Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I THE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF THE PSOE'S NATIONAL ORGANISATION 1934–1936
- PART II THE SOCIALIST LEFT IN POWER 1936–1937
- PART III THE BATTLE IN THE PARTY 1937–1938
- 6 Ramón Lamoneda confronts the PSOE left
- 7 The purge of the party left and the growing crisis in the reformist camp
- 8 The atomisation of reformist socialism
- PART IV THE DISPUTE IN THE UGT
- PART V SOCIALIST-COMMUNIST RUPTURE
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The purge of the party left and the growing crisis in the reformist camp
from PART III - THE BATTLE IN THE PARTY 1937–1938
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I THE STRUGGLE FOR CONTROL OF THE PSOE'S NATIONAL ORGANISATION 1934–1936
- PART II THE SOCIALIST LEFT IN POWER 1936–1937
- PART III THE BATTLE IN THE PARTY 1937–1938
- 6 Ramón Lamoneda confronts the PSOE left
- 7 The purge of the party left and the growing crisis in the reformist camp
- 8 The atomisation of reformist socialism
- PART IV THE DISPUTE IN THE UGT
- PART V SOCIALIST-COMMUNIST RUPTURE
- Appendices
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Largo Caballero is ousted from the Leadership of the Socialist Parliamentary Party
By the end of July 1937 the PSOE executive had seized control of the socialist left's major stronghold in the party, the Valencian provincial federation. Reinforced by the national committee's vote of confidence, the reformists were determined to clear the left out of its last strongholds and thus to homogenise the organisational hierarchy of the party. Lamoneda's words to the PSOE's national committee had been prophetic and a clear warning of the executive's intentions:
We are convinced that we will have to take dramatic steps which will perhaps be difficult for us. Were we not prepared so to do, to act resolutely against indiscipline, then the life of this executive would end here in this national committee meeting. The executive cherishes the hope that our comrades will see the error of their ways - or at least hopes that those who do not will constitute such a tiny group, with so slight an influence among the party membership - that the cure for internal disorder will take rapid effect.'
The first target was the PSOE's parliamentary party, controlled by the left socialists with Largo Caballero as president, Enrique de Francisco as vice-president and Rodolfo Llopis as secretary. The possibility of caballerista opposition here was something the PSOE executive was not prepared to risk, as it was tantamount to treasonous obstruction of the Republican government at war.
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- Socialism and WarThe Spanish Socialist Party in Power and Crisis, 1936–1939, pp. 126 - 149Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991