Melchor Rodriguez: The Red Angel Of The Spanish Civil War

Relations between Anarchists and Marxist Socialists have always been marked by mistrust, suspicion, even hostility and hatred. In Spain, during the nearly three years of Civil War (1936-1939), they took a particularly dramatic turn. The rivalry between the two revolutionary currents quickly led to an open struggle that culminated in a small civil war within the Civil War.

In a somewhat schematic way, the choice between them may be summed up in this way. Either start the revolution right away, proceed immediately to collectivization, while making war. This solution was the preference of anarchists, Marxist-Leninists of the POUM and some of the trade unionists of the socialist UGT.

Or, on the contrary, temporarily favor the “sacred union” with the bourgeois left, so not to frighten the fellow-travelers, and especially the democracies, and first to win the war and postpone the social revolution. This a view was that of the Stalinist communists and their allies, the majority of the socialists.

This dispute, almost intractable, was temporarily settled by arms, to the advantage of the communists and their fellow-travelers. The bloody days of Barcelona (May 3-8, 1937) resulted in more than 500 deaths and 1,500 injuries.

But the anarchists never accepted communist rule. Nearly two years later, with the help of their social democratic, Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist allies, they took revenge in extremis. On the eve of the victory of the Francoist troops in March 1939, 150,000 soldiers, controlled by the CNT and led by Cipriano Mera, revolted and prevailed against the Communist Army Corps I, II and III.

After violent fighting, which claimed several thousand lives, the anarchists ensured the success of the coup against the pro-Stalinist government of the socialist Juan Negrín. Once the communists and their fellow-travelers were finally routed, and faced with increasing pressure from the National troops, the National Defense Council, composed of General Miaja, Colonel Casado, the Social Democrat Besteiro and seven other anarchist and anti-communist leaders, resolved to sign the surrender of the Republican camp.

One cannot understand the avatars of the Spanish People’s Front during the Civil War, without taking into account this fierce libertarian opposition to social-Marxist domination. In fact, once the republican, democratic and moderate left was completely whipped and marginalized, anarchists and anarcho-unionists were the only bulwark against despotism and Stalinist terror.

Examples of clashes and skirmishes between leaders, activists and sympathizers of the two major components of the revolutionary left abound. There is one, as emblematic as it is little known, which is particularly worth recalling. This is the conflict between the anarchist Melchor Rodriguez Garcia and the Secretary-General of the United Socialist Youth, responsible for public order in the Madrid Defence Committee (later secretary general of the PCE and co-founder of Eurocommunism), the Stalinist Santiago Carrillo.

Melchor Rodriguez Against Communist Terror

In early November 1936, in the midst of the civil war, Melchor Rodriguez was appointed Inspector General of Prisons by the People’s Front government. As such, he would work to prevent escapes but also prevent attacks and lynchings of detainees.

For some time now, communist militiamen and the Unified Socialist Youth (who were born on April 1, 1936, with the merger of the Communist Youth and the Socialist Youth) had made a habit of “visiting” Madrid’s jails. The pretext was to evacuate prisoners from the besieged capital to safety.

In reality, once the distant suburbs were reached, in the name of “popular justice: and “revolution,” the “fascist” enemies were ruthlessly liquidated. Faced with the indignant protests of foreign embassies, the authorities of the Popular Front finally got worried. This situation could no longer be tolerated.

Melchor Rodriguez was 43 years old when he took up his position as General Directorate of Prisons. A staunch anarcho-unionist, affiliated with the CNT and a member of the FAI, he was known for his courage, idealism and anti-communism. For three months, he successfully opposed the policy of terror, defended by communist leaders, and stopped the wave of crimes.

The Mass Graves of Santiago Carrillo

Melchor was born in Seville in 1893 to a working-class family of three children. He had been raised by his mother, an Andalusian woman who made a hard living as a cigar maker and seamstress. At the age of thirteen, he was already working as a boilermaker. Dreaming of becoming a bullfighter, he set out on an adventure on the roads of Spain as a teenager. Injured in the arena, in 1918, he had to give up his dream for good.

He was then found working as a metal worker in Madrid. Affiliated with the CNT, of which he was one of the representatives in the capital, his political and trade union activities were multiplying. From 1932, he was responsible for organizing aid to anarchist prisoners jailed by the Republic.

Appointed head of the prison administration in early November 1936, four months after the outbreak of the civil war, Melchor Rodriguez immediately saw his authority challenged by the Communists. Believing that he did not have the means to act, he resigned. Political assassinations then increased in intensity.

