The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1323: The Spanish Civil War - Radicalizing a Moderate Socialist Pt. 2 of 2 - w/ Karl Dahl and Morghur

Episode Date: January 29, 2026

74 MinutesPG-13Karl Dahl is an author specializing in the Spanish Civil War and historical "fiction." Morghur lives in Spain and translates writings about the Spanish Civil War that are only available in Spanish.Karl is joined by his compadre Morghur to conclude this chapter in his "Anatomy of a Leftist" Substack series. In part two of this lengthy episode, they complete their discussion of Largo Caballero, who became Prime Minister of Spain three months into the conflict.Now and Then: Anatomy of a Leftist, Part 2Now and then: Women in the Spanish Civil WarFaction: With the CrusadersKarl's SubstackKarl's MerchPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

If you want to get the show early and ad-free, head on over to the piquinones show.com. There, you can choose from where you wish to support me. Now listen very carefully. I've had some people ask me about this, even though I think on the last ad, I stated it pretty clearly. If you want an RSS feed, you're going to have to subscribe through substack or through Patreon. You can also subscribe on my website, which is right there. Gumroad, and what's the other one?

Subscribe Star. And if you do that, you will get access to the audio file. So head on over to the Pekignano Show.com. You'll see all the ways that you can support me there. And I just want to thank everyone. It's because of you that I can put out the amount of material that I do. I can do what I'm doing with Dr. Johnson on 200 years together. And everything else, the things that Thomas and I are doing,

together on continental philosophy. It's all because of you. And yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank you enough. So, um, thank you. The Pekignana Show.com. Everything's there. So one of the really interesting things that happened among the, the socialists, uh, is that, uh, they got a lot of, so they began amassing their own weapons and munitions. Um, the, the, amassing of like dynamite stockpots. and blasting charges from the miners is really important. Yeah. The Asturian miners, although they had a huge anarchist bent,

they were still incredibly important in the Republican military as sappers and like shock troops because of their familiarity with explosives. True, because just during the Revolution of October, figures, I have it here. Figures said that they destroyed 57 bridges just in one month. Yeah. And for those that might say, oh, but they were like an Afinburgur, they had an army that was 20,000 strong.

And they were planning on moving on Madrid. And because everyone in Madrid was afraid of them, they just sent the army to just strip them up. Yeah. Because they said, okay, they might move on Madrid. But we don't know it and they say we will move on Madrid. So the interesting thing is this was a mess. And this is on the tail end of the basically Prieto being pursued because he was the frontman

for a big order of weapons that were brought in from overseas. So he had to flee to France. Yeah, his flight is funny, I will say. Very, very funny. He waddles to the border. No, they essentially, at first he was hiding in the home of a friend. Then he went to the home of another friend because he was afraid they will find him there. And he calls for like a sergeant on the Air Force to tell him, okay, I have to flee the country, you have to help me.

And the guy arrives. They chuck him in the back of his car, but he doesn't want to get in the, in the, God damn it. I forgot the word. The trunk of the car. Oh, because it is too hard. So they have to bring like the cushions of a sofa for him to be comfortable. bull and they drive to the border and because the the driver is the is the sergeant of the air force they just let him through and he flees to paris to paris interesting yeah it's interesting

because he at the first sign of trouble he just dipped out while largo caballero knowing that he handed orders he did a lot of speeches and all that he remained in Spain Huh. Interesting. So a lot is happening in this period. There's a law of amnesty that is signed in the summer of 1934, and the original intent supposedly was to pardon the people who were involved in the Sanhurhava. The 1932, basically coup attempt the general Sanjurho, tried to spearhead. But then it evolved into sweeping pardons for all kinds of political agitators.

Yeah, it essentially evolved into that because it was a law with retractive effect that said that political activities and agitation, proclamations and insurrections were essentially null and void from this date backwards. Yeah. Everything. So it was not specific. It was everything. And then as you pointed out, this is when, you know, this is right on the tail of this is when, say, the demands to have some positions, you know, even though the left was totally opposed to allowing them into any government organs. Not only the left, but also the center. the Republicans, the people of the center, except the center right, were opposed because they said,

how are we going to let an enemy of the republic within it? Yes. So that triggers the Revolution of October 1934, which you pointed out the Austerians, Going Ham, the army goes in, and Largo Cabiero is involved in leadership of the, socialist uprising is arrested by the the Republic in November. There were, again, mass arrests. More than 20,000 people were arrested in relation to this uprising. Again, this is among the socialist, communists, and anarchists.

And the Republic is like, we can't really tolerate this. But the government doesn't really have substantial material evidence against the leaders of these parties. And Largo Cabiero's trial is brought to the Supreme Court. The high prosecutor of the Republic, Marcelino Valentin Gamazo, calls for Largo Cabiero to be, you know, serve a term of life in prison. there's a long trial and then interestingly he's cleared of all charges

thanks to that law of amnesty of 1934 because all of his well-documented demands for war and violence had become legally inadmissible in court because of that law of amnesty we can touch on the speech that he gave in 1933 which was frankly the clearest

explanation of his intent or like his willingness to to where he could take things. I mean, I have here a quote. He gave in 1931, by the way, it is important that he said, this attempt of dissolving the courtes for lack of majority would be assigned the Pseille and the UGT, the UGT, would take as a provocation to start a new revolutionary movement. I cannot accept that possibility. It would be like challenging. the party and forcing us to start a civil war. In 1931. Yeah.

