Description
ABOUT THE BOOK
The history of the Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification, the POUM, is the history of thousands of men and women who fought to transform the world and would be at the centre of one of the most profound revolutions of the 20th century.
Founded in September 1935, of the many dissident communist groupings that emerged internationally in the 1930s, the POUM was the most important. The largest workers party in Catalonia before the Civil War, the POUM, it had in its ranks the two most outstanding Marxist theorists of the time in Spain: Joaquín Maurín and Andreu Nin.
The POUM: Republic, Revolution, and Counterrevolution provides an updated and original introduction to the history of the party. It examines the POUM’s origins, its relations with the workers’ and peasants’ movements of the time, its political ideas, and its role in the revolution that erupted in July 1936.
This is a story more relevant than ever in a world where the parallels with the 1930s, also threatened by the darkest reaction, compel us to read about a generation of young revolutionaries and their tragic fate as victims of Stalinist and fascist counter-revolution.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Durgan is the author of The Spanish Civil War (2007), Comunismo, revolución y movimiento obrero en Cataluña 1920-1936. Los orígenes del POUM (2016) and Voluntarios por la revolución. La milicia internacional del POUM en la Guerra Civil española (2022). He was historical advisor on Ken Loach’s award-winning film, Land and Freedom (1995).
ENDORSEMENTS
“The POUM: Republic, Revolution and Counterrevolution is an analysis of the origins and evolution of a party that represented the best of a generation that played a leading role in the fight against fascism and in “one of the most profound social revolutions of the 20th century”. It is history and vindication of a party that fought against fascism to the end and that confronted and fell victim to the caricature of socialism represented by Stalinism”.
Jaime Pastor is a retired lecturer in political science, an activist with Anticapitalistas, and a member of the editorial board of Viento Sur.
“The history of the POUM is that of thousands of men and women who fought to transform the world; who participated in one of the most profound revolutions of the 20th century. Most of them worked in the factories and fields of Catalonia. Historian Andy Durgan highlights this often-overlooked fact in the opening lines of the prologue to his latest book. This essay is particularly recommended for anyone who is currently witnessing how the extreme right is destroying consciences in our societies and who is looking to the past for clues to help them understand the present and the future”.
Marià de Delàs is journalist and former editor of the daily Publico.