Revisiting “Catalonia” again

To the Editors:

I write as an occasional contributor to The New Criterion and recognized authority on Catalonia in the Spanish civil war of 1936–1939. I was coauthor with the Catalan historian Víctor Alba of the 1988 book Spanish Marxism vs. Soviet Communism, the only volume in English on the Partit Obrer d’Unificació Marxista or POUM, in the ranks of whose militia George Orwell served. I was also a special fact-checker of the 2001 Yale University Press volume Spain Betrayed, comprising documents on the Spanish war from the Soviet archives. I am completely fluent in Spanish and Catalan, read Russian and other relevant languages such as Croatian and Albanian (important in researching the role of the Soviet-controlled International Brigades). My original research in the role of Balkan and particularly Jewish victims of Stalin in the mentioned Brigades was published in my 2005 book...