And he echoes those terms in his 33 speech as well. So again, that's legally and immiscible because of this law of amnesty. So he's released from jail in December of 1935. The high prosecutor resigns and disgust, but he is not forgotten by the socialist. So this is right when that center-right coalition government is about to collapse. Yes. What happened is that Alejandro LeRugz was involving two corruption scandals, like, very quickly, in just the month.

And that caused a huge crisis within the party. And seeing that, essentially, Hill-Robles said, okay, if this guy cannot be the president, I'll be the president. And Nifetal Kalafamara, which was the president of parliament, said, no. So he dissolved the courtes and called for new elections. That was what happened. And that brings us into these spring elections of 1936. Yes, very quickly. Which is what triggers, you know, this, everything is just accelerating at this point. And so Largo Cabiero in his campaigns, his campaign speeches, is he's essentially saying, we need to utterly remove the right from having any power and getting a little more aggressive.

Like we have to crush the bourgeoisie. How do you pronounce bourgeoisie in Spanish? Burgess. Oh, Burgess. Okay, that makes sense. Regarding the election, I have a very, very short quote here that he said in the 20, the 23rd of January, for us to not repeat again the events of 14 of April, where the people show their enthusiasm, but not their justice, it is necessary for the people on the right to know firsthand what popular justice is and to be punished for their inexorable failures.

Incredible. And he essentially said, we won't accept an electoral defeat of the left. that would result in a civil war. Again, he said it several times. Yes. Totally like he's totally saying like even if they're legally elected, we won't accept it. It's unacceptable to us and we will go to war. Yet the official framing, this is from, he becomes the president of the prime minister rather, of the republic.

And, you know, but again, it's this right-wing extremists who are the ones that are out of line. Yeah. So they win in a popular front election, which is essentially a vast coalition of left-wingers where everyone agrees, you're going to vote for the popular front candidate. There's a great deal of violence, coercion, destruction of property, and very obvious electoral fraud in many places. the let's see so interestingly so azania enacts a state of emergency to halt local elections that are planned for april he suspends the constitution and i characterize this as creating a state of anarcho tyranny where the left is permitted to run rampant while the right was essentially legally helpless the the uh the uh The declaration of Largo Cabiero that like they're delegitimizing and crushing the left or excuse me, crushing the right is actually taking place under the illusion of it being a legitimate government activity to do this. But you have to consider that Athania did not do it because he wanted to crush the right wing or he wanted to aid the socialist. He just did it because he didn't want to lose his seat.

It's essentially that because if the right one again, the Republic was done. Yeah. And he didn't want that to happen. So he would rather have the left run rampant in Spain than to let his vanity project be destroyed. he knew that if he acted against the acts of the left, the coalition would be destroyed, new elections, the right would win, and they would eventually destroy the republic. Which is a fair point. The right was completely opposed to the republic at this point in time.

Like they felt that it was, you know, illegitimate from the start. And I think we've shown how illegitimate it was, you know, through, you know, many other podcasts, but this one in particular, the way that the left behaves at this point is they say, we don't care like any right-wing election is illegitimate because we say it is. Yeah, happens too often. So it's interesting because in the spring of 1936, Largo-Cabayero, basically there's a riffy, you know, between him and more moderate people within the PSOE, although Largo Cabiero retains the support of their power base, really. He's still very popular. He's this very seasoned senior leader within the party. He proclaims a desire to formally join the Communist International, as well as to formally establish a relationship with the Soviet regime. Again, this is before, the military uprising.

And then during his speeches and political events in this period, he displays portraits of Stalin, communist flags, and he closes every event by singing the international. Again, this is just a left-wing elected republic. He had become the de facto PSOE party leader and the more moderate socialists are sidelines, completely. Yeah, mainly Julian Besteiro.

He was the main preponderant. Who, by the way, I forgot to point this, is in response to the Revolution of October, he said, and I quote verbatim, let it be known that the fascist threat is not represented by Ceda, but by Largo Cavallero and his supporters then nurture it. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah, Besteiro was since the beginning opposed to the communists, and he was relegues. to complete irrelevancy very quickly.

So the military uprising happened July 17th, 1936. Largo Caboero was made the leader of the Republic in September of 1936 at the age of 97, excuse me. Yes. Before he took he took possession, there was the two other presidents, by the way. When the uprising took place, Casares Kiroga essentially resigned, and Diego Martinez-Barreau took the presidency. He tried to negotiate with the sublobated generals. He failed and he resigned.

