized by the Gestapo and held in Sachsenhausen concentration camp until the liberation
- 1946.03.23Died in Paris; his remains were returned to Madrid in 1978
Related historical events
- 1936–1939The Spanish Civil WarPrime minister and war minister in the first year of the warBrought the CNT into the government and approved the shipment of the gold reserve, then fell in May 1937 for refusing to outlaw the POUM
- 1940–1944The Fall of France and the Vichy RegimeExile detained by Vichy policeAfter France capitulated and the Vichy regime was established, police detained him and held him under guard.
Confinement under Vichy and Franco's extradition demand
When the Republic fell, Largo Caballero crossed the French frontier on 29 January 1939 and settled in Paris. His two sons were held in the rebel zone, and he survived on help from the International Federation of Trade Unions, from sympathisers in Europe and the Americas and from exiled Spanish socialists. After the German invasion he feared arrest by the Gestapo and handover to Franco, and left Paris on 11 June 1940; but with the French capitulation and the establishment of the Vichy regime he was detained by the police and moved through internment under guard near Albi, at Trébas and at Crocq.
In May 1941 the Franco government asked Vichy to extradite him, accusing him of instigating murders and of complicity in looting. With backing from the Mexican government, the exiled Republicans and above all Indalecio Prieto, the French lawyer Vincent de Moro-Giafferri argued his case, and in November 1941 the court at Limoges refused extradition, as it did in the parallel case of the anarchist leader Federica Montseny. Confined at Nyons from February 1942, he was arrested by the Gestapo on 20 February 1943, aged seventy-two, interrogated at Lyon, Paris and Berlin, and sent to Sachsenhausen on 31 July. The camp authorities kept him in the infirmary because of his age. He remained there almost two years, until a Polish unit of the Red Army liberated the camp on 24 April 1945.