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
The anarchist metalworker who broke the rising in Barcelona and led the column that carried his name
Reported from an interview with the Canadian journalist Pierre van Paassen in Barcelona in 1936: “We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. The bourgeoisie may blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts.” The words are famous, though the exact wording of the interview is disputed.
A metalworker born into a railwayman''s family in León. Sacked after the general strike of 1917, he fled to France and became an anarchist, and through Los Solidarios and Los Errantes he passed from bank expropriations and an attempt on the king''s life to prisons across Europe and Latin America. In July 1936 he led the workers who stormed the Atarazanas barracks and broke the military rising in Catalonia, losing his old comrade Francisco Ascaso in the fight. He then raised the six-thousand-strong Durruti Column, took it to the Aragon front and pressed the collectivization of land and factories in the liberated zone. In November he joined the defence of Madrid, was shot at the Casa de Campo front on the 19th and died the next day; whether the bullet came from the enemy, from his own side or from his own malfunctioning weapon is still argued. Hundreds of thousands followed his coffin through Barcelona.
Career timeline
- 1896Born in León, second of eight children of a railway worker
- 1913–1917Joined the metalworkers' union; sacked by the Northern Railway for the 1917 general strike and fled to France
- 1918–1919Became an anarchist in exile and joined the CNT on his return
- 1920–1922Formed Los Justicieros; the plot against Alfonso XIII was uncovered and he fled to Zaragoza
- 1922–1923Organized Los Solidarios with Ascaso and García Oliver; expropriated the Bank of Spain in Gijón
- 1924–1926Expropriation raids through Cuba, Mexico, Chile and Argentina; arrested in Paris and held in La Santé
- 1927–1931Released, lived in Belgium and worked with the FAI; returned to Barcelona when the Second Republic was proclaimed
- 1931–1936Founded the affinity group Nosotros; repeated arrests and deportations made him the face of the CNT left
- 1936.07.19–20Led the workers who took the Atarazanas barracks in Barcelona; his comrade Francisco Ascaso was killed
- 1936.07–11Raised the Durruti Column for the Aragon front and pressed collectivization in the liberated zone
- 1936.11.14Brought part of his column to the defence of Madrid
- 1936.11.19–20Shot at the Casa de Campo front and died the next day; the source of the bullet is still disputed
- 1936.11.22Buried in Barcelona, hundreds of thousands following the coffin
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
