Communist Maneuvers Among the Spanish Refugees in Mexico
Serge, Victor
Communist Maneuvers Among the Spanish Refugees in Mexico By Victor Serge MeXICO CUT .—Up to recently the cause 6f the Spanish Republic seemed to be in the hands of authentic ¦epublicsns. Among...
...Juan Negrin, in London, severed connections with his former Communist allies snd denounced their Supreme junta...
...The former Communist ministers, Moix and Uribe, ware there on that platform...
...Neither the Communist Party or Negrin will be forgiven for their crimes against the Spanish Republic in 1M7...
...Unfortunately, the question a* to who is to exercise power in Spain after the fall of Franco is no longer a matter that is to be settled on grounds of proved democratic principles...
...Countless propagandists began to say to the Spanish Republicans: "The USSR is the only power that you can count on...
...Bit the meeting of members of the Cortes in Mexico did not give us the results on which we counted...
...After their bitter experiences, these groups appeared determined to keep sot ef positions of power all Communist totalitarians...
...Frieda Eirchwey, editor of The Nation, wss photographed on the platform beside such representative Communist agents as Comorera...
...Help from the USSR was taken for granted...
...On January 20, for the first time, thousands of Republican refugees from Spain were brought together in s great pro Communist meeting...
...Conspicuous by their absence were all the influential Republican liberals and Socialists...
...They had more excuse then ever for saying that the USSR * Sold control Europe, that it is the only genuinely progressive power, and that it would not delay the creation of a democratic government in Germany...
...Their greatest stroke was to give the impression that they were securing the public support of various governments and of liberals from the United States...
...The Russian victorias in Polsnd and Prussia, moreover, gave added litis—r* te those who had been maintaining that th* "USSR has been winning the war single-handed...
...The problem is to lie solved purely on a basis of fore*, of conniving, of possession of arms and material resources...
...The bitterness of disillusion sad the prestige of the victorious Red Army gave suppert te this sort of propaganda...
...This man, "Secretary of the United Socialist Party of Catalonia"—which is Communist—played a sinister role in Barcelona during the civil war and in connection with the assassination of Andree Nin...
...Th* real organisers of this demonstration were the Communists and their usual agents...
...Shortly before meeting his death in an airplane accident, Ambassador Oumansky succeeded in establishing relations with Barrio, former president of the Cortes...
...At the name time the former Minister of Foreign Affairs under Dr...
...The efforts of this phantom organization, powerfelly financed by Moscow and assisted by the Communist Party of FTance, came to nothing at Toulouse...
...M. Casss, Under-Secretary of State for Interior Affairs In the Mexican government, was among the speakers and took occasion to express the general sympathy . felt by the public for the Spanish refugees...
...Negrin, on the contrary, was to be boosted as the leader of the next Spanish government The upshot of it all is that Spanish anti-fascists are further from unity than ever...
...To close our eyes to this danger and to the fact that it is growing would be a fatal error...
...Dyonisto Encinas, the Secretary General of the Mexican Communist Party, was there and so was Ramon Lamoneda, leader of the tiny pro-Communist faction within the Mexican Socialist Party...
...Th* Socialists, the syndicalists, th* members of th* Geneial Federation of Labor and all of the liberals endowed with any firmness of character and political insight are united in this...
...The maneuvers of the Negrin-Communist groups were partly successful...
...Among them were the Socialists, led by Indslei io Priete, snd the bourgeois liberals, represented hr Diego llartines Barrio...
...What happens in Spain will probably parallel what has recently taken plsce in Lublin snd Warsaw...
...Their object was to discredit the Committee of Liberation and, without mentioning him, Indaleeio Prieto...
...In this sens* the meeting, which waa called aa a demonstration of unity, merely served to emphasise th* division between the totalitarians and their oppo- nents...
...The significance of the meeting of the two should not he exaggerated, but it did take place and it had some importance...
...But it served also demonstrate one* again th* resources and the wide support enjoyed by the group which organized this demonstration...
...Ambassador Toriello represented the Government of Guatemala...
...the others will all desert you or stick a knife in your back...
...Negrin, Alvarez del Vayo, was conspicuously active in Mexico...
...At least 80 percent of the Spanish refugees in France asserted themselves in favor of a new Spanish democracy without Communist infiltration...
Vol. 28 • February 1945 • No. 7
