About the Communist underground in Spain after the Civil War, during the Cold War.
 THE publication in English translation of Professor Hermet's study of Spanish  communism, which appeared in French in 1971,1 is very welcome. The work  is certainly one of the most dÄtinguished to appear on modern Spanish  politics, and is the more valuable for dealing with a theme about which it  is diffcult to find reliable information. The author recognises that the  secrecy in which the Spanish communists must often limits the  availability of evidence and imposes caution in the interpretation of what  there is. He contends however that the neglect of underground parties in  the literature of politics justifies the study of one on which at least some  documentation is available; and by his skill in drawing together evidence  of many different kinds (including some discreetly handled private informa-  tion) he certainly casts much new light on the ethos of Spanish communism  and the problems it has faced. The tension between the underground and  the émigrés has been noted before, but Professor Hermet does particularly  well to bring out the importance of the Communist party's relationship with  the international communist movement as a whole, both in providing moral  and material sustenance for the Spaniards and in influencing their stance  in Spanish domestic politics. The tone of the work is sympathetic to the  party, in particular to the steadfastness of its militants, but it contains some  cold candour about its failings. The dilemmas of permanent opposition,  providing willy-nilly a bogey for the Right, while unable seriously to contem-  plate making a revolution, are pointed up. ' Their one important role,' writes  Hermet Of the PCE, • is to bring up a fresh generation of potential working-  class leaders and to keep alive a working-class awareness in Spain (p. 201).