Enrique Líster

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Enrique Líster Forján , actually Jesús List Forján (born April 21, 1907 in Ameneiro in the province of La Coruña in Spain ; † December 8, 1994 in Madrid ) was a stonemason , communist and an important military leader of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War .

youth

Enrique Líster was born the third of five sons of a stonemason and a farmer's wife in the village of Calo , about 7 km from Santiago de Compostela . At the age of eleven, he traveled to Cuba with his father , where he and two of Enrique Líster's brothers lived as migrant workers. After various unsuccessful attempts by his father to train him as a businessman, Líster became a stonemason like his father. In 1921, at the age of fourteen, he entered the evening school of the Centro Gallego (Galician Center) in Havana to learn to read and write. In 1924 he got work at the Centro Asturiano in Havana and became a trade union delegate for the construction site. In 1925 he returned to Spain and took an active part in the trade union movement and in rebellion movements against the military dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Riveras in Galicia . At the beginning of 1927 he traveled again to Cuba and worked in Havana to build the Capitol . In the middle of the year he had to flee the Machado dictatorship as an active trade unionist and communist . Since he was unable to leave the ship in New York as planned, he had to continue the voyage to La Coruña, where he was arrested after a few days and spent in prison until the proclamation of the Republic on May 4, 1930. While in prison, Enrique Líster became a member of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) like his brothers .

Stay in the USSR

In 1932 Líster first went to Madrid on behalf of the PCE , spent July and August in Paris , stayed two weeks in Berlin and was then sent to the USSR for three years , where he attended the Lenin School of the Comintern in Moscow and the Frunze Academy received political and military training.

During this time he also took part in the construction of the first Moscow metro as a stone mason .

II Republic

In 1935 Líster returned illegally to Spain and, in view of the threatened military coup by parts of the army, became a member of the Communist Party's military commission . Together with Juan Modesto and Juan Fernández, he led the anti-fascist workers and peasants' militias (MAOC - Milicias Antifascistas Obreras y Campesinas), which can be described as the military arm of the PCE.

In preparation for a military coup, the Spanish Military Union (UME - Unión Militar Espanola) was founded as a secret society of anti-republican officers with the participation of General Mola , Queipo de Llano , Sanjurjo and Goded .

In the Antifascist Military Union founded in 1934 (UMA - Unión Militar Antifascista, later UMRA - Unión Militar Repúblicana y Antifascista) it was Líster's task to prevent the UME's coup plans by educating the soldiers and officers in the Madrid barracks and to ensure that that the soldiers could not be marched against the republic. In fact, the putschists did not succeed in winning the military formations in and around Madrid on their side.

Spanish Civil War

In the initial phase of the Spanish Civil War, Líster was involved in building up the well-known Fifth Regiment (political composition: 50% communists, 25% socialists, 15% republicans, 10% non-party - social composition: 50% peasants, 40% workers, 10% employees) . In one of the militia occupied the monastery in the Franco-Rodriguez Street in Madrid a recruitment center and a military school was established. In the first five months of the civil war, nearly 70,000 militiamen were trained and sent to the front.

At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, in July 1936, the Fifth Regiment was formed. The five branches formed from communist militia units became the namesake of the Fifth Regiment. One of these divisions was commanded by Enrique Líster. The Marinos-de-Kronstad-Battalion, the Leningrado-Battalion, the Comuna-de-Madrid-Battalion and the international Commune-de-Paris-Battalion were grouped in the division the Líster commanded .

After the volunteer units were integrated into the military and a People's Army (EPR - Ejercito Popular de la República Española) was created, Líster was given command of the 1st Mixed Brigade of the Spanish People's Army due to his services in the battles for Madrid At the end of the civil war the highest military rank possible for militiamen: major . He later took over the 11th Division and in the battles for Guadalajara (March 1937), Brunete (July 1937), Quinto (August 1937) and Teruel (December 1937-February 1938) the division became one of the most respected in the Republican Army to shape. By decree he received the rank of lieutenant colonel at the end of the civil war . The advance of the fascist troops under Franco separated Catalonia from the rest of republican Spain. Finally, the republican army operating in the north, which was far inferior to the fascist troops, had to withdraw across the border into France .

On February 10, 1939, Líster left Spain with the last units that were supposed to cover the retreat to France. His unit was disarmed and interned in the Argelès-sur-Mer detention center .

On February 14, 1939, Líster flew from Toulouse in France to Madrid in central Spain, which was not yet occupied by the putschists. He was there directly to the Prime Minister Dr. Subordinated to Juan Negrín . After the military coup of Colonel Casado , who was on the side of the Republic up to this point, Líster managed to flee abroad together with other military and politicians of the Spanish Republic.

Second world war and exile

Líster went to the Soviet Union, attended the military academy there and took part in the Second World War as a general in the Red Army, and later in the Polish and Yugoslav armies. After the Second World War he went to Paris to participate in the organization of the resistance against the Franco dictatorship. The differences of opinion between him and the Secretary General of the PCE, Santiago Carrillo , reached their climax in 1968 on the occasion of the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Warsaw Pact troops . Although Líster also criticized the occupation, the abyss between him as a representative of the "orthodox communists" and Carrillo, the " euro communist " was insurmountable. In 1973, in the final phase of Franco's rule in Spain, Líster founded the Partido Comunista Obrero Español (PCOE).

Return to Spain

In 1977 Líster returned to Spain from exile . The party he founded suffered a severe election defeat. After Santiago Carrillo's expulsion from the PCE in 1986, Líster was again a member of the Spanish Communist Party, in which he remained active until his death in 1994.

Works

  • Nuestra guerra (1966) (German translation: Our War. Berlin 1972)
  • Memorias de un luchador (1977) ("Memories of a Fighter")
  • Basta! (1970) ("Stop it!")
  • Así destruyó Carrillo el PCE (1982) ("This is how Carrillo destroyed the PCE")

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sociedad Benéfica de Historiadores Aficionados y Creadores: Section Julio de 1936 a febrero de 1937 ( Memento of the original from March 17, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on August 27, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sbhac.net
personal data
SURNAME Líster, Enrique
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Líster Forján, Enrique (full name); List Forján, Enrique (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish communist and commander in the Spanish Civil War
DATE OF BIRTH April 21, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Ameneiro , Galicia
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 1994
Place of death Madrid