5 August 1938
The same letter was sent by Orwell to the Daily Herald (a daily paper supporting the Labour Party) and the New Statesman & Nation . The latter acknowledged the letter but did not print it; the Daily Herald neither acknowledged nor printed it. For the vilification and suppression of the POUM and the torture of its leaders, see Thomas, Index, 1095
August I.
New Hostel, Preston Hall, Aylesford, Kent
Sir, – News has recently reached England that a number of members of the Executive Committee of the Spanish political party known as the P.O.U.M. are shortly to be put on trial on the charge of espionage in the Fascist cause. The circumstances of the case are peculiar, and should, I think, be brought to public notice. The main facts are as follows: –
In June, 1937, following on the fall of the Caballero Government, the P.O.U.M. was declared an illegal organisation and a large number of people were thrown into prison. Simultaneously the Spanish Communist party published accounts of what purported to be a ‘Trotsky-Fascist spy plot’ which was given wide publicity in the Communist press, though treated with reserve elsewhere. Later various delegations from France and England, two of them headed by Messrs. James Maxton, M. P., and John McGovern, M. P., visited Spain to inquire into the matter.
It appeared that most of the leading members of the Spanish Government disclaimed not only all belief in the alleged plot but also responsibility for the arrest of the P.O.U.M. leaders, which had been undertaken on their own initiative by the Communist-controlled police. Irujo, the then Minister of Justice, Prieto, Zugazagoitia1 and others all took this line, some stated that they considered the P.O.U.M. leaders responsible for the fighting in Barcelona in May, 1937, but all declared the charge of espionage to be nonsensical. As for the main piece of evidence produced by the Communist press, a document known as the ‘N document’ and supposed to give proof of treasonable activities, Irujo stated that he had examined it and that it was ‘worthless’.2 More recently, in January, 1938, the Spanish Government voted by five to two in favour of releasing the P.O.U.M. prisoners, the two dissentients being the Communist Ministers.
I think these facts should make it clear that this prosecution is undertaken not at the will of the Spanish Government but in response to outside pressure as a part of the world-wide campaign against ‘Trotskyism’. As Zugazagoitia put it in his interview with Mr. McGovern, ‘We have received aid from Russia, and so we have had to permit things we did not like.’3
And there are other unsatisfactory features about the case. To begin with, the accused men have been kept in close confinement for thirteen months without the formulation of any clear charge and, so far as is discoverable, without facilities for legal aid. The advocate who at the beginning was engaged for their defence was violently attacked in the Communist press and later forced to leave the country. Moreover, a number of the people arrested have since disappeared in circumstances that leave little doubt as to their fate. Among these was Andrés Nin,4 who a short time previously had been Minister of Justice in the Catalan Generalidad.
In spite of all this it now appears that the accused men are to be tried for espionage after all and that the ‘N document’, previously declared worthless’, is to be revived. I suggest therefore that it is the duty of all who call themselves Socialists to enter some kind of protest. I do not mean that we should protest against the Spanish Government’s trying its own political prisoners; obviously it has every right to do that. I mean that we should ask for a clear assurance that thèse men will be tried in open court and not in secret by a special tribunal set up for the purpose. Given an open trial and the absence of faked evidence or extorted confessions, those of us who happen to know something about the facts will have little doubt that the accused men can clear themselves. But that is a small matter compared with the preservation of ordinary justice, without which all talk of the ‘defence of democracy’ becomes entirely meaningless – Yours, &c,
George Orwell
1. Manuel de Irujo y Ollo, see p. 303, n. 5. Indalecio Prieto y Tuero (1883-1962) was a Socialist, Minister of National Defence in the Negrín government and a fountainhead of defeatism; see Thomas, 809. He founded the SIM, counter-espionage police of ill-repute, and died in exile in Mexico, Julián Zugazagoitia was editor of El Socialista and Minister of the Interior in Negrín’s government. He was shot after being handed over to the Gestapo in occupied France in 1940.
2. For the ‘N document,’ see p. 303, n. 4.
3. During a cabinet meeting, ‘Zugazagoitia demanded if his jurisdiction as minister of the interior were to be limited by Russian policemen’, according to Thomas. ‘Had they been able to purchase and transport good arms from US, British, and French manufacturers, the socialist and republican members of the Spanish government might have tried to cut themselves loose from Stalin’ (704).
4. For Andrés Nin, see ‘Eye-Witness in Barcelona’, n. 6, above.