Long Live Largo Caballero - the revolution starts here!

Political graffiti marked into the walls of the Antigua Audiencia of Tarragona, one of the city´s emblematic buildings in the heart of the Parte Alta, tells a story of the city during the Spanish Civil War. Who was Largo Caballero? Caballero, a historic leader of the Spanish Socialist Party, was appointed Prime Minister of the Spanish Republic just a few months after General Franco´s attempted coup against the democratically elected government of Spain. Civil war broke out and Caballero was not only having to deal with fighting Franco´s nationalists but he also had a civil war on his hands among his own Republican followers, a coalition of socialists, liberals, communists and anarchists. Anarchists took control in Catalonia, starting a workers´ revolution while still waging war against Franco´s troops. Extremely bad timing for a revolution. Their idea of a revolution also involved executing priests, landowners, lawyers and others who were openly (or not so openly) in support of Franco. A piece of Catalan, Spanish and European history that is not so far away in time but feels like it happened much longer ago.

A time of silence: Franco in Tarragona

The wife of an anti-Francoist Republican prisoner tries to give Franco a letter - Tarragona, Plaça de la Font, 1949. Most likely a staged photograph. Soldiers, priests, falangists, local officials and local devotees, all playing their part in the Franco play. This picture was included in the photographic collection entitled ´Photography in Spain´ from 1999. Franco and Tarragona...what is left of the Franco past in Tarragona? Plaques carrying symbols of the Franco regime on social housing have gradually disappeared from the city streets but can still be spotted here and there. And unbelievably, 34 years after his death Franco still sports an honorary title of the city awarded in 1952. That there is still a long way to go in redressing the balance in the collective memory is also shown by the fact that in 2007 a group of relatives and descendents of victims of Francoist repression petitioned for the establishment of a monument commemorating the 771 people buried in unmarked graves in the city´s cemetery - so far without success.