The Last Days of the Spanish Republic. Paul Preston
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removed from power.
The war has been inspired, directed and fomented by the Communists. If they ceased to intervene, it would be virtually impossible to continue the war. The enemy, having other international support, would find itself in a situation of superiority … I see the situation as follows: if the war were to be won, Spain would be Communist. The rest of the democracies would be against us and we would have only Russia with us. And if we are defeated, the future will be terrible.10
It was a virtuoso performance of pessimism, defeatism and irresponsibility. He had recognized the inevitability of cooperation with the Communists yet had remained aloof, determined to keep his hands clean. Now, he denounced collaboration without offering any alternative other than division, defeat and the tender mercies of General Franco.
The underlying naivety of Besteiro’s words reflected his belief that the PCE, ‘the party of war’, was the only obstacle to peace and reconciliation. Indeed Besteiro would seemingly be coming to believe the Francoist propaganda line that, by handing over the PCE, the Republicans could ‘purify’ themselves and establish a basis for post-war reconciliation ‘between Spaniards’ (although obviously not Spaniards who were Communists). In the course of his speech, Besteiro returned to what had become an obsessional theme, declaring that Negrín was a Communist who had entered the Socialist Party as a Trojan horse. The next day, he reported to Negrín himself what he had said: ‘Before they tell you anything, I want you to hear from me what I said in the executive committee. I regard you as an agent of the Communists.’ He told Azaña and others that Negrín was a ‘Karamazov’, ‘a crazed visionary’ – presumably a reference to the violent sensualist Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov in Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. He later gave the British Chargé d’Affaires a bitter account of his meetings with Azaña and Negrín.11
Accordingly, while in Barcelona, Besteiro discussed with Azaña the formation of a government whose principal task would be to seek peace. He told Julián Zugazagoitia, the editor of El Socialista, that ‘we Spaniards are murdering one another in a stupid way, for even more stupid and criminal reasons’.12 Deeply concerned about the consequences for the bulk of the population of inevitable Republican defeat, he was ever more hostile to Negrín because he believed him to be unnecessarily prolonging the war. Misplaced rumours about a peace cabinet saw Besteiro subjected to virulent attack by the Communist press.13
Before going to Barcelona, Besteiro had confided his anxieties to Ángel Pedrero García, the head of the Servicio de Inteligencia Militar in the Army of the Centre, and a close collaborator of Colonel Casado. Apparently, Casado had already intimated to Pedrero that he would like to get in touch with Besteiro. Accordingly, in October 1938, when Besteiro had expressed a similar wish, Pedrero arranged a meeting in his own house. Besteiro shared with Casado his conviction that an early peace treaty was necessary and that the military high command should pressure Negrín’s government to negotiate. From this time, there were regular contacts between Casado and General Manuel Matallana Gómez, of the general staff, and Casado’s close collaborator Colonel José López Otero, a general staff officer with anarchist sympathies. They also made tentative efforts to bring Miaja aboard. Their caution was related to Miaja’s membership, formally at least, of the Communist Party. In December, Casado had a meeting with Ralph Stevenson, the British Chargé d’Affaires, in the hope of ascertaining if he could rely on support from London. Casado was also in touch with the diplomats of France and several Latin American countries. Stevenson followed up the meeting by seeking out Besteiro to find out more about the peace plans.14
On his return to Madrid, a deeply disillusioned Besteiro reported his conversations in Barcelona to his acquaintances in the Fifth Column. He was resigned to the fact that Azaña would not be commissioning him to form a peace government and that, even if the President did so, he would be unable to find sufficient political support. However, Antonio Luna García set about persuading him that, if he was unable to fulfil his hopes of forming a peace government with wide political support, he should consider doing so with military backing.
It is astonishing that Besteiro could have been unaware of Franco’s determination to maintain the hatreds of the war long after the end of hostilities. If he was left in doubt after the savage repression unleashed in each of the provinces as they fell, an interview that the Caudillo gave on 7 November 1938 to the vice-president of the United Press, James Miller, should surely have made it clear. Franco declared unequivocally: ‘There will be no mediation. There will be no mediation because the delinquents and their victims cannot live side by side.’ He went on threateningly, ‘We have in our archive more than two million names catalogued with the proofs of their crimes.’15 Having dismissed any possibility of an amnesty for the Republicans, he confirmed his commitment to a policy of institutionalized revenge. The mass of political files and documentation captured as each town had fallen to the Nationalists was being gathered in Salamanca. Carefully sifted, it provided the basis for a massive card index of members of political parties, trade unions and masonic lodges which in turn would provide information for a policy of sweeping reprisals.16
That Besteiro had preoccupations other than the fate of defeated Republicans was revealed to Tomás Bilbao Hospitalet, Minister without Portfolio in Negrín’s government. A member of the minor Basque party Acción Nacionalista Vasca, Tomás Bilbao had joined the cabinet in August 1938 to replace Manuel Irujo, who had resigned in solidarity with Artemi Aiguader i Miró of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, who had himself resigned in protest at the limits imposed on the powers of the Catalan regional government, the Generalitat. Contrary to expectations, Bilbao had shown himself to be a shrewd and loyal member of Negrín’s team.17 In late 1938, he visited first Casado and then Besteiro, whom he found irritated and harshly critical of the government for not having pursued the peace policies that he had recommended. Bilbao informed Negrín of his fear that Besteiro, in conjunction with Casado, might do something dangerous. Negrín was sufficiently confident about Casado not to take the warnings seriously.18
However, as things got worse for the Republican cause, both Casado and Besteiro were readying themselves for action. With the knowledge of Luna García’s group, the two met on 25 January 1939, just as Franco’s forces were on the point of entering Barcelona. The next day, Lieutenant Colonel Centaño sent a message to Burgos: ‘Besteiro is beginning to work with Casado and everything is under our control.’ At the end of January, Ungría’s SIPM had instructed Julio Palacios of the Organización Antonio to inform Casado of the guarantees offered by the Caudillo to those professional army officers who laid down their arms and did not have common crimes on their conscience. The text had been transmitted orally to Palacios and then written up to be passed on to Casado. The wording contrasted starkly with many of Franco’s public declarations, but the concessions seemingly offered to senior officers would have been attractive to Casado personally since he would soon reveal his intention of leaving Spain after the war.
For senior and other officers who voluntarily lay down their arms, without having been responsible for the deaths of comrades or guilty of other crimes, in addition to their lives being spared, there will be greater benevolence according to how important or effective are the services that they render to the Cause of Spain in these last moments or how insignificant and without malice has been their role in the war. Those who surrender their weapons and thereby prevent pointless sacrifices and are not guilty of murders or other serious crimes will be able to obtain a safe-conduct that will enable them to leave our territory and, in the meanwhile, enjoy total personal safety. Simply having served on the red side or having been active in political groups opposed to the National Movement will not be considered reason for criminal charges.
The message was passed from Palacios to Ricardo Bertoloty, who in turn passed it to Casado’s personal physician and close friend, Diego Medina. When Casado expressed doubts that these ‘guarantees’ really