Joan Comorera
| Joan Comorera i Soler | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
5 September 1894 Cervera, Catalonia, Spain |
| Died | 7 May 1958 (aged 63) Burgos, Spain |
| Nationality | Spanish |
Joan Comorera i Soler (or Juan Comorera y Soler; 5 September 1894 – 7 May 1958) was a left-wing Spanish politician from Catalonia who spent several years in Argentina before returning to Spain in 1931 at the start of the Second Spanish Republic. He was a Catalan nationalist, and was elected chairman of the Socialist Union of Catalonia in 1933. In 1936 he became Secretary General of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC), in alliance with the Spanish Communist Party. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) he built up his party into a major political force during the struggles among the supporters of the Republic between Socialists, Stalinists, Trotskyists and Anarcho-syndicalists. After the Republicans were defeated by the right-wing forces led by Francisco Franco he went into exile, living in Mexico and then in France. In 1949 he was expelled from the Communist party for his Catalan nationalism, and survived an assassination attempt. In 1951 he moved back to Catalonia using a false name. He was arrested in 1954 and died in prison four years later.
Joan Comorera i Soler was born in Cervera, Segarra, Catalonia on 5 September 1894. He took a teacher's training course in Lérida, but never taught. In 1913 he began work as a journalist, acting as the Madrid correspondent of the newspaper La Publicidad. In the summer of 1913 he founded the anticlerical magazine La Escuela in Cervera. In 1914 he moved to Barcelona, where he became involved in the republican movement. He was a cofounder of the Bloc Republicà Autonomista (BRA), and then of the Partit Republicà Català (PRC). He was active in journalism as a regular contributor to La Lucha and editor of El Pueblo. In 1916 he married Rosa Santacana.
Comorera lived in France from 1917 to 1919. In 1919 he published La trágica ignorancia española (The Tragic Ignorance of Spain). He emigrated to Argentina in 1919, where he continued to work as a journalist. He joined the Argentine Socialist Party. He was naturalized and headed the bilingual weekly paper Nación Catalana (Catalan Nation) from 1923 to 1930. He was forced to leave Argentina after the coup of General José Félix Uriburu in September 1930. He moved to Uruguay that year.
With the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931 Comorera returned to Catalonia, where he joined the Socialist Union of Catalonia (Unió Socialista de Catalunya, USC). He headed the socialist weekly Justicia Social (Social Justice) from 1931 to 1936. Comorera was elected to the Parliament of Catalonia in November 1932, and was elected chairman of the executive committee of the USC in April 1933. He was Minister of Agriculture and Economy in the first government of Catalonia formed by president Lluís Companys, from January to October 1934. He organized the Higher Council of Cooperation and the Agricultural and Cooperative Bank of Credit. Comorera participated in the events of 6 October 1934 and was sentenced to thirty years imprisonment.
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