In Paracuellos, a village a few kilometers from Madrid, and in the surrounding area, in just over a month, nearly five thousand people were shot and buried in huge mass graves. All members and supporters of right-wing parties or “national forces” (radicals, Christian Democrats, Liberal-Conservatives, Agrarians, Nationalists, Monarchists and Falangists) were indiscriminately suspected of supporting the uprising.

Many victims had committed only one “crime” – attending a Catholic college, or belonging to a family of doctors or lawyers. The direct culprits of these appalling massacres are now known. They were the Socialist MP Margarita Nelken, the Director General of Security, the radical socialist, Manuel Muñoz, the Minister of the Interior, the socialist Angel Galarza, and, above all, the Secretary General of the Socialist and Communist Youth, Santiago Carrillo.

For decades, Santiago Carrillo vehemently denied any involvement in the Paracuellos massacre, systematically calling his accusers slanderers, fascist agents or Neo-Francoists historians. But his direct responsibility can no longer be seriously questioned. It was established by several irrefutable documents and testimonies: the statements of Melchor Rodriguez, the letter of July 30, 1937 from Dimitrov, head of the Komintern, to Voroshilov, informing him that Carrillo “gave the order to shoot,” the report of Dr. Henny, representative of the Red Cross, and the damning testimony of the Consul of Norway, Felix Schlayer, whose edifying memoir, which remained incomprehensibly in oblivion for sixty-ten years, was published under the title, Matanzas: en el Madrid republicano.

Santiago Carrillo, during the Civil War, was not the defender of democratic values, celebrated and honored today by the socialist media and much of the radical left. Santiago Carrillo was appointed Doctor Honoris Causa of the Autonomous University of Madrid on March 16, 2005, for his role in the Civil War and the democratic transition. To this day, Melchor Rodriguez’s life remains covered by the mantle of oblivion.

On the contrary, his Chekist methods and procedures make him one among those responsible for the most appalling populicide ever committed during the Spanish War. If there were a humanist and a true democrat at the time, it was certainly not the Stalinist in charge of the Public Order in Madrid – but, on the contrary, one of his fiercest opponents, strangely unknown and ignored, the anarchist, Melchor Rodriguez Garcia. A brief return to the facts makes this obvious.

On December 4, 1936, the government of the Popular Front confirmed the first appointment of Melchor Rodriguez. Full powers were granted to him by the Minister of Justice, Garcia Oliver, an anarchist like him.

Once appointed special delegate to the Directorate General of Prisons, neither Stalin’s envoys, General Gorev and diplomat Mikhail Kolstov, nor their allies, namely, the delegate to the Public Order, Santiago Carrillo or his collaborator, José Cazorla Maure, nor any other of their communist acolytes, could do anything against Melchor Rodriguez. In his eyes, there was no doubt that all these men “have disgraced the Republic.”

On 24 December, Carrillo lost his duties as a delegate to the Public Order. For three weeks, Melchor Rodriguez’s energetic action, often carried out at the risk of his own life, was decisive in stopping the massacres. Between December 4, 1936 and March 1, 1937, when the new government presided over by the pro-Stalinist socialist, Juan Negrín removed it, Madrid’s prisons were secured.

The most remarkable episode of Melchor Rodriguez’s life is undoubtedly the one that took place on December 8, 1936. After the bombing of Alcala airport, more than two hundred militiamen, furious, decided to take revenge on their hostages.

When the cells were forced, the “Red Angel,” a nickname he acquired on this occasion, intervened: “Before killing one of these prisoners, you will have to get past me!” He saved nearly 1000 people that day. The Member of Parliament for the CEDA (Confederation of Autonomous Rights), Alberto Martin Artajo, the Falangist leader, Raimundo Fernandez Cuesta and the future Commander-in-Chief of the Division Azul and Secretary-General of the Movimiento, Agustín Muñoz Grandes, owed him their lives.

Many would never forgive him for his humanist and generous attitude, which was unusual among his co-members of the FAI. For the communists, he was the “traitor,” “the agent of the fifth column,” the “cryptofascist.” In March 1939, in the capital besieged by Franco’s army, communist troops and those of their socialist allies were crushed by forces controlled by the CNT. Anarchists and Social Democrats prevailed just on the eve of the ceasefire.

