Wilebaldo Solano Wilebaldo Solano Alonso ( July 7 , 1916 , Burgos , Spain – September 7 , 2010 , Barcelona , Spain ) was a Spanish Communist activist during the Spanish Civil War , especially noted for his work with Socialist youth organization s as a member of the " Workers ' Party of Marxist Unification " ( POUM ) . Most of his activities before and during the Second Spanish Republic were centered in Catalonia . Youth . Solano completed his secondary studies at the Institut Balmes , in Barcelona . He distinguished himself as a leader of the student movement , organizing his institute ' s first student group during the fall from power of General Miguel Primo de Rivera , and later founding the Catalan National Student Federation . Solano went on to study medicine at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona . In 1932 he joined the youth wing of the Marxist Bloque Obrero y Campesino ( BOC – Workers ' and Peasants ' Bloc ) — a major workers ' organization , at the time under the influence of the Soviet Union ' s Right Opposition , that would later fuse into the POUM — and began organizing the Association of Revolutionary Students of Barcelona . Solano became a member of the Executive Committee of the BOC Youth and initiated his journalistic career as a contributor to " Adelante " ( " Forward " ) , a journal headed by Joaquín Maurín — a renowned Spanish communist who would go on to found the POUM with Andreu Nin . Civil War . Solano became secretary general of the JCI ( Iberian Communist Youth ) in September 1935 , after having joined the POUM and spent time in Valencia as a delegate of the POUM ' s Executive Committee , where he helped found the weekly " El Comunista " ( " The Communist " ) . After the eruption of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 Solano represented the JCI in the Executive Committee of the POUM and headed the weekly " Juventud Comunista " ( " Communist Youth " ) . In November 1936 he was elected secretary general of the International Bureau of Revolutionary Socialist Youth . Solano managed to escape from the clashes between the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia and POUM on June 16 , 1937 . He helped found the second Executive Committee of the POUM with other fugitive " poumistas " . In harshly repressive conditions , this committee organized a resistance to the persecution of the POUM and an international campaign supporting Nin and other jailed leaders . During this period he edited the underground journal , " Juventud Obrera " ( " Working Youth " ) . In April 1938 he was detained along with other POUM leaders and placed in Barcelona State Prison by Communist - directed government authorities . He was to be included in the second trial of the POUM , which never occurred thanks to the fall of Barcelona to Francoist forces . In February 1939 , Solano entered France . Exile . Solano spent several months living in Paris and Chartres , and along with other " poumistas " attempted to reconstitute the Party , with an exile wing and one active inside Spain , and also maintain links with other organizations . In 1941 , after Nazi Germany conquered and occupied France , Solano was detained in Montauban and condemned to twenty years of forced labor by a Vichy regime tribunal . He was freed on July 19 , 1944 by the Maquis . He joined the French Resistance and , along with POUM and Confederación Nacional del Trabajo and militants founded a Spanish guerrilla unit , the Liberty Battalion . In 1945 he left the Battalion to rededicate himself to organizing the POUM and reestablishing its newspaper , " La Batalla " ( " The Battle " ) . In 1947 , after a clandestine voyage to Madrid and Catalonia , Solano was elected secretary general of the POUM at the party ' s general conference in Toulouse , attended by representatives of the illegal Spanish organization as well as exile groups from France , North Africa , and Latin America . During his exile , aside from editing " La Batalla " Solano founded " Tribuno Socialista " ( " Socialist Tribune " ) , a magazine that secured a notable following in Spain in an epoch when the resistance to the Franco dictatorship ( see Spanish State ) reached hopeful peaks . Moreover , Solano participated in numerous international activities and , in particular , in the creation of the Movement for the United States of Europe , one of the first postwar Pan - European organizations , and that of the Anti - Imperialist People ' s Congress , which brought together many of the African and Asian national liberation movements . Professionally , Solano worked for Agence France Presse between 1953 and 1981 . In 1975 - 76 , when the POUM found itself in the midst of a crisis , he stood in opposition to the dissolution of the Party and its entrance into the camp of Social Democracy ( the Spanish Socialist Workers ' Party ) . He pushed for " Tribuno Socialista " to become the POUM ' s magazine , and expressed his support for the regroupment of revolutionary Marxist organizations . Later years . In the 1980s , he was one of the founders of the Fundació Andreu Nin , which focused on the total rectification of the prestige of that eminent revolutionary and the clarification of the mystery of his death at the hands of the NKVD , and at the same time the defense of revolutionary Marxism and dialogue with all the tendencies of the socialist labor movement . Solano is the author of a biography of Nin , a history of the JCI , and numerous essays on the POUM , the exile of Spanish revolutionaries in France , and the problems posed by the fall of the USSR and the collapse of Stalinism . He was a major advisor to and collaborator on films such as Ken Loach ' s " Land and Freedom " and the documentary " Operación Nikolai " . 1999 saw the release of Solano ' s book - length study of the POUM and Nin ' s role in the Spanish revolution , " El POUM in la Historia . Andreu Nin y la revolución española " . It was published jointly by Libros de la Catarata and the Fundació Andreu Nin , and is a personal and observed discussion of the poorly understood time period and political movement – some have called it one of the two most important works about the POUM , the other being Andrew Durgan ' s study of the Bloque Obrero y Campesino , " BOC 1930 - 1936 " . As yet neither work is available in English .