Andreu Nin Pérez (4 February 1892 – 20 June 1937) was a Spanish

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

, translator and publicist. In 1937, Nin and the rest of the

POUM The Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ( es, Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM; ca, Partit Obrer d'Unificació Marxista) was a Spanish communist party formed during the Second Spanish Republic, Second Republic and mainly active a ...

leadership were arrested by the Moscow-oriented government of the

Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII, and was di ...

on trumped up charges of collaborating with

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...

Nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

and were tortured to death by Soviet

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union. ...

agents. On 17 June 2013, 76 years after his death, the

Parliament of Catalonia The Parliament of Catalonia ( ca, Parlament de Catalunya, ; es, Parlamento de Cataluña; oc, Parlament de Catalonha) is the unicameral legislature of the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain. The Parliament is currently made up of 135 mem ...

officially paid homage to him and his work on politics with special emphasis on his work as Justice Minister of Catalonia.

Early life

Born in

El Vendrell El Vendrell () is a town located in the province of Tarragona, Catalonia, in the wine-growing region of Penedès. It is wedged between the Mediterranean and the coastal range. El Vendrell is the capital of the Baix Penedès '' comarca'' an ...

Tarragona Tarragona (, ; Phoenician: ''Tarqon''; la, Tarraco) is a port city located in northeast Spain on the Costa Daurada by the Mediterranean Sea. Founded before the fifth century BC, it is the capital of the Province of Tarragona, and part of Tar ...

, to a poor family (his father was a shoemaker and his mother was a peasant), Nin moved to

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

shortly before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

; he taught briefly in a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

school but soon became a

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

and activist. In 1917, he joined the

Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party ( es, Partido Socialista Obrero Español ; PSOE ) is a social-democraticThe PSOE is described as a social-democratic party by numerous sources: * * * * political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in gov ...

(PSOE). Nin became a leader of the Spanish workers' movement, and was among the founders of the

Communist Party of Spain The Communist Party of Spain ( es, Partido Comunista de España; PCE) is a Marxist-Leninist party that, since 1986, has been part of the United Left coalition, which is part of Unidas Podemos. It currently has two of its politicians serving as ...

(PCE). He consequently worked for the

Comintern The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet Union, Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to ...

and

Red International of Labour Unions The Red International of Labor Unions (russian: Красный интернационал профсоюзов, translit=Krasnyi internatsional profsoyuzov, RILU), commonly known as the Profintern, was an international body established by the Comm ...

(RILU or Profintern) in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. While in

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

, he was won over to the

Left Opposition The Left Opposition was a faction within the Russian Communist Party (b) from 1923 to 1927 headed ''de facto'' by Leon Trotsky. The Left Opposition formed as part of the power struggle within the party leadership that began with the Soviet fou ...

which confronted

Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

's ascending faction within the

Communist Party of the Soviet Union "Hymn of the Bolshevik Party" , headquarters = 4 Staraya Square, Moscow , general_secretary = Vladimir Lenin (first) Mikhail Gorbachev (last) , founded = , banned = , founder = Vladimir Lenin , newspaper ...

. He briefly worked as secretary to

Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...

while in Russia. It was during this time he also began translating several of Trotsky's works into

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

and

Catalan Catalan may refer to: Catalonia From, or related to Catalonia: * Catalan language, a Romance language * Catalans, an ethnic group formed by the people from, or with origins in, Northern or southern Catalonia Places * 13178 Catalan, asteroid #1 ...

. Returning to Spain, Nin was instrumental in forming the

Communist Left of Spain Communist Left of Spain ( es, Izquierda Comunista de España) was a Trotskyist political party during the Second Spanish Republic. Its leader was Andrés Nin Pérez, who had been a supporter of the Left Opposition while living in Russia. Althou ...

(ICE), the self-designated

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...

group affiliated to the

International Left Opposition International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

(ILO). However, the ICE was a small group and largely isolated. Nin had a number of disagreements with Trotsky in this period, specifically when Trotsky advised the ICE leader that entry into the

Socialist Youth of Spain Socialist Youth of Spain ( es, Juventudes Socialistas de España) is the youth organisation of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in Spain. Headquartered in Madrid, the organization was founded in 1906 and is aligned internationally with ...

would augment the forces at their disposal, while Nin advocated forming a united party with the

Workers and Peasants Bloc The Workers and Peasants' Bloc (; es, Bloque Obrero y Campesino, BOC) was a "Right Opposition" communist group in Spain. History BOC was founded in Barcelona in 1931, as the mass front of the Catalan-Balearic Communist Federation (FCCB), aft ...

(BOC), a group coming out of the

movement but seen as being on its

right wing Right-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position on the basis of natural law, economics, authori ...

POUM

Eventually Nin broke with Trotsky and the ILO on this question, and the merger went ahead. Together with

Joaquín Maurín Joaquín Maurín Juliá (Catalan: Joaquim Maurín, 12 January 1896 – 5 November 1973) was a Spanish communist politician and activist. The leader of the Workers and Peasants Bloc (BOC) and of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), h ...

