2. Negrín, socialist

AFILIADO AL PSOE Y DIPUTADO ELECTO

From the proclamation of the Second Republic, Negrín, who had joined the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Party) in May 1929 when he was still managing the Physiology laboratory, dedicated himself fully to politics. During this period, as an elected deputy in the three republican legislatures, he was
involved with politics at various levels. In the exhibition, it is pointed out that, from the time he joined the PSOE, Negrín aligned himself with the “centrist” faction led by
Indalecio Prieto. Prieto aspired to a project of reconstructing unity with the republicans
—which, in the case of Catalonia, meant joining with the nationalist republicans of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Catalan Republican Left)—, in order to recover the April Republic and the Catalan Statute,
suspended after the revolutionary events of October 1934. Throughout this process, Negrín placed himself at Prieto’s side. The two of them maintained a close, personal friendship, only broken at the end of the civil war.

Photography: Indalecio Prieto and Juan Negrín on their arrival at the Palacio de Cristal in the Parque del Retiro in Madrid, where Manuel Azaña was elected president of the Second Republic, in May 1936.
General Archive of the Administration, Alcalá de Henares, Madrid