Communist Party of Spain in the context of "Revolutionary Catalonia"

The Popular Front (Spanish: Frente Popular) was an electoral alliance and pact formed in January 1936 to contest that year's general election by various left-wing political organizations during the Second Spanish Republic. The alliance was led by Manuel Azaña. In Catalonia and the modern-day Valencian Community, the coalition was known as the Front of the Lefts (Catalan: Front d'Esquerres).

The Popular Front included the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), Communist Party of Spain (PCE), and the republicans: Republican Left (IR), (led by Azaña) and Republican Union (UR), led by Diego Martínez Barrio. This pact was supported by Galician (PG) and Catalan nationalists (ERC), the POUM, socialist union Workers' General Union (UGT), and the anarchist trade union, the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Many anarchists who would later fight alongside Popular Front forces during the Spanish Civil War did not support them in the election, urging abstention instead.

Juan Negrín López (Spanish pronunciation: [xwan neˈɣɾin]; 3 February 1892 – 12 November 1956) was a Spanish physician and politician who served as prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic. He was a leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Spanish: Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) and of the left-leaning Popular Front government during the Spanish Civil War. He also served as finance minister. He was the last Loyalist premier of Spain (1937–1939), leading the Republican forces defeated by the Nationalists under General Francisco Franco. He was President of the Council of Ministers of the Second Spanish Republic and the Spanish Republican government in exile between 1937 and 1945. He died in exile in Paris, France.

None of the leaders of the Second Spanish Republic has been as vilified as Negrín, not only by Francoist historians but also by important sectors of the exiled Spanish Left. After the end of the civil war there was no person more hated than Negrín. The leaders of his own Socialist Party were among his detractors, including his friend and fellow socialist leader Indalecio Prieto. He has been depicted as primarily responsible for losing the civil war, ruling with a dictatorial style, yielding to Communist influence, and giving Spain's gold reserves to the Soviet Union.

The May Days (Catalan: Fets de Maig, Spanish: Jornadas de Mayo), sometimes also called May Events (Catalan: Fets de Maig, Spanish: Sucesos de Mayo, Hechos de Mayo), were a series of clashes between 3 and 8 May 1937 during which factions on the Republican side of the Spanish Civil War engaged one another in street battles in various parts of Catalonia, centered on the city of Barcelona.

In those events, libertarian socialist supporters of the Spanish Revolution, such as the anarchist CNT and the anti-Stalinist POUM, which opposed a centralized government, faced others, such as the Republican government, Catalan government and the Communist Party of Spain, which believed in a strong central government.

Spanish coup of March 1939, in historiography often referred to as Casado's coup (Spanish: Golpe de Casado), was a coup d'état organized in the Republican zone against the government of Juan Negrín. It was carried out by the military with support of the Anarchists and a major faction of the Socialists; its leader was commander of the Army of the Centre, Segismundo Casado. The conspirators viewed the Negrín government as a hardly veiled Communist dictatorship. Most concluded that the government-endorsed strategy of unyielding resistance against the Nationalists would produce nothing but further deaths and sufferings while the war had already been lost. The military and some politicians intended the coup as a first step towards opening peace negotiations with the Nationalists; for the Anarchists and Socialists the priority was to remove the Communists from power.

The coup began on March 5, when rebels declared the setup of their own quasi-government, Consejo Nacional de Defensa (CND), based in Madrid. Following few hours of discussions the Negrín government, at the time based near the town of Elda at the Levantine coast, decided that any resistance was pointless; the following day they left Spain. The rebels easily took control of all provincial capitals with very little or no fighting recorded. The exception was Madrid, where the local Communist executive, unaware of the PCE Political Bureau decision to avoid bloodshed, mounted resistance. Communist-controlled units recalled from the frontline took control of most of Madrid and on March 9 they were closing in on CND headquarters. However, Anarchist-controlled units also recalled from the frontline entered the city on March 10 and in 3 days they ensured the triumph of the rebels. During the next 3 weeks the Republican zone was ruled by the CND.

The Regional Defence Council of Aragon was an administrative entity created by the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) in the context of the Spanish Revolution, during the Spanish Civil War. Until its dissolution, the CRDA controlled and administered the eastern half of Aragon. The price of goods was centrally controlled to mitigate inflation.

The Council of Aragon was the first autonomous government of Aragon since 1707, becoming a government of its own within the Second Spanish Republic. It was established in its first stage (October to December 1936) by anarchist members of the CNT, with eventual representation of all the anti-fascist forces of the Popular Front from December 1936 until its dissolution. Its life was ephemeral since its activities lasted less than a year until it was dissolved by the republican authorities, pressured by the Communist Party of Spain, in August 1937. During its brief lifespan, it implemented some progressive and revolutionary policies.

The Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (Catalan: Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya, PSUC) was a communist political party active in Catalonia between 1936 and 1997. It was the Catalan branch of the Communist Party of Spain and the only party not from a sovereign state to be a full member of the Third International.