The new National Defence Committee appointed Melchor Rodriguez as head of Madrid’s mayoralty. Faced with the advance of the national columns, there was a stampede. But the “Red Angel” refused to run away and remained at his post until the end. Judged and condemned by a Franco war council in November 1939, the numerous testimonies that were forthcoming, including that of General Muñoz Grandes, led to his release a year and a half later.

In the aftermath of the civil war, Melchor Rodriguez lived very modestly. An employee of an insurance company, he refused the economic aid offered to him. Intractable, he died true to his anarchist convictions. One day in 1973, he was found lying near his home, unconscious on the ground, with head injuries.

He was rushed to Francisco Franco Hospital. A friend, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alberto Martin Artajo, who had esteemed and admired him for more than thirty years, immediately went to his bedside. The two men, whom so many things separated, spoke one last time.

The funeral took place in the presence of Francoist ministers, anarchist activists and survivors of the November and December 1936 massacres. On the coffin an anarchist flag and a crucifix were placed. Prayers rang out, followed by the anarchist anthem: “Negras tormentas agitan los aires.” The “Red Angel,” a symbol of national reconciliation, now rests in peace.

Is Reconciliation Still On The Agenda?

Many are surprised that the memory of Melchor Rodriguez, “the Spanish Schindler,” as some say, has not yet been officially honoured by democratic Spain and even (why not?) by the European Parliament. After all, the representatives of the majority of the political groups of the Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, who for the most part have no idea what happened in Spain for more than a century, had not approved the March 17, 2006 resolution, at the instigation of the PSOE and against the advice of the PP, condemning the “undemocratic nature of Franco’s coup,” and yet proposed July 18 as an “international date of condemnation of Francoism?”

But is full reconciliation really on the agenda, as the official media, resolutely breaking with the desire for “forgiveness without forgetting” of previous decades, advocate with obsession and exclusivism a “recovery of historical memory,” which is known to be a propagandistic and emotional evocation of the past, unrelated to rigorous and serious history?

Arnaud Imatz, a Basque-French political scientist and historian, holds a State Doctorate (DrE) in political science and is a correspondent-member of the Royal Academy of History (Spain), and a former international civil servant at OECDHe is a specialist in the Spanish Civil War, European populism, and the political struggles of the Right and the Left – all subjects on which he has written several books. He has also published numerous articles on the political thought of the founder and theoretician of the Falange, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, as well as the Liberal philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset, and the Catholic traditionalist, Juan Donoso Cortés.

The image shows a plaque at the house where Melchor Rodriguez was born.

This article was translated from the original French by N. Dass.

A Reading Of Psalm 42

A potential danger we need to be careful of is when our ‘Feelings’ can badly mislead us if they are not controlled by a realistic grasp of the real world. Feelings do not always represent facts.

What do I mean by that? Many of the Psalms provide the reader with a biblical model where there is proper integration of Heart AND Mind. Often the Psalmist confesses the intensity of his feelings, but he never surrenders to mindless emotionalism. He always attempts to bring his feelings within the realm of God’s character and will.

We are all fearfully and wonderfully made. We are all complex and complicated creatures capable of good and evil; but we are prone to breakdowns. Whether it’s a broken toe or a broken mind, it can happen to the best of us.

We all have a temperament; some are fiery, some are happy go lucky, some are melancholy. We tend to be stuck with our temperament just like the animals in Winnie the Pooh.

Many Christians through the ages have had ‘unhappy moods’ we tend to call it ‘Depression’ today. William Cowper the hymn writer and the great preacher C.H. Spurgeon both knew depression. However, Depression is not necessarily a sign of spiritual weakness. It can be an opportunity for spiritual growth.

I doubt if there is any portion of the bible that demonstrates this point more dramatically than Psalms 42 and 43. Both Psalms actually form a single hymn and are very similar in content. “Why are you downcast, O my soul. Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.” This psalm was clearly written out of an experience of the most intense sadness of heart. It is a Psalm composed by someone in the midst of depression.

We will join these two Psalms together and try and answer the author’s own questions. What were the causes and symptoms of this depression; ‘Why are you downcast O my soul. Why so disturbed within me?

And then we look at the response to this depression. ‘Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God.’ As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, O God.’ Here is a man who is depressed because he feels God is a long way away.

He likens himself to a drought-stricken animal sniffing at the dried-up river beds and longing for water but finding none. The experience of God’s presence seems to be equally elusive.

God has become inaccessible to him. If you have felt like that sometimes, do not despair; it is quite a common experience. We should always remember at this point that there is a huge difference in the world, between feeling forsaken by God, and actually being forsaken by God.

