Antonio Cordón García

Antonio Cordón García was a Spanish soldier, born in Galicia, who commanded during the Spanish Civil War.

Career soldier as an artilleryman in the Spanish Army, he passed into the reserves in the earl 1930s, but reenlisted into active duty upon the beginning of the Spanish Civil War to join the Republican cause. He was a key entity in the conversion of the Popular Front's militias into a disciplined standing army, able to fight Franco's Nationalist Front.

His career was brilliant and was parallel to his promotions in the Communist Party, being promoted to Subsecretary of Defense and achieving a close relationship with Prime Minister Juan Negrín until he was finally promoted to the position of general.

He participated in many of the battles in the major theaters of wars, including the Siege of the Santa María de la Cabeza Sanctuary, in Teruel, and the Battle of the Ebro, in 1938.

Antonio Cordón also actively contacted with the Soviet Union over the provision of war materials, including T-26 light tanks and Polikarpov I-16s. Finalizing the war, Antonio Cordón immigrated to the Soviet Union and formed part of the Politburo of the Communist Party, working closely with Dolores Ibárruri and Santiago Carrillo, who he coincided in Paris with for a short while. He also had close relations with figures such as Rafael Alberti and Teresa León, who fled Spain from the Monovaraerodrome with Negrín and Ibárruri.

Despite having a wife and four children in Spain, he married again in the Soviet Union and had another child. In the Soviet Union, he wrote his memoirs "Trayecto". After the death of Francisco Franco in 1976 and the change of the political climate in Spain, his remains were transferred to Spain.