Please give what you can today — it makes a difference. The age of insecurity has turned out to be one of rage and anger. Instead, the picture is very mixed. There has been a rise in populism, xenophobia and identity politics: There has been the emergence of a revivalist left in places Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and a new populist one Syriza, Podemos. There is a widespread dismay with political establishments and mainstream politics here and across the West. This has contributed to a new interest in ideas, radical politics, books and accounts of previous campaigns and struggles.
Bookshops such as News from Nowhere in Liverpool or Bookmarks in London report huge increases in sales of left-wing books and publications, classic and new. They also alleged that because Aaronovitch and Sayle had been hard on the left, they were somehow giving the green light to unfettered free market capitalism. They also touched a recurring theme: It was but one of several brief and false dawns which also comprised Stalingrad and Sputnik.
It has more sadness and elegy in it than anger or comedy, aided by the story of his parents, Sam and Lavender. This is quite a rich tapestry for any author to make sense of about their own life, and probably with all due respect, beyond the confines of one book. Anderson and Davey are two knowledgeable writers of the left, its fractures and many evasions, but what makes this account valuable is its changing fortunes.
They write that when the peace movement was a mass force in Britain in the early s, the old lefties of the CPGB and various Stalinist hues were irrelevant leaving aside the bitter Eurocommunist vs Stalinist battle in the party. A Very Unlikely Coup: The book does come alive in its latter stages on the mini-revolt that was the Labour leadership contest which saw Corbyn win his unexpected landslide, to the complete bewilderment of the other candidates and party establishment.
Corbyn has kept the same political positions since he first became political in late adolescence: This is in effect the E. Aaronovitch takes this as a cue to summarise how the Corbyn car crash happened and asks: Underneath this a more subtle story could have been explored with much wider resonance.
What sort of politics beyond tokenistic identity politics did they think they were championing? SNP former minister Mike Russell in a Herald review saw Sarwar as having "a passion for justice and peace" and contributing to "an important global debate" The Herald , January 16th Grinko was accused of making "efforts to undermine the financial power of the USSR. The Spanish ambassador, Marcelino Pascua, was transferred to Paris. Grinko until May , V. Tchoula until September and A.
Zverev until the end of the war. In them, the value of an ounce of gold troy was converted into pounds sterling, U. S dollars or French francs according to the exchange rate at the London Stock Exchange. The Republic obtained from the selling of the gold a total of The Soviets kept 2. With the Spanish gold deposited in Moscow, the Soviets immediately demanded from the Republican government payment for the first deliveries of war supplies, which had apparently arrived as a gift to combat international fascism.
On the Nationalist side, German and Italian aid also had to be compensated; however, the Germans and Italians allowed Franco to satisfy his debt once the war came to an end. The increased power of the communists at the time, taking advantage of the political pressure that the Soviet Union could exert having control of the gold, is occasionally mentioned among scholars.
The withdrawal of the Bank of Spain's gold reserves to Moscow has been pointed out to be one of the main causes of the Spanish monetary crisis of Nationalist efforts to expose the exportation of the gold put the government's financial credibility in question, and caused general mistrust among the public. A decree issued by the Ministry of Finance on October 3, , obliging Spaniards to yield all the gold they possessed, caused widespread alarm. Even though the government denied in January that it had deposited the gold reserves abroad vide supra , it was forced to acknowledge that it had made various payments with such gold.
Lacking a gold reserve to back up the Republican banknotes, and already suffering from significant devaluation, the Government of the Republic began to issue increasing quantities of banknotes with no backing in gold or silver, thereby increasing the overall paper money in circulation. Metallic coins began to disappear and were replaced by paper or cardboard circles.
Transactions with Republican banknotes became undesirable, as such notes were already highly devalued, and it was further known that, if Franco were to win the War, those banknotes would lose their full value, since they were all newly-issued series placed in circulation from the start of the War June onwards.
The State was unable to effectively respond to the lack of metallic currency, causing town halls and other local institutions to print their own provisional bonds, some of which were rejected in neighbouring municipalities. Propaganda from the Nationalist side contended that such inflation had been premeditated and artificially created. The Republican Government blamed the ills of the economy on the free market, and proposed as its salvation the nationalization of all prices and other changes on the economy in general.
In the last months of the Civil War, a bitter division was formed among Republicans between those who advocated for uniting the Civil War with the imminent Second World War and those wanting to put an end to the conflict by negotiating with the Nationalists. After the end of the war, the PSOE initiated a slow reconstruction in exile.
In April , Time reported that the Soviet government, through Radio Moscow as well as Pravda , assured the Francoist government that the gold reserves deposited in Moscow had been used in their totality by the Republican government to "make payments abroad", and were thus "soon all gone". The note did not include any evidence and contradicted statements issued by prominent members of the Republican government.
Also, since the statements issued were not part of an official notice, the Soviet government could distance itself from what had been affirmed if it were to be deemed appropriate. Indalecio Prieto regarded the declarations of Pravda as false, enumerated the expenses of the Spanish funds in the benefit of the French Communist Party and affirmed:. At an international level, Gerald Howson and Daniel Kowalsky have had direct access to the documents of the archives of the Soviet Union opened to researchers during the s, focusing their investigations on the relations between the Soviet Union and the Spanish Republic, and the deliveries of military material.
Even though the decision to use the gold reserves has not given rise to much debate or interest among historians, [] its final destination continues to be a motive for controversy. It was, according to the aforementioned, the only viable option faced with the Nationalist advance and the non-intervention of the Western democracies, making the survival of the Republic possible in an adverse international context.
