Conflict With The Popular Front
The POUM's independent communist position, including opposition to Stalin, caused huge ruptures with the PCE, which remained fiercely loyal to the Comintern. Moreover, these divisions, which included accusations of Trotskyism (and even Fascism) by the Communists, resulted in actual fighting between their supporters; most notably, in 1937, a primarily-Communist coalition of government forces attacked the POUM during the Barcelona May Days. While the larger CNT initially supported the POUM, its more militant members—such as Juan García Oliver and the Friends of Durruti—were pushed towards conciliation by the moderate leadership. This left the POUM, along with the purely Trotskyist Seccion Bolshevik-Leninista, isolated, and both organizations were driven underground. Nin was detained and tortured to death by NKVD agents in Madrid, and his party consistently labeled as provocateur in Stalinist propaganda.
Unlike the other leftist parties of the Popular Front, the POUM failed to consolidate again during the Spanish transition to democracy and dissolved in 1980 after getting a bad result in the first democratic elections after the death of Franco.
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