Factions - The POUM

The Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista (POUM), or Workers Party of Marxist Unification was a Spanish communist political party formed in opposition to the Stalinist direction of the PCE by Andres Nin and Joaquin Maurin in 1935.

The party began to grow in popularity during the civil war. But there is nothing a Stalinist hates more than a communist of a different stripe, and the PCE, unswervingly loyal to Stalin and the Comintern, wasted no time in engaging in a vitriolic campaign against the POUM, with accusations of Trotskyism and even Fascism. The PCE did everything they could to crush the POUM, from propaganda, through the withholding weapons and money from the POUM militias, up to physical violence, as PCE units were not above to attacking the POUM when they thought they could get away with it. In the end Andres Nin was imprisoned and then executed by the Republican government, so the PCE got its way.

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