And the new one, Jose Hiral, was the guy that disbanded the army and handed weapons to the population. And when he saw that the country, the republic, was in complete anarchy, he also resigned. Oops. Yeah, I mean, a lot of the Republicans were expecting that by disbanding the army, the sublobated would like stop. Yeah, that the uprising would just disappear because they had declared the army disbanded. Yeah, but what it did is that a lot of indecised officers and soldiers defected because I have no more obligation.

to you, bye, bye. And this, it's really important to understand that, like, right, right at the time of the uprising, the, the deals that the, that the Anglophone world, the British and Americans, the business deals that they had with Spain and the military in particular, as it related to, like, trucks and fuel and tires and things of that nature. Immediately, all the British and American companies said we recognize the Spanish nationalist, the military uprising, the rebel forces as the people that we have the deal with. And so we will provide this to them on credit. So there was no, there was no tether between the Republican government and the military and their kind of key.

sources of these supplies from outside of the country. It was over, like right at the jump. And so there was nothing they could do about that at this point. Largo Cabiero was only the leader of the Republic for eight months. He would stay in power until May 1937. But the interesting thing is that he, uh, he essentially attempted direct control of the entire army. But the records of this are very unclear.

There's a distinct lack of documentation probably burned long ago, you know, at some point at this, you know, in this period. That or essentially there are multiple sources that said that he did this and other one said, oh, he didn't do it, but he knew it. And others said, oh, he didn't do it and he didn't know about it, but he was informed later. It's a lot of confusion. And at the end of the day, you really don't know exactly what happened, like with the gold of Moscow or the execution of Primo de Rivera. Because there is multiple people that say that, oh, he authorized it, or he didn't do it. Yeah. And this is where the breakdown of like the people who attempt to own this.

the narrative or direct the narrative on the subject of the Spanish Civil War, it always falls apart because during this period, the, you know, there was, there was a very strong, like, Republican government narrative that kind of shifted as soon as the, the Soviet control of it was so obvious. And so they started retconning that, you know, all these kind of, you know, all these kind state socialist parties and more moderate, you know, people were, it was taken over. That's kind of an Orwell orientation. Or like the anarchist, you know, they scapegoed the anarchists. And then in the 60s, later 60s, you know, they, you know, especially when the left and the hard left turned against the Soviet Union, they started attempting to resuscitate the anarchists. And then

in the 90s and aughts like you have uh antony bivore who is a you know he's essentially playing choose your own spanish civil war and you know saying well really like ideologically the anarchists and like there were the subset of like cool anarchists that were that were really kind of just libertarians and and uh and hippies and like they were the really good guys but just all these bad people and extremists for the problem. It's totally ridiculous. Well, the way you said, it explains why there was a resurgence in terrorist activity in the 60s in Spain. A lot of anarchist groups started to just sprout around here. It was also the time when Eta was born. Yes, that's right. That's right. So Largo Cabiero, again, as you pointed out,

pointed out the army was essentially disbanded. There were all these militias and random political parties and people who were armed. The workers were armed, right? They just opened up the arsenals to them. They had no idea what they were doing. So Largo Caboero attempted to centralize the army command and then put professional soldiers in charge of the leftist militias and like incorporate them into the army, which really, It took some time for that to happen, but they really started having success in that area in the spring, which is around the same time that the right did the same thing, where they unified all the militias under the central command of the army. Yeah, with the decree of unification. Indeed. And then, but to back up a little bit, the Soviet Union did, as we pointed out, that there was not only a proclaimed relationship directly between the Spanish Republican government and the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Union, their policy was that like the Republic would fall without the aid of the Soviet. So by mid-September 1936, the first shipment of military material and personnel, quote-unquote, advisors, but literally like first round, you know, equipment operators, armored cars, tanks, aircraft, and then a hodgepodge of some good weapons and some, like a lot of crap, frankly, flowed as well as the implementation, the institution of the international. brigades managed by the Communist International were flowing. And talking about the Communist International, the General Secretary of the International

Gregory Dimitrov sent the 23 of July instructions to the Communist Party of Spain. And I read exactly. At the present, we should not undertake the task of creating Soviets and establishing a proletariat this dictator in Spain. That would be a fatal mistake. Thus, we proclaim that we must act under the guise of defending the Republic. Indeed. And this balancing act is really well explained, or a contradiction, I should say, is really well explained by some other material that we have in here. There's testimony from Alexander Orlov, who is the leader of the NKVD in Spain, and then the Soviet ambassador Rosenberg, was serving as a political liaison. There's all kinds of really interesting confessions that Orlov made after he defected to the U.S.

He provided testimony to the Eastland Senate Judiciary Committee in 1957 that are like very good records of what Stalin's secret police were doing in Spain and, you know, essentially reinforcing, you know, the testimony about what was going on in Spain under the NKVD and the SIM, you know, what the communist political. parties were doing in Spain to everyone. And what I want to do is jump down past, you know, the gold that went to Moscow, like when all of the precious metal reserves were sent out of Spain, 72.6% to Moscow, the remainder going to France for arms purchases. A total joke. and just the NKVD going wild and just killing all kinds of people. If you'll recall, the prosecutor who had led the prosecution of Largo Caballero in 1935, Marcelino Valentin, was executed in a very haphazard way. judges who didn't play ball to the degree.

And a lot of times it was just revenge, not even trying to get them to do anything. But there was a big cleanup. 128 judiciary magistrates were murdered. Two members of the Supreme Court were murdered. And sometimes it was done very haphazardly by just death squads. Other times they were like arrested and then executed. Yeah.

