Jose Oliva
Barcelona, 14. December (EFE). – Historian Juan Francisco Fuentes, author of “Hunger for a Homeland,” about Spanish Republican exile after the Civil War, considers it necessary to “restore the self-critical review of the Republic that the Left undertook in exile.”
To prepare “Hunger for Homeland” (Arzalia), the author used as his main source the letters from exile, some of which were unpublished, from figures who played a relevant role in the Republic and the Civil War, such as Azaña, Indalecio Prieto, Largo Caballero, Américo Castro or Sánchez Albornoz.
In an interview with EFE, Fuentes emphasizes that this necessary self-criticism is summed up in the title of the memoirs of a socialist leader, Juan Simeón Vidarte, published in Mexico: “We were all guilty.”
And he adds that while “the winners had no reason to be self-critical, there were exceptions like Dionisio Ridruejo.”
“The letters between exiles are fundamental because in them it is clear that the self-criticism and the feeling of reconciliation were sincere and that they were inspired by what Azaña called the ‘muse of teaching’,” he comments.
Regarding the title, Fuentes emphasizes that it was Indalecio Prieto who spoke of the “hunger for homeland” felt by Spanish socialists in exile, “although the expression could also be applied to other sectors”.
The author distinguishes between “an intellectual exile, which, because of the warm welcome of that country and its government towards the Spanish exiles, had its epicenter in Mexico, making it the main center of cultural production of the republican diaspora; and a working-class exile – socialist, communist and anarchist – based mainly in Europe, especially in France.”
Fuentes believes that “the working-class left was more critical of the Second Republic than the pure-blooded Republicans for whom the Republic was inalienable and sacred.”
As for internal divisions, the most important dividing line was the one that divided the Spanish left into communists (and followers) and anti-communists, among whom stood out the former members of the POUM, who fell victim to Soviet Stalinism through their terminals in Spain during the Civil War.
The Republican diaspora accepted the realization that there was a lack of international support against Franco to restore the Republic after the Second World War with “an unexpected loss of reality due to which they had to adapt their strategy.”
In this context, the historian argues that the working class left – mainly the socialists – was more pragmatic than the republicans, many of whom clung to the myth of the Republic, while “other parts of the left were willing to renounce the Republic in return for returning to Spain as quickly as possible.”
This change in attitude gave rise to the Pact of Saint-Jean-de-Luz between monarchists and socialists in 1948, which ended with “wet paper” but announced a new roadmap with a long way to go.
After Franco’s death, the transition, Fuentes points out, was “a pact in which everyone gave in and it would therefore have been contrary to its nature if the exile project had been fully implemented.”
“Historical memory is a concept completely alien to the language of the exiles, to whom it would have seemed strange and even suspicious,” he adds.
As for secularism, the socialist Luis Araquistáin will affirm in a conference entitled “Some mistakes of the Republic” that the Republican regime was very unrealistic in its attitude towards the army and the Church and that this lack of realism turned against him.
Azaña will, if possible, say it more clearly and before anyone else: “The Republic had failed and would do so again if it tried to restore the principles that failed then,” and, said the Republican president, “in the future we must ‘found something new’, which is what happened in the transition period.” EFE.
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