September 26, 1936: Indalecio Prieto

To mark the 90th anniversary of the Civil War, José Ángel Mañas recreates on Zenda, day by day in this section, what happened in 1936, perhaps the most pivotal year in all of Spain’s recent history.

Saturday, September 26, 1936: Indalecio Prieto

Indalecio Prieto
silbó aquel aire de zarzuela mientras se afeitaba delante del espejo en un cuarto contiguo a su despacho. La camiseta blanca sin mangas le marcaba el enorme vientre. Camisa y chaqueta colgaban del respaldo de la silla. Sobre una mesa, al alcance de la mano, quedaba la bacinilla de afeitar con agua en la que limpiaba la cuchilla. La brocha reposaba a un lado. Eran las doce de la noche y aprovechaba para afeitarse. Se había enjabonado las mejillas y ahora se levantaba la punta de la nariz, para afeitar el bigote. Normalmente iba a una barbería cercana al ministerio, pero por primera vez desde el inicio de la sublevación el barbero se tomaba el fin de semana libre.

… and get into bed afterwards…

The tune that accompanied the whistle in his mind made him think of his wife. At the very start of the war, he had sent her with their daughters to France. And now, with his hands free and no home to return to, he had settled in the Ministry of the Navy. From there he directed the aviation and the Republic’s Navy.

At first it was a disappointment to see that he was not given full control of the Ministry of War. Once he had swallowed the bitter pill, he took the post as best as he could. The first step was to appoint his friend as commander of the air forces. The second, more delicate, was to deal with the Moscow ambassador in Madrid to manage the arrival of planes that countered the Junkers and the Fiat that at the moment gave air supremacy to the rebels. As for the Navy, the Republic’s great trump card, the sinking of the destroyer Almirante Ferrándiz was a heavy blow and triggered a large number of calls and raised voices of Largo Caballero.

—Let’s see how long all this lasts — he murmured, stopping his whistling.

At another moment he would have hummed the whole tune: whistling relaxed him. Today he was upset. He had spent the month in a monumental rage with Largo Caballero, for allowing the transfer of the gold from the Bank of Spain to Alicante: gold that he would have preferred to send to Paris but that he suspected was destined for Moscow. He had tested the ambassador Rosenberg, and his conclusion was that it had been agreed. Prieto found this barbaric and told Largo Caballero as much, who eventually lost his temper.

—And how are we going to obtain arms, if not? Are you going to go and dissolve the Non-Intervention Committee? Do you think I like the communists so much as to hand over the gold to them without further ado?

Since Largo Caballero had led the Government, tensions with the communists were growing, something that made Prieto smile. After doing everything possible to discredit the armed forces, now it was Caballero himself who wanted to reorganize the Army and have the militias whom he had been rallying against the military yesterday bow to them.

—He is a fool, a complete idiot — he muttered, pushing the razor aside. He washed with water. He dried his shaved face. Was he the only one to notice the short-sightedness of that septuagenarian?

All the daily entries of 1936 day by day

Interview with José Ángel Mañas about 1936 day by day