EL BARCELONÉS QUE MATÓ A TROTSKY

@Barcelona Memory You can share our videos:    / barcelonamemory   SUBSCRIBE:    / @barcelonamemory   WEBSITE: http://barcelonamemory.com/ INSTAGRAM:   / barcelonamemory   FACEBOOK:   / barcelonamemory   CONTACT: [email protected] TIPEEE FOR DONATIONS: https://es.tipeee.com/barcelona-memory If you would like to collaborate with us, please send us an email. Caridad del Rio was born in Santiago de Cuba, where her father was governor. A few years before the island's independence, the family moved to Barcelona. She studied with the nuns of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Barcelona, ​​Paris, and Brighton. Her family convinced her to marry Pau Mercader, the son of a successful manufacturer who had started with a textile factory in Badalona. When the Mercader patriarch died, the heir took over the businesses, which he was unable to manage, ruining the entire family. In the social circles of the 5th arrondissement and Paral·lel, she came into contact with anarchist groups and began her first experiments with morphine, hashish, and cocaine. Her ideology became increasingly radicalized. She even participated in several attacks against factories, including her husband's, but the police were already on her trail. To prevent further harm, her husband and siblings decided to have her committed to the Nova Betllem psychiatric hospital in Sant Gervasi. Three months later, her anarchist friends stormed the facility to free her. Caridad cut off all contact with her family. She traveled with her five children and the aviator to Dax until the affair ended when the aviator grew tired of putting up with her. The wife and her children moved to Toulouse. Disillusioned and depressed, she attempted suicide. Hospital staff were able to locate her husband, Pau, who immediately came from Barcelona to break up with her and take three of their children with him. Ramón and Luís remained in their mother's care since they were enrolled in the School of Hotel Management and didn't want to interrupt their studies. Caridad and her two sons settled in Paris. She soon joined the French Socialist Party. There she met Alexander Orlov, Ernö Gero, and Leonid Eitingon… all three were important agents of the Soviet NKVD and all three would participate in the May 1936 massacre of the POUM Trotskyists in Barcelona and become involved in the transfer of the so-called "Moscow Gold" to the USSR. Leonid Eitingon was the heir to a fur empire. He had a relationship with Caridad and acted as Ramón's stepfather. In 1931, after the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, Ramón Mercader arrived in Barcelona. Thanks to his culinary studies, he found work as a maître d' at the Ritz Hotel while continuing his political activism in clandestine meetings in the Fifth District. After a brief stay in prison in Valencia, he returned to Barcelona following the Popular Front's amnesty, but he had lost his job. He earned a living as a Catalan teacher while also building a career as a horseman. In the early months of 1936, Caridad joined Ramón in Barcelona. Mother and son collaborated on the founding of the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) along with Pere Ardiaca. Ramón even became part of the Organizing Committee for the People's Olympiad, which was to be held in Barcelona in July. The day before the opening ceremony, the military coup thwarted the event. Caridad served as political commissar of the Durruti Column and secretary of the Union of Communist Women. Ramón, at 23, became Commander of the 5th Regiment. Both were wounded in combat. They reunited at the Military Hospital in Lleida. Caridad and Leonid Eitingon organized a trip to Moscow so that Ramón could train as a spy to join the effort to eliminate the Trotskyist leader. Caridad traveled to Mexico City with a delegation from the POUM to request the country's support for the Spanish Republic. Leon Trotsky and his wife were in exile in Mexico. Trotsky was the mythical figurehead of the October Revolution, a kind of head of state in exile...and he had the necessary platform to denounce Stalinist policies. Almost his entire family had already been murdered. He knew it was nearly impossible to escape the clutches of the all-powerful Stalin. It was Andreu Nin, who had known Trotsky since his time in Moscow, who asked his friend Diego Rivera to intercede with President Lázaro Cárdenas so that Trotsky and his wife, Natalia Sedova, could live in Mexico as refugees. Rivera, along with José Orozco and David Alfaro Siqueiros, formed the group known as "the Big Three." They were popular leaders who put their art at the service of the revolution. On January 9, 1937, the couple arrived in Tampico aboard the oil tanker Ruth. From there, they took the train to Mexico City. To read the full text, visit our website www.barcelonamemory.com