„Pedro”: Gerő Ernő Spanyolországban
“Pedro”: Ernő Gerő in Spain

Summary/Abstract: The present study examines one of the most “mysterious” chapters in the political biography of Ernő Gerő, namely the period when he was active in the Spain of the Civil War as a commissionary delegated by the Communist International under the alias of “Pedro”. // At first the author analyses the way which led to the mission of Ernő Gerő to Spain, and its exact circumstances, and then tries to find out what exactly his task as a Comintern delegate consisted of. The author also aimed at discovering the historical background of Gerő’s activity in Spain. She thus writes about the establishment of the Spanish popular front, the Spanish communist party and the relationship between the communists and the anarchists. Since Gerő was mostly active in Barcelona, the author paid special attention to the situation in Catalonia. Alongside historical works dealing with the Spanish Civil War, it is on the basis of Russian archival sources that she reconstructs the policies of Soviet leadership and of the Comintern in Spain, as well as the directions that the Spanish Communist Party received from Moscow. The author also analyses in detail the problem of how the show trials which were then taking place in the Soviet Union influenced the relationship of the Spanish communists to the United Marxist Workers’ Party (POUM), regarded as Trockist by the Comintern, and the consequences that the deterioration of this relationship entailed within the Republican camp. // The author devotes a separate chapter to the events in Barcelona in 1937, to the persecution consequently launched against the members of the POUM, and to the role of Ernő Gerő in the retaliations. It is an opinion shared widely that Gerő was an agent of the NKVD in Spain. Although the author has found no archival sources or other documents which would prove the case beyond doubt, she regards it as probable that Gerõ played a decisive role in the assasination of Andrés Nin, leader of the POUM. // Finally, the author offers an assessment of Gerő’s mission to Spain, and briefly summarises the influence it exerted upon the course of his consequent political career.

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