Classic trot nonsense. Relying on second-hand sources, in this case a British historian who specializes in German history and is explicitly an expert only on ww2 German history, then presenting unverified and united hear-say as the truth.

What the actual fuck is this bunch of ahistorical nonsense? Oh, wait, it's a Trot publication!

Everything in this text is wrong. It replicates the fascist lies about the POUM being crushed by the soviets in the may days (see my latest c/effort post showing the latest historiographical research on the topic, including Spanish sources), and the fucking Stalin "withdrawing for weeks during the invasion" is simply a vile lie made up by Khruschyov that's been dispelled since the archives were opened and Stalin's schedule of 18 fucking hours of meetings a day from the start of the war was revealed. Delete this shit