Personalities and Trends Among Political Refugees in Mexico
Serge, Victor
Personalities and Trends Among Political Refugees in Mexico By Victor Serge MKXICO, •morif all the American nation*, waa the only one which adopted a completely sympathetic attitude toward...
...The Basque National Party, whose leader, Jose Aguirre, is at present in the United States, has the reputation of representing the greet industrialists who are Catholic and tied to the policies of the Vatican...
...The members of this group publish SoMaridad Obi era and keep up their relations with all of the refugee centera and with their organisations in Spain...
...Free Czechoslovakia, for example, is led by Andre Simone (Katz) and Egon Erwin Kisch...
...AUmania Libn, published in Mexico, is probably the effective center of this whole German movement in Latin America...
...It support* the delegation of the Committee of Liberation to which the Mexican government haa given official reeog' nition...
...This notable recent convert to the democratic cause is justly infamous for having opened the doors of hi* country to Nazism, promulgated sntiSemitic law* and cruelly repressed the movements of workers and peasant...
...Among these the Jewish Bund, with a long socialist tradition, ha* given proofs of a constant spirit of solidarity toward all the various refugee groups...
...Though the party is discredited everywhere, it has connections of some sort with*practically all groups...
...They are constantly exposed to calumnies, to denunciation* of the most fantastic sort and even to physical attack...
...In the mother country this federation is continuously active...
...They include, however, numerous very distinguished persons...
...Hie name ia Victor Serge...
...They send notices snd articles to the papers, arrange banquets, conferences, meeting...
...Bourgeois liberals found all the doors of the two America* open to them...
...Mundo, directed by a Spaniard, Professor Gironella...
...The Catalonians, whether autonomist or federalist, are radical and ready to accept the most thorough-going reforms...
...Among these refugee* the Stalinist influence was very strong up to the time of the assassination of Erlich and Alter...
...Nevertheless, though this party may seem so weak as to be negligible, if it is admitted to participation in any movement it is capable of making serious trouble...
...The Heinrkh Heine Club is their cultural front The former Communist member of the Reichstag and collaborator of SI Popular and the Free Germany, Paul Mercker, ha* managed to set up a European trade union delegation...
...President Manuel Avila Comacho has continued this polity...
...Its leader, Comorera, is a man who has been thoroughly discredited...
...The Federation of Metal Workers is represented in London by Wenceslao Carillo, Prieto has recently reorganised the Spanish Socialist Youth League...
...The chief leaders here include the- former minister Uiibe snd two others, Antonio Mije and Anton, both of them recently arrived from Russia...
...Free Austria is headed by Bruno Frei...
...In Mexico this CNT group while maintaining its bias against political action, ia friendly to the Committee of Liberation...
...The German refugees are represented by a number eg organisations...
...and by the Republican Left which is orgsniiod about Alvaro de Albornos...
...Free Yugoslsvis has at its head Dragutin Fodor, who ia known as Theodor Balk in the German movement...
...There is, too, an Austrian socialist group...
...Marceau Pi vert...
...There are among them many former government officials, intellectuala, military men and militant working-clsss leaders...
...It is supplemented by the Federation of AntiNazi Residents of Mexico...
...The whole thing is little more than inflationary publicity...
...In genersl, they are reactionsries...
...Some of de Gaullists maintain a rather factitious organisation called The International Democratic Alliance which is turned to their purposes by the Communists...
...The most powerful Spanish unions are represented in Mexico by well-known and reliable socialists...
...The liberal bourgeois parties are represented by the Republicsn Union, the leader of which, Diego Marlines Barrio, serves as president of the Committee of Liberation...
...A complete enumeration of the open or camouflaged Communist organisations would require page...
...The first ia the Maxxini League, which ia socialist and republican...
...The Communists, aa everywhere, ar* setting up a variety of innocentfront organisations, committees of women, youth leagues, etc...
...The working-class immigration which comes out of Spain reflects this situation...
...Jacob Abrams, formerly a friend and collaborator with Eugene Deb* in the Socialist Party of the United States, edits a paper here for the Jewish leftist group...
...The Catalan separatists are no more than a negligible minority...
...The Italian refugee* are divided between two organizations...
...These sre the socialist, powerful in the Asturias, in Madrid and in the East, and the libertarian, which is syndicalist and anarchist and which centers mainly in Catatonia...