For these authors, without the selling of the reserves, there would not have been the slightest possibility of military resistance. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Burgos, 25th of August By His Excellence the President of the Republic, on the 13th of this present month, the following confidential decree has been signed: The abnormal situation created within the country by the military insurrection compels the government to adopt these precautionary measures considered necessary to safeguard the metallic reserves of the Bank of Spain, basis of the public credit.
The nature of the measure itself and the reasons behind its adoption demand that this agreement be kept confidential.
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Based on the aforementioned considerations, in agreement with the Council of Ministers, and on the proposal of the Ministry of Finance, I hereby ordain, in confidentiality, the following: The Ministry of Finance is hereby authorized to mandate, when considered necessary, the transportation, with the highest guarantees, and to the location esteemed to be the safest, of the gold, silver, and bills present at the time at the central headquarters of the Bank of Spain.
The Government will, when appropriate, answer to the Cortes Generales for the present decree. Madrid, 13th of September, Mid-September of , according to the personal and direct information of Mr. On that day Fresneda was told by the Governor that the Government had made arrangements, before the advance of the rebel troops, to take hold of all the gold of the Bank, to transport it to a place and locality where it could be safeguarded with greater security than provided by Madrid, towards which the aforementioned troops were heading with the intention of capturing, and that in effect the transport has already begun.
It was illegal, because being the gold exclusive property of the Bank, neither the State nor the Government could take hold of it.
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On another account, he said, the gold is the reserve that is backed by the law and that guarantees the convertibility of currency notes, and this being so, the gold could not be kept anywhere else but in the vault of the Bank, precisely when the new vault has been inaugurated, which responds to all the advancements in security against fires, bombs, etc. He concluded re-declaring his opposition to the measure, and to such an opinion Mr. He added that it was the logical consequence of his opposition that be presented his resignation to the Council.
I wish to note that, at that time, the Spanish government I asked him if the Spanish government could offer me credentials under a fictitious name I could say that the gold was being transported to America for security reasons He thought it was a good idea. I could speak relatively good English and could pass by as a foreigner. Thus, he gave me the credentials of a man named Blackstone and I became the representative of the Bank of America. A brigade of soviet tanks had disembarked in Cartagena two weeks before and was now stationed in Archena , 40 miles away. It was commanded by Colonel S.
Krovoshein assigned me twenty military trucks and a few other of his best tankers The sixty Spanish sailors had been sent to the gunpowder depository about an hour or two before in anticipation And thus, on October 22, by nightfall, I went, followed by a caravan of trucks, towards the munitions depository He was a very nervous man. He told us that we should half the loading or we would perish [because of a German bombardment].
I responded that we could not do so, because the Germans would continue to bombard the port and the ship would sink, and so we must continue. Then he fled and left behind only his assistant, a very pleasant Spaniard who took the responsibility for counting the boxes of gold.
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The area around the dike was cleared and surrounded by Soviet troops. Through this empty space between the wharf and the railway tracks, the highest chiefs of the OGPU transported the boxes of gold on their backs. Throughout numerous days they were transporting the gold, loading it on the trucks and taking it to Moscow in armed convoys. He tried to give me an idea of the amount of gold that they had unloaded in Odessa while we were walking down the Red Square.
He pointed out the area that surrounded us and said "if all the boxes of gold that we piled up on the wharfs of Odessa were to be placed here side by side, they would completely cover up the Red Square. How much gold was handed over to Russia? It couldn't have been known, because Mr. It was later known, through a number of accounts published by the Bank of Spain on 30 April , that said Bank had handed over custody of 1,,, million [sic] in gold and ,, in silver. Apart from that, the Ministry of Finance seized everything in existence in the security vaults of official and private Banks, valued surely in the many millions.
All this plus the jewellery present in the National Palace , in private rooms, and those of many individuals, was spent in arms? At the end of the war, what gold remained under Russian power? Have they liquidated the Government of Mr. This cannot be known by any other but him, since [ Wretched country, that sees itself governed by those that lack any sort of scruples whatsoever [ All the hatred and the desire to impose exemplary punishment to those responsible for such grave defeat will be little.
'MOSCOW GOLD' AND THE CPGB
Spanish gold seized by the reds and taken to Russia. As of January 8 of Mr. Minister of Foreign Affairs has been addressed, by Note signed by the Diplomatic Representatives of various countries of Europe and the United States of America denouncing the seizure carried out by the reds and the payments that, according to information from authorized sources, the Russians make with the gold reserves of the Bank of Spain. Francoist interpretation on the Moscow Gold: The "resemblances" of sovereignty created by the red Government have been debunked a long time ago.
Since the start of our war of Liberation, the red zone had been governed in effect by Soviet emissaries endowed with all the powers [ All of them have sufficient reasons to be informed, as they were direct authors or concealers until the rivalries arisen by the distribution of the spoils pitied them against each other. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Moscow Gold?
Moscow gold - Wikipedia
A popular history of the myriad relationships between British socialists and the Kremlin. Anderson and Davey have taken A popular history of the myriad relationships between British socialists and the Kremlin. Anderson and Davey have taken advantage of the vast amount of research into communism since the end of the Cold War.
They wear it lightly, and refreshingly, are open about their political position. As members of the democratic left, they believe that communism was a disaster for left wing politics. It tied the left to tyranny and the lies and disillusion that went with it.
Leaving everything else aside, the far left burnt out activists. For generations, idealistic men and women joined the Communist Party, Militant and the SWP, and left disgusted, not just with Leninism, but with politics of any kind.