The two are worlds apart. This is where we need to be very careful about are emotional feelings and where objective truth really lies. Remember feelings do not always represent facts.

I think we can safely assume that the person who wrote this Psalm was a Christian. When a Christian is depressed, that depression almost invariably, results in a sense of spiritual desertion. What do I mean by that; I mean where Prayer becomes difficult, almost impossible. Bible reading becomes a chore. Any talk of peace and joy sounds unreal. God seems more like a very distant relative than a heavenly loving, Father.

God seems remote, not because he is remote, but because our depression makes us feel as though he is. The truth is that God is not remote. But as human beings we are complicated creatures, being made up of body, mind, and spirit, which are all joined together. Remember feelings do not always represent facts.

Therefore, one part affects the other, sometimes in an irrational way. So, we need to counter balance that with the objective truth as it is revealed to us in scripture. If our emotional make up is disturbed by certain factors it can affect our Spiritual awareness too.

Of course, depression can happen in a person’s life as a direct result of Spiritual factors as well as emotional ones. If we fall into sin and are therefore suffering the emotional consequence of sin, that is guilt, we may find within us a deep misery.

One cause of depression is Spiritual Isolation where God ‘feels’ as if he is remote and distant.

Another is Physical Isolation. The psalmist here was not suffering from the pangs of guilt or unbelief he was just physically isolated. He writes; ‘These things I remember as I pour out my soul, how I used to go with the multitude, leading the procession to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.’

This person sounds as if he was one of the Levitical singers in the choir at the temple in Jerusalem. The high point of his life had been the great religious festivals when he would take his privileged place at the head of the congregation leading them in through the temple gates for their annual services of celebration. But for one reason or another he could not, or was not allowed, to participate in those joyous occasions. Perhaps he was one of the exiles taken into Babylonian captivity and not allowed back.

Whatever the circumstances this person is homesick. He was deeply attached to Jerusalem. The city meant so much to him. Yet he was separated from it wondering would he ever see it again. We have all experienced being homesick which is enough to make anybody depressed. We all need physical roots, and when they are severed, we feel down unable to get up. He was also socially Isolated which is even worse. He says; ‘Men say to me all day long, where is your God?

Whether these men were unsympathetic fellow Israelites or vindictive Babylonians, it is clear he had no friends to confide in. His social environment was hostile and humiliating; ‘where is your God, they asked him with utter contempt.’ You claim to be a believer. Well, God isn’t doing much for you at the moment is he. Your god is only a myth. It had been comparatively easy to trust God in Jerusalem amidst all the joyful celebrations of the temple choir going into the house of God. But now things have changed.

He was on his own, without emotional support or personal encouragement from his friends. He was lonely. Loneliness can make you feel terribly sad; it is enough to make anybody feel depressed. God made us to be sociable creatures, gregarious by nature. When we are deprived of supportive relationships it really gets us down. With the collapse of family values and family structures in our society, one parent families almost the norm, we see the fallout all around us; with the NHS in the UK as but one provider, unable to cope with mental health issues.

With a combination of feeling that God is not there, and homesickness, it is bound to trigger depression of some sort. For him it wasn’t sin or lack of faith or the devil, which had produced this morbid mood. It was a perfectly natural consequence of the unfortunate situation he was in. Indeed, many of the symptoms he goes on to describe are typical of the kind of depressive reaction that anybody with a tendency to be melancholy experiences in such circumstances.

“My tears have been my food day and night.” He cannot stop crying. They have been his food; he has lost his appetite. You will see that the word “Downcast” is used a number of times.

There is no spark, no enthusiasm for anything; just a kind of inner fatigue. A sagging of the spirit. Depressed people often complain of being permanently tired.

He uses the word “disturbed” repeatedly. He experiences an emotional roller coaster; restless nights, sighs and moans from within. There is a feeling of being ‘overwhelmed’. Being drowned by their circumstances. I can’t get my head above water; a person may say.

And then culminating in all these symptoms are; feelings of Rejection. “Why have you forgotten me? His whole personality is being torn by a sense of loss. Like a lover jilted. Like a widow grieving for her husband. He feels bereft, devastated and heart broken. As a deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you O God.’ For him depression becomes a spiritual problem and not just an emotional one. He feels spiritually depressed but not because he is spiritually negligent in any way, but simply because he is a Spiritual person. Why are you downcast, why so disturbed within me?”

