Andreu Nin Pérez | |
---|---|
Born |
El Vendrell, Catalonia, Spain |
4 February 1892
Died | 20 June 1937 Alcalá de Henares, Spain |
(aged 45)
Nationality | Spanish |
Other names | Andreu Nin |
Known for | founding the Communist Party of Spain |
Andreu Nin Pérez (Catalan pronunciation: [ənˈdɾe.u ˈnin i ˈpeɾes] (4 February 1892 – 20 June 1937), was a Spanish communist politician.
Born in El Vendrell, Tarragona, to a poor family (his father was a shoemaker and his mother was a peasant), Nin moved to Barcelona shortly before World War I; he taught briefly in a secular anarchist school, but soon became a journalist and activist. In 1917, he joined the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE).
Nin became a leader of the Spanish workers' movement, and was among the founders of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). He consequently worked for the Comintern and Red International of Labour Unions (RILU or Profintern) in the Soviet Union. While in Russia, he was won over to the Left Opposition which confronted Joseph Stalin's ascending faction within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He briefly worked as secretary to Leon Trotsky while in Russia.
Returning to Spain, Nin was instrumental in forming the Communist Left of Spain (ICE), the self-designated Troskyist group affiliated to the International Left Opposition (ILO). However, the ICE was a small group and largely isolated. Nin had a number of disagreements with Trotsky in this period, specifically when Trotsky advised the ICE leader that entry into the Socialist Youth of Spain would augment the forces at their disposal, while Nin advocated forming a united party with the Workers and Peasants Bloc (BOC), a group coming out of the communist movement but seen as being on its right wing.