Grandizo Munis (1912-1989) was one of the earliest Spanish Trotskyists.
Born Manuel Fernandez Grandizo in Larena, Estremadura, Munis joined Izquierda Comunista (ICE), the Spanish section of Trotskyâs International Left Opposition at its conference in Liege in Belgium in February 1930.
The majority in ICE, led by AndrĂ©s Nin, soon came into conflict with Trotsky over the sectionâs semi-detached relationship with the rest of the International Left Opposition (ILO) and its positive attitude towards the âRight Oppositionistâ Workersâ and Peasantsâ Bloc (BOC).
These differences erupted into a full-scale split when, in 1934, Nin and the ICE majority opposed the ILOâs tactic of entry into the mass social-democratic parties, known as the âFrench Turnâ because it was modelled on the entry of the French Trotskyists into the French Socialist Party (SFIO) after fascist riots brought down the Daladier government on 7 February.
Munis sided with Trotsky and the ILO against Nin, and joined the youth section of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) in 1935. He opposed the subsequent liquidation of the ICE into the Partido Obrera Unificacion de Marxista (POUM), a centrist organisation formed by the merger of Ninâs group and the BOC.
When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, Munis became the leader of the Spanish Trotskyist organisation, the Bolshevik-Leninists. The group opposed the Popular Front and sought to influence the rank-and-file of the POUM, despite attempts by the POUMâs leadership to exclude the Trotskyists. It also took part in the âMay Daysâ in 1937 along with the anarchist Friends of Durruti organisation, and published a newspaper called La Voz Leninista, proposing a revolutionary programme against the Stalinists and bourgeois republicans.
The Bolshevik-Leninist group, however, was infiltrated by a GPU spy, Leon Narvitch, and after Narvitch was killed by a POUM squad avenging the murder of AndrĂ©s Nin by the Stalinists, Munis and his group were arrested. They were accused of the murder, and of plots to murder leading Republican politicians. After torture and Munisâs simulated execution, a trial date was set for 29 January 1939 in Barcelona.
Three days before the trial was due to begin, Francoâs troops entered the Catalan capital and Munis escaped amidst the chaos of the evacuation. Fleeing to Mexico via France, he reconstituted the Spanish section in exile and met Trotsky in the spring of 1940. Munis attended the Emergency Congress of the Fourth International in New York in April of that year, and returned to Mexico to speak at Trotskyâs funeral in August.
Munis collaborated closely with Trotskyâs wife Natalia Sedova in denouncing the American Socialist Workers Party (SWP) for their de facto support for the Red Armyâs occupation of eastern Europe in 1944-5.
In a 1945 article called âDefence of the Soviet Union and Revolutionary Tacticsâ, Munis wrote that the Fourth Internationalâs original position of âunconditional defence of the Soviet Unionâ must be abandoned: âThe only criterion must be the revolutionary advance of the proletariat and the peasants in the territories coveted by the bureaucracy... The slogan âan end to the Nazi occupationâ must be complemented with another one: âan end to the Stalinist occupation.ââ
At the Second Congress of the Fourth International in 1948, Munis sided with Max Shachtmanâs Workersâ Party and with Natalia Sedova against the âorthodox Trotskyistsâ.
In 1951 Munis returned to Spain to attempt to organise in the underground following the Barcelona tramway strike. He was arrested the following year and imprisoned until 1957. Basing himself in Paris, Munis began to drift away from Trotskyism, and by the 1970s organised his followers in several countries into a small left-communist international called the Revolutionary Workersâ Ferment.
Munis was a brave and talented militant who raised the banner of international socialism high in the most adverse of circumstances.
A witness to and participant in one of the 20th centuryâs most important revolutionary struggles, Munis is a true hero of our movement.