Grandizo Munis: key ally of Trotsky in Spain
Grandizo Munis (1912-1989) was one of the earliest Spanish Trotskyists. Born Manuel Fernandez Grandizo in Larena, Estremadura, Munis joined Izquierda Comunista (ICE), the Spanish section of Trotsky’s International Left Opposition at its conference in Liege in Belgium in February 1930.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, Munis became the leader of the Spanish Trotskyist organisation, the Bolshevik-Leninists. The group opposed the Popular Front and sought to influence the rank-and-file of the POUM, despite attempts by the POUM’s leadership to exclude the Trotskyists. It also took part in the “May Days” in 1937 along with the anarchist Friends of Durruti organisation, and published a newspaper called La Voz Leninista, proposing a revolutionary programme against the Stalinists and bourgeois republicans.
Trotskyism and the Spanish Workers' Movement
The Spanish Revolution was the last great confrontation in the Europe-wide class war sparked by the triumph of the Russian Revolution in 1917. It inspired workers from all over the world and its tragic defeat was a source of controversy for decades after the events. The writings of Leon Trotsky were important in that debate. The writings of other revolutionaries — such as Victor Serge — are less well known, though they were important contributions in the development of the early "Trotskyist" movement. Those debates are worth revisiting. They highlight important lessons about Marxist organisation.
The Tragedy of Spanish Trotskyism
Liam McNulty concludes his article on the Trotskyists in the Spanish revolution of 1936/7. (Above)
How Stalinism crushed the Vietnamese Trotskyists
In the stormy class struggles of the late 1930s the Vietnamese Trotskyists campaigned for an end to the French occupation, a united front of workers and peasants against the approaching war, opposition to national defencism, the creation of workers’ committees and peasants’ committees to take over the factories and the land, and the establishment of a soviet federation of Asia.
The Vietnamese Stalinists, organised in the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP), advocated very different policies. In the 1930s they even supported higher taxes and the launch of government bonds to finance French imperialism in the coming war:
“The covetous glance Japan is casting towards the island of Hainan directly threatens the security of Indochina (!!! – Indochina was a French colony). In the face of these fascists’ territorial designs, the ICP approves of the measures (taken by the French government of occupation).”
In the upheavals following the end of the Second World War the Vietnamese Stalinists opposed land seizures by the peasantry and the creation of workers councils by miners and factory workers.