...THE mass movements of Spain, including practically all of the organised part of the population, are divided into two tendencies...
...The POUM has reorganised Its illegal underground groups in Spain and is recovering its old strength in Catalonia and in Valencia...
...At the present time it looks ss if he were the real leader of the CP...
...The German Communist Party, on the other hand, is well supplied %ith resources of all sorts, has wide organisational connection*, plenty of newspaper representatives and the support of all sort* of Germans who fear the defeat of Nazism...
...The largest wing of the movement accepts the rather moderate views of Indalecio Prieto...
...While this group haa not definitely come to the support of our Committee, it has not come out in favor of separatism...
...But Mexico offered the only home to the revolutionaries— that i...
...I speak of ex-King Carol of Rumania, the distinguished rounder of nightclubs who has not yet succeeded in establishing a "Free Rumania movement about himself...
...But according to the testimony of its own members, the party finds itself the object of so much resentment and opposition that its position is just as difficult in the underground movement of Spain as among the refugees in Mexico...
...Beth of these main, tain their political and intellectual independence, but they are feeble in number* and in the material sense...
...In the near future Spain will certainly face in this Basque region a problem of real gravity...
...The intellectuals among them have received...
...These groups include the Spanish emigrants of the various appropriate types...
...organ is Eipako Popular...
...Free Hungary ia under the leadership of Lasslo Radvanyi...
...But many aspects of this matter are unpredictable...
...The Agricultural Workers, with 700,000 members, are represented by Pedro Garcia, the Transport Workera by Zancajo, the Miners by Belarmino Thomas...
...Thar* is, flrst of all, a Socialist Association of those speaking the German tongue...
...It haa a great following in Biseaye...
...It serves ss s sort of red relief organisation and through the use of its material resources certainly exercises an important influence...
...The CP...
...THERE are great number of other European refugees who have been unable to secure vices Of the United States and so have found their only haven of safety in thia hospitable land, almost the only land which was open to militant anti-fascists...
...Its titular leader is the exofficer "Ludwig Renn" [in hia former German incarnation he waa Baron Vieth von Golssenau], who up to 1925 belonged to military reactionaries of Germany...
...the surrealist poet Benjamin Peret...
...After worldwide pretests Serge waa (reed...
...has announced the formation of a National Council in Spain...
...appointments as teachers in the Workers University...
...Dolores lberruri, bettor known aa Paasionaria, controls the group from Moscow...
...This wing is especially influential in the units of the Genersl Workers Union (UGT...
...Although the group as a whole is antagonistic to the Communists, the former anarchist minister, Garcia Oliver, who came to Mexico via Moacow, collaborate* with them...
...The Basques are entirely different...
...the socialists, the opposition communists and the totalitarian (Stalinist) communists...
...The United Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), formerly connected with the Third International, is really Communist and, after going through one split after another, has no more than a few dosen members...
...Personalities and Trends Among Political Refugees in Mexico By Victor Serge MKXICO, •morif all the American nation*, waa the only one which adopted a completely sympathetic attitude toward the Republican* during the time of the Spanish Civil War...
...President Lasaro Cardenas opened wide the doors of his country to the vanquished Loyalist...
...Renn is supported by Bode Uhee, a Nasi official up to 1930, Andre Simone, whose right name ia Otto Katz, Anna Seghers and her husband, Lasslo Radvanyi, Dr...
...The Communist Party group has much greater financial resources than any other...
...This group is the special object of Communist attack, for these men know the Communists through and through from their long and bitter experience with them...
...The** include such men as Ludwig Renn, Andre Simone, Bruno Frei and Alexander Busch...
...They are supported, of course, by Lombardo Toledane and the daily paper, Ml Popular...
...Negrin, in London, ha* been publicly disowned and attacked by the Communists, who accuse him of having betrayed them...
...Characteristically enough, this organisation tries desperately to secure the support of business and industrial interest* which only yesterday were on the fascist side...
...These same persons, with various changes of name and nationalities, inspire the committees of a whole series of so-called "free movements...
...A French colony, very rich and extremely reactionary, has existed here in Mexico for generations...
...Excepting for the Communist totalitarian*, an observer is struck by the spirit of harmony and fraternal cooperation in this world of exiled Spaniards...
...They publish, it i* true, a monthly magazine...
...THE National Federation of Workers (CNT), our * union of libertarian syndicalists, has several hundreds of its active members among the exiles...