Like so many Christians in such a situation, this inspired poet finds himself bewildered and frustrated because he feels like this. As a believer he says; I shouldn’t feel like this. Why am I so downcast? What has happened to me? What has happened to me faith?

It is natural to ask questions like that. And though we ought Not to feel like this, there is no criticism or condemnation. Indeed, it could be argued that as this man wrestles with his depression it is not a sign of weakness; but of strength as he desires to be where he knows he should be, spirituality.

So, what then is the Response?? The first thing is to Face up to our feelings. Many depressed people try to find some escape from their emotions through alcohol, drugs, medication, or some other diversion. Others erect defensive barriers, and pretend to be OK.

If we are going to cope with depression satisfactorily, we must admit our feelings, look at them in the eye, to try and gain some insight into why we have got them. And that is what the psalmist is doing. It takes courage and strength to face up to the truth like that. Whatever the cause there is nothing to be gained by running away from that sort of admission. We must despite our pride, admit our negative feelings to ourselves and to God also.

In these Psalms look at the number of times he asks; ‘why’. The reason he is asking, ‘why’ so much, is not because there will be an answer, because in 99% of cases there isn’t; it is to do with exasperation that is boiling away inside.

A kind of repressed anger. Some incident, hurt, or loss, perhaps of a parent in childhood, or divorce, has often been the trigger. What happens is; that if that person is a Christian those angry feelings that are bottled up within, whatever their original cause may be, get transferred on to GOD. After all, he is our substitute parent, he is our father, he is supposed to be in charge. He is our rock, our stronghold. He is to blame for how I feel. It is far from unusual to find that a Christian suffering from depression feels inwardly angry with God. It is therefore vital if a person feels like that, that they need a release valve for those feelings. If we are angry with God, we need to find the courage to tell him so.

An incident is recorded in a novel, The Blood of the Lamb. The main character of the book has a daughter, and on her 12th birthday she dies of leukemia. The father finds himself devastated by the news right outside a church. He was still holding the birthday cake; he was taking to the hospital to try to inject some happiness into this special day in his daughter’s life. As he looks at the crucifix on the church wall; he suddenly explodes with rage and hurls the cake at the face of Christ.

Now, I have to say that I would NOT recommend people to follow this type of action. Some might even say it was intensely blasphemous. Perhaps it was; and yet there is a sense in which that is what Christ is on the cross for.

He is a symbol of anger, rage, and disgust. Where God the Father is showing anger and rage at his Son. That’s why Jesus cried out, ‘my God, my God why have you forsaken me.’? He is the symbol of the passionate anger of Almighty God against all the sin and wickedness of this world.

He is the symbol of that divine anger venting itself as a healing balm upon a hurting world. In one huge event of divine passion God reconciles himself to a hating sinful world. The pain God felt on the cross, was the same kind of pain that bereaved father was feeling.

The evil and the injustice and the fallenness of this sick world had stolen the person he loved best. God the Father felt the same at losing his one and only Son; but he allowed it to happen in order to reconcile us with himself, and bring healing to the world through his Son. His Son took our punishment, our shame and our sin, to give us the hope of new life, for all those who look to him and believe in him.

This is a huge subject and so we need to draw things to a close.

God is only to be truly known by people who are prepared to plumb the depths of their own human experience.

In other words, we need to get real with ourselves, real with God, and admit our weaknesses, our failings and our sin. That is the best starting point for any person. With so many people who come under the ‘banner’ of Christianity there is massive superficiality.

Generally, we are shallow Christians who have simply never met with God at this profound level that the Psalmist has. For the majority of us we have never really felt spiritually thirsty, a deep hunger for God’s word, or prayed desperately to God.

The whole intensity of this man’s spiritual life is totally foreign to us. Perhaps it’s because we have it so good. Like the LG logo; life is good. Why not pray today for a real encounter with the living God. Don’t be afraid to get beyond believing things about God. You will find that he is much more than you bargained for.

Rev Alan Wilson is a recently retired Presbyterian Minister in Northern Ireland. He was a former Police Officer during the ‘troubles’ before going into the ministry. He is married to Ann and they are now proud grandparents of Jacob and Cora. He enjoys keeping Alpaccas, gardening, watching football and learning how theology relates to the environment and the world at large. He and his wife spent a summer Exchange in 2018 with a Presbyterian Church in Toronto.

The image shows one of the Servant Songs of Isaiah by Stuart Shelby.