Research | Jonathan Sherry

Stalinism on Trial: Communism and Republican Justice in the Spanish Civil War (Liverpool University Press, 2025)

The book project investigates the history and memory of Soviet involvement in the Spanish Civil War by examining the prosecution of the anti-Stalinist communist party, Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM), in October 1938—a trial often formulated by historians as a “Moscow Trial in Barcelona”. It treats the POUM prosecution as a microcosm of wider regional, national, and international political developments, analyzing the prosecution of this political minority as a small but integral part of broader processes of state-building, international diplomacy, and antifascist resistance.

Book:

Articles in progress:

Julián Gorkin in exile in the 1950s, editor of "Cuadernos", the Spanish section of the CIA-funded Congress for Cultural Freedom.

This piece grew out of a conference in Zaragoza, Spain. It traces how the Spanish Civil War helped fix the meaning of "totalitarianism" in the field of cultural production—witness fiction, ghostwritten memoirs, and political novels written by participant-observers. In particular, it examines the the work of George Orwell, Julián Gorkin, Valentín González, and Victor Serge, analyzing how POUM-affiliated exiles published accounts of Soviet activity in Spain, often with CIA support. Ultimately, the article demonstrates how the Spanish Civil War helped shape modern conceptions of "totalitarianism" and, conversely, how Cold War politics distorted historical understandings of the war itself.

Jonathan Sherry, PhD
Historian | Author | Senior Editor, Eagle Intelligence Reports

Totalitarianism's Spanish Crucible: Witness Fiction, Memory, and the Spanish Civil War (forthcoming)

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Totalitarianism's Spanish Crucible: Witness Fiction, Memory, and the Spanish Civil War (forthcoming)