A lot of the early executions were just in prompt to the military. Asia arrives, they take you to a desolate place and they just shoot you. As the war dragged on, they became more subtle about it. And so here's where I wanted to reinforce the point you made about the official Soviet position. And this is a letter from Stalin December 1936 as to like what Largo Cabiero's job was and where their framing came from. I'm just going to quote here and read for a bit. We consider that it is our duty within our capabilities to aid the Spanish government. You lead the fight of all workers and the forces of democracy against the military fascist army

that are nothing more than a tool of the international fascist forces. Remember, at this point, the Germans had provided airlift, the Germans and Italians and Italians had provided airlift and there was this was just the very beginning of you know military aid and and forces from Germany and Italy going into into Spain as well just very beginning of it the Spanish Revolution is taking a much different path than ours the vastly different social historical and geographical conditions determine it the international climate is vastly different than the one in the Russian Revolution It is quite possible that the parliamentary way is a far more efficient revolutionary process in Spain than it was in Russia, although Largo-Cabiero disagreed.

You should pay special attention to peasants due to the significance they have in a country like Spain. It would be advisable to issue decrees relative to agrarian patterns and to taxation in order to protect the interests of these workers. It would also be advisable to draw these peasants toward the armed forces. and build with them a guerrilla army to fight in the rear of the fascist army. As well, it would be convenient to draw towards the government the petty and middle bourgeoisie from the cities, or, if possible, allow them to remain neutral as long as they favor the government and protect them against confiscations by ensuring within your means free trade and commerce. You must not reject the leaders of the Republican parties. On the contrary, you should draw them in and associate them with the common efforts of the government.

You need to avoid being seen as a communist republic by the enemies of Spain to dismantle their declared intervention. Fueling their rightful claims would be the worst danger for the Spanish Republic. You must seek the chance to declare, through all means available to the government, that you will not tolerate, the violation of rights against the property or legitimate interests of foreigners in Spain. So this is Stalin telling Largo Cabiero, you know, how his revolution is going to be. That, you know, you can't do this now. You can, you can, what you need to do is put on the facade that this is a functional democratic government because we need other European countries to come to the rescue of the Republic

via military aid or direct intervention. Then after the war is won, you can implement your revolution. You can implement your communist regime or socialist regime. So interestingly, Largo Cabiero formally replies in January of 1937 and essentially says, I agree with your recommended strategies. And then he says, quote, whatever may be the future of the parliamentary form, it does not possess among us or even among the Republicans enthusiastic defenders. So at this point, the Republic and the Republicans saw the Republican model of government as a failure. In fact, most center and center-right politicians started to support the uprising, started to support.

Yes. Yes. And so I'm going to skim a little more here. Largo Cabero agreed with like the PCE and the Soviets that yes, I'll displace the anarchists. But then he realized by the end of January 1937 already and along with Memoir, members of his cabinet, the communists were leveraging his cooperation to destroy the power of all the non-communist leftist parties as well as to suppress their influence among the public by incarcerating and murdering their leaders. So that, you know, Stalin's forces as well as their Spanish allies in the Spanish Communist Party are essentially. potentially violating the terms of what they said that they were doing on the ground at the low level, but they're keeping a handful of figureheads up at the top while wasting everyone who goes against them. And the crazy thing is in the militias and in the military, in the army, out in the field, this was incredibly violent. it was incredibly violent and and continued to be so so um so lago carburero uh recognized that despite all this

framing that um you know the the the pcee and rosenberg the soviet ambassador were just hammering him just do what we say just do what we say just do what we say just do what we say just do what we say and so um you know it it's really interesting that he realized that he was nothing but a puppet at this point. And interestingly, he decided to resist by expelling Rosenberg from Spain and sending him back to the Soviet Union. And rather than a direct confrontation with him and his party and the government, the response from the Soviets and the PCE is to go after the quote-unquote Trotskyite P.O.M. The Marxist Unification Workers Party, which was the party that Orwell was associated with just because of his international connections.

and Largo Cabiero refused to move against them because he saw them as an integral part of that leftist coalition in Catalonia where they were just barely hanging on by a thread keeping them working with the central government. Yeah, because I think that not a lot of people know is that in Catalonia, it was because the anarchists were the main ruling force there,

they instaurated kind of a system of like libertarian anarcho-communism. It's hard to define. Like they abolish private property, money. If you needed something you could demand it from the government. It was all over the place. And at the beginning, it was enforced mainly by the Druti and the Drutti column as they advanced to Aragone. but in Catalonia was mainly enforced by the agents of the CNT and the poem were also an integral part of the government in Catalonia. And the need to hold this coalition together, this, you know, this Catalonia was already on the verge of breaking up.

Yeah, another civil war was brewing up. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So the, um, the, um, The Soviets and communists claimed that the P.O.U.M. were in contact with Franco's spies and were essentially, you know, Francoist collaborators, if not fashion, you know, secret fascists themselves, which is obviously ridiculous. But the whole, the whole idea here is that they're whittling away this coalition and the authority that Largo Cabiero held. And so in the events of May, when they basically there was a civil war in Barcelona, when they went after the, the CNT and the P-O-U-M, the, you know, this really did it. And the anarchists fought against the communists more than the P.O.U.M. did in terms of like sheer numbers. Again, a lot of it being ideologically driven as well as understanding what the Soviets were and what the communists were. And always having been opposed to them for for decades, frankly, in their in their ideology. And so this was used by the communists to really. be an excuse to go after even more people who are their enemies in the party. They took care of the P.O.U.M. They essentially liquidated the leadership in horrific ways. Andres Nien was played alive.