, he formed the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) in 1935, as a communist alternative to the Comintern-aligned PCE. After the region of

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...

saw its regional government, the

Generalitat Generalitat (, literally in English 'Generality') is the name of two major medieval and early modern political institutions and their modern-day analogues in Kingdom of Spain. The ancient Principality of Catalonia and the Kingdom of Valencia were ...

, reinstated by the

Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII, and was dissolved on 1 A ...

in the opening phase of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

, Nin joined the devolved government headed by Lluís Companys, as regional minister of Justice. However, as Spain's communists gained sway in the Republican government, they moved to purge ex-communists and those independent of

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

from the government, which would include POUM. Following a threat from Soviet consul

Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko Vladimir Alexandrovich Antonov-Ovseenko (russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Анто́нов-Овсе́енко; ua, Володимир Антонов-Овсєєнко; 9 March 1883 – 10 February 1938), real surna ...

to withhold Soviet aid, Companys sacked Nin from his cabinet on 16 December 1936, concluding a controversial tenure.

Arrest and disappearance

Following the violent

May Days of Barcelona The May Days, sometimes also called May Events, refer to a series of clashes between 3 and 8 May 1937 during which factions on the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republican faction of the Spanish Civil War engaged one another in street ...

, on 16 June 1937, the government, under PCE pressure, declared POUM illegal. On the orders of Alexander Orlov, Nin and most of the POUM leadership were arrested and sent to a camp at

Alcalá de Henares Alcalá de Henares () is a Spanish city in the Community of Madrid. Straddling the Henares River, it is located to the northeast of the centre of Madrid. , it has a population of 193,751, making it the region's third-most populated Municipalities ...

, near

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. Nin was tortured for several days under the supervision of the

Jesús Hernández Tomás Jesús Hernández Tomás (1907 – 11 January 1971) was a Spanish communist leader. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) he was Minister of Education and Fine Arts, then Minister of Education and Health. After the war he went into exile in O ...

, then a member of the Communist Party, and Minister of Education in the Popular Front government, later wrote: He was finally executed on 20 June 1937. Health minister

Federica Montseny Frederica Montseny i Mañé (; 1905–1994) was a Catalan Anarchism, anarchist and intellectual who served as Ministry of Health (Spain), Minister of Health and Social Assistance in the Government of the Second Spanish Republic, Spanish Republi ...

was one of the first to raise the issue in public, asking, "Where is Nin?" following a lack of news about his detainment.

References

Sources

* Andrew Durgan, ''BOC 1930–1936: El Bloque Obrero y Campesino'' (BOC 1930–1936: The Workers' and Peasants' Bloc). Barcelona: Laertes S.A. de Ediciones, 1996. * Andrew Durgan, ''Dissident Communism in Catalonia, 1930–36.'' PhD dissertation. University of London, 1989. * Pelai Pagès, ''Andreu Nin: Su evolución política (1911–37)'' (Andreu Nin: His Political Evolution, 1911–37). Bilbao: Editorial Zero, 1975. * Pelai Pagès, ''Andreu Nin: Una vida al servicio de la clase obrera'' (Andreu Nin: A Life in the Service of the Working Class). Barcelona: Laertes S.A. de Ediciones, 2011. * Alan Sennett, ''Revolutionary Marxism in Spain, 1930–1937.'' 014Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015.

External links

Fundación Andreu Nin
The Spanish-language site containing an extensive collection of documents, biographical notes, and links related to the POUM and to Nin himself.
Andreu Nin
at the Association of Catalan Language Writers, AELC. Webpage in

with

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and

translations. *
''Andrés Nin: El crimen que remató la República''

''Struggle of the trade unions against fascism''
1923 pamphlet
''La huelga general de enero y sus enseñanzas.''
1930s pamphlet
Documents on Nin from "Trabajadores: The Spanish Civil War through the eyes of organised labour"
a digitised collection of more than 13,000 pages of documents from the archives of the British

Trades Union Congress The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre A national trade union center (or national center or central) is a federation or confederation of trade unions in a country. Nearly every country in the world has a national tra ...

held in the

Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The Modern Records Centre (MRC) is the specialist archive service of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, located adjacent to the Central Campus Library. It was established in October 1973 and holds the world's largest archive collecti ...

''New Perspectives on The Spanish Civil War''
archival and related research on the historiography of the Spanish Civil War since the death of Franco by Stephen Schwartz {{DEFAULTSORT:Nin, Andreu 1892 births 1937 deaths 20th-century translators Executed writers People from Baix Penedès People killed by the Second Spanish Republic People killed in NKVD operations Politicians from Catalonia POUM politicians Right Opposition Secretaries General of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo Spanish Comintern people Spanish communists Spanish murder victims Spanish people of the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction) Spanish torturees Spanish translators Translators to Catalan Translators from Russian