Moscow's War on Loyalist Spain:
ALBA, VICTOR
Largo Caballero's memoirs, just published, describe MOSCOW'S WAR ON LOYALIST SPAIN By Victor Alba FRANCISCO Largo Caballero died in 1946, after 46 years in the Spanish Socialist movement. Premier...
...Another time, Caballero learned that commissars had been appointed (by J. Alvarez del Vayo) without his signature...
...Following his liberation in 1945, Caballero wrote a series of letters, addressed to a friend, in which he wrote of his life and his ideas...
...For the story of the Spanish Civil War holds the key to the successful Communist infiltration of Asian nationalist movements and to similar tactics in Latin America...
...The Communists were eventually able to win the Chief of Staff's post for Colonel Vicente Rojo, who had just agreed to join the party...
...Caballero coldly asked the Ambassador to leave and not to bring the matter up again...
...The Central Committee of the CP repeatedly pressed Caballero for his dismissal...
...they were given shoes, clothing, tobacco and food...
...Ultimately, as it happens, the Communists did succeed in having Asencio thrown in jail...
...The new commissars were, of course, Communists...
...The Communists tried to win Asencio over...
...The situation became so critical that, in order to keep informed as to what was happening on the fronts, Caballero had to name ten aides who enjoyed his full confidence as "inspectors...
...The Communist press hailed the military exploits of Communists and hushed up those performed by others...
...The pretext was always that they were not available or were undergoing repairs...
...According to Caballero, their aim was to punish this individual for refusing to join the CP and to isolate Caballero from his loyal supporters, surrounding him with Communists and provoking him until he gave up the War portfolio...
...Non-Communists were sent to the most dangerous sectors of the front and to those where they could achieve the least glory...
...In another letter, Caballero declares that the Loyalist "Air Force was directed by a Russian, although officially by a Spaniard...
...The Army chiefs were flattered so that they would join the Communist party...
...all the attention was given to Communist party members and future prospects...
...In this way," he writes, "I learned that on certain fronts a marked preference was shown for Communists...
...Thus, a great many people joined the party, contrary to their feelings and without knowing what it really was...
...when this failed, they launched a virulent campaign against him, denouncing him as a traitor...
...They were neither treated nor fed properly...
...Written in the rough-hewn style of a self-educated man who took his first job at the age of 7, they reveal a shrewd, direct and honest mind...
...These letters, which were never sent, have just been published in Mexico by Caballero's sons under the title My Recollections...
...Perhaps their greatest value, however, lies in the light they cast on relations between the Spanish Communists and the Loyalist Government in the early months of the Civil War...
...The others were treated as stepchildren --that is, when they were not shot in the back...
...And, one day, the Soviet Ambassador himself arrived at the War Ministry to make the same request, accompanied by Spanish Minister of State J. Alvarez del Vayo...
...Since he held the post of War Minister as well as Premier, Caballero had a confidential military adviser, one General Asencio...
...Premier of the Spanish Republic at the outbreak of the Civil War, he was imprisoned by the Vichy French after Franco's victory and then deported to the Oranienburg concentration camp...
...Caballero writes that the Papal Secretary of State--who has since become Pope Pius XII--sent several wires to Aguirre, the leader of the Basques, urging him to make a separate peace with Franco in return for promises of favorable treatment...
...On numerous occasions, Loyalist planes failed to observe the enemy or to support an infantry operation...
...The Republic paid for the planes and the Russians accorded themselves the right" to carry out or ignore orders to ship them to various fronts...
...The orders were transmitted by the Minister of War to the Minister of the Navy and Air Force (Indalecio Prieto), who relayed them to the Chief of Aviation, who in turn communicated them to the Russians...
...Caballero's chronicle of events is a depressing one, but it needs to be told...
...Moscow, incidentally, was not alone in intervening in the affairs of Loyalist Spain...
...The Communists then started a similar campaign against the Loyalist Chief of Staff...
...I also learned that in certain hospitals--just as the priests and nuns had once acted toward non-communicants--non-Communists were not taken care of...
Vol. 37 • December 1954 • No. 49