Yeah, he was arrested. They moved him to Madrid for interrogation, and then they proceeded to torture him. And he died during the torture. And this was really the way that they operated with all of their enemies, totally a legitimate system. So Largo Cabiero, like, he knew the gig was up, but he was pressured to and ultimately ended up resigning in May 1937, so May 16th. Important to note that Largo Caballero, his resignation, the main, the key component of his resignation was in the last. who stabbed him in the back in order to get rid of him. He was a key because the moderates in the socialist party went against Largo Cavalero. It's very interesting.

But it's so strange because they're essentially, it's a reaction to a reaction to a situation that the moderates themselves aren't going to be able to keep control. Yeah, but... Keep under control either, right? Yeah, but the thing is that the moderates actually thought, okay, if we get rid of Largo Caballero, who is a radical, and he's driving us into this, maybe we can fix it with a moderate candidate.

They proposed Prieto, but he was rejected, and they chose Juan Negreen. Who was arguably worse than Largo Cavalier. because he actually collaborated with the communists willingly. Like enthusiastically even. Yeah. To a certain degree he did. And he also did the thing he crushed the Catalanian independent government and he jailed absolutely everyone involved with it as well. So he he was harsh. He was harsh and he did everything he could to keep the communists behind him.

So the interesting thing is Largo Cabiero is removed from the government and his leadership position in the PSOE. He was still a member of the UGT labor union at this point. And my understanding is that he ended up going to Catalonia because it was safer for him, essentially. Is that correct? Yes, he went to Barcelona, essentially. Yeah, and so he became a vocal opponent of the communists and was calling out what was taking place. Not long later, in the autumn of 1937, he was expelled from the UGT Labor Union. They claimed that he was not paying his party dues.

Then he was arrested, put under house arrest, all of his funds, documents, and properties that he had earned while working in the UGT. Again, remember he had been a politician for what, 35 years? Between 30 and 40 years. Yeah. And so they took everything

and he was essentially penniless. The UGT was essentially disbanded at this point or dismantled. And he was just stuck there, you know, unable to really do anything. So, of course, this is, you know, it isn't long until the nationalists were advancing on Catalonia. So in January 1939, after the Battle of the Ebro broke the military around Catalonia, he and many, many other people fled Barcelona for the French border.

And he just had nothing at this point. And so he was dependent on the goodwill of wealthy friends and people, you know, keeping his head above water. He did not steal with a huge, you know, he didn't steal away with a big fortune seized from, you know, illicit activities. Unlike two other people that I know about. Prieto was one. And Negrin was the other.

And Negrin was the other. Prieto essentially stole like $50 million from Negrin. Because Negrin sent a yacht with stolen goods to Mexico. And they were in transit when the Republic fell. And the crew didn't know what to do with everything. So Prieto took the advantage and seized the money. Wild. Yeah, and essentially after the war, each one had their own organization.

And they were, they were like, I have letters that they sent each other and you can feel that seizing resentment they have for each other, reading those letters. It is insane. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. So at this point, you know, Largo Cabiero is stuck in France. There are people advocating that he, you know, relocated to South America like so many people in the Spanish Republic did. The anarchists did.

A lot of them went to Mexico. And one, on the one hand, he like really couldn't afford to do it, but he also didn't want to be that far away from Spain. Yeah. So, you know, German. Many invades France. Largo Cabiero was apprehended by French authorities. A lot of other high profile, you know, Republican political figures were also imprisoned. Interestingly, so the Franco regime demanded a return of all of their, you know, political opponents.

So they could be tried for their crimes against the nation, but the French authorities did not do so. But the thing is that the French authorities extraded some. Yeah, that's a good point. Like Luis Campanis, which was the president of the Catalonian independent regime. And they just hand him over with little fanfare. But they didn't do it with Largo Caballero or Frederica Monseni. And also other anarchists and socialists that were living in France. it's very peculiar.

And it's one of those things where we don't seem to have good explanations as to why. Why the one and not the other is my understanding. Regarding companies, I have a theory. It's a little bit her brain. And it is essentially because the French really don't like the Catalonian independentists because they have pretensions to land in France. Yes. Yes, because of historical patterns from hundreds of years ago.

Yeah. If not, that I think they handed him over kind of because of that. That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah, there's what is, it's about a 40 kilometer wide strip of the Mediterranean and northwards that is the old Catalonian kingdom that's in the French side. Well, not kingdom. Catalonia was never a kingdom.

It was a county that were vessels to order them. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's right. But yeah, it is essentially that they have pretensions to that land in France and also to the south in Valencia. It is, I mean, complicated. I never told you this, but when I was in Spain, you know, many moons ago, I was on a bus from Barcelona headed down to, because I was going to go to Cadiz.

