Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Michigan (InterContinental Chicago Magnificent Mile)
The Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939 pitted the forces of international fascism against
those of the Spanish Republican Popular Front. Soviet involvement in Spain at the height
of the mass repressions drove a wedge between communist groups on the Spanish
Republic’s left. The clash between “Stalinist” and dissident communists, popularized by
George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, is often portrayed as the imposition of Soviet
politics in the Spanish Republic. However, studies in newly available archival collections
have complicated this interpretive paradigm significantly. It has become clear that the
“May events” of 1937 and the subsequent repression of the dissident communist POUM
(Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) had primarily domestic origins. However, the
conflict within the communist left was expressed in language borrowed from Soviet
political culture and inspired by contemporaneous events in the USSR.
those of the Spanish Republican Popular Front. Soviet involvement in Spain at the height
of the mass repressions drove a wedge between communist groups on the Spanish
Republic’s left. The clash between “Stalinist” and dissident communists, popularized by
George Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia, is often portrayed as the imposition of Soviet
politics in the Spanish Republic. However, studies in newly available archival collections
have complicated this interpretive paradigm significantly. It has become clear that the
“May events” of 1937 and the subsequent repression of the dissident communist POUM
(Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista) had primarily domestic origins. However, the
conflict within the communist left was expressed in language borrowed from Soviet
political culture and inspired by contemporaneous events in the USSR.