...Having been arrested by the Gestapo at the time of the invasion of France in 1940, he was sent to Moscow during the period of Ruso-German collaboration...
...The FOARE (Federation des Organisation* .t'Aide aux Refuges Etrangers) is headed by Professor Mancisidor, of the Mexican Communist Party, and really run by such well-known Communists as Leo Lambert (Zuckermann) and Gertrude Duby...
...Simone T?ry, a journalist representing the Communist influence...
...The anti-totalitarian Socialists have no mesns of putting on such a show...
...IN 1IM in Park, at • Writers Congress Agsiaat Wsr aad Faaeism, dominated by Ommmleta, brsve Gaetane Salvemial arose aad spoke: "We are here to flght dictatorship...
...One of its members, Professor Gironella', publishes a review called Mundo, which is a broad-gauge, eclectic journal of rather high quality...
...Among these sre the following: the anthropologist Paul Rivet, formerly director of the Musee de l'Homme in Paria and, at the age of 06, one of the leaders of the resistance to Nazi occupation...
...Today be Uvea ia exile in Mexico City...
...Throughout his life this novelist, author aad international flgbtor for socialism baa fought tyranny...
...The group known as Nstionsl Basque Action, on the contrary, is separatist...
...The left-wing may be said to follow the Ideas of Largo Cabellero...
...The Jewish Bund is a minority group In the large Jewish colony...
...The militant workers do not constitute the majority...
...L'Etquena Catalan*, a leftiat organ, supports our Committee of National Liberstion—as do Sbert and Bantalo...
...The second, called the Garibaldi Alliance, is led by Francisco Fro la grid devoted to the communist interests...
...In Madrid he was one of the organisers of persecutions of the socialists, anarchists and the POUM...
...It includes Gorkln, Gironella, Xrquer and Molines...
...Some 160,000 Spanish refugees have made Mexico their home, for the* most part awaiting the day of liberation to return to their motherland...
...The Socialist Party is divided into three groups, two of which have importance...
...It ia smaller snd less influential...
...Of these things I have had some personal experience...
...The CP...
...I propose we adept a resolution urging bis freedom...
...This man Anton has had an interesting record...
...It is, nevertheless, rather isolated and subject to internal crises and difficulties...
...And they have furnished proof of intellectual vitality and of courage—especially during the excitement with regard to the execution of Erlich and Alter...
...A small group of dissidents, among them the former minister, Lluhi, look forward to collaboration with the Communists...
...Within the UGT there are some union officials, led by Rodrigo Vega, who remain in connection with the Communist Party...
...The POUM, the leader of which, Joaquin Maurln, has been held in one of Franco's prisons since 1036, is* represented here by a group which is small but active and Influential...
...Leo Zuckerman, otherwise known as Leo Lambert, and a number of other collaborators of the Komintern...
...But no matter how many of them one were to list, he would And recurring in them the same elements...
...A small minority of these two parties, led by Femades Clerigo and Velao, is under Communist influence...
...The central argument of all their "unity" propaganda is the claim that "we shall dominate Europe...
...The leftiat refugees from France, on the other hand, are numerically weak...
...the French-Polish writer Jean Malaquai*| the novelist, Jules Romains, who belongs to the liberal right...
...The section of the Socialist Party which favors collaboration with the Communists seems to be gradually falling apart...
...Two Spanish minority groups have strong organisations, publication* %nd group headquarters...
...The weekly journal Frane* Librt, official organ of the fighting French, publishes an abundance of propaganda emanating from Moscow...
...Ia a land called Reaaia there ia a valiant and iatraasigeant Sghter against dictatorship who ha* been Imprisoned by the Stella regime for daring to speak la opposition...
...There are a large number of Jewish workers from Poland and Russia...
...These groups and these leaders produce an impression of tremendous activity...
...Thia picture would remain incomplete were I to omit mention of the richest and best advertised of all the emigres in Mexico...
...The news from Spain makes it clear that the old loyslties still prevail and that these divisions hold their- followers with an increasing degree of unity...
...They depend on the way in which varioua situations may turn and, in particular, on the policies of the Vatican...
...Under the same influence sre found a smsll number of intellectuals snd ex-military officers who receive their directives from the Communist Party and are very much under the influence of communications from Moscow...
...These immigrants represent a great variety of groups...
...But these persons are rather isolated and insignificant...
Vol. 27 • May 1944 • No. 20
