Lluís Companys

Born in El Tarròs, on 21 June 1882, into a peasant family with aristocratic roots, he was the second child of ten. His parents were Josep Companys and Maria Lluïsa de Jover.[2] His parents sent him to Barcelona in order to study at the boarding school of Liceu Poliglot. Later, after obtaining his degree in law from the University of Barcelona, where he met Francesc Layret, Companys participated in the political life of Catalonia from a young age. In 1906, as a result of the military attack on the offices of Catalan newspapers Cu-Cut! and La Veu de Catalunya, and after the passing of the Ley de Jurisdicciones ("Law of Jurisdictions"), which made speech against Spain and its symbols a criminal offence, he participated in the creation of the successful coalition Solidaritat Catalana.[3]

Later, he became affiliated with the ephemeral Republican Nationalist Federal Union (Unió Federal Nacionalista Republicana), where he was president of the youth section. He was investigated for his intense youth activities and was jailed fifteen times, being classified after the Tragic Week of Barcelona as a "dangerous individual" in police records.

With Francesc Layret, Companys represented the left-wing labour faction of the Partit Republicà Català (Catalan Republican Party), for which he was elected local councilor of Barcelona in 1916. In November 1920, he was arrested together with Salvador Seguí (known as El Noi del Sucre), Martí Barrera and other trade unionists and he was deported to the Castell de la Mola in Mahón, Menorca. Shortly afterward, Layret was assassinated while preparing his defence by gunmen of the Sindicatos Libres.

Despite having been deported, Companys was elected member of parliament for Sabadell in the 1920 Spanish legislative elections, taking the place of Layret, who would have taken that seat had he not been assassinated.[4] This gave him parliamentary immunity, which secured his release from prison.

Companys was one of the founders of the peasants' trade union Unió de Rabassaires in 1922, where he worked as lawyer and director of the La Terra magazine during the years of the Primo de Rivera regime in the 1920s.

Detained again, he was unable to attend the Conferència d'Esquerres (Conference of Leftists) held from 12 to 19 March 1931 that produced the political party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC, Republican Left of Catalonia) from the merging of Estat Català (led by Francesc Macià), the Partit Republicà Català itself and the group L'Opinió (which included Joan Lluhí as prominent figure); however, he was elected as an executive member of that party, representing the Partit Republicà Català. Thanks to the bonds between the Spanish labour movement and the Spanish trade union movement, the election of Companys to this position gave the ERC great prestige amongst left-wing public opinion as it would otherwise have been regarded as a party of the progressive petty bourgeoisie.

Lluís Companys as Civil Governor of Barcelona, April 1931

In the 1931 Spanish local elections, the ERC won a surprise victory in Barcelona and other municipalities of Catalonia. After he learned the results, on 14 April, Companys, who was elected a city representative, and other ERC candidates together with the Party's leader Francesc Macià, decided to take over by surprise the office of mayor and entered the City Hall. After some dispute, the transitional Mayor of Barcelona was deposed, and Companys was proclaimed new mayor. Subsequently, he hung a tricolour Spanish Republican Flag from the City Hall's balcony and proclaimed the Republic.[5] Shortly after, Francesc Macià proclaimed the Catalan Republic within the "Federation of Iberian Republics", a project that was later abandoned after gaining the promise of regional devolution and the restitution of the Catalan Generalitat (as autonomous government) from the new Republican government.[6]

After controlling the Barcelona City Hall, Macià ordered Companys to take the office of "Gobernador Civil" (civil governor) of the Barcelona Province, which at that time held considerable powers «such as policing. It had been controlled by republican radicals during the proclamation of the republic. Macià probably wanted a less public office for Companys, whom he thought of as a political rival. Companys ran as a Barcelona provincial candidate in the December 1931 Spanish legislative election. After gaining a seat, he led the ERC representation and the Catalan minority group in the new Republican Parliament. He described his political objectives in Madrid: "We, the Catalan members of the Parliament, have come here not only to defend our Statute of Autonomy [law of self-government], and the fraternal and democratic understanding of the members of Parliament; but, also to participate in matters that affect the greatness of Spain: the Constitution, the agrarian reforms and social legislation".[7] In 1932, Companys was elected the first Speaker of the Parliament of Catalonia.

After the death of Francesc Macià on 25 December 1933, who was presiding over the Generalitat of Catalonia, Companys was elected the successor President of the Generalitat by the Catalan Parliament, appointing a new coalition government composed by the Republican Left of Catalonia and the other left-wing republican and catalanist parties. Under his presidency, the Parliament legislated in order to improve the living conditions of the popular classes and the petite bourgeoisie such as by the Crop Contracts Law, which protected the tenant farmers and granted access to the land they were cultivating, but it was contested by the Regionalist League and provoking a legal dispute with the Spanish government led by Ricardo Samper, increasing the tensions. Meanwhile, the Generalitat established its own Court of Appeal (Tribunal de Cassació)[8] and assumed executive powers in public order, according as the Statute of Autonomy stipulated.

