Valentín González
Valentín González González was a Republican military commander during the Spanish Civil War. Known as El Campesino he served in the Ejército Popular of the Second Spanish Republic.
Born in Malcocinado, Badajoz, Spain, Gonzalez worked as a miner and was a member of a communist party, establishing one of the first militia units to counter Francisco Franco's Nationalist Army upon the outbreak of the Civil War. As a brigade commander, González personally took part in all of the major actions that occurred during the Nationalists' assault on Madrid in 1936. He also commanded formations during the battles of the Corunna Road, the Jarama, and Guadalajara. In the summer of 1937, he led the 46th Division in the Battle of Brunete. Heavily promoted as a heroic figure by Soviet propaganda, Gonzalez was accused by other officers in the Ejercito Popular of being brutal in his treatment of his men, unsuited for modern battle, and an egomaniac.
He led his men in the Battle of Belchite, Teruel, and Catalonia throughout the war, before being forced to emigrate to the Soviet Union upon the Nationalist victory in 1939. Along with other exiled Spanish Republican commanders, he was enrolled in the Frunze Military Academy but was expelled for incompetence. He was later imprisoned in Gulag labor camps in Vorkuta where he worked as a brigadier of miners. Following this, he escaped the Vorkuta gulag and fled the Soviet Union across the Iranian border in 1949.
He eventually moved to France, where he published a book entitled La vie et la mort en U.R.S.S.. The English translation is entitled LISTEN COMRADES: Life and Death in the Soviet Union, and was published in the UK by Heinemann in 1952.
After the fall of Francoist Spain in 1978, he returned to live in Spain. He died in Madrid.
