26 The Young Broz
April session, the members of the CC voted a series of resolutions on the work
of the party and its tactics, rejecting every possible dialogue with the socialists,
thus further isolating Gorkić.^99 In this confused situation, the Comintern sec-
retary created a “grand commission,” charged with the task of preparing a
report on the “Yugoslav question.” At the commission’s first session, Dimitrov
harshly criticized the internal situation of the CPY, stressing the need “to find
other structural forms to allow the Yugoslav party to have a positive attitude
toward the questions that are open. We should not allow Yugoslavia to become
a Fascist country.”^100 The decisions taken at the April session of the CC CPY
were annulled and, simultaneously, the Comintern decided to change the lead-
ership of the party. They also approved efforts made by Gorkić to come to an
agreement with the opposition forces at home, although at the same time the
first doubts began to emerge about his ability to master the situation.^101
In mid-March 1936, Walter left his employment at the Comintern for rea-
sons not wholly clear, but probably in order to attend courses in guerilla warfare
and espionage organized by the Cadres Department at the so-called “Partisan
Academy” in Riazan in reaction to the Spanish Civil War. “The Spanish ques-
tion,” said Stalin, “is the question of all progressive mankind.”^102 In order to
block Francisco Franco’s “counterrevolution,” supported by Hitler, Mussolini,
and the Vatican against the lawful republican government, Moscow decided to
encourage the creation of International Brigades, military units consisting of
volunteers from different countries who were to join the fight. Walter’s task was
to enroll volunteers in Yugoslavia, where he arrived in August 1936 in the guise
of a well-dressed Austrian tourist.^103 At the end of the month he was back in
Moscow, where he took part in discussions on the internal situation of the
CPY. He also supplied information to the Cadre Department of the IKKI “on
the members of the CC and candidate members,” stressing their qualities, but
without omitting critical remarks. He did not, however, accuse anyone of
Trotskyism, which would have been deadly in the Moscow of that time. On the
basis of proposals from its members, the commission, led by Dimitrov, decided
on 19 September 1936 to transfer the operative leadership of the party to Yugo-
slavia, leaving only a small group abroad with the task of maintaining contacts
with Moscow and working within the Yugoslav diaspora. Concerning the com-
position of the leadership, the secretary general asked Manuilskii to prepare a
suitable proposal together with the Cadre Department.^104
Nearly a week later, on 25 September 1936, the IKKI—this time Ercoli
(whose real name was Palmiro Togliatti) was in the chair—discussed “the errors
of our Yugoslav comrades” and named a special three-member commission to
carry out further inquiries.^105 On 16 October, Walter wrote a long report criti-
cizing the cadre policy of the leadership of his party, headed by Gorkić. Instead