On 6 October 1934, Companys led a Catalan nationalist uprising, which was not supported by the centrist and conservative Catalan representatives against the new centrist and right-wing republican government, led by Alejandro Lerroux, which included ministers from the political party CEDA and was considered by many left-wing sectors as close to fascism. Companys proclaimed the Catalan State (Estat Català) within the "Spanish Federal Republic"[9] for which he was arrested and sentenced to 30 years in prison.[10] This action was seen as an attempt at a coup d'état, as Companys revolted against the newly appointed centre-right republican government and joined the Asturias miners attempt at revolution. Companys asked Manuel Azaña, who happened to be in Barcelona during the events, to lead a newly-proclaimed Spanish Republican government, but Azaña rejected the proposition. The proclamation was suppressed by the Spanish army, and the Catalan government members were arrested.[11] After the 1936 election and the victory of the left-wing coalition Popular Front, he was set free by the new Spanish government, and the Catalan government was restored.

Bank note from the Generalitat de Catalunya, 1936

When the Spanish Civil War began shortly afterward in July 1936, Companys sided with the Spanish Republic against the Nationalist rebels and was instrumental in organising a collaboration between the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias, which was sponsored by his Catalan government as a step to recover the control of the situation and organise the war effort, and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM), a revolutionary anti-Stalinist communist party, and Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), an anarchist syndicalist trade union.[12]

In November 1936, the Generalitat government were to become target of a violent coup, planned by the radical Catalanist organisation Estat Català. The conspirators intended to make Companys step down as president and to replace him with Prime Minister Joan Casanovas. In case of resistance, Companys was to be shot. The plot was exposed and some of its leaders jailed.[13] During the war, Companys attempted to maintain the unity of his political coalition, but after the Soviet Union's consul, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseenko, threatened that his country would cut off aid to Catalonia, he sacked Andrés Nin, a leader of POUM, from his post as Minister of Justice in December 1936.

Death sentence of Lluís Companys

Grave of Lluís Companys at Montjuïc Cemetery

Exiled to France in 1939 after the Civil War, Companys had passed up various chances to leave France because his son Lluís was seriously ill in a clinic in Paris.[14] He was brutally beaten and arrested by the Milice in La Baule-les-Pins near Nantes on 13 August 1940 and detained in La Santé Prison. He was then brutally beaten and extradited by Nazi German authorities to the Spanish government in Madrid in early September 1940 and imprisoned in the cellars of the headquarters of the Dirección General de Seguridad (General Directorate of State Security) at the Real Casa de Correos in Puerta del Sol. He was held there for five weeks, kept in solitary confinement, interrogated, starved, tortured and brutally beaten, and senior figures of the Francoist State visited his cell, insulted him and threw coins or crusts of bread at him.[14][15] In a military trial that lasted less than one hour and lacked legal guarantees,[16] he was accused of military rebellion and sentenced to death. During the trial, Companys was defended by Ramón de Colubi, a young soldier who had fought the war for the rebels.

Surprisingly, Colubí defended Companys with courage to the point of receiving severe beatings and threats to his own life. Colubí asked Franco to pardon Companys but was ignored and then beaten again, this time by Franco. As a consequence of his role as defence attorney, Colubí was forced to go into exile. Víctor Gay Zaragoza, a Catalan writer, found that Companys and Colubí were relatives. All these efforts were useless, and Companys was executed at Montjuïc Castle[17] in Barcelona at 6:30 a.m. on 15 October 1940. Refusing to wear a blindfold, he was taken before a firing squad of Civil Guards barefoot and, as they fired, he shouted 'Per Catalunya!' (For Catalonia!).[18] He is buried at the Montjuïc Cemetery, near the castle. The cause of death was given as 'traumatic internal haemorrhage'.[19]

The main stadium used for the 1992 Summer Olympics, located on Montjuïc, is officially named in his memory. In 1998 a monument to Companys was installed near Arc de Triomf, on Passeig de Lluís Companys in Barcelona. A friend of Companys, Conxita Julià, is portrayed next to Companys's image in the monument. Several streets and squares in many cities and villages of Catalonia are named "Lluís Companys" after him.

His personal archive is located in the Pavelló de la República CRAI Library – University of Barcelona. It consists of correspondence about him, as well as discourses and declarations between 1936 and 1938.

• List of people executed by Francoist Spain
• Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War
• Red Terror (Spain)
• White Terror (Spain)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lluís Companys.

• Web: "Unpublished documents about Carme Ballester and Lluís Companys" (in Catalan)
• Inventari del Fons F-FP, Subsèrie Lluís Companys, del CRAI Biblioteca del Pavelló de la República de la Universitat de Barcelona
• Newspaper clippings about Lluís Companys in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW