- Wilebaldo Solano
Wilebaldo Solano Alonso (
July 7 1916 ,Burgos - ) was a Spanish Communist activist during theSpanish Civil War , especially noted for his work with Socialistyouth organization s as a member of theWorkers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM). Most of his activities before and during theSecond Spanish Republic were centered onCatalonia .Youth
Solano completed secondary studies at the Institut Balmes, in
Barcelona . He distinguished himself as a leader of the student movement, organizing his institute's first student group during the fall from power of GeneralMiguel Primo de Rivera , and later founding the Catalan National Student Federation. Solano went on to study medicine at theUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona .In 1932 he joined the youth wing of the Marxist
Bloque Obrero y Campesino (BOC - Workers' and Peasants' Bloc) —a major workers' organization, at the time under the influence of theSoviet Union 'sRight Opposition , that would later fuse into the POUM— and began organizing the Association of Revolutionary Students of Barcelona. Solano became a member of the Executive Committee of the BOC Youth and initiated his journalistic career as a contributor to "Adelante" ("Forward"), a journal headed byJoaquín Maurín —a renowned Spanish communist who would go on to found the POUM withAndreu Nin .Civil War
Solano became secretary general of the JCI (
Iberian Communist Youth ) in September 1935, after having joined thePOUM and spent time in Valencia as a delegate of the POUM's Executive Committee, where he helped found the weekly "El Comunista" ("The Communist"). After the eruption of theSpanish Civil War in 1936 Solano represented the JCI in the Executive Committee of the POUM and headed the weekly "Juventud Comunista" ("Communist Youth"). In November 1936 he was elected secretary general of theInternational Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Youth .Solano managed to escape from the clashes between the
Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia and POUM onJune 16 1937 . He helped found the second Executive Committee of the POUM with other fugitive "poumistas". In harshly repressive conditions, this committee organized a resistance to the persecution of the POUM and an international campaign supporting Nin and other jailed leaders. During this period he also edited the clandestine journal "Juventud Obrera" ("Young Worker").In April 1938 he was detained along with other POUM leaders and placed in Barcelona State Prison by Communist-directed government authorities. He was to be included in the second trial of the POUM, which never occurred thanks to the fall of Barcelona to Francoist forces. In February 1939, Solano entered
France .Exile
Solano spent several months living in
Paris andChartres , and along with other "poumistas" attempted to reconstitute the Party, with an exile wing and one active inside Spain, and also maintain links with other organizations.In 1941, after
Nazi Germany conquered and occupied France, Solano was detained inMontauban and condemned to twenty years of forced labor by a Vichy regime tribunal. He was freed onJuly 19 1944 by the Maquis. He joined theFrench Resistance and, along with POUM andConfederación Nacional del Trabajo and militants founded a Spanish guerrilla unit, theLiberty Battalion . In 1945 he left the Battalion to rededicate himself to organizing the POUM and reestablishing its newspaper, "La Batalla" ("The Battle").In 1947, after a clandestine voyage to
Madrid and Catalonia, Solano was elected secretary general of the POUM at the party's general conference inToulouse , attended by representatives of the illegal Spanish organization as well as exile groups from France,North Africa , andLatin America .During his exile, aside from editing "La Batalla", considered one of the best Spanish emigré publications, Solano founded "Tribuno Socialista" ("Socialist Tribune"), a magazine that secured a notable following in Spain in an epoch when the resistance to the Franco dictatorship (see
Spanish State ) reached hopeful peaks. Moreover, Solano participated in numerous international activities and, in particular, in the creation of the Movement for theUnited States of Europe , one of the first postwar Pan-European organizations, and that of the Anti-Imperialist People's Congress, which brought together many of the African and Asian national liberation movements.Professionally, Solano worked for
Agence France Presse between 1953 and 1981. In 1975-76, when the POUM found itself in the midst of a crisis, he stood in opposition to the dissolution of the Party and its entrance into the camp ofSocial Democracy (theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party ). He pushed for "Tribuno Socialista" to become the POUM's magazine, and expressed his support for the regroupment of revolutionary Marxist organizations.Later years
In the 1980s, he was one of the founders of the
Fundació Andreu Nin , which focused on the total rectification of the prestige of that eminent revolutionary and the clarification of the mystery of his death at the hands of theNKVD , and at the same time the defense of revolutionary Marxism and dialogue with all the tendencies of the socialistlabor movement . Solano is the author of a biography of Nin, a history of the JCI, and numerous essays on the POUM, the exile of Spanish revolutionaries in France, and the problems posed by the fall of the USSR and the collapse of Stalinism. He was a major advisor to and collaborator on films such asKen Loach 's "Land and Freedom " and the documentary "Operación Nikolai ".1999 saw the release of Solano's book-length study of the POUM and Nin's role in the Spanish revolution, "El POUM in la Historia. Andreu Nin y la revolución española". It was published jointly by
Libros de la Catarata and the Fundació Andreu Nin, and is a personal and observed discussion of the poorly understood time period and political movement - some have called it one of the two most important works about the POUM, the other beingAndrew Durgan 's study of the Bloque Obrero y Campesino, "BOC 1930-1936". As yet neither work is available in English.
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