And yeah. And so it was really, it was really funny because there was a very loud, um, Cotelon woman on, on the bus. And she started arguing with a bunch. She was talking very loudly about how the Cotelons invented everything.

And, um, so people are laughing. And, uh, the funniest thing was that she claimed that they invented opera. and everyone's laughing and they're like, that's so ridiculous. And then she started singing opera and she had a beautiful voice.

And she like immediately captivated everyone and within like 20 seconds everyone was applauding. It was absolutely hilarious. It was absolutely hilarious. I mean, with that attitude, it's kind of a general attitude that some Catalonians have. And it's a reason why a lot of people in Spain don't like them. Yeah, even because, well, a little bit of sidetrack. A lot of people right now in Spain hate Catalonians a lot because of something the government is doing. Yes.

I won't go into details because it's a very long topic. Maybe another time. Yes. So, okay. So at this point, Largo Caballero is not sent to Spain. However, he is handed over to the Gestapo and is imprisoned eventually in the Soxenhausen concentration camp at age 71 and in poor health. And he spends the next several years in the prison hospital until he's liberated by the Red Army in 1944.

at this point he is just like broken. Jaded, completely jaded. Yes. He dies of kidney failure in January 1940s, or excuse me, in March, 1946, well, renal colic and is utterly, he's been utterly impoverished and living in just horrible conditions for about six years, five or six years at this point. And he was buried in Paris, but in 1978, in the post-Franco pact of forgetting era, he's re-interred in Madrid.

A lot of exiles, Spanish exiles, it happened that with them. They died in South America or they died in France, and they asked to later be interred in Spain. It happened with way too many of them. And I think that, you know, you made, you made some interesting observations to wrap this up about, you know, he was no Dolores Iber Ruri, who was just a loathsome psycho. Yeah. He was, you can see, you can see how he got radicalized. you can see and you can be a little more sympathetic given you know the way that he grew up

you know his hard life uh the conditions that he just had to like deal with on a regular basis and frankly his uh very it's seemingly earnest attempts to like work with the system peacefully uh and you know he had some small some small successes but they were very small successes and he just became bitter and more radical and jaded as time went by. But it's the interesting, the most interesting thing to me is I just get this impression from everything that he almost thought it was a waste. Like, and he never wrote memoirs. He never, you know, he wasn't, you know, we have, we have memoirs from pretty much the entire

leadership of the CNT. and they're really interesting. But like Largo Cabiero, you know, only biographers can take him on because we have his speeches and we have the testimony of other people.

But he just seems like he became a very different man over time. Yeah. You can see that change essentially with the dictatorship, with the, with he refusal to work with the government. That is kind of,

it's kind of like he's that whenever he tried, whenever he tried to concede to aid or to collaborate with the government, someone would put a roadblock in front of him. It's the impression that he gives me that no matter what he proposed, even if it was good or maybe others considered misguided or something like that, he saw that there was always someone out to prevent him from achieving his goals. And it's probably a good part of what drove him towards being more radical in general. And I think we can wrap this up by quoting from his 1933 speech in his infamous November 1933 speech in Barajos, where I

Remember, this is in the campaign season. He was a member of the provisional government. He was the head of the ministry of labor. But they also saw this looming, like right-wing victory that would destroy not only the republic, but their aspirations to implement a socialist regime. And so the really interesting thing here is that I'm trying to find the best spot to jump off on. Okay, here it is. So this is where we see a lot of the kind of bitterness in this speech.

So I'm going to jump ahead and explain his position here from this speech. quoting, he says, The Spanish people have seen that rather than be thankful for their peaceful ways, the enemy comes back to enslave them. Do not be surprised that history repeats itself, and we must return to a revolutionary movement, a violent one, and the blame will be upon them. The Socialist Party joined the provisional government as a minority with a duty to fulfill.

We have accomplished all of our objectives. Funny. even more, we allowed some of our political fellows to not fulfill theirs. And for all the sake of the Republic, so it wouldn't fall like the first one from the 19th century, I should say. Back then, we thought that we were the backbone of the Republic, and it was our duty to consolidate it. And that is why we accepted the decision that the provisional government would immediately reconvene the Cortes. That was the second mistake of the Spanish Republic. In other words, here's this republic.

We're going to put in place Republican principles and a Republican form of government. So he's talking out both sides of his mouth right here. We prematurely joined the Cortes before carrying out our revolution, only to be cast out by the parliament. Nobody will be surprised if in similar circumstances the people join a premature call to parliament, only to be cast out once more. So he's essentially saying in this election period, like we're wasting our time by voting for parliamentarians and working with a parliamentarian government.

Protests against us were only levied when we began to implement social laws or social reforms. Did they think that we were in the government to defend partisan interests? Wasn't our duty first and foremost to triumph for the working class? That is what we did. but our legislation wasn't enforced, and yet we tolerated it, and then we tolerated the obstruction of our reforms in Parliament later on. We tolerated all this, convinced that the Republic was necessary for the working class to go above and beyond, and that's when the campaign of lies and slander began. A campaign carried out by those who very soon will come begging us for help to defend the Republic, and I will ask them, why are you attacking us?

if you will soon beg us for help. Think about it. Don't you see that they represent nothing in Spain? You do not represent anything because you aren't backed by the conscious working masses. Think, because I will say that the republic will not stand without the socialists, and you cannot rule without the socialists. You made the mistake of rushing into elections because you thought that the votes in our favor were from the Republicans, but as soon as parliament was dissolved, you realize this was false,

that the working class is with the socialists more than ever. And if you could, you would not hold elections because you know that the socialists would gain even more a seat in parliament. So how interesting is it that he's complaining not about the right wing, but he's talking about the left Republicans styming and being the chief opposition to the social. We have a similar talking points on the right that the enemy of like our thinking is conservatives. It's an incredibly interesting parallel.

He's not even talking about the real enemies. He's talking about being backstabbed by the moderate Republicans. That just sounds way too familiar. way too familiar i mean this it's just you know history doesn't repeat itself but it's a script it's if the script works do it over and over again yes exactly and so this is really interesting as he closes it um i'm going to skip ahead a tiny little bit um that he's essentially saying he says therein the mistake of the Republicans. They believe that the political struggle is separate from the economic struggle and that the worker cannot even collaborate with his boss in political activity. Now in these

elections, they will realize a mistake that will cost them dearly. That sounds pretty familiar right now. And then he says, the candidates of the anti-Marxist front is composed of fascists, monarchists, conservatives, and radical Republicans. And I ask you, is there a difference between any of them? None. Even worse, these last ones are the worst because the radicals are the ones facilitating the return in the monarchy. You don't have to look further than who defended March in the Cortes, March being a banker,

businessman, and a smuggler. Yes, who was a huge financier of the uprising. Even though during the Republic he played on both sides, but it was when the Socialists went after him that he said, oh, I got to save myself from these people. March isn't a Spanish surname, is it? He is from Baleares. That's right. And important to know, he was originally a pig farmer. It is incredible that he got to the top.

top of a Spanish economy just as a pig farmer. Amazing. So there's all this stuff about the radicals collaborating. And by the way, the radicals here, it doesn't mean radicals. It means the center right. The Leroux. Yes. Because a lot of people think, oh, well, the radicals, they are radical, but no, it's just the center right. But it's interesting because I had read some of his speeches from like 30 years prior and he was very radical.

He was talking about like raping nuns and like burning the country to the ground and stuff like that. Totally wild how as soon as as soon he became like a real serious political operator and manipulator. Yeah. I mean, Leroux was a journalist so it shouldn't surprise you. All journalists are best. Like I told you, almost everyone in the Second Republic was a journalist.

Almost everyone, except on the right wing, everyone were all of them were lawyers. Yes, absolutely. That's a really good point. Calvo Sotelo was a lawyer. Hill Robles was a lawyer. Primo de Rivera was a lawyer. Manuel Falcone was a lawyer. The Count of Rodafne was a lawyer.

Ethno was a lawyer. Everyone was a lawyer. Incredible. Yeah. It's surprising. Well, let's bring this home. I will go through some of the spiciest parts of this speech, and he says, here we go. At that moment, everyone will unite against us, but we will tell them, if you do not allow workers to obtain their demands through Parliament, you are casting us out from the law, You're proving that the democratic institutions are unfit to achieve our goals. Because the working class will not be content with mere laws from now on. We will fight to take over political power. Don't let our enemies twist our words, since I will speak frankly.

We are going for all political power. In making these statements, we are not content with just having two socialist ministers in the government benches. That is not enough to govern. This comes from a man who has been a minister for two and a half years. You don't rule just by being a minister. You need more tools. Every single minister must be socialist. We must take over the judiciary, which is in the hands of the bourgeois.

Every single enforcement agency of the state, but not the current tools created by the monarchy, but the ones created by our socialist regime. So he's essentially saying that the Republic inherited tools of the monarchy, that are still run by the bourgeoisie and their collaborators. For a proper socialist regime, we must have every agency and every tool within our grasp. And some will say, that is nothing more than the dictatorship of the proletariat. But do we live in a democracy today? Don't we live in a bourgeois dictatorship?

Who owns the army, law enforcement, and all other government institutions but the bourgeois, even more. The bourgeois own the machines, the lands, the means of production, And when they see the working class rebel against their oppression, they have the tools to doom us to starvation and poverty. That is why we declare we are not willing to continue this situation. We want to hold all political power, much like the bourgeois have done until now. And don't anyone dare say that the working class doesn't know how to rule. So it is incredible. It is absolutely incredible that he comes right out.

And then he goes on to say, we are attacked because we want to abolish private property, and they are right. We do not hide our intentions. We will destroy the regime of private property. We are attacked because we are the enemies of the family, and we answer, they are the enemies of the family. They destroy working families by forcing women and children to work long hours, exploiting their fathers and husbands, and doing them to starvation.

We as socialists wish families could be as we believe they should be, free from economic burden. Pretty appealing. Yeah, very much. Pretty, pretty appealing. And so, you know, as you go through this, you know, he really, he really says that everyone here is basically saying, if we're barred from parliament, we will turn against it. He says, our enemies have already begun this war. Their voice, Gil Robles says that if they are barred from Parliament, they will turn against it. So be it. We respond. We are moving legally towards the evolution of society. But if you wish so, we will make the revolution violently. This, our enemies will say, is inciting civil war. But let's be honest, we are already in a civil war. What else is the constant war between

employers and workers, which takes place every day? We are in the midst of a civil war. Let's not be blind to it. So, you know, despite everything else that he says where he's like, we just need to prepare, and this is how we need to think about things, et cetera. But really what he's saying, what I think is most important is that he's saying, we don't believe in the republic, our enemies don't believe in the republic, the only people who believe in the republic don't really believe in the republican are just using it to you know to manipulate us or like i said in the case of athania is a banity project yes yes so like none of these people none of these people believed in the republic

I just don't I don't see a compelling case that there was like there were real ideological true believers who are willing to compromise at this point. I mean, who were promoting the republic. I mean, at the beginning, at the beginning, the army was willing to give the republic a shot. but because the Republican politicians didn't trust the generals and officers from the monarchy and tried to make them bend to their will. They ended up pissing them off since the very start. Yeah, exactly. Because remember, the republic got instituted because the army sided with them.

Just remember, they were willing to give it a shot, and they were essentially stabbed in the back. None of these people working in good faith with one another. That's like the biggest thing that jumps out to me. Yes, because, I mean, I could talk at length about what happened because there is a huge web of intrigues between the politicians and the army during the republic. And one thing is, of course, you wonder, okay,

Why did the man that essentially swore obedience to the presence of the Republic proclaim a coup d'etat on two years after, after he essentially said, hail the Republic? Like, you got to think because Sanjouhru, essentially at first, he was obedient to the Republic, but the Republicans didn't trust him and started closing his military academies. They discharge him, they discharge him, they set him to reserve, they stripped him of rank. And I mean, you see that happening. Are you not going to be angry? Exactly.

It's amazing. And they did the same with essentially almost all of the sublobated generals. They did the same to them. then you wonder, okay, they had it coming because they pissed off the people that they shouldn't. They couldn't help themselves. It's like everyone thought it was the All Patriots Go moment, you know, and all the different factions were competing with one another. But you got to think that at first the army just came out of that period where they were at odds with the king and they said, said, okay, we're going to give a shot to these guys. If they don't mess with us too much because

politicians before were messing a lot with the army, we're going to give it a shot. And they discovered, unfortunately, that the politicians of the republic were even worse than the ones before. Because between the religious laws, they also forced them to swear allegiance to the Republic. They foreclosed military academies. They also raised the requirements to access certain ranks in the army. Like you needed to have a college degree to reach certain ranks. It was huge. And of course they didn't like it. And also that is not counting all the new people that the Republic and also the socialist and communists were shoveling in the Army. That makes sense. Yeah. I really hope that people, you know, we're two hours, 15 minutes

into this. Carl and I have done hours on this subject. And I hope that people, if people haven't figured it out by now, I hope they can, you know, or at least figuring it out now, why this is a subject we're talking about. Because, you know, I'm sitting here and listening to you guys have a conversations. You guys who know a lot more about the subject than I do. And I'm just going, well, that's, that's today. That's today. That's relevant to today. That's relevant to today. Okay. So, you know, I guess the question comes down to is you have this information. It's happened before. You get an idea of where this can lead to. What do you do about it? And that's probably not something we want to talk about on a podcast.

But it's something that people have to start thinking about. I mean, that is why I think this is the articles that I've been doing are a public service announcement. You know, it is an interesting period of time, but you have to know, you have to know, and then you will see. Absolutely. Well, thank you again for not only writing these pieces, doing all the work that you do to find the material through Spanish sources, which we're just constantly reading everything that we can find about this topic, but we're constantly finding new stuff just has never been in English. Or if it is, it's incredibly obscure and out of print. I mean, in some cases, even in the Spanish, is obscure. And I see. sometimes can only find part of the text and not the full text. Like, I've been trying to find the instructions reserved as the private instructions,

which were the letter with the fundamentals for the sublobation. I was trying to get them translated, but I only can find parts of it, not the full text. It's a shame. Very, very interesting. Well, it's still a valuable. What you're doing here is valuable. And, you know, we appreciate it. You know, you can only machine translate so much.

You know, you have to be able to, the idioms are the hardest thing to figure out when you're translating, which is why, like, German is one of those languages. It's almost impossible to translate into English. but um yeah and i'm thankful that that it's it's appreciated it's uh it really motivates motivates me to keep going awesome awesome well um head on over to uh it's a carl sub stack it's um that it opened somewhere right here what the hell is it called again karldall dot substack dot com yeah man k r l d a chill.substack.com and if morgur is the author of an article i always lead with that but it's generally the now and then series is his series so we have another one coming up that i'll put up uh this week yeah that also took me a while to make because i had to sift through quite a few a few things

uh while doing it it is in some cases i had to like hunt for the for the news articles because I knew there were some of them and I wanted to get them there. Well, it's great that we have the internet and not only can we meet each other that way, but we can find this incredibly important historical material. So, yeah, thanks again for your collaboration. Appreciate your time here. Well done, by the way. Thanks.

And I look forward to working with you more. It will be my pleasure. All right, gentlemen. Thank you very much.