They wanted a revolution: Teresa Pàmies revisits communist actions in the Spanish Civil War and beyond

• Autores: Melissa A. Stewart
• Localización: Catalan Review: international journal of Catalan culture, ISSN 0213-5949, Nº. 22, 2008, págs. 341-347
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • In recent years, there has been an increasing production of narratives that reassess various aspects of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. While many deal with prisons, work camps, and other cases of the mistreatment and suffering of the "vencidos", some examine actions by factions on the Republican side, including Ignacio Martínez de Pisón's Enterrar a los muertos, which investigates the assassination of author José Robles by Communist Party forces. Prior to all this activity, Catalan author and activist Teresa Pàmies had already contributed her own very personal and, at the same time, more general re-examination of the Communist Party's actions during the war and after in Els anys de lluita (2001), which is formulated as a letter to her granddaughter. In this text, we see her analyze mistakes and attempt to explain political decisions and positions. Her situation is representative of many Spanish intellectuals of her generation who, after an early alliance with the Communists, eventually had to come to terms with the reality of Stalinism, the Prague Spring, and the errors that were made during the Civil War. Pàmies and her father, Tomàs, have always been associated with revolution and commitment to workers' movements. From her early days as a leader in the Catalan Communist youth organization during the Civil War and throughout her exile, Teresa was a champion of the Communist Party. This essay explores how this text represents a significant change in the rhetoric typically found in her memoirs and other accounts of the war and her exile. With this volume, Pàmies makes a significant contribution to the necessary revision of a part of Spanish and Catalan history.