Introduction to The POUM’s Seven Decades

The ATC Editors

WE PRESENT THIS leading participant’s account of the Party Of Marxist Unity (POUM) as an historical document. The POUM was the most important organization of the revolutionary left in the Spanish Revolution of 1936-39. Its historic role is twofold: as a critical political and military force in the struggle against fascism, and as a target of the murderous Stalinist campaign that ultimately destroyed the revolution from within. Wilebaldo Solano was General Secretary of the Iberian Communist Youth — Juventud Comunista Ibérica (JCI) in 1936, member of the Executive Committee of the POUM, imprisoned until 1944 and later elected as General Secretary of the POUM (while in exile). He is the author of El POUM in la Historia. Andreu Nin y la revolución española, and founder of the Fundacion Andreu Nin. At age 93 he currently divides his time between Paris and Spain. This essay, written in 2005, has been translated for Against the Current by Susan Weissman with the assistance of Michel Vale.

ATC 143, November-December 2009