Revolution, War and Exhile: Politics Works of Segundo Serrano Poncela (1935-1943)

Abstract

In addition to the scholarly contribution on his literary production — La raya oscura (1959) or Habitación para hombre solo (1963)—, works that focus specifically on Segundo Serrano Poncela’s political trajectory are scarce. From 1935 to 1943, Serrano Poncela (Madrid, 1912-Caracas, 1976) radically transformed his earlier stance of revolutionary socialism into a strong rejection of communism. In order to shed light on this pathway, I will revisit his historical context, focusing on the importance of the drastic rhetorical change in the discourses of Spanish socialism and communism before, during, and at the end of the Spanish Civil War. His later writings against totalitarianism and communism were influenced by his contribution to the Antifascist Republican Propaganda, which characterized the conflict in terms of a war of liberation of the Spanish people, their culture and traditions, from the fascist foreign dominance. In an attempt to fill this gap, I will examine his trajectory since the essay El partido socialista y la conquista del poder, his articles during the war, and the self-edited journal Panorama.