Pablo Iglesias

Born Oct. 18, 1850, in El Ferrol; died Dec. 9, 1925, in Madrid. Figure in the Spanish workers’ movement. One of the first disseminators of Marxist ideas and initiators of the organized workers’ movement in Spain. Printing worker by trade.

In 1871, Iglesias was elected to the Council of the Spanish Federation, which held Marxist, anti-Bakuninist positions. He was one of the founders (1879) and most authoritative leaders of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and the General Union of Workers (founded in 1888). He was chairman of these two organizations until the end of his life. During the crisis of the intense struggle between the reformist and revolutionary wings of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, Iglesias took the side of the reformists. He opposed the party’s entrance into the Third, or Communist, International, thus bringing about a split in the party (1921).